What I have not seen in Studies of Global Warming/Climate Change is if it contributes to it.

In our weekly get together this last Saturday and interesting question came up and that was, "Have we completed all the studies and models of what causes global warming/climate Change?" Now mind you, we are of differing opinions, but we never let our emotions or our opinions get a head of what facts we have on hand.

So as we were all sourcing on our search engines one subject seemed to be missing from the Global warming/climate change. What effect does 2,271 plus man made satellites and the over 521,000 pieces of space junk ranging in size from 1 centimeter to over 1 meter in size in orbit around our planet have on global warming? Just so we don't miss the actual number 523,271 Items orbiting the earth from 1 centimeter to full size satellites.

Blue lines represent the orbit of the working satellites the red dots are the possiton of the satellites, and the gray area close to the earth is the debris and discarded rocket parts.

As the discussion went on we discovered studies that had been done on the Global warming/climate change effects of space junk and satellites. But not once study on if space just and satellites helped to cause global worming/climate change. While we saw that global warming/climate change prolonged the life of space junk, we never saw any study that links space junk and satellites to global warming/climate change.

The shear fact that no one has done a detailed analyzes on the correlation between space junk and satellites and global warming/climate change seems to point that either it has been done and it was found to have a profound effect in the cause of global warming and climate change or no one has seriously looked into it.

We may have over looked studies but we didn't in our limited time on cell phones on Saturday Evening to dig up any reports.

So the question still remains. What if any effect does having 523,271 plus piece of space junk and satellites have on our planets eco system and the so called global warming/Climate change?

The fact that there is this amount of space junk and Satellites orbiting the earth it does lead to the assumption that Satellites and space junk indeed may hold heat in causing global warming/climate change. Further more if it does prove true then it supports that fact that global warming/climate change is man made.

What Sayeth thow ATS members?

a reply to: ChesterJohn

Sometimes you have to debunk the debunkers:

The 97% consensus on global warming

Surveys of the peer-reviewed scientific literature and the opinions of experts consistently show a 97–98% consensus that humans are causing global warming.

The weather has changed, that is a fact.
Winters in the midwest now have less snow then back in the 50's and early 60's.
Weather in Asia now has shorter summers and longer periods of coldness. Note that the coldness does start later nowadays (before about 40 years ago, weather would be cold in the later part of October) now not so much till close to December (middle of ).
So, yes, weather is warming and weather is getting colder. Its Mother Nature at work, we just get to live it and record these days.

Are not some of those satellites...like the ISS specially designed so that their solar panels can get heat and light both from the Sun and the Earth? if so, you might find NASA has readings somewhere that measure how much comes to the ISS from Earth...better be quick though!

a reply to: ChesterJohn

Try "global warming research paper pdf", there's 2.25 million results - not all different papers, but a load of research there.

a reply to: ChesterJohn
Interesting idea, but seriously, to even get close to some kind of answer, you would need to consider the total surface area of this planet and its albedo rates in all regions (and they vary widely), then obtain data on each and every satellite (as "space junk" items are also satellites, though I fully understand what you mean by differentiating them; I'm just being picky picky picky).

You would need to know their altitude and surface area and even the shape and reflectivity rates of their surfaces to determine potential amounts of reflection (albedo) or absorption of solar energy, spin rate (if any) to determine how much time they spend potentially deflecting sunlight away from Earth versus the time they might be reflecting energy back towards Earth or its atmosphere. Then you'd need to factor in their relative orbital altitudes and have algorithms to work out how much of the sun's energy they might be blocking (or how much energy from Earth they might be reflecting back), both relative to absolute position above the planet and also in some cases if some are passing above/under others and negating their own effects.

You could do all that, or you could just accept the fact that their total surface area is such a tiny fraction of our planet's total area, that the overall effect they might have on global warming or cooling would probably be way less than what we get from eg semi-random densities of cloud cover.

I would suspect their combined effects would probably akin to or less than (say) the amount of speed reduction caused to a million-ton supertanker if a flock of seagulls lands on its decks to rest a spell.

Put it this way: Contextually, in terms of the overall picture of what is now called "climate change", it might amount to a couple of millionths of a degree per annum. Plus or minus.

Truly. I really believe all the satellites/space junk orbiting this planet have such a minimal effect on our overall climate that it would be almost impossible to accurately calculate it, let alone measure it.

Even when our planet is totally eclipsed by the Moon, whose surface area and sun-obliterative effects are magnitudes greater than all the junk we have buzzing around up there, the effects tend to be short-term and localized to its "path" across the earth's surface (as I have personally observed once). But overall, even the effects of such a relatively massive body are minor.

a reply to: ChesterJohn

I find it very hard to believe that such an insignificant amount of debris and satellites (relative to the size of the earth) would have any noticeable effect on the climate of the earth.

Take a reflecting telescope, for example, or a satellite dish--both of those have something blocking a relatively large amount of incoming light or signal, respectively, yet it doesn't affect the end result very measurably at all. Compared to the percentage of surface area covered by the mirror (telescope) or receptor (satellite dish), this space debris and whatnot out there between us and the sun and everything else hitting our atmosphere is, mostly likely, as significant as thinking that 1,000 beetles walking across the Arecibo Observatory's radio telescope dish is somehow going to have a measurable effect on the signal received.

