Oxford Scientists have warned that the sun’s activity is at its lowest in over a century.
This is despite it having reached its solar maximum, or the point in its eleven-year cycle when activity on the surface should be at its height. The sun should currently be covered with sunspots and spewing out solar flares, but the number of these has been falling in recent years.
Researchers believe that this solar lull could cause huge changes in the temperature on earth. “It’s an unusually rapid decline,” explained Prof Lockwood, professor of space environment physics at the University of Reading. Speaking to the BBC he said, “We estimate that within about 40 years or so there is a 10% to 20% – nearer 20% – probability that we’ll be back in Maunder Minimum conditions.” This was a time in the 17th century when Londoners could enjoy frost fairs on the River Thames as it had frozen over due to a sharp drop in temperature thanks to the decline in activity. Winters across Europe became bitterly cold during that time.
‘Whatever measure you use, solar peaks are coming down,’ said Richard Harrison to the BBC. ‘I’ve been a solar physicist for 30 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this.’ An analysis of ice cores, which can be used as a record of solar activity on a much longer timespan than human memory suggest that this current decline is the fastest one in approximately 10,000 years.
However, skeptics shouldn’t be too quick to take this as evidence against global warming. While some have argued that natural fluctuations in the Sun’s activity are driving climate change and overriding the effect of greenhouse gas emissions, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change came to the conclusion that solar variation only makes a small contribution to the Earth’s climate. The scientists that compiled the report said that they were 95% certain that humans were the “dominant cause” of global warming since the 1950s, and if greenhouse gases continue to rise at their current rate, then the average world temperature could rise by up to 4.8 degrees Celsius.
Professor Harrison, of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire said, “This feels like a period where it’s very strange […] but also it stresses that we don’t really understand the star that we live with.”
Thomas Wilson, an historian from Exeter College said, “It sounds worrying but I’m sure whatever happens we’ll just have to deal with it. If we could deal with [the Maunder Minimum] back in the 17th century I’m sure we can deal with something similar now. We just may have to wrap up warm in the winter!”
