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Abstract
It is shown that global climate exhibits chaotic response to solar forcing variability
in a vast range of timescales: from annual to multi-millennium. Unlike linear systems,
where periodic forcing leads to periodic response, nonlinear chaotic response to periodic
forcing can result in exponentially decaying broad-band power spectrum with decay
rate T_e equal to the period of the forcing. It is shown that power spectrum of a
reconstructed time series of Northern Hemisphere temperature anomaly for the past
2,000 years has an exponentially decaying broad-band part with T_e = 11 yr, i.e. the
observed decay rate T_e equals the mean period of the solar activity. It is also shown
that power spectrum of a reconstruction of atmospheric CO_2 time fluctuations for
the past 650,000 years, has an exponentially decaying broad-band part with T_e = 41,000
years, i.e. the observed decay rate T_e equals the period of the obliquity periodic
forcing. A possibility of a chaotic solar forcing of the climate has been also discussed.
These results clarify role of solar forcing variability in long-term global climate
dynamics (in particular in the unsolved problem of the glaciation cycles) and help
in construction of adequate dynamic models of the global climate.