Solar Wind Flux Is Weakest Since Accurate Measurements Started

The Sun's solar wind provides a protective shield around the Sun from the solar wind of other stars.  This million mile-per-hour solar wind is at a minimum compared to all other measurements since accurate measurements have been performed, starting with the Space Age.  This plasma of charged particles cannot sweep other charged particles in the solar winds of other stars away once it comes into equilibrium with them in the heliopause.  The boundary of the heliopause should be shrinking as the solar wind diminishes, as measured by the satellite Ulysses in its polar orbit about the Sun in 2007.  This means that cosmic rays will no longer be shielded from Earth as effectively as they have been in the recent past.

The solar wind pressure and the magnetic field embedded in the solar wind were measured to have decreased by 20%.  The field strength at the spacecraft had decreased by 36%.  These are much bigger changes than the Sun's common irradiance changes of about 0.11% in amplitude or twice that from highest to lowest intensity.  Those who like to claim that the Sun is not the big actor in climate change, seem to believe that the only source of energy deposited by the Sun on the Earth is the direct irradiance.  It has been noted recently that cosmic rays nucleate cloud formation very effectively and clouds commonly provide net cooling of the Earth.  If the solar wind has dropped by 20%, then the shielding of cosmic rays may have dropped greatly and there may be much more cooling cloud formation on Earth.  In addition, there should be some deposition of energy in the Earth's atmosphere due to the interaction of the solar wind magnetic field with the Earth's magnetic field and due to the flux of charged particles themselves.  So, the 20% drop in the solar wind may have a large impact on the Earth's climate.

Perhaps contrary to the catastrophic AGW alarmists, it is not the case that man's emissions of CO2 have caused the temperature increases of the late 20th Century, because they claim they do not see natural forces capable of providing the necessary degree of climate change.  Perhaps there are natural forces they do not yet understand very well at all.