Quote:

---

Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
I guess that's fair.

---

Quote:

---

I'm afraid I'm not wrong. Gravity indeed plays a big part but the higher the temperature, the greater a molecule's kinetic energy. Sufficient kinetic energy enables the molecule to reach escape velocity. Titan has a much smaller mass than Mercury yet it's also much farther away from the Sun. Unlike Mercury though, Titan has managed to retain its atmosphere. This contradicts your friend's statement, @chrisisall, that gravity should be the decisive factor. Temperature is essential as well. That said, good friend, a small temperature rise will not immediately wash away our atmosphere in one big sweep - of course - but all disturbances, no matter how small, in the end add up to reach full catastrophe.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:

for a planet 4+ billion years old, what takes place over a few years, decades or even centuries is pretty irrelevant.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by chrisisall:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:

for a planet 4+ billion years old, what takes place over a few years, decades or even centuries is pretty irrelevant.

---

You should get an AWARD for that, AU... just not sure what kind...either way, you have outdone yourself once again!

---

An AWARD ? Really? Cool! Mamma would be so proud!



"False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil." - Socrates

" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:

An AWARD ? Really? Cool! Mamma would be so proud!

---

BTW AU, I passed your entertaining little quote onto the climate change thread at the UK site I frequent, and this was the response (and remember, this is from someone that doesn't know you personally, just replying to the substance, or lack thereof, of your words):

Quote:

---

The quoted American clearly has a very narrow view on things: he tries to demonstrate others' unscientific behaviour but manages not to supply objective counterarguments himself. It's science all over the place with discussions like these. Granted, to what propagandising means the numbers concerning GW are used by some people, is beyond our control. Some indeed may only pretend to care (or to not care) for the sake of more electoral gain. But denying GW is like denying the hole in the ozone layer while our very CFC's were actually reducing its thickness below critical minima. History has caught up with these nay-sayers and we are now perfectly aware of ozone depletion. GW will just be another struggle of science versus stubbornness. At least we, scientists, have our views based on indisputable facts, have them tested time and again, and work vigorously to also devise a solution. It's easy to say there's no such thing as global warming because that effectively fires you from the responsibility to help us do something about it. It's also cowardly. And since our American friend brought the holocaust into this (which I find tasteless to be frank), those who said "we didn't know about it" actually meant "we knew about it but wouldn't dare do something about it". I'm not that guy, sorry.

---

Imagine if he knew you...

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:
Did he/she KNOW this is a message board, and not a peer review journal ? I'm guessing not.

---

So what you have to say is basically meaningless since it's directed at specific peeps in a specific way, and cannot be dissected or analysed for its content validity by other than its intended audience lest it be somehow misconstrued as being non-technical in nature and therefore incorrect even though seemingly not seen as incorrect by you, its progenitor. HMMM. You said a mouthful there, AU.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/18/hansens-nasa-giss-cooling-the-pa
st-warming-the-present/

---

Quote:

---

Titan is the only known moon with more than a trace of atmosphere, and is the only dense, nitrogen-rich atmosphere in the Solar System aside from the Earth's. Observations of the atmosphere, made in 2004 by Cassini, suggest that Titan is a "super rotator", like Venus, with an atmosphere that rotates much faster than its surface.[28] Observations from the Voyager space probes have shown that the Titanian atmosphere is denser than Earth's, with a surface pressure about 1.45 times that of Earth's. Titan's atmosphere is about 1.19 times as massive as Earth's overall,[29] or about 7.3 times more massive on a per surface area basis. It supports opaque haze layers that block most visible light from the Sun and other sources and renders Titan's surface features obscure.[30] Titan's lower gravity means that its atmosphere is far more extended than Earth's.[31] The atmosphere of Titan is opaque at many wavelengths and a complete reflectance spectrum of the surface is impossible to acquire from orbit.[32] It was not until the arrival of the Cassini–Huygens mission in 2004 that the first direct images of Titan's surface were obtained.[33]

The atmospheric composition in the stratosphere is 98.4% nitrogen with the remaining 1.6% composed mostly of methane (1.4%) and hydrogen (0.1–0.2%).[7] There are trace amounts of other hydrocarbons, such as ethane, diacetylene, methylacetylene, acetylene and propane, and of other gases, such as cyanoacetylene, hydrogen cyanide, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, cyanogen, argon and helium.[6] The hydrocarbons are thought to form in Titan's upper atmosphere in reactions resulting from the breakup of methane by the Sun's ultraviolet light, producing a thick orange smog.[34] Titan spends 95% of its time within Saturn's magnetosphere, which may help shield Titan from the solar wind.

---

Quote:

---

The solar wind affects the other incoming cosmic rays interacting with the atmosphere of planets. Moreover, planets with a weak or non-existent magnetosphere are subject to atmospheric stripping by the solar wind.

