The Skinny On Climate Change »
Posted By RickyDawkins 1 year, 5 months ago in NewsThere have been claims that warming on Mars and Pluto are proof that the recent warming on Earth is caused by an increase in solar activity, and not by greenhouses gases. But we can say with certainty is that even if Mars, Pluto or any other planets have warmed in recent years, it is not due to changes in solar activity.
Read Full Story at environment.newscientist.com »
Submitted By:
RickyDawkins
Pascal's Wager (God is a safe bet)
"If you believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing--but if you ...
Related Articles:
Why not submit a story?
Join the Discussion 
+ Add Comment
Comments So Far: 56
-
100%
RickyDawkins1 year, 5 months ago
There are two big problems with the idea: the evidence for warming on Mars and Pluto is sketchy, while the Sun's energy output has not increased since direct measurements began in 1978. If increased solar output really was responsible, we should be seeing warming on all the planets and their moons, not just Mars and Pluto.
Our solar system has eight planets, one dwarf planet and quite a few moons with at least a rudimentary atmosphere, and thus a climate of sorts. Their climates will be affected by local factors such as orbital variations, changes in reflectivity and even volcanic eruptions, so it would not be surprising if several planets and moons turn out to be warming at any one time.
However, given that a year on Mars is nearly two Earth years long, and that a year on Pluto lasts for 248 Earth years, it is too early to draw conclusions about long-term climate trends on the outer bodies of the Solar System.
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/ear...
Reply -
0%
RickyDawkins1 year, 5 months ago
For the other 26 Top Myths on Climate:
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/ear...
Human CO2 emissions are too tiny to matter
* We can't do anything about climate change
* The 'hockey stick' graph has been proven wrong
* Chaotic systems are not predictable
* We can't trust computer models of climate
* They predicted global cooling in the 1970s
* It's been far warmer in the past, what's the big deal?
* It's too cold where I live - warming will be great
* Global warming is down to the Sun, not humans
* It's all down to cosmic rays
* CO2 isn't the most important greenhouse gas
* The lower atmosphere is cooling, not warming
* Antarctica is getting cooler, not warmer, disproving global warming
* The oceans are cooling
* The cooling after 1940 shows CO2 does not cause warming
* It was warmer during the Medieval period, with vineyards in England
* We are simply recovering from the Little Ice Age
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/ear...
Reply-
67%
RickyDawkins1 year, 5 months ago
And the last few Neocon climate myths (for today!)..
* Warming will cause an ice age in Europe
* Ice cores show CO2 increases lag behind temperature rises, disproving the link to global warming
* Ice cores show CO2 rising as temperatures fell
* Mars and Pluto are warming too
* Many leading scientists question climate change
* It's all a conspiracy
* Higher CO2 levels will boost plant growth and food production
* Polar bear numbers are increasing
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/ear...
Reply-
100%
lvrofwolves1 year, 5 months ago
I thought Mars was warming up because of big dust storms.
I personally think the sun just FEELS like it's warming up, and it feels that way because the heat gets trapped here because of all the pollution etc... I don't believe for one second that the Sun is getting hotter.
I would be more inclined to believe a conspiracy theory if it was contained within one country, or even one continent.
And polar bears population is NOT increasing, along with many other living species.
Reply
-
-
75%
tiredofnonsense1 year, 5 months ago
"Climate myths: Human CO2 emissions are too tiny to matter"
"But the fact that CO2 levels have remained steady until very recently shows that natural emissions are usually balanced by natural absorptions."
The Ice Cores show this to be false, CO2 levels have fluctuated following changes of temperature.
Reply
-
-
67%
lfergie8121 year, 5 months ago
The Earth has a concentric orbit by that I mean that we are nearly the same distance from the sun doing the whole orbit. Mars and Pluto have eccentric orbits and are not the same distance from the sun all the time so naturally there are going to be greater temperature variations on Mars and Pluto. Since Pluto's orbit is 248 earth years, we know very little about it's climate change as the story states, it is moving away from the sun but the methane gases might be causing a temporary greenhouse effect. I'll be able to tell more about this in 248 years if it happens again.
