Feb 15, 2008

Ice Age?! - Hey, wait a minute...

The Sun's rays keep the Earth warm.
Research: Not for long.
Expert: "Stock up on fur coats"

(pops a new window for you there, out of courtesy)

So due to a new solar cycle not starting - something something, no new sunspots - there's a new Ice Age right around the corner. Like, next week?

Observational data seems to support the claims -- or doesn't contradict it, at least. According to data from Britain's Met Office, the earth has cooled very slightly since 1998. The Met Office says global warming "will pick up again shortly." Others aren't so sure.
Well, this is like telling me that cigarettes cure cancer. I'm sick and tired of contradictory data leaking out every two weeks! Are we heating up or cooling off - can we make up our friggin' minds, please?

I think the proper thing to say is that Earth's environment is prone to change due to "an assortment of variables". This report simply states that one of the bigger variables may be about to change.

Solar activity, greenhouse gas entrapment, deforestation and urban heat traps all cause temperatures to rise. Diminished solar activity and global dimming cause temperatures to fall. Increases in the speed of ocean currents normalize global temperatures, with decreases in speeds causing equatorial and tropical latitudes to warm up, temperate and polar latitudes to cool down.

So countered with global dimming, diminished solar activity might offset global warmed as caused by greenhouse gases. However, eventually solar activity may increase again.

Either way, you're still going to die. Smoke 'em if you've got 'em.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Researcher Dr. Timothy Patterson, director of the Geoscience Center at Carleton University, shares the concern. Patterson is finding "excellent correlations" between solar fluctuations, a relationship that historically, he says doesn't exist between CO2 and past climate changes. According to Patterson. we shouldn't be surprised by a solar link. "The sun [is] the ultimate source of energy on this planet," he says.

I've read that editorial, the actual scientific paper that Patterson based the editorial on. And understood it. I'm an Earth Scientist. I've taught Glacial Geology at the upper undergraduate level (no PhD, yet, but soon). I don't do the research he does, but I understand the lingo and know the methods. It, in no way, describes anything to do with long-term climate change in the twentieth century. It does show that solar cycles influence climate (no scientist doubts that), but has nothing to say about twentieth-century warming. Not one farking bit. Patterson is good at what he does, but he's a shill for Exxon-Mobil. He says things in his editorials about 20th-century global warming (about how humans aren't responsible) that he has never backed up in his own research. In other words, he has never put his money where his mouth is.

However, researchers at DMI continued to work, eventually discovering what they believe to be the link. The key factor isn't changes in solar output, but rather changes in the sun's magnetosphere A stronger field shields the earth more from cosmic rays, which act as "seeds" for cloud formation. The result is less cloud cover, and a warming planet. When the field weakens, clouds increases, reflecting more light back to space, and the earth cools off.

Ah yes. One lab experiment. One. One that creates aerosols 10X too small for cloud droplets to nucleate on. Then there's Nic Shaviv, whose half-baked theory about cosmic rays ignores crucial things -- like severe flaws in his dating techniques. Oh, and cosmic rays haven't farking changed significantly in the past goddamn 50 years. Yet the planet has continued to warm. Deluded fools that need to cling onto something -- anything -- that shows we're not responsible.

Do I sound pissed? It's because I am. These people are cut from the same cloth as creationists. And even holocaust deniers (deluded, intentional attempts to spread scientific ignorance is the same as attempts to spread historical ignorance as far as I'm concerned). These douches are just paid better.