Jeez, there’s no excuse for this spectacular failure to understand one of most basic principles about the Earth’s weather and climate. From:
How to respond to people who say the cold weather disproves global warming | Grist
This helpful diagram taught in grade school science, is relevant. Note the proximity of Earth to the sun at the winter solstice and at perihelion -vs- the summer solstice and Aphelion:
Of course, they’ve deleted the sentence in red now. It reads now:
The author writes:
Update: This post originally included a line about the Earth’s distance from the Sun that was an intentional oversimplification, but a dumb one, as (lots of) people have pointed out. I removed it. Your comments about irony and hubris are welcome.
This of course illustrates why GRIST is such a well respected source for climate entertainment. Cold weather events don’t disprove global warming any more than hot weather events prove global warming. Let’s all remind GRIST of this fact come summer.
h/t to Tom Nelson
UPDATE: Must be something in the air today, more hilarity:
CNN Weatherman: Don’t Laugh! Cold Temps Come from Global Warming | NewsBusters
We were amused by this one. In the 1 pm hour, CNN meteorologist Chad Myers was talking about the frigid temperatures in the eastern United States. Guess the culprit? As always, global warming.
“So what’s causing all of this cold air? If I tell you and I look at you straight in the face and tell you global warming, you’re going to laugh at me. But in fact, it’s the case.”
PS: Years ago, Myers dared to be a bit more skeptical on this politically loaded issue.
MYERS: Because there’s no sea ice up in the Arctic, the Arctic is warmer than it should be. In fact, Quebec is colder than the Arctic. When this happens, when this kind of surface happens, there’s not cold air just pounded over here, right over Santa Claus, the jet stream is allowed to expand farther to the south. And because the jet stream is expanding farther to the south, the cold air that should be bottled up here, making more sea ice and it’s not, now expands into China, expands into Russia, and all the way down to the U.S. And that’s exactly the position we’re in right now.
There’s no sea ice up in the Arctic? Could have fooled me. From the WUWT Sea Ice reference page: http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/
It wasn’t an “oversimplification” as they say int heir update. It was WRONG!
Their explanation is still wrong. It’s not about the trivial difference in the distance from the sun, the change in seasons is due to the shorter or longer days we get due to axial tilt.
It seems their oversimplification had an oversimplification.
But they are STILL wrong! They are still saying that the seasons are regulated by distance of a hemisphere from the sun. Fail again! Even a farmer like me knows better than that!
Bloody hell!
So……if it was an intentional oversimplification….then there would be no need to delete it.
“Now give them a little pat on the head ….”
The condescension being instructed there is even more telling than is the poor science being taught.
OK, Grist is owned by the Onion, right? Right?
Oh…
Its the axis tilt, and the angle that the suns rays are striking the ground and the length of day between summer and winter that cause the temp differences obviously, the distance of sun from earth is minor player compared to the first mentioned effects.
It’s a decent diagram, but – ‘December 21th/22nd’ ?
Regardless, 97% of crappy web journalists agree that climate change is real.
Jeez. Basic stuff. It’s the angle of the planet in relation to the sun that decides how much energy heats the earth at any one point. It has nothing to do with the distance from the sun. Nothing. My physics teacher explained it simply to me some thirty years ago. I guess it takes a climate scientist to screw up something that simple.
There is a misprint on the picture. Aphelion is July 4, not June 4.
By the way, there’s a place called the southern hemisphere.. you may have heard of it. We’re waaay down here and it’s summer now. We’re (roughly) the same distance from the sun as you are so clearly that isn’t what causes the seasons, otherwise we wouldn’t have them at different times.
The best thing to do when you’ve said something dumb is to own up to it. Disappera the post and move on Grist. We’ll still disrespect you the same amount in the morning.
Wait, are they now admitting that the sun DOES play a part in how warm or cold the Earth gets?
The earth is furthest from the sun July 4th not June 4th (I believe June 4th should come before June 21s looking at the rotational arrowst!!). Is this an error in the helpful grade school diagram?
Ignorance IS Bliss !
Oh, this one is a true gem ! I bookmark it 🙂
BobN says:
Their explanation is still wrong. It’s not about the trivial difference in the distance from the sun, the change in seasons is due to the shorter or longer days we get due to axial tilt.
