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Scientists Debate Shading Earth As Climate Fix

Sandhusker

Well-known member
Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.

No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out most of the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.

Let's hope those factors stop fast. Cold is more damaging than heat. The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees. Humans -- and most of the crops and animals we depend on -- prefer a temperature closer to 70.


Historically, the warm periods such as the Medieval Climate Optimum were beneficial for civilization. Corresponding cooling events such as the Little Ice Age, though, were uniformly bad news.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.

The NOAA scientists I heard said the cause of the cooling was that and the fact we are in the farthest part of the oblong cycle around around the sun- which will lead to a cooling period and change in weather patterns for 15-30 years...They also didn't discount the amount of climate change that carbon monoxide will end up contributing....
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Ice ages occur due to patterns in the geometry of Earth's orbit around the sun, known as Milankovitch Cycles. The Earth moves around the sun in an elliptical orbit and is tilted by 23.5 degrees to one side. When the Earth is at its furthest away from the sun, and the northern hemisphere is tilted away, less solar radiation reaches the ground. This cools the planet sufficiently for more winter snow in the northern hemisphere to last longer than it would do normally. The extra snow reflects more of the Sun's heat than usual, causing the ground to cool further and allowing even more snow to build - eventually causing the Earth to descend into an ice age. Recently, this has been happening every hundred thousand years or so.
---------------------------

Much like species extinction events, there have been changes in the earth’s climate in the past. These periodic cycles of cooling and warming are called Milankovitch Cycles, caused by changes in the movement of the Earth on its climate. There are three key variables that affect the amount of sunlight that reaches the earth - they are eccentricity, tilt, and precession of the earth’s orbit.

Eccentricity measures the departure from circularity of the earth’s orbit due to the presence of other planets in the solar system. If no other gravitational forces were acting on the earth, the earth’s orbit around the sun would be a perfect circle. Due to the presence of other large plants - particularly Jupiter and Saturn, which have their own gravitational forces on the earth, they pull the earth away from a perfectly circular orbit. Currently the difference between closest approach to the Sun and furthest distance is 5.1 million kilometers, equivalent to about a 6.8% change in the amount of incoming solar radiation. Changes in this system roughly fall on two cycles, one every 100K and one at 400K, and help account for periods of cooling and warming.

About Global COOLING

by Kevin Roeten
(conservative)
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest solar cycle of the past two centuries. They say this will likely lead to unusually cool conditions on Earth. It is also predicted that this cool period will go much longer than the normal 11 year cycle, as the Little Ice Age did. The climate threat is actually cooling, especially to countries like Canada. On the northern limit to agriculture in the world, very little cooling would likely destroy much of its food crops.

The Little Ice Age, the coldest period in the past 1500 years, corresponded perfectly with the Maunder Minimum. There was virtually no sunspot activity for almost seven decades in the Maunder Minimum (Willie Soon/ Harvard/Astrophysics). It turns out that for those 60-70 years the northern half of our globe was in a deep freeze. The New York harbor froze, allowing walkers to journey from Manhattan to Staten Island, and the Vikings abandoned Greenland--a once verdant land that became tundra. In that Little Ice Age, Finland lost 1/3 of its population and Iceland one half.

In the well-known 11-year "Schwabe" sunspot cycle, the output of the sun varies by about 0.1%. Sunspots are violent storms on the surface of the sun. Marine productivity and total irradiance match very well with records that have been kept for centuries on visible sunspots. Hundreds of studies of sunspots and earthly climate indicators (tree rings in Russia's Kola Peninsula, to water levels of the Nile) show exactly the same thing--that the sun drives climate change.

Even though it has been discovered that the sun is brighter now than anytime in the past 8000 years, the increase in solar output was not calculated to be sufficient to cause all of the past century's modest warming. But that amplifier was discovered(starting in 2002) with scientific papers from Veizer, Shaviv, Carslaw, and most recently Svendsmark (Danish National Space Agency).

All these scientists have proven (particularly w/Svendsmark) that the sun's protective solar wind (from sunspots) blows away deep-space cosmic rays. With fewer sunspots there is less solar wind, more cosmic rays, and more cloud formation from those cosmic rays. More cloud formation means more cooling effect on the planet.

In a 2003 poll, 2/3 of more than 530 climate scientists from 27 countries did not believe greenhouse gases were the main reason for global warming. It is now beyond 700 scientists. In fact, overlays of CO2 variations show little correlation with earth's climate on long, medium, and even short time scales. The science is nowhere near settled.

