{"id":319,"date":"2009-09-20T03:23:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-20T03:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/2009\/09\/farewell-sunspots.html"},"modified":"2011-08-30T22:00:23","modified_gmt":"2011-08-30T12:00:23","slug":"farewell-sunspots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/2009\/09\/farewell-sunspots-319.html","title":{"rendered":"Farewell Sunspots?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/media\/medialibrary\/2009\/09\/03\/03sep_sunspots_resources\/trend3_strip.jpg\" onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"cursor: pointer; width: 242px; height: 252px; border: 0px initial initial;\" src=\"http:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/headlines\/y2009\/images\/sunspots\/trend3_strip.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/headlines\/y2009\/03sep_sunspots.htm?list1302321\">http:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/headlines\/y2009\/03sep_sunspots.htm?list1302321<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Because I know that is has happened before &#8211; the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Maunder_Minimum\">Maunder Minimum<\/a> was a period between 1645 to 1715 where sunspots were very rare compared to today &#8211; I am quite concerned that the decline in the magnetic field strength of sunspots will continue.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;According to our measurements, sunspots seem to form only if the magnetic field is stronger than about 1500 gauss,&#8221; says Livingston. &#8220;If the current trend continues, we&#8217;ll hit that threshold in the near future, and solar  magnetic fields would become too weak to form sunspots.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What could it mean for us? We could be entering a phase of <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">global cooling<\/span>. According to Wikipedia:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Maunder Minimum coincided with the middle \u2014 and coldest part \u2014 of the Little Ice Age, during which Europe and North America, and perhaps much of the rest of the world, were subjected to bitterly cold winters. Whether there is a causal connection between low sunspot activity and cold winters is the subject of ongoing debate&#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>http:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/headlines\/y2009\/03sep_sunspots.htm?list1302321<br \/>\nBecause I know that is has happened before &#8211; the Maunder Minimum was a period between 1645 to 1715 where sunspots were very rare compared to today &#8211; I am quite concerned that the decline in the magnetic field strength of sunspots will continue.<br \/>\n&#8220;According to our measurements, sunspots seem to form only if the magnetic field is stronger than about 1500 gauss,&#8221; says Livingston. &#8220;If the current trend continues, we&#8217;ll hit that threshold in the near future, and solar  magnetic fields would become too weak to form sunspots.&#8221;<br \/>\nWhat could it mean for us? We could be entering a phase of global cooling. According to Wikipedia:<br \/>\nThe Maunder Minimum coincided with the middle \u2014 and coldest part \u2014 of the Little Ice Age, during which Europe and North America, and perhaps much of the rest of the world, were subjected to bitterly cold winters. Whether there is a causal connection between &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-global-warming","category-sunspots"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1993,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions\/1993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. The path to wp-cache-phase1.php in wp-content/advanced-cache.php must be fixed! -->