jay pettitt on 13/1/2010 at 10:33
I thought women were from Venus.
Namdrol on 13/1/2010 at 10:38
Quote Posted by Muzman
(what odds ya give me for page 50? I'm going long)
Shortening all the time.
heywood on 13/1/2010 at 19:02
Quote Posted by Fragony
Maybe temperature rise causes a rise of CO2 instead of the other way around, and the dust is because earth dies every fucking time.
I dunno but it just screams planetary alignment to me. How else would you explain these cycles, planets occasionally pulling at orbits that is.
What you're referring to are called Milankovitch cycles.
Glaciation is primarily linked to the length and severity of summers & winters, which varies with orbital changes and the precession (tilt) of the polar axis. The eccentricity of the Earth's orbit varies from almost perfectly circular to slightly eccentric depending on the positions of the other planets in their orbits. The major axis of the orbit also rotates around the sun, the Earth's polar axis rotates in a circle, and the inclination of the polar axis varies. These variations are all driven by gravity. Their result is that the seasons vary in a periodic pattern.
Obviously these cycles do drive the climate. In geologically recent times (the last million years), the ice age cycle has correlated with the orbital eccentricity, which has a period of ~100k years. Before that, sedimentation records seem to follow the 41k year cycle of the polar axis tilt. But I don't think there's a significant trough in the pattern coming up in the near future which would justify predicting another ice age.
Also, the shortest of the Milankovitch cycles is around 20k years. Anthropogenic influences, among other things, can have an effect on a much shorter time scale.
hopper on 14/1/2010 at 00:54
Quote Posted by Fragony
Maybe temperature rise causes a rise of CO2 instead of the other way around, and the dust is because earth dies every fucking time.
I dunno but it just screams planetary alignment to me. How else would you explain these cycles, planets occasionally pulling at orbits that is.
We have the tides doing exactly that every day, look at what that little moon can do. I find that somewhat more of a possibility than a consumeristindustrialcapitalistdontyoudoitorelse-age every 1000 years or so.
So did he Assyrians 400-BC, and ok it's true they are all dead by now and I suspect natural causes but still.
Mass attracts mass. Moon is mass, water as well but fluid, that and centrifugal powers -> tides
On a grander scale, wouldn't the same thing work for oceanic currents with a more prolonged pull, causing change in climate every now and then.
Moon also doesn't make a perfect circle around earth just as earth doesn't make a perfect orbit around the sun, once in a while (well when there is no full moon) the earth blocks the light the sun shines on the moon or am I wrong there, then it's mass pulling must as well get distorted, so there is such a thing as a full moon affecting the tides but there can't be such a thing as other planets altering oceanic currents?
The term 'moonbat crazy' exists for a reason I guess.
Come to think of it, several reasons.
Mister science fucking telling it like it is.
Fragony on 14/1/2010 at 04:02
Quote Posted by heywood
What you're referring to are called Milankovitch cycles.
So someone beat me to it :(
jay pettitt on 14/1/2010 at 10:24
...funny that.
But because orbital eccentricities yank climate about and a warming planet does indeed result in CO2 being released from natural carbon sinks, don't think that it must therefore be true that CO2 doesn't cause warming. Both happen. Claiming otherwise is about as brilliant as saying that whiskey doesn't get you tipsy because you were already drunk after the 2 beers and bottle of wine you had earlier. The historical record shows temperatures rising first followed (and reinforced) by increases in CO2 (aside from the Pliocene where CO2 did apparently come first) because we haven't had carbon fueled industrial revolutions every 100,000 years or so.
The greenhouse gas theory is well understood, testable in the lab, measurable in the wild and is inseparably intertwingled with everything we know about thermodynamics. It's just as much a fact that CO2 and a few other gases with similar molecular structures absorb energy from a broader range of the light spectrum and have a warming effect, just as much as it's a fact that getting in the bath displaces water.
If denialists want to argue that increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere won't cause warming they need to show that increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere doesn't cause warming.
It also happens that not all CO2 is the same. Carbon atoms come with varying numbers of isotopes. Plants happen to have a preference for absorbing carbon with 13 isotopes, which means that fossil fuels are rich in C13, which means that if you burn lots of fossil fuels you increase, specifically, the concentration of C13 in the atmosphere - which you can measure.
If denialists want to argue that human activity isn't influencing climate they need to show that the industrial revolution hasn't been releasing a gigatonne load of CO2 into the atmosphere and that all the Carbon with the fossil fuel fingerprints all over it that we do have actually came from somewhere else.
And then they need to argue that we still don't have a problem and don't need to do anything about it anyway. Because even if (and it's a bloody big if) anthropogenic climate change turns out to be natural that doesn't make it okay or alter the fact that we still need a stable, predictable climate to feed and water and find secure homes for upwards of 6.5 billion people.
Until then they have nothing of value to contribute and can merrily fuck off and take their right-wing anti environmental regulation free market at all costs agenda with them. Tossers.
Brian The Dog on 14/1/2010 at 10:28
Quote Posted by heywood
Glaciation is primarily linked to the length and severity of summers & winters, which varies with orbital changes and the precession (tilt) of the polar axis.
Apologies for being pedantic, but this angle (between the orbital and equatorial planes) is called the obliquity angle. Precession is the linear motion of this angle in time, and nutation is the second-order periodic effects (usually modelled by a Fourier series or something similar).
Fragony on 14/1/2010 at 11:27
Quote Posted by jay pettitt
If denialists want to argue that increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere won't cause warming they need to show that increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere doesn't cause warming.
Why is that, out of all possibilities the holy preach CO2-reduction, but temperatures haven't been rising despite CO2 output, and now they are falling it's getting cold, and all that despite the rise of industrial superpowers like China and India. You show me, and nothing that comes from the IPCC or anything even closely related will do.
Until then they have nothing of value to contribute and can merrily fuck off and take their right-wing anti environmental regulation free market at all costs agenda with them. Tossers.burn the witch
Namdrol on 14/1/2010 at 11:33
Quote Posted by Fragony
...but temperatures haven't been rising...
citation needed
Fragony on 14/1/2010 at 11:38
Quote Posted by Namdrol
citation needed
We have already been there, few pages back or just google it.