Nigel Weiss (Mathematical Astrophysics/Cambridge) states that "Variable behavior of the sun is an obvious explanation." He admits that we are now living in a period of abnormally high solar activity, and that these hyperactive periods do not last long (50-100 years), then you get a crash. "It's a boom-bust system, and I would expect a crash soon." And when the crash occurs, the Earth can cool dramatically.

Dr. Kukla (Czechoslovakian Academy of Sciences) say he and many others realize that global warming always precedes an ice age. Each lasts about 100,000 years, punctuated by briefer, warmer periods called interglacials. We are in an interglacial now. This ongoing cycle closely matches cyclic variations in Earth's orbit around the sun. Kukla says "The relationship is just too clear and consistent to allow reasonable doubt. It's either that, or climate drives orbit, and that just doesn't make sense."

No one knows when a "crash" will occur, but scientists expect it soon. Mainly because the sun's polar field is now at its weakest since measurements began in the 1950's. A deep crash last occurred in the 17th century--and it was the Little Ice Age, or the Maunder Minimum. "Having a "crash" would certainly allow us to pin down the sun's true level of influence on the earth's climate," concludes Dr. Weiss. "Then we will be able to act on fact, rather than from fear."
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
So now it depends on the Sun, who'd have thunk it possible.

So saying NO to cap and trade, would that be a positive or negative position to take?

Maybe we should be looking at a "carbon debit system", Gore will need something to tax.

This is getting confusing, no wonder VanC doesn't know which way to point his tinfoil hat. :wink:
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
OT, "Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest solar cycle of the past two centuries. They say this will likely lead to unusually cool conditions on Earth. It is also predicted that this cool period will go much longer than the normal 11 year cycle, as the Little Ice Age did. The climate threat is actually cooling, especially to countries like Canada. On the northern limit to agriculture in the world, very little cooling would likely destroy much of its food crops. "

If this is the truth, this rush to cap and trade is totally unjustified, isn't it?
 

Steve

Well-known member
Freak winter storms, marble-sized hail in New Jersey
Posted: June 16, 2009,


You don't often see people in shorts and T-shirts out shovelling snow or rescuing a car stuck in a high drift of the white ice on the road — especially in June. If you're far north, it can get cold this time of year, but not in New Jersey.

Another news report on the New Jersey storm said plows were needed to clear some streets "with piles of ice more than a foot high along the route. The combination of heavy rain, which led to local flooding, helped to turn some of the hail piles into solid ice."

Forecasters say the mid-June chill was nothing more than a freak incident and that the weather should to warm up today.

hail-in-nj.png
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Sandhusker said:
OT, "Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest solar cycle of the past two centuries. They say this will likely lead to unusually cool conditions on Earth. It is also predicted that this cool period will go much longer than the normal 11 year cycle, as the Little Ice Age did. The climate threat is actually cooling, especially to countries like Canada. On the northern limit to agriculture in the world, very little cooling would likely destroy much of its food crops. "

If this is the truth, this rush to cap and trade is totally unjustified, isn't it?

Possibly- Possibly not-- as there is still a large cadre of scientists that believe that the raising carbon monoxide and other carbon based gases releases are having a longterm effect on climate change...And without some form of "push" to get people to quit releasing these gases, similar to the cap and trade program enacted by the Clean Air Act of 1990, which reduced the sulfur emissions that cause acid rain, we will never get voluntary reduction of these gas releases....

But I do not believe it isn't as critical as the current Waxman/Markey bill that phases in reductions over 50 years- and believe that it should be lengthened out to 75 years...Still moving us to a cleaner world/air- while giving incentives to reduce our dependence on foreign oil....
And being one of those people that can't even stand being in citys as big as Billings because of the air pollution- I can't see how people can even breath in places like L.A. or NYC...
 

Steve

Well-known member
Oldtimer said:
Ice ages occur due to patterns in the geometry of Earth's orbit around the sun, known as Milankovitch Cycles. The Earth moves around the sun in an elliptical orbit and is tilted by 23.5 degrees to one side. When the Earth is at its furthest away from the sun, and the northern hemisphere is tilted away, less solar radiation reaches the ground. This cools the planet sufficiently for more winter snow in the northern hemisphere to last longer than it would do normally. The extra snow reflects more of the Sun's heat than usual, causing the ground to cool further and allowing even more snow to build - eventually causing the Earth to descend into an ice age. Recently, this has been happening every hundred thousand years or so.
---------------------------

Much like species extinction events, there have been changes in the earth’s climate in the past. These periodic cycles of cooling and warming are called Milankovitch Cycles, caused by changes in the movement of the Earth on its climate. There are three key variables that affect the amount of sunlight that reaches the earth - they are eccentricity, tilt, and precession of the earth’s orbit.

