Earthwatch Issue 6 Cosmic Influence, and more
Global Rockhound Community Enviromental News E-zine.
Issue 06: June 2007: Editor Sally Taylor: www.rockhoundstation1.com
RHS1 Global Rockhound Community Enviromental News E-zine. Monitoring, earthquakes, global warming, climate change, hurricanes and tornados, bio-diversity, keeping an eye on our fast changing planet. Climate change,global warming,earthquake, earthwatch,Chandler wobble, Chandler’s wobble,rockhound world center,
GLOBAL WARMING :
RHS1’s quest for the true cause of climate change
SUN-SPOT CYCLE 24
Image:SOHO:Graph:Hathaway and Wilson’s prediction for the amplitude of Solar Cycle 24. More
2012: Solar Maximum.
Our Climate; Our Future; Our Options; Synthesis;
Scary Monsters: The eye of Ra…Part 4
March 7, 2006
The next 11-year solar storm cycle should be significantly stronger than the
current one, which may mean big problems for power grids and GPS systems and other satellite-enabled technology, scientists announced today. The stronger solar storms could start as early as this year or as late as 2008 and should peak around 2012.
- 1…On a global scale…The temperature has risen/ is rising…
- 2…On a global scale…Climate patterns are changing…
- 3…We cannot be 100% certain of the validity of information, received, regarding 1&2 in this list…
- 4…CO2 as the prime cause of global warming has not yet been validated its still a theory.
- 5…The Sun has changed its behaviour become more active.
- 6…The Heliosphere of the Sun and the planets it contains has changed status become more active.
“CARBON DIOXIDE REBELLION!“
“When the facts change I change my mind. What do you do sir?”
Lord Keynes
Hello…Welcome back to RHS1’s investigation into climate change -O). Many prominent scientists are now beginning to express doubt about the theory that cabon dioxide emmissions are the cause of the current global warming/climate change situation presently ocurring to our planet. I have listed below some of them and their opinions. These opinions concur with RHS1 Earthwatch investigation into climate change finding.
The wind of change is blowing through climate change -O)
Once Believers, Now Skeptics!
Geophysicist Dr. Claude Allegre, a top geophysicist and French Socialist who has authored more than 100 scientific articles and written 11 books and received numerous scientific awards including the Goldschmidt Medal from the Geochemical Society of the United States
Converted from climate alarmist to skeptic in 2006. Allegre, who was one of the first scientists to sound global warming fears 20 years ago, now says the cause of climate change is “unknown” and accused the “prophets of doom of global warming” of being motivated by money, noting that “the ecology of helpless protesting has become a very lucrative business for some people!” “Glaciers chronicles or historical archives point to the fact that climate is a capricious phenomena.
This fact is confirmed by mathematical meteorological theories. So, let us be cautious,” Allegre explained in a September 21, 2006 article in the French newspaper L’EXPRESS. The National Post in Canada also profiled Allegre on March 2, 2007, noting “Allegre has the highest environmental credentials. The author of early environmental books, he fought successful battles to protect the ozone layer from CFCs and public health from lead pollution.” Allegre now calls fears of a climate disaster “simplistic and obscuring the true dangers” mocks “the greenhouse-gas fanatics whose proclamations consist in denouncing man’s role on the climate without doing anything about it except organizing conferences and preparing protocols that become dead letters.” Allegre, a member of both the French and U.S. Academy of Sciences, had previously expressed concern about man madeĀ global warming. “By burning fossil fuels, man enhanced the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which has raised the global mean temperature by half a degree in the last century,” Allegre wrote 20 years ago.
In addition, Allegre was one of 1500 scientists who signed a November 18, 1992 letter titled “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity” in which the scientists warned that global warming’s “potential risks are very great.”
Geologist Bruno Wiskel of the University of Alberta
Who recently reversed his view of man-made climate change and instead became a global warming skeptic. Wiskel was once such a big believer in man-made global warming that he set out to build a “Kyoto house” in honor of the UN sanctioned Kyoto Protocol which was signed in 1997. Wiskel wanted to prove that the Kyoto Protocol’s goals were achievable by people making small changes in their lives.
But after further examining the science behind Kyoto, Wiskel reversed his scientific views completely and became such a strong skeptic, that he recently wrote a book titled “The Emperor’s New Climate: Debunking the Myth of Global Warming.” A November 15, 2006 Edmonton Sun article explains Wiskel’s conversion while building his “Kyoto house”: “Instead, he said he realized global warming theory was full of holes and “red flags,” and became convinced that humans are not responsible for rising temperatures.” Wiskel now says “the truth has to start somewhere.”
