Climate Change on the Horizon?

I posted before about how a shock to our food supply could have a devastating impact on our standard of living. While it was in the context of the potential of a catastrophic collision with space debris, the impact that the solar cycle has on our climate is not well understood and could potentially be the source of such a shock.

The sun has decreased its activity greatly in the past month, and prior:

The sun has reached a milestone not seen for nearly 100 years: an entire month has passed without a single visible sunspot being noted.

The event is significant as many climatologists now believe solar magnetic activity – which determines the number of sunspots -- is an influencing factor for climate on earth.

Here's a plot of recent sunspot trends, and a longer term history:























The sunspot cycle has been extremely predictable for centuries, as can be seen on the plot above. If we don't see that above plot start eking up, it could be worrisome. The "Maunder Minimum" corresponded to the "Little Ice Age", a time of bitterly cold, long winters and all the consequences that follow for a population dependent on agriculture.

The relationship between the sun's cosmic rays and our climate is not well understood, but the coincidence of sunspot minima and lower overall global temperatures, I think, shouldn't be ignored. Especially when a few harsh winters (with the concomitant bad growing seasons) could make food scarce enough that while the developed world might consider it an inconvenience, the third world could be severely impacted.