[Gerard]

I honestly am not sure about global warming.... Here are some thoughts...

The earth is spinning around the sun...spiralling closer to the sun. Would our closer proximity to the sun increase the earths temperature?

Most temperature readings used to be made back in the days when airports were out of the major cities and the landing strips were not made of black (heat absorbing) asphalt.  Now, most cities have grown around the airports (or have become closer), and airports are surrounded by black asphalt. Could this cause an error in our readings?

Just some thoughts to ponder...

Sincerely,

Eugene

this is where our beliefs colide,i am not taking a professorship in environmental engineering but i believe that too much of things can cause harm...just like when you take too much retinol (vitamin A) it wil just make your head bald....

[nj_bartel]

I honestly am not sure about global warming.... Here are some thoughts...

The earth is spinning around the sun...spiralling closer to the sun. Would our closer proximity to the sun increase the earths temperature?

Most temperature readings used to be made back in the days when airports were out of the major cities and the landing strips were not made of black (heat absorbing) asphalt.  Now, most cities have grown around the airports (or have become closer), and airports are surrounded by black asphalt. Could this cause an error in our readings?

Just some thoughts to ponder...

Sincerely,

Eugene

The Earth is spiraling closer to the sun..?

[Borek]

The Earth is spiraling closer to the sun..?

Won't be surprising, it can be slowed down by the friction, vacuum inside solar system is far from being ideal. The same effect slows down (although much faster) all artificial Earth satellites. But I have never heard about this closing.

What I have read is that Earth rotation slows down - and day becomes longer. I don't remember details, but in some fossils it can be easily counted that there were over 400 days a year - some kind of shells have visible both layers of daily growth and yearly growth.

[nj_bartel]

Oh, and draw from it what you will, but my chem professor and one of his colleagues crunched the numbers at some point and calculated a rough estimate of the heat input to the Earth from sources such as cars, people, factories, the sun, etc. over various years and how that heat input should translate to temperature via a specific heat of the Earth as a whole, and it correlated pretty well, although they calculated that the Earth should actually be hotter than it is.

[Gerard]

well the next thing we know we will find an ice berge in hawaii and an ostrich migrating to germany via egypt....
anyway as long as its not the end of the world tommorow,we could still do our job in the forum...give advice and be adviced...

[billnotgatez]

The statistics and correlation are there, but the cause and effect are not proven to everyone.

[Gerard]

The statistics and correlation are there, but the cause and effect are not proven to everyone.

maybe soon,but if its true that the eart is spiralling closer to the sun wouldnt it be more logical if we minimize the use of greenhouse gases in this way we can minimize the heat that we experience...

[eugenedakin]

Hello artificial student,

All planets will eventually fall into the Sun. For example, the planet Mercury is closest to the sun and is the hotest planet in our solar system. Venus is the next planet and is cooler than Mercury. Earth, is farther from the Sun than Venus, and is cooler than Venus. Waaaayyy out is Pluto, which is quite cold.

The planets orbit around the Sun by centrifugal motion. Through time, by mass attraction (gravity), the circular rotational energy of Mercury will no longer be able to remain in orbit around the Sun and will 'fall' into the Sun. This will take thousands or millions of years to happen.

Earth is quite a distance from the Sun. Earth is slowly being attracted to the Sun by this same gravitational force. The closer you get to the Sun, the hotter the Earth will get.

Yes, I am sure that the heat from combustion engines have warmed the Earth, although I am not exactly sure as to the amount of heat that this has occured. Yes, there is the effect of various concentrations of gasses in the atmosphere which have changed, but is it a greater effect than the Earth's distance from the sun? I honestly don't know the answer to this question.

Just some statements to make you go ... hmmmmm.... 

I wish you the best,

Eugene

[Gerard]

Hello artificial student,

All planets will eventually fall into the Sun. For example, the planet Mercury is closest to the sun and is the hotest planet in our solar system. Venus is the next planet and is cooler than Mercury. Earth, is farther from the Sun than Venus, and is cooler than Venus. Waaaayyy out is Pluto, which is quite cold.

The planets orbit around the Sun by centrifugal motion. Through time, by mass attraction (gravity), the circular rotational energy of Mercury will no longer be able to remain in orbit around the Sun and will 'fall' into the Sun. This will take thousands or millions of years to happen.

Earth is quite a distance from the Sun. Earth is slowly being attracted to the Sun by this same gravitational force. The closer you get to the Sun, the hotter the Earth will get.

Yes, I am sure that the heat from combustion engines have warmed the Earth, although I am not exactly sure as to the amount of heat that this has occured. Yes, there is the effect of various concentrations of gasses in the atmosphere which have changed, but is it a greater effect than the Earth's distance from the sun? I honestly don't know the answer to this question.

Just some statements to make you go ... hmmmmm.... 

I wish you the best,

Eugene

you got me here

[azmanam]

The planets orbit around the Sun by centrifugal motion. Through time, by mass attraction (gravity), the circular rotational energy of Mercury will no longer be able to remain in orbit around the Sun and will 'fall' into the Sun. This will take thousands or millions of years to happen.

I think this is a fallacy.  We've completely hijacked the thread now, but Newtons Laws don't predict orbital contraction.  There are two points to consider - the Earth has velocity, and the more massive Sun exerts a gravitational force on the Earth. 

Without the Earth's velocity (or kinetic energy if you prefer), the gravitational force of the Sun on the Earth would pull the Earth into the sun in a straight line with increasing velocity (until the Earth enters the Sun's atmosphere and then reached terminal velocity).  Without the Sun's gravity, the Earth would travel in a straight line at constant velocity and have no orbital relationship to the sun - Newton's first law (body in motion stays in motion...).

