Earth ChangesS


Chalkboard

Earth seems to be driven by the wave-like cycle of the solar system

Rebecca Sato.
Daily Galaxy
Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:27 UTC
Horoscope enthusiasts will be happy to hear that a grand cosmic force does indeed seem to be responsible for controlling the direction of all life on Earth. However, this grand cosmic cycle has more to do with extinction than finding a tall, handsome stranger.

Research has revealed that the rise and fall of species on Earth seems to be driven by the undulating motions of our solar system as it travels through the Milky Way. Some scientists believe that this cosmic force may offer the answer to some of the biggest questions in our Earth's biological history - especially where evolution has fallen short.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley found that marine fossil records show that biodiversity increases and decreases based on a 62-million-year cycle. At least two of the Earth's great mass extinctions-the Permian extinction 250 million years ago and the Ordovician extinction about 450 million years ago-correspond with peaks of this cycle, which can't be explained by evolutionary theory.
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Bell

Hawaii's Big Island rattled by strong earthquake


Associated Press
Tue, 14 Apr 2009 08:41 UTC
Officials say a strong earthquake shook parts of Hawaii's Big Island but no damage has been reported.

U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory says a temblor with a magnitude of 5.0 struck Tuesday at 12:44 p.m. about 8 miles southeast of volcano Kilauea's summit.
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Brick Wall

Atlantic dynamo turned up the heat over Medieval Europe


IceCap
Fri, 03 Apr 2009 05:33 UTC
NAO AO
© unknown

In the April 3rd edition of Science a collaborative group of scientists from Switzerland, California and the UK report that medieval climate over Europe was heated by the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). This oscillation pattern, defined as the pressure difference between the Icelandic Low and the Azores High, also influences modern-day weather conditions and has contributed to the recent droughts in North Africa and floods in North-Central Europe.

Critique of PhysOrg article.

A comparison of tree rings from 1000-year old trees in Morocco and growth layers in a stalagmite from a cave in Scotland now reveal the mechanism behind the 'Medieval climate anomaly' - a period of global warmth between 1000 and 1400 AD. During this period, the pressure difference between the Azores High and the Icelandic Low was large and, by driving warm Atlantic winds over the cold European continent in winter time, was heating the European mainland.

Trees and stalagmites are "proxy archives", meaning that they are natural data sources from which past climatic conditions can be derived. Old cedar trees from the Atlas Mountains in Morocco grew extremely slowly during Medieval Times and thus reflect much drier conditions during this period compared to following centuries. These dry conditions, in turn, are an indicator for a strong Azores High. Opposite to the African tree rings, the Scottish stalagmite shows that during the same period it was much wetter than normal in northern Europe, reflecting a strong Icelandic Low.


Comment: Take notice of the use of the language here. Specifically this article's minimization of the Medieval Warm Period is now the 'Medieval climate anomaly'.


Comment: The attention focused on this article is because of the work and intent of the authors' of the paper discussed. The paper basically reduces the Medieval Warm Period to a regional European phenomenon using the old bag of tricks employed by Michael Mann of the infamous hockey-stick graphic (used to eliminate the Medieval warm period and show man-made global warming).

The discussion is rather in depth but it does show how low the man made global warming proponents will go to validate their beliefs.

Climate Audit's discussion has become quite expansive with several articles demonstrating the deceptiveness of the methods used in the paper.

Discussions can be reviewed here:

(Link) (Link) (Link) (Link) (Link) (Link) (Link) (Link)

Additionally the Medieval Warm Period was a world wide climatic event. As IceCap pointed out CO2 Science has setup a database to track research on the medieval Warm period. (Interactive map here java plugin)

The database preface reads:
Was there a Medieval Warm Period? YES, according to data published by 693 individual scientists from 404 separate research institutions in 40 different countries ... and counting! This issue's Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week comes from Buddha Cave, Qin Ling Mountains, Central China. To access the entire Medieval Warm Period Project's database, click here.


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Bell

Passion for global warming cools in the face of evidence


The Australian
Wed, 15 Apr 2009 05:04 UTC
Former believer Paul Sheehan, in The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday, develops a new respect for informed dissent.

What I am about to write questions much of what I have written in this space, in numerous columns, over the past five years. The subject of this column is a book entitled Heaven and Earth, written by one of Australia's foremost earth scientists, Ian Plimer.

Much of what we have read about climate change, he argues, is rubbish, especially the computer modelling on which much current scientific opinion is based, which he describes as "primitive".

Plimer does not dispute the dramatic flux of climate change but he fundamentally disputes most of the assumptions and projections being made about the current causes, mostly led by atmospheric scientists.

"To reduce modern climate change to one variable, CO2, or a small proportion of one variable - human-induced CO2 - is not science. To try to predict the future based on just one variable (CO2) in extraordinarily complex natural systems is folly. Yet when astronomers have the temerity to show that climate is driven by solar activities rather than CO2 emissions, they are dismissed as dinosaurs undertaking the methods of old-fashioned science."
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Bizarro Earth

Solar Activity Lowest in Almost 100 Years, Implications for Climate Potentially Significant

Jeremy Ross, PhD
Stormx.com
Thu, 09 Apr 2009 04:36 UTC
www.stormx.com/agriculture

Sunspots are relatively cooler and darker areas on the sun's surface caused by intense magnetic activity. Approximately every 11 years, the sun undergoes cyclic periods of high and low sunspot activity related to a 22-year reversal of the sun's magnetic field. From the sunspot maxima to the sunspot minima solar radiation impacting Earth decreases by approximately 0.1%. Although this seems like an insignificant change, such decreases in solar output over an extended period of time are integrated and can have considerable impacts on Earth's climate. Moreover, some radiative spectra such as ultraviolet and cosmic rays vary significantly more than 0.1% and can affect cloud cover and other feedbacks on the earth-climate system.

