Did Global Warming Impact the Sunrise?
Silly Science Dept.
A goofy alarmist dire report at Huffington Post is making headlines today: Did The Sun Rise 2 Days Early In Greenland? Global Warming May Be Cause [here].
The unnamed HuffPo author(s) claim, “As icecaps melt, the horizon sinks down as well, which makes the sun appear earlier over the horizon.”
As if the Greenland ice cap melted so much last year that the first sunrise of the year above the Arctic Circle is peeking over a lowered horizon.
Sorry, sports fans, but that’s complete bunkum. The HuffPo article cites Live Science’s Strange Claim: The Sun Rose 2 Days Early in Greenland [here]
That article clearly states:
…”In a nutshell, there can’t be a change in the true sunrise, because that would require the Earth-Sun orbital parameters to change,” said John Walsh, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Fairbanks is located about 1 degree of latitude south of the Arctic Circle, far enough south that it does not completely lose its sun in winter, and this year the sun has followed its typical pattern in Alaska, he said.
“No changes here,” he said. “We would have heard about it.”
Walsh and other scientists agreed there is absolutely no evidence of a shift in the tilt of the Earth’s axis or any other change that might alter the arrival of the seasons around the globe.
An atmospheric illusion?
Other causes can be ruled out, including the effect of the approaching leap year in 2012, since in and around leap years, the sun is slightly lower in the sky in the Northern Hemisphere around Jan. 11, according to Thomas Posch, of Austria’s Institute of Astronomy.
The most likely possibility was the refraction of sunlight at the horizon, he told LiveScience in an e-mail. Most of the other scientists interviewed agreed this was the most likely culprit. …
It is unlikely that the melting of the edge of the ice sheet would change the timing of the first sunrise, because the ice is east of the town, while the sunrise would take place almost due south. …
Get that? The ice cap is in the wrong place. The sun does not rise over the ice cap in the town of Ilulissat. Nor has alleged global warming altered the orbit of the earth around the Sun. The HuffPo dire report is bogosity in the extreme.
What really happened? Dr. S.E.Hendriksen, Greenland resident and scientist explains:
Nothing can surprise a Viking - living North of the polar circle - it’s a well known phenomenon called refraction [here] (the physical optical explanation). When you have a inversion layer of cold air at surface and the air is warmer higher up you can sometimes see a mirage.
Vitus Bering [here] wrote about it in his log-book when he was navigating the North West passage. The sun rise (after the dark winter period) came several days before the almanac predicted.
The best example is from a small settlement north of Umanaq which saw a sunrise 6 days before the almanac prediction.
It happens every day north of the Polar Circle. As a weather observer in Kangerlussuaq, I see it every winter, because of the cold air falling down from the Ice Cap pressing the hot air upwards. When you have cold air in the bottom of the fjord in Kangerlussuaq and the hot air some 1500 feet above, the mountains in the horizon change.
If hot air sits above the cold air it changes the refraction index, and the sun becomes visible, even if it’s below the horizon. If hot air is in the bottom layer (opposite inversion), then the sun will appear to sink below the horizon even if it is above it.
It is NOT a mystery, it’s a physical optical law. Several so-called “experts” don’t have the slightest clue about what is going on.
Well, nothing new about that!
by Al B.
The old adage: “If all you have is a hammer, suddenly everything becomes a nail,” applies as CO2 is the hammer and we are headed straight to NAIL if we do not change.