The space climate is undergoing an extremely interesting phase – a 100-year period of heightened solar activity is coming to an end.
The sun and weather are the favourite topics of discussion every summer. Kalevi Mursula, professor of space physics at the University of Oulu is interested in both but his interest goes beyond the atmosphere. Mursula studies space climate, including radiation and particles in our solar system.
At the moment, the space climate is undergoing an extremely interesting phase.
The engine of the space climate is the sun, which exerts is influence on its environment by emitting light and releasing solar wind, a stream of charged particles. Now a 100-year period of heightened solar activity is coming to an end.
Keeping tabs on solar activity is important.
Increased solar activity refers to strong solar winds and electromagnetic eruptions called solar storms. When coming into contact with the Earth’s atmosphere, these eruptions may disrupt the functioning of electric devices and communication networks.
Last week, Helsingin Sanomat reported physicist Dr. Pete Riley’s calculations indicating that the likelihood of a disruptive solar storm over the next decade is 12 per cent.
“All our data on space particles are from the period of heightened solar activity. It’ll be interesting to see how the decrease in the activity affects the space climate.”
The task is made easier by the large quantity of data available to scientists as solar radiation is being monitored on dozens of wavelengths across the electromagnetic spectrum.
Researchers also gather additional information by observing the particle concentration in the near-Earth space.
Observing the past
But the Academy of Finland’s Centre of Excellence, the Research on Solar Long-term Variability and Effects (ReSoLVE) team, led by Mursula, is not satisfied with the current state of knowledge.
The scientists at the centre want to find out what has occurred in the sun’s activity over the past 150 years.
“We have both direct and indirect observations on solar activity available to us. For example, the number of sunspots have been observed for a long time.”
Information dating even further back can be gathered from drillings on ice caps, which contain isotopes that make it possible to draw conclusions on earlier changes in solar activity. These isotopes indicate that the sun was exceptionally active during the 20th century but periods of even greater activity took place thousands of years ago.
The reason behind the fluctuation in solar activity is not yet known. One hypothesis is that these long solar cycles are caused by the gravity forces of the planets in the solar system.
However, the current knowledge does not support this hypothesis.
3 Responses
Oh crap! Call big AL. Something must be done about these obstructions to our weather system. Blow ’em UP…they gotta go so we can have perfect weather year round!
Wait! What are all the greedy bankers and pseudo-intellectual “man made” global warming nuts going to say?… Nothing since they ALWAYS ignore opposing evidence. Al and the millions of progs defy reality or logic.
Climate Change is NORMAL!!!! It has been occurring for over 4 BILLION years via “SOLAR ACTIVITY, as well as volcanism, oceanic currents and the Earth’s magnetic field. What I find kooky is that a they think they can stop climate change… Weird stuff….
The largest banks, political donors and bureaucrats are using the Left to push taxes for corrupt reasons to line their pockets. Obama’s green revolution after he was elected in 2009 was used to bankroll his friends wallets!!!!! His friends started bogus ready to fail companies, then received billions of tax payer dollars, they kept most of the money and filed bankruptcy…. This occurred with almost all the companies the energy department gave money to and the lying lib MSM has swept the massive fraud under the rug. Suckers!
Quick! Send some SUVs and Limos to the Sun we need to get this thing jump started again. We can’t have ALGORE feeling his wallet get pinched or have all the Climate Change Zealots have their bubble burst like this. We are going to need a mass suicide watch.