“The Earth is heading towards another ice age as solar magnetic activity is set to drop by up to 60 per cent in the next 15 years,” warns new study.
Experts say that solar activity has not been this low since the Maunder Minimum, a period of low sunspot activity between 1645 and 1715 when the entire Thames froze over. That period is also considered the deepest part of the last “Little Ice Age.”
A new model forecasts solar cycles based upon dynamo effects in two layers of the Sun, which, in theory, dictate how the Earth’s outer core conducts materials across the magnetic field to create an electric current.
Valentina Zharkova from Northumbria University, who applied this theory to the Sun, says she can predict the affects of solar cycles with 97 per cent accuracy.
Based on her findings, Ms Zharkova says the next solar cycle is set to peak in 2022, and the cycle after that, Cycle 26, will herald a new ice age.
“We predict that this will lead to the properties of a ‘Maunder minimum’,” Zharkova insists.
“During the Maunder minimum, temperatures dropped globally by 1.3 degrees celsius,” warns The Express.
Although such an apparently minor drop in temperature seems insignificant, “it led to shorter seasons and ultimately food shortages.” (And to millions of deaths, I might add.)