Channel 9 Forums - Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

raymond — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 01:31:35 GMT

Brightening Sun is Warming Earth

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1997/11.06/BrighteningSuni.html

Blame sun for global warming: Science proving that industry is off the hook for Mother Nature's woes

http://bruderheim-rea.fathersforlife.org/warming13.htm

Sun's direct role in global warming may be underestimated, Duke physicists report

http://www.physorg.com/news6892.html

Sun's warming influence 'under-estimated'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1045327.stm

Is Global Warming Always Bad?

http://www.cato.org/dailys/11-07-04.html

Changing Sun, Changing Climate?

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/solar.htm

Well is it man or is it the sun?

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

Kevin Daly — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 01:49:38 GMT

It's man.

That's the longstanding and well-supported scientific consensus...but of course you only have access to that in places where science is not censored and scientific advice is not edited to fit the conclusions desired by special interests and their pet politicians.
So it's lucky we live in the free world, isn't it?

But that won't stop the propaganda (sorry, sponsored research) from the morons who are happy to drive the rest of us to extinction while they treat our environment as their personal kitty litter.

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

raymond — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 02:24:56 GMT

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
~ H.L. Mencken
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

Charles — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 02:52:14 GMT

Yellow G-Class stars, like our sun, get warmer as they age... This is nothing surprising.

Keep in mind that the Earth's mean temperature has remained relatively constant over geologic time even though the sun has increased the amount of energy it releases in our general direction by over 25% since the advent of living systems on Earth.

Life, the aggregation of the physical and chemical processes directly associated with the business of living on planet Earth, specifically, is chiefly responsible for maintaining a habitable global mean temperature in the face of solar-based perturbation (as well as many others that come from Earth itself on a regular, ceaseless basis).

When external perturbation exceeds the homeostatic capabilities of our planet's biological regulatory systems, when negative feedback loops become amplification systems (adding fuel to the fire instead of water...), the Earth will begin a steady march to becoming a planet like Venus...

Yes. The sun gets hotter as it ages. This fact should always be a part of any model that attempts to predict planetary climate variation and evolution. Fact is, we are building a very reliable gas shield that will trap heat on the surface which will amplify the warming of Earth's surface to the extent that we may very well all die . The sun will only add fuel to the fire.

Things look pretty grim, theoretically. Don't fool yourselves. Global Warming is real and you can't blame it on the sun. If we do not act immediately and on an unprecidented global scale, then we are doomed.

C

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

JonathonW — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 04:08:39 GMT

I find this EPA graph interesting:

Figure 1: Fluctuations in temperature (blue) and in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (red) over the past 400,000 years as inferred from Antarctic ice-core records. The vertical red bar is the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels over the past two centuries and before 2006. From A. V. Fedorov et al. Science 312, 1485 (2006)¹⁷. ¹⁸. Reprinted with permission of AAAS¹⁹^* ¹⁸.

Hmm... looks periodic.

I'm not saying there's not a warming trend right now. There does appear to be one. However, we can't get any conclusive evidence that it's caused by human factors (because no one was around 200-300 thousand years ago to make temperature measurements). As far as anyone can tell, we could be in a natural warming trend. It's happened several times before.

What happens if we act on an "unprecedented global scale" and do something drastic to defeat global warming? What if it doesn't work? What would be the economic, social, and ecological impact of a failed attempt, even if the climate change is caused by humans? What if global warming is a natural phenomenon? Could our attempt to reverse a natural phenomenon have adverse consequences on the world's climate?

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

raymond — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 04:23:42 GMT

Read Michael Crichton's State of Fear

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Fear

http://www.michaelcrichton.net/fear/

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=16260

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

Jung — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 08:15:43 GMT

could be worse, we could be in a fricken ice age...

not saying global warming is fine, but it could be worse. besides you can see extreme co2 and temperature fluctuations in that graph hundreds of thousands of years before man, although we have exagerated it to the most extremist extent.

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

Tom Servo — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 10:41:59 GMT

raymond wrote:

Read Michael Crichton's State of Fear

A book from a self-admitted global warming enemy. No bias involved, rly.

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

Christian Liensberger — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 10:56:16 GMT

I'm looking at this also very sceptical. Until 1850 it was a lot cooler, they had snow here in june. Which is not normal. What is normal, btw... The current warming looks also very periodical to me - although humans are also contributing their part to it

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

Minh — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 12:23:05 GMT

CannotResolveSymbol wrote:

Hmm... looks periodic....However, we can't get any conclusive evidence that it's caused by human factors...

