On the Relation between Solar and Global Volcanic Activities

Abstract

Solar activities eject high energetic particles, instead of electromagnetic radiation. The well-know solar activity main indicator is the existence of sunspot which has mean variation in 11 years, named by solar cycle. Solar activities are related to the space weather affecting all planets atmospheric variability, moreover to the Earth’s climate variability. The big question arises to the relation between solar forcing energy to the Earth’s global volcanic activities. We search its connectivity from yearly volcanic activities refer to Volcano Explosive Index (VEI) and sunspot number within year of 1900 to 2013 (113 years) which represent the global warming period and the range of Maunder minimum within year of 1615 to 1751 (136 years) which known as the global cooling period. We found that the declining solar cycle significantly show more volcanic activities (VEI=1 to 5) with more than 40% occurrences for both warming and cooling periods. They have mean occurrences of (50.1±4.5) % and (42.0±10.4) %, respectively. In the rising phase of solar cycle, the average occurrences are (27.1±3.3) % and (28.8±5.3) %, respectively. When we selected the interval time in 3 years around the peak of maximum and minimum of the solar cycle, the global warming period had average of (27.1±5.5) % and (32.1±4.4) %, respectively and the global cooling period showed an average of (32.7±11.1) % and (21.3±5.0) %, respectively. The minimum phase showed higher frequency events of volcanic activity than the maximum phase during the warming period, opposite to the cooling period. Although the physical reason is far for explanation, we argue that solar activities have a clear relation with global volcanic activities. Keywords-Solar activities, Volcano Explosive Index (VEI), Volcano activities.