Title: Are We to be Victims of Another Maunder Minimum?

Course Name: English-II

Course Code: 112

Lecturer: Sir Arshad Ali Khan

Assignment Number: 3

Due Date: 21st May, 2020

Student Name: Maham Shahzad Student ID: F2019101023

Student Name: Kashf Ashfaq Student ID: F2019101051

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Maham Shahzad

Student, Department of Architecture

University Of Management and Technology

101 Raza Block, Allama Iqbal Town,

Lahore, Punjab 54570

13th May, 2020

Arshad Ali Khan

Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics and Communication

University Of Management and Technology

C-II Block C 2 Phase 1 Johar Town,

Lahore, Punjab 54770

Dear Sir Arshad,

As requested we have prepared a report studying the effects of sunspot activity and the
current disruption on the sun’s 11 year cycle. The purpose of this report is to increase
awareness of the findings from the research and what it could mean for the years to come.

The conclusions drawn from this report suggest that the average temperature of earth may
drop in the coming years leading to a periodic solar event called a “grand minimum”.

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Yours Sincerely

Maham Shahzad

Student, Department of Architecture

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 Executive Summary

This report aims to study the effect of sunspot activity on earth and the current disruption
in the sun’s 11 year cycle. It will discuss the possibilities of the occurrence of another
Maunder Minimum or perhaps a ‘grand minimum’ resulting in relatively cooler period of
time than seen in decades.

In the findings it has been observed that the sunspot activity was high in 2014 and has been
dipping ever since, as the sun moves toward the low end of its 11-year cycle, known as the
solar minimum, NASA reported in June 2017. But a pattern of ever-decreasing sunspots
over recent solar cycles resembles patterns from the past that preceded grand-minimum
events. This similarity hints that another such event may be fast approaching, the
researchers reported in the study.

But it's unlikely that we'll see a return to the extreme cold from centuries ago. Since the
Maunder Minimum, global average temperatures have been on the rise, driven by climate
change. Though a new decades-long dip in solar radiation could slow global warming
somewhat, it wouldn't be by much, the researchers' simulations demonstrated. And by the
end of the incoming cooling period, temperatures would have bounced back from the
temporary cooldown.

The current sun cycle is Cycle 25 and scientists have made several predictions on how it
will unfold
 Solar Cycle 25 is expected to be very similar to Cycle 24: another fairly weak
cycle, preceded by a long, deep minimum.
 Though a particularly active Solar Cycle 25 is not likely, violent eruptions from the
sun can occur at any time.

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 Table of Contents

Title Page i
Letter of Transmittal ii
Executive Summary iv
Table of Contents v
List of Tables and Figures vi

1.0 Introduction 1
1.1 Background 1
1.2 Solar Cycle 1
1.3 Influence on Earth 2
2.0 Historical Background 2
2.1 Observations across time 2
2.2 Discovery 3
3.0 Methodology 4
4.0 Effect on Earth 5
4.1 Maunder Minimum 5
4.2 Solar Activity 7
4.2.1 Solar Cycle 24 7
4.2.2 Current Solar Cycle 9
4.3 Effect on Climate 9
5.0 Conclusion 10
6.0 Predictions 11

Reference List 12
Appendices
Appendix A - Questionnaire 13

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 Tables

Table 1: Sample of Sunspot Number Data 5

Figures

Figure 1: Impact of Solar Minimum 6

Figure 2: CET during the Maunder Minimum 7

Figure 3: ISES Solar Cycle Sunspot Number Progression 8

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1.0 Introduction

1.1 Background

Knowledge of solar activity during past centuries is of great interest for many
purposes. Long series of solar variability would be interesting for geophysicists and
climatologists because of the influence the Sun has on our planet and for solar
physicists because they would provide a better understanding of the Sun itself.

Sunspots are darker, cooler areas on the surface of the sun in a region called the
photosphere. The photosphere has a temperature of 5,800 degrees Kelvin. Sunspots
have temperatures of about 3,800 degrees K. They look dark only in comparison
with the brighter and hotter regions of the photosphere around them. Sunspots can
be very large, up to 50,000 kilometers in diameter. They are caused by interactions
with the Sun's magnetic field which are not fully understood. But a sunspot is
somewhat like the cap on a soda bottle: shake it up, and you can generate a big
eruption. Sunspots occur over regions of intense magnetic activity, and when that
energy is released, solar flares and big storms called coronal mass ejections erupt
from sunspots.

