Posted on 12/02/2011 11:03:11 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Just published in GRL, a new paper by Lockwood et al that suggests the sun may be headed for a Maunder type minimum.:
The persistence of solar activity indicators and the descent of the Sun into Maunder Minimum conditions
Key Points
Abstract:
The recent low and prolonged minimum of the solar cycle, along with the slow growth in activity of the new cycle, has led to suggestions that the Sun is entering a Grand Solar Minimum (GSMi), potentially as deep as the Maunder Minimum (MM). This raises questions about the persistence and predictability of solar activity. We study the autocorrelation functions and predictability R2L(t) of solar indices, particularly group sunspot number RG and heliospheric modulation potential Φ for which we have data during the descent into the MM. For RG and Φ, R2L(t) > 0.5 for times into the future of t ≈ 4 and ≈ 3 solar cycles, respectively: sufficient to allow prediction of a GSMi onset. The lower predictability of sunspot number RZ is discussed. The current declines in peak and mean RG are the largest since the onset of the MM and exceed those around 1800 which failed to initiate a GSMi.
(Excerpt) Read more at wattsupwiththat.com ...
Thanks. Soon the mammoths will begin their stately march down from the hills....
It’s worth keeping an eye on WattsUpWithThat - for example, they have the best info on ClimateGate II I’ve seen anywhere.
Get out the snow shoes mateys. Ahhh....throw in a wolf lined parka as well.
If we head back into the cold part of the Ice Age, and geological records say we are due, then the Polar Bears are the absolute last animals anyone should be worried about. So that explains why our counter productive and worthless World Government Agencies are concerned.
We are in a very unusual climate pattern this winter. The big long term oceanic trend has been cooling due to the longer and weaker then normal previous solar minimum. The recent short term trend however in the atmosphere right now has been increasing energy due to the solar activity increasing because we are entering maximum. So we have a solar energized atmosphere that is cooling due to oceanic trends. Could be a wild ride this winter. About as cold as last winter or slightly colder, but with very strong and energetic storms.
Note - Oceanic trend should read Pacific Oceanic trend. The South Atlantic shows long term cooling now, while the North Atlantic has not shown long term cooling yet.
Thanks for the ping. I’m not looking forward to it.
How cold did it get during the Maunder Minimum?
It looks like ClimateGate may be overtaken by events.
My sense, from having read contemporary accounts (ice festivals on the Thames, etc.) is that this significantly understates the case.
Thanks. Even 5 degrees c is a large change in average temperature.
John Winthrop’s journal noted that Boston Bay froze solid in Jan-Feb 1642 — which, according to the Indians’ recollection, it had not done before. That would have been about the beginning of the minimum.
Thanks Ernest.
Very. But the NASA graphic is scaled in 1/10ths of a degree C.
Thanks for adding the graphic.
Global Warming on Free Republic
“Last solar max I was working California from Texas on 6 meters with 4 watts. I WANT MY SUNSPOTS!”
_________________________________________________
As a lifelong DXer, I lived for the sunspot high cycle.
Fortunately I had worked every country, and made it to “top of the honor roll”, in the world, before my house and station burned to the ground.
I remember a night on 10 mtrs when every continent was coming
in as if they were next door.
But now that I'm older and don't have teef. and can work that stuff, and afford it, and don't have to build something around 6146 finals in a push-pull amp, by hand, for cheap.... I really want my sunspots.
I feel like I've been dumped off in 1630.
Harumph!
If I ever have to work with B+ voltage again, I've been cheated out of something important....
A good man gets 7 or 8 sunspot cycles. So I'm stuck with 5 or 6.
I'll have angry words with a deity if we're stuck in a Maunder minimum.
Not that THAT will do a lot of good.;)
73
/johnny
Ummm. actually.... that would be less than accurate. It started about 1627. It just took that long to get the locals (people on earth) to notice.
Not that I care, except to be one of the pitchfork waving hoi-paloi. But I do care about hardass minima events, record and remember them.
We named them, fergoshsakes. Even before we knew how bad they actually were. When did we start naming hurricanes?
/johnny
“I don’t begrudge you that. And congrats, BTW.”
__________________________________________
Well, it is all “Gone With the Wind”.
Fire broke out in my house in the middle of the night, leaving nothing but ash.
The one strange thing..as my wife, five year old daughter, and myself were fleeing down the steps to a half basement to escape, my two drawer card file, holding all my DXCC cards was, for some unknown reason, on a kitchen table next to the door.
It was the only item that was saved.
After setting up in a new house, I bought a Yaesu 760? 860?
I do not remember now, but never rebuilt a DX station.
I used the Yaesu to chat with an old group of DX friends.
One was the original W4EX, the world’s top DXer.
When he died, his widow asked if I would like to have his call. I was, of course, quite honored.
By the way, W4EX was totally blind, but did his own tower work, as well as build beautiful 4-1000 Amps.
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