A New Look at Solar Irradiance Variation

We compare total solar irradiance (TSI) and ultraviolet (Fuv) irradiance variation reconstructed using Ca K facular areas since 1915, with previous values based on less direct proxies. Our annual means for 1925 – 1945 reach values 30 – 50 % higher than those presently used in IPCC climate studies. A high facula/sunspot area ratio in spot cycles 16 and 17 seems to be responsible. New evidence from solar photometry increases the likelihood of greater seventeenth century solar dimming than expected from the disappearance of magnetic active regions alone. But the large additional brightening in the early twentieth century claimed from some recent models requires complete disappearance of the magnetic network. The network is clearly visible in Ca K spectroheliograms obtained since the 1890s, so these models cannot be correct. Changes in photospheric effective temperature invoked in other models would be powerfully damped by the thermal inertia of the convection zone. Thus, there is presently no support for twentieth century irradiance variation besides that arising from active regions. The mid-twentieth century irradiance peak arising from these active regions extends 20 years beyond the early 1940s peak in global temperature. This failure of correlation, together with the low amplitude of TSI variation and the relatively weak effect of Fuv driving on tropospheric temperature, limits the role of solar irradiance variation in twentieth century global warming.