Domain: nasa.gov
Stories and comments across the archive that link to nasa.gov.
Comments · 16,365
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Dark matter may lie just past the moon
Check this link to find out where dark matter may lie in earth's neighborhood twice the distance to the moon. http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/n...
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Re:Keep losing it
We think that we do know where some dark matter proably is. A scientist at NASA's jet propulsion lab has calculated that dark matter strands lie past the moons orbit. Here's a link http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/n...
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Re:Poor planning
You mean the expanding ice sheets in Antarctica ?
https://www.nasa.gov/content/g...
You mention Antarctic ice sheets yet the link you provide is talking about expanding sea ice, a completely different subject. You should spend some time understanding the difference between land based ice sheets and sea ice. On top of that the article was about 2014. In 2015 Antarctic sea ice extent was less than in 2014.
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Re:Poor planning
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Re:Poor planning
You mean the expanding ice sheets in Antarctica ?
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This might be more complicated than it seems
It's true that the panels aren't 100% efficient. What energy doesn't go out over the wires either gets absorbed, reflected, or grounded. Grounded? Yes, you could heat up the metal frames and that heat could find its way into the ground, which is usually a pretty good heat sink. That's probably negligible though. Much of the heat would get transferred to the air. Some would get reflected back--even though the panels are dark in visible light, infrared might be another matter.
The real devil is in what the panels replace. You have to compare the panels to what they're replacing. Another poster said putting the panels in the desert would make things cooler. If you're covering sparse vegetation and hot rocks with panels, and taking out some energy in the form of electricity that makes sense.
North Carolina isn't desert though. They're going to put those panels over land that probably used to be either woods, pasture, or fields full of some agricultural product. Plants can cool things down in a number of ways that might be more effective than the removal of energy in electrical form by panels. Aside from that, if the electricity is consumed locally it's a zero-sum game.
I'm sure there are some more fine points I'm missing here; but the main point is that the equation is a bit more complicated than just a simple thermodynamic analysis of the panels.
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NASA primarily selects military applicants
As much hype as there is to have people apply to the astronaut program, NASA primarily selects from the military, which creates an inherent bias in the system. Look at the last astronaut class:
https://www.nasa.gov/astronaut...
75% of the class was military. All of the men were military. My point is not that it's impossible to become an astronaut with a civilian background, but that it's difficult because NASA has an institutional bias that favors the military. Most former astronauts were military, so they favor other military candidates. As such, that 0.1% selection number is both right and wrong. As a general number, it may be right. However, if we ask what's the probably of becoming an astronaut given that we're not a military officer, the number is actually much smaller.
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Re:This is so ridiculous
There's no way to keep a person healthy after a voyage that long
Why don't you tone down your negativity a bit. There are plenty of valid reasons, you don't have to invent easily refutable ones.
Round trip time is estimated to 400 - 450 days.
That means that a one way trip is about 200 days.Space station crews, also known as Expeditions, typically stay in space for about 5-1/2 months.
Living aboard Mir from January 1994 until March 1995, Polyakov set a record that still stands today for the single longest space mission: 438 days.
So clearly it is not out of the question to keep a crew healthy in space for 200 days.
The Mars probes took measurements while going there and it was concluded that the radiation during the trip also won't cause any health issues. -
Aaah... Bullshit.
Sure, sure... let's just count the money.
That way most people's lives aren't worth the sweat off a donkey's balls.
And shit like those eggheads playing god with their giant electricity spending machines is beyond waste.On the other hand... counting technological spinoffs...
Spinoff is a NASA publication featuring technology made available to the public.
Since 1976, NASA has featured an average of 50 technologies each year in the annual publication, and Spinoff maintains a searchable database of these technologies.
When products first spun off from space research, NASA presented a black and white report in 1973, titled the "Technology Utilization Program Report". Because of interest in the reports, NASA decided to create the annual publications in color.
Spinoff was first published in 1976,[14] and since then, NASA has distributed free copies to universities, the media, inventors, and the general public.
Spinoff describes how NASA works with various industries and small businesses to bring new technology to the public.
