Contribution of solar radiation to decadal temperature variability over land
Open accessAbstract
Significance: Global air temperature has become the primary metric for judging global climate change. The variability of global temperature on a decadal timescale is still poorly understood. This paper shows that surface incident solar radiation ( Rs ) over land globally peaked in the 1930s, substantially decreased from the 1940s to the 1970s, and changed little after that. The cooling effect of this reduction of Rs accounts in part for the near-constant temperature from the 1930s into the 1970s. Since then, neither the rapid increase in temperature from the 1970s through the 1990s nor the slowdown of warming in the early twenty-first century appear to be significantly related to changes of Rs .
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The link between DTR and cloud cover has been shown to be valid for timescales from month to decade.
“This link between DTR and cloud cover has been shown to be valid for timescales from month to decade (Wild et al ., 2007; Wild, 2009; Wang and Dickinson, 2013)”
From Ecological and conceptual consequences of Arctic pollution (2020) · cites this paper as Wang and Dickinson, 2013
The Results section (page not available) links DTR to cloud cover: it reports that increasing cloudiness was consistent with declining DTR in North America and that cloud cover accounted for up to 63% of regional annual DTR variability in the United States. The paper also examines DTR and solar radiation using monthly anomalies and long-term trends, but it does not establish a DTR–cloud-cover link across the full range of timescales from month to decade. (LLM, conf=0.84)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredFor the study region, a change in Rs by 1 Wm-2 leads to changes in DTR by 0.02-0.04°C.
“For the study region, a change in Rs by 1 Wm 2 leads to changes in DTR by 0.02 -0.04 ° C (Wang and Dickinson, 2013).”
From Ecological and conceptual consequences of Arctic pollution (2020) · cites this paper as Wang and Dickinson, 2013
The Results ('Relationship Between Rs and DTR'; page unavailable) report that DTR is correlated with Rs and that its sensitivity varies by environment. Our copy does not give the claimed 0.02–0.04°C change per 1 W m⁻² or establish that range for the citing paper's study region (searched the values and sensitivity). (LLM, conf=0.84)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
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Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
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Cites
Part of this paper’s reference list could not be split into single entries.
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols: Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate
Rasool, S. I., & Schneider, S. H. (1971) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.173.3992.138 · Cited by 312 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- [19]19. Wang KC, Wang P, Li ZQ, Cribb M, Sparrow M (2007) A simple method to estimate actual evapotranspiration from a combination of net radiation, vegetation index, and temperature. J Geophys Res 112(D15):D15107. 20.Wang KC, Dickinson RE, Liang S. Global atmospheric evaporative demand over land from 1973 to 2008. J Clim. 2012;25(23):8353–8361. [Google Scholar]
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Ecological and conceptual consequences of Arctic pollution
Kirdyanov, A. V., Krusic, P. J., Shishov, V. V., Vaganov, E. A., Fertikov, A. I., Myglan, V. S., Barinov, V. V., Browse, J., Esper, J., Ilyin, V. A., et al. (2020) · Ecology Letters · doi:10.1111/ele.13611 · Cited by 53 · see citing works
“This link between DTR and cloud cover has been shown to be valid for timescales from month to decade (Wild et al., 2007; Wild, 2009; Wang and Dickinson, 2013), for which Rs is highly correlated with PAR (r = 0.97, n = 14667, P < 10 8).”
BackgroundInfluential
- Authors
- Wang, K., & Dickinson, R. E.
- Affiliations
- Beijing Normal University (CN)
- The University of Texas at Austin (US)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2013-08-26
- Volume
- 110
- Issue
- 37
- Pages
- 14877-14882
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC3773731
- OpenAlex
- W2048718953
- Cited by
- 174
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 13 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 22 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 14 · 2015: 15 · 2014: 14 · 2013: 2
- FWCI
- 11.44
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate variability and models
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Geology and Paleoclimatology Research
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Atmospheric aerosols and clouds
- Keywords
- solar radiation, diurnal temperature range, surface air temperature, solar forcing, global warming hiatus, land surface temperature, climate change attribution
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