MAXIMUM AND MINIMUM TEMPERATURES AT ARMAGH-OBSERVATORY, 1844-1992, AND THE LENGTH OF THE SUNSPOT CYCLE

The question of whether or not the Earth's climate is influenced by solar activity has received considerable attention since the mid-nineteenth century. Most investigations have adopted the sunspot number as the parameter of solar activity. Recently, however, it has been shown by Friis-Christensen and Lassen (1991) that the mean northern hemisphere temperature, from 1861-1990, follows a strikingly similar trend to the length of the sunspot cycle, suggesting that the recent global warming could, at least in part, arise from changes in solar activity. In view of the importance of this result, we have examined a set of continuous meteorological records, maintained at Armagh Observatory since 1844, to assess, first, whether data from a single site can give meaningful information on global trends, and second, whether the data from this particular site for the period 1844-1866 can be used to extend the baseline of the comparison with solar activity. We find that both are indeed the case and that there is a strong correlation between the solar cycle length and the mean temperature at Armagh over the past 149 years.