Sun May Be Warming Both Earth and Mars 1050
MCraigW writes "Simultaneous warming on Earth and Mars suggests that our planet's recent climate changes might have a natural — and not a human-induced — cause. Mars, it appears, has also been experiencing milder temperatures in recent years. In 2005 data from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey missions revealed that the carbon dioxide 'ice caps' near Mars's south pole had been diminishing for three summers in a row. Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun."
Woo! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Woo! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Water vapor is one of the most prevailent green house gasses and currently has the most impact of any greenhouse gas. And the problem with usiong water vapor as a forcing is that the atmosphe
Re:Woo! (Score:4, Informative)
That 1% of total greenhouse gases in the atmosphere can be significant dependant upon the effects. Given that 'natural' greenhouse gases contribute around 33 degrees C (IIRC) to average temperature as is, even just a few percent increase over norm could result in a significant average temperature increase. Significant in this case being potentially enough with other feedback factors and criticalities to cause climate shift. Also, that 1% addition is mostly of gases with long lifespans as far as the cycle of the atmosphere goes. Seabed evidence seems to indicate the recapture timespan of a massive release of carbon at shortest (again from my recollection) of 5,000 years. So, even just a 1% per year release over the normal sources with only a 1,000 year for the biosphere to recapture would put CO2 levels at about double after a century. Note: This is not an actual calculation just an example to show that even the numbers you post could be significant in a longer term scale.
Water vapor tends to balance out to normal levels in the order of weeks instead of millenia (as is the case for CO2 and other such forcing inputs). Thus, water vapor is an important factor in an amplification sense, but not so much in terms of the amount added to the atmosphere for determination of climate change.
The problem with most climate change denial arguements is the lack of quantitative analysis. So while they may seem sound at first, they tend to be factors that are already counted into the overall physics. Attempts to characterize the science or scientists as political or ideological are ad hominin attacks at best. The science and data are there, if you or anyone else truly has a better explanation for the data you are more than welcome to submit your theory/evidence... the only criteria that is has to withstand scientific scrutiny.
Re:Woo! (Score:5, Informative)
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/Hazards/What/VolGas/vol
"Scientists have calculated that volcanoes emit between about 130-230 million tonnes (145-255 million tons) of CO2 into the atmosphere every year (Gerlach, 1999, 1992). This estimate includes both subaerial and submarine volcanoes, about in equal amounts. Emissions of CO2 by human activities, including fossil fuel burning, cement production, and gas flaring, amount to about 22 billion tonnes per year (24 billion tons) [ ( Marland, et al., 1998) - The reference gives the amount of released carbon (C), rather than CO2.]. Human activities release more than 150 times the amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes--the equivalent of nearly 17,000 additional volcanoes like Kilauea (Kilauea emits about 13.2 million tonnes/year)!"
Re:Mass != risk (Score:4, Insightful)
You're making the mistake of conflating ozone depletion with global warming, too.
The Mars data [realclimate.org] is often misunderstood.
"The shrinkage of the Martian South Polar Cap is almost certainly a regional climate change, and is not any indication of global warming trends in the Martian atmosphere. Colaprete et al in Nature 2005 (subscription required) showed, using the Mars GCM, that the south polar climate is unstable due to the peculiar topography near the pole, and the current configuration is on the instability border; we therefore expect to see rapid changes in ice cover as the regional climate transits between the unstable states.
Thus inferring global warming from a 3 Martian year regional trend is unwarranted."
Funny how three years is good enough to prove Martian global warming to the same people who tell us 150 years of data (and 720,000 from ice cores) just isn't enough to base a conclusion off.
CO2 least of my worries (Score:4, Insightful)
Under the guise of "global warming isn't real"
Thanks a lot.
We need clean nuclear power ASAP charging our electric cars, not driving around cancer fumers.
Re:CO2 least of my worries (Score:5, Insightful)
If cancers are on average going up across _all age groups,_ then you might have a more appropriate correlation.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Cleaning up CO2 cleans up other pollutants (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:CO2 least of my worries (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, as Gore pays higher electrical rates to get clean power, those coal plants aren't doing anything on his behalf.
Oh, and according to the power company, the one-man think tank who issued your talking point is full of shit [yahoo.com].
"Johnson said his group got its figures from Nashville Electric Service.
But electric company spokeswoman Laurie Parker said the utility never got a request from the policy center and never provided them with any information."
