The Sun...Is it getting hotter?

[ariellyn]

I am in the midwest. It's still pretty mild here, 50's to 60's last week. Took a road trip over the weekend. My poor dog was panting like crazy and I had to roll the windows down and get blasted by the still-cool air--because the sun is soooo hot, it turns the car into an oven--even though it's not really that hot yet. Heaven help us if there's a real heat wave.

It seems like the sun gets more glaring and hot each year. Am I imagining things, or is this what global warming feels like?

(PS. News tonight featured Yosemite National Park. Said the falls this year have 30% more water from the melting snow atop the mountains. Everybody was awestruck by the beauty of the falls, and they are beautiful. But again, is it that damned sun melting the snow faster than ever?)

:shrug:

[Shrubhater]

1. It's global warming. I'm positive.

[Retired AF Dem]

6. Maybe, but I heard on the news a few weeks

back that cleaner air gives less protection from the sun.

[babsbunny]

2. I deliver papers part time

and I left them on the porch, in ohio, on a cool day and the ones on top turned yellow! I been delivering these papers for 5 years, and I've never seen anything like it!

[ariellyn]

3. That's scary. nt

[jedr]

10. Do you own a dog???

[ariellyn]

16. Yes....I stated that in the initial post. Why do you ask?

[jedr]

17. sorry...it was the yellow papers thing.

[ariellyn]

18. Ahhhhh....lol nt

[mcscajun]

4. It's certainly getting brighter...

(May 6, 2005) The amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface has been on the rise for the past decade on average, potentially accelerating the effects of global warming. Scientists had been measuring a decrease in sunlight from the 1960s to the 1990s, because of rising pollution was actually blocking sunlight. With better pollution controls in place, the planet's surface has brightened by about 4% in the last 10 years.

Earth's surface has been getting brighter for more than a decade, a reversal from a dimming trend that may accelerate warming at the surface and unmask the full effect of greenhouse warming, according to an exhaustive new study of the solar energy that reaches land.

(snip)

"The atmosphere is heated from the bottom up, and more solar energy at the surface means we might finally see the increases in temperature that we expected to see with global greenhouse warming," Long said.

In fact, he said, many believe that we have already been seeing those effects in our most temperature-sensitive climates, with the melting of polar ice and high altitude glaciers.

http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/more_sunlight_hitting.html

[ariellyn]

7. So I'm not imagining things. Thanks for the info. n/t

[ohio_liberal]

9. Not imagining things

There's a major change in weather. Keep in mind that I am of course not a scientist. That aside, I live in eastern Ohio (below the snow belt) and in the last 10 years I've noticed a major change in winters here. We used to get snow frequently, a couple inches every few days. Gentle, non-threatening stuff. Now we get no participation for weeks on end and one or two major snowfalls that dump 20+ inches. It's really bizarre. And then in the spring we now have non-stop rainfalls that total 6 inches or more at a time and cause horrible damage. Most of the older folks who have lived here for a long time have never seen anything like it.

[ariellyn]

11. Precipitation is another thing...it's often cloudy and rain is forecast

but it usually just sprinkles for a few minutes. I used to postpone my walks for fear of getting caught in a storm. Now, I ignore the cloudy weather and do whatever I've already planned.

[Dogmudgeon]

5. Nope

The output of the Sun has actually been measured since at least the 1890s. It is not changed significantly.

Some of the climate changes may be affecting you, but I can't say for sure. But I do know for sure that when people become more aware of climate change issues, they begin to pick up on little clues that may -- or may not -- be part of that change.

At least it's better (by far!) than ignorance.

--p!

[immoderate]

13. I agree with you.

The effects of global warming are not apparent in the immediate weather. The sun's out put may vary with its cycles, but would not be obvious here on earth.

--IMM

[screembloodymurder]

29. The temperature may not change

but my skin tells me that solid surfaces are getting hotter.

[onehandle]

8. The problem is here.

Represented by the chimp in the White House.

[bloom]

12. The overall temperature of the earth

has been rising in direct proportion to the rise of CO2 - since they have been monitoring around the 1950s.


We can expect it to keep going up. It's also why they were wrapping a glacier to try to save it in Switzerland, why the Antarctic ice shelf was breaking off and why people are having to move from some small islands around Alaska.

