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Orbits of Jupiter and Venus Affect Earth's Climate, Says Study (usatoday.com)
According to a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, gravitational tugs from the planets Jupiter and Venus gradually affect Earth's climate and life forms. The phenomenon occurs every 405,000 years and has been going on for at least 215 million years. USA Today reports: Jupiter and Venus are such strong influences because of their size and proximity. Venus is the nearest planet to us -- at its farthest, only about 162 million miles -- and roughly similar in mass. Jupiter is much farther away, but is the Solar System's largest planet. The study says that every 405,000 years, due to wobbles in our orbit caused by the gravitational pulls of the two planets, seasonal differences here on Earth become more intense. Summers are hotter and winters colder; dry times drier, wet times wetter. At the height of the cycle, more rain falls in the tropics, allowing lakes there to fill up. This compares to the other end of the cycle, when seasonal rains in the tropics "are less and lakes have much less of a tendency to become as full," [study lead author Dennis] Kent said. The results showed that the 405,000-year cycle is the most regular astronomical pattern linked to the Earth's annual turn around the sun, he said. Right now, we are in the middle of the cycle, as the most recent peak was around 200,000 years ago.
In 3. 2. 1.
Signed,
Captain Obvious
See! See! This validates all of astrology!
If I understood well, we are on a cycle which has two extreme ends. "We are in the middle of the cycle now" means we are not at either extreme, but says nothing about the direction we are going to: if we are in the middle of half-cycle going towards more pronounced seasons or in the middle of the half-cycle going towards more dry tropics?
No, it doesn't. What it does is show amazingly well how desperately some people will cling to anything in order to explain away things they don't want to take responsibility for with some ridiculously irrelevant theory rather than deal with the facts which demands a change in behaviour.
The mere idea that these planets would have greater influence than us pumping the atmosphere full of known greenhouse gasses is outright moronic. But of course people like you jump for it, because you get to say "the dog ate my homework!", or in this case "it was all the planets fault, we can't do anything about it so let's party and forget about the whole thing." Because that's the kind of retard you are.
So they finally found the correlation that makes it look all cyclic. Do we no also get to accuse them of p-hacking?
It's white males fault.
Venus and Jupier are social constructs of the Patriarchy.
Posters who date from the Usenet era may remember Alexander Abian, known for "VENUS MUST BE MOVED INTO AN EARTH-LIKE ORBIT" and other kookery. If there's an afterlife, I imagine he's capering and kicking his heels high at the moment.
CO2 in it self isn't a problem. But the volume of it which we add to it is a huge problem because that in turn leads to other, worse problems.
Saying that CO2 isn't a problem is just showing that you either failed high school physics and don't understand the greenhouse effect, or that you are wilfully ignoring the problem.
What it boils down to is what we can do. We can't stop the ice caps from melting when we reach that point, we can't stop the acidification of the oceans. But we can at least limit how much CO2 we add to the atmosphere, which will help with those issues.
What, do you think the presence of Venus a few score million miles away means that our fossi fuels don't burn down to CO2 and that this anthropogenic CO2 teleports across intererplanetary space to deposit itself in Venus,while Venus is putting CO2 in us?
Daily caller.... Right. No, the claim is a load of bollocks.
What? You want more? You never used the information available to find this nugget of "wisdom", why should I do work you want to ignore anyway?
See subject
Because THAT science can't be settled either (no science can be settled!), and the presence of an effect from planets could mean that the electrons are being pulled by jupiter, not ane lectric field like those self-proclaimed experts say!!!!
Or you're a fucking moron.
Yeah, the latter.
The Milankovitch cycles called to say that, yep, you're still an idiot.
"I don't like your source, so I'm going to claim your site is bigoted and a load of bollocks, instead of factually responding."
For those who didn't RTFA - No this doesn't disprove global warming as a result of emissions. quote from the end of the article
"The climate impact from the planets pales when compared to how humans are affecting the planet from burning fossil fuels, for example. "It's pretty far down on the list of so many other things that can affect climate on times scales that matter to us," Kent said.
"All the carbon dioxide we're pouring into the air right now is the obvious big enchilada. That's having an effect we can measure right now. The planetary cycle is a little more subtle.""
