Long-term reconstruction of the total solar irradiance based on neutron monitor and sunspot data Original Research Article

A new approach for the reconstruction of the past total solar irradiance (TSI) based on neutron monitor (NM) data and sunspot number (SSN) is presented. Our assumption is that the long-term trend of the TSI can be reconstructed by using radionuclide data while the reconstruction of the short-term trend can be achieved by using SSN. The reconstructed TSI correlates well, r2 = 0.84, with space-based TSI measurements. This work will serve as the basis for the reconstruction of the TSI back to the Maunder minimum and beyond by replacing NM with radionuclide data, for which longer time series exist.