Solar Dynamo Still Anemic, Magnetism and UV Lax 156
radioweather writes "While we are well along into solar cycle 24, there remains a significant gap between the predictions of where we should be, and where we actually are in the progression of the cycle. Recently, the sun went spotless again, and the solar Ap geomagnetic index, an indicator of the solar magneto, hit zero. It is something you really don't expect to see this far along into the cycle. In other solar news, scientists monitoring the SORCE solar satellite have found that solar ultraviolet emissions have dropped significantly in the past few years. The Solar Irradiance Monitor on the satellite 'suggests that ultraviolet irradiance fell far more than expected between 2004 and 2007 — by ten times as much as the total irradiance did — while irradiance in certain visible and infrared wavelengths surprisingly increased, even as solar activity wound down overall.'"
oh noes! (Score:1)
first step to solar fail?
Re:oh noes! (Score:5, Interesting)
Could be. We know Mr. Sun can take long naps. And the one time we know for sure it happened was also known as the Little Ice Age.
Don't go placing bets yet but hedging against it might be a prudent thing.
Re: (Score:2)
Or maybe Mz. Sun is expecting.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't go placing bets yet but hedging against it might be a prudent thing.
I thought we already were!
Re: (Score:1)
it's cold out.
sunspots would predict that.
are sunspots a good predictor?
dunno, but it beats chicken little, at least in terms of track record.
(thank gawd for /.)
the Parent is a sane man.
and i hate seeing the Left in a Crazy pissing match with the Right. Sometimes both sides piss grey, and then Green comes along and cracks me up, though.
Hey.
How are the Ozarks? They still got signs that read "the law ends here"?
Nah, buggershit on that.
I need my giganto urban pipe and my astraweb choo-choo.
Re: (Score:3)
Everyone knows this is caused by people driving their SUV's and destroying the environment. Save the Sun! Go green today!
No no, SUV drivers are the saviors of future tropical paradise. Without their valiant effort, we would have no hope. But as we see this year, despite the Ancient Enemy, the feared Day Star trying to thwart the future tropical paradise, like TFA describes, this year was still record warm.
I can't wait for the tropical paradise to come true. It's -13 F outside now, when it should be 77 F.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:oh noes! (Score:5, Funny)
Exactly. Most people think that humans naturally wake in the morning and sleep at night but that only came about during the 1900s. It was all part of FDR's socialist alien agenda to chill the planet by encouraging people to work during the day and thus arriving at work in the morning. Notice that the rise of the sun slows after the morning commute and falls in conjunction with the evening return. Coincidence? I think not.
Re: (Score:2)
Nice one :) If I had mods points you'd have got one.
Re: (Score:3)
Amusingly you're kind of right, but it happened a long time before 1900. It used to be standard to wake up in the middle of the night. Probably a survival mechanism from the hunter-gatherer phase, a lot of characteristics from that period probably have little to no effect on evolution so we retain them. Some people still do it.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd go with survival mechanism for the bladder, but hey, opinions differ. Walking around may have scared the bears off, too.
Cheers
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
QUICK!
Someone call Cillian Murphy!
Re: (Score:1)
Re:oh noes! (Score:5, Funny)
Don't worry, congress recently declared it Too Big To Fail
Re: (Score:2)
Don't worry, congress recently declared it Too Big To Fail
Were they calculating in the English system or the Metric system?
Errors like this never happen.
Re: (Score:1)
same back at your computer chair.
HA!
Re: (Score:2)
let me guess, they'll print dollars and shovel them into the sun to keep it going?
OH NOES (Score:2)
Peak solar!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Sharp rise? (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it just me, or dose it seem the curve for the prediction coming out, shows a faster return then the fall coming in?
A longer lower end may be followed by a slow return too.
Re: (Score:1)
It is just you, about to dose and typing as you fade away. Don't worry, except for the headache, all will be just fine tomorrow.
Re: (Score:1)
The cycles are asymmetric, with stronger cycles being more asymmetric. A slow rise suggests a not so asymmetric cycle which will therefore be weaker.
Nothing to worry about (Score:4, Funny)
It may be low now, but the sun is expect to reach peak intensity in 2012...
