No, NASA has not admitted that climate change occurs due to Earth's solar orbit

By: Vivek J
June 21 2023

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Context

An article by Sign of the Times claiming that NASA admits that climate change is caused by the Earth's solar orbit has gone viral on social media. One Twitter user shared the article with the caption, "NASA admits climate change occurs because of changes in Earth's solar orbit, not because of SUVs and fossil fuels -- Earth Changes." 

The article, dated August 30, 2019, refers to human-made global warming as a "hoax" and claims that NASA has known for more than 60 years that changes in the Earth's weather patterns are "completely natural and normal." As proof, the blog post has added a link to the Hal Turner Radio Show website, where similar claims are made. Hal Turner has a history of spreading false and misleading information.

We did not find such references to NASA admitting it in the blog post shared on Twitter, which has garnered over 3 million views at the time of writing. The blog post also failed to provide any links showing NASA's statement. 

In Fact

We did not find any announcements or statements by NASA claiming that the Earth's solar orbit causes climate change. There are several publications on NASA's official website detailing the human factor and the excessive use of fossil fuels that have directly contributed to climate change in recent years. 

One such publication titled 'How Do We Know Climate Change Is Real?' says, "The current warming trend is different because it is the result of human activities since the mid-1800s and is proceeding at a rate not seen over many recent millennia. It is undeniable that human activities have produced the atmospheric gases that have trapped more of the sun's energy in the Earth system. This extra energy has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land, and widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere have occurred."

In another publication titled "Is the sun causing global warming?" NASA notes that "One of the "smoking guns" that shows that the sun is not causing global warming, comes from looking at the amount of solar energy that hits the top of the atmosphere. Since 1978, scientists have been tracking this using sensors on satellites, which tell us that "there has been no upward trend in the amount of solar energy reaching our planet." 

NASA further noted that if the sun was causing global warming, its effects should be seen across all the layers of the atmosphere. However, only the surface is warming while the stratosphere is cooling, noted NASA. 

Furthermore, the recently shared blog post has been found on social media with such false claims dating back to 2019. Reuters has previously fact-checked these claims. Commenting on the claims in June 2022, a spokesperson for NASA told Reuters that scientists are "confident Earth's recent warming is primarily due to human activities — specifically, the direct input of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into Earth's atmosphere from burning fossil fuels or other anthropogenic activities."

The Verdict

NASA has not claimed that the Earth's solar orbit is the cause of climate change. Instead, it has clearly stated that human activity is one of the leading causes of the temperature rise witnessed in recent years. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.