Leaked Draft of Climate Report Shows U.N. Conceding Solar Activity May Play Significant Role in Global Warming

Credit: AFP/Getty Images

In addition to revealing evidence of two decades of overestimated global warming, the recently leaked draft of a future U.N. report on climate change indicates that solar activity may play a larger role in global warming than previously thought.

The assertion that the vast majority of global warming is the result of man-man greenhouse gas emissions as opposed to natural causes has been a hotly debated issue.

“[Results] do suggest the possibility of a much larger impact of solar variations on the stratosphere than previously thought, and some studies have suggested that this may lead to significant regional impacts on climate,” reads a draft copy of the report put together by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Fox News identified the man who leaked the report at StopGreenSuicide blogger Alec Rawls. He told FoxNews.com that the discoveries about solar activity were his main motivation for the doc leak.

“The public needs to know now how the main premises and conclusions of the IPCC story line have been undercut by the IPCC itself,” Rawls wrote on his website in December.

More from FoxNews.com's conversation with Rawls:

Rawls blames the U.N. for burying its point about the effect of the sun in Chapter 11 of the report.

“Even after the IPCC acknowledges extensive evidence for ... solar forcing beyond what they included in their models, they still make no attempt to account for this omission in their predictions. ... It's insane,” he told FoxNews.com.

Some skeptical climatologists say that the statement in the U.N. draft report is important, but not game-changing.

“The solar component is real but not of sufficient magnitude to have driven most of the warming of the late 20th century,” Pat

Michaels, the former president of the American Association of State Climatologists, and current director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute, told FoxNews.com.

Climate change activists though say this is just a "trick" put forth by "climate contrarians."

“I see climate contrarians try this trick almost every time a big new solar study comes out. They somehow tend to neglect mentioning that solar variation is smaller than the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide,” Aaron Huertas of the Union of Concerned Scientists told FoxNews.com.

“The basic evidence is that solar activity has varied a bit while global temperature keeps going up,” he added.

Meanwhile, Rawls argues that solar activity remains at a historically high level, enough to continue warming the earth without an increase in activity.

“The simplest way to put it is: If you put a pot on the stove at the maximum temperature, and leave it on at that temperature -- are you telling me that the pot won’t keep warming?”

To read FoxNews.com's entire report, click here.