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by Mindy Weisberger
February 09, 2018
from LiveScience Website

These two large black spots on the sun,

known as sunspots, appeared quickly
in February 2013, and each is
as wide across as six Earths.
Credit: NASA/SDO/AIA/HMI
Goddard Space Flight Center
 
 

The sun may be dimming, temporarily. Don't panic... Earth is not going to freeze over...
 
But, will the resulting cooling put a dent in the "global warming" trend?

A periodic solar event called a "grand minimum" could overtake the sun perhaps as soon as 2020 and lasting
through 2070, resulting in,
 diminished magnetism
infrequent sunspot production
less ultraviolet (UV) radiation reaching Earth,

...all bringing a cooler period to the planet that may span 50 years.

The last grand-minimum event - a disruption of the sun's 11-year cycle of variable sunspot activity - happened
in the mid-17th century.
 
Known as the Maunder Minimum, it occurred between 1645 and 1715, during a longer span of time when
parts of the world became so cold that the period was called the Little Ice Age, which lasted from about 1300
to 1850.

But it's unlikely that we'll see a return to the extreme cold from centuries ago, researchers reported in a new
study. Since the Maunder Minimum, global average temperatures have been on the rise, driven by climate
change.
 
Though a new decades-long dip in solar radiation could slow global warming somewhat, it wouldn't be by
much, the researchers' simulations demonstrated. And by the end of the incoming cooling period, temperatures
would have bounced back from the temporary cool-down.

Sunspots, which appear as dark patches on the solar surface, form where the sun's magnetic field is
unusually strong, and the number of sunspots waxes and wanes in a cycle that lasts about 11 years, fueled by
fluctuations in the sun's magnetic field.

But during the late 17th century, the sun's spots all but disappeared...
 
This episode corresponded with a period of exceptional cold in parts of the world, which scientists have
explained as being connected to the changes in solar activity.

Sunspot activity was high in 2014 and has been dipping ever since, as the sun moves toward the low end of
its 11-year cycle, known as the solar minimum, NASA reported in June 2017.
 
But a pattern of ever-decreasing sunspots over recent solar cycles resembles patterns from the past that
preceded grand-minimum events.
 
This similarity hints that another such event may be fast approaching, the researchers reported in the study.
And the scientists have estimated how intense such an event might be, by analyzing close to 20 years of data
recording radiation output from stars that follow cycles similar to that of our sun.
 
Solar radiation output typically drops during a normal solar minimum, though not enough to disrupt climate
patterns on Earth.
 
However, UV radiation output during a grand minimum could mean activity plummets by an additional 7
percent, the researchers wrote in the study (Ultraviolet Flux Decrease Under a Grand Minimum from IUE Short-
wavelength Observation of Solar Analogs).
 
As a result, air temperatures on Earth's surface would cool by as much as several tenths of a degree
Fahrenheit (a change of a half-degree F is the equivalent to about three-tenths of a degree Celsius) on
average, according to the study.

The study's findings will help scientists,

create more accurate climate model simulations, to improve their understanding of the complex
interplay between solar activity and climate on Earth, particularly in a warming world,

...the study's lead author, Dan Lubin, a research physicist with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the
University of California, San Diego, said in a statement:
 "We can therefore have a better idea of how changes in solar UV radiation affect climate change,"
he said.

The findings (Ultraviolet Flux Decrease Under a Grand Minimum from IUE Short-wavelength Observation of
Solar Analogs) were published online Dec. 27, 2017, in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
 
 
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