The Greenhouse Effect is currently targeted as the cause of global warming. Atmospheric gases act like the windshield of a car: sunlight enters, but the heat generated by the sunlight hitting the environment remains trapped. Interior temperatures rise dramatically because more and more heat is being produced by the sunlight, while the atmosphere prevents that heat from dissipating into space during the nighttime. Global warming is therefore cyclic, and ever increasing.
Most scientific studies of global warming, as could be expected, focus their attention on measuring these “greenhouse” gases…and neglect measuring changes in the sunlight itself!
Visible sunlight contains invisible components. Beyond the low energy end of the spectrum of visible light, infrared energy accompanies sunlight across space. Infrared energy is another name for “HEAT.” Earth does not get heat from the sun – infrared energy is filtered out of the sunlight by the atmosphere’s density. It’s the atmosphere’s density that creates the greenhouse effect in the first place – it is not permeable to heat.
Ultraviolet light, the invisible component of sunlight at the HIGH energy end of the spectrum. can and does pass through Earth’s atmosphere. Johan Ritter discovered ultraviolet light in 1801, by accident. He was in the process of measuring the temperature differences of the colors of the visible spectrum. A bright rainbow of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet emanated from a prism into which Ritter had directed a shaft of sunlight. Thermometers lay in each color. Each was reading a different temperature. Red light generated the least heat, while violet light was generating the most. As Ritter recorded his results in his notebook- the Earth rotated! The thermometer that had been laying in the violet light moved beyond the visible color, and into the invisible realm of the ultraviolet. Ritter was astounded to discover that, with no visible light shining on it, the temperature of the last thermometer WENT UP !
Ultraviolet light is that frequency of light which delivers the most energy to Earth.
Strangely, the Sun goes ON and OFF in ultraviolet light – every eleven (11) years! In 2003, the Sun was pumping out high levels of ultraviolet light. In 2003, the Sun was at “Solar Maximum.” It was during the first years of the 21st. century that global warming was recognized as a serious problem, when the Sun was at, or near, Solar Maximum. It is the function of atmospheric OZONE to block the highest levels of ultraviolet radiation, and prevent irreparable damage to the lifeforms on Earth. Part of the problem we are having with global warming is that certain atmospheric gases produced by human activity are destroying the ozone in Earth’s atmosphere – allowing more ultraviolet light to enter than the Biosphere is prepared to handle.
Recently voices have been raised attempting to disclaim the greenhouse effect and global warming. They say that weather statistics show a cooling trend rather than a warming trend. That may be true. The Sun is well on its way toward “Solar Minimum” and Earth is receiving less and less ultraviolet radiation all the time. But, come 2014, or soon after, when the Sun begins producing more and more ultraviolet radiation, the Earth will face dire circumstances unless the Ozone layer is somehow replenished, or other protective measures are well underway.
Not only could the food chain be broken by ultraviolet radiation, sterilizing the oceans of their plankton, but also, the entire pollination process could well be disrupted as the next Solar Maximum approaches (2025). The bees could go blind! Already these precious creatures that provide such a vital link in the evolutionary process are severely strained. Heightened levels of ultraviolet radiation striking the environment from an angry Sun would be all that is required to knock them completely out of the picture.
I therefore suggest that levels of Ultraviolet Radiation be more routinely computed into the mix of measurements that are being undertaken worldwide in an effort to coerce the political mind to act fast and forcefully to save the environment, before it is too late.
