Posted on 08/13/2007 5:52:45 AM PDT by ConservativeMind
The research, conducted by paleoclimatologist Curt Stager of Paul Smith's College in Paul Smiths, N.Y. and colleagues, can be used by public health officials to increase measures against insect-borne diseases long before epidemics begin.
The scientists showed that unusually heavy rainfalls in East Africa over the past century preceded peak sunspot activity by about one year.
"The hope is that people on the ground will use this research to predict heavy rainfall events," Stager said. "Those events lead to erosion, flooding and disease. With the help of these findings, we can now say when especially rainy seasons are likely to occur, several years in advance."
"These results are an important step in applying paleoclimate analyses to predicting future environmental conditions and their impacts on society," said Dave Verardo, director of the National Science Foundation's paleoclimate program, which funded the research. "It's especially important in a region [East Africa] perennially on the knife-edge of sustainability."
Sunspots indicate an increase in the sun's energy output, and peak on an 11-year cycle. The next peak is expected in 2011-12. If the pattern holds, rainfall would peak the year before.
Because mosquitoes and other disease-carrying insects thrive in wet conditions, heavy rains may herald outbreaks of diseases such as Rift Valley Fever.
The research relied on rainfall data going back a century. Historical records of water levels at lakes Victoria, Tanganyika, and Naivasha also demonstrated the link.
Stager demonstrated that while the link between sunspots and rainfall seemed to grow weaker from 1927 to 1968, the cyclic pattern held true throughout the 20th Century. Previous statistical analysis discounted the link for a variety of reasons, including the influence of climatic disturbances not associated with sunspots.
The researchers, who represent five institutions from the United States and Great Britain, offered several reasons why sunspot peaks may affect rainfall. The increased solar energy associated with sunspots, they suggest, heats both land and sea, forcing moist air to rise and triggering precipitation. It may also induce El Niño events, which increase rainfall in East Africa.
While sunspot peaks augur extraordinarily wet rainy seasons, heavy rains are possible at other times as well, Stager acknowledged. But most of the rainiest times, he said, are consistently coupled with the predictable rhythms of sunspot peaks.
"When you think of climate troubles in Africa, it's usually about drought," Stager said. "You don't often think of the opposite situation.
"Too much rain can create just as many problems."
The results are published online in the August 7 issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research.
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by National Science Foundation.
The situation is worse than we feared. SUV’s cause sunspots. We’re doomed.
The horror...
Anyone who denies that the sun is the main driving force in the weather and the climate is wrong.
Huh?
Seems like you could predict sunspots by observing the rain, but how do you get the other way round?
Here’s a great new video on comparing the solar activity cycle: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rb9jTeFcatU
“Seems like you could predict sunspots by observing the rain, but how do you get the other way round?”
Exactly my thoughts upon reading that. Thanks for posting your question. Let’s hopefully get some answers to the confusion. Must be missing something.
Scientwists figered it when viewing sunspots in rewind.
Their recent prediction of the next cycle and peak range from worst ever to biggest ever, take your pick.
Isn't sunspot activity on an approximately 11 year cycle? I wonder if this is how they can predict the rainy years.
Bingo. Now that I read it again, I find I missed a word:
unusually heavy rainfalls in East Africa over the past century preceded peak sunspot activity by about one year.
Indeed the peaks are on an 11-year cycle.
Although, if these rains happen every 11 years, doesn't seem like you should call them "unusual".
“Isn’t sunspot activity on an approximately 11 year cycle? I wonder if this is how they can predict the rainy years.”
Good point! My wife and myself have discussed the “cycles” we have come to know here in S. California. We always refer to them in ten year increments, however the “cycles” fluctuate to either nine, or as you say eleven years.
We see drought, then it rains like heck for several years, then the rain each year thereafter dissipates until we have a “cycle” of drought again, then the ninth to tenth year it rains like heck again. The “Cycles” are fairly consistant, give or take a year this way or that from the figure of ten years.
Of course a number of years ago the Leftist MSM meteorologists began trying to blame it all on “El Nino” which is a known phenomena in Peru thousands of years old, but “El Nino” is consistantly inconsistant, so I guess they drew upon the vast experience of “Pinky and the Brain” as they needed something more concrete so they developed GW./s ;)
As the article says, er uh, sun spots peak every eleven years. Some very advanced computer models have been able to determine when the year before eleven will occur.
:-)
Global Warming is unraveling faster than Clinton’s middle-class tax cut.
It's HOT & Humid in Texas in August!!
Global Warming is unraveling faster than Clinton’s middle-class tax cut.
::::::
Ha! Good one. But really. A tax cut from a frothing Marxist like Hitlery??? Never happen. Karl Marx would cut her off...
Cute, Advanced computer models are also suspect in the GW misinformation game.
I’ll stick with historical facts.
I think it is because we can predict sunspots some years in advance, due to the Sun’s rather predictable cycle.
Yeah, reading the entire article before posting helps comprehension.
Maybe I'll start doing that. ;->
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