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Regional climate impacts of a possible future grand solar minimum.


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Authors

Ineson, Sarah 
Maycock, Amanda C 
Gray, Lesley J 
Scaife, Adam A 
Dunstone, Nick J 

Abstract

Any reduction in global mean near-surface temperature due to a future decline in solar activity is likely to be a small fraction of projected anthropogenic warming. However, variability in ultraviolet solar irradiance is linked to modulation of the Arctic and North Atlantic Oscillations, suggesting the potential for larger regional surface climate effects. Here, we explore possible impacts through two experiments designed to bracket uncertainty in ultraviolet irradiance in a scenario in which future solar activity decreases to Maunder Minimum-like conditions by 2050. Both experiments show regional structure in the wintertime response, resembling the North Atlantic Oscillation, with enhanced relative cooling over northern Eurasia and the eastern United States. For a high-end decline in solar ultraviolet irradiance, the impact on winter northern European surface temperatures over the late twenty-first century could be a significant fraction of the difference in climate change between plausible AR5 scenarios of greenhouse gas concentrations.

Description

This is the final published version. It first appeared at http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150623/ncomms8535/full/ncomms8535.html.

Keywords

0406 Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience

Journal Title

Nat Commun

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2041-1723
2041-1723

Volume Title

6

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Sponsorship
This work was supported by the Joint DECC/Defra Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme (GA01101) and also by the EU project SPECS funded by the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Research Programme under the grant agreement 308378 (Met Office Hadley Centre authors), by the NERC National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) Climate directorate (L.J.G. and A.C.M.), an ERC ACCI grant (A.C.M) and an AXA Postdoctoral Fellowship (A.C.M.).