Friday, September 5th 2008, 6:33 PM EDT
THE ROLE OF THE SPOTLESS SUN
by Piers Corbyn
An exclusive interview with Piers Corbyn.
Most of us tend to think of the Sun as the key driver of climate change on Earth. In general we also tend to think in terms of an active Sun being responsible for weather extreme's and a calm Sun (spotless) with less of an influence to the Earth's weather system.
CO2Sceptics.Com put the following question to Astrophysicist and long range Weather Forecaster Piers Corbyn.
"How is it that we have a Spotless Sun and yet find the development of several Hurricanes in the Atlantic"?
On being asked how solar activity is driving these developments when there seems to be so little happening on the Sun Piers Corbyn said:
"There is a lot more to the Sun than light and spots. Most of the important effects are invisible and complex. If we had magnetic eyes so to speak the Sun would look twice as big and very complex. If we could see the solar wind of particles that rushes from the sun all the time Earth would be right in the wind - which in fact goes on to way beyond Pluto. the earth is IN the Sun's extended corona.
"The changes in magnetic connectivity between the sun and the Earth are very important. Even when apparently there is not much happening on the sun there will be events of all sorts which we cannot see and changes in how they link magnetically to Earth or are modulated by various factors in the earth's stratosphere or magnetosphere or even by lunar effects.
"The sun-earth general set up we are now in is Odd to even Cycle (23 to 24) solar minimum transition. In these periods (which go on for a few years every 22 years or so) the Earth is most sensitive to small changes on the sun. Consequently we can get extreme weather events without much obvious action on the sun.
For example we at WeatherAction predicted a very large North Atlantic storm with exceptional sea swell would occur at end Nov 2007 and indeed the largest sea swell ever recorded was reported on Irish coasts. The subsequent storm track caused eg tornado type events in France and Belgium. [Note Some meteorologists in Holland who seemed to have been praying for Armageddon said our forecast was 'wrong' because they didn't get deluged although they might have been in a possible storm track. Our forecast of the event was not wrong, Holland was just in the wrong (or right!) place].
"Another important situation was the very dramatic shift of Siberian High pressure last winter giving supercold in China for example.
"Variations in the Jet stream are driven by sun-earth magnetic and particle activity. For summer 2007 and summer 2008 we correctly forecast very large Jet stream shifts for Ireland, Britain and much of west Europe which gave the tremendous deluges and floods which we specifically forecast 6months ahead to within a day.
"We are now expanding forecasting to other parts of the world for
certain extreme events.
AND WHAT ABOUT CO2, are you a CO2 Sceptic?
"CO2 has never driven, does not drive and never will drive weather or Climate. Global warming is over and it never was anything to do with CO2. CO2 is still rising but the world is now cooling and will continue to do so. Those who claim man's CO2 is driving weather or Climate must produce evidence. They cannot do so because there is no such evidence and they cannot even forecast anything. All they do is wait for extreme events and say that whatever happens is what they expected. Such drivel should not be allowed to pass yet shamefully many who style themselves as science correspondents and experts promote this nonsense. Global Warming is a deceitful political game.
The UN IPCC must be called to account and integrity in science and politics must be brought back"
THANK YOU
Piers Corbyn
piers@weatheraction.com
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