Erosion and you?

April 20, 2001

I'm not telling anyone what to do here, I'm just making some suggestions. If they don't work for you, then find some that do or, if you like, ignore the possible problem.

April 22, 2001

Mike,

I hate to tell you but john-daly.com is as predictable a "deconstruction" as any other. Invariably, these disbelievers use biased opinions and bad examples. Here's a few from his page:

"Satellite data shows a cooling trend".

I don't know how many times it has to be repeated, but that is using the RAW DATA. This data is uncorrected for orbit decay. Once it is corrected, this "0.03 degree cooling trend" turns into a warming trend.

I love his graphs with the "5-year moving average". Think about that for a sec. Why is that invalid? Natural cycles are on scales of thousands - billions of years. ONE SINGLE YEAR will skew even a 100-year average!!! Regressional analysis of a 5 year curve is as meaningful as saying "it was hot today - global warming is true!" Incidentally, all his little anecdotes about individual snowstorms and colder temperatures around the world are just as useful. We have been recording weather for maybe 200 years. Weather has been happening for hundreds of millions of years. The statistical probability that we have seen the extreme ends of what weather is capable of in any given location is next to zero.

His article "Opinion - Models or Mimics?" directly contradicts his conclusion that CO2 rates are linked to temperature and not vice versa. (Incidentally this is true - carbonate system weathering rates increase with temperature, leading to more CO2). You'll notice that his rant does not actually address the problem - we are adding billions of tons of CO2 to the atmosphere. His article addresses nothing! If we were increasing the temperature, then it might be relevant, but that isn't the problem. No one is arguing natural cycles and the CO2 lag - that is common knowledge. But what of the reverse???

Also, throughout the site he rags on the media for only presenting the "warming side" of the debate. Yet his site ONLY puts links to the other side of the debate!!! This site is un-professional, un-scientific and completely biased!

Statements like : "I have closely followed the carbon dioxide warming arguments. From what I have learned of how the atmosphere ticks over 40 years of study, I have been unable to convince myself that a doubling of human-induced greenhouse gases can lead to anything but quite small and insignificant amounts of global warming." Are meaningless!!! Who is this guy? Why should we believe him?? What evidence is he studying, what is his background, political or otherwise?

Okay, this is getting long so I'll shutup. The point is, people like John Daly use bias and un-scientific methods (not to mention poor data) to prove their points. Increase your depth of study before making a conclusion. I have studied climate for 5 years now - here are some better links:

http://www.ec.gc.ca/climate/index.html

Tons of info on canadian climate and warming effects, including data so you can do your own analysis.

http://climatesolutions.org

Good facts but obviously biased. Take it with a grain of salt.

http://tigerherbs.com/eclectica/earthcrash/index.html

This site, opposite of Daly's, keeps track of news articles that support global warming.

http://www.ipcc.ch/

The IPCC homepage. Check out the data & reports yourself before taking someone else's opinion of them.

It is real!

Okay I'm done.

[This message has been edited by Goat Commander (edited 22 April 2001).]

April 22, 2001

Mat if I read your posts right you seem to take advantage of our public lands. Did you not say you enjoyed the hiking and bird singing and clean water? What gives you the right to place your foot on our fragile environment and not us? You do not know us and surely have not read through the forum, so how can you say we are any worse on the environment than you and your friends? Stop sounding like a fanatic and start a useful dialogue, we would all welcome that. But threats will do little but harden our view of you and make it impossible for you to influence anyone.

Butch

April 24, 2001

Goat... I appreciate your enthusiasm, but those sites you mention are just as biased as John Daly's.. (Including the IPCC)

As this discussion is really off-topic, (and yes, i did start it , I think we might want to drop it.. nobody's going to change any minds...

April 24, 2001

Goat... I appreciate your enthusiasm, but those sites you mention are just as biased as John Daly's.. (Including the IPCC)

As this discussion is really off-topic, (and yes, i did start it , I think we might want to drop it.. nobody's going to change any minds...

May 8, 2002

quote:
Originally posted by *matthew:
If you are off trail and stomping around fragile environments such as the Rockies or the deserts, what are you doing to keep from destroying the ground you are walking on?

