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CLIMATE: Climate Variability and the Influence of the Sun
Joanna D. Haigh
Recent studies show that small variations in the Sun's radiative output have an influence on Earth's climate. However, as Haigh points out in her Perspective, evidence for such an influence is difficult to obtain and mechanisms by which the solar signal might be amplified remain uncertain. She highlights the reports by Bond et al., who show that millennial-scale climate fluctuations in the Atlantic bear a solar signal, and by Shindell et al., who show that the climatic response to the Maunder Minimum, a period with low solar activity, in their model matches observations. The two studies also provide some clues to the mechanism of amplification.
The author is at the Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London SW7 2BW, UK. E-mail: j.haigh{at}ic.ac.uk
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In Science Magazine
RESEARCH ARTICLES
Gerard Bond, Bernd Kromer, Juerg Beer, Raimund Muscheler, Michael N. Evans, William Showers, Sharon Hoffmann, Rusty Lotti-Bond, Irka Hajdas, and Georges Bonani (7 December 2001) Science294 (5549), 2130.
[DOI: 10.1126/science.1065680] |Abstract »|Full Text »|PDF »|Supplemental Data »
REPORTS
Drew T. Shindell, Gavin A. Schmidt, Michael E. Mann, David Rind, and Anne Waple (7 December 2001) Science294 (5549), 2149.
[DOI: 10.1126/science.1064363] |Abstract »|Full Text »|PDF »|Supplemental Data »
THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Recent oppositely directed trends in solar climate forcings and the global mean surface air temperature.
