St Valentine's Day Polar Vortex: Mini-Ice Age, Polar Vortex and Day After Tomorrow

THE Sun’s activity has plummeted to a century low, baffling scientists and possibly heralding a new mini-Ice Age.

“I’ve been a solar physicist for 30 years, and I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” Richard Harrison, head of space physics at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, told the BBC

“If you want to go back to see when the Sun was this inactive… you’ve got to go back about 100 years,” he said.

The lull is particularly surprising because the Sun has reached its solar maximum, the point in its 11-year cycle where activity is at its peak.

The lacklustre climax also follows a solar minimum – the period when the Sun’s activity troughs – that was longer and lower than had been anticipated.

Mike Lockwood, professor of space environment physics at the University of Reading, told the BBC there was a significant chance that the Sun could become increasingly quiet.

He compared the current circumstances to the latter half of the 17th Century, when the sun went through an extremely quiet phase referred to as the Maunder Minimum.

That era of solar inactivity coincided with bitterly cold winters to Europe, where the Baltic Sea and London’s River Thames froze over. Conditions were so harsh that some described it as a mini-Ice Age.

Prof Lockwood says we may see a repeat if the Sun continues to dip, positing that the results would be dominantly felt in Europe due to the flow of an air current in the upper atmosphere that can drive the weather.

“It’s a very active research topic at the present time, but we do think there is a mechanism in Europe where we should expect more cold winters when solar activity is low,” he said.

In the 2004 American movie, “The Day After Tomorrow”, everyone thought the earth was entering a global warming trend but three massive size Polar Vortexes covered the planet’s surface to created a world wide ice age. Just like in the movie scientists were baffled that the Polar Vortex moved away from the poles both north and south because they rarely do but the Polar Vortex will be on the move again. Tomorrow.

http://metro.co.uk/2014/01/08/polar-vortex-us-deep-freeze-v-the-day-after-tomorrow-4254854/

We compare how the current Arctic blast compares to the catastrophic climatic effects seen in the Hollywood blockbuster below.

Photo comparison of “The Day After Tomorrow” and Real Life:

1. Frozen cities

Realistic (Picture: File)

2. Everyone is cold

Freezing commuters in Chicago, Illinois (Picture: Scott Olson/Getty)

They look cold (Picture: File)

Platforms were crowded and trains were delayed because doors on the trains kept freezing open (Picture: Getty)

Damn, no trains (Picture: File)

3. Frozen

The Chicago skyline is seen as the Arctic sea smoke rises off Lake Michigan (Picture: Reuters)

Spooky (Picture: File)

The Chicago skyline (Picture: Reuters)

Aerial view (Picture: File)

4. Satellite images 

A handout provided by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows the entry of a large area of low pressure from the vortex (Picture: NOAA / Getty)

A graphic from the film (Picture: File)

5. Ice 

The Day After Tomorrow? (Picture: Darren Hauck/Getty)

Frozen (Picture: File)

More actual non-Hollywood images from the US 

Chicago hit a record low of -16°F this week (Picture: Getty)

Water sprayed by firefighters froze after this building caught fire in Nebraska (Picture: AP /Nati Harnik)

A natural-colour image of fog forming over the US Great Lakes area (Picture: AFP/NASA EARTH OBSERVATORY)

A deep freeze has hit the US (Picture: Getty)

Arctic circle? (Picture: Scott Olson/Getty)