Sunspots and hurricane frequency appear to be in anti-correlation. Svensmark's hypothesis provides an elegant explanation for this relationship. To paraphrase James Carville, "It's the Sun, stupid." A Curious Correlation -Sunspots vs. Major Hurricane Frequency Guest Blogger It appears that some extreme weather here on Earth might be influenced by changes in solar activity. If the Svensmark cloud hypothesis is correct, increased solar activity deflects more Cosmic Rays (CR) away from the inner solar system producing less ionization in the troposphere, producing fewer clouds with more solar radiation reaching the oceans. Warming oceans leads to a greater temperature differential between the poles and the equator which promotes more hurricane activity. The oceans have a significant thermal lag – it takes time to heat and cool this huge mass of water so we see a time lag of about 3 years after solar maximum until the hurricane frequency reaches its maximum. As we approach solar minimum more CR ionization occurs producing more clouds and a cooling ocean. The pole/equator temperature differential then, begins to decline with hurricane frequency also decreasing.
