Well, there are a number of different type of orbits. However, for earth orbits, you have to consider your perspective on the ground and the type of communications equipment used.

The ones that are used for internet/television service are in one specific type of orbit. An orbit which is 35,000km above sea level is one where it will take 24 hours for the satellite to go once around. That much does not matter if it is a polar orbit, equatorial or some other intermediate plane.

However, an equatorial orbit at that altitude has the rather interesting feature that the satellite tends to sit over one place on the surface all the time. That is why you can point a dish in one direction and it will always be aligned.

A polar orbit, on the other hand, would be a problem for a dish antenna as the satellite in constantly in motion relative to the ground. In fact, half the time, it is on the wrong side of the Earth.

Actually, the GPS system uses a modified polar orbit. However, for that use, you need a very non-directional antenna that can connect to several satellites at the same time to establish your fairly fixed position on the surface.

Another interesting orbit is called the “tundra orbit”. That is what satellite radio uses. Basically, it is at a mean altitude of 35,000 km but it is neither equatorial nor circular. If viewed from outer space, it would be elliptical, just like any other orbit. However, because the mean altitude is what it is, the satellites still take a full day to go once around the planet. So they move around relative to the ground while still managing to stay on one side of the planet at all times (relative to the ground anyway).

Sirius/XM each have three satellites in tundra orbits. At any given time, there are at least two of them over North America.

Here, I also have to tell you a mildly amusing story relative to line of sight. A friend of mine got a brand new BMW a few years ago. Now at some point in the process of ordering it, someone forgot to check a box on a form indicating that the car was going to be used in North America.

Well, since European satellite radio uses the same type of orbit but centered over Europe, she had line of sight to those satellites. And since the car was made in Germany, the default settings for the radio were to get German stations. So she could only get those for a couple of days until she got back to the dealer to have the radio reset for English language stations.

Lol.

Cool stuff. I'd never really thought about them much before. I spent a lot more time paying attention to technology that goes out than technology that orbits.

@Kapkao

There is malaria, dengue fever, and chorlera, but that's only 3 I've mentioned. The reason the diseases will spread ever more is because warmer and wetter conditions, wasn't that obvious?

And you know that nothing terrible came about how? I'm still deciding if you're ignorant, but all I see from you is being apathetic.

Oh well if you don't save the near threatend spotted owl, conservationists will do that for you. Besides, you don't sound like a person who cares about animals (And don't call me an animal rights activist because I prefer animal welfare)

An increase in average temperature necessarily leads to "warmer and wetter" conditions? What about warmer and drier conditions? Maybe climates that were once wet will become dry, and drier climates will become more moist.

The argument I originally heard was that CC would happen in such a way (as if were all at once) that there would be large clumps of population densely packed in such a disorganized way, as to become breeding grounds for disease. Nevermind the already fantasy-laden specifics he gave, which no other source could offer him support for, the idea that CC would happen so fast (as in, a year or so) as to cause abnormal population buildups is asinine by itself.

It is highly apathetic. If you stay here long enough you might even get to see how snobbish and self absorbed I truly am. I have no reason to think I'm going to be adversely effected and I still don't. Nothing terrible came about... because there has been no detriment to human prosperity and well being from a loss of biodiversity -at least in the developed world. If anything we are all better off as a species than we were in, say, 1850. In poorer countries of subsistence agriculture, where reliance on a single species for nutritional intake is the norm, things may be much worse.

If you have evidence to the contrary, let's hear it.

Well, as long as we both agree we're discussing animal welfare and not human welfare, I have no problems. My current claim is that CC related activism would benefit strongly from a "Love Canal"-type approach. We would be much effective by looking at CC solely on the basis of how it adversely effects human welfare.

Straw man. He did not argue that all places would become warmer and wetter, he is only inferring, correctly, that some places will. And those places will become more prone to such diseases.

Red Herring. It is intellectually dishonest to hold up some other guy's lame argument and imply that KillerCroc must defend it. Stick to the points he is arguing.

I bet you're an atheist cuz you're mad at god, cuz I met one atheist and that was HIS reason! /snark

The most obvious changes in the next few decades are going to be increasingly unstable weather causing property damage, loss of life, loss of infrastructure, and the resulting effects on overall economy.

There will be more flooding, more tropical storms, more 'disasters' requiring global response. Don't tell me this doesn't affect you. Even if you yourself are too complacent to offer resources of your own, the fact that people around you in your own locale WILL, will inevitably constrict the economy within which you live and work.

