The Sun and the Earth’s Climate
By J. Haigh. 2007
292 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Variations in solar activity, at least as observed in numbers of sunspots, have been apparent since ancient times but to what extent solar variability may affect global climate has been far more controversial. The subject had been in and out of fashion for at least two centuries but the current need to distinguish between natural and anthropogenic causes of climate change has brought it again to the forefront of meteorological research. The absolute radiometers carried by satellites since the late 1970s have produced indisputable evidence that total solar irradiance varies systematically over the 11-year sunspot cycle, relegating to history the term “solar constant”, but it is difficult to explain how the apparent response to the Sun, seen in many climate records, can be brought about by these rather small changes in radiation. This article reviews some of the evidence for a solar influence on the lower atmosphere and discusses some of the mechanisms whereby the Sun may produce more significant impacts than might be surmised from a consideration only of variations in total solar irradiance.
Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Global and Planetary Change, Oceanography
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2c4eba5c2d5b3ca9974204574329f5848a538159
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Citations in the corpus
- Recent variability of the solar spectral irradiance and its impact on climate modelling (2012, background): “8 Hickey et al.(1980) SMM ACRIM-I Feb 1980 Jul 1989 1367.”
- Solar Irradiance Variability and Climate (2013, background): “Solar irradiance together with the response of the Earth’s atmosphere have been covered by Haigh, Lockwood & Giampapa (2005), Haigh (2007), Gray et al. (2010), Ermolli et al. (2012), cf. the monograph edited by Pap et al. (2004).”
- The Solar Cycle (2007, background): “Although the change in the total solar irradiance seems too small to produce significant climatic effects, there is good evidence that, to some extent, the Earth’s climate heats and cools as solar activity rises and falls (cf. Haigh, 2007).”
- The Solar Cycle (2010, background): “First discovered by Joy as reported by Hale et al. (1919), this active region tilt systematically places following-polarity magnetic flux at higher latitudes than the leading-polarity magnetic flux.”
- SOLAR INFLUENCES ON CLIMATE (2010, unknown): “These are not well established (see section 3.1) so that published estimates of the ozone amplification of direct TSI forcing show a very wide range [Haigh, 2007; Gray et al., 2009] with even the sign of the effect remaining uncertain.”
- A History of Solar Activity over Millennia (2008, unknown): “Solar variability can affect the Earth’s environment and climate in different ways (see, e.g., a review by Haigh, 2007).”
- Solar change and climate: an update in the light of the current exceptional solar minimum (2010, background): “…stratospheric heating in the underlying troposphere, such as slight modulation of the separation of the jet streams, have been noted and modelled (Haigh 2007; Simpson et al. 2009), and recent work is beginning to help explain how non-linear radiative and dynamical coupling may work via…”
- Solar Influence on Global and Regional Climates (2012, background): “Recent reviews have been presented by Reid (2000), Rind (2002), Haigh (2003, 2007), Beer (2006), Foukal et al. (2006), de Jager (2008), Gray et al. (2010) and Lockwood (2004, 2010, 2012).”