While awaiting delivery of my first indoor gardening supplies, to finally get my project off the ground, I decided to spend some time finding out about the work of Doctor Valentina Zharkova…

Everywhere the Grand Solar Minimum is discussed, reference is made to Dr Zharkova’s ground-breaking studies and predictions… either with (the majority) awe and respect, or (the boisterous minority) noisy distain. Indeed, as the notion of global warming has become less and less sustainable, finally transforming into ‘climate change’ (albeit still hard to digest, considering that none of the dire predictions made have ever come to pass, plus being a little too associated with a particular political agenda to be convincingly impartial), Dr Zharkova’s data stands, in contrast, in line with empirical observations which are increasingly easier for anyone to make… and not least among whom is Nobel Prize winning physicist Ivar Giaever (see our reference on this site’s GSM page).

Looking back a few years, we find that Valentina was a student at Kiev University in her native Ukraine, and studied applied mathematics. As part of her course work, she was sent out, along with her classmates, to do field observations at night on the moon and stars. Unfortunately, she had a bad habit of falling asleep at around 2am on these outings… This foible convinced her, early on, that, to pursue her vocation in astrophysics, she would have to specialize in observing the sun… And that is how this young lady, after graduating in 1975, then earning a doctorate in astrophysics and philosophy in Kiev (1983), embarked on a university teaching career, moving to the UK in 1992 (first to Scotland, then to England). Meanwhile, she continued her research into the effects of solar activity on the Earth… as unfunded, curiosity-driven, extracurricular activity!

Today, as an internationally recognized physicist, teaching and publishing her research, she generously gives time to interviews for the purpose, she specifies, of informing members of the public who are interested in the results of her work… And we all have good reason to be interested.

We are, she tells us, in a front row seat to observe history in the making. For the first time, our species is not only aware of Solar Minimums (the period of least solar activity in the sun’s usual approximately 11-year cycle) and Grand Solar Minimums (the longer period of least solar activity in a 400-year sun cycle), but present data is now also sufficient to predict the extent of the latest Solar Minimum –a Grand Solar Minimum– which we have just entered (2020). And, she tells us, ‘No one expected what we found…’

Few would question the effect the sun has on life on Earth. In fact, as Dr Zharkova explains, all our energy comes from the sun., while solar activity has been linked to and measured by the number of spots which appear on the solar surface. For those of us with a limited background in astronomy, Dr Zharkova explains that sunspots were discovered within months of the first use of a telescope, in 1609. And it was also observed, as the decades passed, that the number of these spots regularly oscillated from a low to a high number, and back again, over cycles that occur approximately every 11 years. But then, by extending her research over the 400 years of sunspot observations that have accumulated, and corroborating with concurrent weather observations in the northern hemisphere (unfortunately, no one was recording observations in the southern hemisphere), the cycle with an even larger, 400-year scope stood out…

Indeed, from around 1645 to 1715, practically no sunspots were observed. This unexplained phenomenon was concurrent with a time of unusual cold, resulting in reduced growing seasons, a period which is now referred to as the Maunder Solar Minimum (for Edward Walter Maunder, the English astronomer who first brought attention to the phenomenon in 1894). And over the approximately 400 years since, Dr Zharkova corroborated the 11-year cycles with concurrent weather observations.

The formula that Dr Zharkova has developed can be used to hypothesize sunspot activity, and is estimated to be 97 percent accurate. Previously observed periods of reduced solar activity were corroborated with past weather observations, such as during the Oort Minimum (1010-1050), the Wolf Minimum (around1300), followed by the Spoerer Minimum (1460-1550), then the Maunder Minimum (1645-1715). Going even further back into the past, Zharkova notes that during the Homeric Minimum we know that the famous Wars of the Iliad had to be stopped for thirty years, because the extreme cold kept the soldiers of the time from being outside and fighting! (Too bad we cannot look forward to such an effect today…)

Dr Zharkova predicts that we have already entered upon the latest Solar Minimum, a Grand Solar Minimum, and are presently moving nearer and nearer to the bottom of reduced solar activity in the (approximately) 400-year cycle. We will reach a peak (bottom) and a plateau at the end of the 2020s and the beginning of the 2030s. Not until the early 2040s will the activity of our sun, the brightest star in our solar system, begin to return to pre-GSM levels, with a resulting progressive return of the kind of warm, clement weather that we have all, those of us alive today, known and mistakenly taken for granted as ‘usual’, up to now…

In fact, our species has lived through many moderate Solar Minimums and Grand Solar Minimums in the past hundred thousand years, as Dr Zharkova’s research demonstrates, although this will be the first time that we do so knowingly, and thus able to observe the phenomenon as it unfolds. Consequently, this is also the first time that we will be able to consciously prepare for the challenges that GSMs pose, and not only for our species, but for all life on our planet, plant and animal…

Astronomers concur that, since around 2001, sunspot activity is on the decrease. Already Solar Cycle 24 (since observations began) was weaker than Cycle 23. And in cycle 25, which our planet has just entered, Dr Zharkova has used her data, proven by extending corroboration with weather observations over 100,000 years (using carbon dating from trees, for the centuries before recorded weather observations), to develop a formula that predicts 70 percent fewer sunspots than in cycle 24, and which will result in progressively colder winters and summers, with consequently shorter growing seasons for agriculture.

This is the point at which we realize the importance of Dr Zharkova’s work for all our species. With our modern populations so significantly larger than those of previous centuries, the challenge to modern agriculture will be to produce enough for everyone, and at a time when the growing seasons are simultaneously cooler and shortened… But while this challenge looms ever closer, our government leaders are occupied with other questions, and even often negatively impact agriculture, seemingly unaware, or unconcerned, about compounding the difficulties we will have to face… We have time to prepare for the Grand Solar Minimum, but meanwhile the effects of too many ‘misguided’ social policies are increasing the risks of shortages and want, threatening us in even a nearer future than the coming GSM.

As Dr Zharkova shares her understanding of sunspot activity, the listener without much of a background in science (my case) is nonetheless able to follow her explanations, which is always the mark of a truly brilliant mind (and perhaps also a reflection of her doctorate in philosophy…). While solar activity is progressively decreasing, something is happening with the electro magnetic fields on the sun’s equator, causing them to interfere with each other, and to twist into loops due to solar rotation. The magnetic fields normally protect our planet from harmful solar rays, although in a solar minimum the magnetic effect will drop to nearly zero. The most impacted areas will be North America, Europe and Northern Russia. We can expect not only cold winters and summers, but also increased volcanic activity, and the possibility this brings of still another cooling effect on the Earth (due to the cloud cover that can result).

Dr Zharkova, a delightfully down to earth person, reminds us, in all simplicity, that the people of previous epochs survived these recurring cycles and also GSMs even more severe than the one her data predict for us. Indeed, our present Minimum will cover three 11-year sunspot cycles, while the Maunder Grand Solar Minimum covered six. And even then, our ancestors survived, and so will we. (I recommend, for those interested in delving deeper into her work, the fascinating interviews to be found here, and here.)

As well, Dr Zharkova likens the solar activity she has so diligently studied for the better part of forty years to a heartbeat. And on that score, she reassures us, the patient’s pulse is stable and ‘perfect’… Our resilient species will learn how to take in stride the pulsing of that heartbeat, while looking forward to a long future relationship with our solar system’s brightest star.