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Variations in solar irradiance entering the Earth’s atmosphere caused by the planet orbital features

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Abstract

Variations in daily mean solar irradiance at the top of atmosphere (SITOA) caused by the revolution of the Earth around the Sun were studied by analysing two 24-year datasets. The first one was provided by the NASA/GEWEX Surface Radiation Budget Release-3.0 data and the second was evaluated through the model proposed by Laskar and co-authors. It was found that the first two pairs of empirical orthogonal functions and corresponding principal components (PC) account for more than 99.9% of the spatio-temporal variance in SITOA. A quite good consistency among the analysed parameters extracted from considered datasets was noted. Six harmonics with periods from 2 months to 1 year and large differences among their magnitudes were recognised in PC1 and PC2 periodograms. PC1 turned out to be dominated by the annual oscillations, while the semi-annual variations play a prevailing role in PC2. In addition, a close similarity between the periodograms of PC2 and variations in the length of apparent solar day was noted, that assumes a common origin of both variability patterns. The lowest annual amplitude of SITOA variations was found to be slightly above the equator, at \(2^\circ 44\mathrm{^{\prime}}\mathrm{N}\) and the amplitude at southern latitudes exceeds the amplitude at the corresponding northern latitudes by 20–40% in the tropical zone and by about 10% for the rest of the globe.

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Data availability

The SRB time series analysed in the current study were generated from the data available in the NASA Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC) repository [https://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/project/srb/srb_table]. The La2004 dataset was computed by using the INSOLA code available at http://vo.imcce.fr/insola/earth/online/earth/earth.html

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Acknowledgements

The NASA/GEWEX Surface Radiation Budget (SRB) Release-3.0 data were obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center, Atmospheric Science Data Center. The free provision of the INSOLA code by the authors is also acknowledged. I thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive and valuable comments.

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  1. Department of Advanced Technologies in Medicine & Dentistry, University G. d’Annunzio, Via Dei Vestini, 31, Chieti, 66100, Italy

    Boyan H. Petkov

  2. National Research Council, Institute of Polar Sciences (CNR-ISP), Via P. Gobetti 104, 40129, Bologna, Italy

    Boyan H. Petkov

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Petkov, B.H. Variations in solar irradiance entering the Earth’s atmosphere caused by the planet orbital features. Theor Appl Climatol 155, 701–713 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-023-04658-z

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