Solar influences show up in sea level rise, El Nino events and oceanic climatic cycles
Thursday 30th December 2021 | Dr David Whitehouse, Science editor
Share:
The Sun’s energy effects our climate but its influence is often ignored as changes in its intensity are very small. Its effect might be subtle but over decadal periods it adds up to being significant as a series of recent papers show.
Scientists from the University of California, Irvine, the National Taiwan Normal University, and the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, find that the 11-year solar cycle has a significant correlation with sea surface temperature variations in the North-eastern Pacific. They believe that the Sun’s influence is first seen and then amplified in the lower stratosphere, but it then alters the circulation in the troposphere which then affects the temperature of the ocean.
They note that the changes have a structure similar to that of the Pacific meridional mode – an interaction between trade winds and ocean evaporation which is an important trigger of the central Pacific (CP) type of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
It seems that the 11-year solar cycle modulates the CP ENSO and, in particular, is associated with more CP El Nino events during the active phase of the cycle and more La Nina events when the solar cycle undergoes a downturn.
https://www.netzerowatch.com/solar-influences-show-up-in-sea-level-rise-el-nino-incidence-and-oceanic-climatic-cycles/
