The Sun's Influence on Climate (Princeton Primers in Climate, Band 11) - Softcover

Haigh, Joanna D.; Cargill, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0691153841 ISBN 13: 9780691153841

Verlag: Princeton University Press, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

The Earth's climate system depends entirely on the Sun for its energy. Solar radiation warms the atmosphere and is fundamental to atmospheric composition, while the distribution of solar heating across the planet produces global wind patterns and contributes to the formation of clouds, storms, and rainfall. The Sun’s Influence on Climate provides an unparalleled introduction to this vitally important relationship.

This accessible primer covers the basic properties of the Earth’s climate system, the structure and behavior of the Sun, and the absorption of solar radiation in the atmosphere. It explains how solar activity varies and how these variations affect the Earth’s environment, from long-term paleoclimate effects to century timescales in the context of human-induced climate change, and from signals of the 11-year sunspot cycle to the impacts of solar emissions on space weather in our planet’s upper atmosphere.

Written by two of the leading authorities on the subject, The Sun’s Influence on Climate is an essential primer for students and nonspecialists alike.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Joanna D. Haigh is professor of atmospheric physics and codirector of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London. Peter Cargill is professor emeritus of physics at Imperial College London and honorary professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of St. Andrews.

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"Exceptional. No other book can compete with this one in providing students with a comprehensive, unified treatment of the subject."--Peter Pilewskie, University of Colorado Boulder

"This succinct volume will be invaluable to scientists and general readers who want to learn more about the Sun and its effects on our climate system. The Sun's Influence on Climate is an excellent book."--Gerald R. North, Texas A&M University

"The Sun's Influence on Climate provides a quick, nontechnical introduction to the topic. I know of no comparable book covering our current state of knowledge about solar-climate connections."--Hauke Schmidt, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology

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The Sun's Influence On Climate

By Joanna D. Haigh, Peter Cargill

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2015 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-691-15384-1

Contents

1 Introduction, 1, 
2 The Earth's Climate System, 12, 
3 The Sun, 40, 
4 Solar Radiation at the Earth, 66, 
5 Solar Variability, 92, 
6 Solar Signals in Surface Climate, 109, 
7 Solar Influence through the Atmosphere, 129, 
8 Space Weather, 154, 
9 Summary, 166, 
Appendix: Detection of Solar Signals in Climate and Weather Records, 171, 
Glossary, 175, 
Suggestions for Further Reading, 185, 
Bibliography, 189, 
Index, 199, 

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

A comprehension of how the sun affects the Earth is a fundamental requirement for understanding how climate has varied in the past and how it might change in the future. This is particularly important in the context of determining the cause(s) of climate change: we need to understand natural factors to be able to attribute to human activity any past or potential future influence on a range of timescales.

The extent to which the Sun drives changes in the Earth's climate has been the subject of speculation, scientific investigation, and, often, controversy over many centuries. Solar energy maintains the equitable global temperature, while the distribution of insolation across the globe results in night and day, and geographic variations in weather and climate as well as their seasonal modulation. The fundamental role of the Sun in climate is therefore undeniable. The question that arises is whether and how solar activity varies over time and how possible variations might be affecting our environment.

Naked-eye observations of sunspots have been made since ancient times. Babylonian and Chinese astronomers in the seventh century BC recorded dark spots on the face of the Sun, and court astrologers in ancient China believed sunspots foretold important events. In Greece in the fourth century BC Theophrastus, in his book on weather forecasting, suggested that black marks on the Sun predicted rain. Intermittent sunspot sightings were recorded during subsequent centuries, but it was not until the telescope was invented around 1600 that routine observations were made. The common interpretation then was that these spots were planets transiting the face of the Sun, but it was Galileo who noted that the varying shape and speed of each spot belied that possibility and indicated that they were in fact blemishes on the solar surface. Galileo made a number of sketches from his observations of sunspots, an example of which is shown in Figure 1.1 alongside a recent image of the Sun. Galileo's picture shows the dark centers of the spots (the umbra) and the lighter surrounding regions (penumbra).