Noting that the Earth has been warming for 18,000 years, Wiskel told the Canadian newspaper, “If this happened once and we were the cause of it, that would be cause for concern. But glaciers have been coming and going for billions of years.” Wiskel also said that global warming has gone “from a science to a religion” and noted that research money is being funneled into promoting climate alarmism instead of funding areas he considers more worthy. “If you funnel money into things that can’t be changed, the money is not going into the places that it is needed,” he said.
Astrophysicist Dr. Nir Shaviv, one of Israel’s top young award winning scientists,
Has recanted his belief that manmade emissions were driving climate change. “”Like many others, I was personally sure that CO2 is the bad culprit in the story of global warming. But after carefully digging into the evidence, I realized that things are far more complicated than the story sold to us by many climate scientists or the stories regurgitated by the media. In fact, there is much more than meets the eye,” Shaviv said in February 2, 2007 Canadian National Post article. According to Shaviv, the C02 temperature link is only “incriminating circumstantial evidence.”
“Solar activity can explain a large part of the 20th-century global warming” and “it is unlikely that [the solar climate link] does not exist,” Shaviv noted pointing to the impact cosmic- rays have on the atmosphere. According to the National Post, Shaviv believes that even a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere by 2100 “will not dramatically increase the global temperature.” “Even if we halved the CO2 output, and the CO2 increase by 2100 would be, say, a 50% increase relative to today instead of a doubled amount, the expected reduction in the rise of global temperature would be less than 0.5C. This is not significant,” Shaviv explained.
Shaviv also wrote on August 18, 2006 that a colleague of his believed that “CO2 should have a large effect on climate” so “he set out to reconstruct the phanerozoic temperature. He wanted to find the CO2 signature in the data, but since there was none, he slowly had to change his views.” Shaviv believes there will be more scientists converting to man-made global warming skepticism as they discover the dearth of evidence. “I think this is common to many of the scientists who think like us (that is, that CO2 is a secondary climate driver). Each one of us was working in his or her own niche. While working there, each one of us realized that things just don’t add up to support the AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) picture. So many had to change their views,” he wrote.
Mathematician & engineer Dr. David Evans
Who did carbon accounting for the Australian Government, recently detailed his conversion to a skeptic. “I devoted six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian government to estimate carbon emissions from land use change and forestry.
When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty conclusive, but since then new evidence has weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause. I am now skeptical,” Evans wrote in an April 30, 2007 blog. “But after 2000 the evidence for carbon emissions gradually got weaker — better temperature data for the last century, more detailed ice core data, then laboratory evidence that cosmic rays precipitate low clouds,” Evans wrote. “As Lord Keynes famously said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” he added.
Evans noted how he benefited from climate fears as a scientist. “And the political realm in turn fed money back into the scientific community. By the late 1990’s, lots of jobs depended on the idea that carbon emissions caused global warming. Many of them were bureaucratic, but there were a lot of science jobs created too. I was on that gravy train, making a high wage in a science job that would not have existed if we didn’t believe carbon emissions caused global warming. And so were lots of people around me; and there were international conferences full of such people. And we had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet!
But starting in about 2000, the last three of the four pieces of evidence outlined above fell away or reversed,” Evans wrote. “The pre-2000 ice core data was the central evidence for believing that atmospheric carbon caused temperature increases. The new ice core data shows that past warming were *not* initially caused by rises in atmospheric carbon, and says nothing about the strength of any amplification. This piece of evidence casts reasonable doubt that atmospheric carbon had any role in past warming, while still allowing the possibility that it had a supporting role,” he added. “Unfortunately politics and science have become even more entangled.
The science of global warming has become a partisan political issue, so positions become more entrenched. Politicians and the public prefer simple and less-nuanced messages. At the moment the political climate strongly supports carbon emissions as the cause of global warming, to the point of sometimes rubbishing or silencing critics,” he concluded.
Climate researcher Dr. Tad Murty, former Senior Research Scientist for Fisheries and Oceans in Canada,
Also reversed himself from believer in man-made climate change to a skeptic. “I stated with a firm belief about global warming, until I started working on it myself,” Murty explained on August 17, 2006.
“I switched to the other side in the early 1990’s when Fisheries and Oceans Canada asked me to prepare a position paper and I started to look into the problem seriously,” Murty explained. Murty was one of the 60 scientists who wrote an April 6, 2006 letter urging withdrawal of Kyoto to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper which stated in part, “If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary.”
Botanist Dr. David Bellamy, a famed UK environmental campaigner, former lecturer at Durham University and host of a popular UK TV series on wildlife,
Recently converted into a skeptic after reviewing the science and now calls global warming fears “poppycock.” According to a May 15, 2005 article in the UK Sunday Times, Bellamy said “global warming is largely a natural phenomenon.
