Summer predicted to be warmer, drier than normal

The sun has been lying low for the past couple of years, producing no sunspots and giving a break to satellites. In mid-2005, many satellites were “fried” by high sunspot activity.

That’s good news for people who scramble when space weather interferes with their technology, but it became a point of discussion for the scientists who attended an international solar conference at Montana State University in early June.

The scientists said periods of inactivity are normal for the sun, but this period has gone on longer than usual. Perhaps this is the primary reason for the global cooling phase of the last 17 months, more than one degree Fahrenheit.

“Sunspot activity continues to be dead,” said Saku Tsuneta with the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, program manager for the Hinode solar mission. “That’s a small concern, a very small concern.”

Dana Longcope, a solar physicist at MSU, said the sun usually operates on an 11-year cycle with maximum activity occurring in the middle of the cycle. Minimum activity generally occurs as the cycles change. Solar activity refers to phenomena like sunspots, solar flares and solar eruptions. Together, they create the conditions than can disrupt satellites in space and technology on Earth.

The last cycle reached its peak in 2001 and is believed to be just ending now, Longcope said. The next cycle is just beginning and is expected to reach its peak about 2012. Today’s sun, however, is as inactive as it was two years ago, and scientists aren’t sure why.

Tsuneta said solar physicists aren’t like weather forecasters. They can’t predict the future. They do have the ability to observe, and have discovered a longer-than-normal period of solar inactivity. In the past, scientists documented that the sun once went 50 years without producing sunspots. That period, from approximately 1650 to 1700, occurred during the middle of a little ice age on Earth that lasted from as early as the mid-15th century to the mid-1800s. So, it’s possible that the current cycle of global cooling may persist for at least several more years before turning warmer.

As far as our local weather is concerned, during the 90-day summer period extending through late September, we should be warmer and drier than normal, much like during the past couple of summer seasons. However, a full-blown drought pattern, like what’s occurring currently in California and the desert Southwest, is not likely, at least not yet.

There may be a bit more thunderstorm activity than in recent summers, but they will be of short duration, the hit and miss kind of rains that seldom spoil outdoor activities.

I see few, if any, afternoons this summer with readings above the century mark, but there will be numerous 90-degree days, particularly during the 23-day span from mid-July through the first week of August. We’ve seen some of those 90-degree temperatures already.