A report was circulated on social media saying that NASA conceded that man-made climate change is a hoax because the sun is responsible for global warming, not humans. This claim is false: the NASA website contains many pages declaring that human activities contribute to climate change.
“NASA admits that man-made climate change is a farce! In 1958, Nasa first noted that changes in the Earth’s solar orbit, coupled with changes in the earth’s axial tilt, were responsible for what climate scientists called ‘global warming’. Humans in no way heat, shape or shape the planet by using fossil fuels or eating beef, ”reads the report (here).
The NASA website clearly states that humans are causing climate change: “On earth, human activities are changing the natural greenhouse. Over the past century, the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil has increased the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). […] To a lesser extent, land clearing for agriculture, industry and other human activities has increased the concentrations of greenhouse gases. ”(Klimaat.nasa.gov/causes/)
Other sections of the website explain that the scientific consensus exists that humans contribute to climate change: “Multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals show that 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree: global warming trends during the last century is extremely likely due to human activities. ”(Here, Climate.nasa.gov/faq/)
In a question on the NASA website, asking if the sun causes global warming, the answer says, “No. The sun can affect the Earth’s climate, but it is not responsible for the warming we have seen over the past few decades. . ”(Here)
The changes in the Earth’s solar orbit and the changes to the Earth’s oblique axis mentioned in the social media report are part of Milankovitch cycles, explained on the NASA website by Alan Buis of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Tube explains in another article on the NASA website, visible here, that Milankovitch cycles cannot explain the current warming of the earth: ‘Milankovitch cycles work on long scales, ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years. In contrast, the earth’s current warming has occurred over time scales of decades to centuries. […] The earth is currently in an interglacial period (a period of milder climate between ice ages). If there were no human influences on the climate, scientists say that the current positions of the earth in the Milankovitch cycles predict that our planet would cool down, not warm up, and begin the continuation of a long-term cooling trend, which 6000 years started ago.
Reuters found no evidence of any discovery in 1958 as described in social reports. 1958 is the year that NASA (here) was founded and the founder of the Milankovitch cycle theory (here, here) passed away.
The allegation in the social media message has been circulating since at least 2019, fueled by an article by Natural News that was reviewed at the time by Snopes here and AFP here.
VERDICT
Untrue. NASA’s website clearly states that scientists are confident that the recent warming of the earth is mainly due to human activities, not to the sun or to Milankovitch cycles.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking team here.