So, um... according to wikipedia...

wikipedia wrote:

The latest data, as of March 2006, shows CO2 levels now stand at 381 parts per million (ppm) — 100ppm above the pre-industrial average.

So CO2 atmospheric level is 1/3 higher than any point in 400,000 years -- and we don't think it's man made?

It seems pretty clear from the graph that temperature follows CO2 level, but it's not clear from scale how quickly it response. Do you want to take the chance that temperatures will rise sharply 50 years from now?

raymond wrote:

Read Michael Crichton

Hey, I love the Jurasic Park movies. Have him write some more of them.

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

ZippyV — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 12:57:10 GMT

Minh wrote:

raymond wrote:
Read Michael Crichton

Hey, I love the Jurasic Park movies. Have him write some more of them.

Watch E.R.

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

Herbie Smith — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 13:03:43 GMT

ZippyV wrote:

Watch E.R.

ER is the only really good thing Crichton has done (write about what you know, Crichton was a doctor I believe). Jurasic Park was a good film becuase Speilberg took Crichtons book and made a good story out of it.
I read Prey and ended up feeling that he took a great idea and then made it very mundane. He also has a tendency to make assumptive leaps and make them sound logical; should be a politician.

I think it's funny that Crichton criticises the piloticisation (sp?) of science and then peddles his own opinions on science in his books.

Herbie

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

KosherCoder — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 13:15:19 GMT

Much science is now pointing to manmade gases actually slowing global warming by preventing solar radiation from reaching the surface.

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

Alexei Pavlov — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 13:51:52 GMT

So, why that picture isn't quite right:

Amount of CO2 isn't measured with 100% accuracy. It's VERY possible, what amount in the peaks even greater than in 2006. CO2 doesn't leavs alot of footprints and can be reduced dramatically by water.

Yes, chages ARE periodic, it's not our fault. Our Sun is "very slow pulsar" and have own heartbeat. We are investigating space and stars only last 50 years (except movement)! How we can know anything about stars? We ARE stupid children in space knowledge.

But, YES! WE ARE TURNED OUR ATMOSPHERE INTO CRAP. Thank you England and "industrial revolution"! Thank you, steam engines, converting tonns of charcoal into tons of black dust!

Our precursors and previous civilizations were much clever and lived WITH planet, rather than AGAINST. We are virus on planet's body and deserved to be removed from planet's surface (may be even from universe because of our nature of destroyers).

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

Ping — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 16:00:51 GMT

Well, any solutions then? at least human can do something to reduce the effect. why burning fossil fuels? any other fuels we can use?

e.g. solar cell (well, not efficiency i agree)

what about fuel cell?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell
At least some countries are making it as far as I know, I hope they can make a car that uses fuel cell, but at that time there will be a car revolution cos those non fuel cell car will be knocked out.

and solid methanehttp://www.resa.net/nasa/ocean_methane.htm

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

ScanIAm — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:53:08 GMT

CannotResolveSymbol wrote:

I find this EPA graph interesting:

Figure 1: Fluctuations in temperature (blue) and in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (red) over the past 400,000 years as inferred from Antarctic ice-core records. The vertical red bar is the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels over the past two centuries and before 2006. From A. V. Fedorov et al. Science 312, 1485 (2006)¹⁷. ¹⁸. Reprinted with permission of AAAS¹⁹^* ¹⁸.

Hmm... looks periodic.

Here: I made it a bit more obvious:

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

JonathonW — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 19:02:59 GMT

I am capable of reading. I see the CO₂ spike.

Interestingly, I don't see a corresponding spike in temperature.

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

ScanIAm — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 19:08:12 GMT

CannotResolveSymbol wrote:

I am capable of reading. I see the CO₂ spike.

Interestingly, I don't see a corresponding spike in temperature.

There are a number of possible reasons, but by looking at the graph, itself, it appears that the temperature deltas lag behind the CO2 deltas.

Let's just hope that there isn't a similar temperature spike.

