A Hotter Sun May Be Contributing To Global Warming 536
no reason to be here writes "The sun seems to be getting hotter. Total radiation output has increased .05% per decade since the 1970s.
This article over at Yahoo! News has the scoop. Though .05% may not seem like much, if it has been going on for the last century or more (and circumstantial evidence suggest that it has), it could be a significant factor in the increase in global average temperature noticed during the 20th century."
Waaaiiitt just a minute. (Score:5, Funny)
I'm still believing it's the cow farts.
Re:Waaaiiitt just a minute. (Score:4, Informative)
it's not cow farts (Score:3, Informative)
It is not, primarily, the cow farts, although they alone probably cause more global warming than any 0.00005/year change in solar output. Carbon dioxide [bovik.org], from whatever source, forces heat that would normally be radiated into space to remain in the atmosphere. The extent is very easy to quantify, and it's a hell of a lot more than 0.05% per decade.
This article is just more fossil fuel apologist crap. It makes SUV drivers feel a little bit better about sending all
Re:it's not cow farts (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm a chemist, and you're quite right. Carbon dioxide does store energy that an IR transparent gas would not trap in our atmosphere. But you glibly assume that it is easy to measure the effect of this trapping on global climate. This is not true, and is the reason there there is active debate to this date, even among responsible, non-oil funded scientists over the degree of the effect.
At any rate, this effect *is* secondary to the effect of the sun's output...it is the largest source of energy for our planet, and any change in its output, even small ones, makes a large difference in our climate.
This is why we have seasons...and seasonal changes are quite large and result from small changes in the sun-earth distance.
If this report is true, and the sun's output has in fact increased over the last decade, it would be an important factor to account for, that to my knowledge, has not previously been considered.
And it is at the same time bad news. If true, then human behavior may not be as responsible for climate change as we all have thought, and that makes the effects we would like to avoid that much harder to avoid....
Re:it's not cow farts (Score:5, Informative)
You may be a chemist, but you are no meteorologist.
Seasonal changes result from the angle of solar radiation incidence, not changes in sun-earth distance. When it is winter in the northern hemisphere, it is summer, not winter, in the southern hemisphere.
God this scares me. (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Waaaiiitt just a minute. (Score:5, Funny)
Really. Did they figure this out themselves, or do they have a team of monkeys working on it?
Re:Waaaiiitt just a minute. (Score:5, Funny)
Its a lie. Its the Republicans, plain and simple. And if it IS the sun, then the Republicans are who made the sun hotter. And if the sun is hotter due to a natural phenomenon, then the Republicans sped it up with their capitalism. If we didn't drill for oil, the sun wouldn't be so hot. The sun is heating up because of greenhouse gases. Its the Conservative's fault the sun is hotter, it was the tax cut that caused it. SUV's. Too many in on the planet causes more tidal friction on the sun, so its the SUV's fault, which is the Republican's fault because they own stock in the companies that make the SUV's, who are being irresponsible for giving the public what it wants, since everyone knows only Hollywood types should drive SUV's, not these damn soccer moms and farmers. Its because of the decline of endangered species. The sun is warming up because of drilling in ANWR, which hasn't started yet. The sun is part of the vast right wing conspiracy. Its the Republican's war causing it. Its because the sun is angery at us for our ways.
Ok, did I leave any out? Just wanted to help and get the new talking points out for the libs
Double take (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Double take (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Double take (Score:5, Funny)
Whew, that's a relief. All this time I thought my Athlon was the cause of global warming.
No it wasn't... (Score:4, Funny)
Sun versus Tux (Score:3, Funny)
Just goes to show one thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
And no, this isn't an excuse for the rabid dogs on either side of the environmental debate to start jumping up and down either for or against human contributions to global warming, nor is it our only problem. I hope this discussion doesn't turn into this, though I fear it will.
Re:Just goes to show one thing... (Score:4, Informative)
How about looking at the geological and fossil record for some evidence? In the recent past (geologically speaking) there have been 4 ice ages and 4 "thaws", and before that the temperature of the Earth was erratic at best. Also, homo sapiens are only 40,000 or so years old, and industrialism that we think is causing global warming and whatnot has only been around about 100 years.