Eccentricity measures the departure from circularity of the earth’s orbit due to the presence of other planets in the solar system. If no other gravitational forces were acting on the earth, the earth’s orbit around the sun would be a perfect circle. Due to the presence of other large plants - particularly Jupiter and Saturn, which have their own gravitational forces on the earth, they pull the earth away from a perfectly circular orbit. Currently the difference between closest approach to the Sun and furthest distance is 5.1 million kilometers, equivalent to about a 6.8% change in the amount of incoming solar radiation. Changes in this system roughly fall on two cycles, one every 100K and one at 400K, and help account for periods of cooling and warming.

About Global COOLING

by Kevin Roeten
(conservative)
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest solar cycle of the past two centuries. They say this will likely lead to unusually cool conditions on Earth. It is also predicted that this cool period will go much longer than the normal 11 year cycle, as the Little Ice Age did. The climate threat is actually cooling, especially to countries like Canada. On the northern limit to agriculture in the world, very little cooling would likely destroy much of its food crops.

The Little Ice Age, the coldest period in the past 1500 years, corresponded perfectly with the Maunder Minimum. There was virtually no sunspot activity for almost seven decades in the Maunder Minimum (Willie Soon/ Harvard/Astrophysics). It turns out that for those 60-70 years the northern half of our globe was in a deep freeze. The New York harbor froze, allowing walkers to journey from Manhattan to Staten Island, and the Vikings abandoned Greenland--a once verdant land that became tundra. In that Little Ice Age, Finland lost 1/3 of its population and Iceland one half.

In the well-known 11-year "Schwabe" sunspot cycle, the output of the sun varies by about 0.1%. Sunspots are violent storms on the surface of the sun. Marine productivity and total irradiance match very well with records that have been kept for centuries on visible sunspots. Hundreds of studies of sunspots and earthly climate indicators (tree rings in Russia's Kola Peninsula, to water levels of the Nile) show exactly the same thing--that the sun drives climate change.

Even though it has been discovered that the sun is brighter now than anytime in the past 8000 years, the increase in solar output was not calculated to be sufficient to cause all of the past century's modest warming. But that amplifier was discovered(starting in 2002) with scientific papers from Veizer, Shaviv, Carslaw, and most recently Svendsmark (Danish National Space Agency).

All these scientists have proven (particularly w/Svendsmark) that the sun's protective solar wind (from sunspots) blows away deep-space cosmic rays. With fewer sunspots there is less solar wind, more cosmic rays, and more cloud formation from those cosmic rays. More cloud formation means more cooling effect on the planet.

In a 2003 poll, 2/3 of more than 530 climate scientists from 27 countries did not believe greenhouse gases were the main reason for global warming. It is now beyond 700 scientists. In fact, overlays of CO2 variations show little correlation with earth's climate on long, medium, and even short time scales. The science is nowhere near settled.

Nigel Weiss (Mathematical Astrophysics/Cambridge) states that "Variable behavior of the sun is an obvious explanation." He admits that we are now living in a period of abnormally high solar activity, and that these hyperactive periods do not last long (50-100 years), then you get a crash. "It's a boom-bust system, and I would expect a crash soon." And when the crash occurs, the Earth can cool dramatically.

Dr. Kukla (Czechoslovakian Academy of Sciences) say he and many others realize that global warming always precedes an ice age. Each lasts about 100,000 years, punctuated by briefer, warmer periods called interglacials. We are in an interglacial now. This ongoing cycle closely matches cyclic variations in Earth's orbit around the sun. Kukla says "The relationship is just too clear and consistent to allow reasonable doubt. It's either that, or climate drives orbit, and that just doesn't make sense."

