New Study Supports Others — Solar Shutdown Could Bring Mini-Ice Age

This week has seen a flurry of media coverage of the probability of a coming “mini-“ice age caused by decreasing in solar activity (an accelerating decline over the coming decade and lasting to the 2040s or 2050s). The recent coverage stems from a new model by a professor at the University of Northumbria, Valentina Zharkova. Zharkova’s model is said to be highly accurate, and forecasts weakening solar activity in the coming decades — bringing the Sun into conditions similar to those of the so-called Maunder grand minimum (when sunspots virtually disappeared between 1645 and 1715, and northern Europe experienced the little ice age).

The LPAC Basement team is working up a fuller analysis, but we can preliminarily highlight three things:

First—this is only the latest of a series of independent studies indicating that the Sun is going into a prolonged weakening phase. Observations of different types of changes in the Sun (done by independent groups) have been cited as indications of weakening solar activity, including the persistent weakening of the magnetic strength of sunspots (approaching a point where the magnetic strength won’t be able to produce sunspots). Other teams have studied historical proxy records for changes in solar activity, identifying longer-term cycles in solar activity (by which we are presently due for a new weakening period). The Russian scientist Dr. Khabibullo Abdusamatov (head of the Space research lab of the Central Astronomical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences at Pulkovo) has been forecasting an upcoming solar grand minimum for some time.

Second—some of the scientists who think that the Sun is heading into a prolonged weak phase are also willing to go against the man-made climate-change mafia and warn that this will cause significant cooling on Earth. The author of this new modeling study, Dr. Zharkova, has been quoted saying this will cause cooling. The work of Henrik Svensmark and Nir Shaviv also tells us that a weaker Sun will allow more galactic cosmic rays into the inner Solar System, which will cause more low-level cloud formation (and cooling) on Earth. Others go further, and warn that such a little ice age could deal a major blow to global agricultural food production. Among these are John Casey, former White House space program advisor and consultant to NASA Headquarters, and Joseph D’Aleo, co-founder of the Weather Channel and leading “climate- change skeptic.”

Third—certain studies indicate that weaker solar activity brings increased seismic activity on Earth. This was rather clearly demonstrated in a 2011 study by Japanese scientist Dr. Yumoto, which showed that larger earthquakes consistently occurred more often during solar minimums over the past fifty years. Another study by the just cited John Casey claims that the New Madrid zone in the central USA has consistently experienced catastrophic earthquakes during periods of extremely low solar activity (like the Maunder and Dalton grand minimums) over the past 600 years — with Casey warning that a new major earthquake could hit the region in the coming decades.

We can look at this evidence from a higher perspective. The weakening of the Sun opens up the Earth to stronger influences from the Galaxy, and the coming climatic and potentially seismic changes on Earth could provide an opportunity to better understand our Galaxy (through its effects on our planet). This is addressed in the upcoming Basement research report, “Towards a Galactic Science Driver,” featured in the upcoming issue of EIR.