The sun is dead!! Mini iceage???

this breaks 25 consecutive days of no sunspots.here is the spotless days to date this year and last year.

Out of 365 days in 2008, 266 were without sunspots. So far in 2009, January had 25 sunspot free days; February had 23 sun spot free days; and March had 28 sun spot free days. Solar Cycle 23 began in a May 1996 minimum, so by April 2009, it's been thirteen years between minimums and still no increasing sunspots. The last time a solar cycle has gone thirteen years between minimums was Solar Cycle 15 in 1902 to 1913.

Beautiful image where you can clearly see that newly formed sunspot.




Some scientists believe that an extreme cooling episode, potentially a mini-ice age, is imminent. Others think that it may already be under way.















We know that when UV rays combine with oxygen to produce ozone, heat is generated. Fewer UV rays means less ozone—and thus less heat—is produced.
When eruptive activity on the Sun decreases, solar winds weaken; fewer solar flares occur; and fewer geomagnetic storms reach Earth's atmosphere. A decrease in solar activity leads to an increase in cosmic rays reaching Earth's lower atmosphere.
Cosmic rays increase low cloudiness, which reflects solar radiation. Thus, an increase in cosmic rays leads to cooling. (Conversely, fewer cosmic rays result in fewer low clouds, more sunshine, and warmer temperatures.)




imagine this eh!!!

Here's some more info for those not fully understanding what we mean when we talk of the Maunder Minimum.




The Maunder minimum is the name given to a period of extreme solar inactivity that occurred between 1645 and 1710. Of particular interest is that this period of inactivity corresponds closely to one of the coldest periods of the so-called "Little Ice Age" in Europe, a time of long, cold winters that caused severe hardships in the pre-industrial revolution world. This has led scientists to extensively study the possible influences of solar activity on terrestrial climate, as well as examine other stars for evidence of activity cycle behavior similar to the Sun's.

Some of the first telescopic observations were made by Galileo in 1611, and he immediately noted the presence of dark blemishes on the Sun's surface; these were the now well-known sunspots. (Several of Galileo's contemporaries saw sunspots as well, but Galileo is the most famous and usually gets the credit for "discovering" sunspots.) Today we know that the number of sunspots rises and falls in a roughly 11-year cycle; this is one of the most obvious manifestations of the solar activity cycle.

Although sunspots were observed telescopically in 1611, it was not until 1843 that an amateur German astronomer, Heinrich Schwabe, noticed a periodic rise and fall in their numbers. That it took over 200 years for astronomers to notice something so seemingly obvious is some cause for wonder, but it may be partly explained by the nearly complete absence of sunspots for 70 of those years, between 1645 and 1715.

For reasons not yet understood, the solar cycle operated at a greatly reduced amplitude during that time. Evidence suggests it did not cease entirely, but the sunspot number—an index representing the total level of sunspot activity at a given time—during the late 1600s was reduced by a factor of 10-20 from its typical value during "normal" cycles. This perplexing aspect of the sunspot record was formally pointed out by the astronomers F. W. G. Sporer and E. H. Maunder in 1890, and it is now known as the Maunder minimum.

The existence of the Maunder minimum is interesting on purely astrophysical grounds, because it suggests that the regular rise and fall of sunspots observed from 1715 all the way through to the present day may not be a permanent, or even typical, aspect of solar behavior. It is possible to create a rough reconstruction of the sunspot record prior to the invention of the telescope, using indirect indicators of solar activity, and there is evidence for other Maunder minimum-like periods intermittently from about A.D. 1250 through 1715. The solar cycle as observed today, is therefore not the state in which the Sun spends all—or even most—of its time. Having only observed one Maunder minimum, we have no idea whether the Sun spends 10%, 50%, or 90% of its time in such a state.

Even the "normal" 11-year cycle seems to have longer-term behavior. Different cycles have different strengths, with some of them showing more sunspot activity than others. The strengths of the cycle peaks seem to follow a roughly 80-year period of very strong cycles, slightly weaker ones, then back to stronger ones, and so forth. With detailed sunspot records extending only a few hundred years, it is difficult to confirm or disprove this hypothesis. Combined with evidence for multiple periods of nearly complete inactivity, it becomes impossible to say whether the solar activity cycle, so extensively studied in the last 30 years, is normality or an aberration.

