Are hot spots on the sun causing global warming?

Question

It has been shown that hotspots on the sun is heating the planet, the warming of the planet is causing co2 to be more abundant. Is blaming the rise of co2 on us a way of conning us out of more money and a way of controlling us more?

Answer 1

environmentalist nut case groups can`t here that truth.

Answer 2

Yes.  The sun is actually the greatest single cause of terrestrial heating.

Answer 3

Of course not. The "but the sun is responsible for our RECENT global warming" arguments have been refuted hundreds of times.

Changes at the solar level CAN cause climate change on Earth. But, the reality is that solar output (this includes electromagnetic energy from the entire spectrum, as well as cosmic rays) has not increased during recent decades. The following are excerpts from recent research on the link between recent global warming and solar activity (the first report linked is the most liberal):

Scafetta, 2006

"We estimate that the sun contributed as much as 45–50% of the 1900–2000 global warming, and 25–35% of the 1980–2000 global warming. These results, while confirming that anthropogenic-added climate forcing might have progressively played a dominant role in climate change during the last century.

http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/20...

Foukal, 2006

"The variations measured from spacecraft since 1978 are too small to have contributed appreciably to accelerated global warming over the past 30 years."

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v44...

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v44...

Foukal, 2006

"Our results imply that, over the past century, climate change due to human influences must far outweigh the effects of changes in the Sun's brightness. … Variations of this magnitude are too small to have contributed appreciably to the accelerated global warming observed since the mid-1970s, according to the study, and there is no sign of a net increase in brightness over the period."

http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2006/b...

Lockwood, 2007

"The analysis shows that global warming since 1985 has been caused neither by an increase in solar radiation nor by a decrease in the flux of galactic cosmic rays."

http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2006/b...

http://publishing.royalsociety.org/media...

Lockwood, 2007

“There is considerable evidence for solar influence on the Earth’s pre-industrial climate and the Sun may well have been a factor in post-industrial climate change in the first half of the last century. Here we show that over the past 20 years, all the trends in the Sun that could have had an influence on the Earth’s climate have been in the opposite direction to that required to explain the observed rise in global mean temperatures.”

http://publishing.royalsociety.org/media...

Solanki, 2004

"Researchers at the MPS have shown that the Sun can be responsible for, at most, only a small part of the warming over the last 20-30 years. They took the measured and calculated variations in the solar brightness over the last 150 years and compared them to the temperature of the Earth. Although the changes in the two values tend to follow each other for roughly the first 120 years, the Earth’s temperature has risen dramatically in the last 30 years while the solar brightness has not appreciably increased in this time."

http://www.mpg.de/english/illustrationsD...

Ammann, 2007

“Although solar and volcanic effects appear to dominate most of the slow climate variations within the past thousand years, greenhouse gas effects have dominated the last century.”

http://www.aimes.ucar.edu/MEETINGS/2005_...

et. cetera

Other than the fact that such a hypothesis is not backed by observation, there are a few problems additional problems with the assumption that the majority of recent global warming is caused by the sun. (1) Most importantly, such an argument completely ignores the fact that the physics of increasing greenhouse gases concentrations can account for recent global warming.

(2) The warmest years in history, 1998, 2005, and 2007 have occurred near the "solar minimum" troughs of the 11-year solar cycle. Such an observation might suggest that the small increases in solar irradiance cannot be the main force that is driving recent global warming. The most liberal estimates of recent increases in solar irradiance is a smaller amount than the difference in irradiance between "solar maximum" and "solar minimum" of the 11-years solar cycle (0.1 %.)

(3) Increases in solar activity should warm the entire atmosphere, right? Cooling in the lower stratosphere has been observed during recent decades.

Answer 4

Dr. Hannity thinks so.

Answer 5

It's possible that the earth goes through stages of heating and cooling due to the sun spots, or other naturally occuring events.  However, it is very true that humans (all 7 billion of us) are negatively impacting the environment.  The main flaw with our thinking is that we have a consumer economy that continually demands growth.  We have used up so many resources and have seen an increase in CO2 (burning fossel fuels) and desertfication (cutting down rainforests).  We need to move towards a more cyclic economy b/c honestly, this planet is not big enough to support all of us.  We should rethink the manner in which we consume and how we live.  Even if global warming is beyond our control, we are running out of resources to maintain our current life-style.