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

webmonkey — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 00:29:38 GMT

Those of you unconvinced, I think you are missing the point. That graph shows that when there is a lot of co2 in the atmosphere the temp is higher, this is a basic scientific fact, greenhouse gases such as co2 keep the sun's energy in and temperature rises, global warming. It is a fact that in the last 30-40 years we have been pumping massive amounts of co2 into the atmosphere, you can see the spike on the graph. Therefore that massive spike in co2 is likely to be closely followed by a rather large increase in temperature. I don't see how you can argue with that ????? It's basic primary school science. The only thing that is not fact is what is going to happen, but the possibilities are pretty obvious, but overall i don't think with a population this size we can survive in our current state.

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

DuNuNuBatman — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 00:51:11 GMT

Dr Herbie wrote:

ER is the only really good thing Crichton has done (write about what you know, Crichton was a doctor I believe). Jurasic Park was a good film becuase Speilberg took Crichtons book and made a good story out of it.

The first movie was good. Otherwise the books were way better than the movies he pumped out... Tricked on going to the island?!?! come on! Were they even trying with that one???

Forget about how much pollution humans are creating. What we need to do is get rid of all our damn cows!!!
http://ecow.engr.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/get/che/555/root/1presentati/cows-n-cars4.swf

And that's science fact!!!

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

raymond — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 01:33:35 GMT

Friends of Science Videos:

Climate Catastrophe Cancelled: What You're Not Being Told About the Science of Climate Change

http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?ide=3

Contrary to claims that the science of climate change has been settled, the causes of the past century’s modest warming is highly contested in the climate science community.

The climate experts presenting in the video demonstrate that science is quickly diverging away from the hypothesis that the human release of greenhouse gases, specifically carbon dioxide, is having a significant impact on global climate.

“There is absolutely no convincing scientific evidence that human-produced greenhouse gases are driving global climate change”, stated climatologist, Dr. Tim Ball. He added that the Canadian government’s plan to designate carbon dioxide as a “toxic” under CEPA is irresponsible and without scientific merit. “Carbon dioxide is a staff of life, plain and simple. It makes up less than 4% of greenhouse gases and it is not a toxic.”

Very interesting site with many links to relevant articles and data:

Still Waiting for Greenhouse
http://www.john-daly.com/

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

DigitalDud — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 08:26:12 GMT

I was watching a show on deep underwater creatures and one of the interesting things it brought up was how the earth actually produces some heat on its own, the sun is not the absolute source of energy to the planet. There are radioactive materials deep in the planet's core from a star whose decay still produces heat. I doubt this is enough to affect the climate in any sort of way but given that its a fairly recent discovery, it shows how little we really know.

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

Tensor — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 09:07:25 GMT

Or, you could try looking at the science from non-political sources, who dont have an agenda to keep industry going or to shut it down.

http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/landing.asp?id=1278

For every climatologist who says there is no climate change, there are a hundred who says there is.

It would be great if there was no climate change. Wonderful. I wish it were the case. You just cant argue with the facts that it is going on, no matter how inconvenient, and we need to do something about it before it really runs out of control.

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

Alexei Pavlov — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 09:27:20 GMT

Thare is one more underestimated factor - strange "space rays". They are not well investigated, but there are some proofs of existance and posible effects. Basically, they are some sort of microwaves and they are warming up literally everything (stars and planets, entire space). There are made by exploding powerfull stars and collapsing galaxies and black holes.

Our Universe is too uninvestigated to say "We know exactly!"

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

Herbie Smith — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 09:28:00 GMT

The problem with scientists is that they will qualify everything with 'possibly' and 'likely' and 'all else being equal'. That's becuase scientists work in a world of statistical probabilities and nothing is ever 100% certain. 'Is the sky blue?' you ask, 'Probably' replies the scientist. I know this because I still do this even though I haven't worked in science for 7 years. This always leaves politicians with a chance to ignore 'inconvenient truths'.

Analogy:

You're sitting in your favourite cafe halfway through drinking a cup of your favourite coffee. Suddenly the manager rushes up and tells you that there's a chance that rat poison was accidentally added to your coffee. He's not completely sure whether it was or not, but there's a chance. If rat poison was added, he's not sure how dangerous it would be because he doesn't know how much might have been added nor does he know how potent it is.

Do you sit there and finish you coffee, or do you go see a doctor?

We don't know for sure whether global warming is a real problem, but are you willing to take the risk purely for convenience?

