In 1988, James Hansen warned the nation about climate change. Decades later, is American public opinion finally catching up?

There have been other lulls before and since, such as the Spörer and Dalton minima. However, Madhulika Guhathakurta, a heliophysicist at NASA, speaking in a personal capacity, questioned how the technology available then affected observations. “During the Maunder minimum, when we couldn’t detect any sunspots, the question remains how well could we detect very faint sunspots then or even now?” she told All About Space. We don’t know and have no measure of that. The uncertainty associated with detecting no sunspots is much harder than counting them during solar maximum.”