Re: (Score:2)
Is the Earth core going to stop then as well? And by 2012 you mean December 2012, right?
Re: (Score:1)
Wheeee!
wait.
watch it all
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaJO_96thBc&feature=related [youtube.com]
hmm.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaJO_96thBc&feature=related [youtube.com]
+
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdAEmX0OpMk [youtube.com]
=
upset stomach
Eureka! (Score:4, Funny)
When comparing the actual results to the predictions, the brief analysis given by the lead investigator Dr. Sunny M. Sparks was:
"The fuck?!"
Assestion to which the closer grad student, not fully comprehending the ramifications of such discovery, replied:
"Not my fault! I swear! ... It was Jackson! He was playing WoW in the lab computer not two days ago."
Solar Cycle (Score:2)
While we are well along into solar cycle 24, there remains a significant gap between the predictions of where we should be, and where we actually are in the progression of the cycle.
It took me a while to figure out what "solar cycle" meant. I thought it was talking about the 24th day of December. Then with all that talk of predictions of where we are in respect to the day, I had no idea what was going on.
Re:Solar Cycle (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle [wikipedia.org]
For those who still don't understand.
The pilot light's gone out (Score:2)
This explains a lot (Score:1)
Relax (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And yet in Nuuk, Greenland yesterday they had a high of 37 F, 16 F above average. While you've been freezing Arctic sea ice is still melting in some areas. Highly unusual for this time of year.
Re: (Score:2)
Everything you just posted is completely normal for a negative AO.
http://nsidc.org/arcticmet/patterns/arctic_oscillation.html [nsidc.org]
AO history:
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/month_ao_index.shtml [noaa.gov]
Maybe you're young enough to believe that mostly-positive is "normal"? That's only since the end of the 70s (see first link) - it seems we're going to back to the climate regime we had in the decades previous to that right now.
Re: (Score:2)
No, I was born in 1952. I know the current situation is largely due to the negative arctic oscillation. My main point is that when you're examining global warming you have to look beyond your local weather which is only a single piece of data in a much larger global picture.
Re: (Score:2)
So if everything we see now is normal and has happened before during the 20th century, why are you even talking about global warming? It obviously wasn't the cause decades ago, why would it be now?
Science has very little to do with activism and political statements. Let's do science. The heat wave in Russia this year, as well as the current cold over Europe and North America, has nothing to do with global warming.
Re: (Score:2)
Everything that we now see happens on top of a base climate. The fact that we are seeing new daily record highs outpacing new daily record lows by over 2 to 1 is a pretty good indication the base climate is changing. [citation] [ucar.edu].
The heat wave in Russia this past summer was unprecedented. A Russian scientists stated it had been at least 1000 years since such a heat wave has occurred there.
As far as the cold over Europe and the US it is not record setting. Warmer temperatures lead to more snow (until it gets
Re: (Score:2)
The heat wave in Russia this past summer was unprecedented. A Russian scientists stated it had been at least 1000 years since such a heat wave has occurred there.
... your point being? Let's see what NOAA has to say about that heat wave:
Despite this strong evidence for a warming planet, greenhouse gas forcing fails to explain the 2010 heat wave over western Russia. The natural process of atmospheric blocking, and the climate impacts induced by such blocking, are the principal cause for this heat wave. It is not known whether, or to what extent, greenhouse gas emissions may affect the frequency or intensity of blocking during summer. It is important to note that obser
Re: (Score:2)
The unprecedented part of the Russian heat wave is not that there was a heat wave and not even the mechanism that caused it. Moscow reached a new all time high temperature of 102.2 F. The old record was 99 F in 1920. That's the global warming part. That's the part the Russian Scientist says hadn't happened for at least 1000 years.
I'll consider it record cold in Britain when the Thames River freezes over as it did in the 1600's.
Science says that Hudson Bay has not completely frozen over yet allowing the
Re: (Score:2)
*smile* - thanks for proving my point. A record high for the last 90 years in Russia is "global warming" - but record lows for over a hundred of years in three European countries (likely more - I only searched for a few) isn't.