No one knows when a "crash" will occur, but scientists expect it soon. Mainly because the sun's polar field is now at its weakest since measurements began in the 1950's. A deep crash last occurred in the 17th century--and it was the Little Ice Age, or the Maunder Minimum. "Having a "crash" would certainly allow us to pin down the sun's true level of influence on the earth's climate," concludes Dr. Weiss. "Then we will be able to act on fact, rather than from fear."

by your articles it looks like we are going to need to produce "extra carbon dioxide" to prevent another little ice age...
 

leanin' H

Well-known member
According to science our planet is how many million years old? And we are arrogant and smart enough to think that since temps have changed slightly in the WHOLE 500 years we have measured them that WE KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING? Hell we don't even know for sure tempature change isn't 100% normal! This is just another case of the world being flat!
 

Steve

Well-known member
According to Koren, smoke inhibition of cloud formation is not unique to the Amazon area. His team has seen similar examples in other parts of the world, including over parts of Africa during the burning season, and over Canada during major boreal forest wildfires. When added up over the entire globe, the warming influence of smoke and other absorbing aerosols suggests the global cooling influence of these particles is much smaller than current models predict.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2004/0226smokeclouds.html

another "recently" disproved theory.. or,...

carbon dioxide doesn't cause global warming.. forest fires cause smoke which causes global warming..

or.. "Nasa Aqua satellite data shows Global warming models wrong"
 

Steve

Well-known member
"Global Cooling Continues!"

The latest data from the UN's World Meteorological Association, NASAs Aqua satellite and the highly regarded Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, are all reporting that global warming has stopped. Not last week, not last month, not last year, but in 1998. Global temperatures have either leveled off or slightly cooled since then.

ore to the point, the dire computer models used by the UN's climate panel, the IPCC, which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, don't match actual temperature changes. According to the International Journal of Climatology, which has a lower circulation but a shade more credibility on the issue of climate change than Time, the weight of the current evidence ... supports the conclusion that the rising temperatures of the IPCC's computer models don't match actual temperatures.News like that can make an informed citizen who's concerned about global warming very defensive. So let's simply take a step back and see whether man's carbon output this past century has driven temperatures upward, which is the core principle of the global warming issue.

It's not the Earth that needs to cool off, it's the politicians who are ignorant of, or indifferent toward what science is actually telling us about our climate.
 

Mike

Well-known member
reader (the Second) said:
The report is 200 pages. I suggest you read it before asserting that climate change is not happening. In fact, I dare you to read it and refute it :)

There is no one willing to refute that climate change is happening.

It does and has happened throughout history as a natural phenomenon.

The debate is....... are WE causing it? Or is it changing as naturally as it has in the past?

There is no overwhelming evidence either way, from what I have read.

But there is lot's of money to be made if it's deemed to be man's fault.
 

RobertMac

Well-known member
Mike said:
reader (the Second) said:
The report is 200 pages. I suggest you read it before asserting that climate change is not happening. In fact, I dare you to read it and refute it :)

There is no one willing to refute that climate change is happening.

It does and has happened throughout history as a natural phenomenon.

The debate is....... are WE causing it? Or is it changing as naturally as it has in the past?

There is no overwhelming evidence either way, from what I have read.

But there is lot's of money to be made if it's deemed to be man's fault.
Reader, you don't even get the argument correct...climate change has happened since the beginning of the planet...this debate is about "Man-made global warming". The two biggest factors effecting global climate temperature are the sun and the oceans...those two along dwarf all other factors.

Can man pollute portions of the planet...absolutely.
Do we need to control man-made pollution...absolutely.

Mike is right...this is all about money and power!

leanin' H said:
According to science our planet is how many million years old? And we are arrogant and smart enough to think that since temps have changed slightly in the WHOLE 500 years we have measured them that WE KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING? Hell we don't even know for sure tempature change isn't 100% normal! This is just another case of the world being flat!
:agree: :clap: :clap:
 

kolanuraven

Well-known member
Mike said:
The debate is....... are WE causing it? Or is it changing as naturally as it has in the past?

.


I'm gonna go on record and say we are not CAUSING it as the warming and cooling of the planet is a natural cycle unto itself...but we are certainly speeding up the process with all of our various levels of trash and pollution.

We didn't start this fire....but we're toting wood to it for sure!!

We're doing ourselves no favor by ignoring certain blatant aspects
 

garn

Well-known member
reader (the Second) said:
White House: Climate Change Happening Now ... June 16, 2009

Harmful effects from global warming are already here and worsening, warns the first climate report from Barack Obama's presidency in the strongest language on climate change ever to come out of the White House.

Global warming has already caused more heavy downpours, rising temperature and sea level, rapidly retreating glaciers, longer growing seasons and altered river flow, according to the document released Tuesday by the White House science adviser and other top officials.

