This is an alternate hypothesis for the cause of global warming. Lets assume that the "normal" earth temperature during the middle of the past interglacial periods was higher than the current temperature and that sea level was also higher. The Pleistocene Epoch is known to have been a time of very widespread volcanic activity. During the long periods of very active volcanic eruptions the world's average annual precipitation increased, maybe even doubled by cloud seeding from volcanic dust that was blown into the atmosphere and spread around the world. This long period of increased precipitation created many large lakes around the world. There was Lake Bonneville in Utah, which covered some 20,000 square miles and was a thousand feet deep. It would have been even larger if it hadn't broken out and created a spillway to the Snake River. There was Lake Lahontan in Nevada that covers some 14,000 square miles. Other large Pleistocene lakes include Lake Missoula in Montana, Lake Eyre in Australia, and Lake Lisan in Israel and Jordan.
The increase in precipitation resulted in a great increase in snowfall at higher elevations and higher latitudes. The increased cloud cover increased solar reflection and reduced the amount of solar energy reaching the earth's surface. These factors resulted in the gradual buildup of large continental glaciers and a lowering of sea level as more and more water was tied up as ice. The large glaciers also tended to lower the earth's temperature like a block of ice cooling a watermelon in a styrofoam ice chest.
With the waning of volcanic activity, the skies cleared, solar reflection diminished and precipitation gradually returned to normal. The lakes shrunk in size as their surface evaporation exceeded their inflow. Glacier melting also exceeded ice accumulation and they began melting back and sea level began to rise.
The earth, like the watermelon in the ice chest, warms as the ice block shrinks back to a mere remnant of it's maximum size. Water accumulates in the bottom of the ice chest, like sea level rising and contributes to an increased rate of ice melting. Global warming also tends to accelerate as the cooling effect of the ice diminishes. We now have only remnants of the great Ice Age glaciers, one covering Greeenland and one in Antarctica. As they diminish in size, the earth will continue to move towards its "normal" interglacial temperature.

nowhere in there did you mention SUV's or central air conditioning units on houses- you seem to be implying that it's all part of a natural cycle.
that right there has been deemed "crazy talk" these days.
once you figure out a way to make money off your theory and are able to market it to the masses, then and only then will it become the accepted truth. until then, you are just a whacko looking to justify your gluttonous and harmful ways.

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"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion
The.. Best.. Thread..Ever...

I'm looking forward to when this is all going to be "quaint".

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"The beauty of that discussion of averages is that you don't have to be an expert in Apollo or in photography in order to see where this time study "analysis" breaks down. You just have to be, well...not an idiot." -JayUtah

Essentially, all that's missing is a paragraph (or two) saying that human intervention is a catalyst, the effect of which is out of proportion to its percentage of the total!

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

We traded our big van for a small SUV. We are trying to load our stuff for a 1000 mile round trip, and will have to tie some on top, and leave some behind. Had we bought a tiny fuel efficent car, we would lkely spent $1000 on stuff on our trip that we could not bring home, due to too little space in a tiny car.
I typically wait until it is 80+ degrees f in our house, before I turn on our central air conditioner which keeps it from hitting 85f. I resent the gluttonous title. I may be wacko for buying a small SUV and delaying turning on the cental air conditioning. Our two window air conditioners cool one room each to about 85f without the help of the central air conditioner and it will be hotter next month. Neil

you bought an SUV, and plan on driving it 1000 miles with people and stuff in it- and even on TOP of it, which will kill the aerodynamics and increase you carbon footprint even more- you are truly an evil and short sighted man.
and just the fact that you have luxurious things like central air at all means that you have way too much money, and we must tax you into poverty so that you are forced to live the life of a homeless beggar.
only then will the world come into harmony and there will be no more war and everyone will have nothing better to do than dance naked in the meadow..





i think my head hurts now....

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"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion
The.. Best.. Thread..Ever...

You forgot the lyres, we're supposed to be playing lyres when we dance in the meadow.