The seemingly erratic behavior of the solar cycle has led a number of astronomers to spend the better parts of their careers studying activity cycles on other stars, the idea being that if those stars show activity cycles or Maunder minimum-like characteristics, we might be better able to understand our own star. Most of this pioneering work has been carried out at the Mt. Wilson Observatory, near Los Angeles. Observations of solar-like stars have been underway at Mt. Wilson since 1963, and the program has accumulated a vast database of solar activity data. The result has been the discovery of a veritable zoo of activity cycles. Some stars have well-behaved cycles with periods comparable to our own Sun's 11-year cycle; these are of particular interest for comparison to the Sun. Other stars have highly variable cycles, while still others vary wildly but with no discernible, regular period. Finally, there are stars that show a complete absence of any activity cycle. Some of them appear to show no cyclic activity at all, while others exhibit tantalizing evidence of having "turned off" midway through the 30 years they have been observed from Earth. Whether or not these stars are truly in a Maunder minimum phase has not been answered, because it is very difficult to tell if they have low-amplitude cycles or no cycles at all, and it is even more difficult to study their finer characteristics in detail. However, there is no doubt that pronounced, fairly regular activity cycles like the Sun's are not universal either for the Sun or its stellar cousins.

Examinations of the solar activity cycle and the unusually cold weather of the Maunder minimum period have spurred significant controversy among astronomers, atmospheric scientists, and climatologists. The period from about 1300-1715 is known as the "Little Ice Age" in Europe, a period characterized by unusually long and cold winters. This period coincides closely with the time during which the Sun is known to have had time of inactivity, with some of the worst weather occurring squarely during the Maunder minimum.

In 1991, a pair of Danish meteorologists published a paper in which they pointed out a remarkably strong correlation between the length of the solar activity cycle and the global mean temperature in the northern hemisphere. Not all activity cycles are the same length, with longer cycles (12-14 years) seeming to indicate cooler global temperatures than the short (9-10 year) cycles. It is very difficult to assess the effect of even recent solar cycles on global climate, let alone those from the Maunder minimum period, because of the relatively short time span for which detailed observations exist, and because climate records become sparse to nonexistent as one looks back more than a century or so.
Despite the ongoing controversy, for which there is decidedly no definitive answer as of the year 2000, there is no doubt the Maunder minimum years were a time of significant misery in Europe, with the long, harsh winters leading to shortened growing seasons, failed crops, and widespread famine. Whether, or to what degree, the Sun is responsible for this, is an important question for atmospheric scientists and astronomers to tackle over the next few decades.

ah come on now confab,its the scientist way of discribing the sun going through its extended solar minimum cycle.should have picked up by now.thats why there's all this talk of previous historic events like the dalton and maunder minimum.

And now to really throw a spanner in the works,here's an article from the mail online,gas how it then concludes that its due but may not happen.im now hoping too that this quiet period we're experiencing isn't the calm before the storm.


Meltdown! A solar superstorm could send us back into the dark ages - and one is due in just THREE years


By Michael Hanlon
Last updated at 11:24 PM on 19th April 2009

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The catastrophe, when it comes, will be beautiful at first. It is a balmy evening in late September 2012. Ever since the sun set, the dimming skies over London have been alive with fire.

Pillars of incandescent green writhe like gigantic serpents across the skies.

Sheets of orange race across the horizon during the most spectacular display of the aurora borealis seen in southern England for 153 years.

Trouble ahead: How the sun storm might look in London

And then, 90 seconds later, the lights start to go out. Not the lights in the sky - they will dazzle until dawn - but the lights on the ground.

Within an hour, large parts of Britain are without power.

By midnight, every mobile network is down and the internet is dying. Television - terrestrial and satellite - blinks off the air.

Radio is reduced to a burst of static.

