Global warming

[oranphil]

In this tread I will discuss global warming my opinion:

Global warming is a myth the sun goes into a cycle ever so often it is natural and when humans say we must save the Earth it is not the earth they are trying to save it is man kind but man kind has brought so many problems and if we did get wiped out maybe with this so called "global warming" or the technology we build the earth will always be here until the end of time the vegetation would grow back and the natural ecosystem will be restored.

[iNow]

Opinions mean nothing. The facts disagree with you. It's sad really if you look at the world so uncritically.

 

 

 

Here's data against the sun doing it:

 

Nature - No solar hiding place for greenhouse sceptics

Sun not to blame for global warming.

 

A study has confirmed that there are no grounds to blame the Sun for recent global warming. The analysis shows that global warming since 1985 has been caused neither by an increase in solar radiation nor by a decrease in the flux of galactic cosmic rays.

 

 

Here's data against natural cycles:

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v1/n11/abs/ngeo338.html

 

Attribution of polar warming to human influence

 

Here we use an up-to-date gridded data set of land surface temperatures, and simulations from four coupled climate models to assess the causes of the observed polar temperature changes. We find that the observed changes in Arctic and Antarctic temperatures are not consistent with internal climate variability or natural climate drivers alone, and are directly attributable to human influence. Our results demonstrate that human activities have already caused significant warming in both polar regions, with likely impacts on polar biology, indigenous communities, ice-sheet mass balance and global sea level.

 

 

 

 

Those are just two among literally millions of pieces of evidence in support of my position.

[Mr Skeptic]

In other news, the earth is flat. That whole "globe" thing is a myth, so obviously there is no such thing as global warming.

[Royston]

Oranphil, there are more than enough threads on the subject...if you have anything new to add to the current debate/s I suggest you join the discussions there. Try to make sure your arguments against GW havn't already been covered....and ummmm, good luck.

 

I gave up long ago, anthropogenic causes to GW seem pretty obvious to me, even with a rudimentary understanding of science it becomes clear, if you've studied the subject (at a basic level) it becomes even clearer. And no, I'm not going to discuss the subject, I'll leave that to others, it's getting tiresome.

[swansont]

iNow is quite correct in saying that opinion does not matter here, and Snail is on target with the observation about the number of threads on the topic of AGW.

 

However, I'm not goig to lock the thread just yet.

 

when humans say we must save the Earth it is not the earth they are trying to save it is man kind

 

This is the only part of the OP that hasn't been covered elsewhere. So discussions on this topic can go forward. And I think you're quite right about this, oranphil. When someone says "we have to save the earth" they usually mean they want to preserve the conditions of the earth that are favorable to continued human existence. The earth will continue to be around under a wide spectrum of extremely harsh conditions that would wipe us out, and we don't possess any kind of technology that would endanger the earth's existence.

[oranphil]

ah there is such a thing called global warming but not in a sense that humans see it and i don't beleive the earth is flat that is rubbish ok lets say that global warming is nothing to do with sun then why are other planets in are solar system heating up does this explain that the sun is going into one of it natural cycle.

But i would like to thank you all for the infomation i will compile a conclusion when i have read them.

[iNow]

ok lets say that global warming is nothing to do with sun then why are other planets in are solar system heating up does this explain that the sun is going into one of it natural cycle.

 

There's a group of commas out in the world looking for a home. Can you help these poor abandoned punctuations?

 

 

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/12/17/222712/69

Objection

: Global warming is happening on Mars and Pluto as well. Since there are no SUVs on Mars, CO2 can't be causing global warming.

 

Answer

: Warming on another planet would be an interesting coincidence, but it would not necessarily be driven by the same causes.

 

The only relevant factor the earth and Mars share is the sun, so if the warming were real and related, that would be the logical place to look. As it happens, the sun is being watched and measured carefully back here on earth, and it is not the primary cause of current climate change.

 

 

As for the alleged extraterrestrial warming, there is extremely little evidence of a global climate change on Mars. The only piece I'm aware of is a series of photographs of a single icy region in the southern hemisphere that shows melting over a six year period (about three Martian years).

 

Here on earth we have direct measurements from all over the globe, widespread glacial retreat, reduction of sea ice, and satellite measurements of the lower troposphere up to the stratosphere. To compare this mountain of data to a few photographs of a single region on another planet strains credulity. And in fact, the relevant scientists believe the observation described above is the result of a regional change caused by Mars' own orbital cycles, like what happened during the earth's glacial cycles.

 

See Global Warming on Mars? from RealClimate for much more detail about this issue.

 

Turning to the outer reaches of the solar system: in the icy cold and lonely Kuiper Belt was observed a difference in Pluto's atmospheric thickness, inferred from two occultation observations 14 years apart. But a cursory glance at Pluto's orbit and atmosphere reveals how ridiculous it is to draw any conclusions about climate, much less climate change, from observations spanning less than even a single season, let alone enough years to even establish the climate's normal state.

