Which Threat Is Real – Anthropogenic Global Warming Or Asteroid Strikes?
The Issue Of Human Caused Global Warming
People who believe in human-caused global warming (or anthropogenic global warming) give compelling representations of proof to support their beliefs. Such representations of proof endure, however, because these people mistakenly allow correlation to replace causation, while heated emotions win out over sound reasoning. A one-dimensional view of a single statistic (average global temperature), thus, misrepresents complex dynamics of multiple separated regions of Earth.
An increase or decrease in the value of this single statistic supposedly indicates "global warming" or "global cooling" respectively. Widespread acceptance of such a numerical value has become the basis for believing that dire climatic consequences will follow from human industrial activities.
I have written nine hubpages that present challenges to this popular view:
1. http://robertkernodle.hubpages.com/hub/2013-Human-Caused-Global-Warming-Truth-Is-An-Elusive-Beast
7. http://robertkernodle.hubpages.com/hub/SEA-ICE-Cooling-The-Fear-Of-Human-Caused-Climate-Change
8. http://robertkernodle.hubpages.com/hub/GLACIERS-The-Cold-Hard-Facts-Of-Climate-Change
I, thus, have concluded that human-caused (or anthropogenic) global warming is NOT real.
Why Anthropogenic Global Warming Is NOT Real
Greenhouse Misnomer
Continuing to name Earth's heating mechanism the "Greenhouse Effect" misleads intelligent individuals to envision a mass of air as a pane of glass that traps heat. This picture is wrong. Experts who routinely use the name, "Greenhouse Effect", know that this picture is wrong, but these experts perpetuate the misnomer as a convenience of tradition.
An outdated misnomer, thus, encourages misconceptions about how Earth's atmosphere acquires and transports heat. Misconceptions about heat transport then fuel a host of claims about how a minuscule change (by humans) in atmospheric CO2 endangers the planet.
Even though scientists have identified added atmospheric CO2 as a product of human beings, these scientists have not causally connected the tiny human fraction of this gas to any unusual warming of the planet. The line of evidence establishing such a causal link simply does NOT exist. A human cause is assumed, NOT proved.
Pseudo Statistics
The very concept of "global temperature" is open to question. Here basic mathematics conflates complex dynamics of vastly different and vastly separated regions of the entire planet into one simple statistic, cited to a hundredth of a degree precision. Using this statistic in any argument of numerical proof, then, seems ill founded.
Mistaken Identity
The word, "radiating", does NOT automatically equal the word, "heating". Radiation of cooler bodies cannot possibly heat radiation of warmer bodies, already radiating at the cooler-body energy and beyond. Radiation from a cooler body "joins the dance" of a warmer body, so to speak. At best, radiation from a cooler to a warmer body can slow the cooling of the warmer body, but at a distance that still allows the warmer air to rise above the cooler air. This slowing of cooling, in other words, does NOT occur in a static boundary layer.
These are facts that people confuse when they speak of "back radiation". The term, "back radiation" mistakes the identity of heat for the identity of radiation. The idea of "back radiation" once again calls up the greenhouse image where heat bounces off a static layer. NO such static layer in Earth's atmosphere exists that serves as a generator of heating radiation. First, the radiation originating from a cooler Earth atmosphere cannot heat an already warmer Earth surface. Second, the location of cooling and the rate of cooling do NOT remain fixed in such a way that heat build-up occurs below a supposedly constraining boundary layer.
There is NO back radiation. There simply is radiation. All matter above absolute zero radiates. All matter, therefore, has a heat signature in this respect. Instruments that measure radiation from the sky, then, are taking account of "heat" in respect to absolute zero, NOT in respect to ground temperature alone. Again, "radiating" does NOT equal "heating".
Cooling Conundrum
As mentioned above, the location where cooling of the Earth occurs is NOT confined to a boundary layer rigidly fixed either by altitude or by rate of change. Warm air rises and expands. Additions to warm air increase the height of cooling and the speed at which cooling occurs in a fluid dynamic atmosphere surrounded by frigid outer space. Consequently, neither a back radiating heat layer nor a slow cooling layer exists. A greenhouse in any guise has no place in the explanation of how our planet regulates temperature.
Failed Misconception
Even the misconception of a "global temperature" fails to support itself, since there has been little, to NO, to NEGATIVE change in this statistic for over seventeen years now. Anthropogenic global warming, thus, is NOT real in its most basic terms.
Ocean Heat Hysteria
Recent arguments for anthropogenic global warming have turned towards claims of unusual ocean heating. People who make these claims, on one hand, suggest that seventeen years is too short a span to conclude that there has been no global warming. On the other hand, they cite ocean heat data that appears outdated in comparison to modern ocean heat data that is barely this old, as well. The modern ocean heat data indicates that heat content has increased in only the Indian Ocean. Even so, this supposed increase is minuscule and seemingly well within the norm for ocean systems whose heat content has been fluctuating up and down for eons.
Ocean heat hysteria arises from considering the sun's energy input to Earth in terms of Hiroshima bombs, while concealing the enormous surface area and the extension in time over which these Hiroshima bombs spread out. Hysteria erroneously treats the sheer amount of energy as a point application of this energy. There are NO bombs going off at isolated points. Rather, all this energy spreads out over the entire volume of all Earth's oceans, over a span of time. The claimed rise in Earth's ocean heat content, thus, amounts to a mere few hundredths of a degree, arguably NOT even in the margin of error for current ocean heat measurements.
Money Monopoly Bias
Climate Money
The amount of money available for climate research dwarfs other research areas to such an extent that livelihoods, reputations, and mission statements stand at great risk form challenges to the logic behind it all. This state of affairs enables a strong bias against any attempt to question anthropogenic global warming.
The anthropogenic global warming argument simply has become too profitable for certain people to abandon it. The argument serves as a scheme to preserve salaries, to preserve social statuses, and to preserve organizational articles of incorporation for the purpose of writing grants that pay salaries, maintain social statuses, and validate organizational purposes.
Asteroid Money
From National Research Council (2009), Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies: Interim Report, Washington, DC: The National Academies Press:
"…there has been relatively little effort by the U.S. government to survey, discover, characterize, and mitigate the threat. Requirements have been imposed on NASA in this area without the provision of funds to address them."
Since this report appeared, a private corporation (B612 Foundation) dedicated to detecting and averting lethal asteroids has come into being.
Why The Threat Of Asteroid Strikes IS Real
According to a ... new analysis in 2012 by NASA ..., "… about twice as many potentially hazardous asteroids as previously thought are likely to reside in 'lower-inclination' orbits, which are more aligned with the plane of Earth’s orbit. Asteroids with lower-inclination orbits would be more likely to encounter Earth …"
The PREVENTABLE High Consequences Of Low Risk Asteroid Impacts
Even though the odds of a catastrophic asteroid collision might seem relatively small, the consequences would be extremely devastating. Furthermore, unlike other low risk threats, THESE threats could be PREVENTABLE with enough funding to find them and avert them.
