Here Come the Sun, again

In response to last week’s post on sun as savior, here is what William Prescott sent:

Re: Will the Sun come to our rescue,
please see:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/07/the-lure-of-solar-forcing/#more-171

From last year but the argument remains valid.

Here’s the abstract from one recent study:

“Variations in solar luminosity and their effect on the Earth’s climate”
P. Foukal1, C. Fro¨hlich2, H. Spruit3 & T. M. L. Wigley4

Variations in the Sun’s total energy output (luminosity) are caused by
changing dark (sunspot) and bright structures on the solar disk during the
11-year sunspot cycle. The variations measured from spacecraft since 1978
are too small to have contributed appreciably to accelerated global warming
over the past 30 years. In this Review, we show that detailed analysis of
these small output variations has greatly advanced our understanding of
solar luminosity change, and this new understanding indicates that
brightening of the Sun is unlikely to have had a significant influence on
global warming since the seventeenth century. Additional climate forcing by
changes in the Sun’s output of ultraviolet light, and of magnetized plasmas,
cannot be ruled out. The suggested mechanisms are, however, too complex to evaluate meaningfully at present.

—

Of course I hope the Russian climate guy ref in New Scientist turns out
to be true. But don’t put money on it.

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