Is a new Dalton Minimum approaching?

Russ Steele

Well 2008 arrived last night and Sunspot Cycle 24 was absent. While we had a flurry of excitement a few week ago when a patch of reverse polarity showed on the Suns surface it soon faded. The Sun reverses polarity with each cycle change. As we have discussed in the past the length of the roughly 11-year sunspot cycle is correlated with temperature and a late arriving cycle can have some long term climate implications for us folks here on Earth.

The Cycle 23 solar minimum was at 1996.5, so with an average 11 year cycle we should have seen the new minimum in mid-2007. Here we are in 2008 and the next cycle is already six months late, and the defining minimum generally occurs 12-20 months after the first spot of the new cycle. This would indicate the ending minimum of Cycle 23 and the start of Cycle 24 will come in mid  2009, resulting in a 13 year cycle, the longest since 1784-1797. Interesting to note that this cycle started a long series - 13.6, 12.3, 12.7 years, which coincided with the cold period known as the Dalton Minimum. Stay tuned, these are going to be interesting times. Sun cycles indicate cooling and the politicians are trying stop global warming. We may need a little extra warming over the next thirty years.

Thanks to David Archibald for this graphic showing the relationship of cycle length to temperature in New Hampshire.

Comments

[Paul Ding]

So global warming is causing the cycle to shorten? Mr. "I invented the internet" didn't warn us of that.

[Laura-Kentwood]

lol, Mr I invented the internet. Amusing. Of course he didn't "warn" anyone. The political podium he stands upon will be teetering on its pivital axis for many months to come, with this information.

[David K. M. Klaus]

Paul Ding:

"Mr. 'I invented the internet'", as you refer to him, never said that. Declan McCullagh made that up by deliberately misquoting Mr. Gore, who actually said

"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system."

Mr. McCullagh freely admitted making it up, then House Majority Leader Dick Armey took it from there in order to make Gore look bad. The links to the citations are all here, see for yourself:

http://www.sethf.com/gore/

Don't fall for politically motivated slurs and urban legends. If you want to disagree with Mr. Gore, by all means do so, but base it on what he actually said, not on deliberate lies.