So Dinosaurs Could Fly ! – Part I

Oh, dear. You’ve also opened the dual cans of worms that Venus is actually a new “young” planet (@10K years by some catastrophists’ estimates) still cooling and losing atmosphere, and that gravity has increased since dinosaur days (which would account for massive critters that apparently couldn’t survive today.
Note that I do not subscribe to either idea; just pointing out that moderation is about to get interesting. (On the bright side, I don’t think “chemtrails” can figure into this. [grin])

2006 – 1916 = 90
1008.6 – 1002.2 = 6.4
Since we know that climatology operates in liner straight line trends (sea level since xx, temperature since xx, sea ice since xx, CO2 since xx, etc) and the atmosphere is a major factor in climatology then the liner straight line is the correct method to use for paleoatmosphereology expraolationology.
The trend is 7.1 per century.
Dinosaurs existed 230 million years, or 2,300,000 centuries ago.
7.1 per century times 2,300,000 centuries equals 16,330,000.
So the global annual mean atmospheric pressure was 16,331,002.2 Exactly!
The Dinosaurs actually walked on the outer edge of the atmosphere. However their methane emissions diluted to atmosphere to the point that the surface tension could no longer sustain their weight. Like a needle in a glass when the surface tension is broken, they came crashing down to earth with incredible velocity.
This is why we find dinosaurs a) Flattened, and b) Deep under the surface of the Earth. The location and condition of their remains proves the above paleoatmosphereology expraolationology.
Please refer to the respective national archeological theologies for the raw data.
Mike

I assume this is by Andy Cockroft – you seem to have missed the by-line.

A couple of sites relevant to this question… Just another take on it.
http://www.dinosaurtheory.com/index.html
http://milesmathis.com/atmo.html

eyeball 1.0 suggests that air pressure is related to temperature. Which it should be. But, which drives which?
I would be interested in seeing if solar UV matches the pressure. UV driving the stratophere height….

Am just about to settle down to read Theresa’s paper over a cup of tea and a slice of toast (liberally spread with Marmite) but I do like your thinking…..

Perhaps I missed it, but I could not see Andi’s name as author in this post. One could get the impression that Anthony was the author, if one didn’t go to the link.

To be pedantic, pterosaurs weren’t actually dinosaurs.

Fascinating article – just wanted to say, though, that “mega flora” in your 2nd to last para should be “mega fauna”.

· Is our atmosphere being sucked out in to space?
I guess so. I am a mathematician, but from my physics days I remember being shocked by that. I have found the reference in Volume 5 (Statistical Physics), §38, of the monumental Physics Course by Landau and Lifshitz.
The idea is: the distribution of molecules in a classical gas is given by Boltzmann’s Formula:
n = n_0 · exp ( -U / kT)
where n is the distribution of molecules, U the classical potential affecting the gas, n_0 the molecular density when U = 0, T the temperature, and k Boltzmann’s constant.
So for example, since the gravitational potential near Earth’s surface is U = mgh, we have:
n = n_0 · exp (-mgz / kT)
So, as is well-known, the density of the atmosphere decays exponentially when you go up, for low altitudes.
If the altitude variation is bigger, the full Newtonian potential U = GMm / r^2 must be taken, but since U tends to zero when r tends to infinity, we have that exp(-U/kT) does not vanish at infinity.
Therefore Boltzmann’s formula predicts that the state of equilibrium for a gas under Newton’s gravity is to expand with nonvanishing density to the whole space.
Of course, Earth’s atmosphere is far from equilibrium, and the relaxation time for such a big system must be astronomical. Even so, physics certainly hint at a constant loss of gas to space.
Sorry if this was too long, or my English too limited. I am not a professional physicist, by the way. But Landau is was an eminence.
Manuel.

The first line of enquiry should be to establish the veracity of the atmospheric pressure graph. In the cAGW debate it has been questioned as to whether an average global temperature has any meaning and how do you actually measure such a thing. Could not the same charge be levelled at average atmospheric pressure (how many measuring stations, location etc).
Still, an interesting topic nonetheless. I do enjoy the variety you get on this site, keep up the good work Mr Watts.

My first reaction was the ideal gas law: PV=nRT, and if the atmospheric temperature increases as most believe has occurred over the last 90 years, then value for PV must increase. Yet, NOAA pressure data shows just the opposite, i.e., P decreasing. Consequently, the slight increase in temperature can not explain the small pressure decrease.
However, I don’t think you can rule out atmospheric warming just yet. As an example, a lower pressure could be explained (as you imply in the post) by a composition change. From Engineering Tool Box; “When water vapor content increases in the moist air the amount of Oxygen and Nitrogen decreases per unit volume and the density decreases because the mass is decreasing.”
Revisiting ideal gas law, and re-writing it to include gas species density, from Wiki we have:
P = p (R/M)T
where;
p = m/V; density
M = molar mass in grams/mole
So if density (p) of the gas mixture decreases due to higher concentration of water, then pressure would decrease proportionally. Remember, moist air is less dense than dry air.
Maybe someone can model this pressure as a function of known or averaged water vapor concentrations as a function of time and then compare to the NOAA pressure chart.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/03/29/3464923.htm
Suggests pressure double about 2.5 billion years ago.

What a fascinating article, the reason why myself and many others visit your site continually. I can hardly wait for the next article. I would like some comment if possible, in part 2 on the Pressure/Temperature theory that has been discussed recently, If pressure was higher way back, then it should also have been warmer, according to the theory. I look forward to see if your article and future comments has any support for this controversial theory.
Best regards
Keith Gordon

Who wrote the article because I take it to be someone other than AW?

Some people have suggested that gravity was less, as the big dinosaurs would not have been able to stand with today’s gravity. Presumably that would also have made flight easier.

Fascinating (yet again), Anthony.
     And please don’t forget to subtract all the air held under pressure worldwide in vehicle tubes and tyres (tires); sporting balls; and myriad other balloons and bladders.