The Earth and life was here before humans, and most likely will go on after we are gone.
arrogance (Score:5, Insightful)
don't think me a corporate whore or anti-environmentalist; i'm willing to bet that we have some impact... i just think we don't know enough about our ecosystem and it's interaction with the universe around us to automatically assume that it's all our fault.
Re:arrogance (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, back in the 1970s, the Green movement was most worried about global cooling. We're overdue for another ice age, they apparently come every 10,000 years or so. The Green's prescription for staving off this threat was to burn less fossil fuel, cut down fewer trees and so on. Fast forward to the 90s and global warming is in vogue. The cure? Burn less fossil fuel, etc.
It's beginning to look like their agenda all along was to slow economic activity, and concern about the environment was only ever a vehicle for pushing that agenda. So don't feel bad about questioning the Green orthodoxy, because it's changed 180-degrees in the not too distant past, and they probably don't even believe it themselves.
Not that we shouldn't conserve fossil fuels; they're going to run out sooner or later. And pollution is bad, it just makes cities unpleasant. And I like furry animals as much as the next man, and I'd rather they weren't driven to extinction. But fight these things for a real reason, not one that doesn't hold stand up to scrutiny.
Re:arrogance (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm all for questioning orthodoxy!
But I also question your ability to read the minds of people you apparently haven't met. I know a number of people who do environmental work for a living. As in everything else, some are clueless and some are happy to take somebody else's word for things that fit their prejudices. (Thanks goodness that doesn't happen here on Slashdot.) But many are smart and sincere, and have the kinds of science background to be able to evaluate the claims well.
Re:arrogance (Score:5, Informative)
Unpleasant? Isn't that a bit of an understatement? [npr.org]
Or is death merely an unpleasant experience, like having to stand in line too long at the grocery store?
"But fight these things for a real reason, not one that doesn't hold stand up to scrutiny."
You've got a long way to go buddy if you are seeking out real reason. Claiming pollution doesn't cause any harm... Ha!
I'm not an environmentalist, but it's quite clear you've drank the anti-Environment koolaid.
Re:arrogance (Score:3, Interesting)
Risky? Hardly. I can't think of a single fatality resulting from a CANDU [candu.org] reactor, apart from those not related to the fact the plant is nuclear.
Or did you mean "OLD" nuclear energy, like Windscale and Chernobyl? These poor designs should never have been put into production, and people have suffered as a result.
Nuclear energy, done right, is far more safe than any other energy production method. The risks for an installer of solar panels are likely high
Re:arrogance (Score:3, Informative)
whatever happened to conservatism (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course it is, at least as far as many current industries are concerned. This is not a deep dark secret, it's a simple fact.
Beyond that there are two camps. The first believe that green industries will more than make up for the reduction in economic activity in polluting industries. The second (much smaller) believes that reduced economic activity in general is desirable.
So don't feel bad about questioning the Green
Re:arrogance (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:arrogance (Score:5, Interesting)
Now climate is affected by a huge number of variables. One of them is the chemical composition of the atmosphere. That is not in dispute. We can, and have, changed this composition especially as regards carbon dioxide levels. This is also not in dispute, as it can easily be measured. So, the conclusion that we cannot possibly cause climate change is ridiculous on its face. To claim it is "arrogance" to think so is merely a way to avoid addressing the point.
Re:arrogance (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:arrogance (Score:3, Informative)
You know something the scientists don't?
Because it was happening long before humans were using fossil fuels
This is the centerpiece to the anti-environmental/conservative/libertarian argument. It betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of simple logic, though; because A caused B in the past, it does not follow that ANY occurence of B must have been caused by A. To put it in elementary logic, (if A then B) does not equal (if and only if A then B).
Re:arrogance - Don't kid yourself. (Score:5, Informative)
Let me say it again. Look at these graphs. The data, taken from ice core studies, shows four ice-ages in the past 400k years. For each dip of the CO2 graph [ornl.gov] there is a similar dip in the temperature graph [ornl.gov] showing a high degree of correlation. The extended CO2 graph [faxfn.org] shows an enormous increase in CO2, over the past century, well outside the range of the past 400k years. This recent rise is almost a vertical jump, indicating we may be changing the climate drastically.
