Is Venus Our Future? (Massive Runaway Global Barf Alert)

ABC News.com ^ | April 22, 2002 | Amanda Onion

[Jeff F]

What a whopping load of Venusian B.S. As is typical with such advocacy journalism, the piece starts with hysterical charges that are later not supported by the few details passed along towards the end of the article. This allows the author to spew her hyped up propoganda, while still being able to claim that she cited the facts. Still, nowhere does she include the most important and obvious fact -- that the atmosphere of Venus is 90 times more dense than is it's "twin" planet Earth. To imply that a very minor increase in the percentage of CO2 in Earth's radically thinner atmosphere might result in a 800 degree future is dishonest beyond words.

[capt. norm]

Keep in mind that Venus is much closer to the Sun than Earth and gets a higher level of insolation. (not to be confused with insulation, insolation is the measurement of incoming solar radiation from, of course, the Sun.

[Phantom Lord]

Venus is hotter because its closer to the sun? No way. Future NASA research and the sending of robots like the Mars Rover (or whatever it was called) will revel that thousands of years ago there was a race similar to humans on the planet and their love for SUVs is what caused the planet to heat up to such high temps.

Who knows what evil fossil fuel burning contraptions the people of Mercury were using to cause their planet to turn into a blast furnace.

[Marie Antoinette]

"The climate on its surface is completely out of line if you extrapolated the conditions as if they were Earth," said Fred Taylor, a planetary physicist at the University of Oxford, England. "There's something very wrong with our modeling."

They said it themselves! Hehehehh!! Idjiots don't account for the closer proximity to the sun?!?

Mr.M

[Logophile]

Although Venus is slightly closer to the sun than Earth . . . .

The average distance from the Sun to Venus is 67.2 million miles (108.2 million kilometers); the average from the Sun to the earth is 92.96 million miles (149.6 million kilometers). I would say that the difference is more than "slight."

[Piquaboy]

Woe is me! The sky is falling.

[End Times Sentinel]

Distance from the sun:
Venus 108 million km.
Earth 150 million km.

Gee, could that have ANYTHING to do with it? Naaahhh, I’m sure the author would have mentioned it… right?

So, did ABC News get this article from the ELF newsletter or something? Well, this is ABC we’re talking about.

Owl_Eagle

”Guns Before Butter.”

[Quilla]

It is my understanding that Venutians use lor, a substance far more efficient than our fossil fuels, to run their SUV's. It's been some time since I've heard from Carson Napier, so I could be mistaken on the name. :)

[irishtenor]

Let's see, lots of active volcanos, closer to the sun, slow rotation, closer to the sun, thick layer of clouds, closer to the sun... nope, I can't figure out why the planet is 800 degrees.

[capt. norm]

I had forgotten all about the big "Lor" bash at the end of the "harvest" season.

Now that's a party!

[Mr. Thorne]

Watch out for those klangan, though. They're the ultimate party crashers...

[Vineyard]

Let us not forget that because of the vast amounts of water on Earth, most of the Carbon Dioxide has be trapped and "stored" in geological formations .... limestone and marble. (Every so often, some of the limestone/marble - which may "fold under" and be much deepr in the earth. It becomes extremely hot and the CO2 "outgasses". Then, the CO2 is occassionally released (vented) during volcanic type events.

So if ther eis a proposal to strip mine the limestone and marble, and "cook it" to release the CO2, then (and only then) I might start worrying about CO2 buildup sufficient to cause problems.

As is, the Globaloney Alarmists either fail to mention (or are too stupid to know) that water vapor is a far more significant "greenhouse gas" than CO2 is. So as long as we have oceans ... we will have many benefits that make this planet habitable (unlike Mars or Venus).

Mike

[capt. norm]

Yeah, what's 42 million miles, considering the fact that moving only a thousand or so miles on this planet (maybe like from Detroit to Miami) can have a very noticeable effect on the observed climate.

Disclaimer City:
The actual increase in proximity to the Sun is the actual curvature of Earth and not the distance between the two surface points. I also, to be fair, did not include the angle of insolation (which affects the overal spread of a light column where a greater angle spreads the same amount of light over a wider area.)

[Eastbound]

"There's something very wrong with our modeling."

Hahahaha. Recognition of one's error is the first step towards redemption. There's hope!

[Cicero]

Do you suppose this commentator was actually named Amanda Onion on her birth certificate, or was she renamed when she became a Gaian fanatic?

[steve-b]

Although Venus is slightly closer to the sun than Earth, orbits more slowly and has a thicker layer of clouds trapping heat in, the planet's atmosphere also reflects about 75 percent of the sun's radiation. (Earth's atmosphere reflects about 30 percent.) According to current climate models, these factors should make Venus even hotter than it is.

Where to begin?

1. Venus orbits at 0.723 AU (i.e. 72.3% of Earth's distance from the Sun). This is not "slightly" closer -- it's significant enough to give Venus almost double the Earth's solar input per given area.

2. In accordance with Kepler's Third Law, Venus orbits more quickly, not more slowly than Earth. In any case, orbital speed has no relevance to planetary temperature.

3. The fact that Venus has a higher albedo (percentage of incoming radiation reflected into space) should, of course, make it cooler, not hotter.

Sounds like Ms Onion should try "science" writing for her namesake publication.

[FairWitness]

The average distance from the Sun to Venus is 67.2 million miles (108.2 million kilometers); the average from the Sun to the earth is 92.96 million miles (149.6 million kilometers). I would say that the difference is more than "slight."

If I remember correctly, the energy recieved by each planet should be in the ratio of the inverse squares of their distances from the sun. That would make the amount of solar energy received by each unit surface area on Venus about twice that received by the same surface area on Earth.

[medved]

Venus is hot because it's a relatively new planet. Sunlight doesn't even reach the surface there and yet it's the surface which is 900 degrees F.

[Free the USA]

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