dammed cosmic rays!

Cosmic ray link to global warming boosted

http://www.newscientist.com/news/new...270&lpos=home3

At issue is whether cosmic rays, the high-energy particles spat out by exploding stars elsewhere in the galaxy, can affect the temperature on Earth. The suggestion is that cosmic rays crashing into the atmosphere ionise the molecules they collide with, triggering cloud formation.

If the flux of cosmic rays drops, fewer clouds will form and the planet will warm up...

Some proponents of the theory argue that changes in the number of cosmic rays reaching Earth can explain past climate change as well as global warming today.

Well this is the coldest and wetest summer I have ever experienced. Maybe the cosmic rays don't affect the Rocky Mountains? :)

Simple question:

How many Ice Ages have their been?

Second question:

What was the estimated human population during each of them, (giveaway on question one - there was more than one... duh)?

Third question:

What was the level of industrialization - therefore "greenhouse gasses" - produced by those populations?

Fourth question:

Are we back to the issue of cow farts?

last question:

Is it possible that the earth goes through cyclical change over millions of years that would never have been recognized without the sensitive instruments we now have and that those people reading the instruments all have the last name "Little" with the first name "Chicken"??????

Quote:

---

Originally posted here by Tiger Shark
Simple question:

How many Ice Ages have their been?

---

Thousands probably.

Quote:

---

What was the estimated human population during each of them, (giveaway on question one - there was more than one... duh)?

---

Well, most of them, none, due the the fact that we hadn't evolved yet.

The last 10 or so, probably quite a few.

Quote:

---

What was the level of industrialization - therefore "greenhouse gasses" - produced by those populations?

---

None, as no technique for mass extraction of fossil fuels had been developed before about the 18th century. People burnt charcoal and wood to keep warm (which of course is renewable).

Quote:

---

Are we back to the issue of cow farts?

---

Yes obviously!

Quote:

---

last question:

Is it possible that the earth goes through cyclical change over millions of years that would never have been recognized without the sensitive instruments we now have and that those people reading the instruments all have the last name "Little" with the first name "Chicken"??????

---

Wibble

OK Slarty.... Allow me to rephrase a question..... ;)

How many Ice Ages do we traditionally accept as having taken place in _our_ history of the world?

Good response though.... <LOL>

[slightly off-topic] Well there were definitely a few clouds out here on the Canadian West Coast this morning. A few is a gross understatement, as I have understood that a 'super cloud cell' had formed... anyway, the two thunders caused by the cell sounded very similar to the explosion of a whole gas station. I woke up during the first one [which lasted for almost 2 or 3 seconds] and after it there was a symphony of car alarms in the whole neighbourhood. The second one was more moderate, kind of like a fuel truck exploding...

I had to get that out of my system, the damned thing woke me up!

correct me if im wrong on this as im going from the memories of a very long time ago...but i think we count four ice ages the last of which was ending during the time of the liberal neanderthal. (probably wrong) who balmed it on dinosaur farts.

Quote:

---

Originally posted here by Tiger Shark
OK Slarty.... Allow me to rephrase a question..... ;)

How many Ice Ages do we traditionally accept as having taken place in _our_ history of the world?

Good response though.... <LOL>

---

Known periods of glaciation include the Huronian (2400Ma-2100Ma), Sturtian-Varangian (950Ma-570Ma), Andean-Saharan (450Ma-420Ma), Karoo (360Ma-260Ma), Cenozoic (30Ma-Present).
Glaciation, often called an ice age

If you want serach for Ice Cores PDF's.

I'm telling you if a small thermal nuke goes off up there and a giant piece of ice floats into the Gulf Stream it's over. The War On Terror must go on.

Huronian! nobody counts that!

Quote:

---

Originally posted here by !mitationRust
I'm telling you if a small thermal nuke goes off up there and a giant piece of ice floats into the Gulf Stream it's over. The War On Terror must go on. [/B]

---

Goes off where? pieces of ice in the Gulf Stream?

Call me stupid, but doesn't the ice cap on the north pole actually float on the sea? Hence if it melted it wouldn't contribute to sea level rising? Because it would displace the same amount of water as water as it does as ice?

Slarty

Hey Stupid... ;)

I would think you are about right, give or take a few hundred cubic miles of water which the entire ocean system would absorb fairly quickly without rising more than a few inches.

The issue would come with the contamination of all the food the oceans produce being polluted.....

Quote:

---

Call me stupid, but doesn't the ice cap on the north pole actually float on the sea? Hence if it melted it wouldn't contribute to sea level rising? Because it would displace the same amount of water as water as it does as ice?

---

As it is frozen, the ice / water is held in stasis at the north polar region.
If it where to melt it would 'spread' across the globe.
Initial estimates vary; but even the 'good' ones put the sea level rising by several feet.

One foot would submerge most of mainland Europe...........

Isn't there a map / organisation that shows the differing levels and what would be lost ?

Pangea or something....................

Quote:

---

Originally posted here by foxyloxley
[B]As it is frozen, the ice / water is held in stasis at the north polar region.
If it where to melt it would 'spread' across the globe.

---

But hang on, isn't it already floating?

How can ice displace less than its own weight in water (and continue to float) ?

If you fill your drink up really near the brim with loads of ice in, does it overflow when the ice melts? No I don't think so.

We should be worried about ice that is on land melting, like glaciers and the ice caps in Greenland and Antartica, not the floating ice on the N Pole.

Slarty

Quote:

---

If you fill your drink up really near the brim with loads of ice in, does it overflow when the ice melts? No I don't think so.

---

ROFLMAO.... The triumph of logic over emotion.....