1.2 Solar Cycle

According to NASA, it takes approximately 11 years for the sun to move through
the solar cycle that is defined by an increasing and then decreasing number of
sunspots. Sunspots do not appear in random locations. They tend to be concentrated
in two mid-latitude bands on either side of the equator. They begin appearing
around 25 to 30 degrees north and south of the center. As the solar cycle
progresses, new sunspots appear closer to the equator, with the last of them
appearing at average latitude of 5 to 10 degrees. Sunspots are almost never found at
latitudes greater than 70 degrees. As it reaches the close of a cycle, new sunspots
appear near the equator, while a new cycle produces sunspots in higher latitudes.
The cycles overlap; sunspots from the previous cycle can still develop even after

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 sunspots from the new cycle appear. So solar scientists have a very difficult time
saying exactly when one cycle ends and the next begins.

1.3 Influences on Earth

Coronal Mass Ejections and solar flares are extremely large explosions on the
photosphere. In just a few minutes, the flares heat to several million degrees F. and
release as much energy as a billion megatons of TNT. They occur near sunspots,
usually at the dividing line between areas of oppositely directed magnetic
fields. Hot matter called plasma interacts with the magnetic field sending a burst of
plasma up and away from the Sun in the form of a flare. Solar flares emit x-rays
and magnetic fields which bombard the Earth as geomagnetic storms. If sunspots
are active, more solar flares will result creating an increase in geomagnetic storm
activity for Earth. Therefore during sunspot maximums, the Earth will see an
increase in the Northern and Southern Lights and a possible disruption in radio
transmissions and power grids. The storms can even change polarity in satellites
which can damage sophisticated electronics. Therefore scientists will often at times
preposition satellites to a different orientation to protect them from increased solar
radiation when a strong solar flare or coronal mass ejection has occurred.

2.0 Historical Background

2.1 Observations across time

Astronomers in ancient China noticed sunspots several thousand years ago.

The I-Ching or "Book of Changes," which dates back to the 12th century B.C.,
mentions a "Ri Zhong Jian Mei," which means "a star was seen within the sun" in
English. The first written record of a sunspot sighting dates to 28 B.C., when it was
noted that "the sun was yellow at its rising and a black vapor as large as a coin was
observed at its center." An English monk named John of Worcester made the first
drawing of sunspots in December 1128. On the other side of the world, the Aztecs,
who ruled Mexico before the Spanish arrived in the 1500s, also paid a lot of

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attention to the sun. As we discussed, their creation myth featured a sun god with a
pockmarked face.

2.2 Discovery

The true nature of sunspots only became clear with the advent of modern
astronomy in the early 17th Century. Belief in the Ancient Greek model of a perfect
Universe was still widespread, making the very existence of ‘blemishes’ on the Sun
deeply controversial. In 1611, the Jesuit scholar Christoph Scheiner insisted they
were moons in orbit around the otherwise pristine Sun. Galileo Galilei was
unconvinced, and argued for clouds in the solar atmosphere. The first person to
show the sunspots were features on the Sun itself was a German astronomer named
Johannes Fabricius. Using a pinhole camera, he observed clusters of sunspots for
months, showing that they vanished over the Sun’s western edge, and then
appeared again two weeks later on the other side. This confirmed they were part of
the Sun’s rotating surface – and made Fabricius the first solar scientist.

As scientists accumulated more and more data, they began to notice that sunspot
activity developed a pattern. In 1843, astronomer S.H. Schwabe was the first to
describe the 11-year sunspot cycle.

Since then, scientists used have used an array of tools -- including giant solar
telescopes that were specially cooled to observe the sun's light without being
distorted by its heat -- to learn more about the physics of sunspots. Astronomer
George Ellery Hale discovered sunspots' magnetic nature and used that discovery to
prove the existence of a large magnetic field in the sun's interior. More recently,
astronomers have discovered starspots -- sunspots on other stars. One giant star,
HD 12545, bears a spot 10,000 times larger than the biggest spots observed on the
sun.

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3.0 Methodology

Sunspots develop in active solar regions of strong, concentrated magnetic fields and appear
dark when they reach the surface of the Sun. Eruptions of the intense magnetic flux give
rise to solar storms, but until now no one has had luck in predicting them.

“Many solar physicists tried different ways to predict when sunspots would appear, but
with no success,” said Phil Scherrer from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.

The key to the new method is using acoustic waves generated inside the Sun by the
turbulent motion of plasma and gases in constant motion. In the near-surface region, small-
scale convection cells, about the size of California, generate sound waves that travel to the
interior of the Sun and are refracted back to the surface. The researchers got help from the
Michelson Doppler Imager aboard NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory satellite
(SOHO). The craft spent 15 years making detailed observations of the sound waves within
the Sun. It was superseded in 2010 with the launch of NASA’s Solar Dynamics
Observatory satellite, which carries the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager.

