Sun's Cycle Alters Earth's Climate

[Warped]

this article is a giant Capt Obvious but I've been saying this for years!

Weather patterns across the globe are partly affected by connections between the 11-year solar cycle of activity, Earth's stratosphere and the tropical Pacific Ocean, a new study finds.

The study could help scientists get an edge on eventually predicting the intensity of certain climate phenomena, such as the Indian monsoon and tropical Pacific rainfall, years in advance.

The sun is the ultimate source of all the energy on Earth; its rays heat the planet and drive the churning motions of its atmosphere.

The amount of energy the sun puts out varies over an 11-year cycle (this cycle also governs the appearance of sunspots on the sun's surface as well as radiation storms that can knock out satellites), but that cycle changes the total amount of energy reaching Earth by only about 0.1 percent. A conundrum for meteorologists was explaining whether and how such a small variation could drive major changes in weather patterns on Earth.

Earth-space connection

An international team of scientists led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) used more than a century of weather observations and three powerful computer models to tackle this question.

The answer, the new study finds, has to do with the Sun's impact on two seemingly unrelated regions: water in the tropical Pacific Ocean and air in the stratosphere, the layer of the atmosphere that runs from around 6 miles (10 km) above Earth's surface to about 31 miles (50 km).

The study found that chemicals in the stratosphere and sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean respond during solar maximum in a way that amplifies the sun's influence on some aspects of air movement. This can intensify winds and rainfall, change sea surface temperatures and cloud cover over certain tropical and subtropical regions, and ultimately influence global weather.

"The sun, the stratosphere, and the oceans are connected in ways that can influence events such as winter rainfall in North America," said lead author of the study, Gerald Meehl of NCAR. "Understanding the role of the solar cycle can provide added insight as scientists work toward predicting regional weather patterns for the next couple of decades."

The findings are detailed in the Aug. 28 issue of the journal Science.

How it happens

The changes occur like this: The slight increase in solar energy during the peak production of sunspots is absorbed by stratospheric ozone, warming the air in the stratosphere over the tropics, where sunlight is most intense. The additional energy also stimulates the production of additional ozone there that absorbs even more solar energy.

Since the stratosphere warms unevenly, with the most pronounced warming occurring nearer the equator, stratospheric winds are altered and, through a chain of interconnected processes, end up strengthening tropical precipitation.

At the same time, the increased sunlight at solar maximum — a peak of sunspot and solar storm activity we're currently headed toward — causes a slight warming of ocean surface waters across the subtropical Pacific, where sun-blocking clouds are normally scarce. That small amount of extra heat leads to more evaporation, putting additional water vapor into the atmosphere. The moisture is carried by trade winds to the normally rainy areas of the western tropical Pacific, fueling heavier rains and reinforcing the effects of the stratospheric mechanism.

These two processes reinforce each other and intensify the effect.

These stratospheric and ocean responses during solar maximum keep the equatorial eastern Pacific even cooler and drier than usual, producing conditions similar to a La Nina event. However, the cooling of about 1-2 degrees Fahrenheit is focused farther east than in a typical La Nina (the opposite sister effect of the warm-water El Nino), is only about half as strong, and is associated with different wind patterns in the stratosphere.

The solar cycle does not have as great an effect on Earth's climate as the El Nino cycle.

But the Indian monsoon, Pacific sea surface temperatures and precipitation, and other regional climate patterns are largely driven by rising and sinking air in Earth's tropics and subtropics. The new study could help scientists use solar-cycle predictions to estimate how that circulation, and the regional climate patterns related to it, might vary over the next decade or two.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090827-sun-climate.html

Hopefully Al Gore sits the F down and lets everyone relax. Also I've been having one cold ass rainy summer. I'm not saying go and mess up the planet but people join a cause and have no idea what the facts are. Same thing goes with people who buy toyota Prius, to make one it requires more harvesting of precious Nickle for the batteries than your average car, and it really hurts the environment more than most cars do.

 

[Raziaar]

"All" The energy on the planet?

The earth has its own internal power plant too.

 

[Eejit]

this article is a giant Capt Obvious but I've been saying this for years!


Hopefully Al Gore sits the F down and lets everyone relax. Also I've been having one cold ass rainy summer.

Why do you post things you can't comprehend?

 

[Raziaar]

Wait, this is a disguised Global Warming criticism thread?

Global Warming has been theorized and discussed for a lot longer than 11 years.

 

[Warped]

Wait, this is a disguised Global Warming criticism thread?

Global Warming has been theorized and discussed for a lot longer than 11 years.

