The Mauna Loa Observatory record of direct-beam solar irradiance measurements for the years 1958–2010 is analysed to investigate the variation of clear-sky terrestrial insolation with solar activity over more than four solar cycles. The raw irradiance data exhibit a marked seasonal cycle, extended periods of lower irradiance due to emissions of volcanic aerosols, and a long-term decrease in atm...

The Schwabe frequency band of the Zurich sunspot record since 1749 is found to be made of three major cycles with periods of about 9.98, 10.9 and 11.86 years. The side frequencies appear to be closely related to the spring tidal period of Jupiter and Saturn (range between 9.5 and 10.5 years, and median 9.93 years) and to the tidal sidereal period of Jupiter (about 11.86 years). The central cycl...

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The unusually long 4th solar cycle has recently been proposed by Usoskin et al. (2001) to be composed of two cycles. They argue that a weak and short cycle might have been lost in sparse sunspot data at the end of the 18th century. Here we check this hypothesis in different ways. First, we consider the sunspot number record in greater detail and compare in a statistical sense the sunspot observ...

[1] Galactic cosmic ray flux at Earth is modulated by the heliospheric magnetic field. Heliospheric modulation potential, F, during grand solar minima is investigated using an open solar flux (OSF) model with OSF source based on sunspot number, R, and OSF loss on heliospheric current sheet inclination. Changing dominance between source and loss means F varies in(anti-) phase with R during stron...