In 2030-2040, the planet will experience global cooling, for example, the Seine and the Thames will be covered with ice. Such a sensational statement was made by a group of scientists from Russia and England. It will be similar to what happened between 1645-1715. Then in Europe and North America there were very cold winters, the water in the Thames and Danube froze, the Moscow River was covered with ice every six months, snow lay on some plains all year round. What is the reason for this phenomenon? In the 19th century, the British scientist Maunder associated it with an unusual phenomenon on the Sun: it was during this period that the number of spots on the star sharply decreased. If usually there are up to 50 thousand of them a year, then at the turn of the XVII-XVIII centuries, thousands of times less. There are about 50 in total.
And now an international team of scientists is arguing that the Little Ice Age could happen again. They made a report on this at a conference of the Royal Astronomical Society in Llandudno (Wales), and now it is being prepared for publication in the authoritative journal Nature. The message caused a strong reaction around the world. And this is not surprising. After all, in fact, scientists went against the current, against world public opinion. For example, it was global warming that President Obama recently called the main problem of mankind. Active preparations are now underway for the World Climate Conference, which will be held at the end of the year in Paris. All countries are expected to make serious commitments to reduce carbon emissions. The vast majority of scientists, including those who until recently doubted that humans are responsible for climate change, have changed their minds and are in favor of a sharp reduction in emissions. Although it will cost humanity enormous sums. But they see no other option to stop the onset of climate cataclysms.
Against this background, the unanimity of the voices of opponents that the current warming can be just another natural cycle is practically not heard anymore. But science has proven that there have been several periods in history, both global warming and global cooling. In addition, it is well known that the activity of the Sun and spots on it are cyclical. The most famous are the 11-year, 90-year and 300-400-year cycles. And Maunder's minima are by no means a revelation either, but many scientists do not see a direct connection between the number of sunspots and climate. The phenomenon of the turn of the XVII-XVIII centuries is considered a mere coincidence. No other facts confirming this phenomenon are known during the observation period. Which is quite natural, because by historical standards it is extremely small.
The skepticism of many scientists towards climate forecasts based on the number of sunspots is understandable. First of all, because the mechanism itself, why they appear there, is still unclear. And if so, there is no guarantee that the climate prediction from the spots will turn out to be correct. As one climatologist noted, such forecasts are reminiscent of shamanism and divination. After all, they are based solely on empirical data, as well as the timing of previous cycles. But nature does not work according to a chronometer, it often brings surprises. Which, by the way, happened to the next, 24th solar cycle, in which we now live. According to all statistics, it should be active, with a large number of sunspots. As predicted by most astrophysicists. However, this prediction failed. The sun turned out to be unusually passive.
As it has now become clear, the forecast for sunspots with a more or less high probability works for a maximum of one cycle ahead, which is why the error occurred with the 24th cycle. According to one of the authors of the sensational work, an employee of the SINP MSU. Lomonosov, Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Elena Popova, scientists managed to find a new criterion for the activity of the Sun. This is not the number of spots on it, but a change in the magnetic field of the star. Moreover, it was possible to explain the mechanism why and how the activity of the luminary changes, why such phenomena as Maunder minima arise. As a result, the picture of the Sun's behavior both in distant history and in the future became clearer.
The model created by scientists was able to accurately predict that in the 24th cycle there should be a decline in activity. In addition, it has passed the test of historical data dating back to 1200 AD. And then scientists made a forecast of solar activity up to 3200. But we are interested, of course, in the coming years. According to Elena Popova, an analogue of the Maunder Minimum with a Little Ice Age will be in the 26th cycle. If at the turn of the XVII-XVIII centuries it lasted about 60 years, then the current one will begin in 2030-2040 and will last no more than 30 years. Most likely, the consequences will not be as strong as in the previous minimum. Then a new, 28th period of solar activity will begin.
