The variability of the spectral solar irradiance (SSI) over the course of the 11-year solar cycle is one of the manifestations of solar magnetic activity. There is a strong evidence that the SSI variability has an effect on the Earth's atmosphere. The faster rotation of the Sun in the past lead to a more vigorous action of solar dynamo and thus potentially to larger amplitude of the SSI variability on the timescale of the solar activity cycle. This could led to a stronger response of the Earth's atmosphere as well as other solar system planets' atmospheres to the solar activity cycle. We calculate the amplitude of the SSI and TSI variability over the course of the solar activity cycle as a function of solar age. We employ the relationship between the stellar magnetic activity and the age based on observations of solar twins. Using this relation we reconstruct solar magnetic activity and the corresponding solar disk area coverages by magnetic features (i.e. spots and faculae) over the last four billion years. These disk coverages are then used to calculate the amplitude of the solar-cycle SSI variability as a function of wavelength and solar age. Our calculations show that the young Sun was significantly more variable than the present Sun. The amplitude of the solar-cycle Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) variability of the 600 Myr old Sun was about 10 times larger than that of the present Sun. Furthermore, the variability of the young Sun was spot-dominated (the Sun being brighter at the activity minimum than in the maximum), i.e. the Sun was overall brighter at activity minima than at maxima. The amplitude of the TSI variability decreased with solar age until it reached a minimum value at 2.8 Gyr. After this point, the TSI variability is faculae-dominated (the Sun is brighter at the activity maximum) and its amplitude increases with age.
Changes in solar irradiance and in its spectral distribution are among the main natural drivers of the climate on Earth. However, irradiance measurements are only available for less than four decades, while assessment of solar influence on Earth requires much longer records. The aim of this work is to provide the most up-to-date physics-based reconstruction of the solar total and spectral irradiance (TSI/SSI) over the last nine millennia. The concentrations of the cosmogenic isotopes 14C and 10Be in natural archives have been converted to decadally averaged sunspot numbers through a chain of p…
Reconstruction of annual solar irradiance over the last three millennia
Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung（马克斯·普朗克太阳系统研究所）；Technical University of Braunschweig（布伦瑞克工业大学）；School of Space Research, Kyung Hee University（庆熙大学空间研究学院）；Space Physics and Astronomy Research Unit and Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory, University of Oulu（奥卢大学空间物理与天文学研究单元及索丹屈莱地球物理观测站）
We have analyzed the total solar irradiance (TSI) and the spectral solar irradiance as ultraviolet emission (UV) in the wavelength range 115-180 nm, observed with the instruments TIM and SOLSTICE within the framework of SORCE (The Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment) during the long solar minimum between the 23rd and 24th cycles. The wavelet analysis reveals an increase in the magnetic flux in the latitudinal zone of the sunspot activity, accompanied with an increase in the TSI and UV on the surface rotation timescales of solar activity complexes. In-phase coherent structures between the mi…
The total solar irradiance (TSI) varies on timescales of minute to centuries. On short timescales it varies due to the superposition of intensity fluctuations produced by turbulent convection and acoustic oscillations. On longer scale times, it changes due to photospheric magnetic activity, mainly because of the facular brightenings and dimmings caused by sunspots. While modern TSI variations have been monitored from space since 1970s, TSI variations over much longer periods can only be estimated using either historical observations of magnetic features, possibly supported by flux transport mo…
The Large Yield Radiometer (LYRA) is a radiometer that has monitored the solar irradiance at high cadence and in four pass bands since January 2010. Both the instrument and its space- craft, PROBA2 (Project for On-Board Autonomy), have several innovative features for space instrumentation, which makes the data reduction necessary to retrieve the long term variations of solar irradiance more complex than for a fully optimized solar physics mission. In this paper, we describe how we compute the long term time series of the two extreme ultraviolet irradiance channels of LYRA, and compare the resu…
Knowing the variability of total solar irradiance (TSI) at the top of the atmosphere is crucial for specifying solar influence to climate variability. Satellite measured TSI data are available only for the last 32 years. But there is an opportunity to estimate approximate daily TSI values on the basis of the observed variability of solar activity. A common approach is based using data for Wolf sunspot numbers. Series of daily data from the DAVOS based TSI starting from 1978 have been compared with daily values of Wolf numbers and with the corresponding estimates for daily summary sunspot area.…
