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Have solar cycles significantly affected earth's recent climate?

The intensity of the Sun is one of many input parameters used in climate models. None of the models used by the IPCC are able to successfully reproduce recent global temperature changes as a function of solar activity without also factoring in human greenhouse emissions. Some skeptics have suggested that this may be because of unknown complex feedbacks in Earth's climate.

Implications to Other Questions

Is global warming caused primarily by humans?
Have solar cycles significantly affected earth's recent climate?

Experts and Influencers

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Agree
Experts In Science


B.P. Radhakrishna    Geologist, President of the Geological Society of India
Agree
The causes of these changes are cosmogenic...
23 Aug 2007    Source


Jasper Kirkby    Particle Physicist
Mostly Agree
[Sun and cosmic rays] will probably be able to account for somewhere between a half and the whole of the increase in the Earth's temperature that we have seen in the last century.
23 Feb 2007    Source


Khabibullo Abdusamatov    Astronomer
Mostly Agree
By the mid-21st century the planet will face another Little Ice Age, similar to the Maunder Minimum, because the amount of solar radiation hitting the Earth has been constantly decreasing since the 1990s and will reach its minimum approximately in 2041.
01 Aug 2007    Source


Disagree
Experts In Science


Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change    (IPCC) Scientific Body formed by U.N.
Mostly Disagree
The TAR [Third Assessment Report] states that the changes in solar irradiance are not the major cause of the temperature changes in the second half of the 20th century unless those changes can induce unknown large feedbacks in the climate system.
01 Jan 2008    Source


Encyclopedia


Wikipedia    World's Largest Encyclopedia
Disagree
There has been no increase of solar brightness over the last 1,000 years. Solar cycles led to a negligible increase in brightness over the last 30 years, but this effect is too small to contribute significantly to global warming. The combined effect of natural climate forcing, solar variation and changes in volcanic activity, probably had a warming effect from pre-industrial times to 1950 but a cooling effect since.
27 Apr 2009    Source


Suggested Expert Quotes


Arnold Wolfendale
"The contribution of CR to ‘climate change’ is quite negligible."


Michael Lockwood
The conclusions of our previous paper, that solar forcing has declined over the past 20 years while surface air temperatures have continued to rise, are shown to apply for the full range of potential time constants for the climate response to the variations in the solar forcings.


Claus Frohlich
The conclusions of our previous paper, that solar forcing has declined over the past 20 years while surface air temperatures have continued to rise, are shown to apply for the full range of potential time constants for the climate response to the variations in the solar forcings.


Terry Sloan
We estimate that less than 15% of the 11-year cycle warming variations are due to cosmic rays and less than 2% of the warming over the last 35 years is due to this cause.



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