What Is the Sun’s Role in Climate Change?
Image: Talashme
The Sun powers life on Earth; it helps keep the planet warm enough for us to survive. It also influences Earth’s climate: We know subtle changes in Earth’s orbit around the Sun are responsible for the comings and goings of the past ice ages. But the warming we’ve seen over the last few decades is too rapid to be linked to changes in Earth’s orbit, and too large to be caused by solar activity.1
The Sun doesn’t always shine at perpetually the same level of brightness; it brightens and dims slightly, taking 11 years to complete one solar cycle. During each cycle, the Sun undergoes various changes in its activity and appearance. Levels of solar radiation go up or down, as does the amount of material the Sun ejects into space and the size and number of sunspots and solar flares. These changes have a variety of effects in space, in Earth’s atmosphere and on Earth’s surface.
The current solar cycle began January 4, 2008, and appears to be headed toward the lowest level of sunspot activity since accurate recordkeeping began in 1750. It’s expected to end sometime between now and late 2020. Scientists don’t yet know with confidence how strong the next solar cycle may be.
What Effect Do Solar Cycles Have on Earth’s Climate?
According to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the current scientific consensus is that long and short-term variations in solar activity play only a very small role in Earth’s climate. Warming from increased levels of human-produced greenhouse gases is actually many times stronger than any effects due to recent variations in solar activity.
For more than 40 years, satellites have observed the Sun’s energy output, which has gone up or down by less than 0.1 percent during that period. Since 1750, the warming driven by greenhouse gases coming from the human burning of fossil fuels is over 50 times greater than the slight extra warming coming from the Sun itself over that same time interval.
Are We Headed for a ‘Grand Minimum’? (And Will It Slow Down Global Warming?)
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The above graph compares global surface temperature changes (red line) and the Sun’s energy that Earth receives (yellow line) in watts (units of energy) per square meter since 1880. The lighter/thinner lines show the yearly levels while the heavier/thicker lines show the 11-year average trends. Eleven-year averages are used to reduce the year-to-year natural noise in the data, making the underlying trends more obvious.
The amount of solar energy that Earth receives has followed the Sun’s natural 11-year cycle of small ups and downs with no net increase since the 1950s. Over the same period, global temperature has risen markedly. It is therefore extremely unlikely that the Sun has caused the observed global temperature warming trend over the past half-century.
As mentioned, the Sun is currently experiencing a low level of sunspot activity. Some scientists speculate that this may be the beginning of a periodic solar event called a “grand minimum,” while others say there is insufficient evidence to support that position. During a grand minimum, solar magnetism diminishes, sunspots appear infrequently and less ultraviolet radiation reaches Earth. Grand minimums can last several decades to centuries.
The largest recent event happened during the “Little Ice Age” (13th to mid-19th century): the “Maunder Minimum,” an extended period of time between 1645 and 1715, when there were few sunspots.
Several studies in recent years have looked at the effects that another grand minimum might have on global surface temperatures.2 These studies have suggested that while a grand minimum might cool the planet as much as 0.3 degrees C, this would, at best, slow down (but not reverse) human-caused global warming. There would be a small decline of energy reaching Earth, and just three years of current carbon dioxide concentration growth would make up for it. In addition, the grand minimum would be modest and temporary, with global temperatures quickly rebounding once the event concluded.
Some people have linked the Maunder Minimum’s temporary cooling effect to decreased solar activity, but that change was more likely influenced by increased volcanic activity and ocean circulation shifts.3
Moreover, even a prolonged “Grand Solar Minimum” or “Maunder Minimum” would only briefly and minimally offset human-caused warming.
See more here: climate.nasa.gov
PSI editor’s note: This article was originally published in September 2019
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very old white guy
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It sure is amazing just how much we know about things that we have no influence over.
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GERARD MENY
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What a fake if you compare:
– with the parameter Solar in the previous NASA’s Video: “How global warming stacks up”
– with the real temperature quasi-constant from 2004 except pics in 2016/2018.
