This makes a lot of sense if you are a rational thinking person. I thought I’d alert WUWT readers to it. Below is a table from the front page of Spaceweather.com today, operated by NOAA and Dr. Tony Phillips.
And this week, we saw what can happen when PHA’s come calling:
So in light of that, I thought this article was rather interesting.
Death from the Skies = Boring, Sweat from GHGs = Sexy [Jonah Goldberg]
Published at The Corner, part of NRO
From a longtime reader:
Dear Jonah,
I thoroughly enjoyed your article today, and not just because you touched on an area where I worked – at least tangentially – for over a decade. You are right, virtually nobody is doing the leg work on keeping track of all the debris and potentially nasty sized rocks out there compared to the number of people shrieking about our impending slightly warmer earth. The big reason is that it isn’t very sexy work, unlike being a proponent of Anthropocentric Global Warming (AGW). If you work on space debris, minor planet orbits and earth crossing orbits about the best you can hope for is getting to name a new rock nobody else saw, or maybe getting your name in the paper while being misquoted by some reporter who doesn’t have a clue about what preliminary results or margin of error means when he says that your recently discovered rock will destroy the earth in 2029.
By comparison if you use your computer model to predict that according to your model the earth might possibly warm by somewhere between 0.9 and 3.5 degrees Celsius by the year 2100 you get to hang out with Al Gore and Bono and morally scold the ignorant proles for driving their SUVs to pick up the kids from daycare as you jet off to Switzerland for another speaking engagement. Of course there is one other distinction. The guy cataloging rocks is actually doing science, and that’s hard work.
One of the problems many people, especially scientists, are starting to have with the AGW proponents is their use of shrill tone and authority of numbers to try to stifle debate. Science is not consensus, and though there can be a scientific consensus that doesn’t constitute science either. Computer models predicting conditions 50 years from now in a system as complex as the earth aren’t within spitting distance of science. To be science something has to be testable and falsifiable. It must produce a predicted data point, interaction or outcome that is unique to the theory and can be verified or falsified. Would you bet your future on the accuracy of day seven of a seven day weather forecast? That is essentially what we are being told by the AGW proponents we absolutely must do without delay. Of course I think the without delay part has more to do with “We must pass the stimulus without delay” or “We must pass healthcare without delay” considerations than any notion that waiting three or four years will actuall make any long term difference.
read the rest of the article at The Corner
h/t to Planet Gore
Wouldn’t it be ironic if we get wiped out by an asteroid which we could have prevented had we put the resources into asteroid defenses instead of killing each other all over the planet or worrying about the imagined AGW Hypothesis? Oh wait, not it wouldn’t be ironic since all of us would be dead, can’t have irony if there isn’t anyone around to think it ironic!
To me it’s the height of irresponsible governing to not address this important real survival issue. Heck all the money put into worrying about a few extra tons of plant food (C02) could be used to save us from a real Extinction Level Event (ELE) smacking us dead without much warning. We need defenses ready to deploy in orbit of Earth, the Moon, or Sol.
Nigel S (22:10:29) :
Graeme Rodaughan (20:38:29)
2.7% of all transactions to get Al Gore and Bono on Fireball XL5 to destinations unknown sounds good to me; I’m in.
Send them on a mission to land on the Sun…
With the Gore effect in place, the sun will cool and AGW will be over…
This is such an important issue, as a civilization that lives in a dynamic solar system – its taken us so long to wake up and look around us. Thanks for posting it here. More people need to be aware of the issues of NEA’s and we need to encourage our species towards perparing for the inevitable and putting our minds to tackling the problem with viable solutions.
Thanks again Anthony ! Are you the only scientist on the web who is awake ?
One of the differences between climate science and astronomy is in astronomy the contribution of amateur’s is welcomed and appreciated by the professionals, where as the contribution of people like Anthony to climate science is considered an inconvenience to the professionals. I use the word professional in the literal interpretation of someone who is paid and amateur as someone who is not.