Matthew Buker

FRAGILE? Excuse while I laugh. The Rockies, and the deserts will be here LONG after we are dead. If you think that even thousands of people boots are enough to destroy a mountain range, you got a screw loose.

20.7k · May 8, 2002

... on the top of his head!

Just kidding.

I always make an effort to levitate when traveling off trail. This allows me to avoid creasing the grass or snapping dead twigs.

May 8, 2002

I wondered how I managed to miss a thread this fun and now I see why. Some good stuff in there--I should go digging through the archives.

-E

--

N35°32.981 W98°34.631

8.9k · May 8, 2002

Isn't there a thread about pin-maps that needs rehashing?

Markwell

My Geocaching Page

8.9k · May 8, 2002

Isn't there a thread about pin-maps that needs rehashing?

Markwell

My Geocaching Page

May 8, 2002

Everyone in this forum contributes to erosion and global warming. Every time you turn on a lightbulb, or put on a shirt that was manufactured, paddle your fiberglass kayak, tie on your rubber-soled-water-consuming-cow-skin-covered-Vasque-boots, or charge your electric scooter, you are contributing to the pollution and impact to this great Earth on which we live. I live in the East, but would love to preserve the desert and rocky regions of the USA so that my great grand children might see the beauty. Alas, many people like M. have chosen to live there, recreate there, and impact there. For a hiker (of all people) to ask me what I'm doing to assure that I don't trample the cryptobiotic soils really burns me. Move to New York City and live in an apartment building and stop kicking up the dust in Utah, will you?

May 8, 2002

What I love about these conversations is that the views are so extreme. Tree huggers, leftist commies - or - earth destroying greedy eco-nomists...

Life must be much simpler when you see everything in black and white, but reality is generally painted in shades of gray.

Errosion is a legitimate concern in some park situations. Anyone who has done trail maintanence in a mountainous area can tell you that it does not take many folks cutting switchbacks and a little weather to give you a trail eating mud shoot. In terms of permanent damage to the landscape, the impact is neglible, but in terms of adversely effecting the experience of subsequent visitors, the impact is pretty big.

Likewise, anyone who has pulled field duty for a baseball diamond (little league, etc.) can tell you what happens when dust and dirt get kicked up on the grass line. It's not like grass will never grow there again, but it looks bad and takes more work than you think to repair. The same is true for high volume, unpaved trails in many parks. High traffic means more particles, which are easily tracked off trail - making fauna errosion more rapid.

Some areas are especially sensitive. Hueco Tanks in Texas comes to mind. The caves and walls contain fairly rare artifacts (ex. pictoglyphs) from proto Native American cultures. The ecosystem itself is fairly fragile. Water collects in small pools, and the pools, in turn, contain life. But the water volume is so small that just a few drops of suntan lotion, etc. can essentially erradicate the life in a single pool.

The reason I brought up Hueco Tanks, is that it breaks stereotype. Climbers, who generally like to present themselves as natural tree-huggers and good custodians of public land, despise the limited access situation in Hueco Tanks. Oily hands are terrible on prehistoric art, chalk is unsightly, and terrible for the life in the pools, but, heh - the bouldering problems are awesome! (They are).

Likewise, western ranchers are seldom seen as tree huggers, but many ranchers in Wyoming are looking to the EPA to help them fight BLM fast track approved mining development. The coal/gas extraction is great for the state coffers, but the deadly water is killing a way of life in parts of the state.

John Muir once said that all true outdoorsman eventually become environmentalists. I think that there is some definate truth to that. Many an ultra conservative has turned private lands into public wilderness later in life. Even Ronald R., a Republican demi-God.

If you like outdoors activity, and you pursue them most of your life, you generally can't avoid seeing change - change for the worse. The hunting and fishing holes of your youth are all gone, not to be shared with your grandkids, you can't take a refreshing drink from the spring anymore...

On the other hand, if the view never took your breath away, you won't ever miss it when its gone. If the outdoors is just a necesary evil that you endure in pursuit of your passion (ex. sport climbing, bird watching, geocaching...), then you may never notice the changes at all.