As of 2015, there were over 1,800 Spinoff products in the database dating back to 1976.[37]http://spinoff.nasa.gov/spinof...
But the part I love the most is how that "spinoff is a myth" text, though it ignores the fact that those spinoffs are a BYPRODUCT of research for actual completed scientific projects and NOT of direct research with the goal of return on investment - still can't hide the fact, however it may try, that money invested in "NASA activities" RETURNED PROFIT aaaaand accomplished the missions.
Missions whose goal was NOT making profit.
Science, space capabilities AND free money.A total of over $21 billion in sales and savings benefits were identified as resulting from NASA activities.
However, the report conceded that only about $5 billion of this total was due to actual spinoff, that is "instances in which a product, process, or even an entire company would not have come into existence had it not been for the NASA furnished technology."
Most notable among these is the $1.6 billion in medical instruments, frequently cited as a major NASA spinoff.
The remaining $16 billion in benefits were in areas where "the NASA technology contributed to the sales, but that contribution can vary widely, from a relatively small percentage of the total sales or savings..."
And in this area, additional sales of commercial aircraft accounted for over $10 billion.Just imagine all the money NASA could have made if they were honesttogod genuine Scotsmen...
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Re:Junk science?
How were these 1,122 selected? The paper is almost deliberately vague on this point, simply choosing to refer to them as "our sample".
It isn't that big of a deal if you are considering the database of stars that have been found with the Kepler Space Telescope, which is by far the largest source of information about exoplanets available at the moment. You say it was data taken from just one telescope, but the science is about as sound as it gets.
Most of your questions can be answered by simply removing your ignorance about this particular instrument, which is 100% dedicated to just analysis of exoplanets and gathering data about them. While not built specifically for this paper, it was built specifically for papers like this that would discuss information about exoplanets.
The amount of data that this telescope is producing is absolutely enormous. Parked in one of the Earth-Sun Lagrangian points (technically in orbit around the Sun in a parallel orbit to the Earth) it is pointed at one specific and well mapped section of the sky (near the constellation Cygnus to avoid having the telescope ever point into the Sun) and has been watching the same set of stars continuously for several years now.
This isn't a bunch of cherry picked stars to make a point, although the stars in and near the constellation Cygnus might have a population characteristic which is different from other groups of stars. That isn't all that likely though based upon sky surveys as these stars seem to be a part of the main population of the Milky Way and no reason to believe that they should be anything unique or special other than that they are the first long term study of this nature.
The Kepler mission is a really interesting thing to find out more information about, and there is definitely something interesting about this paper. Please don't move along! This is some monumental and historic firsts in the history of mankind and very new science being conducted which has never been previously possible to do without space-based telescopes of this nature.
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Re:Load via nose or tail
It's existed for a long time: here is a photo of the SIV-B booster for Apollo 7 being delivered to the Johnson Space Center from the "Super Guppy" cargo craft NASA uses.
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Re:Where did I see this?.... Better Call Saul
Correct - but lots of (delusional) people who believe they have Wi-Fi or other Electromagnetic spectrum allergies have flocked there as a result, regardless of the real reason for it.
I have bad news for whackjob mommy. We're engulfed in the electromagnetic spectrum, even if we listen to whackjob mommy and turn every human based RF source off.
Sh/e might try suing mother nature, because what's more, some Gamma rays are created by Thunderstorms.
http://science.nasa.gov/scienc...
And those might be of a little more concern than the ridiculously small levels of RF form the far-field of a wifi router.
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Re:James Hanson
There is the NASA/GISS ModelE, one of the leading GCMs that the IPCC reports are based on. You can download the source code (in FORTRAN I think), the documentation and other information at the link.
As far as altered data, there is very little "data" input in to climate models. The major ones like ModelE are physical models and in theory you could start them anywhere and they would evolve to a realistic climate rather quickly. As far as what's input into climate models they are obviously given a starting point. Then if you want to look at how changes in greenhouse gases affect the climate you would input various scenarios of changes in those gases over time (in the IPCC AR5 they are called RCPs or Representative Concentration Pathways). Some things in climate occur on a scale that's too small for grid sizes* that are practical so they can't be calculated in the model and they have to be parameterized. Clouds are an example of this. You could input a simulation of solar variation I suppose but it's varies so little and averages out over the longer time periods that models model that it's not necessary. Things like temperature, humidity, precipitation and wind are not input into the models but are emergent properties of them.
