Israeli Astrophysicist Suggests the Sun Drives Earth’s Climate, Not Carbon Dioxide

Nir Shaviv is an Israeli astrophysicist and chairman of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University’s physics department. He says that his research, and that of colleagues, suggests that rising CO2 levels play only a minor role in earth’s climate compared to the influence of the sun and cosmic radiation.

“Global warming clearly is a problem, though not in the catastrophic terms of Al Gore’s movies or environmental alarmists,” said Shaviv. “Climate change has existed forever and is unlikely to go away. But CO2 emissions don’t play the major role. Periodic solar activity does.”

But I thought that 97% of climate scientists agreed that human activity is the main driver of climate change?

“Only people who don’t understand science take the 97% statistic seriously,” said Shaviv. “Survey results depend on who you ask, who answers and how the questions are worded.  In any case, science is not a democracy. Even if 100% of scientists believe something, one person with good evidence can still be right.”

And for anyone attempting to dismiss Shaviv’s credentials?

Well, he enrolled at Israel’s Technion University – the country’s equivalent of MIT – at the age of 13 and earned an MA while serving in the Israel Defense Force’s celebrated 8200 Intelligence unit. He returned to Technion, where he earned his doctorate, afterward completing post-doctoral work at California Institute of Technology and the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics. He also has been an Einstein Fellow at The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton — we’re told to listen to the scientists, right?

But what about Shaviv’s supposed political agenda, he’s been corrupted from that angle, right?

“In American terms, I would describe myself as liberal on most domestic issues, somewhat hawkish on security,” Shaviv explained. “Nonetheless, the Trump administration’s position on global climate change is correct insofar as it rejects the orthodoxy of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

“Since [2003], literally billions have been spent on climate research,” Shaviv added. Yet, “the conventional wisdom hasn’t changed. The proponents of man-made climate change still ignore the effect of the sun on the earth’s climate, which overturns our understanding of twentieth-century climate change.”

He explained: “Solar activity varies over time. A major variation is roughly eleven years or more, which clearly affects climate. This principle has been generally known – but in 2008 I was able to quantify it by using sea level data.  When the sun is more active, there is a rise in sea level here on earth. Higher temperature makes water expand.  When the sun is less active, temperature goes down and the sea level falls – the correlation is as clear as day.

“Based on the increase of solar activity during the twentieth century, it should account for between half to two-thirds of all climate change,” he said. “That, in turn, implies that climate sensitivity to CO2 should be about 1.0 degree when the amount of CO2 doubles.”

The link between solar activity and the heating and cooling of the earth is indirect, he explained.

Galactic Cosmic Rays are a mixture of high-energy photons and sub-atomic particles accelerated toward Earth by supernova explosions and other violent events in the cosmos. Solar Cosmic Rays are the same, though their source is the sun.

Both Galactic and Solar Cosmic rays hitting Earth’s atmosphere create aerosols which, in turn, seed clouds (Svensmark et al) — making them a crucial player in earth’s weather and climate.

During solar minimum, like the one we’re entering now, the sun’s magnetic field weakens and the outward pressure of the solar wind decreases. This allows more cosmic rays from deep space to penetrate our planet’s atmosphere and nucleate more clouds.

“Clouds are the Earth’s sunshade, and if cloud cover changes for any reason, you have global warming — or global cooling.”  — Roy W. Spencer Ph.D.

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