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Deriving historical total solar irradiance from lunar borehole temperatures
Author(s) -
Miyahara Hiroko,
Wen Guoyong,
Cahalan Robert F.,
Ohmura Atsumu
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2007gl032171
Subject(s) - regolith , solar irradiance , borehole , geology , latitude , forcing (mathematics) , astrobiology , atmospheric sciences , geophysics , environmental science , geodesy , physics , geotechnical engineering
We study the feasibility of deriving historical TSI (Total Solar Irradiance) from lunar borehole temperatures. As the Moon lacks Earth's dynamic features, lunar borehole temperatures are primarily driven by solar forcing. Using Apollo observed lunar regolith properties, we computed present‐day lunar regolith temperature profiles for lunar tropical, mid‐latitude, and polar regions for two scenarios of solar forcing reconstructed by Lean (2000) and Wang et al. (2005). Results show that these scenarios can be distinguished by small but potentially detectable differences in temperature, on the order of 0.01 K and larger depending on latitude, within ∼10 m depth of the Moon's surface. Our results provide a physical basis and guidelines for reconstructing historical TSI from data obtainable in future lunar exploration.