As Earth’s energy source and a variable star, the Sun has been credited over the past century with causing climate change that is a significant fraction of industrial-era warming… or so small as to be undetectable. Now, with more than forty years of space-based observations of solar irradiance and multiple geophysical quantities, and extensive advances in modelling solar irradiance and terrestrial variability, we can clarify with greater certainty the extent to which the Sun alters Earth’s environment, especially since 1850. This talk summarizes current observational evidence for the Sun’s role in global climate change and ozone-depletion recovery, and discusses the scientific (and societal) consequences of faulty detection and attribution.