It is possible that the sun has some effect in triggering these cycles but these graphs show such a large correlation between CO2 and temperature that it is impossible not to believe the scientists of the IPCC. Yes, human activity is causing global warming. (In the UK we experience this now as global wetting - with increased heavy rainshowers).
To me your reaction sounds just like those "smoking doesn't cause cancer" line from the 1960s. Don't kid yourself.
Greenie whinging (Score:5, Funny)
I think Al Gore has a new plank for 2004...
Re:Greenie whinging (Score:3, Funny)
He's not running, cheif.
enough is enough (Score:5, Funny)
Re:enough is enough (Score:5, Funny)
Damn those inconsiderate bastards (Score:4, Funny)
It's the SUVs (Score:5, Funny)
Too short a baseline (Score:5, Interesting)
It's an interesting claim, but the authors are going to have to do a lot of convincing, and in the meantime this news will be twisted to support those opposed to, say, the Kyoto treaty.
Re:Too short a baseline (Score:4, Insightful)
yet another excuse (Score:5, Interesting)
now let the americans mod this down.
Re:yet another excuse (Score:5, Insightful)
No. The article cites the leader of the study as indicating that you shouldn't draw such a conclusion from it:
so he explicitly says that this does not show that you can't blame it on greenhouse gases.
No, because there are forms of air pollution other than CO2, and they also cause problems.
So, if global warming is not at all due to excess CO2 production (as opposed to being due to increased solar output and excess CO2 production, which is one possibility), what part of climate fuckage is caused by our use of oil?
Re:yet another excuse (Score:3, Insightful)
(Which is also caused by the use of other fossil fuels, e.g. coal.)
I'm not sure I'd call acid rain a climate problem, though.
Re:yet another excuse (Score:3, Informative)
Citation, please? This page [nodak.edu], for example, says
Re:yet another excuse (Score:5, Insightful)
There are plenty of good reasons to cut down on oil consumption. Heck, cutting down on oil consumption would even *gasp* save money, which is always a good thing. Decreased oil consumption would certainly help out with our problems in the Middle East. Not to mention that limiting oil consumption would decrease other harmful side effects such as smog and acid rain. In short, using less oil is clearly in the U.S.'s best interests. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to realize that.
That being the case, why the environmentalists put so much emphasis on global warming is beyond me. The science behind global warming is iffy at best. Even the scientists with the most dire predictions (and the biggest axes to grind) are quick to point out that they are making a lot of assumptions. Instead of focusing on the many clearly measurable reasons to limit our use of oil the environmentalists have jumped straight for the doomsday scenario. In my opinion this loses their movement a great deal of credibility. Instead of focusing on the science, the have jumped headfirst into the sensational. In many ways they are just short of the homeless guy with the "The End is Near!" sign around his neck. Until they have better evidence they should stick to the arguments that clearly can't be refuted.
This article is a good example of how difficult it is to predict global weather trends. There are simply too many variables and not enough information. It's entirely possible that the earth is getting warmer because *boggle* the sun is burning hotter. Does this mean we shouldn't cut down on our use of oil? Of course not. We should just stop focusing on global warming as the primary reason to limiting oil production.
Re:yet another excuse (Score:5, Informative)
Source [globalwarming.org]
In short, global warming could be happening, and it is possible that man even plays a part in global warming. However, there are certainly less controversial reasons to cut back on our oil consumption. Narrowing the argument to global warming simply hurts the cause of environmentalists.
gawd, where to begin... (Score:5, Insightful)
Accu-weather, a commercial concern controlled by commercial interests, knows which side of their bread is buttered. Instead, you might consider the 2001 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [grida.no], which directly attributes the observed tmeperature increase to radiative forcing of greenhouse gasses.
This is the misinformation that pisses me off the most. I have been in direct telephone contact with the pair of so-called scientists from Huntsville, Alabama who published this crap. Their measurements of cooling above the troposphere are completely consistent with global warming in the troposphere, where radiative forcing keeps heat trapped at the surface of the Earth. Guess where the Huntsville team gets their funding? NASA. Guess what agency pumps carbon dioxide equivalent to driving a SUV two million miles into the atmosphere every time a shuttle launches? NASA.
