Here’s more inconvenient news from solar researchers. Even though our sun is quiet at the moment while we are in between peaks in the 11 year sunspot cycles, scientists based at the Institute for Astronomy in Zurich used ice cores from Greenland to construct a picture of our star’s activity in the past.
Researchers extended the record into the past by measuring isotopes of Beryllium-10 (created by cosmic rays entering our upper atmosphere, which then drifts earthward and is trapped in the ice) in Greenland ice cores. Based on both observations and ice core records, we are now at a sunspot peak exceeding solar activity for any time in the past thousand years.”
The number of cosmic rays entering our atmosphere is modulated by the suns magnetic and solar wind activity, which modulates earth’s magnetic field, setting up conditions to either allow more or deflect more cosmic rays entering the upper atmosphere.
They say that over the last century the number of sunspots. which are a proxy indicator of solar magnetic activity, rose at the same time that the Earth’s climate became steadily warmer. According to climate scientists, the Sun’s radiance has changed little during this period. But looking back over 1,150 years, Solanki found the Sun had never been as bright as in the past 60 years.
“The change in solar brightness over the past 20 years is not enough to cause the observed changes in our climate. But the indirect effects (such as the cosmic ray to cloud connection) may be larger, and the range of their influence is unclear, so more study is needed,” he added.
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