Regarding Hudson Bay that's the negative AO and, see my first post, completely normal.
As long as you understand yourself that you're doing activism and not science that's fine of course, but please make it clear in your posts. Some of us actually try to follow the scientific method.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe you're right and I overstated my case a bit. I should know better than to argue over individual events regarding global warming.
But you never commented on the fact that new daily highs outnumber new daily lows for the past decade. That statistical analysis is an expected global warming effect.
What will you say in 20 years as the world continues to warm from the excess of CO2 that human activity has added to the atmosphere? Based on what I hear from climate scientists I'd be willing to make a substa
Re: (Score:2)
With regards to statistics that could be either UHI or the fact that we've for the last 2-3 decades been in a warm oceanic cycle (or both, of course). http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/heat-island-sprawl.html [nasa.gov]
I actually tried to make a long bet with someone who, like you, believe CO2 controls our climate a week ago. I would be making it very public, and I would like "the other side" to be a publically recognizable entity, but my suggestion was for $1500.
Short version: We'd both select _one_ climate m
Re: (Score:2)
The urban heat island effect is well compensated for. A recent study that used Anthony Watts surfacestations.org list of well and poorly sited weather stations found that poorly sited stations actually show slightly less warming compared to the well sited stations. (Menne 2010 [noaa.gov])
Other studies showing the urban heat island effect is not a significant factor affecting temperature trends:
Peterson 2003 [noaa.gov]
Parker 2006 [allenpress.com]
Jones et al 2008 [agu.org]
The NASA page you cited discussed the causes and effects of the UHI effect but says n
Re: (Score:2)
1) No, UHI is not well compensated for. I linked to that NASA study for that very reason - what it found was that the effect is much larger than anyone had thought before (thus invalidating the papers you list).
Did you know that flags used for the station data in model runs aren't time dependent? I.e, if a station happens to be considered urban from 1996 onwards that is then considered to be true for all earlier observations as well, when it in reality was rural. This causes old temperatures to be artificia
Re: (Score:2)
Again, the NASA study you link to makes no comment on the UHI effect in relation to temperature trends. It doesn't say anything about the effect being larger than anyone who had thought before. It just examines the variables that go into the effect and how different factors affect it.
The Menne paper compares well sited stations (presumably not affected by UHI effects) to poorly sited stations and finds a slightly higher warming signal in the well sited stations than in the poorly sited stations. So tell
Re: (Score:2)
Short:
The NASA study was a reply to your comment about records in highs outnumbering lows. You seem to be discussing something else now. As far as I recall Watts has a few things to say about Menne though.
Climate models (emphasis on plural!) produce results better than random guessing. Single climate models (singular) don't. This is where you say "aha!" and remember the old thought experiment in statistics with regards to coin flipping. That's, again, why in a long bet I would want my CO2-hugging opponent t
Re: (Score:2)
I still don't see that the NASA study has anything to do with record highs outnumbering record lows. I guess you're saying that increased urbanization has caused the change in the ratio over the years but I don't buy it.
Why limit yourself to one model? The IPCC AR4 results were presented as an meta-ensemble of a number of models. Each model has its strengths and weaknesses. Combining them suppresses weather noise in the models making the underlying forced change more visible. It turns out that the meta
Re: (Score:2)
This is getting nowhere - but I'll leave you with an observation. You're doing advocacy (as are the people behind Realclimate) - I'm doing science. Observations trump models - always. If models cannot be verified by observation they aren't scientific.
You'll realize this in a few years ;)
(PS: Plate tectonics was discredited by leading scientists in the field. That's why real science has nothing to do with consensus, ever)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, you're right. We're both tied to our positions. Time will tell who is right. But I kind of enjoy conversations like this. It forces me to dig deeper and expands my knowledge of the subject.
Of course observations trump models. In a subject like climate science where we don't have the option of performing direct experiments (there isn't a 2nd Earth to run tests on) models are the way we bring together the different factors we discover into a coherent whole that can be tested against the real world.
