Is the Sun to blame? NO!

Throughout our class we discussed a lot about what factors influenced the Earth's recent warming. Climate change skeptics have laid blame on the Sun, saying that the Sun is changing or is closer or is getting warmer. It does happen, the Earth and the Sun are not at a fixed distance, and the Sun can change in intensity, but global warming is not happening just because of the Sun. As you can see in the figure below, the Sun has a natural pattern of rising and falling intensity, but the warming we've been experiencing is attributed to other causes (cough cough, humans). While the warming of the Earth appears to be following the warming of the Sun, our warming continues to shoot up at a rapid rate, while the Sun falls back into its natural cycle.

Figure 1: Surface Temperature versus the Sun's Output
Figure Source: http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/images/indicators/solar-variability.gif
This figure compares the Sun's cycle to the rapid increase in the Earth's global temperature.