I agree, was just curious as to the origins of the info.
I understood that we were overduea polarity flip and that the wild oscillations recently exhibited might well be a precurser. What effects could we see on the ground over the few centuries it might take to reverse as the field arcs move from the pole to the equator - auroras would be visible in the tropics for a start...
Some very interesting comments so far (and all very friendly data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
I've been extremely busy at work the last few day, and my wife has ony recently come out of hospital so not had much time to research some of the claims made or find any evidence to support some of my comments in my orginal post.
Once I've sorted my tax return on Saturday, I'll try and post up some information!
Have a good weekend!
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Sidicks
Having re-read your post, I realise I didn't make myself clear here. I meant that "it has had far greater influence on the weather, rather than the climate". In other words, I meant to emphasise what it affected, not when. As covered in later posts, its climatic effect during historical times has been minor.
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One thing I've never understood; is why can't weather affect climate. There are plenty of examples about warmer weather melting snow and thereby increasing albedo. Why can't this (or the opposite of heavy snowfall) be the start of a feedback loop that changes the climate.
I would suppose that only on a grand scale and over a prolonged period could that possibly occur.
Essentially people get mixed up over the point that weather the localised state of the climate. Generally weather tends to be too changeable and not extreme enough to have that sort of an impact. If the weather was so extreme for long enough to start to have affects on the climate, one could potentially say that the climate was force driving such extremes in the first place.
Catastrophe theory and all that.The proverbial butterfly that flaps its wings off the coast of Africa leading to a hurricane, etc etc.
I suppose in a way it is.The 'weather' at the moment is enough to cause melting of the glaciers on Greenland on a day to day basis. When they have gone the climate may well be considerably different.
That being said, weather and climate are chaotic. A chance concurrence of weather events could be the trigger which starts a warming or cooling cycle, in conjunction with other chance factors. Any scenario you dream up is bound to be a bit fanciful, but suppose say a major volcanic eruption occurred in just a place and time for the ash to be blown by an unusual storm over a wide area of snow field, and that caused more radiation to be absorbed than normal, and that melted more ice, .... You get the picture. Any other time, or in any other weather, it would have had no effect.
Another one, which I've touched upon somewhere in these threads, is an unusually warm spell over the ocean releasing more CO2 than normal and thus causing a greenhouse warming event. In chaotic systems, you don't necessarily need much of a trigger.
Although the first example was only partially due to the weather, the second one shows that it's conceivable that weather alone could do it. I reckon it's another candidate for the list.
I replied to T-B before I read this post.You said it first, and more succinctly.data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7