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A Hotter Sun May Be Contributing To Global Warming
no reason to be here writes "The sun seems to be getting hotter. Total radiation output has increased .05% per decade since the 1970s.
This article over at Yahoo! News has the scoop. Though .05% may not seem like much, if it has been going on for the last century or more (and circumstantial evidence suggest that it has), it could be a significant factor in the increase in global average temperature noticed during the 20th century."
Well then, in addition to the deteriorating atmosphere a small increase in the Sun's output of radiation only compounds the global warming problem.
The threat of global warming is real.
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Free your mind.
No matter how much we humans think we can figure out about our world and the universe, there's always some phenomenon that we don't account for yet we plod forward anyway. This is not to say that humans are not contributing to global warming, but we should be looking more into the natural physical phenomena that could be contributing to a problem that affects us.
And no, this isn't an excuse for the rabid dogs on either side of the environmental debate to start jumping up and down either for or against human contributions to global warming, nor is it our only problem. I hope this discussion doesn't turn into this, though I fear it will.
i always thought it was arrogance to suggest that, to the exclusion of all other factors, humans had the greatest impact on global warming.
don't think me a corporate whore or anti-environmentalist; i'm willing to bet that we have some impact... i just think we don't know enough about our ecosystem and it's interaction with the universe around us to automatically assume that it's all our fault.
woof!
...some country have a scientific comitee (*cough* US *cough*) use this as an argument there isn't global warming due to pollution and that one don't really have to reduce CO2 emission or other Serre-effect gas ?
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
more logical than what they have been saying about global warming being caused by "greenhouse gases" and whatnot.
"Global warming" is a documented scientific fact. Without the greenhouse effect our planet would be uninhabitable.
Now whether this effect has been exacerbated by human creation of greater atmospheric carbon dioxide, hydrofluorocarbons, etc., that's up for debate. Personally I think since we're not sure, we should err on the side of caution and try and cut emissions as much as possible.
Since there's enough evidence to suggest that burning fossil fuels affects climate change, and also the sun is getting hotter, this is all the more reason that we must control our consumption (the former variable, within our control). Anything less would be reckless.
If the Sun is indeed warming, then we may still need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The last thing you want to do on a hotter stove is clamp the lid tighter.
Sigh. If Greenies had just concentrated on the fact of global temperature increase or decrease, the debate would be simply on technical solutions. Instead they made it a religious issue. Now any time something like this comes out, those of the other religion will start demanding sacrifices of oil.
Yes, which is why the scientist said that it would be significant if it's been going on for a century or so. That would be a 5% increase (actually more, due to the wonders of compound interest), which certainly would be important.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
I have always thought that global warming was caused by something other than humans. After all we've gone through a couple of ice ages so far, which tells me that it's completely natural for slow (albiet drastic) temperature changes.
Unless the theory is that dinosaurs also used aerosol cans, leading to their own demise. Asteroid theory, ha! The pieces start to fall together...
Note to moderators: The first paragraph is insightful, the second is an attempt at humor.
that man's activities have had little or no effect on the climate of the earth, and the fossil record *proves* the average temperature of the earth has been much higher and much lower in the past, that the size and shape of ozone hole is purely due to solar cycles, and insolation is the key to climate?
R..I..G..H..T... but I am sure you are quick to interpret a century of temperature readings (most of which are wildly inaccurate by today's standards) to support your theories of global warming.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
No. The article cites the leader of the study as indicating that you shouldn't draw such a conclusion from it:
so he explicitly says that this does not show that you can't blame it on greenhouse gases.
No, because there are forms of air pollution other than CO2, and they also cause problems.
So, if global warming is not at all due to excess CO2 production (as opposed to being due to increased solar output and excess CO2 production, which is one possibility), what part of climate fuckage is caused by our use of oil?
If the Sun is indeed warming, then we may still need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The last thing you want to do on a hotter stove is clamp the lid tighter.