Take another look at the r^2 value on the curve fit graph of atmospheric CO2. [bovik.org] That value means that all but about 1% of the variation of that curve can be explained by those four numeric parameters of that logistic sigmoid curve. One thing that isn't uncertain is that if we don't start wholesale conversion to wind power pretty damn soon, there will be twice as much atmospheric CO2 in 2060 as their was in 1500. Did you know that less than 150,000 modern wind turbines could supply the entire U.S. power grid demand?
Oh, PLEASE! Water vapor, unlike CO2, becomes reflective (clouds are white) when it condenses from vapor to aerosol, which it does under temperature increase conditions (greater transpiration at greater temperatures raising humidity.) This tends to nullify water's heat trapping over time.
Both halfs of that statement are a baldface lie. The "prior to 1940" statement directly contradicts the observed data [grida.no], and anyone who thinks greenhouse gas emissions "upsurged" after 1940 needs to take another look at the graph [bovik.org] and/or read up on the history of coal mining.
Pathetic.
Re:gawd, where to begin... (Score:3, Informative)
Well, there's the small matter of having a pair of the world's largest solid fuel rockets [space.com] strapped to the whole contraption as it climbes skyward.
Otherwise, you're partially right. It'd be good if water wapor was indeed the only way to combine oxygen and hydrogen,
Big oil says: solar power is to blame! (Score:5, Funny)
Should also mention the Maunder Minimum.... (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that solar-type stars may vary on timescales of hundreds and thousands of years (in addition to the known sunspot cycle of our Sun of about 11 years), dominating the long term weather patterns here on Earth. It's still a highly debated point, though, mostly because we've only head modern instruments doing accurate solar flux monitoring for the past 50 years or so, and before that we have to rely on indirect methods, such as historical records of large groups of sunspots seen with the unaided eye.
One of the longest running experiments in modern astronomy has been the monitoring of solar-type stars at the Mount Wilson Observatory in Southern California. I was fortunate enough to meet the people who run this experiment - it's not too often you see papers with 40 years of data from the same instrument!
Dr Fish
All the more reason (Score:5, Insightful)
Before We Wack Out On "Global Warming Isn't Real" (Score:5, Insightful)
Sigh. If Greenies had just concentrated on the fact of global temperature increase or decrease, the debate would be simply on technical solutions. Instead they made it a religious issue. Now any time something like this comes out, those of the other religion will start demanding sacrifices of oil.
Ohhhh Yeah (Score:4, Funny)
Palm Trees (Score:5, Informative)
He also mentioned that Michigan was buried under about a mile of ice at one time too.
These weather changes were long before man came on the scene. I'm all for Michigan becoming tropical again but that is likely to cause problems for the southern part of the US.
Re:Palm Trees (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Palm Trees (Score:3, Informative)
Which doesn't imply it was that way in the past. This link [dinosauria.com] shows North America lying on its side on the equator 510 million years ago (earlier than palm trees).
He warns us *NOT* to assume this means CO2 is OK (Score:5, Informative)
The article says
so, no, this
Note, for instance, that the article also says
(emphasis mine).
I.e., they have only observed it over a approximately 20-year period, so they don't know whether it's been going on for a century or more, but if it hasn't, it wouldn't make a significant difference to the climate.
could it be (Score:4, Insightful)
This just in ... (Score:5, Funny)
We must stop the terror of Sun! (Score:5, Funny)
I can fix this... (Score:3, Funny)
I was afraid the truth would get out (Score:4, Interesting)
In the last few decades though, that pattern has changed to where the sun's sunspot activity is MUCH higher than it has ever been and the activity period has been going on without stopping or having very short quiet periods.
The whole "global warming is caused by humanity" argument has a few merits, of course, but it's a miniscule drop in the bucket compared to the power of the sun.
On the plus side, it gives humanity something they can combat, instead of watching helplessly while the sun goes nova and wipes out life on earth.
It might actually explain why earth has had no contact from alien civilizations: If you extrapolate even a very conservative version of the Drake Equation, and then look at the amount of time it would take for even ONE space faring civilization to completely colonize the galaxy, we should be bumping into aliens constantly.
