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Termyn8or -> RE: Earth warming ? (12/24/2010 12:29:17 AM)
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So it showed up just to spite me.
The image is from Wikipedia, just look for Milankovitch cycle. It is about halfway down the page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
It is filled with all kinds of facts, but what I refer to is how it affects global warning. Most of us now don't believe it, and this is even more reason. Maybe.
The chart shows that we are closest to the sun just about now. Granted that the "wobble" of the Earth has more to do with the seasons we experience, because even from the perihelion to the apehelion is not all that much. However, there are other factors, like the laws of thermodynamics.
The fact is for the last five thousand years the Earth has been steadily recieving more and more energy from the sun overall. This 'precession' is ended and now will reverse, just like what happens at the solistaces, but it is on a twenty-some thousand year cycle. My rough calculation yielded 25,915 years for the cycle to complete. But the input figures may have been rounded off. The effect remains though.
Now the Earth has alot of thermal mass obviously. Really the climate changes are mainly in what are ironically termed the temperate zones. That means not at the equator or the poles, and that is where the angle of incidence of the incoming sunlight is affected the most. So the seasons we experience unless we live in Antarctica or up there with Santa, it has likely more effect than the eliptical nature of our orbit.
However not with the trends. We do not currently recieve all of our heat from the sun, a good portion of it is stored in the Earth itself. And if the Milankovitch effect were even more severe, real changes would be delayed due to the thermal mass of the Earth and the conductivity therefrom.
Much of this effect will be from the oceans because the have the most thermal conductivity and much of the mass of the crust.
Now if you look at a globe, there is no land under the Arctic but there does seem to be a greater concentration of land mass in the northern hemisphere. While the north and south hemishpheres may have a similar amout of land mass, in the south some of it is concentrated at the south pole. This changes the equation in ways that I only begin to comprehend.
If it weren't for the atmosphere and the water, this planet would be similar to the moon, hot as hell on one side and freezing on the other. This, what is called the ecosystem is what spreads it around. In exactly what way is the study of meteorology of course. And the distribution is not perfect, which of course results in the seasons.
Now, first of all the way that land and water absorb and conduct heat differs obviously. but I think it possible that the "phase" of the Earth's wobble and the sidereal year can either ameliorate or exaserbate the situation, that is more extreme temperatures that we don't like. That was somewhat postulated in the article.
So they speak of global warming, and that we are somehow at fault, but it was predicted before 1958 for sure.
Where we are at now, it would seem that this effect is exaserbating the extremes because ice and snow are white and absorb less energy. Do you agree ? Further, no matter what the CO2 level is in the atmoshphere the entire planet recieves the same amount of energy from the sun except for this Milankovitch cycle. It does actually matter whether you put it in the air or in the ground for sure, but we certainly have no control over celestial bodies.
The bottom line is that it is likely that there is an excess of energy stored underneath the Earth's crust, and will contribute to the overall thermal energy in our ecosphere for some time. I think there are too many variables for them to handle. While global warming may be true, I believe it is illogical to attribute it to Man's actions.
What do you think ? Should we be spending millions on carbon credits for something that is this unfounded ? They threaten that Earth will become like Venus, a big swamp with nothing but burnt up....everything. I don't think it's true. Venus is not hotter because of it's perpetual cloud cover, it is hotter simply because it is closer to the sun.
On the lighter side, if this is true and the new experts are wrong, in ten thousand years this planet will be a nicer place to live with more temperate climates. More of the world will be like California ! Warmer winters and cooler summers, at least in the northern hemisphere. More temperate climate all over the world.
But then there was that ice age.............
Your thoughts ?
T
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