Scientists Confirm Significant Global Cooling Coming

Sorry did I say capacitor, I did mean a step up transformer, never really cared too much for the technical side of it, Just just know that using a solar panel to charge my batteries all day I have that neat little black box with a fan that when you plug your 12v batteries onto it you get your 240. What I was trying to drive at is the fact that will kill most standard lead acid's as it takes them down to a low charge which isnt good for them. With SAFT batteries which are lithium ion you can drain them all the way to 0 and recharge them over and over without killing the battery... But take a long hard look at the cost, not all electrical power involves a nuclear power plant, gas or oil... If you rely on it from your government and there hitting you with the tax, then thats your misfortune!

My bad if you think I dont know about alternative energy, only lived on a boat for three years

You think the texico companies are the only ones with solar or wind turbines?

You can pick up a wind turbine at any boat chandelers for about 200 bucks... Maplin electronic's are selling the panels in a briefcase design for about 78.

What does it have to do with things like the ISS, well lets see, maybe the fact the ISS is covered in solar panels... duh!

Or did you think it was nuclear powered?

SAFT

Do you know how meny watts your avarage household bulb uses? The cost in terms of buying enough Lithium Ion batteries to have your own battery bank is very expensive.

And I just mean the ones that can operate at 12v, you can run them in series or parallel that's really all down to preferance, but as far as heating and lighting go, you really dont have to be hooked up to the national grid!

[edit on 6-1-2008 by Brother_Amos]

Originally posted by ShiftTrio
But they do know what green houses gases do, and so doubling (at the very least People put out 130 X as much C02 as Volcanoes do, another skewd fact I always see misrepresented on this board) would tend to say the effects of those gases would double. Sounds at the very least logical doesnt it. So why the big argument?

A couple issues exist with that statement. Nobody will argue that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. The problem however is that on this planet CO2 is an insignificant gas in the atmosphere. Even if you double it the gas is is still insignificant. If I have fifty cents and I double that to a dollar does that make me rich? Absolutely not. Why? Because a dollar is insignificant compared to what things cost. Just like CO2 is insignificant compared to the rest of the atmosphere. And doubling CO2 doesn't double the effect. In fact there is a diminishing return with CO2. You may for example need 10x more CO2 to double the effect. And even with that that 10x addition is still insignificant.

People make the assumption that going from 300ppm to 400ppm matters. It really doesn't. 400 looks like a nice number. Looks menacing. But it isn't. While CO2 increases can result in temperature increases the amounts needed would be enormous and the reality is that CO2 level changes are more likely the RESULT of temperature changes. Temperature changes will impact nature and how plants and animal life convert CO2 to O2. That will directly effect the global CO2 levels. But again it really doesn't matter. CO2 on this planet is basically along for the ride.

Just thought I would add that its the wattage on a standard 60w bulb that will kill your lead acid batteries within an hour and a half.

You can take LEAD Acid right down to almost zero but eventually youll get an alarm notice from the transformer, telling you your about to be completely without light, charge it up and drop it down over and over and youll soon have a problem with the battery sulphating. When buying lighting, go with LED, they burn next to nothing and last for years.

Pretty much the same idea with Lithium Ion, you can drop it down and up for 35 years and they wont die as fast as lead acid.

Use lead acid and I give it about a week before the battery refuses to hold a charge.

Whilst your all out there freezing your small's off, i'll be sitting somewhere surrounded by space age aluminium foil insulation, Got my solar panel and miniture wind turbine up giving me a constant trickle charge into my battery's, have my 12v mini microwave on standby with my two 12v & 240v electric blow heater. Put another log on the fire by all means, just dont come knocking on my door when you run out of tree's and oil!


[edit on 6-1-2008 by Brother_Amos]

Originally posted by Indy
Just like CO2 is insignificant compared to the rest of the atmosphere. And doubling CO2 doesn't double the effect. In fact there is a diminishing return with CO2. You may for example need 10x more CO2 to double the effect. And even with that that 10x addition is still insignificant.

There is a degree of diminishing return, but saturation won't be reached until very high concentrations. The extra saturation between 2X and 4X ain't so great.



www.gfdl.noaa.gov...


www.grida.no...

So, possibly 3'C for 2x, and 6'C for 4x.

But, yeah, I remember, climate models bad; solar models good, heh.

CO2 is in no way an 'insignificant' gas. It can readily account for 9-26% of the greenhouse effect.

