Century-scale solar variability and Alaskan temperature change over the past millennium

Abstract

Correlation of geologic histories from 130 Alaskan glaciers with a record of solar variation suggests that multi-decadal to century-scale temperature variations in the North Pacific and Arctic sectors have been influenced by solar forcing over the past thousand years. Mountain glacier fluctuations are primarily a record of summer cooling and the composite glacial history from three climatic regions across Alaska shows ice expansions approximately every 200 years, compatible with a solar mode of variability. The modulating effects of the cold phases of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the Arctic Oscillation may, when in phase with decreased solar activity, serve to amplify cooling, forcing glacier advance. Copyright 2004 by the American Geophysical Union.