Further to the post of 19th October on Sun Spots the Max Planck society has released a graph of sun spot activity for the last 11,400 years. The sunspot activity determined by carbon-14 dating is represented by the line in blue. The line in red represents observations of sun spots since 1900.

Click on the image to see and bigger and better version.

You will note that apart from the fact that we are heading into decline on the normal 11 year cycle it has been 8,000 years since we have experienced the level of sun spot activity that we have experienced over the last 60 years.

Clearly this has an effect on global climate change but does it account for the global warming that the earth is experiencing at the moment? The answer is "a bit but probably not all". The sun spot activity has been elevated but relatively stable over the last 60 years. Global warming on the other hand has accelerated during the last 30 years.

This could, in part, be to a lag in the earth responding. When you subject an object to thermal radiation it does not heat up instantaneously and the earth is a mighty big object. It could also be that we are playing our part through the emission of greenhouse gases. Let us not forget however that we are mere specks of dust when the game is being played on a cosmic scale.

Read more about the recent sun spot activity here.
Read more on its effect on global warming here.