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How: Primarily by burning fossil fuels, with a smaller contribution from deforestation.
Periodicity seen in both the mass extinctions and large impact cratering on earth can be explained if one postulates that the sun has a companion star, orbiting in a moderately eccentric orbit with a major axis of 2.8 light-years.
Global temperatures would have continued to rise rather than level off in the late 1990s without the current ongoing reduction in solar activity, according to a new paper by a Danish climate scientist.
According to David Kring of the University of Arizona, damage would have been swift and extensive. Casualties resulted from vaporization, burial by the ejected bedrock, and from the destructive air blast moving across the landscape.
SANTEE, CA - Scientists at the prestigious Institute for Creation Science in Santee, California, completing a decades-long study of global climate, have determined that global warming is an actual phenomenon. However, according to their findings, the process, which has been going on for millennia, is not a man-made catastrophe, but an act of God. More specifically, they assert, global warming is an act of divine judgment that could destroy all humanity, along with the planet itself.
"The sun was dark and its darkness lasted for eighteen months; each day it shone for about four hours; and still this light was only a feeble shadow; the fruits did not ripen and the wine tasted like sour grapes." As this Michael the Syrian quote regarding the weather of 536 A.D. demonstrates, a climate catastrophe that blots out the sun can really spoil your day.
Though some scientists believe the climate calamity of 535-536 A.D. was due to a comet or asteroid hitting the Earth, it is widely thought that the event was probably caused by the most massive volcanic eruption of the past 1500 years. This eruption threw so much sulfur dioxide (SO2) gas into the stratosphere that a "Volcanic Winter" resulted.
On July 9, 1962 — 50 years ago today — the United States detonated a nuclear weapon high above the Pacific Ocean. Designated Starfish Prime, it was part of a dangerous series of high-altitude nuclear bomb tests at the height of the Cold War. Its immediate effects were felt for thousands of kilometers, but it would also have a far-reaching aftermath that still touches us today.
One immediate effect of the blast was a huge aurora seen for thousands of kilometers around. Electrons are lightweight and travel rapidly away from the explosion. A moving electron is affected by a magnetic field, so these electrons actually flowed quickly along the Earth’s magnetic field lines and were dropped into the upper atmosphere. At a height of roughly 50 – 100 kilometers they were stopped by the atoms and molecules of Earth’s atmosphere. Those atoms and molecules absorbed the energy of the electrons and responded by glowing, creating an artificial aurora.
When the bomb detonated, those electrons underwent incredible acceleration. When that happens they create a brief but extremely powerful magnetic field. This is called an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP. The strength of the pulse was so huge that it affected the flow of electricity on the Earth hundreds of kilometers away! In Hawaii it blew out hundreds of streetlights, and caused widespread telephone outages. Other effects included electrical surges on airplanes and radio blackouts.
The EMP had been predicted by scientists, but the Starfish Prime pulse was far larger than expected. And there was another effect that hadn’t been predicted accurately. Many of the electrons from the blast didn’t fall down into the Earth’s atmosphere, but instead lingered in space for months, trapped by Earth’s magnetic field, creating an artificial radiation belt high above our planet’s surface.
The pulse of electrons from the Starfish Prime detonation damaged at least six satellites (including one Soviet bird), all of which eventually failed due to the blast. Other satellite failures at the time may be linked to the explosion as well.
There are eight sovereign states that have successfully detonated nuclear weapons. Five are considered to be "nuclear-weapon states" (NWS) under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In order of acquisition of nuclear weapons these are: the United States, the Russian Federation (successor state to the Soviet Union), the United Kingdom, France, and China.
The largest nuclear weapon ever tested was the "Tsar Bomba" of the Soviet Union at Novaya Zemlya on October 30, 1961, with the largest yield ever seen (as of December 2013), an estimated 50–58 megatons.
