At face value, the data seem incredibly important,' Michael Lockwood, a space physicist at the University of Reading, told Nature.com.
'If solar activity is out of phase with solar radiative forcing, it could change our understanding of how processes in the troposphere and stratosphere act to modulate Earth's climate.'
'The findings could prove very significant when it comes to understanding, and quantifying, natural climate fluctuations,' he added.
'But no matter how you look at it, the Sun's influence on current climate change is at best a small natural add-on to man-made greenhouse warming.'
'All the evidence is that the vast majority of warming is anthropogenic. It might be that the solar part isn't quite working the way we thought it would, but it is certainly not a seismic rupture of the science.'
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