Our Fickle Sun

A professor stands before a large audience explaining that in 5 billion years, the sun will be a red giant  so large that it will engulf the Earth. A hand shoots up from the rear of the class.

"How long did you say?"

"Five billion years."

"Whew! I thought you said million."

We know an awful lot about the sun, but we still have a whole lot more to learn. Not surprisingly, it turns out that its future behavior might have an impact on us.

The sun is going to do what it's going to do. On its way to being a red giant, it will spot, eject, brighten, dim, spin, precess, and wobble. It will warm us too much or too little for our liking. Its ejecta will attack our magnetic field and threaten our well being. We certainly can't live without it and there is no guarantee that living with it will be a cakewalk.

I just explained in my last post that Solar Cycle 24 looks as if it will have substantially fewer sun spots that Solar Cycle 23. History may give us cause for concern. From the much maligned Wikipedia I offer:

Now I offer A Frost Fair on the Thames at Temple Stairs by Abraham Hondius.

The picture was painted in 1684. If you take a quick peek again at the sunspot history plot, you'll see that 1684 was smack dab in the midst of the Maunder Minimum, when sunspots were on hiatus.

Now quickly, look again at the painting. The Thames is frozen solid. Six of the coldest winters in British recorded history were in the last 16 years of the 17th century, during the Maunder Minimum, when there were no friggin' sunspots.

The Maunder Minimum corresponded with The Little Ice Age.

Perhaps it was only a coincidence.

I'm certainly not predicting another little ice age. I am, however, skeptical that we are staring at a world of man made global warming. For now, I'll simply leave you with another painting of London, The Frozen Thames, by artist unknown.

It was painted in 1677.