This image shows wind speeds and directions over a segment of the ocean. The red color denotes faster wind speeds while the blue color denotes slower wind speeds. Scientists once wondered if changes in the Sun affected wind patterns on Earth.
Click on image for full size
Courtesy of U.S. Navy/NRL/NOAA
Sun's Effect on Earth's Weather (Wind)
The
Sun affects many things
on Earth. One of the main things the Sun does is warm our planet, including
the atmosphere. This energy drives much of Earth's
weather.
The solar cycle is the rise and fall of the number of sunspots on the Sun. Sometimes there are lots of sunspots and sometimes there are few sunspots.
Scientists know that solar activity (like coronal mass ejections) is higher when there are more sunspots. Last century, scientists started to ask how the solar cycle might affect Earth's weather.
Scientists tried, but were not able to find correlations between the solar cycle and the Earth's weather.
One example was a study by Willet in 1949 to see if the solar cycle affected wind patterns on Earth. He saw the solar cycle as a definite factor in affecting wind variations. However, attempts to confirm his conclusions were not successful.
Over time, with more and more studies and better instruments (especially space satellites), connections between the solar cycle and Earth's weather have been found to be unlikely.
In fact, through much study by scientists around the world, Sun-weather connections have largely been rejected by the science community.
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