Right, but if it turns out the sun is causing 99% of the global warming we've seen, and CO2 is causing 1%, you have to ask yourself whether its worth spending trillions of dollars to get that 1% back.
There are plenty of good reasons to cut down on oil consumption. Heck, cutting down on oil consumption would even *gasp* save money, which is always a good thing. Decreased oil consumption would certainly help out with our problems in the Middle East. Not to mention that limiting oil consumption would decrease other harmful side effects such as smog and acid rain. In short, using less oil is clearly in the U.S.'s best interests. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to realize that.
That being the case, why the environmentalists put so much emphasis on global warming is beyond me. The science behind global warming is iffy at best. Even the scientists with the most dire predictions (and the biggest axes to grind) are quick to point out that they are making a lot of assumptions. Instead of focusing on the many clearly measurable reasons to limit our use of oil the environmentalists have jumped straight for the doomsday scenario. In my opinion this loses their movement a great deal of credibility. Instead of focusing on the science, the have jumped headfirst into the sensational. In many ways they are just short of the homeless guy with the "The End is Near!" sign around his neck. Until they have better evidence they should stick to the arguments that clearly can't be refuted.
This article is a good example of how difficult it is to predict global weather trends. There are simply too many variables and not enough information. It's entirely possible that the earth is getting warmer because *boggle* the sun is burning hotter. Does this mean we shouldn't cut down on our use of oil? Of course not. We should just stop focusing on global warming as the primary reason to limiting oil production.
(Which is also caused by the use of other fossil fuels, e.g. coal.)
I'm not sure I'd call acid rain a climate problem, though.
I'm a chemist, and you're quite right. Carbon dioxide does store energy that an IR transparent gas would not trap in our atmosphere. But you glibly assume that it is easy to measure the effect of this trapping on global climate. This is not true, and is the reason there there is active debate to this date, even among responsible, non-oil funded scientists over the degree of the effect.
At any rate, this effect *is* secondary to the effect of the sun's output...it is the largest source of energy for our planet, and any change in its output, even small ones, makes a large difference in our climate.
This is why we have seasons...and seasonal changes are quite large and result from small changes in the sun-earth distance.
If this report is true, and the sun's output has in fact increased over the last decade, it would be an important factor to account for, that to my knowledge, has not previously been considered.
And it is at the same time bad news. If true, then human behavior may not be as responsible for climate change as we all have thought, and that makes the effects we would like to avoid that much harder to avoid....
You say
Accu-weather, a commercial concern controlled by commercial interests, knows which side of their bread is buttered. Instead, you might consider the 2001 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which directly attributes the observed tmeperature increase to radiative forcing of greenhouse gasses.
This is the misinformation that pisses me off the most. I have been in direct telephone contact with the pair of so-called scientists from Huntsville, Alabama who published this crap. Their measurements of cooling above the troposphere are completely consistent with global warming in the troposphere, where radiative forcing keeps heat trapped at the surface of the Earth. Guess where the Huntsville team gets their funding? NASA. Guess what agency pumps carbon dioxide equivalent to driving a SUV two million miles into the atmosphere every time a shuttle launches? NASA.
Take another look at the r^2 value on the curve fit graph of atmospheric CO2. That value means that all but about 1% of the variation of that curve can be explained by those four numeric parameters of that logistic sigmoid curve. One thing that isn't uncertain is that if we don't start wholesale conversion to wind power pretty damn soon, there will be twice as much atmospheric CO2 in 2060 as their was in 1500. Did you know that less than 150,000 modern wind turbines could supply the entire U.S. power grid demand?
Oh, PLEASE! Water vapor, unlike CO2, becomes reflective (clouds are white) when it condenses from vapor to aerosol, which it does under temperature increase conditions (greater transpiration at greater temperatures raising humidity.) This tends to nullify water's heat trapping over time.
Both halfs of that statement are a baldface lie. The "prior to 1940" statement directly contradicts the observed data, and anyone who thinks greenhouse gas emissions "upsurged" after 1940 needs to take another look at the graph and/or read up on the history of coal mining.