Answer 6

No, it has NOT been shown that hotspots on the sun are heating the planet.  And besides, if you mean sunspots -- they are colder than the average temperature of the sun's surface.

The sun has absolutely nothing to do with global warming.

Answer 7

No, if you posted a link to your supposed theory, it would confirm that the sun can only be responsible for less than half of the observed warming (generally quoted as a potential number closer to 10%).

http://journals.royalsociety.org/content...

Mike Lockwood of the UK's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and Claus Froehlich of the World Radiation Center in Switzerland published a paper in October that concludes:

"There is considerable evidence for solar influence on the Earth's pre-industrial climate and the Sun may well have been a factor in post-industrial climate change in the first half of the last century. Here we show that over the past 20 years, all the trends in the Sun that could have had an influence on the Earth's climate have been in the opposite direction to that required to explain the observed rise in global mean temperatures."

As demand for oil overtakes supply in the coming years, the oil companies have us at their mercy.  They don't need any more leverage than they already have.

edit -

Rick, The 750°K temperature of Venus, with its atmosphere of 90% carbon dioxide, is strong evidence supporting greenhouse gas theory.

http://www.ias.ac.in/resonance/Mar1996/p...

Just curious... how does a sun worshipper like you explain the (CO2-driven and hotter than Mercury) temperature of Venus?

Answer 8

logic says yes.  followers say no

I'll take logic for 1000 Alex

Answer 9

No.  The scientific data shows that solar radiation is actually decreasing just a bit, so it's not the cause.

"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/pro...

News article at:

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

Scientists don't "blame" the rise on CO2.  The data proves that's what's happening.

"I wasn’t convinced by a person or any interest group—it was the data that got me. I was utterly convinced of this connection between the burning of fossil fuels and climate change. And I was convinced that if we didn’t do something about this, we would be in deep trouble.”

Vice Admiral Richard H. Truly, USN (Ret.)

Former NASA Administrator, Shuttle Astronaut

The people conning you are the fossil fuel industry people spreading the lie that this is a hoax.

Answer 10

There may not be an absolute 'proof' but neither is there an absolute proof that CO2 can retain enough heat to matter.

CO2 Can Not Trap heat - it can only slow the heat escaping.

The closest thing to a 'heat trap' is thick clouds.

There is an interesting correlation between Solar Minimums (No Sun Spots) and historical observations - worth your time to read.

http://home.earthlink.net/~ponderthemaun...

Right now scientists are following the present activity on the Sun:

http://spaceweather.com/

I think it's interesting that they still attribute these spots to cycle 23 - which at this time they predicted cycle 24 to have begun.  Something strange is happening?!?

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/...

Edit:  Also look at the other emissions of the Sun which contrary to what Alarmists believe - DO effect heat and weather on Earth.  It seems the Alarmists are the true Deniers.

EDIT:  Answer for JS - He will NOT read this:

Inferno:

http://www.strangehorizons.com/2002/2002...

The idea that the CO2 on Venus is in anyway comparable to Earth is a complete LIE!

The temperatures of Venus are consistent with temperatures of the magma that COVERS VENUS.  Core temperatures of Venus are likely much hotter than Earth's est. 9000 degrees.

This is what the True Deniers want you to ignore - NO ONE knows how much heat is moving through the Earth's crust beneath the oceans to heat the planet and drive our weather!

Mercury is a DEAD rock with no internal HEAT!

Answer 11

No, all you have to do is look at the data.  Here is a graph from the Stanford Solar Center showing sunspot number, global temperature, and atmospheric CO2 level.  Look at the graph over the past 30 years and see for yourself if sunspots are to blame for the warming.

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-...

Also, we know from looking at the carbon isotope ratio that the CO2 increase over the past 150 years is almost entirely due to humans burning fossil fuels.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=8...

Answer 12

Rust never sleeps