Is it time to put away your solar panels?

According to a recent piece from BBC News, We are all seeing rather less of the Sun, according to scientists who have been looking at five decades of sunlight measurements. They have reached the disturbing conclusion that the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth’s surface has been gradually falling. Paradoxically, the decline in sunlight may mean that global warming is a far greater threat to society than previously thought.

Sunlight was falling by 10% over the USA, nearly 30% in parts of the former Soviet Union, and even by 16% in parts of the British Isles. Although the effect varied greatly from place to place, overall the decline amounted to one to two per cent globally every decade between the 1950s and the 1990s. This phenomenon has been called “global dimming.”