Global Warming Caused by Sun

The Washington Times reports that a new study has come out that further questions the human cause of global warming. Seems that the sun may actually be responsible for the warming that has occurred over the last century.

The sun is burning hotter than usual, offering a possible explanation for global warming that needs to be weighed when proceeding with expensive efforts to cut emissions of greenhouse gases, Swiss and German scientists say.

"The sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures," said Sami Solanki, the director of the renowned Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, who led the research.

"The sun is in a changed state. It is brighter than it was a few hundred years ago and this brightening started relatively recently - in the last 100 to 150 years," Mr. Solanski said.

This sunspot theory - more sunspots cause warmth, less cause cold - has been around for quite a while. Over the last few hundred years there has been a fairly good correlation between sunspots and temperature variation on Earth. Of course, these correlations are ignored because there is really nothing we can do about the number of sunspots, and the environmentalists couldn't really blame the US for increased sunspots. If this is really a factor in global warming all the doommongers would have to find other things to scare us with.