Scientists’ say Earth is facing Mini Ice Age

It’s not what we can do to prevent it, but what we can do to survive it. The Earth has forever had peaks and troughs of warm periods and Ice Age periods. This century, British astrophysicists are saying based on their results of new research, our planet could be facing a new ‘mini ice age’ within the next 15 years.

This ice age, according to the results of exact solar cycle predictions, extremely harsh and cold winters could soon arrive, seeing normally ice-free rivers frozen over, and drastic climate changes in areas that have never witnessed such winters before.

The scientists drawing these conclusions have based their fact gathering around a new model monitoring the sun’s activity, enabling them to make “extremely accurate predictions” of solar activity deviations. By the 2030s it is predicted that this activity will fall by 60 percent, generating the mini ice age.

The research team from Northumbria University have conducted the latest study, led by Professor Valentina Zharkova, to demonstrate new considerations of the Sun’s activity – a convection zone deep within the sun and one near its surface.

“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, and they are offset in time,” said Professor Zharkova. These magnetic waves “fluctuate between the northern and southern hemispheres of the Sun.”

“Combining both waves together and comparing to real data for the current solar cycle, we found that our predictions showed an accuracy of 97 percent,” said Zharkova.

So in lay terms, what does this all mean?

The team, as a result of their research and findings, have been able to draw correlations between the Sun’s activity with each year’s data of sunspots, weather cycles, and the indication of solar activity. From this they are able to conclude solar activity fluctuations with a very precise model.

The model establishes that solar activity will fall by 60 percent by 2030 as the magnetic waves inside the Sun will increasingly desynchronize during the following two cycles, especially during cycle 26, which covers the 2030 to 2040 decade.

“In cycle 26, the two waves exactly mirror each other – peaking at the same time but in opposite hemispheres of the Sun. Their interaction will be disruptive, or they will nearly cancel each other,” Professor Zharkova said. She continues by explaining that when these waves are “approximately in phase, they can show strong interaction, or resonance, and we have strong solar activity. When they are out of phase, we have solar minimums. When there is full phase separation, we have the conditions last seen during the Maunder minimum, 370 years ago.”

The Maunder minimum is the name given to the years between 1645 and 1715. Extremely cold winters in Europe and North America were characterized by prolonged low solar activity. It also correlates with a climatic period called the ‘Little Ice Age,’ between 1550 and 1850.

The study findings were published in the Royal Astronomical Society papers, and presented at the National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno on July 9.

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