Slarty.... You are a genius.... You 'cut to the quick" so well.....

Quote:

---

We should be worried about ice that is on land melting, like glaciers and the ice caps in Greenland

---

It is the land mass ice that we are worried about.

Quote:

---

Calculations indicate it would require 1,900 tons of TNT to break-up an average-sized iceberg of 70,000 cubic feet. Melting it would require the heat produced by burning 2.4 million gallons of gasoline. Obviously, neither choice is practical.

---

From: http://www.edwardwillett.com/Columns/icebergs.htm

This puts paid to the terrorist bomb worry........ Mind you, they DO have a pot full of gasoline..........

Now; if the US were to drop ALL their Nukes on Greenland, that would be a cause for concern.
Rename it for starters: 'Blackened and fecking hot at the centre land' ?? :eek:

Quote:

---

The Richmond Times-Dispatch (pA14) printed an Associated Press article entitled "Global warming threatens ice shelves" as reported from Sydney, Australia. The data was mainly from Prof. Bill Budd, a meteorologist at the Antarctic Cooperative Research Center who carried out a computer simulation of the gradual melting of the ice shelf around Antarctica. This shelf is said to cover some 580,000 sqare miles, bordering Antarctica like a skirt. Based on a global temperature increase of 2-6 degrees Fahrenheit, the model predicts a total loss of the ice shelves within 500 years. The key point of this article is a sentence: "Because the ice shelves already displace their own weight in water, their eventual melting would not cause the level of the world's oceans to rise." Ice floats in water because it is slightly less dense (0.917 g/mL) than water, particularly sea water which is slightly more dense than liquid water (1.000 g/mL), so about 90% of an iceberg is underwater in the sea which is slightly more dense than pure water due to dissolved salts. Thus although ice displaces an equal WEIGHT of water, it only displaces about 90 of the VOLUME of an equal weight of water. It is well known that water EXPANDS when it freezes, so the VOLUME of the solid water will DECREASE when it melts! However this leads to complicated reasoning due to the fact that icebergs are about 10% out (above) of the water and melting would roughly cancel out any volume change. In addition, ocean ice will be close to fresh water while the liquid sea water will be higher in salt concentration and thus more dense than fresh water. The good news is that global warming that melts ice in sea water will NOT change the sea level much at all. However, this statement should not hide the fact that if polar-cap ice or glacier ice ABOVE SEA LEVEL melts, that water will contribute to an increase in sea level.

---

From: http://www.people.vcu.edu/~dshillad/chemnews.htm

Quote:

---

The key point of this article is a sentence: "Because the ice shelves already displace their own weight in water, their eventual melting would not cause the level of the world's oceans to rise."

---

Quote:

---

However, this statement should not hide the fact that if polar-cap ice or glacier ice ABOVE SEA LEVEL melts, that water will contribute to an increase in sea level.

---

So; I was wrong :p
but the last part redeems me........... So that's a draw then............:D

[edit] Only slightly off topic this time.
Now; if I could only remember what the topic was ? [/edit]

Quote:

---

Slarty.... You are a genius.... You 'cut to the quick" so well

---

When a body is submerged in a fluid it suffers an upthrust equivalent to the amount of fluid displaced. :D :p

Archemedies is the genius here. lol

Quote:

---

Originally posted here by foxyloxley As it is frozen, the ice / water is held in stasis at the north polar region.
If it where to melt it would 'spread' across the globe.
Initial estimates vary; but even the 'good' ones put the sea level rising by several feet.
One foot would submerge most of mainland Europe...........
Isn't there a map / organisation that shows the differing levels and what would be lost ?
Pangea or something....................

---

could raise sea level by 70 meters 2755.92 Inches 229.66 Feet

Quote:

---

Originally posted here by slarty

If you fill your drink up really near the brim with loads of ice in, does it overflow when the ice melts? No I don't think so.

Slarty

---

My concerns above are with climate patterns, specifically Siberian type conditions. I watched this program on National Geographic over the weekend on this. ;)

Ok, I'll run with that ice to drinking glass theory/example because it's a good one! What happens when you drop ice into a full glass of water from ten feet above? I guess it depends on how much ice to use to see the wanted results.

Quote:

---

Originally posted here by slarty
Goes off where? pieces of ice in the Gulf Stream?
Slarty

---

Oh, yeah forgot to clarify.

When I said “up there” I was referring to land within the Arctic Circle north of the Gulf Stream Let’s say west of Greenland or Greenland, one giant premature calving ice, off a enormous ice sheet; several scenarios could happen serious climate change just being one, hell maybe even tsunami like waves.

Slarty you are right about the north pole but dont forget about the south pole.
The big problem with the gulf stream is that it depends on a very finely balanced mix between salt water and fresh water. I havent got the exact details on how it works here but apparently if the waters on the north end of the gulf stream gets too diluted by fresh ice melt or rains then the gulf stream could just stop as it is a circular system with a warm current of water on or near the surface heading north and a cold water current in lower in the depths heading south. the important thing is if there was no gulf stream then north westeren Europe would be much colder and we would be praying for some global warming.

As it travels north, some of the warm water transported by the Gulf Stream evaporates. This increases the salinity of the water in the stream, and in the North Atlantic Ocean the water is so cold and heavy with salt that it begins to sink. It then becomes a part of the North Atlantic Deep Water, a south going stream.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_stream

Speaking of Greenhouse gases, has anyone ever heard of a US military program like HAARP High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program , except one of the major differences is that it manipulates the Ozone layer causing a temporary hole with microwave technology. Though some scientist stress that it could leave permanent wholes in the Ozone if misused. I wonder if that could be used to release Greenhouse gases?