Super-facts – Super Facts

El Nino or Ocean Currents are not the Cause of Global Warming

Superfact 136: Ocean currents regulate global climate but are not the cause of the rapid Global Warming we are witnessing. El Niño events can combine with background global warming to temporarily increase global temperatures but is not the cause of the current rapid Global Warming. The cause for the recent rapid global warming is human activities, chiefly our greenhouse gas emissions. This in turn alters ocean currents and intensifies El Niño.

El Niño vs Normal Year Ocean Circulation Diagram with Trade Winds, Walker Circulation and Sea Surface Temperature Vector Illustration. | El Nino or Ocean Currents are not the Cause of Global Warming — El Niño vs Normal Year Ocean Circulation Diagram. Trade winds are steady, prevailing winds that blow from east to west across the Earth’s tropical and subtropical regions near the equator The Walker Circulation is a large system of air movement near the equator in the Pacific. The air rises in the west pacific and sinks in the east pacific.

El Niño is a natural phenomenon caused by the weakening or reversal of the trade winds across the tropical Pacific Ocean. El Niño and the corresponding cooling phase, La Niña, is also called the Southern Oscillation (ENSO). ENSO is referred to as climate variability rather than climate change because the variations in climate are on shorter specific time scales, like a cycle. Other climate variability / cycles are the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation.

El Niño temporarily spikes global temperatures and makes the impacts of global warming worse. It is important to understand that natural climate variability and cycles like El Niño are not the cause behind the rapid global warming / climate change that we have witnessed over the last 150 years.

The picture shows a severely flooded suburban street with cars floating around. | El Nino or Ocean Currents are not the Cause of Global Warming — A suburban street underwater. El Niño supercharges weather events leading to heavier floods among other things. I made this picture with the help of ChatGPT.

However, human-caused global heating from burning fossil fuels is making El Niño events stronger. Rising global background temperatures make a warmer atmosphere hold more water vapor. When El Niño happens on top of long-term climate change, it supercharges weather events leading to heavier floods, worse droughts, stronger heatwaves, and severe wildfires. Studies show that El Niño events are more than 36% stronger than they were before the industrial era began, with an acceleration in recent decades. This year we are expecting an extra strong El Niño. You can read more about that here and here.

The picture shows a typical world map but with the various ocean currents marked with red or blue. — Map of ocean currents. Shutterstock asset id: 2664465531 by Designua

The ocean and ocean currents are affecting climate. The oceans store heat from the sun and ocean currents help distribute the heat and regulate climate. However, even though ocean currents affect the rate of global warming they are not driving it. Global warming of surface air temperature is as mentioned largely due to increases in greenhouse gases, which lead to increased radiative heat fluxes toward Earth’s surface. You can read more here and here.

I have not come across many claims that specifically states that climate variabilities such as El Niño is what is causing the recent rapid global warming. However, I’ve seen many dismissive comments stating that it is just some sort of cycle (the unknown cycle). Comments such as “climate has always changed”, or “it is natural” are based on the mistaken assumption that scientists haven’t investigated natural causes for climate change. Therefore, I consider it a super fact.

What is not Causing the Recent Rapid Global Warming

This is my sixth and last post in the series about natural causes of climate change that we know are not the cause of the current rapid global warming / climate change. The fact that no known natural cause for climate change can explain the current rapid global warming is just one small piece of the evidence. However, it is a piece that people tend to get stuck on a lot. You often hear claims such as “climate has always changed”. “I think it is a natural cause”. To recap, these are the previous posts.

Superfact 122: We know that the current global warming, or if you call it Climate Change, or Climate Disruption, is caused by us primarily because of our burning of fossil fuels. It is not “natural causes”, and it is not orbital cycles, so called Milankovitch cycles. These orbital cycles include changes in orbital eccentricity, axial tilt, and axial precession. We know that Orbital Cycles are not responsible for the current rapid global warming because Orbital Cycles operate on tens of thousands of years or hundreds of thousands of years, not a couple of centuries. We know that Orbital Cycles are not responsible for the current rapid global warming because the effects of Orbital Cycles are slowly cooling Earth, not warming it. The way the warming happens is also wrong for orbital cycles.

Superfact 124: The Sun is not the cause of current global warming. According to data from NASA, solar energy output has shown no net increase since the late 1970s. In addition, the amount of solar energy Earth receives has followed the Sun’s natural 11-year cycle of small ups and downs with no net increase. Over the same period, global temperature has risen significantly. The current warming is driven by human-made greenhouse gases, not changes in the Sun.

