The Maunder Minimum and the Variable Sun-Earth Connection [Paperback]

Willie Wei-Hock Soon (Author), Steven H. Yaskell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2004 | ISBN-10: 9812382755 | ISBN-13: 978-9812382757

An excursion through solar science, science history, and geoclimate with a husband and wife team who revealed some of our sun's most stubborn secrets. E. Walter and Annie S.D. Maunder's work helped in understanding our sun's chemical, electromagnetic and plasma properties. They knew the sun's sunspot migration patterns and its variable, climate-affecting, inactive and active states in short and long time frames. An inactive solar period starting in the mid-17th century lasted approximately 70 years, one that E. Walter Maunder worked hard to make us understand: the Maunder Minimum of c. 1620-1720 (which was posthumously named for him). With ongoing concern over global warming, and the continuing failure to identify root causes driving earth's climatic changes, the Maunders' story outlines how our cyclical sun can alter climate. The work goes on to view the sun-Earth connection in terms of geomagnetic variation and climatic change; contemporary views on the sun's operating mechanisms are explored, and the effects these have on the earth over long and short time scales are pondered. If not a call to widen Earth's climate research to include the sun, this text strives to illustrate how solar causes and effects can influence Earth's climate in ways we must understand in order to enhance solar system research and our well-being.

Editorial Reviews

Review

An engaging summary of sunspot understanding, sunspot observation, and linkages between sunspots and changes in Earth's atmosphere. -- Choice

From the Publisher

Researchers, scientists, college-level astrophysics students and readers interested in the history of solar science. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: World Scientific Publishing Company (August 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9812382755
• ISBN-13: 978-9812382757
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #743,535 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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