There have been more sunspots since the 1940s than for the past 1150 years. Does this mean the Sun is changing?
Jenny Hogan writes in New Scientist that geophysicist Ilya Usoskin discovered this from reconstructing the history of sunspot activity for the past 1500 years. Sunspot observations date from the 17th century, when the telescope was invented. To study earlier sunspots, Usoskin studied radioactive isotopes from ice cores taken from Greenland and Antarctica.
These findings may add to the evidence that the Sun is partly responsible for global warming. Astronomer Mike Lockwood says, “We are living with a very unusual sun at the moment.”
We’ve survived tough times before and we will again.
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