[Boerseun]

I've heard a theory the other day that cyclic warming and cooling of the Earth might also be attributable to 'clouds' of dust and gas that our solar system periodically goes through in our trip around the galactic center.

Even a very diffuse cloud of this stuff will have an effect on the amount of energy reaching Earth from the sun.

Whether it is true or not, pumping carbon that have been trapped under the surface for millions of years into the atmosphere can not be a good thing. We should be prudent and assume we are causing great damage, because chances are we are right - but the risk of assuming we are not and continuing the way we do, is simply too great.

[Turtle]

This just in:

BBC said:

The meltdown of Greenland's ice sheet is speeding up, satellite measurements show. Data from a US space agency (Nasa) satellite show that the melting rate has accelerated since 2004. If the ice cap were to completely disappear, global sea levels would rise by 6.5m (21 feet).

http://news.bbc.co.u...ure/4783199.stm

[Turtle]

This just in; not only is Greenland experiencing accelerated melting, but the glaciers in Norway as well:

aftenposten.no said:

Glaciers melting at record rate
It's been a warm summer in Norway, and that's sped up the shrinking process that already had hit the country's glaciers. Experts say the glaciers are breaking up and literally running away at a record tempo this summer.

Read More...

[InfiniteNow]

This could all get very interesting very soon. After all, I personally have never seen an Eskimo with a sunburn not the result of reflection off the snow...

[Turtle]

HydrogenBond said:

I heard on a radio talk program that said that the ice caps of the Earth and Mars were both melting. I did a little research and this is indeed the case. http://science.nasa....g_southpole.htm

Since there are no humans on Mars yet, and very little greenhouse gas, maybe the solar energy ouptut is more important than expected with respect to global warming.

Uh...not. Did you read the article?

nasaarticle said:

...Like Earth, Mars has seasons that cause its polar caps to wax and wane. "It's late spring at the south pole of Mars," says planetary scientist Dave Smith of the Goddard Space Flight Center. "The polar cap is receding because the springtime sun is shining on it."...

This is a regular seasonal event on Mars for even backyard astronomers with a modest telescope. It is not correlated in this article to current increase in solar output.

InfiniteNow said:

This could all get very interesting very soon. After all, I personally have never seen an Eskimo with a sunburn not the result of reflection off the snow...

It's getting interesting right now. The rapid recession of sea ice in the arctic is threatening the polar bears and the seals & therefore the livelihood of the Innuit. They face a more critical concern than sunburn.

PS I don't have a link, but I hear that as the permafrost is melting in Alaska & other polar regions the vegetative material is starting to rot & is releasing considerable methane gas.
PPS Here's that link, just a year old:
http://www.guardian....1546824,00.html

[cwes99_03]

TheFaithfulStone said:

Here's the thing about carbon from forest fires. The carbon got INTO those trees by coming out of the atmosphere.

Therefore, putting it back INTO the atmosphere is less of a disaster than putting carbon into the atmosphere that's been buried underground for 50 million years.

TFS

It doesn't matter where it comes from the fact is that greenhouse effect refers to atmospheric CO2. It claims that the CO2 in the atmosphere is significan't higher (according to ice core samples) than it has been in the past 400 years (not 400,000 as posted above) because they believe they can go that far back in their core sampling (of course there is no garauntee that they can positively identify a sample from say 1776 because that sample may have melted completely away to expose the previous years sample). They say that it is higher because of human industrialization. What has been provided here is evidence that human production is a drop in the bucket to the wildfires over the past 10 years.

Also the NASA site on the receding of the Polar caps on Mars, does not say anything about them receding more in recent years than in past years. It simply shows that every year the dry ice part of the caps recedes. If you can find a better study and site it that would be evidence against greenhouse effect global warming and for solar effect global warming, but that site in post 15 is worthless in this discussion.

[Turtle]

cwes99_03 said:

It doesn't matter where it comes from the fact is that greenhouse effect refers to atmospheric CO2. It claims that the CO2 in the atmosphere is significan't higher (according to ice core samples) than it has been in the past 400 years (not 400,000 as posted above) because they believe they can go that far back in their core sampling (of course there is no garauntee that they can positively identify a sample from say 1776 because that sample may have melted completely away to expose the previous years sample).