And the angle of incidence, with the same amount of sun having to heat a larger area.
Who would have thought it possible for them to make the “correction” even more wrong than the original error? But it is a pattern warmists seem to follow with the historic temperature record “corrections”.
You couldn’t make it up.
You know, this business of saying ‘snowy weather doesn’t prove global warming ain’t happening’ is a funny old thing. Across here in Scotland, people were moaning a few years ago about snow having disappeared in the winter (we have a few years with little snow to speak of around 2003-2006 or so). At that time I remember folks saying “eh, those nice crispy winters, where have they gone eh!”. Now that we’ve had a few years of snowy winters again you hear people saying “something’s up with the weather, remember those nice mild winters we used to have”…
And here’s one from the archives, one of many that people seem to forget:
http://www.outdoorsmagic.com/outdoors-news/no-snow-for-snowdon/4367.html
Now that the UK is carpeted in snow, they say we must get used to snow because of global warming. Human nature is a wonderful thing…
I still fail to see how the earth axis tilt justifies that cold weather is accounted for by global warming. But my head is spinning with so much fake reasoning.
Just to get it totally clear: isn’t it due to the differing amounts of surface area lit by the sun (due to the axial tilt) during the respective seasons. (And I’ve alway thought it cool that you can see the momentum of the system in the fact that hottest and coolest periods of the season lag the solstices)
Agreed. The “distance from the sun” explanation is wrong. Anyone who paid attention in elementary school science classes knows it’s about the angle at which the sun’s rays hit the planet. The greater the deviation from straight overhead, the lower the power per unit area.
” Science is Hard” Barbara M. Roberts
If I remember correctly, the Earth is something like 93 million miles from the sun.
Anyone who thinks adding or subtracting 1000 miles from that is going to make any difference at all in the Earth’s temperature has never done science.
When grain is sent through a gristmill something useful comes out. I guess that doesn’t hold true here.
O Olson agrees with what BobN says-
“Their explanation is still wrong.”
Indeed. The writer’s explanation ” This post originally included a line about the Earth’s distance from the Sun…” is also wrong. The modified paragraph still refers to one hemisphere being ‘closer’ to the sun than the other.
A fellow GRIST’r predicted this futurecrime against science-
“For the most part, those who strongly support climate action do not do so because they’ve been rationally persuaded; in fact, they tend to be quite ignorant of the scientific details. People who reject climate science tend to know the most about it, because they’re motivated to learn about it in order to reject it.”
David Roberts, Grist, October 2011
Oh, the ironing!
What kind of math do they use to assume that the Earth’s 21 degree tilt means that one hemisphere is thousands of miles further from the sun than is the other? More like a few hundred, even at the pole. As you get closer to the equator the difference gets less.
Angle of incidence, beam intensity, and the depth of atmosphere the sunlight has to travel are the determining reasons, and which are also the reasons why the poles would still be colder than the equator, if the Earth’s axis wasn’t tilted. Elegantly illustrated with a torch and a football in very junior physics.
Dhuhh– it is summer in the southern hemispere right now.
“So what’s causing all of this cold air? If I tell you and I look at you straight in the face and tell you global warming, you’re going to laugh at me. But in fact, it’s the case.”
PS: Years ago, Myers dared to be a bit more skeptical on this politically loaded issue.
MYERS: Because there’s no sea ice up in the Arctic, the Arctic is warmer than it should be.
============================================================================
There’s no ice because it’s warm because of all the cold air. Or is it there’s no ice because it’s cold because of all the warm air?
Anybody got an aspirin?
Alex,
Yes, and the fact that the sun has less time to shine on certain areas in the “winter” periods as well.
Less daily sun shine + Lower angle of the sun meaning less directed sun = COLD
If I follow their logic, cold in winter is due to axial tilt. So, colder than usual winters by their reasoning must be caused by increased axial tilt which is in turn caused by global warming.
“That’s not right. That’s not even wrong.”
~Albert Einstein
In fairness, the Einstein quote fails to convey the depth of the stupidity.
The most hilarious and spectacular failure of climate pseudo science can actually be found in its very core.
For all the claims of “settled science” and “basic physics” the climate pseudo scientists left out the most basic physics of all – HOT AIR RISES! I know it sounds unbelievable but it is true.
