Talk:Maunder Minimum

Larger/Slower Sun

 * A larger and slower Sun, it is speculated, might also mean a cooler Sun that provides less heat to Earth

Umm, why is this considered "speculation"? It is a necessary consequence of the law of conservation of angular momentum plus the well known results of adiabatic expansion. (In fact it should be possible to calculate exactly how much the "solar constant" at earth decreases for a given change in spin rate.) This could in principle be offset by greater thermal production from the core, but that is believed to take at least millenia to make its way to the surface. Unless someone is aware of some reasoning which questions this rather obvious line of thought, I will change "speculation" to something like "natural consequence of fundamnetal laws".


 * (Just why the Sun expands and contracts is still a mystery.)

That's fair enough, but it should also be noted that there is evidence that many stars do so to a much greater degree (see variable star). Securiger 00:25, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * (William M. Connolley 22:00, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)) Following on from that, the page says:


 * Recently published data suggests that the Sun expanded during the Maunder Minimum and its rotation slowed. At our current level of understanding of solar physics, a larger and slower Sun necessarily implies a cooler Sun that provides less heat to Earth.

This doesn't appear to have any source. How would it have been observed?


 * This paper looks to be the source of that - I'll add a ref to the article. Worldtraveller 17:29, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

(William M. Connolley 20:55, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)) OK, thanks for the ref. I've modified the text, because it appears to me that what was observed was slowing, not expansion. Possibly slowing implies expansion...?


 * Because of conservation of angular momentum, it is difficult to explain slowing without expansion. Rpresser 14:11, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Solar rotation
I think the solar rotation periods table would fit better in the article Sun. (SEWilco 04:27, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC))

Trivia Not Allowed
Can someone direct me to the Wikipedia policy regarding how something is judged relevant enough to an article? The one-sentence trivia I put at the end in a specially-marked trivia section about the Maunder Minimum almost exactly matching the reign of the Sun King was removed. How does one decide exactly whether this very interesting (to some) tidbit is allowed at the very end? I just want to know the guidelines. DavidMann 22:06, 21 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think there is any solid policy on this, though the discussion on [] may be relevant - its worth a look as possibly the lamest ever edit war on wiki!


 * My view on this is that the trivia definitely doesn't belong *here*: this is a scientific article. It could well be argued that it might belong on the Sun King page, as that deals with human beings.


 * If there is no explicit policy, then the relevant policy is that articles should be written by their editors... William M. Connolley 22:17, 21 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I removed the bit, because it just isn't relevant. The fact has nothing at all to do with the Maunder Minimum, any more than it would for any other person whose life happened to roughly coincide with the Minimum.  There's no policy on this kind of thing, it just works (as so many things here) by consensus.  If there proved to be a substantial consensus in favour of including this trivia, it would end up being included.  Worldtraveller 00:28, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think it would be allowed on the Louis XIV page because the article is already very long. 207.203.80.14 19:23, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it's more relevant than for other random people by virtue of his being nicknamed "The Sun King" and being a major historical figure, probably the most influential and powerful person in Europe during that time period. Maybe that's not relevant enough for most people. I just don't care enough to try to gain some vague consensus; Wikipedia politics don't interest me that much. I'll focus on correcting typos and misinformation instead. 207.203.80.14 19:21, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


 * IIRC, the amusing coincidence that the Sun shone in unspotted glory during the reign of the Sun King was first remarked upon by Isaac Asimov. Would an attribution to someone noteworthy enough to have an article make the difference? -- Alan Peakall 18:50, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
 * That would be interesting if true. I discovered it on my own in an astronomy course. DavidMann 17:48, 13 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I have verified this attribution from the essay Out, Damned Spot!, the first essay in the collection The Sun Shines Bright of monthly science essays that appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. In fact, Asimov merely says that he came across the coincidence, leaving it unclear whether he noticed it or whether it was pointed out to him by someone he did not name.  The edition of the collection I consulted does not give individual publication dates for each essay, but the copyright notices suggest that the essay appeared in one of the years 1981-83.  -- Alan Peakall 20:43, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Solar Variation vs. CO2
To introduce speculation and controversy in the form of "Some scientists believe that solar variation drives climate change more than carbon dioxide does (see global warming)" clouds the article (making this part of the controversy), when it is enough to say the point is debatable. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 3xstmx3 (talk • contribs) 22:06, 22 January 2007 (UTC).