This will not stand (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The good news is that this is one of the issues where you don't have to understand ocean circulation, feedback loops, or satellite calibration. Just look at what's warming up and what isn't. From CO2, you get heat retained at low altitude that would otherwise be radiated into space. Expected result: nights warmi
global warming is a complex issue (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, taking care of the environment in general is a good thing. So either way we ought to research renewable energy, keep recycling, etc.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Suppose for the sake of argument that it is natural. If it creates havoc for humans, such as bad weather, lost farmland, and lost coastlines, then perhaps we should still do something about it. Continuing to pump CO2 into the atmosphere is not helping the situation.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How much CO2 is human activity producing? What is that, as a percentage of total CO2 being produced from all natural and artificial sources? Of all the greenhouse gases being produced, what percentage is CO2?
What if our best bet is to continue p
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So you're faulting science because scientists can learn, and tend to revise their theories in light of new facts? Interesting. Should we pull all medicine from the shelves, stop air travel, turn off the electricity, and wander into the jungle, all because scientists are fallible? Isn't that a basic human trait? No one said "scientists are never and have never been wrong." What they said was, "this is what climatologists are sayi
RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
"His views are completely at odds with the mainstream scientific opinion," said Colin Wilson, a planetary physicist at England's Oxford University.
"And they contradict the extensive evidence presented in the most recent IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report."....
Perhaps the biggest stumbling block in Abdussamatov's theory is his dismissal of the greenhouse effect, in which atmospheric gases such as carbon dioxide help keep heat trapped near the planet's surface.
He claims that carbon dioxide has only a small influence on Earth's climate and virtually no influence on Mars.
But "without the greenhouse effect there would be very little, if any, life on Earth, since our planet would pretty much be a big ball of ice," said Evan, of the University of Wisconsin.
Re:RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
I really love how people like you sit here and blast the work of scientists, even saying they are "idiots that don't know what the hell they are talking about", pounding on them for pushing an agenda, when it's perfectly clear that you yourself have an agenda of your own and no understanding of the immense amount of research that's been done on the subject.
Re:RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.mpg.de/english/illustrationsDocumentat
Yes, the Sun goes through cycles (Score:5, Insightful)
It's good to see that I'm not alone here (Score:3, Funny)
ask you to do the same for my reply to this heresy. Here is what I told these man-made global warming
denial morons just a few minutes ago countering their childish theories with sound science-inspired deep
thinking on the matter:
As far as your latest apologist whacko theory is concerned, it is more than obvious that vast amounts of
CO2 and Methane are carried away from Earth's atmosphere by solar wind into s
Don't forget the other planets and moon(s) (Score:5, Informative)
Triton - http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/19980526052143da
Jupiter - http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060504_red_
I am much relieved (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Indeed. Because the history of human advancement is one in which every innovation in resource consumption proved ruinously expensive and set humanity back a step, c
SHIT! (Score:5, Funny)
Must be the rovers (Score:5, Funny)
RealClimate links (Score:5, Informative)
As usual, some useful discussion of these issues can be found on RealClimate.org. The following two articles are worth a look, though neither is especially recent:
The punchline from the latter article is, "There is a slight irony in people rushing to claim that the glacier changes on Mars are a sure sign of global warming, while not being swayed by the much more persuasive analogous phenomena here on Earth..."
Sun May Be Warming Both Earth and Mars (Score:5, Funny)
A new low (Score:5, Interesting)
Choice quotes
"His views are completely at odds with the mainstream scientific opinion," said Colin Wilson, a planetary physicist at England's Oxford University. "And they contradict the extensive evidence presented in the most recent IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report."
Amato Evan, a climate scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, added that "the idea just isn't supported by the theory or by the observations."
Perhaps the biggest stumbling block in Abdussamatov's theory is his dismissal of the greenhouse effect, in which atmospheric gases such as carbon dioxide help keep heat trapped near the planet's surface.
To add to this, I'd like to point out that global warming deniers are quick to dismiss 650,000 years of data about earth's temperature as not being representative of the facts, but they jump on 3 years of data (and data confined to a local area and not the whole planet) as evidence against global warming, solely because they think it supports their opinion. If they were serious about science, they would apply the same rigour to the arguments they agree with as to the arguments they disagree with.
He's not a climatologist :/ (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Well Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, that's clearly a gross oversimplification. For starters, the Earth has its own geothermal heat, and without greenhouse gases, the sun's heat would be reflected back out into space, leaving the planet quite cold. The presence of CO2 in the atmosphere clearly does warm the Earth. Nobody seriously debates that. The Earth has also been getting warmer in recent years. Nobody really debates that either. The only question still open for debate is whether humans are the primary cause of the increase in temperature.
