The Sun Again Intrudes on Earth's Decadal Climate Change
Richard A. Kerr
Researchers have long doubted that solar cycles affect terrestrial climate, because no one has yet come up with a convincing mechanism to explain how tiny changes on the sun might change climate on Earth. Now, however, two such correlations--a 22-year climate cycle recorded in glacial sediments and the tracing of an 11-year cycle from the stratosphere into the lower atmosphere--may be robust enough to give the sun-climate link a touch more respectability.