There was a piece posted on Climate Denial Crock which showed John Stewart of the Daily Show lampooning the House of Representatives Science, Space and Technology member Steve Stockman (Rep Tex) having trouble with the Earths wobble when questioning the Governments lead climate scientist. Why a politician who has declared that he does not understand science would question a scientist who is top of his field is a mystery but I thought it might be worth a quick explanation of why it is not considered in the models.
The Earth’s “wobble’ goes from 22.1 degrees when it is nearly upright to a maximum tilt of 24.5 degrees which for simplicity we will call 2.5 Degrees.
This action takes about 125,000 years which is from the depth of an ice age through a warm period and back to an ice age in a repetitive cycle.
This ‘wobble’ happens at the rate of 0.02 degrees every thousand years, or 1 degree every 50,000 years. It is quite a serious movement as during the whole cycle the world would cool 8C, glaciers of ice would be down to Scotland or New York and sea levels would drop 125meters.
This action takes about 125,000 years which is from the depth of an ice age through a warm period and back to an ice age in a repetitive cycle.
This ‘wobble’ happens at the rate of 0.02 degrees every thousand years, or 1 degree every 50,000 years. It is quite a serious movement as during the whole cycle the world would cool 8C, glaciers of ice would be down to Scotland or New York and sea levels would drop 125meters.
Climate change forecasting concentrates on the next 100 years with real detail going into the next fifty or even less. With such a vast difference in timescale the climate modellers ignore the tilt action although they are well aware of it's presence.
We should be headed for an ice age but the huge pulse of CO2 we have pumped into the atmosphere has changed our destiny. We have to stop burning fossil fuels which was the real reason the Texas Representative was displaying his ignorance.
Click here for a more detailed explanation.
We should be headed for an ice age but the huge pulse of CO2 we have pumped into the atmosphere has changed our destiny. We have to stop burning fossil fuels which was the real reason the Texas Representative was displaying his ignorance.
Click here for a more detailed explanation.
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