While CO2 increases can result in temperature increases the amounts needed would be enormous and the reality is that CO2 level changes are more likely the RESULT of temperature changes.

Doubling CO2 (280ppm -> 560ppm) is predicted to result in 2-4'C warming across the globe. And the next doubling won't be so different.

And the current atmospheric CO2 increases are predominately the result of burning copious amounts of dead organic materials. You can't just dig up and burn carbon sources locked out the carbon cycles for millions of years, releasing billions of tonnes of GHGs, and expect no effect.

We release twice as much carbon as is required to account for yearly rises in the atmosphere. The sinks are removing about 50% of what we emit.

CO2 on this planet is basically along for the ride.

Except when it is released on large scales which leads to rapid accumulation. Then it hangs around doing what GHGs do, just like during the PETM.

[edit on 6-1-2008 by melatonin]

Originally posted by melatonin
Doubling CO2 (280ppm -> 560ppm) is predicted to result in 2-4'C warming across the globe. And the next doubling won't be so different.

CO2 may double but temps won't increase 2-4C. Mark my word on that. It is unsubstantiated fear mongering by GW supporters.

And the current atmospheric CO2 increases are predominately the result of burning copious amounts of dead organic materials.

Speculation.

Except when it is released on large scales which leads to rapid accumulation. Then it hangs around doing what GHGs do, just like during the PETM.

Large scale? That is hype. Just like when I referred to doubling 50 cents to a dollar. That wasn't a large scale release of currency. The level of CO2 on this planet is insignificant. It is going to take a lot more than a clever graph or cutely colored picture to convince me and many others that a gas that amounts to a few hundred parts per million will change our climate. Thats like tossing a bucket of rocks into the Mississippi river and trying to convince me that you are disrupting the flow of water.

Global temperatures right now are in no way in a unique position. In fact they are cooler than during the medieval warm period. This happened prior to the industrial revolution. If you want to convince me we are warming the planet you have to come up with something better than CO2.

Imagine that, people might actually freeze to death, thats re-assuring, nice to know they'll be plenty of frozen ready meals waiting to be dug out of the snow!

Originally posted by Indy
CO2 may double but temps won't increase 2-4C. Mark my word on that. It is unsubstantiated fear mongering by GW supporters.

Yeah, evidence by assertion. Great. The predictions are based on data.

Speculation.

Not really. Supported by various types of evidence, from assessing the levels of CO2 for the past 650,000 years, by examining the isotopes in the the atmosphere, investigating the direction of carbon sinks, to a little bit of very simple maths that shows we are releasing more CO2 than is accumulating in the atmosphere.

On the other hand, we have another assertion.

Large scale? That is hype. Just like when I referred to doubling 50 cents to a dollar. That wasn't a large scale release of currency. The level of CO2 on this planet is insignificant. It is going to take a lot more than a clever graph or cutely colored picture to convince me and many others that a gas that amounts to a few hundred parts per million will change our climate.

No, it's just evidence. We are releasing carbon-based GHGs faster than during the PETM event. The evidence shows that we are at levels of CO2 higher for at least 650,000 years, probably longer.

Arguments from small numbers are pretty naff. The few hundred ppm already account for a significant proportion of the greenhouse effect.

I realised a while back that evidence has no impact on your position, indy. That's why you keep repeating ad nauseum the deniers canards. So, trust me, I'm not aiming to convince you. I'm presenting evidence for readers who might have a mind that is open to actual evidence, rather than the assertions and wishful-thinking of indy.

Global temperatures right now are in no way in a unique position. In fact they are cooler than during the medieval warm period.

Only if you once again ignore the actual evidence.



[edit on 6-1-2008 by melatonin]

Global warming/Global cooling - which one are they gonna decide on. I wish they'd make up there mind already

Ahh Indy, great post. I just added you as a friend. Al Gore must hate you.

The ENVIRONMENTALISTS ARE TO BLAME FOR OUR CURRENT PREDICAMENT IN IRAQ... yes, every time we try to open up new areas of the US to Oil exploration and Nuclear power etc... its the damn tree hugging nature nazi forest fa**ots that step in and whiny whine about how we will kill the environment. I guess it's better to kill everything else like our countrymen, our dollar, our national debt and our national security.

