The sun is the principle driver of climate change...

A nice op-ed in the Financial Post today by Benny Peiser of the Liverpool John Moores University on climate change.

Six eminent researchers from the Russian Academy of Science and the Israeli Space Agency have just published a startling paper in one of the world's leading space science journals. The team of solar physicists claims to have come up with compelling evidence that changes in cosmic ray intensity and variations in solar activity have been driving much of the Earth's climate. They even provide a testable hypothesis, predicting that amplified cosmic ray intensity will lead to an increase in global cloud cover which, according to their calculations, will result in "some small global cooling over the next couple of years."

I remain decidely skeptical of such long-term climate predictions. Nevertheless, it is quite remarkable that the global mean temperature, as recorded by NASA's global Land-Ocean Temperature Index, has actually dropped slightly during the last couple of years --notwithstanding increased levels of CO2 emissions. Two more years of cooling and we even see the reappearance of a new Ice Age scare.

It really appears that the Sun is the main drive of climate change.