We present a revised and extended total and spectral solar irradiance (SSI) reconstruction, which includes a wavelength-dependent uncertainty estimate, spanning the last three solar cycles using the SATIRE-S model. The SSI reconstruction covers wavelengths between 115 and 160,000 nm and all dates between August 1974 and October 2009. This represents the first full-wavelength SATIRE-S reconstruction to cover the last three solar cycles without data gaps and with an uncertainty estimate. SATIRE-S is compared with the NRLSSI model and SORCE/SOLSTICE ultraviolet (UV) observations. SATIRE-S display…
In this study we overview recent advances with prediction of solar activity using as a proxy solar background magnetic field and detection of grand solar cycles of about 400 years separated by grand solar minima (GSMs).The previous GSM known as the Maunder minimum was recorded from 1645 to 1715. The terrestrial temperature during Maunder Minimum was reduced by up to 1.0C that led to freezing rivers, cold winters and summers. The modern GSM started in 2020 and will last for three solar cycles until 2053. During this GSM two processes will affect the input of solar radiation: a decrease of solar…
Aims. We present a physically consistent reconstruction of the total solar irradiance for the Holocene. Methods. We extend the SATIRE models to estimate the evolution of the total (and partly spectral) solar irradiance over the Holocene. The basic assumption is that the variations of the solar irradiance are due to the evolution of the dark and bright magnetic features on the solar surface. The evolution of the decadally averaged magnetic flux is computed from decadal values of cosmogenic isotope concentrations recorded in natural archives employing a series of physics-based models connecting …
The variable Sun is the most likely candidate for natural forcing of past climate change on time scales of 50 to 1000 years. Evidence for this understanding is that the terrestrial climate correlates positively with solar activity. During the past 10,000 years, the Sun has experienced substantial variations in activity and there have been numerous attempts to reconstruct solar irradiance. While there is general agreement on how solar forcing varied during the last several hundred years --- all reconstructions are proportional to the solar activity --- there is scientific controversy on the mag…
Herein I discuss and propose updated satellite composites of the total solar irradiance covering the period 1978-2008. The composites are compiled from measurements made with the three ACRIM experiments. Measurements from the NIMBUS7/ERB and the ERBS/ERBE satellite experiments are used to fill the gap from June 1989 to October 1991 between ACRIM1 and ACRIM2 experiments. The climate implications of the alternative satellite composites are discussed by using a phenomenological climate model for reconstructing the total solar irradiance signature on climate during the last four centuries.
The variation of the solar diameter is the subject of hot debates due to the possible effect on Earth climate and also due to different interpretations of long period solar variabilities, including the total solar irradiance. We shortly review the topic and show that rather long term variations, corresponding to a length well over a a solar magnetic cycle, are interesting to consider. The very recently launched mission "Picard" is entirely devoted to the topic but will just permit a short term evaluation. At the time of the last total solar eclipse of 11/07/2010, several experiments were prepa…
Context: The study of variations in total solar irradiance (TSI) is important for understanding how the Sun affects the Earth's climate. Aims: Full-disk continuum images and magnetograms are now available for three full solar cycles. We investigate how modelled TSI compares with direct observations by building a consistent modelled TSI dataset. The model, based only on changes in the photospheric magnetic flux can then be tested on rotational, cyclical and secular timescales. Methods: We use Kitt Peak and SoHO/MDI continuum images and magnetograms in the SATIRE-S model to reconstruct TSI over …
Solar surface magnetic field seems to be able to explain variations in Total Solar Irradiance on timescales from hours to decades. Using magnetograms from spacecraft (MDI and HMI) and ground-based observatories (MWO and WSO) I build a composite dataset of the Total Line-of-Sight Unsigned Magnetic Flux over the solar disk stretching back to 1976, validated by excellent correlations with the solar microwave flux (F10.7) and the Sunspot Group Number. Direct measurements of TSI by space borne sensors have been carried out since late 1978. The early instruments were plagued by scattered light enter…
We use a new Atmospheric Chemistry and Energetics one-dimensional (ACE1D) thermospheric model to show that the energies deposited by the solar soft x-rays in the lower thermosphere at altitudes between 100 -150 km (Bailey et al. 2000), affects the temperature of the entire Earth's thermosphere even at altitudes well above 300 km. By turning off the input solar flux in the different wavelength bins of the model iteratively, we are able to demonstrate that the maximum change in exospheric temperature is due to the changes in the soft x-ray solar bins. We also show, using the thermodynamic heat e…
In this letter, we explore the relationship between the solar seismic radius and total solar irradiance (TSI) during last two solar cycles using the uninterrupted data from space-borne instruments onboard {\it SoHO} and {\it SDO}. The seismic radius is calculated from the fundamental ({\it f}) modes of solar oscillations utilizing the observations from {\it SoHO}/MDI and {\it SDO}/HMI, and the total solar irradiance measurements are obtained from {\it SoHO}/VIRGO. Our study suggests that the major contribution to the TSI variation arises from the changes in magnetic field while the radius vari…