Superfact 125: Volcanoes emit about 0.2 to 0.6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide per year globally. Our burning of fossil fuels and industrial activities release more than 35 billion metric tons annually. Human emissions are roughly 60 to 100 times greater than all global volcanic output combined. Thus, volcanoes are not the cause of the current rapid global warming.

Superfact 128: There are a lot of natural carbon emissions from the soil, rotting plants, animal and human respiration, and oceans, and a small amount from volcanoes. However, carbon is also absorbed by the oceans, and by plants via photosynthesis, etc., and this creates a balance that has existed for many thousands of years. This is called the carbon cycle. Despite the fact that the carbon emissions from our burning of fossil fuels are much smaller than some of the naturally occurring carbon emissions mentioned, they are what is behind the increase of carbon in the atmosphere because they are a new addition that disrupts the carbon cycle.

Superfact 133: Water vapor is responsible for roughly half of Earth’s total greenhouse effect, but unlike carbon dioxide or methane, water vapor condenses and falls as precipitation. Water molecules only stay in the atmosphere for about two weeks. We do not directly control global water vapor levels. When carbon dioxide warms the planet the atmosphere holds more water vapor, which amplifies the initial warming. However, water vapor does not drive global warming. Carbon dioxide emissions and to a lesser degree methane emissions drive global warming. Water vapor just amplifies the effect.

The graph shows the temperature since the last ice age. There is a maximum temperature about 6,000 years ago, then a cooling and then a sharp uptick in temperature. — Global temperature going back twenty thousand years, a hockey stick graph. Notice the stable temperature during the last 10,000 years, coinciding with the development of human civilization, and also notice the sudden sharp increase at the end.

Conclusion

Climate variability, climate oscillations, climate currents affect climate and are important to climate and are affected by global warming, but they are not the cause behind the recent rapid global warming. It is caused by us primarily as a result of our burning of fossil fuels.

Super facts related to global warming

To see the other Super Facts click here

We Know That the Earth is Billions of Years Old

Superfact 1 : The Earth Is Billions Of Years Old

The scientific evidence overwhelmingly show that Earth is billions of years old. There is no credible scientific evidence for a young Earth.

This is the second post on my super-factful blog. As I mentioned in my first post the goal of this blog is to create a long list of facts that are important and known to be true yet are either disputed by large segments of the public or highly surprising or misunderstood by many. These facts are not trivia, they are accepted as true by the experts in the relevant fields, the evidence that the fact is true is impressive, and they are important to the way we view the world and to what we believe, and yet they are hard pills to swallow for many. They are not scientific theories or complicated insights but facts that can be stated simply.

In lack of a better term, I am referring to these facts as “super facts” and so far, I’ve made a list of more than a hundred. In addition to just stating the fact I will explain why we know that it is true and discuss the evidence, give background information and provide links. However, my posts will not be deep dives into the topics in question. I will try to remember to suggest resources for further study. I am open to suggestions for super facts as well as challenges to super facts I’ve posted, or other things I written that someone may disagree with. In fact, I would find that helpful, as long as we can discuss the issue in good faith and keep it friendly.

My first super fact, which is this post, is “We Know That the Earth is Billions of Years Old”. To some this may seem trivial whilst others dispute it. The scientific community states that Earth is 4.5 billion years old and that humans evolved over millions of years. This is not in dispute among the scientists / experts in the relevant fields, and yet a lot of non-scientists do not believe this. A 2019 Gallup poll showed that 40% of US adults believe that God created humans in their current form within the last 10,000 years. Therefore, I think this is a good example of a super fact.

Photo of Earth from the moon. — Is Earth 4.5 billion years old or 6,000 years old? Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com. It was originally taken by Bill Anders and published by NASA.

Older Beliefs

As a teenager I believed that Earth was 6,000 years old. That was before I knew much about science. I had read agenda driven books that left out, or wrongfully dismissed the evidence for an old earth while presenting faulty arguments for a young earth. Just learning about the relevant science was enough for me to realize that I had been bamboozled. At first, I dug my heels in, but I eventually realized that the belief that earth was 6,000 years old was not tenable and unsupportable by science.

If I had known and understood any of what I am posting in this post when I was 14 years old, I don’t think I would have been bamboozled by the young earth creationist books. However, I can add it was not the only time I was bamboozled. I am hoping my blog will lead to some new insights and good reflection including for myself.

A man sitting on a rock by the ocean as the sun sets. He is thinking. — Perhaps some new insight. Perhaps some intellectually honest reflection. Photo by Keegan Houser on Pexels.com

“Old Earth” Vs “Young Earth”

Below I am first presenting some evidence for “old earth” and then some arguments, or faulty evidence, for “young earth”.