They failed to correctly model gravity, the pressure gradient in the atmosphere and the convective movement of gas in the atmosphere. They got the answer to the most basic basic question, “what would happen if gases in the atmosphere did not radiate IR?”, totally wrong. The answer is not 33C cooler.
How did they get it so wrong? They used linear flux equations on a moving atmosphere! Because they never correctly modelled convective energy transport,they failed to correctly model the role of radiative gases in in the atmosphere. Do it correctly and you find that radiation from the mid to upper troposphere is critical for continued convective circulation.
What happens if convective circulation stalls? The atmosphere heats. Heated gases can rise but without radiating IR to space they cannot cool and descend. Adiabatic cooling on ascent does not count as it is matched by adiabatic heating on decent. For an atmosphere maintaining a relatively stable temperature and exhibiting strong vertical convection, energy must be exiting the atmosphere at a higher altitude than it is entering the atmosphere. There is only one way for our atmosphere to lose energy at altitude and that is radiative gases.
Have a think about the atmosphere. Where does all the strong vertical convection occur? Below the tropopause. Where are almost all the radiative gases? Below the tropopause. These gases are vital for continued convective circulation. If convective circulation stalls the atmosphere heats.
Climate pseudo scientists also got conductive energy flow from the surface to the atmosphere wrong. They forgot gravity and treated an atmosphere with depth and a pressure gradient as a single mathematical layer. In the real atmosphere gravity brings the coldest gases in contact with the surface. This means conductive energy flow into and out of the atmosphere from the surface is biased. Conductive energy flow is greater when the is a greater temperature differential. Heating an gas column in a gravity field from the base is more effective than trying to cool the gas column from the base. The opposite is also true. That is the critical role that radiative gases play in our atmosphere. Cooling at altitude.
Radiative gases act to cool our atmosphere at all concentrations above 0ppm. AGW is the biggest and most spectacular fail in the history of human scientific endevour.
Josualdo says:
January 23, 2013 at 1:47 pm
I still fail to see how the earth axis tilt justifies that cold weather is accounted for by global warming. But my head is spinning with so much fake reasoning.
————–
Sun gives off UV .. That is absorbed by the planet.
Planet gives that off as Infra Red
Infra red absorbed by Greenhouse gases warming the atmosphere making it colder.
/sarc
They should thnik before they write ;o)
We worked this out in grade school with a flashlight and a basketball. I always wondered what would become of those who did not get it.
The descent into idiocracy continues.
No doubt they need slip on shoes.
O Olson says: They are still saying that the seasons are regulated by distance of a hemisphere from the sun.
Yeah, to them, being in the dark for 24 hours a day has nothing to do with getting colder.
..and they just don’t seem to realize that they’re the ones in the dark.
Someone must have gone to Harvard where they learn this: http://youtu.be/p0wk4qG2mIg
Media must scrupulously avoid reporting stories like this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2257995/Trapped-icy-prison-1-000-ships-stranded-frozen-ocean-China-gripped-extreme-cold-snap.html
Do not disturb the faith.
Doug, they apparently became Climate scientists.
I remember reading somewhere, someone stating that any field of study that has the word “science” in it isn’t a science at all: Political Science, Social Science, etc. I guess we can add “Climate Science” to that list.
Chairman Mao introduced the cultural revolution because he was convinced that the educational elite was using long words to hide a simple truth from the masses. Seems it is still going.
Even outside of the major goof, the final line in the quote is as stupid as taking a July heat wave and saying, “Give the warmist a little pat on the head and tell them that if it were this hot in, say, January, then they’d have a right to be suspicious.”
Seriously GRIST? Only a July that’s as cold as January disproves global warming/climate change?
I’d like to think my 9th graders know better than this…except that there are a lot of people who used to be my ninth graders who are now out in the world, apparantly believing this stuff.
THAT’S not even entirely correct; HOW ABOUT INCLUDING the influence the TILT has on the movement of COLD POLAR AIR MASSES down into CANADA *and* THE CONTINENTAL US ? ? ? ? ? ?
Don’t think that’s it even?
Listen, we PRAY for cold fronts to make their way down into Texas come mid July! … last year we were rewarded with a COUPLE fronts, as RARE as they are ! ! ! ! ! !
