Abstract
The value of the Earth's global temperature is found to oscillate with typically 20 distinct periods between ½ year and 30 years. We demonstrate how this result is obtained from the records of global temperature for the last 130–160 years. We attempt to relate the variations to the varying solar activity and estimate the energy contained in the variations. This energy may amount to a factor of 4 more than the energy variation in the solar electromagnetic output alone.