The balance of the Earth's velocity and the Sun's gravitational force (along with the distance between the Sun and the Earth) results in an elliptical orbit around the Sun, with the Sun at one of the foci (See Newton's Cannonball, we're on course D).

In absence of any other forces, this closed orbit continues indefinitely.  The imperfect vacuum of space, imho, is unlikely to alter the orbit of the Earth.  A more well known phenomenon is that of orbital decay.  When the orbiting bodies are closest in their orbit, one body may interact with the atmosphere of the second body.  The orbiting body will experience friction due to collisions with the particles in the atmosphere and lose some of its kinetic energy.  This redefines the orbital relationship between the two bodies (D becomes more C-like in the Cannonball experiment, then eventually more B-like).

Fortunately for us, the Earth is well out of reach of the Sun's atmosphere.  Without the interaction with the Sun's atmosphere, we do not experience orbital decay.  We are not likely to spiral into anything, as there is no significant change in the Earth's kinetic energy.  We'll need to worry about the Sun burning out first.

Newton's orbital laws - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbit#Newton.27s_laws_of_motion
orbital decay - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbit#Orbital_decay
newton's cannonball - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_cannonball
terminal velocity - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_velocity

[eugenedakin]

Hi azmanam,

You raise some very good points, well done!

I think this is a fallacy.  We've completely hijacked the thread now, but Newtons Laws don't predict orbital contraction.  There are two points to consider - the Earth has velocity, and the more massive Sun exerts a gravitational force on the Earth.

In order for the Earth to remain at an exact same distance from the Sun, the Earth would need to add energy to its centrifugal motion (I can list many laws at how energy is neither created nor destroyed, etc...).  This same phenomenon can be explained with the current use of satellites circulating around the Earth, sooner or later, they come to Earth (granted, this is an extreme example). A better explanation, and the mathematics around this phenomenon can be viewed here:  http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Skepl3rd.htm. In a circular motion, as the earth is gravimetrically pulled towards the Sun, the Earth's velocity around the Sun increases, as the Earth's velocity increases, this circular energy helps keep the Earth's orbit away from the Sun. As any frictional forces effect the Earth's orbit, the Earth slow's down ... slightly. This causes the earth to 'inch' towards the sun, and the earth speeds its orbit again.

The next time you have a chance, watch a penny's velocity in the circular donation trinkets at many of the malls. As your coin is the farthest distance from the center, the velocity is the slowest. As the coin becomes closer to the center, its velocity increases.

I like a good discussion!  Well done!

Eugene

[Borek]

In order for the Earth to remain at an exact same distance from the Sun, the Earth would need to add energy to its centrifugal motion (I can list many laws at how energy is neither created nor destroyed, etc...).  This same phenomenon can be explained with the current use of satellites circulating around the Earth, sooner or later, they come to Earth (granted, this is an extreme example). A better explanation, and the mathematics around this phenomenon can be viewed here:  http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Skepl3rd.htm. In a circular motion, as the earth is gravimetrically pulled towards the Sun, the Earth's velocity around the Sun increases, as the Earth's velocity increases, this circular energy helps keep the Earth's orbit away from the Sun. As any frictional forces effect the Earth's orbit, the Earth slow's down ... slightly. This causes the earth to 'inch' towards the sun, and the earth speeds its orbit again.

While I agree on the thermospheric friction that gets Earth satellites down, I have to disagree with everything else. Link you provided doesn't tell anything about changes of the orbit radius, it only discusses Kepler's 3rd law and escape velocities. I can be wrong, but you have to use better arguments to convince me you are right

Unless you just mean that friction slows down the Earth, as the vacuum inside of the solar system is full of dust?

[enahs]

There is friction from interplanetary dust. Other planets and satellites (i.e. moon) gravity can effect orbits.

But our planets gravity is also acting on the sun, causing it to slow its rotation. From this effect, we are actually moving away from the sun by ~1 micrometer a year from this effect.

Also, keep in mind the sun is continuously producing energy, and losing mass. For the main sequence of a star like or sun, that is still only a fraction of a percent of its mass. But, if we assume a constant energy output, that equates also to a moving away distance of ~1.5cm a year.

At the same time, as the solar system moves around the galaxy, and as the galaxy moves around the universe, all kinds of other gravitational effects can and dooccur. Some of these changing gravitational forces can and do cause the orbit to increase or decrease.


And while distance from the sun is important (why our planet supports life so well), there are other important things. For instance, for the norther hemisphere, when we are in the summer, we are actually the furtherest away from the sun, and in the winter for the norther hemisphere we are the closest to the sun. Yet the temperatures appear to go in the opposite direction one would predict.  That is because the angle of the sun is far more crucial to the temperature of earth and the energy the earth receives.


There are obviously catastrophic things that can happen to dramatically change things. And they do not have to happen just to earth. If Mars got hit by a giant asteroid and changed its orbit, it could have an impact on our climate, it could even theoretically kill of the human race by making such drastic changes.


Anyway, we are currently moving away from the sun, but this can change.

[eugenedakin]

Hi enahs,

Chuckle, it looks like we could easily talk about this all day. You raise some interesting points.

It looks like the fundamental difference that we do not appear to agree is that I believe we are getting closer to the sun, while you believe that we are going farther away from the sun.

I will stop our friendly discussion here.

I wish you the best in your future studies.

Sincerely,

Eugene

[enahs]

It looks like the fundamental difference that we do not appear to agree is that I believe we are getting closer to the sun, while you believe that we are going farther away from the sun.

NASA and the astronomers around the world say they have measured us moving away from the sun.
I am a chemist (who has a interest in astronomy and space exploration). I can not possibly conceive of a benefit to those thousands of people from various countries all over the world getting together in a mass conspiracy. So why would I argue against them?


*shrugs*