Solar cycle

“ The rotation of the planets is the grand exciting cause, and the process, in its complete cycle of development, has live stages: first, planetary generation; second, transference by currents of electricity to the sun; third, conversion into light and heat; fourth, emission; and, fifth, reabsorption and conversion again into molecular energy of position. ”

“ The solar cycle, the lunar cycle, and the cycle of indiction.
The solar cycle is a period of time after which the same days of the year recur on the same days of the week. If every year contained 365 days, then every year would commence one day later in the week than the year preceding, and the cycle would be completed in seven years. For if the first day of January, in any given year, fall on Sunday, then the following year on Monday, the third on Tuesday, and so on to Sunday again in seven years. ”

“ But let us see what the cycle association between solar spots and terrestrial weather actually is, or rather of what nature it promises to be, for as yet the true nature of the association has not been made out.
It has been found that in a period of about eleven years the sun’s surface is affected by what may be described as a wave of sun-spots. There is a short time—a year or so—during which scarce any spots are seen; they become more and more numerous during the next four or five years, until they attain a maximum of frequency and size ”

“ This longer cycle, underlying the sunspot period, alters the time of occurrence of the sunspot maxima in relation to the preceding sunspot minima. He makes out three periods in solar activity, of between three and four years, about eleven, and about thirty-five year respectively. These are related as 1:3:9.
It is clear that the existence of a thirty-five-year period will account for many of the views that have been advanced in favor of a progressive change of climate. A succession of a few years wetter or drier than the normal is likely to lead to the conclusion that the change is permanent. ”

“ Now such an adjustment must surely be accepted as a proof of design, exercised in the formation of the world. Why should the solar year be so long and no longer? or, this being of such a length, why should the vegetable cycle be exactly of the same length? Can this be chance? And this occurs, it is to be observed, not in one, or in a few species of plants, but in thousands. Take a small portion only of known species, as the most obviously endowed with this adjustment, and say ten thousand. How should all these organized bodies be constructed for the same period of a year? ”

“ Utterly inconsistent with all that is yet known of the sun’s physical action, as it may seem, on à priori grounds, to suppose that spots, currents, or other local disturbances of the sun’s surface could produce any but general effects on the earth as a whole, yet if we shall find that particular effects are produced in special regions of the earth’s surface in cycles unmistakably synchronizing with the solar-spot-cycle, we must accept the fact, whether we can explain it or not. ”

“ An improvement could, indeed, be made if, in the alternation of months of 29 and 30 days, two months of 30 days each be allowed to succeed each other at intervals of 33 months; also, if each fourth solar year were to contain 3651/4 days instead of 365, and if, finally, once in nineteen years, the so-called golden cycle, the reckoning of the lunar months began with the same date of the sun; but a uniform and perfect coincidence of these cycles of days, months, and years would also, in this manner, be unattainable. ”

“ However, in the brief presentation of its work given above, it is evident that the periodograph is found to corroborate and extend the results of the previous direct study of curves and to confirm the evidence there given of the great extent and importance of the solar cycles in the growth of trees. ”

“ Still other conditions enable these suns to transform and send forth much of the energy of space which comes their way in the established space circuits, Many phases of physical energy and all forms of matter are attracted to, and subsequently distributed by, the solar dynamos. In this way the suns serve as local accelerators of energy circulation, acting as automatic power-control stations. ”

“ These planetary globes themselves, as they coalesced and contracted, left behind or threw off rings of their outer matter, which, in turn, became moons, and finally our solar system with its central sun was evolved as we now see it; development continued, the planets cooled and condensed, life appeared when the conditions became suitable, and the original progressive condensation of the central mass—the sun—still continuing, the evolution of light and heat continues, and will continue in a correlative degree. ”

“ The condensation of volume of the planets will give rise to great elevation of temperature, while their currents of electricity, poured into the sun, will, by their passage through its enormously compressed hydrogen atmosphere, produce intense heat, and this, rapidly communicated to the solar core within, will raise its temperature to that of the sun as we now see it, and permanently maintain it in that state of incandescence. ”

“ What principle of conservation of energy is it possible to apply to the vast quantities of light and heat which constantly disappear in the interstellar realms of space? How to account for this enormous emission of solar energy during the long period of time requisite for the development of the earth during its past geological ages. How to explain why the moon always presents the same face to the earth. Why, if the law of gravity prevails there, there are no visible traces of atmosphere or moisture in the moon. ”

“ During its annual revolution this planet will traverse, with its line of energy, every point of the sun’s surface down to seven degrees south latitude and back again to its initial point, thus tracing a close spiral around the sun for fourteen degrees, or about one hundred and four thousand miles in width. The centrifugal force of the solar rotation piles up the photosphere and the chromosphere around the sun’s equator, precisely as our atmosphere is piled up around our own equator. ”

“ Sunspots can occur unexpectedly, and the life span of individual sunspots is variable. The ELEVEN-YEAR SUN SPOT CYCLE is a regular cycle of sunspot activity that has a minimum and maximum level of activity that occurs every 11 years. During periods of maximum activity, the ionization density of all the layers increases. Because of this, the absorption in the D layer increases and the critical frequencies for the E, F1, and F2 layers are higher. ”

