By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Habibullo Abdussamatov

In a sharp rebuke to climate alarmists who believe human-generated carbon dioxide is responsible for causing catastrophic global warming, a Russian scientist has issued what amounts to a news flash announcing, "Sun Heats Earth!"

Habibullo Abdussamatov, the head of space research at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, has published a paper in which he tracks sunspot activity going back to the 19th century to argue that total sun irradiance, or TSI, is the primary factor responsible for causing climate variations on Earth, not carbon dioxide.

Moreover, Abdussamatov's analysis of sun activity data has led him to conclude that the Earth is entering a prolonged cooling phase because sunspot activity is currently in a phase regarded as a "minimum."

"Observations of the sun show that as for the increase in temperature, carbon dioxide is 'not guilty,'" Abdussamatov wrote, "and as for what lies ahead in the coming decades, it is not catastrophic warming, but a global, and very prolonged temperature drop."

Abdussamatov's paper is featured on page 140 of a report issued this year by the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, documenting more than 700 scientists who disagree over the proposition that global warming is a man-made, or anthropogenic phenomenon.

As historical support for his theory, Abdussamatov cited the observations in 1893 made by the English astronomer Walter Maunder, who came to the conclusion that from 1645 to 1715, sunspots had been generally absent, which coincided with the middle and coldest part of the severe temperature dip known as the "Little Ice Age" that stretched from the 14th to the 16th centuries.

Abdussamatov also observed "the most significant solar event in the 20th century was the extraordinarily high level and the prolonged (virtually over the entire century) increase in the energy radiated by the sun," resulting in the global warming that today climate alarmists believe is man-made phenomenon. (Parenthesis in original text.)

"The intense solar energy flow radiated since the beginning of the 1990s" is decreasing "and, in spite of conventional opinion, there is now an unavoidable advance toward a global decrease, a deep temperature drop comparable to the Maunder minimum," he wrote.

Abdussamatov warned that more precise determination of the date of the onset of the upcoming deep temperature drop and the depth of the decrease in the global temperature of the Earth may not be available for another eight years. He awaits measurements of the form and diameter of the sun currently being made from the Russian segment of the International Space Station and the calculations underway in the Russian-Ukrainan project"Astrometria" that Abdussamatov is now directing.

"The observed global warming of the climate of the Earth is not caused by the anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gasses, but by extraordinarily high solar intensity that extended over virtually the entire past century," Abdussamatov wrote. "Future decrease in global temperature will occur even if anthropogenic ejection of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere rises to record levels.

"Over the past decade, global temperature on the Earth has not increased; global warming has ceased, and already there are signs of the future deep temperature drop."

Abdussamatov concluded the Earth is no longer threatened by the catastrophic global warming forecast by some scientists, since warming passed its peak in 1998-2005.

"The global temperature of the Earth has begun its decrease without limits on the volume of greenhouse gas emissions by industrial developed countries," he wrote. "Therefore, the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol aimed to rescue the planet from the greenhouse effect should be put off at least 150 years."

In 2007, National Geographic published Abdussamatov's explanation that the global warming observed in the shrinking of the carbon dioxide "ice caps" near Mars South Pole was caused by increased solar activity.

"The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars," Abdussamatov said in the National Geographic article.