Small little piece reporting that some scientists have found changes over the decades in the amount of sunlight reaching the surface of the earth.

American researchers say there has been a four per
cent rise in the amount of solar radiation reaching the planet’s
surface since 1990.

Several studies have shown
that up until the late 1980s, four to six per cent less sunlight
penetrated the atmosphere than during the 1950s.

Researchers
believe the shift could be explained by the varying quantity and
composition of aerosols, tiny solid and liquid particles suspended in
the air.

Before anyone starts leaping up and down and saying "See, See, climate change is all a myth! Nothing to do with CO2!!" they’d need to acknowledge a few things.

Absolutely no one (in the know that is) doubts that changes in CO2 could have a change on climate nor that it will. The question still unknown is how much. Is it x oC per 100 ppm CO2 or y oC per 100 ppm?

One of the things that determines this sensitivity, something also still unknown, is how much the pollution in the atmosphere ameliorates this effect, by the very mechanism noted above, reflecting incoming sunlight back into space. As the atmosphere becomes cleaner (less coal burning, more restrictions on petrol pollutants, diesel etc and we also seem to have a run of luck on volcanoes) we get more sunlight coming in, and according to the theory, thus making the CO2 sensitivity greater.

So it doesn’t really matter where you stand on the climate change issue, it’s all a pack of lies or we’re all dead tomorrow whatever we do (to describe extremes), this finding means that we have to pay more attention to the problem.

If these researchers are correct, and some of the recent warming is coming from more sunlight, not from CO2 concentrations (and similarly, if those who think it is the sun itself changing in variability who are correct, or, as I suspect, a mixture of them all [note, on very little evidence, that’s a hunch]) this does not mean we can all go home.  The warming is still happening….it might change what we need to do about it, but it doesn’t change the fact that we have to do something.

One thing it doesn’t change is Kyoto, which is the wrong way to do anything, but then we knew that already.

I still go with my optimistic take that technology will solve the CO2 problem…as before, from where I sit, I can see solar and hydrogen (which is a storage, not generation technology) with a decent slug of nuclear solving emissions for us over the next two to three decades.

But we’ll still have warming, as the atmosphere gets cleaner (if these researchers are right) so we’ll also still have to have adaptation.