Activities on the surface of the sun keep fluctuating with time. While several phenomena are associated with the period when there is an increase in their frequency, there is also a period of solar minimum that marks the opposite. Experts now believe that a deep solar minimum is underway.
Our sun is currently believed to in a period of solar minimum wherein the activity on its surface has fallen dramatically. As per some experts, this might be the onset of the deepest period of solar minimum or sunshine recession ever recorded.
Experts are pointing out that the sunspots on the sun have virtually disappeared. For those unaware, sunspot number is used to quantify the number of sunspots present on the surface of the sun at any given time. It is the only index for which humans have a long and detailed historical record. Though it has now been replaced with modern indices indices such as the 10.7 centimetre solar flux.
In 2020, the sun has been “blank,” with no sunspots 76 percent of the time. A rate higher than this was recorded only once before, i.e. last year, when it was 77 percent blank.
Catastrophic effects
“Excess cosmic rays pose a health hazard to astronauts and polar air travelers, affect the electro-chemistry of Earth’s upper atmosphere and may help trigger lightning,” Dr. Phillips explains in The Sun report.
The sun’s lockdown has historically led to a catastrophic period between 1790 and 1830. Called Dalton Minimum, the period experienced “brutal cold, crop loss, famine and powerful volcanic eruptions,” the report mentions. NASA scientists now fear that the recent sunspot recordings can be an indication of such things about to repeat.
A temperature drop of up to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) was observed over the 20 years, destroying the world’s food production and causing famine. The period also observed the historic ‘Year Without a Summer’ – 1816. The year is nicknamed “eighteen hundred and froze to death” and experienced a snow in July in many regions.
