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A new ice age may start by 2030, warn scientists. Researchers have recently shown that the arrival of extreme colds similar to the ones in the Little Ice Age, responsible of freezing the entire world between the XVII century and the XVIII one, may be coming between the years 2030 and 2040.
Scientists have analyzed the background magnetic field from three solar activity cycles by applying a principle known as the “component analysis principal”. This helped them isolate the waves that have the largest contribution in the observational data. Scientists created a new analysis method that helped them discover that the Sun’s magnetic waves were created in pairs, with the main one covering around 40 percent of variance in the data. The main pair was responsible for the modifications in a dipole field on the Sun, which has been altering its polarity during a period of 11 years of solar activity.
Dr. Helen Popova from the Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics and from the Faculty of Physics in the Lomonosov Moscow State University said that given the fact that our future would last at a minimum for three solar cycles or more (around 30 years), it is possible, that the temperature would not drop as low as during the course of the Maunder minimum. However, this should be examined in great detail, she added.
A research on deuterium in the Antarctic revealed that there were four ice ages and five global warmings in the last 400 thousand years. Volcanic activities increase after the ice age and this leads to the emissions of greenhouse gases. The Sun’s magnetic field is growing, which means that there is a decrease in the flux of cosmic rays and this increases the number of clouds which leads back to warming. After this, comes a period of the process happening in reverse, when the Sun’s magnetic field decreases, cosmic rays rise which reduce the number of clouds and makes the temperature cold again. This is a process that comes with a little delay.
Dr. Helen Popova said that there is no real evidence that humans are the cause of global warming but even if they influence the climate, there is a possibility that the Sun would give us a second chance or more time in order to reduce our emissions and prepare for the Sun to return to normal.
The findings were presented in Wales at the National Astronomy Meeting and are published in three different papers.
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