.
Is CNN meteorologist Chad Myers “certified” by AMS or have some other claim to fame in his qualifications? If so, the group doing so should send him back his money and tell him to take some classes. A few weeks ago I had a message from a local consulting meteorologist saying that there was unusual warming in the Arctic and that was gong to push cold south. Myers must not understand that it can be unusually warm and still be well below freezing (i.e., -20 is warmer than -25, but still plenty cold to contribute to expanding sea ice.
Sheeesh!
I, for one, Konrad, would like a little more than just bold assertion on this point (i.e. include a cite or reference please if you could). Thank you.
.
PS. Meteorologically speaking, when it comes to warm air masses in what is called ‘the boundary layer’ there is more to it than just ‘hot air rises’; such factors as RH (dew point) and winds at the lower levels also play a part.
.
Chad must have been given his orders after his initial scepticism. The explanation he gives for colder because of warming is the kind one gets from someone suddenly having a microphone stuck under his nose to elicit an explanation. No, Chad stuck the mike under his own nose. He did at least expect people would laugh. Gee I think he was pulling our legs.
“But … but, you see, every night we are further away from the sun, than the other side of the world where it is daytime. And nights are colder, so our theory about distance and temperature is sane and therefore also the other things we claim about climate change.”
when you’re pretty you don’t have to be smart….obviously applies to actors, politicians and tv people of all kinds
Everyone in kindergarten knows snow has nothing to do with the sun. It is Santa, shaking his beard. A few years back he got angry because of our carbon pollution, but now he can see the President is going to fix it, that’s why.
The Aussies, if they behave themselves and pay their carbon taxes regularly, may see Santa shaking his beard on them around Christmas as well in a few years. Weird folks, anyway, they are, walking upside down.
There, I have fixed your science for you.
CNN meteorologist Chad Myers should take a page from the Grist book by declaring that “no ice” was an intentional oversimplification, and subsequently correct this by stating exactly the same.
is this promiscuous stupidity? are the science molesters in rut?
I haven’t seen this in the comments so far, but somebody should say it.
Ahem.
The stupid, it BURNS!!!
Try this version,
It is a well known fact that cold air falls.
Every Arctic resident knows this well, you can see the cold air flow in through an open door.
So its obvious the super cold air caused by global warming is falling toward the equator.
For all good climatologists know that the north pole is on top off the planet.
Dress this up a bit and it will be the new wisdom.
Ian Holton says:
January 23, 2013 at 1:25 pm
“…obviously, the distance of sun from earth is minor player compared to the first mentioned effects.”
In fact, the center of the Earth is closer to the Sun in Winter. I don’t have the numbers at hand, but maybe someone can answer just for grins: is the North Pole actually closer or farther away from the Sun in Winter? It’s farther due to the tilt, but it’s closer due to the orbit.
_Jim says:
January 23, 2013 at 3:02 pm
“I, for one, Konrad, would like a little more than just bold assertion on this point (i.e. include a cite or reference please if you could). Thank you.”
—————————————————————————————-
Jim, happy to help. The reference would be your own work. Yes you read that correctly, your own work.
I can give you instructions on how to build and run this simple empirical experiment
http://i48.tinypic.com/124fry8.jpg
The image depicts two closed boxes constructed of 25mm EPS foam sheet (shown transparent in the image). Internal volume should be around 1000 x 1000 x 100mm. (if building smaller, include ground friction control on the interior base of the box) Each box has a K-type Thermocouple in its centre. (Connect these to a dual probe thermometer with 0.1 C resolution.) Also penetrating each box a a number of thin aluminium tubes. (use K&S tube from a hobby store) These tubes are connected as shown in the image by flexible fish tank tubing. You will note there are input and output lines to each of the four groups of tubes. I suggest connecting the cold inputs to a cold water tap and the hot inputs to a hot water tap. Modifying rubber furniture leg ends from a hardware store with a punch is a good way of doing this. I used hot and cold water tanks with pumps but this is expensive and tank volume limits run time. Make the two cold water input tubes several meters longer than needed so you can coil them through a tank of water and party ice. Run all four output lines back to a sink. Gently turn on the water flows so as not to blow the tubing and ensure flow rate from all tubes back into the sink is the same.
