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New Type of Particle May Have Been Found
An anonymous reader writes "The LHC is out of commission, but the Tevatron collider at Fermilab is still chugging along, and may have just discovered a new type of particle that would signal new physics. New Scientist reports that the Tevatron's CDF detector has found muons that seem to have been created outside of the beam pipe that confines the protons and anti-protons being smashed together. The standard model can't explain the muons, and some speculate that 'an unknown particle with a lifetime of about 20 picoseconds was produced in the collision, traveled about 1 centimeter, through the side of the beam pipe, and then decayed into muons.' The hypothetical particle even seems to have the right mass to account for one theory of dark matter."
Have you ever driven through the countryside and seen those big long white tent looking things? They are called greenhouses. They have lots of plants living in them. They are generally substantially warmer than the area they are built in. This is because they retain heat. Opening a window at the top of the greenhouse will dramatically lower the temperature almost immediately.
From the wiki:
This warms the air near the ground, and this air is prevented from rising and flowing away. This can be demonstrated by opening a small window near the roof of a greenhouse: the temperature drops considerably.
Now. If we add carbon particles to the atmosphere, it acts to trap the heat reflected off the planet.
Now, be convinced that man is contributing to the warming of the planet by adding carbon to the atmosphere at an alarming rate.
In short:
1) Stop hijacking threads.
2) Open your eyes to man's influence on the climate.
3) Accept that we are screwing the earth, not some "magical background radiation".
4) Take steps to reduce YOUR impact. Recycle, use clean energy, be selective with your purchases.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Oh, one more.
5) Stop pissing off environmentalists like me with your "maybe it's not us..." rhetoric.
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Well, thanks for playing, but NO
I did NOT say that mankind is not contributing. There are many many reasons not to pollute our ecological system. Global climate effects are only one, and they are not the immediate need reasons.
What I did say is that I am curious as to how such things as new particles, GRBs, Hawking radiation and hundreds of other things that enter our solar system affect the planet's climate. You and a couple other take this to mean that this is a global warming because of mankind argument... and I'd like to point out that fine concerned people like you stop the conversation from ever being about fully and scientifically understanding what truly affects our climate outside of man's contribution.
Never test the water in a lake, just assume that man's urine is causing the ammonia levels to be so high. Wake up!!
If I want to talk about particle physics and space radiation and perhaps how that might affect our planet, it is NOT an invitation for you to spew idiocy across the thread.
Try now, if you can, to please contribute something to the questions posed: How might these discoveries lead mankind to truly understand what in space affects our planet, climate included.
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I try, because it matters, to keep global climate change discussions civil and centered on facts. You and others have pointed out that those screaming about manmade CO2 like chicken little are overlooking some other big problems that need to also be fixed, some of them before CO2 problems.
Nuclear energy is one way to help curb man's contribution to global warming. Limiting shopping trips to Tue-Thursday will help curb woman's contribution. (just kidding there).
The point being that there are many things that in and of themselves are not a cure for climate problems. It's the gestalt of many changes that will bring mankind's contribution into a better alignment with the planet's ability to deal with CO2 and other pollutants.
Personally, if food supplies continue to be laden with hormones and pesticides, it may not matter what the weather is like in 15 years. Additionally, there are many other pollution problems that exacerbate mankind's situation in one or more immediate ways.
One point that I like to make is that despite all that we know, what we do not yet know is as important or more so than anything. Among the things we do NOT know are what was controlling the planet's climate 200 or 1000 years ago. You know, back before all of mankind's interloping. That is what we NEED to know.
I've seen papers on a 5 year galactic radiation cycle, 11 year sunspot cycle, XYZ year cycle for the solar system to cross the central plane of the galaxy etc.and even a 70-ish year cycle for weather patterns. All of these things can have some effect. What effect, and how powerful is that effect. If all it takes is one healthy GRB to cause the Sun to spike with solar flares, CO2 isn't going to mean diddly squat to the problem. Yes, I've left out some scientific terms, and pretty much have no references. You can Google for them, what I'm talking about is out there. What isn't is the effects any of these things can have on our planet.
