King Sol

Old King Sol was a merry old Sol
And a merry old Sol was he.
He turned up the gas
That blew out his ass
And broiled the earth and its seas.

The debate on weather should be centered on what is the primary cause of our climate. The emissions produced by Man have been a factor for less than several hundred years. Yet there have been dramatic changes in our climate for thousands of years.

The hysterical ecoloons would have us believe that this planet is so fragile, so sensitive, that we are bringing it to the edge of destruction. Yet they fail to take into account the major changes that occurred in eons past, like the Ice Age that ended less than 12,000 years ago. This was long before the invention of the internal combustion engine, locomotives, freon, and LiveEarthDC.

More evidence that the sun is the primary motivator behind our weather changes is emerging constantly.

In what could be the simplest explanation for one component of global warming, a new study shows the Sun's radiation has increased by .05 percent per decade since the late 1970s.

The increase would only be significant to Earth's climate if it has been going on for a century or more, said study leader Richard Willson, a Columbia University researcher also affiliated with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

This is what the ecoloons fear. As more and more scientists from various disciplines turn their skills toward the global warming question, they find more and more evidence that man is not necessarily the problem, if it is a problem at all. They fear this because Global Warming is the new socialist tool to bring mankind under the thumb of the eco-elitists.

In a NASA-funded study recently published in Geophysical Research Letters, Willson and his colleagues speculate on the possible history of the trend based on data collected in the pre-satellite era.

"Solar activity has apparently been going upward for a century or more," Willson told SPACE.com today.

So the hysterics are ramped up and the doubters vilified as the nutroots insist that something must be done right now or WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE. There is no longer room for any debate because WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE. Dissension from the Book of GORE (blessed Be His Offsetness) cannot be tolerated because WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE.

Scientists, industry leaders and environmentalists have argued for years whether humans have contributed to global warming, and to what extent. The average surface temperature around the globe has risen by about 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1880. Some scientists say the increase could be part of natural climate cycles. Others argue that greenhouse gases produced by automobiles and industry are largely to blame.

Willson said the Sun's possible influence has been largely ignored because it is so difficult to quantify over long periods.

Confounding efforts to determine the Sun's role is the fact that its energy output waxes and wanes every 11 years. This solar cycle, as it is called, reached maximum in the middle of 2000 and achieved a second peak in 2002. It is now ramping down toward a solar minimum that will arrive in about three years.

Changes in the solar cycle -- and solar output -- are known to cause short-term climate change on Earth. At solar max, Earth's thin upper atmosphere can see a doubling of temperature. It swells, and denser air can puff up to the region of space where the International Space Station orbits, causing increased drag on the ship and forcing more frequent boosts from space shuttles.

In 1996, near the last solar minimum, the Sun is nearly featureless. By 1999, approaching maximum, it is dotted by sunspots and fiery hot gas trapped in magnetic loops.

And that's just in three years. There are other indications that solar activity has caused dramatic changes in the earth's climate.

A glaciologist at Ohio State University made a presentation at the 2004 conference of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

MAJOR CLIMATE CHANGE OCCURRED 5,200 YEARS AGO: EVIDENCE SUGGESTS THAT HISTORY COULD REPEAT ITSELF

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Glaciologist Lonnie Thompson worries that he may have found clues that show history repeating itself, and if he is right, the result could have important implications to modern society.

Thompson has spent his career trekking to the far corners of the world to find remote ice fields and then bring back cores drilled from their centers. Within those cores are the records of ancient climate from across the globe.

If global warming is eminent, you'd think that a guy who spends his life studying glaciers would be on top of it.

From the mountains of data drawn by analyzing countless ice cores, and a meticulous review of sometimes obscure historic records, Thompson and his research team at Ohio State University are convinced that the global climate has changed dramatically.

But more importantly, they believe it has happened at least once before, and the results were nearly catastrophic to emerging cultures at the time. He outlined his interpretations and fears today at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

A professor of geological sciences at Ohio State and a researcher with the Byrd Polar Research Center, Thompson points to markers in numerous records suggesting that the climate was altered suddenly some 5,200 years ago with severe impacts.

Do I need to say it again? This was at least 5,100 years before anyone even thought of an SUV.

Professor Thompson brought this ice core samples in for analysis and made some startling observations. Perfectly preserved plants were somehow frozen all at once approximately 5,200 years ago. Something caused the climate to change very suddenly to capture these plants in such condition. There is more...

In 1991, hikers found the preserved body of a man trapped in an Alpine glacier and freed as it retreated. Later tests showed that the human – dubbed Oetzi – became trapped and died around 5,200 years ago.

Thompson points to a study of tree rings from Ireland and England that span a period of 7,000 years. The point in that record when the tree rings were narrowest – suggesting the driest period experienced by the trees – was approximately 5,200 years ago.

He points to ice core records showing the ratio of two oxygen isotopes retrieved from the ice fields atop Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro. A proxy for atmospheric temperature at the time snow fell, the records are at their lowest 5,200 years before now.

He lists the shift by the Sahara Desert from a habitable region to a barren desert; major changes in plant pollen uncovered from lakebed cores in South America, and the record lowest levels of methane retrieved from ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica and all occurred at the same time – 5,200 years ago.

Thompson believes that the 5,200-year old event may have been caused by a dramatic fluctuation in solar energy reaching the earth. Scientists know that a historic global cooling called the Little Ice Age, from 1450 to 1850 A.D., coincided with two periods of decreased solar activity.

Evidence shows that around 5,200 years ago, solar output first dropped precipitously and then surged over a short period. It is this huge solar energy oscillation that Thompson believes may have triggered the climate change he sees in all those records.

“The climate system is remarkably sensitive to natural variability,” he said. “It’s likely that it is equally sensitive to effects brought on by human activity, changes like increased greenhouse gases, altered land-use policies and fossil-fuel dependence.

“Any prudent person would agree that we don’t yet understand the complexities with the climate system and, since we don’t, we should be extremely cautious in how much we ‘tweak’ the system,” he said.

“The evidence is clear that a major climate change is underway.”

If what Professor Thompson says is correct, there must be another factor, or factors, behind global climate change. And if the magnitude of the previous changes are any indication, human activity is a pretty small player.

So let's give the WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE screed a rest for now, m'kay?