There’s some interesting information of the six month trend of neutrons being detected globally that I want to bring to discussion, but first I thought that a primer on cosmic rays, neutrons, and their interaction with the atmosphere might be helpful to the many layman readers here. – Anthony
Cosmic rays are energetic particles that originate in space and our sun and collide with particles as they zip through our atmosphere. While they come from all directions in space, and the origination of many of these cosmic rays is unknown, they has recently been shown that a larger percentage emanate from specific deep space sources. Cosmic rays were originally discovered because of the ionization they produce in our atmosphere. They cause ionization trails in the atmosphere much like you see in a simple science project called a cloud chamber, shown below:
Using the Wilson cloud chamber, in 1927, Dimitr Skobelzyn photographed the first ghostly tracks left by cosmic rays.
In the past, we have often referred to cosmic rays as “galactic cosmic rays” or GCR’s, because we did not know where they originated. Now scientists have determined that the sun discharges a significant amount of these high-energy particles. “Solar Cosmic Rays” (SCR’s – cosmic rays from the sun) originate in the sun’s chromosphere. Most solar cosmic ray events correlate relatively well with solar flares. However, they tend to be at much lower energies than their galactic cousins.
Because Earth’s atmosphere also reacts much like the ionization trail effect seen in the Wilson cloud chamber, scientists such as Svensmark have postulated that galactic cosmic rays can affect the earth by causing changes in weather and possibly long term climate. Moving at close to the speed of light, these nuclear fragments smash into air molecules hard enough to knock electrons loose. This well-documented process creates negatively and positively chargedions.
Like the cloud trails seen in the Wilson cloud chamber, cosmic ray ionization trails in our atmosphere can act as cloud seeds. Some studies suggest that ions play a central role in creating aerosols. Aerosols are minute but important atmospheric particles that can serve as the cores of growing cloud droplets. Aerosols can cause clouds to form in the upper atmosphere, after the particles collide with other atmospheric particles in the troposphere and conglomerate into larger particles.
Aerosols: Many atmospheric aerosols are liquid droplets containing dissolved sea salt from sea spray, sulfuric acid (H2SO4), organic molecules from trees and plants, and other compounds. Over agricultural and urban areas, dust and soot are common aerosols Soot particles emanate from incomplete combustion of fuels such coal, wood, oil, jet fuel, and kerosene. Soot consists chiefly of amorphous carbon and tar like substances that cause it to adhere to surfaces. Both liquid and solid aerosols help clouds develop by encouraging the condensation of water vapor, which does not occur readily without an original seed particle of some sort in the air.
A cosmic ray, especially a high energy one from deep space, can cause an entire family tree of smaller particles and ionization trails. See this animation below created by the Cosmus group at the University of Chicago.
The process of a cosmic ray particle colliding with particles in our atmosphere and disintegrating into smaller pions, muons, and the like, is called a cosmic ray shower. These particles can be measured on the Earth’s surface by neutron monitors.
Click on figure to view a diagram of a cosmic ray shower
Neutron Monitors. Ground-based neutron monitors detect variations in the approximately 500 Mev to 20 GeV portion of the primary cosmic ray spectrum.
(Note: 1 Mega electron Volt = 1.60217646 × 10-13 joules)
This class of cosmic ray detector is more sensitive in the approximate 500 Mev to 4 GeV portion of the cosmic ray spectrum than are cosmic ray muon detectors. The portion of the cosmic ray spectrum that reaches the Earth’s atmosphere is controlled by the geomagnetic cutoff which varies from a minimum (theoretically zero) at the magnetic poles to a vertical cosmic ray cutoff of about 15 GV (ranging from 13 to 17) in the equatorial regions. (Note: GV is a unit of magnetic rigidity. Magnetic rigidity is a particle’s momentum per unit charge. It is the relevant quantity for characterizing a cosmic ray’s ability to penetrate Earth’s magnetic field.).
The primary cosmic ray particles interact with the atmosphere and generate secondaries, some of which will reach the surface of the Earth.
When the secondary cosmic rays interact in the monitor, (actually in lead surrounding the counters) they cause nuclear disintegrations, or “stars”. These stars are composed of charged fragments and neutrons typically in the energy range of tens to hundreds of MeV (million electron-volts), even up to GeV energies. As a result of these high energy nuclear interactions, there will be more secondary fragments generated than incident particles and hence there is a multiplier effect for the counters. The neutrons are moderated and then counted using Boron tri-fluoride (BF3) proportional counters which are efficient thermal neutron detectors; hence the name neutron monitor.
