Changes in Earth's Orbit Linked to Extinctions 311
Josh Fink writes "A group of Dutch Scientists have recently released a study stating that they have found that changes in Earth's orbit around the sun are linked to mammal extinctions. From the article: '"Extinctions in rodent species occur in pulses which are spaced by intervals controlled by astronomical variations and their effects on climate change..." The cycles are associated with lower temperatures, changes in precipitation, habitats, vegetation and food availability which are the main factors influencing the extinction peaks, the study published in the journal Nature said.' So on top of worrying about global warming, it seems we should also worry about the physics that govern the orbit of Earth around the sun. Too bad we don't have a way of keeping the Earth in the same orbit/on the same axis of rotation."
We did... (Score:3, Funny)
We did until George Bush ordered it to be defunded.
Re:We did... (Score:5, Funny)
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But a Grass Roots Movement May Kill Us! (Score:3, Funny)
Stupid people are funny.
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BTW (Score:2, Informative)
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Re:BTW (Score:4, Interesting)
Not saying this necessarily applies; just pointing out that just because a process may be gradual does not mean that its consequences can't be sudden.
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No it isn't:
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Also, it may require alot more water than is available from melting ice.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/12/0412
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"The only downside?" (Score:2)
It's lovely that you have it all figured out and seem to know every consequence of a warming event.... not.
Desertification comes to mind...
http://water-is-life.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]
Also while it may be fun to have laughs at the expense of the "spotted owl lovers" the plunge in biodiversity which has already started won't seem so funny when you are inhaling the neurotoxic fumes of the algeas that take over when the current biosphere can no longer sustain itself.
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That's a huge concern right now, but sadly, that's mostly a matter of land-misuse, not warming.[1] [ciesin.org] In fact, a great many of the threats to our continued health are from forms of environmental damage and pollution that have nothing to do with temperature change in the climate. However, most of those are ignored as the public latches onto global warming as the number-one environmental issue, even in the face of massive chemical spills in China and India that could affect huge
Re:BTW (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian-Triassic_ext
70% of all vertebrate species died in under a million years, leaving fungi dominant. Something of a mass extinction event, eh? (In fact, Earth's worst mass extinction event.) Observe the big temperature spike at PETM. (Top right corner)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1b/65_
Thank you and goodnight.
Re:BTW (Score:4, Funny)
The world's worst extinction event is the Permian-Triassic extinction event (251 million years ago).
That temperature spike is the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (55 million years ago).
Wikipedia has a chart of extinction events over time [wikipedia.org]. Note the lack of a spike near 55 million years ago.
Here's a crowbar. You might need it to extract your foot from your mouth. ;)
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In science, a person's agenda is irrelevant. The researchers can be pedophile Nazi cannibals for all the universe cares, but if their theory correlates with observable fact, their theory is worth taking seriously. Period.
There's way too much public discussion that treats science like some kind of popularity contest.. 'truth' is what the cool people say, and refutation from the uncool camp can be discarded simply by sneering at its source. People who engage in that kind of bullshit surrender the
Re:BTW (Score:4, Insightful)
That's absurd. There's no "areas near the equator" that are too hot for humans to survive. There's no such "area" anywhere on earth. Daily temps of 120+ are easily survivable - Las Vegas sees that regularly. See, humans have these things called "sweat glands". All they need is water and they can survive the heat.
But what if there's no water, you say? Well then, the problem isn't the heat.
Why is it? (Score:3, Insightful)
My problem with the whole GW crowd is how they will quickly object or attempt to marginalize anything which doesn't support their view. At the same time any little piece of information which supports their view is held forth as indisputable fact.
Look, we don't know half of what we think we do. The one great thing about science in this day and age is that we are continously changing what we know as
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Someone needs a lesson in the difference between short term weather prediction and long term weather trends.
Here's a (probably flawed) analogy: I throw a rock through the air. Moment to moment, I can't predict the exact path that rock will take. A breeze, some dust in the air, an updraft, these things can alter the path of the rock. But ask me to tell you where it's going to land, and I can probably do a pretty good job.
