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Titan has Earth-style 'climate change', says prof

Scientists at Cal Tech say they have cracked the puzzling conundrum of the polar patio-gas lakes of Titan, moon of Saturn. The reason why such bodies of fluid are found at the moon's north pole but not at its antarctic is apparently eccentricity in Saturn's orbit, of the same type as that governing ice ages on Earth. Regular Reg …

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Anonymous Coward
Coat

It's all our fault.

If there's global warming on Titan then Bono and Macca will soon be telling us it's our fault for driving cars, using aeroplanes or eating meat.

TeeCee
Joke

Next week:

A scandal over the Titanian climactic data fudging that went into this report to drive down the price of northern hemisphere beachfront properties and justify the Trans-Saturnian government's patio-heater tax.

All laid bare by Iapetan hackers on wikigasleaks.

David Edwards
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So much for Titan AE

Tital after earth, so much for Disney.

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

Climate Change 101

Since we have the climate change deniers back, let me explain climate change 101 in ways you can check yourself. The science isn't complex, you can understand it directly without all these talking heads, go look for yourself.

1. The sun heats the earth, the earth gives off Infrared radiation as a result, as do most things.

[Think of the police Infrared cameras at night picking out warm things that emit infra-red, think how bright the earth looks during the day through those things]

2. The infrared strikes molecules in the atmosphere, and the chemical bond in the gas resonates, then reemits the heat, again as infra-red, but in all directions, including back down to the earth. Mostly water vapour and CO2 bonds.

[You know how a cloudy night keeps the heat in? That's the water vapour bond resonance bouncing the heat from the earth back.. i.e. you've seen this effect yourself]

3. We're increasing CO2, (and water vapour) by burning petroleum (hydrocarbons) e.g. CH4 + O2 + O2 -> CO2 + 2H2O).

[basic chemistry]

i.e. it's all straight forwards, nothing complex, and the predictions for it are about 3.5 degrees over a century, which is a lot. And it's measured, and recorded from before 1980, as is the shrinking of the icebergs and so on.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/

1of10
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NO-Climate Change 101 - 100

Isn't a matter of "deniers" it is a matter of wasted millions on 15y/20y research and nothing proved till now today.

This doesn't mean that one day some scientist will have a bright idea of using data set which doesn't need hide to omit temperatures declines to backup his/political claim. And that data set could be shared and tests replicated where every time is tested the results are the same... Once this happens then is no longer one unproved theory but the truth.

What gets into my nerves is why my 6yo kid will going to be brain washed every day on his class room with this unproved theory... so lets cut the political rubbish in science now.

Therefore don't call deniers to others when you are obvious denying your self from knowing the truth.

http://di2.nu/foia/

John Sanders
WTF?
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Its so easy....

So easy that the people who was in charge of warning us had to fake the data for our own good.

Let's say that contamination is bad and we have to contaminate as less as possible for our sake and the environment's.

But stop this nonsense about the climate please.

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward
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Better that than Glenn Beck

"What gets into my nerves is why my 6yo kid will going to be brain washed every day on his class room with this unproved theory... so lets cut the political rubbish in science now."

Well no, "1)" He'll learn from watching police camera action, with their Infrared cameras.

"2)" He'll observe himself when he asks how the clouds keep the heat in.

"3)" Is combustion, and he'll learn that as part of Biology CSE.

Better that than he learns it from some rant of Glenn Beck ranting some Essex University emails talking about somebody I've never heard.

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward
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Who is they? These people in charge?

"So easy that the people who was in charge of warning us had to fake the data for our own good."

See Glenn Beck tells me that emails from Essex University about some bloke whom I don't know means that Global Warming isn't happening and hasn't been measured and it's all a con and the temperature hasn't risen.

Whereas NASA says "this is the temperature rise that we've measured using our satellites":

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/

And this is matched by the paleoclimate data

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/2006/Hansen_etal_1.html

And the mechanism is solid, and passes common sense tests. So what I'd like to know is what is at dispute here?

Diogenes
Boffin
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Climate Change 101 - Albedo effect

And the clouds then reflect some of th at energy back in what is known as the Albedo effect so the net effect is an energy balance.

And then there are ocean currents moving heat/energy , the suggestion that forests actually emit more GHG than they absorb

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward
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Albedo Effect

"And the clouds then reflect some of th at energy back in what is known as the Albedo effect so the net effect is an energy balance."

Not balanced, because the sun emission is broad spectrum light (not just IR) whereas the earth radiation is largely in the infra red range.

See the NASA graphs for their measurements of temperature increases.

Cameron Colley
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Why do you _know_ this but nobody else does?

It seems that, at present, you are the only person outside of the people who steal our money in the name of Carbons (AKA The Government) who is sure that anthropogenic climate change is fact.

As has been touched on by another commenter: Most people, even on here, will probably agree that relying on fossil fuels causes political, financial, and environmental problems; and that polluting the environment with anything is probably a bad thing. However, some of us are getting a little pissed off at being constantly told that we can't use patio heaters and taxed more and more multiple times whenever we use any kind of transport just because a clique of scientists got onto a good thing for government funding.

There is also the small problem that the planet's climate will change without any "greenhouse gasses", as evidenced by this article, and some of us would rather like the world's governments to stop taxing us and bleating on about carbons and actually start thinking about how to live if the sea levels rise and we start to experience more "heavy weather".

In other words, this article illustrates that the religion of anthropogenic climate change caused by "carbon emissions" is missing the point entirely.

1of10
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I couldn't agree more

".....It seems that, at present, you are the only person outside of the people who steal our money in the name of Carbons (AKA The Government) who is sure that anthropogenic climate change is fact.

