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Double-Dynamo Model Predicts 60% Fall In Solar Output In The 2030s

sycodon points out reports of a new model of solar dynamics from University of Northumbria professor Valentina Zharkova, predictions from which "suggest that solar activity will fall by 60 per cent during the 2030s to conditions last seen during the 'mini ice age' that began in 1645." Zharkova's model, based on observation of solar magnetism, "draws on dynamo effects in two layers of the Sun, one close to the surface and one deep within its convection zone." Zharkova’s and her colleages at three other universities believe that this two-layer model "could explain aspects of the solar cycle with much greater accuracy than before — possibly leading to enhanced predictions of future solar behaviour. “We found magnetic wave components appearing in pairs; originating in two different layers in the Sun’s interior. They both have a frequency of approximately 11 years, although this frequency is slightly different [for both] and they are offset in time.”

9 of 249 comments (clear)

  1. Solar *activity* not *output* by rumpledoll · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not solar output falling 60%, which would lead to completely frozen Earth, but solar activity, i.e. the 11 year sunspot cycle. Predicting levels near or at those found during the Maunder minimum. This does imply some reduced level of solar output.

    1. Re: Solar *activity* not *output* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Relax, it only happens once every 11 * 7 * 17 years... which is about how long it will take Ellen Pao to get another job.

    2. Re:Solar *activity* not *output* by catchblue22 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Not solar output falling 60%, which would lead to completely frozen Earth, but solar activity, i.e. the 11 year sunspot cycle. Predicting levels near or at those found during the Maunder minimum. This does imply some reduced level of solar output.

      Thought I'd smelled a rat. The headline is deceptive (likely deliberately). The vast majority of readers wouldn't know the difference between activity and irradiance.

      --
      This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
  2. Every cycle by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, except that every solar cycle since I can remember, I've heard somebody predicting that the next solar cycle is about the start a new Maunder minimum, and it will mean mini ice age. Every one.
    This one is a prediction based on fitting a model only to the last three cycles. i'm not impressed.
    For reference, here's the MSFC page on solar cycle modelling: http://solarscience.msfc.nasa....

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  3. Re:Excuse to keep using oil by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The grand solar cycle (the irregular one hundreds of years long, not the 11-year ripple on top of it) is one of the many cycles that go into determining climate. It operates independently of any carbon warming effect that may be happening. If this cycle is going into a low, it would mean another Little Ice Age if nothing else were going on. It points to the need for better climate models before hysterically making major public policy decisions.

  4. Re:Epicycles upon epicycles by nine-times · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well we don't know what our climate is going to do, ultimately. We do know, however, that we're dumping CO2 into our atmosphere, enough to screw up our environment in various ways, including creating a greenhouse effect in our atmosphere and add to the acidification of our oceans. That's in addition to a crap ton of other stupid things we're doing, e.g. overfishing, dumping toxins into our water supply, deforestation.

    So do we know if we're going to get a mini ice age soon due to natural causes? No, we really don't know. Do we know that we're damaging our own ecosystem, metaphorically poisoning our own well? Yes, we know that with a large degree of certainty.

  5. Re:Let me guess. by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 4, Insightful
    OK, I looked into it a bit longer than sycodon and timothy apparently did, and I take that back. It doesn't appear that Valentina Zharkova is being funded by the Koch brothers or anything like that. Rather, these two misinterpreted her work to suggest that a 60% fall in magnetic solar activity means the sun's brightness will fall by 60%. Which is somewhat ironic for the following reasons-
    1. The sun actually gets slightly brighter when solar magnetic activity falls, because of the lack of sunspots.
    2. Carbon dioxide has an atmospheric half-life of about 10,000 years, so a "60% fall in solar output" over a timescale of decades won't mean much for long.
    3. The core isn't powering down (which would take approx. one million years to become evident at the surface, because the radiosphere is fully ionized and doesn't undergo convection, which means photons reach the radiopause via a random walk process). Any variation in solar output will be tempered by the stability of the heat entering the convective zone.
    4. A fall in solar output by 60% would guarantee a following rise afterwards, because of the conservation of energy, and ignoring a rise in CO2 for this reason would eventually backfire.

    So this is probably decent research, but unfortunately every right wing nut job out there is going to desperately sink their fingernails into this and deny that rising CO2 is a problem. From reading the comments of the submitter, it doesn't seem that we're dealing with a scientific genius here.

  6. Re:Excuse to keep using oil by frovingslosh · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You have been downgraded to troll for stating the obvious. I've long believed that a new ice age was coming and that global warming was our best bet in avoiding it, but whenever I mention that I'm also marked as a troll by idiots who think that not sharing their point of view is the same as trolling.Or maybe they don't really believe that, but they still abuse moderation to make less apparent any view that disagrees with them, particularly when they are ill equipped to logically debate you.

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
  7. Re:Let me guess. by NostalgiaForInfinity · · Score: 1, Insightful

    So this is probably decent research, but unfortunately every right wing nut job out there is going to desperately sink their fingernails into this and deny that rising CO2 is a problem.

    Huh? "Right wing nutjobs", as well as anybody who actually understands anything about the history of climate on planet earth, believes that rising CO2 is not a significant problem even without a decrease in solar output.