Re:Well Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
There are two questions still open for debate --
Are humans a significant cause of the increase in temperature?
Are steps to mitigate the human effect on temperature worth taking?
I believe the answers are yes and yes, but we don't have to be the primary cause to make it worthwhile to reduce our carbon emissions.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The tendency among activists convinced that the answer to (2) is "yes" is to demand substantially increased government control over our lives, to the point of serio
Re:Well Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Way to misquote... In the wikipedia article you linked to:
"The poverty rate in the United States is one of the highest among the post-industrialized developed world. It is, however, important to note that America's poor most commonly have adequate food, clothing and shelter. For example, of those beneath the federal poverty line, 46% own their own home, with an average of three bedrooms."
In the US, many people are unhappy if they can't afford everything that Madison Avenue is trying to shove down their throats. They are unhappy because not everyone in the freakin world can afford a 60" flat panel HDTV and a BMW or Mercedes. There is nothing more frustrating than seeing people like my sister-in-law who has been working the system forever (she doesn't have a job because the government pays her more not to work), goes out and buys that 60" flat panel TV on taxpayer dollars so she can sit on her fat ass and watch TV all day while I work 70 hours a week and pay about $100K in taxes each year, supporting lazy fat slob's like her. Oh yeah, she and her entire family of 6 kids and worthless husband get WAY better medical care than I do, with no deductibles - totally free medical and dental. So don't whine around me how bad "people in poverty" have it in the US, cause it's BULLSHIT.
People forget there's different definitions (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, the special interests are the 95% of Americans who like Air conditioning, cars that get less than 40mpg, people that have homes of greater than 1,000 square feet, americans that travel more than 1 mile to work (using any form of transportation, including walking), americans that use computers for more than 30 minutes a day, americans that don't
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Agreed.
Heck, don't ask me. It seems to, but then again I am no expert in the field. My personal feeling? Man's activities are at the very least somewhat responsible for climate change. What I do know is that this is one study flying in the face of others which support global warming. Figures lie and liars figure. Anybody can make up a study and have i
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
We should take the steps, provided that we know what those steps are, and that the benefits are worth the costs.
Re:Well Duh (Score:4, Informative)
Could be, but it's more likely that it's heat caused by the extreme pressure at the Earth's core caused by gravity...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Go back to physics class (Score:5, Informative)
No offense, dude, but go take a physics class. That goes for whoever modded _that_ "informative" too.
1. Heat flows from the sun to the earth, and from both to the vast expanses of open space anyway. It's not the outside space that's heating the Earth, but the Sun.
2. The laws of thermodynamics have to do with atom/mollecule movement, and transfer of heat between bodies in contact. The only (ok, vast majority of) energy flowing in or out here has _nothing_ to do with thermodynamics as such, since there are no two bodies in contact exchanging heat (i.e., exchanging mollecule movement by impact.) What is happening there light being absorbed and radiated, and yes that can happen in the opposite direction just as well. There are relevant laws there, e.g., Stefan-Boltzman [wikipedia.org], but the second law of thermodynamics isn't it.
E.g., you can cut sheet metal with a focused laser beam even though the heated point is basically a hell of a lot hotter than the laser. It will absorb the light anyway. E.g., to address your "inside" and "outside" concerns, you can fry an ant with a magnifying glass even though the ant ends up hotter than the surrounding air. That's because the energy comes from the sun, not from the outside air.
So, sorry, the GP post was right, you are wrong.
But to get back on topic, what's happening is that the earth receives some radiation energy from the sun, and it radiates some back into space. The equilibrium temperature is when the energy radiated equals the incoming energy. Basically if energy E is incoming, then the equilibrium temperature T is when surface times emissivity times Stefan-Boltzmann constant times T to the 4'th power equals E. That's all.
The "insulation" and its non-uniformity across wavelengths messes things a little, but as long as the temperature variations are relatively small, the wavelength don't shift horribly much, so basically the proportionality stays. And a global warming of 1 Celsius (which at least at one point was all the heating Earth had experienced) isn't enough to throw it off the hook. If the Earth's temperature is, say, approximately 300 Kelvin (for the sake of a nice round number), we're talking a third of a percent increase. Since the rest is constants T1^4/T2^4=E1/E2, so it only takes an increase of (1.00333)^4=1.0134, or 1.34 percent increase in incoming energy to fully explain it. Better yet, since Stefan-Boltzman applies to the Sun too, to fully cause it, the Sun would have to experience the same heating the Earth does. A third of a percent heating of the sun creates the extra energy to heat up the Earth by a third of a percent.
