Solar Activity May Cause a Mini Ice Age: Sun's Solar Cycle Drops in 2030

We may be in for a mini ice age. Scientists have taken a closer look at the sun's solar cycle and have found that solar activity may fall by 60 percent in the 2030s.

It's been 172 years since scientists first noticed that the sun's activity varies over a cycle that lasts from 10 to 12 years. With that said, every sun's cycle is a bit different, and none of the models to date have fully explained these fluctuations. Many researchers have put this down to a dynamo caused by convecting fluid deep within the sun. Now, though, scientists have found that by adding a second dynamo, close to the surface, they can complete the picture with surprising accuracy.

"We found magnetic wave components appearing in pairs, originating in two different layers in the sun's interior," said Valentina Zharkova, one of the researchers, in a news release. "They both have a frequency of approximately 11 years, although this frequency is slightly different, and they are offset in time. Over the cycle, the waves fluctuate between the northern and southern hemispheres of the sun. Combining both waves together and comparing to real data for the current solar cycle, we found that our predictions showed an accuracy of 97 percent."

The researchers derived their model using a technique called "principal component analysis" of the magnetic field observations from the Wilcox Solar Observatory. This allowed them to look ahead to the next few solar cycles. In Cycle 26, which is predicted to occur from 2030 to 2040, it appears that there will be much less solar activity.

"In cycle 26, the two waves exactly mirror each other-peaking at the same time but in opposite hemispheres of the sun. Their interaction will be disruptive, or they will nearly cancel each other. We predict that this will lead to the properties of a 'Maunder minimum,'" said Zharkova.

The findings reveal a bit more about the conditions we should expect to see in the future.

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