No Link Between Cosmic Rays and Global Warming »
Posted By capn_caveman 1 year, 3 months ago in Science & TechnologyThe scientific consensus is in: human-produced carbon dioxide is causing a rise in temperatures across the planet. There are still those who reject the evidence that humans have an impact on global temperatures, and instead maintain that natural processes are at the root. One of these natural causes, they say, could be from cosmic rays.
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capn_caveman
I'm an engineer that loves 'anything' science. I'm interested in physics, astronomy, space exploration, Earth sciences, and mathematics to name just a few ...
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goodgrief1 year, 3 months ago
O-M-G!! Not more of this!!!! A consensus of 2? Even it it was a consensus of 200 it's not a consensus. The planet has been warming since the ice age ended, long before cars and power plants. What sustained the global warming for those thousands of years - dino farts?
Warming, yes. Don't think anyone will disagree. Caused by man . . . c'mon. This whole issue is just aother way to part us from our money. A way to carbon offsets to become carbon taxes
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TednGilbertAZ1 year, 3 months ago
Great point! So true... and they are the supposedly green celebs like John Travolta, Tom Cruise, etc. jetting all over the world for exotic events in theirr private planes.
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TednGilbertAZ1 year, 3 months ago
nope, never... lol... that is why our temps and weather are always the same day after day. we really need no forecasters - meteorology is a sham.
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Obaku1 year, 3 months ago
Here's the gist of the problem: ll the historical evidence linking CO2 and warming is of a completely natural process.
The CO2 from human activity is completely unprecedented.
And all of it could be made moot, by a major volcanic event, for example.
Human activity, and it's effects are not limited to just CO2. The 'heat island effect' for one. Or the already evident changes to local climate from the Three Gorges dam in China. Or de-forestation. Or ocean pollution affecting algae blooms at sea. There are any number of great 'experiments' in progress, which have no controls, no historical precedent, and on a global ecosystem which 6 billion humans place under a stress also without precedent.
Gambling with the lives of every human being on Earth seems foolhardy - what odds are you willing to take?
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Charlson1 year, 3 months ago
Energy companies are gambling on making as much money as they can before switching to some other way to suck up our dollars. In the mean time, they'll risk losing it all in the future. Good odds for them now, lousy odds for us later.
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WCFIELDS1 year, 3 months ago
"what odds are you willing to take?"
I agree. Why not do the intelligent thing and slow WAY down on the pollution etc. However, even the American Public, having been minimally educated, seems to be mostly oblivious to the threat from astroids etc. All they need to hear is that it's a ten million to one chance and they tune out. A chance that the entire human race will be wiped out forever, that is. I doubt that the Chinese, Mexicans or Zimbabweans are even that interested. What are the chances that something like polution will be reversed?
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markmawn21 year, 3 months ago
We actually do have a historical record that demonstrates how man can cause devestating effects on local climate and global environments. Case in point, the Dust Bowl. Of all the land sold during the wheat bubble, all prairie grasses across millions of acres were plowed under, leaving the soil exposed to heat and wind. During the worst of it, ships 300 miles out to sea in the Atlantic Ocean were dusted by the fallout of the midwestern windstorms. New York City went "brown" many times, and many died from inhaling the dust. These problems were forseen by the then current administration, yet the propoganda of unlimited wealth and a patch of earth to call your own never ceased.
May I also mention Easter Island, another crisp example of environmental degradation, and why that civilization completely disappeared except for a few rescued survivors?
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slate1 year, 3 months ago
6 parts per million. If you take 1,000,000 dollar bills and lay them end to end they would be a little over 94 mile long. You take out 6, and that's the gigant effect human have as % of CO2.
True, man does tend to want to live their lives and need a place to stay, so yes they build stuff. The thing is there are some that think there are too many of us and want reduction, well of other people, I neva see them be the first to step up
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earthlingerer1 year, 3 months ago
Nice analogy, slate, despite being contrived and faulty...
If you think 6 parts per million is low, think of mercaptan, the "stink" in household natural gas. It can be smelled by the human olfactory organs at a concentration of 0.002 ppm, 10 ppm, and your health is at risk, but enough about discrete amounts...
In 1960 the Mauna Loa observatory put atmospheric CO2 levels at around 315, considering a yearly cycle, last measurement gave levels of over 380. These minute amount increases dramatically effect the equilibrium of carbonate stored in the worlds oceans and seas.
Maybe we should be looking at dramatic population control (don't think most governments haven't already), and trying to decide how many people the earth can sustain.
I haven't driven an automobile in three years, although I do have a valid license. I'll step up and say you probably don't need a car. Actually, being someone who "stepped up" early, I don't mind helping others to understand.
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slate1 year, 3 months ago
Cosmic rays? LOL,,,, o but do ya think that very bright light during the daytime has any affect?
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capn_caveman1 year, 3 months ago
The effect of the Sun does not explain current observations. Only 25% (AT MOST) of current variations can be explained by solar activity. Add in the 30 percent increase in CO2 since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, then you have a smoking gun.
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capn_caveman1 year, 3 months ago
CO2 has increased by 30 percent:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/chapt...
Also, take a look at this temperature data (PDF file link!):
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/103/39/14288.pdf
Pay attention to figure 5 which indicates "this evidence is
consistent ... with our conclusion that the Earth is now within ?1°C of its maximum temperature in the
past million years..."
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wildman65571 year, 3 months ago
The reality is that we don't know. Physicsforums.com recently had a poll of their contributors (a lot of scientists are active on that forum) and 60% thought that global warming is due to human activities and 40% thought it was natural.