Re: (Score:2)
Climategate (yes, that Climategate. Don't trust the reporting of it on Realclimate - read the emails yourself, look through the documents and data) proved beyond reasonable doubt that some climate researchers, interestingly the same as behind Realclimate, are absolutely not:
willing to publish results that overturn scientific consensus, even if data are preliminary
That's one of the main reasons why I don't ever trust Realclimate on anything that has to do with science. Gavin especially.
Now I do not in any wa
Re: (Score:2)
There is no smoking gun in "Climategate". Maybe a smoking cap gun. You read scientific malfeasance in it only if you are already primed to do so.
That's one of the main reasons why I don't ever trust Realclimate on anything that has to do with science. Gavin especially.
I don't understand. What does a scientific journals willingness to publish "results that overturn scientific consensus" have to do with RealClimate and Gavin Schmidt?
The idea that CO2 in the atmosphere affects temperatures was first advanced by Savante Arrhenius in 1896 in his paper "On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air Upon the Temperature of the Ground
Re: (Score:2)
I assume you haven't read the Climategate contents then, it's impossible for anyone who claims to follow the scientific method to do so and then claim there's no sign of malfeasance. Again, do not trust the reporting - study it yourself. I have.
As for Arrhenius, a fellow Swede, is this were I reply that he wasn't not a "climate scientis"? ;) He did calculations on greenhouse gasses, but that's not the same thing as what I wrote with regards to models and the need for CO2 as forcing agent.
(Arrhenius, btw, th
Re: (Score:2)
Well, I haven't read them directly but I followed the news. All I saw was a bunch of misinterpretation. There was no interference with peer review. The kerfuffle over "hide the decline" and the "trick" was way overblown. Without more context about how the code in question got used the comments in the code are meaningless. Kevin Trenberth's comment that it's a travesty we can't account for the lack of warming was a comment on the observation system's inability to comprehensively track the energy flow in
Re: (Score:2)
Well, I haven't read them directly but I followed the news.
Then I suggest you do. You will change your mind afterwards, I promise.
Have a great New Year! :)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, I doubt that but I'll see if I can't spend some time on it.
Glad Nyåren
Re: (Score:2)
You know there's so much of the climategate emails to read through. Maybe you could point me to some specific examples you think I should read.
Re: (Score:2)
After having thought about it, sorry. The point is to have a revelation yourself, me sending you links wouldn't be that much different of an experience from what you've got by reading reports.
After having studied the Climategate files my own revelation was: Phil Jones is not a valid scientific source. Gavin/RC is not a valid scientific source. UAE is not a valid scientific source.
Yours may of course differ, but it needs to be yours :)
Re: (Score:2)
Ok, but after reading the excerpts that everyone was all excited about a year ago and figuring out the context I decided it wasn't worth my time to delve in that deeply. I've heard nothing new since then. After hearing the results of several official inquiries into the matter there are still no big revelations, just some nits to pick that don't affect the fundamental science.
As I said before, the idea that climate scientists are part of some big conspiracy to falsify the science and have been successful a
Re: (Score:2)
One other thing, I've never heard Gavin Schmidt's name mentioned in relation to the Climategate emails. Phil Jones, Michael Mann and Kevin Trenberth but never Schmidt.
Re: (Score:2)
Climategate search engine: http://www.climate-gate.org/ [climate-gate.org]
You might want to look at
tag: gavin
tag: realclimate
Re: (Score:2)
You want science on cold winters in a warming world, here it is [realclimate.org].
This can be because (Score:3)
This can be because
Sun has already been bought by Oracle?
Old SOL doesn't like it (Score:3)
The Sun is a very old thing. Like most old ham radio operators, SOL didn't like the FCC screwing around with the testing. "BY GUMMIT! I had'ta take the 25WPM test to get my Extra, so should all you youngins!" he was heard exclaiming after the rule change. So ol' Sol got together one morning over coffee with all his buddies on 80 meters and hatched a plan: "I'll just turn down the sunspots for a while, they tend to inflame my gout anyway. That way they'll have to use CW, since they all live in deed-restricted tract houses and can't put up boomers like we have!"