While this experiment runs wholly on conduction it simply demonstrates the importance of cooling at altitude. Box 1 represents an atmosphere in which gas heated at the surface can cool at altitude. Box 2 represents a non radiative atmosphere that can only heat and cool at the surface.
Which box gets hotter, and why? (note – you will not get the right answer using AGW maths.)
PS. Warmist bafflegabbers claim that greater conductive cooling at the surface can offset conductive heating at the surface. I have another simple experiment you can build that shows that is also a load of pseudo scientific tripe.
Also, a 1,000 mile difference between the two seasons (aphelion and perihelion) isn’t much of a change considering the sun is 92,960,000 miles away from earth. That’s a .001% difference in on distance at aphelion and perihelion. That’s like having 1,000 miles plus adding 52 feet to make up the .001% change in distance at aphelion. Not much change in distance considering the distance of the Earth from the Sun. It’s all about scale. The difference on the distance between Earth and Sun at aphelion and perihelion is quite small. A thousand miles difference is minutely small when distances are measured in millions of miles. Those folks failed miserably in the field of science.
” there’s a place called the southern hemisphere.. you may have heard of it. We’re waaay down here and it’s summer now.”
No way!!! The so-called “Southern Hemisphere”, with its purported reverse weather, is a total myth! /irony
So you want your chart to put Aphelion at July 4, not June.
Show that diagram to school kids in the southern hemisphere and you’ll be laughed out of class.
Surely if the seasons reverse (being in the southern hemisphere I can confirm that they do) and when it is cold in the North and hot in the South then the average would remain the same as when it is hot in the North and cold in the South?
Surely if the seasons reverse (being in the southern hemisphere I can confirm that they do) and when it is cold in the North and hot in the South then the average would remain the same as when it is hot in the North and cold in the South?
Note to Mods, sorry mistyped my email address
Their explanation is still wrong. It’s not about the trivial difference in the distance from the sun, the change in seasons is due to the shorter or longer days we get due to axial tilt.
As much as they are idiots to make this kind of statement (as anyone can see we are closer to the sun in the winter), the difference in distance and the difference in insolation is not trivial. at Perihelion the Total Solar Illumination (TSI) is about 1388-1390 watts/m2. At Amphelion the TSI is about 1326-28 watts/m2. This is over 60 w/m2 which is not trivial. The earth is in a near circular orbit at this time but as the eccentricity changes over the 110,000 year cycle that increases to where the difference is up to 150 watts/m2. To see what the importance of this is, the current glacial/interglacial periods are driven by this factor.
Whoa! Wait a second!
The earth’s tilt, which causes the seasons, is irrelevant to whether colder temperatures – be they short term (just weather) or for a couple decades or more (climate) – disprove CAGW. Cold trends of a couple decades or more show that natural causes overwhelm CO2, and that would show that CAGW is BS.
A friend of mine in Churchill Manitoba is laughing at Chad Mayers. The Arctic Ocean has a beautiful frozen Ice wig that is solid except for breathing holes for Seals and the occasional crack. Chad Mayers is a crack pot!
Hey, good catch! They might have disappeared it, but TOO late! }:o)
And BTW, that has got to be one of the most jaw-droppingly stupid things to write – I can scarcely believe it. Distance from the sun is the sort of thing a little kid might get confused about – “why isn’t it hotter at the top of this mountain, Dad – we’re nearer to the sun?”
Oh, and is it just me or is the whole of that spiel from Myers total gobbledygook?! He completely lost me around the ‘Santa Claus’ part. What a numpty!
From the text:
“So for part of the year as the Earth rotates around the Sun, . . . ”
Earth rotates on its axis. Earth revolves around the Sun.
MarkW says:
January 23, 2013 at 2:04 pm
21° tilt? 23.44° is “right” last I checked (it wobbles a little bit over thousands of years). The graphic says “23,5 deg.” That’s close enough.
Amazing! Who would have thought that a mere 0.002% difference in the distance from the sun could be responsible for the 7% difference in the received sunlight.
This just in: Hangnails caused by global warming! Film at 11.
Same logic the AGW proponents use – anything and everything weather-wise is caused by it.
*”If I tell you and I look at you straight in the face and tell you global warming, you’re going to laugh at me. But in fact, it’s the case.”*
That is classically bad tactics.
