Let me first throw one back at you, moron. Please explain exactly what it is that “you didn’t understand any of it” refers to. I’ve been familiar with Milankovitch cycles since I started writing about climate change decades ago. Fuck off with accusations of “googling” every time I contradict one of you asinine posts.
“Why” these cycles happen is not the same discussion as the fact that they happen, and their hypothesized contribution to long-term climate change, and most importantly, their total irrelevance to anthropogenic climate change (because things that happen on a scale of tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years are irrelevant in the scale of human-caused GHG emissions).
Oh, and as for “explaining” changes in axial tilt, is it your impression that the earth’s ecliptic plane is a constant that never changes? Because it isn’t.
The tilt and progression is one reason for past climate change, so what you ask here is irrelevant for the current warming that was/is observed now.
But Milankovitch cycles can’t explain all climate change that’s occurred over the past 2.5 million years or so. And more importantly, they cannot account for thecurrent period of rapid warming Earth has experienced since the pre-Industrial period (the period between 1850 and 1900), and particularly since the mid-20th Century. Scientists are confident Earth’s recent warming is primarily due to human activities — specifically, the direct input of carbon dioxide into Earth’s atmosphere from burning fossil fuels.
So how do we know Milankovitch cycles aren’t to blame?
First, Milankovitch cycles operate on long time scales, ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years. In contrast, Earth’s current warming has taken place over time scales of decades to centuries. Over the last 150 years, Milankovitch cycles have not changed the amount of solar energy absorbed by Earth very much. In fact, NASA satellite observations show that over the last 40 years, solar radiation has actually decreased somewhat.
Since 1750, the warming driven by greenhouse gases coming from the human burning of fossil fuels is over 50 times greater than the slight extra warming coming from the Sun itself over that same time interval. If Earth’s current warming was due to the Sun, scientists say we should expect temperatures in both the lower atmosphere (troposphere) and the next layer of the atmosphere, the stratosphere, to warm. Instead, observations from balloons and satellites show Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere have warmed but the stratosphere has cooled.
Finally, Earth is currently in an interglacial period (a period of milder climate between Ice Ages). If there were no human influences on climate, scientists say Earth’s current orbital positions within the Milankovitch cycles predict our planet should be cooling, not warming, continuing a long-term cooling trend that began 6,000 years ago.
Hey wolfpup. I really didn’t understand the pit when I made comments. You seem like an intelligent person. My apologies for being a dick. I am interested in this topic. It sounds like great debates is a good place for me to discuss this. Climate change is real. Thanks
Even in the pit, what you are doing then is a hijack, you should know that then others like me will conclude that you are just stalling or then Just Asking Questions, and for an irrelevant issue.
What one can notice is that you claim to have gone to college and so far I only see the avoidance of the obvious: Why is that you forgot about who to cite in support of what you claimed to learn. This is important because I do want to find out why is that a college curriculum about Atmospheric science forgot to mention this issue to you. This is because by the 1980s the basics of the issue were already well understood.
OK, so not only do you defend morons who think that the Earth was winging it’s way through interstellar space before being captured by the sun, but you’re an arrogant little turd who thinks that a 35 year old bachelor’s degree gives you a license to be a snotty obnoxious prick.
And we note that you do not (or can not) address the major point that the earth cycles that cause historical ice ages are orders of magnitude different in timing to the current increases in temperature we are seeing due to carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere.
You are a Charter Member. I respect your opinion. I’m not sure what you want me to cite in support of what I’ve claimed to learn. I thought I presented my case well enough. I was wrong. And I was a dick. Not sure I want to play this game anymore.
Okay, so we know that manufacturing and driving a vehicle adds pollutants to the problem, but we’re not necessarily, as individuals, committed to living in caves and walking 6 miles in the snow to work or school – understood.
That doesn’t preclude crafting legislation and regulation that compels the masses to change their behaviors. We banned CFCs in the 1970s. We curbed deforestation. We had a clean water and clean air act. All of these made our environment better, not by pointing out hypocrisy but by compelling people to act.
