As a radio amateur I've been following the sunspots cycles nearly my whole life. And I very soon found that there is a kind of correlation with sunspot activity and the weather on earth. Sunspots are the source of massive eruptions on the surface of the sun and those electrically charged particles bombardes the earth, causes Aurora at both poles, stirs up the upper part of the ionosphere and thermosphere, distorts the magnetic field of the earth and thus influencing the dynamics in the atmosphere and oceans.
This is not in any way increasing (or decreasing) the mean temperature of the globe but it influences the distribution of warm and cold masses of air, especially in the area between the tropics and the poles where the sun never hits zenith.
There is a slight delay of one year or so because of the thermal capacity of the atmosphere, oceans and earth's crust down to some few meters but usually when the sunspot activity is high, we have warm summers and relatively mild winters but with great dynamics especially at winters, weather changing from very cold to snowstorms and mild weather within some few days and from prolonged periodes with sunny and warm weather changing into thunderstorms and rain in the summer here up in the northern Europe.
When the sunspot activity is low, we have cold and rainy summers with a constant travel of low pressure from the North Atlantic, only some few warm days and sunshine, it is more like spring transmogrifying into a prolonged autumn followed by a long and cold winter culminating in very low temperatures some two or three weeks in the end of January, beginning of February.
The last sunspot cycle ended last year and now there has been virtually no real sunspot activity for the last few months as stated in the article linked to in the header of this blog.
The sunspot activity is fluctuating in cycles of 10 to 12 years with a mean value of 11 years. On top of this we have a "minimum of minimum" cycle of 21 - 22 years and we are now in the midst of such a superminimum.
I can still remember the summer of 1965 and winter of 1966 as the worst and coldest in my youth and the summer of 1986, the winter of 1987 and summer of 1987 as very cold here. The denominator of these events was a similar lack of sunspot activity the very same or preceeding year.
So I cannot be very wrong if I predict a winter colder than normal and a shitty summer to follow....
This summer might be remembered as warm and dry compared to what is ahead of us here up north...
I hope I'm wrong and I hope that the sun will wake up into the next sunspot cycle very soon now.
The photo of the sun is by courtesy of NASA
8 comments:
i hope you are wrong, but if you are not, at least we have loads of wood to keep us warm now ;)
yup!
Ooooh Hans, it sounds horribly likely, but given that I hate the cold, and live at a much higher latitude north than I used to live in the south (South Africa), I am now dreading the winter to come. This summer has already been quite 'shitty' enough as you so aptly put it, and if we have another next year, I will definitely be taking a holiday somewhere sunnier.
Still, a very interesting post indeed. And if you are looking for the KGB...well, I'll leave it to you to speculate on the current evidence ;-)
Hans,
we've already had the cold winter and shitty summer here in Canada. A lot of rain records were broken in eastern parts here. You are hopefully off by a year and need to tell us winter will be short and sweet. Pretty please?
xx
AM
Great writing, Hans, and from your first hand experience, which makes it even more compelling.
Here's a link to an article that supports your point.
Well, some really pessimistic guys are predicting a new "small ice-age" like the one that existed between 1550 to 1870 when there for some decades were no sunspots activity at all. Maybe Val and Koos can go ice-scating on the canals within some few years :)
I hope not...
I simply love this vast sea of knowledge and information that is out here in blogland!
So, that might mean the same for us here in Canada?
We are somewhat farther south than you, but we would still feel the effects of that sunspot activity last year. The sun never reaches its zenith over our valley and the days are becoming shorter by the hour...
Do you think it might mean a snowy winter? This questioned hopefully by an avid skier...
Aha, have you been splitting lots of firewood lately, Hans?
That reminds me we have a woodlot that is rather low on inventory!
Dale,
yes, it applies to you in Canada as well. Though you are a little south from here, the magnetic North-Pole is actually up north on Canadian territory at about 82 degrees north, which means that the so called "Aurora oval" penetrates Canada deeper south than here on the opposite side of the earth.
All this atmosphere stirring by charged particles from the sun is mainly taking place inside and around this "Aurora oval".
Sorry to tell you this but I don't expect much snow, on the opposite, maybe some less than usual. But a very cold January/February.
And yes, as you may have seen on Ingela's blog we have already split lots of wood. :)
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