The world is wasting stupendous amounts of money on trying to fix something that can’t be fixed.” “The climate-change people have no proof for their claims. They have computer models which do not prove anything,” Bellamy added. Bellamy’s conversion on global warming did not come without a sacrifice as several environmental groups have ended their association with him because of his views on climate change. The severing of relations came despite Bellamy’s long activism for green campaigns.
The UK Times reported Bellamy “won respect from hardline environmentalists with his campaigns to save Britain’s peat bogs and other endangered habitats. In Tasmania he was arrested when he tried to prevent loggers cutting down a rainforest.”
Climate scientist Dr. Chris de Freitas of The University of Auckland, N.Z.
Also converted from a believer in man-made global warming to a skeptic. “At first I accepted that increases in human caused additions of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere would trigger changes in water vapor etc. and lead to dangerous “global warming,” But with time and with the results of research, I formed the view that, although it makes for a good story, it is unlikely that the man-made changes are drivers of significant climate variation.” de Freitas wrote on August 17, 2006. “I accept there may be small changes. But I see the risk of anything serious to be minute,” he added. “One could reasonably argue that lack of evidence is not a good reason for complacency. But I believe the billions of dollars committed to GW research and lobbying for GW and for Kyoto treaties etc could be better spent on uncontroversial and very real environmental problems (such as air pollution, poor sanitation, provision of clean water and improved health services) that we know affect tens of millions of people,” de Freitas concluded.
de Freitas was one of the 60 scientists who wrote an April 6, 2006 letter urging withdrawal of Kyoto to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper which stated in part, “Significant [scientific] advances have been made since the [Kyoto] protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases.”
Meteorologist Dr. Reid Bryson, the founding chairman of the Department of Meteorology at University of Wisconsin (now the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, was pivotal in promoting the coming ice age scare of the 1970’s ( See Time Magazine’s 1974 article “Another Ice Age” citing Bryson: & see Newsweek’s 1975 article “The Cooling World” citing Bryson)
Has now converted into a leading global warming skeptic. In February 8, 2007 Bryson dismissed what he terms “sky is falling” man-made global warming fears. Bryson, was on the United Nations Global 500 Roll of Honor and was identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world.
“Before there were enough people to make any difference at all, two million years ago, nobody was changing the climate, yet the climate was changing, okay?” Bryson told the May 2007 issue of Energy Cooperative News. “All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it’s absurd. Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air,” Bryson said. “You can go outside and spit and have the same effect as doubling carbon dioxide,” he added. “We cannot say what part of that warming was due to mankind’s addition of “greenhouse gases” until we consider the other possible factors, such as aerosols.
The aerosol content of the atmosphere was measured during the past century, but to my knowledge this data was never used. We can say that the question of anthropogenic modification of the climate is an important question — too important to ignore. However, it has now become a media free-for-all and a political issue more than a scientific problem,” Bryson explained in 2005.
Global warming author and economist Hans H.J. Labohm started out as a man-made global warming believer but he later switched his view after conducting climate research.
Labohm wrote on August 19, 2006, “I started as a anthropogenic global warming believer, then I read the [UN’s IPCC] Summary for Policymakers and the research of prominent skeptics.” “After that, I changed my mind,” Labohn explained. Labohn co-authored the 2004 book “Man-Made Global Warming: Unraveling a Dogma,” with chemical engineer Dick Thoenes who was the former chairman of the Royal Netherlands Chemical Society.
Labohm was one of the 60 scientists who wrote an April 6, 2006 letter urging withdrawal of Kyoto to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper which stated in part, “Climate change is real” is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural “noise.”
Paleoclimatologist Tim Patterson, of Carlton University in Ottawa
Converted from believer in C02 driving the climate change to a skeptic. “I taught my students that CO2 was the prime driver of climate change,” Patterson wrote on April 30, 2007. Patterson said his “conversion” happened following his research on “the nature of paleo-commercial fish populations in the NE Pacific.” “[My conversion from believer to climate skeptic] came about approximately 5-6 years ago when results began to come in from a major NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) Strategic Project Grant where I was PI (principle investigator),” Patterson explained. “Over the course of about a year, I switched allegiances,” he wrote.
“As the proxy results began to come in, we were astounded to find that paleoclimatic and paleoproductivity records were full of cycles that corresponded to various sun-spot cycles. About that time, [geochemist] Jan Veizer and others began to publish reasonable hypotheses as to how solar signals could be amplified and control climate,” Patterson noted. Patterson says his conversion “probably cost me a lot of grant money.
However, as a scientist I go where the science takes me and not were activists want me to go.” Patterson now asserts that more and more scientists are converting to climate skeptics. “When I go to a scientific meeting, there’s lots of opinion out there, there’s lots of discussion (about climate change). I was at the Geological Society of America meeting in Philadelphia in the fall and I would say that people with my opinion were probably in the majority,” Patterson told the Winnipeg Sun on February 13, 2007. Patterson, who believes the sun is responsible for the recent warm up of the Earth, ridiculed the environmentalists and the media for not reporting the truth.
