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www.southgatearc.org
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The Maunder MinimumFor the Sunspot conspiracy theorists amongst us, Kitski VK2LL has sent an interesting read from last Monday's SMH: It seems a Jack Eddy was a solar astronomer best known for his demonstration that irregular variations in solar surface activity were associated with major shifts in the Earth's climate. He made his name in 1976 with the publication in the American journal Science
of his 12-page paper, The Maunder Minimum, which argued that the 11-year
sunspot cycle, which had been observed since the invention of telescopes He noted that between 1645 and 1715, sunspots had almost entirely disappeared. There were contemporary references to this phenomenon, and among those who later drew attention to it were the German astronomer Gustav Spoerer and the English astronomer Edward Maunder. Eddy re-investigated sunspots in the light of Spoerer's and Maunder's work, and concluded that every two centuries or so there was an interruption to the 11-year cycle. He christened the period 1645-1715 the "Maunder Minimum". Eddy realised that by looking at radiocarbon dating and its variations it was
possible to identify comparable episodes going back thousands of years. He
also believed there was a link between solar activity and the Earth's climate.
Wireless Institute of Australia
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