Why Earth Cannot Be Less Than 10,000 Years Old

Radiometric dating of meteorite material, terrestrial material and lunar samples demonstrate that earth is 4.5 billion years, or more precisely 4.54 billion years old.

The various measurements include radiometric dating of rocks and crystals and meteorites found in the earth’s crust as well as moon rocks. There are a number of radiometric dating methods, not just carbon-14.

For example, comparisons of the abundance of carbon-12 and carbon-13 has been used to established that the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere comes from burning fossil fuels, not another source of carbon. Radiometric dating methods use the relative abundance of radioactive isotopes in materials. For example, I-129 (Iodine 129) decays to X-129 (Xenon 129) with a half-life of 16 million years. So, if only a quarter of the original amount of I-129 remains you know that corresponds to 32 million years.

There are a lot of other radioactive isotopes with a wide range of half-lives that can be used for radiometric dating, including uranium-lead dating (U-235, U-238, Pb-206, Pb-207), Samarium–neodymium dating, Potassium–argon dating, Rubidium–strontium dating, Uranium–thorium dating, Chlorine-36 dating, Argon–argon dating, Iodine–xenon dating (I-129 – Xe-129), Lanthanum–barium dating, Lead–lead dating, Hafnium–tungsten dating, Oxygen-Oxygen dating (Isotopes O-16, O-17, O-18), Potassium–calcium dating, Rhenium–osmium dating, Uranium–uranium dating, Krypton–krypton dating, Beryllium dating (Be-10 Be-9), and many others as well the mixing of dating methods.

These dating methods use radioactive decay to establish age, and the various isotopes mentioned have half-lives from a few thousand years to billion years.

There are also dating methods that do not use the relative abundance of radioactive isotopes to establish age. In fission track dating you count the “track” markings left in it by the spontaneous fission of , for example, uranium-238 impurities. In this case you don’t need to know the initial abundance of the radioactive isotope.

In luminescence dating methods you don’t even rely on radioactive isotopes but the effect that background radiation has had on materials. Stratigraphy, or stratigraphic dating, is a relative dating method that uses layers of sediment, rock, debris, and other materials to date events.

The image shows a Uranium atom on the left arrows in the middle and an alpha particle, a gamma ray, a proton, a neutron, and an electron on the right. — Radiometric dating uses the rate of radioactive decay and knowledge of initial relative abundances to establish age. Earth comes out to be billions of years old, not 6,000. Stock Vector ID: 2417370135 by grayjay

We can see galaxies that are billions of lightyears away.

This does not establish the age of the earth, but young earth creationists typically also believe in a young universe. In addition, an old universe makes a young earth implausible.

My drawing shows a star on the left, a light ray in the middle, and earth on the right | We Know That the Earth is Billions of Years Old — The light from a powerful stellar object or a galaxy that is five billion light years away took five billion years to reach us.

We know stars are old because they develop according to certain physical processes.

These physical processes give different stars different lifespans. You can establish the age of a star by determining where it is along its development. An example is our sun. It has fused (burned up) up around five billion years’ worth of hydrogen, so we know it is around five billion years old.

The heavier elements in our solar system originate with older stars that burned out and exploded.

Our solar system, the earth and our bodies contain many kinds of elements heavier than iron. However, elements above iron in the periodic table cannot be formed in the normal nuclear fusion processes in stars. But they can be formed when massive stars die in a supernova explosion or when neutron stars (dead stars) collide. A massive star living, dying, exploding in a supernova, and after that the heavy elements are spread all the way to our solar system, is not a process that can take only 6,000 years. It’s millions and billions of years. It is also interesting to note that this means that parts of our body consist of materials originating in faraway dead stars. We are stardust.

Electromagnetic radiation, including light, and heat transfer, travels from the inside of the sun to the surface and this process takes 100,000 years.

The photons are emitted and reabsorbed over and over, which is a relatively slow process inside the side. If the solar system, the earth, the sun, etc., is only 6,000 years old, how can we see the sun?

On the left is my drawing of the sun. On the right is the earth. In the middle are two different arrows, one corresponding to the sun’s internal heat transfer and the other a light ray in vacuum. 100,000 years versus 8 minutes. — Heat / radiation transfer from the inside of the sun to the surface of the sun takes 100,000 years.

Finally, some young earth arguments

Radioactive decay rates have changed drastically (No!)

First, this is an ad hoc argument that lacks evidence. Secondly this claim cannot work. The rates of radiometric decay (the ones relevant to radiometric dating) are a result of fundamental physical properties of matter, such as the probability per unit time that a certain particle can “tunnel” out of the nucleus of the atom.

