Astronomers have uncovered a link between Neptune’s shifting cloud abundance and the 11-year solar cycle, in which the waxing and waning of the Sun’s entangled magnetic fields drives solar activity.
The link between Neptune and solar activity is surprising to planetary scientists because Neptune is our solar system’s farthest major planet and receives sunlight with about 0.1% of the intensity Earth receives. Yet Neptune’s global cloudy weather seems to be driven by solar activity, and not the planet’s four seasons, which each last approximately 40 years.
So it the sun can effect Neptune, why doesn’t it effect Earth?
I mean we are told HUMANS are causing all the clouds, heat, cold etc right?
The images reveal an intriguing pattern between seasonal changes in Neptune’s cloud cover and the solar cycle – the period when the Sun’s magnetic field flips every 11 years as it becomes more tangled like a ball of yarn. This is evident in the increasing number of sunspots and increasing solar flare activity. As the cycle progresses, the Sun’s tempestuous behavior builds to a maximum, until the magnetic field beaks down and reverses polarity. Then the Sun settles back down to a minimum, only to start another cycle.