The effect of the Sun on the climate has been studied for at least 2,400 years.
Most solar science had been based on observations.
Hoyt and Schatten’s "The Role of the Sun in Climate Change", was published by Oxford University Press in 1997.
-- That book tells us in 400 years BC, in ancient Greece, Meton recorded the sun’s location on the horizon and began studying his 20+ years of solar records.
-- He found when the sun has more spots, the weather tends to be wetter and rainier.
Sunspots are seen in a belt around the Sun's equator.
They are cool areas caused by the strong magnetic fields that slow the flow of heat.
Around 1600, sunspots were studied with telescope observations by Galileo, Thomas Harriot and others.
Around 1800, William Herschel found a correlation of sunspots and the wheat price in England.
In 1843, the solar cycle was discovered by Samual Schwabe after 17 years of observations.
The idea that the Sun controls climate should not be controversial.
Nir Shaviv’s 2009 paper, "Using the Oceans as a Calorimeter to Quantify the Solar Radiative Forcing":
- Shaviv found the effect (total radiative forcing) from variations among 11-year solar cycles is about 5 to 7 times larger than variations of total solar energy from year to year (thought to be a 'constant' until satellite measurements in the 1970s).
Individual sunspots are related to magnetic flux tubes rising to the Sun's surface due to buoyancy.
The cause of the solar cycle had remained a mystery for a long time.
People suspected the solar cycle was influenced by Jupiter's 11.86 year orbit around the Sun, because the average length of a solar cycle is 11 years.
The 2011 first edition of "Evidence-Based Climate Science", edited by the Don Easterbrook, contained a paper by Ed Fix:
"The Relationship of Sunspot Cycles to Gravitational Stresses on the Sun: Results of a Proof-of-Concept Simulation".
Fix's paper demonstrates the modulation of solar cycles by planets surrounding the Sun.
His model hind-casts the strength of solar cycles well, suggesting it could forecast future cycles.
Individually, one planet seems to have little effect on the Sun.
But the interactions of four giant planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus, seems to explain variations in solar cycles.