# Has the world actually been cooling since 2002? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 19, 2014, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728 "2014-02-19T19:32:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/61 "2014-02-20T22:17:52Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > Certainly there are hundreds of issues, many scientific, concerning climate, climate change, pollution and the state of the science. > > If you want to debate any of them, you can start a topic. Yup, I know. There’s plenty to talk about here, though. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/62 "2014-02-20T22:23:56Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Gigo’s link doesn’t reference the source of data from before the satellite data that starts at 1978. Sure seems to. From [**GIGO** ’s link:](https://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm) > [@](#): > > Figure 1. Global temperature (red, NASA GISS) and Total solar irradiance (blue, 1880 to 1978 from Solanki, 1979 to 2009 from PMOD If you click on the links where those datasets are named, you get the data sources. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/63 "2014-02-20T22:27:23Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Gigo’s link doesn’t reference the source of data from before the satellite data that starts at 1978. That is why I linked to the Skeptical Science cite, under the graph you have the link to the source ([the Max Plank Institute](http://www2.mps.mpg.de/en/)) and the link to the data is under the image in the article from Skeptical Science that FX omitted. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/64 "2014-02-20T22:29:04Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > And yes, the claim that the TSI variation is so small it doesn’t effect climate was made, is still being made. You seem to be mixing up the claim that solar irradiance variation doesn’t affect climate _at all_ (which AFAIK is not what any climate scientist thinks nowadays) with the claim that solar irradiance variation is too small to account for global warming in recent decades (which AFAIK is what pretty much every climate scientist thinks nowadays). ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/65 "2014-02-20T22:30:58Z")
The [Solanki](http://www2.mps.mpg.de/projects/sun-climate/data/tsi_1611.txt) link only gives the actual data, not the source of the data. How was the 1364.542 W/m[sup]2[/sup] data point measured on June 1st, 1611? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/66 "2014-02-20T22:41:49Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > The [Solanki](http://www2.mps.mpg.de/projects/sun-climate/data/tsi_1611.txt) link only gives the actual data, not the source of the data. How was the 1364.542 W/m[sup]2[/sup] data point measured on June 1st, 1611? The website at the URL you linked to, one level up, discusses the data and the research describing it: [http://www2.mps.mpg.de/projects/sun-climate/data.html](http://www2.mps.mpg.de/projects/sun-climate/data.html) Tip for folks looking at data sets in general: If you follow a link that leads you to a text file of data values and you want to know more about the sources of the data, the same URL often contains relevant webpages higher up the pathname, as in this case. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/67 "2014-02-20T22:52:41Z")
I’m serious about the basic facts. If an eternal argument can go on over one simple thing, the complicated contentious issues will be impossible. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/68 "2014-02-20T23:02:33Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > If an eternal argument can go on over one simple thing, the complicated contentious issues will be impossible. Not necessarily. General consensus agreement on the basic scientific facts doesn’t necessarily require complete agreement on all the details. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/69 "2014-02-20T23:05:07Z")
Well … followed the Krivova et al. (2007) link and that referred me to Solanki (2002) who concludes a correlation coefficient of ≥ 0.83. That’s a very high value of correlation to be disregarded. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/70 "2014-02-20T23:07:33Z")
This might be a very very long thread ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/71 "2014-02-20T23:08:00Z")
… and now I have a headache. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/72 "2014-02-20T23:19:02Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Well … followed the Krivova et al. (2007) link and that referred me to Solanki (2002) who concludes a correlation coefficient of ≥ 0.83. Hmm. What link do you have for the Solanki et al. 2002 paper? ETA: Nemmine, [found it.](http://www2.mps.mpg.de/dokumente/publikationen/solanki/j134.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/73 "2014-02-20T23:26:06Z")
> [@](#): > > Also, changes in the solar spectrum, in particular in the UV, could enhance this influence by affecting stratospheric chemistry: most importantly the balance between ozone production and destruction. Although the UV radiation shortward of 400 nm contributes only about 8% to the magnitude of the total solar irradiance, it is responsible for about 60% of the variation of the total irradiance. [http://www2.mps.mpg.de/projects/sun-climate/data.html](http://www2.mps.mpg.de/projects/sun-climate/data.html) ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/74 "2014-02-20T23:26:14Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Well … followed the Krivova et al. (2007) link and that referred me to Solanki (2002) who concludes a correlation coefficient of ≥ 0.83. Hmm again. Where do Solanki et al. (2002) refer to a correlation coefficient of ≥ 0.83? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/75 "2014-02-20T23:30:50Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > That is false, and I can see why the climate modelers and the IPCC went wrong now. They probably still believe that as well. Have you written a paper or submitted a review comment to enlighten them? This is what I think many find so frustrating about the proclamations you tend to make. They are either easily shown to be wrong, or are forays into complete irrelevance where your personal [mis]interpretation is supposed to refute the clearly stated and cited conclusions in reputable publications. _Latest example #1_: You said the American Institute of Physics description of relative solar constancy was “completely false”. You were wrong, completely aside from the rhetorical curiosity of why you think you have greater credibility than the AIP. I provided a quote from the IPCC AR5 TS.3.5 which supports the statement and refutes your nonsense – you can find more at Sections TS.3.5 and at _5.2.1.2 Solar Forcing_ and _8.4.1 Solar Irradiance_, with full citations at the end of each relevant chapter. _Latest example #2_: You said the Skeptical Science claim of falling solar output in recent years when temperature was increasing was “a display of willful ignorance, perhaps even deception, [that] is appalling to me”. The only thing that was appalling was that you were wrong again. I cited three papers supporting SkepticalScience in my previous post, and provided quotes from them: Lean and Rind (2008), Lockwood (2008), and Foster and Rahmstorf (2011). There are many more. _Latest example #3_: You post something about 9,000 year variations in solar output as if it had the slightest relevance to what anybody here is talking about. Wrong again, or rather, as someone else already pointed out, completely irrelevant. And of course your OP, with cherry-picked time series, and some unstated and unclear point that I presume we are asked to take away from this regarding the earth’s alleged non-warming. ## If you think climate science is bullshit, why not just say so and be done with it? Trying to “prove” it hasn’t been working well for you. This is from IPCC AR5 WG1 Section 5.2.1. The mean RF of solar variability over the post-industrial era is about 0.05 W/m\*\*2. This is negligible compared to anthropogenic forcings. > [@](#): > > The year 1750, which is used as the preindustrial reference for estimating RF, corresponds to a maximum of the 11-year SC. Trend analysis are usually performed over the minima of the solar cycles that are more stable. For such trend estimates, it is then better to use the closest SC minimum, which is in 1745.To avoid trends caused by comparing different portions of the solar cycle, we analyze TSI changes using multi-year running means. For the best estimate we use a recent TSI reconstruction by Krivova et al. (2010) between 1745 and 1973 and from 1974 to 2012 by Ball et al. (2012). The reconstruction is based on physical modeling of the evolution of solar surface magnetic flux, and its relationship with sunspot group number (before 1974) and sunspot umbra and penumbra and faculae afterwards. This provides a more detailed reconstruction than other models (see the time series in Supplementary Material Table 8.SM.3). The best estimate from our assessment of the most reliable TSI reconstruction gives a 7-year running mean RF between the minima of 1745 and 2008 of 0.05 W m–2. Our assessment of the range of RF from TSI changes is 0.0–0.10 W m–2 which covers several updated reconstructions using the same 7-year running mean past-to-present minima years (Wang et al., 2005; Steinhilber et al., 2009; Delaygue and Bard, 2011), see Supplementary Material Table 8.SM.4 … there is a high confidence that the TSI RF variations will be much smaller in magnitude than the projected increased forcing due to GHG (see Chapter 12, Section 12.3.1). ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/76 "2014-02-20T23:35:24Z")
Since the topic is about one major thing, remember that in the real world, mankind added roughly 130 billion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere between 2000 and 2013. That is about a third of all the CO2 put there by humanity since 1750. A third of the CO2 increase from mankind has been in the period where all the data sets show cooling, not warming. The two “warm” years were produced by the Pacific ocean, not the greenhouse effect. There is no evidence either volcanoes or air pollution from increased coal burning has dimmed the atmosphere. Winter warming in high latitudes, a key prediction of the enhanced greenhouse theory has in fact gone the other way, with clear cooling trends, that can no longer be handwaved away as natural variation. And yet the summer arctic amplification is still in effect. There is NH summer warming, while the global mean is trending slightly down. The stratosphere trend is not matching the predictions either, but that is still not known to be a problem with sensors or with theory. Water vapor has not increased, which is of course logical, as there has been no warming, there should be no increase in water vapor. In fact the cold Pacific may be causing drier air patterns for the US southwest. And the winter of 2013/14, far from over, is looking to be one of the longest and coldest on record. Great lakes ice levels are near record, something as unexpected as the record cold. There is a great deal to consider, but the basic facts have to be basic facts. Insisting the earth is still warming, when it is obviously not, is something worthy of debate. