Variations of solar coronal hole area and terrestrial lower tropospheric air temperature from 1979 to mid-1998: astronomical forcings of change in earth's climate?

The temperature anomaly of the terrestrial lower troposphere, inferred from the Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) radiometers, is found to be inversely co rrelated with the area of the Sun covered by coronal holes. The correlation between the monthly time series of global tropospheric temperature anomaly and total coronal hole area from January 1979 to April 1998 has a Pearson coefficient of -0.46, which is different from zero at a 95% confidence leve l. Physical reasonings for the explained and unexplained parts of the corre lation are discussed. The coronal hole area is a physical proxy for both th e global-scale, 22-yr geometrical and shorter-term, dynamical components of the cosmic ray modulation, as well as the corpuscular emission of the Sun. Other solar parameters that may indicate a solar radiative effect on clima te are also evaluated. It is concluded that variable fluxes either of solar charged particles or cosmic rays modulated by the solar wind, or both, may influence the terrestrial tropospheric temperature on timescale of months to years. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.