Solar Weather Technique

FS: "Who hires you to predict weather?"

PC: "Many companies in different sectors, but for example, the energy and travel insurance industries hire us for long range and medium range forecasts. Through our predictions they can plan their production and advertising. Farming and agriculture industries mostly use our medium range forecasts (up to 14 days) or our 30 day ahead forecasts. To them these are invaluable tools. Retailers also use our services because weather triggers the sale of many products and deternines what people need and so assists in stock control and planning of anything from soft drinks to car batteries."

NASA Hurricane Bonnie over the USA - in a window predicted by the Solar Weather Technique six months before

FS: "What’s the most extreme weather you predicted recently?"

PC: "We predicted the storms in Southern Britain and Europe that occurred at Christmas in 1999 nine months in advance. We also predicted that September 1999 would be "exceptionally active" for Atlantic tropical storms and super-hurricane Floyd appered on cue."

FS: "Is global weather changing?"

PC: "Global weather is always changing! There is nothing new happening that couldn’t be reasonably explained by solar activity. Substantially bigger climate variations than recent changes have occured in the last few hundred or few thousand years due to natural causes. The surface temperatures here on Earth have increased in the last century but this is more closely correlated with increases in solar activity than with rising carbon dioxide levels made by man. The temperature could start to fall shortly or could rise for another thirty years depending on general changes in solar activity. I don’t think the long-term predictions of global warming using carbon dioxide theories mean anything."

NASA Will studying changes in solar activity let us know when the next Ice-age is coming?

FS: "Can you predict when the next ice age will be?"

PC: "We don’t know enough at the moment but in principle it might be possible to predict mini ice ages which involve slow changes in solar activity over time scales of a few centuries. The prediction of a Large Ice Age involves other factors such as interstellar dust and the Earth’s orbital changes, over time scales of tens of thousands or millions of years. We might be able to develop super-long climate predictions in the future but this is some way off."