Solar Effects on Weather and Climate in the Indonesian Archipelago

Proceedings of The 9th Asian-Pacific Regional IAU Meeting 2005, 79–80 (2005)

Solar Effects on Weather and Climate
in the Indonesian Archipelago

H. L. The1, P. M. Siregar2, and I. Radiman.3
1Department of Physics, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia
2Department of Geophysics and Meteorology, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia
3Department of Astronomy and Bosscha Observatory, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia

ABSTRACT
From various stations at Geographic Latitudes from 60N to 100S throughout the Indonesian Archipelago, anomalies of yearly rainfall were collected and plotted to those of the yearly Sunspot Number between 1948 and 2003. It is shown that there is a tight correlation between solar activity and the various geophysical variables, such the cloud cover, the sea surface temperature and the rainfall throughout the region. The Number of Sunspot to Rainfall from each station against the Geomagnetic Latitude of the stations is also studied. The coefficients of correlations increase as we go to higher Geomagnetic Latitudes. This research shows that the knowledge of solar activities can be used to predict extreme weather in Indonesia.

Key words: solar cycles – geomagnetic effects – solar activity – extreme weather