-jjf

May 8, 2002

I'm all for folks buying up private land and turning it into a wildlife refuge or putting protections on thier private property that prevent it from being developed. No problemo. In fact I think groups like the Sierra Club, Earth First, and the like should focus on fundraisers to raise large chunks of cash to buy up large chunks of land they want protected, and protect it. But when you start telling someone who bought some land for developement, that now they can no longer develope the land, that is a problem. When you change the rules on someone and effectively steal thier land through regulation, that is a problem. You want to protect an area? Pony up the cash to pay for the area and have it protected, but don't expect someone else to sacrifice thier investment to satisfy your concience. You want a beautiful and unobstructed view? Buy up all the land around you, but don't go complaining when your neigbor decideds to build a home or chop down a few trees.

So far as the government keeping that which is government property and wild, wild, fine. But when the government imposes huge land grabs that's wrong.

If you buy property that is zone Exclusive Farm use, you have no right to complain that you can't build a mini-mall on it. But if you buy up a bunch of land that is zoned commercial/industrial, and then once you get ready to build a mini-mall some activists come along and get the land re-zoned to exclusive farm use, then you have just been robbed by the government, and that is wrong. And it happens all to often. If the activists or whoever didn't want a mini-mall there, they should have bought it themselves and made it a wild life sancturary or a farm or whatever they felt was more appropriate, but to essentially steal anothers investment through regulation is wrong and repugnant, and happens all to often in this nation.

ummmm....not sure what to say here....so ummm, well errrr, uhhhh, well I guess that's it.

May 8, 2002

quote:
Originally posted by RAD Dad:

If you buy property that is zone Exclusive Farm use, you have no right to complain that you can't build a mini-mall on it. But if you buy up a bunch of land that is zoned commercial/industrial, and then once you get ready to build a mini-mall some activists come along and get the land re-zoned to exclusive farm use, then you have just been robbed by the government, and that is wrong. And it happens all to often...

but to essentially steal anothers investment through regulation is wrong and repugnant, and happens all to often in this nation.

So, who do you favor in Wyoming, the Ranchers, or the Miners? Which side is morally right, and why?

It is easy to spout principles, but things aren't always so clear cut when you try to put them to work in reality.

As for zoning laws, the rezoning is done using the same process and laws as the original zoning. And, the purpose is the same, to protect the public good. Commercial development, beyond the most trivial, always impacts tax payers to some extent. If you don't believe in re-zoning, is it safe to assume that you don't believe in zoning at all? Some people don't (I don't happen to be one of them).

-jjf

4.5k · May 8, 2002

No comment. I'm staying out of this one.

ALan

4.5k · May 8, 2002

No comment. I'm staying out of this one.

ALan

May 8, 2002

Chack out my sig. Pretty cool ay, that was one of my posts to another troll in kind of a simular situation. Not exact but close.

-------> Did you ever do any trail maintainence? - if so you will know that all but the most worn trails need continuous maintenance to prevent mother nature from reclaiming it. herd paths are quickly reclaimed - k2dave to a troll

May 8, 2002

Not to be negative to any sport but caching has very little impact to the environment. Check out The Gold Prospectors Association (GPAA). http://www.goldprospectors.org/

Every day, The Outdoor Channel has a show called Gold Fever, rather interesting and look like a lot of fun. Maybe Matt should have targeted gold digging, then rather then a few people walking through the woods looking or ammo container.

4.5k · May 8, 2002

The golddigger's web site sells Garmin equipment. Hmm.

How about a real cache - of gold nuggets!!

ALan

May 8, 2002

quote:
Originally posted by Goat Commander:
This may be best for another thread or another board entirely, but

global warming exists!

We have temperature data for less than 150 years. You can not make that absolute claim any more than I can claim the reverse. We just don't have the data to prove it one way or another. And anyone who says anything else is selling something.

Don't get me wrong, we need to take care of this planet. We (the human race) can certainly behave more responsibly in regard to the environment. But we don't need a bunch of hysterical, sensationalistic claims to confuse the issue and distract us from the goal of keeping the planet in some form that we can live, thrive on, and enjoy. Global warming may be happening, and if so we need to take action. But only after determening the need, not "Do it for the children!!!" or other emotional reasons. Get the facts and act on them.

