How Do Sunspots Affect Our Weather?

Dr. Christine Jurasinski                       LabLearner Staff Scientist

Whether you turn on the TV, hit the Internet or open the paper, the changes in the weather during this time of year are making headlines. Hurricanes and tropical storms are developing in the Atlantic and Pacific and the continued dry weather in the Southwest has fueled the wildfires in California.

Now, our ability to predict and prepare for the ramifications of weather events may have just increased. New research by an international group of scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research has suggested connections between the 11-year solar cycle, the stratosphere and the tropical Pacific Ocean that may be responsible for changes in global weather patterns. These connections may help scientists better predict the timing and intensity of climatic events such as the Indian monsoon and rainfall in the tropical Pacific.

Scientists have known for centuries that the energy released from the Sun each year varies little. However, over an 11-year period, there is a cyclical difference in the sunspots that erupt from the Sun. As sunspots erupt there is a release of charged particles that alters the magnetic activity and radiation that reaches the Earth. During the 11-year cycle, there is a period at which sunspot activity is at its maximum and a period at which it is at its minimum. This new research suggests a correlation between the maximum period of the 11-year cycle and changes in the equatorial Pacific weather.

The atmosphere of the Earth can be divided into different sections. The troposphere is the section closest to the surface of the Earth. Just above it lies the stratosphere. The stratosphere is heated directly by radiation from the Sun. During the period at which sunspot activity is at its maximum, increases in radiation from sunspots increases the warming of the stratosphere, particularly along the equator where the Sun’s ray are the most direct and intense, something LabLearner students learn in the Solar System and Space CELLs. The result is a more pronounced heating of air around the air in the stratosphere around the equator than “normal.” This change results in changes in stratospheric winds, which can change tropical precipitation, dumping rain in the western equatorial Pacific region. This part of the effect is what researchers are calling the “top down” effect of the sunspots.

For older LabLearner students, another portion of the 11-year solar cycle, the “bottom up” effect, is directly related to concepts they will learn in the Atmosphere CELL and the Clouds and Storms GAP Unit.

As LabLearner students learn in the Atmosphere CELL, radiation from the Sun heats the Earth and its atmosphere. As air is heated, its volume increases. This relationship, called Charles’ Law is one of the key principles students learn in the Atmosphere CELL. This change in volume with heating results in a change in the density of air. The warmer air becomes less dense and rises in the atmosphere. Ultimately it will cool, become less dense and sink back towards the Earth’s surface. This cycle of rising and falling creates global convection currents that affect the climates of different areas on Earth. The rising and falling of different densities of air is also responsible for formation of clouds, precipitation, fronts, hurricanes and tornadoes.

So, how does this recent research fit in with what LabLearner students are discovering through their investigations? The second portion of the new research deals with what is called the “bottom up” effect. The “bottom up” effect is an example of Charles’ Law and the changes that the differences in air density can produce. The increased energy during sunspot maximum also causes a slight warming of the ocean surface waters along the equatorial Pacific (“bottom up” effect). This causes an increase in less dense warm air that rises from the equator and ultimately in more evaporation of water. As a result, there is an increase in the water vapor that is transported by the trade winds to the western tropical Pacific, increasing the amount of precipitation in this region. In addition, the eastern Pacific sees less rain and cooler temperatures because of this movement of air and moisture.

Ultimately, the western tropical Pacific region experiences an increase in heat and rainfall and the eastern tropical Pacific a cooler and dryer year because of both the “top down” effect from stratospheric heating and the “bottom up” effect of ocean water and tropospheric warming. This latest research reinforces what scientists have known and what LabLearner students should discover: that understanding the effects of the Sun’s energy on the Earth is a key to understanding our weather.

Music and Reading

How Can Music Training Help Students Read?

Dr. Christine Jurasinski             LabLearner Staff Scientist

First grade students in LabLearner schools across the country have or are about to embark on a discovery and study of their five senses. In the Our Senses CELL students learn about the senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. As they explore each of these senses, they learn that each sense not only uses a sense organ such as the eyes, but also uses the brain to interpret and process information. But, exactly what type of cognitive processing occurs in our five senses? Recently, researchers have completed studies that shed some light on our sense of hearing and the interesting relationship between hearing, reading and music.

Through their experiments, scientists at Northwestern University have found that musicians are better at identifying spoken words when mixed with background noise than people who do not have musical training. Not surprising? For many people, this finding may seem intuitive. Through their training musicians learn to recognize pitch, timing and other spectral elements of sound. Thus, it would seem logical that these people may possess greater precision within their auditory and nervous systems for interpreting sound.

However, this new study presents information that the processes that occur when transcribing and encoding sound are enhanced in musicians as compared to “non-musicians” and that these same processes are deficient in children with dyslexia. Thus, there appears to be a relationship between sound encoding in the brain and linguistic abilities suggesting that poor or struggling readers may benefit from musical training.

Just how would musical training produce changes? One theory is that there are certain consonants that are often misinterpreted by the brain especially when heard in a noisy environment. Misinterpretation of consonants can make a difference in how words are read. Musical training may help by enhancing the ability of the brain to hear certain acoustic features of speech such as these consonants. A second theory is that musical training is linked to better working memory and improved auditory memory. Still another is that musical training includes a focus on timing which is related to temporal processing or the time to process auditory stimuli. Various aspects of temporal processing are affected in dyslexia and other auditory disorders. By emphasizing timing, musical training may help to alter or enhance temporal processing.

Research in this area will continue to provide answers that can help not only struggling readers, but the population in general. Maybe a song a day will be just what the doctor orders.