At https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/07/23/a-remarkable-essay-on-near-tabloi… … refers to Judith Curry who has been doing some literature research for a new paper on climate science when she came across a paper by Carl Wunsch, oceanographer. It concerns paleo-oceanography and paleo-climatology. It occurred to me the list of faults aimed at the CAGW community could also perhaps be aimed at some of the electric universe hype. However, the electric universe people do not have any power and are mostly sidelined so the similarity is far from applicable (but the danger is always there).
Be that as it may back in 2011 David Talbot was on the ball. He had an article in the Proceedings of the NPA conference, 'Electric Events on Mars' (see www.naturalphilosophy.org/pdf/abstracts/abstracts_6013.pdf ). It seems Mariner 9, back in 1971, came across Marks locked in to a great dust storm – which just goes to show the current dust storm making astronomical news is nothing out of the ordinary. For several decades dust storms have been a common feature of Mars – and this poses a question. How can an atmosphere as thin as Mars, less than one per cent of the atmosphere of the Earth, remove dust from the surface and accelerate it into massive clouds encicling the red planet? In 2001 the Hubble telescope picked up another great dust storm – which within a few weeks enveloped the whole planet (much like the dust storm of 2018). As the storm clouds enveloped Mars the temperatures shot up by 40 degrees Celsius. Talbot and Thornhill invoked electrical forces at play. An interesting read in the light of the present hype about the dust storm currently on Mars. Will it all go quiet again?
Meanwhile, at http://spaceweather.com (July 23rd 2018) – the spotless facew of the Sun had a brief blemish, a small sun spot that lasted for no longer than a day. However, a geomagnetic strom is predicted to strike the earth on July 24th – as a result of a stream of solar wind emerging from a huge hole in the Sun's atmosphere. This is a coronal hole (not a sun spot), a vast region on the Sun where magnetic fields open up and allow plasma to escape (in this instance, making a beeline for the earth). How od you get geomagnetic storms during a solar minimum? Un spots, where counts allow solar cycles, are simply not the only source of solar storms. When sun spots disappear or become less frequent coronal holes replace them as the primary source of solar storms. During solar minimum these holes seem to occur at greater magnitude – bigger than coronal holes in solar maximum (middle period of cycle). Explosive sun spots make stronger solar storms – which can last for several days. The point is that geomagnetic storms NEVER go away – the Sun has a need to release energetic flows of plasma. It's how the Sun works.