Using the masses of data generated by the two imagers, Stathis Ilonidis from Stanford was
able to develop a way to reduce the electronic clutter in the data so he could accurately
measure the solar sounds. The new method enabled Ilonidis to detect sunspots in the early
stages of formation as deep as 40,000 miles (65,000 kilometers) inside the Sun. Between 1
and 2 days later, the sunspots would appear on the surface.

The principles used to track and measure the acoustic waves traveling through the Sun are
comparable to measuring seismic waves on Earth. The researchers measure the travel time
of acoustic waves between widely separated points on the solar surface.

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 Table 1.0:
Sample of Sunspot Number Data

Year Month SSN Year Month SSN

1991 1 213.5 1993 1 92.1
1991 2 270.2 1993 2 126.1
1991 3 227.9 1993 3 107.4
1991 4 215.9 1993 4 98.6
1991 5 182.5 1993 5 79.1
1991 6 231.8 1993 6 68.5
1991 7 245.7 1993 7 81.6
1991 8 251.5 1993 8 59.4
1991 9 185.8 1993 9 33.5
1991 10 220.1 1993 10 73.5
1991 11 169 1993 11 51
1991 12 217.7 1993 12 75.9
1992 1 217.9 1994 1 86.4
1992 2 238.2 1994 2 60.5
1992 3 160.5 1994 3 52.4
1992 4 144 1994 4 29.3
1992 5 106.3 1994 5 35.4
1992 6 104.7 1994 6 42.6
1992 7 121.4 1994 7 52.7
1992 8 99.5 1994 8 38.4
1992 9 93.8 1994 9 40.5
1992 10 136.2 1994 10 67.1
1992 11 124.3 1994 11 33
1992 12 127.4 1994 12 38.7

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2090997718300658

4.0 Effect on Earth

4.1 Maunder Minimum

From 1650 to 1710, temperatures across much of the Northern Hemisphere plunged
when the Sun entered a quiet phase now called the Maunder Minimum. During this
period, very few sunspots appeared on the surface of the Sun, and the overall
brightness of the Sun decreased slightly. Already in the midst of a colder-than-
average period called the Little Ice Age, Europe and North America went into a

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 deep freeze: alpine glaciers extended over valley farmland; sea ice crept south from
the Arctic; and the famous canals in the Netherlands froze regularly—an event that
is rare today.

The impact of the solar minimum is clear in this image, which shows the
temperature difference between 1680, a year at the center of the Maunder
Minimum, and 1780, a year of normal solar activity, as calculated by a general
circulation model. Deep blue across eastern and central North America and
northern Eurasia illustrates where the drop in temperature was the greatest. Nearly
all other land areas were also cooler in 1680, as indicated by the varying shades of
blue. The few regions that appear to have been warmer in 1680 are Alaska and the
eastern Pacific Ocean (left), the North Atlantic Ocean south of Greenland (left of
center), and north of Iceland (top center).

Figure 1.0:

Impact of Solar Minimum

Source: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/7122/chilly-temperatures-during-the-maunder-
minimum

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Figure 2.0:

CET during the Maunder Minimum.

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/maunder-minimum

4.2 Solar Activity:

4.2.1 Solar Cycle 24

Solar Cycle 24 was the most recent solar cycle, the 24th since 1755, when
extensive recording of solar sunspot activity began. It began in December
2008 with a smoothed minimum sunspot number of 2.2. Activity was
minimal until early 2010. It reached its maximum in April 2014 with a 23
months smoothed sunspot number of 81.8. This maximum value was
substantially lower than other recent solar cycles, down to a level which had
not been seen since cycles 12 to 15 (1878-1923).

Prior to the minimum between the end of Solar Cycle 23 and the beginning
of Solar Cycle 24, two theories predicted how strong Solar Cycle 24 would
be. One camp postulated that the Sun retained a long memory (Solar Cycle

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 24 would be active) while the other asserted that it had a short memory
(quiet). Prior to 2006, the difference was substantial with a minority of
researchers predicting "the smallest solar cycle in 100 years”. Another
group of researchers, including one at NASA, predicted that it "looks like
it’s going to be one of the most intense cycles since record-keeping began
almost 400 years ago.

