December 17 was a special day in the sun watchers’ circle. On that day a new record, for the greatest number of days without visible sunspots in a single year since the Space Age began, was set.
So far in 2019, the sun has been without sunspots for more than 271 days, including the last 34 days in a row. Since the Space Age began, no other year has had this many blank suns. The sun has been spotless on 18, 19, 20 December as well – so add 3 to those numbers as at the time of writing this post.
The previous record was 268 blank days during 2008. That was during the deepest Space Age Solar Minimum of 2008-2009. Now 2019 has moved into first place.
The Solar Minimum is a normal part of the 11-year sunspot cycle. The past two (2008-2009 and 2018-2019) have been long and deep, making them “century-class” Minima. To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days. Obviously we have run out of days in 2019 to beat that benchmark. If there was not another sunspot in 2019, the count would only be 285 days.
Last week, the NOAA/NASA Solar Cycle Prediction Panel issued a new forecast. Based on a variety of predictive techniques, they believe that the current Solar Minimum will reach its deepest point in April 2020 (+/- 6 months) followed by a new Solar Maximum in July 2025. This means that low sunspot counts and weak solar activity could continue for some time to come.
What does this mean for us? The Earth’s climate gets cooler when there are fewer sunspots. The extreme example happened between 1645 and 1715 when the normal 11-year sunspot cycle vanished. This period, called the Maunder Minimum, was accompanied by bitterly cold winters in the northern hemisphere. Fishing settlements in Iceland and Greenland were abandoned. Icebergs were seen near the English channel. The canals of Venice froze. It was a time of great hardship.
However, the current narrative of limiting CO2 in order to limit temperature rises to less than some arbitrary number above some arbitrary level at some arbitrary time in the past will be harder to maintain if temperatures drop year on year.
Watching the climate ‘scientists’ attempt to explain temperature anomalies dropping while the measured atmospheric CO2 levels continue to increase will be fun.
Regardless of what happens to the temperature, it will still be ‘Climate Change’ and your evil way of life will be the cause.