It is not the Sun

 Summer does not start until June 20th at 10:32 PM CDT. At this point, the earth’s north pole will be tilted towards the sun at its maximum angle of 23.5 degrees.  This will be our maximum exposure to the sun all year. Since it is already hot, I am not looking forward to the summer solstice.

It seems only yesterday I was tossing a few logs on the fire to take the chill out of the house. Now, when I am outside, my shadiest tree is my friend, my refuge. This abrupt turnaround does not seem fair.

While resting in the shade of my much-appreciated tree, I recollected my favorite picture demonstrating the value of shade to other creatures. The picture was taken by a South African pilot when he returned to the airport after lunch. A few appreciative females showed up to check out his aircraft. I counted seven lionesses lounging under the wings of his plane. How do you get a lioness to give up her comfortable shady spot? The lion is not only the King of Beasts, but the Queen.

I have heard, “If the sun wasn’t getting hotter, we wouldn’t have global warming!” The error in this statement is the sun is not getting warmer.  The total heat coming from the sun is called Total Solar Irradiance, (TSI). Scientists have been measuring TSI by satellite since 1978, with earth instruments before satellites, and can reconstruct TSI from proxy evidence prior to ground based instruments. The average TSI has remained relatively steady.

The TSI, since about 1980, has even decreased a wee bit. If the sun is the culprit responsible for warming (or cooling), we should have experienced a slight cooling trend. Instead, rapid warming has been the rule.  Rising temperatures resulting in dangerous weather is not the sun’s fault.

Additionally, the oceans and the troposphere have warmed while the stratosphere has cooled. The troposphere is the atmosphere within which we live, and the stratosphere sits miles above us. Similar to insulating our homes, the inside of our homes will warm while the roof, in this case the stratosphere, will cool. If the sun was responsible everything would warm.

NASA satellites have multiple functions vital to monitoring earth from outer space. Satellites are expensive but repeatedly pay for themselves by making it easier for us to understand how our earth works. The more knowledge NASA scientists bring us, the more confidently we can demand our elected leaders act to change, climate change.

For interesting details search “NASA Climate Sun” and “NASA Earth Monitoring Satellites”.

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