August 2008 – Double Vision: The Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona promises a revolutionary way to look at the night sky. The light from its two eight-and-a-half metre mirrors will produce images of unprecedented clarity and power, offering a glimpse beyond our solar system to the very beginning of time. Dr Chris Lintott visits Arizona to see the telescope first hand, while Sir Patrick Moore talks to the astronomers who will use it.
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Filed under: The Sky at Night
This article is from the space special interest group of the high IQ society Mensa.
Global Warming on Mars and Climate Change from Space
Mars Global Surveyor studied the surface of Mars from 1999 to 2006, four Martian years, this coincided with a five and a half year rise in solar activity reaching the Solar Cycle peak in 2002. During a Solar Cycle maximum the Sun irradiates 0.1 percent more energy than at a Solar Cycle minimum, for Mars this means an increase in Global temperature of 0.21 Kelvin in three Martian years. At Perihelion Mars receives 44 percent (6.8 percent for Earth) more radiation than at Aphelion as the orbit of Mars is seven times more eccentric than Earths, a 21 percent eccentricity. Mercury is the only planet to have a more eccentric orbit than Mars. Perihelion occurs during the Southern Summer and ever since the 1830s it has been noted that during warming periods a dark band appears around the periphery of the shrinking polar cap, and with dust storms being more common during this period, this has decreased the Martian Albedo from 0.16 to 0.15 and increased the Martian Global temperature by 0.65 Kelvin. This has also caused more frozen CO2 to melt and turn into gas than usual for three Southern Summers in a row. With 95 percent of the Martian atmosphere made up of CO2 (0.038 percent on Earth) and only 0.03 percent Water vapour (1 percent on Earth). CO2 induced Global Warming is almost an irrelevance for Mars as it is for the Earth, as the CO2 has already absorbed most of the radiation available for absorption. The Warming on Mars raises the average surface temperature by 3 Kelvin to 211 Kelvin from 208 Kelvin. Both Planets can cool much faster than they can warm up, so Mars with almost a 100 percent transparent dry CO2 Atmosphere and without the problems with feedback (other than dust storms) from Water Vapour, Clouds, Oceans or an Atmospheric Mass 2,600 times that of CO2. Then Mars is the perfect example to use to test the theory of CO2 warming on Earth. Mars receives the equivalent of 81.5 percent of the Solar Radiation that the Earth receives. The surface has a 7 millibar CO2 atmosphere (0.39 millibar CO2 atmosphere on Earth). So the equivalent 7 millibar CO2 Atmosphere on Earth would produce a temperature of 3.68 Kelvin. If you deduct the 0.24 Kelvin increase for a doubling of CO2, four times you get 2.72 Kelvin for a 0.4375 millibar Atmosphere. This makes 2.7 Kelvin for a 0.39 millibar Atmosphere. The 2.7 Kelvin includes, 1.2 Kelvin for CO2 absorption only, plus half of the 1.5 Kelvin that CO2 absorption shares with Water vapour. Confirming that the CO2 induced Warming on Earth is about 2 Kelvin, and also four times weaker than on Mars. Confirming the irrelevance of its ability to increase Global temperature much more, even with significant increases in Carbon Dioxide.
Man made CO2 is natural CO2 which has been fossilised for millions of years and does not have the Carbon-14 Isotope. Levels of this Isotope show that 4 percent or 15ppm of the increase in CO2 in over 100 years is due to Man & 85ppm due to Nature, this is also confirmed by the ratio of Carbon-12 to Carbon-13 in the Atmosphere. All evidence in Ice core data and direct measurements point to changes in the temperature causing the changes in CO2 levels as on Mars, this increase being due to the 0.76 Kelvin increase in Global Atmospheric temperature over the last 200 year bounce back from the Little Ice Age. But ice core data shows that this is mainly due to the 800 year lag in the changes in deep ocean CO2 levels after the Medieval Warm Period, the ocean contains 93.5 percent of the Earths CO2. The increase has added only 0.1 Kelvin to the 2 Kelvin that CO2 gives to the Warming of the Earths Surface Temperature. This means that man-made CO2 has only increased the Global temperature by 0.015 Kelvin. The Solar Cycle Amplitude and more importantly the Solar Cycle Length and the Forbush Effect being responsible for the further 0.66 Kelvin increase.