Herbie

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

cheong — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 09:58:50 GMT

Talking about environment thing, I'd like to know if there's anyone doing research on "the effect of trading to our planet"?

Here's a summary of my thought:

Let's assume the theory of birth of the Earth is from the cooling as a droplet of boiling universe substance is true. When the Earth is cooled down to solid, we can assume the mass of substances on the surface is roughly evenly distributed.

When people on Earth begin to trade, materials are moving to rich places as money flows. The more advanced transportation technologies are, the faster it moves.

Let think the Earth as a giant "spinning toy"(I forgot what is the word in English), if there's balance weight on the circumference of the surface, it'll spin without problem. If it become slightly unbalanced, it'll become swingy. If we continue to move weight unbalancedly, it'll eventally become unable to spin up.

So to what level of global trade will have impact to the degree of axis of the Earth?

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

Herbie Smith — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 10:10:55 GMT

cheong wrote:

Talking about environment thing, I'd like to know if there's anyone doing research on "the effect of trading to our planet"?

Here's a summary of my thought:

Let's assume the theory of birth of the Earth is from the cooling as a droplet of boiling universe substance is true. When the Earth is cooled down to solid, we can assume the mass of substances on the surface is roughly evenly distributed.

When people on Earth begin to trade, materials are moving to rich places as money flows. The more advanced transportation technologies are, the faster it moves.

Let think the Earth as a giant "spinning toy"(I forgot what is the word in English), if there's balance weight on the circumference of the surface, it'll spin without problem. If it become slightly unbalanced, it'll become swingy. If we continue to move weight unbalancedly, it'll eventally become unable to spin up.

So to what level of global trade will have impact to the degree of axis of the Earth?

I think that in comparison to the volume of the planet, the amount of materials we shift about is too small to matter. Even if we started shifting entire mountain ranges it would be tiny in comparison to the Earth's volume.

The issue with trade is the amount of fuel that's used to transport things. It's a current topic of conversation in the UK -- which has least environmental impact, organically grown food that shipped in from abroad, or non-organically grown food that's grown locally.

Herbie

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

Massif — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 10:21:18 GMT

Dr Herbie wrote:

The issue with trade is the amount of fuel that's used to transport things. It's a current topic of conversation in the UK -- which has least environmental impact, organically grown food that shipped in from abroad, or non-organically grown food that's grown locally.

According to my environmental sciences studying (and highly opinionated) cousin, choose local every time. Then you can try to persuade them to go organic afterwards.

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

Herbie Smith — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 10:48:26 GMT

Massif wrote:

Dr Herbie wrote:
The issue with trade is the amount of fuel that's used to transport things. It's a current topic of conversation in the UK -- which has least environmental impact, organically grown food that shipped in from abroad, or non-organically grown food that's grown locally.

According to my environmental sciences studying (and highly opinionated) cousin, choose local every time. Then you can try to persuade them to go organic afterwards.

The last argument I heard (earlier this week) was about tomato growing. In Spain, they grow them outdoors and pay fuel to transport them to the UK. In the UK they grow them in heated greenhouses, using fuel for heat instead of transport. Which is least damaging to the environment?

Of course, the real answer is to only eat tomatos when they are in season and you can grow them yourself in your garden.

Herbie

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

ScanIAm — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 23:03:57 GMT

I went to www.junkscience.com where you can find a large amount of information countering the global warming/greenhouse issue (as well as a rather disturbing pro-DDT stance?!?!?).

I read as much as I could and on it's face, it seems plausable that global warming is simply BS. Some of the data from the 'hockey stick' graph is dubious and really, we don't know for sure about anything older than 150 years.

But I'm not a climatologist and I was only marginal in chemistry, so I'm going to rely on the opinion of people who get paid to know.

And the people who get paid to know are telling us things we don't want to hear. Our tax dollars are funding research that is giving us answers we don't like. Simple greed would have them telling us things are peachy.

So unless they have a collective pathological desire to scare the sh*t out of us, they have no reason to lie. They gain nothing by lying about this.

Coffeehouse - Sun Warming!

raymond — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 22:00:42 GMT

More to think about:

Global warming:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

Global warming controversy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_controversy

Solar Variation Theory:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation_theory

Source: NASA
http://sec.gsfc.nasa.gov/popscise.jpg

Attribution of recent climate change:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_change

Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.
~Richard P. Feynman