The Next Mini Ice Age?

[bbinacan]

Interesting article.

"Sun's Fading Spots Signal Big Drop in Solar Activity"

http://www.space.com/11960-fading-sunspots-slower-solar-activity-solar-cycle.html

[wtmusic]

1. Better burn some more coal to warm things up. nt

[bbinacan]

2. LOL. n/t

[Yo_Mama]

3. Thanks for the link

I thought this was old, but when I looked at the article it was discussing some new studies. This was quite controversial when it was first discussed a few years ago, but the first study's predictions seem to be holding true.

There's a lot we don't know about the sun. The Maunder Minimum is unexplained, although beryllium isotope studies do seem to imply that the sun has fluctuated at other times.

Most predictions are that if anything, we could see more of a Dalton-type Minimum, but since no one really knows, I guess anything could happen. They don't understand the mechanism for these events.

Cycle 24's maximum is going to be pretty low! If Cycle 25 were even lower, that would be quite something. But there has been a lot of variance since the last glacial maximum:

[bbinacan]

5. It will be interesting to see

what happens. I might think about adding a wood stove in addition to my gas logs.

[Yo_Mama]

7. I'm sure you won't regret it

Sooner or later it will really come in handy.

[bananas]

4. Cool picture

like a scene from star trek:

[Igel]

6. It could start tomorrow and I'd be fine with it.

I'm really, *really* getting tired of the weather forecast.

High, 98-100. Low, 74-75. Winds, 5-10, gusting to 15.

Sometimes the wind gusts a bit higher. It changes direction. The low might be 73 or, more often, 75. There might be a cooling trend, high of 95 or 96, or a warm spell, high 101-103.

It started this, seemingly, months ago. So probably in April.

Rain would be good. Driest March on record. Driest April on record. Oddly, there were drier Mays. The conifers are starting to turn brown. It was a really, really bad year to plant blueberry bushes and stawberries.

I'm starting to think I'm in that Twilight Zone where everything's too hot (but partly hope to wake up and find that the world's plunged into an ice age, as in the TZ episode).