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Science journalist Michael Odenwald at the German news weekly FOCUS used to be quite the warmist, and maybe he still is. But his latest article here tells us that he may be opening up to other climate change explanations: natural factors such as solar activity.

Solar activity has quieted over the last years. Photo image: NASA

Odenwald’s article focusses on the sun’s recent solar activity, noting that the current cycle has only been about as half as active as normal and that the “sun in the second half of the 20th century was unusually active over several cycles.” He then notes how the earth’s climate has suspiciously stopped warming since the sun went quiet.

“Our planet could cool down”

Before citing the works of geophysicist Ilya Usoskin of the Finnish University Oulu, Odenwald writes:

The current low activity of the cosmic oven has possible dramatic consequences for our planet: Our planet could cool down. Perhaps the quiet sun is hidden behind another phenomenon over which scientists have long been wondering about: At around the year 2000 global warming came to a halt.”

Odenwald also informs readers that the high level of solar activity from 1950 bis 2009 indeed had been an outlier and that it is clear that “the global temperature, which has increased for more than 100 years, rose most strongly from 1975 to 2000. According to the IPCC the 30-year period from 1983 to 2012 in the northern hemisphere was the warmest in 1400 years. Roughly calculated it coincides with the most recent Grand Maximum.”

Warnings of a little ice age

Odenwald also writes that some climatologists believe “the real driver of climate change is our sun. Some are even warning of a new little ice age.”