Posted on 07/04/2008 7:52:08 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
Today the Earth is at aphelion, its farthest distance from the Sun during the whole year, and this year the Earth will be at its second farthest aphelion of the century. Not that it will feel much different though.
The reason for aphelion is the slightly oval-shaped orbit of the Earth around the Sun, with the Sun slightly off-centre. So at this aphelion the Earth lies about 152 million km (94.5 million miles) away from the Sun, roughly 2.4 million km (1.5 million miles) more than average.
That means that the Sun will appear 1.7 per cent smaller in the sky and 7 per cent less bright at aphelion than at perihelion, its closest distance to the Sun, which happened in early January. This makes our summers slightly cooler in the northern hemisphere, but the difference is hardly noticeable.
Another strange effect at aphelion is that the Earth travels most slowly in its yearly orbit – an illustration of this can be seen at www.analemma.com. This slowing down stretches out the summer in the northern hemisphere by almost five days.
The elliptical orbit, as well as the tilt of the Earth, can also add up to 15 minutes’ difference between sundial and clock time. This is called the equation of time.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
This makes perfect sense. All of those CO2 emissions have pushed our planet - our perfect, fragile, small, shining blue ball of a planet further from the sun, creating the slight cooling effect. But warming will resume, just as soon as the direction of the carbon flow changes and begins to push us towards the sun.
The only answer is change. We’ve got to change the way we’ve been living. Well, some of us. Me and Al don’t need to. We’ll take credit for green things people would do anyway or the ungreen things they might have done, but didn’t, and sell the credits to other suckers, uh, citizens wealthy enough to enjoy a guilt free carbon rich life through Enron’s, uh Al Gore, carbon trading scheme, uh market.
Yes, change is necessary. You’ve got to change your thermostat setting or we’ll help. You’ve got to change your vehicle to Smart Car or Pious, or we’ll help. You’ve got to change your light bulbs to cute, expensive curly cue ones, or we’ll help. You’ve got to change your fuel into corrosive, less efficient, food based derivatives, or we’ll help (oops, we already have). You’ve got to change your notions of uninterrupted power. You’ve got to change.
You’ve still got change? I want it. Give it here.
Who am I? I’m Big Brother and you will love me.
Nah, they are some of the classics, though there’s one more famous one I can’t recall.
I did find a couple myself, too...but can’t for the life of me remember them!
Ain’t it a weird coincidink that all the lottery winners just happened to have tickets that matched the numbers selected?!
Actually, the average temp. may rise, but it is a very small rise.
The Earth is closer to the sun, in winter, and farther away, during winter (at least, ‘our’ seasons in the Northern Hemisphere).
I am well aware of the “anthropic principle.”
Nevertheless, I find it remarkable that the tolerances are repeatedly found to be extremely narrow.
I noticed that this morning, but I wasn't going to say anything...
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