* Grid sizes are determined by how much computing power you have and how long you want a particular run to be. Here's a page that discusses resolution (both spatial and temporal) of climate models and how it's changed over time as more computing power was brought to bear.
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Re: First, AGW came for the Marshall Islands...
I don't have any graphs plotted by lone-wolf indie climatologists to show you, but if I did, I'd have to prove to you that they weren't funded under the table by our evil government or maybe just misguided. Maybe I'll get lucky one day though. I guess this will have to do:
http://climate.nasa.gov/eviden...
https://www.skepticalscience.c...Summary:
CO2 levels are rising and it's our fault.
CO2 traps heat.
The planet is accumulating heat, especially in the oceans.
This causes bleaching in our dying coral reefs, hurting the ecosystem.
Hot oceans means bigger storms (in opposition to climate skeptic Dr. Matt Briggs claim tonight on Michael Savage).
Strong storms and rising seas erode islands and continental coasts.
Immigrants from these areas are an increasing issue because of that erosion and additional sea level rise(this article).I believe that for you, this isn't about science, but about ideology. Savage for instance is calling us all Lysenkoists (I'm listening to it now), which is the biggest, most direct psychological projection I've heard yet out of the mouth of a so-called "conservative". I think people like him are more like communists they realize.
My first introduction to this concept was in the early 1990s, as a child when I first read Cosmos by Carl Sagan. He explained why Venus was the way it was, how its hotter than Mercury despite being further from the sun, and how we are at risk to succumbing to something similar because of our carbon output. The book was published in 1980. I'd learn this again later in elementary school.
Exxon knew about the subject and did their own research confirming it in 1981. This research factored into their decision making. http://www.theguardian.com/env...
Meanwhile, a caller to Savage's show explains how these cycles are normal and that the ice caps melted and caused the Biblical flood... suppose we should just let it happen then. GOD WILLS IT!
Your folks would get more respect if they were consistent, but commitment to the concept of no climate change seems to be waning. I just think the point is that your side wants us confused and divided over it long enough for the people you (knowingly or unknowingly) work for to get away with pollution as long as possible. I enjoy watching the slippage over time, but it is irritating to know the only thing in the way of meaningful action is a bunch of impressionable folks duped into the doing dirty work for a doomed industry.
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Re:Don't hold your breath
NASA has their own inflation rate used for budgeting long-term projects, and it trends much higher than the US national inflation rate. The reason is obvious when you think about it: back in the 1950s, many common commercial products were handmade, with domestic labour, but are now mass-produced with cheap overseas labor and advanced labor-saving technologies (depending on the type of product). But just like in the 1950s, NASA still builds things largely by hand, generally in small numbers, and with a highly skilled domestic workforce.
The reason is obvious: they used their inflation rate as a key part of computing the costing of the next iteration of contracts. This created a feedback which greatly increased the cost of contracts and the resulting computed inflation rate over time.
This has led to wildly overpriced contracts. For example, a NASA group computed (see discussion of the "appendix") the traditional costing for a hypothetical NASA contract which would have built the Falcon 9 (including development of the Falcon I and three rocket engine designs). They arrived at a figure of $4.0 billion (this is for the bid, we're not even to cost overruns that occur after a contract is awarded). The actual SpaceX development cost as vetted by a NASA audit? $390 million.
My take at this time is that NASA's inflation index (the New Start Inflation Index is unintentionally pure fiction as part of a feedback dynamic that has greatly increased the cost of NASA activities. -
Re:"environmentally correct technology"
Because space travel is all NASA does, right?
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Re:If you don't like the textbooks,
There's not only blatant evidence that facts have been fabricated, there's also key evidence that the sun itself changes its output. Here's some proof from a beloved nerd site that Arctic ice is increasing! https://www.nasa.gov/content/g...
