Milky Way's Spiral Arms Could Not Have Caused Climate Change

KentuckyFC writes "One of the puzzles of Earth's climate history is an apparent 140-million-year cycle in the climate record. Various astronomers think this can be explained by the passage of the Sun through the spiral arms of the Milky Way, which also seems to have had a period of about 140 million years. The thinking is that in regions of denser star populations, supernovas would have been more common, bathing the Earth in cosmic rays more often. These cosmic rays would then have seeded the formation of clouds that cool the planet. But in recent years, astronomers have mapped out the structure of the galaxy in much more detail. And now a pair of US astronomers have reanalyzed this climate change idea in light of the new evidence. Their conclusion is that the climate change cycle cannot possibly have coincided with the movement of the Sun through the spiral arms. So whatever caused the 140-million-year climate change cycle on Earth, it wasn't the Sun's passage through the galaxy."

Comments

Re:Climatologists struggle to stay relevant

[Mr. Slippery]

Bummer about how the Sun is more responsible for global warming than people.

So what? Heart disease is more responsible for human deaths than murder, and yet we still take action against murderers.

Since these comments are going to suck....

[HerculesMO]

Because now the political "we don't cause GW" arguments will begin, and the bickering....

It shouldn't even be about global warming. It should be about national security. If you have no renewable resources, and rely on other (enemy) nations to provide that stuff to you and your way of life, you have a severe problem.

Let's get off oil if for nothing else, to bankrupt every middle eastern country out there. We won't bother maintaining a presence there if there's nothing to take advantage of.

Re:Since these comments are going to suck....

[eln]

It needs to be at least a little about the environment, because otherwise our easiest move may be to switch from oil to coal, which we have a lot more of. Of course, coal pollutes like crazy (even so-called "clean" coal), so it would be nice if we could keep the environmental stuff at the forefront too. I do agree that national security is a helpful selling point, though.

Re:Since these comments are going to suck....

[ScentCone]

The ones we take oil from do want to nuke us.

Please list the countries from which we "take" oil.

Re:Since these comments are going to suck....

[Dr Damage I]

Long term thinking is all very well so long as the short term picture doesn't sneak up and slit your throat before you get there. We can't "get off oil" tomorrow, that would achieve much the same effect as carpet bombing Americas 20 biggest cities would have. Until there is a viable long term alternative to fossil fuels for baseload electrical power, heating, cooking and transportation, it makes sense to pursue short term solutions to energy problems at the same time is we pursue long term renewable sources of energy