MetalJeff wrote:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sun_output_030320.html
I believe that article was the point he was (rightly)trying to make.
That's a pretty old article and it admits itself that they wouldn't be able to accurately say if the sun's activity was unusual for a few years.
For a more recent answer, we have the just published article "Solar activity during the last 1000yr inferred from radionuclide records" published in the Jan 2007 issue of the journal
Quaternary Science Reviews. Which states:
Quote:
In general, the 10Be and 14C records exhibit good agreement that allows us to obtain reliable estimates of past solar magnetic modulation of the radionuclide production rates. Differences between 10Be records from Antarctica and Greenland indicate that climatic changes have influenced the deposition of 10Be during some periods of the last 1000yr. The radionuclide-based reconstructions of past changes in solar activity do not always agree with the sunspot record, which indicates that the coupling between those proxies is not as close as has been sometimes assumed. The tree-ring 14C record and 10Be from Antarctica indicate that recent solar activity is high but not exceptional with respect to the last 1000yr.
(Bolding mine)
Coupled with the temperature charts of the
past 1000 years, it would indicate that solar acticity is not significantly responsible for the changes. Backing up this theory is "Climate change and solar variability: What's new under the sun?" published in August 2006 journal,
Earth & Planetary Science Letters.
Quote:
Overall, the role of solar activity in climate changes — such as the Quaternary glaciations or the present global warming — remains unproven and most probably represents a second-order effect.
Sorry for the lack of links since I pulled that from an EBSCO journal search. I suppose you can go find the articles on your own, if you'd like.
Edited, Feb 6th 2007 12:26pm by Jophiel