[Vision2020] Human Activity Accelerating Astronomical Effects By Factor Of 10 Million

[Ted Moffett]

Paul et. al.

Paul wrote:

We've been around for a mere few million years, only the last few thousand
of which we've had the ability to write things down.  This is a small
fraction of time for the Sun.  Our observations of the Sun has occurred over
such a small timescale that we can basically say that we've only seen it as
a static observation.
------
Good point, a point that applies in different ways to many scientific
issues...We could question whether gravity has always operated as we
observe, given the over 10 billion year history of the universe, and our
limited time scale of observation.  Science makes certain assumptions about
how the universe operates, and the continuity of the "laws of nature" is one
of those assumptions, continuity over time and in different places in the
universe.  This principle cannot be "proved" without a doubt, as far as I
know

But science does have its "time machines" to see into the past before humans
could make observations directly.  The theory of biological evolution is not
based on just the life forms we have observed evolving since Darwin, but on
the evidence of fossils from Earth's history, offering a kind of scientific
"time machine" giving information on life forms millions of years before
humans walked the planet.  And in astronomy, we have observations of many
different kinds of stars from many different stages of evolution, providing
a kind of "time machine" to allow us by inference to look into our suns past
and future.  The information we get from distant stars is in some ways like
a fossil (I don't intend this as an exact analogy), given that this
information sometimes took longer than the history of the human race to
reach us...It's mind boggling, but astronomy gathers information about the
universe dating from billions of years ago, even before our solar system
formed.
------
Paul wrote:

I think the 0.8 billion year number you quoted is the time it will take for
the slow process of hydrogen fusion at the core to raise the Earth's
temperature 5%.
------
The article I quoted on stellar evolution said that due to our suns
evolution the Earth would warm 5 degrees in 0.8 billion years, not 5%.

As to how reliable this figure is, I cannot say for sure, given I have not
surveyed the scientific consensus on this issue in this field, and there may
not be a consensus.

I was wondering, can you offer some sources, articles, books, or websites,
for the information you were providing on stellar evolution?

Ted Moffett

Ted Moffett wrote:

>
> All-
>
> Our sun will eventually cause fatal increases in Earth temperature in its
> inevitable evolution into a red giant star.  When will these temperature
> impacts become significant?  The article below estimates that in 800 million
> years the sun's impact will raise Earth temperatures by 5 degrees, the same
> amount predicted by some global warming models for the human impact on
> global temperatures in the next century:
>
> http://www.sussex.ac.uk/press_office/media/media191.pdf
>
>
> http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:hAqjwfgBKT4J:www.sussex.ac.uk/press_office/media/media191.pdf+time+remaining+Earth+biosphere+sun+expansion&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us
>
>
> "As a first application, let us ask how long it will take for the
> temperature of the Earth to rise by 5 degrees (the rise anticipated in the
> next century or so if the current human-induced greenhouse effect continues
> unchecked).  The equation predicts it will take the evolving sun about about
> 0.8 billion years to produce this rise- so human activity may
> be accelerating astronomical effects by a factor of about 10 million."
> ------
> This puts the highly doubtful claim that the current warming trend on
> Earth is mostly due to increases in solar activity into perspective, it
> seems.
>
> Ted Moffett
>
>
>
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