The fact that we haven't might mean that even on a planet where intelligence eventually evolves, that habitability-period of the planet is never long enough for the beings living there go get off of their world before either their sun goes nova, they get wiped out by a killer asteroid or they destroy themselves.
If we look at the earth as being an average planet in the universe, then we know that all those scenarios are possible.
Sort of makes you reflect that we should be developing ways to colonize space and spread our proverbial eggs from this one basket instead of waging useless wars on each other that only produce suffering.
Sol... (Score:3, Funny)
Easy to fix (Score:5, Funny)
Important Theory for The Media! (Score:5, Funny)
But why is it getting hotter? Well, here's one to send in to your local "science" reporter:;)
Better links than yahoo news (Score:3, Informative)
convenient to some views, but reality's complexer (Score:3, Interesting)
New Scientist [newscientist.com] published, in their paper weekly, years ago, that *Earth's temperature disconnected from the Sun's temperature/cycle in the mid '80s*.
Also, it seems that in natural temperature-cycling of Earth's climate, temperature-change happens-before CO2-change, but we poured billions-of-tonnes of CO2 ( I can't even imagine that correctly ) into our atmosphere lately, so...
using this as 'proof' that global warming is just some liberal propaganda, as some other propagandists would want/need to do, don't wash... ( I'm using world-context, rather than just some specially-limited context, for this discussion, obvaneously )
Solar temperature and Earth-climate-temperature cannot be defined out of being actual.
It's like how someone who actually measured the current-flow in the northern Atlantic discovered that in '99 it was flowing in .. the wrong direction ..
( originally N m/s one way, now some other 'n' cm/s the other direction ).
-shrug- change the thermal masses, change the way they interact, displace one-another, flow, etc.
making-believe that our long-committed actions don't have capability to touch us, because .. what, because our make-believe is immoveable power?
our climate is crashing.
El Nino broke from a 6-8y cycle in the '70s, now is on a 2-4y cycle.
Previous 400 000 years we know it hadn't been on a 2-4y cycle ( from entrapped atmosphere taken from ice-cores off Vostok Antarctica ).
Some thermal energy shunted from thermal, to kinetic, energy in the '70s: the bottom of our atmosphere became violenter.
That means that looking at the planetary temperature doesn't show the energy-increase, it only shows the energy-that-remained-thermal increase...
This one was discovered by seismographs(sp?), showing the background waves-pounding-against-continents noise jumped, globally, then.
The disconnect from Solar cycle, in the '80s, I already mentioned.
The loss of 2000 cubic kilometres of ice from Antarctica, between '95 and '02 ( inclusive, I believe ) means our planet isn't reflective so much as it was...
IIRC Antarctica lost 215km of radius of ice, in the ?70 years before 1950 ( profound loss of reflectivity of heat, perhaps? )...
There's a particularly huge ice-plain that's now expected to collapse quickly, but They don't know when, but They know it'll rather-likely mean a 6m or 7m increase in ocean-level.
It's now believed very likely that there isn't going to be ANY ice in the Northern hemisphere, in the summer, by the end of this century ( again, lower reflectivity? also, earthquakes from the melting glaciers, and rebounding Greenland, and Iceland crustal plate, etc. )
'Deal with it' seems the only choice now...
Either proactively, or, after we've had our WWIII/tantrum, what's left of us will deal-with/be-in what remains.
...
Coupla reasons for knowing the tantrum's perfectly inevitable:
1. ecology-break instantiates 'wars', always. ... ~5000 years. This suggests that few remained to loot thoroughly, without getting dead ( contrast with the huge temple in Egypt, that's totally missing, now: every last speck of it is gone, except for the twin quartzite statues that once stood astride its doorway ).
Look at Uruk, now Iraq, ~5000 years ago... huge metropolis, that broke its local ecology, and it broke sooo quick, some have gone through the Iraqi desert picking up coins, that've lain there for
2. Political Religions, Intolerance of Community/Harmony, And Other Predator/Agression-addiction/Cancer-modes:
If one cell-type within your body decided "Me First!", say muscle-tissue, and it killed-off your bones, kidneys, and neurons, YOU wouldn't be likely to survive. This is usually called cancer, when it happens within one's body.