An international team of scientists led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) used more than a century of weather observations and three powerful computer models to tackle this question.

this

also this

"The sun, the stratosphere, and the oceans are connected in ways that can influence events such as winter rainfall in North America," said lead author of the study, Gerald Meehl of NCAR. "Understanding the role of the solar cycle can provide added insight as scientists work toward predicting regional weather patterns for the next couple of decades."

which means we are getting better incite into weather and climate systems. not just 11 year cycles but even longer. i know most forecasters can be completely off sometimes but its better than what i can guess

 

[nurizeko]

"All" The energy on the planet?

The earth has its own internal power plant too.

Which, if you want to play semantics, came about by the gravitational pull of the young sun.

So "all" still stands technically.

 

[theotherguy]

That the sun alters climate is an obvious triviality that anyone should be able to grasp, and which scientists have known for decades.

What you fail to understand, and what this article fails to mention, is that solar variability accounts for less than 5 percent of the observed warming that has occurred over the past century. Yes, the sun alters climate, but the crux is that it doesn't alter climate with enough force to account for current warming trends.

 

[Maestro]

It's not Global Warming, it is Global Climate Destabilization. Or if you don't want to say that Global Climate Change, but Global Warming is a massive misnomer coined by Al Gore to make a valid scientific phenomenon politically catchy and easy to understand. So your 'cold and rainy summer' is a retarded way to argue that point. Might I also add it's average, not locational change in temperature world-wide?

Now I won't lay claim as to whether 5% is a valid statistic, but it is undeniable that as CO2 has gone up so has temperature on average. Now while 1 or 2 degrees centigrade may not seem to be huge, but it is more than enough to destabilize a system as massive and prone to chaos theory principles (that is, minute changes causing massive shifts) as the atmosphere. I might also add that as things in the atmosphere go, 1 or 2 degrees centigrade is massive shift when you consider the energy involved with heating up a mass of air as big as the atmosphere.

And please, leave out An Inconvenient Truth and The Great Global Warming Swindle, guys, they're both politically expedient videos with little factual value.

More tomorrow.

 

[dfc05]

Nope, they modeled it. It doesn't.

Anyhow, you could just as well argue that if you really looked at climate trends in relation to the positions of the sun and earth, we're supposed to be trending toward an ice age right now, not warming.

[edit] Oops looks like your article and mine are on slightly different topics, but I'm too tired to fix my post. :| I hate these climate change threads.

 

[nurizeko]

*Stares*



*Looks around*


Oh..OOOOH!


*Feigns shock and surprise* :O

News to me.



< _ <


> _ >

 

[Raziaar]

It's not Global Warming, it is Global Climate Destabilization. Or if you don't want to say that Global Climate Change, but Global Warming is a massive misnomer coined by Al Gore to make a valid scientific phenomenon politically catchy and easy to understand. So your 'cold and rainy summer' is a retarded way to argue that point. Might I also add it's average, not locational change in temperature world-wide?

Now I won't lay claim as to whether 5% is a valid statistic, but it is undeniable that as CO2 has gone up so has temperature on average. Now while 1 or 2 degrees centigrade may not seem to be huge, but it is more than enough to destabilize a system as massive and prone to chaos theory principles (that is, minute changes causing massive shifts) as the atmosphere. I might also add that as things in the atmosphere go, 1 or 2 degrees centigrade is massive shift when you consider the energy involved with heating up a mass of air as big as the atmosphere.

And please, leave out An Inconvenient Truth and The Great Global Warming Swindle, guys, they're both politically expedient videos with little factual value.

More tomorrow.

Global Warming was/is a term used because the global trend in rising average temperatures.

 

[bbson john]

which means we are getting better incite into weather and climate systems. not just 11 year cycles but even longer. i know most forecasters can be completely off sometimes but its better than what i can guess

This is only your blind guess on the report result. Seriously, don't post something that you do not understand as your argument.

An international team of scientists led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) used more than a century of weather observations and three powerful computer models to tackle this question.

Sorry, dude. It means that the research team studied on a lot of the 11-year cycles. Not that the team has studied a multi-century cycle.

"The sun, the stratosphere, and the oceans are connected in ways that can influence events such as winter rainfall in North America," said lead author of the study, Gerald Meehl of NCAR. "Understanding the role of the solar cycle can provide added insight as scientists work toward predicting regional weather patterns for the next couple of decades."

Sorry again, pal. It clearly says it meant to predict regional weather pattern, not global weather pattern. Your quote successfully debunked your anti-global warming argument.

 

[Eejit]

This is only your blind guess on the report result. Seriously, don't post something that you do not understand as your argument.

What would there be left for him to post?

 

[Mr-Fusion]

hehe al gore.