And so, as the newly-licensed HAMs bought their Miracle Whips and Outbackers, in the hopes of cycle 23 kicking up and making it easy to work the world, their hopes (and bank accounts) were quickly dashed on the reality of all quiet bands (except for those old guys talking about their aches and pains) and those weird sounds at the bottom of the band. Some took to new methods, and some picked up the old ways, but the old guys, with their antenna farms and "full limit" linear amps got to keep "their" voice subbands and coffee klatches, comforted in the knowledge that their frequency will continue to belong to them, for as long as they can keep it.
Re: (Score:2)
That's the problem, the CW test isn't really as relevant but there *should* be a section on using digital modes like PSK. Then we wouldn't have twats like this [gjcp.net]
73s de MM0YEQ
Maunder Minimum baby (Score:2)
Well, who knows, but it would be nice if we were entering a new Maunder type Minimum. We could use some help keeping the planet from overheating.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm a nerd
Now are you? I actually found this interesting! Plus that is why we have comments...to explain this (later on...) to the rest of us. Moderation is gold.
You want something recent and boring [eurekalert.org]?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
probably because it doesn't have any effect on you directly that you care about
This is important for people who refract HF radio waves off the ionosphere back to earth because the amount of UV radiation determines the thickness of the layers of the ionosphere which determines what frequencies refract back and which don't.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm a nerd and all and I see it's all sciency, but this reads like a journal entry from the world's most boring man.
I agree. After reading the summary a couple of times all I am sure of is that the next X-Men movie will be set on the Sun, but the plot seems very confusing.
Re: (Score:1)
Yum
a bit like-a da sah-sa-jez (learn Chicagoanese) inna my a-piz-za pie.
http://media.photobucket.com/image/sausage+pizzeria+due+/TIPT544/PIZZA/sausagepizz.jpg [photobucket.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Isn't this a great thing, though? I'd think that a significantly lower output would give our planet's defenses a bit of a breather to possibly recharge. And, to be honest, the planet will be fine. CO2 levels are extremely low compared to past levels. The planet was just fine back then when it was at 8-10X the current levels, even. Sure, the ice caps might melt a bit, and you probably should wear more sunscreen, but that's about it until the next Ice Age that we are heading into will get started. Even
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't this a great thing, though?
Absolutely. It's good to see a rare common-sense post on /.
The ocean acidification issue is worrisome, but there is little to be done about it in the short term. It will take a breakthrough in geoengineering to reverse things given how the next fifty years is likely to shake out.
Re: (Score:2)
The planet was just fine back then when it was at 8-10X the current levels, even.
The Sun was considerably cooler back when CO2 levels were orders of magnitude greater than they are today. The Sun gets hotter as it ages.
All it will likely do is trigger the next ice age to start in 30-50 years instead of the normal 200 or 300.
According to scientists who study Milankovitch cycles the next glaciation of the current ice age we are in probably won't begin for at least 20,000 years.
It takes insanely high levels to actually cause problems in terms of damaging the ecosystem.
How much "damage" occurs is also a function of the rate of change. The current rate of change in CO2 levels is an order of magnitude or more greater than natural change rates.
Ocean acidification is the other half of th
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, but we're tough. I'm sure some of us will survive. I just sort of feel sorry for the unfortunate people who live in coastal areas, because it's going to get a lot worse. IIRC ~70% of the world's urban areas are near oceans or in coastal plains. Definitely time to move inland to at least 100-200ft.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, sea level rise is a slow motion disaster. It's not that hard to get out of the way, just expensive. The biggest danger is that sea level creeps up then along comes a hurricane and the storm surge goes far inland like what happened with Katrina along the Mississippi coast.
I don't expect the human race to go extinct any time soon from climate change. Our intelligence and adaptability will keep us going as long as some of us can find food and shelter. But population levels could be drastically lower
Re:Signs of Grand Minimum (Score:4, Informative)
Except that Piers Corbin is not a climatologist, is a borderline quack, and none of his "research" in this area is backed up by peer reviewed articles.