The largest effect on Climate Change is the Length of the Solar Cycle, short Solar Cycles cause a warming and long Solar Cycles cause a cooling. Between 1913 and 1996, only one of eight Solar Cycles was longer than the mean Solar Cycle length of 11.04 years. The last of these was the shortest Solar Cycle for more than 200 years. Short Solar Cycles cause a decrease in cosmic rays when Solar activity is high, decreasing cloud cover and leading to the enhancement of Global Warming on the Earth, a 1 percent decrease in cosmic rays causes a 0.13 Kelvin increase in Global temperature. This is called the Forbush effect and is caused by coronal mass ejections which are ten times more common during Solar maximum and have a ten day period that can be predicted four days before the event. This is carried by the solar wind to the Earth on the Suns magnetic field lines.
A study of Luna Earthshine shows that the Albedo of the Earth decreased from 0.32 in 1985 to 0.29 in 1997 showing a 6.5 percent decrease in cloud cover. The Earths Albedo has since increased to 0.31 showing that 69 percent of solar energy is absorbed, 50 percent by the Surface, 19 percent by the Atmosphere (13.3 percent by Water Vapour, 1.6 percent by Carbon Dioxide and 4.1 percent by Dust, Ozone, Nitrous-Oxide, Methane and other gases). In the last hundred years the Earths Albedo has been as high as 0.44 and as low as 0.29 with an average of 0.36. The Albedo effects the North more than the South because the land snow zone for the south is mainly in the sea.
Weather from the Sun was first postulated two hundred years ago when William Herschel tried to prove the price of grain was inversely correlated with the sunspot number, which was subsequently proven, the sunspot number being low during the Dalton Minimum (1790-1820) at the end of the Little Ice Age. The sunspot number was close to zero during the earlier Maunder Minimum (1645-1715) during the coldest part of the Little Ice Age, this is also confirmed by tree rings formed at sunspot minimum which have a higher amount of carbon-14 due to the Forbush Effect.
The enhancing effects of the Albedo changes on the Earth and Mars would more than explain Global Warming on both Planets and would explain why the cause of Global Warming on other Planets is not that definite other than the finding that the changes in the brightness of Neptune correlate with the changes in the Earths Global Surface Temperature.
When the Earths temperature increased, the Atmospheric Water Vapour content increased, but if this increase had been due to CO2 then the Tropospheric temperature would have increased at twice the rate of the Surface temperature increase. This did not happen. Over half of all Solar radiation is absorbed by the Earths Oceans which are almost 300 times the mass of the Earths Atmosphere. This helps to regulate the effects of the changes in the Earths climate which then responds to these changes after a five year lag. Global Warming peaked in 1998 and ended with the last Solar Cycle peak, and after a five year lag in the Climate. Global Warming finally ended in 2007. As did the increase in Atmospheric Methane. So it seems quite clear that Climate Change is ruled by the Sun.
There are also long-term future causes of Climate Change in Astronomy. The inclination of Mars varies between 35 degrees and 14 degrees over a period of 50,000 years while that of the Earth only varies between 22.1 degrees and 24.1 degrees over a period of 41,000 years, both planets are at the half way point, Mars at 25.19 degrees and the Earth at 23.44 degrees. This cycle and other changes in planetary axis and orbit produce Ice ages every 100,000 years, in periods when more ice is exposed to the Sun heightening the Albedo, which causes the cooling. The Galactic Orbit of the Solar System every 240 million years produces Ice Age Epochs every 120 million years which are caused by the Sun passing through the Galactic spiral arms increasing the level of cosmic rays and therefore cloudiness, we are at present in an ice age epoch caused by our presence in the Orion armlet.
But the Final Global Warming Terror will be when the Sun turns into a Red Giant. In one billion years time the Oceans will be boiling and in five billion years time the Earth will be eaten up by the Sun, leaving Mars as the most inner Planet of the Solar System.
The information above comes from many sources such as The Guinness Book of Astronomy Facts and Feats by Sir Patrick Moore, Encyclopaedia Britannica but mainly from Scientific papers found on Google Scholar.
"Astrology only goes to prove that there's one born every minute" – Sir Patrick Moore.
"Astrology only goes to prove that there's one born every minute" – Sir Patrick Moore.