Global Warming !

Could solar activity be related to Global Warming ?

Solar activity reaches new high (December 2003) - News - PhysicsWeb

"Using modelling techniques, the Finnish team was able to extend data on solar activity back to 850 AD. The researchers found that there has been a sharp increase in the number of sunspots since the beginning of the 20th century. They calculated that the average number was about 30 per year between 850 and 1900, and then increased to 60 between 1900 and 1944, and is now at its highest ever value of 76.

“We need to understand this unprecedented level of activity,” Usoskin told PhysicsWeb. “Is it is a rare event that happens once a millennium - which means that the Sun will return to normal - or is it a new dynamic state that will keep solar activity levels high?” The Finnish-German team also speculates that increased solar activity may be having an effect on the Earth’s climate, but more work is needed to clarify this."

Naw - gotta be "fossil fuels"

But from Nature

"Although climate models differ in their estimation of the Sun’s contribution to recent warming, even those that include spectrally varying changes in solar irradiance conclude that anthropogenic causes are the prime factor.The high probability that this episode will end soon is not likely to cut us much slack in controlling global warming unless we reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. But because the solar influence may be more regionally variable than the effects of greenhouse gases, model-based predictions ofregional climate change may be improved by this study.It is at the regional level that climate change will have the greatest impact on society."