In 1963, three (UK, US, Soviet Union) of the four nuclear states and many non-nuclear states signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty, pledging to refrain from testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, underwater, or in outer space. The treaty permitted underground nuclear testing. France continued atmospheric testing until 1974, and China continued until 1980. Neither has signed the treaty.
Underground tests in the United States continued until 1992 (its last nuclear test), the Soviet Union until 1990, the United Kingdom until 1991, and both China and France until 1996. In signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996, these states have pledged to discontinue all nuclear testing. However, as of December 2013, the treaty has not yet entered into force because of failure to be signed/ratified by eight specific countries. Non-signatories India and Pakistan last tested nuclear weapons in 1998.
The ozone layer is a concentration of ozone molecules in the stratosphere. About 90% of the planet's ozone is in the ozone layer. The layer of the Earth's atmosphere that surrounds us is called the troposphere. The stratosphere, the next higher layer, extends about 10-50 kilometers above the Earth's surface. Stratospheric ozone is a naturally-occurring gas that filters the sun's ultraviolet (UV) radiation. A diminished ozone layer allows more radiation to reach the Earth's surface. For people, overexposure to UV rays can lead to skin cancer, cataracts, and weakened immune systems. Increased UV can also lead to reduced crop yield and disruptions in the marine food chain. UV also has other harmful effects.
The hole in the planet's ozone layer may be shifting wind patterns and cloud cover over Antarctica in a way that could be triggering slightly warmer global temperatures, a new study finds.
The saga of ozone depletion is a classic example of unanticipated consequences from human emissions of what were thought to be inert, ecologically harmless gases.
Concern about human influences on stratospheric ozone were first raised in 1971, with concern that SST (supersonic transport) aircraft emissions of nitrous oxides (N2O) and water vapor in the stratosphere could adversely affect ozone levels.
In 1985, something happened that fanned the fire of concern about CFC's and their impacts on stratospheric O3. The British Antarctic Survey announced the discovery of a massive "hole" in the ozone over Antarctica.
They had first noticed a puzzling seasonal drop in O3 levels each spring since 1977. The team reported that each October (Antarctic spring), O3 levels dropped by as much as 40% below 1960's baseline levels before recovering by November.
However, the British hadn't reported this phenomenon, because they knew that the US had a sophisticated observational satellite monitoring global O3 levels, and the US hadn't reported it.
As it turns out, the NASA satellite had picked up the O3 drops, but NASA hadn't reported it.
The sad part, in retrospect, is that we could have bought almost 10 years on the destruction of stratospheric O3 if someone had announced the declines when they were first noticed.
In the mid-1960s the first choice for the missing sink fell on a free radical catalytic chain initiated by HO radicals in reactions (4.1) and (4.2), using hydrogen atoms brought into the stratosphere as water vapour (Bates & Nicolet 1950).
Furthermore, the realization over the last three decades that some of the sources for the chain carriers have been substantially augmented by human activities raised major concerns about the possibilities that significant ozone depletion might occur in the near future (Crutzen 1971; Johnston 1971; Molina & Rowland 1974).
The major method for introducing chain-carrying chemical species into the stratosphere is the release into the troposphere of chemical compounds sufficiently inert that a significant fraction of them survive to drift into the much more intense solar UV radiation of the mid-stratosphere, which can break the molecule apart into a pair of free radicals. An important aspect of ‘inertness’ is the necessity that the molecule be transparent to solar radiation with wavelengths longer than the ozone cut-off at 290nm—otherwise, destruction would quickly occur within the daylight troposphere.
A second method for delivering chain carriers to stratospheric altitudes is direct injection. Large volcanic eruptions can introduce other volatile molecules when the explosive plume rises all of the way into the stratosphere, but experimental study of actual events has shown that no more than a small fraction of chain precursors are started through this process. Most volcanic eruption plumes do not reach the stratosphere, and the gaseous content of water-soluble molecules such as hydrogen chloride (HCl) is greatly reduced by dissolution into the water droplets raining back as the plume cools.
