STORMS IN THE SUN

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 38, 15 February 1938, Page 8

STORMS IN THE SUN

Only three hundred years ago Galileo, with his litlle telescope, watched a sunspot pass across the sun, and for declaring the fact—as he did for declaring other facts—got himself into hot water with the authorities, who believed that the brilliant lord of the heavens was too noble to be anything but immaculate. But once betrayed, the presence of large sunspots can be recognised by anyone with good eyes, a scrap of glass, and a match; and as we learned yesterday, it -is possible, with proper instruments, to see over a hundred spots at once. Sunspots are now regularly and carefully observed and recorded, and it is a wellknown fact that they occur in regular epidemics every eleven years. They are known to be due to storms of intense violence, and to the rupturing of the extremely brilliant surface layers of the sun's atmosphere, leaving "holes" through which lh,e less brilliant, though incandescent, deeper layers show, seeming black by contrast. The sun is now nearing the maximum of one of its sunspot periods. What do these recurrent fevers on the sun mean to us? Have they any real relationship with human affairs? Do they, for/ example, affect the weather, and' through it our physical and'mental comfort? This question in particular has been long and strongly argued. It is obvious that a sunspot epidemic denotes an increase in solar activity; but it does not seem to have been settled whether this means that the sun radiates more heat or less: either of these changes, if serious, would cause climatic effects that would be easily noticed. In the matter of weather, the sunspot must be let off with a verdict of "not proven." To quote R. A. Proctor, who could always get a little fun out of the driest subject: It has been found that years when the sun has been free from spots have been warmer than the average; and it has also been found that such years have been cooler than the average: a double-spotted argument wholly irresistible, especially when it is also found that when the sun has many ■spots the weather has sometimes been exceptionally warm and sometimes exceptionally cold. . . . Always, whether the sun is very much spotted or quite free from spots, something unusual in the way of weather must be going on somewhere, demonstrating in the most significant way the influence of sunspots or the want of sunspots on the weather. The evidence that has been collected since Proctor wrote has, on the whole, confirmed his opinion—both ways. Nevertheless, there are abundant signs of abnormality in worldly conditions at the present time. It is human nature to seek for a scapegoat, and sunspots are as convenient as anything that can be found. Mr. Proctor's ingenious argument having taken us nowhere, some of us will quite happily blame the sunspots for everything, fully realising that it is quite safe—they are a long way off, they have no friends to fight for them, and they cannot sue for slander.