It's Not the Sun!
April 20, 2012; 11:04 AM
Over the next week or so I am going to focus on some of the basics of climate change and specifically on climate change indicators with the help of the National Climatic Data Center.
It is clear that global surface temperatures have been rising over the long term, but can this be blamed on the sun?
The sun continues to go through its normal 11-year cycle of energy output with the usual peaks and valleys, but there has been no net increase of solar energy being received on Earth since satellites started measuring solar energy since 1978.
Over the same period, the global temperature trend has risen steadily, making it highly unlikely that solar influence has been a significant driver of global temperature change over the past few decades, according to the NCDC.
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of AccuWeather, Inc. or AccuWeather.com