Respectfully,

AtP

4.5k · May 8, 2002

quote:
Originally posted by Atilla the Pun:
... Global warming _may_ be happening, and if so we need to take action. But only after determening the need, not "Do it for the children!!!" or other emotional reasons. Get the facts and act on them.

Respectfully,

AtP

OK I couldn't resist stirring the pot. What's wrong with global warming?

Alan

May 8, 2002

quote:
Originally posted by k2dave:
Chack out my sig. Pretty cool ay, that was one of my posts to another troll in kind of a simular situation. Not exact but close.

-------> Did you ever do any trail maintainence? - if so you will know that all but the most worn trails need continuous maintenance to prevent mother nature from reclaiming it. herd paths are quickly reclaimed - k2dave to a troll

If you have to point it out, it probably isn't as cutting and funny as you think.

Seriously, repeatedly calling someone a "Troll" just because you disagree with them, then placing the insult in your signature line does say volumes about you. Its like you come with your own nitwit warning label.

I'm still trying to figure out your handle though. From your postings, it is hard to picture you actually having what it takes to do K2. Perhaps the prefix is in homage to your emotional birthdate, or your K-2 education...

I'd say perhaps you are a K-9's #2, but I can't picture you being either that witty or self aware.

And yes, the above is rude, but does "Due onto others..." ring a bell?

-jjf

May 8, 2002

quote:
Originally posted by Alan2:

OK I couldn't resist stirring the pot. What's wrong with global warming?

Alan

The question would probably be better phrased what is wrong with rapid climatic change?

When it occurs (and we know that it does occur, we can see the effects of glaciers from the last ice age) there is generally a huge reduction in biodiversity, and habital zones move.

It would only take a few degrees change in mean temperatures to elliminate Florida's or California's citrus industry. Presumably some other spot on the planet might settle into a citrus heaven, and Florida might still be able to cultivate something other than fungus, but the transition would be pretty painful in financial and human terms.

Similarly, a few degrees increase in mean temperature across the bread basket would reduce precipitation, and pretty much wipe out corn as a viable Iowa/Illinois crop, which, in turn, would effect lifestock, dairy, etc.

It takes suprisingly little change to trigger sweeping environmental changes. Look at summer vs. winter, or equator vs. temperate zones. In the great scheme of things, distance from the sun, etc., the differences are small, but the environmental impact on us is huge.

We don't know why ice ages occur. One theory is that they occur when our sun's galactic orbit takes us through the 'thicker' arms of the galaxy. That is, an almost imperceptible increase in the amount of intersteller gas causes our planet to be covered with mile high sheets of ice.

All that said, human impact on climatic change is still largely theory. We do have statistical evidence that suggests a connection between certain types of changes and certain side effects of industrialization. But the sampling is small. We probably can make a much stronger case between say, pollution and increases in auto-immune and developmental disorders. Still, climatic change, in part because of human activity, is probably the best, current, scientific hypothesis.

Personally, my theory is that climatic change is the direct result of K2Dave and Hinge Thunder. I'm thinking of founding a cult around it...

-jjf

4.5k · May 8, 2002

quote:
Originally posted by jfitzpat:

quote:
Originally posted by Alan2:

OK I couldn't resist stirring the pot. What's wrong with global warming?

Alan

...

It would only take a few degrees change in mean temperatures to elliminate Florida's or California's citrus industry. Presumably some other spot on the planet might settle into a citrus heaven, and Florida might still be able to cultivate something other than fungus, but the transition would be pretty painful in financial and human terms.

...-jjf

This is the point that was really behind my question. It reminds me of the "terrible" firestorm that decimated so much of Yellowstone a few years ago. Now everyone's amazed at learning how important fires are to the long term survival of the forests. How do we know what the long term value is to climatic and other geological changes? We think in such short terms as humans who live three score plus ten. Sure, farmers in one state could be effected terribly and I wouldn't want to be one who can't plow the ground cause I didn't get rain. But meanwhile the desert is blooming in the Sahara. Bad for America; good for Sudanese. Like economic changes (mechanization, computerization, etc.) there are very damaging immediate results that hurt individual people and towns. But what about the long view? Do we really know? No computer program has been written that can accurately predict either the geological changes vis a vis climate change or for that matter and more importantly the long term benefit or downside of a rise in temperature. (We''re better off today from the ice age. Maybe a few more degrees will be even better!) Who really knows?

