Harvard astronomer Sally Balliunas has for years been warning us that we are nearly the end of a warm solar cycle and that soon we should expect to get a lot colder.
Data from the Canadian Space Agency’s radio telescope suggests that the cooling cycle may have started.
My experiences this winter certainly do not contradict any ice age predictions.
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http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/14dec_excitement.htm
Is a New Solar Cycle Beginning?
NASA news archive 2007 : 12.14.2007
"The source of the excitement is a modest knot of magnetism that popped over the sun's eastern limb on Dec. 11th 2007."
"New solar cycles always begin with a high-latitude, reversed polarity sunspot," explains Hathaway.
"Reversed polarity " means a sunspot with opposite magnetic polarity compared to sunspots from the previous solar cycle.
"High-latitude" refers to the sun's grid of latitude and longitude. Old cycle spots congregate near the sun's equator. New cycle spots appear higher, around 25 or 30 degrees latitude.
The region that appeared on Dec. 11th fits both these criteria. It is high latitude (24 degrees N) and magnetically reversed. Just one problem: There is no sunspot.
So far the region is just a bright knot of magnetic fields.
If, however, these fields coalesce into a dark sunspot, scientists are ready to announce that Solar Cycle 24 has officially begun."
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