Abstract
Variations in solar luminosity are expected to give rise to variations in average sea-surface temperatures (SST). We explore this possibility using both indirect evidence on the variability of tropical SST based on measurements of tropopause height, and a recent compilation of direct SST measurements by ships over the past 130 years. Both data sets show modulation that could be construed as arising from solar variability. A simple advective-diffusive model of the response of the ocean to thermal forcing is used to estimate the amplitude of the solar variations needed to explain the observed variability. We conclude that a modulation of the sun’s luminosity with a period of about 80 years and an amplitude of about 0.5% is consistent with the globally averaged direct SST measurements, but that the consistency of the results is weakened if the calculated response to the increase in atmospheric CO2 is included in the model. Any 11-year component is unlikely to have had a large enough amplitude to cause a significant effect, except possibly during the great solar cycle that peaked in the late 1950s.
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Reid, G.C., Gage, K.S. (1988). The Climatic Impact of Secular Variations in Solar Irradiance. In: Stephenson, F.R., Wolfendale, A.W. (eds) Secular Solar and Geomagnetic Variations in the Last 10,000 Years. NATO ASI Series, vol 236. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3011-7_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3011-7_14
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