Even the beloved Al Gore said by 2014 there wouldn't be any sea ice http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci...
Look, we should be encouraging sustainable practices and using less of our resources on this floating rock. What we shouldn't be doing is creating a new tax structure for an already over bloated government and handing the servicing of said "carbon" credit system to the likes of Goldman Sachs to manage.
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Re:Joe Barton?
You would need ridiculous numbers of turbines just to slow down the breeze in a general area a little bit, so that area might be a little warmer locally because cooler air isn't pushing through, or warmer air, or something.
Do you mean like this? NASA Satellite Measurements Imply Texas Wind Farm Impact on Surface Temperature
Interesting stuff. I hadn't considered pulling warm air from upper air to the surface at night. In the end though that is a redistribution issue. But looks like the energy extraction transfer issue is indeed very small.
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Re:Joe Barton?
You would need ridiculous numbers of turbines just to slow down the breeze in a general area a little bit, so that area might be a little warmer locally because cooler air isn't pushing through, or warmer air, or something.
Do you mean like this? NASA Satellite Measurements Imply Texas Wind Farm Impact on Surface Temperature
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Re:Climate has never not been changing.
It's not like they have a webpage that lists the global mean temperature for every month going back 100 years.
They don't? http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
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Re:NASA ignoring satellite measurements...
And the first satelite was launched when?
Ohhh certainly not in the late 1800's.
One-third of Man’s entire influence on climate since the Industrial Revolution has occurred since February 1997. Yet the 225 months since then show no global warming at all (Fig. 1). With this month’s RSS temperature record, the Pause beats last month’s record and now stands at 18 years 9 months.
Christopher Monckton of BrenchleyClimate model simulations that consider only natural solar variability and volcanic aerosols since 1750—omitting observed increases in greenhouse gases—are able to fit the observations of global temperatures only up until about 1950. After that point, the decadal trend in global surface warming cannot be explained without including the contribution of the greenhouse gases added by humans. Is Current Warming Natural?
Anything that happened before 1950 temperature wise in regards to human activity is buried under natural variability; so the reality is of the time when measuring a human influence was possible, there has not been any statistically significant warming for the third of the time while a third of all of the CO2 has been added by Humans is without apparent effect other than the planet becoming greener.
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Use femtospacecraft Instead.
It would cheaper to use femtospacecraft than impacters to explore these regions. One CubeSat could act as a relay for dozens of femtospacecraft while the Lunar Flashlight lights up the territory.
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Here's one of the fixed URLs to the article
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Re:Nicely balanced versus clear point
97% vs 3% is not an equal debate.
Oh, what sort of consensus (hint: climate change propaganda) could we be thinking of here with this peculiar number? This may well be an "equal" debate, if the 97% wasn't actually 97%.
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Re:Nonsensical Title
Many of your questions are answered here, with links provided to further data. If you'd like more in-depth information about the exact process, why not contact an actual climatologist? There are some around who are taking the time to talk to the public, e.g. at RealClimate.
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Re:Nonsensical Title
Many of your questions are answered here, with links provided to further data. If you'd like more in-depth information about the exact process, why not contact an actual climatologist? There are some around who are taking the time to talk to the public, e.g. at RealClimate.
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Re:Who measured in pre-industrial times?
Do we have the evidence that shows that the amount of CO2 increase should actually increase the temperatire by 1C?
Maybe the amount of CO2 we released only accounts for 0.5 degrees and there is some other yet undiscovered source for the other 0.5 degrees unrelated to humans and to CO2.
No, it's actually more than 100% human contribution, because the natural contribution is negative. That means without anthropogenic green house gases (and other sources such as land use change and albedo reductions) the earth would be cooling. So it's not just us, it's entirely us.
I'm just saying, do we have proof of this?
Yes, enough proof to convince 97% of the scientists who study this. The other 3% are mostly libertarians who refuse to accept the evidence because it's ideologically unpleasant for them.
Do we really know there is no alternative explanation for sure?
