With all the talk about climate change and rising temperatures, it might be hard to imagine a “Little Ice Age” in the future. But NASA’s forecast for solar activity over the next decade could mean we’re in store for a cool-down.
The sun develops spots that are about the size of Earth, and they change in intensity and number over time.
According to NASA, these sunspots provide a standard gauge of solar activity. That activity rises and falls in 11-year cycles. The next one begins this year, and the current forecast calls for the weakest solar activity in the last 200 years.
Astrophysicist Dr. Jeff Zweerink of “Reasons to Believe” spoke with CBN News about the correlation between sunspots and weather on Earth.
“If it continues to drop, one thing we do know is that sunspots, they look like dark spots on the sun, so you’d initially think, Oh, maybe that’s because there’s less radiation given off,” he said. “It turns out because of the magnetic fields going on in there, the sunspots actually emit more radiation. And so if there are fewer sunspots, we’re receiving less sunlight from the sun.”
“And so you would expect to see a continual decline in temperatures—that things might get colder over the next 10 or 15 years.”
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