The original design by Simpson is often designated as an IGY neutron monitor. From that link:
John A. Simpson, at the University of Chicago, invented and developed the neutron monitor over the years 1948-50 and found that the Earth’s magnetic field could be used as a spectrometer to allow measurements of the cosmic ray spectrum down to low primary energies. The magnetic latitude of a particular neutron monitor determines the lowest magnetic rigidity of a primary that can reach the monitor, the so-called “cut-off rigidity”. The station’s altitude determines the amount of absorbing atmosphere above the station and hence the amount of absorption of the secondary cosmic rays (the higher the station, the higher the counting rate). By using a combination of lead (to produce local interactions), paraffin or polyethylene (to moderate or slow down the neutron component) and multiple slow-neutron counters, Simpson greatly increased the counting rate in his monitor design.
The worldwide network neutron monitors that have since been established gather data that have shown there is a correlation between periodic solar activity and the earthly neutron count. For example:
This plot shows data from the Climax, Colorado neutron monitor operated by the University of Chicago. The cosmic rays show an inverse relationship to the sunspot cycle because Sun’s magnetic field is stronger during sunspot maximum and shields the Earth from cosmic rays.
Right now we are near the solar minimum, but neutron counts are still increasing. The current science says that if we had passed solar minimum, neutron counts should be decreasing.
Michael Roynane writes today:
The Bartol Research Institute of the University of Delaware manages five real-time neutron monitors, at widely dispersed locations, all of which indicate that over the last six months cosmic rays are increasing. This would not support the hypothesis that we are past solar minimum and suggests that solar minimum has not yet been reached.
Links to the Bartol Research Institute of the University of Delaware:
http://neutronm.bartol.udel.edu/
http://neutronm.bartol.udel.edu/main.html#stations
Newark, DE Neutron Monitor
![[image]](https://i0.wp.com/neutronm.bartol.udel.edu/~pyle/theplot2.gif)
McMurdo Neutron Monitor
![[image]](https://i0.wp.com/neutronm.bartol.udel.edu/~pyle/themcplot2.gif)
Thule Neutron Monitor
![[image]](https://i0.wp.com/neutronm.bartol.udel.edu/~pyle/thethplot2.gif)
Fort Smith Neutron Monitor
![[image]](https://i0.wp.com/neutronm.bartol.udel.edu/~pyle/thefsplot2.gif)
Inuvik Neutron Monitor
![[image]](https://i0.wp.com/neutronm.bartol.udel.edu/~pyle/theinplot2.gif)
Jim (09:38:25) :
1. The effective-SSN is not based on solar flux except indirectly, This is derived from analysis of ionospheric density observations only.
So the effective SSN must also be corrected to 1 AU. Is that done? Or is it not needed, because the quantity of interest is precisely the eSSN that would directly influence the Earth?
Benjamin P. – As stated previously “The Chilling Stars” is an excellent book to educate you on Svensmark’s work. However, in the interim you want want to look at this introductory paper:
http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0geu45CGXtJAYIA2AhXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTBybnZlZnRlBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMQRjb2xvA2FjMgR2dGlkAw–/SIG=14iqdtm42/EXP=1232890562/**http%3a//www.spacecenter.dk/research/sun-climate/Scientific%2520work%2520and%2520publications/svensmark_2007cosmoClimatology.pdf
With all this talk of continuing low solar activity and record high GCR levels, I’m still waiting to see some more recent data on global cloudiness levels. The proof will be in the pudding – it’s time to fish or cut bait!
Leif: If the cosmic rays have positive charge. I wonder ….. where are the electrons?
sorry
Sorry, that link to the Svensmark paper should be:
http://www.spacecenter.dk/research/sun-climate/Scientific%20work%20and%20publications/svensmark_2007cosmoClimatology.pdf
Fernando (14:04:34) :
If the cosmic rays have positive charge. I wonder ….. where are the electrons?
They are running around in the cosmos too, but since an electron is 1836 times lighter than a proton, it carries a lot less energy and can’t penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere as easily as the nuclei.
The Ulysses COSPIN/KET experiment was measuring cosmic ray electrons.
I saw the same question with the Solar Wind. Yes, the Solar wind is neutral, electrical, although the charges are dissociated. However, the mass of the electron is just so much smaller than the proton, that we only need consider protons (and neutrons).