Now add to this that the past three winters have actually been some of the warmest winters (especially in the arctic) we've had, there is nothing very "harbinger" about it. Warmer winters mean more precipitation, which is what we've been seeing. Currently, there are wide swaths of the arctic that are as much as 20F warmer than their average, hence for the first time on record there has actually been an arctic ice REDUCTION in winter which you can see for yourself here http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/amsre.html [uni-bremen.de], or you can go by ice volume here http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/IceVolume.php [washington.edu] . In addition, global temperatures have still been rising even during a solar minimum. Even with the moderate La Nina we're still having near record warmth for the globe.
I think I'll continue following the consensus of the body of climate science, thanks.
Re: (Score:2)
" Even with the moderate La Nina we're still having near record warmth for the globe."
My section of the globe is having record cold, not record warmth. All that cold air that should be in the Arctic is flowing south through here. So there should be a southern wind somewhere, and apparently it's over Greenland.
The Dalton, Sporer, and Maunder minima all existed, AGW has no explanation for them. CO2 levels say the temperature should have been constant. It was not. Something else is going on. Exactly what is th
Re: (Score:3)
My section of the globe is having record cold, not record warmth.
Um, congrats? Hence why I said the global temps are near record warmth. Yes, some areas of the globe are experiencing cooler temps, but overall the temps are above average.
The Dalton, Sporer, and Maunder minima all existed, AGW has no explanation for them.
Huh? Why the hell would AGW have an explanation for solar activity? Especially solar activity that happened centuries ago?
You are confusing AGW with Heliophyisics. They are two very different topics.
CO2 levels say the temperature should have been constant. It was not.
When? During the solar minima? If CO2 levels were relatively constant and solar output decreases, what on earth would make you think that tem
Re: (Score:2)
The thing that concerns me about all this "little ice age" business is what happens when it *ends* and we've been keeping temperatures artificually high through the greenhouse effect. Sure, that might make for a relatively nice few decades or evena century or two of what should be cold weather, but it will also mean skyrocketing temperatures once insolation (energy from the sun) returns to normal levels. What will we do then?
Re: (Score:2)
What will we do then?
We'll use our many decades of increased science and engineering to fix the problem. ;-)
Think how far we've come with aviation since 1940 for instance....
Re: (Score:2)
In other news, they are also not true Scotsman.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So, there's no immediacy to global warming, we have time to get it right
Isn't that convenient? The planet is steadily getting warmer, we have enormous evidence that it's caused by greenhouse gases, sea levels are rising, polar ice is shrinking, glaciers around the world are melting, the ocean is getting more acidic... but hey, someone has predicted (based on a method that is only one step removed from astrology) that we're actually starting an ice age, so there's no hurry to actually do anything!
Re:Signs of Grand Minimum (Score:4, Insightful)
Whoa. That is so completely, totally wrong, I hardly know where to start.
The greenhouse effect is very well understood. It's the sort of thing you derive as an exercise in an undergrad electromagnetism class. You can find a discussion of it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect [wikipedia.org], but the basic idea is very simple. When light hits any material (solid, liquid, or gas), some energy is transmitted, some is reflected, and some is absorbed. The details depend strongly on both the material and the frequency of the incoming light. That's why different objects are different colors: because they vary in how much light of each color they reflect.
The energy from the sun is primarily in the ultraviolet and visible frequencies. When it hits the earth, much of the energy is absorbed, then re-emitted as lower frequency infrared light. Many materials (including glass, which is how greenhouses work, and carbon dioxide, which is how the earth's greenhouse effect works) are more reflective of infrared light than of ultraviolet or visible light. That's how they hold in energy: a larger fraction of the energy coming in gets through than of the energy trying to get out.
All of the above is easily testable, and every time you get into a car that's gotten hot by sitting in the sun, you are witnessing the greenhouse effect in action.
If I may offer a suggestion (and I mean this sincerely, not as an attempt to be insulting), one of the most important things you can know is what you don't know. You clearly know almost nothing about the science of climate change and the evidence supporting it, yet you seem to believe that you know a lot about it. You don't. Making false claims and throwing out insults about "wooly-minded AGW believers" who actually know far more than you does nothing useful: not for you, not for them, not for society. You owe it to yourself to be better than that.
