Solar irradiance
It’s reasonable to assume that changes in the sun’s energy output would cause the climate to change, since the sun is the fundamental source of energy that drives our climate system.
Indeed, studies show that solar variability has played a role in the past climate change. For example, a decrease in solar activity is thought to have triggered the little ice age between approximately 1650 and 1850, when Greenland was largely cut off by ice from 1410 to the 1720s and glaciers advanced in the alps.
But several lines of evidence show that current global warming cannot be explained by changes in energy from the sun
• Sine 1750 the average amount of energy coming from the sun either remained constant or increased slightly.
• If the warming were caused by a more active sun, the scientists would expect to see warmer temperature in all layer of the atmosphere. Instead, they have observed a cooling in the upper atmosphere, and a warming at the surface and in the lower parts of the atmosphere . that’s because greenhouse gases are trapping heat in the lower atmosphere.
• Climate models that include solar irradiance changes can’t reproduce the observed temperature trend over the past century or more without including a rise in greenhouse gases.