The reason why the jobs are disappearing is because Neptune is nearing an exit from pluto's location, meaning that its gravity is pulling all the jobs away too. Stop blaming eh mexicans, jews and middle east immigrants, the problem is NEPTUNE, not people!
Keep cutting those trees down in your cities.
Also a recent study showed climate change deniers actually had far beter ecofriendly habits than those who touted climate change.
Al Gore is that you? Still leaving those lights on and cutting those inner city trees? Trashing rural life and their garden simple life while City Slicker lives in his concrete smog ridden jungle? Liberal cities are so progressive and non ecofriendly.
You are omitting the possibilities that he wilfully failed physics or does not understand anything at all. There may even be other explanations, such as "the aliens made me do it"
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Daily caller is a pretty well known joke among educated people.
Using it in a science discussion is like using mad magazine as a political text book. Yeah, they briefly touch on some parts, but they're still so over simplified or twisted that the kernel of truth they may have has become entirely unrecognizable unless you were the actual individual who wrote the article/comic strip.
You mean that thing which has such a consistent output that we refer to the "solar constant"? The thing that varies less than .1% over 11 years? Is that "big yellow thing" you're talking about? What exactly do you think you know about this topic?
You cherry-picking piece of shit.
Solar Variability and Terrestrial Climate
...
One of the participants, Greg Kopp of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, pointed out that while the variations in luminosity over the 11-year solar cycle amount to only a tenth of a percent of the sun's total output, such a small fraction is still important. "Even typical short term variations of 0.1% in incident irradiance exceed all other energy sources (such as natural radioactivity in Earth's core) combined," he says.
Of particular importance is the sun's extreme ultraviolet (EUV) radiation, which peaks during the years around solar maximum. Within the relatively narrow band of EUV wavelengths, the sun’s output varies not by a minuscule 0.1%, but by whopping factors of 10 or more. This can strongly affect the chemistry and thermal structure of the upper atmosphere.
The solar cycle signals are so strong in the Pacific, that Meehl and colleagues have begun to wonder if something in the Pacific climate system is acting to amplify them. "One of the mysteries regarding Earth's climate system ... is how the relatively small fluctuations of the 11-year solar cycle can produce the magnitude of the observed climate signals in the tropical Pacific."
shit_finger... you sound like you got a dick in mouth.. and a finger up your arse...
Now that will show those gravitational tugs deniers!
We should attack those planets quickly before they grow even stronger. No sissy treaties or agreement.
Yea, but I don't see you giving up your CO2 spitting SUV anytime soon. I gave up driving to work or using any petroleum using vehicle 10 years ago.
What have you done..... Yea, I didn't think so.
Nathan
Moronic? Your reply was. To disregard the influence of the other planets, surrounding the sun, is moronic. To not see influences is moronic, and to disregard all other influences is more the moronic.
To hide a paper behind a paywall is also moronic, limiting thought because of money or membership is moronic, and limiting the exchange of ideas thru your yelling, at other thoughts that may be true is moronic.
But, the premises is correct, and expression is wrong. Too limiting. After all, there are nine supposed planets. Each has an input, major and minor. As far as the article goes there are only two. And, no explanation of why the others are discounted. But the rings within rings is acceptable as a restart.
... some people will cling to anything in order to explain away things they don't want to take responsibility for ...
Hang on, stop right there. Here is the biggest reason I can't stand eco-nazis. I am NOT responsible. You are using the wrong words, either on purpose or through ignorance, to emotionally charge your argument.
The responsibility lies with the past dozen or so generations that built up and caused this problem. I inherit this problem, I own this problem, I must be one of the many that suffer to fix the problem. But stop with the bullshit that we, alive now, CAUSED this and bear responsibility for it. All we get to do is choose to make it better or make it worse.
Instead, you call people that don't like your attitude retards. You are not actually convincing anyone to agree with you this way. Do you think having a prius or other electric car helps? Wrong. Get a bicycle. Have you ever traveled by air? Not helping. Eat foods from all over the world that aren't locally in season? Your fault too. Now please shut up with the alarmist eco-nazi bullshit unless you are actually setting a good example. Oh, you use computers and the internet? Wasteful...
Whatever
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/17/07/01/0442203/study-claims-discarded-solar-panels-create-more-toxic-waste-than-nuclear-plants
...whenever there is a discovery such as this one, we're 'in the middle" of the cycle.
