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Russian blames global warming on 1908 Tunguska Event
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 CO2 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.
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my girl crazy, man!
Re: Global hoax
This is old news, and there is a more credible interpretation for Mars' warming.
I blogged about that at
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/another-denialist-argument-bites-martian-...
and about a similar tale about Neptune at
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/neptunes-brightness-and-solar-variation-1...
and most recently about the broader theory of solar influences on global warming
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/solar-link-global-warming-ruled-out-13708...
Fred Bortz -- Science and technology books for young readers (www.fredbortz.com) and Science book reviews (www.scienceshelf.com)
Global Hoax
Now scientists are telling us that Mars is experiencing its own planetary warming: Martian warming. It seems scientists have noticed recently that quite a few planets in our solar system seem to be heating up a bit, including Pluto.
NASA says the Martian South Pole’s “ice cap” has been shrinking for three summers in a row. Maybe Mars got its fever from earth. If so, I guess Jupiter’s caught the same cold, because it’s warming up too, like Pluto.
This has led some people, not necessarily scientists, to wonder if Mars and Jupiter, non signatories to the Kyoto Treaty, are actually inhabited by alien SUV-driving industrialists who run their air-conditioning at 60 degrees and refuse to recycle.
Silly, I know, but I wonder what all those planets, dwarf planets and moons in our SOLAR system have in common. Hmmmm. SOLAR system. Hmmmm. Solar? I wonder. Nah
No.... Global warming is real, but small. AGW is another matter
No, GW is really present, certainly not a hoax.
But (dramatic pause) GW is only 1/2 of one degree C over the past 35 years, as measured from a very low point at 1972-73 - Hansen's reference point when he began writing about the comming Ice Age due to airborne particle shielding in the upper atmosphere. Global (particle shielded) cooling got another (politicized) push when it was used as the cause of "nuclear winter" against RR in the mid-80's.
Since then, AGW (not AG Cooling) has gotten attention & funding.
AGW (man-caused GW) is a very different matter, and the above article points at an possible relationship between meteor/meteorite impact and solar irradiance/reflection.
(Personally, I disagree that even a small, local impact event would affect global climates- and the TG impact wasn't very large - even compared to a nuclear blast it was not much more than a "big H-Bomb" exploded well above the surface. Little dust, little fallout. A short (3 month - 8 month) effect? Probable. Longer time period, even through the century? Doesn't seem reasonable. Modern much, much larger volcanoes spewing tens of thousand times more dust and particles much higher in the air create measureable effects that go away far faster than that.)
No, cosmic ray shielding changes (through their effect on cloud cover and hence surface absorbtion AND surface reflection/re-reflection) does track with global temps.
The current GW increase corresponds closely with solar cycles as they affect magnetic shielding (in this the author is correct!) - but NOT CO2 levels - and the current increase in temps relates strongly with the significant decrease in the earth's background magnetic field, and the north magnetic pole increasingly rapid movement across away from Canada towards the Artic Ocean & Siberia.
The TG event may have either interrupted or amplified the on-going natural cycle of the sunspots and cosmic ray incidence levels, but the event itself?
Perhaps a little bit: certainly the earth's magnetic shielding was significantly disrupted for a measureable, significant amount of time. But not for the whole century.
Bottom line: global hoax
Global warming is a hoax. Greenhouse gases are mostly natural. Only three to four percent are man made. Greenhouse gases are mostly water vapor. If you remove the water vapor from the man made gases it goes down to half of a percent. So what will taxes and regulations do? Nothing on a global scale. Even if you stop all power plants, cars, planes and industry in America (all polution) thus destroying the economy and sending us back to the stone age it might equal one percent of total global greenhouse gases. Again no difference. Climate changes happened before and will continue to happen. Be more worried about the next mini ice age and save your taxes and regulation for real problems.
It's a unicorn!
This article is another case of someone hearing hoofbeats (evidence of global warming) and immediately searching for a zebra.
The Tunguska event is fascinating and I've even written about it in a chapter of one of my books, but in the context of global warming, it's beyond zebra-hood. It's a unicorn!
For a list of book reviews of recent books about weather and climate, including global warming, click here.
Fred Bortz -- Science and technology books for young readers (www.fredbortz.com) and Science book reviews (www.scienceshelf.com)
This does not explain the
This does not explain the cooling period observed between 1940 and 1970. the reason for this cooling is due to emissions of SO2 into the atmosphere before and around that time. Since laws and restrictions against CFC's and emitters of SO2 have come into place, this cooling period has ceased and the warming trend observed between 1910 - 1940 has since continued. On this basis alone I can state that the article is incorrect in its findings
Meteorites and atmosphere protection
Indeed a meteorite can temporarily breach the ray protection provided by the atmosphere.
However this doesn't prove that the cyclical warming and cooling that planet Earth experiences are (solely) due to those phenomenons.
Here is an article clarifying those different concepts (weather change cycles, meteorites shower consequences, ...) :
http://www.signs-of-the-times.org/articles/show/128992-Forget+About+Glob...
ice crystals
global warming
Feb. 2 2007
27 degrees, Global Warming is helping to change the enviroment. 500 years ago a man was sitting at his desk looking down at a large dried leaf that he was painting a picture on for his kids. He noticed that the room was getting cooler. he spoke to his wife. "Woman bring in some wood from the wood pile and place a fagot on the fire. She agreed the chill was excessive, she dashed out into the snow and grabbed a few small fagots for the fire. Returning inside she asked the man "my love do you think it will ever warm up again?" Yes woman the groundhog report is an early spring. Come next August you will look forward to this global cooling that we are having today. Seasons cycle. Yes my dear man, I understand now the seasons do cycle but I really like global warming the best. She then went to gather more wood so that her man would not be cold.
He returned to his picture of a man and woman tanning on a tropical beach.
In the picture the kids were hot so the man painted a tree to give them some shade........ The woman knew the man was smart!
Sincerly, Still to cold
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