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Solar output is one of four major influences on the climate. And over the long term, it is increasing - like billions of years. The sun spots are a short term (22 year) cycle, and we recently came through a very unusual *low* sun spot activity (the nadir with almost no spots at all) and even with this lull, temperatures did not decline very much, and now that sun spots are on the upswing, we are seeing lots of new record high temperatures.
We have our strong magnetosphere to thank for not being toasted. It prevents our atmosphere from being stripped away by the so-called solar wind. If our sun follows the typical pattern for medium sized stars, we will have it for another 5 billion years, or so, before it expands to the size of the whole solar system, and then collapses back down much smaller than before.
And how do we know that? Science - the same way we know about our climate.
Q: If 97% of all astrophysicists agreed that there is an asteroid the size of Alaska on a path to hit the earth in exactly 21 years 242 days 6 hours and *about* 7 minutes, and the remaining 3% where saying that the asteroid will miss us by a mile (passing through our atmosphere), and some saying no it is a gaseous object and we have nothing to worry about, and some saying it will pass well outside of the Moon's orbit, and a few say that it won't happen until 500 years from now on the next orbit, and some saying no the data doesn't support it at all - which group of scientists should we follow? What if some of the 3% are actually molecular physicists and a few are former astronauts, but all of the 97% are PhD's in astrophysics?
With all that doubt and uncertainty - do we trust any of them?
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