Sun-Earth Distance – TSI

April 5, 2026 rjdavison

CSS-80 – Sun-Earth Distance-TSI Download PDF

CSS-80 The energy levels reaching our planet from the sun are a function of the Sun-Earth Distance (S-E_D) and the sun’s energy intensity. That relationship is complicated and does affect our climate significantly (just not in the alarmists’ All-CO₂, All-the-Time narrative and models). Those movements can be summarized as dramatic over every year (a roughly 5-million-kilometer change in S-E_D and 90+ Watts/m² changes in TSI) with small changes over millennia. The S-E_D is currently decreasing slowly in line with the ±2,100-year Hallstatt solar cycle. The S-E_D was increasing from 600 to 1600 and has been decreasing since then and will continue to decrease for several centuries (1600 to 2600). It is not a coincidence that the cold of the Maunder Minimum occurred when the S-E_D was at or near its maximum.

#climatechange #delaythegreen #globalwarming #showusthedata

Work done by Zharkova et al has shown that the TSI changes over those two millennia is not symmetrical due to a roughly one-month shift in the timing of S-E_D maximums and minimums. From 1700 to 2020, that TSI change is roughly 1 to 1.2 Watts/m² (a significant portion of the ±2.3 Watts/m² currently attributed (by NOAA) to CO₂). And that does not include the many other solar forcings that are currently ignored by the alarmist community. A far more detailed discussion can be found in the links included with this post that show there are alternatives to the alarmists’ All-CO₂, All-the-Time narrative. The S-E_D is just one more piece in that puzzle. CSS-79 – A Common Sense Look at Climate Change provides a summary of the other links.

A significant component of the S-E_D is related to the Sun-Earth Barycenter position. The earth and the Sun orbit their barycenter. That barycenter orbit changes in a ±179-year cycle and dramatically affects our climate and other natural cycles on a ±60-year cycle tied to Jupiter’s 60-year orbital eccentricity cycle. I will be looking at the earth’s 60-year cycles in more detail in a future post. The 60-year cycles were touched on in my recent CSS-75 – Solar Forcing Discussion post.

There is so much more to our climate than the alarmists’ All-CO₂, All-the-Time narrative. CO₂ is just one small component of that complexity. The focus on anthropogenic forcings (CO₂ being the primary one) is extremely wasteful and dangerous (physically and financially), taking away resources (time, money, materials, etc.) that could be used to address the real problems that humanity faces. A significant portion of humanity is waking up to that reality. Canadians (with a special emphasis on my demographic (the Baby Boomers)) need to wake up to that reality. The ideological desire to lead the world on climate is useless/stupid and cannot happen when the rest of the world is not following. We simply cannot control the climate on any meaningful scale.