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No, you can predict that it's going to land but not exactly where, as those small fluctuations will add increasing amounts of noise to your estimate.
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You are correct in theory, but you are drawing completely the wrong conclusions from it. Yes, theories change, become more refined, perhaps become obsolete. Newton's laws of motion were su
I'm not willing to take the chance. (Score:2)
If the GW supporters are right, and the worst that could happen from ignoring their advice is extinction of the Human Race.
So list Mr-I'm-A-Greedy-Glutton, tighten your belt and consume less to ensure a nice planet for the future.
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Interesting how one can read "GW" as either "Global Warming" or "George W" and have the statement remain accurate -- and also reinforce your point.
Because (Score:2)
The partisan tend to accept uncritically the propaganda discount the dissent.
Sadly neither response is very good way to approach a complicated problem like global warming. It takes wise people to weight all the evidence to get insight to what the problem is and suggest a course of action and true leadership to try something in the face of the knowledge that it may not be the right thing to do (and/or there is possibility of failure), yet th
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I know that the idea that inability to predict tomorrows weather implies inability to predict long term climate, seems intuitive but it is incorrect. There are many examples of similar situations. We cannot predict (or even measure) with exact
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Remind me, which political party is attempting to rewrite the Geneva conventions to legitimise [blogspot.com] torture?
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Re:BTW (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:BTW (Score:5, Insightful)
Might I point out that the Romans used an especially inaccurate calendar [wikipedia.org], and it was not until 46 BCE that the somewhat more familiar Julian system was adopted?
360 happens to be an easy number to use. It's not especially accurate, but correcting the error requires some knowledge of astronomy, as well a certain amount of political power. Now, it may be that a number of civilizations adopted a 365 day year at approximately the same time. Perhaps some of them were trading partners.
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Any astrological events (including asteroid hits on Earth's surface, or possibly on the moon -- big tidal force maybe enough??) that could account for it?
Anything similar in previous historical eras??
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The lunar year is 355.3-odd days. No more accurate counted at 360 than the solar year. Historians "know" only because they have retroactively tried to apply a static model based on current condition to the past. The problem is, it fails to explain why the Babylonians, who (as early as 3000-2
Summary is misleading, see actual Nature article (Score:2)
What the hell does that mean? The whole point of a cycle is that every point in the cycle is a 'beginning'. Roll forward a few million and we get the same thing again. Much better to read the original Nature article.
http://www.nature.com/news/2006/061009/full/061009 -7.html [nature.com]
Firstly, we are talking local effects
Wrong... (Score:4, Funny)
Leave it to Hollywood (Score:2)
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American Obesity (Score:5, Funny)
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They've got it all wrong... (Score:2, Funny)
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Shortsightedness (Score:5, Funny)
You sir are shortsighted. Find someone to blame, add it to the party platform (either one, it doesn't matter) and then fund raise on it. Global Wobbling must be stopped!! We can stop it!!! It won't be stopped if party X get's/keeps control of Congress!!! The time to act is now!!
Please click here to donate 25, 50, 100, 1000 dollars to STOP GLOBAL WOBBLING. You will receive two complimentary pamphlets entitled "The Wobble, the Planet, and You" and "Why is Galileo weeping?". Both are packed with earth-shattering information to help you spread the news of this new threat to our precious freedoms and way of life.
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if we drop enough bombs on an arab country it might affect the orbit of the earth.
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If we all got on swingsets and swung at the same frequency, we could alter the rotation of the planet. Might even be able to adjust the orbit a little bit.
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Do you really expect political operatives to get it right? Much less a fake political operative, whoring for easy +5 Funny's on Slashdot?
You must be new here.
Vague article (Score:4, Informative)
Freaked out (Score:5, Informative)
So I read up on Milankovich cycles, and it turns out it's just precession. It's perfectly regular, it's just that in the case of something the size & slow angular velocity of the earth, it takes a really long time to change.
When you spin a top, you can see the axis of spin describe a circle. This is precession.