Pluto
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/pluto/pl...
Mars
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/mars/mar...
Reply-
0%
tiredofnonsense1 year, 5 months ago
"The Earth has a concentric orbit by that I mean that we are nearly the same distance from the sun doing the whole orbit."
Sorry, the Earth and all planects have an eliptical orbit, I think that was copernicus that proved that, The earth is closest to the sun in December and Furthest in July.
Reply
-
-
60%
tiredofnonsense1 year, 5 months ago
"Sun's energy output has not increased since direct measurements began in 1978. "
The UN's 2001 report relegated the role of the Sun in causing climate change to a very short subchapter. The conclusion was that since 1750 the Sun could not have caused warming amounting to more than 0.3 watts per square metre per second â;; insufficient to have contributed appreciably to the observed warming of 0.6C between 1900 and 2000. A subsequent study (Hansen, 2006) mentions just 2.2 watts per square metre, but with little discussion. The UN says that solar forcing of climate is less well understood and, accordingly, subject to greater uncertainty than any other forcing. The level of scientific understanding, says the UN is very low.
The UN Says the sun is Warmer.
Reply -
0%
tiredofnonsense1 year, 5 months ago
"Sun's energy output has not increased since direct measurements began in 1978"
Solanki and Fligge (2003) deduced that in the past half-century the Sun has been hotter, and for longer, than at any time in at least the past 11,400 years. Their work, inevitably relying on proxies for TSI in former times, has recently been extended by Willson (2003), who has concluded that between the last two minima of the 10.6-year solar cycle TSI has risen at a rate equivalent to at least 0.68wm-2 per decade:
Scientist say the sun is Warmer.
"Sun's energy output has not increased since direct measurements began in 1978. "
A writer for a magazine say the sun is not warmer. Who do you believe?
Reply -
100%
RickyDawkins1 year, 5 months ago
SINCE 1978, NOT SINCE 11,400 YEARS AGO! READ WHAT YOU PASTE!
"The cooling and warming during the ice ages and interglacial periods, however, was far greater than would be expected from the tiny changes in solar energy reaching the Earth. The temperature changes must have been somehow amplified. This most probably happened through the growth of ice sheets, which reflect more solar radiation back into space than darker land or ocean, and transfers of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and the ocean."
"How do we know? According to solar physicists, the sun emitted a third less energy about 4 billion years ago and has been steadily brightening ever since. Yet for most of this time, Earth has been even warmer than today, a phenomenon sometimes called the faint sun paradox. The reason: higher levels of greenhouse gases trapping more of the sun's heat."
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/ear...
Reply-
100%
RickyDawkins1 year, 5 months ago
Hmm
"Fred Pearce is a former news editor at New Scientist magazine, and is currently its environment and development consultant. He has written 14 previous books, which have been published in the UK and US and translated into French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Norwegian and Portugueseis. He writes regularly for the Independent and the Times Higher Education Supplement, the Boston Globe and Foreign Policy in the US. He is also syndicated in Japan, Australia and elsewhere and has filed articles from more than 50 countries in the past decade.
He was voted BEMA Environment Journalist of the Year in 2001 and has been short-listed for the same award in 2000, 2002 and 2003. He is a past recipient of the Peter Kent Conservation Book Award and the TES Junior Information Book Award. His books have been translated into eight languages.
He is a regular broadcaster on radio and TV, with interview credits from Today to Richard and Judy to the Open University."