Earth and Venus are twins, with the exception of the moon. They probably started out with roughly the same composition, with about the same amount of CO2 and water. This makes sense as they formed in the same part of the original solar dust cloud. So, to distill your musings above : Earth with the creation of the Moon gave us Plate Tectonics, this combined with the distance from the Sun allowed the retention of water, which in turn lead to the carbonate cycle. Venus however never had plate tectonics, which combined its proximity to the Sun lead to disassociation of water, which has lead it to have a 90bar CO2 atmosphere. Life then also turned up on Earth. Life is also very efficient at removing CO2 from the atmosphere.
If a Mars sized impactor not hit the Earth in the Early Heavy Bombardment, we would have had a smaller Earth with no plate tectonics and an atmosphere like Venus’s. There would also be another Mars out there somewhere.
It is somewhat amusing to contemplate that given the CAGW view that humans are destroying the planet by burning fossil fuels, we in fact are most likely extending the habitiability of the Earth by many millions of years by injecting CO2 back into the atmosphere.

I don’t know much about pterasaurs but I recall they had hollow bones and were up to the size of a modern day glider.
There is an idea which I’m sure you’ve encountered about a reduced gravity earth in the past:

The atmosphere is not a static system and pressure is constantly varying at any particular place over any period of time due to temperature changes, wind speed changes, topography, particulates and, importantly, how much is being lost to space versus being generated from the crust (e.g. volcanic/tectonic activity). Trying to find an average for such a complex dynamic system is difficult – trying to find a trend from this non-linear average is meaningless.
There also seems to be much confusion about atmospheric dynamics amongst mainstream scientists, who often confuse atmospheric pressure and weight, which are two different things. The atmosphere is a gas and you do not weigh a gas by measuring its pressure. Pressure is a vector in all directions, but (because of gravity), weight is a vector in one direction only, down. The atmosphere does have mass, but weighs nothing. To get a good estimate of the total weigh the atmosphere you would need to freeze a column of air stretching from the ground to the top of the thermosphere of one square meter in cross section and multiply the weight of this by the surface area of the planet, Counting molecules of all the different types of gas making up the atmosphere and adding their molecular weight could also work.

Interesting. I agree that if these dinosaurs did fly, rather than glide down slope in mountainous areas, the air pressure/density would have to be higher. It was also warmer back then and, no not GHG’s, but an increased air density will increase temperature due to adiabatic compression due to gravity. Back in the Carboniferous there were very large insects which leads to the conclusion that the O2 levels were higher and air denser again leading to higher temperatures which also helps with insect metabolism.
It seems that you are on the right track.

Some study I read recently suggested that when atmospheric pressure reaches some critical value (above modern values), the Hadley-cell pattern changes dramatically to a “single cell” configuration in each hemisphere, something like Venus. This is a more efficient thermal transport configuration, and is the reason polar temps were temperate-like in ancient times as opposed to today’s arctic temps.

I’d like to see the model that these ‘engineers’ used to determine how pterosaurs flew. Do you have a link for it?
See, there are some details of the fossil record that strongly suggest these ideas of pterosaurs needing ‘higher air pressure’ don’t hold up. Other much smaller flyers, contemporary with pterosaurs, show adaptations for flying that suggest the air then was pretty much the same as air now. Birds in particular. All flying birds, large and small, have a feature called an alula on the leading edge of the wing. It adds wing area and increases lift during low-speed maneuvering like landing. The first known bird with an alula dates back to about 131 million years ago – the mid-Cretaceous. Birds with alulas are also known from 115 million years ago – not that long before the 100-75MYA window talked about in your source. And of course, birds from after that time also have alulas. If air pressure was that much higher, conferring that much additional lift, then why did these early birds need an alula?
Biomechanics analyses are notorious for being nonlinear — that is, small changes in the input can lead to enormously out-of-proportion changes in the results. I know that people have built pterosaur-shaped drones that fly quite well in today’s atmosphere. I also know that Don Rumsfeld’s much-mocked quote about knowns and unknowns applies strongly to prehistoric lifeforms. There are things we know, and things that we know we don’t know, but there are also things that we do not know we don’t know. There are also an awful lot of things we think we know, but ain’t really so. The fossils don’t tell us everything, and we should not ever assume that they do. As a result, I simply don’t trust esoteric analyses like this that arrive at extraordinary results.

Increasing gravity??? I don’t think so. The film clip appeared sensible for about 12 mins. then went haywire. Where did all the extra material come from? Why did we not loose all atmosphere 300Ma ago since it is gravity that holds the atmosphere in place?

Raindrop impressions and air pressure from 2.7 billion years ago.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120328135928.htm
I have some rocks with ripple marks and raindrop impressions from 3.5 billion years.

Anthony is correct, temperature cannot change the total mass (and therefore the average surface pressure) of the atmosphere. It DOES change it locally, though, but vertical circulations and horizontal redistributions of mass are involved, for example, low pressure formation in one region must be matched by higher pressure elsewhere.
Also, don’t confuse density with surface pressure. Water vapor is less dense than dry air, but if you add more water vapor to the atmosphere, the surface pressure will go up. It’s like adding a log to a bathtub full of water…the log is less dense, but the total weight increases.
I tend to think that it is the existence of life which has sucked almost all of the CO2 out of the atmosphere, since Mars and Venus have atmospheres which are almost 100% CO2. But I don’t have an opinion regarding how high atmospheric surface pressure was in the past. Not enough data. 🙂

Now if you would propose that a decreasing atmosphere might be harmful to humans or a national security risk, there just might be a very large grant coming your way. I believe the equation (known as the Hansen equation) is:
h-d+F=$
where h is hypothesis, d is data and F is fear.

“which included this graph depicting an observed fall in global annual mean atmospheric pressure since 1916 (from NOAA I believe)”
Oh Oh! Mr. Watts: Can you remember this link: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/01/phil-jones-gives-a-talk-at-knmi-in-de-bilt-meanwhile-temperature-and-paleo-researchers-are-still-blowing-off-data-requests/
I am looking for the source of that graph and cannot find it on NOAA or anywhere else so far. You have to produce a credible source for that graph and data.
Now I have the feeling that Cole 2010 made that graph up.
Besides Cole 2010 cannot open in Internet Explorer as well as in Google Chrome. It gives warnings that downloading this file could seriously harm or damage my computer. So I won’t open it.
Please would you give us the link on NOAA or from any other harmless scientific organisation so I can verify that this graph is not fictional!
It is a very interesting piece however.
REPLY: Your paranoiaware is probably set too high on your computer. I had no trouble downloading the Cole PDF file, stored at Google docs. Since you’ve demonstrated you probably can’t get past this limitation (or won’t), I’ve placed the file on the WUWT server and updated the link. The post is by Andi Cockroft in New Zealand.
Note that the difference here is that I solve the problem rather than writing back “Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?” like Dr. Jones did. – Anthony