One thing I've tried unsuccessfully to find out is if Gamma rays have any effect on the Zeeman Effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeeman_effect
I've read where space particle radiation may be responsible for some of our storms and lightning. The effects if very mobile charged particles has to have some effect... what is that effect. It seems to me that all of these cycles in solar and galactic energy might just have a 'biorythm' kind of effect on this planet. The shifting magnetosphere of this planet has a role in protecting us, and affects the interaction between Sun and Earth etc. What effect does that have on climate?
Clearly there are a lot more questions than there are answers. I have yet to see any group of scientists publishing data on all the information that we do know about. Reports that cite CO2 as the bad guy are bereft of other data that might be important and Reports that proclaim a lack of global warming are also bereft of comprehensive data and analysis.
Can CO2 cause global warming? Too much of it certainly doesn't help. Neither does a decrease in trees/plants, or an increase in methane production.
It would be really handy to know if re-forestation would be enough to quell the problem. Perhaps eating a few less hamburgers would do... all that methane is not helping either. Of course we can also run nuclear sourced electric vehicles to help too. There is a large number of things we can do to reduce the effects man has had on climate BUT it would still be pretty damned handy to know what controlled the climate before mankind started screwing with it.
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Here is a good start (maybe) http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&output=googleabout&btnG=Search+our+site&q=space%20probe%20%22study%20the%20sun%22 They have already observed things that we did not know with space based observation vehicles. The magnetic 'portal' between Earth and the Sun has been confirmed, though not fully studied. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081101093713.htm so there are many things yet that we should really be trying to understand. Articles on the Aurora Borealis might help you with the Earth's magnetosphere and it's role in protecting life on this planet. As the Earth's magnetic poles shift over time, I have not yet seen what effect this might have on planetary weather, never mind radiation. It is presumed that as they shift, a hole (allowing in solar and cosmic radiation) will pass across parts of the the planet where the pole is moving through.
I've also looked for any data on volcanic activity vs. weather/temperature. It's difficult to find hard data without money to spend. NASA has some research available: http://nasadaacs.eos.nasa.gov/search.html I'm not sure what the Russians or EU have available. I need to spend more time reading, but there is always hope that someone at NASA reads /. and would like to answer my questions :-) (did I mention a penchant for optimism?)
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1. How much has the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere gone up since the industrial revolution? How much has the temperature gone up?
CO2: Around 40%
Temperature: Around 1 degree Celcius
2. When and why were Europe and North America deforested? Why does it matter?
Europe experienced a lot of deforestation at the hands of mankind between 1100 to 1500 AD. There wasn't much after that until recent years, when it has again become a serious problem.
America experienced little deforestation until the arrival of European settlers, and there has been extensive deforestation since then, mostly over the last two centuries.
As for why it matters: Forests are a good CO2 sink. Losing them at the same time as releasing unprecedented quantities of CO2 in to the atmosphere will lead to a situation we have not had before and therefore can only make educated guesses as to what will happen.
3. What bad effects of the temperature rise have been observed since the industrial revolution? How sure are you that the bad effects are attributable to global warming?
If I may, I won't just concentrate on what the temperature rise has done, but instead the overall effects of temperature, increased CO2 and so on. It's not fair to look at only one part of the story...
Possible (debatable) effects: More flooding, tornadoes and extreme weather than we had before.
More definite effects: More swans in Siberia, colural foliage fading, severe damage to coral reefs, ocean acidification and more...
4. How much are you predicting that the carbon dioxide levels will rise?
I'm not predicting anything... It's probably safe to say "between not much and quite a lot". Please go look at some research yourself for estimates.
5. How much are you predicting that the temperatures will rise?
I'm not predicting anything... It's probably safe to say "between not much and quite a lot". Please go look at some research yourself for estimates.
6. What bad effects are you predicting due to increased temperature?
Similar to the effects we're experiencing today (see above), only worse relative to the amount of climate change inducing factors involved (including, but not limited to, CO2, temperature rises (from any source) and so on).