Re: (Score:2)
The sun's rays hit the earth. the earth translates the radiation in to infrared. CO2 absorbs infrared and heats up. Thus, a warmer planet. Like a car in the parking lot allows sunlight in, but doesn't let heat out. Wikipedia article. [wikipedia.org] Rather than complain that no one can explain it to you, maybe you should try explaining it to yourself?
Re: (Score:2)
CO2 absorbs infrared and heats up.
More so than any of the other gases in the atmosphere? How?
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, CO2 absorbs infrared, more than O2 and N2. As to how... Do you know how light/radiation works at all? Do you know why the sky is blue or why a black object in the sun heats up faster than a white one? Because it doesn't seem like it. If you don't know that, how can you argue about global warming at all?
Re: (Score:2)
Do you know why the sky is blue or why a black object in the sun heats up faster than a white one?
Yes, I do. None of that has is particularly relevant too, because it doesn't answer my question. Can you explain how carbon dioxide is heated more strongly than nitrogen or oxygen, without invoking your magic carbon sky pixie?
Re: (Score:2)
Absorption spectra aren't relevant? Are you kidding? When have I invoked a "magic carbon sky pixie?" CO2's absorption spectra strongly includes infrared, whereas nitrogen and oxygen doesn't. Like white and black boxes in the sun, the greater the radiation absorption, the faster and hotter the object heats. CO2 absorbs more IR than O2 and N2. This is an innate physical property, due to the configuration of the electrons and nucleus of the atoms involved. More radiation absorbed means more energy, which means
Re: (Score:2)
Good god, at last! Someone who *can* explain the mechanism by which increasing the amount of CO2 can cause the atmosphere to warm up!
It still doesn't mean that human activity is putting much of a dent in atmospheric CO2 levels, though. Frankly I'd be more worried about increasing concentrations of carbonic acid than the tiny amount of additional atmospheric heating caused by the tiny increase in CO2. You've got hot water vapour and you've got hot carbon dioxide; the conditions are perfect for it.
Re: (Score:2)
The atmospheric carbon dioxide amount in 1900 was 280 ppm. Today, it is 390 ppm. For something that is supposed to be a closed cycle, that is a crazy increase.
Re: (Score:2)
In 1900 the margin of error was considerably greater. Don't trust any gas concentration values older than about the 1950s. We haven't been good enough at it for long ;-)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, yeah, I would take the measurement with a grain of salt, had the measurement been taken in the 1900s. That number was generated recently, from ice cores taken from the Arctic and Antarctic. Air gets trapped in the ice, which can be measured for content. Due to the rather consistent nature of the weather at the poles, you can correlate depth with time. The deeper the air pocket, the older it is.
Re: (Score:2)
A science teacher probably could. Have you ever met one?
Or do you live in one of those places where they aren't allowed, on account of all that thar evillution.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, let's jump to grand conclusions based on a single unproven assumption. Betting all life as we know it against maximizing profits is a perfectly rational course of action.
Uh, no. No one is saying global warming will destroy "all life as we know it". In fact, the alarmists never mention the benefits of global warming for some - it's all about the negatives. Think of Canadian wheat for instance.
At any rate, global power generation could be moving much more rapidly towards less carbon emissions, if it weren't for the irrational fear of nuclear power exhibited by the eco-fringe. Market forces should also prevail as solar power actually becomes competitive with fossil fuels.
There
Re: (Score:2)
AC is spot on.
Re: (Score:2)
Piers Corbyns beliefs and speculations aren't based on any actual science or evidence.
That is completely incorrect. You'd better do some more reading.
Are you denying that Solar Grand Minima have an effect on the Earth? Ludicrous if so...
Re: (Score:2)
Where do you get It's not anywhere close to being one of the warmest years if you remove the adjustments..."? The data is not that useful without normalization and correction for known errors. If you prefer check out the satellite data for 2010. It's showing higher temperatures this year than the ground station based measurements.
Of course satellite temperature measurements are not measured directly but inferred from the radiation spectrum coming off the Earth.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I still don't know if the 15m and 10m bands on my Trio TS-520 work :-/
73s de MM0YEQ