Global warming theorists have taken yet another hit with a new study
out of Denmark which demonstrates that variations in Earth's orbit
are the primary causes of climate change, and have been for at least
the last 1.4 billion years.
Scientists from the University of Southern Denmark and the China
National Petroleum Corporation investigated marine sediment from the
Xiamaling Formation in China and determined that the sediment shows
evidence that "the same orbital forcing that caused the climate to
change 1.4 billion years ago is the underlying force behind global
warming today,"
the Daily Caller reports.
The research,
published in PNAS, states: "There is a wealth
of evidence pointing to dramatic short-term climate change on Earth
over the last few million years. Much of this climate change is
driven by variations of Earth's orbit around the Sun with
characteristic frequencies known as Milankovitch cycles."
Milankovitch cycles are fluctuations which occur in Earth's orbit
every 20,000, 40,000 and 100,000 years, which bring about an ice age
every 100,000 years or so. Currently, Earth is in the middle of a
warming period, and has been for the last 11,000 years, Dr. Donald
Canfield, professor at the Nordic Center for Earth Evolution at the
university and one of the principle researchers, said, the Daily
Caller reported.
"This research will also help us understand how Milankovitch
cyclicity ultimately controls climate change on Earth,"
Canfield said in a statement.
"The way our planet revolves around the sun is the ultimate control
knob over the climate," the Daily Caller commented.
The study approximates findings from a study of sea surface
temperatures and diatoms, marine algae, from Aarhus University in
Denmark. Researcher Marit-Solveig Seidenkrantz commented: "We know
that the sun is very important for our climate, but the impact is
not clear. Climate change appears to be either strengthened or
weakened by solar activity. The extent of the sun's influence over
time is thus not constant, but we can now conclude that the climate
system is more receptive to the impact of the sun during cold
periods, at least in the North Atlantic region,"
Eureka Alert reported.
Other climate researchers dispute the effect of the sun and Earth
orbits on climate change.
Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space
Studies, told the Daily Caller: "While the ranking of individual
years can be affected by chaotic weather patterns, the long-term
trends are attributable to drivers of climate change that right now
are dominated by human emissions of greenhouse gases" from fossil
fuels.
Science 2.0 states: "Natural forces have always
caused climate on Earth to fluctuate — sometimes quite a bit. We
can't control everything. The Earth is still going to orbit the sun
and such orbital forcing of climate change happens over thousands of
years and brings ice ages and warming periods."
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