Alternatively, direct chemical formation of NO can be accomplished in the stratosphere by raising the natural air mixture of N2+O2 to an extremely high temperature as occurs in the fireball of an atmospheric nuclear weapons test (Bauer 1979; Chang et al. 1979), or through the engine of a high-flying aircraft such as the Anglo-French Concorde (NAS 1975).
As if nuclear war wasn't scary enough, a new computer modeling study by CU-Boulder scientists Brian Toon and Michael Mills shows that even a regional nuclear war (between Pakistan and India, for example) could create a near global hole in the ozone layer.
In addition to ozone losses of 25 percent to 40 percent at mid-latitudes, the models show a 50 percent to 70 percent ozone loss at northern high latitudes [...]
One immediate effect of the blast was a huge aurora seen for thousands of kilometers around. Electrons are lightweight and travel rapidly away from the explosion. A moving electron is affected by a magnetic field, so these electrons actually flowed quickly along the Earth’s magnetic field lines and were dropped into the upper atmosphere. At a height of roughly 50 – 100 kilometers they were stopped by the atoms and molecules of Earth’s atmosphere. Those atoms and molecules absorbed the energy of the electrons and responded by glowing, creating an artificial aurora.
This melting could actually be linked to activity at the Earth's surface, the researchers said, and added that the discovery could help explain how the core generates the planet's magnetic field.
As the Earth's interior cools, relatively hot and cold matter churns around inside the planet, a process known as convection. The roiling of material in the core, coupled with the spinning of the Earth, is what generates the planet's magnetic field.
"The origins of Earth's magnetic field remain a mystery to scientists," Mound noted. "If our model is verified, it's a big step towards understanding how the inner core formed, which in turn helps us understand how the core generates the Earth's magnetic field."
While most of the radiated ELF wave energy is confined below the ionosphere, some of it leaks out into the magnetosphere where it can be detected by satellites such as DEMETER, and under special conditions, be guided along ducts (irregularities in the plasma density) that follow the Earth's magnetic field lines. While the waves are propagating in these ducts they are amplified by interactions with electrons in the magnetosphere. The amplified wave can then be detected in the opposite hemisphere, at the magnetic conjugate point of HAARP in the southern Pacific Ocean (Golkowski et al., 2010; Golkowski et al., 2008; Inan et al., 2004).
These signals can also be reflected back along the duct and return to HAARP where it's received as an echo that appears approximately 8 seconds after the original signal. Though obscured by the next transmitted pulse in the example in Figure 3, the-off frequency components seen rising above and below the transmitted frequency are evidence of non-linear amplification of the wave in the magnetosphere. Understanding the conditions under which these one-hops and two-hops occurs gives us a better understanding of how low-frequency waves interact with particles trapped in the magnetosphere.
Our intention is to find from experimental data and their detailed analysis the key processes in atmosphere, which modify the Earth plasma environment system under various geophysical conditions including natural and anthropogenic disasters.
Just recently the members of this team came independently to same conclusion that many processes in atmosphere of different origin create the similar variations in the space plasma environment what implies the existence of common physical mechanism of their generation. One of the main drivers for such coupling is the change of the boundary layer conductivity through the air pollution, Ion Induced Nucleation triggered by natural and anthropogenic radioactivity, and mesoscale atmospheric systems such as tropical hurricanes/typhoons.
One of the most discussed recently topics is the coupling mechanism which generates anomalies in different near-Earth shells starting from boundary layer of atmosphere up to magnetosphere of our planet few weeks/days/hours before moderate/strong/mega seismic events.
It was also established recently that many of different natural and anthropogenic phenomena contain similarity of their behavior and effects on atmosphere and ionosphere. For example, the radioactive pollution during emergencies on atomic power plants (Three-Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima) produce through the Ion Induced Nucleation (IIN) the thermal anomalies similar to those registered before earthquakes from satellites.
