According to NASA, our Sun is a huge ball of electrically-charged hot gas. This charged gas moves, generating a powerful magnetic field. The Sun’s magnetic field goes through a cycle, called the solar cycle, which lasts 11 years.
Every 11 years or so, the Sun’s magnetic field completely flips. This means that the Sun’s north and south poles switch places. Then it takes about another 11 years for the Sun’s north and south poles to flip back again. The solar cycle affects activity on the surface of the Sun and anomalies in the Sun’s magnetic field, which can be easily observable on the Sun’s surface as an increase in sunspot numbers. As the magnetic fields change, so does the amount of activity on the Sun’s surface.
The solar cycle is typically observed by the total sunspot numbers (SSN). We reached a final minimum of the solar cycle 24 in 2020, and we began a new solar cycle 25 at that point. Looking closer at the last few years, last year, in 2021, the solar activity picked up again, now continuing into 2022. At this point, we will not be able to talk about a solar cycle minimum anymore, but a decent path towards a new maximum.
There was a lot of talk about the sun entering a new grand minimum. A grand minimum means an unusually long phase of low solar activity, and global weather changes as a result like it happened during the Maunder Minimum. The Maunder Minimum was a period of low sunspot activity (a quiet sun). This low activity was correlated with a cooling period that caused crops to fail and had many impacts on the human economy.
During Solar Max, huge sunspots and intense solar flares are a daily occurrence. Auroras appear in Florida. Radiation storms knock out satellites. Radio blackouts frustrate hams. The last such episode took place in the years around 2000-2001. But during Solar Minimum, the opposite occurs. Solar flares are almost nonexistent while whole weeks go by without a single, tiny sunspot to break the monotony of the blank sun. This is what we are experiencing now in 2022.
Although minima are a normal aspect of the solar cycle, some observers are questioning the length of the ongoing minimum, now slogging through its 3rd year. Researchers are noting the current minimum is not abnormally low or long, because as recently as the early 20th century there were periods of quiet lasting almost twice as long as the current spell.
The longest minimum on record, the Maunder Minimum of 1645-1715, lasted an incredible 70 years. Sunspots were rarely observed and the solar cycle seemed to have broken down completely. The period of quiet coincided with the Little Ice Age, a series of extraordinarily bitter winters in Earth’s northern hemisphere. Many researchers are convinced that low solar activity, acting in concert with increased volcanism and possible changes in ocean current patterns, played a role in that 17th century cooling.
Of course, a new grand minimum does not start in one year, tho we are seeing each new solar cycle being weaker than the previous one. This can be an indication that we are heading towards a new grand minimum, but it can also be a Dalton minimum type. A Dalton minimum was not as low and long-lasting as a Maunder Minimum but also had a global weather response, particularly in a global temperature drop. Although a smaller one compared to the “little ice age” of the Maunder Minimum.
But, these temperature drops usually happen because of the overall reduced output of the sun on a prolonged multi-year scale. For daily weather, a single solar cycle does not have a direct influence. But it is linked to the QBO (quasi-biennial oscillation, i.e. equatorial winds in the tropical stratosphere), and the QBO is linked with the stratosphere and the polar vortex, so there is a linkage to the weather in some way.
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