Three different teams of scientist studying the sun have concluded that the sun is entering a quiet period that may replicate a Dalton Minimum, or even a Maunder Minimum. Details here.
These Grand Minimums resulted in cooler temperature on the earth. Each of these cool periods had social and economic impacts, shared by millions across the globe. We can learn from these past events. It was Sir William Herschel who noted the relationship between the sun and the weather when he discovered a correlation between sunspots and wheat prices in the early 1800s. When the sun was quiet, the price of wheat went up, when the sun was active the price of wheat went down.
We are on the cusp of another Grand Minimum and I think it is important that we look at the potential social and economic on 21st Century society by reviewing the past. This blog will be dedicated to that effort in the coming months, tracking the indicators of global cooling, the economic impacts created by that cooling and the potential impact on our social and political infrastructure. Past solar minimums have resulted in political, social and economic misery, when millions starved and nations went to war.
The Maunder Minimum was named in honor of Edward W. Maunder, an earlier astronomer who had examined the period between 1645-1715 when sunspots became extremely rare. It was also a period when the world experienced successive crop failures.
During one 30-year period within the Maunder Minimum astronomers observed only about 50 sunspots, as opposed to the thousands in modern times. The science is robust, and based on a systematic program of observations conducted by the Observatoire de Paris. The Maunder coincided with the coldest part of the so-called Little Ice Age, during which Europe and North America experienced bitterly cold winters.
One of the main impacts of the Little Ice Age was on agriculture, even though the northern hemisphere cooling was only modest, only a degree or two centigrade. Successive harvest failures in France in the late 18th century were commonplace, and the resulting famines helped spark the French Revolution. North European males lost on average 2.5 inches in height by the early 1700s, the result of inadequate diets and associated diseases.
The Baltic Sea regularly froze in winters, such that people took sledge rides between Poland and Sweden, with seasonal inns established en route. In the winter of 1780, New York harbor froze, allowing people to walk from Manhattan to Staten Island.
One method for the tracking the impacts of the next grand minimum will be to observe the changes in agricultural prices over the next decade. I will post the monthly changes in the price of hard red winter wheat, which is the main grain use in bread and pasta. I will be tracking changes in fuel prices, as fuel is use in both heating and transportation. I will be tracking the price of energy, as citizens struggle to heat their homes and business.
I will also be revisiting the history of the Maunder and Dalton Minimums, to bring readers up to date on the social and economic impacts of past minimums. We can learn lessons from these past cooling events and prepare for a cooler world.
This blog will examine issues which I believe are related to preparing for and surviving the next Grand Minimum:
- Solar activity and its influence on climate change. (Solar)
- Weather and ocean dynamics and their impact on agriculture (Weather)
- Volcanisms and its connection to climate change. (Volcanism)
- Cosmic rays and climate impact. (Cosmic Rays)
- Legislation and that can inhibit survival preparation. (Politics)
- Surviving social unrest created by climate change. (Survival)
- Actions needed to enhance survival on a cooling planet. (Political Action)
- Economic indicators, including energy and grain prices. (Economics)
- Harbingers of a cooling world (Analysis)