I can see the headlines:
“Asteroid on collision course with Earth. Is AGW to blame?”
Nigel S (22:10:29) :
Fireball XL5, LOL.
Don’t forget Super Car AND The Thunderbirds as well Nigel. Surely Captain Scarlet can be counted on too, he did the Mysterons in after all. However, If all else fails ‘Stingray’ could be re-activated along with the guys on Moon Base Alpha to setup a refuge with the Terrahawks up there in Space Precinct.
There, that’s my childhood re-visited…
Oh nearly forgot… Dr Who can simply enlist the aid of the ‘Mekon’, Will Robinson and Robbie the Robot to use a ‘time ray’ and divert Asteroid Thermageddon back into the ‘Twilight Zone’ where it will orbit ceaselessly around Al Gore and AGW trapped as they are in another dimension.
Who are those men in white coats knocking on my door?
The problem I have with the whole thing is that we are sort of putting the cart before the horse. As far as I know there is no actual plan in place for how to respond of we discover something inbound that is going to hit us in less than, say, 12 months. Is there a launch vehicle that could be readied in time? If so, what is it going to do when it gets there?
Our strategy seems at this point to be “lets take inventory and if we see something, we will worry about what to do when we find it”. Which assumes we will have a boatload of time to figure it out and do something. What we have no plan for is something that we find today that is headed in and likely to hit before Christmas.
Now of course there is no reason to worry about responding to something that is really huge and barreling in on a direct collision course because there will be nothing we can do about it. Then the questions become … what is the largest thing we CAN do anything about? And what would be the consequences of us not doing anything about it?
So some Jupiter sized ball of ice flung out of some star system a billion years ago comes flying past the solar system too dim for us to see, disrupts the Oort cloud and sends a hail of comets in from outside the ecliptic … there isn’t going to be a darned thing we are going to be able to do anyway except hope they all miss.
If there isn’t anything we can do, there is no sense looking. We should develop a response plan first else we are just tossing money at someone’s hobby horse.
“Wouldn’t it be ironic if we get wiped out by an asteroid which we could have prevented had we put the resources into asteroid defenses instead of killing each other all over the planet or worrying about the imagined AGW Hypothesis?”
It would even be more ironic if we did spend a bunch of money on asteroid defense and got wiped out by something anyway. You can spend money on something that *might* happen or you can spend money on what *is* happening.
And you can recognize what you can’t do and not waste time and energy on it. If you can’t mitigate something larger than a certain size, then there is no sense looking at anything larger than that size. And if anything smaller than the size you can do anything about isn’t likely to cause a global catastrophe, there’s no sense worrying about that either.
Have we actually defined what we can and can not do anything about? I would say that at this point it is extremely unlikely that we can do much about anything at all even if we detected it unless we have several years notice.
I’d say neither: “Supervolcanoes” above hotspots (like the Yellowstone Caldera) may be a bigger threat than asteroids.
Wasnt it a couple of months ago a large rock wizzed past the southern hemisphere taking everyone by suprise? Im actually pretty amazed that no one saw, or had on tracking something big enough to cause a scar on Jupiter like that.
To answer someone above who mentioned that the earth clears its orbit. Make it present tense. Earth continues to clear its orbit and the cosmos keeps hurling things at us. Two strikes on Jupiter so far within a very short timeframe though. Maybe shes doin her job and attracting the really big stuff for us?
There is a book by Immanuel Velikovsky titled “Worlds in Collision” first published in1950 (The copy I have is a 1972 19th edition).
He hypothesises from his studies of the ancient world and the earliest manuscripts that Venus was originally a comet that eventually settled in its current orbit after creating much havoc on Earth and the rest of the solar system.
Is it a reasonable interpretation of the Old Testament disasters or not I don’t know but it is an interesting read about the legends of the first civilisations.