By noon the following day, it is clear something terrible has happened and the civilised world has plunged into chaos.

A year later, Britain, most of Europe plus North America is in the grip of the deepest economic catastrophe in history.

By the end of 2013, 100,000 Europeans have died of starvation.

The dead go unburied, the sick untreated.

It will take two decades or more for the first green shoots of recovery to appear - recovery from the first solar superstorm in modern history.

This catastrophe is not some academic one-in-a-million chance scenario.

It is a very real threat which, according to a report in the latest issue of New Scientist, remains one of the most potent, yet least recognised, threats to the future of human civilisation.

Solar activity: The sun, seen through a NASA telescope

Moreover, it is something that has happened before - not that long ago - and indeed has the potential to arrive every 11 years.

So what actually is it?

Solar storms do not normally cause much concern. Swarms of electrically charged subatomic particles from the Sun periodically buffet the Earth and its surroundings, causing health worries for astronauts and the owners of satellites, whose delicate electronics can be fried.

But down on the surface, cocooned under an ocean of air, we rarely notice more than the pretty lights in the sky, created as the electrically charged particles from the Sun sweep into the Earth's own magnetic field to generate the Northern and Southern Lights.

But every now and then, the Sun is convulsed by a gigantic tempest: 50,000-mile-wide eddies of boiling hydrogen plasma on its surface ejecting a billion-tonne, malevolent blob of crackling-charged gas into space at a million miles an hour.

And, very occasionally, one of these mighty coronal mass ejections, as they are called, smacks into the Earth head-on.

This last happened on the morning of September 1, 1859.

That day, one of Britain's top astronomers, Richard Carrington, was observing the Sun.

Using a filter, he was able to study the solar surface through his telescope, and he saw something unusual.

A bright flash of light erupted from the Sun's surface and detached itself from it.

Unbeknown to Carrington, that bright spot was a cloud of charged plasma on its way to Earth.

Just 48 hours later it struck, and the effects were extraordinary.

Brilliant aurorae lit the Earth's night skies right down to the Tropics - their light being so brilliant it was possible to read a newspaper at midnight.

In California, a group of gold miners were roused from their bed hours early, thinking the dawn and a new day's prospecting had come. It was 2am.

Telegraph operators received severe electric shocks as solar-induced currents surged through the networks. It was as though the Earth had been immersed in a bath of electricity.

Such damage as there was, was easy to repair. In 1859, the world ran mostly on steam and muscle.

Solar flare: Large-scale activity on the sun in 2003

Human civilisation did not depend on a gargantuan super-network of electric power and communications.

But it does now. Electric power is modern society's 'cornerstone technology', the technology on which virtually all other infrastructures and services depend.

Daniel Baker, a space weather expert at the University of Colorado, prepared a report for the U.S. National Academy of Sciences last month, and the conclusions make grim reading.

'Every year, our human technology becomes more vulnerable,' he says.

A repeat of the 1859 Carrington event today would have far graver consequences than the frying of some telegraph wires.

The problem comes with our dependence on electricity and the way this electricity is generated and transmitted.

A huge solar storm would cause massive power surges, amounting to billions of unwanted watts surging through the grids.

Most critically, the transformers which convert the multi-thousand-volt current carried by the pylons into 240v domestic current would melt - thousands of them, in every country.

This would bring the world to its knees. With no electricity, we would not just be in the dark.

We are dependent, to a degree few of us perhaps appreciate, on a functioning grid for our survival. All our water and sewage plants run on electricity.

A couple of days after a solar superstorm, the taps would run dry.

Within a week, we would lose all heat and light as reserves ran out, the supermarket shelves would run empty and the complex supply and distribution networks upon which our society depends would have started to break down.

No telephones, no medicines, no manufacturing, no farming - and no food.

Global communications and travel would also collapse - a solar superstorm would probably destroy the network of GPS satellites upon which every airline depends.

Of course, the power grid can be rebuilt, new transformers and cables made, new satellites launched - but organising this in a world teetering on the brink of collapse would not be easy.

