Helioclimatology of the Alps and the Tibetan Plateau

Abstract

There is broad agreement that the energy from the Sun is very important to the Earth. Global atmospheric circulation is also strongly affected by the amount of solar radiation received at Earth. That amount changes based on the Earth’s albedo, that is how much radiation is reflected back from the Earth’s surface and clouds. The amount of radiation given off by the Sun is changing with solar activity like sunspots and total solar irradiance. A reconstruction of total solar irradiance since 1610 to the present estimated by various authors an increase in the total solar irradiance since the Maunder Minimum of about 1.3 W/m2. This is a huge amount of energy, taking into account the Earth’s total land mass - 510.072 million sq kms. During this period, an increase in temperature in the Northern Hemisphere was observed. This paper examines air temperature variation and an associated phenomenon of its relationships to solar activity indices. The purpose of this study is to identify contribution of the Sun on climate variability in two mountainous regions of the Earth: the Alps and the Tibetan Plateau. Methodology applied in this study is based on calibration of the smoothed International Sunspot Number (SSN) and air temperature for the same solar cycles over a period of many years.