So that's basically all the debate here: did our "insulation" change over time, or is it simply that the Sun got slightly hotter? The former wouldn't explain why Mars is heating up too, while the latter fully does.
Funny the things one can learn by paying attention in physics class, really.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I do.
Right, which is exactly why it's important to understand whether or not the global climate change is anthropogenic. We want to know why it's happening rather than jumping to
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Most current research tends to show that human Co2 has some affect on the climate, but nobody is really sure how.
Current research shows that human CO2 has had a large effect on the climate, compared to pre-industrial times, and we know how: the greenhouse effect.
We are less certain about the extent of future climate change, largely because we don't know by exactly how much feedback effects amplify the greenhouse effect, and we don't know what future CO2 emissions will be like: a lot will depend on what we choose to do and when we do it.
The problem is that nobody really knows, any many people aren't willing to make major sacrifices regarding something that we need more information about. [...] Perhaps it would be wiser to make an evolutionary shift in technology and lifestyles, which the global economy can afford...and maybe do it in a manner consistent with our understanding of the phenomena that we're just beginning to understand.
Obviously, we are not going to take any action that we cannot afford to take.
Re:Take that, Status Quo! (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's suppose that the orbit alteration is not the case. Wouldn't it still make sense to prepare for the worst? Why not stop CO2 emissions, we're better off slowing CO2 output and being wrong about global warming than we are heating up the planet with CO2 and being wrong about not having a human global climate impact.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Why not stop CO2 emissions, we're better off slowing CO2 output and being wrong about global warming
Think of what stopping CO2 emissions will do to those poor defenseless plants! You plant-killer! We at PETP (People for the Ethical Treatment of Plants) will not stand idly by and allow you to suffocate all those dandelions! Dandelions have feelings, too!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How is this insightful? This kind of thinking shows everything that's wrong with the environmental movement: a complete disregard for cost/benefit analysis. You're saying that it's somehow "better" to impose arbitrary restrictions on the economy of a completely unknown cost, in the hope that whatever you did creates some kind of un
Re:Take that, Status Quo! (Score:4, Insightful)
See how those sentences sound totaly different but convey the meaning I want to have? I will let you in on this secrete of mine in case your wondering what the hell I'm doing.
Like you said, The IPCC when making this statment about humans likley to be causing global warming, were looking for a rock and found a rock. They didn't pay attention to the dirt, the bugs or worms in the soil, they were lookin for a rock and found a rock. And now they are saying that area over there is full of rocks. But when you look at it, You see rich farm land teaming with life and nutrience and a couple of rocks. The IPCC didn't go on a quest to find out what was causing the earth to warm, the went on a quest to find if it was warming and if humans could be the cause. And they found that. Yes, humans could be causing the earth to be warming. But they statment shouldn't be taken as more then that.
I have also looked at all these reports that the vast majority of the science comunity belives humans are causing global warming. And all these reports revolve around a few peer review articles were a sample of scientist were asked it the papers were flawed and to make sure tey used good science. The people who said they didn't see any flaws or that good science was used were counted as people supporting the outcome of the papers. The minor few who had an objection with them for some reason, were counted as disagreeing with them. The endresult was the vast majority of scientist agree with global warming and that humans are the cause. But the questioning had nothing to do with this. It is a play with words and misinterpretations of wording used for a specific purpose.
The relevence here is that it is possible to create a model, perform experiments, be completly and scientificly acurate and still get it wrong. This is the nature of science and why people check others work. And this is why science finds new discoveries that change the way we think about things.
So you are right. Their job was to find evidence of global warming and that humans were the cause. They did exactly this. But the GP is very wrong in making the asertion that this rules other explainations out. It doesn't touch the validity of other explainations. What he doesn't seem to know is that the truth doesn't change with popular opinion. The truth always is and we change how we understand it. This change in understanding changes popular opinion. He has stopped trying to understand the truth and just wants to regurgitate popular opinion. Even when it is wrong.
Now the line about truth not changing came from someone else. I wish I could quote him on it but I forget his name and what context it was said in.
