Global warming "linked to solar radiation"

How could a massive fusion reaction on our doorstep possibly affect climate?

From “The Science is Settled” department. The IPCC want to play down the effect of the sun on climate because, well, you can’t tax the sun. But you can tax a harmless trace gas which is a byproduct of burning fossil fuels, and thereby stop the fastest growing economies in their tracks, and prevent them from their selfish pursuit of alleviating poverty for millions of people. All together now: “It’s the sun, stupid.”

A STUDY of Arctic cooling cycles suggest warming is linked to solar activity.

By measuring the rings of 400-year-old Scots pine trees, German researchers at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart were able to determine periods of fast-growth activity associated with higher average temperatures.

They took their measurements from trees on the Kola Peninsula and compared it to 2004 data from the Swedish Laplan and Russian Siberia regions.

They found that temperatures between 1630 and 1840 cooled, then warming in the Arctic began – just after the end of the “Little Ice Age” and 30 years before the start of the Industrial Age.

The “Little Ice Age” refers to a 300-year cooling effect leading up to the Industrial Age in which the Arctic cooled by 0.4C.

That phase also coincided with a decline in solar radiation over the same period.

After reaching their peak between 1935 and 1957, the German researchers found summer temperatures in the Arctic then dropped by “one or two degrees” to 1990.

The new lows came through a modern phase associated with high emissions, yet still dropped to temperatures not seen since 1870, just as the Industrial Age began.

“One thing is certain: this part of the Arctic warmed up after the end of the Little Ice Age around 250 years ago, cooled down from the middle of the last century and has been warming up again since 1990,” paleoclimatologist Dr Tatjana Bottger said.

And because News.com.au has a pro-warming agenda, it adds this bizarre caveat:

But before the climate sceptics start celebrating, the researchers also noted that since 1970, solar radiation’s influence on summer temperatures had weakened.

Although they don’t explain why the laws of solar physics have decided to change in 1970 after staying the same for 4.5 billion years. And next time there’s a warming scare story, will we see News.com.au writing “Before the alarmists start celebrating…”? I think not.

Read it here.