Posted on 02/07/2010 10:11:07 AM PST by neverdem
According to a new paper by Gerald E. Marsh (PDF), they do. If true, this has great implications for the debate over whether humans are causing global warming, or whether it is a natural phenomenon. More about Marsh here.
The conventional global warming explanation for the Ice Ages and interglacial periods (we are in one right now), is that a change in the Earth’s orbit called a Milankovitch cycle adds heat, that causes carbon dioxide to be released, causing more warming.
Carbon dioxide itself can’t start the process, because during Ice Age cycles the warming trend precedes CO2 increases by an average of 800 years. Supposedly, the Milankovitch cycle is strong enough to start the warming process, but too weak to continue it without the help of carbon dioxide.
But global warming skeptics point to the lag as an indication that carbon dioxide is just along for the ride, as it were, an indicator of increasing warmth, not a major cause of it.
And Marsh’s paper says the cause and effect is wrong as well:
“This Milankovitch insolation theory has a number of problems associated with it, and the one to be discussed here is the so called âcausality problemâ; i.e., what came firstâincreased insolation or the shift to an interglacial. This would seem to be the most serious objection, since if the warming of the Earth preceded the increased insolation it could not be caused by it. This is not to say that Milankovitch variations in solar insolation do...
(Excerpt) Read more at nctimes.com ...
Thinks for the link.
If true, this has great implications for the debate over whether humans are causing global warming, or whether it is a natural phenomenon.Nice coverage -- of the writer's ass. ;') It's refreshing to read something by a real journalist, instead of by a leftwing nitwit shilling for dema-gore-guery.
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Looking further, we can get a rough idea of cosmic ray bombardment by looking at variations of carbon-14 levels:
‘Carbon dioxide has a very limited role in any warming’
The global warming hoaxers seem to have no explanation for what has happened in the past.
Typical response: That was different.
Thank you, that is a very useful graph.
Didn’t cosmic rays change Reed Richards and his friends into the Fantastic Four?
Thanks for the graphs!
In NC schools, the world began in 1877.
lol
Thanks for this one, since I'll be making a blog on Pleistocene climate change eventually. This does appear to be an unpublished missive. The Sime et al. (2009) paper is of particular interest to me. So I'll be taking a longer look at this -- it would be nice if scientists far more steeped in climate change knowledge would take a look at it, too.
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