Henrik Svensmark published a paper saying solar wind has a large impact on our climate. He believes solar winds magnify the effects of TSI.
He gives a presentation here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pla...
An article about his study is here along with a link to the abstract:
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/0...
The simplified explanation is the chart at the top of this page:
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/0...
CERN Finds “Significant” Cosmic Ray Cloud Effect
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/25/so...
There have been a number of papers that indicate solar wind/cosmic rays have a substantial effect on our climate, here is a good summary of those papers: http://www.climatewiki.org/wiki/Cosmic_r...
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A simple answer would be “yes, solar winds do effect our climate” but a more accurate response would require a detailed explanation and some quantification, neither of which can be given.
Solar winds are charged particles of plasma that are ejected from the Sun’s upper atmosphere. Their high kinetic energy state allows them to escape the Sun’s gravity, they have typical gamma energies of around 5keV.
Once free from the Sun’s gravity, the particles radiate outwards in all directions filling the solar system. Some of these particles reach Earth where massive damage would occur were it not for Earth’s strong gravitational fields and the protective magnetosphere.
The magnetosphere effectively creates a shield around our planet that deflects the majority of incoming particles. Without this protection in place, we would have lost our atmosphere a long time ago, as has happened to other planets within the Solar System.
The theory concerning cloud formation allows that incoming intergalactic cosmic rays cause changes in tropospheric ionisation and that this alters the quantity of aerosol matter that acts as cloud condensation nuclei. This phenomenon would be more influenced by cyclical changes in the interplanetary magnetic field than it would by solar winds. At times of high solar wind activity and an intensified magnetic field the incidence of incoming ICR’s is reduced.
We know that this happens because it’s easy enough to measure and observe and is something we’ve been doing for a long time. Historical records going back thousands of years, astronomical observations covering several hundred years and precise measurements from the 1970’s onwards provides us with plenty of data from which to work.
Less certain is the effect on weather and climates, in this respect more research is needed, but this is being hampered by increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere which make it difficult to isolate the effects of solar winds.
We do know that changes in solar winds, and indeed all solar activity, have a very limited short-term effect on our climates but over long periods of time the effects are more significant.
In the 1,000 years of increasing solar activity and the subsequent 700 years of decreasing activity that commenced at the start of the Current Era, the average global temperature changed by about 0.5°C. The peak warming occurred after about 90 solar cycles during which time there would have been an average temperature increase of about 0.006°C between any two consecutive maxima.
In addition to the 11 year solar cycle, there are numerous longer term cycles about which we know very little and it may be that solar wind activity correlates with a much longer cycle, possibly of many centuries or millennia.
Because the effects of solar variation are so small, there is little evidence to go on. It’s not like the cycle of orbital eccentricity which has a huge impact on our climate, the effects of which can be paleoclimatologically documented over millions of years.
For now, there is no satisfactory answer to your question other than to say that solar winds could affect atmospheric ionisation and this might have a small effect on global climates over short periods of time.
yes, the solar wind have effect earth climate.
Surely it is one key natural construct (should that be all hyphenated, from key to construct? or is the natural hyphenated?...I guess as far as our nature could hope to model this solar effect, this is (a) good question(ing)) that provides the intermixing of individually unique ( or impaired ) qualitatively diversified vectors of effect upon climate. This, my friend, can be construed not as complexity to cause egg-heads to throw up ( their hands in the air) and make climate-worry a thing to be up-in-arms about, but it more assuredly could mean it is good insightful curiousness that ought to survey patterns of commodulation and perhaps carve a moon-crescent in the outhouse door-cover for simple ventilation of 'honest concern' (also can be free of hypens in awe laughing at the lyin'). I suppose my comment is merely upon the language and climate of healthful discourse as to the miraculousness of there being any atmosphere for there to be a survey of a pnatural phenomenon (maybe even a typo is ominous!) such as is called Earth-climate(she's a mountaineer). I hope I misused your prompt fairly for my unique contribution to the diversity of (discussion about) solar-effects upon climate (concerns) for there is more clarity in the amusing beauty of our associative nature- human than there is science-certainty for you to net the left hemisphere with pea-screen from the right as a buffer of the torrential twist from de-toro-aide toreador to ...uh...the guy who blew it with the red cape-a-bull....an' is angry spirit! What is he(recollection data failure)?...the mariachi?...no...no...(bi-polar ellipses)...the matador!
Sunspots are storms on the sun’s surface that are marked by intense magnetic activity and play host to solar flares and hot gassy ejections from the sun’s corona. Scientists believe that the number of spots on the sun cycles over time, reaching a peak―the so-called Solar Maximum―every 11 years or so. Some studies indicate that sunspot activity overall has doubled in the last century. The apparent result down here on Earth is that the sun glows brighter by about 0.1 percent now than it did 100 years ago.
Solar wind, according to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, consists of magnetized plasma flares and in some cases is linked to sunspots. It emanates from the sun and influences galactic rays that may in turn affect atmospheric phenomena on Earth, such as cloud cover. But scientists are the first to admit that they have a lot to learn about phenomena like sunspots and solar wind, some of which is visible to humans on Earth in the form of Aurora Borealis and other far flung interplanetary light shows.
Some skeptics of human-induced climate change blame global warming on natural variations in the sun’s output due to sunspots and/or solar wind. They say it’s no coincidence that an increase in sunspot activity and a run-up of global temperatures on Earth are happening concurrently, and view regulation of carbon emissions as folly with negative ramifications for our economy and tried-and-true energy infrastructure.
“[V]ariations in solar energy output have far more effect on Earth’s climate than soccer moms driving SUVs,” Southwestern Law School professor Joerg Knipprath, writes in his ‘Token Conservative’ blog. “A rational thinker would understand that, especially if he or she has some understanding of the limits of human influence. But the global warming boosters have this unbounded hubris that it is humans who control nature, and that human activity can terminally despoil the planet as well as cause its salvation.”
Many climate scientists agree that sunspots and solar wind could be playing a role in climate change, but the vast majority view it as very minimal and attribute Earth’s warming primarily to emissions from industrial activity―and they have thousands of peer-reviewed studies available to back up that claim.
Peter Foukal of the Massachusetts-based firm Heliophysics, Inc., who has tracked sunspot intensities from different spots around the globe dating back four centuries, also concludes that such solar disturbances have little or no impact on global warming. Nevertheless, he adds, most up-to-date climate models―including those used by the United Nations’ prestigious Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)―incorporate the effects of the sun’s variable degree of brightness in their overall calculations.
Ironically, the only way to really find out if phenomena like sunspots and solar wind are playing a larger role in climate change than most scientists now believe would be to significantly reduce our carbon emissions. Only in the absence of that potential driver will researchers be able to tell for sure how much impact natural influences have on the Earth’s climate.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/articl...
I do not have a firm opinion but think it must have some effect, I wondered if any of you physics wizards know about it.
