The Morning Star: an example of the fate of Earth?
By Jeff Emanuel Posted in Energy | Spotlight Blogs — Comments (22) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
[Note: I'll echo Leon here by freely admitting that I am not a 100% skeptic of global warming - nor of the possibility of human influence. However, having studied the geological and astronomical records in a fair degree of depth, having worked with the Hadley model of geothermal/climatic trend prediction a bit, and having read up on my history, I am more than a bit confident that, while there may very well be human influence, the earth, like every other solar body - including the sun - undergoes thermal and climatic cycles, and, based on the climatic record which we have to this point, it makes perfect sense not only for the earth to be in the midst of a warming trend at this time, but also for the sun to be in one, as well.]
Besides the doomsday, "Day After Tomorrow" scenarios being cast about by the Left as near-term results of man-made global warming, true believers seem to point to our neighbor Venus as the most common example of what will happen to Earth if we humans don't hurry up and die.
The term "thermal runaway" is often used by laymen to describe the road Venus took from its (possible) former Earthlike conditions (which would entail manageable temperatures, liquid-water oceans, and a 4-to-1 nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere) to its current, CO2-heavy atmosphere (96.5% Carbon Dioxide, 3.5% Nitrogen, with trace Argon, Helium, Neon, Sulfur Dioxide, Carbon Monoxide, and - yes - water), corresponding 464° fahrenheit average temperature, and crushing atmospheric pressure which is nearly 92 times that of Earth.
There are several reasons why a comparison of Venus to Earth is weak at best, and utterly fallacious at worst. RS commenter "hunter" covers some of these reasons here. Beyond these - most of which take into account (a) the radically slower rotation of Venus (one complete roation, which Earth takes 24 hours to complete, lasts 277 earth days on Venus), and (b) Venus's lack of plate tectonics - there are more significant differences between the second and third planets from the sun, including one which is probably the most obvious of all: distance from the massive, constant nuclear explosion which forms the center of our solar system.
Read on . . .
For a baseline, Earth's orbit - which is far less elliptical than many planets' orbits (a fact which, combined with our planet's relatively mild 23.45° tilt on its axis, helps maintain Earth's basically constant temperature, as compared to the extremes experienced by other planets in our solar system) - keeps it, on average, 92 3/4 million miles from the nearly 11,000° F (in its outer layer, or photosphere) sun - 94 million at its aphelion, and 91.5 million at its perihelion. (For perspective, the sun's fissile core is roughly fifteen million degrees fahrenheit, and 340 billion times the Earth's pressure.)
Venus, on the other hand, is far closer to the 11,000° sun, averaging 67.5 million miles from the star in its nearly circular orbit (67 million miles at perihelion, 68 million at aphelion) - nearly one-third closer than Earth.
Were earth this close to the sun, it would probably look a lot more like Venus than it does like the Earth we know. However, it is not - so what's the point of comparing any further?
The kicker in the Venus example, though, is the disconnect in the message the man-made global warming die-hards are trying to send by making use of it. Is it meant to be a threatening glimpse of the future of Earth if man doesn't change his ways - or is it an example of the fact that such a development can occur naturally without man's influence?
Unless they want to suggest that man formerly lived on Venus, and burned fossil fuels and abused that planet with his eeeevil internal combustion engine, it has to be the latter - which sticks a dagger into the heart of the man-made-only argument.
Now, I won't claim to be a climatologist; I can't, as I'm not one. Nor will I claim to be a scientist, although I will admit that my studies in the past have included some fairly in-depth study of astrophysics. And chemistry. And biology, both plant and animal. And geology.
However, all that's needed to see the Venus argument for what it is is a pair of eyes with which to look for facts, the willingness to see them, and a dollop of logical thinking with which to understand.
hotter than now. And one of the putative causes of the extinction is a massive release of methane hydrates. If that didn't trigger a run away greenhouse effect, nothing we are going to do will.