Pathetic.
Had nothing to do with Bush's "quick draw" decision? Maybe, just maybe, Global Warming (TM) really does have more to do with solar output than greenhouse emissions. Dogma isn't science, it is superstition supported by conformity. I get the impression some of you guys would rather sweep inconvenient facts under the rug less it undermine your little religious crusade.
Seems to me we (earthlings) could put up a filter between the sun and the earth and attenuate/reflect the amount of energy reaching us, therefore cooling the earth down. I'm sure there must be some technical reason this is a crazy idea, so someone please fill me in!
Well, if you're going to throw theories out about what the graphs mean, why not turn them around. What if the source of the reduction in temperature (another side-effect of solar energy) caused a reduction in CO2. Just imagine, the worlds flora gets less solar energy, and can't produce as well, and can't produce CO2 as well. Incidentally, the temperature goes down, which doesn't help the plants either. When things go the other way, both graphs spike.
;)
Oh, and as to your heavier rain showers, particles in the air cause heavier rain showers, too. Ever hear of cloud seeding? My city is large enough to cause local weather variations, too. I've seen blizzards split around the city - clouds and snow in all directions, and a partially clear sky above. It looks really cool on weather maps, but I'm not attributing that local variation to global warming, either.
I'm not saying I believe this, but you can't take two disparate elements, and guess you know what the whole ecosystem was doing.
All the scientists are guessing, to one degree or another. They don't have 100% certainty with most of the big things, wich is why the theories keep evolving. Obviously, there is one right answer, and we might even find it. The likelier option is that more than one thoery is partly right.
Of course, we may never know, at least until we've been able to collect a decent sample ourselves. Personally, I'll keep guessing.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Well, if you're going to throw theories out about what the graphs mean, why not turn them around. What if the source of the reduction in temperature (another side-effect of solar energy) caused a reduction in CO2.
I would tend to agree with your prespective that one should be very cautious before determining causality from the graphs discussed in the parent posting. It seems to me that a giant icesheet smothering 1/3 of the Northern Hemisphere would tend to put a pretty good damper on CO2 emmissions from natural decay of plant matter in what today is largely forests and grasslands in Canada, Europe and Siberia.
It scares me to think that someone who claims to be a chemist (and therefore supposedly educated) thinks that seasons are caused by changing distance between the Sun and the Earth. This isn't like misunderstanding the fine points of quantum mechanics. It's like telling people that on the moon things float away, or that rockets can't travel in space, because they have nothing to push against. Is it really possible that a person can get a chemistry degree without realizing what causes summer and winter?
Of course it is, at least as far as many current industries are concerned. This is not a deep dark secret, it's a simple fact.
Beyond that there are two camps. The first believe that green industries will more than make up for the reduction in economic activity in polluting industries. The second (much smaller) believes that reduced economic activity in general is desirable.
So don't feel bad about questioning the Green orthodoxy, because it's changed 180-degrees in the not too distant past,
Scientists don't know for certain whether CO2 emissions at current or future levels will cause global warming, global cooling, or not have any effect. There are plausible models predicting all three effects (although global warming is by far the most widely accepted model). And if climate change occurs on a massive change, plausible models say that it will be very damaging and costly.
The greens just take a conservative approach, which simply says: massive greenhouse gas emissions are a very recent phenomemon; since we have plausible models predicting grave consequences from this recent phenomenon, let's limit them to remain closer to historical levels until we know more.
It's ironic that the self-proclaimed "conservatives" are the ones most pushing for such a dangerous experiment on a global scale.
A human being emits CO2 that they produced from sugar and oxygen that was itself produced by the opposite reaction using sunlight and so is a part of a sustainable carbon cycle. The CO2 from your car engine is a rapid release of CO2 from a huge reserve of carbon that the biological systems of this planet are not currently equipped to deal with.
2.5 lbs per day + 3.5 lbs per day is apparently too much. Do you propose that instead of reducing the amount of CO2 produced by cars that we instead begin simply culling the drivers?