scary new changes in the earth's eco-system

[Mark F. Barnes]

Link to article

I find this odd since neither Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit or Anders Celsius were even born in 1659. The earliest thermometer were alcohol thermometers in 1706 and the first true mercury thermometer didn't come along until 1714. In 1724, Fahrenheit introduced the temperature scale that bears his name - Fahrenheit Scale. Anders Celsius devised the centigrade scale or "Celsius scale" of temperature in 1742. The scales were both able to be rolled back to to fit the alcohol thermometers with in 2% accuracy, however anything beyond that is clearly unreliable.

Lord William Thomson Kelvin took the whole process one step further with his invention of the Kelvin Scale in 1848. The Kelvin Scale measures the ultimate extremes of hot and cold. Kelvin developed the idea of absolute temperature, what is called the "Second Law of Thermodynamics", and developed the dynamical theory of heat.

Now the first thermometers were called thermoscopes and while several inventors invented a version of the thermoscope at the same time, Italian inventor Santorio. Santorio was the first inventor to put a numerical scale on the instrument however he had no recognized point of reference. Galileo Galilei invented a rudimentary water thermometer in 1593 which, for the first time, allowed temperature variations to be measured. Only problem with these were there was no scale for them to give accruemental measurements, they only showed fluctuations in temperature but with no actual means to measure. Also water was highly inaccurate based on specific gravity, ambient temperature, and static instability. So this gives me doubt as to the validity and the integrity of the theorist that will spout off this doom and gloom based on any data that can in no way be accurate, due to the fact that there was no means in which to gather this data accurately, and most certainly with no scale of measure to catalog data by.

Theorist are just that, theorist, an idea that they are unable to accurately prove with and certainty. One a theory is proved it then becomes science, there are so many holes in the theories of global warming it is laughable. Yet there are knee jerk so called economists that live in a world of constant doom and gloom, looking for any shred of evidence or theory, that gives them there next crusade to go off on a tangent on. Because you see, with out the dark cloud of doom and gloom on our ecological system, they have no job, they have no funding, either from the private sector or federal. They have to keep up this juggling act to keep the money coming in. For every Theorist with a theory out there, there is a scientist that can take it apart, because they have no real definite hard evidence to support any of it, that's why it's just a theory.

And please don't go off with diarrhea of the mouth with a bunch of political posturing, politics has no agenda here involving this subject. I have no political agenda to impress upon anyone. I would love to have an intelligent discussion on this with anyone, and anything I put forward, I will gladly support it with reams of documentation and we can simply sit down with a couple a calculators with any data provided and work out a trend with Applied Thermodynamics and see if there is validity to the big scare, that the theorists would like you to believe. And please don't try to use News papers and socialist rags as any means of reference, lets stick to the scientific references, not the media.

[Double L]

Whether global warming is real or not we still need to cut down on the amounts of carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide that we have in the air.

[Mark F. Barnes]

Whether global warming is real or not we still need to cut down on the amounts of carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide that we have in the air.

I agree the are still all types of industrial pollutants that need addressing, I have agreed with that all along. I just refuse the BS doom and gloom theories without proof.

Now you gave a couple of examples, one of which I think you mean Nitrogen dioxide, am I correct? Yes this is definitely something that is far more dangerous than any lame global warming theory. Nitrogen dioxide is a deadly toxin, commonly generated in the refining processes. I honestly feel the EPA standards for Refinery Emissions is far too lenient. Also long-term exposure to NO₂ at concentrations above 40

[Mark F. Barnes]

Now back on this global warming doom and gloom scare that the so called ecologists are trying to lay on the human race. Do you ever hear of them do anything other than blame it on the human race? While they lead you to believe they have ruled out all other reasoning. That is such crock. They come up with a theory based on so many variables that by the the time you weed through all their BS to get to the root of their theory, they've moved on to another of the thousands of possibilities it actually could be.

Let me throw one by you that is being mulled over as we speak at Texas A&M and it holds some substance for those who are willing to listen to reason. The cycle of the 100 kyr Glacial Cycle is fairly well documented. And this now is being mulled over by many many astrophysicists and thermodynamic engineers. There is a small discrepancy in the earths orbit, which as we all know is not a perfect circle, it is an elliptic, which directly effects our seasons and climates as well as our tidal patterns. If this ellipse has a slight variable and we are talking slight, huge changes can be observed from the change here on earth. Now comes the hundred dollar question, is it eccentricity or orbital inclination? This has been argued by some of the finest minds in the world and they are still trying to come up with a solid provable answer. This may be news to most of you reading this, and you want to know why? Real scientists hate to be accused of crying wolf. And the majority of them could careless what other people think. They want to prove it for the sake of validity and closure to themselves. They don't do it for the Nobel or the #1 selling book on the market, they do it for the science and saving the integrity of the science. See that's the difference in people that want to say something that has real meaning, and those that just want to be heard regardless of the validity of their content.

