By Lawrence Solomon
In yet another sign that the Earth could be heading in to a period of global cooling, NASA reports that the solar wind is now at a 50-year low, the lowest that NASA has seen. This change in solar activity, which began to occur about a decade ago,Â coincides with the end of the climb in global temperatures that had been underway for decades.
“What we’re seeing is a long term trend, a steady decrease in pressure that began sometime in the mid-1990s,” explains Arik Posner, NASA’s Ulysses Program Scientist in Washington DC.
“How unusual is this event?
“It’s hard to say. We’ve only been monitoring solar wind since the early years of the Space Ageâ€”from the early 60s to the present. Over that period of time, it’s unique. How the event stands out over centuries or millennia, however, is anybody’s guess. We don’t have data going back that far.”
Read the rest of this story at National Post (Canada).