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Records from old Irish observatory may offer clues on strange weather
@Spirit Daily
Records at an ancient observatory in Armagh, Ireland, indicate that a strong shift in climate has occurred since the mid-1800s but may be from natural causes -- and may relate to a message given around that time at an obscure site of apparition.
The logs, among the world's oldest and kept as a daily meteorological diary at Armagh since the earliest days of the thermometer, show a shift in climate during the past 150 years that included a temperature spike in the 1840s and since that time a strong upward track that many believe is responsible for a global increase in violent weather.
The observatory is in the town where Saint Patrick once preached. It's a spooky place. Astronomers who work there speak of strange noises and the limestone, decked in ivy, dates back to the 1700s.
There in a basement archive are the logs -- many of which were written on parchment -- and what they reveal is telling. Recording daily temperatures for more than two centuries, the diaries show that a major shift in weather began from 1840 to 1860, surged in the mid-1900s, and has been skyrocketing since the 1980s.
Scientists compare the situation with a similar swerve in climate that occurred during the Roman Empire and then during the Middle Ages.
While astronomers who have analyzed the records say that pollution may have contributed to the rise in temperatures, they believe the most likely cause is the sun and its cloud-affecting magnetic fields.
"We conclude that, possibly excluding the most recent decades, much of the warming of the past century can be quantitatively accounted for by the direct and indirect effects of solar activity," write E. Palle Bago and C. John Butler, two astronomers at Armagh, in a series of papers they sent to Spirit Daily.
Records show that there has been an great increase in clouds -- heralding storminess -- and they warn that the current trend could suddenly reverse into a cold spell as happened around 1300, before onset of bubonic plague.
The most pronounced early temperature spike occurred in 1846 -- the same year, as we have previously noted, that the Virgin Mary appeared in the French hamlet of LaSalette to two shepherd children. There she allegedly warned that seasons would be "altered" and that famine would come -- which occurred soon after as the change in weather helped spawn fungus that caused the great Irish potato famine.
While temperatures leveled or dipped a bit after that, by the 1880s they were surging again and since then, except for brief respites, have heralded numerous changes in weather, including an increase in atmospheric moisture that has led to more severe blizzards, rainstorms, and flooding, along with drenching hurricanes.
According to the scientists, the increase has been more than a degree centigrade and has been accompanied by an intensification in cloud patterns. "The total cloud cover over the oceans has increased during the past century," state Dr. Butler and Bago in the papers, which include analyses not just of the old records but also tree-ring, oceanic, and satellite data. "Temperatures rose quite steeply in the period 1900 to 1940, then leveled off and indeed fell for a decade or two after which the warming has resumed till the present day," say the scientists, concluding that "this variability has, in the past, come about through natural causes not related to the activities of mankind."
It thus appears that at least to some extent forces far out of mankind's reach are causing the current gyration, which has seen hurricanes devastate Central America, typhoons last for record times in the Pacific, floods overrun parts of China, tornadoes rip through expanding parts of America, and winter storms dump record amounts of snow.
The scientists conclude that the main cause is natural because the shift occurred before large quantities of carbon pollutants were emitted by industry.
Whereas half of the temperature rise occurred from 1900 to 1940, only 20 percent of the carbon dioxides rise occurred at that time. In addition, temperatures leveled off and slightly fell for a while in the 1960s and 1970s when levels of carbon dioxide -- the pollutant thought to be behind much of global warming -- was quickly rising.
"That fact alone," say the scientists, "is strong evidence that some other mechanism is involved."
The "mechanism" is nature, which is controlled by God -- Who through the Virgin allegedly warned in 1846 that the sins of humankind would lead to disturbances in nature. The word "allegedly" is used because it was part of the message that wasn't approved by the official Church.
But in many ways the message has been startlingly accurate. "The seasons will be altered, the earth will produce nothing but bad fruit, the stars will lose their regular motion, the moon will only reflect a faint reddish glow," it said. "There will be thunderstorms which shake cities. Nature is asking for vengeance because of man, and she trembles with dread at what must happen to the earth stained with crime."
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(photo is of Armagh Observatory with Hale-Bopp in the background)
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