In the mail today was my paper copy of the amateur radio magazine QST. The cover article was touting Solar Cycle 25 as though it was going to be the next best thing since sliced bread.
They are predicting a very active eleven years. For radio amateurs, this would be a very good thing as high solar activity means a very electrically active ionospheric layer and really really good long-distance radio propagation. Being able, not only to work other stations all around the world but being able to work them with very low power. Some hams like to specialize in low power operation - it is a lot of fun to get a signal through with the barest minimum of power.
Unfortunately, everything I have seen from other sources indicates a very quiet sun and a very low energy Cycle 25. This will be interesting as the sun is the primary driver of our climate and we have had periods of low solar output in the past - these can be measured by counting sunspots so the records go back thousands of years.
Few sunspots? Quiet sun. Cooler weather. Some of these minima have been so intense they were named: the Maunder Minimum, the Dalton, the Spörer, the Wolf, the Oort, etc... Not to mention the five major ice ages.
Looks like we are heading for another period of extended cold weather - computer models be damned (as well they should be). The River Thames in London froze over last month for the first time in 60 years. More people die during cold weather than during hot so this is what our political elite need to be looking at, not pop-Marxism.
Leave a comment