Amato Evan, a climate scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, added that "the idea just isn't supported by the theory or by the observations."
But it still gets play in the media. Go figure.
...since you stated it directly in your post, is I guess why I infer that...
I did find it slightly amusing that a theory unsupported by theory or observations got picked up by National Geographic News -- particularly because there are conventional scientific explanations for the observations on Mars unrelated to solar variability.