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Comment by superkuh | Hacker News Reader

It's well known that higher solar wind/CMEs density/speed/etc that comes with the peak of the 11 year intensity cycles scatters cosmic rays before they enter the inner heliosphere. Combine this with the 1~3 years it takes for the solar wind to travel out through the heliosphere and you get the phase difference. Really cool unintended sensor empirical data on it though.

Don't try to correlate with the sun spots, correlate with the solar wind/cmes from the spots getting out far enough to effectively scatter the incoming cosmic rays away.

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I thought it only takes a few days for solar wind to travel from the sun to the Earth? Can you clarify?

If you carefully re-read what GP wrote, you'll see there's no reference to Earth's orbit or 1 AU in there. GP wrote about the solar wind scattering cosmic rays when it reached some point in its outward travel.

Coronal mass traveling at a higher speed "sweeps" what's before it. You can see the spiral shape, and you can probably figure out that the stuff is slowing down as it moves outward.

Watch this occasionally for a few months and you'll get the idea, although solar activity is slowing down somewhat (as expected).

https://www.spaceweather.gov/products/wsa-enlil-solar-wind-p...

The paper claims directly "the rate of degradation over time remains unsatisfactorily unpredictable" but you are claiming the authors do not understand or are unaware of the point you are making?

I think what I explained is known by anyone in solar physics. I cannot believe they would not have discussed it. It's absence in the paper is weird. But I think unpredictable refers more to LEO in the context of the paper where things are indeed more dynamic that just the 11 year periodicity of cosmic rays from solar activity causing scattering in the heliosphere.

Identifying a mechanism is not predicting its rate.

There may be another variable they’re trying to pin down.

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