Posted on 09/21/2005 1:11:52 PM PDT by MNJohnnie
what could be the simplest explanation for one component of global warming, a new study shows the Sun's radiation has increased by .05 percent per decade since the late 1970s.
The increase would only be significant to Earth's climate if it has been going on for a century or more, said study leader Richard Willson, a Columbia University researcher also affiliated with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
The Sun's increasing output has only been monitored with precision since satellite technology allowed necessary observations. Willson is not sure if the trend extends further back in time, but other studies suggest it does.
"This trend is important because, if sustained over many decades, it could cause significant climate change," Willson said.
In a NASA-funded study recently published in Geophysical Research Letters, Willson and his colleagues speculate on the possible history of the trend based on data collected in the pre-satellite era.
"Solar activity has apparently been going upward for a century or more," Willson told SPACE.com today.
Significant component
Further satellite observations may eventually show the trend to be short-term. But if the change has indeed persisted at the present rate through the 20th Century, "it would have provided a significant component of the global warming the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports to have occurred over the past 100 years," he said.
That does not mean industrial pollution has not been a significant factor, Willson cautioned.
Scientists, industry leaders and environmentalists have argued for years whether humans have contributed to global warming, and to what extent. The average surface temperature around the globe has risen by about 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1880. Some scientists say the increase could be part of natural climate cycles. Others argue that greenhouse gases produced by automobiles and industry are largely to blame.
Willson said the Sun's possible influence has been largely ignored because it is so difficult to quantify over long periods.
Confounding efforts to determine the Sun's role is the fact that its energy output waxes and wanes every 11 years. This solar cycle, as it is called, reached maximum in the middle of 2000 and achieved a second peak in 2002. It is now ramping down toward a solar minimum that will arrive in about three years.
Connections
Changes in the solar cycle -- and solar output -- are known to cause short-term climate change on Earth. At solar max, Earth's thin upper atmosphere can see a doubling of temperature. It swells, and denser air can puff up to the region of space where the International Space Station orbits, causing increased drag on the ship and forcing more frequent boosts from space shuttles.
"So, sure, the Earth's getting warmer and there's not a thing we can do about it."
I dunno about that ... if we could get Teddy into orbit at just the right distance, his shadow might just do the trick!
"You mean the earth can be warmed by the sun? "
Well, now from where do you base that conclusion? Because the article says:
"... the Sun's possible influence has been largely ignored because it is so difficult to quantify over long periods"
So the scientists see this as only a "possible influence" - and you, a presumably untrained peon, are leaping to hysterical conclusions that the sun IS warm, when science states that it is possibly involved in being warm.
You need a PHD to really understand this stuff so don't feel bad.
Anonymous sources have stated, off the record, that Bush and Rove have been doing this since the later stages of the last Ice Age. Bush either has a time machine or is really one of the deathless fallen angels or shape shifting reptiles from the lower fourth dimension.
I would imagine that we could read the details at some leftist moonbat site.
Stationed between the Earth and sun at a point where the gravitational forces nearly cancel each other out, a 600,000-square-mile space "mirror" scatters sunlight with a mesh woven of fine metal wires. Stationed between the Earth and sun at a point where the gravitational forces nearly cancel each other out, a 600,000-square-mile space "mirror" scatters sunlight with a mesh woven of fine metal wires.Rush read an article that stated that scientists in Sweden and Germany (at the Max Plank institute) said that the sun was putting out more energy than at any time in the past 1000 years. Anyone else hear this, and does anyone know what article he was reading from? How can I find out?
IT'S RONALD REAGAN'S FAULT!!!!
Yeahhhhh I think. Maybe. That kinda makes scents er cents er since uh sense. However, what kind of sparkplug? Champion? Autolite? Lodge? KLG? We need to know this in case some Democrat scientist ax us. Also will this universal warming cause the cheese to melt on the moon? And how about Jupiter's moons. Are ALL of them made of cheese. Green cheese? Questions there are just too many questions. Every answer just creates more questions. My mind is boggled!
Houston Chronicl.com Sept. 20, 2005, 10:10PM Mars getting warmer, orbiter data suggests By MARK CARREAU
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
Long-running observations by a NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars are revealing subtle signs of seismic activity on the Red Planet and possibly a slow warming trend, scientists said Tuesday. Circling since September 1997, Global Surveyor is the oldest of five spacecraft — four American and one European — observing Mars from orbit for indications that the cold, barren planet was or is habitable. Global Surveyor's early identification of a surface mineral that forms in water on Earth prompted NASA to select Mars' dust-covered Meridiani Planum as the landing site for the Opportunity robotic rover early last year. The mechanical geologist soon found strong evidence of an ancient marshy shoreline. Repeat imagery of specific locales taken by Global Surveyor's camera that were displayed at a telephone news briefing Tuesday revealed Mars may share similarities with a more geologically active Earth in other ways. "These images reveal a dynamic surface that is of the type we might experience while hiking on the Earth," said Jack Mustard, a Brown University planetary geologist. "The difference is, this is not the Earth. This is Mars." The imagery revealed a major rock slide along a crater wall involving a dozen large boulders between November 2003 and December 2004. Though the rock slide could have been triggered by high winds or reverberations from a meteor impact, the most plausible explanation may be a "Mars quake" because the large boulders were dislodged from different locations on the crater wall, said San Diego researcher Mike Malin, who manages the camera system. The observations also showed an annual 10-foot erosion in the snow cap at the South Pole. The cap is made of frozen carbon dioxide, the chief ingredient of the Martian atmos- phere. "The significance is that Mars is experiencing climate change, or has experienced climate change, because the present atmospheric conditions are not conducive to the formation of all that frozen carbon dioxide," Malin said. "Sometime in the distant past, Mars was colder. Subsequent to that, it has warmed, and we are seeing the earlier deposits erode away." The scientists said the causes and time frame of the Martian climate change are not clear. mark.carreau@chron.com
I'm still waiting to hear an explanation from John Kerry and Ted Kennedy as to why they voted against Kyoto in 1997.
A most excellent question. Thank you for reminding me. I had forgotten that little fact.
"we could make a large wooden badger."
On a related note, solar power stocks went through the roof!
PS has really gone down hill in last few years. Technology Review too. I won't read either anymore.
Mars might be a pretty nice place by the time we get there!
And all the time I thought it was my SUV!!!
Don't believe them! We're going to be INCINERATED!
Well there's only one thing left to do. We must ask the sun to cease its relentless output of heat. Doesn't it know how much harm its doing with all that extra sunshine? Why winters here in Wisconsin are almost livable since it decided to get warmer. (smirk)
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