I thought it would be an interesting exercise to look at the annual change in global mean surface temperature (GMST) in the atmosphere at 2 meters above ground level versus the annual change in solar radiation incoming (SRI) at the top of the atmosphere (TOA). In so doing, we can also relate the annual variation in TOA SRI to the annual change in GMST and use this relationship to infer the impact of increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) on GMST.
The earth’s orbit is slightly elliptical. Eccentricity is a measure of the departure of an ellipse from a true circle. The earth’s eccentricity varies over long time scales and is estimated to have ranged from a low of 0.000055 to a high of 0.0679, with a geometric mean of 0.0019. The present eccentricity is 0.017 and decreasing very slowly. That doesn’t seem like much, but the earth’s distance from…
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