Any decrease in solar output is extremely important, and well worth taking notice of. Such a decrease might well offset or over-ride global warming. This is great news if one has defined the major environmental issue of our day as global warming.
Defining what the earth is experiencing as anthropogenic global warming takes an overly-simplified and narrow view. Global warming is just a subset of global climate change. I can imagine that a combination of increased greenhouse gases plus decreased solar output plus increased aerosol and particulate concentrations in the atmosphere might produce net warming, net cooling or little net change in the earth surface temperature. I cannot imagine that these things could all occur without altering the temperature over large regions of the earth (even if the net change globally is zero), as well as changing patterns of cloud cover and insolation, the movement of air masses and ocean currents and precipitation. In other words, it is possible that we might not see anthropogenic global warming over the next century; it is certain that we will see anthropogenic climate change. Climate Change itself is still only a subset of global environmental change. Increased atmospheric CO2 has profound direct effects on plants, and we have also seen major changes in global cycles of nitrogen and other elements. It is great that wide attention is being paid to global warming, but too many are still missing the bigger picture. Max Taub Quoting Paul Cherubini <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article3223603.ece > Excerpts: > > "Our Sun has suddenly gone exceptionally quiet. > Months have passed with no spots visible on its disc." > > "Between 1645 and 1715 sunspots were rare. It was also > a time when the Earth's northern hemisphere chilled dramatically." > > "The past decade has been warmer than previous ones. It > is the result of a rapid increase in global temperature between > 1978 and 1998. Since then average temperatures have held at > a high, though steady, level. Many computer climate projections > suggest that the global temperatures will start to rise again in a > few years. But those projections do not take into account the > change in the Sun's behaviour. The tardiness of cycle 24 > indicates that we might be entering a period of low solar > activity that may counteract man-made greenhouse temperature > increases. Some members of the Russian Academy of Sciences > say we may be at the start of a period like that seen between > 1790 and 1820, a minor decline in solar activity called the Dalton > Minimum. They estimate that the Sun's reduced activity may > cause a global temperature drop of 1.5C by 2020. This is larger > than most sensible predictions of man-made global warming > over this period." > > Paul Cherubini > El Dorado, Calif. >
