global warming ? Sterns vs Landsheit
I watched the recent UK channel 4 programme trying to repudiate the hypothesis stating that man was responsible for global warming , and was frankly fascinated with part of the discussion. Amongst quite a lot of dross and scaremongering were a few star items. Firstly there was a presumption that global warming was a direct function of the sun's activity . A minor argument for this is that the sun is by far the major factor in the earth not freezing , never mind warming ! The major argument , however, is that there is a close correlation between sunspot activity/solar flux and the earth's temperature [Dr Landsheit et al] . {see graph} As I understand it [ being hopelessly out of date with statistical analysis] , there is a close correlation here up till the start of 1900, when the correlation starts to break down and after 1950 other factors seem to be coming to the fore. This was also mentioned in The Sterns report which agreed that the above was very likely true up ...