Yhere is a fairly interesting article on this at:
ff.org...
SCIENTISTS PREDICT SOLAR DOWNTURN, GLOBAL COOLING
New Scientist magazine, 16 September 2006
"So what does the sun's magnetic activity have to do with the climate on Earth? To pin down the connection, Solanki and his colleagues compared records of solar activity derived from tree rings with meteorological records from 1856 to the present day. They found that the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere changed in step with sunspot numbers until 1970. This is the evidence that has done more than anything else to convince climatologists to take the link seriously. What's more, the most recent calculations by Solanki's team suggest that the sunspot crash could lead to a cooling of the Earth's atmosphere by 0.2 °C." The article cited mentions that there may only be a 30% correlation between solar activity and climatic change. NASA confirms astronauts need "worry more about cosmic rays. Cosmic rays are high-energy particles from deep space; they penetrate metal, plastic, flesh and bone. Astronauts exposed to cosmic rays develop an increased risk of cancer, cataracts and other maladies. Ironically, solar explosions, which produce their own deadly radiation, sweep away the even deadlier cosmic rays. As flares subside, cosmic rays intensify—yin, yang". science.nasa.gov...
Increased cosmic rays bring theit own set of concerns...
All and all, the real debate has always been about living in harmony with nature, and decreasing pollution so that we and our progeny will have clean air to breath. Global warming is a theory, not fact, just like global cooling. Here in Texas we are real excited about it being 2 degrees cooler someday. Hey, Ma, it's only 98 degres out today, not 100, wear yer long underwear. Yes, 98 and I feel a hint of Fall in the air...

Originally posted by Indy

Originally posted by mbkennel
Let's make sure to be able to distinguish puffery from a self-styled baloney "institute" from actual science done by actual scientists.

So I assume this means we can ignore the tripe that gets published by the IPCC right? After all they are a government organization. Why do I suspect had this organization just repeated something that the IPCC said you'd be screaming "look here!!! global warming!!!"

Huh? If that organization had repeated something the IPCC said it would only gain its legitimacy from actual science.

The IPCC is not exactly a government organization, and the people who write the reports, are---in enormous contradistinction from that bogus institute---actual practicing professional scientists with deep experience in their subject matter. They are not employed by any single institution but universities, laboratories, research institutes all over the planet. They are NOT employees of IPCC, they have other jobs.

There is no conspiracy except adherence to good laws of physics.

If you look at the long term temperature trends you'll see that there is something very cyclical about climate change. Like it or not man has nothing to do with it. Man isn't responsible for any of the climate changes of the past.

He isn't responsible for this one. He didn't cause previous global warming. He didn't cause previous global cooling. When you look at the Vostok temperature plots you will see e very regular cycle. Right now we are at the very top of the mountain. Without exception there is a sharp fall that follows. But why is this?

The cycle is not as regular as you think it is but it is believed to be due to orbital interactions between precession of the Earth and solar system dust plane.

However, the point is that people have done those computations for today and we are NOT at that cycle, and we have seen a warming, very sharply, which is in its quantitative and qualitative unexplainable by any non-human-influenced phenomenon, but it is explainable using observations from human-induced greenhouse change.

It seems interesting that we are at the point where the fall is expected to come if you go by historic records and now that seems to jive with the prediction of a solar minimum.

Global Warming supporters will be fuming over this. They will come up with nonsense replies like the one I am responding to that tries to attack the messenger because the report is damaging to their beliefs.

There was no content in the "institute's" report at all other than numerology about cycles.

Science has moved far beyond "look at these cycles and predict there will be another cycle". That is rejected. Today, we use firm models explaining the underlying mechanism, using things like chemistry, atoms, mass, fluid mechanics and electromagnetism. This is physics and that's what the NASA group (real scientists) did.

This is much in the way people in the past were attacked for research because it was felt that such worked diminished god somehow. GW is like a religion to these people and they will protect it at all cost.

That's just plain BS. Global warming is based on the same physics that has proven to be useful in explaining an enormous variety of phenomena all over the planet. It didn't come just yesterday, it was already being seriously considered as a hypothesis say back in 1957, long before anything reached the media or there was any comprehensive global observations to check for it.

Since then, there has been enormous effort and data sets collected. They all fit with the physics and observations.

Note, it is an observed fact, now. Not a conjecture. Thanks to observations from ground stations, balloons, aircraft and satellites, we know that the infrared emissivity from the upper atmosphere has increased over time (decades timescale) exactly with the change in greenhouse gas concentrations, as predicted by theory and in-lab experiment.