 

[Dynasty]

I truly fail to see how people cant comprehend this issue of global warming, climate shift or whatever you want to call it. Its so arogant.

This is yet another thing to add to the list of reasons supporting the debate.

Think of the effects of this on natural disasters and the debates going on there. Afterall, a natural disaster is only classified as one when it does a certain amount of damage to man-made structures and loss of human life, such as India's monsoons.

Now, are these weather systems increasing in numbers (eg hurricanes) or are humans spreading over the globe so much now that we are living more often in areas that are prone to being struck by hurricanes that usually wouldnt have been acknowledged previously? We move to a deserted island and populate for example, a hurricane strikes, thats 1 more natural disaster that year and the media goes crazy over global warming again claiming disasters are increasing because of it.

So I do see both sides of the argument in that area.

But this article is undeniable.

 

[VirusType2]

There are so many different reasons why we experience climate change. We can't properly address a problem without looking at all of the reasons as a whole, instead of only looking at one reason. Here are some things that effect climate change to add to the discussion.

-All it takes is a couple of volcano eruptions and the Earth's climate will temporarily drop quite quickly and severely. They learned this from studying ice cores. Sulfuric acid from volcano emissions combines with water vapor to form mirror-like particles that reflect The Sun's light back into space. This cold period can last for years.

-The Earth gradually switches between a circular and ovular orbit about every 1,000 years. In an ovular orbit, the Earth will be much further from the sun much of the time.

-Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a greenhouse gas. Sunlight strikes the surface of The Earth, and cannot bounce back into space effectively.

Perhaps the only thing we can do to really effect our climate is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Without even taking fuel burning into account, It takes 7 adult trees to convert the carbon dioxide released by the exhalation of an adult human.

With something like 7 billion people living on earth, in order to actually reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we are going to need to protect the forests and plant some baby trees where they can flourish.

Additionally, the decline of Arctic sea ice is accelerating. The decline of ice may slow or halt The Great Ocean Conveyor Currents (fig.1).

Fig.1

(May 2004) Global warming could plunge North America and Western Europe into a deep freeze, possibly within only a few decades.

That's the paradoxical scenario gaining credibility among many climate scientists.

Without the vast heat that these ocean currents deliver--comparable to the power generation of a million nuclear power plants--Europe's average temperature would likely drop 5 to 10°C (9 to 18°F), and parts of eastern North America would be chilled somewhat less.

Details: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/05mar_arctic.htm

 

[bbson john]

I truly fail to see how people cant comprehend this issue of global warming, climate shift or whatever you want to call it. Its so arogant.

This is yet another thing to add to the list of reasons supporting the debate.

Think of the effects of this on natural disasters and the debates going on there. Afterall, a natural disaster is only classified as one when it does a certain amount of damage to man-made structures and loss of human life, such as India's monsoons.

Now, are these weather systems increasing in numbers (eg hurricanes) or are humans spreading over the globe so much now that we are living more often in areas that are prone to being struck by hurricanes that usually wouldnt have been acknowledged previously? We move to a deserted island and populate for example, a hurricane strikes, thats 1 more natural disaster that year and the media goes crazy over global warming again claiming disasters are increasing because of it.

So I do see both sides of the argument in that area.

But this article is undeniable.

Read the article in detail... It says nothing to the actually global warming we are discussing. I agree with you on the hurricane point, tho. I don't think there is any reliable statistic data relating the frequency of hurricane to global warming so far. But the increase in frequency of hurricane due to global warming is theorized properly. More energy in the atmosphere > more hurricanes.

 

[The Monkey]

I truly fail to see how people cant comprehend this issue of global warming, climate shift or whatever you want to call it. Its so arogant.

This is yet another thing to add to the list of reasons supporting the debate.

Think of the effects of this on natural disasters and the debates going on there. Afterall, a natural disaster is only classified as one when it does a certain amount of damage to man-made structures and loss of human life, such as India's monsoons.

Now, are these weather systems increasing in numbers (eg hurricanes) or are humans spreading over the globe so much now that we are living more often in areas that are prone to being struck by hurricanes that usually wouldnt have been acknowledged previously? We move to a deserted island and populate for example, a hurricane strikes, thats 1 more natural disaster that year and the media goes crazy over global warming again claiming disasters are increasing because of it.

So I do see both sides of the argument in that area.

But this article is undeniable.

What? Humanity hasn't exactly spread to more areas in the last 50 years. Sure, the population density has increased, but that wouldn't affect how many hurricanes etc. that are reported.

 

[cleverendeavouR]

Don't mock Al Gore. He invented the internet.

 

[CyberPitz]

Don't mock Al Gore. He invented the internet.

I agree, he'll probably deltree C:\ on the Internet machine!