But this leads me to another question: how can the IPCC claim that they fully understand and have accounted for solar variation, if they don't know why sunspot activity lags behind solar induced temperature changes?
Why does the peak in temperature tend to occur before the peak in sunspot activity? This doesn't mean the solar theory should be tossed out the window, there is still a strong correlation, the hypothesis just needs to be modified. The best possible explanation I can think of is that the peak in solar activity might occur slightly before the peak in sunspots; perhaps sunspot activity actually has a slight lag behind solar irradiance. There could be other explanations as well.
But this leads me to another question: how can the IPCC claim that they fully understand and have accounted for solar variation, if they don't know why sunspot activity lags behind solar induced temperature changes?
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
srwickson 4 years ago
Why does the peak in temperature tend to occur before the peak in sunspot activity? This doesn't mean the solar theory should be tossed out the window, there is still a strong correlation, the hypothesis just needs to be modified. The best possible explanation I can think of is that the peak in solar activity might occur slightly before the peak in sunspots; perhaps sunspot activity actually has a slight lag behind solar irradiance. There could be other explanations as well.
srwickson 4 years ago