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/77 "2014-02-20T23:51:22Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > You seem to be mixing up the claim that solar irradiance variation doesn’t affect climate _at all_ (which AFAIK is not what any climate scientist thinks nowadays) with the claim that solar irradiance variation is too small to account for global warming in recent decades (which AFAIK is what pretty much every climate scientist thinks nowadays). No, what I am saying, and I thought it was clear, is that looking at the data, there is a strong connection between the sun and climate. If you accept the increase in CO2 ,and other factors from mankind’s activities, are heating up the planet, the temperature data makes sense. If you accept that solar influences climate, and can do so in ways we still don’t know about, (which is true), it’s possible to explain that the solar changes are still influencing the climate, especially since the oceanographers directly track the sun and the oceans. I don’t just pull facts out of my ass, everything is based on evidence, on research and data, everything. > [@](#): > > An international team of scientists led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) used more than a century of weather observations and three powerful computer models to tackle one of the more difficult questions in meteorology: if the total energy that reaches Earth from the Sun varies by only 0.1 percent across the approximately 11-year solar cycle, how can such a small variation drive major changes in weather patterns on Earth? > > The answer, according to the new study, has to do with the Sun’s impact on two seemingly unrelated regions. Chemicals in the stratosphere and sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean respond during solar maximum in a way that amplifies the Sun’s influence on some aspects of air movement. This can intensify winds and rainfall, change sea surface temperatures and cloud cover over certain tropical and subtropical regions, and ultimately influence global weather. [http://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/851/scientists-uncover-solar-cycle-stratosphere-and-ocean-connections](http://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/851/scientists-uncover-solar-cycle-stratosphere-and-ocean-connections) > [@wolfpup](#): > > They are either easily shown to be wrong, or are forays into complete irrelevance where your personal [mis]interpretation is supposed to refute the clearly stated and cited conclusions in reputable publications. If you can show anything I post is wrong, then do it. I welcome learning something new. But show me, don’t tell me. Like this [http://www.nasa.gov/mission\_pages/sunearth/news/sorce-10yrs.html](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/sorce-10yrs.html) > **[Science in orbit: The shuttle and spacelab experience, 1981-1986 - NASA...](https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19890017433)** > > Significant achievements across all scientific disciplines and missions for the first six years of Shuttle flights are presented. Topics covered include science on the Space Shuttle and Spacelab, living and working in space, studying materials and... [http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/solarcycle-sorce.html](http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/solarcycle-sorce.html) If somebody had predicted what is happening, years before, I would cosnider what they are saying, as being possibly important. From 2010 > [@](#): > > The world could be in for a spell of cooler temperatures, rather than hotter conditions, as a result of cyclical changes in ocean currents for the next 20 or 30 years, it is predicted. > > Research by Professor Mojib Latif, one of the world’s leading climate modellers, questions the widely held view that global temperatures will rise rapidly over the coming years. > > But Prof Latif, of the Leibniz Institute at Germany’s Kiel University and an author for the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), believes that the cool spell will only be a temporary interruption to climate change. > > He told a UN conference in September that changes in ocean currents known as North Atlantic Oscillation could dominate over man-made global warming for the next few decades. > Controversially, he also said that the fluctuations could also be responsible for much of the rise in global temperatures seen over the past 30 years. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/6965342/Big-freeze-could-signal-global-warming-pause.html](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/6965342/Big-freeze-could-signal-global-warming-pause.html) Other researchers have proposed the effect of the sun on the upper atmosphere is changing the circulation patterns, and the changes in wind will have a drastic effect on the climate, possibly far more than temperatures do. There are vast unknowns, just vast. Anyone who tries to tell you they have it all figured out, is a liar. Or a genius. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2014, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/78 "2014-02-20T23:56:04Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > Since the topic is about one major thing, remember that in the real world, mankind added roughly 130 billion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere between 2000 and 2013. That is about a third of all the CO2 put there by humanity since 1750. > > A third of the CO2 increase from mankind has been in the period where all the data sets show cooling, not warming. :dubious: That sounds as though you believe that (1) there’s essentially no time lag between CO2 increase and temperature rise, and (2) there can’t be a short-term cooling trend in the midst of a long-term warming trend. Neither of those is true, AFAIK. [QUOTE=FXMastermind] Winter warming in high latitudes, a key prediction of the enhanced greenhouse theory has in fact gone the other way, with clear cooling trends, that can no longer be handwaved away as natural variation. [/quote] Cite for the claim that recent cold winters can’t be explained by natural short-term climate variation? Because AFAIK, current climate science says they can. As some [prominent climate scientists recently remarked in a letter to _Science_](http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/14/global-warming-winter-weather-and-the-olympics-five-leading-climate-scientists-weigh-in/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0), > [@](#): > > Summertime sea ice extent in the Arctic has been remarkably low since 2007 and the ensuing years have been marked by some notable cold air outbreaks. It was this coincidence that prompted Francis and Vavrus to link the cold air outbreaks to global warming. But coincidence does not in itself constitute a strong case for causality. Cold air outbreaks even more severe than occurred this winter