Posts Tagged ‘Theodor Landscheidt’

Japanese astronomers also see a Maunder-like solar minimum coming

April 21, 2012

We have been seeing signs that a new solar minimum is probably established and that we are in for a decade or two or three of global cooling. Whether this minimum will be as deep as the Maunder Minimum (1645 – 1715) or more like the Dalton Minimum (1790 – 1830) remains to be seen. Of course we will not know whether we are truly in a Solar Minimum until we are half-way through it. It has been proposed that this new minimum be named after Theodor Landscheidt who predicted this in 1989.

Now Japanese astronomers are also predicting a solar minimum similar to the Dalton Minimum and a period of global cooling. However results from the solar  observation satellite Hinode also suggest that an unusual configuration of the sun’s magnetic poles may also be on its way.

Asahi Shimbun.

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Solar cycles and the Landscheidt minimum

March 10, 2012

A recent post by John O’Sullivan reminded me that it is time for the next solar minimum that is on its way to be named after the man who predicted it. Theodor Landscheidt (born in 1927 in Bremen, Germany, died on May 20, 2004) was an author and amateur climatologist. In 1989, Landscheidt forecast a period of sunspot minima after 1990, accompanied by increased cold, with a stronger minimum and more intense cold which should peak in 2030 which he described as the “Landscheidt Minimum”.

The sun goes through its cycles as it will and at its own pace and we continue to struggle to try and decipher the various cycles that exist, what causes them and what effects they have on the earth. Some of the cycles known or hypothesised to exist are the:

  • 11 year sunspot cycle
  • 22 year magnetic cycle
  • 87 year Gleissberg cycle
  • 166 year “unnamed” cycle
  • 210 years Suess or de Vries cycle
  • 2,300 years Hallstat cycle
  • 6000 years Xapsos and Burke cycle

Landscheidt’s paper is here: New Little Ice Age instead of Global Warming?

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