Likewise as the Earth rotates, there is precession. Also, as the earth orbits the sun, there is precession. These have cycles on the order of tens of thousands of years. Both can affect the climate by changing the angle of sunlight. There are cycles on the order of millions of years long in which the two effects both affect the climate the same way, and so produce a bigger net effect.
I guess wobble is an accurate term, except that to me it implies something irregular. In a system as big and isolated as the Earth's orbit around the Sun, or the Earth's rotation, momentum is king, and very little could cause an irregular change. These changes are just precession, and they're perfectly regular.
I am not a physicist, but I do have a Bachelor of Science in Physics.
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I guess wobble is an accurate term, except that to me it implies something irregular. In a system as big and isolated as the Earth's orbit around the Sun, or the Earth's rotation, momentum is king, and very little could cause an irregular change. These changes are just precession, and they're perfectly regular.
Well, except that it is precession in an environment with two significant masses (Moon and Sun) and a bunch of minor ones (Jupiter and Venus in particular). There's plenty of chaotic, non-regular
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Cyclical what? (Score:4, Insightful)
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So if you survive the comet impacts... (Score:2)
...and asteroid impacts, close passes by rogue planets, ice ages, orbital wobbiling, development of nuclear weapons, and the occasional odd supernova in your immediate vicinity, you go on to develop advanced civilization and the Double Whopper with Cheese (tm).
Cause (Score:2)
Old Mouse Pad (Score:4, Funny)
That was the mice [sadgeezer.com] rebooting the Earth while debugging it.
Since the users of our iPlanet are bailing out now without the system shutting down, I expect we're obsolete. Get ready to do your part for the firewall they turn us into.
Model orbital changes on your own compy (Score:5, Interesting)
The EdGCM [columbia.edu] project has wrapped a NASA GCM in a graphical interface. You can double-click to install, and if you'd like to turn the sun down a few percent or change the orbit, there are checkboxes and sliders. Press play, wait a while (hours to a day or so depending on your computer), and you can look at the results...
Disclaimer: I'm the developer.
Just imagine... (Score:2, Insightful)
Suppose again someone in charge actually accepted my supposition and decided global warming research was pointless.
Ok, I'm done making improbable suppositions.
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Duh! (Score:2, Funny)
Two alternative explanations of extinction (Score:2)
The earth did it [sciam.com]]
Of course, the better known theory that an asteroid caused the dinosaur extinction 65 million years ago might also be related to changes in earth's orbit, no?
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We need you, Archimedes! (Score:2)
WHAT?! (Score:2)
Ob. Niven reference. (Score:2)
Damn them! (Score:2, Funny)
---
"They are always satisfied. Who ever the fuck it is."
-Andrew Dice Clay on his sexual prowess
Modifying the orbit of Earth is feasible! (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, we have! And it's very interesting indeed!
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/planetearth
A link to the paper: Korycansky, D. G.; Laughlin, Gregory; Adams, Fred C. Astronomical engineering: a strategy for modifying planetary orbits. Astrophys.Space Sci. 275 (2001) 349-366
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0102126 [arxiv.org]
Abstract:
"The Sun's gradual brightening will seriously compromise the Earth's biosphere within ~ 1E9 years. If Earth's orbit migrates outward, however, the biosphere could remain intact over the entire main-sequence lifetime of the Sun. In this paper, we explore the feasibility of engineering such a migration over a long time period. The basic mechanism uses gravitational assists to (in effect) transfer orbital energy from Jupiter to the Earth, and thereby enlarges the orbital radius of Earth. This transfer is accomplished by a suitable intermediate body, either a Kuiper Belt object or a main belt asteroid. The object first encounters Earth during an inward pass on its initial highly elliptical orbit of large (~ 300 AU) semimajor axis. The encounter transfers energy from the object to the Earth in standard gravity-assist fashion by passing close to the leading limb of the planet. The resulting outbound trajectory of the object must cross the orbit of Jupiter; with proper timing, the outbound object encounters Jupiter and picks up the energy it lost to Earth. With small corrections to the trajectory, or additional planetary encounters (e.g., with Saturn), the object can repeat this process over many encounters. To maintain its present flux of solar energy, the Earth must experience roughly one encounter every 6000 years (for an object mass of 1E22 g). We develop the details of this scheme and discuss its ramifications."