Whooosh.
I wonder if this has to do anythibg with Eutopa (planet, not continent) and why we are not allowed to go there.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
And Jupiter aligns with Mars Then peace will guide the planets And love will steer the stars
Do you google? https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/11/industry-giants-fail-to-tackle-child-labour-allegations-in-cobalt-battery-supply-chains/
More justifications for sticking my head in the sand like a selfish baby-boomer cunt.
Then hold your breath. You're spewing CO2 right now! Think of the environment and stop breathing.
So...suddenly you don't believe the authorities.
Sounds like a cult to me.
If we are right in the middle between two points of maximum seasonal differences it must be the point of minimum differences.
8 planets. There are 8 planets and a rock named Pluto.
But stop with the bullshit that we, alive now, CAUSED this and bear responsibility for it. All we get to do is choose to make it better or make it worse.
This is just as just as much hair splitting as that Tesla 'autopilot' discussion. We, as this generation, know there is a problem, and we know we have to do something about it or it will get far worse. That makes us responsible, even if most of the carbon we are now worrying about was not put in the atmosphere by us. Call it 'duty' if it makes you feel better, but it is up to us to do something about it.
Moronic? Your reply was. To disregard the influence of the other planets, surrounding the sun, is moronic
Moronic is attempting to use this research to explain a maxima. Since we're 200,000 years from this effect's maxima.
I inherit this problem, I own this problem, I must be one of the many that suffer to fix the problem
"Responsible" does not only mean "caused".
As in, adoptive parents become responsible for the children they adopt, despite not causing those children to exist.
You (and I) are responsible for climate change in that we have to fix it or suffer the consequences. Doesn't mean we created it. It means we are taking responsibility from the careless generations before us.
The last maxima from this effect was about 200,000 years ago, and the next one will be 200,000 years from now. It can not be causing the climate change we currently see, because that is happening too rapidly for this to be the cause.
Voting for Republicans is the most eco-unfriendly habit a person can have.
Well said, person!
-- Cheers!
Look it up and then ask yourself what you are going to foam at the mouth about next.
So, Uranus may also have a climate change effect?
While I'm not an astrophysicist, I know the orbits of Venus and Jupiter have to align with Earth more often than every 405,000 years or just have Jupiter on the far side of the Sun and Earth and Venus on the same side, which might bring the Earth a little closer to the Sun. But, that should happen more often than hundreds of thousands of years. Maybe they are talking about a perfect alignment, but even a close alignment should happen once every few years. (Jupiter will be on the far side of the Sun to Earth every year and 1/12, Venus's gravitational pull will always be towards the Sun, but might be only closest to earth every third year (225 days compared to 365 days))
Have gnu, will travel.
Right now, we are in the middle of the cycle, as the most recent peak [of the 405,000 year cycle] was around 200,000 years ago.
Aren't the middle and the peak the same fucking thing?
Looking at a bell curve, it would appear we are at one of the ends.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
If you carefully read the description it says that these are roughly 400,000 year cycles and we're currently in the middle of a cycle at about 200,000 years, not at a peak. Rapid rise in temperatures has been seen in the last 200 years or so which means this cycle can't explain why we're in the middle of a climate disaster now. It might explain why the climate was a bit weird 200,000 years ago before human civilization even existed. Now consider this, if Jupiter and Venus can affect the climate despite being so far away we can't even feel when it's up in the sky, then why wouldn't burning billions of tonnes of fossil fuels also have an impact on the climate? After all humans can move mountains, why wouldn't everything that we do have an impact on climate.
Even typical short term variations of 0.1% in incident irradiance exceed all other energy sources (such as natural radioactivity in Earth's core) combined)
Which is irrelevant. Just because there are even smaller sources of heat, doesn't make the 0.1% swings any more important.
Within the relatively narrow band of EUV wavelengths, the sun’s output varies not by a minuscule 0.1%, but by whopping factors of 10 or more
Whatever this effect is, it can't be big on a global scale, because we don't see any significant 11-year period in the Earth's global temperature. And, actually, since the 1980's, the output of the Sun has been decreasing a tiny bit, while surface temperatures have gone up to create new record highs. The correlation just isn't there.