Humanity would recover, but it would take decades. A seemingly innocuous event, one which apparently poses no direct threat to human health at all, would have an effect on our world comparable to that of a small nuclear war.
So could this really happen? And why is 2012 a year to worry about? Well, we know that solar superstorm did happen, back in 1859.

And we know that 20 years ago a much smaller storm knocked out the power grid across much of eastern Canada, leaving nine million people without electricity.

We also know that the Sun's activity waxes and wanes in 11-year cycles.

Currently, the Sun is very quiet. But a solar maximum - a peak of activity - is predicted for 2012, and this is when a superstorm could strike, probably around either the spring or autumn equinox, when the orientation of the Earth's magnetic field to the Sun makes us very vulnerable.

The main point is that every solar maximum puts us more in danger as our growing population becomes ever more dependent on electricity.

Ironically, the least-affected parts of the world would probably be the poorest areas.

Those Third World nations that usually suffer most from natural disasters, on account of their poor infrastructure, would adjust most quickly to life without electricity, while richer nations would be paralysed.

So can anything be done to prevent an epic disaster?

A more robust electricity grid would be a start. And we need new satellites to give warning of what is happening on the Sun.

Of course, it may not happen in 2012 - it may not happen in 2023, the year of the next solar maximum.

But sooner or later, a re-run of the Carrington event is inevitable.

Perhaps it would be wise to start stocking up on some candles

Posting this so people don't think the doomsday is coming after that mail online post.


First and foremost, the Sun has a natural cycle with a period of approximately 11 years. During the lifetime of each cycle, the magnetic field lines of the Sun are dragged around the solar body by differential rotation at the solar equator. This means that the equator is spinning faster than the magnetic poles. As this continues, solar plasma drags the magnetic field lines around the Sun, causing stress and a build up of energy (an illustration of this is pictured). As magnetic energy increases, kinks in the magnetic flux form, forcing them to the surface. These kinks are known as coronal loops which become more numerous during periods of high solar activity.

This is where the sunspots come in. As coronal loops continue to pop up over the surface, sunspots appear too, often located at the loop footpoints. Coronal loops have the effect of pushing the hotter surface layers of the Sun (the photosphere and chromosphere) aside, exposing the cooler convection zone (the reasons why the solar surface and atmosphere is hotter than the solar interior is down to the coronal heating phenomenon). As magnetic energy builds up, we can expect more and more magnetic flux to be forced together. This is when a phenomenon known as magnetic reconnection occurs.

Reconnection is the trigger for solar flares of various sizes. As previously reported, solar flares from “nanoflares” to “X-class flares” are very energetic events. Granted, the largest flares my generate enough energy for 100 billion atomic explosions, but don’t let this huge figure concern you. For a start, this flare occurs in the low corona, right near the solar surface. That’s nearly 100 million miles away (1AU). The Earth is nowhere close to the blast.

As the solar magnetic field lines release a huge amount of energy, solar plasma is accelerated and confined within the magnetic environment (solar plasma is superheated particles like protons, electrons and some light elements such as helium nuclei). As the plasma particles interact, X-rays may be generated if the conditions are right and bremsstrahlung is possible. (Bremsstrahlung occurs when charged particles interact, resulting in X-ray emission.) This may create an X-ray flare.

The Problem with X-ray Solar Flares


The biggest problem with an X-ray flare is that we get little warning when it is going to happen as X-rays travel at the speed of light (one of the record breaking 2003 solar flares is pictured.

X-rays from an X-class flare will reach the Earth in around eight minutes. As X-rays hit our atmosphere, they are absorbed in the outermost layer called the ionosphere. As you can guess from the name, this is a highly charged, reactive environment, full of ions (atomic nuclei, and free electrons).

During powerful solar events such as flares, rates of ionization between X-rays and atmospheric gases increase in the D and E region layers of the ionosphere. There is a sudden surge in electron production in these layers. These electrons can cause interference to the passage of radio waves through the atmosphere, absorbing short wave radio signals (in the high frequency range), possibly blocking global communications. These events are known as “Sudden Ionospheric Disturbances” (or SIDs) and they become commonplace during periods of high solar activity. Interestingly, the increase in electron density during a SID boosts the propagation of Very Low Frequency (VLF) radio, a phenomenon scientists use to measure the intensity of X-rays coming from the Sun.