Opponents of this hypothesis emphasize that so far there is no absolutely proven connection between solar activity and climate. There are only a few studies that point to this possibility, as well as some historical examples, in particular the Maunder lows. But there is also no clear evidence that humans are to blame for global warming. And how to explain that over the past 400 thousand years there have been several global warmings and ice ages, when there was no man on Earth at all? It appeared about 60 thousand years ago, and intensively throw away carbon dioxide became just 100 years ago.
— Could you please tell us more about solar activity and when will it be at its minimum?
- Solar activity is cyclical. There are several cycles with different periods and properties. The most famous of them are 11-year-old, 90-year-old and 300-400-year-old. The 11-year cycle manifests itself as a cyclical decrease in sunspots on the surface of the Sun every 11 years. The 90-year variation is associated with a periodic decrease in the number of sunspots in 11-year cycles by 50–25%. The 300-400-year lows are associated with the appearance every 300-400 years of a long (up to several tens of years) time interval during which there are very few sunspots.
The best-known low is the Maunder Low, which lasted roughly from 1645 to 1715. During this period, about 50 sunspots were observed instead of the usual 40-50 thousand.
The main result of our work, which caused such excitement among the public, is the assertion that in the period from 2030 to 2040 a minimum of solar magnetic activity will begin. This result was presented in a report at a conference of the Royal Astronomical Society in Llandudno (Wales) and is being prepared for publication in the journal Nature. After the report, a huge number of news articles appeared about our work in many countries of the world, including Russia. Comes to us a large number of letters from various researchers, students and even writers from different countries.
Image of the Sun on July 15, 2015 at a wavelength of 304 angstroms, obtained by the NASA Solar Dynamics Observations mission. Source: NASA / SDO
How did you get this result?
— We have a number of publications where we described our models and methods for studying solar magnetic activity. So, minimum solar magnetic activity was predicted in cycle 26. In other work For the first time, the model of two dynamos was used to explain the variations of the magnetic field with respect to latitudes. There were also articles where first applied principal component method for analyzing the solar magnetic field from magnetograms, and where activity lows are explained using the double dynamo model.
My colleagues have applied "principal component analysis", which allows us to identify the waves with the largest contribution in the observational data. This method can be compared to the decomposition of white light by a prism into the colors of the rainbow, or waves with different frequencies. As a result of applying the analysis for cycles 21-23, it was found that magnetic waves on the Sun are generated in pairs, and the most important pair is responsible for the dipole changes in the field, which is observed when solar activity changes. Thus, it was possible to isolate waves that correspond to a simple physical process: the generation of a dynamo wave in a given layer of the convective zone of the Sun. A symbolic regression analysis based on the Hamiltonian invariance was applied to the obtained waves, and it was possible to obtain analytical formulas describing the evolution of both waves.
In fact, my colleagues have obtained a formula for the dependence of the amplitude of waves and their phases on time. These formulas were then used to predict activity in the past (from 1200) and the future (up to 3200).
It turned out that the theoretical evolution of the magnetic field gave global minima of solar activity for past epochs, which coincided with the observed ones. In addition, the prediction of magnetic activity in the 24th cycle based on these formulas gave 97 percent accuracy when compared with observations, that is, with the principal components that they derived from observations.
Regarding the long-term forecast, we can still say that the analogue of the Maunder low will be in cycle 26, this low will be shorter than the previous one, it will last in cycles 25-27, and then the activity will increase. In the 17th century, the Maunder minimum lasted 55-60 years, this one will be no more than 30. The editors of Nature forbid to show the forecast for a thousand years, since the article has not yet been published. My work consisted in explaining the physics of the occurrence of global minima and the empirically found law. And these model calculations are very close to the characteristics of the detected waves both in cycles 21-26 and on a 1000-year scale.
- How did it happen that your forecast is the most accurate, because your group is not the only one involved in forecasting solar activity?
— It happened because we had an amazing team of co-authors, which includes physicists, mathematicians, and astronomers.
Why did we manage to do this? Because we first worked with the data, conducted a spectral analysis of the total magnetic field of the Sun, and not the number of spots, which is now used to describe solar activity, and reduced their dimension.
