Reset Password
Reset Link Sent
| Blogs > saturn1019 > My Blog |
Climate Change Denial and the Distortion of Data: Is the Entire Solar System Warming"
|
Climate Change Denial and the Distortion of Data: Is the Entire Solar System Warming" The deniers of human caused global climate change continue to advance a great of arguments that have long since been discredited. Sometimes it is a bit difficult to properly rebut their arguments simply because even they never really seem to know what position they are taking today. The argument de jour might be that humans are not responsible for climate change at all, because the climate is always changing. Tomorrow it will be that things are getting warmer, but we aren't responsible. A day later, they are suggesting that things are getting warmer and maybe we are responsible, but there is nothing we can do about it. One day later, ok, it is getting warmer and we are responsible, but that is probably a good thing on the whole; rinse and repeat. They are correct about one thing: Yes, climate is dynamic, but climate changes slowly over the eons for many reasons.Those changes are measured slowly over millenia, not decades. Rapid changes can and have occured, but not without a clear catalyst. We are witnessing that now and as Pogo once wryly observed, "We have met the enemy, and he is us." The argument often used by deniers, that climate is always changing, is not a compelling rebuttal to the fact that we are the force behind rapid changes we are seeing now. There is one particular argument I will address today, which is the notion that changes observed on our planet over the past century are, in fact, evident all over the solar system. If in fact that were true, it would be rather easy to pinpoint the common denominator for all the observed changes. The only body in the solar system that affects every other body significantly is, of course the sun. Demonstrate in an unambigious fashion that there has been a significant change in solar output over the past century or so, combined with measurable effects throughout the system and the argument is clearly compelling. Unfortunately for deniers, their claim fails spectacularly on both counts. Our solar system is comprised of 8 planets, 5 dwarf planets, 181 known moons, 0 planets with a semi-major axis of 89 km or greater, over half a million smaller asteroids and in excess of 3000 comets permanently in the sun's orbit. The deniers pin their argument on exactly 5 other bodies in the solar system with some observed pattern of warming temperatures and even those claims are somewhere between dubious and completely unsupportable. Even if the claims they made were on solid footing, it would be a reasonable question to ask how viable patterns that can be reliably linked to just over 1% of the reasonably sized bodies in the solar system really are. But as I shall demonstrate, the worlds that they cite in their arguments don't support their claims. Let's take a look at each of the claims in turn. Mars: The claim generally offered that Mars is warming is based on, and yes, this is absolutely true, 2 photos. One of them was taken in 1977, the other in 1999. The two photos did clearly demonstrate a marked change in the albedo of Mars, for those not familiar with the term, that is the amount of light reflected back into space from the surface. The overall albedo at the surface did seem to drop substantially over the 22 year period, indicating that Mars was radiating more light and therefore probably all solar wavelengths of radiation into space in the earlier image than the later, suggesting a pattern of warming on the planet's surface. There is just one problem with this claim. The 1977 image was taken by one of the Viking orbiters and was returned in the wake of a very large (even by Mars standards) global dust storm. Those events tend to brighten the surface as fine particulates settle back over most of the surface of the planet. By contrast, the 1999 image was taken just weeks prior to the onset of the typical 3 year storm cycle on Mars (as measured on Martian years. That translates to about 5.5 years Earth time.) In other words, one of the images was returned at a time when the surface reflectivity of Mars would naturally be expected to be at its peak, while the other was returned at a time when Mars would appear darkest. For the most of the past 2 decades, we have had an armada of orbiters around Mars and rovers on the surface. They have returned a constant stream data providing more information about another world in the solar system than we have ever obtained, with the exception of our own world and our moon. Based upon the sum total of all the information we have received from Mars, there is exactly zero indication that there are significant, short term climate changes occuring on the planet. Bear in mind that this is important, since Mars ranks among the planets in our solar system most effected by solar output. Neptune and Triton: Changes in reflectivity on Triton and Neptune, derived from comparison of the images returned by Voyager 2 and more recent ones obtained by Hubble seem to be indicating a pattern of warming in the Neptune system. The problem is, this is a case of clever cherry picking by the deniers. The observed changes really are occuring, but only in the southern hemisphere of the 2 worlds, which can be easily explained by normal seasonal variations. Owing to Neptune's 4 year orbital cycle, the southern hemisphere has transitioned to the early summer season. It would be somewhat surprising if these changes weren't occuring, but trying to draw conclusions based on data covering only about 20% of Neptune's seasonal cyle is pretty remarkable. Pluto: Based on two observations of Pluto made by Earth based instruments in 1988 and 2002, deniers have suggested a pattern of warming there. This is pretty remarkable, given that the exact size of Pluto wasn't really settled until the 90's and a fairly significant revision was made in light of data returned by New Horizons. Pluto has an orbital period of 248 years and its highly eccentric orbit brought it inside the orbit of Neptune around the time the first measurement was taken. Seasonal lag could probably account for the observed variations in the 2002 readings, but given that solar radiation is 900 times weaker at Pluto than the Earth, it is a bit of a stretch to suggest that what is going on there is strongly dependent on solar output. New Horizons brought us a wealth of data about Pluto, but it has turned out to be a world considerably more interesting and complex than we ever imagined. The simple fact is, even Pluto experts have more questions than answers about the former planet at the moment. I wouldn't place much stock in claims made by anyone about what is, or is not going on there made by people who know next to nothing about this incredible little world. Jupiter: Over a decade's worth of data returned by the Galileo spacecraft in the late 80's and 90's don't support any claims of warming in the Jovian system, but deniers still harp on one discredited argument. Predictions of merging storms in the Jovian atmosphere would increase heat output near the planet's equator with accompanying cooling near the poles. Nothing of the sort has actually occurred, so the data the deniers are relying upon here is worthless. But it is irrelevant at a more fundamental level anyway. Jupiter actually radiates away more energy than it receives from the sun, so when we observe Jupiter, almost everything we are watching is the product of internal forces, not anything going on as the result of solar input. This is clearly a case where the deniers need to significantly improve their understanding of how the solar system really works. There are some other serious problems the deniers refuse to acknowledge. For example, the Messenger spacecraft that made a long term study of Mercury showed no significant, solar driven variations on the planet nearest the sun. The Magellan spacecraft, which studied Venus in the late 80's through most of the 90's similarly showed no warming pattern there. The Cassini spacecraft, which has been exploring the Saturn system for the past decade has shown no evidence of warming there, beyond the predictable seasonal variations. There are also indications of a general cooling pattern at Uranus. But given its extreme axial tilt, it has extreme seasons and data correlation is problematic. But having specifically explored the cases where claims are made for evidence of solar system warming based on variations on solar output, it becomes reasonable to ask a simple question. Does data gathered from solar studies provide any evidence that there actually has been an increase in solar output? The simple answer is, no. Over a period from about 1880 to 1960, there was a slight increase in solar output, generating about a 0.3% increase in overall solar variation. Since 1960, the trend has been downward returning to a level only very slightly higher than the 1880 levels. In other words, as annual temperatures on the planet have been consistently increasing over the past decade and a half, activity on the sun has been heading in the opposite direction as indicated by the 3 images below. There is an old saying in regard to statistical analysis that figures don't lie, but liars figure. Climate change deniers are the poster for this charge. By selectively offering information that represents a fraction of a bigger picture or is even outdated, they present a case for a preconceived argument. A closer examination of reality destroys the arguments in force. |
Become a member to create a blog
