[meteorite-list] Cosmic Dust in Terrestrial Ice MORE

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun Aug 6 02:20:19 2006
Message-ID: <006401c6b920$5fc92e70$2a7f4b44_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi, Larry, List,


    Yeah, I think so, but this is not my field, so why would
anyone ask? The correlation of CO2 level with mean global
temperature has big excursions in it, most notably in the
case of the planet cooling down for almost 30 years (1940
to 1970) while CO2 went up and up like always. On the other
hand the correlation of mean global temperature with solar
output matches up much better with very few excursions.

    To me the chief problem with current thinking, however
many factors you can get into the models, is that it's a simple
theory, a one-factor-drives-all theory, and that just seems
unlikely in anything so horrendously complex. There are,
for example, geolgical periods (135-140 mya) when climate
was always in the modern range but the CO2 levels were
3900 ppm, more than ten times the modern level. Suppose
they got a zoning variance?

    Another solar factor is the length of the solar cycle. It's
variable as you know. Short cycles crowded together always
deliver more heat to the Earth than long ones. In fact, the
correlation between length of solar cycle and mean global
temperature is 0.95, which is really tight. And we've been
having short crowded cycles and are due for another early
Solar Max, the biggest in 50 years, in 2010-2012, or so says
the conveyor belt theory of sunspots.

    Me? I'm buying a bigger air conditioner.

    Another fallacy is the notion that the Sun's output never
varies by more than +/- 0.1%. Pfui! (Pardon the German
Phooee; it just seemed appropriate.) A study of the 30 nearest
G0 stars just like our big buddy show variations of +/- 0.45%
in the short term. Is our Star not as whimsical as its brother
Stars? Copernican principle says, "Don't count on it."

    Actually, it would take solar variation of about +/- 0.5%
to account for all the climate changes of the last 10,000 years.
So, yeah, I think all our energy comes from the Sun, as the first
cause of climate, although modified by lots of factors after it
gets here.

    Another point not well understood is the distribution
of energy on the planet. MOST of the energy arrives at the
equator. Long fiddles about irradiation at 65 degrees of
latitude in the summer is meaningless, even though every
theorist (like Milankovich and all the others) have gone on
about it endlessly. Irrelevant.

    Energy absorption is proportional to the cosine of its
incidence, by latitude and again by diurnal angle, so it's
the cosine squared that counts. Make a cos^2 map of the
Earth and you'll see that 88% of the Sun's energy arrives
in the tropic zone and less than 3% in the polar zones. It
just doesn't matter what happens at the poles. (Which is
why the albedo effect doesn't become a big factor until
the ice sheets spread into the south. If they reach the 35th
to 30th degree of latitude, we in deep... stuff. If they stay
above 60, the effect is small.)

    It's kind of spooky. About 12 miles north of my house
is where the ice cap stopped at the height of the last
glaciation, with one big toe over the 40 degree line. About
four blocks from my house is a nice "little" two to three
ton erratic that nobody wanted to mess with, just sitting
there right on the edge of the road, taking occasional tribute
from the fenders and corners of careless cars and drivers.

    The polar climate is determined almost entirely by heat
transport and that's almost entirely by ocean currents from
the tropics. When Anatartica was polar in the ice-free ages
(no ice anywhere on the planet), the big-eyed dinosaurs
roved hot, wet, winter forests without sunlight for months.
A sunless polar winter didn't cool them down much at all.

    Whatever cause ice ages vs. no ice ages happens at
the equator, as paradoxical as that sounds. I have a long
theory about thermohaline circulation that explains what
turns ice ages on and off, but like Fermat, there's not
enough room in the margins... (Boy! Are you lucky!)

    And lastly, a fine study of the evolution of global
warming theory: A book by Spencer Weart, "The Discovery
of Global Warming." Nothing tells you more about a theory
that how it got here. And the American Institute of Physics
has more than the full book, a longer more detailed version
(250,000 words), up on its website:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html
and they do something I wish more websites would do.
They have the entire website downloadable as a ZIP file
that you can take and read at your leisure, with the links
modified to work in the off-line text. Very nice of them.


Sterling K. Webb
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Larry Lebofsky" <lebofsky_at_lpl.arizona.edu>
To: "Sterling K. Webb" <sterling_k_webb_at_sbcglobal.net>
Cc: <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>; "Mike Fowler" <mqfowler@mac.com>
Sent: Saturday, August 05, 2006 9:04 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Cosmic Dust in Terrestrial Ice MORE


> Hi Sterling:
>
> Some of my best friends (who are atmospheric scientists) do not believe in
> global warming. I agree that there are just too many factors involved and
> you
> can get almost any answer you want. While I personally believe that
> cutting
> CO2 emissions is not a bad idea, it should be realized that Mars is having
> a
> warming trend and I am not sure anyone really knows why. Is the Sun
> responsible?
>
> Larry
>
> Quoting "Sterling K. Webb" <sterling_k_webb_at_sbcglobal.net>:
>
>> Hi, Mike, Larry,
>>
>> Mike, Rob Matson posted a very funny
>> website URL:
>> http://www.dhmo.org/
>> outlining the "consumer" hazards of DHMO,
>> which is DiHydrogen MonOxide, which many
>> "non-scientific" persons call just plain WATER.
>> The website is hilarious.
>>
>> Larry, there are many components to calculating
>> warming vs. cooling for the overall hydrology at any
>> temperature, so many that none of the models can agree
>> on any result for the overall role of water, so all the
>> "global warming" models are fudging their results in
>> this regard with simple "plug-ins" which ignore water,
>> yet we're supposed to take them seriously. Pul-eeze.
>>
>> I'm just saying that the perfect summation of all effects
>> is to be found in reality, but whether the climate drives
>> the water or the water drives the climate, who can tell?
>>
>> The same is true of CO2 and climate. Which is the
>> driving factor? The "global warming" version is that
>> CO2 drives climate. William Ruddiman (UVa) has
>> just published an analysis that concludes that climate
>> drives CO2:
>> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/07/060725074044.htm
>> Complete text (.pdf) at:
>> http://www.clim-past.net/2/43/2006/cp-2-43-2006.pdf
>>
>> Two years ago, Ruddiman published a paper that
>> concluded that human activities that increased CO2
>> levels accelerated the end of the last glacial period and
>> precipitated the interglacial we now enjoy. (According
>> to the Milankovich cycles, it was early).
>>
>> Personally, I think that about the time we get everybody
>> "on board" with global warming and are committed to
>> and exercising real control of CO2, the climate will turn
>> colder. I call it the Principle of Perversity. The one thing
>> you can count on weather and climate doing? Change.
>>
>>
>> Sterling K. Webb
>> -------------------------------------------------------------
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Mike Fowler" <mqfowler_at_mac.com>
>> To: <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
>> Cc: "Mike Fowler" <mqfowler_at_mac.com>
>> Sent: Saturday, August 05, 2006 7:01 PM
>> Subject: [meteorite-list] Cosmic Dust in Terrestrial Ice ENDING
>>
>>
>
> ______________________________________________
> Meteorite-list mailing list
> Meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
>
Received on Sun 06 Aug 2006 02:20:11 AM PDT