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Thursday, Apr. 10, 2025

Is the sun responsible for global warming?

Sue Bin Park, Skeptical Science
no

Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, not solar variability, is responsible for the global warming observed since the Industrial Revolution.

Cyclical variations in Earth’s orbit and changes in the amount of energy released by the sun have caused gradual climatic changes over tens of thousands of years. However, total solar activity has been decreasing since the 1980s.

Meanwhile, global average temperatures have been rising at an accelerating rate. The ten hottest years on record were the most recent ten while 2024 was the hottest on record. The last time Earth experienced a cooler-than-average year was 1976.

In 2021, a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that solar fluctuations accounted for around 1% of the 1.1°C (2°F) of total global warming since 1850. The panel identified heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel use and other human activities as the primary driver.

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