Talk:Solar cycle

Question

I also like to answer on this article: what if the core of the sun is spinning around faster than the (liquide) surface of the sun? This would explain why magnetic fields change acc to the surface. Same is happening on the earth, only on earth it goes slower. Idea?

Redirect to solar variation

Would it not be better to redirect this topic to the very comprehensive article on solar variation, or even to the solar cycles subtopic of solar variation? There might be a few unique bits which could be moved from here. Pol098 18:09, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't agree. It is true that the article on solar variation is much more developed than solar cycle, but I think we should keep a separate article. Solar variation deals with the changes in the total radiant emission of the Sun (cyclic and not cyclic). The solar activity cycle, on the other hand, is primarily magnetic in nature and affects many other things on the Sun beyond total irradiance: flares, sunspots, coronal holes, magnetic fields etc. etc. Of course, there is an evident need to develop this article more. Maybe we could shift the material on "solar activity" from solar variation to here? Gringo.ch 16:46, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree either. The solar cycle is interesting in itself, although if it gets big enough we can put a summary of it in Solar variation and use {{main}} to link to it.

Anyway, I've been reading the abstracts of some scientific papers linking the length of the solar cycle to variations in terrestial temperature. The linkage is about as indirect as CHC-Ozone-UV-cancer, but that's part of what makes it interesting. Some articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals have correlated solar cycle length (darn, a red link!) with ups and downs of the earth's temperature. The correlations might be a statistical fluke, but the papers did pass peer review, so they survived that initial round of scientific scrutiny. --Uncle Ed 01:52, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Have you read Damon & Laut yet? Dragons flight 02:35, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I glanced at it just now, but is Eos a peer-reviewed scientific journal? And are Damon & Laut's objections any more important than M&M's objections to Mann's hockey stick? Oops, let me rephrase that: what's the upshot for writing objective, non-pov-pushing encyclopedia articles about climate change at this website? --Uncle Ed 03:02, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

D+L demonstrates that the solar cycles don't match temperatures when you do the maths properly. That has consequences for that particular theory. AFAIK the original authors have never protested D+Ls analysis William M. Connolley 08:55, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes they have. Friis-Christensen sent a rebuttal of all D&L's criticisms to EOS but EOS would not publish it. But fortunately thats all irrelevant to this article. The solar cycle is quite different from solar variation, at least as they are defined on wikipedia Paul Matthews 20:25, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Current progress of solar cycle

The solar minimum arrived in early 2006 according to NASA
(http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/06mar_solarminimum.htm).

There are forecasts predicting that the next solar cycle will be a pretty strong one (30% stronger)
(http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10mar_stormwarning.htm)
(http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2006/sunspot.shtml) DrBob127 01:04, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

There has been articles from NASA saying solar minimum is here since at least Oct 2004. I would say, we are really close from solar minimum now, either past or future. The best thing to follow is probably this plot from NASA. It shows sunspot numbers versus time with predictions.

Concerning the forecast of the future solar cycle, I have heard about everything from weak to strong and average by different groups and authors. See for example here(NASA) and hereUSferdinand 03:04, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be good to have a sentence about the latest and next solar minimum/maximum in the opening blurb, no? I came to the article looking for that, and couldn't easily find the information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.194.120.37 (talk) 11:51, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

For the rest of us

Forgive me, but Space is not my area of expertise. Does any of this actually affect the average person in a tangible way? I don't mean it as an insult, I'm just wondering if the solar cycle impacts earth's temperature or anything else that doesn't require an astrophysics degree to appreciate. --Anoma lee (talk) 01:44, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

The effects of the solar cycle are subtle enough that they're still being investigated. Most of the effects are not dramatically obvious. Because solar flares are part of the cycle, the possibly more dramatic effects of a flare are indirectly part of the cycle's effects, but only in the way that a hurricane's effects are part of summer. Even so, a flare's effects usually are not visible to the average person; see the article Solar flare for a description of those. -- SEWilco (talk) 05:55, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I disagree...the soalr cycle can have direct impact on daily life - if your power goes out or cell phone stops working or plane flight gets canceled due to solar storms.

65.215.33.194 (talk) 14:45, 23 June 2008 (UTC)KC

question about article history

where did all the history disappear? Also, where did all the previous discussion disappear? Lakinekaki (talk) 14:37, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Just how much is 0.1% variation?

Some numbers to put the percentages into perspective. http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/2007/04/post_3.html If you don't know the actual numbers, 0.1% can sound like a 'small' amount. If I have the math right, that puts a hurricane like Katrina equal to about 1/10 second of solar influx - spread over a week, or approximately 14 to 15 years of the total energy use of the human race. Human activity is as nothing on global temperature when compared to the smallest twitch in solar output. For the folks pointing to the record 2005 Atlantic hurricane season (nevermind the subsequent low activity) have a look at the 1979 Pacific typhoon season. That spawned the largest cyclonic storm on record, Typhoon Tip, and a large number of smaller storms. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bizzybody (talk • contribs) 01:08, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Impact on human mood and health

William James Sidis thought that solar cycles affect our mood and have correspondence with occurrence of wars and revolutions.[1] Some more recent studies indicate correlation between solar cycles and human health[2][3][4][5][6] a phenomena similar in nature to seasonal affective disorder.

So why does this not deserve two sentences in the whole article? It sais precisely 'current studies indicate'. It doesn't pretend to say that its a widespread scientific belief. Lakinekaki (talk) 18:39, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Because we are out in the WP:FRINGE's. (and additionally your synthesis of unrelated sources (the references you just gave) is original research) --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 18:58, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Before I argue that point, did you actually read the references? Lakinekaki (talk) 19:10, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes i did. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 21:02, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree, this does not deserve inclusion. --SesquipedalianVerbiage (talk) 21:12, 23 July 2008 (UTC)