Many medium and long-term weather and climate forecasts are wrong and below any level of usability. (for example, the Met office forecast for a dry 2013-2014 winter that ended up with major flooding – Anthony) Most forecasting agencies swing between determining their own accuracy level or openly detailing the inadequacy of their work. No production of society is as wrong as government weather forecasts and yet continues to operate. Apparently people just lump it in with all government waste and failure. Their real view is reflected in the fact that few activities receive more ridicule and disdain than weather forecasts.

Carol, in your recent CNN opinion piece, the headline was “Why are we still debating climate change?”. The very first statement in the article that followed was “There is no debate”.

The answer to your question is actually right in your own article. I’ll get to that in a bit, please bear with me. I wanted to touch on your claim that there is no debate first. I’d like you to consider the following statement, which I provide with no intent of malice whatsoever, only as a means of making a point.

Comprising primarily space physicists, the IBEX team realized that the galactic magnetic field wrapped around our heliosphere — the giant “bubble” that envelops and protects our solar system — appears to determine the orientation of the ribbon and the placement of energetic particles measured in it.

NASA‘s Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, recently mapped the boundaries of the solar system‘s tail, called the heliotail. By combining observations from the first three years of IBEX imagery, scientists have mapped out a tail that shows a combination of fast and slow moving particles. The entire structure twisted, because it experiences the pushing and pulling of magnetic fields outside the solar system.

This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?11301

The ribbon is roughly perpendicular to the interstellar magnetic field while cosmic rays stream, on average, along the interstellar magnetic field. (The particles themselves are created from interactions between the solar wind and interstellar matter.)

In the longer term, Schwadron said work like this will help scientists better understand more about the boundary between our solar system and interstellar space. This is a region that only one mission — NASA‘s Voyager 1 spacecraft — has reached so far, and scientists know little about what that environment is like.

(24.11.2013) The polar reversal takes place as the Sun’s magnetic field moves north or south from the equator, eroding the existing pole as it does, explains Todd Hoeksema, a scientist at Stanford University’s Wilcox Solar Observatory.

Phil Scherrer, who works with Mr Hoeksema, said: “The north pole has already changed sign, while the south pole is racing to catch up.

It looks like a complete field reversal could be “no more than three to four months away,” said Mr Hoeksema in early August.

(12.11.2013) Normalerweise wechselt das Magnetfeld der Sonne etwa alle elf Jahre seine Ausrichtung. Dabei wird das Magnetfeld immer schwächer, fällt bis auf null und entsteht dann mit entgegengesetzter Polarität neu.

Im aktuellen Zyklus verläuft dieser Wechsel des Magnetfeldes synchron, sagen die Wissenschaftler. Der magnetische Nordpol der Sonne hat seine Polarität vor mehr als einem Jahr gewechselt. Er hat jetzt dieselbe Polarität wie der Südpol.

(25.05.2007) Das als ‚Polarlicht’ bekannte Phänomen zeigt kosmische Strahlung in ihrer schönsten Form. So verlaufen in den Polregionen die Feldlinien des Erdmagnetfeldes nicht horizontal sondern senkrecht. Elektrisch geladene Teilchen aus dem All können dadurch tief in die oberen Luftschichten der Erdatmosphäre eindringen.

Die Polarlichter entstehen, wenn elektrische Teilchen von der Sonne ausgestoßen und zu den Polen – Nord- und Südpol – gezogen werden.