The total solar irradiance and small scale magnetic fields

“What is the contribution of the weak small scale fields in the quiet Sun to the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI)?.” This is the question we try to answer by investigating the relation between magnetic fields and continuum intensity in SST and Hinode quiet Sun observations. We find that the increase in brightness of the quiet Sun due to weak (B < 30 G) fields could be as large as 0.3%, which would make it a major contributor to TSI variations. We also find that most of the magnetic flux appears to be resolved at the 0.16″ resolution of the SST data.