Earlier this year, a scientist from the University of Northumbria caused a media frenzy of sorts by announcing that reduced solar activity in the near future could lead to a mini Ice Age. After analyzing solar fluid movement cycles, Valentina Zharkova told the National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno, Wales, that the Earth could face a significant period of icy temperatures in as little as 15 years.
With the growing threat of climate change, monitoring the weather is now more relevant than ever. With this in mind, Zharkova and her team developed a novel method of investigating solar cycles to make the controversial predictions, which have yet to be verified by other studies.
Zharkova used a mathematical program to arrive at her findings which has produced 97% accuracy over the last 30 years in mapping the movement of sunspots. Sunspots are cooler regions of the Sun’s surface which move around periodically and appear darker when photographed. We say cooler, but really these sunspots still maintain incredible temperatures of around 4,200°C.
They are caused by the shifting magnetic fields of the solar body, which redirect heat away from certain regions and cause them to be slightly cooler. Up until Zharkova’s work, it had been previously thought there was only one source for producing magnetic waves on the Sun, but she and her team detected that the waves were actually produced in pairs.
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