I stumbled upon a couple of articles, claiming that the Milankovitch Cycle is completely responsible for the climate changes we experience today. I read through the articles and the linked NASA articles, but I didn't find anything corresponding to warming of the Earth whatsoever. Here's the original article - https://www.naturalnews.com/2019-08-30-nasa-admits-climate-change-not-caused-by-suvs-fossil-fuels.html
another article linked to the first - https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/en/news-page/world/nasa-climate-change-and-global-warming-caused-by-changes-in-earth-s-solar-orbit-and-axial-tilt-not-man-made-causes

NASA article (part 1 of 3) - https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Milankovitch/milankovitch.php

The essence of my question is, is there any proof for/against the theory that the Milankovitch Cycle fully explains the current global warming tendencies? Any other applicable arguments to supplement the discussion are also welcomed

The article itself contains the central problem with their thesis.

“… orbital variations remain the most thoroughly examined mechanism of climatic change on time scales of tens of thousands of years and are by far the clearest case of a direct effect of changing insolation on the lower atmosphere of Earth.”

Milankovitch cycles happen on a scale of tens of thousands of years. And we are indeed in an interglacial warm period. However those long-term cycles do not explain the observed temperature variations in mere decades.

Furthermore, the observed changes in solar radiation, 0.05 Watts/m^2, do not match with the change necessary to produce the observed climate change, 2.8 Watts/m^2.

IPCC Fifth Assessment Report

NASA Earth Observatory: World of Change: Global Temperatures

These sort of "gotcha" articles come from a gross (and perhaps willful) misunderstanding of how climate models work, and expect naivety on the part of thousands of climate scientists to not have included something as obvious as Milankovitch cycles in their models.

Good climate models contain known natural and human factors. They include radiative forcing, changes in how much energy we receive and retain from the Sun. These include the very well known Milankovitch cycles. The models which exclude human factors do not match our observations. The ones which do include human factors match.

Union Of Concerned Scientists

As you can see, solar variability is a component of their model and does not explain the recent warming trends of the last couple decades.

The Union Of Concerned Scientists has this to say about the effect of solar radiation on climate change.

We do know with a good degree of certainty that between 1750-2011, or since the beginning of the industrial period until today, the average increase in energy hitting a given area of the atmosphere (radiative forcing, measured in a unit called watts per square meter) due to heat-trapping gases is 56 times greater (~ 2.83 watts per square meter) than the increase in radiative forcing from the small shift in the sun’s energy (~0.05 watts per square meter).

We do know with a good degree of certainty that between 1750-2011, or since the beginning of the industrial period until today, the average increase in energy hitting a given area of the atmosphere (radiative forcing, measured in a unit called watts per square meter) due to heat-trapping gases is 56 times greater (~ 2.83 watts per square meter) than the increase in radiative forcing from the small shift in the sun’s energy (~0.05 watts per square meter).

In its Fifth Assessment Report, IPCC scientists evaluated simulations of historical climate variables using a number of numerical models. They first assumed no increase in heat-trapping gases since 1750, so that the temperatures calculated were those that would have been achieved if only solar variability, volcanic eruptions, and other natural climate drivers were included.

The temperature results were similar to observed temperatures only for the first half of the century, but the models did not accurately show the general warming trend that has been recorded during the second half of the twentieth century.

When computer models include human-induced heat-trapping gases, they accurately reproduce the observed warming during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

The evidence shows that although fluctuations in the amount of solar energy reaching our atmosphere do influence our climate, the global warming trend of the past six decades cannot be attributed to changes in the sun.

See Also

• Union Of Concerned Scientists: How Does the Sun Affect Our Climate?


• IPCC AR5 Synthesis Report

No, there is no proof that the Milankovitch Cycle fully explains the current global warming tendencies. The article you linked to includes a sensationalist headline which the article itself makes no attempt to support, and in fact explicitly denies. The headline states:

NASA admits that climate change occurs because of changes in Earth’s solar orbit, and NOT because of SUVs and fossil fuels

However, the article itself makes no such claim, instead merely asserting that NASA observed in 1958 that changes in the earths orbit and tilt cause warming and cooling of the climate, and published information about the Milankovitch Cycles on their website in 2000. It goes on to explain the discovery and gradual acceptance of the Milankovitch Cycle theory, which is now the accepted explanation for the glacial and interglacial cycles on earth over the past million years or so as explained here, for example.

The article contains many sensationalist statements, but they are all the words of the author, rather than anything sourced from NASA. The article directly contradicts its own headline with the statement

But NASA has thus far failed to set the record straight, and has instead chosen to sit silently back and watch as liberals freak out about the world supposedly ending in 12 years because of too much livestock, or too many plastic straws.

So clearly, NASA has not "admitted" that climate change is "...NOT because of SUVs and fossil fuels."

Milakovitch Cycles are the accepted explanation for the long-term climate changes which have caused repeating ice ages, but provides no explanation for the rapid warming that is observed today. The article contains nothing to discredit the overwhelmingly accepted explanation that current warming trends are a direct result of human-caused increases in greenhouse gases.