 

Anyone trying to draw conclusions about what is happening here on earth from all this might as well be from another planet.

 

Back to Mars for a quick summary:

 

On Earth, we have poles melting, surface temperature rising, tropospheric temperatures rising, permafrost melting, glaciers worldwide melting, CO2 concentrations increasing, borehole analysis showing warming, sea ice receding, proxy reconstructions showing warming, sea level rising, sea surface temperatures rising, energy imbalance, ice sheets melting, and stratospheric cooling, all of which leads us to believe the earth is undergoing global warming driven by an enhanced greenhouse effect.

 

One Mars we have one spot melting, which leads us to believe that ... one spot is melting.

 

More data at the link.

 

 

 

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=192

Recently, there have been some suggestions that "global warming" has been observed on Mars (e.g. here). These are based on observations of regional change around the South Polar Cap, but seem to have been extended into a "global" change, and used by some to infer an external common mechanism for global warming on Earth and Mars (e.g. here and here). But this is incorrect reasoning and based on faulty understanding of the data.

 

 

 

A couple of basic issues first : the Martian year is about 2 Earth years (687 days). Currently it is late winter in Mars's northern hemisphere, so late summer in the southern hemisphere. Martian eccentricity is about 0.1 - over 5 times larger than Earth's, so the insolation (INcoming SOLar radiATION) variation over the orbit is substantial, and contributes significantly more to seasonality than on the Earth, although Mars's obliquity (the angle of its spin axis to the orbital plane) still dominates the seasons. The alignment of obliquity and eccentricity due to precession is a much stronger effect than for the Earth, leading to "great" summers and winters on time scales of tens of thousands of years (the precessional period is 170,000 years). Since Mars has no oceans and a thin atmosphere, the thermal inertia is low, and Martian climate is easily perturbed by external influences, including solar variations. However, solar irradiance is now well measured by satellite and has been declining slightly over the last few years as it moves towards a solar minimum.

 

So what is causing Martian climate change now? Mars has a relatively well studied climate, going back to measurements made by Viking, and continued with the current series of orbiters, such as the Mars Global Surveyor. Complementing the measurements, NASA has a Mars General Circulation Model (GCM) based at NASA Ames. (NB. There is a good "general reader" review of modeling the Martian atmosphere by Stephen R Lewis in Astronomy and Geophysics, volume 44 issue 4. pages 6-14.)

 

Globally, the mean temperature of the Martian atmosphere is particularly sensitive to the strength and duration of hemispheric dust storms, (see for example here and here). Large scale dust storms change the atmospheric opacity and convection; as always when comparing mean temperatures, the altitude at which the measurement is made matters, but to the extent it is sensible to speak of a mean temperature for Mars, the evidence is for significant cooling from the 1970's, when Viking made measurements, compared to current temperatures. However, this is essentially due to large scale dust storms that were common back then, compared to a lower level of storminess now. The mean temperature on Mars, averaged over the Martian year can change by many degrees from year to year, depending on how active large scale dust storms are.

 

In 2001, Malin et al published a short article in Science (subscription required) discussing MGS data showing a rapid shrinkage of the South Polar Cap. Recently, the MGS team had a press release discussing more recent data showing the trend had continued. MGS 2001 press release MGS 2005 press release. The shrinkage of the Martian South Polar Cap is almost certainly a regional climate change, and is not any indication of global warming trends in the Martian atmosphere. Colaprete et al in Nature 2005 (subscription required) showed, using the Mars GCM, that the south polar climate is unstable due to the peculiar topography near the pole, and the current configuration is on the instability border; we therefore expect to see rapid changes in ice cover as the regional climate transits between the unstable states.

 

Thus inferring global warming from a 3 Martian year regional trend is unwarranted. The observed regional changes in south polar ice cover are almost certainly due to a regional climate transition, not a global phenomenon, and are demonstrably unrelated to external forcing. There is a slight irony in people rushing to claim that the glacier changes on Mars are a sure sign of global warming, while not being swayed by the much more persuasive analogous phenomena here on Earth…

[oranphil]

sorry for my puncation i have deslexyia

[john5746]

......when humans say we must save the Earth it is not the earth they are trying to save it is man kind but man kind has brought so many problems and if we did get wiped out maybe with this so called "global warming" or the technology we build the earth will always be here until the end of time the vegetation would grow back and the natural ecosystem will be restored.

 

You are getting enough responses concerning global warming, so I will just remark that I agree with you that humans are most concerned with humanity when it comes to global warming. Global warming will most likely not destroy life on earth, just change the climate - possibly enough to wipe out humanity. The earth will take care of itself, but we probably won't like the remedy, so we should make our own solution.

[swansont]

OK, nobody seems to want to discuss the "save the earth" part, so I'm going to close this. Discussion of global warming can go on in an open thread.

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=32699

 

I have copied over a few of the posts here that are relevant

[Phi for All]

sorry for my puncation

Report to the animal testing lab first thing in the morning.