We will have to wait to test his hypothesis until man visits Mars and Venus and study the geology of our solar neighbours.
When discussing Near Earth Objects, always Google first, and then post. Apparently we have already sent a probe to the asteroid Eros. Plans are underway for an Asteroid Defense System as we speak.
Quotes from various articles:
“What to do if an Earth-bound comet or asteroid is discovered? Early detection, preferably many years in advance, would enable us to send out exploratory spacecraft to determine the nature of the interloper, much like the spacecraft near’s current investigation of the asteroid Eros. Scientists at the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories are already dreaming up a variety of ingenious defenses against an incoming asteroid. Depending on its mass and composition, they would use tailor-made nuclear explosions to pulverize small asteroids or deflect larger ones. Given enough time, and under the proper circumstances, less drastic measures would be needed. Some schemes call for conventional explosives alone, or anchoring a rocket motor or a solar sail on an asteroid to alter its orbit enough to allow it to safely bypass Earth. ”
“Scientists have proposed a variety of strategies to nudge an asteroid off course. The list is the stuff of science fiction and includes using lasers, mirrors or atomic weapons launched from Earth.”
The following is bizarre, considering that we’ve been discussing the secrecy of data sources. What are they hiding? Where is the NEO mole?
“The US military has abruptly ended an informal arrangement that allowed scientists access to data on incoming meteors from classified surveillance satellites. The change is a blow to the astronomers and planetary scientists who used the information to track space rocks, especially those that burn up over the oceans or in other remote locations. ”
“For 15 years, scientists have benefited from data gleaned by U.S. classified satellites of natural fireball events in Earth’s atmosphere but a recent U.S. military policy decision now explicitly states that these observations are classified.”
http://www.gyre.org/news/asteroid-defense
With supervolcanoes bulging, and asteroids whistling through space, the debate over CO2 seems sillier than ever.
The thing about asteroid impact is that it’s much more dramatic for film makers than AGW (unless they cheat and involve huge unphysical waves). It’s unfortunate that we can’t pick and choose the things we should be scared of — if we could I might be able to sell my unpublished short Hittile to Fantasy and SF: maybe it’ll turn out to be prescient after all. Building an asteroid shield would be major shot in the arm for engineering and as such would be a good thing. We’ll win the struggle against starvation and pollution by the efforts of engineers, not social engineers.
The way to kill a rogue asteroid is by bashing it with as much weight as you can launch travelling as fast as you can manage. It’s the v squared in the half m v squared that does the work.
(snip away….)
….
Carradine watched the display.
DATA EXPECTED IN THREE MINUTES.
TWO.
ONE.
An ironic cheer went up when the hit box showed. A red line traced the path of the comet. It was two hundred thousand kilometres ahead of the Earth as it passed her orbit. Carradine let out a gust of breath. She was just wondering whether the whole thing had been set up for her benefit when Scott’s voice cut into her thoughts.
“Hoplite to Guardian, I’ve got a confidence level charlie on that estimate. Why’s that?”
The controller reached lazily for her switch.
“It’s from Two only. Birdseye Three’s off for maintenance, One’s due up in five days. You’ll get confidence alfa in ten minutes when we’ve tracked it for a bit longer.”
Confidence bravo was fifty thou out. Confidence alfa…
“Well now. Just look at that,” said Scott’s voice. “It’s a bullseye.” The red dot was dead centre on the Earth.
The chief controller slapped her hand on a palm-sized button beside her chair. Sirens sounded and a robot voice blared.
“Alert, alert. Standby to launch.” Airlocks slammed shut all over the spinning wheel.
ROUGH MAGIC lurched as the Hoplite blasted free.
“Hoplite to Guardian, take cover. Hoplite slewing now. Firing in thirty seconds. Take cover.” The speakers took up the refrain. A controller grabbed Carradine. They fell together down some steps into a dingy hole below the seats. The woman’s face was wet with sweat.
