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The Sun's Odd Behavior
gyrogeerloose writes "Most of us know about the sun's eleven-year activity cycle. However, relatively few other than scientists (and amateur radio operators) are aware that the current solar minimum has lasted much longer than expected. The last solar cycle, Cycle 24, bottomed out in 2008, and Cycle 25 should be well on its way towards maximum by now, but the sun has remained unusually quiescent with very few sunspots. While solar physicists agree that this is odd, the explanation remains elusive."
I almost know nothing on the subject, but I'm thinking the 11 year cycle was empiricaly determined. One has to wonder do we have enough data on the subject compared to the age of the sun?
One of my hobbies is meteorology and as I'm in the UK there's no shortage of discussion about the weather!
Over on the various weather forums we've been discussing the solar minimum for the past couple of years, as in the UK at least there's a strong correlation between climatic cold spells and low sunspot activity (the Little Ice Age a few hundred years ago coincided with the Maunder minimum, for example). There was another minimum in the early 1800s, again coinciding with a colder period in the UK climate. It was during this time that Charles Dickens popularised the idea of a White Christmas, something which hasn't occured in 40 years here (30 miles east of London).
The effects are pretty immediate in climating terms, with an onset of years rather than decades. Although yes, the Sun's becoming more active there's been a lot of discussion as to whether the low solar activity was responsible for the coldest winter in 17 years in England (and longer than that in Scotland).
The Sun's effect on the climate is probably beyond any numerical weather prediction models at the moment but it'd be fascinating to see what the effects would be if we were to experience a prolonged period of much lower solar activity than normal!