Sunspots, Not CO2 is Cause of Climate Change

Charlie Perry is a research hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, received a Ph.D in physics and astronomy at The University of Kansas. He also has spent time as a meteorologist.

Perry does not subscribe to the CO2 theory of global warming, rather, he believes firmly in the effect of sunspots as the source of global warming, and global cooling. A sunspot, Perry explains, is a location on the sun's surface that is cooler than the surrounding area. When there are more sunspots, the sun's surface becomes more dynamic and an opposite effect takes place, releasing more heat and energy when other parts of the sun become hotter.

A solar minimum is when the amount of spots on the sun is at a low and the reverse is true for a solar maximum. The complete solar cycle is about an 11-year process. Perry says the current solar minimum could continue into 2010.

"There's a fair chance it will be a cooler winter than last year," Perry said. There is a feeling from some in the scientific community the Earth may be entering into a grand minimum, which is an extended period with low numbers of sunspots that creates cooler temperatures.

Perry said there’s evidence the Earth's temperature may be slightly decreasing, but local weather patterns are much more affected by the jet stream than solar activity. However, Perry said snow in Buenos Aires and southern Africa, the best ski season in Australia and a cooler Arctic region are some of the evidence for a cooling period. So, Perry said, sunspots may have a far greater impact on weather than previously thought.

Perry is a proponent of the cosmic ray and clouds theory as opposed to the CO2 global warming theory to explain recent global warming trends. The cosmic ray and clouds theory was first put forth twenty years ago by Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark, and his been accepted by the scientific community until the less defensible CO2 theory emerged recently.

In a July 2007 issue of Discover magazine, Svensmark said the theory is simply that solar activity can alter the amount of clouds in the atmosphere, which affects the temperature of the Earth. More clouds mean a cooler Earth because more of the sun's heat is being reflected. Fewer clouds equal a warmer Earth.

Perry says data indicates global temperature fluctuations correlate to a statistically significant degree with the length of the sunspot cycle. Longer cycles are associated with cooler temperatures.

Johan Feddema, acting chair and professor of geography at KU, studies global warming. He is skeptical of any one phenomenon being the direct cause of global warming because there are so many climate variables that factor into global temperatures.

The CO2 theory is so thin, and contradicts most other theories regarding weather fluctuations, it's difficult to imagine how the CO2 theory gained any traction at all. Credit must go to Al Gore, and his now discredited "An Inconvenient Truth" film which environmentalists pushed blindly around the globe, much like Silent Spring was blindly accepted a generation ago.