More: Earth heading for 'mini ice age' within 15 years - Telegraph (11. July 2015)The earth is 15 years from a "mini ice-age" that will cause bitterly cold winters during which rivers such as the Thames freeze over, scientists have predicted.
Solar researchers at the University of Northumbria have created a new model of the sun's activity which they claim produces "unprecedentedly accurate predictions".
Back in the day, during the previous mini ice age, they used to have a frost fair on the Thames.
Thames frost fair (1683 or 1684) by Thomas Wyke.
From the press release by the Royal Astronomical Society:
Looking ahead to the next solar cycles, the model predicts that the pair of waves become increasingly offset during Cycle 25, which peaks in 2022. During Cycle 26, which covers the decade from 2030-2040, the two waves will become exactly out of synch and this will cause a significant reduction in solar activity.
“In cycle 26, the two waves exactly mirror each other – peaking at the same time but in opposite hemispheres of the Sun. Their interaction will be disruptive, or they will nearly cancel each other. We predict that this will lead to the properties of a ‘Maunder minimum’,” said Zharkova. “Effectively, when the waves are approximately in phase, they can show strong interaction, or resonance, and we have strong solar activity. When they are out of phase, we have solar minimums. When there is full phase separation, we have the conditions last seen during the Maunder minimum, 370 years ago.”