Reply-
0%
tiredofnonsense1 year, 5 months ago
"Fred pearce is one of the leading contributors to 'new scientist' He has been an environmentalist for many decades and has produced some first rate factual accounts of global burning and an excellent book on the global water industry. However, he needs to maintain the respect and co-operation of a wide range of scientists in order to obtain the information which is published in his magazine and this means keeping cordial relations with vivisectionists and other white coated thugs. He can't afford to challenge their gross stupidities or else they'd ostracise him and he'd be out of a job. Not surprisingly given his social milieux, he seems to enjoy mocking the ideas of Animal rightists. Over the years his controversial remarks, often in the form of throwaway comments at the end of an article, add up to a rather sordid portrait of the values and beliefs held by many environmentalists."
Reply
-
-
100%
RickyDawkins1 year, 5 months ago
From your own "NONSENSE" post..
"The Sun .. insufficient to have contributed appreciably to the observed warming of 0.6C between 1900 and 2000"
Did you accidentally provide excellent proof of anthropogenic global warming in your haste to prove the Sun is getting hotter? Yup!
Reply
-
-
38%
tiredofnonsense1 year, 5 months ago
"The Sun .. insufficient to have contributed appreciably to the observed warming of 0.6C between 1900 and 2000"
Did you accidentally provide excellent proof of anthropogenic global warming in your haste to prove the Sun is getting hotter? Yup!"
You will note this come from your favorite document.The ICPP trying to downplay the sun. and scienticest in 2003 stating an increase twice the 2001 guess.
The Charts that go with the Solar data show 2 periods of low temperature as well as the following climbs back up, this since 1978. Going back to pre 78 data shows even more of a climb.
The fact is Solar Variance has had a much closer relationship to temperature change than CO2 has. CO2 has a tendency to Lag behind Temperature and in some cases has actually gone in the opposite direction.
G
Reply -
75%
RickyDawkins1 year, 5 months ago
Well, if you would just consult what the science article says.. Myth Number 19.. (this is too easy!)
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/ear...
"Ice cores from Antarctica show that at the end of recent ice ages, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere usually started to rise only after temperatures had begun to climb. There is uncertainty about the timings, partly because the air trapped in the cores is younger than the ice, but it appears the lags might sometimes have been 800 years or more."
"What is more, CO2 is just one of several greenhouses gases, and greenhouse gases are just one of many factors affecting the climate. There is no reason to expect a perfect correlation between CO2 levels and temperature in the past: if there is a big change in another climate "forcing", the correlation will be obscured."
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/ear...
Reply-
100%
RickyDawkins1 year, 5 months ago
Dr. Nonsense, did you forget to investigate this Climate Myth too?
"Global warming is down to the Sun, not humans" LOL!
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/ear...
"Direct measurements of solar output since 1978 show a steady rise and fall over the 11-year sunspot cycle, but no upwards or downward trend .
Similarly, there is no trend in direct measurements of the Sun's ultraviolet output and in cosmic rays. So for the period for which we have direct, reliable records, the Earth has warmed dramatically even though there has been no corresponding rise in any kind of solar activity."
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/ear...
Keep trying though, this is fun!
Reply
-
-
0%
tiredofnonsense1 year, 5 months ago
"Ice cores from Antarctica show that at the end of recent ice ages, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere usually started to rise only after temperatures had begun to climb. There is uncertainty about the timings, partly because the air trapped in the cores is younger than the ice, but it appears the lags might sometimes have been 800 years or more."
Thank you, my point, CO2 LAGS Temperature. Instead of leading like it would if IPCC was correct.
"What is more, CO2 is just one of several greenhouses gases, and greenhouse gases are just one of many factors affecting the climate. There is no reason to expect a perfect correlation between CO2 levels and temperature in the past: if there is a big change in another climate "forcing", the correlation will be obscured."
And Yet thats what the manmade Global Warming debate is on. An admittedly unkown correlation.
Reply -
71%
RickyDawkins1 year, 5 months ago
"Thank you, my point, CO2 LAGS Temperature."
Yes, and this is MORE proof of MANMADE GLOBAL WARMING! HELLO MCFLY!