“If she blows up we’ll get zapped. Three metres of lead here.” They held their breath.
Much later Carradine saw the holo of the launch, shot from Longstop. The Hoplite broke free of the wheel in an explosion of sparks and debris. She swung smoothly into position, then ignited her main engine. Bombs fired one after another, three a second, a searing glare that cut out all other vision, exploding just behind the huge buffer plate, enormous shock absorbers bouncing under the titanic strain of each impact. Hoplite stood on a pillar of flame and streaked away. Big as a supertanker, fifty years old, the hittile was up and running.
….
JF
Apparently we have already sent a probe to the asteroid Eros. Plans are underway for an Asteroid Defense System as we speak.
Quotes from various articles:
“What to do if an Earth-bound comet or asteroid is discovered? Early detection, preferably many years in advance, would enable us to send out exploratory spacecraft to determine the nature of the interloper, much like the spacecraft near’s current investigation of the asteroid Eros. Scientists at the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories are already dreaming up a variety of ingenious defenses against an incoming asteroid. Depending on its mass and composition, they would use tailor-made nuclear explosions to pulverize small asteroids or deflect larger ones. Given enough time, and under the proper circumstances, less drastic measures would be needed. Some schemes call for conventional explosives alone, or anchoring a rocket motor or a solar sail on an asteroid to alter its orbit enough to allow it to safely bypass Earth. ”
“Scientists have proposed a variety of strategies to nudge an asteroid off course. The list is the stuff of science fiction and includes using lasers, mirrors or atomic weapons launched from Earth.”
The following is bizarre, considering that we’ve been discussing the secrecy of data sources. What are they hiding? Where is the NEO mole?
“The US military has abruptly ended an informal arrangement that allowed scientists access to data on incoming meteors from classified surveillance satellites. The change is a blow to the astronomers and planetary scientists who used the information to track space rocks, especially those that burn up over the oceans or in other remote locations.”
“For 15 years, scientists have benefited from data gleaned by U.S. classified satellites of natural fireball events in Earth’s atmosphere but a recent U.S. military policy decision now explicitly states that these observations are classified.”
http://www.gyre.org/news/asteroid-defense
With supervolcanoes bulging, and asteroids whistling through space towards us, the debate over CO2 seems sillier than ever.
Allan (02:18:23) :
We have visited Venus and Mars remotely by robot and Velikovsky was as full of it when he wrote Worlds in Collision as he is today. Venus was not a comet and did not originate from Jupiter.
What is it about the AGW debate and not other areas of science that attracts so much interest from the general public? Why are you here and why is it so important to you to prove it wrong (or right)? Why not other more contentious areas of science?
I’ve heard talk about tax but let’s be honest you could disprove AGW tomorrow and ‘green tax’ would simple become regular tax. Government spending on climate change is comparatively tiny and much climate research will continue regardless. The small savings would easily disappear in the noise of government debt. At best a dollar or 2 each could be saved.
Also heard people don’t want to be forced to change their lifestyle. Well it will happen anyway. Oil prices will continue to rise and, even if AGW isn’t the reason why, people are far more motivated by money. So you can be absolutely sure over the next 50years we will no longer rely on fossils fuels for energy anyway.
Don’t get me wrong I think it’s great so many people are interested in science (despite the appalling abuses of science I’ve read) but why this issue?
Asteroids are not so easy to blame on big corporations, western culture, or white people. Indeed, it will be the same scapegoated groups who save us from such a problem.
That’s why global warming has gained so much traction. Fundamentally, it’s no different from the Duke Lacrosse Hoax.
My opinion only.
Shhhhhhh! When the AGW scam collapses we don’t want Al Gore getting any new funny ideas…
I suggest that a new UN organization is formed “The Intergovernmental Panel on Comet And Asteroid Impact” IPCA.
This is a serious and real threat. There exists scientific consensus that this threat is real and that catastrophic impacts will happen sometime in the future.