You can’t change fundamental physical properties without destroying physics and how atoms work. The claim is also contrary to empirical evidence. For example, analysis of spectra from quasars show that the fine structure constant has not changed over the last ten billion years.

Another problem with this argument is that for a young earth you would need the decay rates to have been millions of times faster in the past, which would require changes in fundamental properties that would have plenty of noticeable effects on processes other than radioactive decay, not to mention the radiation being millions of times stronger than today. That’s a lot of radiation for Adam and Eve to survive. It would have fried everything.

In addition it is also a mystery how the dozens of different radiometric dating methods could have remained consistent with each other throughout time and add the fact that there are dating methods that do not rely on the decay rate of isotopes.

Young earth creationists sometimes make the claim that the initial ratios between isotopes may have been different.

That the initial ratios/condition were different in the past and therefore radiometric dating is unreliable is a better argument, but it also fails. In this case you must take it case by case for each radiometric dating method and situation. There are some rare cases of mistaken assumptions but there are also cases where the amount of the daughter isotope is known to have been zero, which makes it easy and reliable.

The speed of light in vacuum has changed throughout history (No!)

Similar to the situation above, this objection does not work because the light speed in vacuum is a fundamental constant that is not believed to change, and it would be very strange if it could change. It has been measured and no change has been seen. An example is the Einstein’s equivalence of energy and mass E = mc2. If the speed of light once was millions of times faster than now, the energy contained in a kilogram would be a trillion times larger than now. Where did all that energy go?

Another example, from electromagnetic theory the speed of light is determined by the inverse of the square root of the electric constant multiplied by the magnetic constant (see below). You would have to drastically change the strength of the electric and magnetic fields (by the trillions) to get the speed of light to be millions of times faster. If you for example made the electric field a trillion times weaker how would atoms hold together?

Yet another example, Planck’s law features the speed of light in vacuum constant. In physics, Planck’s law describes the spectral density of electromagnetic radiation emitted by a black body in thermal equilibrium at a given temperature T, when there is no net flow of matter or energy between the body and its environment. Changing the speed of light in vacuum would turn light into very slow microwaves. How would Adam and Eve be able to see? Not to mention that the proportionality constant on the right-hand side of Einstein’s field equations has the speed of light in it. Gravity would essentially disappear. The light speed in vacuum shows up in many other physical relations as well.

The equations shown are the speed of light as the inverse of the square root of the of the electric constant multiplied by the magnetic constant, E = mc2, and the equation for the proportionality constant on the right-hand side of Einstein’s field equations. — A few equations in which the speed of light in vacuum is a fundamental constant.

The earth’s magnetic field has been weakening during the last 130 years as if it was formed from currents resulting from earth being a discharging capacitor (claim by Thomas Barnes). This would make an impossibly strong magnetic field already 8,000 years ago.

I remember this being one of the arguments in a young earth creationist book that I read as a teenager. However, there are a number of problems with this claim.

The first problem with this argument is that there is no good reason to believe that earth’s magnetic field acts this way. It does not act like a discharging capacitor.
We know that earth’s magnetic field has reversed itself several times thus disproving the discharging capacitor model.
Thomas Barnes’ extrapolation completely ignores the nondipole component of the field.

Earth is shown with a giant magnet inside | We Know That the Earth is Billions of Years Old — Earth’s magnetic field. Stock Vector ID: 1851166585 by grayjay.

If the earth and the moon were billions of years old there would be a hundred feet thick dust layer from meteorites on the moon. The moon landing proved otherwise.

This is yet another argument I remember reading in a young earth creationist book (Scientific Creationism by Henry Morris) as a teenager. The problem with this argument, as I would later find out, is that Morris’ claims about a hundred feet thick dust layer was based on faulty and obsolete data. The expected depth of meteoritic dust on the Moon is less than one foot (after billions of years).

An old earth would be covered by 182 feet of meteoric dust.

This is another claim that I remember from Henry Morris’ book. The observed rates used in Morris’s calculations are based on dust collected in atmosphere; this measurement was contaminated by dust from the earth. More recent measurements of cosmic dust influx measured from satellites give an influx rate of about 1% as large, corresponding to a 66 centimeter at most thick over 4.5 billion years.

Basically, the evidence for an old earth is very compelling whilst young earth objections to that evidence fails, and young earth arguments tend to fail. At least I am not aware of any valid young earth argument. In addition, based on my readings of young earth creationist books, these books tend to be conspiratorial in nature and making implausible claims about scientific community having certain agendas. There is a reason the young earth view is nearly universally rejected by the relevant scientists.

Conclusion

My conclusion is that the fact that we know that the Earth is Billions of Years Old is a super fact. We know it’s true, it is important, and yet large portions of the public reject that fact.