THE CO2 IS RISING! AND THERE IS NO SIGNIFICANT WARMING FROM THE SUN! WAKE UP!
THE DEBATE IS OVER, YOU ARE JUST TWISTING WORDS NOW! SPEND A FEW MINUTES READING THE WHOLE ARTICLE!
HUMANS ARE MAKING MEGATONS OF GREENHOUSE GASSES! THE EARTH IS WARMING FASTER THEN EVER!
1 Plus 1 = 2
Reply-
43%
tiredofnonsense1 year, 5 months ago
"Yes, and this is MORE proof of MANMADE GLOBAL WARMING! "but it appears the lags might sometimes have been 800 years or more" So manmade global warming started 800 or more years ago, and we are just seeing the increase in CO2 now?
"THE DEBATE IS OVER, YOU ARE JUST TWISTING WORDS NOW! SPEND A FEW MINUTES READING THE WHOLE ARTICLE!" only with those who insist its the human element. Those who disagree still want to debate, what are those in favor of the human element afraid of?
HUMANS ARE MAKING MEGATONS OF GREENHOUSE GASSES! THE EARTH IS WARMING FASTER THEN EVER!
Umm read your own links? "Human emissions of CO2 are now estimated to be 26.4 Gt per year, up from 23.5 Gt in the 1990s" Meanwhile....The consumption of terrestrial vegetation by animals and by microbes emits about 220 gigatonnes of CO2 every year, while respiration by vegetation emits another 220 Gt." So we have 26.4 vs 440
Reply -
67%
tiredofnonsense1 year, 5 months ago
""Thank you, my point, CO2 LAGS Temperature."
Yes, and this is MORE proof of MANMADE GLOBAL WARMING! HELLO MCFLY"
Exactly, if CO2 Lags, its a reult of warming, not the driving agent.
Reply
-
-
100%
tiredofnonsense1 year, 5 months ago
spent over an hour posting that last message. Netscape.com is rediculously slow
Reply -
0%
RickyDawkins1 year, 5 months ago
You are a formidable opponent. You have presented some creative new theories. The link below addresses your latest theory, that vegetation is a bigger culprit than humans
Here is Myth Number 1.
"Climate myths: Human CO2 emissions are too tiny to matter"
Ice cores show that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have remained between 180 and 300 parts per million for the past half-a-million years. In recent centuries, however, CO2 levels have risen sharply, to at least 380 ppm (see Greenhouse gases hit new high)
So what's going on? It is true that human emissions of CO2 are small compared with natural sources. But the fact that CO2 levels have remained steady until very recently shows that natural emissions are usually balanced by natural absorptions. Now slightly more CO2 must be entering the atmosphere than is being soaked up by carbon "sinks".
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/ear...
(By Catherine Brahic)
Reply-
83%
RickyDawkins1 year, 5 months ago
..cont
The consumption of terrestrial vegetation by animals and by microbes (rotting, in other words) emits about 220 gigatonnes of CO2 every year, while respiration by vegetation emits another 220 Gt. These huge amounts are balanced by the 440 Gt of carbon absorbed from the atmosphere each year as land plants photosynthesise.
Similarly, parts of the oceans release about 330 Gt of CO2 per year, depending on temperature and rates of photosynthesis by phytoplankton, but other parts usually soak up just as much â;; and are now soaking up slightly more.
Reply-
67%
tiredofnonsense1 year, 5 months ago
"These huge amounts are balanced by the 440 Gt of carbon absorbed from the atmosphere each year as land plants photosynthesise."
Is he saying plants have a limit of absorbtion? Higher CO2 has a fertilizer effect,the subject of the tree ring studies that Mann used. Increased CO2 causes higer rates of growth, better utilization of Water, higher fruit and grain production and higher nutrietion in the fruit and grain.
"You are a formidable opponent. You have presented some creative new theories" Just applying common sense.
