While solar activity is declining, our Earth may be slowly heading for a new ice age, according to scientists. Studying the decreasing number of sunspots, researchers found that we are possible entering a nearly spotless solar cycle. This could result in lower temperatures for decades.
According to Yaireska M. Collado-Vega, a space weather forecaster at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, in his interview with Phys.org he explains that "the solar cycle is starting to decline" and the scientists observed less active regions on the sun's disk.
In the 1645 it started a similar era with almost no spots, the so-called Maunder Minimum period. This coincided with the "Little Ice Age" and it lasted for around 70 years. At that time North America and Europe experienced lower than average temperatures. However, up to date the theory that lower solar activity can cause climate change is still controversial since scientists do not have enough convincing evident to prove this correlation.
A Lomonosov Moscow State University researcher, Helen Popova, predicts that this minimum will lead to a significant cooling similar to what was experienced during the Maunder Minimum Period if the existing theories about the impact of solar activity on the climate are true. The Russian scientist developed recently a unique physical-mathematical model of the evolution of the sun's magnetic activity. She used the model to analyze and give a physical interpretation to the patterns of occurrence of global minima of solar activity.
According to Popova, it is expected that the future minimum to last for at least three solar cycles, meaning for around 30 years. The time frame is not enough to have a lowering of temperatures as deep as during the Maunder Minimum. However, scientists still have to examine it in detail. Popova added that her research team keeps in touch with climatologists from different countries in order to work in this direction.
According to scientists a solar cycle is the periodic change in the Sun's appearance and activity, having a duration of approximately 11 years and including changes in the number of sunspots. Our current solar cycle began on in January 2008 and until early 2010 the sun has shown only minimal activity. Now the sun on track to manifest the lowest recorded sunspot activity since accurate records began in 1750. The last grand solar maximum of the solar activity peaked in the year 1956 and right after the sun set on the long term decline in activity.
However, according to Collado-Vega, it is not certain that the sun won't show more activity in the coming years based on the current minimum in the number of sunspots. The scientist added that due to the reconfiguration of the sun's magnetic field there is a development for coronal holes. They can cause strong geomagnetic storms at Earth and changes in the inner magnetosphere as well as to the radiation environment.