Actually it is more like 200,000 years they have ice core data for from Greenland. I hear figures as high as 600,000, but here's from the horses mouth as it were:

NOAA said:

Studies of isotopes and various atmospheric constituents in the core have revealed a detailed record of climatic variations reaching more than 100,000 years back in time.

http://www.ncdc.noaa...ummit/document/

[Turtle]

Turtle said:

Actually it is more like 200,000 years they have ice core data for from Greenland. I hear figures as high as 600,000, but here's from the horses mouth as it were:

sciamc.om said:

November 28, 2005 Researchers have recovered a nearly two-mile-long cylinder of ice from eastern Antarctica that contains a record of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane--two potent and ubiquitous greenhouse gases--spanning the last two glacial periods. Analysis of this core shows that current atmospheric concentrations of CO2--380 parts per million (ppm)--are 27 percent higher than the highest levels found in the last 650,000 years.

http://www.sciam.com...23883414B7F0000

[cwes99_03]

The following websites are on my recommended reading list before you get into any debate on Global warming. These are scientific and blog sites, so read them carefully and extract the viable data from them and the ideas presented for the ACCURACY of data presented.

The simple fact is that while there is reason for some concern, the amount of data is lacking, and the accuracy of that data is of serious concern.

1) The data that is supposed to show CO2 levels for the last 400,000 years from the Vostok, Russia station 11 years ago used a lot of other global data to make estimated guesses at what year each ring on the core referred to. This is because if there were a significant enough warming trend the year after the ice was made, the data for that year could have been completely lost. (After all isn't this what brought up the concern over global warming, that polar caps can and are melting away?) If that really is the case then how can there be 400,000 years of rings?

2) Global temperature readings via land stations and satellites have dramatically increased over the past 100 years (after all we didn't have any satellites to measure temperature 100 years ago.) However, the location of these stations has remained largely urban, and largely land based (not on the ocean or large lakes like the great lakes.) This will of course skew the results. They are also largely northern hemisphere and on the European and North American continent. (map on one of the sites listed below shows them) Also the accuracy of these has greatly increased over the past 100 years, (how accurate was a thermometer made in 1900 compared to the digital type that are constantly recalibrated from 2000.)

The fact of the matter is that there is way more data to be skeptical about it than to be supportive of it. That being said, there is no reason why scientists and businesses alike shouldn't take precaution and reduce the amount of CO2 production by industry worldwide even if it does only contribute 0.28% annually (again see the websites below.)

Does this satisfy you?




http://www.clearligh...s/ice_ages.html

http://oceanworld.ta...eforwarming.htm

http://www.thedailys...l_warming_2.php

http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/vostok.html

http://www.fathersfo...A/warming10.htm

http://polynya.gsfc....s_image_10.html

[Turtle]

cwes99_03 said:

... That being said, there is no reason why scientists and businesses alike shouldn't take precaution and reduce the amount of CO2 production by industry worldwide even if it does only contribute 0.28% annually (again see the websites below.)

Does this satisfy you?

Indubitably. I said as much somewhere in one of the myriad threads here on the topic. Maybe we need a new sub-forum for just global warming? Global warming; it's here & it's queer.

[InfiniteNow]

[SATIRE]
You can post all the links you want about permafrost and ice caps, but that's just a bunch of scientific media frenzy trying to work up agitation on something which is completely and perfectly natural. It hasn't changed for a long long time... even before Jesus... so it won't change any time soon. It's a bunch of hogwash...
[/SATIRE]

Damn it's hot right now... We need a sweaty smilie!

[InfiniteNow]

Whoa... memory lane needs a driveby from the street sweeper more often . Here are some other parellel or related ideas that I've presented:

http://hypography.co...0116-post4.html

http://hypography.co...084-post14.html

http://hypography.co...0253-post5.html

http://hypography.co...787-post54.html

http://hypography.co...607-post40.html

[pgrmdave]

How will we know when it's cold enough? How cold do we want it? Assuming that we are the root cause of global warming, and that we can reverse it, how cold do we want it to be? Not too long ago, New York City would get many feet of snow in the winter, would we prefer that?

[InfiniteNow]

pgrmdave, you addressing anyone in particular?

[Boerseun]

cwes99_03 said:

...Also the accuracy of these has greatly increased over the past 100 years, (how accurate was a thermometer made in 1900 compared to the digital type that are constantly recalibrated from 2000.)...

Nope. Not a single percent increase in measurement accuracy. Sorry. This is a famous (and particularly silly) strawman argument fashioned by the 'There is no Global Warming' crowd.

And the reason for this is that mercury have expanded and contracted through heat input exactly as much a hundred years ago as last year. Or the year before. Or today.

The last few years have been the hottest on record. And our records, made with kick-ass reliable mercury thermometers calibrated at the freezing and boiling points of water (which, incidentally, haven't changed over the last hundred-odd years, either) go back a good hundred and fifty/two hundred years. Now what on earth does that tell you? Yeah! There's nothin' wrong! It's all a big hoax!

Err on the side of caution, like my momma always used to say. Because the alternative is unthinkable.