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In order to evaluate how much Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) has influenced Northern Hemisphere surface air temperature trends, it is important to have reliable estimates of both quantities. Sixteen different estimates of the changes in TSI since at least the 19th century were compiled from the literature. Half of these estimates are “low variability” and half are “high variability”. Meanwhile, five largely-independent methods for estimating Northern Hemisphere temperature trends were evaluated using: 1) only rural weather stations; 2) all available stations whether urban or rural (the standard approach); 3) only sea surface temperatures; 4) tree-ring widths as temperature proxies; 5) glacier length records as temperature proxies. The standard estimates which use urban as well as rural stations were somewhat anomalous as they implied a much greater warming in recent decades than the other estimates, suggesting that urbanization bias might still be a problem in current global temperature datasets – despite the conclusions of some earlier studies. Nonetheless, all five estimates confirm that it is currently warmer than the late 19th century, i.e., there has been some “global warming” since the 19th century. For each of the five estimates of Northern Hemisphere temperatures, the contribution from direct solar forcing for all sixteen estimates of TSI was evaluated using simple linear least-squares fitting. The role of human activity on recent warming was then calculated by fitting the residuals to the UN IPCC’s recommended “anthropogenic forcings” time series. For all five Northern Hemisphere temperature series, different TSI estimates suggest everything from no role for the Sun in recent decades (implying that recent global warming is mostly human-caused) to most of the recent global warming being due to changes in solar activity (that is, that recent global warming is mostly natural). It appears that previous studies (including the most recent IPCC reports) which had prematurely concluded the former, had done so because they failed to adequately consider all the relevant estimates of TSI and/or to satisfactorily address the uncertainties still associated with Northern Hemisphere temperature trend estimates. Therefore, several recommendations on how the scientific community can more satisfactorily resolve these issues are provided.

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In many organic‐rich, low‐carbonate hemipelagic shales, there is a stable and close correlation between the uranium and TOC contents. In this paper, we present a number of case studies using our own data and that from previous publications to investigate black shales with (1) good, (2) fair‐to‐good and (3) poor U/TOC correlations. U/TOC ratios in the different black shale units are compared to each other, and possible reasons for the observed variations are discussed. In general, the U/TOC ratio in a black shale is controlled by a number of factors which include for example the primary uranium content of the water body, the carbonate content and the sedimentation rate. The development of a stable U/TOC ratio may be inhibited by the presence of phosphate, by a high carbonate or sand content, by dissolution (“burn‐down”) of uranium during intermittent oxic periods, and by large‐scale diagenetic remobilisation of uranium. In suitable black shale systems, vertical variations in organic richness can be approximated by measuring the uranium content using spectral gamma‐ray measurements. This may be especially important in outcrop studies because gamma‐ray logging is a straightforward field technique. Before the uranium content can be used as a proxy for TOC content in a black shale system, however, a thorough calibration of uranium and TOC is necessary, in order to determine the stratigraphic and regional limits of the derived U/TOC ratios and to establish the presence of a stable U/TOC correlation.

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