You can also blame the Sun’s activities for increasing global warming: study

According to a study from Lund University in Sweden, natural activity from the Sun can also trigger climate change apart from human activities. The research team, for the first time, reconstructed the solar activity at the end of the last ice, around 20,000–10,000 years ago, by analysing trace elements in ice cores in Greenland and cave formations from China.

The study revealed that regional climate is influenced by the Sun. It also helps in predicting future climate conditions in certain regions.

During the last glacial maximum, Sweden was covered in a thick ice sheet that stretched all the way down to northern Germany and sea levels were more than 100 metres lower than they are today, because the water was frozen in the extensive ice caps, researchers said.

“The study shows an unexpected link between solar activity and climate change. It shows both that changes in solar activity are nothing new and that solar activity influences the climate, especially on a regional level. Understanding these processes helps us to better forecast the climate in certain regions,” said Raimund Muscheler, Lecturer in Quaternary Geology at Lund University and co-author of the study.

Researchers said that the  Sun’s variation influences the climate in a similar way regardless of whether the climate is extreme, as during the Ice Age, or as it is today.

It is still not confirmed as to how the Sun affects the climate. The study suggests that direct solar energy is not the most important factor, but rather indirect effects on atmospheric circulation.

“Reduced solar activity could lead to colder winters in Northern Europe. This is because the Sun’s UV radiation affects the atmospheric circulation. Interestingly, the same processes lead to warmer winters in Greenland, with greater snowfall and more storms. The study also shows that the various solar processes need to be included in climate models in order to better predict future global and regional climate change,” said Muscheler.

NASA is planning to send rats to the International Space Station (ISS) for a longer duration of up to three months to better understand the long-term effects of micro-gravity on living organisms.

While rodents have flown on space shuttle flights in the past, those missions have only lasted a week or two.

The new mission, however, could range between 30 and 90 days, depending on the availability of spacecraft to ferry them on the round-trip, ‘Space.com’ reported.

“This will allow animals to be studied for longer period of time on space station missions,” said Julie Robinson, NASA’s chief scientist for the space station.

Robinson said of the 35 or so studies where rats have gone into space, few of them have gone for more than two weeks.

The actual schedule for launching the rats to the space station and returning them back to Earth is not fully figured out yet, the report said.

Launching rats on for the experiment are preferable to mice, which are smaller and require less food, because rats’ neurocognitive functioning is similar to that of humans, Robinson said.