Coronal Mass Ejections?


X-ray solar flare emissions are only part of the story. If the conditions are right, a coronal mass ejection (CME) might be produced at the site of the flare (although either phenomenon can occur independently). CMEs are slower than the propagation of X-rays, but their global effects here on Earth can be more problematic. They may not travel at the speed of light, but they still travel fast; they can travel at a rate of 2 million miles per hour (3.2 million km/hr), meaning they may reach us in a matter of hours.

This is where much effort is being put into space weather prediction. We have a handful of spacecraft sitting between the Earth and the Sun at the Earth-Sun Lagrangian (L1) point with sensors on board to measure the energy and intensity of the solar wind. Should a CME pass through their location, energetic particles and the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) can be measured directly. One mission called the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) sits in the L1 point and provides scientists with up to an hour notice on the approach of a CME. ACE teams up with the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and the Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO), so CMEs can be tracked from the lower corona into interplanetary space, through the L1 point toward Earth.

These solar missions are actively working together to provide space agencies with advanced notice of an Earth-directed CME.
So what if a CME reaches Earth? For a start, much depends on the magnetic configuration of the IMF (from the Sun) and the geomagnetic field of the Earth (the magnetosphere). Generally speaking, if both magnetic fields are aligned with polarities pointing in the same direction, it is highly probable that the CME will be repelled by the magnetosphere.

In this case, the CME will slide past the Earth, causing some pressure and distortion on the magnetosphere, but otherwise passing without a problem. However, if the magnetic field lines are in an anti-parallel configuration (i.e. magnetic polarities in opposite directions), magnetic reconnection may occur at the leading edge of the magnetosphere.
In this event, the IMF and magnetosphere will merge, connecting the Earth’s magnetic field with the Sun’s. This sets the scene for one of the most awe inspiring events in nature: the aurora.

Satellites in Peril
As the CME magnetic field connects with the Earth’s, high energy particles are injected into the magnetosphere. Due to solar wind pressure, the Sun’s magnetic field lines will fold around the Earth, sweeping behind our planet. The particles injected in the “dayside” will be funnelled into the polar regions of the Earth where they interact with our atmosphere, generating light as aurorae.

During this time, the Van Allen belt will also become “super-charged”, creating a region around the Earth that could cause problems to unprotected astronauts and any unshielded satellites. For more on the damage that can be caused to astronauts and spacecraft, check out “Radiation Sickness, Cellular Damage and Increased Cancer Risk for Long-term Missions to Mars” and “New Transistor Could Side-Step Space Radiation Problem.”

As if the radiation from the Van Allen belt wasn’t enough, satellites could succumb to the threat of an expanding atmosphere. As you’d expect, as if the Sun hits the Earth with X-rays and CMEs, there will be inevitable heating and global expansion of the atmosphere, possibly encroaching into satellite orbital altitudes.

If left unchecked, an aerobraking effect on satellites could cause them to slow and drop in altitude. Aerobraking has been used extensively as a space flight tool to slow spacecraft down when being inserted into orbit around another planet, but this will have an adverse effect on satellites orbiting Earth as any slowing of velocity could cause it to re-enter the atmosphere.

We Feel the Effects on the Ground Too


Although satellites are on the front line, if there is a powerful surge in energetic particles entering the atmosphere, we may feel the adverse effects down here on Earth too. Due to the X-ray generation of electrons in the ionosphere, some forms of communication may become patchy (or be removed all together), but this isn’t all that can happen.

Particularly in high-latitude regions, a vast electric current, known as an “electrojet”, may form through the ionosphere by these incoming particles. With an electric current comes a magnetic field. Depending on the intensity of the solar storm, currents may be induced down here on the ground, possibly overloading national power grids. On March 13th 1989, six million people lost power in the Quebec region of Canada after a huge increase in solar activity caused a surge from ground-induced currents. Quebec was paralysed for nine hours whilst engineers worked on a solution to the problem.

