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Is Global Warming Behind Earth's Gravity Shifting?
MichaelH writes "The good folks at JPL along with the Royal Observatory of Belgium have an explanation for the recent changes in Earth's magnetic field: the melting of sub-polar glaciers causing a mass shift towards the equator. Starting in 1997, a noticeable change in Earth's gravitational field was observed; Earth was beginning to develop a 'bulging waistline.' Sounds like it's time for a diet with fewer greenhouse gases...."
So, where is the trending data over a few thousand years saying that man and his theorized greenhouse gases are heating things up?
Reconstructed climate data from the last 1000 years can be found here.
So... If somebody ever proves with real evidence, and trending, that these greenhouse gases are the culperate for ALL our problems...
Nobody has ever claimed that greenhouse gases are resonible for all of our problems.
what are we going to do about those pesky things called volcanos? Tell them that they can't spew millions of tons of greenhouse gases?
Nothing, we evolved with volcanos, and their effect on the earth's climate. It's when we started pumping in extra greenhouses gaes, over and above what volcanos contribute, that problems occur.
Warning: Some ideologies on the Net are smaller than they appear.
Umm, try 1/299,792,458 of a second. ;)
And thank you for playing too!
I can't speak for the poster to whom you replied to, but I have read many scientific articles on global warming (I've almost finished my PhD in chemistry (non-atmospheric stuff, but includes many of the fundamentals behind atmospheric chemistry), and I have worked with atmospheric chemists at various times in the past), and your statements strike me as wrong.
The vast majority of climatical scientists support the theory that humans are contributing to global warming. As an example, this links to an IPCC report into the science behind global warming. As you can see, the author and reviewer list is very large. On the otherhand, the number of greenhouse skeptics who actively research in the area is quite low. One doesn't even need to take one's shoe's off to count them.
Warning: Some ideologies on the Net are smaller than they appear.
Ok, nice of you to admit this. Let's add one more thing science can give you: some numbers.
CO2 records go back thousands of years from Greenland ice core data; since the industrial revolution began the era of massive human use of carbon-based fuels, atmospheric CO2 concentrations have already risen 30%, methane concentrations doubled, and nitrogen oxides up 15%. All these chemicals are known to trap heat.
People have been modeling this year after year for decades with relatively consistent results - a warming on the order of a few degrees C by 2050, much greater warming at the poles than at the equator, increased intensity of storms and other severe weather.
None of the models see global cooling as a result any more, although regional cooling of one sort or another is possible with changing ocean circulation patterns. If the effect is always warming, whether 1 degree or 10, no matter what the model, you can safely conclude that the added human chemicals do force a general warming of the planet with a value somewhere in that range.
The scale of what we have been seeing, from around the world, over the past decade, is alarmingly very much in line with the model predictions. Global temperatures are already up 0.5 degrees C, and even this small temperature rise seems to have had dramatic effects.
Does this prove that human activity has caused global climate change? Science never conclusively proves anything - results are always open to further question. But for policymakers not blinded by the continuing obfuscation from the oil companies and their toadies, the conclusion is rather inescapable. Humans have clearly increased gases that are clearly known to trap heat, and the climate has already seen warming over the past century.
Why aren't we doing more about it? Look at what the Europeans are doing to meet Kyoto targets: massive investment in wind farms, for example. Why isn't that happening in the US? Why has average US automotive fuel economy gown down in recent years, not up? Would reduction of oil use really be such a bad thing??? Only for the oil companies who are currently running the US government...
We are so utterly dependent on oil that we have to kow-tow to the arrogant Saudi's and similar despots around the world who control so much of the world's oil resources - or, in current circumstances, go to war. Improved automotive fuel economy by just a few percent would return far more oil than the disputed ANWR drilling area. But the US Congress the last two years has rejected all attempts to re-instate the fuel economy standards and apply them across the board.
There are alternatives, but the current US government refuses to invest in them - Energy department programs in renewables and fusion energy have been cut year after year. The research dollars required are considerably less than, for example, the billions California lost in last year's energy debacle, but we refuse to make that investment.
What about the possibility that the world will warm and climate will change whether or not we do anything about our CO2 production? First, admitting that humans can have an impact on global climate should give us the confidence to know we can also impact it for the good, as well as for bad. Contrary to your impression that we don't understand climate, we do understand it well enough to know the effect of some changes we could make. Large-scale geo-engineering to mitigate natural climate change is certainly a possibility.
But in the long run, Earth has managed pretty well on its own and our policy probably should be one of neutrality rather than hands-on management: movement of industrial activity into space (as your tag line indirectly suggests) may well be the best long-term option for the planet. But we're not quite ready for that yet (although that's another area where I believe US R&D investment has been much less than it could have been).
Energy: time to change the picture.