Biden’s NASA must justify Biden’s Climat Politics. Biden is the fake of the mondialisation. He is using UN agency to spay terror.
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Allan Shelton
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The NASA article still assumes the the GHG Theory is true.
Their computer generated models still don’t match the actual temperatures.
Hence, they tamper with the readings to show warming which is not happening.
NASA , and the the UN IPCC refuse to acknowledge that AGW by way of CO2 from fossil fuels is false.
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Andy
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I agree with all the comments here.
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Roger Higgs
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It’s a fraud. As usual they disingenuously ignore …
1) solar MAGNETIC variations (controlling cloudiness, hence ocean warming; Svensmark Theory), much larger than simultaneous solar irradiance changes, and …
2) the ~100-year lag between solar changes and resulting temperature changes. The lag is due to the ocean’s thermal inertia (hence the yellow and red curves mismatch in the graph above).
They KNOW all this, but fail to mention it …
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345778067_IPCC_Cover-up_of_Sun%27s_Obvious_Control_of_Climate
In two weeks I hope to strike a blow for climate truth …
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350726458_Global_warming_and_cooling_for_last_2000_years_mimic_Sun%27s_magnetic_activity_not_CO2_scientific_literature_synthesis
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Mark Tapley
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Hello Roger:
The global warming (now repackaged as climate change) was instigated by the Zionist elite’s Club of Rome in 1968 as a means to destroy the industrial economies and condition the goyim for the coming austerity and deprivation of the U.N. Agenda 20300-21.
The Davos elite Zionists care nothing about your scientific dissertations to revel the truth. There have been thousands of books and articles written over the last 50 years exposing the the flaws in the Green house CO2 fraud. In fact the more technical and detailed the argument becomes the more it works in their favor. We are seeing the same tactic being deployed now by the same elite with the fake, imaginary virus. The Zionists have the money, media, political operatives and corporate cronies all on their side. The Zionists care nothing about the truth but only about accomplishing their agenda of destroying all the countries and establishing a global neo feudal tyranny.
The only way to stop this dystopian movement that is now very close to achieving success is to expose it and their puppet actor politicians just as with the fake virus. The mass of people have very little analytical ability, and a very short attention span with a quick fix mentality. Technical papers will only glaze them over. Make a couple of relevant easy to understand points such as the minuscule amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is critical for the planet and that all of the Zionist Green energy scam is going to cost everyone and their children. We have to spend our time on the offensive attacking and exposing the Zionists and their political puppets. Not hashing out technical errors presented by the court “scientists” and the controlled MSM.
Now this Zionist onslaught designed to enslave humanity can still be halted if they are exposed and enough people refuse to comply with all mandates and start throwing the Zionist operatives out of power. If this does not happen the big question will be what did you do to stop this?
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Max DeLoaches
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This report is dated as it references solar cycle 24, we are now in solar cycle 25. The solar maximum for cycle 25 will be reached in around 2024, where if the sunspot count is below that of solar cycle 24, a solar grand minimum event will be announced which will cool the Earth for the next 30 or so years. A Maunder minimum like event.
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Andy
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Very good point Max. I made sure I added a line at the bottom saying the article was two years old. The prediction is that Cycle 25 will indeed be weaker than Cycle 24.
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Mervyn
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In my opinion, Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark’s “Cloud Theory” is the only theory to make sense about how climate is basically affected by clouds, based on solar activity and cosmic particles bombarding our atmosphere.
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Barry
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https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiENtnCh3YYA3UwEeqC_2TPmkqGAgEKg8IACoHCAowpbDpAzCm_hww3uXGBg?hl=en-CA&gl=CA&ceid=CA%3Aen
Another article here about the arctic melting and releasing more co2 warming even more with a warning to policy makers to incorporate this into the plan. Unbelievable we now are going to tackle naturally produced co2 to change our climate , the people that write this stuff must never reread it before pushing print or surely even they would see how stupid it sounds.
