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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.
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.
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.
"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.""
Of course it doesn't. But it helps to explain why, *hundreds of years ago when science barely existed*, intelligent people could take astrology seriously.
The sun has a massive effect on us, the moon too (light, tides). So why couldn't the other heavenly bodies effect us?
And they do effect us. But since then, science has managed to quantify that effect. And that effect, it turns out, consists of gravity and pretty much nothing else. Very occasionally, like in this study, that gravity has noticeable effects on our lives.
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"
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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."
... 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...
If we are right in the middle between two points of maximum seasonal differences it must be the point of minimum differences.
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.
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.
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.