Have you ever gone up in an open cockpit airplane? What happens when you get away from the heat sink known as Earth? It gets cooler rapidly, right? As you go higher it gets dryer and the atmosphere has an even harder time holding heat. Ever been in the desert at night in July? You’ll freeze your ass off. Our atmosphere is a terrible heat sink. Trying to heat it up with our little activities on less than 15% of the planet’s surface simply isn’t going to happen. It’s all about economies of scale. I think a lot of people forget how small inhabited earth is compared to the size of the planet as a whole. What amazes me in all of this is how everyone assumes the output of our star is static. That is complete and utter nonsense.
We have records going back to the time of Galileo that show regular cycles in the output of the Sun. The Sun’s variances cause what is known as “Solar Minimums” and “Solar Maximums”. If you pay attention to space weather at all you will see that there has been much banter lately about the lack of sunspot activity over the past 2, eleven year cycles, and how we very well may be exiting the Modern Maximum, a warm cycle that began about 1900. If you look at the temperature plots for the period 1900-1996, ignoring the outliers, you will notice the graph resembles an inverted bell curve. The slope of that curve is negative now and we are very likely in for a century or more of cooler than “normal” temps. We’re about 18 years into it now. I wouldn’t toss out your winter coat quite yet.
What amazes me in all of this is how everyone assumes the output of our star is static. That is complete and utter nonsense.
I certainly assume no such thing. The star put out an extra 1.5W/m2 during the Medieval Warm Period and again in the second half of the 20th century. More importantly the frequency spectrum shifted to higher frequencies with various effects on weather and climate.
we are very likely in for a century or more of cooler than “normal” temps
Maybe. The sun is hard to predict but we will have lower solar activity for at least 20 years, and probably more. The thing about it is that it will be somewhat offset by increased CO2 warming. The concentration is now 400 ppm, up from 270-280. The extra CO2 is generally a good thing to have around right now even if the warming from it is only modest.