RAS Presidential Lecture 2026

The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), founded in 1820, encourages and promotes the study of astronomy, solar-system science, geophysics and closely related branches of science.

Royal Astronomical Society

Professor Mike Lockwood will be giving a Presidential Lecture on ...

The Geological Society

Solar Influence on Earth: Past, Present &amp; FutureUsing historic geomagnetic activity observations with modern spacecraft data, we have been able to reconstruct, for 1844 to the present day, annual and solar rotation (27-day) averages of the solar wind speed, the near-Earth interplanetary magnetic field and the total open solar flux (OSF) that leaves the solar atmosphere and fills the heliosphere. These reconstructions can be extended back further to 1650 using a global continuity model, which gives us a good overlap with abundances of cosmogenic isotopes generated by Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs) that are found in terrestrial reservoirs such as ice sheets, ancient trees and wooden artefacts, sediments and in meteorites. Because GCR fluxes are reduced by increased OSF we can extend the OSF reconstruction back over twelve millennia. In addition to the expected decadal solar cycles and centennial-scale grand minima and maxima, these results contain a major surprise in the form of "Miyake Events". A process of elimination strongly suggests that these are massive solar eruptions with annual energetic particle yield up to three orders of magnitude larger than seen during the space age. These events appear to occur roughly every 1000 years, on average, and their potential consequences will be discussed. The reconstructions demonstrate that solar influence on long term terrestrial climate change is minimal, a conclusion reached from a variety of analysis techniques. Lastly the review will look into the future and how exoplanet research is already benefiting from these studies, but will also feed back into our understanding of our Sun's effects on our planet.

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RAS Presidential Lecture 2026

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RAS Presidential Lecture 2026

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