As has been touched on by another commenter: Most people, even on here, will probably agree that relying on fossil fuels causes political, financial, and environmental problems; and that polluting the environment with anything is probably a bad thing. However, some of us are getting a little pissed off at being constantly told that we can't use patio heaters and taxed more and more multiple times whenever we use any kind of transport just because a clique of scientists got onto a good thing for government funding.

There is also the small problem that the planet's climate will change without any "greenhouse gasses", as evidenced by this article, and some of us would rather like the world's governments to stop taxing us and bleating on about carbons and actually start thinking about how to live if the sea levels rise and we start to experience more "heavy weather".

In other words, this article illustrates that the religion of anthropogenic climate change caused by "carbon emissions" is missing the point entirely." ....

--------------------------------------------------------

I couldn't agree more with above comment...

After all we all agree that any reduction in pollution is a good thing... but not necessary the extensive use of what seems to be a new BRAND trend extensively used by politicians and media the so called "Climate Change" which is based on unproved theory.

In a era of extremists... all this "Climate Change" culture isn't more than yet another extremist propaganda...

Enough of politics rubbish dragging the end of science in this country (aka UK)

What we all need is independent scientists that don't need meddle data to backup political claims, but scientists that can irrefutable prove or not the claims... but after 20ys of research it would probably take another 20ys of research to get a working model with less garbage or station omissions.

BTW if we all (humans) stop breathing for 30 minutes... this World would be allot better... and with less CO2 footprints nonsense... have a thought.

Anonymous Coward
Thumb Down

Hang on guys

so yer sayen climate ain't changing on earth and is changing on titan? You believe some science and not other science because it suits you?

Anonymous Coward
Badgers
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The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

El Reg is reporting what somebody else said.

In the case of earthside global warming they have recently reported what's bad about the science, not specifically whether it's right or wrong.

Here's my take:

Good science. You look at historic data for a system and postulate a theory that explains the system taking into account all the recorded data. Then you enter the cycle of testing by observation and amending the theory to explain the observed data. This cycle in the case of something as complex as climate science will go on forever.

Bad Science. You look at historic data for a system and postulate a theory that explains the system taking into account some the recorded data and some data which wasn't recorded, but derived from some other untested theories. Then you observe the system and discard any inconvenient data and/or adjust the historic data so that your theory still works. Hey, the historic data must be wrong if it doesn't fit the theory.

Actually that's not bad science. It's not science at all.

Just a thought guys. Maybe the theory's wrong if it doesn't fit the data. And maybe, just maybe, theoretical measurements like temperatures based on tree ring measurements aren't a reliable source of data. Ah, but you already know that don't you? That's why you have to adjust the data.

Matthew 17
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not quite

No, they're saying that if it's happening on Titan then changes in the climate are natural and thus we should adapt to the changes rather than spend $42Trillion on a pointless scheme that won't make any difference other than to impose massive controls on how folk live their lives.

No-one has been able to establish any link between temperature and human emissions, if the Earth is getting warmer, or colder the cause has not been established. If it was it would be in the IPCC report, the closest they've gotten to that was the discredited 'hockey stick' graph.

Nebulo
Happy

Orbital Forcing?

Is that when your eyes pop out at seeing someone commenting on the Reg in _favour_ of the Anthropological Global Warming Theory, a.k.a. Discredited Debacle?

Anonymous Coward
Boffin

Climate change should be science not religion

I don't think anyone can seriously deny that the earth is warming up. The questions are (a) why? (b) what will happen and (c) what are we going to do about it.

(a) is explained by correlation with CO2 emmissions, but temp also correlates just as well with solar activity. So what's driving what? Even if CO2 produced by us is a factor, how significant is it really? There are apparently some nice models using CO2 emmissions as main drivers, but models are only models and can be tweaked and altered to match known historical data. I bet given all the resources available I could produce a model matching historical data that just uses solar activity as a driver. So the key is (b) - is there any model, published 2000 or earlier that has accurately predicted not only temperature but also CO2 levels, ice formation, rainfall, and a whole load of other factors, right up to today? (without any adjustments introduced in the interim) I haven't heard of any, if there are I would be happy to be pointed in that direction.

Only then can we see what to do about it, and in a proper pro / con way. For example, won't a warmer earth be beneficial to at least part of the world? Would a warmer earth with more CO2 allow us to grow more crops, biomass for fuel, etc?

Mike Bell 2
Boffin

Might I suggest....

That all commenters read the excellent Reg article here (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/30/crugate_analysis/) and pay less attention to that silly TV ad with the drowning cartoon dog.

edwardecl
FAIL

The more a read...

The more I understand that the climate scientists have no clue what is going on. They just push around theories without any proof other than show you nice graphs and attempting to link things using collected data.

The world doesn't work like that and they are only looking at very recent history. The bigger picture shows that the world can be quite a lot hotter and quite a lot colder than today. So what is normal? At the moment the temperatures look fairly stable but increasing. Might just be because we are heading out of an ice age? looks a like a solid pattern to me but I'm no scientist so maybe someone can correct me here.

It also looks like we are heading into another ice age (again feel free to correct me) in the future. I wonder if they think we can stop it. The climate changes without our intervention in the past so what has changed to make us thing we are the cause of it all, when hundreds of thousands of years ago the climate changed, perhaps we had a car industry back then that I am not aware of.

David Robinson 2

Scientific truth?

We keep hearing of all the fiddles and tricks that seem to be all that some people need to 'prove' AGW, but why do people that do real science get ignored? What about those Danish scientists who have investigated the role of cosmic rays in driving the earth's temperatures? Any reasonable person would see that they have amassed vastly more evidence for their theory, without all the deceit that GW climatologists require and who cannot yet give any proofs or open their 'evidence' for other scientists to review and work on.

dave

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