Modelling the climatic response to solar variability

Abstract

The Sun, the primary energy source driving the climate system, is known to vary in time both in total irradiance and in spectral composition in the ultraviolet. According to solar interior evolution models, the solar luminosity has increased steadily by 25-30% over the past 4 x 10 9 years. Periodic variations are also suspected with characteristic timescales of 11 or 22 years, 80-90 years and possibly longer periods. The ultraviolet radiation below 300 nm also exhibits significant changes over the 27-day solar rotation period as well as the 11-year solar cycle. Variations in the solar constant are expected to produce both direct and indirect (feedback) perturbations in the global surface temperature. A hierarchy of zero- to three-dimensional models have been used to study the complex couplings involved by such effects. The response of a zonally averaged model to possible total irradiance changes associated with the Gleissberg cycle is investigated and compared with measurements of the sea-surface temperature made since 1860. Changes in the solar ultraviolet irradiance modulate the amount and distribution of atmospheric ozone, which is predicted to change by several percent in the stratosphere. These perturbations directly affect the middle atmospheric thermal structure, but may also generate indirect effects that could possibly account for some short-term geophysical signatures of solar activity. The cycle-modulated energetic particle interaction with the middle atmosphere is also a possible source of global climatic perturbations.