You know that big, yellow thingy in the sky? Well, looks like it might play a roll in earth’s climate – from The Sun:
…To simplify, the basis of his theory seems to be sunspot activity, or rather the lack of it. Sunspots are dark, cooler patches on the sun’s surface that come and go in cycles.
They were absent in the 17th century – a period called the “Maunder Minimum” named after the scientist, Edward Maunder, who spotted it. Crucially, it has been observed that the periods when the sun’s activity is high and low are related to warm and cool climatic periods. The weak sun in the 17th century coincided with the so-called Little Ice Age. The Sun took a dip between 1790 and 1830 and the earth also cooled a little. It was weak during the cold Iron Age, and active during the warm Bronze Age…
Its already been an extraordinarily cold fall for us here in southern Nevada. While, of course, the UK and northern Europe have been quite wintry, without any winter actually arriving, yet.
The bottom line is that it looks as though the largest thing in the solar system – the thing which emits huge amounts of energy which makes life possible – may actually determine if its going to be hot or cold here on earth. You might have noticed this from time to time. Like when we tilt on our axis and less sun gets here in the north, it gets cold…and then when we tilt back the other way and get more sun, it gets hot. Also, you might recall that it tends to be a bit more chilly on the cloudy days (when the sun doesn’t hit the surface, much) than on sunny days.
At the end of the day, there are so many variables in what determines the mean temperature of earth that to suppose one item – for which humans only provide a tiny increment – could trump all other things is just absurd. Its amazing that anyone bought it – but when you have a massive propaganda campaign from people who want to steal power and/or wealth, strange things can happen…like a dimwit, former VP getting an Oscar and a Nobel Prize.
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