This made it possible to find waves that correspond to a simple physical process and to propose a new method for predicting solar activity. We have shown that the spot index can be obtained from two waves, which we found by adding these waves together and finding their modulus.
And then we began to look for what kind of process could describe these waves, and so we came to the dynamo theory with two layers and meridional circulation. In other groups, researchers used the index of solar activity by spots in the last 200 years and can only predict the next cycle from the features of the previous cycle. No wonder they couldn't predict better than one cycle, because they were trying to predict one wave when there are two and using only the positive part of that wave.
— Tell us more about the mechanism that explains the minimum activity of the Sun. How was this theory built? How large a body of observed data underlies your theory?
— My model explaining the occurrence of global minima is based on the process of generating a magnetic field in stars and planets, which is associated with the operation of the dynamo mechanism. An analogue of the action of this mechanism is the operation of a dynamo. Unlike the theories that consider one wave of the magnetic field, my theory considered the presence of two waves of the magnetic field, which were found empirically. My theoretical model was built on the basis of the fundamental mechanisms of generation of the solar magnetic field, and the comparison of the results of this model was carried out both with the array of observed data for magnetic fields for cycles 21-23, and with the observed data of solar activity on a 1000-year scale. On these scales, my model calculations turned out to be very close to the characteristics of solar magnetic activity. My model explains the processes observed and predicted from this data, but it was built independently of these data. It precisely explains them and reproduces the features of solar magnetic activity.
In other words, I have found physical laws that reproduce empirical facts. Accordingly, my model also explains the oddities in the behavior of the Sun in the current activity cycle, which turned out to be anomalously low.
- How cold will the period be due to a minimum of solar activity? Is it possible to say something more concrete about this now? Do you intend to discuss the results of your work with climatologists?
- A number of studies have shown that the Maunder minimum coincided in time with the coldest phase of the global cooling of the climate, which was called the Little Ice Age. Europe and North America had very cold winters. During the Maunder Minimum, water in the riverbeds of the Thames and Danube froze, the Moskva River was covered with ice every six months, snow lay on some plains all year round, Greenland was covered with glaciers.
Currently, lower temperatures can lead to serious negative impacts on machinery and agriculture.
For example, a 2010 article shows that low solar activity during the Maunder Minimum coincided with harsher winters in the UK and continental Europe. A year earlier, based on observations within NASA's Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment program, it was shown that solar ultraviolet radiation is more sensitive to the solar cycle than previously thought.
Using the observed data on the solar magnetic field, we made a forecast of solar magnetic activity, supported by the physical model of field generation we built, and found that in 2030-2040 a minimum may occur that will last about 30 years. If the existing theories about the influence of solar activity on climate are correct, then this minimum will lead to a significant cooling, similar to that during the Maunder minimum. Since our future minimum will last for three solar cycles, about 30 years, it is possible that the temperature drop will not be as deep as in the Maunder minimum. But this will need to be studied in more detail. We are now in correspondence with climatologists from different countries. We plan to work in this direction.
— Is it possible, in your opinion, to confidently say that only the Sun is to blame for climate change, and the anthropogenic factor with greenhouse gas emissions is not significant?
- A number of works show the relationship between solar activity and climate. There is no rigorous proof that global warming is caused by human activity. There have been five global warmings and four ice ages in the past 400,000 years, studies of deuterium in Antarctica have shown. Mankind appeared about 60 thousand years ago. However, even if human activity affects the climate, it can be said that the Sun with a new minimum gives humanity extra time, or a second chance for humanity to put its industrial emissions in order and prepare for cycle 28, when the Sun will return to normal activity again. .
- Tell us about your contribution to the work.
- In this team, I am a theorist who has built a physical and mathematical model to explain the observational facts. I have developed a new unique physical and mathematical model of the evolution of the Sun's magnetic activity. With its help, I was able to obtain patterns of occurrence of global minima of solar activity and give them a physical interpretation. Thus, forecasts based on observational data have been confirmed by the results of independent mathematical modeling, which increases their reliability.