Venus, the nearest and most similar planet to Earth in the Solar System, has an atmosphere 100 times denser than our own, with little or no geo-magnetic field. Modern space probes have discovered a comet-like tail that extends to the orbit of the Earth.[34]

Earth itself is largely protected from the solar wind by its magnetic field, which deflects most of the charged particles; however some of the charged particles are trapped in the Van Allen radiation belt. A smaller number of particles from the solar wind manage to travel, as though on an electromagnetic energy transmission line, to the Earth's upper atmosphere and ionosphere in the auroral zones. The only time the solar wind is observable on the Earth is when it is strong enough to produce phenomena such as the aurora and geomagnetic storms. Bright auroras strongly heat the ionosphere, causing its plasma to expand into the magnetosphere, increasing the size of the plasma geosphere, and causing escape of atmospheric matter into the solar wind. Geomagnetic storms result when the pressure of plasmas contained inside the magnetosphere is sufficiently large to inflate and thereby distort the geomagnetic field.

Mars is larger than Mercury and four times farther from the Sun, and yet even here it is thought that the solar wind has stripped away up to a third of its original atmosphere, leaving a layer 1/100th as dense as the Earth's. It is believed the mechanism for this atmospheric stripping is gas being caught in bubbles of magnetic field, which are ripped off by solar winds.

---

Quote:

---

Temperature is essential as well. That said, good friend, a small temperature rise will not immediately wash away our atmosphere in one big sweep - of course - but all disturbances, no matter how small, in the end add up to reach full catastrophe.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by chrisisall:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
you can't get past your own bias and hysteria even for a minute.

---

I AM NOT HYSTERICAL!!!!

---

Quote:

---

But who has ever said the Earth's climate doesn't change?

---

Quote:

---

That was the point I made with the cave paintings from 27,000 years ago, which were above sea level then, but are now below sea level.

---

Quote:

---

The myth that the AGW crowd is pushing is that weather is stable and unchanging, save for when man fires up the coal fired power plants and drives around in SUVs.

---

Quote:

---

up to 96% of all marine species[4] and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species becoming extinct.[5] It is the only known mass extinction of insects.[6][7] Some 57% of all families and 83% of all genera became extinct

---

Quote:

---

Further evidence for environmental change around the P–Tr boundary suggests an 8 °C (14.4 °F) rise in temperature,[16] and an increase in CO2 levels by 2000 ppm (by contrast, the concentration immediately before the industrial revolution was 280 ppm;[16] in October 2010, this concentration was 388 ppm, some 108 ppm higher

---

Quote:

---

But for a planet 4+ billion years old, what takes place over a few years, decades or even centuries is pretty irrelevant.

---

Quote:

---

Just wait till we start fighting over water.

---

Quote:

---

Just OOC, if the paintings are now "below" sea level, doesn't that mean they're underwater? If so, how were they found?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Just OOC, if the paintings are now "below" sea level, doesn't that mean they're underwater? If so, how were they found?

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

But for a planet 4+ billion years old, what takes place over a few years, decades or even centuries is pretty irrelevant.

---

Changing the climate is like pulling a trigger ... it doesn't take a long time or a lot of energy to start the process, but it can release a lot of energy and cause a lot of damage disproportionate to the activity that started it in the first place.

---

Quote:

---

Sooner or later... probably too late... you and all of the other cretins will wake up and realize that you screwed up. But if you think the war raging across the mideast and north Africa is a mess, please realize that we're only fighting over oil. Just wait till we start fighting over water.

Heh, THAT'LL teach ya!

---

Quote:

---

I provided the link to the story, and I guess I should have added the pic here to the thread, just for clarity. The paintings are above water, as they were 27,000 years ago. The cave ENTRANCE , which was above sea level at the time, has since been submerged by ... hold on, rising sea levels And this water has risen 30,40, 50? ft, not the 1/10th of an inch, as we hear AGW nuts wail and moan about , over the next 100 years.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
I'm not sure how that renders global warming a non-issue? Warming in the past doesn't mean there isn't warming now. Like I've said, it's not going to be a doomsday scenario, but there ARE certain ramifications and damages than can be predicted. More disease, because diseases thrive in warm temperatures, extinctions and stresses on wildlife and agriculture, storms, and etc.

I'm a scientist, I don't set policy. But I think it's important for people to be informed of realistic scenarios.

---

Quote:

---

I'm a scientist

---

Quote:

---

Not like there's anything we can DO about it.

---

Quote:

---

A little Ghost Busters humor there.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Niki2:

It's not just the UK, as you know, Chris, it's pretty much the rest of the "civilized" world, and quite a bit of the rest, as well.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Niki2:

(Ay-yup to that part, too. True, you can't blame the impaired, but CHOOSING to be impaired is no excuse.)

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Niki2:
maybe I'll go clean the rabbit's cage.

---

Fair enough, Niki.

On topic here though, the climate crazy jetstream has caused it to go from 50 degrees here last Monday to -9 tonight. Wacky fun!

Quote:

---

But the phonied up hysteria of AGW has to be the single fastest dangerous cult we're facing today.

---

Quote:

---

Point is, even IF it's warming now, so what? Not like there's anything we can DO about it.

---

Quote:

---

And the fact that it happens, is proof that man can't be the sole cause of climate change.

---

Quote:

---

Or even a minor contributor.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by BYTEMITE:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2013/01/22/rain-in-the-arctic/#
.UQA0ar8pFL8

Interesting read.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Niki2:

He even seems to be admitting it, by signing "RapContrarianisal". Huh.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:

I'm guessing you have The Day After Tomorrow in your DVD collection.

---