Solar Lull Could Cause Colder Winters In Europe

Taco Cowboy writes "Since September of last year scientists have been wondering what's happening to the Sun. It's supposed to have reached the peak of its 11-year cycle, but sunspot and flare activity remains much quieter than expected. Experts now think the recent cold snap that hit North America and the wet weather that hit part of Europe might be linked to the eerie quietness of the Sun. According to the BBC, solar activity hasn't been this low in 100 years, and if activity keeps dropping, it may reach levels seen during the 'Maunder Minimum,' an 'era of solar inactivity in the 17th Century [which] coincided with a period of bitterly cold winters in Europe.' It wouldn't have a big effect on global temperatures, just regional ones. Why? The sun's UV output drops during these lulls, and the decreased amount of UV light hitting the stratosphere would cause the jet stream to change course. Prof. Mike Lockwood says, 'These are large meanders in the jet stream, and they're called blocking events because they block off the normal moist, mild winds we get from the Atlantic, and instead we get cold air being dragged down from the Arctic and from Russia. These are what we call a cold snap... a series of three or four cold snaps in a row adds up to a cold winter. And that's quite likely what we'll see as solar activity declines.'"

Comments

Not the sun

[Anonymous Coward]

The Sun does not effect climate. Only carbon.

Only carbon.

Re:Not the sun

[Anonymous Coward]

Your wife's vagina smokes in bed, after she has sex with me. But then climate change occurs and the bitch gets cold when you're close to coming home from work.

-- Ty Rone

Re:Not the sun

[amiga3D]

No no no. Only denialists are fools. Global warming proponents are superior intelligent beings who are never wrong and always have the answers if only all the illiterate peons would listen to them everything would be okay.

OB: Global warming

[rueger]

Aha! Weather in some places that's colder or warmer than others! With stuff happening on the Sun.

Obviously Global Warming is a fiction created by neo-Luddite Green party members.

And communists. Yeah. Communists.

Maunder Minimum

[fyngyrz]

The Maunder Minimum is the degree of deviation from the white line allowed before the trooper cites you for being drunk. Even without exceeding the Maunder Minimum, poor performance here combined with "blowing an .08", a (very low) standard for fellatio (the theory being that you'd have to be *really* drunk to perform that poorly*), can combine to annoy the trooper into issuing a ticket. Tomorrow, we're going to re-discover "Boyle's Laws of Gasses", which dictates performance of glassware with insufficient bong fluid. Now put away your books; time for a pop quiz: Coke, or Pepsi?

* Scale normalized 0.0~~1.0 as per International Standards Req. 4:20, para 69, lines for two.