Alan

2.6k · May 8, 2002

quote:
Originally posted by jfitzpat:It takes suprisingly little change to trigger sweeping environmental changes. Look at summer vs. winter, or equator vs. temperate zones. In the great scheme of things, distance from the sun, etc., the differences are small, but the environmental impact on us is huge.
-jjf

Summer/Winter has nothing to do with distance from the sun, it has to do with the angle at which the sun hits the earth. Earth's axis being tilted and all. And that change IS big.

george

May 8, 2002

Off trail? Well I usually bring my ATV with a chainsaw and make my own trail.

oops sorry that is the sarcastic me.

Honestly, I can say all the caches I have visited show no signs of erosion. Well ok I have noticed some but it is usually along horse trails, ATV trails, and oh yeah service roads.

Weezer

May 8, 2002

This thread really got me thinking. If I plant a cache in my backyard in the area that I have to roundup all summer, could I get enough cachers to tromp down the weeds? And then I thought I could take it to the next level by throwing all my garbage out my back window and let the cachers clean it up, therby eliminating that early morning stroll to the the sidewalk once a week? I could also make it a theme cache, say if you find this before 9 am please trade coffee and a donut, 11 to 1 a ham sandwich etc.. Now all I have to do is come up with a catchy name. Geocaching really could improve the quallity of life in my little ecosystem!

May 8, 2002

This thread really got me thinking. If I plant a cache in my backyard in the area that I have to roundup all summer, could I get enough cachers to tromp down the weeds? And then I thought I could take it to the next level by throwing all my garbage out my back window and let the cachers clean it up, therby eliminating that early morning stroll to the the sidewalk once a week? I could also make it a theme cache, say if you find this before 9 am please trade coffee and a donut, 11 to 1 a ham sandwich etc.. Now all I have to do is come up with a catchy name. Geocaching really could improve the quallity of life in my little ecosystem!

May 8, 2002

niskibum, I couldn't resist commenting on your little tag line beneath the pictures of skis....how could you miss the snow? We just had a bunch a couple days ago in the hills. Fresh powder in most of the Northwest Mountain ranges.

So far as the question about miners Vs farmers, if the miners can do thier mining without impacting ANYTHING beyond their land, more power to them. However, if they can't, then the farmers have a point, and more power to the farmers.

I'm a strong advocate of private property rights. If my neighbor painted his house all checkered and stored a few cars in his front yard, even though I would have the right to complain, as it is against the covenants and restrictions for our neighborhood, I wouldn't, because frankly I feel as long as it doesn't impact my property in a tangeble fashion, that is, his garbage isn't drawing in rats, raccoons, and mosquitoes' which cross over to my side of the line, I believe he should have the right to do what he pleases. He can play his music as loud as he wants on his property, so long as I can't hear it on mine, heck he could build a nuclear reactor on his property, so long as it is guaranteed not to have any affect on the livability of my property. In short, if it's on your land, and it stays on your land, and there aren't existing laws against it, you should have the right to do it.

So far as business developements having an impact on taxpayers, yep they do. POSITIVE IMPACTS, they bring in MORE tax dollars, as anything that creates revenue funnels money into the public purse as well. Even if the business itself isn't taxed one red cent, the employee's most certainly will be, and in states with sales tax, the products or services sold will generate tax income, and many cities have payroll taxes. By the way, you do know, everyone, that the gross pay on your paycheck isn't the sum total of expense your employer incurrs by hiring you don't you? Employers must match your fica, your unemployment insurance, there are often payroll taxes to be payed.

ummmm....not sure what to say here....so ummm, well errrr, uhhhh, well I guess that's it.

May 8, 2002

niskibum, I couldn't resist commenting on your little tag line beneath the pictures of skis....how could you miss the snow? We just had a bunch a couple days ago in the hills. Fresh powder in most of the Northwest Mountain ranges.