[Old and In the Way]

14. Come to Maine....and bring the sun with you.

I haven't seen it in 3 weeks....is it still yellow?

[SmokingJacket]

15. Cars are getting hotter.

That might sound crazy, but I believe it. The temp was only 70 the other day, but if I kept my windows closed in my '94 model car (to hear the radio) we baked! (Could also be something to do with the giant windows -- opening them on the road makes a massive roar.)

In my 80's model car, it wasn't nearly as bad.

I believe in global warming, but I think the sun is pretty much the same ball of fire it ever was....

[Tux]

19. Could be this

http://www.physlink.com/News/040804EarthMagneticField.cfm

I heard the magnetic fields were reversing. May explain why some people had an odd feeling of doom last Nov and may still get them.

[RaleighNCDUer]

24. IMO, the feelings of doom last november had more to do with

a bush, than the sun.

And not a burning bush, either.

[libhill]

26. Well, not to worry

If Bush can bring on Armaggedon, we can all go join Jaysus in the sky.

[ariellyn]

28. I'm with you on this one. nt

[UdoKier]

20. As for Yosemite, it's a much larger than normal snowpack.

As for the sun being "brighter and hotter" - maybe. It seems that way to me, but supposedly glare affects us more as we age...


I'm not quite sold on the idea that drastic climate change is underway now. But I do think it needs to be observed carefully. I think there are alarmists and then those who pooh-pooh it, and the truth lies somewhere in the middle, probably...

[bloom]

22. The people who "pooh pooh it"

want it to sound like there is confusion.


http://www.climate.org/topics/links/index.shtml

http://planetforlife.com/gwarm/glob1000.html


I've heard Exxon was funding the disinformation campaign. Imagine that.

[XemaSab]

21. Well here near Yosemite

up until two weeks ago we were still getting winter storms, one a week like clockwork. Snowed here three weeks ago.

Hotter'n hell now though.

Snow + Heat = Water => Waterfalls => Tourists => Me leaving town on the weekends to go bird other parts of the state.

[RaleighNCDUer]

27. Climate change is more than simple 'global warming'.

Colder, more violent winters. Longer, hotter, more erratic summers. Shortened fall & spring. Longer hurricane/tornado seasons. Prolonged droughts. Possible collapse of the gulf current, due to the influx of fresh water from the Greenland icecap, resulting in a mini-ice age in Europe, as the warming water no longer makes it up to the north atlantic.

But that won't be a problem for Yosemite. The supervolcano will be enough for you to worry about.

:hi:

[XemaSab]

30. You forgot

Antarctica disintigrating and ice floes the size of Bulgaria floating around the ocean smashing into things.

We should be so lucky as to get wiped out in a supervolcano.

[RaleighNCDUer]

23. First thing I thought when I saw the waterfalls and heard the comments

was "there goes the permanent snowpack". That will lead to less snow melt in coming years, which means less fresh water.

Drought!

Enjoy the waterfalls while you can, morons. Some of us know what it means.

[bloom]

25. "Arctic Region Noticeably Changing"

By Michael MacCracken, Chief Scientist for Climate Change Programs, Climate Institute


Changes in climate that have already taken place are manifested in the decrease in extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice, permafrost thawing, coastal erosion, changes in ice sheets and ice shelves, and altered distribution and abundance of species.
          Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change           (IPCC), Third Assessment Report (2003)


Nowadays snows melt earlier in the springtime. Lakes, rivers and bogs freeze much later in the autumn. Reindeer herding become more difficult as the ice is weak and may give way… Nowadays the winters are much warmer than they used to be. Occasionally during winter time it rains. We never expected this; we could not be ready for this. It is very strange… The cycle of the yearly calendar has been disturbed greatly and this affects the reindeer herding negatively for sure…
                  Larisa Avdeyeva, Lovozero, Russia


Over the past three years, a team of scientists from the eight Arctic nations has worked with representatives of the six indigenous peoples to summarize what has been happening in the Arctic and project ahead what the impacts of warming are likely to be. Both scientific findings and indigenous experiences agree—the Arctic is warming rapidly and the environmental consequences are widely apparent.


http://www.climate.org/topics/climate/arctic_change.shtml