Climate scientists and environmental activists are backtracking from recent doomsday scenarios predicting the planet’s untimely death by overheating; reversing course and now claiming that an “unusually cold Sun” could bring another ice age to the Northern Hemisphere.
A recent study by the University of California San Diego claims the sun will experience a prolonged period of “cooling,” drastically reducing the amount of solar radiation and activity reaching the Earth’s surface.
The lower temperatures, commonly known as a ‘solar minimum,’ could spark a deep freeze across large sections of the planet; plunging the Earth into yet another ice age.
“The cooldown would be the result of what scientists call a grand minimum, a periodic event during which the Sun’s magnetism diminishes, sunspots form infrequently, and less ultraviolet radiation makes it to the surface of the planet,” writes the UC San Diego website.
“The reduced energy from the Sun sets into motion a sequence of events on Earth beginning with a thinning of the stratospheric ozone layer,” the author adds. “That thinning in turn changes the temperature structure of the stratosphere, which then changes the dynamics of the lower atmosphere, especially wind and weather patterns.”