My work consisted in explaining the physics of the occurrence of global minima and the empirically found law of the behavior of magnetic field waves. And these model calculations are very close to the characteristics of the detected waves both in cycles 21-26 and on a 1000-year scale.
I was able to simulate the change in the amplitude and phase of two waves obtained in observations, as well as simulate the behavior of the total magnetic field of the Sun.
— I have been working with Valentina Zharkova for several years. Together with her, Simon Shepherd and Sergey Zharkov, a number of works devoted to solar activity have been published.
Valentina Zharkova is a professor of mathematics dealing with solar plasma and solar activity. Zharkova studied at Kiev University and worked there before moving to Glasgow. She then began lecturing at Bradford and has been a professor since 2005. Since 2013 he has been working at Northumbria University (England).
Simon Shepherd is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Bradford. He is a former military sailor. Came to Bradford 25 years ago.
Dr. Sergei Zharkov, Associate Professor at the University of Halle, winner of the Mathematical Olympiad in 1991, graduated from the University of Cambridge, mathematician and physicist in the field of solar activity, is engaged in helio- and asteroseismology, as well as automated pattern recognition. He began the study of solar activity, created a catalog of the features of solar activity, then made the first comparison of the magnetic fields of the Sun with sunspots. This work encouraged Zharkov and Shepherd to do a "principal component analysis" because they saw many waves in the observational data that made it difficult to understand what we were actually observing. Then the obtained methods were applied to the forecast of solar activity.
— Please, tell us about yourself. Have you graduated from the Faculty of Physics? How did you get involved in solar hydrodynamics?
- I graduated from the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University. In the junior years she was engaged in experimental neurophysiology. The diploma and Ph.D. thesis are devoted to the theory and modeling of magnetic field generation in stars and planets. Now my scientific activity is connected not only with magnetic fields in celestial bodies, a year ago I started working in the field of galactic cosmic ray physics together with scientists from SINP and the USA.
In addition, I am doing scientific activity in the field of higher spin theory, which describes fundamental interactions. This is a field theory with the highest possible gauge symmetry. Now scientists are expected that theories of this class will provide a new look at the theory of superstrings, which is considered the main candidate for the role of the theory of fundamental interactions.
Taking this opportunity, I would like to invite those students who want to study the subject of solar activity or galactic cosmic rays to the Department of Space Physics at the Faculty of Physics.
Maunder Minimum(Maunder minimum) Maunder Minimum) is a period of reduced solar activity, which lasted from 1645 to 1715. At this time, there were virtually no spots on the surface of the Sun. The period was named after the British astrologer Edward Walter Maunder (1851-1928), who discovered this phenomenon while researching archives of solar observations.
According to Maunder's calculations, only about 50 sunspots were observed during this period, instead of the usual 40-50 thousand. With all this, the vast majority of sunspots appeared in the southern hemisphere of the Sun. In the upcoming fall in solar activity in the period indicated by Maunder, it was proved by analyzing the content of carbon-14, as well as some other isotopes, for example, beryllium-10, in glaciers and trees. Such an analysis made it possible to identify 18 minimums of solar activity over the past 8000 years, including the Spörer minimum (1450-1540) and the Dalton minimum (1790-1820). Also, according to some data, during the Maunder minimum, a decrease in the intensity of the auroras and the speed of the Sun's rotation was observed.
The Maunder Minimum coincides in time with the cooler phase of the global cooling of the climate, which was observed in the direction of the XIV-XIX centuries (the so-called Little Ice Age). But the specific connection between these two events is disputed - many scientists believe that the insignificant level of the fall in solar activity does not allow explaining global cooling with this premise alone.
It is curious that the period of the decrease in the activity of the Sun (1645-1715) coincided quite accurately with the period of the reign of the Sun King. Louis XIV (1643-1715).
Fundamental facts about the Maunder minimum
The problem of global minimums of solar activity is the cornerstone in understanding the structure and activity of the Sun. Solar activity sets the magnetic galactic field in which the Earth arrives, so its change, even if not by a direct method, will affect our planet. The connection between the behavior of the Sun and the climate, as well as its specific impact on the sphere of human activity, suggests that these studies will also be useful from a practical point of view.
