The earth, sun and climate change

Farm and Ranch December 20 , 2011 Should you be losing any sleep over the impact of human generated CO 2 on the climate? Art Douglas doesn’t. The professor emeritus of atmospheric sciences at Creighton University, who spoke recently in the northwest, and will again at Spokane’s Pacific Northwest Farm Forum early next year, says humans do play a role but;

Douglas: “Everyone asks me and I will tell you. Okay, the planet has warmed up five-tenths of a degree centigrade. I would say half of that is due to human induced CO 2. The other half, .25, is probably based on these cycles of the AMO and PDO. Should we be worried about the CO 2 we have in the atmosphere now. No, I don‘t think so because it is not going to be there much longer. It is going to be absorbed in the oceans. It is going to be put in rocks. It is being used up by agriculture. It is not going to keep on going up because it has a place to go. It goes into the ocean and it goes into crops.”

Douglas was making reference to natural cycles of cold and warmth in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, which are related to sunspots.

In addition to solar activity Douglas cites the orbit of the earth around the sun, which at times may be circular, at times elliptical. The tilt of the earth towards the sun also changes. These are very long term natural cycles and Douglas says we happen to be in an orbit and a tilt that puts us closer to the sun, hence warmer temperatures on earth. Those cycles have nothing to do with CO 2.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on Northwest Aginfo Net.

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