Is it true global warming is caused by sun spots? not people...?

Question

I was reading something today about a cycle the sun goes through called Super Maximum and Super Minumum, and as I understand it the activity on the sun now is heating and changing the environment of many plants not just ours. Is it possible these people running around yelling that the change in weather and global warming is due to gas guzzlers wrong?

Answer 1

On the other hand, I read in numerous science reports where some scientists are talking about 11 year cycles of sunspot activity. (NASA)
The weather ticks along happily during low sunspot activity, then we get more adverse weather and solar heating as the solaractivity picks up.
Simple tree growth ring observations back this up.
The next peak of solar activity will be in 2011.
Evidence shows that the whole solar system is currently heating up as this peak period nears.
However, you must also factor in the human activity affecting earths' atmosphere as well, agrivating the already rising temps. by creating magnifying greenhouse gasses.
Not just one cause or the other, but both. It has happened before, and will happen again.
Greenhouse gas emissions are getting greater by the day, and researchers say that computer models show that even if we were to turn off every coal-burning powerhouse, every car, every factory, every greenhouse gas source TOMORROW, it would take another 70 years before the atmosphere purged itself of particulates enough for the current temp. rise to slow down and stop, before the cooling started.

Sorry if that's not what you wanted to hear, but I've done a lot of reading of researchers papers away from the popular press, away from politically motivated pulp, and that's what's out there.
Don't believe me though, go do some searching yourself.

(and try not to shoot the messenger along the way)

Search solar sunspot activity cycles. Here's just one graph. http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/ssn_predict_l.gif

Nitrogen cascade. Here's a hot potato. Nobody wants to talk about this, it's too big, and there are no answers yet. Look at this site, but search and you'll find plenty more.
http://perceivingwholes.blogspot.com/2006/06/tracking-nitrogen-cascade.html

Methane gas burps. Frozen methane in the ice and at the bottom of oceans could thaw, 'burp', rise to the surface and the methane gas which is 20 times more damaging than greenhouse gas could do a lot of damage.
Here's a site, but find more of your own. It really opens your eyes to a few home truthes. http://energybulletin.net/3647.html

Phew.
Now I don't have to worry about this stuff all on my own.

lol

Have a nice day.

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Answer 2

Its hard to know which of all the stories and opinions to believe without becoming a scientist yourself and checking the data yourself. There are those who say global warming is not caused by man because...... and they have data and science to back them up. As time goes on you will probably hear more theories and the data to back them up. The real problem is there are so many thing that affect the weather and global heating and cooling that anyone can make a convincing argument that their favorite is the "primary" cause. Trevor's answer is best on Sun activity, But how are you to know that. The person who uses numbers is not necessarily correct. Political status is also not a mark of correctness.

You will need to listen to every story with a grain of salt. When you hear an explanation, put it in the back of your mind and call it a theory. If you hear it from a number of sources a number of times, call it a probable theory. If you hear it from someone you trust and is knowledgeable, it isprobably true as far as we(science) knows, but could be disproved at some future date as more data is collected.

Or get a PhD in meteorology and become a global warming specialist.

Answer 3

The sun spot cycle is an 11 year cycle, if it were the cause of global warming we'd have approx 5½ of warming followed by 5½ years of cooling, which quite clearly isn't the case.

What does happen from time to time is that there are extended periods of abnormal sun spot activity, the most notable recent event being the Maunder Minimum of approx 400 years ago. This prolonged period of almost no sunspot activity coincided with the time known as the Little Ice Age during which temps in some parts of the world fell by approx 0.5°C over a couple of hundred years (there were other factors involved and it wasn't a global event).

For all intents and purposes the Sun is our only source of heat and over long periods of time changes in the behaviour of the Sun do affect our climate, such changes occur slowly over periods of hundreds and thousands of years.

When we look at sun spot cycles there is almost no difference between insolation maxima and minima, the difference being a variation of less than one two-thousandth from the mean (1366 Watts per square metre per year ± 0.65).

Global warming isn't a new concept. In fact, as a scientific hypothesis it's almost 200 years old and as an established scientific theory (not to be confused with a general theory) it's over 100 years old. Solar variation was long since ruled out and has been many times over.

There is warming on some other planets and moons in the solar system but there are outnumbered by solar bodies that are cooling. In each case the warming is caused by a unique set of circumstances in which the Sun is not the cause but the contributor of warmth.

We know why this planet is warming, it's nothing more complicated than the heat retaining properties of the gases we refer to as Greenhouse Gases. It's an essential property, without which there would be no natural greenhouse effect and the planet would be too cold for life to have evolved.

Answer 4

No, it's not true. All you have to do is look at the data, because we have accurate measurements of sunspot numbers, atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and average global temperature. See for yourself:

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/600px-Temp-sunspot-co2.svg.png

Not surprisingly, the very first factor scientists looked at to explain the recent global warming was solar activity. Unfortunately, solar activity decreased after about 1980, while global warming accelerated. It's pretty apparent that humans are the primary cause of the current global warming (80-90% over the past ~30 years).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90781/6213511.html

Answer 5

Sunspots are a proxy for the strength of the suns magnetic field. Over the last 100 years increased solar activity correlates well with temperature until about 1975. The sun's magnetic field has been growing weaker over the last 15 years, but during periods of little or no sun spot activity, the sun's brightness can still fluctuate. The oceans can hold so much of the suns energy it can take as much as 25 years to dissipate periods of increased solar activity, there is still no agreed time period associated with the Earths natural climate variability.

Another 11 years to observe the next solar cycle should give us enough data to accurately answer your question.

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Answer 6

No. Here's why not:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7108/abs/nature05072.html

You can see it for yourself in the temperature data below. Sunspots have an 11 year cycle. The Earth's warming does not:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif

Did you think thousands of scientists don't know about sunspots? All the planets are not warming, just a few, for different reasons. On Earth, it's mostly because of man made greenhouse gases. Proof:

Meehl, G.A., W.M. Washington, C.A. Ammann, J.M. Arblaster, T.M.L. Wigleym and C. Tebaldi (2004). "Combinations of Natural and Anthropogenic Forcings in Twentieth-Century Climate". Journal of Climate 17: 3721-3727

summarized at:

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png

Answer 7

No, solar activity is not causing global waming. That "solar radiation/sunspots, etc." BS is put out by the oil companies disinformation campaign.

Scientists (real ones) looked at solar activity years ago--and showed it has very little to do with global warming. The cause is the changes we humans are making.

Answer 8

The eleven year solar cycle has been known at least 50 years. So far no one has found any statistical correlation between it and weather or climate (although they tried very hard back in the 1950's)

Answer 9

Global warming in a natural cycle. We can see the 4 seasons every year in most places. The earth in it's whole has 2 seasons that take thousands of years to cycle. This is the earths way of cleansing the planet. Think about the warming and cooling and the land mass and vegetation, water, evaporation, soil fertility. Change is natural and necessary to keep renewing the cycle of this big blue planet. As the earth warms the ice caps refill the underground water supply for the future of life. As the earth re-cools, the new rain, snow, ice, is accumulated for thousands of years and repeats the 2-season process. There is no debate to these 2 cycles, it's about the only thing everyone agrees to. Ice age, wet warm age, ice age, wet warm age. It's just the way it is.

Answer 10

your reading more right wing propaganda. There is no evidence the sun is responsible for the warming of any planets. Under this assumption all planets should be warming, including our moon. We should also be seeing an increase in solar activity using satellite measurements. Instead the sun is cooling:
http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/600px-Temp-sunspot-co2.svg.png