Collapsing of various industries, such as those we see now in fishing and farming in certain areas.

Food shortages, as previous lands which were able to support a certain staple of crops become unable to support them. This leads to famine and starvation. Which may not affect you directly, but...

Political unrest, disruption, war, etc., due to all these extra external pressures on those people most affected, and those least able to adapt to the changing conditions globally. Destabilized global political situations make the entire world more dangerous for everybody. Just as cornered animals tend to fight viciously, so will cornered people lash out in short-sighted desperation. Frankly, this is the most important and salient short-term effect of climate change.

Yeah, cuz I've never heard of any such things as fishery industry collapse, foreign species invasion destroying crops, droughts leading to uncontrollable fires, formerly fertile land turning to desert, or anything like that. No, no one has been affected by loss of biodiversity, climate change or human over exploitation of the environment. LALALALALA I can't hear you!!!!

Struck a nerve, have I?

Straw man yourself. There is no accurate manner to determine the scale to which he would apply his claims, because he did not specify them.

Except I did nothing of the sort. I simply mentioned it as a reference point, and to let him know that I have discussed this before... with apparently smarter minds than he. (Although Blake is highly intelligent, he is a bit lacking in common sense.)

And lands that were previously  inhospitable to agribusiness may equally as likely become fertile. Ever read up on the Medieval Warm Period? It's where most CC skeptic arguments get a lot of their wind from. I suggest if you want better odds

Salient to whom? Except that this hardly much of a guaranteed outcome of our current situation (where CC is still largely ignored or misunderstood by the masses.) People from developed lands claim to know a great deal about how people from less prosperous and less industrialized locales think and feel. How accurate are they in this supposed knowledge? I don't know, but I don't see anyone actually representing and speaking for many of these cultures here. I wouldn't bother with Peace Corps experience either.

And I've never heard of agribusiness and aquaculture migrating to newly vitalized, fertile lands, even though it has happened before, and will probably happen again. I'll forgo the childish mockery.

So, that means there has been some kind shortage of aquaculture products in the past? A shortage on specific types of aquaculture? Or is this, as I largely suspect, in reference to largely localized economic disasters?

Which happens anyways, presently.

Much of the land where I'm from natural infernos every so many decades or so. These fires destroy old, dead rotting tree trunks, remove parasites from the wood, and leave plenty of nutrients behind in the form of ashes and soot. Healthy, 'solid' trees tend to survive the blaze. Yes, they are a threat to public safety, and yes... they destroy rural homes en masse. 10 or 15 years down the line, and most people have recovered from damages to property. People die, too, but all of this happens whether CC is in effect or not.

Yes, that's why I made the comparison. I get the significance. As for destabilizing biodiversity to the cataclysmic proportions you state... if people start feeling the burn, they'll scramble to save their hides. Survival is the strongest instinct in our species. Whether they succeed or not, I believe is an issue well beyond whatever capacity for prescience you or I might pretend to have. It's certainly beyond climate science in its current state, with all the chaos still present in the mathematics.

I still don't understand why I should be concerned...

Every specialist I've heard speak about it says there's a lot more than one issue. There's the mite, there's also pesticide use, there's also climate change, and even the way we farm now compared to the way we used to. From what I've been told, none of these alone would do much, it's the impact of all of them together that's causing all the damage.

The basic rule is knowledge not belief. Belief for or against global warming is irrational. Only knowledge counts.

The problem is the melters are liars or at best unabashed alarmists lying for a higher purpose.

For example I remember first hearing in 1988 that if we did not turn things around in ten years it would be too late. OK, in 1998 it was too late so everyone buy an SUV and party because there is nothing that can be done about it. That didn't happen.

What did happen is in 1989 the same ten year warning was issued. In fact in nearly every year since 1988 there has been a ten year warning. And  not once any "we got it wrong and the real future date is ..." accompanying the new dire prediction that the end is near. The rational person looks at the ten year prections and sees 18 years of false/failed/lying predictions.
When believers predict the end of the world and it does not come they know they are right and come up with a new date. I have never heard of any religious end of the worlder continuing after so many failed predictions.

But there is a worse problem. They have a political agenda not the interests of the human race governing their positions. They keep predicting hundreds of millions if not billions of deaths.

