Four Major Factors That Cause The Climate To Change
It has been nearly three decades since the topic of global warming, and then climate change, came on the scene as a hot (pardon the pun) topic on the pages and screens of our news media.
Most people have taken sides as to whether or not humanity plays a role in determining the temperature of our planet.
Whichever side you choose, it may not matter because the majority of the people will make the final decision. This decision making majority is not into the climate change debate for personal gains, political power, or social rewards.
It is out of genuine concern to do the right thing for humanity, their children, and all life on Earth. Yet many are ambivalent, confused about the science or lack thereof to support one opinion or the other confidently.
I believe that most are concerned with the least important factors rather than the most accurate answers.
Let’s first establish that climate change is most definitely real. We all know that in the past, there were ice ages and woolly mammoths.
We know about the heat of the dust bowl years of the 1930s pictured in the famous movie The Grapes of Wrath.
Here I plan to give you the major vital factors that cause the climate to change.
I choose to divide the controlling factors into four groups, leaving last those issues with which the reader is likely most familiar.
The first group is related to the planetary orbit of the Earth around the Sun. The closer the Earth is to the Sun, the warmer it will be on Earth.
We learned in grade school that the Earth is 93 million miles away, orbiting around it once a year. But this orbit is not always the same but is always changing.
At times, the orbit is almost perfectly round; then, over thousands of years, it elongates and looks like a stretched out pancake, which we call an ellipse.
Figure 1
About every 100,000 years, the Sun makes a complete shift from this maximum elliptical shape when the Earth goes as much as 120 million miles away to a near-perfect round shape. Then the Earth is only 83 million miles away and it starts all over again, back to elliptical.
This changing distance between the Earth and the Sun makes a big difference, which results in a change in our climate.
Picture yourself at a campfire sitting nine feet from the fire and then moving to a place seven feet from the fire. That is the same ratio the Earth experiences moving between 83 million miles and 120 million miles.
The second factor that figures in the climate change story is the tilt of the Earth relative to the Sun.
Presently this tilt is 23.7 degrees as shown in Figure 1, but again things are always changing.
The northern hemisphere of the Earth will slowly tilt more toward the Sun, then slowly starts tilting back away from the Sun. But after 40,000 years, it will be back to the tilt we see today.
Within those 40,000 years, the tilt can range between 24.5 and 22.7 degrees. The tilt is significant as it determines winter, spring, summer, and fall and what their temperature ranges are likely to be.
The third group of factors that impact the Earth is contained within the Sun itself. The Sun undergoes very complicated and powerful magnetic cycles from high activity to low activity.
It is easy to tell the difference from here on Earth. When the activity is high, we see lots of spots on the Sun. When we see few or even none, we know the activity levels are low, as can be solar radiation.
Scientists have been carefully counting these spots for hundreds of years since Galileo got his first telescope.
With satellites and advanced telescopes, NASA gets a count every day and also measures how big or small they are.
Figure 2
As we see in Figure 2, scientists discovered without a question that these events go up and down in clear 11-year cycles.
Believe it or not, astronomers have recorded 24 such cycles in the past 250 years. Presently we are at the end of a cycle with near-zero sunspots.
NASA has confirmed in recent years that increasing sunspots are linked to increases in Earth temperature as well as the other planets, like Mars and Saturn, and even the moons.
Essentially, none of the factors in these three groups are seriously considered in the alarmist views.
They tell us that we are the primary forces controlling Earth temperatures by the burning of fossil fuels and releasing their carbon dioxide. I hope my readers can recognize the absurdity of their claims.
Now to the final group 4, the factors that logically and recognizably play a role in climate change.
It is these variables that climate modelers try to use to create equations that supposedly tell us about how our climate will change for the coming decades.
These factors are easy to understand but mostly impossible to predict.
They include such things as the impact of clouds, the role of sea ice and glaciers, hurricanes and tornadoes, vegetation, the balance between the Earth’s water, water vapor and ice, as well as the energy, flows between the oceans, the land, and the air.
