That's what I meant, the solar minimum will be at it's minimum during the '17-'18 winter. The last lowest solar minimum was during the '13-'14 winter. The solar minimums occur every 5 years based from a 30 year chart. The last solar min before '13-'14 winter was during '09-'10 winter. That's when every state had snow on the ground except for HI in Feb. in 2010. Larry, did you see my post about '95-'96 winter? The solar minimum was at it's minimum during those years.
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No, solar minimums occur on average every 10-12+ years, the Hale (Solar) cycle is just over 11 years long, intriguingly (& not surprisingly), very similar to Jupiter's orbital period around the sun of ~ 12 years... While we currently aren't embedded in a solar minimum, the integrated solar activity over the last decade or so is among the lowest observed in the last few centuries... A solar minimum alone doesn't equate to a cooler winter here, intrinsic inter annual coupled ocean-atmosphere variability modifies, often completely masks the
direct impact of solar variability on the troposphere. In fact, when coupled w/ a westerly QBO &/or NINA during solar minimum, this actually favors
less high-latitude blocking and hence
warmer winters in the eastern and central US, while easterly QBO/NINO events during solar minimum are notorious for exceptional & persistent high-latitude blocking because they increase the efficiency of momentum deposition via upwelling of extratropical rossby waves onto the polar vortex by modifying the stratospheric waveguide and their placement, amplitude, and frequency. Superposition onto the standing planetary waves (which are largely a function of adjacent topography, with troughs (ridges) downstream (upstream) of major mountain ranges such as the Himalayas, and Rockies) is ideal for disrupting the polar vortex, increasing the probability of sudden stratospheric warming events, and allowing for anomalous concomitant stratospheric circulation anomalies to effectively downwell into the troposphere and directly impact our weather in the US. On the other hand, even in the midst of favorable low frequency/long-term background forcing from solar activity, QBO, and ENSO, (ideally solar minimum + easterly QBO + El Nino), seemingly stochastic (random) solar proton events even in a solar minimum, are notorious for completely eradicating high-latitude blocking regimes, virtually in the blink of an eye. In addition it's worth mentioning here that one of the primary (known) conduits through which solar activity can modulate stratospheric and tropospheric variability via in increases in ultraviolet radiation (UV) during periods of high solar activity. Ultraviolet radiation varies ~6-10% or so over the course of solar cycle, which dwarfs solar irradiance that may only change a few tenths of 1% over a period of a decade or so. The higher amount of ultraviolet radiation during solar maximum leads to the production of more ozone in the upper tropical stratosphere. The process of the photodissociation (or the splitting of a compound by light energy) of ozone releases heat into the surrounding atmosphere, thus the increased levels of ozone means the temperature upper atmosphere increases during solar maximum. This results in an intensification of the stratospheric easterlies that can have appreciable impacts on the near surface climate, and vis versa during solar minimum.
See the following for a bit more information on solar proton events, energetic particle forcing, and solar irradiance's impact on the Northern Annular Mode/Arctic Oscillation and near-surface climate.
http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fphy.2014.00025/full
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009RG000282/full
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00843.1
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/11/4547/2011/acp-11-4547-2011.pdf