That is a fact.
Despite what the media and politicians tell us there is no scientific consensus on validity the on the theory on catastrophic AGW.
In order for the CAGW theory to have real validity and to be considered to be a real threat one of these two conditions must be true, in my opinion.
Either the global temperature variation show an increase that is above normal natural climate variability or there can be shown together with valid and actual measurements that there exist a strong positive feedback between CO2 and water vapor.
As far as I know, none of these two conditions are true.
So, should we take action on a threat that we know is real or for a threat that we don’t have evidence that it even exist?
This leaves us with the real threat of catastrophic impacts.
Consider this! During one year, this risk is very small, but if one considers a 10 year time span in the future the risk of a catastrophic impact increases by a staggering 900% compared for just one year.
So what should be done?
We don’t have technology to blow away or nuke asteroids today and if it is a comet that is going to hit us, coming from the Kuiper Belt, we may not have enough time to take any action to deflect it at all.
So instead, we should prepare ourselves down here on Earth.
One option is to build underground caves for the entire human population and to store food and energy supplies for up to 10 years so that we can reoccupy the Earth again after the dust have settled and the Sun can be seen again.
I don’t know about the cost for doing this but it should be just a few 100 trillions of dollars, which we easily can borrow up.
Because of our consumer guilt, China and India don’t have to pay for this. We in the developed world should offer the cash.
Inaction is not an option!
Well if we had to do something about a PHA given a few years’ warning there’s always time to dust off the plans for Project Orion.
Time for the human race to grow up. It’s not “If the Sun dies” (thanks to Oriana Fallaci for that, it was the title of her book), it’s “long before the sun dies a large rock will hit the Earth and do untold damage.
We aren’t a plague on Gaia, we are her immune and reproductive systems and it’s time we faced up to the job.
No, no, no you Folks got it wrong!
It’s OK if nature/universe modify/rearrange itself.
Only pesky humans not allowed to do that.
On examination of the beryllium-10 record it is obvious that there are spikes – and Paul LaViolette and others have examined the ice-core record for this isotope as an indicator of cosmic ray penetration and for inter-stellar dust, all signs of a breach of the planetary defences. Richard Firestone put together a convincing case that 13,500 years ago those defences were seriously breached by cometary debris – and it is possible that we are dealing with a cyclic event of varying severity – with the last such more minor breach in 5000BP.
However, it one were to go looking for major threats more significant than AGW, the prime candidate is the Carrington event of 1859 – and the potential impact of a repeat today with vulnerable electrical grids and computer driven systems. The US National Academy of Sciences has just warned that we are not ready and it could take years to restore electrical grids. The world would face chaos – with collapsed communications, banking, trade, heating, water and food supplies.
The Carrington event occurred during a relatively low solar cycle.
These things are not readily predicted – but I would be alert if we see a major sunspot on or around August 1st (28 days after the appearance of the last sunspot with its X-ray flare). This will mean that last sunspot has maintained integrity for one solar rotation, and is beginning its spiral toward the equator. I don’t know if individual sunspots do maintain integrity through the spin-cycle, but if one produces a major flare close to the equator (and hence they occur near the maximum of the solar cycle) and at the base of the heliospheric current sheet – and more particular, in one of its spiral arms that connects to Earth – then the plasma-shock gets here in about 8 minutes! It would deliver a huge pulse.
That type of event is relatively common compared to a major asteroid impact, but just as deadly in this modern electricity-dependent world. The danger period would be from autumn of next year onwards for about two years.
“We in the developed world should offer the cash.”
Socialist banking legislation has left the developed world severely bankrupt, we have no cash just empty promises from brain-dead (but charming) politicians.
dennis ward (22:23:03) :
“I had understood that a lot of scientists ARE working on the path of PHAs and dealing with any that may hit us. Deflecting asteroids is not easy though and it will needs lots of taxpayers’ money and so you will have lost the support of most AGW [snip] already, whose main purpose for [snip] is because acting on any threats will hurt their bank balances. So it’s best to pretend they don’t exist.