This scenario resembles the fear that an atomic bomb would trigger a fusion reaction in the atmosphere. Except better minds than the enviromentalists were considering that.
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
where I can identify the nature of the Earth's current orbit around the Sun? Is it entering, or exiting, its spherical or elliptical phase?
Also, how much has the volume and intensity of the Sun increased since the mini-ice age (approximately 400 years ago)?
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“The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.” – Ronald Reagan
I know theres some Russian work on the earths orbit and Ice Ages
I believe the theory is called the Malinkov or Malinkovitch cycle. I had read something to the effect the theory was being used to predict that we would be going into a new Ice Age. (more doom and gloom)
My own prediction is a little more humble. I predict that when the current crop of climatologists retire and the warming disaster doesn't come to pass we will be hearing much more about an oncoming glaciation.
The intensity of sun has estimates of change between .4 and 1% . Volume I couldn't guess how you would estimated it for 400 years ago. It would also be something difficult to define. Which part of the sun do you want to use as the surface ?
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
You were correct. This is the theory for which I was searching.
Milankovitch Cycles and Glaciation
The episodic nature of the Earth's glacial and interglacial periods within the present Ice Age (the last couple of million years) have been caused primarily by cyclical changes in the Earth's circumnavigation of the Sun. Variations in the Earth's eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession comprise the three dominant cycles, collectively known as the Milankovitch Cycles for Milutin Milankovitch, the Serbian astronomer who is generally credited with calculating their magnitude. Taken in unison, variations in these three cycles creates alterations in the seasonality of solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface. These times of increased or decreased solar radiation directly influence the Earth's climate system, thus impacting the advance and retreat of Earth's glaciers.
"Which part of the sun do you want to use as the surface?"
That would be the outermost layer of hydrogen. As the hydrogen (fuel) is consumed, the Sun expands. Eventually, the outermost layer of the Sun will consume the Earth.
It seems to me, as the volume of the Sun increases and its proximity to the Earth decreases, its effect on periods of warming will increase, depending also on the Earth's eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession.
I was trying to find an estimation of the increase in volume/size of the Sun since the last ice-age.
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“The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.” – Ronald Reagan
http://www.redstate.com/blogs/joliphant/2007/feb/05/global_warming_links...
This is a collection I did with links to solar activity and other GW info.
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
I added my two-cents and a few interesting links.
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“The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.” – Ronald Reagan
is insulting to intelligence.
This is something we have evidence and a theoretical framework to show has happened in the past. According to the the theory the Earth was completely frozen over 600 million years ago and it took a run away green house effect to get us out of it.
Here are references to source articles the Scientific American article requires a subscription.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00027B74-C59A-1C75-9B81809EC5...
http://www-eps.harvard.edu/people/faculty/hoffman/snowball_paper.html
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
...if not for the complex built-in buffering and regulating systems that have prevented things from getting too far out of whack (at least during the period of human civilization, roughly the past 10,000 years).
Examples are the Water Cycle, plate tectonics, photosynthesis, CO2 uptake/carbonate deposition, and so on.
Pliny had a cartoon the other day that showed the Earth's carbon inventory; I'm not sure I followed the numbers, but it was obvious that a huge fraction of the carbon on the planet is sequestered in carbonate sediments. We're talking about hundreds of millions of gigatonnes. Most, if not all, of that carbonate, at one time was atmospheric CO2. The oceans processed it into limestone, calcium carbonate, notably during the not-coincidentally-named "Carboniferous" period of the Paleozoic (aka Mississippian & Pennsylvanian) and during the Cretaceous (Latin root chalk) of the Mesozoic (see chart below.
In other words, the Earth was once much, much hotter, and atmospheric concentrations of CO2, while not Venus-like, were 20 times today's concentrations. Natural processes made all that CO2 into limestone. [link] Other processes (volcanism and asteroid collisons) upset the apple cart from time to time.
