Maunder Minimum


by Ernie Fitzpatrick - Date: 2008-11-04 - Word Count: 370 Share This!

It's been said that if we refuse to learn from history we are bound to repeat it. How many people do you know that are interested in history- other than maybe what happened last year? Thus we get all kinds of alarms about this and that when those fears could be swept away if we just understood the connection as to what's going on today and as it relates to the past. leet me share an example.


Al Gore has beome the poster child for global warming.


In spite of his acceptance and knighthood by some, most scientists simpy do not agree with his hypothesis. That there is warming going on there's little doubt. However, is this a result of greenhouse gasses, a cyclical pattern, or maybe even galactic warming? Unless one understands and has a panoramic view of life on earth, wrong conclusions will ensue.


So much of the heating or cooling that goes on with our planet is as a result of what's going on out there in the universe, or out there in our solar system- can you spell SUN?


The Maunder minimum  as an example, is the name given to a period of extreme solar inactivity that occurred between 1645 and 1710. Of particular interest is that this period of inactivity corresponds closely to one of the coldest periods of the so-called "Little Ice Age" in Europe, a time of long, cold winters that caused severe hardships in the pre-industrial revolution world. This 65 year period of COLD was a result of the sun, not the lack of pollutants in the air.
 
This period is named after the solar astronomer Edward W. Maunder (1851-1928) who discovered the lack of sunspots during that period by studying records from those years. During one 30-year period within the Maunder Minimum, for example, astronomers observed only about 50 sunspots, as opposed to a more typical 40,000-50,000 spots. We're talking little activity.


So, when people blow off the importance of the Sun as it relates to our global warming or cooling, they simply are looking at things through an historical lens and probably don't know what they're talking about.  And in that regrard, 2005 I believe is a precursor to 2012.   :-)


Related Tags: sun, global warming, al gore, solar system, sun spots, 2012, little ice age, maunder minimum

As a spiritual-futurist, I interpret current events in light of possible macro-universal forces at play leading up to 2012, but not limited to it.

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