“But if you listen to [Canadian environmental activist David] Suzuki and the media, it’s like a tiger chasing its tail. They try to outdo each other and all the while proclaiming that the debate is over but it isn’t — come out to a scientific meeting sometime,” Patterson said. In a separate interview on April 26, 2007 with a Canadian newspaper, Patterson explained that the scientific proof favors skeptics. “I think the proof in the pudding, based on what (media and governments) are saying, (is) we’re about three quarters of the way (to disaster) with the doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere,” he said. “The world should be heating up like crazy by now, and it’s not. The temperatures match very closely with the solar cycles.”
Physicist Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, chairman of the Central Laboratory for the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Radiological Protection in Warsaw,
Took a scientific journey from a believer of man-made climate change in the form of global cooling in the 1970’s all the way to converting to a skeptic of current predictions of catastrophic man-made global warming. “At the beginning of the 1970s I believed in man-made climate cooling, and therefore I started a study on the effects of industrial pollution on the global atmosphere, using glaciers as a history book on this pollution,” Dr. Jaworowski, wrote on August 17, 2006. “With the advent of man-made warming political correctness in the beginning of 1980s, I already had a lot of experience with polar and high altitude ice, and I have serious problems in accepting the reliability of ice core CO2 studies,” Jaworowski added. Jaworowski, who has published many papers on climate with a focus on CO2 measurements in ice cores, also dismissed the UN IPCC summary and questioned what the actual level of C02 was in the atmosphere in a March 16, 2007 report in EIR science entitled “CO2: The Greatest Scientific Scandal of Our Time.”
“We thus find ourselves in the situation that the entire theory of man-made global warming with its repercussions in science, and its important consequences for politics and the global economy is based on ice core studies that provided a false picture of the atmospheric CO2 levels,” Jaworowski wrote. “For the past three decades, these well-known direct CO2 measurements, recently compiled and analyzed by Ernst-Georg Beck (Beck 2006a, Beck 2006b, Beck 2007), were completely ignored by climatologists and not because they were wrong.
Indeed, these measurements were made by several Nobel Prize winners, using the techniques that are standard textbook procedures in chemistry, biochemistry, botany, hygiene, medicine, nutrition, and ecology. The only reason for rejection was that these measurements did not fit the hypothesis of anthropogenic climatic warming. I regard this as perhaps the greatest scientific scandal of our time,” Jaworowski wrote. “The hypothesis, in vogue in the 1970s, stating that emissions of industrial dust will soon induce the new Ice Age, seem now to be a conceited anthropocentric exaggeration, bringing into discredit the science of that time. The same fate awaits the present,” he added. Jaworowski believes that cosmic rays and solar activity are major drivers of the Earth’s climate.
Jaworowski was one of the 60 scientists who wrote an April 6, 2006 letter urging withdrawal of Kyoto to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper which stated in part: “It may be many years yet before we properly understand the Earth’s climate system. Nevertheless, significant advances have been made since the protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases.”
Paleoclimatologist Dr. Ian D. Clark, professor of the Department of Earth Sciences at University of Ottawa.
Reversed his views on man-made climate change after further examining the evidence. “I used to agree with these dramatic warnings of climate disaster. I taught my students that most of the increase in temperature of the past century was due to human contribution of C02.
The association seemed so clear and simple. Increases of greenhouse gases were driving us towards a climate catastrophe,” Clark said in a 2005 documentary “Climate Catastrophe Cancelled: What You’re Not Being Told About the Science of Climate Change.” “However, a few years ago, I decided to look more closely at the science and it astonished me. In fact there is no evidence of humans being the cause. There is, however, overwhelming evidence of natural causes such as changes in the output of the sun. This has completely reversed my views on the Kyoto protocol,” Clark explained. “Actually, many other leading climate researchers also have serious concerns about the science underlying the [Kyoto] Protocol,” he added.
Environmental geochemist Dr. Jan Veizer, professor emeritus of University of Ottawa,
Converted from believer to skeptic after conducting scientific studies of climate history. “I simply accepted the (global warming) theory as given,” Veizer wrote on April 30, 2007 about predictions that increasing C02 in the atmosphere was leading to a climate catastrophe. “The final conversion came when I realized that the solar/cosmic ray connection gave far more consistent picture with climate, over many time scales, than did the CO2 scenario,” Veizer wrote. “It was the results of my work on past records, on geological time scales, that led me to realize the discrepancies with empirical observations. Trying to understand the background issues of modeling led to realization of the assumptions and uncertainties involved,” Veizer explained.
