Sunspot counts suggest it is one of the deepest minima of the past century. The sun’s magnetic field has become weak, allowing extra cosmic rays into the solar system.
Neutron monitors at the Sodankyla Geophysical Observatory in Oulu, Finland, show that cosmic rays are percentage points away from a Space Age record.
Researchers at the Sodankyla Geophysical Observatory have been monitoring cosmic rays since 1964. When cosmic rays hit Earth’s atmosphere, they produce a spray of secondary particles that rain down on Earth’s surface.
Among these particles are neutrons. Detectors in Oulu count neutrons as a proxy for cosmic rays.
As the top panel shows, cosmic rays naturally wax and wane with the 11-year solar cycle. During Solar Maximum cosmic rays are weak; during Solar Minimum they are strong.
The Space Age record for cosmic rays was set in late 2009-early 2010 near the end of a very deep Solar Minimum.
Records, they say, are meant to be broken. As 2019 comes to a close, neutron counts at Oulu are approaching the very high levels seen in 2009-2010.
A new record could be just weeks or months away.
This is important because excess cosmic rays pose a health hazard to astronauts and polar air travelers, affect the electro-chemistry of Earth’s upper atmosphere, and may help trigger lightning.
Read more at SpaceWeather
“…excess cosmic rays pose a health hazard to astronauts and polar air travelers, affect the electro-chemistry of Earth’s upper atmosphere, and may help trigger lightning.”
All of which will be blamed on Global Warming (CO2@?!)
Though the current solar minimum is a deep one, it appears there will be no dramatic impacts. What worries me is the prediction that the sun will enter a strong long term minimum starting in the next decade. This could bring on another mini ice age. People would be wishing for global warming.
Don’t worry, a mini ice age will be blamed on man made pollution too. So we will still have to hand over the economy and our way of life over to the eco-wackos who want to run everything.
And how much are stupid-ass alarmists
going to try to bury this ?
How many times must their predictions be
100% WRONG
Before the corrupt MSM cabal admits and confesses to
the OBVIOUS that there is no such thing as their proposed
GREENHOUSE EFFECT
MANMADE GLOBAL WARMING nor
CLIMATE CHANGE as they catastrophically
predict and fail every time empirically.