The 'silence' of the sun - The sign of the new 'Little Ice Age'?

A prolonged quietness in the sun's activity makes celestial physicists unable to take their eyes off the telescope and wait to see what the sun will do next - and Earth's climate will be affected. How to enjoy by this phenomenon.

Currently, the sun is in the quietest state for many centuries, and the most 'blurry' in the past 100 years. This tranquility reminds many scientists of the Little Ice Age, an unusually cold period in Europe and North America that lasted from 1300-1850.

The coldest period in this period was the Maunder Minimum period (after the 19th-century astronomer EW Maunder) lasting from 1645 to 1715, associated with unusual solar storms.

During this time, the road to Greenland was cut by ice, and the canals in the Netherlands were often covered in ice. Glaciers in the Alps have engulfed many villages, and ice in the sea so much that there were no water flows around Iceland in 1695.

However, researchers are now concerned about the myths of many people about the cold climate caused by the unusual activity of the sun.

"People who are indifferent to global warming have another reason to be optimistic," said Mike Lockwood, a solar-earth physicist at the University of Southampton, UK.

He and other researchers are busy with what they call 'preventive denial' for the idea that the sun's inactivity will lead to cooling of the earth.

Even if the sun's current inactivity is the starting point for a long period of calm sun, and when the star's influence on the earth's climate will be less, the opposite, images The effects of man-made greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, continue to increase.

'I think you need to remember that CO2 is rising to 50 to 60%, while the effect of the sun is only reduced by a few parts per thousand,' Lockwood said. 'That is the nature of things.'

However, Lockwood added, small changes in the brightness of the sun have a greater impact than the increase in greenhouse gases. For example, increasing or decreasing 50% of the sun's illumination will end life on Earth.

For centuries, scientists have used the observed number of sunspots to monitor the sun's 11-year period.

(Photo: news.nationalgeographic.com)

Sunspots, which can be seen from the Earth by telescopes, are dark spaces, which are essentially places of strong magnetic activity on the surface of the sun. These solar storms knock particles towards the Earth, emit ultraviolet rays, break down satellites, and even damage the wiring.

In the current cycle, 2008 is considered to be a low year (little of the magnetic activities mentioned above), and this year, the number of sunspots should have increased in accordance with the law.

But in the first 90 days of 2009, 78 days did not show any dark spots. Researchers also say that the sun is the most 'blurry' in the last 100 years.

The Maunder Minimum period corresponds to a very quiet period of black marks - astronomers at that time recorded only 50 sunspots over a period of 30 years.

If the sun again falls into this state, at least in the beginning will cause cold weather in some parts of Europe, the United States and Siberia.

However, during the former Little Ice Age (1300-1850), many parts of the world were unaffected, Jeffrey Hall, astronomer, co-director of Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, said know.

'Even if the sun is not active for such a long time, it will not have a global impact,' he said.

Factors of freedom and uncertainties

Changes in the sun's activity may also affect the Earth in other ways.

For example, ultraviolet (UV) light from the sun does not fall to the lowest level ever seen in previous minimal reductions.

'The light that the naked eye observes doesn't change much, but UV rays change 20%, and X-rays can change 1/10,' Hall said. 'What we have not yet understood is the effect of those different spectral radiation.'

For example, solar UV rays affect most of the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere, which do not affect human life. But some researchers suspect that these effects may spread to the lower levels, where weather factors are present.

In general, recent research is building a situation in which the sun has a slightly more impact on the Earth's climate than other theories.

Free atmospheric elements, such as UV radiation, may explain partly why, Lockwood said.

Meanwhile, he and other experts warned of the belief of some people that the inefficient sun could reduce global warming.

"There are a lot of uncertainties," said Jose Abreu, a doctoral student at the Swiss government's Eawag Research Institute.

'We do not know the degree of climate dependence on changes in the intensity of the sun. From a personal point of view, I will not risk what I do not know. '