affected the United States in the early 1960s, the late 1970s (most notably 1977), and in 1983, back when the Arctic sea ice was thicker and more extensive than it is today. Over the longer time span of 50 to 100 years, it is well established that there has been a decrease in the rate at which low temperature records are being set relative to all-time high temperature records at stations across the United States. For the present at least, we believe that statistics based on the longer record are more indicative of what the future is likely to bring. > [@FXMastermind](#): > > Insisting the earth is still warming, when it is obviously not, is something worthy of debate. Just because there’s some short-term cooling doesn’t mean that the earth is “obviously not” warming in the long term. Most importantly: _If you’re going to claim that anthropogenic global warming doesn’t exist, you have to come up with a quantitative model that explains **why** it doesn’t exist, since basic physics implies that it **should** exist._ I.e., we put lots of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, we enhance the atmosphere’s greenhouse effect. That ought to make the planet warmer. If you assert it’s **not** making the planet warmer, well then, **why** isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2014, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/79 "2014-02-21T00:04:03Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > _Latest example #1_: You said the American Institute of Physics description of relative solar constancy was “completely false”. You were wrong, completely aside from the rhetorical curiosity of why you think you have greater credibility than the AIP. No, I was right, and I still am. Read the following carefully. > [@Kimstu](#): > > Oh, and now I think I see the other part of the problem: > **FXMastermind** , you apparently didn’t finish reading the part of [your linked AIP article on _history_ of climate science](http://www.aip.org/history/climate/solar.htm) Of course I read it all. years ago. I was pointing out that the statement in the first paragraph was false, and as you found out, that is indeed the case. > [@Kimstu](#): > > Once again, your cite doesn’t actually refute what **wolfpup** was saying, because it turns out to be talking about a different issue. No, I directly pointed out that the AIP claim was false, because it is. The issue of what effect the sun has, and how much, is large and very complicated. Read the NASA links and get back to me on it. It’s not just a matter of the energy, it’s chemistry, it’s an unknown, but in the last decade we know at last that the changes in the high energy UV are important, much larger than anyone suspected, and they are directly connected to the climate. Just because somebody says something, that does not make it true. > [@](#): > > Research examining the causes of climate change in the northern hemisphere over the past 1000 years has shown that until the year 1800, the key driver of periodic changes in climate was volcanic eruptions. These tend to prevent sunlight reaching Earth, causing cool, drier weather. Since 1900, greenhouse gases have been the primary cause of climate change. > **[Solar activity not a key cause of climate change, study shows](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131222161813.htm)** > > Climate change has not been strongly influenced by variations in heat from the sun, a new scientific study shows. That statement is not fact, it is conjecture, and it is false IMNSHO, as well as many others who actually study these things. You can try and overturn all previous and current science about the sun with a paper, but good luck with that. It doesn’t work like that in the real world. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2014, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728/80 "2014-02-21T00:08:42Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > No, what I am saying, and I thought it was clear, is that looking at the data, there is a strong connection between the sun and climate. That statement is too vague to mean much scientifically, as it stands. Yes, all climate scientists nowadays agree that there’s a “strong connection” between the sun and climate, for some value of “strong”. The important question is, exactly how much and what kind of effects does solar variation exert on climate, and exactly what quantitative mechanisms account for them? > [@FXMastermind](#): > > If you accept the increase in CO2 ,and other factors from mankind’s activities, are heating up the planet, the temperature data makes sense. If you accept that solar influences climate, and can do so in ways we still don’t know about, (which is true), it’s possible to explain that the solar changes are still influencing the climate, especially since the oceanographers directly track the sun and the oceans. […] > > > [@](#): > > > > An international team of scientists led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) used more than a century of weather observations and three powerful computer models to tackle one of the more difficult questions in meteorology: if the total energy that reaches Earth from the Sun varies by only 0.1 percent across the approximately 11-year solar cycle, how can such a small variation drive major changes in weather patterns on Earth? Again, you still seem to be mixing up the concepts of _“solar irradiation cycles affect global weather patterns to a significant extent”_ and _“solar irradiation cycles are a plausible cause of recent decades’ global warming”_. Those two statements are not the same thing. When scientists say, as in your linked article, _“Hey! We’ve figured out some new details about how solar cycles affect weather patterns!”_, they are not necessarily saying _“OMG this changes everything we know about climate science and solar variability! This might be the real cause of global warming!”_ Assuming that the one implies the other is just wishful thinking on your part. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-the-world-actually-been-cooling-since-2002/681728.md?page=5)