Carl Chapman says:
June 2, 2012 at 12:47 am
I had an email discussion a few years ago with Steve Nerem of the Colorado Uni, which is where the sea level numbers come from. I had noticed that all the increase in sea level came from the adjustments due to global average atmospheric pressure. Without the adjustment the sea level was falling. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,. The fact that the University of Colorado showed more sea level rise after the adjustment means, IMO, there is something wrong with their adjustment process and it is exaggerating the sea level rise.
========================================
exactly…..measurements show sea levels falling……adjustments/math/assumptions show sea levels rising

There are two periods when, at least, oxygen was significantly higher. The Cretaceous, 100 MYa 29% and the Devonion/Carboniferous, 400 to 300 MYa at 30% (briefly 35%) which made for higher air pressure.
This also allowed for giant insects in the Carboniferous for example. Giant spiders, giant dragonflys. One of the more interesting things it also allowed for was giant forest fires. With oxygen over 30%, forest fires were unstoppable and could burn half-way across a continent. Some of the coal is really just repeatedly burned-down forests.

I think the increased oxygen levels are a more likely reason for the mega fauna. That would explain the size of the dinosaurs. They were essentialy supercharged. It might also explain their extinction if they weren’t able to adapt to a lower oxygen level.
Since Venus is closer to the sun and smaller you would expect that the solar wind would have stripped more of it’s atmosphere than Earth’s. The moon was also closer to the Earth in the past so could it also have caused more striping of the atmosphere?

Vukcevic,
Interesting graphs, what do you think happened in the1920s? It seems an event or collection of such kicked off about then. Similarly something happened in 1972 and 1992/3. What?

I believe gravity is increasing. Everyone I know, including myself, weighs more now than 20 years ago. 🙂

There is a NASA project to obtain the first quantitative measurements of atmospheric pressure on the early Earth, from the Archean Eon >2.5 billion years ago:
It hopes to:
1) improve our understanding of Earths early environment;
2) constrain the development of biogeochemical cycles, notably nitrogen;
3) calibrate greenhouse evolution models by providing data on whether greenhouse forcing gases were major or trace atmospheric constituents;
4) permit testing of hypotheses about Archean oxygen levels; and
5) provide tests for astrobiological models of planetary atmospheres.
Two paleobarometry techniques will be used. The first uses a methodology based on a proven and published paleoaltimetry technique (Sahagian, 1994, 2002) involving the determination of vesicle size distributions from the top and bottom of uninflated basaltic lava flows, then applying the ideal gas law to obtain pressure.
The second marries raindrop formation theory (Lorenz, 1993, 1995) with empirical studies of raindrop impact-crater volume (Ghadiri, 2004). Since atmospheric density controls the final size and velocity of raindrops, fossil raindrop imprints on sedimentary surfaces can be used to extract atmospheric pressure.
The significance of the proposed study applies to NASA Strategic Sub-goal 3C.2 “Understand the processes that determine the history and future of habitability in the solar system, including the origin and evolution of Earths biosphere”
http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/exobiology/projects/archean-paleobarometry-2
It is indirectly related to a Caltech hypothesis described in the paper, “Atmospheric Pressure as a Natural Regulator of the Climate of a Terrestrial Planet with Biosphere,”:
http://media.caltech.edu/press_releases/13266
“As the sun has matured over the past 4.5 billion years, it has become both brighter and hotter, increasing the amount of solar radiation received by Earth, along with surface temperatures. Earth has coped by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, thus reducing the warming effect. (Despite current concerns about rising carbon dioxide levels triggering detrimental climate change, the pressure of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has dropped some 2,000-fold over the past 3.5 billion years; modern, man-made increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide offset a fraction of this overall decrease.)
“The problem, says Joseph L. Kirschvink, the Nico and Marilyn Van Wingen Professor of Geobiology at Caltech and a coauthor of the PNAS paper, is that “we’re nearing the point where there’s not enough carbon dioxide left to regulate temperatures following the same procedures.
“Proof of this hypothesis may come from other research groups that are examining the gas bubbles formed in ancient lavas to determine past atmospheric pressure: the maximum size of a forming bubble is constrained by the amount of atmospheric pressure, with higher pressures producing smaller bubbles, and vice versa.”

I wait in baited anticipation to see NASA apply this data as an excuse to reduce the rate of sea level rise the way they conversely used GIA to increase it. I suppose I shouldn’t hold my breath…

Someone mentioned it upthread and it’s something I’ve wondered about too: is the amount of gas compressed into pneumatic tyres, tanks, bottles, footballs and so on of any significance at all in reducing the pressure outside of these items?

I believe that water transport to the top of tall trees is attributed to leaf transpiration pulling a very narrow column of liquid from the ground. (As opposed to being pushed up by ambient atmospheric pressure–which would limit lift to approximate 32 feet.) I’m wondering how a much heavier atmosphere might affect this system. Would water transport change because of a change in transpiration? Could an entirely different system of transport evolve not based on capillarity tension? What effect might there be on maximum plant height?

Fascinating, thanks Andy and Anthony.
Oxygen levels higher… CO2 levels a lot higher… atmosphere a lot thicker so more buoyant and warmer… offsets the Faint Sun… makes pterosaurs flight and gigantosaurus long necks that require blood lifting biologically workable maybe… but what about gravity?? Now could the planet have spun faster, thus causing an effectively reduced gravity?
OTOH, biologist Rupert Sheldrake says
How constant are the “fundamental constants”:
…Newton’s Gravitational Constant, Big G, is the one that shows the largest variations. Towards the end of the twentieth century, as methods of measurement became more precise, the disparity in measurements of G by different laboratories increased, rather than decreased. Between 1973 and 2010, the lowest value of G was 6.6659, and the highest 6.743, a 1.1% difference. These published values are given to at least three places of decimals, and sometimes to five, with estimated errors of a few parts per million. Either this appearance of change is illusory, or G really does change. The difference between high and low values is more than forty times greater than the estimated errors (expressed as standard deviations)…

just a suggestion: what do you think of the gravity theory? this is an interesting article:
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_dinosaurs01.htm

