HR: 1330h
AN: PP52A-0951    [PDF]
TI: An Analysis of Historical Records of Solar Variability, Volcanic Eruptions, and Climate Change in the Last Millennium
AU: * Pang, K D
EM: kevindpang@aol.com
AB: Studying past climate changes can help us better understand present natural variations and predict future trends. However, various reconstructions of the climate of the last 1000 years have given only broad similarities [Briffa, JGR 106, 2929, 2001]. The variances are partly due to uncertainties in the past radiative and aerosol forcing, and gaps in regional coverage. Another outstanding question is whether we are in a time similar to the Medieval Warm Period. From the frequencies of sunspot and aurora sightings, abundance of carbon-14 in the rings of long-lived trees, and beryllium-10 in the annual layers of polar ice cores, we have reconstructed the recent history of a variable Sun. In the past 1800 years the Sun has gone through nine cycles of changes in brightness. While these long-term changes account for less than 1% of the total irradiance, there is clear evidence that they affect the climate [Pang and Yau, Eos, 83, No. 43, 481, 2002]. We have analyzed Chinese historical weather records to fill the data void in this region. Reports of unseasonable cold are classified by the degree of severity: (1) Late (April-June) or early (July-Sept) killing frosts; (2) Bitter cold/heavy snowfall; and (3) heavy sustained snowfall, bitter cold with frozen wells, lakes, rivers, and icebound seas. The latter cases were often widespread and multi-year. All categories occurred most frequently during the coldest part of the Little Ice Age, with the coldest episodes in 1652-54, 1656, 1664, 1670-72, 1676-77, 1683, 1688-91, 1716 and 1718-19. They thus coincide with Maunder Minimum (1645-1715), when very few sunspots were seen-about one in ten years from China or Europe-indicative of a weakened Sun. There was only one Category 3 episode between the Maunder and Dalton Minima-in 1761, and two in the Dalton Minimum (1795-1825)-in 1796 and 1814-7. Analysis of proxy data has shown that the 1810's were among the coldest years in Europe [Briffa and Jones, in ``The Year Without a Summer,'' C.R. Harrignton, ed., 1992]. Large eruptions, of an unknown volcano in 1809 [Dai, JGR 96, 17361, 1991], at Mayon in 1814, and at Tambora in 1815, with the reduced solar luminosity seem to have been responsible. The Sun has slowly brightened since the Dalton Minimum. However, the climate of China remained cold through the 19th century, consistent with world climate trend [Bradley and Jones, Holocene 3, 367, 1993], possibly due to increased volcanic aerosol loading of the atmosphere [Sato, JGR 98, 22987, 1993]. In the 200 years prior to the Maunder Minimum, there was at least one other major planetwide volcanically forced cold episode-in 1453-54. The climate of China appears to have been warm during the Late 14th-Century Solar Maximum (1350-1410). We have found only one report of early killing frost-in May, 1993. It then turned cold during the Sporer Minimum (140-1590) [Pang and Yau, op. cit.]. Category 3 cold episodes occurred in 1453-54, 1513, 1569, and 1577-78. Lesser ones were also more common. The coldest was in 1453-54, due to a Tamboran class eruption that broke a big island in New Hebrides Arc in two, separated by a 12X6X1 km submarine caldera Kuwae. The volcanic chill was felt worldwide, with extensive reporting in China [Pang, Eos 74, No. 43, 196, 1993]. Reduced solar luminosity may have also contributed to the cold climate of that decade, as was the case in the 1810's. We conclude that the climate of China in the past 650 years generally follows world trend. The major forcing seems to have been changing solar luminosity, perturbed by frequent volcanic eruptions.
DE: 1610 Atmosphere (0315, 0325)
DE: 1620 Climate dynamics (3309)
DE: 1650 Solar variability
SC: Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology [PP]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting