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The effect of flares on total solar irradiance

Nature Physics volume 6, pages 690–692 (2010)Cite this article

Abstract

Flares are powerful bursts of energy released by relatively poorly understood processes that take place in the atmospheres of stars1. However, although solar flares, from our own Sun, are the most energetic events in the solar system, in comparison to the total output of the Sun they are barely noticeable2,3. Consequently, the total amount of radiant energy they generate is not precisely known, and their potential contribution to variations in the total solar irradiance4 incident on the Earth has so far been overlooked. In this work, we identify a measurable signal from relatively moderate solar flares in total solar irradiance data. We find that the total energy radiated by flares exceeds by two orders of magnitude the flare energy radiated in the soft-X-ray domain only, indicating a major contribution in the visible domain. These results have implications for our understanding of solar-flare activity and the variability of our star.

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Figure 1: Detection of flares in the TSI through superposed-epoch analysis.
Figure 2: Averaged TSI variations during flares of smaller amplitudes.
Figure 3: Total energy radiated by solar flares versus the energy radiated in X-rays.

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Acknowledgements

This work has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under the grant agreement No 218816 (SOTERIA project, www.soteria-space.eu). J-F.H., T.D.d.W. and M.K. also acknowledge financial support from the French–Belgian partnership program ‘Tournesol’.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. LPC2E— Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l’Environnement et de l’Espace, UMR 6115 CNRS et Université d’Orléans, 3A Av. de la Recherche Scientifique, Orléans Cedex 2, France

    Matthieu Kretzschmar & Thierry Dudok de Wit

  2. Physikalisch-Meteorologisches Observatorium Davos and World Radiation Center (PMOD/WRC), Dorfstrasse 33, 7260 Davos Dorf, Switzerland

    Werner Schmutz

  3. Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium, Ringlaan 3, 1180 Brussels, Belgium

    Sabri Mekaoui & Steven Dewitte

  4. Solar Influences Data Analysis Centre / Royal Observatory of Belgium, Circular Avenue 3, B-1180 Brussels, Belgium

    Jean-François Hochedez

Authors
  1. Matthieu Kretzschmar
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  2. Thierry Dudok de Wit
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  3. Werner Schmutz
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  4. Sabri Mekaoui
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  5. Jean-François Hochedez
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  6. Steven Dewitte
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Contributions

S.D., S.M., W.S. and J-F.H. were involved in the design of the study. T.D.d.W. was involved in the analysis of the data. M.K. analysed the data and drafted the manuscript. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Matthieu Kretzschmar.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Kretzschmar, M., de Wit, T., Schmutz, W. et al. The effect of flares on total solar irradiance. Nature Phys 6, 690–692 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1741

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