CO2 causes global warming? What about the SUN?

Question

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060306_solar_cycle.html

The next cycle

The Sun goes through approximately 11-year cycles that range from peak activity to quiet and back again. We are near the low point of the current cycle.

Scientists have tracked the cycles for decades but have been unable to predict when their durations and intensity.

The new model, known as the Predictive Flux-transport Dynamo Model, has simulated the strength of the past eight solar cycles extending back to the early 1900s with 98 percent accuracy.

Using the model, researchers predict that the next solar cycle, known as Cycle 24, will produce sunspots across an area slightly larger than 2.5 percent of the visible surface of the Sun. They also expect that the cycle will begin in late 2007 or early 2008--about six to 12 months later than earlier predictions--and reach its peak in 2012.

The researchers attribute the accuracy of the new model to recent observations of how currents of electrical gas called plasma circulate between the Sun's equator and its pole, and how these currents are affected by the Sun's rotation.

Answer 1

Right, but because of personal feelings, views, and up bringing, people are infused with a sense of guilt that is easily exploited.

You're right, the Sun is responsible for all warmth on Earth. Man cannot cause any change in the climate.

I like these quotes from the experts:

"Global warming results not from the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, but from an unusually high level of solar radiation and a lengthy - almost throughout the last century - growth in its intensity,"

"Instead of professed global warming, the Earth will be facing a slow decrease in temperatures in 2012-2015. The gradually falling amounts of solar energy, expected to reach their bottom level by 2040, will inevitably lead to a deep freeze around 2055-2060,"

Answer 2

This is true, and no one is arguing against that - just like no one is arguing against the fact that climate change is natural. If it were not true that climate change is natural - there would not be a term for an "ice age". What people are arguing is that there is a direct correlation between the amount of carbon in the air, and the amount of Climate Change. And right now, there is more carbon in the atmosphere than possibly any other time in the worlds history.

Answer 3

What about it?

This article is about future solar cycles. The solar cycles over the past 30 years have been very stable while global warming has accelerated rapidly.

"The ACRIM data shows a slight increase in TSI - the PMOD data shows practically no trend at all. Regardless of which dataset you use, the trend is so slight, solar variations can only have contributed a [small] fraction of the current global warming."

http://www.skepticalscience.com/acrim-pmod-sun-getting-hotter.htm

ACRIM and PMOD are satellite measurements of the total solar irradiance (TSI).

Now it's possible that the TSI will decrease in cycles 24 and 25, which will offset some of the global warming caused by humans in the short-term (until approximately 2030). However, we still need to seriously reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, because what happens if TSI increases again in cycle 26? We can't rely on the Sun to save us.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ahj_9Ts6XCPlEPR8x0ZiSSPsy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20071206144124AA0Qxfw

Answer 4

Dr. Jello seems to overlook the earth's second most important source of heat.
The Earth's Core - temperatures 1600-4000 degree in the mantel and 4000-9000 degree in the core.
http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/vwlessons/lessons/Earths_layers/Earths_layers8.html

What scientist are now realizing = the 'Other' emissions from the Sun effect the Relatively VERY THIN CRUST we are standing on.
The ICE AGES may have been - the Sun emissions were very quiet and never disturbed the crust - thus sealing in the heat more effectively. The mantel & core have been slowly cooling over the many centuries.
I find it interesting that the peak of solar cycle 24 should be at the year prophesied much about - 2012.
An coming AGE of Enlightenment? OR?

Answer 5

The 11 year cycle is not new. Everybody knows all about it. But the variability is too small to account for the warming. Anyway the warming has been going on for a lot longer than 11 years now. The 11 year up and down cycle does NOT show a long term upward trend.

Answer 6

You're talking about sunspots, not solar radiation which is the source of warmth.

Solar radiation has been decreasing for years, while temperatures are going up. Don't take my word for it, actually READ this:

"Recent oppositely directed trends in solar
climate forcings and the global mean surface
air temperature", Lockwood and Frolich (2007), Proc. R. Soc. A
doi:10.1098/rspa.2007.1880

http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/proceedings_a/rspa20071880.pdf

News article at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6290228.stm

The theory that global warming is caused by sunspots is completely unproven. No one has a good explanation (good = backed by data, not words) why sunspots would do that.

