I check the status of solar activity and sunspots semi-regularly – usually a couple times a week, just a quick check, along with several other things I’m interested in.
Sunspots are temporary phenomena on the Sun’s photosphere that appear as spots darker than the surrounding areas. They are regions of reduced surface temperature caused by concentrations of magnetic field flux that inhibit convection. Sunspots usually appear in pairs of opposite magnetic polarity. Their number varies according to the approximately 11-year solar cycle.1
Today, the surface of the sun facing Earth is blank – no sunspots – and it has been for 21 days.
The sun has entered the quiet period of the solar cycle that lasts, on average, 11 years. So far in 2018, there has been 108 days where there were no spots on the surface of the sun. That’s 55% of the year-to-date without sunspots.
From January 1, 2011 through the end of 2015, a period of 5 years, there were only 3 days where the sun didn’t have some spots on the side facing Earth.
The last time there was as many spotless consecutive days was in the summer of 2009 when the sun was emerging from an unusually deep solar minimum.
For some time, scientists have been speculating that declining rates of sunspots may signal a prolonged period of no sunspots and, concurrently, a lowering of global temperatures.
Say Goodbye to Sunspots?
Scientists studying sunspots for the past 2 decades have concluded that the magnetic field that triggers their formation has been steadily declining. If the current trend continues, by 2016 the sun’s face may become spotless and remain that way for decades—a phenomenon that in the 17th century coincided with a prolonged period of cooling on Earth.2
Conjectures about changing conditions on the sun leading to global cooling continue 8 years after the above was written. Many scientists disagree. Unfortunately, the theories cannot be tested in a laboratory and computer modeling may not yet be up to the task.
Perhaps we’ll just have to wait and see.
- Diminishing solar activity may bring new Ice Age by 2030 – Astronomy Now, July 17, 2015
- Drop in Sunspot Activity a Warning of Global Cooling – Principia Scientific International, January 4, 2017
- Global Warming vs. Solar Cooling: The Showdown Begins in 2020 – LiveScience, February 9, 2018
- Sun’s impact on climate change quantified for first time – Swiss National Science Foundation, March 27, 2017
- Wikipedia
- Say Goodbye to Sunspots? by Phil Beradelli, September 14, 2010, ScienceNOW (accessed July 18, 2010)
Comments on this entry are closed.
Hi Mike – it is interesting … so thanks for highlighting it here – the world is a magnificent place … with so much we’ve no idea about – cheers Hilary
Hilary Melton-Butcher recently posted…Educational Book Journey (part 5) …
It’s something I’ve been watching with interest for quite a long while… That quote from the “Say Goodbye to Sunspots?” article is the same one I used one that I used in a blog post eight years or so ago.
Mike recently posted…Switchback Shortcutting