Does this sunspot graph support the claim that the Sun is causing global warming?

Normally NASA makes good graphs but this one is terrible. Even an intelligent person who is unfamiliar with the history of solar activity might look at the lack of blue bars from 1000 AD to ~1600 AD and conclude that there simply were no sunspots at that time. You would really have to look at it kind of close to realize that we just don't have records of the sunspots back then (or at least the maker of this graph didn't trust the pre-1600 sunspot record), and if they had been included then the blue bars would be highest from around 1100 to around 1300.

By combining the proxies like that it creates the illusion that solar activity over the last 300 years is somehow remarkable in that it was the only time with spots. Very very tricky (though I'm sure not intentionally so) for anyone who scans it only briefly.

First of all, the theory of man-made global warming is a theory, and nothing else. The computer models that are used to show future global warming due to carbon dioxide are flawed. The "green house gas" that is most prevalant in the atmosphere is water vapor. None of the models that show global warming factor in water vapor. This is important to understand, because water vapor condenses, turns to rain, and cools the atmosphere. Why do these models not use water vapor? Because the water vapor concentrations are to dynamic to model. Until very recently(past couple of months) the man-made warming proponents relied on NASA's statistics that showed 1998 as the warmest year on record. NASA was forced to revise these statistics because the method used to compile them was flawed. Those records now state that 1934 was the warmest year on record. There have been more than 550 papers published by scientists in all major scientific publications that disagree with the idea that man, or carbon dioxide has anything to do with global warming. But these reports are not pointed out by the media because they don't fit the template of green house gas being the cause of global warming. Now to answer your question, there is nothing that man can do to either raise the global temperature, or lower it. Global warming is mainly caused by the sun.....more scientist agree with that, than green house gasses being the cause. From the mid-1400's through the mid-1800's the Earth was in what ALL scientists agree was the little ice age, and it takes almost 200 years for the earth's temperature to equalize. Global warming may be happening, but there is still some agument on that. Man-made global warming is more religion than science. When Greenland was named, it was named Greenland for a reason......it was mostly green. In fact, Greenland was used as the Nordic peoples farm land until the mid1400's when the Earth entered the little ice age. Edit Thomas, the source for the profesors idea that Mars was warming at the same rate is NASA. And he is right.

No, of course not. I mean you would have to be practically brain dead to interpret it that way.

In fact, if a person, or peoples interpretation of such a thing could be so misguided, imagine all the other rubbish in this person, or peoples heads!!

Now there is something to frighten, astonish, and confound all in one!

The sun warms the Earth...yes!

But does the sun warm the Earth at a constant rate?

The Sun has cycles, just as everything else in nature. But, those cycles involve hundreds and thousands of years.

The Warmers point to tree rings that say we have cycles, yet most scientists will now tell you that tree rings are very undependable for dating.

Yet Lefty historians try to early-date important historical events (like the explosion of Santorini) using tree rings.

You can't have it both ways!

Me thinks that's more likely than CO2 warming anything!

Sure it does. It shows that solar activity has increased and leveled off at one of the highest levels in over a thousand years. Some say 8000 years.

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/18692

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sunspot_reco...

There are papers challenging your conventional wisdom, new research finds that the number of sunspots provides an incomplete measure of changes in the Sun’s impact on Earth over the course of the 11-year solar cycle.

The study below, led by scientists at the High Altitude Observatory of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Michigan, finds that Earth was bombarded last year with high levels of solar energy at a time when the Sun was in an unusually quiet phase and sunspots had virtually disappeared.

“The Sun continues to surprise us,” says NCAR scientist Sarah Gibson, the lead author. “The solar wind can hit Earth like a fire hose even when there are virtually no sunspots.”

The study, also written by scientists at NOAA and NASA, is being published today in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Space Physics. It was funded by NASA and by the National Science Foundation, NCAR’s sponsor.

Scientists for centuries have used sunspots, which are areas of concentrated magnetic fields that appear as dark patches on the solar surface, to determine the approximately 11-year solar cycle. At solar maximum, the number of sunspots peaks. During this time, intense solar flares occur daily and geomagnetic storms

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/17/ncar-number-...

You should always check for the latest NCAR information before posting!

No. The denialists have used this graph a lot.

BUT

Notice that it is ten years out of date. The graph the denialists show is TEN YEARS out of date, and since then the sunspot effect and global warming have diverged.

The professional denialists must KNOW this! They're not daft.

You are assuming that NASA's temperature was not manipulated...... Bad assumption.

P.S. Give the points for 'best answer' to someone besides me..... I don't need them.

No. Astrophysicists will not support that claim.

The sun will shoot out a bright fire thingy on 12/21/2010 and it will make earthquakes and fires and floods that will ruin all of our nice stuff. Global warming is something the government people are using to make sure no one figures out what is going on until it is too late. That way no one will make trouble and they can get on their giant boats which the rich smart people.