Wacky Weather on the Sun
One reason for the wild summer weather around the globecould be that the sun is experiencing it as well. July of2004 has seen some unusual solar weather. The sunspot countas of July 17 was 142. A few daysago, sunspot 649, larger than Jupiter emitted an X-3 classsolar flare and sent a coronal mass ejection toward earth.
Scientists are unsure about the precise dynamics of howsolar activity affects earth weather, but CMEs are believedto heat the atmosphere, and there is some evidence that theycan caused localized surface heating as well, and may evenbe implicated in wildfires.
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