NASA Study Acknowledges Solar Cycle, Not
Man, Responsible for Past Warming
Michael Andrews - June 4,
2009 9:37 AM
http://www.dailytech.com/NASA+Study+Acknowledges+Solar+Cycle+Not+Man+Responsible+for+Past+Warming/article15310.htm
Report indicates solar cycle has been impacting
Earth since the Industrial Revolution
Some researchers believe that the solar cycle influences global climate changes.
They attribute recent warming trends to cyclic variation.
Skeptics, though, argue that there's little hard evidence of a
solar hand in recent climate changes.
Now, a new research report from a surprising source may
help to lay this skepticism to rest. A study from
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland looking
at climate data over the past century has concluded that solar
variation has made a significant impact on the Earth's
climate. The report concludes that evidence for climate
changes based on solar radiation can be traced back as far as the
Industrial Revolution.
Past research has shown that the sun goes through eleven year
cycles. At the cycle's peak, solar activity occurring near sunspots is
particularly intense, basking the Earth in solar heat.
According to Robert Cahalan, a climatologist at the Goddard Space
Flight Center, "Right now, we are in between major ice ages, in a
period that has been called the Holocene."
Thomas Woods, solar scientist at the University of Colorado in
Boulder concludes, "The fluctuations in the solar cycle impacts
Earth's global temperature by about 0.1 degree Celsius, slightly
hotter during solar maximum and cooler during solar minimum.
The sun is currently at its minimum, and the next solar maximum is
expected in 2012."
According to the study, during periods of solar quiet, 1,361 watts
per square meter of solar energy reaches Earth's outermost
atmosphere. Periods of more intense activity brought 1.4
watts per square meter (0.1 percent) more energy.
While the NASA study acknowledged the sun's influence on warming
and cooling patterns, it then went badly off the tracks.
Ignoring its own evidence, it returned to an argument that man had
replaced the sun as the cause current warming patterns. Like
many studies, this conclusion was based less on hard data and more
on questionable correlations and inaccurate modeling
techniques.
The inconvertible fact, here is that even NASA's own study
acknowledges that solar variation has caused climate change in the
past. And even the study's members, mostly ardent supports of
AGW theory, acknowledge that the sun may play a significant role in
future climate changes.