Once again, don't take my word for it, read what climatologists say:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/09/the-trouble-with-sunspots/

Scientists making this argument have been caught doing strange things to the data:

"Pattern of Strange Errors Plagues Solar Activity and Terrestrial Climate Data, Eos,Vol. 85, No. 39, 28 September 2004

http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/DamonLaut2004.pdf

or

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:Vs9bxtLFLfIJ:stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/DamonLaut2004.pdf+pattern+strange+errors&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

MIKIRA - As always the truth about CO2 is in the data:

There are a great many natural sources and sinks for carbon dioxide. But the present global warming is (mostly) the result of man made CO2 from burning fossil fuels.

There is a natural "carbon cycle" that recycles CO2. But it's a delicate balance and we're messing it up.

Look at this graph.

http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/graphics_gallery/mauna_loa_record/mlo_record.html

The little squiggles are nature doing its' thing. CO2 falls a bit during summer when plants are active, and rises during the winter. The huge increase is us, burning fossil fuels. The scientists can actually show that the increased CO2 in the air comes from burning fossil fuels by using "isotopic ratios" to identify that CO2. The natural carbon cycle buried carbon in fossil fuels over a very long time, little bit by little bit. We dig them up and burn them, real fast. That's a problem.

This is why the Supreme Court decided that legally (and the term is legal, not technical) CO2 is a "pollutant".

Man is upsetting the balance of nature. We need to fix that.

LARRY - Do you think scientists haven't investigated the idea that cosmic rays cause clouds? The data just isn't there. The idea is pretty well disassembled here:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/cosmoclimatology-tired-old-arguments-in-new-clothes/

Answer 7

Good lord, have you even read about global warming, about how scientists have pulled ice cores representing thousands of years of climate cycles and there hasn't been ANYTHING like the rapid climate changes we're seeing now. You really think they haven't taken into account the SUN? Are you serious?

"In June of 1999 the latest ice core data from the Vostok site in Antarctica were published by Petit et al in the British journal Nature. These new data extended the historical record of temperature variations and atmospheric concentrations of CO2, methane and other greenhouse trace gases (GTG) back to 420,000 years before present (BP). The ice cores were drilled to over 3,600 meters. This is just over 2.2 miles deep. These new data double the length of the historical record."

Answer 8

I see it this way, greenhouse gases scatter IR (infrared or heat) frequencies, effectively acting like a mirror to part of the energy and allowing part of the energy to pass. This works for IR radiating away from the Earth and for IR coming from the sun. So, greenhouse gases also prevent some IR, originating from the sun, from reaching the surface of the planet. Greenhouse gases are virtually transparent to energy in the visible spectrum, nearly all of that energy reaches the surface, if not for clouds, especially low dark clouds. Energy in the visible spectrum heats the surface of the planet and is radiated back towards space in the IR spectrum and greenhouse gases will reflect some of the IR back towards the surface. If an increase in low cloud cover prevents visible energy from reaching the surface, less IR is in the atmosphere and at the surface.


The sun is the major cause of global warming. Solar activity has been higher in the last 7 decades, than it has in 8000 years. What the AGW crowd fails to accept is that cloud formation varies inversely with solar activity. So, if solar activity decreases to a Dalton Minimum level, we can expect more clouds and less solar energy reaching the surface of the planet, because low-level clouds reflect the energy back towards space. CO2 has no effect on infrared (heat) if it doesn't exist.

Here is some up to date information:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sunspot_record_041027.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_minimum
http://www.sciencebits.com/CO2orSolar
http://www.spacecenter.dk/research/sun-climate/Scientific%20work%20and%20publications/resolveuid/86c49eb9229b3a7478e8d12407643bed

Bob, I know that low cloud cover and Earth's temerature correlates with solar activity exceptionally well, what ever the mechanism.

Answer 9

Thanks for this informative article. It makes sense that the Sun has a lot more to do with the rise and fall of our planets temperature. It would go to reason that it would also effect how plants and the ocean absorb Carbon Dioxide.

It amazes me how people are crying about CO2, when it's a building block of our planet plants need it to survive. We live on a symbiotic planet, which simply means we give plants what they need and the plants give us what we need.

Answer 10

Do some more research
"Global warming" is the biggest hoax of the 20th century