With these tools and methods, we can predict the weather for the next few days, maybe even weeks away. Surely they can’t predict the weather a year away, let alone decades into the future.
I hope this short tutorial on the big climate change picture will make you more skeptical. After all, that’s the first responsibility of all real scientists: run experiments, gather data, put together a theory, then have as many experts try to shoot it down as best they can.
The output of computer models is not data. Instead, these models are used to justify the nonsense they tell us: that life on Earth will end in a dozen or so years along with other ridiculous predictions for the future.
Note: Portions of this article were excerpted from the 2020 book A Hitchhikers Journey Through Climate Change with the permission of its coauthor Terigi Ciccone. The book is the best possible source for parents and grandparents to explain reality to their children.
Earth in space image by Guillaume Preat from Pixabay
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geran
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CO2 did not make the top 4, and it wouldn’t even make the top 100.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Readers,
I do not know everything but I do know somethings. Dr Jay Lehr wrote: “The second factor that figures in the climate change story is the tilt of the Earth relative to the Sun. Presently this tilt is 23.7 degrees as shown in Figure 1, but again things are always changing. The northern hemisphere of the Earth will slowly tilt more toward the Sun, then slowly starts tilting back away from the Sun. But after 40,000 years, it will be back to the tilt we see today.”
In 1638, Louis Elzevir, the publisher of Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences, wrote in the preface to the reader (as translated by Crew and de Salvio): “intuitive knowledge keeps pace with accurate definition.”
To accurately define the tilt of 23.7 degrees one must first define the plane in which the earth orbits about the sun. There is no mention (or image) of such a plane in:Figure 1. The tilt being referred to is the angle of the axis about which the earth rotates as it revolves about the sun along the plane of its orbit. The tilt of the earth’s axis of rotation to the plane of the earth’s orbit does not change as where the axis of rotation points (relative to the sun) during northern hemisphere’s seasons (spring, summer, fall, winter) does change.
And it is observed the earth is closer to the sun during the the northern hemisphere’s winter season (the southern hemisphere’s summer season). Lehr does not even describe that it the tilt of the rotation axis of the earth’s rotation relative to the plane of revolution of the earth about the sun which is the cause of the very obvious seasons at the earth’s high latitudes. In the tropics there is only slight evidence of the fact that Earth’s distance from the sun varies because the earth’s orbit is elliptical.
Lehr states: “Within those 40,000 years, the tilt can range between 24.5 and 22.7 degrees. The tilt is significant as it determines winter, spring, summer, and fall and what their temperature ranges are likely to be.” If the tilt can range between 24.5 and 22.7 degrees.during the 40,000 year period of the Earth’s precession; it can only be a minor perturbation upon on the seasonal influence of to where this ’tilt’ points during its revolution about the sun with a period of one year.
Given the observed fact how temperatures are observed to vary from one day to the next and from the same day of the year to the same day of the previous or the following year, it seems a stretch that the perturbation of 24.5 to 22.7 degrees.during the 40,000 year period could produce any observable evidence that this perturbation even exists.
And there is another factor which needs to be considered. An accepted fundamental rule of Science is that a scientific idea (hypothesis, theory) should predict something not yet seen. Einstein with his theories predicted the magnitude of the effect of what his theories predicted. Did Milankovitch ever predict the magnitude of anything ‘new’ that his theory predicted? From what I read he was only trying to explain how it could be that glaciers had once, or multiple times, covered the northern portions of the northern hemisphere’s continents. What did he predict beside these observation that had been observed?
It seems the many scientists have forgotten that Newton began Book III of The Principlia with four Rules of Reasoning In Philosophy. (As translated by Motte)
I close this comment with the question: Why did Newton not refer to these four rules as Rules of Reasoning in Science???
Have a good days, Jerry
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Michael Clarke
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Hi PSI and Jerry,
I feel another Orbital Mechanics lesson is needed!
The Earth has to follow the very HARD rules regarding orbits. To change it’s orbit would require incredibly vast expenditure of reaction mass in a specific direction and at specific times of day for centuries!
