We have had a record five months of low sunspot counts - from Spaceweather:
THE SUN IS BLANK:
Today the sun is blank--no sunspots. The disk of our star is completely featureless.
This is the 31st day in 2017 that the sun has been without spots. Cumulatively, it adds up to an entire month of spotlessness--and it's only May. For comparison, the sun was blank on 32 days in the whole of 2016. The accelerating pace of spotless suns is a sign that Solar Minimum is approaching.
Solar Minimum is yin to the yang of Solar Maximum, a natural part of the sun's ~11 year sunspot cycle. Contrary to popular belief, Solar Minimum is not boring ...only different. It brings a time of enhanced cosmic rays, pink auroras, a collapsing ionosphere and accumulating space junk. With action like that, who needs sunspots? Stay tuned for more blank suns.
Sunspots are a great proxy for solar output - the fewer sunspots, the cooler our Sun is. The solar output is measured directly by the Dominion Observatory in Penticton, British Columbia - here is their chart for 2000 through 2017 - it says NOAA/SWPC but the data is gathered from Dominion:
Time to buy a good winter coat and stock up on firewood...
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