In ancient times, we know that there were giant flying critters. Such could not exist unless the atmosphere was thicker back then. Therefore I at least have known for decades that it was, because that was the only possibility. What I ask is, that being true, why did you not know this?? I have known for years that the ubsurd idea that they flew by using seashore winds was impossible, no such number of flying lizards could survive being so dependent on such limited winds, to say nothing of the insects. What you now need to ask is, what blind spot allowed you to believe the obviously impossible for so long? Is it because someone with an important scientific sounding title did not say it, because it was not in the scientific textbook(even though the obviously absurd seashore theory was)? Do you still have this blind spot? What else might you therefore still be blind to? People who come here supposedly do not ascribe to the idea that it is true just because some person in a white lab coat ( or like Algore say they have one) says so. Perhaps that is not true, perhaps people here are far more susceptible to the argument from authority fallacy than they believe. Perhaps it is time to reexamine why you believe what you believe.
Since I knew that the ancient atmosphere MUST have been thicker back then (it would also help giant non flying critters to breath), I have looked for evidence of how this happened, and found it. A while back, scientists discovered that the protection from atmospheric stripping by the solar wind supposedly afforded by earths magnetic field was less than believed, and it was being stripped. I have also known about the moons tidal effects helping strip the atmosphere for even longer. This is not even counting trapped air bubbles found in antarctic ice, which showed at least two atmospheres of pressure a mere 200,000 years ago or so (also more CO2).
The reason you have just heard about it until now is because scientists have become such specialists that they don’t even know what is going on down the hall. If it isn’t happening in their increasingly narrow specialty, they don’t know about it. besides, they all fight for the same piece of the budgetary pie, and thus only care about the importance, come budget time, of their small department. Other departments are the enemy. I doubt that the dinosaur people will even hear about this (despite the continuing absurdity of their flying reptile theories).
In Germany the concept of the “Fachidiot” is well know. It describes the chap who knows more and more about less and less, to the point where he is incapable of functioning outside his own narrow field. In the English-speaking world, we recognize the expert as the person who avoids the small pitfalls as he sweeps on to the grand fallacy. The generalist, the person who has experience of diverse areas, and the man with insight are necessary counterbalances to Fachidiocy, for it’s not academic background or endless doctorates which are important in revealing scientific truth: the quality of the arguments is more important.
And as for the science, here is the question now, why do we have any atmosphere at all? With the rate it is being stripped, something must have been adding to it for a long time, what was and is that something? How much and of what is being added? Also, how much atmospheric pressure will counteract the early faint sun “paradox” (paradox to people who are “Fachidiots”). Now that you know that the absurd idea that our atmosphere was not always exactly like it is now is false, what other paradoxes does this clear up? What other things do you “know” that are, in fact, completely wrong?

Somebody call Carter Burke, we can easily fix this with a few atmosphere processors. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Yn45pl8yXzk#t=328s

I wonder . . .
a) . . . whether an atmosphere with high concentrations of carbon dioxide and/or oxygen would be as well-mixed as the current atmosphere – either with regard to altitude or spatially?
b) . . . if an oxygen enriched atmosphere (“35% back then”) would be highly combustive? I’ve seen 23% and up given as a mix above which this becomes an issue.
[However, North American Aviation proposed using a 60-40 oxygen/nitrogen mixture for the Apollo command module {NASA wanted and got 100% oxygen} so both the 23% and the 35% may be safer than I’ve thought.]
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2009/01/dayintech_0127

By the way, this fits well with Nikolov and Zeller’s picture of the ancient past.
For those who are interested, who wondered about N&Z seeming to challenge the Second Law (a reasonable doubt Anthony had, for one) please wander over to Tallblokes Talkshop. I’ve written Part One about my visit to see the experimental work Graeff has been doing, that seems to uphold the necessity for a modification in the Second Law, not in its essentials, but in one detail that has been believed but never, until Graeff, actually tested.
Of course, I believe this work is extremely important. Nullius In Verba and all that.

I’m not a scientist. My understanding is that only hydrogen and helium are light enough to reach escape velocity. I would imagine a lot of Helium has been produced by radioactive decay in the last 4.5 billion years, yet the atmosphere is not Helium-rich, it’s just 0.00052% vol of the atmosphere (Wikipedia – which lies).

Another “average” graph that does not reflect the reality of atmospheric exchanges and climatic evolution…

The ‘engineers say bumblebees can’t fly’ thing is one of those urban legends of science. Bumblebee flight is understood quite well. It has great appeal, however, to the ‘those scientists think they’re so smart’ crowd.

Fascinating. If Levenspiel et al’s arguments for a very thick atmosphere high in CO2 is correct, it implies that rather than not having enough CO2 in the ancient atmosphere to account for the Faint Sun, we have way too much. The Earth had a liquid ocean. At that amount of CO2, that thick of an atmosphere, I would guess that without something to counteract the warming effect, the ocean would evaporate away. Evidence of a thermostatic control mechanism on the Earth’s temperature?
Paging Willis?

Are we sure the pterosaurs were flying in the atmosphere? Might they have been something like proto-penguins, or air breathing manta rays?

Legatus says:
June 2, 2012 at 7:31 am
In ancient times, we know that there were giant flying critters. Such could not exist unless the atmosphere was thicker back then.
[—]
We don’t actually know this. We presume it by comparison to modern proxies. We can calculate probable weight to area ratios based on the anatomy of the species as we know it, and with the use of well established and tested ratio ranges for a wide variety of aerodynamic and partially aerodynamic surfaces, deduce a likelihood of flight, but we will never actually know it. Therefore, to conclude denser atmosphere from the anatomy of a sparse number of ancient critter samples is simply a wild-eyed flight of fancy.

Are those pressure data from 1916 to present good data? Were stations added or subtracted? Is there any impact from smog in urban areas? Oh, wait, sorry, I’d forgotten that such questions just aren’t to be asked in polite company.

Human/Mammalian physiology would seem to confirm this –
http://sun025.sun.ac.za/portal/page/portal/Health_Sciences/English/Departments/Biomedical_Sciences/MEDICAL_PHYSIOLOGY/Essays/What_is_life
http://sun025.sun.ac.za/portal/page/portal/Health_Sciences/English/Departments/Biomedical_Sciences/MEDICAL_PHYSIOLOGY/Essays/pulmonary_physiology

I made the observation that we often see CO2 concentrations in ppm or ppmv, but seldom in partial pressure.
I think it matters a great deal to the study of climate history whether a given CO2 concentration occurs in a 1013 milibar atmosphere or one of 5000 milibar. I think the question of atmospheric pressure in the geologic record is addressed too little.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/03/new-questions-on-isostacy-and-mean-sea-level/
As for the question of what is the shape of the atmospheric decline curve, it really ought to be exponential.
As for replenishment, we have heard of the huge volumes of basalt erupted in the Deccan Traps and Siberian Traps. What might be the range of gas volume errupted with the extruded basalts? Is it a significant amount? If insignificant, then it is difficult to imagine vulcanism adding much to the atmosphere in the past billion years.