“The past record strongly favors the solar/cosmic alternative as the principal climate driver,” he added. Veizer acknowledges the Earth has been warming and he believes in the scientific value of climate modeling. “The major point where I diverge from the IPCC scenario is my belief that it underestimates the role of natural variability by proclaiming CO2 to be the only reasonable source of additional energy in the planetary balance.
Such additional energy is needed to drive the climate. The point is that most of the temperature, in both nature and models, arises from the greenhouse of water vapor (model language “positive water vapor feedback”,) Veizer wrote. “Thus to get more temperature, more water vapor is needed. This is achieved by speeding up the water cycle by inputting more energy into the system,” he continued. “Note that it is not CO2 that is in the models but its presumed energy equivalent (model language “prescribed CO2”). Yet, the models (and climate) would generate a more or less similar outcome regardless where this additional energy is coming from.
This is why the solar/cosmic connection is so strongly opposed, because it can influence the global energy budget which, in turn, diminishes the need for an energy input from the CO2 greenhouse,” he wrote.
IN DEFENCE: Of NASA Administrator Michael Griffin
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin
“I have no doubt that global – that a trend of global warming exists, I’m not sure it’s fair to say that is a problem we must wrestle with.
“To assume that is a problem is to assume that the state of the Earth’s climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure it doesn’t change. First of all, I don’t think it’s within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown.
“Second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings – where and when – are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we might have right here today, right now, is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that’s a rather arrogant position for people to take.”
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin
“The lynch mob.” A selection.
“It is such a strong statement based on such a high level of ignorance, It indicates he doesn’t have any knowledge on the topic he’s talking about. Even a cursory reading [of the research] would not support what he said.”
Berrien Moore, director of the Institute for the Study of Earths, Oceans, and Space at the University of New Hampshire
“It’s an incredibly arrogant and ignorant statement, It indicates a complete ignorance of understanding the implications of climate change. It’s unbelievable. I thought he had been misquoted.”
James Hansen. Chief NASA climate expert
“I was shocked by the statement and I think the (NASA) administrator ought to resign, I don’t see how he can be the effective leader of a science agency if he doesn’t understand the threat of global warming.”
Michael Oppenheimer. Princeton University climate expert.
Dear me… Michael, what have you done? What have you said?
The CO2 boys are mobbing up on main street…
In my humble opinion, best “keep your head down”.
Now what has Michael Griffen said?
This is how I interpret his remarks…. he said,
Yes the planet is warming up.
All agreed…No problem there.
Next he said that he believes there in nothing we can do about it…
Which personally I agree with, given the evidence.
I think he knows what he saying and is not ignorant
of the subject as accused.
If as the weight of evidence begins to accumulate its becomes clear
that the cause of global warming is solar/cosmic…No way to stop that!
I believe its time to stop fighting the “cause” and start dealing in real terms with the effects.
“My main reaction to Michael Griffin is to congratulate him on his clear-sightedness, not to mention his courage in speaking out on such a controversial topic,”
Australian Professor Robert Carter
“Many rationalist scientists agree with him, clearly demonstrating there is no scientific consensus on man-made, catastrophic global warming,”
Robert Ferguson. Director of the Science and Public Policy Institute,
Don’t blame rising levels of carbon dioxide (C02) for whatever global warming is now taking place; put the blame on “old sol” the sun may be getting ready to put the world into the deep freezer.
So say a growing number of scientists who have studied the effect of the sun on the earth’s climate and concluded that the only thing scientists understand about climate change is that it is always changing.
“Climate stability has never been a feature of planet earth, explains R. Timothy Patterson professor and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre, Department of Earth Sciences, Carleton University in an article in the Financial Post.
- “I and the first-class scientists I work with are consistently finding excellent correlations between the regular fluctuations in the brightness of the sun and earthly climate. This is not surprising. The sun and the stars are the ultimate source of all energy on the planet.
- In a 2003 poll conducted by German environmental Researchers Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch, two-thirds of more than 530 climate scientists from 27 countries surveyed did not believe that “the current state of scientific knowledge is developed well enough to allow for a reasonable assessment of the effects of greenhouse gases.” About half of those polled stated that the science of climate change was not sufficiently settled to pass the issue over to policymakers at all.
- “Ours is one of the highest-quality climate records available anywhere today, and in it we see obvious confirmation that natural climate change can be dramatic. For example, in the middle of a 62-year slice of the record at about 4,400 years ago, there was a shift in climate in only a couple of seasons from warm, dry, and sunny conditions to one that was mostly cold and rainy for several decades.”
RHS1 EARTHWATCH
OF COSMIC INFLUENCES.
