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How Constant is the Solar Constant?

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How Constant is the Solar Constant?

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Approximately 1.4 million erg of radiant energy fall on each square centimeter of the Earth every second. The theory of stellar evolution, discussed in Chapters 17 through 19, suggests that the Sun’s luminosity must have increased by perhaps 30 percent since it began its existence some 4.6 billion years ago. However, as recently as 1975, paleoclimatic evidence concerning long-term temperature variations on Earth showed that any change has been less than 3 percent in the last 1 million years. One can argue that if the solar luminosity had been as much as 25 percent less than the present value, the oceans would have frozen, preventing biological evolution. This suggests that if the solar luminosity has increased significantly since Earth’s formation, something about the Earth has compensated for such a change. Solar Max measurements provide evidence that sunspots and faculae, granulation, and solar oscillations are responsible for as much as 0.4 percent changes in the solar constant over

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