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777
...as much as the so called "doomsayers". No one (at least with half a brain) thinks that the Earth is at risk of turning into Venus. The issue at hand is that the actions of humanity are starting to strain the ecosystemic services of the planet - global warming is only part of it. It's certainly something to be concerned about.
...we're pulling on it to see if it realy sticks. We also chase goalposts, as in:
"The issue at hand is that the actions of humanity are starting to strain the ecosystemic services of the planet - global warming is only part of it."
Thus the tear on Iron Eyes Cody's face becomes a sweat bead.
I believe the issue at hand is whether or not the "actions of humanity" are causing global warming.
From Snopes:
Iron Eyes Cody was born Espera DeCorti on 3 April 1904 in the small town of Kaplan, Louisiana. He was the son of Francesca Salpietra and Antonio DeCorti, she an immigrant from Sicily who had arrived in the USA in 1902, and he another immigrant who had arrived in America not long before her. Theirs was an arranged marriage, and the couple had four children, with Espera (or Oscar, as he was called) their second eldest.
Sorry. It's a never-ending source of amusement.
Is it discussed in the IPCC report? Not that I'm aware of. So why are we discussing this here? There's a lot of eager doomers in the enviro movement who like to dream about the end of the human race. Don't mistake their ravings for science.
We are discussing this now so that when the ravers come trolling in with their thermal runaway talisman, we can point them to this thread and then continue the adult conversation.
Some early apostles over at Scientific American were making the comparison. I think Nightline did a hysterical episode on how we could get a runaway hot enough to bake the CO2 out of the limestone. The AGW fundies *really* ahte our SUVs and tech society. Except for their limos, private jets and cray computers. And their AC.
...bears mentioning is that Earth has a moon that stripped away enough of its primordial atmosphere to prevent the furnace effect that occurred on Venus.
--furious
"I find your lack of faith disturbing." -- Darth Vader
I also read that scientists have detected warming on Mars and increased solar activity. The guy gets around.
Based on the average orbital distances given in the original diary, and the fact that radiant heat decreases with the square of the distance, Venus receives about 89% more radiant heat per unit area than the Earth.
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Carbon_dioxide
According to this source, the average concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen from about 280 ppm to 380 ppm in about 100 years, and is now rising at a rate of about 2 ppm per year. 380 ppm is 0.038%, and the 96.5% on Venus is 965,000 ppm. At this rate, it would take about 480,000 years to reach the CO2 concentration on Venus. We would probably run out of fossil fuels long before that. Even if Earth's atmosphere contained as much CO2 as that of Venus, Earth would still be cooler than Venus due to receiving a little over half the radiation that Venus receives from the sun.
Another major cooling factor on Earth is its oceans. They reflect a lot of sunlight, and evaporation from oceans results in cooling, and clouds reflect a lot of sunlight to space. Water is most dense at about 4 degrees Celsius (39 F), and sunlight only penetrates about the top 100 meters or so of ocean water. There are vast volumes of water in the depths of the oceans (sometimes several km deep) that remain at 39 F year round, even in the tropics, and it would take a tremendous amount of heat to even raise the bottom temperature to 40 F, and about 900 times more heat to evaporate them. Venus doesn't have any oceans, and probably never did, otherwise there would be lots of water vapor in its present atmosphere.
Venus also doesn't have green plants, which are plentiful on Earth. As numerous studies have shown (see www.co2science.org), higher CO2 concentrations in the air increase plant growth rates and crop yields. Since plants take CO2 out of the air, increased growth rates would cause plants to remove CO2 more rapidly, probably resulting in a stabilizing of the CO2 concentration at some higher level, but also a greener and more productive earth. Based on the research at this site, the BEST thing to do about higher CO2 concentrations is NOTHING...except literally reap the benefits of a more productive earth!
The bad news: Conservatism is hard to sell. The good news is that it works.
Solar flares affect earth temperatures far more than any earth-based phenomenon ever could. Let the prophets of doom work on stopping THEM.
In the meantime, they could try lying down in front of SUVs. Please.