Re:How long do we have to argue about the why... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How long do we have to argue about the why... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because if we try to change what's going on without understanding the situation we might easily decide on a cure that's totally ineffective. If C02 emissions aren't a major factor (And I'm not saying they aren't.) then lowering them won't help much, if at all. It's better to spend a little money learning what's really going on before we spend a huge amount of money on possibly useless countermeasures.
While I mostly agree with you... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
1) The Earth has been warmer than it is now before! We are not seeing temperatures outside the spectrum of nature, and even assuming worst case according to the IPCC we won't be outside normal for more than 500 years.
2) CO2 levels are not high now. There was an article in Scientific American which documented this, CO2 over the last 2 million years has fluctuated between ~2
Re:How long do we have to argue about the why... (Score:5, Informative)
The Stern report, authored by the former World Bank chief economist, says more like 1% of global GDP to prevent a 10-20% drop due to warming [bbc.co.uk].
The Earth has been warmer than it is now before!
I suppose if a huge asteroid were on course to hit Earth, your argument would be "the Earth has been barren and molten rock before! let's not do anything!"?
CO2 levels are not high now.
CO2 levels in the last 720,000 years never went over 300 as we know from the EPICA ice cores. We're over 375 right now [wikipedia.org].
I love that you're smarter than thousands of climate scientists, essentially every relevant scientific organisation, and the 154 nations who had to unanimously sign off on the IPCC's conclusion that there's a 90% certainty that human activity is causing warming at least in part. When's the Nobel being awarded?
Re:How long do we have to argue about the why... (Score:5, Informative)
No, it's not. They're predicting 4-30 [wikipedia.org], and they've been widely criticised for being too conservative on the issue - ignoring unusually fast melting in Antarctica and Greenland, for one thing.
Sure if sea levels rise 6m it will displace quite a few people, but I still don't think it would cause that much upheaval.
10% of Bangladesh would be under water with a 1 meter sea rise. That's about 15 million refugees in one nation alone, and you can be sure Bangladesh can't afford to pay 10% of their population's land just to let it get eaten up by the ocean.
A 6 metre sea rise would also destroy Miami and a number of other major cities on the East Coast of the US. We're talking about pretty huge repercussions with that big of a sea rise.
The Stern report isn't just pulling numbers out of their asses.
As far as the asteroid is concerned what would your recommendation be?
You're missing my point. The OP stated that the Earth had seen much higher CO2 in the distant past. My point is that just because it has happened previously doesn't mean it'd be fine if it happened again - after all, the Earth started up molten and airless, but that wouldn't be conducive to human survival today.
That is what you environmentalists don't get, you never factor in risk/reward
Again, read the Stern report. For a 1% cost of GDP we protect 10-20% of GDP. How is that not factoring in risk and reward?
On the CO2 front I guess Scientific American got it wrong then I'm just quoting their article verbatim... So either they are lying, or you are, but whatever.
If you have the article in front of you to quote from, surely you can provide a citation?
I'm reasonably sure I'm not lying, and so is NOAA: Vostok's 420,000 years of data [noaa.gov] and EPICA's 650,000 years of data [noaa.gov], for your perusal
The IPCC did not state anywhere any sort of statistical probability as you state.
http://www.google.com/search?q=IPCC+90%25+certain
" The scientists said it was "very likely" -- or more than 90 percent probable -- that human activities led by burning fossil fuels explained most of the warming in the past 50 years.
That is a toughening from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) last report in 2001, which judged a link as "likely", or 66 percent probable." - http://in.today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx
How does that not support my statement, quoted as follows: "there's a 90% certainty that human activity is causing warming at least in part"?
I don't see #1 - the 60% chance figure - in the 2006 IPCC report. Sure you're not looking at the 2001 report?
Without a "why" you don't even know what to fix (Score:4, Insightful)
The part where we try and figure out the cause is the most important part there is. Otherwise we stand a good chance of wasting resources we don't have or screwing something up that isn't broken to begin with.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The point is, even if a doctor doesn't know what's wrong, if there's one symptom (like overheating) that's an immediate danger, and there's a quick fix for it, the doctor wi
Private message to bluephone (Score:3, Interesting)
Or, in modern vernacular, "chill out, dude."
Seriously - you can't "do" something helpful, unless you have a clear reason why you are doing it.
After all, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions"... which I personally think is a result of the Law of unintended consequences.
Re:How long do we have to argue about the why... (Score:4, Insightful)
You've never watched "House" have you...