Sorry for the side track back to this theory at hand. eccentricity or orbital inclination? Milutin Milanković has a theory involving secular motion of the earth's poles which supports eccentric deviation. Problem with this is it can't be fully proven. Although the eccentricity changes Milankovitch's theory were small (between 0.01 and 0.05), they can be calculated with good accuracy back at least several million years and they show quasi-periodic behavior with a period of about 100 kyr. Milankovitch suggested that the eccentricity affected the climate through its effect on insolation, the average solar energy reaching the earth. The discovery of a strong quasi-periodic 100 kyr cycle in the climate data, in approximate phase coherence with the eccentricity, gives strong support to the theory. But, and there's always a but, the calculated insolation changes from eccentricity were too small to account for the strong 100 kyr cycle. Ans it is well known that a second expected eccentricity period near 400 kyr is absent in most climate records, So this leads to specific disagreements between eccentricity and glacial data at both 400 ka and the present. So eccentricity is not looking good as the cause of this elliptic deviation. Are you still following me?

Let's say it's orbital inclination for arguments sake. First you need a projection of the inclination vector on the ecliptic of both Earth and Omega. Let's use the most common reference, Quinn's. In Quinn's reference the inclination varies with an approximately 70 kyr cycle. If you rotate the normal orbital coordinates of the earth to refer the induction of Earth and Omega to the invariable plane, you get a definite pattern nearing the 100 Kyr Glacial cycle. Even though it is a remarkably close match to the 100 kyr peak observed. According to theory, this 100 kyr peak is also split, but only by 10-6 cycles per ky, and this cannot be resolved with the 600 kyr time span. Analysis of longer records depends on having a reliable time scale for the longer periods. For an analysis reaching back 900 kyr, his is where they are having problems recreating these extended cycles with any certainty, so to keep the integrity of the analysis intact and proving the theory and thus it becomes scientific fact instead of just some wild theory. See you don't hear about any of this on the news or in all the media rags, all you here is global warming, we will all be fried by 2041 or maybe 2060, or some other insignificant date. They have no proof, just conjecture. Do some research, I know there are a lot of really great minds on this forum. Before anyone goes to spewing conjecture, read the so called facts, look for the raw data, and pick up a pencil and draw some of this stuff out and see for yourselves. There are a lot of things in this world far worse we need to address than this, AIDS, Cancer, and numerous other diseases. Things that are far more deadly than this Global Warming BS. Until they come up with something more solid that encapsulation of carbon dioxide as the cause of global warming, I'll not waste my time worrying with it, because it's simply not true. Yes the earth's mean temperature has risen 1.44^oC. There is nothing to prove it was something we as a human race have done. And there are many reasons pointing to natural climatical cycles over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, and that is something we have no control over.

Since orbital inclination does not affect insolation, we must search for another mechanism relating it to climate. The only plausible one I have found is accretion of interplanetary material: meteoroids and dust. As the orbit of the earth changes, it passes through different parts of the sun's zodiacal ring, and encounters different regions of material. Changes in inclination will be reflected in changes of accretion. Glacier growth occurs during periods of low inclination, and recession during times of high inclination. We emphasize that this mechanism is speculative, and there is no known meteoroid or dust band that satisfies all the properties that we require, although it is possible that such a band could have been missed. Next I will offer some indirect evidence that accretion does vary with the orbital inclination.

Interplanetary dust accreting on the sun has previously been proposed as a driver of the ice ages. Dr. Victor Clube, of Oxford University's Department of Astrophysics, discussed the possibility of accretion from a single large and unknown meteoroid stream affecting the Earth's climate, but he did not draw any connection to the periodicity of glacial cycles. Hoyle and Wickramasinghe calculated the effect that accreting dust in the atmosphere could have on the greenhouse effect through the seeding of ice crystals, and they speculated that such accretion could have been responsible for the Little Ice Age. At a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society reported by G. Manley, Hoyle discussed the possibility that accretion could remove enough stratospheric water to reduce the greenhouse effect and causing cooling. Stratospheric dust can also be an effective scavenger of other greenhouse gases, such as ozone. This may sound far fetched, but look a little deeper and things start falling into place.