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What is the Maunder minimum?
The Maunder Minimum (Maunder Minimum; eng. Maunder Minimum) is a dithial period of reduced solar activity that lasted from 1645 to 1715. At this time, there were virtually no spots on the surface of the Sun. The period was named after the British astrologer Edward Walter Maunder (1851-1928), who discovered this phenomenon while researching archives of solar observations. According to Maunder's calculations, during this period there was...
Scientists claim that the activity of the Sun is at its lowest level in the last 100 years.
Something similar could be observed before the Maunder Low, a period in 1645, when a mini ice age set in and froze the Thames in London.
Researchers believe that a solar lull could cause major changes. With a probability of 20% that these "serious changes" will fall on the temperature.
The number of sunspots has been significantly reduced since 2011, and intense solar flares have become less frequent, despite NASA's forecast of major solar storms.
Richard Harrison Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory
No matter what measurements we resort to, the solar peaks still fall. I have studied solar physics for 30 years, but I have never seen anything like it. This phenomenon could lead to colder winters similar to those experienced during the Maunder Minimum. The winters were cold, almost a mini ice age, when even the Thames froze over.
Lucie Green of University College London believes that due to human activity, things can happen a little differently.
University College London
We have 400 years of observations behind us, and everything points to the return of the Maunder minimum. But the world we live in today is different. Human activity can counteract this. It's hard to say how it will turn out
solar cycle
Solar activity rises and falls like a normal pendulum. At one end of the cycle there is a lull with a few spots and flashes. At the other end is solar maximum, bringing big number sunspots and frequent solar storms. This standard cycle is repeated every 11 years. But reality is more complicated. Astronomers have been counting sunspots for centuries and have come to the conclusion that the solar cycle is not perfect.
Mike Lockwood of the University of Reading says more low temperatures can affect currents and thus disrupt the weather system.
Mike LockwoodMike Lockwood University of Reading
We analyzed the 40-year period and concluded that there is a 10-20% chance that we will soon return to the Maunder minimum.
NASA warned last year that "something unexpected" was happening on the Sun. This year was supposed to be the year of "solar maximum", the peak of the 11-year cycle. But as you can see in the image, solar activity is relatively low.
Maunder Minimum
The term Maunder Minimum (also known as the Long Sunspot Minimum) is used to refer to the period from 1645 to 1715, when sunspots were observed to be extremely rare. At this time, the Thames in London was freezing, "frost fairs" became popular.
This period of solar inactivity was closely related to a climatic period called the "Little Ice Age" when rivers, usually ice-free, froze and snow did not melt year-round at lower altitudes. According to NASA, there is evidence that similar periods of inactivity of the Sun also occurred in the more distant past.
The relationship between solar activity and climate is an area of current research.
Frozen Thames, 1677. Artist Abraham Hondius showed the old London Bridge during the Maunder Low.
The number of sunspots has dropped significantly since 2011, and intense solar flares have become rare.
Now there are only a few sunspots, while at the peak of solar activity there should be many more. Experts are puzzled by the apparent lack of activity, many wondering if NASA was wrong or not. However, physicist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center thinks there is another explanation.
Recently, researchers have recorded huge sunspots on the surface of the Sun, they believe that something similar will appear soon.
This is solar maximum. He just looks different, he has two peaks, as it were. The last two solar maxima (circa 1989 and 2001) were not one but two peaks. Solar activity rose, fell, then rose again, completing a minicycle lasting about two years.
Pesnell believes the rise has already begun in 2013:
Physicist, Goddard Space Flight Center
I am sure that another peak will occur in 2013 and possibly extend into 2014.
He noticed a similarity between solar cycles 24 and 14 with a double peak that took place in the first decade of the 20th century. If these are two twin cycles, then this means that one peak occurs at the end of 2013, and the other at 2015.
