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| Edited By: |Source: ANI |Updated: Apr 13, 2018, 03:00 AM IST
Scientists at the Imperial College London found that as solar activity waned at the end of one of the sun's 11-year cycles, data showed that the amount of light and heat reaching the earth rose rather than dropped.
They also believe that during the next upturn of the cycle, when solar activity increases, there might be a cooling effect at the earth's surface.
Long-term analysis suggests that this actually provides further evidence that the heating of the planet is more than a natural, cyclical phenomenon.
Over the past century, overall solar activity has been increasing and should therefore cool the earth, yet global temperatures have increased.
"These results were challenging for what we thought we know about the sun's effect on our climate," The Telegraph quoted Professor Joanna Haigh of the Imperial College as saying.
"But the results only showed us a snapshot of the sun's activity and its behaviour over the three years of our study could be an anomaly," she said.
Haigh added that further studies would be required to confirm the theory. She denied that it would fuel scepticism about climate change research.
"I think it doesn't give comfort to the climate sceptics at all. It may suggest that we don't know much about the sun. It casts no aspersions at all upon the climate models," she said.
The research was published in the journal Nature.
