Many folks are concerned about the ever-changing weather patterns we are experiencing here locally and around the country. For example, the “June gloom” consisting of morning overcast skies this year skipped June and is occurring in July, and we had another dry winter.
But neither phenomenon is new, both have occurred many times in the past few decades.
The “weather” changes hourly while climate change is measured in 30-year averages. For example today as I submit this commentary, it is June 21; the last recorded high temperatures for this date in Santa Barbara was in 2008, Santa Maria 1929 and Paso Robles 2008.
Some think that we humans are responsible because we use fossil fuels to provide electricity and power our vehicles, heat our homes, mow the lawn, and cook our meals. They claim that if we stop using this commodity and change to unreliable energy sources it can save the earth from inevitable climate change.
The earth is in a constant state of flux; in a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory paper prepared by Alan Buis, he reports on the NASA Climate website how Orbital Cycles can and do impact the Earth’s climate; the website was last updated on July 11, 2022.
The “Earth is not a perfect sphere. When it rotates on its spin axis — an imaginary line that passes through the North and South Poles — it drifts and wobbles. These spin-axis movements are scientifically referred to as ‘polar motion’.”
“Cycles also play key roles in Earth’s short-term weather and long-term climate. A century ago, Serbian scientist Milutin Milankovitch hypothesized the long-term, collective effects of changes in Earth’s position relative to the Sun are a strong driver of Earth’s long-term climate, and are responsible for triggering the beginning and end of glaciation periods (Ice Ages)”.
“Over time, the pull of gravity from our solar system’s two largest gas giant planets, Jupiter, and Saturn, causes the shape of Earth’s orbit to vary from nearly circular to slightly elliptical.
Eccentricity measures how much the shape of Earth’s orbit departs from a perfect circle. Eccentricity is the reason why our seasons are slightly different lengths, with summers in the Northern Hemisphere currently about 4.5 days longer than winters, and springs about three days longer than autumns.”
“In 1976, a study in the journal Science by Hays et al. using deep-sea sediment cores found that Milankovitch cycles correspond with periods of major climate change over the past 450,000 years, with Ice Ages occurring when Earth was undergoing different stages of orbital variation.”
You’ll notice that Hay’s doesn’t mention humans and fossil fuels as a reason for cyclic climate changes. It doesn’t matter how loud environmental new green energy activists scream, they’ll never convince me that humans alone or in mass have any impact on the position of the earth in the planetary system; thus, we have only minimal impact of the weather.
The National Weather Service has only been recording weather data for about 250 years. Early instruments and observations were largely subjective and only in the last couple of decades has instrumentation been improved to a point that we can get accurate observations.
The earths weather patterns, however, have been changing for the last 350 million years; for example, scientists studying the environment down in Antarctica have determined that 358 million years ago, the average temperature on that continent was 60.8 F., and based on fossils found that large vegetation eating mammals were roaming around.
This is all explained in a PBS program, “When Antarctica was Green”.
I am not a scientist and don’t claim to be, but when I observe real scientists discussing their evidentiary findings during years-long research projects going back many centuries, it seems to contradict current politically charged arguments that humans cause weather changes.
Could it be that the weather history of 350 million years is a greater explanation for multi-generational cycles of global warming and cooling than the arguments of people who think that human behavior is the sole cause of changing weather patterns or those that are profiting from the “green new deal?”
— Ron Fink, a Lompoc resident since 1975, is retired from the aerospace industry. He has been following Lompoc politics since 1992, and after serving for 23 years appointed to various Lompoc commissions, retired from public service. The opinions expressed are his own.