It is observed fact, not conjecture. It is hence physically impossible for the climate NOT TO CHANGE given this change in the energy forcing.

The denialism is people who get emotional about the inevitable logical consequences of this true observations, just like with Darwin.

I am not a "supporter" of global warming, it will suck. But it is here, and coming worse. I am a supporter of honest science done by scientists.

Yes, I am a physicist. No, I'm not working in climate personally. Yes, the climate funding takes away from my funding, but in contrast to the bleatings of the right wing Rush Limbaughs that isn't going to make me lie about it for money. Yes I do know people who do work in it.

In reality, among professional scientists, (e.g. membership of the American Geophysical Union in USA), it has been settled fact in 98% since the early 1990's already, with the unknowns being in "where, and how much and how fast". We know quite a bit more since then---the scientific surprises have almost all been on the bad side: stuff observed to be happening faster and worse than the mainstream predictions.

Large scale? That is hype. Just like when I referred to doubling 50 cents to a dollar. That wasn't a large scale release of currency. The level of CO2 on this planet is insignificant. It is going to take a lot more than a clever graph or cutely colored picture to convince me and many others that a gas that amounts to a few hundred parts per million will change our climate. Thats like tossing a bucket of rocks into the Mississippi river and trying to convince me that you are disrupting the flow of water.

"It's gonna take a lot more than a clever graph or cutely colored picture to convince me and many others that a "virus" molecule that amounts to a few hundred parts per trillion is going to change my health." --- some soon to be dead guy who didn't believe in the germ theory of disease

But really, it really is not going to change the climate that much, from the point of view of "basic physics".

Basic physics operates on the Kelvin scale (absolute temperature) so we will go from say 285 degrees kelvin to 290 degrees Kelvin on global average temperature.

You're right. It IS just a few boulders in the Mississippi of solar electromagnetic flux.

Now, how much is that going to matter? Let's just check the geophysical record.

Hmm, it seems that for human life, climate does seem to be rather important.

How much did it vary during the last 10000 years when we emerged from stone age ignorance? Oh about 0.5 degrees.

And the Ice Age? Surely that was much much colder, right?

Well, it was around about 5 degrees Kelvin (or Celsius, the same) during the last Ice Age. That's it. 5 degrees---on global average temperature (including all latitudes and the 70% which is ocean)---is the difference between an Ice Age, and today.

And could easily go 5 degrees up from today given the rapid rate of increased emissions since 2000 (mostly from Asia).

5 degrees cold meant that there were glaciers two miles thick in New York.

There was no agriculture on the planet.

Do you want to risk a Heat Age, that much above now? I don't.

Global temperatures right now are in no way in a unique position. In fact they are cooler than during the medieval warm period. This happened prior to the industrial revolution. If you want to convince me we are warming the planet you have to come up with something better than CO2.

Why? There is no other explanation consistent with the facts.

By the way, there are many more facts than just warming supporting greenhouse forcing (over solar forcing), like the fact that the stratosphere is cooling (because of IR emissivity), the difference between night and day is as predicted by greenhouse emissions (night warms more than day) and likewise with winter versus summer.

And then there's the direct in place measurements from physical instruments.

But you don't "believe" in it?

It's like trying to go to a cardiology professional convention and convince them that it's really the gall bladder, and not the heart that pumps blood.

And when a doctor rebuts, "that's just freaking daft. I've done *heart transplants*. No heart, no pump. Put in heart, get blood pumping", the right wing accuses them of spouting a "religion" all for their big paychecks.

In reality the right wing is into denialism because this is is physical evidence against the morality of the "every man for himself, no limits on freedom" ideology.

Mother Nature doesn't give a crap about our ideology.

Like the scientific facts that nuclear power is substantially safer than coal (and with global warming) don't go well with a certain obsolete environmentalism as well.

So far, science has been much much much more right about so many issues versus all other modes of thought that I think it's worth paying attention.

well......atleast we wont be sinking in melting ice caps.....and some of the best holiday sopts on earth will survive!!

well......atleast we wont be sinking in melting ice caps.....and some of the best holiday sopts on earth will survive!!

First of all the announcement made by David Hathaway is based on "observational data". Meaning they have been seeing this slowdown of the Sun's conveyor's belt.

I would like to find out why Melatonin claims it is based on computer models, since that is not true.