So far as the question about miners Vs farmers, if the miners can do thier mining without impacting ANYTHING beyond their land, more power to them. However, if they can't, then the farmers have a point, and more power to the farmers.

I'm a strong advocate of private property rights. If my neighbor painted his house all checkered and stored a few cars in his front yard, even though I would have the right to complain, as it is against the covenants and restrictions for our neighborhood, I wouldn't, because frankly I feel as long as it doesn't impact my property in a tangeble fashion, that is, his garbage isn't drawing in rats, raccoons, and mosquitoes' which cross over to my side of the line, I believe he should have the right to do what he pleases. He can play his music as loud as he wants on his property, so long as I can't hear it on mine, heck he could build a nuclear reactor on his property, so long as it is guaranteed not to have any affect on the livability of my property. In short, if it's on your land, and it stays on your land, and there aren't existing laws against it, you should have the right to do it.

So far as business developements having an impact on taxpayers, yep they do. POSITIVE IMPACTS, they bring in MORE tax dollars, as anything that creates revenue funnels money into the public purse as well. Even if the business itself isn't taxed one red cent, the employee's most certainly will be, and in states with sales tax, the products or services sold will generate tax income, and many cities have payroll taxes. By the way, you do know, everyone, that the gross pay on your paycheck isn't the sum total of expense your employer incurrs by hiring you don't you? Employers must match your fica, your unemployment insurance, there are often payroll taxes to be payed.

ummmm....not sure what to say here....so ummm, well errrr, uhhhh, well I guess that's it.

May 9, 2002

"Here's your sign"

________________________________________

"And yes, the above is rude, but does 'Due onto others...' ring a bell?" - jfitzpat to troll

May 9, 2002

I got to thinking... Yea, Yea I know its a dangerous thing...

If there were no geocaching, just think of all the McDonald toys that would be in landfills right now! Zillions and Zillions of tons (that of course is a highly researched number). I think that alone makes up for trampling over 4 billion year old dirt ;-)

If you think I am making light of a important subject, your absolutly right! Because if your too upset to see the humor in something, your too upset to think about a subject from different points of view!

May 9, 2002

quote:
Originally posted by georgeandmary:

Summer/Winter has nothing to do with distance from the sun, it has to do with the angle at which the sun hits the earth. Earth's axis being tilted and all. And that change IS big.

george

Actually, the seasons relate to multiple factors, distance from the sun is most assuredly one of them. Angle of intersection is another (more atmospheric cross section). But the angle of energy impact has a much smaller effect than the duration of impact. Because of tilt and our elliptical orbit, winter days are shorter. That is, less total energy impacts a particular area each 24 hours.

Still, our atmosphere circulates and does a pretty good job of spreading the energy around (huge subject). But that, like our liquid center, is another subject.

But, on a cosmic scale, the difference is miniscule. Plot the temperature of every spot on earth on a graph that ranges from a bit above 'absolute zero' (an obsolete physics concept) and, say, the surface of the sun, and you would get a flat line.

My point was, and is, that a seemingly small change, such as a tiny increase in the amount of interstellar matter between us and the sun, can, theoretically account for mile high sheets of ice covering the US. Just as a few degrees change in temperature could make the Appalacian Trail cross a savanna instead of a forest (I wouldn't miss the bugs, but it would still be a big change).

If you are interested in the physics of the subject, I could probably scrounge up some good books for you. My own background is more at the quantum level, but it can be some interesting stuff.

-jjf

May 9, 2002

quote:
Summer/Winter has nothing to do with distance from the sun, it has to do with the angle at which the sun hits the earth. Earth's axis being tilted and all. And that change IS big.

There's a good discussion of this at the this linked web page. After reading it (and the post of jfitzpat), I would say that the seasons are tied only to the tilt of the earth's axis. However, the temperatures on the planet as a whole may vary slightly depending on the distance from the sun but that's not the same thing as "Seasons". That is to say, while winters in the northern hemishpere might me colder due to the aphelion occuring in January, it's also resulting in cooler summers in the southern hemisphere.

