After 15 years the Earth is waiting for the ice age. Small – On the eve

In the years 2030-40 is expected arrival of intense cold that raged during the “Little Ice Age”, freeze the world in the beginning of the XVII and XVIII centuries. This international group of researchers, which included a senior fellow at the Research Institute of Nuclear Physics and the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University, Ph.D., Elena Popova, said in a report at the conference of the Royal Astronomical Society in Llandudno (Wales).

Scientists have derived a formula which, in particular, was able to predict solar activity in the past (from 1200) and future (up to 3200 years). It was the fall of solar activity (and to a sharp decrease in the number of sunspots – the so-called Maunder minimum XVII century) attributed the arrival of the Little Ice Age. For the past epochs predicted global minimum of solar activity, in line with the observed.

The most stunning result of the study was the forecast for the next decade. From 2030 to 2040-th years, the researchers say, will be a sharp decline in solar activity, comparable to the Maunder minimum in the XVII century. According to Yelena Popova from Moscow State University, during this period there were about 50 sunspots instead of the usual 40-50 thousand. A new Maunder minimum lead to cooling, perhaps very strong.

Picture Zamerzshaya_Temza Abraham Hondius” Frozen Thames, “he wrote in 1677 at the height of the Maunder minimum. Source: Museum of London

“A number of studies have shown – said Popov, who developed a unique physical-mathematical model of the evolution of the magnetic activity of the sun and with it gained patterns of occurrence of global minima of solar activity and gave them physical interpretation – that the Maunder Minimum coincided with the coldest phase of global cooling, which was called “Little Ice Age.” In Europe and North America were very cold winters. In the days of the Maunder minimum freezing water in rivers Thames and the Danube, Moscow River every six months covered by ice, snow lay on some plains year round, Greenland was covered by glaciers. If the existing theories about the impact of solar activity on the climate are true, then this minimum will result in a significant cooling, similar to the one during the Maunder minimum. Because our future for at least last three solar cycles – about 30 years, possibly lowering the temperature will not be as deep as in the Maunder minimum. But it will have to examine in more detail. We are in correspondence with climatologists from different countries. We plan to work in this direction “.