Predictions for 2013 of increased solar activity and geomagnetic storms destroying communications and power systems turned out to be a false alarm. Instead, the current peak in the solar cycle is the weakest in a century. Suppressed solar activity has drawn controversial comparisons to the Maunder Minimum, which occurred between 1645 and 1715, when a prolonged absence of sunspots and other indicators of solar activity coincided with the coldest period of the millennium.
The comparisons have sparked a furious exchange between observers, who believe the planet may be on the verge of another cooling period, and scientists, who insist there is no evidence that temperatures are about to drop. To be fair, Russian scientists warned more than a decade ago that the Earth would enter a mini ice age.
New Scientist magazine blasted the beliefs of those who predicted a mini ice age by recently publishing an article about this year's surprising shortage of sunspots with its bold declaration: "Those who hoped the sun could save us from climate change will be disappointed."
"The recent error in solar activity is not the beginning of a decade-long absence of sunspots and a drop in temperature that may have cooled the climate. Instead, it represents a shorter, less pronounced decline that occurs every century" ("The sluggish period of solar activity - this is not the start of a mini-ice age" July 12).
Unusually low number of sunspots in last years"is not an indication that we are entering a Maunder Low" according to Julian Dethome, a scientist at the High Altitude Observatory in Colorado.
But D. Detoma admitted that "we don't know how or why the Low started, so we can't predict the next one."
Many solar experts think the recession is related to a different phenomenon, the Gleissberg cycle, which predicted a period of weaker solar activity every century or so. If this turns out to be true, then the sun could remain unusually quiet throughout the mid-2020s.
But since scientists still do not understand why the Gleissberg cycle occurs, this statement is not definitive. The bottom line is that the sun has unusually calmed down and no one really knows why or how long it will last.
Solar flares and coronal ejections (CMEs), when billions of tons of solar plasma are blasted off the surface of the sun and blasted into space at speeds up to 3,000 kilometers per second, pose the biggest threat to power and communications systems.
Spots are less significant here because they are easy to count and correlate with flares, mass ejections and other signs of solar activity, astronomers and scientists have used them for centuries to monitor changes in the activity of the sun.
Careful observation showed the number of ups and downs in the number of sunspots is in a regular cycle that repeats every 11 years.
The changes in the amount of heat and light reaching our planet's surface as a result of the cycle are tiny. The total solar output reaching the surface varies by only 1.3 watts per square meter (0.1 percent) between the maximum and minimum phases of the cycle.
But even this change has profound effects on climate and weather. Rainfall, cloud formation and river flooding are all strongly related to the 11 year cycle of the sun.
The impact is much less than the warming of the planet associated with artificial climate change. Solar activity cannot explain long-term trends in global temperatures, such as those associated with global warming. But it can have a noticeable impact over a shorter time scale.
Information source http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/23966/24/
Reference:
Maunder Minimum (Maunder minimum; English Maunder Minimum) - a period of long-term decrease in the number of sunspots from about 1645 to 1715. It was named after the English astronomer Edward Walter Maunder (1851-1928), who discovered this phenomenon while studying archives of solar observations.
According to Maunder's calculations, only about 50 sunspots were observed during this period, instead of the usual 40-50 thousand. In this case, the vast majority of sunspots appeared in the southern hemisphere of the Sun. Subsequently, the fall in solar activity during the period indicated by Maunder was confirmed by an analysis of the content of carbon-14, as well as some other isotopes, such as beryllium-10, in glaciers and trees. Such an analysis made it possible to identify 18 minima of solar activity over the past 8000 years, including the Spörer minimum (1450-1540) and Dalton minimum(1790-1820). Also, according to some data, during the Maunder minimum, a decrease in the intensity of auroras and the speed of rotation of the Sun was observed.
The Maunder Minimum coincides in time with the coldest phase of the global cooling of the climate, which was observed during the 14th-19th centuries (the so-called Little Ice Age). However, the direct connection between these two events is disputed - many scientists believe that the insignificant level of the fall in solar activity does not allow explaining global cooling only by this cause.
Interestingly, the period of the decrease in the activity of the Sun (1645-1715) coincided quite accurately with the period of the reign of the Sun King Louis XIV (1643-1715).