Geting back on topic, moving to more efficient vehicles has other advantages than just reduced CO2 emmissions, oil will eventually run out.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I'm waving a magic stick around. What are you doing to stop global warming?
Re:ya but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I'm pretty sure there are solar physicists around the world observing every measurable characteristic of the sun (that we can measure from here) all the time. Seems a bit silly to infer what's going on with the sun by looking at Mars instead of the sun itself. Unless some solar observations back this up, this'll probably be the last we hear of it.
Re:ya but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, I just lost my mod points by replying to a previous comment in this thread. But this is not a troll; there are plenty of scientists observing the sun directly, whereas we know bugger all about the weather patterns on mars. If there were significant changes happening to the sun, we would already know about it. Anyway, does the source of global warming actually matter much?
The bottom line is the correlation between greenhouse gases and temperature is well known (you can reproduce it in a simple lab experiment), so does it actually matter, in the end, what the source of warming is, if we aleady know how to prevent it? That is, even if the recent increases in temperature are due to some other cause, we know for sure we could reduce the effect by reducing human output of greenhouse gases (exactly how much we can reduce it by, is another question...).
TFA is a troll. (Score:3, Informative)
Your post is not a troll but TFA certainly is.
For anybody wondering about the attribution of various +/- forcings affecting climate, including variations in solar flux, please see figure SPM-2 in the 2007 IPCC SPM report. For those who like the Mars idea as expressed in TFA please explain why 3yrs of data should be accepted as a trend, let only accepted in preference to a theory that has made some accuate predictions and has a
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
However, claiming that the sun is responsible for Earth's current warming and "proving" it by looking at Mars is pure bullshit designed to confuse people. Zonk is always posting this type of crap, I wouldn't have a problem with it if he did
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Re:ya but.. (Score:4, Informative)
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/Hazards/What/VolGas/vol
>snipComparison of CO2 emissions from volcanoes vs. human activities.
Scientists have calculated that volcanoes emit between about 130-230 million tonnes (145-255 million tons) of CO2 into the atmosphere every year (Gerlach, 1999, 1992). This estimate includes both subaerial and submarine volcanoes, about in equal amounts. Emissions of CO2 by human activities, including fossil fuel burning, cement production, and gas flaring, amount to about 22 billion tonnes per year (24 billion tons) [ ( Marland, et al., 1998) - The reference gives the amount of released carbon (C), rather than CO2.]. Human activities release more than 150 times the amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes--the equivalent of nearly 17,000 additional volcanoes like Kilauea (Kilauea emits about 13.2 million tonnes/year)!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Where's Al Gore? We need him to fix his documentary. Oh yeah - he's in his mansion that
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Nonono, you're telling the joke all wrong! It goes like this:
Re:ya but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably just that correlation doesn't imply causation. There's a strong (negative) correlation between the number of pirates plying the seas and global warming, too, but that doesn't mean the solution to global warming is to increase piracy on the high seas.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:ya but.. (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, repating "correlation does not equal causation" is not an excuse to ignore any line of statistical evidence you choose. Correlation doesn't prove causation, but often it is damn suggestive. Most of the evidence linking lung cancer to smoking is "merely" correlation too.
Beside that, experiments do not show merely a "correlation" between CO2 and warming. It is known and very obvious adsorption physics that greater absorption in the IR spectrum than in the visible causes greenhouse warming, when the gas is subjected to visible light and coupled to a heat sink ("the Earth"). The heat sink re-radiates in infrared, and a gas which absorbs more re-radiated heat than incoming visible radiation will inevitably lead to overall warming. As noted by the grandparent, this is easily demonstrated by laboratory experiment.
This is, in fact, the reason why the entire planet is not a frozen iceball: if you leave the greenhouse effect out of the energy balance equations (incoming radiation = outgoing radiation), you'll find that the the temperature of the Earth should be much lower than it actually is. Something is trapping heat, we know for sure. The greenhouse effect is a proven mechanism, and lo, the amount of warming you should get from it is equal to the missing component of the energy balance.
People still debate about global warming, but I can't believe that people are still skeptical of the very existence of the greenhouse effect.
Stand and deliver! (Score:4, Interesting)
This is the only sound science approach. If we're not sure about global warming, we need to check on this. Let's track temperature changes as we remove carbon from the air just as quickly as we've put it in. It is the only way to settle the debate.
