During the Natural Resources Subcommittee hearing, Gohmert appeared to draw a connection between the moon and Earth's orbit and solar flares to climate change.

Gohmert's office did not respond to CNN's requests to clarify his remarks, which were widely mocked on Twitter.

Brian Brettschneider, a climate scientist and professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, wrote tersely, "We cannot change the Earth's or Moon's orbit.

In an article written by NASA, the agency notes -- citing the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- that the "scientific consensus is that long and short-term variations in solar activity play only a very small role in Earth's climate."

The article also notes that the warming driven by greenhouse gases produced by humans is "50 times greater than the slight extra warming coming from the Sun itself over that same time interval."

The idea that the changing of the Earth's and moon's orbits is also a major contributor to climate change is incorrect.