Telescopes Useless by 2050?

Wellerite writes "Gerry Gilmore, from Cambridge University, has told the BBC that ground-based telescopes will be worthless by 2050. This is due to more and more cloud cover caused by climate change and increasing numbers of aircraft vapour trails. It seems to be time to start preparing to launch more orbit-based telescopes."

Antarctica?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the article: A location has not been decided; but, despite the difficulties of access, Antarctica may become an option. The icy region has relatively clear skies, with a climate that is somewhat separate from other continents, and, crucially, is free from overflying commercial jets.

Re:Complete and utter rubbish...

[CanSpice]

And this blocks out the light needed for ground based telescopes that are a) situated ABOVE the clouds and b) are not on flightpaths.

I have two points to make here.

One: clouds go pretty high. The telescopes on Mauna Kea in Hawaii are situated at ~14,000 feet. They get clouded out relatively frequently, roughly 20% of the time.

Two: Contrails form in the atmosphere. The atmosphere moves. Therefore contrails move, and can affect locations where there aren't any flightpaths.

Re:Antarctica?

[Tango42]

Actually cold is good for telescopes - it reduces the amount of infra-red the telescope and surrounding objects emit so there's less interference. I expect it's more of an issue with radio scopes than optical, but I know a lot of effort goes into cooling telescopes (and we're talking liquid helium, not just nitrogren - very cold!).

Re:Skepticism is well and good, but...

[jettoki]

Nice try, but Seeing is determined by air currents which are directly impacted by moisture and temperature in the high atmosphere. Seeing is the true limiting factor of any kind of ground-based optical observation. Transparency is not what I was talking about.

Simply put, I should not have trouble making out 2 out of 4 of the Trapezium on a perfectly clear winter night, 15 miles outside of town. But that HAS been the case, at all of my regular observation spots, whereas it was not 10 years ago.

Maybe you live in an area with better currents than me, but 50 years ago, my state had no problem with this. 50 years from now, there's a chance you'll have the same problem. Sensationalistic or no, I'll take whatever publicity I can get to make people aware of this problem. Acting as if it's a bunch of 'poppy-cock' isn't going to help.

Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, thats right, we're in the middle of Global Warming. That is the threat WHICH WE ARE ACTUALLY FACING. Not a new ice age.

Well, according to these folks [newscientist.com] and number of others, there's a significant risk that slight increases in ocean temperatures will trigger an ice age, first in Europe, then spreading over much of the northern hemisphere as the increased snow coverage significantly reduces solar heating. So, it might be a new ice age, it might not.

That is why people call it 'climate change'...

Personally, I think people who get worked up about the semantics should rather spend their effort trying to educate others about the situation, and the potential consequences of humanity's actions over the past few centuries. Oh, and stocking up on Sunblock 2000 while they're learning how to build igloos... ;-)