Valentina Zharkova's article confirming the next Grand Solar Minimum titled, 'Oscillations of the baseline of solar magnetic field and solar irradiance on a millennial timescale' has been accepted for publishing in Nature. Her team predicts the upcoming Grand Solar Minimum, similar to Maunder Minimum, which starts in 2020 and will last until 2055. The GSM cycle will again arrive in 2370 – 2415.
With the release of this paper, she clarifies her new findings on the Super Grand Minimum Cycle.
When GWPF released her presentation there was quite a bit of speculation in regards to the "blurred out slides" referencing the Super Grand Minimum cycle. The slides were blurred due to a peer review process and data was under embargo. We now understand the last minimum of a super-grand cycle occurred at the beginning of Maunder minimum.
Her team's calculations match up with the timelines of the Maunder Minimum (1645–1715), Wolf minimum (1300–1350), Oort minimum (1000–1050), Homer minimum (800–900 BC); also the Medieval Warm Period (900–1200), the Roman Warm Period (400–150 BC) and so on with great accuracy.
Currently, in the cycle of Super Grand Minimum cycles, the baseline magnetic field and solar irradiance are increasing to reach its maximum at 2600, after which the baseline magnetic field will be decreasing for another 1000 years. Why is this significant? It clearly shows we warm and cool as a part of these complex natural cycles. Our planet and Sun move in a complex orbital pattern which in turn affects our climate.
The IPCC reported that 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) could be reached in as little as 11 years and Valentina's model using SIM (Solar Inertial Motion) predicts a warming trend indeed. However, her team predicts an increase of terrestrial temperature by about 0.5 °C (0.9 °F) per 100 years.
The upcoming grand solar minimum predicted, similar to Maunder Minimum, which starts in 2020 and will last until 2055 is a huge cause for concern. We are already witnessing increased unstable weather patterns, prolonged major floods, massive crop failures and wild swings in temperature (both up and down) among other extreme events, including high-level volcanic eruptions, suggesting NOW is the time to adapt.
The Maunder Minimum, also known as the "prolonged sunspot minimum," is the name used for the period around 1645 to 1715 during which sunspots became exceedingly rare. It roughly coincided with the middle part of the Little Ice Age, during which Europe and North America experienced colder than average temperatures.
Both NASA and NOAA are forecasting very low solar activity during the next solar cycle (Solar Cycle 25), in fact, the lowest in 200 years.
NOAA released a more modest preliminary forecast on April 5, 2019, similar to NASA's Kitiashvili’s predictions they state Cycle 25 will be similar in size to Cycle 24 or lower.
NOAA expects that sunspot maximum will occur no earlier than the year 2023 and no later than 2026 (Kitiashvili’s Prediction 2024 - 2025), with a minimum peak sunspot number of 95 and a maximum of 130 (Kitiashvili’s Prediction a very LOW 50).
In addition, NOAA expects the end of Cycle 24 and start of Cycle 25 to occur no earlier than July 2019, and no later than September 2020. The panel hopes to release a final, detailed forecast for Cycle 25 by the end of 2019.
Looking at independent solar researcher David Birch's chart, it's clear to see we are already near Dalton Minimum levels.
Image credit: David Birch
Valentina's new paper:
- "Oscillations of the baseline of solar magnetic field and solar irradiance on a millennial timescale" - V. V. Zharkova, S. J. Shepherd, S. I. Zharkov & E. Popova - Nature Scientific Reports - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-45584-3
Recently discovered long-term oscillations of the solar background magnetic field associated with double dynamo waves generated in inner and outer layers of the Sun indicate that the solar activity is heading in the next three decades (2019–2055) to a Modern grand minimum similar to Maunder one. On the other hand, a reconstruction of solar total irradiance suggests that since the Maunder minimum there is an increase in the cycle-averaged total solar irradiance (TSI) by a value of about 1–1.5 Wm−2 closely correlated with an increase of the baseline (average) terrestrial temperature. In order to understand these two opposite trends, we calculated the double dynamo summary curve of magnetic field variations backward one hundred thousand years allowing us to confirm strong oscillations of solar activity in regular (11 year) and recently reported grand (350–400 year) solar cycles caused by actions of the double solar dynamo. In addition, oscillations of the baseline (zero-line) of magnetic field with a period of 1950 ± 95 years (a super-grand cycle) are discovered by applying a running averaging filter to suppress large-scale oscillations of 11 year cycles. Latest minimum of the baseline oscillations is found to coincide with the grand solar minimum (the Maunder minimum) occurred before the current super-grand cycle start. Since then the baseline magnitude became slowly increasing towards its maximum at 2600 to be followed by its decrease and minimum at ~3700. These oscillations of the baseline solar magnetic field are found associated with a long-term solar inertial motion about the barycenter of the solar system and closely linked to an increase of solar irradiance and terrestrial temperature in the past two centuries. This trend is anticipated to continue in the next six centuries that can lead to a further natural increase of the terrestrial temperature by more than 2.5 °C by 2600.
Please take time to watch this easy to decipher discussion with Valentina Zharkova on the Grand Solar Minimum Channel on Youtube:
Make sure you also check out David DuByne, Bill & Richard Porter's New Book - Climate Revolution. This book has over 200 pages that cover the topic of The Grand Solar Minimum in depth.
Written by Jake and Mari
Featured image credit: GSM