09/28/2018
Above: The TIMED satellite monitoring the temperature of the upper atmosphere.
Today’s issue of SpaceWeather.com reports on the Solar Minimum that we are now entering.
THE CHILL OF SOLAR MINIMUM: The sun is entering one of the deepest Solar Minima of the Space Age. Sunspots have been absent for most of 2018, and the sun’s ultraviolet output has sharply dropped. New research shows that Earth’s upper atmosphere is responding.
“We see a cooling trend,” says Martin Mlynczak of NASA’s Langley Research Center. “High above Earth’s surface near the edge of space, our atmosphere is losing heat energy. If current trends continue, the upper atmosphere could soon set a Space Age record for cold.”
The Grand Solar Minimum (GSM) will be the topic of an upcoming meeting as soon as we can schedule it. In the mean time, this PDF is a formal paper presented at the Actuaries Summit in Sydney, Australia; it gives a very detailed overview of what GSM is, and how it is projected to affect us.