The Role of the Sun in Climate Change [Hardcover]

PART I: THE SUN
1. Observations of the Sun
2. Variations in Solar Brightness
PART II: THE CLIMATE
3. Climate Measurement and Modeling
4. Temperature
5. Rainfall
6. Storms
7. Biota
8. Cyclomania
PART III: THE LONGER TERM SUN/CLIMATE CONNECTION
9. Solar and Climate Changes
10. Alternative Climate-Change Theories
11. Gaia or Athena? The Early Faint-Sun Paradox
12. Final Thoughts

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 hal#.