Sami Solanki of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany weighs in on the Sun's connection to Earth's climate. Sami led a team of scientists that for the first time quantitatively reconstructed the Sun's activity since the last Ice Age. They found that Earth hasn't been as hot as it is now for some 8,000 years. That's very hot! Dr. Solanski's team found an almost perfect correlation between the Sun's activity and global temperatures since the middle of 19th century. For example, when the length of solar cycle increased dramatically, as it did in from 1910 to 1940, so did the temperature on Earth; when it decreased, as it did from the 1940s to the 1960s, so too did Earth temperatures. Dr. Solanki's startling correlation marked a pivotal point in the climate change debate: Its publication, more than any other single event, caused researchers around the world to examine the role that the sun plays in heating and cooling our planet. It is important to recognise that Solanski doesn't discredit the AGW theory but says human greenhouse emissions could've only started playing a major role since 1980 when almost perfect relationship between solar cycles and temperature ended. Up until than Sun can explain pretty much all of the warming. Sami predicts that the hot phase of the Sun will continue for another couple of decades before beginning to taper off. If he is correct the implications are startling. Firstly, our impact on climate, if there is any, is a lot smaller than first anticipated and scary predictions of imminent GW doom are way of the mark. Secondly, costly CO2 mitigation programs will become unjustifiable as they would do even less than currently thought. http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=67ac2d90-ec56-4460-a831-75aacc20670d http://www.mps.mpg.de/projects/sun-climate/ P.S. Quick, search Exxon Secrets for some dirt on Sami!