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JaKo
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Hi Barry,
I think “the people that write this stuff” are specially selected for this purpose, they can’t possibly understand what they’re writing about.
Also, an average American can’t comprehend the nuances of quantities / qualities / phenomena involved in all this. The purported green-house-effect is much more potent argument for them (anybody can imagine “how it works”) than all the Milankovitch Cycles, Sun’s spots or cycles, 0.04% concentration and the impossibility of free up-conversion of IR radiation etc.
And overall: Really, why to worry about something we can’t affect (global cooling) when we can “productively” concentrate on something we “can” affect — the more personal guilt involved, the better.
Observing the local populace during this “horrible disease pandemic” here in Canada gives me zero hope for our future. So be it = Neo-Feudalistic-Tyranny is coming, and we better like it or else!
JaKo
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Julian
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Article is usual warmista claptrap. Sun has multiple radiative outputs. First The electromagnetic one (light, heat, xrays, gamma rays, radio waves) which is amazingly constant, having varied only a fraction of a percent since measurements started. Then there is particulate emissions which are solar wind, and sunspot coronal discharges. Then there are magnetic field effects and gravitational effects and maybe things not yet discovered. They all have an effect on climate. Basically the particulate emissions and magnetic field interact with the earth’s magnetic field and this regulates the amount of cloud seeding that occurs on earth, especially in the dew point layer found over the oceans. The amount of cloud that forms controls the amount of sunlight EMR that strikes the surface. More cloud is seeded during low sunspot periods and thus there is net cooling at these times. High sunspot periods have less cloud and thus are periods of net warming. Henrik Svensmark figured this out, but it runs counter to the GHG cult so no Nobel for him.
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Koen Vogel
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Good points. The Earth absorbs around 5 TW of solar wind energy per year. IPCC methodology does not do a full energy balance but rather assumes that if its not solar radiation energy it must be GHG. No evidence exists for GHG warming. A full energy accounting – mathematical accounting – reveals other energy sources such as solar wind should be accounted for.
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Tom
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Forget the sun. If gates gets his way, the sun will be banished from existence. He is so afraid that the earth will heat up and melt and his $100 billion will go up in flames.
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Mark Tapley
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Hi Tom:
I think a little too much sunlight was shown on Gates frequent flier relationship with Mossad operative Epstein and their “business” trips on the Lolita Express, to suit Melinda. Epstein and Jew newspaper mogal and Mossad asset Maxwell should have known they would eventually become a liability. Like Stalin said, “no people no problem.”
Don’t worry too much about eugenicist Bill. He is one of the Zionist syndicates favorite children. Our shabbas goy congress will just keep dumping billions of tax payers money on him so he can continue his altruistic mission of spreading those magic blood toxins to rid the world of fake viruses.
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Val
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What Is the Sun’s Role in Climate Change? The complete picture and so much more can be found on YouTube at the SuspiciousObservers page.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTiL1q9YbrVam5nP2xzFTWQ
“Climate Forcing” Made Easy
The Full Film | “CLIMATE FORCING”
Scenario #4 | Real Climate Science
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MattH
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Hi Val. Great references. It will keep me absorbed for some time.
The narrator of the first video sounds like Dr. Tony Philips from spaceweather.com
Here is some serious science.
Have a great day Val. Matt
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MattH
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My mistake. I was referencing the second video, “climate forcing made easy”.
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Koen Vogel
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The article is a sumary of the IPCC view so does not present anything new. The graph indeed shows that solar irradiance is not causing climate change but does not demonstrate – as usual – that GHG’s are. The graph shows the 0.5 C increase from 1903 to 1943 that IPCC models cannot simulate, as well as the post WWII 0.2 C decrease which GHG theory can never explain. The graph is further a 1 dimensional summary of a 4 dimensional feature: it does not explain why our Northern hemisphere/ Arctic ocean is heating more than the Southern hemisphere. Clearly GHG theory does not have all – and likely not any – answers. Is the author truely representing NASA, or is this article clickbait designed to unleash the reader’s moment of hate?
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