Can't blame the Sun

One of my assertions that my friends have heard many times is that the Sun is in a violent period right now. Within the last few years more gigantic X class flares have been recorded than anytime previously. I even found a German paper that documented solar activity and shows that the Sun is about 15% brighter at some frequencies than twenty years ago. Of course, mankind has not had the instrumentation to measure and monitor solar flares for more than a couple of decades. Proxy measures such as the measurement of isotopes of beryllium in Greenland ice in fact suggest that fantastically more energetic solar flares have occurred within mankind's history.

Total irradiance of the Sun, though, has varied only 0.1% over many 11-year solar cycles. This doesn't seem like much, but the ice caps on Mars are disappearing. Some interaction between the planets and the Sun is occurring that we do not completely understand. UV from the Sun varies by factors of 2 to 10 times over the course of a Solar cycle. That the Martian ice caps are melting and subliming suggests the Sun sways our climate much more than previously thought.

I am not professional climatologist, and I'm being presented with conflicting views and evidence. Scientists generally attribute only small variations in climate to the Sun because of small variation in irradiance, but the Martian ice caps are melting. The Northern hemisphere suffered a miniature ice age in the 1600s to 1700s, a time that corresponds to diminished solar activity, called the Maunder Minimum. The current Martian icecap melting and the Maunder Minimum means the generally held view of scientists that the Sun's variations don't affect us much is just plain wrong.

On top of that, the Earth is just now coming out of an ice age. Even if it weren't for greenhouse gases the Earth would still be getting warmer.

Despite apparent evidence that Sun is playing a larger role in global warming than the general scientific community seems willing to admit, that should not influence our policies on global warming and the control of greenhouse gases. If the planet is warming for any reason it seems colossally stupid to exacerbate it with greenhouse gas production.