Posted on 03/13/2006 8:12:50 AM PST by PatrickHenry
A new theory to explain global warming was revealed at a meeting at the University of Leicester (UK) and is being considered for publication in the journal "Science First Hand". The controversial theory has nothing to do with burning fossil fuels and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. According to Vladimir Shaidurov of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the apparent rise in average global temperature recorded by scientists over the last hundred years or so could be due to atmospheric changes that are not connected to human emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of natural gas and oil.
Shaidurov explained how changes in the amount of ice crystals at high altitude could damage the layer of thin, high altitude clouds found in the mesosphere that reduce the amount of warming solar radiation reaching the earth's surface.
Shaidurov has used a detailed analysis of the mean temperature change by year for the last 140 years and explains that there was a slight decrease in temperature until the early twentieth century. This flies in the face of current global warming theories that blame a rise in temperature on rising carbon dioxide emissions since the start of the industrial revolution. Shaidurov, however, suggests that the rise, which began between 1906 and 1909, could have had a very different cause, which he believes was the massive Tunguska Event, which rocked a remote part of Siberia, northwest of Lake Baikal on the 30th June 1908.
The Tunguska Event, sometimes known as the Tungus Meteorite is thought to have resulted from an asteroid or comet entering the earth's atmosphere and exploding. The event released as much energy as fifteen one-megaton atomic bombs. As well as blasting an enormous amount of dust into the atmosphere, felling 60 million trees over an area of more than 2000 square kilometres. Shaidurov suggests that this explosion would have caused "considerable stirring of the high layers of atmosphere and change its structure." Such meteoric disruption was the trigger for the subsequent rise in global temperatures.
Global warming is thought to be caused by the "greenhouse effect". Energy from the sun reaches the earth's surface and warms it, without the greenhouse effect most of this energy is then lost as the heat radiates back into space. However, the presence of so-called greenhouse gases at high altitude absorb much of this energy and then radiate a proportion back towards the earth's surface. Causing temperatures to rise.
Many natural gases and some of those released by conventional power stations, vehicle and aircraft exhausts act as greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide, natural gas, or methane, and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are all potent greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide and methane are found naturally in the atmosphere, but it is the gradual rise in levels of these gases since the industrial revolution, and in particular the beginning of the twentieth century, that scientists have blamed for the gradual rise in recorded global temperature. Attempts to reverse global warming, such as the Kyoto Protocol, have centred on controlling and even reducing CO2 emissions.
However, the most potent greenhouse gas is water, explains Shaidurov and it is this compound on which his study focuses. According to Shaidurov, only small changes in the atmospheric levels of water, in the form of vapour and ice crystals can contribute to significant changes to the temperature of the earth's surface, which far outweighs the effects of carbon dioxide and other gases released by human activities. Just a rise of 1% of water vapour could raise the global average temperature of Earth's surface more then 4 degrees Celsius.
The role of water vapour in controlling our planet's temperature was hinted at almost 150 years ago by Irish scientist John Tyndall. Tyndall, who also provided an explanation as to why the sky is blue, explained the problem: "The strongest radiant heat absorber, is the most important gas controlling Earth's temperature. Without water vapour, he wrote, the Earth's surface would be 'held fast in the iron grip of frost'." Thin clouds at high altitude allow sunlight to reach the earth's surface, but reflect back radiated heat, acting as an insulating greenhouse layer.
Water vapour levels are even less within our control than CO levels. According to Andrew E. Dessler of the Texas A & M University writing in 'The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change', "Human activities do not control all greenhouse gases, however. The most powerful greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is water vapour, he says, "Human activities have little direct control over its atmospheric abundance, which is controlled instead by the worldwide balance between evaporation from the oceans and precipitation."
As such, Shaidurov has concluded that only an enormous natural phenomenon, such as an asteroid or comet impact or airburst, could seriously disturb atmospheric water levels, destroying persistent so-called 'silver', or noctilucent, clouds composed of ice crystals in the high altitude mesosphere (50 to 85km). The Tunguska Event was just such an event, and coincides with the period of time during which global temperatures appear to have been rising the most steadily - the twentieth century. There are many hypothetical mechanisms of how this mesosphere catastrophe might have occurred, and future research is needed to provide a definitive answer.
Source: University of Leicester
|
Interesting . . .
Thanks for the ping!
So, in other words, "It's not the heat, it's the humidity."
{groan...} :o)
If we just closed all the Taco Bells down we could fix this "human emissions" problem.
I agree, the headline is silly. But we're not supposed to change headlines. The part in brackets is my own attempt to make it comprehensible.
Oh, wait...
"I agree, the headline is silly. But we're not supposed to change headlines. The part in brackets is my own attempt to make it comprehensible."
I should have been more clear - that was not complaint about correctly posting the headline here - it is worthy article. I was mainly pointing out that Physorg.com put a sloppy headline on a interesting article.
It would only serve to encourage them as the argument could be then made that, since the water vapor is all but impossible to control that mankind's efforts to control the remaining gases need be increased to buy a few more generations a little more time.