If the problem is CO2 then we have only one solution and that solution has been around for decades. It is called nuclear power. In a practical sense it would require just the US to bring on line one nuclear reactor per week for twenty years which exceed the "ten year limit to inevitable doom" but it is doable with maybe a five year lead time.

In the worst case every few years a few tens of thousands might die from a nuclear accident. What is that compared to the hundreds of millions the believing melters declare will die without question? Nothing. But they are against nuclear power.

...

Then there is the generic climate change back-tracking. Unless someone it trying to revive the "best of all possible worlds" theological debate from the Dark Ages they had better define the desired climate including the CO2 content to achieve it while defining the features of this desired climate. And by this I mean which year was best, at most which decade.
I have tried this with melters before I find while I cannot put thoughts in their heads I can put words in their mouths in place of their refusal to respond. Given what they claim about CO2 then ANY year prior to 1800 should be completely acceptable because there was no significant fossil fuel usage prior to that -- actually the year is 1890 but that leads to debate so I stick with 1800.

Problem with prior to 1800 is there are indications and at times records of major climate differences in Europe and China which are similar enough in to time to appear "global" as far as major civilizations are concerned. So a lower and constant CO2 level is not a predictor of the climate and in fact tells us the contribution of fossil fuels cannot be separated from other variations because we have no MATH MODEL explaining those variations.

Lets look at post 1800. Fossil fuel usage was on a major upswing by 1890. Was that the last decade of the perfect climate? Define perfect. Were the 1930s the perfect decade? For the US there was the dust bowl, for Europe the climate was fine. Shall the skeptics say warming prevents dust bowls? Do we have to pass through another one as CO2 decreases?

But then does US climate rule? Warmer means longer growing seasons at higher latitudes means Canada and Siberia become the breadbaskets of the world. Melt the Greenland glaciers and Greenland not only gains huge amounts of farmland and access to natural resources but the sea level around it falls by 70 feet because the gravitational attraction of the glaciers is gone. Greenland should be all in favor of global melting as it is a win-win for them.

...

Before I forget I must include my favorite, the poor starving even dying polar bear on an ice flow, the icon of the melters. Algore should put it on his coat of arms.

You can see the polar bear. That means the sun is up. That means it is summer. That means the ice is supposed to melt. I can see pre-gradeschool children not knowing polar ice is supposed to melt in summer. For the rest I do not understand.

Is the bear starving? It is a few hundred yards from a tasty photographer. BTW: she was on land when she took the picture. I understand she is suing for all the unauthorized usage of her photo. A percentage of funds raised is reasonable.

If you believe in Compound Interest, you have to believe in Global Warming.  How that manifests itself where you live is an entirely different thing, but with rising levels of man-made CO2, there's only one possible outcome -- more and more energy being trapped at lower altitudes in the atmosphere.  This is confirmed with rising average surface temperatures and falling temperatures at altitude as heat is trapped closer to the ground.

Well over a century ago it was conclusively demonstrated that the greenhouse effect is not caused by trapping infrared light.

Which makes me sad because I own the palm tree franchise for all of Canada. Looks like it will never pay off and Canadians cannot look forward to a sub-tropical climate as was promised. Same for the folks who invested in beach front property in Iceland.

Odd that we lived in the best of all possible world climates in the early 19th century before industrialization began.

Keep your trees and your heat. I miss winter. I haven't seen a good one in more than a decade. There's water on the ground right now. Disgusting. It should be -20 and snowing.

I don't know where to start, other than to state that the Science is just plain rock-solid.  I used to think that "Peak Oil" would protect us from the more harmful effects of CO2 emissions, but tar sands, shale oil and fracking have proven to me that we really will spend however much money it takes to put every single last bit of CO2 possible into the atmosphere.

Will you, personally and individually, stop Climate Change by buying a Volt?  No, but that's never the case, is it?

Are Carbon Credits a scam?  Only if you think that charging for externalities is a scam.  If you think that you have the right to damage a Commons and not pay for it, you'll think they are a scam.  If you think that monetizing externalities and requiring financial transactions between those who damage the Commons and those who are working to protect or preserve the Commons isn't a scam, well, Carbon Credits aren't a scam.  It depends on how you view externalities and ownership of the Commons.

