Quote Originally Posted by andyandy
solar flares are another possibility but I dont think they're too well understood either ....but the sun goes through cycles of greatly increased solar activity
It's more of a problem with lack of solar activity. Solar flares are directly associated with sunspots. Sunspots were first seen...well ok I canâ??t remember but it was (perhaps) a few hundred years ago? Anyway, there were seen and then no one saw them for a 70 year period before they started showing up again. During these 70 or so years the Earths climate dropped enough so that lakes in Europe, that rarely had dealings with snow, froze over.

A guy in my astronomy class thinks that the opposite is happening today. That the Sun has had an increase in solar activity (flares and such) and that is why our Earthâ??s climate is warming up. We have a bet going over a bottle of wine between his and mine. My opinion is that humans are the main contributor. Itâ??ll probably turn out to be a factor of both, (It usually does) but itâ??s hard to say until the sunspot activity drops off again, if it does.