360-degree photographic panorama of the entire galaxy, from the viewpoint of our solar system. Credit: Science@NASA
“In its travel through interstellar space, the Heliosphere travels in the direction of the Solar Apex in the Hercules Constellation. On its way it has met (1960’s) non-homogeneities of matter and energy containing ions of Hydrogen, Helium, and Hydroxyl in addition to other elements and combinations.
This kind of interstellar space dispersed plasma is presented by magnetized strip structures and striations. The Heliosphere [solar system] transition through this structure has led to an increase of the shock wave in front of the Solar System from 3 to 4 AU, to 40 AU, or more.
This shock wave thickening has caused the formation of a collusive plasma in a parietal layer, which has led to a plasma overdraft around the Solar System, and then to its breakthrough into interplanetary domains . This breakthrough constitutes a kind of matter and energy donation made by interplanetary space to our Solar System.”
From the paper PLANET/PHYSICAL STATE OF THE EARTH AND LIFE.By DR. ALEXEY N. DMITRIEV*
Published in Russian, IICA Transactions, Volume 4, 1997 *Professor of Geology and Mineralogy, and Chief Scientific Member,
United Institute of Geology, Geophysics, and Mineralogy, Siberian Department of Russian Academy of Sciences.
You are here. (see co-ordinates below)
- The planet Earth is in the Solar System.
- The Solar System. is in the heliosphere.
- The heliosphere is in oort cloud.
- The oort cloud is in the galactic space of the Orion arm of the Milky Way Galaxy.
No 11 is the Orion arm: No 12 is the position of the Sun within the Orion Arm.
Artist’s impression of the oort cloud
Drawing of heliosphere. Created while all spacecraft were still within the termination shock. Voyager 1 has crossed that boundary.
“Faster than a speeding bullet”.
The Heliosphere.
3-D rendition of the Solar System as seen from the outside.
It is distorted into bullet shape in the direction of the interstellar magnetic
field. The field lines are shown wrapping around the Solar System.
Image: Opher et al.
Interstellar Dust in our Solar System
Date: 01 Aug 2003
Depicts: Galactic dust concentrations in solar system (high concentration: red/yellow, low concentration: blue/green) Copyright: ESA
The pictures above show cut-aways of where interstellar dust is concentrated in the Solar System – high concentration: red/yellow,
low concentration: blue/green (the planets are not shown). During solar minimum (top picture) most interstellar dust can be found above
or below the Sun, while at the solar maximum (bottom picture) the dust is concentrated close to the Sun in the plane of the planets’ orbits.
Ulysses sees Galactic Dust on the rise
01 Aug 2003
Since early 1992 Ulysses has been monitoring the stream of stardust flowing through our Solar System. The stardust is embedded in the local galactic cloud through which the Sun is moving at a speed of 26 kilometres every second. As a result of this relative motion, a single dust grain takes twenty years to traverse the Solar System. Observations by the DUST experiment on board Ulysses have shown that the stream of stardust is highly affected by the Sun’s magnetic field.
The Sun’s Galactic environment
In the 1990s, this field, which is drawn out deep into space by the out-flowing solar wind, kept most of the stardust out. The most recent data, collected up to the end of 2002, shows that this magnetic shield has lost its protective power during the recent solar maximum. In an upcoming publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research ESA scientist Markus Landgraf and his co-workers from the Max-Planck-Institute in Heidelberg report that about three times more stardust is now able to enter the Solar System.
The reason for the weakening of the Sun’s magnetic shield is the increased solar activity, which leads to a highly disordered field configuration. In the mid-1990s, during the last solar minimum, the Sun’s magnetic field resembled a dipole field with well-defined magnetic poles (North positive, South negative), very much like the Earth. Unlike Earth, however, the Sun reverses its magnetic polarity every 11 years. The reversal always occurs during solar maximum. That’s when the magnetic field is highly disordered, allowing more interstellar dust to enter the Solar System. It is interesting to note that in the reversed configuration after the recent solar maximum (North negative, South positive), the interstellar dust is even channelled more efficiently towards the inner Solar System. So we can expect even more interstellar dust from 2005 onwards, once the changes become fully effective.
While grains of stardust are very small, about one hundredth the diameter of a human hair, they do not directly influence the planets of the Solar System. However, the dust particles move very fast, and produce large numbers of fragments when they impact asteroids or comets. It is therefore conceivable that an increase in the amount of interstellar dust in the Solar System will create more cosmic dust by collisions with asteroids and comets. We know from the measurements by high-flying aircraft that 40 000 tonnes dust from asteroids and comets enters the Earth’s atmosphere each year. It is possible that the increase of stardust in the Solar System will influence the amount of extraterrestrial material that rains down to Earth.