Yes, but surely the course explained that the earth’s axial tilt and other orbital parameters are part of periodic changes on very long time scales?
You can’t just look at some chosen phenomenon such as the current short-term rapid warming trend and say “Oh, it’s because of axial tilt!” Axial tilt, and the other Milankovitch-cycle phenomena, are not one-size-fits-all explanations
In case these are serious questions, or sincere puzzlement trying to masquerade as snark, the answer is that these are standard phenomena of orbital motion in a multi-body system, where the bodies aren’t ideally rigid spheres. Over a period of about 41 Kyears, the combination of axial precession (the “wobble” in the earth’s rotation caused by its non-rigid bulginess) and perturbations due to the gravitational attraction of other planets causes the axis to cycle through a couple degrees change in the tilt. The orbital perturbations are also causing the cyclical change in orbital eccentricity.
Again, though, all these phenomena are periodic in their effects. Trying to use them to explain recent observed climate change is a bit like a homicide detective in Saskatchewan looking at the corpse of a recent hypothermia victim that was just pulled out of a locked meat freezer in early July, and saying “Well, maybe he just didn’t dress warmly enough for the winter weather. We get real cold winters around here”.
As Euphonious_Polemic noted, the failure of noticing how moronic the OP was is the bit that showed how you shot yourself in the foot. Not being able to show where you got your contrarian to science talking points after is like shooting yourself in your other foot next.
[British Accent] Stop that! Now, I do my best to keep things moving along, but I’m not having things getting silly. Those two last posts got very silly indeed, and that last one about being shellfish was even sillier. [/BA]
Let me help. Peer reviewed articles in publications that support your position? Excerpts from college-level textbooks you have studied? Books that experts have written that support your position? Pehaps even quotes from opinion pieces that experts have written or were written about?
Be forewarned, GIGO is quite a geek and will likely go back and read them before coming back to shred you.
I want to address this point specifically as it’s often raised on Fox et al.
Firstly of course, it’s irrelevant: even if they are hypocrites it wouldn’t change the arguments.
Secondly, who are we talking about? Which elites? The only high profile speaker on climate change I can find that uses a private jet is Bill Gates (not Al Gore). One of the top 5 richest men on earth, who has a public platform largely from being so rich and donating much of his wealth to various causes including climate change. So, one “elite” who massively offsets his personal carbon footprint, is supposedly a big issue with the movement.
Thirdly and leading on from the second point, the leaders of a movement necessarily have to be an exception in some ways. While Greta Thunberg was able to sail to some climate events, generally speaking, telling the world about a problem involves quickly travelling around the world and doing all kinds of event that have their own carbon footprint. Maybe this will change post covid?
And the kind of high-profile leaders are typically going to be wealthy because they need to be the kind of person who at the very least was able to make a comfortable living on the public-speaking circuit because they have an audience.
It’s similar to how Sanders can stick up for the common worker while having over $1 million in assets (which I was actually shocked by how little he has bearing in mind his age and profile). Someone with the profile to be talked about in the news is not going to be on $20k a year.
To add to your points, that right wing talking point could had been applied to well to do proponents of cleaning up rivers in the city of London to prevent cholera and other water based diseases.
It is clear why that would be silly, in the end well to do proponents of the changes in parliament in the 19th century did pay more taxes to fund the changes, thinking that they must change first so skeptics can follow could be justified just a bit if new technology and systems are already available; but it is really not a logical thing to request to well to do proponents when most of the solutions, when deployed, are most effective at the scale were governments are more useful. In the past, well to do proponents of mega projects that cleaned the environment also paid the taxes that made those solutions a reality.
Stop that! Now, I do my best to keep things moving along, but I’m not having things getting silly. Those two last posts got very silly indeed, and that last one about being shellfish was even sillier. [/BA] 