Can Our Sun Produce a Killer Flare?


The short answer to this is “no”.
The longer answer is a little more involved. Whilst a solar flare from out Sun, aimed directly at us, could cause secondary problems such as satellite damage and injury to unprotected astronauts and blackouts, the flare itself is not powerful enough to destroy Earth, certainly not in 2012.

I dare say, in the far future when the Sun begins to run out of fuel and swell into a red giant, it might be a bad era for life on Earth, but we have a few billion years to wait for that to happen. There could even be the possibility of several X-class flares being launched and by pure bad luck we may get hit by a series of CMEs and X-ray bursts, but none will be powerful to overcome our magnetosphere, ionosphere and thick atmosphere below.

“Killer” solar flares have been observed on other stars. In 2006, NASA’s Swift observatory saw the largest stellar flare ever observed 135 light-years away. Estimated to have unleashed an energy of 50 million trillion atomic bombs, the II Pegasi flare will have wiped out most life on Earth if our Sun fired X-rays from a flare of that energy at us. However, our Sun is not II Pegasi. II Pegasi is a violent red giant star with a binary partner in a very close orbit. It is believed the gravitational interaction with its binary partner and the fact II Pegasi is a red giant is the root cause behind this energetic flare event.

Doomsayers point to the Sun as a possible Earth-killer source, but the fact remains that our Sun is a very stable star. It does not have a binary partner (like II Pegasi), it has a predictable cycle (of approximately 11 years) and there is no evidence that our Sun contributed to any mass extinction event in the past via a huge Earth-directed flare. Very large solar flares have been observed (such as the 1859 Carrington white light flare)… but we are still here.

In an added twist, solar physicists are surprised by the lack of solar activity at the start of this 24th solar cycle, leading to some scientists to speculate we might be on the verge of another Maunder minimum and “Little Ice Age”. This is in stark contrast to NASA solar physicist’s 2006 prediction that this cycle will be a “doozy”.

This leads me to conclude that we still have a long way to go when predicting solar flare events. Although space weather prediction is improving, it will be a few years yet until we can read the Sun accurately enough to say with any certainty just how active a solar cycle is going to be. So, regardless of prophecy, prediction or myth, there is no physical way to say that the Earth will be hit by any flare, let alone a big one in 2012. Even if a big flare did hit us, it will not be an extinction event. Yes, satellites may be damaged, causing secondary problems such as a GPS loss (which might disrupt air traffic control for example) or national power grids may be overwhelmed by auroral electrojets, but nothing more extreme than that.

The Little Ice Age, Ca. 1300 - 1870



The Little Ice Age is a period between about 1300 and 1870 during which Europe and North America were subjected to much colder winters than during the 20th century. The period and can be divided in two phases, the first beginning around 1300 and continuing until the late 1400s.

There was a slightly warmer period in the 1500s, after which the climate deteriorated substantially. The period between 1600 and 1800 marks the height of the Little Ice Age. The period was characterized by the expansion of European trade and the formation of European sea born Empires.

This was directly linked to advances in technology harnessing more of nature's power and towards the end of the period fossil-fuelled power. These two hundred years also saw the specialization of agricultural regions, which produced specific products for local and international markets.

What caused the Little Ice Age?

Maunder minimum
The cause of the Little Ice Age is unknown, but many people have pointed at the coincidence in low sunspot activity and the timing of the Little Ice. This so called Maunder Minimum1 coincided with the coldest part of the Little Ice Age, in particular during the period roughly from 1645 to 1715, when sunspots were a rare occurrence, as noted by solar observers such as Galileo. A minimum in sunspots, indicates an inactive and possibly colder sun and qonsequently less energy output to warm the earth.



North Atlantic Oscillation
The north Atlantic is one of the most climatically unstable regions in the world. This is caused by a complex interaction between the atmosphere and the ocean. The main feature of this is the North Atlantic Oscillation (NOA), a seesaw of atmospheric pressure between a persistent high over the Azores and an equally persistent low over Iceland. This is the "normal" pattern, but sometimes the pressure cells are trading places and that has severe consequences for the weather in Europe.