I dont buy it. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I dont buy it. (Score:3, Funny)
Regardless of what the article said, the post on slashdot implied that it was .05% per decade, period. Thats what I'm responding to.
I'm glad to see someone here openly admit they aren't commenting on the article, but on the Slashdot post that is either politically spun or written by someone who didn't bother to read the article in the first place. If only more people would open up and admit they only read the postings, we could get the editors to stop linking the sites, and end the scourge of slashdott
May or may not (Score:3, Informative)
Isnt it a matter of scale? (Score:3, Informative)
The problem with percent measurements is that the frame of reference matters a whole lot more then you think. A Half percent of a million is still $5000, and for some people, myself included, that is a nice chunk of cash.
A quick shot on google gets me the information that the tempurature of the Sun is about 15 million
degrees celsius. When you consider that for human usage, our comfort range is from about -40 to 40 celsius, a
Luckily, there are a great many factors to take into account that effect the earths temp, so an increase of 55 000 degrees is not going to fry us. Despite that, a half percental change is probably alot signifigant then you expect it to be.
END COMMUNICATION
Mars icecaps (Score:3, Interesting)
It seemed to me that the earth would be even more effected with its much closer orbit.
Researchers proved hotter sun killed Maya empire (Score:5, Interesting)
It's about bloody time that the "hotter sun" concept breaks into the mainstream. That's what I have been repeating over and over about the reason why the best computer climatology models fail to reproduce known climating history, and hence prove their uselessness. It's because they are based on a "solar constant" (about 900 W/m2 at equatorial peak if I remember correctly) but the solar output is not a constant.
(Hey, sounds like this old Murphy's law of programming: "Constants aren't".)
Two years ago, the Science magazine [sciencemag.org] carried a paper explaining how researchers examined sediments in Yutacan and proved that solar output increase, with a cycle of about 208 years, forced a drought on the Maya that was probably the last straw and destroyed their empire. Findings are correlated with other data. See "Solar Forcing of Drought Frequency in the Maya Lowlands" [ufl.edu] by David Hodell et.al. Very important paper for anyone who wants to understand climatology.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
UK to launch spacecraft to check hypothesis (Score:4, Informative)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2880845.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Two interesting points here:
It is intended that this will be the UKs first 'UK only' space mission.
The mission is not slated to take place until 2023.
maybe... (Score:4, Funny)
How long before... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How long before... (Score:5, Insightful)
The US government ALREADY doesn't take global warming seriously. Bush was pretty quick on the draw to withdraw from the Kyoto protocol when he entered office. I guess Kyoto and pumpin oil don't mix.
G Dubya withdraws from Kyoto [bbc.co.uk]
Re:How long before... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How long before... (Score:5, Interesting)
Why?? Maybe because it only hurt the U.S. and did not apply to China or India! It had nothing to do with the environment, and everything to do with hurting the American economy.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How long before... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is very sad that the US did not sign the Kyoto. But to be fair, not very many countries are taking CO2 cuts seriously.
The rest of the developed world (Europe, Japan, etc) did sign the protocol, but now it seems like many of them (e.g., Japan) will not follow their obligations.
The developing world currently stands for about 50% of world CO2 emissions. Their emissions are increasing explosively. They did sign the Kyoto protocol, but for their part the protocol was virtually without obligations.
Tor
Re:How long before... (Score:4, Insightful)
How valid of an argument is that? The industrialized countries produce the majority of pollution, so that should be the focus of the treaty! Why focus on something that has minimal return globally?
On the other hand, I could see industrialized nations complaining if the majority of other industrialized nations don't comply, simply because it would make competition between them less fair.
The US is and claims to be a global leader. It should set the standard on the environment. The fact that it doesn't live up to that is puzzling.
I have a feeling that the other solutions they are looking for it better ways to live with our worsening atmosphere. "Hey, we could just wear gas masks every day, so there's no need to cut emissions further." That kind of thinking. I surely hope not.
Re:How long before... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How long before... (Score:3, Insightful)
Neither do voodoo science and reality.
Get real. After reading this article on the sun getting hotter people still insist humans are responsible for global warming. So what was the reason for global freezing in the 13th century? Lack of burning oil?