Re:Stand and deliver! (Score:5, Informative)
In 1859 John Tyndall discovered the radiative forcing effect of water vapour, carbon dioxide, and ozone [for the details see James Rodger Fleming, Historical Perspectives on Climate Change (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998)]. He later postulated that changes in the atmospheric concentrations of these gases may be responsible for climate change.
His lab work showed causation, not correlation.
*sighs at the general ignrance of the loudmouths on here*
empty vessels indeed...
Re:Stand and deliver! (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/vostokco2.html [noaa.gov]
From the abstract:
"High-resolution records from Antarctic ice cores show that carbon dioxide concentrations increased by 80 to 100 parts per million by volume 600 +/- 400 years after the warming of the last three deglaciations."
You get that? CO2 increased 400-600 years AFTER the glaciers receded.
This is why when certain scientists graph the CO2 data from the Vostok ice cores, they never overlay temperature on the same graph: http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/pages/pal
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If there is causation then why do paleo climate records show increases in temperature proceeding increases in CO2 levels?
Because changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration require some kind of driver or reason to occur - they don't happen purely spontaneously. When it comes to historical climate changes between glacial and inter-glacial periods the initial driver is, as far as we can tell, properties of the earth's orbit. The key point is that these are not sufficient to provide the warming that is observed during these periods. On the other hand warming induces increases in atmospheric CO2 since warmer oceans can contain less
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The Fscking problem is: How you do it? Even freezing CO2 levels at the present values, will probably cause a global recession that will put hundreds of millions starving in the Third World. Even First World countries like French which are already doomed by unemployment and social tensions are going to see their situation explode with a global recession.
Yeah, "probably". Got any prove for that? Like the hundreds of millions that starved because of the introduction of the catalytic convertor, the reduction of industrial soot, the banning of CFCs - which were all supposed to all cause a huge recession.
All that is missing is a post from you calling the non-GW-deniers "alarmists".
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
the problem is that all "data" comes from lab experiments where all variables can be controlled.
That's an advantage, not a problem. That's the whole reason why controlled experiments are preferable to uncontrolled observations.
you can't control all the earth's variables and thus the correlation is invalid.
You're being ridiculous.
... who knows what could happen when it's cooled?? There are so many uncontrolled variables! Maybe it will boil!
I cool water in a controlled laboratory experiment, and it freezes. Water in the real world
There are many variables in the Earth's climate, but none of them change the fact that CO2 and other gases produce a greenhouse effect, and they do
Re:ya but.. (Score:4, Informative)
The uncertainty is not about whether CO2 in the real atmosphere causes warming. It's about the warming and cooling contributions from other sources — how much of the total warming can be attributed to each source. (The direct contribution from CO2 can be calculated directly from adsorption physics, but there is uncertainty about how feedback effects amplify its contribution, as well as the contribution of other sources.)
There is not now enough remaining uncertainty to attribute global warming to non-CO2 sources; see the IPCC estimates in Figure SPM-2 of their latest publication.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Only with Abdussamatov's patented Space Limbograph (Score:4, Informative)
Space Solar Limbograph [cambridge.org]
I am not making this up.
Main sequence evolution (Score:5, Informative)
--
Solar: It's steady. http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
Re:ya but.. (Score:5, Funny)
I thought the Sun was middle aged...isnt that when you usually expand?
Re:ya but.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Climate [google.com] is the average of the weather in an area over a long period of time. Climate, therefore, does not equal weather, but is directly defined by it.
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I know how silly that looks. But the liberals do seem to control this issue. Global wamring is somewhat of a pet for them. Most all the political solutions (kyoto) have included their policies that were once rejected. And yes, most of hollywoods considers itself liberal. They do control a good part of the distribution proces.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Instant Kyoto compliance [proteinwisdom.com] to help offset Al Gores inconvenient electric bill. [go.com]
But when every thing is out there and all the objections and discrediting revolves around blasphemy because the religion says otherwise, I will celibrate that this study was corect. And yes, I did just liken the global wamring
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The point is that North America peaked in Natural Gas production in about Jan 2001. I suspect the world may be peaking in oil production and may already be past peak. We do have coal available and we do have nuclear. But most houses don't have a coal furnace anymore.
If we start building the IRF reactor system which was designed by Argonne Labs (and shut down by clinton's administration in 1994!) then we have over 60,000 years of uranium supply on hand
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:All I have to say is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:All I have to say is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:All I have to say is... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll call a man crazy if he disagrees that the Earth orbits the sun, and it is not just because he disagrees with my "opinion".
