Global Warming: Human activity or solar activity?

Its worth noting that S. Solanki – director of the solar research group of the highly regarded Max Planck Institute of Astrophysics in Germany – who says: “We point out that solar variability is unlikely to have been the dominant cause of the strong warming during the past three decades.” e.g. Solanki et al. Letter To Nature 2004. And “It was shown that even under the extreme assumption that the Sun was responsible for all the global warming prior to 1970, at the most 30% of the strong warming since then can be of solar origin.” Solanki et al. Letter To Nature 2004.

Two major recent solar studies also fail to show a link. One by the National Centre for Atmospheric Research et al (National Center for Atmospheric Research: Sept. 06): “Scientists have examined various proxies of solar energy output over the past 1,000 years and have found no evidence that they are correlated with today’s rising temperatures. Satellite observations over the past 30 years have also turned up nothing.”

The other is by Heliophysics & the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (Sept. 2006) that concluded: “Sunspot-driven changes to the sun's power are simply too small to account for the climatic changes observed in historical data from the 17th century to the present.” Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics.

These throw any direct solar forcing argument into disarray.

It’s also worth considering these in light of the commonly made charge that scientists produce results that are most likely to secure further funding. If this were true then these solar research institutions would be producing papers hinting that the sun could be the cause. But this isn’t the case. Honest science.

Maybe some of the GW is due to human activity, but not all by any means. I am troubled by the lifeboat complex of modern industrial - or should I say older modern industrial societies. Most of the human species is starving and the simple truth is that coal and other fossil fuels is what will make the difference between life and death for millions. The war against coal is evil for that reason.

I am certain there will be an ice age relatively soon and the global cooling - to put it mildly - will make our global warming anxieties look positively stupid.

In addition to Noah's disturbing answer, it may well be that the scientists have underestimated the problem, and we only need look at the planet Venus to see what happens when global warming gets out of control. Venus's greenhouse gas is Sulphuric Acid, which is pretty nasty stuff, especially at 450C. I wouldn't want to live there. Noah concentrated on Carbon Dioxide, a by-product of the burning of fossil fuels, the decimation of the great forests and the stripping by man of life in the oceans, most significantly being the kelp that kept CO2 under control there. A far more effective greenhouse gas is Methane. This has been locked up in bogs for many millennia under the permafrost in Russia, which is now melting and releasing methane that has not see light of day since the meteorite wiped out the dinosaurs. The other feedback effect is caused by sun's heat radiation tending to bounce off a white surface, such as polar ice, but is absorbed by anything dark, such as peat bogs and even the sea. As the arctic regions melt, they will absorb the sun in summer and heat up further. There are compensatory effects too. Carbon Dioxide is more readily dissolved in sea water if it is warmer. This acidifies the oceans though and creates mayhem on any creature, such as coral, whose structures are weakened by acid. Also, more heat tends to allow more water vapour to be absorbed by the atmosphere, which is released as torrential rain where the conditions are right. This might explain the extraordinary flooding incidents we see in many places. Water vapour and Carbon Dioxide are both helpful for plant growth, and the more trees growing, the more CO2 is turned back into Oxygen with the Carbon locked up in the trees and the topsoil, reversing the primary effects of human activity. Should humanity wipe itself out, and providing not all the forest lands been turned into desert and the fertile soils washed away, the Earth would in time restore its great forests, but it may take thousands of years to do so.

Gee! I think you might be on to something...no wait ,I seem to remember that a scientist said. All the heat that falls on the Earth comes from the star that we call our "Sun". So ,I guess you could say the "Sun" is "responsible" for warming on ALL the planets . SO WHAT? We live on this one! Do you even know where the Oxygen came from on our planet? It came from a one celled organism over millions of years. We have machines spewing vast quantities of CO2 that came from fossilized material. All that increase in fossil based CO2 is seriously damaging the climate! The is no serious debate on this topic at any level. Especially here on Y.A. ! All there is are crude and rude comments on Al Gore,or nonsense crackpot stuff like the warming on Mars. It's simple PHYSICS! That's all! No hoax or money making scam!

Well Miss to some degree.. what part do you hold us responsible for in your scientific opinion.. And do we live on Mars? who gives a flying crap what is going on on Mars! stop repeating the idealogic nonsense of Fox News and do some traveling or better yet, read the facts from thousands and thousands and thousands of scientist around the world.. and not bushes scientist., who distorted the reports in order that America.. the worlds biggest polluter but with only 3 percent of the population, would have to do nothing. .

GW activists acknowlegde that direct effects of CO2 are minimal and cannot explain the warming that we have today. They work around this problem by assuming that CO2 produces feedbacks which are not completely understood but would cause the temperature to rise much faster than basic CO2 greenhouse theory would suggust.

GW activists try to dismiss solar effects by claimin that they are too small to explain the warming observed. That argument makes no sense. If CO2 can cause feedbacks then logically solar radiation could have feedbacks too. GFor that reason solar effects cannot be excluded as reason for GW.

Edit: the mesaurements of solar activity are in dispute and depend on how you do the measurements. Also solar activity has declined in the last 5 years which is one of the reasons why GW has stopped.

75-95% us. If you want the truth, you need to read some science.

Climatologists know all about changes in the Sun, which are measured by many independent people. Solar radiation has actually been decreasing a bit lately. Proof:

"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...

News article at:

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

The warming on Mars is due to giant dust storms, unique to Mars:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/research/2007/mar...

Good websites for more info:

http://profend.com/global-warming/

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/

http://www.realclimate.org/

"climate science from climate scientists"

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/...

SPEAKER OF THE TRUTH - Liberals like these?

"Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich challenged fellow conservatives to stop resisting scientific evidence of global warming"

"National Review (the most prestigious conservative magazine) published a cover story calling on conservatives to shake off denial and get into the climate policy debate"

"Pat Robertson (very conservative Christian leader) 'It is getting hotter and the ice caps are melting and there is a build up of carbon dioxide in the air. We really need to do something on fossil fuels.”

"I believe there is now more than enough evidence of climate change to warrant an immediate and comprehensive - but considered - response. Anyone who disagrees is, in my view, still in denial."

Ford Motor Company CEO William Clay Ford, Jr.

"The science of global warming is clear. We know enough to act now. We must act now."

James Rogers, CEO of Charlotte-based Duke Energy.

Sorry, it's not the Sun. Solar activity has decreased slightly over the past 30 years as global warming has accelerated rapidly.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6290228.stm

Mars is warming because dust storms are darkening its surface. It has nothing to do with warming on Earth.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070404_gw_ma...

If their warming was due to the Sun, not only would solar output be increasing, but almost every planet and moon in our solar system would be warming, not just a couple.

The only explanation for the warming on Earth is that it's mostly due to human greenhouse gas emissions, as discussed here:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AgCxB...

No offense, but when you say it's 10% due to humans you're pulling a number out of your butt. Climate scientists who research the issue put the value at 80-90% humans over the past 30 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_...

It doesn't matter how much humans are contributing towards a temperature change.

What matters is that we find a way to stop contributing towards the change and let the Earth do it what it needs to do.

o.k here is another thought about global warming that's suppose to be brought on by emissions of co2...we humans and most living things exhale co2 when we breathe.. maybe birth control would be a solution.The next thing is that the government will have us all wearing breathing filters or find a way to tax us on the air we breathe.... think about it!..we cannot control the weather.. how are we going to control "global warming".