The truth about global warming - it's the Sun that's to blame

{London] TELEGRAPH ^ | July 17, 2004 | Michael Leidig and Roya Nikkhah

[Moseley]

Global warming has finally been explained: the Earth is getting hotter because the Sun is burning more brightly than at any time during the past 1,000 years, according to new research.

A study by Swiss and German scientists suggests that increasing radiation from the sun is responsible for recent global climate changes.

Dr Sami Solanki, the director of the renowned Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, who led the research, said: "The Sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures.

advertisement"The Sun is in a changed state. It is brighter than it was a few hundred years ago and this brightening started relatively recently - in the last 100 to 150 years."

Dr Solanki said that the brighter Sun and higher levels of "greenhouse gases", such as carbon dioxide, both contributed to the change in the Earth's temperature but it was impossible to say which had the greater impact.

Average global temperatures have increased by about 0.2 deg Celsius over the past 20 years and are widely believed to be responsible for new extremes in weather patterns. After pressure from environmentalists, politicians agreed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, promising to limit greenhouse gas emissions between 2008 and 2012. Britain ratified the protocol in 2002 and said it would cut emissions by 12.5 per cent from 1990 levels.

Globally, 1997, 1998 and 2002 were the hottest years since worldwide weather records were first collated in 1860.

Most scientists agree that greenhouse gases from fossil fuels have contributed to the warming of the planet in the past few decades but have questioned whether a brighter Sun is also responsible for rising temperatures.

To determine the Sun's role in global warming, Dr Solanki's research team measured magnetic zones on the Sun's surface known as sunspots, which are believed to intensify the Sun's energy output.

The team studied sunspot data going back several hundred years. They found that a dearth of sunspots signalled a cold period - which could last up to 50 years - but that over the past century their numbers had increased as the Earth's climate grew steadily warmer. The scientists also compared data from ice samples collected during an expedition to Greenland in 1991. The most recent samples contained the lowest recorded levels of beryllium 10 for more than 1,000 years. Beryllium 10 is a particle created by cosmic rays that decreases in the Earth's atmosphere as the magnetic energy from the Sun increases. Scientists can currently trace beryllium 10 levels back 1,150 years.

Dr Solanki does not know what is causing the Sun to burn brighter now or how long this cycle would last.

He says that the increased solar brightness over the past 20 years has not been enough to cause the observed climate changes but believes that the impact of more intense sunshine on the ozone layer and on cloud cover could be affecting the climate more than the sunlight itself.

Dr Bill Burrows, a climatologist and a member of the Royal Meteorological Society, welcomed Dr Solanki's research. "While the established view remains that the sun cannot be responsible for all the climate changes we have seen in the past 50 years or so, this study is certainly significant," he said.

"It shows that there is enough happening on the solar front to merit further research. Perhaps we are devoting too many resources to correcting human effects on the climate without being sure that we are the major contributor."

Dr David Viner, the senior research scientist at the University of East Anglia's climatic research unit, said the research showed that the sun did have an effect on global warming.

He added, however, that the study also showed that over the past 20 years the number of sunspots had remained roughly constant, while the Earth's temperature had continued to increase.

This suggested that over the past 20 years, human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation had begun to dominate "the natural factors involved in climate change", he said.

Dr Gareth Jones, a climate researcher at the Met Office, said that Dr Solanki's findings were inconclusive because the study had not incorporated other potential climate change factors.

"The Sun's radiance may well have an impact on climate change but it needs to be looked at in conjunction with other factors such as greenhouse gases, sulphate aerosols and volcano activity," he said. The research adds weight to the views of David Bellamy, the conservationist. "Global warming - at least the modern nightmare version - is a myth," he said. "I am sure of it and so are a growing number of scientists. But what is really worrying is that the world's politicians and policy-makers are not.

"Instead, they have an unshakeable faith in what has, unfortunately, become one of the central credos of the environmental movement: humans burn fossil fuels, which release increased levels of carbon dioxide - the principal so-called greenhouse gas - into the atmosphere, causing the atmosphere to heat up. They say this is global warming: I say this is poppycock."

[Michael.SF.]

They should have asked me. I figured this out some time ago...

Yes, but they probably got paid to tell them, that is the real key to this.

[UpAllNight]

"Dr Solanki said that the brighter Sun and higher levels of "greenhouse gases", such as carbon dioxide, both contributed to the change in the Earth's temperature but it was impossible to say which had the greater impact."

This statement buried way down in paragraph four apparently was not read by the author of the first paragraph nor the headliner.

[xusafflyer]

Don't you know Halliburton has been hiding the technology for years? Its right next to the hoverboards they never released to the public.

[Charles Henrickson]

WHY IT'S GETTING WARM
Tune: "Riders on the Storm"

Why it's getting warm
Why it's getting warm
Is it hotter than the norm
Or just turning back to form
Gore would sound the warning horn
And make cars that run on corn
Why it's getting warm

There's an inconsistent flaw
In his scientific law
There's not one single cause
For why an iceberg thaws
The conclusion that he draws
Is giving us guffaws
An inconsistent flaw

Gore, you incoherent goof
Gore, you incoherent goof
It doesn't take a sleuth
To see your lack of proof
Here's an inconvenient truth
It's still freezing in Duluth
You incoherent goof

Why it's getting warm
Why it's getting warm
Is it hotter than the norm
Or just turning back to form
Gore would sound the warning horn
And make cars that run on corn
Why it's getting warm

Why it's getting warm
Why it's getting warm . . .

[Getsmart64]

Marking

[RightWhale]

So, the sun is causing social engineers to think earth's regional climates are changing?

[gathersnomoss]

The earth needs shades.

[DBrow]

If we attacked at night, we would not need any shielding- we can strike fast and get out, Mission Accomplished!

[sauropod]

review

[Puckster]

A Mini-Ice-Age graph can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Dr. Solanski said that the climate changes of the past 20 years (up to 2004) cannot be explained by the solar brightness.

[cogitator]

Why are peopple suddenly posting articles that are 6 or 8 or 2 years old? Because they think they're suddenly more relevant?

[gcruse]

"increased solar brightness over the past 20 years" "The earth needs shades."

Not so fast, pardners.

Global dimming is the gradual reduction in the amount of global direct irradiance at the Earth's surface, observed since the beginning of systematic measurements in 1950s. The effect varies by location, but worldwide it is of the order of a 4% reduction over the three decades from 1960–1990. This trend may have reversed during the past decade. Global dimming creates a cooling effect that may have partially masked the effect of greenhouse gases on global warming.

[VOA]

bump

[Moseley]

invade and destroy the Sun

Woudn't our troops burn up as they approach the sun? What body armor will they need?

[Moseley] Couldn't they wrap themselves in copies of the Kyoto Treaty? I thought the Kyoto Treaty defeated global warming.

[petercooper]

bttt

[sanchmo]

Scafetta & West, Jun-Sep 2006: The sun might have contributed approximately 50% of the observed global warming since 1900.

Quoting Scafetta in Sept 2005: "I think it is important to correct the climate models so that they include reliable sensitivity to solar activity. Once that is done, then it will be possible to better understand what has happened during the past hundred years."

[DBrow]

Wow! Thanks!

[TBP]

Bump.

[Beowulf]