Solar Storm Warning 03.10.2006
March 10, 2006:
It’s official: Solar minimum has arrived. Sunspots have all but vanished. Solar flares are nonexistent. The sun is utterly quiet.
Like the quiet before a storm.
This week researchers announced that a storm is coming–the most intense solar maximum in fifty years. The prediction comes from a team led by Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). “The next sunspot cycle will be 30% to 50% stronger than the previous one,” she says. If correct, the years ahead could produce a burst of solar activity second only to the historic Solar Max of 1958.
That was a solar maximum. The Space Age was just beginning: Sputnik was launched in Oct. 1957 and Explorer 1 (the first US satellite) in Jan. 1958. In 1958 you couldn’t tell that a solar storm was underway by looking at the bars on your cell phone; cell phones didn’t exist. Even so, people knew something big was happening when Northern Lights were sighted three times in Mexico. A similar maximum now would be noticed by its effect on cell phones, GPS, weather satellites and many other modern technologies.
Dikpati’s prediction is unprecedented. In nearly-two centuries since the 11-year sunspot cycle was discovered, scientists have struggled to predict the size of future maxima and failed. Solar maxima can be intense, as in 1958, or barely detectable, as in 1805, obeying no obvious pattern.
The key to the mystery, Dikpati realized years ago, is a conveyor belt on the sun.
We have something similar here on Earth the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt, popularized in the sci-fi movie The Day After Tomorrow. It is a network of currents that carry water and heat from ocean to ocean–see the diagram below. In the movie, the Conveyor Belt stopped and threw the world’s weather into chaos.
The sun’s conveyor belt is a current, not of water, but of electrically-conducting gas. It flows in a loop from the sun’s equator to the poles and back again. Just as the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt controls weather on Earth, this solar conveyor belt controls weather on the sun. Specifically, it controls the sunspot cycle.
Solar physicist David Hathaway of the National Space Science & Technology Center (NSSTC) explains: “First, remember what sunspots are–tangled knots of magnetism generated by the sun’s inner dynamo. A typical sunspot exists for just a few weeks. Then it decays, leaving behind a ‘corpse’ of weak magnetic fields.”
Enter the conveyor belt.
see caption”The top of the conveyor belt skims the surface of the sun, sweeping up the magnetic fields of old, dead sunspots. The ‘corpses’ are dragged down at the poles to a depth of 200,000 km where the sun’s magnetic dynamo can amplify them. Once the corpses (magnetic knots) are reincarnated (amplified), they become buoyant and float back to the surface.” Presto new sunspots!
All this happens with massive slowness. “It takes about 40 years for the belt to complete one loop,” says Hathaway. The speed varies “anywhere from a 50-year pace (slow) to a 30-year pace (fast).”
When the belt is turning “fast,” it means that lots of magnetic fields are being swept up, and that a future sunspot cycle is going to be intense. This is a basis for forecasting: “The belt was turning fast in 1986-1996,” says Hathaway. “Old magnetic fields swept up then should re-appear as big sunspots in 2010-2011.”
Like most experts in the field, Hathaway has confidence in the conveyor belt model and agrees with Dikpati that the next solar maximum should be a doozy. But he disagrees with one point. Dikpati’s forecast puts Solar Max at 2012. Hathaway believes it will arrive sooner, in 2010 or 2011.
“History shows that big sunspot cycles ‘ramp up’ faster than small ones,” he says. “I expect to see the first sunspots of the next cycle appear in late 2006 or 2007 and Solar Max to be underway by 2010 or 2011.”
Who’s right? Time will tell. Either way, a storm is coming.
Author: Dr. Tony Phillips Credit: Science@NASA
The Antarctic Peninsula 1986-2002, (c) University of Innsbruck. Source: European Space Agency
Lake Chad Africa.
Lake Chad is drying up.
The size of Lake Chad has increased and shrunk at regular intervals. Increasing aridity in the Sahel area and more demand for freshwater for irrigation may however entail that Lake Chad will continue shrinking. Lake Chad varies in extent between the rainy and dry seasons, from 50,000 to 20,000 km2. Precise boundaries have been established between Chad, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Niger. Sectors of the boundaries that are located in the rivers that drain into Lake Chad have never been determined, and several complications are caused by flooding and the appearance or submergence of islands. A similar process on the Kovango River between Botswana and Namibia led to a military confrontation between the two states.
Climate change exacerbates the drying up of already arid zones in Africa. Vorosmarty and Moore (1991) have documented the potential impacts of impoundment, land-use change, and climatic change on the Zambezi and found that they can be substantial. Cambula (1999) has shown a decrease in surface and subsurface runoff of five streams in Mozambique, including the Zambezi, under various climate change scenarios.
