Understood, and that's a good post I had noticed earlier you linked to. It seems more plausible as a factor than a, what, .01% change in the sun's temperature. Now, it's possible the authors of this article may have alluded to the effect of "solar storms" couched in terms such as increased "solar activity" or "solar energy", but it appears their theory only addressed the miniscule temperature change as the primary mover.
Just curious, is the other theory you linked to VERY new?
Cosmic Ray was first proposed about 30 years ago, but mechanism was really only solidified about 10 years ago. Svensmark is the leading proponent now, and is leading the CLOUD09 project at CERN. It was critiqued as “doesn’t agree with data” but that is increasingly being shown untrue. There is a “delay” of 7-30 days after cosmic ray initiates the nucleation which is only now being realized which made the correlation with data difficult to see. Svensmark et al recently showed that to be true, though. The CLOUD09 experiment will go a very long way toward advancing it.
Roy Spencer’s hypothesis published in last 2-3 years. He is pretty much out in front on that one. It is a very strong positive feedback for solar irradiance. I would not be surprised if his proposal fits in to reinforce the process proposed in this article, but that will be up to him and these researchers to hash out.
The process mentioned in this article, stratophere/ocean combo, is brand new.
Bottom line, though, is that the “no way for solar irradiance to be amplified that we know of” the fool climate models insist on up to now is clearly inaccurate. That means that in the future, the GCMs are going to have to pay much more attention to these “inadequate” changes in the Sun to remain credible. (This finally vindicates Lassen and others who consistently maintain the strong correlation of Earth’s temperature with sunspots/ solar cycles for decades and even centuries demonstrates a stronger than “understood” influence of the Sun.)