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Clouds and the Interplanetary Electric Field (IEF)

28 December 2013
Electromagnetism

This is worth reading. Recommended. Go to http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/26/new-paper-clouds-blown-by-the-sola… … which claims there is a terrestrial impact on cloud cover due to the interplanetary electric field (or the global electric circuit) which comes complete with a video to watch and listen.

The paper is in Environmental Research Letters 8, M Voiculescu et al 'Clouds blown by the solar wind' (2013) doi:10.1088/1748-9326/8/4/045032 … the interplanetary electric field is modulated by the solar wind speed and the interplanetary magnetic field. There is a clear energetic input into the atmosphere and this effects mid to high latitude clouds. The IEF responds differently to solar activity than it does to the cosmic ray flux from outside the solar system, and these differences are distinguishable.

One commenter, at 1.06am, claims the solar wind is a carpet of flux tubes. These, he says, are like electrical wires back to the source. The Voyager space ship has found signs of such structures all the way out to the heliosphere. The Earth has a large flux tube connecting it to the Sun (quoting Joseph Borovsky in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, volume 113 issue A8, Cite ID A08110, where it is argued that the inner heliosphere is filled with a network of entangled magnetic flux tubes and these are mainly fossil structures that originate at the solar surface. See also PA Semi, 'Orbital resonances of solar cycles' and the first comment by Vukcevik

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