Solar Systemic Warming?

[RetireeRobert]

Scientists from MIT, U Hawaii, Cornell, and Lowell Observatory discuss global warming on Pluto. Note it has warmed 2 degrees celsius over last 14 years despite Pluto moving farther from sun.


Pluto is undergoing global warming, researchers find - MIT News Office

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Pluto's not a planet anymore. Its just trying to get attention since we cut it off from membership in the solar system.

On the actual science front, a complete read of the article says

"David Tholen, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii who measured the size of Pluto in the late 1980s using a series of occultations and eclipses involving Pluto's satellite, noted that even though Pluto was closest to the sun in 1989, a warming trend 13 years later shouldn't be unexpected. "It takes time for materials to warm up and cool off, which is why the hottest part of the day on Earth is usually around 2 or 3 p.m. rather than local noon, when sunlight is the most intense," Tholen said. Because Pluto's year is equal to about 250 Earth years, 13 years after Pluto's closest approach to the Sun is like 1:15 p.m. on Earth. "This warming trend on Pluto could easily last for another 13 years," Tholen estimated."

 

[bright eyed]

well, the sun is supposed to increase in temp for the next 5 billion years till it explodes right? we have prob a few billion (before it gets unlivable here) to figure out where to go before then...and maybe only a few hundred million if we hasten the warm up...

 

[bssc]

well, the sun is supposed to increase in temp for the next 5 billion years till it explodes right? we have prob a few billion (before it gets unlivable here) to figure out where to go before then...and maybe only a few hundred million if we hasten the warm up...

No, the sun doesn't have enough mass to explode. But it will expand into a red giant which will go out to the earth's current orbit (but probably not swallow the earth). You can see more here

 

[bright eyed]

No, the sun doesn't have enough mass to explode. But it will expand into a red giant which will go out to the earth's current orbit (but probably not swallow the earth). You can see more here

Aah, thanks for the clarification - i guess i misheard/read something somewhere - the is always in the details!

But nonetheless...we are doomed - doomed i tell you! talk about global warming...

<<While it is likely that the expansion of the outer layers of the Sun will reach the current position of Earth's orbit, recent research suggests that mass lost from the Sun earlier in its red giant phase will cause the Earth's orbit to move further out, preventing it from being engulfed.[9] However, Earth's water will be boiled away and most of its atmosphere will escape into space. The increase in solar temperatures over this period is sufficient that by about 900 million years into the future, the surface of the Earth will become too hot for the survival of life as we know it.[10] After another billion years the surface water will have completely disappeared.[11]>>

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

However, Earth's water will be boiled away and most of its atmosphere will escape into space.

So I guess the take-away here is to sell all the waterfront property, since nothing will be waterfront anymore?

Someone get JG on the line and let him know that soon the waters will recede and he can move out of his parents basement and back into his flooded, condemned house.

 

[Insanity]

So I guess the take-away here is to sell all the waterfront property, since nothing will be waterfront anymore?

You're obviously not in marketing . . . or politics. Beautiful [-]waterfront property[/-] sunsets to die for!

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Hey, I'm retired. Just looking out for my assets.

 

[Texas Proud]

I tell you... IT IS MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING....

We keep looking at the planet and sending radio wave and such... and all this is creating 'greenhouse' gases and creating the warming.... we MUST do something right now to fix the problem... let's pass a law...

 

[nun]

No, the sun doesn't have enough mass to explode. But it will expand into a red giant which will go out to the earth's current orbit (but probably not swallow the earth). You can see more here

Can anyone say [SIZE=-1]Chandrasekhar limit[/SIZE]

 

[Rustic23]

From Wikipedia:

Here, μe is the average molecular weight per electron, mH is the mass of the hydrogen atom, and

is a constant connected with the solution to the Lane-Emden equation. Numerically, this value is approximately (2/μe)2 · 2.85 · 1030 kg, or

, where

is the standard solar mass.[7] As

is the Planck mass,

, the limit is of the order of MPl3/mH2.

Now, That's clear enough, isn't it?

 

[REWahoo]

Hogwash. As stated, the equation results in a value that is only approximate. You're going to have to do much better than that to convince me.

 

[Rustic23]

I agree, you need to use a more precise weight per electron. Who would ever use the 'average'. What were they thinking!

 

[RetireeRobert]

No, the sun doesn't have enough mass to explode. But it will expand into a red giant which will go out to the earth's current orbit (but probably not swallow the earth). You can see more here

Holy moly. Where's Al Gore when we really need him? If he could invent the internet, surely he can get us out of this dreadful fate?!

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

I'm with Texas Proud. Let's pass a law. Maybe two.

 

[nun]

I agree, you need to use a more precise weight per electron. Who would ever use the 'average'. What were they thinking!

The life of the star is going to be determined by its path through the Hertzsprung Russell diagram, and of course we all know how to remember the classification of stars........

Oh
Be
A
Fine
Girl
Kiss
Me

 

[Rustic23]

Naw... I think we should just pass a law!

 

[RetireeRobert]

Global Cooling?

From Canada’s National Post:

Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.
The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January “was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average.”
China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.
There have been so many snow and ice storms in Ontario and Quebec in the past two months that the real estate market has felt the pinch as home buyers have stayed home rather than venturing out looking for new houses.
In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, smashing the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days of 1950.
And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its “lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past.
The ice is back.
Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year.
​

 

[ERD50]

It is the long term trends that are important, short term data isn't very useful...

however, four consecutive years of lower global temperatures just might take enough wind out of Al Gore's sails to keep him from running in four years. That would be 'useful', IMO.

-ERD50

 

[Marquette]

Geez... how'd we get from Pluto to Gore?

I bet if we tried to calculate the degrees of separation from any post to politics, we'd beat Bacon.

 

[Bigritchie]

Same thing going on with every planet in our system. The scary part is a couple of planets not to long ago had pole shifts, if I remember right it was Neptune and Uranus.