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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (703148)	9/22/2005 8:58:50 AM
From: DizzyG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Global warming - is the Sun to blame? By BBC News Online Science Editor Dr David Whitehouse More research is called for to determine the Sun's effect on climate change Global warming may not be caused by humanity's fossil fuel emissions, but could be due to changes in the Sun. Research suggests that the magnetic flux from the Sun more than doubled this century. As solar magnetism is closely linked with sunspot activity and the strength of sunlight reaching Earth, the increase could have produced warming in the global climate. The evidence for an increasingly energetic Sun comes from a new analysis of the magnetic field between the planets, carried out by scientists at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, near Oxford, UK. Solar Wind This magnetic field is caused by the Solar Wind, a stream of particles given off by the Sun which fills the solar system. The Solar Wind brings the Sun's magnetic field into space The scientists produce evidence that since 1964 the interplanetary magnetic field has increased in strength by 40%. Evidence from before the space age suggests that the magnetic field is 2.3 times stronger than it was in 1901. Scientists do not doubt that the increased magnetic field results from a more energetic Sun. Their problem is that the effect of these increases on the Earth is unknown. Not our fault? The research is published in Nature and in the same journal Professor Eugene Parker, of the Laboratory for Astrophysics and Space Research, University of Chicago, comments that it could explain global warming. He notes that the increased solar activity has occurred in parallel with an increase in carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere. And it may not be a coincidence, he says. Professor Parker suggests that the Sun's increased activity caused the Earth's global temperature to rise and that in turn warmed the oceans. Warmer oceans absorb less carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. So a warmer Earth has more of the so-called greenhouse gases. Humanity's burning of fossil fuels may therefore not be the cause of global warming. Perilous plans Professor Parker adds that that more research must be done about the Sun's role in global warming before drastic action is taken here on Earth. "It is essential to check to what extent the facts support these conclusions before embarking on drastic, perilous and perhaps misguided plans for global action," he says. Measurements of the magnetic field are not the only evidence for the Sun's variable influence on the Earth. The planet went through a "little ice age" during the 17th Century, at a time when very few sunspots appeared on the surface of the Sun. And the so-called "medieval maximum" was a period of warmer than average global weather in the 12th Century. Astronomers believe that the Sun was slightly brighter at that time. news.bbc.co.uk

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (703148)	9/22/2005 9:43:42 AM
From: John Chen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Kenneth,re:"Cat 4 .. hurricanes". Do you believe in jinx?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (703148)	9/22/2005 10:13:29 AM
From: HPilot	Respond to of 769670

Apparently they couldn't get the right answer form the scientests who did the study and got a lot of biased comments from other scientests. Its a good idea to read the study that started this. Then look at the raw data. From this site: sciencemag.org "Cyclone intensities around the world are estimated by pattern recognition of satellite features based on the Dvorak scheme (25). The exceptions are the North Atlantic, where there has been continuous aircraft reconnaissance; the eastern North Pacific, which has occasional aircraft reconnaissance; and the western North Pacific, which had aircraft reconnaissance up to the mid-1980s. There have been substantial changes in the manner in which the Dvorak technique has been applied (26). These changes may lead to a trend toward more intense cyclones, but in terms of central pressure (27) and not in terms of maximum winds that are used here. Furthermore, the consistent trends in the North Atlantic and eastern North Pacific, where the Dvorak scheme has been calibrated against aircraft penetrations, give credence to the trends noted here as being independent of the observational and analysis techniques used. In addition, in the Southern Hemisphere and the North Indian Ocean basins, where only satellite data have been used to determine intensity throughout the data period, the same trends are apparent as in the Northern Hemisphere regions. We deliberately limited this study to the satellite era because of the known biases before this period (28), which means that a comprehensive analysis of longer-period oscillations and trends has not been attempted. There is evidence of a minimum of intense cyclones occurring in the 1970s (11), which could indicate that our observed trend toward more intense cyclones is a reflection of a long-period oscillation. However, the sustained increase over a period of 30 years in the proportion of category 4 and 5 hurricanes indicates that the related oscillation would have to be on a period substantially longer than that observed in previous studies. We conclude that global data indicate a 30-year trend toward more frequent and intense hurricanes, corroborated by the results of the recent regional assessment (29). This trend is not inconsistent with recent climate model simulations that a doubling of CO2 may increase the frequency of the most intense cyclones (18, 30), although attribution of the 30-year trends to global warming would require a longer global data record and, especially, a deeper understanding of the role of hurricanes in the general circulation of the atmosphere and ocean, even in the present climate state." Now I know this isn't global, but for the real reason look at this chart and look at the 50's and 60's. nhc.noaa.gov So if they had looked at the 50's and 60's you had 10 major storms in the 50's and 8 in the 60's. The global data is similar but I cannot find a list of global storms other than a Cat 5 list which also does not break any trends, unless this level of activity continues throught the rest of this decade. Well that would have made there up trend look like it presently is, just a cycle from low activity to high activity, but not breaking any long term trends. As for the accuracy of determining the wind speed of hurricanes, think again. Look at these article's. redcross.org nhc.noaa.gov aoml.noaa.gov en.wikipedia.org So for ten years they thought Andrew was a cat 4 storm then decided it was a cat 5. Didn't the satellite and airplane data tell them other wise? No, because landfall hurricanes are determined by the speed on the ground, so they must be estimated from higher altitudes and often from the down wind side. When hurricanes get past cat 3 or so the wind indicators tend to fly away with the wind or get hit with debris. This looks like the neighborhood I lived in at the time, at least Country Walk had fences like this. aoml.noaa.gov