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Re: And what if we were just colder 160 years ago
And the Artic has again a record low
..NASA says otherwise, 2007 and 2012 were both lower - significantly - than 2015. So the Arctic is rebounding, Antarctica has record ice mass. That seems to be the trends from measurements - increases in ice off of lows rather than decreases.
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Re:And what if we were just colder 160 years ago
The only thing that is unusually big (actually it is just a little bit over the mean of the recent decades, there where bigger ice shelfs, so this is by far not a record), big in terams of area, not kn terms of actually ice.
Actually, the latest NASA paper says that the total Antarctic ice mass is increasing overall, not just the area or in a small location. The total ice locked up is at a new record.
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Re:Who measured in pre-industrial times?
Scientists? Which Scientists? What equipment did they use. Where is their raw data collected from pre-industrial times?
Answer: there isn't any. You are lying. The claim isn't being made through measurements from the pre-industrial age. It is arrived at by MODELING. More misleading crap.
Really? Here is a graph you should really have a look at. Ice core samples show that CO2 levels have not been at current levels in the past 650,000 years.
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Re:And what if we were just colder 160 years ago
Well, it's a good thing that Antarctic Sea Ice just reached the highest level ever seen, according to NASA.:
“There hasn’t been one explanation yet that I’d say has become a consensus, where people say, ‘We’ve nailed it, this is why it’s happening,’” Parkinson said. “Our models are improving, but they’re far from perfect. One by one, scientists are figuring out that particular variables are more important than we thought years ago, and one by one those variables are getting incorporated into the models.”
Don't try telling me about the Arctic, either. We wouldn't want to be skeptical of the scientists, right?
And don't get me started on Solar cycles...
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Re:I don't understand.... what was preventing them
Same thing happened in the US under George W Bush. NASA scientists were forbidden to talk to the media except through spin-doctors, as he wanted to censor them saying that Global Warming was indeed real.
Is that why NASA stated that 2005 was the warmest on record? Why 2004 was announced as the 4th warmest? Why NASA scientists were talking about global warming at 2003 conferences? Would you like a few thousand more instances where NASA scientists spoke up about global warming and claimed it was real and happening throughout the Bush Administration?
Partisan hack BasilBrush spotted...
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Re:I don't understand.... what was preventing them
Same thing happened in the US under George W Bush. NASA scientists were forbidden to talk to the media except through spin-doctors, as he wanted to censor them saying that Global Warming was indeed real.
Is that why NASA stated that 2005 was the warmest on record? Why 2004 was announced as the 4th warmest? Why NASA scientists were talking about global warming at 2003 conferences? Would you like a few thousand more instances where NASA scientists spoke up about global warming and claimed it was real and happening throughout the Bush Administration?
Partisan hack BasilBrush spotted...
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Re:I don't understand.... what was preventing them
Same thing happened in the US under George W Bush. NASA scientists were forbidden to talk to the media except through spin-doctors, as he wanted to censor them saying that Global Warming was indeed real.
Is that why NASA stated that 2005 was the warmest on record? Why 2004 was announced as the 4th warmest? Why NASA scientists were talking about global warming at 2003 conferences? Would you like a few thousand more instances where NASA scientists spoke up about global warming and claimed it was real and happening throughout the Bush Administration?
Partisan hack BasilBrush spotted...
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Re:Yet another government boondoggle
Sure, that's easy: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pa...
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Re:Imagine
imagine a Beowulf cluster of these gravitational lenses...
Here ya go:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap12... -
Re:Money, sorry to say
Seriously, you can find this stuff out. Do a Google search or something next time.
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In-case you want to say "Happy Birthday"
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Re:Global warming has been changed to Climate Chan
I am a physicist, a real expert on stuff like that, and I know that the global temperature has not increased for almost 20 years.
Really? NASA Link for Average Global Temperature since 1884
Have you read this Scientific American article from 2010?
Or maybe you haven't seen this NOAA Graphic that says, "August 2015 average global land and ocean temperature was the warmest August since records began in 1880."
