Arctic lights blamed on climate change

[lovuian]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=594566

Arctic lights blamed on climate change
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
19 December 2004


Santa and his reindeer will be able to see their way better than ever on Christmas Eve, for a mysterious light is beginning to brighten the dark polar winter.

Eskimos and scientists report a strange "lightness at noon" that is turning the usual all-day darkness of the high Canadian Arctic into twilight, apparently in defiance of natural laws. Canadian government officials say it may be the result of an unusual atmospheric phenomenon caused by global warming.

Inuit hunters are telling the government's weather station at Resolute Bay - Canada's second most northerly village, 1,000 miles from the North Pole - of a new light in the sky.
more...

Another sign of Global Warming!!!

[roguevalley]

1. its warm, raining and nearly snowless down here two or three

hundred miles south of them. Something is happening, my friends, and it ain't good.

[AndyP]

2. how do they link global warming to lights?

Mirror in the sky? How does that work? Just playing devils advocate.

[lovuian]

3. Its in the article!!! here is the paragraph!!!

But Mr Davidson's investigations, backed by other scientists, suggest a more prosaic explanation. Warmer air, from global warming, is overlaying the cold air of the Arctic and the interface between the two creates a kind of "mirror in the sky" which reflects the sun's rays from further south.

[AndyP]

4. Yes I read that,

I'm just trying to figure out how a "mirror in the sky" is produced. I'm sure there's a full article with an explanation for smarter people that explains everything.

[7th Generation VTer]

5. I get it

Sort of an upper atmospheric mirage, caused by the inversion layers. Interesting... and disturbing, too.

[arikara]

6. There is much more to it than "simple" global warming

The military has been mucking around with the ionosphere for decades. In the 50's they exploded some nuclear bombs in the atmosphere which caused artificial aurora's globally. In the 60's they released chemicals into the ionosphere which caused aurora borealis over Churchill Manitoba.

Since the 90's they've been playing around with their HAARP project by which they use ionospheric heaters to "perturb" the ionosphere for their own purposes which are mostly military in nature. This also causes artificial aurora borealis'.

http://www.earthpulse.com/haarp/background.html

<snip>

The US Navy has also been carrying on High Power Auroral Stimulation (HIPAS) research in Alaska. Through a series of wires and a 15 meter antenna, they have beamed high intensity signals into the upper atmosphere, generating a controlled disturbance in the ionosphere. As early as 1992, the Navy talked of creating 10 kilometer long antennas in the sky to generate extremely low frequency (ELF) waves needed for communicating with submarines. Another purpose of these experiments is to study the Aurora Borealis, called by some an outdoor plasma lab for studying the principles of fusion. Shuttle flights are now able to generate auroras with an electron beam. On November 10, 1991, and aurora borealis appeared in the Texas sky for the first time ever recorded, and it was seen by people as far away as Ohio and Utah, Nebraska and Missouri. The sky contained "Christmas colors" and various scientists were quick to blame it on solar activity. However, when pressed most would admit that the ionosphere must have been weakened at the time, so that the electrically charged particle hitting the earth's atmosphere created the highly visible light called airglow. These charged particles are normally pulled northwards by the earth's magnetic forces, to the magnetic north pole. The Northern Lights, as the aurora borealis is called, normally occurs in the vortex at the pole where the energetic particles, directed by the magnetic force lines, are directed.

<snip>

They don't have any reason to justify the risks that they are taking with the world. I have the book "Angels Don't Play this HAARP" but I've been unable to finish it, I just find it too bloody scary.

[soothsayer]

9. Yep, but didn't we just sell HAARP to another country?

I ferget who, tho.

[ozone_man]

17. This picture always gave me the creeps.

HAARP facility in Healy Alaska. Another one is going up in Greenland. There are some educational, public applications, but the majority are undisclosed military applications. Let your imagination run wild. :(

[mcscajun]

7. Inuit Have No Word For "Twilight"

Inuit have no word for twilight. For centuries, people felt no need for such a word in the Arctic communities where the sun stays in the sky all summer and disappears below the horizon all winter.

New vocabulary became necessary in the past few years, however, as hazy light started lingering on the southern horizon deep into the months when the sky normally would contain nothing but stars.

Residents of Nunavut struggle for words when asked to describe the phenomenon.

"It's like dawn," said Marty Kuluguqtuq, a municipal worker in Grise Fiord. "It's like a glimmer on the horizon."


http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001687.html

[lefttoright]

8. Scary Stuff

I'd love to see more research which may link this phenomenon to global warming.

[evolvenow]

10. Mother Nature is still in charge...

ooops, forgot that the world does not revolve around humans.
In addition to all of the insane experiments that have been carries out on this planet and in space, if so much solar activity, perhaps even a pole shift (which happens as a cycle) would create such an effect?

[Lisa]

11. Globe and Mail reported this too

(Dec 2nd)

--here's a link to the reprinted version. (They now make you pay to access the archive at their site.)

Interestingly, some scientists had predicted the reverse (darker winter nights).


http://www.climateark.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=36884


One of Rummy's "unknown unknowns"?

[heretheycome]

12. well time for layoffs

Looks like Rudolph will be looking for another job
:-)

OK not funny, just trying to add humor.

I am sorry I couldn't myself

[Massacure]

13. Call me stupid but doesn't the Earth wobble on its axis every 26000 years?

[Old Mouse]

14. but that process itself takes thousands of years

this is all happening within twenty

[stlsaxman]

15. NOVA had an episode explaining this as the weakening of

the magnetic field surrounding the planet- that "the Northern Lights" would be seen around the globe.

Are these Aurora Borealis? or a different-

phenomenon do-do dee do-doop
phenomenon do-do dee doop

I LOVE that song!

[MisterCompletly]

16. Another sign of Global Warming???

Nah, we can write this one up to wind shear. It works for the FAA so NOAA can borrow it this time too.

[Thor_MN]

18. Did anyone see three guys on camels following the light?

Don't tell the fundies, or they'll be looking for knocked up teenagers in every barn...