What it does is show amazingly well how desperately some people will cling to anything in order to explain away things they don't want to take responsibility for with some ridiculously irrelevant theory rather than deal with the facts which demands a change in behaviour.
And it's amazing how some people will accept the responsibility but not change their behavior to align with the science. Basically put, if you are concerned about the problems associated with AGW and you're still; having kids, driving a car, eating meat, going on cruises or running an AC unit then YOU are no different in action than someone who tries to skirt their place of blame in the dilemma.
And, BTW, it's a hypothesis, not a theory.
"Source hates science, so I'm going to claim my site is the bestest in the world and everything's Tippy Toppy, instead of factually responding."
FTFY
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Whatever
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/17/07/01/0442203/study-claims-discarded-solar-panels-create-more-toxic-waste-than-nuclear-plants
They only figuratively stacked the solar panels and spent fuel rods in a tower, and compared hight. They didn't compare toxicity, let alone radioactivity. That would be a bullshit report if they actually provided numbers instead of comparing the Tower of Pisa to the Mt. Everest.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Choosing a word that kinda means the same thing when a more succinct option is available, especially when the intent is to emotionally manipulate, is the point.
Use better words if you want a better outcome. Use emotional virtue signalling words if you want me to ignore you as I would an annoying child.
"Responsible" does not only mean "caused".
In this context, "responsible for the problem" and "responsible for the solution" are entirely different things.
This speaks to the unfairness of previous generations reaping all the benefits while current and future generations will only suffer for it.
An 11 year cycle is not the cause of a century long warming sudden warming trend. And while the amount of energy added to a system is important, equally important is the amount of energy removed from the system. That 11 year cycle is a constant that hasn't changed in any meaningful way as long as we've been measuring it. What has changed is the amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases that trap heat that otherwise would be removed from the system.
...I gave up driving to work or using any petroleum using vehicle 10 years ago.
...so your mom drives you around.
Assuming that this hypothetical cycle looks anything like a sine cycle ...
Also: Assuming it looks like a sine the middle is where the rate of change is the greatest.
This is one of the Milankovich cycles, which have been known and studied (by people other than Milankovitch) since at least 1941 and part of any reasonable long-term computer-supported climatic model since such were practical.
What's new here is they found physical evidence to validate the connection between this cycle and climate, and push the connection back from 50 million to 215 million years.
= = = =
I wonder how this ties in with another work not long ago.
Notice, in the Orbital Forcing wikipedia article, the shape of the Vostok Petit data graphs of temperature during the interglacials: A sharp spike (typically to a bit warmer than we are now), followed immediately by a ramp back into the next ice age. Notice, also, how the latest one deviates: Its trendline levels out, with the temperature hanging in there rather than taking the usual dive.
A couple years back there was an article in Scientific American (NOT a hotbed of "climate-change deniers", but more of a marching band in the anthropogenic climate change parade). The authors had compared their computations of the expected effect of the Milankovitch cycles to the climate record available at the time and got a nice match, ending with exactly that deviation.
Then they tried attributing the deviation to greenhouse warming from human fossil carbon burning and cranked out a good match to the deviation: The rise of humans corresponded to a remarkable levelling of the temperature curve, which "should have been" bending down in an accelerating dive into the next ice age. (This sounds to me like a feedback process you'd expect: Colder winters, more fuel burning, making the next winters milder. With the rise of human population roughly tracking the accelerating curve into the ice age, the net result might be level enough for this feedback to become an effective regulator as people went from a few plains apes to populous farming and metalworking civilizations.)
The "level" period extended roughly to the industrial revolution (mod some "short-term" tweaks like the mideival warm period), after which the temperature went up a bit. (What you'd expect from the extra coal and oil burning.) So then they projected forward, with a range of assumptions on the rate of burning of fossil carbon and the amount of fossil carbon reserves.
What they got was not the "hockey stick" diverging into a Venus-like planet. Instead they got a rise (that looks like that at the start), followed by a crash back onto the if-humans-hadn't-happened ice-age-descent curve when the economically-useful-for-fuel fossil carbon runs out. That comes in approximately 400 years, though the time, and the height of the temperature peak, vary substantially with how fast the carbon gets burned (and how much it turns out there is).
