What follows is incomplete, I’ve decided to throw this out early, let the team help fill in more detail.
Original drawing from 1999 paper
“The role of solar forcing upon climate change”
B. van Geel!,*, O.M. Raspopov”, H. Renssen#, J. van der Plicht$,
V.A. Dergachev%, H.A.J. Meijer$ [2 details]
Graphic courtesy of Nigel Calder, this is an altered version emphasizing the solar modulation, as added to the first graphic.
Pierre Auger Observatory have an FAQ on cosmic rays simple but hopefully not too simple.
Note the original discovery involving balloon ascent. Also perhaps how ionisation occurs and that the atmosphere can do electricity.
This is due to the fact that the solar activity cycle is actually one of 22 year periodicity, rather than 11 years. Every 11 years the overall solar magnetic field reverses polarity, and this affects strongly the propagation of charged particles through the Heliosphere.
section “Solar modulation of galactic cosmic rays”
“The Earth’s magnetosphere is a highly dynamic structure that responds quite dramatically to changes in the dynamic pressure of the solar wind and the orientation of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF). Its ultimate source of energy is the interaction with the solar wind. Some of the energy extracted from this interaction goes directly into driving various magnetospheric processes, while some is stored in the magnetotail, to be released later in substorms. The principal means by which energy is transferred from the solar wind to the magnetosphere is a process known as “reconnection,” which occurs when the IMF is oriented antiparallel to the orientation of the Earth’s field lines. This orientation allows interplanetary and geomagnetic field lines to merge, resulting in the transfer of energy, mass, and momentum from the solar wind to the magnetosphere. The viscous interaction of the solar wind and the magnetosphere also plays a role in solar wind/magnetosphere coupling, but is of secondary importance compared with reconnection.”
— http://pluto.space.swri.edu/IMAGE/glossary/magnetosphere.html, links from there might add meaning.
The magnetic field reverses polarity every 11 years but varies anyway.
Map of the magnetic field as far as cosmic ray monitors are concerned.
I’m interested in two facets of cosmic ray data, the 22 year modulation and any polar north/south effect, with the tilt of temperatures north/south a second useful marker.
As I feel able I’ve started to work on looking at various data but this is in progress. A quick look at paired data is on disk so here it is.
An initial result, two stations near opposite poles, run by the same organisation. Slopes like that tend to imply station relative drift yet this is for a common organisation and they do correct for various equipment drifts.
This kind of work means working with difficult data. How far this can be trusted is open, the result is strange with an implication of a 100 year wave.
I have brought in data from the Moscow site as well, trying to get a cross check on whether polar difference is consistent but it is too early to say much. This project is going to be slow, as and when I do more.
Perhaps more telling is there is more of a global commonality in cosmic ray flux.
The 22 year earth cycle phased to the solar 22 year cycle.
Recently I wrote on a earth global dataset https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/met-office-hadcrut-4-solar-linkage/ which was not originally intended as more than a casual look at a new dataset version. These things gain a life of their own.
Shortly after I developed the solar connection a little more https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/03/02/bias-in-solar-activity-the-combination-of-hale-wolf-and-wolf-gliessberg-cycles/
Clouds are of immense importance, great variety and height. At any one time the majority of the world has cloud of some kind. Data is poor, largely from daytime for obvious reasons, with satellite somewhat hampered at night and a short record.
And these are only a tiny part of the whole.
Data records for cloud cover long term are probably poor to non-existent yet this is a weather parameter often collected if more by observation than instrumention.
The signal I am chasing is 22 year in cloud variation. A match for cosmic rays perhaps but that is restrictive to a relatively short record and small spatial coverage.
On neutron flux, there are derived records which are not useful, have had feature removed, eg. DST flux. (about magnetic storms and the equatorial ring current)
Which brings me to the electrical properties of the atmosphere from ground to very high indeed. What has not been examined yet?
I’ve left out material. Have to do for now.
1. Contributor gai at joannanova dropped the paper information in a comment
2. The role of solar forcing upon climate change.
B. van Geel *, O.M. Raspopov , H. Renssen , J. van der Plicht ,
V.A. Dergachev , H.A.J. Meijer
The Netherlands Centre for Geo-ecological Research, University of Amsterdam, Kruislaan 318, 1098 SM Amsterdam, Netherlands
Petersburg Branch of the Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radiowave Propagation of the Russian Academy of Sciences, PB 188, St.Petersburg 191023, Russia
The Netherlands Centre for Geo-ecological Research, Free University, De Boelelaan 1085, 1081 HV Amsterdam, Netherlands
Centre for Isotope Research, University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 4, 9747 AG Groningen, Netherlands
A.F. Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Polytechnicheskaya 26, St.Petersburg 194021, Russia
Evidence for millennial-scale climate changes during the last 60,000 years has been found in Greenland ice cores and North Atlantic ocean cores. Until now, the cause of these climate changes remained a matter of debate. We argue that variations in solar activity may have played a significant role in forcing these climate changes. We review the coincidence of variations in cosmogenic isotopes (C14 and Be10) with climate changes during the Holocene and the upper part of the last Glacial, and present two possible mechanisms (involving the role of solar UV variations and solar wind/cosmic rays) that may explain how small variations in solar activity are amplified to cause significant climate changes. Accepting the idea of solar forcing of Holocene and Glacial climatic shifts has major implications for our view of present and future climate. It implies that the climate system is far more sensitive to small variations in solar activity than generally believed.
 Cloud images courtesy of Wikimedia contributors, click images or via http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Clouds_from_above
Post by Tim Channon