These match climate models' predictions of what happens when warming is induced by greenhouse gases better than it matches predictions of the result of changes in the sun's activity, the main alternative hypothesis for what might be causing the climate to change.
The link between the sun's activity and climate involves another lot of particles streaming past the Earth.
But weather does respond to changes in the solar radiation activity of the sun.
When the Sun's activity returns to normal, the greenhouse gases won't have gone away.
The number of cosmic rays that hit the Earth is reduced when the Sun's activity is high.
For example, changes in the Sun's activity can send huge amounts of energy towards the Earth which buffet and reconfigure the magnetosphere, causing disruption to communications, power-line failures and even the destruction of satellites.
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Earth's magnetic field gives the planet and its inhabitants a good measure of protection, but with space agencies seemingly intent on sending astronauts to the Moon and even to Mars in the next few decades, there is a pressing need for a fuller understanding of the Sun's activity.
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This shield does not stop all the cosmic rays from getting though, and its effectiveness varies with the long-term changes in the activity of the Sun, which can rise and fall on a timescale of centuries.
Sunspot activity waxes and wanes on the sun in a 11-year cycle, and we are approaching the peak of sunspot activity, probably reaching it in 2013, according to Hesse.
Officials in Sydney have warned people to be ready for the heat, take care, avoid strenuous activity and stay out of the sun.
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Climate scientists have already looked at changes related to Sun spot activity - a cycle of approximately 11 years - and long-term changes in the Sun's brightness, which has a cycle that lasts for centuries.
But when sun spot activity is low, a condition that can sometimes persist over decades and longer, the increased cosmic ray bombardment produces more cloud cover, hence cooling influences.
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