The Role of the Sun in Climate Change [Hardcover]

Douglas V. Hoyt (Author), Kenneth H. Schatten (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 3, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0195094131 | ISBN-13: 978-0195094138

The luminosity of the sun governs the temperature of the planets. And the solar forcing, or driving, of climate, primarily due to changes in solar radiation, is an idea whose history has not been well documented in a book. Recent satellite measurements have shown that solar radiation varies as a function of wavelength - a concept that for the past two centuries scientists have claimed would be proved. Now, with all of the attention being given to global warming, this topic has again become timely. The book will review the physics of the concept of solar forcing in manageable terms, tracing its history from its beginnings in the early 1800s to its apparent success in the 1920s, to its near demise in the 1950s and its resurrection in recent years. Emphasis will be on solar variation as a driver for climate change, with only a brief discussion of other mechanisms - thus assuring the book a clear focus.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Douglas Hoyt and Kenneth Schatten point out that the large numbers of sunspots during the 11th and 12th centuries made Earth significantly warmer, allowing Vikings to settle in Greenland, for example. The authors review many historical studies of the Sun's influence on climate. A successful blend of astronomical and climate studies with modern scientific and statistical analysis, this history of solar observations is followed by a review of how variations in solar brightness have been measured, both from the ground and space." --New Scientist

"Hoyt and Schatten's book is a fascinating and well written history of this interesting chapter of science that is relevant to the understanding of the earth system on one hand and to the increasingly fierce battle between conservationists and industrialists concerning global warming, on the other. The well organized book takes the reader in a carefully planned and cross-referenced way from the sun to the earth, and from Theophrastus in the fourth century B.C. to solar-terrestrial physicists in the early 1990s."--Journal of Geoscience Education

"Douglas Hoyt and Kenneth Schatten. . .review the effects that solar irradiance variations have in producing climate changes. The book summarizes both the history and our present understanding of this field, so as to provide a solid foundation for graduate students, current researchers and interested scientists in related fields. The book is easy to read, well written, and hard to put down. . . .The two most important problems examined by the book concern the presence of sign reversals in the observed correlations and the fact that the climate variations that are observed are larger by a factor of ten than simple energy-balance calculations can account for. The book reviews the possible explanations for these problems and is quite successful in giving the reader a well-balanced picture of the field."--Physics Today

"This book approaches the sun-climate connection as an ongoing journey. In three parts, the authors present material on solar activity, development of humankind's understanding of the sun, and the sun's variations; the sun-climate connection, particularly on the 11-year timescale; and possible alternative explanations for variations. Throughout the book, the authors pose the question `Does the sun affect the climate?' and present evidence to support and to discount the theory." --Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

"A valuable resource to those engaged in global warming studies and interpreting the effect of the sun on the Earth's climate changes. . . . The book is divided into three parts. The first part . . . is an examination of solar activity throughout history to reveal the slow development of our understanding of the sun. . . . The second part . . . deals with the climate and the sun-climate connection. The final part . . . discusses possible alternative explanations for variations in the sun and climate on time scales from decades to billions of years. . . . The book has an impressive bibliography of nearly 2000 articles and papers on the sun's influence on weather and climate dating back to 1796. . . . the book could be used as a reference text for students in the civil or environmental engineering programs when they do course work in hydrology, water and wastewater management, and land-use planning."--Geo Info Systems

About the Author

Douglas Hoyt was formerly the Senior Scientist at the Research and Data Systems Corporation in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (April 3, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195094131
• ISBN-13: 978-0195094138
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #275,927 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #76 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Earth Sciences > Atmospheric Sciences

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A skeptical view and enjoyable read of a "hot" topic., April 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Role of the Sun in Climate Change (Paperback)

In "The Role of the Sun in Climate Change" the reader finds an entertaining tale told by two scientists. Often in today's debate on global climate change, readers are forced to listen to politicians or the media. This book serves as a refreshing change from that paradigm. Not only is the reader presented with a skeptical view of the facts of global climate change, but the reader may also enjoy the writing style which one rarely finds in writings by scientists. The opening sentence of Chapter 1 sounds like a novel when these scientists describe how one scientist, from an era long gone, went about his daily observing. They even display a sense of humor in their chapters and their titles, as in Chapter 9, "Cyclomania" where they set out to describe many of the different cyclic processes involved in both the sun and climate, and how so many cycles can be used or abused. This book can be enjoyed while commuting to work (as long as you are not the driver) as well as an introduction for serious studies. It contains an extensive bibliography.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Seekers of Truth Should Start Here, March 1, 2004

By 

Gregg D. Armstrong "gregga" (Lake City, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Role of the Sun in Climate Change (Paperback)

To those Seekers of Truth interested in the facts surrounding the "Global Warming" debate should start with this book. This is a very accessible, very well written book. First and foremost it establishes the historical record for climate change. I'd supplement that by pointing out that 100 years of data doesn't establish any significant trend worth talking about considering the extreme variations in climate known over hundreds of thousands of years.

The book goes into great detail regarding a number of possible factors that may affect climate. No attempt is made to favor one factor over another beyond an examination of how well each correlates to the actual record. However, the data does prove quite skeptical for human-induced climatic change. After all, how many SUVs were there during the Medieval Warm Period (~800 AD to ~1300 AD)? What drove the extreme cooling of the Younger Dryas (~12,700 years ago)? What drove the extreme warming that ended that period of cooling?

Of most interest to me, was the correlation of sun spot cycles, and more importantly the long-term record of sun spot minima and maxima within those cycles over hundreds of years, with climate. Also, of great interest are detailed explanations showing how variations in solar output energy and distribution with respect to wavelength, may force amplified climatic responses.

In all, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the truth about the factors forcing climatic changes. You'll never hear any of this from those with a vested financial interest in scare mongering. Nor do I put much stock in the social scientists making up a super majority of those scientists said to be most convinced that humanity is the major cause of Global Warming.

Nor will you hear any hint of it from the scientifically bankrupt major media outlets. These ideas simply cannot be crammed into an 11-second sound bite. But, more importantly sensationalism is the stock in trade of TV news shows. The scientific-illiterati amongst the talking heads will blame drivers in SUVs for on-screen images of floods and storms rather something which they cannot possibly control, such as the Sun.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A cooment from the first author, December 8, 2003

By 

Douglas Hoyt - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Role of the Sun in Climate Change (Paperback)

Although more than 5 years have passed since this book was published, it has held up rather well. The reason for that is that it takes a historical perspective and the history portions of the book do not not become rapidly dated. The author can be reached at [e-mail] if anyone has questions or comments.