“ Yet it is difficult to see how, on any hypothesis of the generation of solar heat, or by combining together all possible modes of heat generation, a supply for more than twenty millions of years in the past and a possible supply for as long a period in the future can be accounted for. ”

“ While all adolescent suns do not pass through a pulsating stage, at least not visibly, when looking out into space you may observe many of these younger stars whose gigantic respiratory heaves require from two to seven days to complete a cycle. Your own sun still carries a diminishing legacy of the mighty upswellings of its younger days, but the period has lengthened from the former three and one-half day pulsations to the present eleven and one-half year sunspot cycles. ”

“ The solar system of circulation, instead of being adapted, like that of the earth, to the distribution of heat received from without, was seen to be directed towards the transportation towards the surface of the heat contained within. Polar and equatorial currents, tending to a purely superficial equalisation of temperature, were replaced by vertical currents bringing up successive portions of the intensely heated interior mass, to contribute their share in turn to the radiation into space which might be called the proper function of a sun. ”

“ The heat motion then disappears as heat by its conversion into work, just as the motion of a belt in a mill disappears in the work of the machine which it drives. One two-hundred-and-thirty-two-millionth part of the radiant solar energy, we know, is caught by the flying planets of our system in the forms of heat and light, adapted to sustain life and its continued [140] potentiality, and we know that this solar energy is the sole source of all the development and maintenance of the planets as the possible abodes of organic life, past, present or future. ”

“ The moon, too, and each planet must have its electrosphere, and around the sun’s core we can see the solar electrosphere in its visible glory. Thus, all our planets rotate upon their axes and revolve around the sun, each surrounded by an enormous electrosphere, just as an electrical induction machine is surrounded, when in operation, with an electrosphere of its own, and which, by breaking connection with the conductor which carries away its current, becomes, when shown in a darkened room, clearly visible. ”

“ Every exhibition of force, physical or chemical, inorganic or vital, the multifarious consequences connected with the circulation of air and water over the surface of the earth, and in her oceans, and which involve the causation of the winds, aerial and aqueous currents, and rainfall, and the effects of these commonplace but vastly important phenomena in establishing and maintaining those climatic conditions upon which the existence of life upon the earth is absolutely dependent, are directly referable to the forces of solar radiation. ”

“ It is certain that the sun must under such circumstances fall some degrees in temperature each year. In a couple of thousand years the change in temperature would be sufficiently great to affect in the profoundest manner the supply of sunbeams. As, however, we know that for a couple of thousand years, or, indeed, for periods much longer still, there has been no perceptible decrease in the volume of solar radiations, we conclude that the great luminary cannot be regarded merely as a glowing solid globe dispensing its heat by radiation. ”

“ Though no fixed conclusions are yet established about the causes of the brilliant auroral display, yet, as the results of laborious observations, we are assured that the stabler centre of our solar system holds in its powerful sway the several planets at their respective distances, supplying them all with their seasonable light and heat, vibrating sympathetic chords in all, and even controlling under certain—though to us still unknown—laws the electric streamers that flit, apparently lawlessly, in the distant earth’s atmosphere. ”

“ The whole sun contracts, every particle of its whole mass falls toward the center and contributes its mite to the total supply of heat. The surface particles move, of course, through a much greater distance than do those within the sphere. On account of the tremendous mass of the sun a very slight contraction will suffice to maintain its supply of heat. A shrinkage in the solar diameter of some 300 feet a year is all that is necessary to account for the great outpour of energy.—Charles Lane Poor, “The Solar System.” ”

“ The processes of development of a solar system from the diffused elemental matter of space may then be roughly sketched as follows, premising that each stage may have possibly extended over vast periods of time, and the whole, perhaps, not been completed for millions of years. With the processes of creation time is as nothing. ”

“ For the more accurate fixing both of the seasons and of the months the phases of the stars are employed; these, being dependent on the sun, keep pace with the natural year, but, unlike the phases of Nature, are not subject to climatic variations but are astronomically fixed.
It is however possible astronomically to fix the solar year by a second method, viz. the observation of the annual course of the sun, especially of the solstices: the observation of the equinoxes is a much more difficult matter. ”

“ The sun seems to be a variable star, the variation in its heat and light is the natural consequence of the incessant changes of temperature and pressure, in the circulation, the electricity and magnetism, which are going on within the solar mass. We have already been able to show from our studies of the barometric pressure, temperature and vapor pressure in different parts of the earth, especially of the United States, that there is a definite though complicated synchronism, which connects the variations of the solar action with the variation in the terrestrial climatic effects. ”

“ The sun is thus, in effect, a self-compensating machine, and its passage through a region of increased electrical generation would first manifest itself in a vast increase of brilliancy, due to higher incandescence of its hydrogen envelope; this, in turn, would be communicated to the deeper structures of the sun, producing increased volatilization [196] and dark absorption bands, and finally to the whole solar mass, expanding its volume in proportion to the heat absorbed. ”

“ We need not develop this matter further; but one point must be alluded to, namely, the gradual exhaustion of the available energy in the changes from one manifestation to another. In all physical processes heat is evolved, which heat is distributed by conduction and radiation and tends to become universally diffused throughout space. When complete uniformity has been attained, all physical phenomena will come to an end; in other words, our solar system must come to an end, and it must have had a beginning. ”