Solar Irradiance Variability and Climate

By S. Solanki, N. Krivova, J. Haigh. 2013

298 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The brightness of the Sun varies on all timescales on which it has been observed, and there is increasing evidence that this has an influence on climate. The amplitudes of such variations depend on the wavelength and possibly the timescale. Although many aspects of this variability are well established, the exact magnitude of secular variations (going beyond a solar cycle) and the spectral dependence of variations are under discussion. The main drivers of solar variability are thought to be magnetic features at the solar surface. The climate response can be, on a global scale, largely accounted for by simple energetic considerations, but understanding the regional climate effects is more difficult. Promising mechanisms for such a driving have been identified, including through the influence of UV irradiance on the stratosphere and dynamical coupling to the surface. Here, we provide an overview of the current state of our knowledge, as well as of the main open questions.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atmospheric Science, Global and Planetary Change

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b675d3afdba9616677bc4bfbff822af1214043a2

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Citations in the corpus

Reconstruction of total and spectral solar irradiance from 1974 to 2013 based on KPVT, SoHO/MDI and SDO/HMI observations (2014, background): “An established mechanism is the interaction between ultraviolet irradiance and stratospheric ozone (see e.g., Haigh 1994; Solanki et al. 2013).”
Solar Forcing for CMIP6 (v3.1) (2016, background): “The quantitative assessment of radiative solar forcing has been systematically hampered so far by the large uncertainties and the instrumental artifacts that plague SSI observations, and to a lesser degree TSI observations (e.g., Ermolli et al., 2013; Solanki et al., 2013).”
The Maunder minimum (1645–1715) was indeed a grand minimum: A reassessment of multiple datasets (2015, background): “We discussed consequences of the MM for the solar irradiance variability, which is a crucial point for the assessment of solar variability inﬂuence on both global and regional climate (Lockwood 2012; Solanki et al. 2013).”