Unfortunately scientists have only the collected sunspot data from the mid-1700s with which to use to integrate into a proper model for global climatic interpretation. Why is this important? Currently the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is moving to the next stage of preparation for their next major report, the Fifth Assessment Report, with the first of three government and expert reviews to take place between now and May 2013. In this report, the IPCC plans to downplay the alarmist prognostications of the past five years (since from their former Fourth Assessment Report) while taking credit for the global warming conditions caused by natural climatic drivers. Indeed the IPCC is expected to continue carefully preaddress their inadequate considerations for any alternate climatic models. In spite of previous sponsorings of “call for papers” on the considered causes and drivers for the current global warming conditions by the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (IPSL), the IPCC is expected to manage the presentation of such alternate data to support their current model rather than properly integrate any of it into a better model.

Any collected data from all sources should present support for a common model for global warming, but currently all the collected data does not agree on the same cause and effect. While the current consensus is to support the previous IPCC reports promulgating support for Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) model and dismiss or deny the influence of other Natural Global Warming (NGW) models, most of this collected data only represents a short term perspective of our overall climatic conditions. Indeed most, if not all, if the NGW model long term data has been consistently rationalized as inconclusive or as having little bearing on the current climatic conditions in accordance with the AGW model. The problem is in the way data is being represented; per Chapter 6, Box 6.2, of Work Group 1 study for AR4, “In conclusion, the explanation of glacial-interglacial CO2 variations remains a difficult attribution problem. It appears likely that a range of mechanisms have acted in concert (e.g., Köhler et al., 2005). The future challenge is not only to explain the amplitude of
glacial-interglacial CO2 variations, but the complex temporal evolution of atmospheric CO2 and climate consistently.”  Along this same theme, “Starting with the ice ages that have come and gone in regular cycles for the past nearly three million years, there is strong evidence that these are linked to regular variations in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun, the so-called Milankovitch cycles (Figure 1).” and “Climate model simulations confirm that an Ice Age can indeed be started in this way, while simple conceptual models have been used to successfully ‘hindcast’ the onset of past glaciations based on the orbital changes. The next large reduction in northern summer insolation, similar to those that started past Ice Ages, is due to begin in 30,000 years.” Therefore the IPCC admittedly states that the only long term cause for global climatic conditions would be the glacial-interglacial cycles supported via the so-called Milankovitch cycles.

Per Chapter 6 of Work Group 1, Frequently Asked Question 6.1, “There are three fundamental ways the Earth’s radiation balance can change, thereby causing a climate change: (1) changing the incoming solar radiation (e.g., by changes in the Earth’s orbit or in the Sun itself), (2) changing the fraction of solar radiation that is reflected (this fraction is called the albedo – it can be changed, for example, by changes in cloud cover, small particles called aerosols or land cover), and (3) altering the longwave energy radiated back to space (e.g., by changes in greenhouse gas concentrations).” Again while there are NGW models, as well as the IPCC AGW model, to support
these short term contributors for global climatic conditions, the IPCC continues to focus on merely one aspect of their list in support of the AGW model. In Section 2.2 – Driver’s of Climate Change (AR4 Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report) states, “There is very high confidence that the global average net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming…”  In Section 2.4 – Attribution of Climate Change (AR4 Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report) states, “The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice mass loss, support the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that global climate change of the past 50 years can be explained without external forcing and very likely that it is not due to known natural causes alone. During this period, the sum of solar and volcanic forcings would likely have produced cooling, not warming.” However these AR4 assessments represent a total disregard for NGW models based on Solar Cycle studies, representative of the first considered cause, declaring the opposite effect.

Solar Cycles 18 through 23, which began in February 1944 and ended in December 2008, provided a natural force that was understood as warming and not cooling. In fact, Solar Cycles 18, 19, 21, and 22 are representative of the highest solar maximums for the last 3 centuries. Solar Cycle 19 alone would have been the cause for the climatic boost in the dramatic increase of the global temperature; a fact that the IPCC attributed to the AGW increased industrial activity of the mid 20^th century (see Figure 2). Therefore these solar cycles alone could have been the sole climatic drivers for the recent and dramatic increase in our planet’s global warming condition over the past 60+ years. More than implication, a recent paper published by the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar Terrestial Physics (74) 2012 87-93 and authored by Souza Echer et al. suggests that solar cycles, to a substantial extent, drive global temperatures, and that likely through amplification mechanisms. The paper is titled: On the relationship between global, hemispheric and latitudinal averaged air surface temperature (GISS time series) and solar activity - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136468260800268X. Additional correlating research - http://icecap.us/images/uploads/solarcyclestory.pdf, demonstrating these contributions for the short term climatic change drivers suggest that the changes in greenhouse gas concentrations are far less a factor than currently promoted - http://www.john-daly.com/theodor/co2new.htm.

This falls back to the IPCC premise that the naturally reoccurring glacial-interglacial cycles are too slow and long range to account for the dramatic changes since the recent “Little Ice Age” (a general cooling of the climate between the years 1150 and 1460 and a very cold climate between 1560 and 1850). Early records of sunspots indicate that the Sun went through a period of inactivity in the late 17th century. Very few sunspots were seen on the Sun from about 1645 to 1715, a period known as the Maunder Minimum (see Figure 3). In fact, out of the 5 NASA considered causes of the "Little Ice Age"(short-term cooling period from A.D. 1400 to about A.D. 1860), the sunspots theory ranks as the highest probable cause for this global climatic influence - http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/02mar_spotlesssun/.  The IPCC assessment for the “Little Ice Age” was all but dismissed (per chapter 6 of work group 1 study for AR4) stating, “Palaeoclimate science has made significant advances since the 1970s, when a primary focus was on the origin of the ice ages, the possibility of an imminent future ice age, and the first explorations of the so-called Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period.”

Additionally, a constant premise of the IPCC AGW model has been the contention that ice core data supports the notion that the current levels of CO2 concentration are highest is historical record (see Figure 4). Yet if the ice core data is indeed a record of past atmospheric concentration, then the lack of ice would limit the viability of properly recording such data. As we have no way to know how the resultant record of our own current CO2 concentrations will hold up upon the continuing ice melt, it is not unreasonable to believe that past recorded data would have involved a similar inconsistency; i.e. as the climatic condition reaches interglacial maximum, the atmospheric ice core records are erased. Only upon the eventual lowering of global temperature, and corresponding lower of greenhouse gas (including CO2) concentrations, would the ability to maintain an ice core record once again be viable. So while ice core data does demonstrate climatic patterns, it cannot relate to us what the highest temperature, or the highest CO2 concentrations, may have peaked to in past glacial-interglacial cycles.

So even as the Fifth Assessment Report from the IPCC is being reviewed and evaluated, Mother Nature will be conducting an experiment of her own. If, as predictive for the remainder of this solar cycle 24, the recent spike in solar activity begins to wane, then we should expect to see a corresponding decrease in the global temperature consistent with the lessened solar activity. However if the global temperature continues to rise in spite of any lessened solar activity, then we can be more confident of the IPCC’s AGW model perspective.