George Taylor leaves out the most relevant facts in his column "Blame sunspots for cool winter, spring weather," March 15, 2009.

While it's true a La Nina is currently taking place and probably contributing to our regionally cool temperatures, the fact is that temperatures elsewhere around the globe continue to be significantly above average, especially in Siberia and the Arctic. They have also been above normal in most of south Asia and over the Indian Ocean, and, if you have noticed, Australia has recently been suffering record droughts and extreme loss of life in forest fires. There is no "global cooling" taking place.

Climate scientists have been monitoring our sun in detail for decades, and quantifying the role of sunspots. While George Taylor merely provides hand-waving arguments and no numbers or hard science, climatology has found that the irradiance of the sun varies by only about 0.1 percent from solar peak to solar minimum. The effect of the greenhouse gases man has placed in out atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide and methane, are about 7 to 10 times larger.

For some reason Taylor continues to ignore this hard scientific evidence and promulgates his pseudo-scientific, hand-waving arguments, which have time and again been shown to be insufficient. His essay is in error.

Instead of publishing columns, he should concentrate on making his case in the scientific literature and among its rigorous processes.

David Appell, St. Helens