When the situation reverses, called a Negative NOA (high over Iceland and Low over Azores) the westerlies weaken or even reverse and cold air is streaming over Europe, causing a cold winter here. In negative NAO winters, it is much less stormy over the North Atlantic.

Any storms, which do occur, bring warm wet air from the ocean into the Mediterranean region. The small pressure difference allows northerly air to blow into Northern Europe making the winters dry and sunny but very cold here. There are strong indications that during the Little Ice Age the NOA was more often in a negative mode.

Volcanism
Volcanic eruptions are another possible cause - for example, the year after the Tambora eruption (1815) was known as the "year without a summer." But, the effect of such eruptions might be limited to only a few years so this can not have been the cause for the prolonged climatic variations associated with the Little Ice Age.
After 1870 the Little Ice Age made place for the slightly milder conditions of the 20th century.

Marginal regions
During the height of the Little Ice Age general, it was about 1 degree Celsius colder than at present. The Baltic Sea froze over, as did most of the rivers in Europe. Winters were bitterly cold and prolonged, reducing the growing season with several weeks. These conditions led to widespread crop failure, famine, and in some regions population decline.

The prices of grain increased and wine became difficult to produce in many areas and commercial vineyards vanished in England. Fishing also was bad as the cod migrated south to find warmer water. Storminess and flooding increased. In mountainous regions the tree line and snowline dropped. In addition glaciers advanced in the Alps and Northern Europe, overrunning towns and farms in the process.

Iceland was one of the hardest hit areas. Sea ice, which today is far to the north, came down around Iceland. In some years, it was difficult to bring a ship ashore anywhere along the coast. Grain became impossible to grow and even hay crops failed. Volcanic eruptions made life even harder. Iceland lost half of its population during the Little Ice Age.

Scandinavia was also hard hit by the colder conditions of the Little Ice Age. Tax records show many farms were destroyed by advancing ice and by melt water streams. Travellers in Scotland reported permanent snow cover over the Cairgorms in Scotland at an altitude of about 1200 metres. In the Alps, the glaciers advanced and bulldozed over towns.

Ice-dammed lakes burst periodically, destroying hundreds of buildings and killing many people. As late as 1930 the French Government commissioned a report to investigate the threat of the glaciers. They could not have foreseen that human induced global warming was to deal more effective with this problem than any committee ever could.


Flourishing of European culture
Despite the difficulties in marginal regions, culture and economy were flowering in Europe. This is most visible in the way that people transformed their environment during the 17th and 18th centuries.

The Little Ice Age coincided with the maritime expansion of Europe and the creation of seaborne trading and later colonial empires. First came the Spanish and Portuguese, followed by the Dutch, English and other European nations. Key to this success was the development of shipbuilding technology which was a response to both trading, strategic but also climatic pressures.

Art and architecture also flourished, which is probably best embodied in the wonderful winter landscape paintings which can be considered a direct result of the Little Ice Age. These paintings show us skating people enjoying themselves, a sign that they were more than capable to withstand the hasher winter conditions and that they had also enough food. The latter is a key element in the success of European culture at that time.

Agricultural revolution
During the later Middle Ages., slowly but steadily farmers started to experiment with new agricultural methods, in order to adapt to increasingly unpredictable climates and also stimulated by the growth of profitable markets in growing cities and long distance trade.

This initially low technology agricultural revolution started in Flanders and the Netherlands in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Dutch farmers experimented with lay farming, the deliberate growing of animal fodder and cultivating grasslands for cattle. In addition they started systematic breeding of cows and the Frisian milk cow is probably the most famous example of this.

Another innovation was the continuous growing of specialized crops. Instead of letting valuable ground lay fallow, they planted peas, beans and especially nitrogen-rich clover, all of which provided food for humans and animals alike. The vegetables were rotated with grain, turnips and later potato for export but also for feeding dairy cattle. As a result of this system the amount of fallow land contracted rapidly until non was existent. Agriculture became an intensive activity.

