A Twitter user @GinaSaySo on May 18 wrote that the sun is solely responsible for climate change.
The tweet reads: “🚨BREAKING: Except for the 0.04% of trace gas (CO2), the sun is solely responsible for climate change. #ClimateScam.”
The tweet had 30 retweets and 85 likes.
Verification
The sun
Britannica defines the sun as a star in the solar system, with Earth and other celestial bodies revolving around it. It holds over 99% of the system’s mass and is a primary energy source, including the light and heat necessary to sustain life on Earth.
Made up of a mixture of gases in plasma form, the sun emits energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation (EMR) that travels at the speed of light to reach Earth.
The Role of the Sun in Climate Change
According to NASA, the sun is vital to sustaining life on Earth by providing warmth and influencing the planet’s climate.
However, while subtle changes in Earth’s orbit around the sun have been responsible for past ice ages, the rapid and increasing global warming seen in recent decades cannot be linked to solar activity.
Although the sun’s brightness level fluctuates slightly during its 11-year solar cycle, these changes have only minor effects on Earth’s atmosphere and surface. Meanwhile, the warming caused by human-produced greenhouse gases is significantly more potent than any effects from recent solar activity, with greenhouse gas emissions creating over 270 times more warming since 1750 than the sun’s slight extra warming.
Satellites have been observing the sun’s energy output for over 40 years, and during that time, the sun’s brightness has risen or fallen by less than 0.1 percent. While the sun is an integral part of our planet’s ecosystem, human actions currently have a much more significant impact on the Earth’s climate.
Is the Sun Solely Responsible for Climate Change?
Human activities have been said to release large amounts of carbon dioxide[1] [2] and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, changing the Earth’s climate.
Natural processes, such as changes in the sun’s energy and volcanic eruptions, have also been said to affect the Earth’s climate but are not as severe as human activities.
The sun is part of the natural processes influencing the Earth’s climate, but climate changes are not caused by natural causes alone.
Changes in the amount of energy output from the sun have been found to have a minimal effect on climate changes observed in recent decades. Since satellites began measuring energy input from the sun in 1978, there has been no significant net increase in the sun’s output, despite global surface temperatures rising.
The European Union Climate Action says that human activities such as burning fossil fuels and farming livestock add enormous amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, which increases the greenhouse effect[3] [4] and causes global warming.
Scientists have ruled the sun from playing a significant role in global warming. Research has shown that there has been no significant net variation in the sun’s energy output from the late 1970s to the present when the world has been witnessing increasing global warming.
Rating
False – The sun is not solely responsible for climate change. Although the sun is the main contributor to Earth’s climate system, it has had little impact on the current climate changes compared to other factors such as carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
This fact-check was produced by Justina Asishana, a Journalist with The Nation Newspaper with support from Code for Africa’s PesaCheck and African Fact-Checking Alliance network.
@tinaasishana@gmail.com You can attach the fact-check you did on CO2 emissions contributing to global warming here.
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@tinaasishana@gmail.com You can attach the fact-check on greenhouse gases trapping heat here
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