h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Before I start I would like to point out that what I'm going to say is still debated and slightly controversial in scientific circles. But I've heard it from several scientific sources (either physics professors at universities or scientific journals with at least some credability).

First this:
The main source of the global warming theories is one single nice, famous graph that shows averadge temperatures over the last 2000 years or so It is mostly flat and it shows a big peak at the end starting something like 100 -150 years ago. There are several problems with this graph.
Firstly: The methode used for avereging the temperatures (they were gotten from ice cores and rings in trees I believe) cancels out quite a few peaks in past centuries which are similar to the one we are going trough now. I think the main one of these happened around 1400 or so. The explanation that this happened has something to do with higher mathematics which even many scientists fail to see.
Secondly: About the data itself. It seems to have two major issues attached to it. The first one is one of reproducability. In science every experiment / data processing and conclusion should be reproducible by an independant scientist (or group of). So far this hasn't happened, the reason being that the data that was used to create this graph isn't released to other scientists to repeat the experiment. This doesn't nescesarily mean that the whole thing is untrue or faulty, it simply means that scientifically it is a bit dodgy.
The second issue is one to do with averedges etc. The fact that the whole graph is so completely flat upto modern times seems to be highly unlikely to say the least. Statistically one would expect to find some fluctuations over time (whether caused by extra vulcanic eruptions or a big flood etc, I won't discuss here). As stated before, some Big peaks were already filtered out while data processing, but to find no fluctuations? Sounds at least unlikely.

Now, I'm not trying to say that there is not truth in the whole global warming thing, I'm just pointing out that we should carefully look to were the data comes from (especially this graph: it looks very nice and is very usable to convince people of global warming, this doesn't mean it's true...). Who knows, maybe it has happened before.

Anyway, seems to be getting quite long already. Will continue in a next post, because personally I find shorter ones about one single topic easier to read than one that deals with many...

Rod

A second thing I wanted to say is that we don't know quite as much about climate and global warming as scientists like to claim. There are loads of factores about which we know very little and which might have a big influence on climate.

One good example of this is an alternative theory to global warming. It all starts with the sun. In amost all climate researches to date (as far as i know at least) the amount of energy that the sun produces is taken as a constant. On problem however is that this is not true, the amount of energy varies over time, as well as the kind of energy (being simply light or other forms of radiation). T
his is best illustrated by sunspots. On the surface of the sun black spots can be seen that emit less visible light than the area around it. These spots come and go and they have a sicle of about 11 years (this is an averege) in which the amount of sunspots rise to a maximum and then decrease again to no spots. Don't ask me for the reason as to why this happends and why 11 years, because I don't know. Science doesn't have all the answers (yet). It can also be seen that the maximum amount of spots varies in time. In some cycles there is a higher maximum than in others.
Now these sunspots emmit loads of other radiation. This radiation has an effect on the amount of water a cloud can hold etc. This means that averedge precipitation varies as the sunspots go trough their cycle. And so temperatures vary with the sunspot cycle. This can be seen when you look at times between extremely hot summers (as we had in Europe one or 2 years back), they are about 10 years appart. Ask your parents if you don't believe me. At least mine keep telling me about a great summer we had in the eighties and one in the seventies....
Anyway, to conclude: If a graph with the amount of sunspots in a year is placed on top of a graph with the averedge temperature in a year, the two match! At least they seem to. I'm being carefull here because the study is quite new and has to show its predictive 'abilities' before any definite conclusion can be made. But the match seems to be realy good. For pictures, simply 'google' them. Loads of scientific studies can be found online...

Rod

-In the end nature will adapt as it always does, making global warming simply a social problem

one adaptation to my first post. After looking it over on the net, I found that the temperature peak that occured in the past happened from about 1100 until about 1400 (or so it seems).
Just trying to be precise

Rod