Now this is the theory that I feel deeply about and there is more than a little evidence to back it up. The climate effects of high altitude dust and aerosols are mostly known primarily from volcanic eruptions; global cooling of 0.5 to 1 C was estimated from the eruption of Krakatoa, and measurable climate changes have been attributed to El Chichon and other recent eruptions that injected several megatons of material into the stratosphere. Large, explosive volcanic events occur typically once per century, so the average injection of volcanic material is approximately 100 kton/yr. Measurements by Frank T. Kyte and John T. Wasson both of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, of iridium in oceanic sediments show that long-term global average flux from extraterrestrial materials for the period 35-70 Ma is 60-120 kiloton/yr, about the same as the long-term average from present-day volcanic eruptions. Accretion could cause cooling (as volcanic eruptions suggest) or warming (if cometary particles inject water). Small particles (0.5 micron-diam.) take several years to reach the ground; larger particles (10 micron) take a few months; gases can reside for much longer. Of course extraterrestrial accretion occurs at the top of the atmosphere, so the climate effects could be significantly different from those of volcanic eruptions. In addition, the global distribution of dust from the two mechanisms are different; for example, stratospheric circulation patterns rarely carry volcanic material to the poles. If the accretion mechanism is responsible for the coupling of inclination to climate, then the sudden onset of the 100 kyr cycle that took place 900 kyr ago could have been caused by the sudden injection of dust into the solar system, perhaps through the destruction of a large comet. In a recent analysis of He^-3 in sediment, K. Farley has shown that just such a sudden increase in accretion did take place about 1.2 to 1.5 Myr ago, and this increase could be related to the onset. Now, it may be possible to test the accretion hypothesis by searching for the 100 kyr cycle in sedimentary iridium measurements. To search for such an effect, you have to perform a spectral analysis of 299 iridium data measurements in the late Cretaceous samples. And doing so if you find no peaks above expected noise fluctuations, this will backup the orbital inclination theory. However, if the test is not sufficiently sensitive to test the scale model is void since only 25% of the 8.8 ppt iridium in the sample is estimated to be cosmic in origin, and this is too low to see a 100 yr cycle. A definitive test requires sediment with low iridium background, low bioturbation, and frequent sampling. The data of Kyte and Wasson cannot be used, since the shortest period detectable is about 600 yr (the average Nyquist period). The best candidate for study may not be sea floor cores, but Greenland and Antarctic ice. These are just a few of the obstacles you run into trying to come up with absolute proof. And trying to recreate mother natures kitchen in-tales so many variables, and complex synthesis, that it can take a year just to try and set up an accurate scale model to run the synthesized cycles through. It takes a lot more than a thermometer and a spread sheet to pull off the reproduction of a million years of climate cycles, to accurately try a prove these advanced theories. To theorist it was a lot easier to simply imply that carbon dioxide encapsulation is the root and find someone uninformed enough to listen.

[houstonmacbro]

can we all just get together for a drink!?! weather and global warming be damned!

hell, it's the holidays and if we're gonna burn up from global warming, then drown from all the rising tides, then washed into the hot seas from a massive super scalar f5 typhoon ... at least we could all get drunk first right?

[dbigtex56]

20 bucks says that the thread gets shutdown now because people are using more logic than some people's brains can comprehend. THANKS MARK ! ! !

You lose.

We accept PayPal.

[Mark F. Barnes]

[TJones]

You lose.

We accept PayPal.

How come you didn't quote the whole post ? Hmmmmmmmmm............

[dbigtex56]

How come you didn't quote the whole post ? Hmmmmmmmmm............

Including the "edited by TJones" part? Hmmmmmmm.......I really need to get my time machine fixed.

[TJones]

Including the "edited by TJones" part? Hmmmmmmm.......I really need to get my time machine fixed.

WHAT ? WHO....................ME ? C'mon, man. How dare you make those kinds of accusations, I will not tolerate such slander so I fart in your general direction ! Thus, further damaging the ozone.

[MidtownCoog]

Wonder how much Al Gore is donating to fix the environment?

Becuase as of today, he's just a fraud schlepping a book, and running to the bank.

