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Was Earth a Migratory Planet?
astroengine writes "Why our planet isn't a "snowball Earth" — a dilemma called the 'faint young sun paradox' — has foxed solar and planetary scientists for decades. Since the Earth's formation, a planet covered in ice should have stifled any kind of greenhouse effect, preventing our atmosphere from warming up and maintaining water in a liquid state. Now, David Minton of Purdue University has come up with a novel solution that, by his own admission, straddles science fact and fiction. Perhaps Earth evolved closer to the Sun and through some gravitational effect, it was pushed to a higher orbit as the Sun grew hotter. But watch out, if this is true, planetary chaos awaits."
That's not true. It's not merely displacement of oxygen that can harm you; CO2 also drives blood pH down and results in acidosis.
Related: The increased acidification of the oceans due to CO2 is one of those things that's often overlooked when people start talking about CO2 emissions and Global Warming and all that.
Ah, so here's the deal. I'm the person that this article is talking about (David Minton, professor at Purdue University). I've been reading Slashdot for a fair number of years now, though it took me a long time to sign up and comment for the first time (I've always been a lurker at heart). Because I have a soft spot for all you basement dwellers (I kid!), I'm going to give you a bit of behind the scenes regarding this article, which kind of took me by surprise, actually. This is a bit long, so TL;DR: Science sometimes happens during panicked last minute coding sessions in hotel rooms prior to delivering invited talks that were procrastinated about.
So about five years ago my graduate school advisor and I wrote what was my very first peer-reviewed paper, which was on the subject of the Faint Young Sun Paradox. The paradox goes something like this: The early Sun was fainter than it is today, so all things being equal the Earth should have spend the first half of its life frozen over. Geologists tell us it wasn't, so something wasn't equal. What was it? We investigated the idea that the Sun may have been slightly more massive (something like 2-7% more massive), and that it had to lose most of that excess mass over a few billion years, which is at odds with measurements of mass loss of Sun-like stars. So we published it, and I went on to do other things in grad school, mostly involving trying to figure out the early impact bombardment history of the solar system, which we think may have been influenced by an early period of migration of the gas giant planets.
Fast forward to a few months ago, and a fellow at the Space Telescope Science Institute (the place they run the Hubble from) contacted me to ask if I'd like to give a talk about my old mass-losing Sun paper at a workshop that was planned to bring together astrophysicists, geologists, climate scientists, and planetary dynamicists to talk about the Faint Young Sun problem. They wanted me to also talk about planet migration and how that might fit in to the problem. Sure, why not? Revisiting the problem would be fun! The thing is, I've just started a new faculty job, and part of my job is helping get a new planetary science group built up at Purdue, so I've been extremely busy. And, well, I procrastinated. Big time. There was always some pressing thing to do that took time away from getting ready for the workshop. So the next thing I know, it's a few days before the meeting and I still haven't really thought about the faint Sun in about five years. So I dust off my old files, start futzing around with a talk, and the next thing I know I'm on a plane to Baltimore.
Late the night before the workshop is about to start, I'm racking my brain trying to come up with something new to say. You see, I've been thinking about early solar system history, and planet formation. Migration is a big deal in those early days. It's easy to get planets to move around in young solar systems. But the Faint Young Sun problem is a problem for the Earth's mid-life, not it's adolescence. Then I remembered a paper I really liked that came out a couple of years ago by Jaques Laskar and Mickaël Gastineau. They showed that our own solar system could potentially destabilize after a few billion years of seeming-stability due to Mercury's proximity to a chaotic region. It's described briefly here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stability_of_the_Solar_System#Laskar_.26_Gastineau
What if something like that had happened *already?* So I futzed around with an N-body gravitational dynamics code remotely from my hotel room, in my pajamas, playing around with plausible initial solar systems where Earth stared just a tad closer to the Sun, but close enough to solve the problem of being frozen over, and Venus started out as two separate planets and then went unstable after many billions of years, scattering Earth to its present location in the process. And, when I checke
"We won't curb our fossil fuel use any way... there's no viable alternative"
That is a completely full of ridiculousness statement.
There is no viable alternative, By what measure, that there is already 80,000 stations selling hydrogen on every street corner for $1.22 a gallon? That you dont already have your home covered in solar?
Fools make such statements. Solar is a highly viable alternative to home energy, Even as far north as Copper harbor, MI there are off the grid homes and even state buildings that have a 5KW solar install that works even on cloudy days (that is easy to do BTW) As for cars, electric storage is coming about, and if you paid for it you could have one built that will go 300 miles on a single charge. bio-diesel, switchgrass, there are a ton of other sources of fuel for use in an Internal Combustion engine if you MUST stick with that old outdated technology.
Will it do 0-60 in 2.4 seconds and take up 3 lanes of traffic and carry 80 people? No, the canyonero gigantor truck people will have to suffer. Will it make a small 4 seater? yes it will. Even a small 4 seater 4X4 truck if you really need one because you live miles away from roads. The technology is there already, it's just most amercians are too stupid to understand it. They think they NEED 300HP and to carry 7 passengers + 40 cu FT of cargo all the time.
You dont. Just like you dont need to have 60 light bulbs in your home burning with 120Watts of light in each of them. Be realistic and suddenly alternatives start popping up everywhere.
Hell you can run a internal Combustion engine off of WOOD! Google it for some education.
Will it require americans to stop being idiots and actually learn things about daily life? yes. And if that is what you are talking about, people being required to have a solid basic education about most everything like they did in the 1800's, then that is a good thing.
none of the caravans crossing the United states, waited for AAA to change their wagon wheel.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Your post is neither less stupid than the GP nor informative.
Re: Sucking
It was also just a bunch of CO2 you blew out.
Re: Your ridiculous claims.
*Everything* that kills you works by disrupting something your body needs to do to live. You might as well say paralyzing venoms don't kill you, it's the lack of oxygen because your lungs aren't working. Does that mean venom isn't poison? No.
Re: Car scenario
The CO2 in your scenario doesn't kill you. The CO does that. CO2 CAN kill you, though. Maybe you've heard of hypercapnia. (Note the URL, too.)
Re: Plants
Just because something is not poison to ONE organism does not mean it is not a poison.