Climate Change Linked to Sun's Magnetic Field

-douggy writes "Found this story at Science daily - Assistant Professor of Earth Sciences at Dartmouth, examined existing sets of geophysical data and noticed something remarkable: the sun's magnetic activity is varying in 100,000-year cycles, a much longer time span than previously thought, and this solar activity, in turn, may likely cause the 100,000-year climate cycles on earth. Couple this with the fact that the climate (global temperatures at least) also mirror the sunspot cycle almost perfectly. Makes an interesting case for global warming really."

Comments

I see a lot of talk about CO

[PhysicsGenius]

First of all, the Sun is obviously unrelated to global warming.

Second, carbon dioxide isn't the cause of global warming either. That's just a smokescreen (ha!) to cover our USian asses.

Think about it, CO2 is perfectly transparent. But the real kicker is that even if CO2 was human-caused and even if CO2 caused warming, it would be dwarfed by the real problem: profligate energy consumption.

Burning a (metric) ton of coal produces about 3 kilograms of CO2. According to the DOE (I can't find the link) those three kilograms of CO2 will cause about 30 kilojoules of energy to be trapped on the planet. But how much energy does a metric ton of coal contain? About 30 gigajoules. That's where all the heat is coming from.

So cutting carbon emissions, even if that was related, won't work. Why? Because all sources of power produce heat. Nuclear power is only about 30% efficient--the other 70% of E=mc^2 is dumped to the environment. Fusion is even worse. Hell, I wouldn't be at all surprised just burning the 2000 Cal/day for 6 billion humans wasn't enough to cause the effects we're seeing.

The only solution is a massive program of eliminating energy waste by halting all computer use (computers use 25% of all energy in the US) and anyone who burns more than their allotted share of calories should be put on an enforced diet.

Re:Global Warming != Junk Science

[Pauly]

So how can you expect proof, without being able to trace every carbon dioxide molecule from its birth at the rear of an SUV through it's life as it blankets the earth? All you can do is look at the data and find patterns.

This is very well put. I suspect we come from different prejucices when it comes to this issue, but I couldn't agree with you on this point more.

Bottomline: I don't smoke because I know it's really bad for me. I also make active choices in my life to minimize my negative effects on the environment because it's good for everyone. And just like a smoker who doesn't give a damn, the western cultures may never stop its destruction of the environment.