The Sun has now entered a period of low activity associated with collapsing temperatures and the change could last for a decade or more. Astronomers say the Sun has now gone 15 consecutive days without sunspots, a sign there has been a drop in activity. It also means there has been a lack of sunspots for 58 percent of days in 2019.
The sun follows cycles of roughly 11 years where it reaches a solar maximum and before shifting into solar minimum.
During a solar maximum, the sun gives off more heat and is littered with sunspots. Less heat in a solar minimum is due to a decrease in magnetic waves and fewer sunspots.
Cosmic forecasting site Space Weather said: “The sun has been without spots for 15 consecutive days – a sign that Solar Minimum is underway.”
However, some climate experts believe the solar cycles are a bigger threat to our planet than man-made global warming.
Vijay Jayaraj, an environmental scientist for The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation – a Christian group which rejects man-made global warming claims – believes there is evidence to suggest that global warming is actually caused by the Sun’s cycles.
He said: “Life on Earth is possible because of Earth’s perfect positioning in the solar system: not too close to the sun and not too far. For centuries, academicians have acknowledged this, and climate scientists today know that the sun is the biggest influencer and driver of global temperature.
“NASA’s page on solar influence clearly states that changes in the sun largely determine Earth’s atmospheric and surface temperatures.
“Astrophysicists and climatologists measure these changes in the sun in terms of quantifiable phenomena such as sunspot activity and solar cycles.
“With the advent of dangerous man-made global warming theory, CO2 has taken the limelight, and the sun has been relegated to a mere spectator.
“This could be warming-obsessed alarmists’ biggest mistake ever.
“In central Europe, for example, temperature changes since 1990 coincided more with the changes in solar activity than with atmospheric CO2 concentration. The same has been true globally, and across centuries.”
Earth’s host star was not expected to head into a solar minimum until around 2020 and, if the phenomenon has arrived early, this will mean a prolonged cold snap.
The last time there was a prolonged solar minimum, the event led to a ‘mini ice-age’, scientifically known as the Maunder minimum – which lasted for 70 years.
The Maunder minimum, which saw seven decades of freezing weather, began in 1645 and lasted through to 1715, and happened when sunspots were exceedingly rare.
During this period, temperatures dropped globally by 1.3 degrees Celsius leading to shorter seasons and ultimately food shortages.
Ultimately, if the sun is to go through a prolonged solar minimum, then mankind could be the ones to suffer.
NASA explains on its website: “All weather on Earth, from the surface of the planet out into space, begins with the Sun.
“Space weather and terrestrial weather (the weather we feel at the surface) are influenced by the small changes the Sun undergoes during its solar cycle.”
The space agency adds on its Thermosphere Climate Index (TCI) “a weather metric that tells us how the top of Earth’s atmosphere (or ‘thermosphere’) is responding to solar activity” that “the top of Earth’s atmosphere is approximately 10 times cooler than it was during the record-setting Solar Max of 1957-58.”