RogerJ says:
June 2, 2012 at 5:23 am

“A drop of 1 Mbar may seem trivial over 90 years, but at that rate mother Earth may run out of atmosphere altogether in just 100,000 years !!”
Yes but how many years until humans expire b/c of lack of air pressure. Or will we all be wearing spacesuits 24/7 by then? This could be Algore’s new cause.

Hmm, the human body seems to adequately compensate for far lower air pressure (475 millibar, or so), so we should be good for another 50000 years. Obviously then, you should learn to relax and breathe deeply and slowly, if you’re planning on living 50000 years.

[forgive any redundancy of above comments, have not reviewed all yet]
There are four parameters for flight…gravity, thurst, lift and drag….if we assume gravity constant, then consider ‘thrust’….it is impossible to envision a magnitude changes, since the Jurassic, of muscle or bone, strength or weight….both ‘lift and drag’ are proportional to atmospheric pressure, giving slow moving, but double wingspan flight….this from ‘Slaying the Sky Dragon’…
“Compare the 65 million year old Pterodactyal Quezalcoatus Northopi and it’s eleven meter (thirty-six foot) wingspan with todays largers Peurvian Condor wingspan of five meters (sixteen feet). In addition compare the Meganeura Dragonfly with half meter (twenty-two inch) wing span and today’s Atlas Moth and it’s quater meter (eleven inch) wingspan.”….page 253….
The atmosphere is being continually eroded by solar wind, lunar tidal pulls, meteor impacts, volcanic outbusts that pull gases beyond exit velocity and by molecular decay, as in N14 to C14. But, the Earth is being constantly replenished by ‘elemental’ gases. Helium, Radon, Argon and the other formerly called “Inert Gases” provide a useful measure of production and extinction rates. [may post another reply after reading all comments, thanks]

mfo;
The second marries raindrop formation theory (Lorenz, 1993, 1995) with empirical studies of raindrop impact-crater volume (Ghadiri, 2004). Since atmospheric density controls the final size and velocity of raindrops, fossil raindrop imprints on sedimentary surfaces can be used to extract atmospheric pressure.
>>>>>>>>>
It assumes that rain falls at terminal velocity only. Wind conditions can result in rain hitting the ground well below as well as well above terminal velocity and frequently do. Without knowing wind conditions at the time the impression was made, how could they possibly know with any degree of certainty that the rain drop was at terminal velocity?

I think I’ve got the answer. The moon used to orbit far closer to the earth than it does now. So, when the moon was very close to earth and overhead, the gravity experienced by the giant flying reptiles would have been substantially reduced, enabling them to fly.
The other three weeks of the month they sat around and whined about how their offspring of the time were so much more disrepectful than when they were hatchlings.

The problem with the theory of 35% oxygen is the burn rates. Working in petro chemicals they set up a HLA (High Level Alarm) for any concentration greater then 24%, due to the increased reactivity of any material in that environment. Clothes, paper products and especially petrochemical products become dangerously flammable with that small increase. In that, there was some testing of the danger of a 35% environment, and here is a refutation of the concept, abiding by a 35% possible concentration:
http://www.fs.fed.us/ne/newtown_square/publications/other_publishers/OCR/ne_2004_wildman001.pdf
But still the world would be very flammible. For fun, 1947 War videos Chemistry of Fire:

And note that there are special cleaning requirements for tanks that have pressurized air with more then a 23% oxygen level:
http://www.luxfercylinders.com/frequently-asked-questions/aluminum-scuba-cylinders-in-oxygen-enriched-and-oxygen-service
There are quite a few detramental affects to high oxygen levels, and while it might not be a normal affect for this theorizing, would be an affect that might counter the abilty of the Earth environment from being able to sustain 25% or higher oxygen levels.

….continued from above….
on the ‘faint Sun paradox’….i did try to engage Dr Lindzen on the dinosaur wingspan/double atmosphere explaination following the Jan, 2010 Lindzen-North debate at Rice University and in subsequent emails….[non-responsive]
on the ‘dense air/sea level’….water is classified as non-compressible, certainly in the range of this discusion….
on the….’total loss of atmoshere in 100k yrs’….this is linear projection, where erosion and decompositon would be logarithmic decline + continious ‘elemental’ atom additions….expect several million years….
on….’dinosaurs couldn’t walk today’….i can bench press TWICE as much weight when i’m underwater….atmosphere with ~8 times pressure would provide some buoyancy….to walking & flying lizards….as for ‘flying pigs’….only AGW can provide buoyancy for that….
[thanks for the discussion Andy & Anthony…as an engineer, i share Andy’s persepctive]

The amount of atmosphere loss to space probably isn’t linear. It probably changes due to solar activity, strength of Earth’s magnetic field, volcanism and temperature. For example, over the past 3 million years the Earth has been generally cooling. This would cause more gas to be dissolved in the oceans.
I don’t think it is accurate to extrapolate a linear rate of atmospheric loss based on the very recent behavior of barometric pressure. An active sun will strip more away. A weaker magnetic field will allow more to be stripped away. Increased volcanism will add some, etc.

Is it just me or is there no significant change in pressure until around 1990? Shouldn’t the data be verified?

Owen in Ga says:
June 2, 2012 at 12:04 pm
I’m not sold on the square cube law on the pterasaurs. If the additional wingspan were mostly tendon and cartilage with a thin membrane of skin providing most of the lifting area, these critters could have achieved much large lifting areas with only modest additions of mass. All it takes is one hallow bone finger spar to elongate out another meter or two with that skin stretched from the femur to the fingertip and a huge surface area is achieved with very little addition of weight.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
My comment was about the model, not the pterasaur. The model was half scale. Make the model full scale, and it would have four times the surface area and eight times the mass. So constructing and flying a 1/2 scale model proves… not much.
On the other hand, there is little doubt in my mind that the pterasaur’s were capable of flight. The notion that they were “just gliders” doesn’t sit well with me. Their legs were far too short for them to be anything but completely ungainly on the ground. The notion that they could perhaps climb a tree or a cliff to get the altitude to launch themselves just doesn’t seem plausible to me from looking at their skeletons.