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"God bless thee, my son; I will give thee the greatest jewel I have ...
"The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible."Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

When I was in college some 60 plus years ago, I was fortunate to have a great geomorphology professor (J. Hoover Mackin) who stressed that we follow T.C. Chamberlain's "Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses" in interpreting geologic features of unkown origin. This method, in contrast to "Ruling Theories" and "Working Hypothesis" consists of developing multiple explanations that can be put to a test. Many and sometimes all will prove to be false. It can also show that there are several causes and not just one and aids in the development of a more probable hypothesis. I put forth the above hypothesis in hope that some researchers who are pursuing the causes of "Global Warming" are using Chamberlain"s method and can add this one to their list of possibilities to be tested and evaluated.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

Ultimately the Earth is going to look like Mars and be in the orbit that Mars is in today. The Earth is cooling and becoming less dense as it moves away from the Sun over time.

Meanwhile the sun is decaying the Earth, turning it into desert. The Sun is turning the earth and its atmosphere into less dense matter, and as a result, in order to move to its proper density area it moves away from the Sun's core in an outward direction.

It takes a while for this to happen, a long while.

Actually JESMKS has a point. If you have a look at data collected by PaleoMap Project it is apparent the Earth is normally a lot warmer than it has been during the tenure of Man. If we accept the validity of Average Global Temperatures as a measure - & if we don't the whole global warming scare goes away - then it seems there is evidence that what we are currently experiencing may not actually be anything to do with our activities but part of a rebound to 'normal' terrestrial conditions.

Another point a lot of people seem to forget is that water is also a greenhouse gas & the amount of water up in the atmosphere is much higher than the carbon gasses.

Note I am not actually saying we are not contributing to things getting warmer - just that the science behind people like Gore is suspect at best & selectively shown to make the case they want us to believe.

Just seeing the derisory attitude here towards JESMKS' idea shows how bad things have gotten. Do we really all just get our 'facts' from the media now? There seems to be a limit as to how far someone can stray from publicly accepted 'facts' before ATM becomes unacceptable.

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* Never doubt there is Truth; just doubt that you have it!

Evidence?

Also, even if the earth were reducing in density, it would not move out. An object of extremely low density can orbit extremely close in perfectly happily, and vice versa.

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WANTED:

Schroedinger's Cat

Dead And Alive

you can strum your lyre- i'll be banging on a drum.

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"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion
The.. Best.. Thread..Ever...

Less dense?

Yes, less dense, just like the water in an ice cube tray gets less dense when you leave it in the freezer for a while and it turns to ice because of cooling.

So helium orbits our Earth at sea level quite well? I always thought helium accelerates away from sea level when opposing forces are released. You do have to force helium to remain at sea level, correct?

You mean like this?

Motor Daddy I think you need to start your own ATM thread for this.

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'The eye can only see what the mind is prepared to accept'

Water is a rare compound in that respect. The earth is not comprised primarily of water.

To elaborate, water gets progressively more dense with decreasing temp until it reaches its maximum density at 4 degrees C.

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Olsen the moderator.

This is in responce to lomiller1's post #17
This graph looks like a good beginning. It fails however to indicate that there is any warming effect from the reduction in the world's volume of snow and ice. The greenhouse gas component is the one most affected by mankind. It could be subdivided into various sources, both natural and man caused to determine their relative impact. These are some of the subcategories that could be included: Water vapor from ocean evaporation including the increase caused by global warming; water vapor from irrigation, both spray and flood irrigation; water vapor from air conditioners; water vapor from evaporation from the increasing number of reservoirs; CO2 from respiration of the worlds population (6.7 billion at 900 grams per day per person); CO2 from body cremations (about 50 kg each): CO2 from burning off waste or surplus natural gas at oil fields and refineries; CO2 from the exhaust of internal combustion engines; CO2 from willd fires and fires at land clearing operations; methane gas from decaying vegetation. There are probably many more that could be included in this list of subcategories.