doi:10.1016/j.asr.2007.01.076
Copyright © 2007 COSPAR Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Effect of solar variability on the Earth’s climate patterns
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Alexander Ruzmaikina, 
aJet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
Received 30 October 2006;
revised 8 January 2007;
accepted 8 January 2007.
Available online 3 March 2007.
Abstract
We discuss effects of solar variability on the Earth’s large-scale climate patterns. These patterns are naturally excited as deviations (anomalies) from the mean state of the Earth’s atmosphere-ocean system. We consider in detail an example of such a pattern, the North Annular Mode (NAM), a climate anomaly with two states corresponding to higher pressure at high latitudes with a band of lower pressure at lower latitudes and the other way round. We discuss a mechanism by which solar variability can influence this pattern and formulate an updated general conjecture of how external influences on Earth’s dynamics can affect climate patterns.
Keywords: Solar irradiance; Climate and inter-annual variability; Solar variability impact; Climate dynamics
Fig. 1. The NAM pattern for zonal-mean wind in the height-latitude plane (top) and for the SLP (bottom), http://www.atmos.colostate.edu/ao.
Fig. 2. The PNA pattern for geopotential height anomalies at 500 hPa. The pattern varies on monthly basis and shown for January (http://www.cpc.noaa.gov).
Fig. 3. The NAM index for the low-flux (asterisks) and high-flux (circles) conditions in the stratosphere (at 10 hPa) and in the troposphere (at 850 hPa) in winters 1958–1997. The values for the West QBO phase are on left panels, and the values for the East QBO phase are on right panels (Ruzmaikin and Feynman, 2002).
Fig. 4. The same as Fig. 3 for the PNA index extracted from 500 hPa winter anomalies in 1958–1997.
Fig. 5. A pictorial illustration of possible mechanisms by which solar variability could influence a climate pattern. (a) As envisioned by Palmer (1999). Solid caps correspond to two states of the pattern. Random dropping the ball controls population of the cups. Forcing is depicted as a fan, which tends to blow the ball toward the left hand cup. (b) As suggested here (see also Khatiwala et al., 2001). There is a barrier between the states. Random transitions from one state to another are controlled by internal Earth’s dynamics. Solar variability (forcing) slightly changes the depth of one of the potential wells for some time leading to an exponentially amplified increase of the residence time in that well and, as a consequence, a longer persistence of this state.
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