SOHO Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) solar images last summer and today:
Solar activity is starting to increase again after what has been a relatively long quiet spell associated with the minimum part of the solar cycle. February was the first month in quite some time where there were sunspots every day of the month. In the image above from last July (left), the lone bright area below the equator near the center was not associated with a sunspot, but was in an area of magnetic activity.
Remember that the sun is a star, like all stars, whose business is to fuse lighter elements into heavier ones; our sun fuses hydrogen into helium. This process results in chaotic magnetic behavior of the solar plasma which fluctuates in intensity over an eleven year cycle. We wrote “Ultimate Global Warming – SPF 2 Million Won’t Be Enough” to describe the process.
Evidently, we’re on the upswing after what some scientists (real ones, not climate liars) say was a very extended inactive period, which some feared would put the sun into many years of minimal activity. It is likely that such an extended period, the Maunder Minimum, was the cause of the “Little Ice Age” during the 1600s and 1700s. We wrote “Correlating Sunspots to Global Climate” which illustrates the phenomenon using animations and graphics.
Personally, after the winter we have been having in North America this season, I will be glad to see the sunspots bring us back to our subtropical weather patterns. Old folks like warmer weather, y’know. C’mon global warming! 🙂