Imagine your reaction when somebody says: “Look, I’m not a racist, but I really can’t stand those [fill in as required] carrying on like that in my neighbourhood.”
We remember and internalise the preamble, not the rebuttal.
He has, in effect, told everyone to laugh at him when he says that cold weather is a result of global warming.
Philip Bump has a science background? Philip Bump understands science at all, other than being able to embrace and occasionally reproduce the current narrative?
Put me in the “show me” category.
Ignorant liberal arts major here, with a question:
The difference between aphelion and perihelion is a little over 3 million miles, which I guesstimate to be about 4 percent difference between the two points. Does that mean that summers/winters in the Southern Hemisphere are 4 percent fiercer than in the Northern Hemisphere?
In many ways this is an analogy to the entire AGW scare. You take an obvious fact (Earth closer to sun will receive more energy) and leap to the conclusion that it explains summer/winter. However, it ignores the more detailed elements that actually explain the difference (axis tilt).
One could say this is exactly how AGW evolved. They start with a fact (GHGs absorb and re-radiate) and leap to the conclusion that it can only warm the planet. However, in this case they jumped on a “save the Earth” bandwagon and can no longer get off without looking like fools. The more detailed elements are making it obvious they are wrong.
Anthony, let me get this straight. You were ridiculed on a blog, sponsored by Nat Geo, on a posting you were forwarding to you readership on the possibility of non-terrestrial life. The blogger pulled out his childhood cut and paste skills and conveniently left out the fact that you wrote a big word of caution that this needs to pass rigorous scientific scrutiny.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/16/greg-laden-liar/
Fast forward to today, current subject. Another blog site posts a ridiculous and extremely wrong explanation of the interaction of the orbit of the earth and the change in temperature in the seasons. Eventually changing his explanation (which is still wrong) and saying it was just an oversimplification, ‘ooops, my bad’…
Now, could someone get a statement from Mr. Greg Laden on his review of the GristMill article in question? Could he please enlighten up as to his understanding of the orbit of the earth, how it relates to our change in seasons and provide his scientific understanding of the previously mentioned GristMill article? What is his review of the article and can he provide a supporting statement?………… (insert crickets here)
Just wondering…
To Delayna:
Well, that’s not quite a fair comparison. The NH has water at the pole,
the SH has Antarctica–a continent that acts like a giant refrigerator for
the entire Hemisphere. Also, the NH has more land closer to the pole.
For example, South Georgia Island, at 54 degrees S., has a climate
where daily highs in summer run about 8 degrees C. Daily highs in
winter reach about 0 degrees C.
Unalaska island in the Aleutians is about 54 degrees N. latitude. Summer
daily highs are about 15 degrees C., winter daily highs about 3 degrees
C. Notice that BOTH are warmer.
So, the short answer to your question: no. The SH is a different place,
but the fierce heat of the Australian outback comes from the fact that
it’s a subtropical desert, not because it’s in the SH.
Thanks, Chris R. Yet another example of why I shouldn’t pin too much effect on a single cause!
What I find intruiging is this distance from the Sun is irrelevant.
I think if today’s situation were reversed and the northern hemisphere, with most of the land mass, were at Perihelion during summer I think summers would be warmerthan at present and southern hemisphere winters would likely be so also. Northern hemisphere winters would also likely be significantly colder.
It is interesting that the estimated 0.1 % change in Solar irradience is always dismissed as insignificant as a climate driver but on current accepted figures this is a radiative forcing of ~1.37 W/sq metre yet CO2 is less than this figure and obviously in control of the climate.
Can someone please also explain why mass isn’t important in radiative physics. I always feel there is something missing in the radiative physics I see used to prove the greenhouse effect.
With CO2 representing 0.06% of the atmosphere by weight and 1.205 kg of air/cubic metre at sea level CO2 represents about 0.0006 x 1,205 grams = ~0.7 grams in a cubic metre. Surely it is impossible for this to have any observable effect ?
We know you cannot get much energy from 0.7 grams / cubic metre of anything. Surely it is like trying to boil a kettle using one match at a time !
Why doesn’t mass matter – the joule is related to mass – why isn’t radiation ?
