Paleoclimatologists - Controlling Factors - Very Long Term (109 Years or More)

Very Long Term (109 Years or More)

Jan Veizer and Nir Shaviv have proposed the interaction of cosmic rays, solar wind and the various magnetic fields to explain the long term evolution of earth's climate. According to Shaviv, the early sun had emitted a stronger solar wind with a protective effect against cosmic rays. In that early age, a moderate greenhouse effect comparable to today's would have been sufficient to explain an ice free earth and the faint young sun paradox. The solar minimum around 2.4 billion years ago is consistent with an established cosmic ray flux modulation by a variable star formation rate in the Milky Way and there is also a hint of an extinction event at this time. Within the last billion years the solar wind has significantly diminished. It is only within this more recent time that passages of the heliosphere through the spiral arms of the galaxy have been able to gain a strong and regularly modulating influence as described above.

Over the very long term the energy output of the sun has gradually increased, on the order of 5% per billion (109) years, and will continue to do so until it reaches the end of its current phase of stellar evolution.