For the Zambezi basin, simulated runoff under climate change is projected to decrease by about 40% or more.Growing water scarcity, increasing population, degradation of shared freshwater ecosystems, and competing demands for shrinking natural resources distributed over such a huge area involving so many countries have the potential for creating bilateral and multilateral conflicts (Gleick, 1992).
“Current Planet/Physical alterations of the Earth are becoming irreversible. Strong evidence exists that these transformations are being caused by highly charged material and energetic non-uniformities in anisotropic interstellar space which have broken into the interplanetary area of our Solar System.
This “donation” of energy is producing hybrid processes and excited energy states in all planets, as well as the Sun. Effects here on Earth are to be found in the acceleration of the magnetic pole shift, in the vertical and horizontal ozone content distribution, and in the increased frequency and magnitude of significant catastrophic climatic events.
There is growing probability that we are moving into a rapid temperature instability period similar to the one that took place 10,000 years ago. The adaptive responses of the biosphere, and humanity, to these new conditions may lead to a total global revision of the range of species and life on Earth. It is only through a deep understanding of the fundamental changes taking place in the natural environment surrounding us that politicians, and citizens a like, will be able to achieve balance with the renewing flow of Planet/Physical states and processes.”
From the paper PLANET/PHYSICAL STATE OF THE EARTH AND LIFE By DR. ALEXEY N. DMITRIEV*
Published in Russian, IICA Transactions, Volume 4, 1997 *Professor of Geology and Mineralogy, and Chief Scientific Member,
United Institute of Geology, Geophysics, and Mineralogy, Siberian Department of Russian Academy of Sciences.
- 1…On a global scale…The temperature has risen/ is rising…
- 2…On a global scale…Climate patterns are changing…
- 3…We cannot be 100% certain of the validity of information, received, regarding 1&2 in this list…
- 4…CO2 as the prime cause of global warming has not yet been validated its still a theory.
- 5…The Sun has changed its behaviour become more active.
- 6…The Heliosphere of the Sun and the planets it contains has changed status become more active.
- 7…There is an increase of cosmic dust within our solar system “More solid material available”.
The Egyptian Neter Sekhmet
Credit: Wikipedia
In the next edition of Earthwatch.
“The Wrath of Sekhmet”,
and the influence of Hadit the Galactic Centre
Scary Monsters: The eye of Ra…
Part 5 of this article: See next months…RHS1 Earthwatch Page
EARTHQUAKE WATCH 1st QUARTER YEAR 2 STATISTICS
by NatureLady @ 12:53 am.
Earthquake watch statistics start the new year of the watch at the first day of March. The reason that the watch was started at dates other than the normal calendar year was that we didn’t know anything different was going on until the last week of February last year. Once we found out that Chandler’s Wobble had paused and read the predictions for some rough times ahead we got curious and started keeping track. Added to our curiousity were a few predictions that global warming would also result in some turbulent times. How could we resist?
Last year was fairly normal until the end of the year. In fact it was a little bit calm at times. All in all, we ended up with a few strong catagories, but the show stopper was the last quarter of our first year of watch exploded with two massive magnitude 8 quakes, with another to follow shortly into the first quarter of this year. Now that is intimidating to say the least.
What has this new year looked like – or should I say felt like –so far? Take a look at what we’ve found so far.
Year 2 first quarter statistics:
Magnitude 8 or higher: Average is 1, if any, per year.
After 2 of these beasts in the 4th quarter of our last (and first) watch year we recorded 1 of these this quarter. Last year, first quarter there were none. We are already at the full year quota for these devastating shakes.
Magnitude 7 Average is 17 per year.
We had only 1 of these strong shakes this quarter. With any luck we will stay below average for these killers. Last year during 1st quarter we also experienced a below average number of these with a total of 4 for the quarter. So far the rate is dropping rather than rising as predicted.
Magnitude 6 Average is 134 per year.
We had 49 of these strong quakes the 1st quarter. If we had the same number each quarter that would put us above the average mark by 62 quakes that is a whopping 46% we are working on. Last year we had 39 of this magnitude quake which was still a higher than average number. It seems that this level quake is becoming continually more predominant.
Magnitude 5 Average is 1319 per year.
We had 368 of these moderately strong shakers during this quarter. Equal figures each quarter would bring us to 1472 for a year, 11% over normal. Last year we were also above average for these quakes with 338 for the quarter, 30 less than this year.
So there are the stats for the 1st quarter of Year 2. The only magnitude which is not running above average or at least at high average is the magnitude 7 earthquake. Whether that is comforting or not would be judged by your own comfort thresholds. As far as for the predictions for more and stronger earthquakes, results are mixed at this point of time. Perhaps that is the best we can hope for.
Stay tuned into the Earth Watch forums to keep abreast of any surprises, or lack of, that we have yet in store for us this year.
Sally Taylor: RHS1 Earthwatch.