Think about it.
Re:How long before... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How long before... (Score:5, Insightful)
Alas, reason is out of style.
Re:How long before... (Score:5, Interesting)
The sun's brightness has increased ~30% since it's birth because of the helium ash piling up. On early earth, there was a larger amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to keep us at a reasonable surface temperature.
As the sun gets brighter, the energy influx increases and so more carbon dioxide is taken out of the atmosphere to maintain a steady temperature.
In about a billion years, almost all CO2 will have been removed from the atmosphere. From there, the continuing increase in energy will cause our oceans to evaporate and then boil. The water will go up into the stratosphere, where high energy radiation will break it into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen will escape and earth as we know it will be sterilized. Sounds lovely, doesn't it?
Seeing as the sun will remain stable for another 4 billion years though, I suppose we could use some sort of scheme to (very) gradually slingshot earth farther out into the solar system. For a while we'd probably park 60 degrees ahead of Mars, then commit suicide by trying to fly through the asteroid belt
Re:How long before... (Score:4, Informative)
To counteract a 0.05% increase in solar output, you only need to block 0.05% of the sunlight from hitting the earth. This is not as much as you might think, since the earth presents a face of 4000^2 * Pi square miles. This is about 50M sq miles, so 0.05% of that would be 25K sq miles. Mylar today is commonaly available in 1mill (0.001") thickness. [sgs-hydroponic.com] So, assuming we put this into the space between us and the Sun, you would need a packet of mylar sheets 1 mile square by 2' thick.
Putting aluminized mylar into space was tried for a different purpose by the Echo [aeragon.com] satellite. Some nice people have already calculated that a single shuttle flight could carry a 700 meter balloon [lgarde.com] up. Some more efficient lifting technology would be very welcome for this project. Thinner Mylar would also be a great help.
Re:How long before... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How long before... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How long before... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How long before... (Score:4, Funny)
Not true. CO2, like any greenhouse gas, acts as a blanket, keeping warmth in. That's not in dispute by anybody. The only dispute is about to what extent human emissions of CO2 have contributed to the recent increase in global temperatures.
So suppose tomorrow that the Sun increased its output by, say, 1%. If we wanted to keep temperatures the same, reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would be one of the easier ways for us to compensate.
Of course it's also a pretty boring way to do that; personally, I'd favor increasing our planet's albedo by covering Texas and Nevada with mirrors, tiled like a giant disco ball.
Re:How long before... (Score:3, Funny)
Jesum-crow folks. Everyone knows its not the heat, its the humidity.
Re:How long before... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Double the cookage (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm prepared to believe that CO2 is the primary culprit, but I regard as a question of science, not blind religious faith. The mindset you and "aepervius" seem to have, that CO2 must be treated as the cause of climate change, regardless of what new facts emerge, is, well, embarassing.
Re:Double the cookage (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This seems... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Global warming" is a documented scientific fact. Without the greenhouse effect our planet would be uninhabitable.
Now whether this effect has been exacerbated by human creation of greater atmospheric carbon dioxide, hydrofluorocarbons, etc., that's up for debate. Personally I think since we're not sure, we should err on the side of caution and try and cut emissions as much as possible.
Re:This seems... (Score:3, Interesting)
Where I live, we've just had 2 weeks or so of high-pressure dominated weather. This time of year, this tends to mean a stable atmosphere, and a temperature inversion. Also, winds have been moving from the south east (i.e. coming in from Europe and the UK).
Visibility has been down to less than three miles in *smoke* because of pollution that's blown in from the UK and Europe. Normally our air is very clean and clear,
Re:.05% doesn't seem like much... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, which is why the scientist said that it would be significant if it's been going on for a century or so. That would be a 5% increase (actually more, due to the wonders of compound interest), which certainly would be important.
Re:is earth moving closer to sun (Score:5, Interesting)
In thousands upon thousands of years, the earth will only turn on its axis once per year, always keeping the same face toward the sun as it rolls along its solar orbit. This is "tidal lock" much like the earth has achieved over the moon.
Re:End near? (Score:4, Funny)
no
Didn't you see? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Look at the actual data (Score:5, Informative)