yes. weather people are aware of the sun. but thanks for pointing it out lol

Yes - it was a popular AGW denialst go-to in the early 2000s until the increasing temps continued completely independently from the 11-year solar cycle. It's been pretty thoroughly debunked now, e.g;

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-018-0293-3

Thanks for the paper. Interesting analysis.

I guess my thinking is more along the lines of the right sun spots and solar events in the right places - i.e. with enough energy directed in the right plane to affect earth systems. Maybe it could be fruitful to explore radio blackouts caused by solar storms - to see if correlation with temperatures could exist. That could falsify or verify such a correlation and further analysis as well. Just a thought

Solar irradiance has been declining for 35 years. Which is one way we know it isn't the sun.

Also the troposphere is warming rapidly while the stratosphere is cooling. Which is only something you expect from greenhouse gas related warming.

Also night time temps are increasing faster than daytime temps. Another fingerprint of greenhouse gas induced warming.

Also the earth is hotter than it's been in 100,000 years and scientists predicted that greenhouse gasses would cause exactly this much warming with this level of greenhouse gasses 50 years ago well before it was obvious what was going to happen.

So yeah. Not the sun. Good question though.