Occasionally, the sun undergoes periods lasting several decades when sunspots are less frequent or may not occur at all. The last significant period of decreased sunspot activity occurred from 1795 to 1830, known as the Dalton Minimum. During this period global temperatures decreased and after significant volcanic eruptions in 1816, temperatures plummeted across the Northern Hemisphere. 1816 became known as the "year without a summer". A severe frost in May 1816 destroyed most of the planted crops in North America, and in June two major snowstorms impacted New England and eastern Canada. Ice remained on lakes and rivers as far south as Pennsylvania through July and August.
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Binoculars

Obama Science Chief Exposes The Fallacy Of Global Warming

Joe Bastardi
AccuWeather Blog
Wed, 08 Apr 2009 04:24 UTC
Joe Bastardi blog in response to this Associated Press news story (Obama looks at climate engineering).

It is almost inconceivable that something this shallow in thinking could come from someone trying to convince you that co2 is responsible for the ills of our world. First of all, over the past 30-40 years, we have cleaned the air so much of pollutants that there are very few smog days here in the US. Billions have been spent over decades cleaning So2 out of the air. Now we want to put it back into the air to facilitate global cooling? What does this mean. That if we had left it there in the first place, we wouldnt have the problem that we do. Now let me explain to you how stupid, and that is the only word for this, this reasoning is. Suppose you are trying to get every person on the planet to believe co2 is the reason for all the ills in the world today. Why would you tell them that shooting pollutants into the air, the same ones you cleaned out, would cool the earth? All that says is co2 is not the cause, its cleaning the air that is the cause ( which by the way it is not, and neither is co2) But you see what a ruse this is. And how shallow the thinking has to be, the arrogant assumption that you and I are too stupid to say, heh wait a minute, if pollutants can cool the planet, why did we clean the planet and how can co2 have been the cause if the very thing we cleaned up is needed to cool it down.
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Sun

Sunspot activity correlates to global climate change

Rick C. Hodgin
TG Daily
Fri, 10 Apr 2009 03:57 UTC
Harvard astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon tells us that Earth has seen a reduced level of sunspot activity for the past 18 months, and is currently at the lowest levels seen in almost a century. Dr. Soon says "The sun is just slightly dimmer and has been for about the last 18 months. And that is because there are very few sunspots." He says when the sun has less sunspots, it gives off less energy, and the Earth tends to cool. He notes 2008 was a cold year for this very reason, and that 2009 may be cold for the same.

As of today, there have been 15 days in a row without any sunspots. In 2008 there were 266 days scattered throughout the year without sunspots, and in 2007 there were 163 days without sunspots. These are the #2 and #9 fewest sunspots years seen since 1911.
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Cow Skull

Bioethanol's Impact On Water Supply Three Times Higher Than Once Thought


ScienceDaily
Mon, 13 Apr 2009 22:01 UTC
At a time when water supplies are scarce in many areas of the United States, scientists in Minnesota are reporting that production of bioethanol - often regarded as the clean-burning energy source of the future - may consume up to three times more water than previously thought.

Sangwon Suh and colleagues point out in the new study that annual bioethanol production in the U.S. is currently about 9 billion gallons and note that experts expect it to increase in the near future. The growing demand for bioethanol, particularly corn-based ethanol, has sparked significant concerns among researchers about its impact on water availability. Previous studies estimated that a gallon of corn-based bioethanol requires the use of 263 to 784 gallons of water from the farm to the fuel pump. But these estimates failed to account for widely varied regional irrigation practices, the scientists say.
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Alarm Clock

Honey Bees in Danger

Evaggelos Vallianatos
Truthout
Mon, 13 Apr 2009 21:09 UTC
Image
© Getty ImagesIndustrial, pesticide-dependent agricultural practices in the United States are creating a death trap for the honeybee and threatening the human-bee symbiotic relationship forged over milieu.
When I was teaching at Humboldt State University in northern California 20 years ago, I invited a beekeeper to talk to my students. He said that each time he took his bees to southern California to pollinate other farmers' crops, he would lose a third of his bees to sprays. In 2009, the loss ranges all the way to 60 percent.

Honeybees have been in terrible straits.

A little history explains this tragedy.

For millennia, honeybees lived in symbiotic relationship with societies all over the world.

The Greeks loved them. In the eighth century BCE, the epic poet Hesiod considered them gifts of the gods to just farmers. And in the fourth century of our era, the Greek mathematician Pappos admired their hexagonal cells, crediting them with "geometrical forethought."
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Better Earth

The snow monkeys of Hell's Valley

Lucy Dodwell
New Scientist
Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:03 UTC
Image
© Heather Angel
This photograph of Japanese macaques relaxing in a hot bath was taken on a winter morning by wildlife photographer and zoologist Heather Angel. The pool is in the Joshinetsu Kogen National Park, Nagano, Japan, in a place known as Hell's valley because of its steep cliffs, dense forests and the boiling water that spurts from the frozen ground. It was built 30 years ago when it was discovered that the monkeys, like us, like to bathe in hot water.

Japanese macaques - also known as snow monkeys - live further north than any other non-human primate. Snow covers the ground in Hell's Valley for four months of the year and temperatures often drop to -20 °C. Thermal pools - both natural and man-made - help the monkeys survive the harsh climate.

Snow monkeys are not only renowned for their love of hot baths, but for using tools and washing their food. In 1953, an 18-month-old female called Imo was spotted washing sweet potatoes to remove the mud before eating them. Ten years later the rest of the troop were also doing this, and had passed on the skill to the next generation. It was the first report of a learned tradition in a non-human species.
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