Solar irradiance reconstructions back to 1874 are used to estimate the effect of the Sun on global-mean temperature. The importance of the history effect, whereby recent temperature changes may be influenced significantly by past forcing changes, is evaluated. Modelled temperature changes are shown to be relatively insensitive to model uncertainties. The overall range of modelled temperature variations is extremely small, 0.05 ¿C. ¿American Geophysical Union 1990