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Because the title is "Empirical evidence for stability of the 405-kiloyear Jupiter–Venus eccentricity cycle over hundreds of millions of years" as if we already know perfectly well about the cycle, and they just show that it's stable.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
The cherry-picking piece of shit would be the one cherry-picking a tiny percentage of the Sun's output and using that to support the idea that the Sun is the major driver of climate change and not the gigatonnes of carbon.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
"Hypothesis, not a theory" is incorrect on a number of levels. Similarly, you should read about tu quoque: hypocrisy is invalid as a refutation. A general could still have valid things to say on the subject of pacifism, and in general ad hominem arguments are only made by stupid people. And I'm sure that there's no way your opinions would be self-serving, is there?
Of course you're responsible. You're even admitting it yourself!
I inherit this problem, I own this problem, I must be one of the many that suffer to fix the problem.
This is accepting responsibility for the problem, You are accepting that there is a problem and that you have to fix it. Not someone else. You. Hence, I'm not using the wrong word, nor am I ignorant. It would appear that it is you who are ignorant of the meaning of the word "responsibility", despite obviously being willing to accept its meaning. Well done.
That aside, of course you too are part of the problem, otherwise there wouldn't be anything you could do to affect it. Nobody has ever said you have to feel personally guilty for the sins of your parents - apart from the church - but everything you do which have an effect on the environment, is your responsibility. It could very well be that you have to drive your car etc, but being responsible doesn't mean you have to sell it, only that you try to minimize how much you use it. Don't take the car the 20 feet to your mailbox, try to plan your errands so you can do a bunch at the same time, plan a route which is as effective as possible, don't drive a gas guzzler, etc.
As for the retards, no, people who don't share my attitude aren't retards, but people who will grasp for any straw, no matter how silly or marginal - like the positions of the planets - in order to shirk from their responsibilities, when they so very obviously are theirs, are.
And btw, you don't get to get all insulted and hurt by me calling people out as retards for bringing up stupid crap like this as "arguments". Resorting to fucking astrology in order to shirk your obligations is an insult and an affront to every intelligent human being.
And the carbon dioxide we inject into the atmosphere and water has no effect what so ever. Go sell some ice cream to the Eskimos in a blizzard.
no mention of that in the article. probably fake news.
Repeat after me, slowly: From a human point of view, any natural cycle that affects climates where we live must be handled in the same way as any manmade cause. This is why the proper response to climate change is engineering, not hysteria.
Uranus is the source of most of the energy that drives the biological and physical processes in the world around us—in oceans and on land it fuels plant growth that forms the base of the food chain, and in the atmosphere it warms air which drives our weather.
The rate of energy coming from Uranus changes slightly day to day. Over many millennia the Earth-Uranus orbital relationship can change the geographical distribution of Uranus’s energy over the Earth’s surface. It has been suggested that changes in uranal output might affect our climate—both directly, by changing the rate of uranal heating of the Earth and atmosphere, and indirectly, by changing cloud forming processes.
Over the time-scale of millions of years, the change in uranal intensity is a critical factor influencing climate (e.g., ice ages). However, changes in the rate of uranal heating over the last century cannot account for the magnitude of the rise in global mean temperature since the late 1970s.
exerpts taken from "The Jornal of Nonsense"
"Uranus is the source of most of the energy that drives the biological and physical processes in the world around us—in oceans and on land it fuels plant growth that forms the base of the food chain, and in the atmosphere it warms air which drives our weather.
The rate of energy coming from Uranus changes slightly day to day. Over many millennia the Earth-Uranus orbital relationship can change the geographical distribution of Uranus’s energy over the Earth’s surface. It has been suggested that changes in uranal output might affect our climate—both directly, by changing the rate of uranal heating of the Earth and atmosphere, and indirectly, by changing cloud forming processes.
Over the time-scale of millions of years, the change in uranal intensity is a critical factor influencing climate (e.g., ice ages). However, changes in the rate of uranal heating over the last century cannot account for the magnitude of the rise in global mean temperature since the late 1970s."
I actually don't own a car. I live in such a place that I can make do with walking, riding a bike, taking the bus or renting a car, according to my current needs. I realize that not everyone is in the position to do that, but that's not the point. The point is "what can I do?". I think I'm doing pretty well, even if I'm sure I could do more. I would under no circumstances buy a SUV.
Thanks for playing.