Later observers, including William Herschel in London at the end of the seventeenth century, noted that the number of sunspots was not constant but varied between none and many, and it was he who carried out what was probably the first scientific study of the relationship between sunspot number and weather. His publication of 1801 identified five periods of a few years each in the interval 1650-1717 during which sunspot numbers (as compiled by French astronomers) were low. Herschel then examined records of the price of wheat during that span and argued that high prices corresponded to product scarcity, which must have reflected poor growing conditions. He acknowledged that this was a somewhat indirect measure of temperature but reasoned, pragmatically, "for want of proper thermometric observations, no other method is left for our choice." He concluded, "It seems probable that some temporary scarcity or defect of vegetation has generally taken place, when the sun has been without those appearances which we surmise to be symptoms of a copious emission of light and heat" that is, poor growing conditions when the Sun was less active. The statistical robustness of Herschel's work does not bear much scrutiny, but it set the scene for much that followed.

In the mid-nineteenth century the existence of the sunspot cycle, a semiperiodic waxing and waning in the observed number of sunspots, was discovered by a German apothecary and amateur astronomer, Heinrich Schwabe. Inspired by this finding, Rudolph Wolf, a Swiss schoolteacher, started to collate sunspot data and designed a system for intercalibrating observations, which is now called the Wolf number. He showed that the period of Schwabe's cycle varied between 8 and 17 years but averaged 11.1 years; records of the Wolf sunspot number now extend from the seventeenth century until the present day (see, e.g., Fig. 1.2). At about the same time as Wolf was doing his work on the sunspot cycle, several scientists noted that the Earth's magnetic field—measurements of which had been initiated by Carl Friedrich Gauss in 1835 and carried out at a number of observatories—varied almost in tandem. Studies had already been done on the relationship between geomagnetic storms and observations of auroras (northern lights), and the discovery of the sunspot cycle led to a search for periodicities in auroral observations. It was understood that auroras were high in the atmosphere, but it was thought that they presaged fine weather near the Earth's surface, so the logical next step was to look for relationships between solar activity and weather.

A large number of studies ensued, whose major focus was on surface temperature, but other meteorological parameters of interest were precipitation (including evaporation, floods, droughts, river flows, and lake levels); atmospheric pressure; cloud cover; the position of storm tracks; the intensity and frequency of tropical storms and monsoons; temperature and winds at different levels in the atmosphere; as well as indirect measures such as the frequency of forest fires and shipping losses. Notable among the studies were papers by Charles Meldrum, a Scottish meteorologist and government observer in Mauritius, who analyzed data from 144 stations across the globe over seven solar cycles in the mid-nineteenth century and found a solar cycle signal in rainfall; he also claimed "a strict relation" between sunspot number and the frequency of cyclones in the Indian Ocean. Another Scot, Charles Piazzi Smyth, Astronomer Royal for Scotland, counted meteorology among his many interests. He analyzed data acquired in the period 1837–1869 from four thermometers buried at different depths (to remove transient/diurnal signals) into the rock of Calton Hill in Edinburgh and has been widely quoted as finding significant correlation of temperature with sunspot number. That was a correct observation, but, interestingly, Smyth also noted "several numerical circumstances which show that the sunspots cannot be the actual cause of the observed waves of terrestrial temperature," demonstrating the skepticism which is unfortunately lacking in many works on apparent solar-climate links.

During that time the Indian subcontinent became part of the British Empire, and the government felt a concomitant responsibility to nurture agricultural productivity in that region. The severe impacts of Indian famines led to a focus on meteorology involving studies by, among others, Norman Lockyer (solar physicist, discoverer of helium, and founder of the journal Nature). Initially having traveled to India to observe a solar eclipse, Lockyer became interested in solar-climate links and compiled a list of all correlations established by researchers between sunspots, geomagnetism, temperature, and...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Princeton University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0691153841
• ISBN 13: 9780691153841
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 207
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Buchbär; info@buchbaer.de; ; Weberstr. 67; Osnabrück; 49084; Deutschland