2.6k · May 9, 2002

quote:
Originally posted by georgeandmary:

Summer/Winter has nothing to do with distance from the sun, it has to do with the angle at which the sun hits the earth. Earth's axis being tilted and all. And that change IS big.

george

quote:
Originally posted by jfitzpat:
Actually, the seasons relate to multiple factors, distance from the sun is most assuredly one of them. Angle of intersection is another (more atmospheric cross section). But the angle of energy impact has a much smaller effect than the duration of impact. Because of tilt and our elliptical orbit, winter days are shorter. That is, less total energy impacts a particular area each 24 hours.

-jjf

Distance from the sun, again, has little to do with the season.

You do bring up a good point about length of the day and duration of impact but what determines the length of the day? That's right the angle of the earths tilt (as I said), and your latitude. But even then, in the summer you'll have 6 months of daylight at the north pole, and by your assertion it should be nice and tostly at the north pole. Longer day, more energy exposed. Why isn't it hot? Because the incident angle of the radiation hitting that spot of the earth is large. I one square mile of earth that is perpendicular to the sun will absorb more energy than a square mile of earth that is angled away from that radiation, take the cosine of that angle to find how much is being absorbed. Again, earth’s tilt has larger effects and the curvature of the earth has now to be accounted for.

The total amount of energy hitting the earth is base on the surface area exposed to radiation and the distance from the sun. Now there is an inverse r^2 factor to deal with. And that does change with distance, but the change of distance compared to the over all distance is miniscule. The earths orbit is very near circular.

The atmospheric cross sections is pretty much constant, the earth is pretty much a sphere and so is it's atmosphere (I’ve seen the pictures)

And if I'm not mistaken, during the northern hemispherical summer, the earth is further from the sun than winter.

Again, you're example of distance from the sun and the seasonal changes from summer to winter is a bad one.

If you want to make a claim that the earth's weather and climate system are non-linear. And that small changes in the variables of a non-linear system can lead to really big changes (the butterfly effect) then go ahead. A may agree with you, but DO NOT make a claim, that distances from the sun cause the change from winter to summer. That is a minor factor in the seasonal changes from summer to winter.

george

quote:
If you are interested in the physics of the subject, I could probably scrounge up some good books for you. My own background is more at the quantum level, but it can be some interesting stuff.

Stick with the calculating wave equations and perturbations.

How nice of you to try to flaunt your quatum background. I won't flaunt mine, because it's meaningless in this context.

[This message was edited by georgeandmary on May 09, 2002 at 11:39 AM.]

May 9, 2002

quote:
Originally posted by georgeandmary:
Summer/Winter has nothing to do with distance from the sun, it has to do with the angle at which the sun hits the earth. Earth's axis being tilted and all. And that change IS big.

[snip]

You do bring up a good point about length of the day and duration of impact but what determines the length of the day? That's right the angle of the earths tilt (as I said), and your latitude...

[snip]

Let's back up a step. You started by overstretching my my original statement. I gave several, issues (season, temperate, zone) and one factor (distance), and indicated that there are others. I was trying to make a general point.

If you are indicating that I disagree that seasons are principally driven by the 23.5 degree (approx) tilt between the earth's axis of rotation and the plane of the ecliptic, you are incorrect.

I *am* saying that *climate* is impacted by effects other than basic tilt. For example, weather severity is effected by everything from solar storms to axial procession.

I am *also* saying that distance to the sun, like anything else the effects energy transfer has *some* effect on climate. If you disagree, move to Neptune...

Regarding my 'length of day' statement, I was trying to convey that the issue is total energy transferred, not nec. the angle it is delivered at. The distinction is important when examining the poles. Unless you factor in things like denser air over cold ice, lower absorbtion rate of light colored ice packs, etc., the poles defy simple math (they actually still defy current models, but that is another story).

I picked a simple explanation to make the point, because 1, this is a forum and not everyone has the same background in certain subjects and 2, I don't explain these types of physics well.

My explanation and offer were not a flaunt, but face value. I can get you great information on a fairly complex subject, and this isn't my area.

The offer was made with the idea that you were actually interested in the physics of the situation. However, in re-reading the posts, I suspect that your motives are a little different. I'm not sure how much of the geom/trig you quoted you know, and how much you quoted from another source, but clearly I am the last person you would want to get nitpicking from.

-jjf

May 9, 2002