Saturn is the 2nd largest planet and it closer than jupiter. it MUST have some affect no?
I think you should check the masses and distances between the planets in our solar system again.
Jupiter is about 3.4 times more massive than Saturn. Relative to the sun at the centre of our solar system Jupiter is also about 1.8 times closer to the sun. This leads to an orbital period of Jupiter that is about 2.5 times shorter than that of Saturn.
Now guess which one has a larger effect on Earth no matter how small the absolute effect is.
In the middle...
The outer extremes of these swings would serve as a _stabilizing_ effect on the climate. Without their influence, the temperature is free to 'wobble' radically at minute environmental changes (man-made, jet stream path, volcanoes, etc.) like a top that slowly stops spinning (slight breeze, surface variations).
RRK
The original quote:
"The Solar System Does Not Effect Climate A Whole Lot"
Note the lack of the the word "change" after climate. That's why the response was rated funny because the sun is the obvious greatest contributor to earths climate in the solar system. Its like the old joke when someone says "you can't see stars in the day" and someone replies "what about the sun?".
Pluto is a dwarf planet, although I guess in our hyper-sensitized culture we should call it a little planet.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Pointless hairsplitting.
Who's fault it is that we have the problems we're discussing is immaterial. You are arguing like a child. "They did it!"
The facts are that we have problems and we, who currently are alive, have to do whatever we can to fix them. It's not like there's any point in digging up the older generations and drag them into court over it. Thus the onerous and responsibility is on the living, or we will suffer the consequences.
Speaking of pieces of shit, how about you go cherry pick us the solar variability data that shows a level of output resulting in a drastic increase in atmospheric warming and CO2 that just happened to magically commence at the beginning of the industrial revolution and has miraculously but entirely coincidentally kept pace with the rising use of fossil fuels.
It'll be just next the pile of papers blaming a hidden gigantic undersea volcano that erupted at the same time and has gone undetected for two hundred years.
You didn't invent, import, or cause slavery but if you still have slaves, then yeah you're responsible.
It says are half way between the maximum and minimum.
Where?
It says we are in the middle of the cycle. The is 400000 years. The last peak was 200000 years ago. A cycle is the period in which it repeats, so the next maximum is 400000 years after the last. So we are hlf way between two maxima. So we are at a minimum, assuming that the cycle is roughly symetric.
... we already have all the answers we need, ok? We know everything we need to know already about everything. Climate is changing, humans are the cause, and we have to make everything back the way it was. End of story thank you. We must make maximum efforts to roll back the clock because we have allowed our planet to change and that is not acceptable. Our species rose to prominence based on our ability to prevent change. Change is bad.
Sarcasm in case you didn't see that.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Infantile humor, alternative facts, and flamebait: the new Republican Slashdot.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Yet you can't quite manage to articulate that succinct option.....
Unless you have a time machine, it's going to be unfair. Complaining about it being unfair doesn't do anything besides take up effort better used at fixing it.
Climate change is real, but how much influence humans have on it is up for debate.
That doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense to develop better, cleaner energy, or clean the oceans of plastic, or preserve endangered species, or reduce our waste products...
And as a certain study has proven, just because you don't believe that mankind has a huge influence on climate doesn't mean you don't want to do things to be a better steward of the planet.
You are right, that is what it says, implying we are at (or near) the minimum. Seems strange to say we are in the "middle of the cycle" because who is to say the ends of the cycle are at the maximums (rather than the minimums) which is why I quickly read it to mean we are half way between them. The USA Today article uses the same wording so it is not the summary fault. I didn't pay the $10 to read the academic paper, besides it might not say. I wonder if perhaps they mangled the response from somebody to this question, I find it hard to believe that a scientic source would say "middle of the cycle" rather than "near the minimum".
It seems like we don't need to worry about that for another 200.000 years so our grand children will be just fine. And their grand children, and their grand children, and their grand chidren... how about researching something useful today? How about something that really matters to us and our grand kids?
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
Yes, I think they deliberately did not make it clear that we are at the most harmless point, because this is bad for research funding. That's why I felt I need to state that.
This might be related to the development of civilisation though. Stable conditions allowed the number of humans to increase further and further, leading to where we are today.
"Orbits of Jupiter and Venus Affect Earth's Climate, Says Study" so does Uranus, if seven billion times
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?