Related papers: Clouds and the Faint Young Sun Paradox
Improving observations of ocean heat content show that Earth is absorbing more energy from the sun than it is radiating to space as heat, even during the recent solar minimum. The inferred planetary energy imbalance, 0.59 \pm 0.15 W/m2…
Atmospheres regulate the planetary heat loss and therefore influence planetary thermal evolution. Uncertainty in a giant planet's thermal state contributes to the uncertainty in the inferred abundance of heavy elements it contains. Within…
The influence of solar variability on climate is currently uncertain. Recent observations have indicated a possible mechanism via the influence of solar modulated cosmic rays on global cloud cover. Surprisingly the influence of solar…
The forcings due to changing concentrations of Earth's five most important, naturally occurring greenhouse gases, H$_2$O, CO$_2$, O$_3$, N$_2$O and CH$_4$ as well as CF$_4$ and SF$_6$ were evaluated for the case of a cloud-free atmosphere.…
Hot Jupiters exhibit large day-night temperature contrasts. Their cooler nightsides are thought to host clouds. However, the exact nature of these clouds, their spatial distribution, and their impact on atmospheric dynamics, thermal…
Clouds affected by solar eclipses could influence the reflection of sunlight back into space and might change local precipitation patterns. Satellite cloud retrievals have so far not taken into account the lunar shadow, hindering a reliable…
Quantitative estimates of the contributions of the anthropogenic forcing, characterized by changes in the radiative forcing of atmospheric greenhouse gases (CO2, in particular), and solar activity variations to the trends of the global…
Given a solar luminosity L_Ar = 0.75 L_0 at the beginning of the Archean 3.8 Gyr ago, where L_0 is the present-day one, if the heliocentric distance r of the Earth was r_Ar = 0.956 r_0, the solar irradiance would have been as large as I_Ar…
The classic question regarding Lyman-alpha forest clouds is whether they are confined by the pressure of a hot, diffuse surrounding medium, or by the gravity of dark matter mini-halos. This paper reviews these basic models for forest…
The variable Sun is the most likely candidate for natural forcing of past climate change on time scales of 50 to 1000 years. Evidence for this understanding is that the terrestrial climate correlates positively with solar activity. During…
Water-rich planets such as Earth are expected to become eventually uninhabitable, because liquid water does not remain stable at the surface as surface temperatures increase with the solar luminosity over time. Whether a large increase of…
If the Milky Way is populated by WIMPs as predicted by cosmological models of the large-scale structure of the universe and as motivated by SUSY, the capture of high-mass WIMPs by the Sun would affect the temperature, density and chemical…
It is expected that as the Sun travels through the interstellar medium (ISM), there will be different filtration of Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR) that affect Earth. The effect of GCR on Earth's atmosphere and climate is still uncertain.…
We present a focused parameter study of solar wind - magnetosphere interaction for the young Sun and Earth, $~3.5$ Ga ago, that relies on magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations for both the solar wind and the magnetosphere. By simulating the…
A decrease in the globally averaged low level cloud cover, deduced from the ISCCP infra red data, as the cosmic ray intensity decreased during the solar cycle 22 was observed by two groups. The groups went on to hypothesise that the…
Using a general circulation model (GCM), we investigate trends in simulated hot Jupiter atmospheres for a range of irradiation temperatures (1,500 - 4,000 K), surface gravities (10 and 40 m s-2), and cloud conditions. Our models include…
Clouds cast shadows on the surface and locally enhance solar irradiance by absorbing and scattering sunlight, resulting in fast and large solar irradiance fluctuations on the surface. Typical spatiotemporal scales and driving mechanisms of…
Cloud absorption is acknowledged as the biggest source of uncertainty in the climate models. For over 70 years, many experiments have reported clouds absorbing more solar radiation than theory could predict. In the visible spectrum,…
Among the most puzzling questions in climate change is that of solar-climate variability, which has attracted the attention of scientists for more than two centuries. Until recently, even the existence of solar-climate variability has been…
The state of earth's climate is constrained by well-known physical principles such as energy balance and the conservation of energy. Increased greenhouse gas concentrations affect the atmospheric optical depth, and physical consistency…