Space Climate

Space Climate is a relatively new branch of space physics, which concentrates on the long-term evolution (months to thousands of years) of solar activity and its influences in the heliosphere, near-Earth environment, atmosphere and climate. One can think of Space Climate as the "average Space Weather" similarly as climate and weather in meteorology.

In Space Climate research we use quite versatile set of historical archives of, e.g., solar observations, geomagnetic measurements, cosmic ray measurements, satellite observations as well as long-term climate observations. We often rely on novel "big data" analysis methods and various machine learning techniques.

At the moment our research is concentrated especially on understanding the long-term evolution of solar activity and its influences on climate variations as well as on cosmic rays solar extreme events and their influences. We also aim to utilize this understanding to predict how these factors influence our environment in the future. The research is being carried out in several projects funded by the Academy of Finland and University of Oulu Kvantum Institute. These projects continue the successful research of the ReSoLVE Centre of Excellence of Academy of Finland (Research on Solar Long-term Variability and Effects, 2014-2019), which was coordinated by our group.