Posts Tagged ‘sun’
2009
“A SECOND look at sunspot drawings from the 1700s has clarified a puzzling episode in the sun’s history, and could lead to more accurate forecasts of dangerous solar outbursts.
The sun sometimes hurls clouds of plasma our way, which can fry satellites and knock out power grids on EarthMovie Camera. The outbursts are most common during solar maxima, when the dark blemishes of sunspots appear in greatest abundance on the sun.
Although there is an average of 11 years between solar maxima, predicting the exact timing and height of each peak is difficult as there is little historical data to plug into models. About two dozen solar cycles have occurred since reasonably complete records began. Now an analysis of historic sunspot drawings suggests that this patchy record had omitted a solar cycle from the late 1700s…”
source: newscientist.com
“Establishing a key link between the solar cycle and global climate, research led by scientists at the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., shows that maximum solar activity and its aftermath have impacts on Earth that resemble La Niña and El Niño events in the tropical Pacific Ocean.
The research may pave the way toward predictions of temperature and precipitation patterns at certain times during the approximately 11-year solar cycle. ‘These results are striking in that they point to a scientifically feasible series of events that link the 11-year solar cycle with ENSO, the tropical Pacific phenomenon that so strongly influences climate variability around the world,’ says Jay Fein, program director in NSF’s Division of Atmospheric Sciences. ‘The next step is to confirm or dispute these intriguing model results with observational data analyses and targeted new observations…”
via sciencedaily.com