"There are in some cases already serious consequences," report co-author Anthony Janetos of the University of Maryland said. "This is not a theoretical thing that will happen 50 years from now. Things are happening now."

The White House document — a climate status report required periodically by Congress — contains no new research. But it focuses and organizes what's been covered in numerous scientific journals and piecemeal federal studies to paint a more cohesive, bigger and darker picture of global warming in the United States.

The "major disruptions" already taking place will only increase as warming continues, the authors wrote. They project the average U.S. temperature could rise by as much as 11 degrees by the end of the century.

"Thresholds will be crossed, leading to large changes in climate and ecosystems," the study said in one of its key findings, adding that it could affect the survival of some species.

For example in the past few decades, winters in parts of the Midwest have warmed by several degrees and the time without frost has grown by a week, according to the report.

"We're already seeing impacts across the nation," said co-author Virginia Burkett, coordinator of global change science at the U.S. Geological Survey. "The evidence is much stronger than it has been."

White House science adviser John Holdren said in a statement that the findings make the case for taking action to slow global warming — both by reducing emissions and adapting to the changes that "are no longer avoidable."

"It tells us why remedial action is needed sooner rather than later," Holdren said.

The report emphasized that water, either too much or too little, will continue to be a major problem in every region of the country.

"Water permeates this document," Burkett said. She said the U.S. Southwest will get drier and hotter and that will be a crucial issue. The nearly 200-page report has chapters examining the effects of global warming in each region, as well as everything from health to transportation problems.

Federal law requires comprehensive reports on global warming's effects every four years. An environmental group sued to force the Bush administration to issue an early draft of this report last summer because one had not been written since 2000. Since that time, the language has become stronger, but mostly because of fresher research, scientists said.

"The emphasis has shifted from just looking at the physical climate science to adapting to change," Burkett said in an interview.

Certainly not in the midwest that has seen the last 2 winters be colder and snowier than normal. Last summer was colder and wetter than normal and today is the first above normal day this month. IMO, 2 years in a row of colder and wetter than normal is a trend.

In fact for a good portion of the midwest, we are getting our first taste of true summer time heat after being stuck in a nearly 2 week long weather pattern that kept most areas unseasonable cold with snow falling in North Dakota and frost/freeze warnings for ND and Northern Minnestoa.

If anything, it seems like winter and chances for winter weather last longer into the Spring and Summertime seems to get shorter and shorter.

Global warming my a$$.

BTW, what would you Dems call the Dust Bowl years, a period of time that was the hottest on record for a large part of the country?
 

RobertMac

Well-known member
The White House document — a climate status report required periodically by Congress — contains no new research. But it focuses and organizes what's been covered in numerous scientific journals and piecemeal federal studies to paint a more cohesive, bigger and darker picture of global warming in the United States.
In other words...data and research has been selectively presented to fit a prescribed conclusion to perpetuate scare tactics to be used to force power grab legislation so a minority can dictate to the majority and use the majorities money to make certain groups rich.
 

Steve

Well-known member
Mike said:
reader (the Second) said:
The report is 200 pages. I suggest you read it before asserting that climate change is not happening. In fact, I dare you to read it and refute it :)

There is no one willing to refute that climate change is happening.

It does and has happened throughout history as a natural phenomenon.

The debate is....... are WE causing it? Or is it changing as naturally as it has in the past?

There is no overwhelming evidence either way, from what I have read.

But there is lot's of money to be made if it's deemed to be man's fault.

except climatologists and scientists..

recent "scientific" data is showing that the models used to speculate global warming and actual methods to measure global warming are wrong and that same scientific data is reflecting that we are entering a cooling period..

add in that they scientists were wrong on their theories on the "effect" of clouds and smoke in the atmosphere and it blows even more holes in the theory that global warming is as bad as the media and liberals made out..

so you can either believe the science or Obama/Gore..
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
RobertMac said:
The White House document — a climate status report required periodically by Congress — contains no new research. But it focuses and organizes what's been covered in numerous scientific journals and piecemeal federal studies to paint a more cohesive, bigger and darker picture of global warming in the United States.
In other words...data and research has been selectively presented to fit a prescribed conclusion to perpetuate scare tactics to be used to force power grab legislation so a minority can dictate to the majority and use the majorities money to make certain groups rich.

You just hit the nail squarely on the head, my friend.
 
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