Our sun - acting up?
There needs to be a lot more corroborating data but this is a bit freaky...
Solar Cycle 23 ended in 2008 with a solar minimum and Cycle 24 took its ever long sweet time starting up. It is now three years later and we are just now starting to see a decent level of activity. Now, it seems that there are indicators that this is the peak of Cycle 24 and we are headed into another Solar Minimum. Solar cycles generally last 10-12 years and not five or six.
This concerns me as sunspots and solar activity in general are a great proxy for solar radiation and it is the solar radiation that drives our climate. The Sun is a variable star and the last times we had extended periods of low output, we suffered through the
Dalton and the
Maunder minima. The other name these events are known by are the "
Little Ice Ages".
More on this subject can be found at this post from
David Archibald at Watts Up With That.
Difficult to excerpt but well written and illustrated. We might be in for a fun decade or two.
Fortune favors the prepared -- just sayin'
Posted by DaveH at May 8, 2011 8:16 PM