Global warming, blamed on explosive comet

[Sonia]

Russian scientist says 1908 event caused temperature rise.
Did a spectacular asteroid or comet impact in 1908 trigger global warming on Earth?

Over the past century, temperature on Earth have risen by about 0.6oC. Scientists blame this on the burning of natural gas and oil, which release carbon dioxid, a greenhouse gas that traps solar heat in the atmosphere. Buta report by Vladimir Shaidurov from the Russian Academy of sciences argues that the temperature rise was triggered by the Tunguska event on June 301908, when an asteroid or comet exploded in the atmosphere over Siberia. The powerful explosion felled trees over an area of 2,000km.
Shaidurov says that global temperature were decreasing before 1900 then began to rise between 1906 and 1909. He thinks the 1908 impact destroyed high-altitude clouds of ice crystals and altered the atmosphere distribution of water vapour - itself a potent greenhouse gas.
That could be the "crucial factor" behind global warming, he argues, adding that more research is needed.

http://icm.krasn.ru (http://icm.krasn.ru/)

Although it is hard to believe that Tungsta have a lasting effect on our atmosphere. I always thought that dust and debris causes an average temperature drop? which was found and confirmed by scientists when dust covered Mars..

Any comments on this?

[venus]

The Tungusta event is interesting if it did cause a decrease in global temperature then the industrial revolution must be what's keeping the Earth's temperature from an ice-age ....

[mickoking]

Thanx for the article Sonia, very interesting :thumbsup:

[Argonavis]

Well, some scientists blame this on the burning of natural gas and oil, but looking closely at the data the picture is far more equivocal.

Blaming the 0.6 - 0.8 deg C rise in global temperatures on a rock that exploded high above the Siberian tundra in 1908 sounds as much junk science as most of the global warming/climate change hysteria. A correlation is not a cause, and a theory needs evidence to be anything but speculation.

It's an interesting idea, but if there is significant dust in the upper atmosphere then we would be seeing very red sunsets.

[gaa_ian]

Good point Argo ... I would have thought that major volcanic eruptions would have a far greater impact than any single asteroid/comet explosion almost 100 Yrs Ago !