Adding a bit to my prior comment:
As an additional illustration, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentavis is estimated to have flown just 6 million years ago with up to 70-78 kg mass and to do so by 7 meter wingspan. For a Quetzalcoatlus pterosaur
to fly with 70 – 250 kg mass when having 10-11 meter wingspan is not even too surprising in comparison, when a combination of up to 60% more wingspan and up to a comparable amount more wing chord length
would mean up to multiple times the wing surface area. There is no real reason to assume atmospheric pressures were multiple times higher back then and plenty of reason not. 30-35% oxygen in the age of the dinosaurs instead of 21% oxygen now but at roughly comparable atmospheric pressure to now (in the sense of not multiple atm) is the standard estimate.

While the bumblebee story may be a fable, I have one that is true. I met a gentleman by the name of Willard Custer who had invented an aircraft wing called (no surprise) the Custer Channel Wing. Basically he formed a wing into a U shape around a pusher propeller to gain extra lift. He said that when he had the FAA inspector come out to certify it for flight testing the prototype he was told that it wouldn’t be certified until he put wings on it since there was no way an aircraft of that weight could fly based on their formulas. However, he’d been flying test machines for years without the wings, but that didn’t sway the inspector. Just like the bumblebee, a valid calculation was being used on an object it didn’t apply to. Unfortunately, the technology didn’t go anywhere and is relegated to history.

Anthony’s story has some unexpectedly alarming implications for climate-change:

Theresa Cole’s thesis, page 116: “The decreasing global annual mean atmospheric pressure trend shown in Figure 5.8 [and prominently posted here on WUWT] is expected with increasing global average temperatures.”

Needless to say, the explanation given is incorrect. The observed pressure decrease [if it is not artifactual] implies not a temperature increase, but rather a atmospheric mass decrease.
At least some explanations for such a mass decrease are sufficiently alarming as to be unpalatable to WUWT’s traditionally non-alarmist reading of the climate-change data:
Alarming Explanation #1: Atmospheric mass is decreasing because the H2O content of the atmosphere is decreasing with increasing global temperature; the lessened cloud cover contributes to positive climate-change forcing.
Alarming Explanation #2: Atmospheric mass is decreasing because the oxygen content of the atmosphere is decreasing, in consequence of global deforestation and/or suppression of oceanic photosynthesis with increasing acidification and/or water temperature.
Needless to say, both possibilities tend to strengthen the cAGW position. So, WUWT?

Perhaps UHI is a factor. If the temperature rises at a place due to human influences, that point will tend to be more thermic, ie attract heavier cooler air, and naturally will be at a slightly lower pressure. I am not a meteorologist, but in the southern hemisphere the local seabreezes tend north easterly on the eastern seaboard, and I have always assumed that happens because of pressure gradient and corialis effect.
If so then this could be a method to correct UHI influences in the data record.

So, if we now accept that 100Mya, there was an atmosphere with about 20% CO2 and say 5 Bar pressure, would plant and animal life have thrived under such conditions? Do we even know that these values were anywhere near accurate?
This is out of touch with experimental data. Geological data – both models and measurements – show CO2 levels of about 5000-10000 (0.5-1 %) in the Cambrian and getting lower since then. 20% just 100 MYa is impossible.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Phanerozoic_Carbon_Dioxide.png

The scientific community is still stuck in this 19th century mindset of imagining that dinosaurs had to be slow, dim-witted, cold blooded and in every way inferior and less efficient than us hominids, the pinnacle of evolution.
The psycology behind this in the 19th century was a little sinister. It was ideologically necessary to show evolution as a continuous improvement, from inferior to superior bodies and physiology. The late Steven Jay Gould has written lucidly to demolish this fallacy – the “quality” if you like of organisms by the late Cambrian was already no different to today. Gould´s premise of “contingency” is that the species that survived and continued did so largely by good luck in relation to changing climate and geography on earth.
What made this “upward march” paradigm sinister in the 19th century was that it was extended to human races – in those non-PC days scientist spoke quite openly for instance about africans being racially inferior, it even became a science in its own right, us Caucasians were supposed to show a higher degree of neoteny (adult retention of embryonic/juvenile traits) than the bigger and more robust afros. What then arose was an embarrasing problem in that – by the same yardstick – the Chinese and Asians were superior (more neotenic) than us Europeans. (So the hypothesis was quietly shelved!) Anyway for the full story on this its best to read SJ Gould himself.
But our need for dinosaurs to be lumbering slow and inferior is still deep rooted in modern society, the term “dinosaur” is used as a metaphor for something becoming dated and uncompetitive, in a business environment for example.
Thus in this discussion of pterosaurs we have to make the air denser and give them more oxygen – in defiance of the geological record on the palaeo atmosphere. Give them a handicap;
The extent to which the reality is the stark opposite to this popular idea is extreme to the point of shocking.
In fact the Jurrasic Park films, for all their flaws, actually got it right in the sense that dinosaurs transported to our time quite likely would pose a mortal threat to all animal life larger than a rat or hedgehog.
As has been pointed out above, birds are dinosaurs. It follows that dinosaurs are birds. OK some with knowledge of taxonomy will point to exceptions, but the relatedness to birds included one very important physiological factor: birds – and dinosaurs – had a lung breathing system about 10 times more efficient than our own. Yes – TEN TIMES.
How and why is this? First, our lungs are tidal. The air comes in and goes out by the same trachea, bronchi and bronchioles down to the gas exchanging alveoli. Unfortunately – and sorry to disappoint the 19th century evolutionary supremicists – but this design is CRAP. The diffusion situation means that the O2 concentration gets lower and lower deeper into the lung and reaches its minimium where it is actually needed, at the gas exchanging alveolar sacs.
Birds by contrast have lungs in which the air flows ONLY ONE WAY through the tubes. It does this by a complex system involving air spaces within the bones. But it means that air crosses the equivalent of gas exchanging alveolar surfaces at essentially atmospheric concentration. Engineers among you will appreciate the significance of this.
This hugely more efficient bird breathing system is why they can fly. And it is also why pterosaurs could fly. (If not technically dinosaurs, they derived from the Triassic Therapsid line and thus probably had a similar physiology to the dinosaurs.) Recent research (published in Anatomical Record about 2-3 years ago) has shown that many signs of dinosaur anatomy confirm this avian type of lung system. this includes ribs all the way down the body (ever seen a bird with a 6-pack?) and thus a rigid torso. With the more efficient one-way breathing system, the lung does not need to inflate and deflate anything like as much as our tidal lungs. In birds there is only a small membrane at the back of the torso which moves in and out with breathing – this is where you stick your fingers in when you are gutting a bird.
It is also why dinosaurs and pterosaurs had much superior cardiovascular efficiency to us – they would have quite literally run rings around us. And maybe gutted us and eaten us for Christmas dinner.
And pterosaurs with their one-way breathing anatomy would have no difficulty in flying thank-you very much, no need for fictitious atmospheres.