According to theory and observation, the speed of the belt foretells the intensity of sunspot activity ~20 years in the future.
..............................................
"The slowdown we see now means that Solar Cycle 25, peaking around the year 2022, could be one of the weakest in centuries," says Hathaway.

science.nasa.gov...

It is not based on "computer models", which is a red herring on the part of Melatonin, trying to refute the facts that destroys the AGW claim.

The GCMs are computer models which try to predict future Climate Change, but they have been shown time and again to be wrong.

"All leading climate models forecast that as the atmosphere warms there should be an increase in high altitude cirrus clouds, which would amplify any warming caused by manmade greenhouse gases," he said. "That amplification is a positive feedback. What we found in month-to-month fluctuations of the tropical climate system was a strongly negative feedback. As the tropical atmosphere warms, cirrus clouds decrease. That allows more infrared heat to escape from the atmosphere to outer space."

www.sciencedaily.com...

Even Professor Lindzen proved that the infamous "Hockey Stick graph" could only be reproduced by the GCMs when errors were intentionally introduced in the proxies.

BTW, for those who are not familiar with the SSRC, here is some information about them.

1. SPACE SCIENCE RESEARCH CENTER The Space Science Research Center (SSRC) will consist of researchers in solar physics, astrophysics, astrobiology, and space plasma physics, and high-energy plasma physics. Major research areas include high-energy astrophysics (gamma and x-ray astronomy and cosmic ray physics) and solar-terrestrial physics (solar and space plasma physics and planetary atmospheres). Primary customers for this unit will include NASA's OSS (Structure and Evolution of the Universe, Origins, and Sun-Earth Connection themes), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Defense, National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Department of Energy.

NASA GSFC Solicitation: Future Collaborative Research and Education Opportunities

BTW to that member who was saying next year is going to be cooler, it does not work that way.

We are currently in Solar Cycle 24, which will last around 11 years more or less. The next Solar Cycle, number 25, will begin approximately in 2017, peaking around 2022.

It is in Solar Cycle number 25 that the Solar System, not only Earth, will start to experience a cold period.

The current Solar Cycle which just started, number 24, is predicted to be 30% and up to 50% stronger than the last one. Meaning, it will get hotter before it gets cooler.

Originally posted by Indy
.............

People make the assumption that going from 300ppm to 400ppm matters. It really doesn't. 400 looks like a nice number. Looks menacing. But it isn't. While CO2 increases can result in temperature increases the amounts needed would be enormous and the reality is that CO2 level changes are more likely the RESULT of temperature changes. Temperature changes will impact nature and how plants and animal life convert CO2 to O2. That will directly effect the global CO2 levels. But again it really doesn't matter. CO2 on this planet is basically along for the ride.

It is nice to see that someone is actually presenting the facts, instead of trying to mislead people because they can't let go of their AGW religion.

Well done Indy.

Only the GCMs predict the exagerated increases in temperatures due to CO2, and this is based on flawed computer models which have been proven to be wrong time and again.

Originally posted by CommonSense4Eber
Well done Indy.

Thanks. The thing that people don't realize or choose to ignore is that as long as there is population growth there can be warming. You could have zero emission vehicles and that wouldn't change anything. The reason is the land cover changes needed to support our population. Roads, buildings, parking lots, etc all retain heat. Unlike the idea that CO2 is warning the planet which is weak theory the urban heat island effect has been proven. But that isn't glamorous. There isn't an evil villain in that. That would require population control and very few people are going to risk their reputation by coming out and saying that.

Some will say that the urban heat island has been taken in to account. Nonsense. That I promise is a lie. While we know the urban heat island exists and is extensive we don't know exactly how much heat is retained by the structures. I know I've seen a significant temperature difference between downtown and the airport based on the direction the wind was blowing. I've seen temperatures in the winter several degrees colder than the airport which lies on the west side of town because the wind was blowing across town and towards the airport. It was picking up the warmer air from the city center and contaminating the observations at the airport.

I believe in Atlanta there were cases where the observed temperature difference as a result of the heat island was in excess of 10 degrees warmer. You can build cars that run on hydrogen and it won't fix this problem. The urban heat island will still exist. It will still be significant. And as our population grows the heat island will continue to grow. You just can't control this without population control.

Or a healthy investment in white paint.

We've got a phenomenon here that meteorologists always call bogus: the Tonganoxie Split. Storms coming from the West will often split north/south when approaching the city, usually around reaching the town Tonganoxie. On average just as much rain falls in the city than in the surrounding farmland, but you'll see it on radar year after year anyway. Storm fronts will approach the city and whatever part of the big red blob that's headed for downtown will break up and reform after the line passes. However the more powerful storms that often produce tornadoes don't really seem to care and plow on through.

Originally posted by CommonSense4Eber
First of all the announcement made by David Hathaway is based on "observational data". Meaning they have been seeing this slowdown of the Sun's conveyor's belt.

I would like to find out why Melatonin claims it is based on computer models, since that is not true.

In the same way that we can make intuitive predictions of increased warming from the observation of increasing GHGs. But if we want to have some predictive numbers, we need to plug data into a model of the real phenomena.

How do you think they come up with their graph and data? Just intuitively draw it on the back of an envelope? We're not just talking about them saying 'oh, solar activity will reduce', we can do the same with increasing GHGs, 'oh, the greenhouse effect will increase'.

But to make specific predictions requires more than that. And if they are not using some sort of model, their data is even less reliable, and no better than opinion. If it not the real thing, it's at best a model - whether it be basic mathematical or computer (which is just lots of maths). The best approaches are done by taking past observations, theory, and plugging them into a model, like thus:

Predicting solar cycle 24 with a solar dynamo model
Authors: Arnab Rai Choudhuri, Piyali Chatterjee, Jie Jiang
(Submitted on 18 Jan 2007)

Abstract: Whether the upcoming cycle 24 of solar activity will be strong or not is being hotly debated. The solar cycle is produced by a complex dynamo mechanism. We model the last few solar cycles by `feeding' observational data of the Sun's polar magnetic field into our solar dynamo model. Our results fit the observed sunspot numbers of cycles 21-23 extremely well and predict that cycle~24 will be about 35% weaker than cycle~23.

arxiv.org...

More observation and theory (but I really mean hypothesis here, as they have no theory for this stuff), but plugged into a model to make predictions. They are 'modelling' the future behaviour of the sun with observation and theory. Others might not have computerised models which can simulate past events, but again, they use assumptions and a bit of maths to make predictions. This is just another model of real behaviour.

Climate models are also based on theory and observation.

The GCMs are computer models which try to predict future Climate Change, but they have been shown time and again to be wrong.

Only the GCMs predict the exagerated increases in temperatures due to CO2, and this is based on flawed computer models which have been proven to be wrong time and again.

And solar models are models that make predictions that can be around 25% out from reality. Hansen's GCM from 1988 can do better than that. GCMs have been producing lots of validated predictions. We can calculate the increases in temps and climate sensitivity from other sources apart from GCMs.

Even Arrhenius was able to make a prediction of the effect of increasing CO2 in the 19th century, don't quite think they quite had GCMs then. All of these methods of making prediction rely on our current level of knowledge and accuracy of observations. All require assumptions of some sort. None are the real thing, all are models of reality.

Unless you think they have a big sun in their lab, heh.

It's as if you think pulling a guess out your ass is better than using maths and computers. I think Indy will agree with you though, he prefers that method. If you think we know more about solar processes than those of the earth's climate, I think you are quite mistaken.

The predictions for cycle 24 produce two polar extremes, 160+ to 75+, with more than one distinct approach to modelling future behaviour of the sun. Taken together, they don't even know whether it will be higher or lower than the last. Leif Svaalgard (he's a 75er) describes the current position of modelling and predicting solar behaviour as that of buridan's ass, heh.

For the last cycle, 23, Hathaway's dynamo model precursor-based mathematical method predicted 154, it was 120. That's over 20% out. But it wasn't modelling future behaviour, heh, t'was reality of past observations and mathematics.

But the real reality begged to differ by over 20%...

ABE: no, actually, that was wrong. Hathaway predicted 170. So that's about 40% error. And I like this quote:

Hathaway said. "There's no real physics involved," he explained. "It's all statistical inferences."

science.nasa.gov...

Haha. Nope, I wuz wrong - all reality in solar predictions...

[edit on 7-1-2008 by melatonin]

You guys are looking for a source of self perpetuating free energy right.

Three words for you Dynamo and Magnet's and Kinetic's.

Magnets attract and repel right, so why cant someone make a gyroscopic type of self perpetuated engine.

Then you've got all the electric you could want! Free energy you want! And who know's the possibilites are endless!