NASA: Deep Solar Minimum

April 1, 2009: The sunspot cycle is behaving a little like the stock market. Just when you think it has hit bottom, it goes even lower.

2008 was a bear. There were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year's 366 days (73%). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days: plot. Prompted by these numbers, some observers suggested that the solar cycle had hit bottom in 2008.

Maybe not. Sunspot counts for 2009 have dropped even lower. As of March 31st, there were no sunspots on 78 of the year's 90 days (87%).

It adds up to one inescapable conclusion: "We're experiencing a very deep solar minimum," says solar physicist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center.

"This is the quietest sun we've seen in almost a century," agrees sunspot expert David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center.

science.nasa.gov...

This spells disaster if the Solar minimum continues to get even lower for much longer, and that is what the Sun seems to be doing as the article states.

As the extra heat content in the oceans is slowly released to the atmosphere, we will continue to see more extremes in weather events in both ends, cold, and heat, but when there is not enough extra heat stored in the oceans, it will mean that slowly we will have longer winters, and Summers will be shorter and colder. If the Solar activity continues to slow even longet, we could very well be ushered into a new LIA, or an Ice Age if the Solar Activity continues at this pace for several years.

It could also be that this is the silence before the storm, and that the Sun will flare up violently. Let's hope neither scenarios occur, but let's be prepared, instead of just hoping for the best.

[edit on 2-4-2009 by ElectricUniverse]


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[edit on Thu Apr 2 2009 by Jbird]