In early 2013, after several months of calm, it was obvious that the active
2011 was not a prelude to a widely predicted late 2012-early 2013 peak
in solar flares, sunspots and other activity. This unexpected stage prompted
some scientists to propose a "double-peaked" solar maximum, which then
occurred. The first peak reached 99 in 2011 and the second peak came in
early 2014 at 101.

Figure 3.0:

ISES Solar Cycle Sunspot Number Progression

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle_24

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 4.2.2 Current Solar Cycle

Two new sunspots have ended a long period of relative quiet on the surface
of our blazing host star, heralding the start of a new 11-year cycle of
sunspot activity — resulting in sometimes dramatic space weather that
could disrupt communications and power grids here on Earth.
The two new sunspots, designated as NOAA 2753 and 2754, were seen on
Dec. 24 by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory — a satellite that
monitors the exterior and interior of the sun from a geosynchronous orbit
more than 22,000 miles (more than 35,000 kilometers) above the Earth's
surface.
These are the first significant sunspots seen since November 2019 and
indicate the onset of a new sunspot cycle — known as Solar Cycle 25, or
SC25 — that is expected to reach a new peak of magnetic activity in about
five years.

4.3 Effect on Climate

Scientists have analyzed close to 20 years of data recording radiation output from
stars that follow cycles similar to that of our sun. Solar radiation output typically
drops during a normal solar minimum, though not enough to disrupt climate
patterns on Earth. However, UV radiation output during a grand minimum could
mean activity plummets by an additional 7 percent, the researchers wrote in the
study. As a result, air temperatures on Earth's surface would cool by as much as
several tenths of a degree Fahrenheit (a change of a half-degree F is the equivalent
to about three-tenths of a degree Celsius) on average, according to the study.

One legitimate comparison of the current situation on the sun is to a cold period on
earth called the Dalton Minimum. It happened 200 years ago. There were three
declining solar cycles leading into the Dalton Minimum, just like now. The third
exceptionally weak cycle had a rare higher secondary peak than its first when

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 the Dalton was reached, just like now. That cycle was followed by a decline to
zero spots. The period of zero spots lasted nearly two years before another weak
cycle began. The match to current activity isn’t exact, but is eerily similar. There is
modern supporting data dictating that the sun will have an exceptionally weak
cycle next time, just like the Dalton. Solar sunspot maximum was reached in April
of 2014. You can’t know it has been reached until at least seven months after the
fact. There have been two months of decline since then, so it is reasonably certain
the maximum was finally reached. As it is, it was over two years later than

originally predicted. If the current cycle follows past solar behavior then 2015
will see a steep decline in solar activity as it progresses toward solar
minimum in the next five years or so. The current cycle (Cycle 24) has strong
similarities to both the Dalton Minimum and Cycle 12 that peaked in 1883. Both
time periods are associated with cold earth temperatures.

5.0 Conclusion

A periodic solar event called a "grand minimum" could overtake the sun perhaps as soon
as 2020 and lasting through 2070, resulting in diminished magnetism, infrequent sunspot
production and less ultraviolet (UV) radiation reaching Earth — all bringing a cooler
period to the planet that may span 50 years.

But it's unlikely that we'll see a return to the extreme cold from centuries ago, researchers
reported in a new study. Since the Maunder Minimum, global average temperatures have
been on the rise, driven by climate change. Though a new decades-long dip in solar
radiation could slow global warming somewhat, it wouldn't be by much, the researchers'
simulations demonstrated. And by the end of the incoming cooling period, temperatures
would have bounced back from the temporary cooldown.

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6.0 Predictions

The Solar Cycle 25 Prediction Panel predicted in December 2019 that Solar Cycle 25 will
be similar to Solar Cycle 24, with the preceding Solar Cycle minimum in April 2020
(plus/minus six months); the solar maximum smoothed sunspot number of 115 in July
2025 (plus/minus 8 months). This prediction is in line with the current general agreement
in the scientific literature, which holds that solar cycle 25 will be weaker than average (i.e.
weaker than during the exceptionally strong Modern Maximum).

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 Reference List

Rasmus E. Benestad, 2002, 2nd Edition, Solar Activity and Earth’s Climate

André Balogh, Hugh Hudson, Kristóf Petrovay, Rudolf von Steiger; 2015; The Solar
Activity Cycle: Physical Causes and Consequences

Indrani Roy, 2018, Climate Variability and Sunspot Activity: Analysis of the Solar
Influence on Climate

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 Appendix A

Questionnaire

Please complete the following questions and give detailed answers.

1. Define Solar Activity.

2. What is Global Warming?

3. How are sunspots formed?

4. How are sunspots affecting our climate?

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