One Response to “What Causes Global Warming - Does Sunspots Cause Global Warming?:)? - Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers”

1. francis manns Says:
   June 5th, 2010 at 5:18 am

   Sunspots do not cause anything. They are a proxy for solar activity. They correlate well with climate – far better than CO2 but are trumped by volcanic activity.
   Sunspot peak frequency averages 11 years and tracks the sun’s magnetic activity which can shield the earth from cosmic radiation. When the sunspot peaks are close together, less than 11 years, earth heats up; when peak frequency is 12 – 13 years or longer, on average, earth cools off. Carbon dioxide is a useful trace gas in the atmosphere that has little to do with climate. The important gas is water vapour which forms clouds.
   The connection to the solar cycle is subtle. When the sun’s (and earth’s) magnetic shield is down, cosmic radiation (mostly iron ions) seeds the clouds and when there are a lot of sunspots (at the cycle peak) cosmic radiation shields us and clouds are less important. Warming occurs. That cycle may be driven by the sun-Jupiter gravitational interaction; more work needs to be done. So sunspots do not cause the climate to change, but they indicate when our cosmic ray shield is up or down and drive climate change. You could say, because water vapour is involved, it’s not eh heat, it’s the humidity.

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