Tiny solar activity changes affect Earth's climate!
DENVER, Colorado (PNN) - January 16, 2013 - Even small changes in solar activity can impact Earth's climate in significant and surprisingly complex ways, researchers say.
The sun is a constant star when compared with many others in the galaxy. Some stars pulsate dramatically, varying wildly in size and brightness and even exploding. In comparison, the sun varies in the amount of light it emits by only 0.1% over the course of a relatively stable 11-year-long pattern known as the solar cycle.
Still, "the light reaching the top of the Earth’s atmosphere provides about 2,500 times as much energy as the total of all other sources combined," solar physicist Greg Kopp at the University of Colorado told SPACE.com. As such, even 0.1% of the amount of light the sun emits exceeds all other energy sources the Earth's atmosphere sees combined, such as the radioactivity naturally emitted from Earth's core, Kopp explained.
The sun is a constant star when compared with many others in the galaxy. Some stars pulsate dramatically, varying wildly in size and brightness and even exploding. In comparison, the sun varies in the amount of light it emits by only 0.1% over the course of a relatively stable 11-year-long pattern known as the solar cycle.
Still, "the light reaching the top of the Earth’s atmosphere provides about 2,500 times as much energy as the total of all other sources combined," solar physicist Greg Kopp at the University of Colorado told SPACE.com. As such, even 0.1% of the amount of light the sun emits exceeds all other energy sources the Earth's atmosphere sees combined, such as the radioactivity naturally emitted from Earth's core, Kopp explained.