[77017]

while we squabble over whether gays can marry, what's in paris hilton's purse, whether madonna will be able to legally keep a black baby adopted from africa, and did OJ really murder nicole (and why it should or shouldn't be a book or be shown on fox) ... the world is literally falling apart around us and before our very eyes.

i guess it's easier for most people to get absorbed in the stupid stuff, than to take a really hard look at what is happening to us all.

Pace of Global Warming Causes Alarm

'Very different and frightening world' coming faster than expected, scientists warn

by Seth Borenstein

Animal and plant species have begun dying off or changing sooner than predicted because of global warming, a review of hundreds of research studies contends.

These fast-moving adaptations come as a surprise even to biologists and ecologists because they are occurring so rapidly.

At least 70 species of frogs, mostly mountain-dwellers that had nowhere to go to escape the creeping heat, have gone extinct because of climate change, the analysis says. It also reports that between 100 and 200 other cold-dependent animal species, such as penguins and polar bears, are in deep trouble.

"We are finally seeing species going extinct," said University of Texas biologist Camille Parmesan, author of the study. "Now we've got the evidence. It's here. It's real. This is not just biologists' intuition. It's what's happening."

full story here: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1121-09.htm

Then what?

[houstonmacbro]

this has been the worst storm there in about 13 years, when they had the 2nd most powerful storm hit.

hmmm....

let's see ... i guess those 1M people without power and substantial damage to homes and other property are hallucinating the effects of SOMETHING happening to our weather patterns...?

like i've said before, whether you want to call it man-made, natural cyclicals ... whatever ... something is definitely happening to our whether and eco systems.

laugh all you want. brush it off all you want. but there are changes happening.

***

Northwestern US battered by huge storm

AP, SEATTLE

Sunday, Dec 17, 2006, Page 7

Cary Fisher, right, shows neighbors the damage to his house from fallen trees on Friday morning after Thursday night's storm in Edmonds, Washington state.

PHOTO: AP

The worst windstorm in more than a decade tore through the northwestern US, leaving more than a million people without power and killing at least six.

Winds gusted to a record 111kph about 1am on Friday at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, breaking the old mark of 105kph set in 1993. Winds were clocked at 145kph near Westport, on the coast. ...

... It was the most intense storm to hit the region since a storm on Jan. 20, 1993 that killed five people and caused about US$130 million in damage.

Full article here

[houstonmacbro]

this counts as 'scary new changes' right?

***

Drug resistant TB 'more severe'

The problem of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis may be even more severe than previously thought, experts warn.

A survey of 79 countries by the World Health Organization published in the Lancet found TB drug resistance in virtually every one.

Particularly high levels of resistance were seen in regions of the former Soviet Union and parts of China.

About a third of the world's population is infected with the TB bug, with 8.9 million developing TB each year.

In 2004, the respiratory disease caused 1.7 million deaths worldwide.

MULTIDRUG-RESISTANT TB

Kazakhstan: 14.2% of new cases

Tomsk, Russia: 13.7%

Uzbekistan: 13.8%

Estonia: 12.2%

Liaoning province, China: 10.4%

Lithuania: 9.4%

Latvia: 9.3%

Henan province, China: 7.8%

Anti-microbial drugs have proved very effective at treating TB.

But experts believe their misuse has given the bacteria too much chance to evolve new defences which render the drugs less effective.

The biggest problem is patients failing to complete a full course of the drugs.

Even though symptoms might have disappeared, small amounts of the bacteria may remain, and are capable of mutating.

Multidrug-resistant TB strains are those that are resistant to at least the two most potent drugs, isoniazid and rifampicin.

Full article here

[TheNiche]

this has been the worst storm there in about 13 years

Hmmm...lets see, from the article, we have a total of TWO datapoints and a ceiling on the level that the unknown datapoints in between may lie. And 13 years in geologic time...shoot, that's almost as good as having continuous climate data back to the stone age! Well if that's not overwhelming evidence that the sky is falling, I just don't know what is.

You've got to bear something in mind. Somewhere in the world, every single year, the worst storm that has ever been recorded is going to hit...somewhere. Even within the Houston area, remember when there was the last 500-year flood and the reporters all noted that we've had several 500-year floods within just the past several years? Well what counts as a 500-year flood in Pasadena doesn't count as a 500-year flood at the Texas Medical Center, doesn't count as a 500-year flood in Woodforest, and doesn't count as a 500-year flood in downtown Houston. They're all in different parts of different watersheds and must be taken apart for statistical purposes rather than taken together. There are just too many places and not enough recorded data for records not to be broken. It'll get lots of coverage on the nightly news, and of course they're going to try and scare you on there because it keeps you watching. Its all about ratings, so recognize that and don't be a sucker.