The new intensive agriculture produced such a high surplus that Flanders and later the Netherlands could specialize and diversify their agricultural activity. With abundance of fodder, animal and dairy farming (think of Dutch cheese) became increasingly important. More meat, wool, and leather as well cheese cam on the market as the new agriculture broke the dependence on grain. At the same time farmers diversified into industrial crops such as flax, mustard and hops for brewing beer.

This agricultural revolution could not have succeeded when new ships to withstand the harsher climatic conditions imported large amounts of grain form the Baltic, undermining local grain production. These grain imports made the Flemish and Dutch economy independent from climatic fluctuations causing famine.

Land reclamation

Between 1600 and 1800, large areas of the Netherlands, England and some other countries around the North Sea were reclaimed. Notable examples are the draining of lakes in Holland and the reclamations in East Anglia.

The Dutch possessed sufficient technological expertise and a sufficient degree of organization to diffuse the worst effects of short term climatic variations. The Little Ice Age might have imposed more benefits than costs on Dutch society.

Extensive land reclamation and the use of new mechanical technology, as well as the intensive exploitation of natural resources (peat) turned liabilities into assets so powerful that they helped to forge the first modern economy in Europe.

Soon the new agriculture and reclamation technologies as well as other mechanical techniques were introduced in Britain where it was all taken a step further in terms of scale and later the improvement movement would make agriculture more scientific. In addition the mechanical technology would be used to develop mechanical machines driven by steam and a new fuel: coal.

It was the start of the Industrial Revolution and the transition from natural power, mainly derived from wind and water, to fossil fuel based industries. Unlocking the power of fossil fuel would transform the relationship between human culture and the natural environment in ways the world had never seen before.

1. The Maunder Minimum is named after astronomer E.W. Maunder who discovered the absence of sunspots during that period. Recently published data suggests that the Sun expanded during the Maunder Minimum and its rotation slowed. A larger and slower Sun, it is speculated, might also mean a cooler Sun that provides less heat to Earth. (Just why the Sun expands and contracts is not entirely understood.

Daily Sun: 27 Apr 09



The sun is blank--no sunspots. Credit: SOHO/MDI




Sunspot number: 0
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 27 Apr 2009

NEW: Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 6 days
2009 total: 103 days (88%)
Since 2004: 614 days
Typical Solar Min: 485 days



Coronal Holes:



A solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole will probably miss Earth, sailing high above our planet's north pole

more interesting stuff on the sun

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdLaPhNBOcU


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihVaL-FHUyk





and in this one Scientist David Archibald explains in detail the phenomonen that sunspots have more to do with the earths climate than other factors

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbAe_g41Zl4

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ahoPGzL50Q









Today's image is a magnetic map of the sun. Two active regions are circled. Their polarity identifies them as members of new Solar Cycle 24, but they lack the dark cores required of true sunspots. So, in spite of these lively magnetic imprints, we must still say "the sun is blank--no sunspots." Credit: SOHO/MDI




Sunspot number: 0
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 10 May 2009

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 10 days
2009 total: 112 days (86%)
Since 2004: 623 days
Typical Solar Min: 485 days











NOT A SUNSPOT: Solar activity comes in many forms. Today, astronomers are monitoring an enormous patch of seething magnetism churning through the sun's surface in a splash of bright, white froth. It is not a sunspot, but it is worth a look: Sylvain Weiller took the picture this morning from his backyard observatory in Saint Rémy lès Chevreuse, France. "I used a Colorado SolarMax90," he says. That is an "H-alpha" telescope tuned to the red glow of solar hydrogen.
The active region could be a "proto-sunspot"--a sunspot struggling to form, but not quite able to organize its own magnetic fields into a coherent, dark core. Or it could be a "sunspot corpse"--the decaying remains of a farside sunspot turning toward Earth at the end of its short life. Whatever it is, its magnetic polarity identifies it as a member of new Solar Cycle 24--and that makes it a sign of things to come.