The Earths variable eccentric orbit over long time frames is an oscillation caused by factors that pertained some 4.5 billion years ago when the early solar system first separated out of a cloud of material. Over more billions of years the motions of the Earth and the rest of the bodies orbiting the sun will all slowly change. The reasons for those changes are poorly understood but relative MASS is the fundamental cause. Resolve the three body orbit equations and win a Nobel prize.
Space is not empty. The Sun is discharging mass at significant rate, the sun is NOT stationary it oscillates up and down about the ‘plane’ of the Milky Way. The Earth is being dragged along with the sun! That means it is behind the sun some of the time and when the sun changes its direction the Earth has to slow down and reverse course to follow the suns new direction. Perturbations to orbits of planets and moons will always exist but they are not able to be changed by humans! Our moon is on an escape trajectory, creeping further and further away with every orbit.
The changes in the Earth’s tilt is an established fact. The Earths plane about the sun does slowly change over a period of 26 million years. The Earth’s axis changes just like a spinning top in a process called pression. In the Earth’s case that is most noticeable because the Earth is NOT a solid mass, it has oceans, more importantly it has a molten interior which is in constant but slow movement. The Earth’s Mass is therefore not centered upon a fixed point but MOBILE hence the variable wobble!
Regarding the temperature changes due to this wobble. THERE is NO Temperature change due to it! The ‘Mediterranean Climate’ regions move up and down, the range of the Tropics change. The overall temperature remains essentially the same.
The slow change in distance from the sun, and more importantly which hemisphere is closest in Summer has a huge effect.
To summarize.
ORBITS DO NOT CHANGE WITHOUT CHANGES IN MASS or Mass distribution..
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Michael,
We agree except I am very uncomfortable with any knowledge of time periods. We simply do not know.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Andy Rowlands
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The four things listed in this article are the primary drivers of our climate. They are all ignored by alarmists, who now claim the Sun has zero influence on the climate and that 100% of our temperature is controlled by ‘greenhouse gases’.
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Matt
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Hi readers. I am reading James Cook’s Journals again and after circumnavigating both main islands of New Zealand he sailed up the East coast of Australia on his first voyage of discovery.
He can identify where there are inhabitants by the “smooks”. ( home fires burning )
At Botany Bay ( Sydney ) modern day Brisbane and further North in Northern Queensland he takes walks some 4 to 5 miles inland to ascertain the fertility and nature of the country side. On each occasion he describes large individual trees without undergrowth and individual tufts of grass.
On 2 occasions some aboriginal people light wildfires to create a fire boundary between the explorers and themselves.
In relation to the recent fires in Australia Cook describes a coastal landscape that appears to be maintained free of wildfire fuel by the inhabitants.
It is claimed by some possessing Australian indigenous knowledge that the Aborigine people spent one third of their active time doing controlled burn offs for fire control and as a hunting mechanism.
I note on the Global MSLP map that the Britain appears to be currently having some balmy spring weather but not as warm as last Easter.
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Brian James
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Apr 11, 2020 Solar Eruption, Big Volcano, Big Announcement | S0 News
Daily Sun, Earth and Science News
https://youtu.be/Cy_PlbhA2eU
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tom0mason
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The ‘climate’ is not particularly easily analysed or very predictable, as the factors that make-up our climate are coupled together in chaotically variable ways. Variable ways that often involving major and minor controlling factors having variable degrees of feedback and chaotic coupling interrelationships.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi TomO
I agree there have been and will be chaotic events. I am waiting to see what will be the result of these scientists involved in the MOSAiC project. They and we are learning (actually observing) things which have only been imagined before.
For I am very curious about what the carbon dioxide content of the deep water which being injected with the carbon dioxide at great pressures via volcanic activity.as I see it. Robert Beatty likes to refer to Henry’s Law. Does the pressure of the water above the deep ocean bottom squeeze the carbon dioxide into the water or out of the water? What is the density of this bottom salt water. A very interesting chemical problem.
Have a good day, Jerry
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