Notice the global cooling trend, no suvs back then.

a reply to: Mandroid7

Notice the heating trend:

a reply to: dfnj2015
You don't think the climate of an island in the Arctic Ocean a good proxy for global temperatures?

a reply to: ChesterJohn

Have we completed all the studies and models of what causes global warming/climate Change?

That's the beauty of the Global Warming Scam... the change in temperature always falls within the studies margin of error ... Ergo, Concordantly, you need too reload with more money to fund another study...

Here are some additional pictures to give you naysayers a better look at just how much is out there orbiting the earth.
This is just all the space junk in low orbit not counting what NOKO just added with their last launches.


This is not just low orbit but high orbit satellites, space stations and other debris.

it is a lot more than one can imaging but it sure does seem like it would surely have an affect on the planets temperature one way or another.

BTW, those who know me know I do not hold to a global warming/climate change as others have. I don't agree with it. We just couldn't find any studies on how all this effects the earth and its temperatures and its other systems. The lack of info tends to lead to a cover up of the truth. If it is man made this is the cause not CO2 admissions.

a reply to: Phage

Or how about a desert in Antarctica?

a reply to: ChesterJohn

Now, if you would just post graphics with the dots to scale to the actual size of the debris in relation to the earth, we could get somewhere.

Part of my day job is infographics--I know the tricks used. While I understand that there is a sh*t ton of human garbage just left in space, each piece is not the size of Washington, D.C., as your first image would have us believe.

Notice the trend of this happening over and over agin for the last several millennia:

Once you see the big picture on a grander scale of time, the graph most widely circulated regarding the past 150 years seems a little less alarming.

en.wikipedia.org...#/media/File:EPICA_temperature_plot.svg

a reply to: SlapMonkey

Part of cloud seeding is to place micro/nano particles into the atmosphere to help form clouds and rain. So dots or not dots the reality is these will have some sort of effect on the atmosphere. Just as those 100's of thousands of micro/nano-particles spread int he upper atmosphere have an affect.

And BTW those micro/nano particles are not all fallen to the grown and they are not part of the diagram. And the diagram of dots is not even an updated one, it is years old.

I worked at an airport and the micro/nano pitting on the forward leading edge of the wings are evident of the fact that not just dust near the ground but also those micro/nano particles are causing damage to the aircraft. In those pits they have found micro/nano particulates of Silver iodide, Gold iodide, Titanium iodide and other mineral chlorides and Iodides.

a reply to: dothedew

I do not agree with the current stand of Global Warming/climate change. But when so called science leaves out studies that show the adverse effect of space junk, micro/nano particles (not in any image and they range in the billions floating in the upper atmosphere) it means one thing they are lying.

Al Gore lies every moment he opens his mouth and claims we must not drive gasoline engines, or generators, we should farm with animals and not tractors, and get rid of all the cattle because the fart to much. Because the one thing he doesn't ever address is his companies Micro/nano tech they are putting in the upper atmosphere to make it rain which can cause, dare I say, global climate change.

So whether or not it is cooling or warming we are not getting the full study but a nano picked one for our ears and the truth is hidden by these corporations who have big bucks in play over carbon emissions.

a reply to: ChesterJohn

Ummm...I was only talking about the space debris, not cloud seeding a nano-particles. Why bring that up in response to my comment?

The OP is about space debris, not cloud seeding and nano-particles.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

Yes I know, but I was also informing that it isn't just space debris in the Upper atmosphere it is also micro/nano seeding that still remains in the atmoshere, it too should be added to the conversation. Much of it is still up there and not seeding rain, therefore it is no longer doing what it was supposed and therefore would qualify it as junk. So it too should be considered when trying to study foreign materials in our upper atmosphere mingled with low altitude rocket debris, higher altitude space junk as well as Satellites and other debris and what affect it has on the planet. So say it has none is denial at best.

It is a large problem that is not readily addressed by the proponents of global warming/climate change. Why is that?

One point is because no one knows how to gather it all up. Space shuttle type crafts can't collect it as they would have to slow down to grab it and in lower altitudes that is virtually impossible. But some sort of low altitude drag net might work but you net would have to be strong which may make it to heavy to deploy and use for the collection of pieces over 6cm (roughly 2 and half inches).

Updated numbers claim that there are over 700k of smaller than in centimeter but they move so quickly they are called space bullets, eventually the problem will only worsen, and it seems the numbers I gave in my OP are lower than the current numbers. the number of those particles less than a millimeter are over 150 million.

So the idea that a millimeter might not seem like much of a threat or an affect on the planet. In those numbers despite the size of our atmosphere they do have an affect and it will be more evident as time progresses. The fact that if any studies have been done it is being kept out of the regular public eye.

So add it all up, space junk at all altitudes (including seeding materials) and satellites will very much have an affect on the planet's temperature and atmospheric weight. It is the unaddressed issue of our day and each day it gets worse. And we haven't even added to that the volcanic debris that is forced into the upper altitudes as well.

a reply to: ChesterJohn

By what mechanism would you suspect that satellites influence climate? I don't see any with any quantitative magnitude.

On the other hand, aircraft, via contrails and sulfate pollution do contribute to climate change, probably towards cooling rather than warming.