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Global Climate Change Digest
A Guide to Information on Greenhouse Gases and Ozone Depletion
Published July 1988 through June 1999

FROM VOLUME 7, NUMBER 9, SEPTEMBER 1994

PROFESSIONAL PUBLICATIONS... SUN-CLIMATE RELATIONSHIPS

Item #d94sep24

"Stratospheric Volcanic Aerosols and Changes in Air-Earth Current Density at Solar Wind Magnetic Sector Boundaries as Conditions for the Wilcox Tropospheric Vorticity Effect," B.A. Tinsley (Ctr. Space Sci., MS FO22, Univ. Texas, Box 830668, Richardson TX 75083), J.T. Hoeksema, D.N. Baker, J. Geophys. Res., 99(D8), 16,805-16,813, Aug. 20, 1994.

The Wilcox effect, an apparent response of tropospheric circulation to the passage of solar wind magnetic sectors over the Earth, was evident in the period 1964-1970, but disappeared until there was a new injection of volcanic aerosols into the stratosphere. Other weather and climate variations have been found to correlate with changes in the air-earth current density due to solar wind modulation of the global electric circuit. The accumulation of electrostatic charge on supercooled droplets at cloud top responds to air-earth current density; a mechanism linking this accumulation to changes in ice nucleation and precipitation efficiency and to other features is an explanation for such correlations. (See next entry.)

Item #d94sep25

"Solar Wind Mechanism Suggested for Weather and Climate Change," B.A. Tinsley (Ctr. Space Sci., MS FO22, Univ. Texas, Box 830668, Richardson TX 75083), Eos, 75(32), 369, 374, Aug. 9, 1994.

Demonstrates how the solar wind affects current flow in the global electric circuit where there is a considerable amount of free energy in the form of a colloidal suspension of supercooled water in clouds.

Item #d94sep26

"The Role of Stratospheric Ozone in Modulating the Solar Radiative Forcing of Climate," J.D. Haigh (Space & Atmos. Phys. Group., Blackett Lab., Imperial Coll. of Sci., Technol. & Medicine, London SW7 2BZ, UK), Nature, 370(6490), 544-546, Aug. 18, 1994.

Results from a 2-D radiative-convective chemical transport model show a highly nonlinear relationship between the extra-terrestrial and cross-tropopause solar radiative flux, that affects latitudinal temperature gradient and possibly planetary wave activity. The mechanism may explain some features of the observed correlations between solar variability and climate.

Item #d94sep27

"Study of Solar Irradiance Variations Holds Key to Climate Questions," P. Foukal (Cambridge Res. & Instrumentation Co., Cambridge MA 02139), Eos, 75(33), 377, 381-382, Aug. 16, 1994.

Summarizes the history and possible future of the scientific understanding of solar irradiance up to the present. The ability to predict climate will require a long radiometric sample of total solar irradiance on a 50-year time scale taken from space, an extremely challenging task that could benefit a future generation of space and climate physicists.

Item #d94sep28

Two items from Clim. Change, 27(3), 249-257, July 1994:

"Solar Variability and Climate--An Editorial Essay," S. Sofia (Ctr. Solar & Space Res., Yale Univ., New Haven, Conn.), P. Fox, 249-257. Of the databases needed to study climatic change, the most uncertain is that for the Sun's climate of solar output. This paper focuses on what needs to be accomplished. Simultaneous observations of diameter and luminosity variations for at least a year, combined with theoretical modeling, could lead to predictability of solar change. If research confirms that solar diameter is a good proxy for solar luminosity, the latter could be derived from two centuries of existing data, to validate climate models.

"Solar Signals in Global Climatic Change," C.D. Schönwiese (H.W. Goethe Univ., Inst. Meteor., Frankfurt/Main, Ger.), R. Ullrich et al., 259-281. Performs a correlation analysis of annual and global mean surface air temperature with various solar forcing parameters: sunspots, related hypotheses including variations in the length of the 11-year cycle, solar diameter, and gravitational effects. The temperature variance attributable to solar forcing is small.

Item #d94sep29

"Stellar Luminosity Variations and Global Warming," P. Foukal (Cambridge Res. & Instrumentation Inc., Cambridge MA 02139), Science, 264(5156), 238-239, Apr. 8, 1994. (See GCCD, p. 2, May 1994.)