Solar Influence: Climate Change

National Research Council, The National Academies

This short video, the sixth in the National Academies Climate Change, Lines of Evidence series, explores the hypothesis that changes in solar energy output may be responsible for observed global surface temperature rise. Several lines of evidence, such as direct satellite observations, are reviewed.

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Notes from our reviewers

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A good video to show at the beginning of a unit on climate change. May need to break video up into sections because the information is very dense. Students will need scaffolding. Teachers may want to start and stop video for students to interact with data sets and key ideas.
This short video looks at an alternative hypothesis for observed global warming - i.e., a change in solar energy output. Recent direct satellite observations show no net increase in the last 30 years, while indirect estimates based on sunspot frequencies in 20th century suggest a rise in solar activity in the first part of century and a fall in the last part. But these indirect measurements are not consistent with the direct ones. Furthermore, careful observations of the temperatures in different atmospheric layers show a warming in the lower troposphere and cooling in the higher stratosphere. This is indicative of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere and not a changing solar output. Comments from expert scientist: Shows the well-known relationship between solar output and global average temperature, and correlates this relationship with sunspot activity. Demonstrates solar output (via sunspot activity as a proxy) has not increased over the last 50 years and as such it can't explain the increase in global average temperature.