Those darn pesky satellites!

[DGXSER]

That is the point that I see 81xsproject, what we THINK we know of what happened. Reality is that we are barely guessing at anything that happened prior to record keeping.

We do not really KNOW when even dinosours romed the earth, we purely speculate/guess at the period assuming our test methods are giving accurate results as we have no way to confirm them. So thinking that we know for a fact what the temperatures of the earth were then, or where snow or ice caps were or how thick is pure guess work. And comparing the information over the period we have taken records, is a minute period of time compared to the time humans have been on earth, let alone the time span of the earth.

Assuming that humans are going to destroy the earth is pretty arogant thinking in my book. I bet the aligators and the cockroaches make it through. They and the earth were here before we were, they will be here long after us. We will just be the next "dinosours" of what ever creatures care to investigate us. JMHO.

[oseaghdha]

Global Warming?

I'm for it!
Longer riding season for us Northroners.

BTW, 6 inches of snow here yesterday.

[Elevenator]

....In the long term, all the heat will eventually go out into space and stay there. .... our own swollen ego that makes us believe we have much to do with it at all.

Indeed...the first law of thermodynamics...heat flows from from hot to cold. Things cool off over time ...they don't heat up. It's called primary energy loss.

Of course another problem that the layman has is getting his 70 year mind scale wrapped around a planet that is 4.5 BILLION years old and operates on cycles the order of millions of years.

People in general are utterly clueless to the insurmountable size and scope of the earth. If humans were around during the Jurassic .... the alarmist would have been screaming that the dinosaurs were going to "destroy" the planet. And yet 200 million years after the fact the planet is alive and thriving with life.

Consider this..regarding CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. During the Carboniferous (290 to 360 MYBP) the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere was roughly 15 times what it is today. That's right...15 times! Yet the planet was literally teeming with life. And yes we know roughly what the concentration was via isotopic analysis of Carboniferous rocks.

Another little factoid...at the Siluro-Ordovician interface the earth was plunged into a deep ice age. Probably an order of magnitude greater than what we've seen in the past 2 million years. This ice event lasted roughly 40 to 50 million years. The CO2 concentration then was 1500 ppm...that 4 times what it is today. And yes we know this is reasonably accurate via proxy.

Now...if CO2 is the main culprit in the warming of the globe why was there an ice event which lasted 50 million years. We can speculate all day... but one thing is for sure...CO2 didn't reverse the trend.

As a geologist I can tell you there is is simply an overwhelming volume of evidence ...historical geologic evidence ...that refutes the notions that any species including man can affect something as expansive as global climate. There simply is no evidence to base this on short of hype and hysteria.

If you argue that man is somehow causing global warming NOW...then pray tell...what caused it hundreds of times in the past 550 million years when man was not even present? It simply makes no sense to say that man is now causing for the first time what he could never have caused hundreds of times before.

Given that...now you tell me...why in the name of intelligence and reason are proponents of anthropogenic global warming so "illogical" and "unreasonable"? Do they simply want to blame man for everything? Are they living in fear? Do they worship nature like the totem of some primitive religion superstitiously believing if we throw a virgin in the volcano the gods will forgive our "eco sins" and not erupt?

With similar ill-logic it would seem these people believe if we throw the fair maiden of internal combustion, coal fired generation, and the "wheel itself" into the trash heap of civilization the geo-gods will not punish us by melting the global polar ice caps.

I'm sorry...to put it in vernacular lingo...I just don't get it. If we need to transistion to other fuels (and we certainly do over time) then let us promote the transistion to alternatives based upon the merits of that argument...not on some mindless superstition and fear that if we don't it will result and a global catastrophe the world has never before seen. That argument in and of itself is a slap in the face of reason and an insult unto science.

[Elevenator]

In recent news, the vertibrae of a huge boa was found that has thrown another wrench into the gears. It seems that a reptile of that size would not have been able to survive at temperatures as low as what scientists THOUGHT the tropical max temp could be. It was previously thought that the tropics could only get so hot. Check it out

Ahhh yes...another resident rockster! Go Go Geo Jessie! Anyone that can adapt a hydraulic clutch to a 30 year old bike will make a fine scientist indeed.

I wonder what caused the warming event that gave rise to such a behemoth? Hmmm...possibly Boa flatuence? How 'bout a 2 and 1/2 catus yell...Yucca Yucca Yuck!

Interesting .... Titanoboa was penecontemporaneous to the Fossil Forest of Axel Heiberg Island (geologically speaking). With a sub-tropical coniferous-deciduous forest at 85 degree north latitude then it must have been sweltering near the equator.

In other "current news" ...could it be Titanoboa survived beyond the Eocene moving his nest to Borneo?



Link----> http://www.livescience.com/strangene...o-monster.html

Is it live...or is it Memorex? Inquiring minds want to know!

Hehehehe...my gut tells me this beast was ginned up using the same techno-wizardry that Al Gore used in "An Inconvenient Truth". Can you say Loch Ness?

Rock on rockheads!

[Toolmaker Tim]

Professor! I have a question

My understanding is that a vacuum is not a heat sink because it has too few molecules to absorb energy. Somewhat like the princple of a vacuum bottle keeping thing cold or hot due to reduced heat loss. The heat we receive from the sun is due to radation and the resason we have light is part of the radation is in the visible spectum for us. Correct me if I am wrong, but the earth emits only reflected radation.

[Crazcnuk]

That would be true, if space were a vacuum.

In fact there is approx 1 atom/cu meter of space.

It may take a while, but the planet is losing heat to space.

[Toolmaker Tim]

I learned something.

[MaximPhil]

I learned something.

And I am confused.....But on a much higher plane or is that plain
Phil

[oseaghdha]

It's all Fizix!

Radiated heat is infrared, which is Electromagnetic radiation.
As such, it does not require a medium and will travel through space the same as visible light, or radio waves.

Vacuum flasks work because they have reflective surfaces. The vacuum prevents heat loss through convection.

[Crazcnuk]

1 atom per cubic meter may not sound like much, but now calculate the surface fricton on the front of a space craft travelling close to the speed of light!

[Toolmaker Tim]

Surface Friction?

I couldn't calculate the surface friction of my hands rubbing together, let alone the drag coefficent of the spaceship at lightspeed.

[Crazcnuk]

Me either, but I bet it's significant!

[Da-Bubble]

Simple Solution

I don't need to do a lot of research to come to my conclusion. You just have to ask one question: Is it weathermen that are yelling about global warming or politicians? When the founder of "The Weather Channel" denouces global warming I tend to believe him a little more than Al Gore.

[kjohnson]

I was only this past weekend able to convince my family (mostly my parents) that "global warming" is at best a farce. If I'd have read some of this stuff before "the talk", it would have been much easier. I was also able to convince them that there is a lot more crude oil left in the ground than what the petroleum industry would like everyone to believe.

[renegade_xs11g]

I KNEW IT!!!!!
Mother Earth is on her PERIOD!!! LOL
But, seriously, She's millions of years old, this is just a part of the planet's cycle.
One of my son's watches the Discovery Channel a lot, he's convinced that we've jump started the 'warming' by a few thousand years. Now, I'm not an educated man, but I don't think it's possible.

More likely, it's a theory that an 'alarmist' took to heart and then the politicians got to thinking..........I'd finish that but, we all know that 'BIG BROTHER' is watching..........