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Re:Even bigger question
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Re:Global warming has been changed to Climate Chan
Conveniently Global Warming initiative somehow morphed into the Climate Change, or, more accurately, fight against Climate change. I have to believe that every educated person will agree that the only thing that is constant it is change itself, including climate. Climate is changing slowly, also changes in cycles and has many variables. And yes, human are f***king up the biosphere.
Your stage of denial is 3, and you are implying a appeal to nature fallacy. Here are the relevant links:
http://grist.org/climate-energ...
http://grist.org/climate-energ...NASA has issued new study saying that Antarctica stated that since 1992, a lot of ice has been added to the continent this is the link to NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/content/g...
See here: http://grist.org/climate-energ...
Most cynical opponents to those who were pushing Global Warming were citing that it was about the money and carbon tax in the particular.
... are you arguing that now? Do you think scientists are warning about human-made global warming for money and the carbon tax?
I am convinced that in my lifetime I will see another initiative related to the fight against Global Cooling. As such Climate Change is much more convenient because bureaucrats can fight any change irrespective of the direction of the change.
Here is some information about various cooling claims:
http://grist.org/climate-energ...
http://grist.org/climate-energ...
http://grist.org/climate-energ...
http://grist.org/climate-energ... -
Re:so this is how....
Are you sure? Here's a NASA paper from 2012 that says: Mass Gains of the Antarctic Ice Sheet Exceed Losses. Same title as the current study. You may be thinking of the Arctic, which is losing volume at an accelerating rate: http://neven1.typepad.com/blog...
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Global warming has been changed to Climate Change
Conveniently Global Warming initiative somehow morphed into the Climate Change, or, more accurately, fight against Climate change. I have to believe that every educated person will agree that the only thing that is constant it is change itself, including climate. Climate is changing slowly, also changes in cycles and has many variables. And yes, human are f***king up the biosphere.
NASA has issued new study saying that Antarctica stated that since 1992, a lot of ice has been added to the continent this is the link to NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/content/g...
Most cynical opponents to those who were pushing Global Warming were citing that it was about the money and carbon tax in the particular.
I am convinced that in my lifetime I will see another initiative related to the fight against Global Cooling. As such Climate Change is much more convenient because bureaucrats can fight any change irrespective of the direction of the change.
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Re:Not reliableLet's stop being silly. I swung by NASA's website to see what they had to say about this report and noticed this title:
NASA Study: Mass Gains of Antarctic Ice Sheet Greater than Losses
NASA seems to think it came from NASA. Maybe I should take their word over yours?
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Re:ARCTIC vs ANTARCTIC
Those who believe Wikipedia is anything other than a steaming pile of shit where anyone can post anything thrive on the confusion caused by misinformation.
You could go directly to the source. but unfortunately for you, the source says "This year’s maximum was the sixteenth highest in the 35-year record."
So...
1. Antarctica gaining ice mass.
2. Antarctica ice extent has reached a new maximum
3. Arctic sea ice extent at a 35 year high. -
Re:Science is Settled
Don't you morons ever get tired of embarrassing yourselves?
So now we have thickening of the ice AND growing Ice Extent.
Did you hear the joke about the Scientists who declared a world wide crises but Nature declined to show up?
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Direct link to the NASA images
There really is no need for blogspam that adds nothing to the original source. Boo.
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Re:Woodpeckers
"It appears that there are enormous differences of opinion as to the probability of a failure with loss of vehicle and of human life. The estimates range from roughly 1 in 100 to 1 in 100,000. The higher figures come from the working engineers, and the very low figures from management. What are the causes and consequences of this lack of
agreement?...Appendix F - Personal observations on the reliability of the Shuttle by R. P. Feynman
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/sh... -
Re:I'll biteAlabama is the home on the Marshall Space Flight Center
In 1961, when President John F. Kennedy envisioned an American on the moon by the end of the decade, NASA turned to Marshall Space Flight Center to create the incredibly powerful rocket needed to turn this presidential vision into reality. Since its beginning in 1960, Marshall has provided the agency with mission-critical design, development and integration of the launch and space systems required for space operations, exploration, and scientific missions. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ma...
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He probably has a grudge
He probably has a grudge against NASA for proving that the Earth isn't flat.