7. Isn't it true that without the greenhouse effect, the earth would be a frozen ball of ice and life would be very difficult on the planet?
Yes, that is true, which is why no-one is suggesting we strip the atmosphere off the planet - things would be rather unpleasant.
This is a very silly question though, because you know full well that it's not a binary situation "we have a greenhouse effect"/"we don't have a greenhouse effect". What matters is how MUCH of a greenhouse effect we have. Too little or too much are both bad situations.
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I'll chose to not believe that.
http://www.cityrating.com/citytemperature.asp?City=Chicago
http://www.cityrating.com/citytemperature.asp?City=Anchorage
You can drive a tram between those two curves, every month of the year.
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1. Actually, here's something worth thinking about:
The whole global warming is about 1K or 1 degree Celsius in a century. Taking the average Earth temperature as about 300K (no need to go into more than 1 figure accuracy for a back-of-the-envelope calculation), the whole increase is about 0.3% of the absolute temperature.
Now I know that it means more than 0.3% for us, since we have a skewed scale in which we survive, so hold yer horses. I'm not trying to make it sound small, I'm just working in SI units, to try to figure out what could influence it and by how much.
Let's assume it was all due to external radiation. Not postulating that that _is_ the case, just doing a "what if" scenario. You can plug in your own factor afterwards.
Steffan Boltzmann says that radiated energy is proportional with absolute temperature to the 4th power. Equilibrium is reached when radiated energy equals incoming energy. So basically we'll stabilize at a higher temperature if the incoming energy increased, so we radiate as much right back. An increase of 0.3% in temperature, all else being equal, means an increase of about 1.2% in radiated energy. An increase in incoming energy by about 1.2% would completely offset it and explain it.
The sun however obeys the same law, and we get the same percentage of its radiated energy. You know, since the Earth's size and orbit didn't change. So even that converting to energy back and forth wasn't really needed, we just need (Tsun_now/Tsun_0)^4=(Tearth_now/Tearth_0)^4. Long story short, it only would have needed to increase its temperature by 0.3% too in the last century.
Now I don't think that the Sun is actually the cause of all that. NASA did measure a steady increase in Sun's temperature, but it's a bit slower than we'd need to give it the full blame. But just trying to make a different point there:
Yes, any changes in sun temperature are reflected in changes of Earth's temperatures. And, yes, very small influences on the Sun (0.3% isn't all that huge, after all) can affect Earth very significantly.
2. Also, we're not necessarily talking about energy it receives as such, but if some particles affect how fast it fuses hydrogen, the effects on the sun would be much larger than the effects on Earth. Since we don't fuse hydrogen down here.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
As a "leftist", I humbly submit that your use of the term is in error. Quite obviously you're using it as nothing more than a slur, and it is possible that you do not know what it actually signifies. A motivation against nuclear power is not particularly leftist, and neither is a distaste for rationality. The term you may be looking for is Democratic, referring to the U.S. political party. Being more accurate in your statements will help you avoid looking foolish.
Your overbroad generalizations are hardly indicative of a well-reasoned position. Take care that you do not resort to irrational statements and beliefs in your noble quest to rid the world of irrationality.
If there's any part of my post that you do not understand, I'd be happy to clarify matters.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
http://www.aip.org/pnu/2002/split/599-2.html
http://www.sciencebits.com/ice-ages
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/19866
As an American and a patriot, I say that you should review our history.
Global Warming: to the degree that humans are responsible for it, the U.S. takes the lion's share.
Death: we sell it wholesale. Don't even start.
War: we've been in more wars than you've ever heard of.
Genocide: the U.S. campaign to eliminate the Native Americans was at least the equal of Hitler's genocidal efforts.
Poverty, disease, and famine are frequently natural, but where they are not, generally we find the U.S. as a proximate or ultimate cause.
That's not to say that all Americans are bad, or that everything Americans do is bad, but we have been one of the most dangerous and destructive peoples the world has ever seen.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Awesome! Thanks....
My reading list for the weekend is probably about 3 pots of coffee and a couple of six packs long now... all good stuff.
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