Now I finally understand why it is so hot in Houston...;)
Visited family there once and could not believe the humidity. I don't mind the heat, have played golf in AZ at 116 degrees (no humidity). My wife and I are thinking of relocating north of Dallas, the weather seems a lot better there. Give me your opinion of that area, if you have been there. I'd love to have some feedback on it.
I look forward to any info when I get back tonight.
K4
Nonsense... It would only give junk science a new avenue to explore -- It is really all the contrails of high alititude airliners injecting water vapor at a critical altitude, where it accumulates and retains more heat for the earth...
Exactly--to Gore, etal, this is a religious movement now. It's not about the science, it's about their collective guilt about our being the most-productive, most-efficient, most wealthy, and most-energy-hungry society on Earth.
The CO_2 greenhouse effect is good established science--it is reproducible in a laboratory. It's connection to "global warming" is speculative at best and not good science. The word "global" is so misused. (They mean "planetary", "global" warming would mean that the warming was distributed over each and every point of the domain.) Also the connection between the burning of carbon fuels and the atmospheric level of CO_2 is fanciful in view of the magnitude of other sources.
The article is correct though that there are other potent factors that act like greenhouse or anti-greenhouse.
Um, didn't we intentionally denotate at least that much in the 1950s?
Between China, The USSR, and the US, I would think that we easily blew up 100 MT of stuff in a 20 year period.
It is still Bush's fault.
Not to throw cold water on this but I fail to see how an event in 08 effected temperatures in 06. Other than that, I like it.
Environmentalism has nothing to do with science. It is all about politics.
And apparently at the CO2 levels on Venus it does become the dominant factor.
BTW, isn't it ironic that greenhouses don't use the greenhouse effect to stay warm?
So, if we nuke iran, we will also solve the global warming problem. Cool.
I moved to Houston in 1987 and did not open my car windows for about 3 years until I drove one day to Austin. I've been a few times to Dallas and further North but the humidity is still quite high and you will be in the Tornado Alley. IMO, nothing beats the Texas Hill Country, it's 5-10 degrees cooler than the cities and it is plain awsome. We've been living here for 13 years and still enjoy every minute of it.
Some experimentation was done with CO_2 rich greenhouses. It seems that the plants grow faster but don't form as much protein.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa
The eruption produced erratic weather and spectacular sunsets throughout the world for many months afterwards, as a result of sunlight reflected from suspended dust particles ejected by the volcano high into Earth's atmosphere. This worldwide volcanic dust veil acted as a solar radiation filter, reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the surface of the earth. In the year following the eruption, global temperatures were lowered by as much as 1.2 degrees Celsius on average. Weather patterns continued to be chaotic for years, and temperatures did not return to normal until 1888.
interesting
"-- Al Gore must be spinning in his grave. --"
No, the wooden one is more likely spinning on his lathe....
Ping.
Hard to blame water vapor on Republicans, though I'm sure they'll try.
1945-1976: Above ground nuclear testing
1800's: Significant volcanic eruptions/explosions
Both would place particulates high in the atmosphere, which would cause a reduction in sunlight reaching the surface.
Just my $0.02
Stop. We don't need any more immigrants to the HC!
"1945-1976: Above ground nuclear testing "
I really wonder about that... the temperature was moving up the whole century til it stopped for 30 years.
From what I understand the body that triggered the event entered the atmosphere at a very shallow angle, had it not blown up I have always wondered where it would have impacted (if at all).
There might be something to that. There's been many days when it would be cloudless except for contrails.
That would make high altitude atomic explosions into climate changers. I think we've done a few of those.
There is a correlary to that one; I have observed NOAA photographs of the oceans where the exhaust plumes of ships become a very significant cause for haze over the oceans.
Having circumnavigated the globe on a ship, I can tell you that when we reached the Mediterranean, there never was an end to the haze over the ocean. Only around the equatorial Pacific ocean was it completely gone.
So, water is a greenhouse gas? We be in big trouble.
You got it backwards. Because of the greenhouse effect, greenhouses have to be well ventilated.
"You got it backwards. Because of the greenhouse effect, greenhouses have to be well ventilated."
Hmm our atmospheric dynamics professor told us that the CO2 concentrations in a green house were not nearly high enough to explain the temperature rise in green houses - that most of the warmth in a greenhouse comes from eliminating the convection that acounts for most heat exchange at ground level. I have not personally studied the numbers.
I've already bumped into that arguement with people I've talked with. I poiunt outn that Mars and Pluto are both heating up and that solar output has increased and would be a far more logical explanation than CO2 on climate change. Their response, after point out the data supporting this is just what you said. If the sun is getting warmer (i.e. global warming is a NATURAL, phenomenon), they then insist that stopping greenhouse gas emissions is even more critical since we don't want to make a bad situation worse. No matter what you say, it's alsways Humanity's (i.e. Bush's Fault).
"fraid not. They have been expert at avoiding the ample evidence to the contrary of their pet hypothesis for years and will continue to ignore this and any other evidence which won't force us to shiver in our huts with Prius' parked outside.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.