Reply
-
-
-
100%
RickyDawkins1 year, 5 months ago
"Exactly, if CO2 Lags, its a reult of warming, not the driving agent."
Now you finally understand about LAGGING!
NOW you should be able to understand why the increase of pollution since the industrial revolution and the population boom of the past 100 years is JUST NOW becoming APPARENT!
Reply-
83%
tiredofnonsense1 year, 5 months ago
"Now you finally understand about LAGGING!
NOW you should be able to understand why the increase of pollution since the industrial revolution and the population boom of the past 100 years is JUST NOW becoming APPARENT!"
but we alredy said the lag is "800 years or more" Saying CO2 levels are causing the Temperature to go up is like saying the mountains caused the pressure on the tetonic plates.
Reply -
0%
RickyDawkins1 year, 4 months ago
Again, it is more complicated than just CO2. There are long-term and short-term cycles. There are medium-term cycles.
The recent warming breaks all those cycles.
In terms of the 800 years figure, that was the maximum lag time quoted by the article.
Now, if you boost the heck out of greenhouse gasses, the way Humans have. (And our activities, including livestock farming, coal, cars, busses, trucks, power plants, burning forests, cutting forests, etc.) There is no doubt that the lag time will be much less than 800 years with an onslaught such as ours. That is just common sense. In fact, it looks as if the lag only took about 150 years, according to the graphs and is getting smaller, as our population grows. This is likely because of how VIOLENT OUR IMPACT REALLY IS on the earth.
-ricardo
Reply
-
-
100%
RickyDawkins1 year, 5 months ago
Climate myth #20: Ice cores show CO2 rising as temperatures fell
(by Michael Le Page)
"How should past CO2 levels compare with past temperatures? If there is no relation between CO2 and temperature, there should be no correlation at all. If CO2 is the only factor determining temperature, there should be a very close correlation.
If CO2 is just one of several factors, the degree of correlation will depend on the relative importance of CO2 and will vary depending on how much other factors change.
So what has actually happened? The best evidence comes from ice cores. As the snow falling on the ice sheets in Antarctica or Greenland is slowly compressed into ice, bubbles of air are trapped, making it possible to work out the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere going back hundreds of thousands of years."
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/ear...
Reply -
100%
RickyDawkins1 year, 5 months ago
..cont
There is no way to work out the global temperature at the time the ice formed, but clues to the local temperature come from the relative amount of heavy hydrogen (deuterium) in the water molecules of the ice compared with seawater, or from the amount of oxygen-18.
It takes more energy to get heavier water molecules into the atmosphere and to keep them there. What this means is that the isotopic content of water falling as rain or snow depends on the temperature of the sea and on the air that carried the water vapour, and is thus related to local temperatures.
Observations show for any particular region there is usually a strong correlation between the average annual deuterium content of rain or snow and average annual surface temperatures: the higher the deuterium content, the warmer the year. So the deuterium content of ancient ice provides a rough measure of past changes in temperature.
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/ear...
Reply-
100%
RickyDawkins1 year, 5 months ago
..cont
However, there are numerous problems with relying on the relative deuterium content as a "palaeothermometer". To mention just one, if changes in air circulation bring water from a different source region to the Antarctic, there may be a change in the deuterium content of snow even though there was no change in the local temperature.
Comparing this temperature record with the CO2 level in trapped bubbles brings another problem: the air in the bubbles can be hundreds or even thousands of years younger than the ice in which it is trapped. Air is trapped in a layer only after the snow above it has built up to a thickness of 70 metres or more, and the time this takes can vary greatly as the climate changes.
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/ear...
sorry, that last part was important too!
Reply-
100%
tiredofnonsense1 year, 5 months ago
"it has built up to a thickness of 70 metres or more"
that comes out to 229.6 feet of snow,about the depth of a 23 story building. Is he claiming snow doesn't capture air as it goes, or that as the snow is compressed the air traped when the snow falls escapes? If that where the case we would never find air bubles.