PTEROSAURS WERE NOT DINOSAURS.
Sorry to shout, but it’s a schoolboy error (quite literally), painful to the palaeobiologist.

If you want something to cheer you up, have a read of “Causes and timing of biosphere extincions” By Franck et al, 2006.
http://www.biogeosciences.net/3/85/2006/bg-3-85-2006.pdf
Figs 4 and 5 above confirm that CO2 is gradually being removed from the atmosphere; Franck et al. conclude that CO2 starvation will be the eventual cause of extinction of life (first multicellular, then bacteria° in around 1 billion years time – not heat.
The implications of this in regard to the CAGW hypothesis and human emissions of CO2 are too obvious to mention.

Not sure how to explain a 5 fold loss in atmospheric mass, even given the geologic time involved.
But here are some additional considerations related to a five fold increase in atmospheric pressure: If the organism living in the atmosphere used hemoglobin to transport oxygen, it is likely that its physiology is at least similar to today’s mammals and reptiles.
1. Breathing effort is a function of gas density. A five fold increase would require a very powerful respiratory system. Any evidence for that in the fossil record?
2. O2 at partial pressures exceeding 1 to 2 Bar has been shown to be toxic to today’s organisms. It attacks and destroys enzymes and central nervous system [CNS] cells. A 5 Bar atmosphere with 21% O2 would require an entirely different CNS physiology for Jurassic reptiles. A higher percentage of atmospheric O2 only compounds the problem.
3. Inert gasses and CO2 have demonstrated significant narcotic properties at any elevated partial pressures. CO2 is 25 times more soluble in lipids as N2 and is considerably more narcotic than the N2 that is responsible for nitrogen narcosis in SCUBA divers. 5 bars worth of elevated partial pressures would result in considerable narcotic effects unless Jurassic physiology was somehow very different than today’s organisms. The problem is compounded for air breathing marine organisms that would swim to any depth.
Given the above physiology constraints of a denser atmosphere, I think there is a larger problem with a 5 Bar atmosphere and life as we understand it.
With respect to Philip Foster’s comment/question on the relationship between lift and drag: Lift and Drag are linearly proportional to atmospheric density. They both increase or decrease proportionally with a change in density [at low airspeeds – we aren’t concerned with high speed compressibility effects in pterodactyl flying]. What is gained by a density increase is the ability to generate the same lift at lower airspeeds [fly slower].
So I vote with Philip, no significant aerodynamic benefit to having a denser atmosphere except slower takeoff and landing speeds. Perhaps useful depending on the reptile’s wing characteristics.
http://wright.nasa.gov/airplane/lifteq.html
http://wright.nasa.gov/airplane/drageq.html

Andi, please convert the atm. PRESSURE loss into atm. VOLUME
loss in ppmv and compare it to the 2 ppmv atmospheric gain by
our man-made addition(emission) of CO2/GHG…..
The present CO2-volume is soon reaching 400 ppm, we thus
INCREASE the atmospheric pressure with the
weight of man-made emissions!
You talk about pressure/volume LOSS, whereas we have
a man-made pressure GAIN with the volume of GHG emissions….
Plus, CO2-emissions are heavier than air, also INCREASING
the total atmospheric pressure…..The galance would be the
total volume loss into space, being decomposed on top of the
atmosphere by UV and solar wind, whith the wind pressure blowing
the top off (2 recent posts on that….)
JS

In the article above it is written: “—- the current accepted mean value is around 1013.25 Mbar. So any warming observed over the past 90 or so years should be ruled out as causation – warm or cold the air weighs the same (within reason)” –
First let me, if I may, start with the figure 1013.25 Mbar which looks like a very precise value but may not necessarily accurately reflect the weight of any air at the Earth’s surface. That is because 1013.25 is the international Altimeter setting for aircrafts flying on instrument settings in open air-space. – In short, in order to keep a precise altitude during instrument conditions (high traffic, high speeds – dense fog) an aircraft needs to have an Altimeter that can be accurate to two decimals. (Just ask Burt Rutan how long this has been the case – I can only guess it has been for at least half of the 90 years of warming mentioned above). –
Then the last bit: “– warm or cold the air weighs the same (within reason)” –
That statement is quite true as long as we weigh individual molecules/atoms, but the fact which is that as air warms it forms a pocket which increasingly occupies a larger space than does the air that remains cold(er), could also do with a mention. – By volume warm air is the larger and therefore lighter by volume.
The surrounding colder air resist the warming air’s expansion at all points and the result is that the pressure inside the said pocket increases. A “warm air pocket” can – and often does – grow to become a High Pressure System. – However, also take into consideration, as the warm air expansion is resisted the colder air pressure must also rise albeit a lot less as any ‘outside area’ is always larger than the corresponding ‘inside area’. It is also worth noticing that The Troposphere occupies a lot more space (in the form of height) in the tropical than it does in the far northern/southern hemispheres.
In the place where I live, the air pressure which – just a couple of days ago, in glorious Sunshine – hovered around 1025/ 1030 mbar has today dropped to 1002 mbar under a gray mass of rainclouds.
Needless to say the saturation rate is higher today than what it was two days ago, therefore I feel justified in saying that the “saturated air column” pressing down on my roof today weighs more than did the unsaturated or dry air that was present earlier and that therefore atmospheric/barometric air pressure has got more to do with cloud formation than it has to do with the weight if the vertical air column.
PS.
Maybe the graph depicting an observed fall in global annual mean atmospheric pressure since 1916 (from NOAA as you believe) is unintentionally depicting an increase in cloud cover (and therefore also quite accurate global temperature fluctuations 1916 -2006).

