Sunspot update

Back in 2009 I did two posts on the unexpected decline in the number of sunspots, and wondered whether that might lead to a period of global cooling.  The sunspots eventually returned, and there is no general cooling trend as yet.

Here we are ten years later, and the blankness of the sun is even more pronounced.  The record for spotlessness is 269 days, set in 2008.  We are at 225 spotless days this year, with two months to go, so the record is in jeopardy.

Electroverse provides more data on this, with some analysis and graphs.  The next solar cycle is projected to be weakest in 200 years.  200 years ago we had the Dalton minimum, when global temperatures fell by 2 degrees centigrade over 20 years, leading to crop failures and food riots.  Some believe that a grand solar minimum operates on a 400-year cycle, and we are at the beginning of just such a cycle. 

Perhaps we can put the Green New Deal on hold until we have more data?