Famous Paintings Help Study the Earth's Past Atmosphere

houghi (78078) writes "From European Geosciences Union: 'A team of Greek and German researchers has shown that the colours of sunsets painted by famous artists can be used to estimate pollution levels in the Earth's past atmosphere. In particular, the paintings reveal that ash and gas released during major volcanic eruptions scatter the different colours of sunlight, making sunsets appear more red.' The original paper can be found here. In the last 150 years, the sunsets have become redder, likely reflecting increased man-made pollution."

Comments

Stars have also gotten smaller.

[generic_screenname]

At least, according to Van Gogh.

artistic licence...

[buzzsawddog]

Because we know they never used artistic license to paint something that is less than realistic...

Re:artistic licence...

[bluegutang]

And because we know artists from past centuries had access to exactly the same paints and color ranges that we do today...

wow

[Charliemopps]

When I read the title I thought to my self "That's a clever way to word something, so people will be outraged, read the article and then find that it's really about them sampling paint and finding pollutants there." But no, it was as ridiculous as the title suggested. Can we revoke their science card?

Re:Clutching at straws

[Immerman]

Climate change is a scientific proposition, and has absolutely nothing to do with "literature", unless you're referring to research papers that have been peer-reviewed and repeated by others. In which case the overwhelmingly consensus is that yes, fossil fuel CO2 emissions are very much in danger of tipping the the planet into a runaway climate shift that will end the ice age that is all our species has ever known.

Take a look at this video series - he does a pretty decent job in he first couple videos of stripping away all the hypes and disingenuousness of both sides of the political debate, and gets down to the actual science and scientific debate. Yes, there is some scientific debate, but no, it has nothing to do with any of the tripe you've heard on the "news". He then spends many, many more episodes tearing apart the mountain of lies politicians and talking heads have piled on the issue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...