The "ideal temperature" is actually irrelevant, and any respectable climate scientist should be honest enough to admit that.  What they will say is that dramatic changes in climate is bad, and that's what we're doing.  We have centuries and millenia of experience with some range of "climate" that is normal right now.  We have no experience with the climate we'll wind up with if we don't stop.  Do we know that the "new" climate will be "bad"?  Yes -- how that's known, and what that means, is the topic of another very long response, but the short and sweet is this -- a more energetic atmosphere is one which will have more extremes of weather, and weather extremes are NOT a good thing.

Are there people who are seeking to profit from Climate Change / Global Warming?  Sure.  And I'm sure that some of them are in Nigeria and have $73,000,000 in funds they'd like you to help transfer to their tree hugging relatives in the United States, if you'd just send them your bank information.

By the way -- sustainability is always the only solution in the long term.  A carbon based economy =isn't= sustainable.  The smart money is on the tree huggers, this time around.

Yeah, put me down as a denier.

There is way too much politics, too much money, too many bureaucrats, and too much groupthink for AGW science to be trusted.

I also think there has been academic fraud and cover ups. There is a conspiracy to indoctrinate children into the AGW religion, and a conspiracy to have the government be in charge of controlling the weather 100 years from now. The global warming scam excites peoples' eschatological anxiety and statist feelings. I don't believe it's real science.

A lot of Nobel laureates are disgusted by the situation. Here's an example:

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/214181/20110915/ivar-giaever-global-warming-climate-change-al-gore-ipcc-hoax-dissent-nobel-prize-winner-physicist-re.htm

"Giaever, an 82-year-old Norwegian, sent an e-mail to APS official Kate Kirby announcing his abrupt resignation. He said he "cannot live with the statement" on global warming, and said that global temperature had been "amazingly stable.""

I think the corruption is similar in mainstream economics. I can go into that if anyone cares.

BTW, here is a study suggesting that we will be seeing colder temperatures. "Chinese 2485 year tree ring study shows shows sun or ocean controls climate, temps will cool til 2068" http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/07/in-china-there-are-no-hockey-sticks/

I'm always amused when I read some denier say "There's too much money being made on Global Warming!  It must be a hoax!"

Well, there's trillions of dollars being made =causing= Global Warming.  If making money, or spending money, is such a bad thing, =causing= Global Warming must be a bad thing.

The Science, however, is 100% rock solid.  You might not like the money, but ignoring the Science is 100% irrational.

I find it amusing that people who no nothing about science and therefore unqualified to form an opinion post about the science.

Sad but amusing.

There is no hate at all in anything I post. You may hate the truth but the truth cannot be hate. I direct your attention of ZERO posts identifying factual errors in my posts. No factual errors then only the truth has been posted.

Be sure to rationalize ignoring the fact that my posts have all contained true statements before again asserting it can only be "hate".

Common sense has nothing to do with science.

As for wanting a Jewish state, do not the Mormon people have an identical right to their own state? Does not every religion and sect thereor have a right to their own state? Was not that nonsense rejected by the Treaty of Westphalia? Is not Zionism an international jewish conspiracy? Will you support the sovereign state of Utah for the Mormons?

The fact is it is no longer science because it was too late to do anything 1998 based upon the 1988 prediction. Anyone saying we can do anything to stop it is lying because it has been too late for 12 years. QED

 Hi,

Global warming is growing a big problem for us. It is a big issue and we have to take some serious steps on it. I want to suggest that UNO has to discuss on this topic and pass some strict rules in this matter. We have to take it as a serious issue and try to decrease global warming.

I think the denial comes from a strict monotheistic perspective. According to the last chapter in the bible God is going to end this world. How sad and depressing. Well, when you must believe the bible literally you must push out anything that says otherwise. So that's where some of the denial might be coming from. I feel like if there was a God, he should have done a better job at this.

5 years of average global cooling would probably be quite sufficient to prove the warming trend had reversed. There, you've got an answer.

It isn't going to happen anytime soon though. The science behind climate change is well documented and has been through more than a decade of peer review. The only people who still deny it are idiots who think that ice forming on the South pole during summer in the Northern hemisphere (when it is winter in the Southern hemisphere, and thus if ice were not forming we'd have a hell of a lot bigger problem on our hands than we do already) suggests that the Earth isn't getting warmer. That's literally the best argument I've seen against climate change in 5 years.

Which is probably why this topic died. There's nothing to argue anymore. We haven't falsified it, and millions of people tried. Most of them ended up realising they were wrong. The rest are ignorant or stupid or not even scientists.