Global warming vs. global wobbling (Score:3, Interesting)
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/temp/vostok/graphics
shows that for last 450,000 years Earth was mostly in the Ice Age, interrupted
by 10,000 year long warm periods spaced 100,000 years apart. We are about 15,000
years into the last warm period on record.
Because of strong periodicity, the current best explanation of this cycle is
by astronomical phenomena (Earth orbit/axis wobble).
This does not contradict global warming---it just shows that the climate
is a very delicate balance between strong opposing phenomena; the point being
that we should be real careful how we influence it.
What about all the SUVs contributing to climate?.. (Score:2)
I believe that headline would be... (Score:3, Funny)
Or was I the only one who read it as a paucity of mammoths might cause a tilt...?
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Re:Move Along (Score:4, Informative)
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So yea, if I edited portions of the article I could make it sound like the orbit change is the reason for global warming.... then again, if i took bits and pieces of the quoran (sp) I could tell people that All
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Are you being serious or sarcastic? Because I have seen (don't have them on me) reports that say otherwise...plus, most recently, it has been in the news that the polar caps are melting at record speeds AND it is not possible to take a cruise from Northern Europe straight to the North Pole. Given that informatio
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But, come on, if you are going to point toward the chicken
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We are talking about health issues to us (humans) and other life on this planet. I think that qualifies as "really matter". People who doubt global warming effects are along the lines of the CEOs of big tobacco - who apparantly are still in denial about smoking causing lung cancer...their scientists also say this is not accurate.
Until the models get better, assuming they can get better, I will use their scientific evidence because to sit here and do nothi
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No they are not; some of them are trained scientists who are specialists in their fields. Believe it or not, not all scientists are on the anthopogenic climate change bandwagon. In making the statement you just made, you have insulted both the intelligence and professional integrity of a good number of respectable people.
Some of these include those signers here [oism.org] and here [sourcewatch.org].
You may choose to disagree with their po
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My name is Dunceon McLeod of the Clan McLeod
Lemme guess, you believed the Bush intelligence that Saddam had WMD, right? Well, sure you did...after all, at the time that was the best evidence we had, right?
Just because evidence may not be correct in the future does not mean we should discount it today. That would be silly. But, I didn't care if Bush was correct about the WMDs, I think we shoul
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Not necessarily. Lower global temperatures means less evaporation from the oceans, etc. Less evaporation means less water in the air to precipitate out. Less precipitation means less snowfall. Less snowfall means the polar caps shrink.
Nothing about climatology is as obvious as it appears at first glance. Too many interacting feedback cycles, some negative, some positive, some that start out one way and then change at a certain threshhold.
(And rem
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...and you just linked it!
Observe:
"140Mandak262Jamuna mentioned NFL quarterbacks having motorcycle accidents in a comment about Global Warning."
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How else would you know?
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Nope, just one single thing.
Sorry, I'm not telling you which one so just move along.
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Of course it is. It happens all the time, as evidenced by how many times and ways the climate has changed over the history of the planet.
scientists studying it said that there wasn't enough information to make any predictions about the future of the climate. Of course, there were a few nutjob scientists who thought that the end of the world was coming,
And this is different now how, exactly?
Once the newspapers and
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For example, "Faulty tyres linked to road fatalities" versus "Road fatalities linked to faulty tyres". Obviously, road fatalities don't cause tyres to burst (as long as you don't back over them too many times), so either sentence is easily interpreted correctly. But neither explicitly states that faulty tyres caus
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Converted to kilograms, your figure works out to 3.5 * 10^10 kgs. Let's triple the weight to 180 lbs, and your figure becomes 1 * 10^11 kgs.
Now, the mass of the earth is approximately 6 * 10^24 kgs. That's 6 * 10^13 bigger. Let's see what a similar ratio would look like applied to a 100 kg (220 lbs) human. Something that is 10^13 smaller would be approximately 1 microgram. The avera