Geophysical, archaeological, and historical evidence support a solar-output model for climate change

Abstract

T he debate on the cause and the amount of global warming and its effect on global climates and economics continues. As world population continues its exponential growth, the potential for catastrophic effects from climate change increases. One previously neglected key to understanding global climate change may be found in examining events of world history and their connection to climate fluctuations.Climate fluctuations have long been noted as being cyclical in nature, and many papers have been published on this topic (1). These fluctuations also can be quite abrupt (2) when climate displays a surprisingly fast transition from one state to another. Possible causes of the cyclic variations and abrupt transitions at different time intervals have been theorized. These theories include internal drivers such as CO 2 concentrations (3), ocean temperature and salinity properties (4), as well as volcanism and atmospheric-transmissivity variations (5). External drivers include astronomical factors such as the Milankovitch orbital parameters (6), which recently have been challenged (7), and variations in the Sun's energy output (8-10).The most direct mechanism for climate change would be a decrease or increase in the total amount of radiant energy reaching the Earth. Because only the orbital eccentricity aspect of the Milankovitch theory can account for a change in the total global energy and this change is of the order of only a maximum of 0.1% (11), one must look to the Sun as a possible source of larger energy fluctuations. Earth-satellite measurements in the last two decades have revealed that the total energy reaching the Earth varies by at least 0.1% over the 10-to 11-year solar cycle (12). Evidence of larger and longer term variations in solar output can be deduced from geophysical data (13-17).In an extensive search of the literature pertaining to geophysical and astronomical cycles ranging from seconds to millions of years, Perry (18) demonstrated that the reported cycles fell into a recognizable pattern when standardized according to fundamental harmonics. An analysis of the distribution of 256 reported cycles, when standardized by dividing the length of each cycle, in years, by 2 N (where N is a positive or negative integer) until the cycle length fell into a range of 7.5 to 15 years, showed a central tendency of 11.1 years. The average sunspot-cycle length for the period 1700 to 1969 is also 11.1 years (19). In fact, the distribution of the sunspot cycles is very nearly the same as the distribution of the fundamental cycles of other geophysical and astronomical cycles. Aperiodicity of the cycles was evident in two side modes of 9.9 and 12.2 years for the geophysical and astronomical cycles and 10.0 and 12.1 years for the sunspot cycle. The coincidence of these two patterns suggests that solar-activity cycles and their fundamental harmonics may be the underlying cause of many climatic cycles that are preserved in the geophysical record. Gauthier (20) noted a similar unified structure in Quaternary climate data...

Periodic climate cooling enhanced natural disasters and wars in China during AD 10–1900

“…It is notable that the periods we discovered (e.g. 40, 80, 160, 320 years) are well linked to the solar cycle as predicted by the model T ¼ 11 Â 2 n (n ¼ 2, 3, 4, 5; see Perry & Hsu 2000;Hsu 1998). The periodic associations between frequencies of external aggression wars and temperature (figure 4), or between drought/ flood and temperature (Zhang et al 2009), are predominant and consistent in phase shift, suggesting that the periodic variations of temperature may be the direct driving forces behind these variables.…”

Climate patterns in north central China during the last 1800 yr and their possible driving force

“…The fact suggests that the precipitation variability in north central China on centennialto decadal-scale is controlled by natural factor -the thermal contrast between the Asia and the North Pacific. The Sun is the energy source of the Earth, and numerous studies show that solar activity is the main force driving regional climate changes in the Holocene (e.g., Perry and Hsu, 2000;Bond et al, 2001;Hodell et al, 2001;Fleitmann et al, 2003;Wang et al, 2005;Haltia-Hovi et al, 2007;Xu et al, 2008). Tan et al (2009) also found a close relationship between the temperature variations in north China and the solar activities in the last millennium.…”

Precipitation variations of Longxi, northeast margin of Tibetan Plateau since AD 960 and their relationship with solar activity

“…Numerous studies show that solar activity is the main force that drives regional climate changes in the Holocene (Kilian et al, 1995;Stuiver et al, 1997;van Geel et al, 1999;Yu and Ito, 1999;Crowley, 2000;Hong et al, 2000;Perry and Hsu, 2000;Bond et al, 2001;Hodell et al, 2001;Neff et al, 2001;Speranza et al, 2002;Fleitmann et al, 2003;Frisia et al, 2003; Hu et al, 2003;Magny, 2004;Kilcik, 2005;Ogurtsov et al, 2005;Wang et al, 2005;Xu et al, 2006;Barron and Bukry, 2007;Haltia-Hovi et al, 2007;Rodolfo Rigozo et al, 2007). The synchronous variations of the precipitation of Longxi and the Northern Hemisphere temperature on multidecadal to centennial scales may be ascribed to the same control of solar activity.…”