Re:All I have to say is... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the thing about science; it's not about `truth', it's about progressively more accurate approximations of reality. For a lot of cases, a fairly coarse approximation is all that is required; Newtonian mechanics is valid for all of the situations 99% of people will find themselves in. If you are on the leading edge of science, however, then relying on superseded approximations is a mistake.
HERETIC (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And you swallowed the lie whole with a side of bad climate modelling.
Funnily enough Triton is warming [scienceagogo.com] as is Pluto [space.com]
Of course the biggest lie you've swallowed is that all of this is somehow disinformation by Exxon. It takes a very wide gullet to manage that one but you've taken it in your stride.
Re:All I have to say is... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd be surprised if Pluto weren't warming, given it is just past perihelion and it has some quirky orbital parameters. Funny how when things get closer to the sun they warm up a bit. I'd also point out neither article mentions anything to do with the sun getting hotter, and both have quite plausible explanations for the observed trends on both bodies. These articles in no way supports your "OMG it's a conspiracy!" distortion field, unless you believe the astronomers are in on it with the climatologists and geologists.
Also, if you bother to check your history, James Hansen didn't pull this out of his ass and a bunch of climatologists suddenly said "Brilliant! We can finally crush ExxonMobile/Shell/BP/Chevron!!!". There was quite a bit of review and discussion early on, it's just that the theory that best explained the observations survived, which is how good science works.
PS: I did climate modeling in grad school. If you think it's so bloody simple and we're all just idiots, let's see you build a model than predicts anything useful.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:All I have to say is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Got any data to back that up? We are talking both accuracy and precision. I want to see the manufacturer specs on the actual equipment that has been used at the hundreds of temperature measurings stations around the world for the past 100 years or even 30 years. Go ahead and try to find that data. Or are you claiming that it is not relevant to the discussion? I want to see numbers. After all numbers, quantitative data, is what we are talking about here. If it is so obvious then show me. If you can't do that at least talk about the temperature measurement tech we are dealing with here. Do the temperature measurement stations use infrared tech? At least cite which type [wikipedia.org] or types of thermometer have been used around the world to measure these obvious changes.
The simple fact is that temperature measuring technology that is actually used to measure the air within a useable temperature range is highly imprecise and highly inaccurate. Most will only be able to measure temperature to within +/- 2C! And that assumes calibration that needs to be performed on a periodic basis. And digitals generally fare even worse than analogs at least if you ignore miniscus parallax issues (which of course you should not). It is interesting to me that everyone (on both sides) seems to dance around the very issue of where the rubber meets the road, the nature of the very equipment that seems to be predicting the end of our species, not in the distant future, not 10,000 years from now, but in less than a century. That would seem serious enough to at least warrant a discussion of such issues.
Francis Bacon, the great philosopher of science, cautioned against letting a theory stray too far from the data. This theory is so far from it that hardly anyone even bothers to talk about the uncertainties in that data. As if our methods of measurement, not just in the US in 2007, but in the Soviet Union in 1943, were perfect and absolutely without error. And what about human error, errors in recording the data? We seem to be assuming no human error whatsoever in the the recording of the temperature readings. Did they have automated computer temperature logging in the 1920s in Indonesia or Siberia? Do they even have it today? Such questions should at least be occuring to you. The fact that they are not makes me wonder about whether you really care about the truth.
I would sneer at the idea that it would mean the end of our species and openly laugh when you claim to have evidence that would prove it without the slightest doubt. So much so that any person to deny it is a crank. In fact, barring any unproven, unforeseen, effects, I would quite like an extra 5-10F increase at the lattitude where I currently live. Just means that there would be some migration away from equatorial regions. Some of us already regard them as inhospitable, especially at midday. Bad for some, good for others. On the whole, it sounds like a wash. Certainly not the end of all terrestrial life on our planet.
Actually all of them are. hehe. Okay. Sorry about that. Couldn't resist.
But in a positive way. Show me someplace, anyplace in the world where property on the coast is worth less than inland (discounting the costs within cities)? The owners of such property tend to be (comparitively at least) wealthy. It is true even in Indonesia (one of the poorest countries in Asia).
Re:All I have to say is... (Score:4, Informative)
I work for one of the leading global suppliers of meteorological equipment. The issue isn't with how accurate the sensors can be, it's if they are being properly calibrated and maintained. In the US we do a fairly good job, although if a sensor is reporting off by a degree or two it is within accepted functional range and will pass any inspection.