Climategate

[Thorne]

Which is why the scientists shouldnt let the politicians jump the gun for them via the media when they make statements of theory that have as of yet to be proven as facts.

Another of my pet peeves, here. You do not prove theories with facts. An hypothesis must explain the facts, all of the facts, and predict future facts, before it can be considered a valid theory. The layman/Hollywood definition of theory is completely wrong. A scientific theory is about as close as you can get to explaining the real world.

Like humanity is the sole cuase of global warming when they still are not sure that we are.

I doubt that anyone outside of the media (and politicians, of course) are claiming that humanity is the sole cause of global warming. But the evidence does show that we are a significant contributor.

[socal_dan]

I doubt that anyone outside of the media (and politicians, of course) are claiming that humanity is the sole cause of global warming. But the evidence does show that we are a significant contributor.

Except that the Earth's own feedback loops are significantly stronger than human borne effects. As an oddity, global warming theorists will say that humans can significantly impact the global climate, while at exactly the same time explaining that Siberia's methane traps releasing could be 50-100 times (or more) worse than any man-made climate warming.

It's absurdly illogical that we're both a major cause, and completely insignificant.

Completely switching gears to address what lucy's saying: The spinning core of the earth creates a magnetic field around our astral body, the magnetosphere, which is influenced by outside radiation forces. Its role in global climatology is deflection of solar wind so that the atmosphere isn't blown away by the sun (compare directly to Mars, which has a non-molten, non-spinning core, no magnetosphere, and negligible atmosphere). It's this deflection of the solar wind (and in turn plasma sheeting of the atmosphere) that's responsible for things like the northern lights.

It's also responsible for upper atmospheric ionization, storm generation, and a number of other atmospheric effects.

[Thorne]

Except that the Earth's own feedback loops are significantly stronger than human borne effects. As an oddity, global warming theorists will say that humans can significantly impact the global climate, while at exactly the same time explaining that Siberia's methane traps releasing could be 50-100 times (or more) worse than any man-made climate warming.

It's absurdly illogical that we're both a major cause, and completely insignificant.

Nothing illogical about it at all. The hypothesis is that global warming was initiated by human-related effects, and when a certain stage is reached the tundra will begin to thaw, releasing vast quantities of methane and CO2. It is also causing global sea temperatures to rise, which can (and is) causing the thawing of methane hydrates from the ocean floor. That would be the tip-over point, leading to possible runaway global warming. At which point, any efforts we could make to reverse the problem would be insignificant.

And while the feedback loops are strong, they also take time. Given the effects of runaway warming, it could take the earth tens of thousands of years, if not millions, to return to something close to the kind of climate we have now, if it ever does. Odds are that human civilization, as we know it, will be long gone by the time that happens.

Make no mistake about it: Earth will survive, one way or another. Life will survive, in one form or another. Whether humanity survives is questionable. We could well go the way of the dinosaurs.