'Mini ice age' coming in next fifteen years, say scientists

News comes after scientists employed new research methods that can predict solar cycles with far more accuracy

There is a glad tiding for those living in the hottest regions of the world: the earth is going to experience another ice age in 2030, according to solar scientists.

The scientists are calling it a 'mini ice age' that will last from 2030 to 2040, causing the solar activity – which greatly affects the temperature – fall by 60 per cent.

The news has come after scientists employed new research methods that can predict the solar cycles with far more accuracy. The new research model shows irregularities in the sun’s 11-year heartbeat, promising an ice age in near future.

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But we have yet to experience the predicted conditions lastly surfacing in 1645 till 1715, regarded as Maunder Minimum ice age.

The findings were presented by Professor Valentine Zharkova at the National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno. It was in 1843 that scientists first discovered that the sun’s activity can vary over a cycle of 10 to 12 years.

Scientists say that fluctuations in solar activity within that cycle is hard to predict while many solar physicists were of the opinion that these changes occur due to a dynamo of moving fluid deep inside the sun which resultantly affects the temperature of Earth.

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The scientists found magnetic waves in two different layers of the sun’s interior which fluctuate between the northern and southern hemispheres of the sun.

“Combining both waves together and comparing to real data for the current solar cycle, we found that our predictions showed an accuracy of 97 per cent," Professor Zharkova says.

The pattern as described by Professor Zharkova illustrates that there will be less sunspots on the next two solar cycles. Scientists opine that the cycles which have yet to peak in 2022 and 2030 to 2040 will be greatly reducing the solar activity.

The article originally appeared on The Independent