Some of the things proposed by global warming types wouldn't hurt and would actually improve our security like improving gas mileage and recycling more, etc. Others should be put off until more is known.
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Logan6661 year, 3 months ago
I'd like to know the emission levels of CO2 on a prius doing 100MPH
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quackpot1 year, 3 months ago
The hypothesis described in this article lumps all ionized particles together, regardless of energy. This seems to me to be a mistake since a key part of the cosmic rays theory of global warming is that cosmic rays are VERY high energy and affect the atmosphere differently than ionized radiation from the sun or from Chernoble.
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rimbaud1 year, 3 months ago
We need to be conservative, not liberal, in our waste of the world's natural resources. We don't need to reduce our use, just our waste. We can only benefit from this, global warming or not.
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joeblowe1 year, 3 months ago
I was trying to read through that article, but it SEEMED like the author was switching back and forth between cosmic rays DO cause clouds and cosmic rays DON'T cause clouds. I think the theory is that they DO, and that increased solar wind REDUCES the amount of cosmic rays hitting earth - which therefor REDUCES cloud cover, allowing more solar energy to hit the ground and heat it up along with the surrounding air. Anybody else have trouble following this article? I think the guys doing actual experimental research in this area will have a better viewpoint - when the results are in.
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Teagen1 year, 3 months ago
I found the whole article based upon opinions without any real factual evidence. We hear how we see an increase of 1 degree and that's supposed to be a massive warming. We hear how the all the glaciers are melting away and that's simply not true. The big question for me is why isn't there concerns with the changes we're seeing in the sun? I really think this is a load from the church of Global Warming.
BTW-Last year and this year were to be the worst years for huricans ever. Didn't have any last year and this year has been quiet. It's clear they have no clue how weather works.
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Klarissa1 year, 3 months ago
From webetc.inf... - So faced with global warming, is the world getting wetter as well as warmer?
"Not really. First of all we have too little data at the moment, and also because precipitation is a really complex climatic variable. There is evidence that there are many parts of the world with precipitation increases, but there are other parts with a decrease in precipitation."
In order to amass more accurate data Treydte said the network of precipitation reconstructions across the world needs to be denser. "For example ... we now have this evidence from the Himalaya region but it would be
interesting to know what was going on in Switzerland and the Alps," she added.
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Klarissa1 year, 3 months ago
Another source -http://ww...">http://www.marshall.org/article.php?id=149:">-h... . . .But to get a proper estimate of the amount of human-made global warming a demonstration is required that the 20th Century actually was unusually warm, and that the 19th Century was normal. Were they? . . .
And a recent review ( http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/press/pr0310.html) by a team from Harvard University, of more than 240 scientific articles by over 1,000 researchers using the various proxy data shows that the climate in most locations was not extreme or unusual during the 20th Century. Instead, the warmest, or most extreme, climate for those locations occurred in the Medieval Warm Period, between the 9th and 14th centuries. . . . H.H. Lamb, the founder of the climatic research unit at East Anglia University, found that England's climate was warm enough in the 12th and 13th centuries to support more than 50 vineyards, signifying that May frosts were rare.
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Klarissa1 year, 3 months ago
http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/04.24/0... . .Global warming is not so hot: 1003 was worse, researchers find By W J. Cromie . . ."Clear patterns did emerge showing that regions worldwide experienced higher temperatures from 800 to 1300 and lower temperatures from 1300 to 1900 than we have felt during our lifetimes."
. . . medieval Viking sagas as examples of unusual warming around 1003 A.D. "The Vikings established colonies in Greenland at the beginning of the second millennium, but they died out several hundred years later when the climate turned colder," she notes. "And good evidence exists that vineyards flourished in Scotland and England during the medieval warmth."
evidence shows that the warmer and colder times occurred not just in Europe, but in places all over the world. Entered into computer simulations that can send us backward and forward hundreds of years in a matter of days, . . .make forecasts -hindcasts of climate more accurate.
Some paraphrasing
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simonsez1 year, 3 months ago
I agree Teagen. All of these articles use "likely" or "very likely" often. And I keep wondering where the hurricanes are this year.
There are trillions of trees on earth, plus all green plants need CO2. It's amazing there is enough CO2 to support the plant-life we have.
Show me unusually high readings of CO2 in LA, Houston, Chicago, New York, Boston, etc. at the height of traffic.
Show me plants growing out of control like Jack's beanstalk.
At this point, I'm still on the side of "unlikely" that we are CAUSING significant weather change.
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lvrofwolves1 year, 3 months ago
I meant to say likely or very likely is more meaningful in my opinion then 'may'
so it's likely or very likely it's happening, and we may be able to help put a stop on it, I think it's worth a try. We try and stop terrorism, put billions upon billions into that-how much progress has been made??? if we find ways to reduce pollution, deforestization, saving some species, making our home Earth cleaner-there will be obvious benefits of that for all mankind and other species.
Yes we need the sun, just as much as we need clean water and a somewhat steady climate. I've never believed the sun was a problem as far as climate change or warming. The sun is just fine in itself,not changing for us, it's how it's perceived through all the pollution and everything else.
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markmawn21 year, 3 months ago
Here's some more measurable evidence for you. Hydroelectric dams actually produce 4% of the total greenhouse gas emmissions. This due to rotting vegetation, which produces methane. Read up, if you choose.
http://www.irn.org/programs/greenhouse/index.ph...
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