Solar activity won't break drought
A theory that Australia can expect drought-breaking rains within the year, thanks to increasing solar activity, has been dismissed.
And a paper on the research has been rejected from Australia's top peer-reviewed meteorological publication as it is "significantly flawed", its editor says.
Associated Professor Robert Baker of the University of New England has been reported as saying that links between Earth's climate and pulses of magnetic solar emission means that heavy rains are likely for eastern Australia later this year and in 2008.
Baker says his theory is based on correlations between Earth's climate and 11-year peaks in the Sun's sunspot activity and switches in the Sun's poles, which also occur every 11 years.
He says above-average rainfall is due because sunspot activity is increasing.
And an interaction between the resulting solar magnetic activity and Earth's atmosphere causes more clouds to form.
As well as linking increased sunspot activity to more rain, he has linked a decrease in activity to eastern Australian droughts over the past 100 years.
But Bureau of Meteorology climate scientist Dr Blair Trewin dismisses Baker's theory.
He says a few weeks ago Australia's top peer-reviewed meteorological publication, the Australian Meteorological Magazine, rejected a paper on Baker's research.
"That was essentially on the grounds that the statistical analysis used in the paper was significantly flawed," says Trewin, who edits the publication.
Baker has reportedly submitted his theory to another journal.
Grain of truth
Trewin says the "grain of truth" in Baker's research is that solar cycles and drought have been correlated a number of times. But he says this could be a coincidence.
"The sample of data is too small for that to be a statistically meaningful result," he says.
Trewin says there is even less evidence for a link between solar cycles and rain.
He says there is a small effect on Earth's temperatures due to variations in the amount of solar radiation.
"Obviously if there's less radiation coming in from the Sun, that changes the energy balance," says Trewin.
But he says such effects are small, about 1 or 2 tenths of a degree, compared with other factors influencing Earth's climate.
Baker was unavailable for further comment.