Drives events similar to El Niño, La Niña
Establishing a key link between the solar cycle and global climate, research led by scientists at the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., shows that maximum solar activity and its aftermath have impacts on Earth that resemble La Niña and El Niño events in the tropical Pacific Ocean.
The research may pave the way toward predictions of temperature and precipitation patterns at certain times during the approximately 11-year solar cycle.
“These results are striking in that they point to a scientifically feasible series of events that link the 11-year solar cycle with ENSO, the tropical Pacific phenomenon that so strongly influences climate variability …

Scientists struggling to understand how Earth’s climate will change in the next few decades have neglected a potential treasure trove of information—sediments deposited in the ocean by major Arctic rivers such as the Colville and Mackenzie rivers—according to geoscientists at The University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University.
The researchers’ study was published in the May 19 edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Sediments deposited in large river deltas around the world record information about past sea level, productivity and storminess on the ocean margin, climate on the adjacent continents (including temperatures and precipitation) and human factors that affect sediment delivery to the margin (such as dams and levees), among other things. …