Don’t tell me, ‘fossil’ fuels are responsible for reducing the solar wind now...
Ping for your interest, in any case.
By one theory this should affect the Earth’s climate. It seems like this was a big deal at one time. So far today, my search engine has not turned up much.
“As the Sun moves toward solar maximum, the peak of its 11-year activity cycle ...”
The sun has an 11 year cycle the same way that men are 5’9” (or whatever) tall. In both cases we are talking about averages not constants.
One of the reasons terraforming Mars is considered near impossible is that any atmosphere that is generated will be scorched off by the solar wind. To prevent this, engineers imagine jumpstarting Mars's magnetosphere by blowing up nuclear bombs in the planet's core or placing large magnets around the planet.
For all things Mars, and everything else space related (near Earth or not) I HIGHLY recommend Robert Zimmerman at http://behindtheblack.com. Zimmerman is a real scientist. Like all real scientists, he will state “I don’t know” “I’m not sure” “We don’t know” He regularly appears on several podcasts and radio shows, all of which can be found on the web site. One of the best things he points out is how every time we push to discover, investigate, often there are many surprises, which lead to more and more questions. An example would be the New Horizons probe to Pluto and beyond. When we received pictures and data, almost all of it was a surprise.
When we humans actually spend any time on Mars, at first it probably be underground. Zimmerman points out large, underground volcanic lava tubes that we could use at first. AND, one of the SUV-sized rovers currently on Mars has an oxygen proof-of-concept experiment. Called Moxie, we proved we can make oxygen out of the Mars atmosphere. No, not for terraforming. Instead of always bringing all the oxygen needed, we can make it there.
One of my favorite Arthur C. Clarke stories was “The Wind From the Sun” (AKA “Sunjammer”) I found the whole concept intriguing .