[Subdude]

Spanish bears that have stopped hibernating.

Scientists reveal that bears have stopped hibernating

Published: 21 December 2006

Bears have stopped hibernating in the mountains of northern Spain, scientists revealed yesterday, in what may be one of the strongest signals yet of how much climate change is affecting the natural world.

In a December in which bumblebees, butterflies and even swallows have been on the wing in Britain, European brown bears have been lumbering through the forests of Spain's Cantabrian mountains, when normally they would already be in their long, annual sleep.

Bears are supposed to slumber throughout the winter, slowing their body rhythms to a minimum and drawing on stored resources, because frozen weather makes food too scarce to find. The barely breathing creatures can lose up to 40 per cent of their body weight before warmer springtime weather rouses them back to life.

But many of the 130 bears in Spain's northern cordillera - which have a slightly different genetic identity from bear populations elsewhere in the world - have remained active throughout recent winters, naturalists from Spain's Brown Bear Foundation (La Fundaci

[houstonmacbro]

This is sad. Like, I've mentioned before ... these changes are happening right before our eyes, and we are too blind, arrogant, or scared to take them for what they are really worth.

[TheNiche]

Spanish bears that have stopped hibernating.

Link to full article

[GASP!] Nuts, acorns, chestnuts and berries, oh my!

[TJones]

Here ya go Macbro, you know it's Global Warming when THIS happens.

http://www.insidedenver.com/drmn/other_bus...5228028,00.html

[houstonmacbro]

the signs are everywhere...

[Mark F. Barnes]

[TJones]

Care to comment on the 12ft. of snow you are in right now, for all these Gloom and Doomers ? In the meantime here is something to keep you warm Mark !

[Mark F. Barnes]

Care to comment on the 12ft. of snow you are in right now, for all these Gloom and Doomers ?

Yeah it's called Northern Wyoming, it's suppose to be cold and snowy. It's actually pretty mild right now, it's 10^o fairly nice outside, just a lot of white.

[Subdude]

Dec. 27, 2006, 12:10AM

Interior wants polar bear on endangered list

Proposal puts White House on record that global warming could threaten animals

By JULIET EILPERIN

Washington Post

WASHINGTON

[Mark F. Barnes]

Link to full Houston Chronicle article

[TheNiche]

Link to full Houston Chronicle article

Because scientists have concluded that carbon dioxide from power plant and auto emissions is helping drive climate change worldwide, putting polar bears on the endangered species list raises the legal question of whether the government would be required to compel U.S. industries to curb their carbon dioxide output.

The legal answer is no. The government is by no means required to do anything at all.

[houstonmacbro]

Bringing back on topic...

***

Ancient ice shelf breaks free from Canadian Arctic

TORONTO, Ontario (AP) -- A giant ice shelf the size of 11,000 football fields has snapped free from Canada's Arctic, scientists said.

The mass of ice broke clear 16 months ago from the coast of Ellesmere Island, about 800 kilometers (497 miles) south of the North Pole, but no one was present to see it in Canada's remote north.

Scientists using satellite images later noticed that it became a newly formed ice island in just an hour and left a trail of icy boulders floating in its wake.

Full article here: http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/12/29...ic.ap/index.htm

[TJones]

Bringing back on topic...

***

Ancient ice shelf breaks free from Canadian Arctic

TORONTO, Ontario (AP) -- A giant ice shelf the size of 11,000 football fields has snapped free from Canada's Arctic, scientists said.

The mass of ice broke clear 16 months ago from the coast of Ellesmere Island, about 800 kilometers (497 miles) south of the North Pole, but no one was present to see it in Canada's remote north.

Scientists using satellite images later noticed that it became a newly formed ice island in just an hour and left a trail of icy boulders floating in its wake.

Full article here: http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/12/29...ic.ap/index.htm

The link is broke. Apparently it was all propaganda from the Greenpeace movement.

[houstonmacbro]

The link is broke. Apparently it was all propaganda from the Greenpeace movement.

Sorry ... somehow I erased the 'L' ...

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/12/29...c.ap/index.html

[DJ V Lawrence]

The link is broke. Apparently it was all propaganda from the Greenpeace movement.

Try this one:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/12/29/canada.arctic.ap/