Rising atmospheric temperatures should increase the absolute humidity and therefore the mass of the atmosphere.
The likely mechanism decreasing the mass of the atmosphere over this timescale, is decreased water droplets (clouds) caused by decreased aerosols/particulates.
Its well documented that aerosols/particulates seed more persistent clouds.

Sorry Hoser, strike that, I misread your post

Question that comes to mind: What do we not know about the pterosaurs? We don’t know if they could fly, or if they could glide, or if they had scales or feathers. We only know that they appear to resemble some of the birds that live today. Some of the birds that live today do not fly, nor glide. Some appear to use their wings to simply maintain their balance, or sometimes to help them swim. As further muddying of the water, what’s to say that the pterosaurs weren’t some sort of swimming animal?
Therefore, though this subject provokes an interesting discussion, we really don’t know anything about pterosaurs except that they are all dead.

If the dunno sir atmosphere was five times as dense as today’s, wouldn’t those terrasaurs have to have five times as much horse; excuse me that’s T_Rex power to cope with the higher air resistance drag; and in that case, wouldn’t they be just too damned heavy to fly ?

juanslayton says:
June 2, 2012 at 7:16 am
I believe that water transport to the top of tall trees is attributed to leaf transpiration pulling a very narrow column of liquid from the ground. (As opposed to being pushed up by ambient atmospheric pressure–which would limit lift to approximate 32 feet.) I’m wondering how a much heavier atmosphere might affect this system. Would water transport change because of a change in transpiration? Could an entirely different system of transport evolve not based on capillarity tension? What effect might there be on maximum plant height?

There ain’t no difference nohow between pulling and pushing. Much of the transport is due to capillary action, the affinity of water for the tube walls. Dip a cloth into water and watch it soak upwards!
Increased pressure would of course increase the height water could be drawn up by pressure differences.

“The Levenspiel et al 2000 paper is well worth a read…” HEY! Dr. Octave Levenspiel was my professor! Don Pettit was a classmate! Dr. Levenspiel could take any complex thing and turn it into a fun story, easy to understand. Yes, I’m an Oregon State Chemical Engineer. Woot!

Brian H: There ain’t no difference nohow between pulling and pushing.
Ah, but there is. Take a look at
http://sites.bio.indiana.edu/~hangarterlab/courses/b373/lecturenotes/water/waterintro.html
Scroll down to the sections “Capillary Rise” and “Tensile Strength”. We can’t get water to the top of a 200 foot tree by capillarity or by suction (max lift c. 32 ft).

Steve P says:
June 2, 2012 at 3:40 pm
MacCready’s Q. northropi “model” was not very realistic, and proved little.
However, the model was not anatomically correct and embodied vertical and horizontal tail stabilizers that were lacking in pterosaurs. The weight distribution of the model was also different due to the longer tail of the model.
An aircraft designer’s contributions to compensate for the lack of a computer light enough (and fast enough) to make the minute corrections necessary to keep it flying. Quetzalcoatlus was essentially a B-2 — no empennage meant it was highly unstable in all three axes. It had to make dozens of small corrections every minute it was in the air, either with its wings or head, in order to stay aloft.
Unless, of course, it made a living by renting itself out as a beach umbrella…

phlogiston says:
June 3, 2012 at 7:54 am
Perhaps the pterosaurs had discovered morality, and used the large thin structures as clothing to conceal their genitals.
That was actually my first thought when Steve P said that MacCready’s model was not anatomically correct…

Bill Tuttle says:
June 3, 2012 at 8:35 am

…when Steve P said that MacCready’s model was not anatomically correct…

Bill, that part came from Wikipedia. Not that I disagree, but at June 2, 2012 at 3:40 pm
I said this:

MacCready’s Q. northropi “model” was not very realistic, and proved little.

Period. The part in italics in my original post at 3:40 pm came from Wikipedia and my formatting should have made that crystal clear. Apparently not.
You also said that

“Quetzalcoatlus was essentially a B-2.”

I think that qualifies as a misleading oversimplification, at the very least, like Venus being Earth’s “twin.”
You then went on to say:

no empennage meant it was highly unstable in all three axes. It had to make dozens of small corrections every minute it was in the air, either with its wings or head, in order to stay aloft.

Well the B-2 may require a computer to fly – not that it is alone – but the B-49 managed to fly pretty well without one. It was the development of the deep-chord monoplane wing that allowed these aircraft to fly, not the computer.
At any rate, neither the B-49 nor the B-2 have a long neck extending forward of the wings. For that, you’d have to cite the B -70, but it didn’t have big, wide wings. It did have powerful engines however. With enough thrust (power-to-weight ratio greater than 1), even a brick can fly, but I wonder of Q. northropi perhaps tucked/folded its long neck against its breast ala Great Blue Heron when flying?
At any rate, for the pterosaurs , all that’s really required for them to fly easily is a thicker/heavier/denser atmosphere than what we have today. They had all the special adaptations necessary for flight: long wings, hollow bones – pneumatic in some cases – specialized keel bone for flight muscle attachments, and specialized brain development for flight control.
No flying bird today weighs much beyond about 40 lbs. Elephants and other pachyderms, while massive, are small compared to some marine creatures.
Video of hippos moving while underwater is revealing, and entertaining. Who knew these seemingly clumsy, awkward beasts could move so gracefully while submerged?

A recent study about the variability of atmospheric pressure (a poster presented by students of the Natl Tech Univ of Athens at the EGU 2012): http://itia.ntua.gr/1208/
Dear Dimitris,
What a pleasure to see you post on WUWT! I discovered one of your papers quite by accident several years ago, and was most impressed. And I think your work on Hurst-Kolmogorov processes and climate is extremely compelling. I’m a physicist (who is currently dabbling only in climate science — random numbers and statistics and e.g. Monte Carlo simulations are more my line) and have worked with Langevin and Fokker-Planck (or more generally, Master equations) and appreciate the general idea better than most, and think there are very likely some very interesting e.g. Poincare cycles in high dimensional spaces that projectively become the stationary transitions you so beautifully describe (and that qualitatively fit the time series data!).
I’m hoping to get more people on this list to become aware of your work. In particular you might want to communicate with Bob Tisdale, who has some Sea Surface Temperature (SST) data that could all by itself be a poster child for Hurst-Kolmogorov with El Nino being a possible driver of (some of) the transitions. But the data series are too short to be able to really differentiate pure stochastic from driven in some way.
rgb

The dinosaurs had a really great sense of humor. Hence there was a lot of levity, and not much gravity.