Something just occurred that hasn’t happened in nearly a hundred years: an entire month went by without a single sunspot.

According to solar scientists, Solar Cycle 24 was supposed to start last March with an increase in sunspot activity each month. Yet the last seven months have seen an average of only 3 sunspots each.

The chart at right is from the Solar Influences Data Analysis Center in Belgium, and clearly shows the alarming decline in sunspot activity over the past couple of years.

As many readers will know, there is a significant segment of the scientific community that believes sunspot activity is connected to fluctuations in global temperature here on Earth.

The second chart shows sunspot activity over the last 400 years (source: Wikipedia Commons). That trough labeled "Maunder Minimum" happens to coincide with the "Little Ice Age" in which bitter winters and advancing ice packs affected large portions of the northern hemisphere.

Daily Tech notes:

In 2005, a pair of astronomers from the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Tucson attempted to publish a paper in the journal Science. The pair looked at minute spectroscopic and magnetic changes in the sun. By extrapolating forward, they reached the startling result that, within 10 years, sunspots would vanish entirely. At the time, the sun was very active. Most of their peers laughed at what they considered an unsubstantiated conclusion.

The journal ultimately rejected the paper as being too controversial.

The recent drop in solar activity has evidently stopped the laughter, as astronomers Livingston and Penn have published their work in a variety of smaller newspapers. What’s Up With That has a rather nice republishing of the abstract and posts the entire paper in PDF format.

If these astronomers are correct and there is a sustained period of solar inactivity, global warming alarmists will be driving Hummers and burning smudge pots in an effort to bring some warmth back to our frozen planet. Better buy futures in woolen mittens and Brazilian real estate.

HT to American Conservative Union Foundation.