Are We Entering the Next Grand Solar Minimum – New scientific study finds we could be — Science & Technology — Sott.net

08/22/20

“Excellent article on a new scientific study stating the next solar cycle 25 will be weak and could usher us into a climate period like that during the Dalton minimum of 1790 to 1830 which is talked about in the article. Something else to keep an eye on.” Admin

The paper’s abstract opens with: “Recent solar conditions indicate a persistent decline in solar activity???possibly similar to the past solar grand minima. During such periods of low solar activity, the fluxes of galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) increase remarkably…” From here, the researchers’ primary focus is on the impact low solar activity and increasing GCRs have on interplanetary space missions (well how else would it have gotten published), however, they do leave a number of GSM truth-bombs along the way, and their conclusion is an admissible one: “GCRs are bad-and they’re only going to get worse”.

“During the next solar cycle, we could see cosmic ray dose rates increase by as much as 75%,” says lead author Fatemeh Rahmanifard of the University of New Hampshire’s Space Science Center. This spells bad news for astronauts, limiting the time they can work safely in interplanetary space (from 1000 days back in the 1990s to just 290 days for men and 204 days for women).

Why are cosmic rays growing stronger? “Blame the sun,” writes Dr Tony Phillips in his excellent article over at the always excellent spaceweather.com.

The sun’s magnetic field wraps the entire solar system in a protective bubble, normally shielding us from cosmic rays. In recent decades, however, that shield has been growing weaker-a result of the sputtering solar cycle.

Solar activity isn’t what it used to be, continues Dr Phillips. In the 1950s through 1990s, the sun routinely produced intense Solar Maxima with lots of sunspots and strong solar magnetic fields. Now look at the plot (below). Since the heyday of the late 20th century, the 11-year solar cycle has weakened, and the sun’s magnetic field has weakened with it: