A new NASA study has confirmed that it's greenhouse gases - not changes
in solar activity - that are the main cause of global warming.
The study involves an updated calculation of the difference between
the amount of solar energy absorbed by Earth's surface and the amount
returned to space as heat - and show that, despite unusually low solar
activity between 2005 and 2010, the planet continued to absorb more
energy than it returned to space.
Total solar irradiance - the amount of energy that hits each square
meter of the Earth's atmosphere - falls by about a tenth of a percent
during cyclical lulls in solar activity caused by shifts in the sun's
magnetic field.
Usually, solar minimums occur about every eleven years and last a
year or so, but the most recent minimum was the longest recorded, at
about three years.
And Hansen's team has concluded that the Earth absorbed over half a
watt more solar energy per square meter than it emitted throughout the
six-year study period. This imbalance is more than twice as much as the
fall in incoming solar energy between maximum and minimum solar
activity.
"The fact that we still see a positive imbalance despite the
prolonged solar minimum isn't a surprise, given what we've learned about
the climate system, but it's worth noting because this provides
unequivocal evidence that the sun is not the dominant driver of global
warming," says James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
According to the team's calculations, the imbalance implies that
carbon dioxide levels need to be reduced to about 350 parts per million
to restore the energy budget to equilibrium. They're currently 392 parts
per million, and scientists expect the figure to continue to rise in
the future.
The improvements in the calculations stem from better measurements of
ocean temperature, made by free-floating instruments that directly
monitor the temperature, pressure and salinity of the upper ocean to a
depth of 6,560 feet.
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