Global Warming and Solar Radiation

Without the impact of solar radiation, the temperature on the earth would be about the same as the temperature of space, which is about -454 F. The amount of radiation reaching the earth is about 1,368 watts per square meter. This is a vast amount of energy, which would requrie the simultaneous output of 1.7 billion of our largest power plants to match. About 70 percent of this solar energy is absorbed and 30 percent is reflected. However, the amount of solar energy reaching the earth is not constant, but varies in several independent cycles of different degrees of magnitude, which may or may not reinforce each other.

These cycles include a 100,000-year cycle, which results from the elliptical orbit of the earth around the sun, a 41,000-year (obliquity) cycle, which results from the tilt of the earth on it axis, a 23,000-year cycle which results from "climatic precession" or changes in direction of the earths axis relative to the sun, and an 11-year sunsport cycle, during which solar radiation increases and then declines. The most recent sunspot radiation cycle peaked in the year 2000, and currently is approaching a minimum. Curiously, NASA and the Russian Observatory both report that total solar raditaion now has peaked and all these cycles may be simultaneously in decilne.