Chapter 8 – Summary of the Variables Capable of Changing Earth’s Temperature

By Michael Belsick

Just as a pre-summary, I thought that it would be prudent to summarize all the variables discussed so far that can affect the weather or climate.

We learned that the sun is our only source of life-giving heat to our Planet Earth.  However, the orbit and the rotation of the Earth on its axis can and does change over time such that the sun’s solar energy can be greater or smaller.  These changes in solar energy will cause global ice ages about every 100,000 years.  Precession and tilt have periods of 24,000 years and 41,000 years respectively.  Currently, the Earth is in an interglacial period meaning that we have nice warm weather to enjoy for still thousands of years.  The main point of this fact is to say that climate change is real.  It has been this way for millions of years.  However, it is not as man-made climate change believers want you to understand.

We learned that the Earth’s energy budget accepts all the sun’s energy that shines on Earth and eventually releases it all back into space after bouncing it around the atmosphere to keep us warm at night.  The greenhouse gases, with water vapor having more significant impact than carbon dioxide, is primary responsible for this.  Anthropogenic climate change believers are telling us that man-made CO2 is trapping more energy causing the Earth to warm unnaturally.  However, it was also shown that the Earth has only changed temperature 1.4 degree F since 1850 and there seems to be no proof that this was due to CO2.

We learned that the Earth has its own heating and ventilation system, that doesn’t generate heat or cold, but rather moves heat and cold around the globe.  Natural forces generate wind and ocean currents that move this heat or cold around.  While people often like this change, there are times when people do not.  One example of these unfavorable times is the Santa Ana winds in California that turn a small brush fire into a raging forest fire.

Water vapor in the form of clouds has a significant impact on solar radiation which affects the Earth’s temperature.  All the climate predictions from man-made climate change believers ignore the very significant impact that clouds (water vapor – the major component of greenhouse gases) have on temperature because it is too complicated.