Is it just me or if actually faced with someone literally patting my head and saying something that stupid they’d be very lucky if they weren’t picking themselves up off the floor shortly thereafter?
PS: I’m really a laid back, easy going, southern gentleman not prone to violence but I think that would be just a little more than I could take, kinda like Buzz being called a coward and a liar.
Some people just need a good smacking.
Yep, I’m with the crowd here. It’s STILL WRONG. The critical role of the planetary tilt in the changing seasons is based on the angle of the sun. During the winter the sun is lower in the sky and above the horizon for fewer hours than during the summer. Further, because of the angle its rays spend more time passing through a thicker layer of atmosphere before reaching the ground.
Somebody needs to pat the writer over at CNN on the head. Upside the head.
CNN Weatherman:
Don’t Laugh! Cold Temps Come from Global Warming
Issac Newton
Ok. Don’t Laugh! Then Hot Temps Must Come from Global Cooling
MAC says:
January 23, 2013 at 5:50 pm
Delayna says:
January 24, 2013 at 6:55 am
denniswingo says:
January 23, 2013 at 7:48 pm
—–
The earth IS closer to the sun during the (northern hemisphere) winter, furthest from the sun during the (northern hemisphere) summer.
Saying the same thing with respect to our dear friends below the equator that CNN (and the CAGW theists forget) …
The earth IS closer to the sun during the summer, furthest from the sun during the winter.
A good approximation for the closest point of approach is January 3, for furthest distance is July 4, as noted above. ONLY around the two equinox (March 21-22 and Sept 21-22) is the actual insolation value close to the “average”. Also, notice that mid-March is also the point of highest sea ice extent in the Arctic/minimum sea ice extents in the Antarctic, and mid-September is the point of highest sea ice extents in the Antarctic/minimum sea ice extents in the Arctic.
A BAD approximation for day-to-day insolation values is the “classic” average-of-all-year 1367 watts/sq meter that is all-too-often used. Lief recently told us the best (most accurate) average TSI value is now 1320 watts/meter square for Insolation. But remember – This value is ONLY good for top-of-atmosphere, on the equator, at the equinox. Any other day-of-year or location on earth receives more or less radiation than “nominal”.
Two similar equations for day-to-day insolation for each Day-of-Year (DOY) are:
Insolation (day) = 1362 watts/sq meter * (1+0.034 cos ( 2* 3.14* DOY/365.25))
but Dr Frank Bason of Soldata prefers to use
Insolation (day) = 1362 watts/sq meter * [1 + 0.033 {cos (360 x(DOY – 3)/365)}]
Notice both equations approximate very closely the actual received radiation: which varies very closely to a cosine wave through the year from a maximum of 1418 in early January dropping to a minimum of 1320 in late June early July.
As usual, the climate alarmists’ approximations completely miss the boat most of the time ….
It’s all about the Sun. Rosco is astute. Follow the sun. http://www.climate4you.com/images/SolarIrradianceReconstructedSince1610.gif
Question: Why is Mars having a big melt at the same time Earth is?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html
Glaciers used to cover Chicago… guess the Alarmist should have been warning us back about CO2 admissions.
Gentlemen, a few numbers extra. At perihelion the Earth is ~91.5M miles from the Sun. At Aphelion it is ~94.5M miles, a difference of ~3.25%. Therefore at Aphelion the radiation reaching the Earth should be ~3.25% less, all other things being equal. But they are not equal because of the 23 deg tilt. That changes the length of the days by about 2-2 1/2 hours ( I think, although it could be as much as 4-5 hours) between shortest and longest days of the year.
@denniswingo, when you are closer in Winter (northern hemisphere I assume), we are closer in Summer in the southern. Therefore the tilt is more significant than peri or Aphelion but it is still useful as told by the TSI. This Global Warming/Climate change/whatever they call it is just another plan to cede more power from us to them to the U.N to control the World via stupid treaties and Taxes. At least we get to kick out the looney Lefties in Aus later this year. HFTC all.
This is in the same league as the explanation for the rise in air temperature with altitude observed when ascending through an inversion “When you climb the mountain the air gets warmer because you are getting closer to the sun”
Distance from the sun “emphasizes” seasonal differences in the SH, and “counteracts” them in the NH. To the extent it makes any difference at all.