Sunspot Activity vs Global Temperatures
"Whether there is a causal connection between low sunspot activity and cold winters is the subject of ongoing debate"


 * As a Heliology major it absolutly sickens me that this is still the "politically correct" way of dodging the issue. Every major temperature drop for the last 1000 years have all been traced back to Solar output. Weather it's Carbon 14 tracers or actual documented sunspot counts. I hope the current inactive sunspot cycle (2 years late) cools this planet enough to shut these "Global Warming" people up.

No, that comment is simply incorrect and contradicts the available data. Most of the temperature drops of the last 1000 years can be best correlated with volcanic activity. While solar activity can influence climate, it is a minor effect and there is no simple correlation between the two factors. e.g., Solar activity has been declining since the mid 1980s, whereas temperature has risen more rapidly than any point in the last 10,000 years (the period over which we can reconstruct solar variability). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Heliophysics (talk • contribs) 16:19, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Jack Eddy didn't really name the Maunder Minimum
Although it is widely attributed to him, the name appears to have been in common use prior to his 1976 paper. See the links here. For the avoidance of doubt, it is not my blog that I am claiming is a reliable source, rather it is the book (conference proceedings) dated 1975 that I quote from and link to. I propose to edit the page to reflect this, but suspect that this will bring out the kooks and crazies so I want to give you a chance to defend the status quo first. Jdannan (talk) 01:01, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Number of sunpots
An anon has questioned the statement ... more typical 40,000–50,000 spots in modern times. As the number doesn't correlate with the graph for a 30 year period (high by a factor of ten+) and the line has been in the article since the beginning of time ... Jan 2002. So, I've added a cite needed tag for now. Vsmith (talk) 23:39, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi. I have added a citation needed on the Sunspots table in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum#Sunspot_observations. That table appears to have been added by an anonymous user in this edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maunder_Minimum&diff=prev&oldid=11308630 None of the astronomers mentioned were older than 11 in the year 1610 so they are unlikely to be the relevant observers. It is also strange that only year numbers ending in 0 are listed. There appears to be no way of knowing where that data came from. If anybody knows where to find sunspot observations from 1610 to 1650, please check the numbers and add a reference. Andrew McRae 78 (talk) 10:59, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Winter was cold, but where
"The winter of 1708-09 was extremely cold" Right, that is, in some Europe. Southern hemisphere did not have winter 1708-1709. It has, of course, winters 1708 and 1709. What about the rest of the northern hemisphere? --91.152.90.62 (talk) 22:35, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Should "1% of the medium amount" be replaced by "1% of the median amount"
This could just be a typo but I do not know enough about this topic to be sure. If the original is the correct spelling then the sentence makes no sense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.232.104.185 (talk) 01:18, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Was it cold then?
How much colder was terrestrial air temperature during the MM? Was there a significant amount cooling? If so, how much of this cooling was (or is currently) attributed to what was happening on the sun? (I didn't see much at Solar activity.) --Uncle Ed (talk) 21:30, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Significant concurrent events
Thanks to Vsmith for removing my goof &mdash; my wife interrupted me. I agree with removal of trivia, as previously discussed above. In light of Little Ice Age and Other observations, my intent was to add a new Significant concurrent events, starting with Lan_Xang where I have already put a link to the Maunder Minimum. In light of what's going on today, I think it important to link significant climatic events to articles on concurrent collapse of kingdoms and empires, and vice versa. In many articles, this has already been done. This is my first feeble attempt. What do others here have to say? --Pawyilee (talk) 15:43, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
 * PS: I've just read Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Climate change, and will drop this like a ho potato!--Pawyilee (talk) 15:50, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

"During one 30-year period within the Maunder Minimum, Spörer observed fewer than 50 sunspots, as opposed to a more typical 40,000–50,000 spots in modern times.[5]"
How Could Spörer have observed fewer than 50 sunspots during one 30-year period within the Maunder Minimum, if the Maunder Minimum ended at 1715 and Spörer was only born in 1822?


 * I see that you corrected the text to point out that Spörer was reporting observations by others. I checked the citation, and see that in fact this is a report of observations from 1672-1699, so I corrected that to read "Spörer noted that, during one 28-year period within the Maunder Minimum (1672-1699). Geoffrey.landis (talk) 20:29, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Convincing mechanism
As regards the claim made in the current version of the article that, "no convincing mechanism for the solar activity to produce cold temperatures has been proposed," see: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014JD022022/full and the papers it cites. (sdsds - talk) 07:02, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

The Next Minima should occur approximately 409 Years after the last Minima
Sun Spot Minima occur during the combined alignments of the four largest planets in our Solar System. These Minima can be taken as two groups of three planets.

The alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus occur every 208.653 0097 Years. The alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune occur every 409.257 4551 Years. The alignment of all four occurs every 2898.886848 Years. Since 2 times 208.653 0097 = 417.306 0194 Year is close to 409.257 4551 Years, there are times when the forces applied by Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune all from one side of the Sun, severely reduce the Force applied by Jupiter from the other side of the Sun.

This alignment was centered in the year 1680, but was effective between 1680 plus and minus 35 years, ( between 1645, and 1715 ). If this range holds true for the next Minima, then it will be centered on 1680 + 409 = 2089. If the plus and minus 35 holds true, then the range of low Sun Spots and Cold temperatures will occur between 2054 and 2124.

The last Year the Rio Grande River Froze in Albuquerque N. M. was in 1715. The Sun Spots resumed in 1716. Those born after 2000 can comment here to see if this is correct, but wait until after 2054. 63.225.17.34 (talk) 18:43, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

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Citation needed on CET '5th Warmest Winter' claim
No reference is provided for this claim, and the Met Office HadCET (https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/data/download.html) only provides a 'Seasonal Maximum' dataset from 1878. Where did this claim come from?

2.223.105.235 (talk) 01:01, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Intentionally partial information
The information above is partial to a global warming view. However science does NOT reliably trace Maunder solar states back to 0 A.D.

The Swedish polar ice cap studies of gas bubbles in ice show temperature curves back millions (and millions) of years.

If ever verified for a given accuracy, they show temperature swings have been wild in the past both too hot and cold for humans. In the millions of years we are on a small upswing of a much larger downswing which could either swing up or down historically (if it goes down as the major trend has, we enter an ice age is likely).

The scientists televised the study (ice core drilling) and results on The History Channel, as well as in publications.

ALSO: the only big question one has reading the article IS UN-ANSWERED. THE ARTICLE SHOULD BE REMOVED FOR TOTAL LACK OF UNDERSTANDING OF THE TOPIC. The article states there is a predicted period of solar spots but not their period or predicted next event.

DELETE THE ARTICLE. it has no substance whatsoever.

(p.s. my comment about being in the middle of a maximum could be wrong; it's by memory of my chatting with a SOHO researcher friend of mine, my memory may not be perfect. the statement about 1/2 way through an ice age was glean from a variety of sources: at least 1/2 of which were wikipedia)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8806:401:AFD0:2106:B17C:3466:E247 (talk) 21:11, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

No. I know you won't see this, but I need to give you a dressing down. The 1st line talks about tracing something back to 0 AD which can best be seen using telescopes, which were invented in 1608. They also try to do that in the section titled Other Observations, which you somehow missed. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say it wasn't there yet. The second line is also untrue. https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-old-glacier-ice?qt-news_science_products=0#qt-news_science_products says that Antarctic ice dates back up to ONE million years. The ice core analysis that goes the furthest back goes 740,000 years. The third paragraph first thinks that people can't survive temperatures a few degrees Celsius colder, then says people will die if exposed to temperatures 4 degrees hotter. Tell that to Texas. Next it says we are on a small upswing. This small upswing does in 50 years what the end of an ice age did in 1000. Line 4, I kind of think you are wrong, because I already said it's impossible. Section 5, you start screaming, then want to know something that people much smarter than you (IQs over 100 rather than barely a passing grade) are trying to figure out themselves. Line 6's spacing and capitalization look like you are yelling that you're right, pausing, and then quietly repeating that you're right because people are laughing at you. The PS area covers your butt, talks about something that nobody will connect to you because first I can't find it and second you are a bunch of numbers as an IP that nobody will care to remember. Also, it seems like you have given up proofreading by this point. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.64.101.203 (talk) 22:05, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Aurora during Maunder Minimum
This article says auroral activity was normal during the Maunder Minimum: "During the Maunder Minimum aurorae had been observed seemingly normally, with a regular decadal-scale cycle..." However the Aurora article provides several references saying aurora were uncommon during this period. Shouldn't we reconcile this? Fcrary (talk) 20:06, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

bad stats and the cet
Somebody claimed the MM included the 5th (actually 7th now) warmest ever winter was during the MM. Given that the MM occupies 1/6 of the HADCET record, it seems disingenuous to suggest that this is some sort of evidence that the MM wasn't cold in winter. Ave MM winter=3.13 degrees, ave since then = 3.87 Greglocock (talk) 08:11, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Someone please update the chart to Nasa Solar Cycle 25
Someone please update the chart to Nasa Solar Cycle 25

Global Little Ice Age
The effects of the Little Ice Age were not limited to Europe, according to the page on the Little Ice age. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.64.101.203 (talk) 21:50, 20 February 2021 (UTC)