What;’s the latest on arctic ice, given that we have had a two year spell of relative solar inactivity ?
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi1_ice_ext.png
Surely some mistake?”
No Dennis, it’s not a mistake.
We are in a volcanic summer where blocking low pressure area’s create a situation where huge masses of ice are transported from the Arctic Sea into the Atlantic Ocean.
This process is not related to any AGW because there is NO significant AGW.
These are exactly the processes that cause further cooling of our oceans and you will experience significant effects this coming winter which will not only be harsh in the US and Canada but also in Europe.
Obviously you first need a PHA to hit you on your head before you can start thinking straight about the true effects of GHG’s.
You can download a pdf about the subject including detailed weather maps from icecap.us.
It’s the bottom article at the left column.
From Icecap.us Jul 28, 2009
Aircraft Photos of Arctic Ice
Thanks to Imelda and Edwin and Meteorologist Tim Kelley for photos from a flyover of northern end of Hudson’s Bay received last week. The photos were taken from northern Hudson Bay.
The ice has been diminishing since the mid 1990s with the warm Atlantic AMO.
The AMO turned cooler in 2008-09 resulting in some recovery.
The ice is always on the move and is affected by both ocean temperatures from water entering the arctic from the Atlantic and Pacific and the low level flow pattern. The high latitude blocking over the arctic with low pressure over Siberia as we have seen this summer leads to clockwise flow that helps move ice out of the arctic into the Atlantic. See July surface pressure below (enlarged here).
See more with larger images here. See also Tim’s post on the recent storm behaving semi tropical system of July 23-24, 2009 here.
Jimmy Haigh:
That statement woldn’t surprice me. I think such words are meant something else than they litterally says. I guess that the collective force, regulated by government can be an argument. (AGW alarmist Joachim Schellnhuber has said that AGW is 90% a social issue. OAttitude and collective politics to solve the supposed crisis; Schellnhuber has ben a central player in the preparation for Copenhagen, which our naive politicians without any questions follow.) “Deniers” can be accused to be against centralized rescue politics by force, and even to be the root cause for unwillingness to embrace such plitics. The accusations from the green AGW movement to not take AGW serious enough may imply an accusation to be on the wrong political stance. It’s all about politics, but not in a honest way, but through computer models’ scary fiction.
The slandering video about Watts (full of false crappy “Watts friends ignore health risk from smoking”-propaganda) almost started with an accusation that Anthony’s friends are Rush Limbaugh and other far right wing radio talkshow hosts, and an accusation that deniers have pro free market agenda. A statements about politics is intrinsically irrelevant but it revealed that the maker of the Youtube video see the AGW issue as political issue (and that he’s anti-free market!). That video also ended with the words that nature don’t care about politics (after a supposedly horrifying reference to science showing that temperature increase affect 90% of nature (most often to the better, yes)).
The accusation about extreme right wing politics among deniers (realists) is wrong, and reveals an extrem political position they have themselves. Those who are focused on left-right politics (which they get wrong) reveals that AGW is politics for them.
—
Reflection on Potentially Hazardous Astroids: John Holdren, Paul Ehrlich, James Lovelock, and other population bomb theorists should see those as a blessing and salvation. Lovelock say that population reduction from a climate catastrophe is positive and good if it until 2100 reduce population to 1 billion people instead of 9 billion people. (AGW, part of environmentalism insanity/politics, by UN/IPCC dressed in science.)
(I’m not denying that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, with a direct effect of about +1 degrees C at double concentration, but negative temperature feedback, reducing temperature increase, dominates, and the accumulation of CO2 isn’t obvious; IPCC hasn’t comment the reports in Segalstad’s invetory of reports about CO2’s lifetime in atmosphere.)