Since the late 1970s, successive satellite missions have been monitoring the sun's activity and recording the total solar irradiance (TSI). Some of these measurements have lasted for more than a decade. In order to obtain a seamless record whose duration exceeds that of the individual instruments, the time series have to be merged. Climate models can be better validated using such long TSI time series which can also help to provide stronger constraints on past climate reconstructions (e.g., back to the Maunder minimum). We propose a 3-step method based on data fusion, including a stochastic no…
Solar astrometry deals with the accurate measumerent of the solar diameter, and in general with the measurement of the shape of the Sun. During the last decades several techniques have been developed to monitor the radius and the irradiance of the Sun: meridian transits, telescopes in drift-scan mode, solar astrolabes, balloons, and satellites dedicated to the measurements of the solar diameter, and space measurements of the total solar irradiance are now performed to know the relationship radius-luminosity for the Sun in this evolutionary stage of its life. The feedback of solar astrometry in…
The helioseismic Global Oscillation at Low Frequency (GOLF) and the Variability of solar Irradiance and Gravity Oscillations (VIRGO) instruments onboard SoHO, have been observing the Sun continuously for the last 14 years. In this preliminary work, we characterize the acoustic modes over the entire p-mode range in both, Doppler velocity and luminosity, with a special care for the low-frequency modes taking advantage of the stability and the high duty cycle of space observations.
The global oscillations of the Sun are investigated on the base of three independent sets of data: 1. Records of Total Solar Irradiance (TSI). 2. The average brightness of the photosphere in MDI (SOHO) and HMI (SDO) images. 3. Records of the time variations of sunlight reflected from the planets during their passage in the field of view of the LASCO C3 coronagraph. It is found that in the low-frequency spectrum of solar oscillations as a star there are modes of 8-10, 36-38 hours and the main stable 9-day mode. The last mode can be regarded as a reflection of oscillatory processes near the fast…
The irradiance of the Sun is modulated on all time scales. Small-scale solar magnetic elements composed of quiet-Sun network and active region plages contribute to this modulation on solar cycle time scales. The evaluation of their contrast as a function of their magnetic field strength is an important constraint for models of solar irradiance variation. In this thesis, we improve and extend the results of earlier contrast studies taking advantage of the high resolution data delivered by the balloon-borne solar observatory Sunrise during its science flights in 2009 and 2013. In addition to the…
The last solar minimum has been unusually quiet compared to the previous minima (since space-based radiometric measurements are available). The Sun's magnetic flux was substantially lower during this minimum. Some studies also show that the total solar irradiance during the minimum after cycle 23 may have dropped below the values known from the two minima prior to that. For chromospheric and coronal radiation, the situation is less clear-cut. The Sun's 10.7\,cm flux shows a decrease of $\sim4\%$ during the solar minimum in 2008 compared to the previous minimum, but \ion{Ca}{II} K does not. Her…
First such observations were made in 1892 and since then various sites around the world have carried out regular observations, with Kodaikanal, Meudon, Mt Wilson, and Coimbra being some of the most prominent ones. By now, Ca II K observations from over 40 different sites allow an almost complete daily coverage of the last century. Ca II K images provide direct information on plage and network regions on the Sun and, through their connection to solar surface magnetic field, offer an excellent opportunity to study solar magnetism over more than a century. This makes them also extremely important…
The Sun is a variable star whose magnetic activity and total irradiance vary on a timescale of approximately 11 years. The current activity minimum has attracted considerable interest because of its unusual duration and depth. This raises the question: what might be happening beneath the surface where the magnetic activity ultimately originates? The surface activity can be linked to the conditions in the solar interior by the observation and analysis of the frequencies of the Sun's natural seismic modes of oscillation - the p modes. These seismic frequencies respond to changes in activity and …
The measurement of the solar diameter is introduced in the wider framework of solar variability and of the influences of the Sun upon the Earth's climate. Ancient eclipses and planetary transits would permit to extend the knowledge of the solar irradiance back to three centuries, through the parameter W=dLogR/dLogL. The method of Baily's beads timing during eclipses is discussed, and a significant improvement with respect to the last 40 years has been obtained by reconstructing the Limb Darkening Function's inflexion point from their light curve and the corresponding lunar valleys' profiles. T…
