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The Sun is an obvious major player in possible contenders for an external source of warming. So are cosmic rays, and the possible effect of solar radiation on them. The British Royal Society has now weighed in to the solar issue, saying that's not the case this time, and in fact the Sun’s output has been declining for the last 20 years. So it's cooling down a bit, but we're heating up a lot.
They say the Sun's effect on cosmic rays may have affected climate in the past, but not this time. Cosmic ray data was also considered unreliable, and largely out of date, since most of it dated back to no later than 1980. The scientists investigating the Sun’s effect on global warming used a simple check and comparison between cosmic rays, solar output and global temperatures. They also made the innovative move of using current data, apparently.
In the earlier part of the 20th century, the Sun’s output did increase slightly, but that trend has been in reverse since about 1985. A very messy debate started among meteorologists, astronomers, and anyone with a computer regarding the 11 year solar cycle, which is believed to affect El Nino/La Nina, the major engines of normal global climate fluctuations.
Some pretty bizarre theories went with the Solar heating argument, not least of which was the one that Mars heated up at roughly the same rate as Earth over the last year or so. Regardless of the fact that the idea fails to acknowledge that the two planets are at different distances from the Sun, and have utterly different atmospheres, seasons, gravity, radiation belts, that information was used to “disprove” global warming on Earth over the last few decades.
A "cosmic" source of radiation would also have to deal with those differences. A common source could not affect two different entities in exactly the same way, in any event. Thermodynamics isn't a lottery, even if the global warming debate often is.
It’s a matter of opinion if these guys can tell the time, too.
(Actually, since we don’t know enough about Martian dust to know if it can act as a thermal blanket, maybe we might try doing an atmospheric analysis before coming up with these half witted theories?)
Solar cause of global warming is now dead as an issue. It’s taken an awfully long time to bury it.
