Gizmorama - July 28, 2014

Good Morning,

Let the global warming debate continue! Is the planet naturally warming? Is man to blame for increased temperatures and iratic weather patterns? Are you Feelin Hot Hot Hot? Take a look at new suggestions, data, and theories about this polarizing topic.

Learn about this and more interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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*-- Study: global warming 'pause' momentary, higher temps ahead --*
MONTREAL (UPI) - Climate change skeptics have suggested a recent slowdown in the warming of the Earth is evidence that global warming is a farce and that climate models can't be trusted, but new research suggests the slowdown, or "pause," was not a significant disruption of larger trends.

The planet has been slowly warming over the last century or more. But in the last 15 years, that rate of warming has slowed. Temperatures are still high by historical standards; but between 1998 and 2013 they were slightly below what climate models had predicted. A small number of scientists and policy makers have pointed to the slowdown and discrepancy as proof that climatologists -- and the wider theory of global warming -- can't be trusted.

Many of these same scientists have suggested the planet's warming is just the climate's natural fluctuation and not manmade. But the same McGill researcher who earlier this year proved such a notion to be statistically impossible has employed the same mathematical techniques to explain the recent global warming "hiatus."

In analyzing the fluctuation of global temperatures through history, McGill University physics professor Shaun Lovejoy showed the last 15 years of moderated warming is "a pattern that is in line with variations that occur historically every 20 to 50 years."

The so-called pause "exactly follows a slightly larger pre-pause warming event, from 1992 to 1998," explained Lovejoy in his most recent study -- published recently in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

"The pause thus has a convincing statistical explanation," Lovejoy concluded.


*-- Sandstone arches formed by gravity and stress, not erosion --*
BRYCE CANYON, Utah (UPI) - Sandstone arches, alcoves and pillars are scattered across the globe, monuments to nature's strange beauty -- odd, gravity-defying shapes carved by the wind and rain. Or so we thought.

A new study suggests these spontaneous stone structures are not exactly carved by the whims of erosion. Although wind and water perform the grunt work -- blowing abrasive sheets of sand and water droplets against the rock, loosening and carrying away the weaker pieces of sediment -- it's the rock's internal stresses and structure that determine these formations' magnificent shapes.

In other words, it is the unique nature of sandstone -- not wind and rain -- that, with the help of gravity, creates the arches and spires of places like Utah's Bryce Canyon. Scientists proved as much by replicating these sandstone structures in lab settings, showing that even small blocks of otherwise crumbly material naturally form into arches.

As Alan Mayo, a hydrogeologist at Brigham Young University, recently explained in a report for Nature, erosion "undercuts the material" in a way that might predict collapse, but increased pressure along the edges of the un-eroded rock enables the remaining sand grains to lock together in a manner that's "incredibly stable."

"We should not say erosion or weathering carved the forms, as it was the stress field which give the forms the shape," said Jiri Bruthans, a hydrogeologist at Charles University in Prague who co-authored the study with Mayo. "Erosion processes are mere tools controlled by stress."

"To create perfect shapes you do not need intelligence or planning," Bruthans added. "The opposite is true for nature. Most perfect things are made by simple mechanisms."

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