The effects of CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions far outweigh the effects of solar forcing on global warming. 100% of the global warming trends observed after 1950 can be attributed to anthropogenic factors.
This article presents a long list of inaccurate claims, but focuses on the idea that the Sun—rather than human-caused greenhouse gas emissions—is responsible for global warming. The available evidence and research clearly shows that this claim is incorrect. Measured patterns of warming, and monitoring of incoming solar energy, rule out the Sun as the source of warming.
Natural factors have certainly caused climate changes in the past, but that does not mean human factors are not responsible for climate change now. Observations clearly show that incoming solar radiation and the effects of volcanic eruptions have not changed in a way that could explain global warming. Instead, research has shown that human activities are the cause.
Slowly changing orbital cycles did, indeed, control the timing of ice ages over the last several million years, but they cannot explain the much more rapid climate change seen in the last century. Human-caused greenhouse gas emissions have strengthened Earth’s greenhouse effect, and this is clearly the cause of global warming.
It is clear from many lines of evidence that human activities—not solar activity—are responsible for modern climate change.
Climate scientists use models to simulate and study different aspects of Earth’s climate system, and to project the rate of global warming caused by human activities. These models do, in fact, simulate the rate of global warming well, and models run in the past accurately projected the rate of warming we are currently experiencing—that includes model projections from 1988.
Recently, alarming claims that we are heading towards a “mini ice age” have been popping up across the web. This was the subject of a widely discussed Metro article titled “A mini ice age could be on the way which means it will get very, very cold”. Similar claims were also repeated without verification throughout … Continued
Similar claims that we would be heading towards an imminent “mini ice age” were also repeated without verification throughout a network of unreliable outlets for climate news including Sputnik, The Sun, Fox News, and numerous hyper-partisan blogs such as Zero Hedge, Principia Scientific, IceAgeNow, Alien-Star…
“While the variations in the Sun’s magnetic activity (leading to small variations in solar radiation reaching the Earth) have some discernible effect on our climate, their impact is small compared to the effects of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.”
Climate scientists use models to simulate and study different aspects of Earth’s climate system, and to project the rate of global warming caused by human activities. These models do, in fact, simulate the rate of global warming well, and models run in the past accurately projected the rate of warming we are currently experiencing.
