Provisional look at solar constant 1923 to 1954

Figure 1, daily data. Note [1]

The solar constant has long been of interest to science, with good measurements in existence for over a century. Today and measured from satellite this is known as TSI (Total Solar Irradiance), but presumably there will be a slight difference between space based measurements and terrestrial measurements caused by irradiance wavelengths which are totally blocked by the atmosphere and cannot be deduced. Far UV probably being an instance. However this might be of little importance since parasitic irradiance from eg. high atmosphere Ozone which will see far UV might fill in within bandwidth.

1. A single data point is present 1957 which is probably a dataset error in original transcription.

More unexpected solar behaviour, solar magnetic dipole has not crossed zero

Plot from Wilcox Solar Observatory
(http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/Dipall.gif)

This is fairly important news given the sun is strongly a magnetic entity, moreover this might be in line with some predictions about a kind of magnetic collapse.

JAXA inserted new AMSR2 into A-Train orbit

Image from JAXA press release

I’m late to this news from Japan. Middle 2012 JAXA launched SHIZUKU satellite where a major feature is an AMSR2 instrument, which I assume is a replacement for the highly successful instument which failed (scan bearing failure). Insertion into the A-Train string of satellites makes this orbit compatible.

NIST and TSI ” unknown systematic bias”

Image from PDF on NASA/NIST TSI Workshop July 18-20, 2005,
R. C. Willson click image or link

The brief presentation linked above shows some of the story, more follows…