Reply
-
-
-
25%
RickyDawkins1 year, 5 months ago
Climate myth # 21: Ice cores show CO2 increases lag behind temperature rises, disproving the link to global warming
Hmmm, this one you might like to read, Dr. Nonsense
We know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas because it absorbs and emits certain frequencies of infrared radiation. Basic physics tells us that gases with this property trap heat radiating from the Earth, that the planet would be a lot colder if this effect was not real and that adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will trap even more heat.
What is more, CO2 is just one of several greenhouses gases, and greenhouse gases are just one of many factors affecting the climate. There is no reason to expect a perfect correlation between CO2 levels and temperature in the past: if there is a big change in another climate "forcing", the correlation will be obscured.
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/ear...
Reply-
44%
RickyDawkins1 year, 5 months ago
CO2 is less soluble in warmer water, but its release as a result of warming seawater can explain only part of the increase in CO2. And the reduction in salinity as ice melted would have partly counteracted this effect.
A reduction in biological activity may have played a bigger role. Tropical oceans tend to release CO2, while cooler seas soak up CO2 from the atmosphere as phytoplankton grow and fall to the ocean floor. Changes in factors such as winds, ice cover and salinity would have cut productivity, leading to a rise in CO2.
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/ear...
Reply-
50%
tiredofnonsense1 year, 5 months ago
But for Richard Lindzen, a climate physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, this explosion of interest amounts to "baseless alarmism". Lindzen, who has studied meteorology and the climate for more than 40 years, believes the evidence that man is dangerously overheating the planet simply does not stack up.
(IPCC), which draws on the expertise of hundreds of climate scientists, engineers, economists, social scientists and others around the world, stated in 2001 that the global mean temperature has increased by about 0.6 °C during the 20th century, a figure that Lindzen thinks is probably about right.
Reply
-
-
-
75%
kctrixter1 year, 5 months ago
To bring other planets into the discussion of "weather on earth" is ridiculous, we have so little information on their history, never mind the fact that they do not share our atmosphere our oceans, our plant life, our life in general, or our geological history, makes this definitely a case of apples and oranges.
Is man contributing to global warming? I would have to go with the preponderance of the evidence, and that says yes.
The fact that the less of an impact we have on the earth is better for us and all the things around us (many of which benefit us in ways we are just learning to understand) should make the issue of global warming moot, we should be doing these things anyway!
Reply -
33%
Radiofreeeuropa1 year, 5 months ago
This article and subsequent discussion is one of the best I've come across. Thank you for posting it Ricky Dawkins.
I think it's really about simple Newtonian Physics, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Man increases emissions, it seems to me, a reaction will occur.
Again excellent article.
Reply -
33%
RickyDawkins1 year, 4 months ago
Hey, these theories of yours are bogus.
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/ear...
Myth #1 * Human CO2 emissions are too tiny to matter
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/ear...
Myth #2 * We can't do anything about climate change
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/ear...
Myth #9 * Global warming is down to the Sun, not humans
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/ear...
Reply -
0%
RickyDawkins1 year, 4 months ago
Human activities (farming livestock, coal, electric, demolishing forests, and cars) are to blame.
The fact is that there is an overwhelming consensus in the scientific community about global warming and its causes. There are some exceptions, but the number of sceptics is getting smaller rather than growing.
Even the position of perhaps the most respected sceptic, Richard Lindzen of MIT, is not that far off the mainstream: he does not deny it is happening but thinks future warming will not be nearly as great as most predict.
But the reason scientists think the way they do is because of the vast and growing body of evidence. A study in 2004 looked at the abstracts of nearly 1000 scientific papers containing the term "global climate change" published in the previous decade. Not one rejected the consensus position. One critic claimed this study was wrong; but later quietly withdrew the claim.
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/ear...
Reply
Add a Comment
Please keep your comments relevant to this story.
To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.