Within two years, scientists determined that the ozone hole over Antarctica occurs when high levels of chlorine catalytically destroy ozone. The high levels of active chlorine are formed in the cold, dark winter stratosphere when reactions on the surface of icy cloud particles release chlorine from harmless (to ozone) chemical compounds into an active form that reacts with ozone. When the sunlight returns to the polar region in the austral spring, the active chlorine rapidly begins to destroy ozone.
The extremely cold ice clouds can form over both poles during winter, but they are more common over the Antarctic region. During winter, atmospheric circulation creates a whirlpool, or vortex, of air above both poles. Very low temperatures occur inside a polar vortex, which is isolated from the rest of the atmosphere. The extreme cold fosters the formation of ice clouds during the winter and paves the way for the destruction of ozone when the light returns during spring.
The Arctic region is typically spared the worst of the ozone destruction because its vortex normally breaks down several weeks before the sun returns, dissipating the ice clouds. The larger percentage of land masses in the northern latitudes, particularly mountains, prevents an excessive build-up of ice clouds. Geography isn't always enough to dissipate the vortex, however. The North Pole's vortex was unusually strong and long-lived during the winter of 1992-1993, for example. When sunlight appeared, it drove down Arctic ozone levels well into March. Because there is more ozone over the North Pole to begin with, this decline didn't create a hole. However, it did send ozone-depleted air over populated areas of the Northern Hemisphere when the vortex broke up.
The destruction of ozone in the ozone layer over Antarctica this year is about 40 to 60% less compared to the previous five years, according to MACC analyses based on observations from the SCIAMACHY instrument on board the European ENVISAT satellite. Less ozone destruction is consistent with the expectation that the ozone layer will recover during the coming decades due to reduction in the stratospheric amount of chlorine. However, such a large change cannot be attributed to the slow decrease of stratospheric chlorine of 0.5-1% per year. This year’s reduced ozone destruction turns out to be caused by unusual meteorological conditions.
In July and August a phenomenon known as a Sudden Stratospheric Warming occurred in the stratosphere above Antarctica: a sudden fast warming in the ozone layer.
The ozone hole appears because of the destructive power of chlorine which is present in the ozone layer but under normal conditions chemically bonded with nitrogen-oxides. However, via complex chemical processes the chlorine can be released during the polar winter above Antarctica. At temperatures below -78°C the nitrogen-oxides are removed from the stratosphere. The remaining chlorine can no longer be bonded and when the sun becomes stronger during spring the chlorine can start to do its damaging work.
Although the temperature in the Antarctic stratosphere sinks below -78°C every July and August, it does not get much colder. A small temperature rise of only a few degrees thus can result in considerably more nitrogen-oxides remaining in the stratosphere, and thus less effective ozone destruction. Recent measurements of the American MLS instrument on the AURA satellite indeed show that there are still nitrogen-oxides present in the stratosphere above Antarctica, unlike previous years.
During the first two-thirds of September 2002, the Antarctic ozone hole developed much as it had done every austral spring since the mid-1980s, when the phenomenon was first detected. But over a period of a few days in late September, the ozone hole was observed to split in two (middle of Fig. 1). This was such a remarkable and surprising event that it made it to the front page of newspapers worldwide. Any atmospheric scientist with a knowledge of stratospheric dynamics immediately recognized that a split ozone hole meant a split vortex, and thus a stratospheric sudden warming.
Stratospheric sudden warmings occur regularly in the Arctic (though not every year), and have been studied for many decades. They are produced by the dynamical momentum forcing resulting from the breaking and dissipation of planetary-scale Rossby waves in the stratosphere. The distortion of the vortex and the warming go hand in hand, and are essentially two sides of the same coin. Prior to 2002, no stratospheric sudden warming had ever been observed in the Antarctic, at least since regular observations began there in 1957, and it was widely believed that it was not possible in today's climate given the comparatively weak levels of planetary wave forcing in the Southern Hemisphere (which is why the Antarctic winter-spring temperatures are so low compared to the Arctic).