Leif Svalgaard @ur momisugly 10:42:43
I would suggest we keep the SSN just as it always has been, so we can maintain the utility of the historical record. I know we can now see more Sun spots than previously, but there are projects out there to calibrate the old instruments to today’s modern ones.
How are they going?
Robert Wood (15:57:41) :
that we only need consider protons (and neutrons).
Neutron only lives 15 minutes and are not really part of the solar wind. There are no free neutron in the Sun or the solar wind, except for a VERY small number transiently generated in various explosions.
Robert Wood (16:00:11) :
I would suggest we keep the SSN just as it always has been, so we can maintain the utility of the historical record.
We’ll keep the concept of the SSN, but the old values can be adjusted to be correct, at least.
How are they going?
We do not fiddle with the old ones, but try to adjust the values of the SSN to the same scale as modern ones. Only if we do that [and that is ongoing – at least I’m working on it in my copious spare time] does the historical series have meaning.
I would suggest 2 samples to reconcile old vs modern SSN’s:
1.) upgrade the old records.
2.) downgrade the new records.
Compare them. What is lost?
Is the uncertainty growing in old sample?
I’d like to see what it looks like. There are 3 distinct types of recording that I am aware of. SIDC has already upgraded some of the earlier methods.
My concern is that the results of several upgradings might be to erase the unique identity of older cycles, and thereby make part of the record opaque to changing patterns.
When Eddy looked at the originals of the old cycles (pre SC series) he found them done in meticulous detail. How will that information be preserved?
Jim: Nice to see you here. I find that the information your foF2 is giving is that activity that we find normally with direct SSN, plus in this unusual time that activity which is off the radar (submerged as some call it).
Corrected to 1 AU or not, it’s something nobody else I know of keeps an eye on. From my ploddings about your site, I get that the daily value of foF2 is an average from as many stations as report for the day.
Someday I’d like to do a stitched graph for a year or so.
Robert Bateman (18:16:54) :
My concern is that the results of several upgradings might be to erase the unique identity of older cycles, and thereby make part of the record opaque to changing patterns.
Some of the unique identity of older cycles is just wrong and should not be preserved; that is the whole point.
When Eddy looked at the originals of the old cycles (pre SC series) he found them done in meticulous detail. How will that information be preserved?
Since the old files and series are still available, nothing is lost.
You can see the difference here:
http://www.leif.org/research/CAWSES%20-%20Sunspots.pdf
and here:
http://www.leif.org/research/Napa%20Solar%20Cycle%2024.pdf
The ‘correction’ is a simple mapping from old to new [which can go in both directions for that matter].
Ninderthana (02:57:19) made the somewhat bitter comment that: “If Leif Svalgaard says it is true then it must be true!”
To which I respond: Leif projects as a most reasonable gentleman on WUWT? who has that precious attribute of suffering fools gladly whilst at the same time maintaining his integrity by displaying a firm basic honesty. I have never seen him demand agreement with his own views; only offer science in opinion and demonstration to be valued as the reader sees fit.
I admire this man for those reasons, and gain much because of them.
Roger Carr wrote:
“I have never seen him demand agreement with his own views; only offer science in opinion and demonstration to be valued as the reader sees fit.”
Yeah but that is a little bit of ***-kissing that i probably doubt even Leif himself would approve.
No need to defend the defender. Stop the person-worship here.
No need to defend the truth. Dr. S’s approach weeds out the weaker theories. We get it.
Back to science: Would love to hear more of the commentary from Jim. Agreed with Bateman….nice to see you here. Regarding comments made RE our website (http://www.nwra-az.com/):
Chris
Norfolk, VA
savethesharks (19:08:50) accuses me of “Yeah but that is a little bit of ***-kissing that i probably doubt even Leif himself would approve.”
Sometimes, savetheharks, the obvious needs to be stated. This is a case where I believe it was needed, and even though it has brought your puerile response I stand by what I said.
Nice word $60,000 word “puerile”. Gave me a good laugh.
The worst thing about these blogs is that people can hide behind their computer screens and hurl personal insults using such incendiary words.
Well….back to TOPIC:
Would really like to hear what JIM from his site http://www.nwra-az.com/): has to say about if whether or not we have hit the solar minimum yet and more commentary on the site. Very interesting. Would be stoked to hear more of what you had to say!!
Chris
Norfolk, VA
Roger Carr (19:27:27) :
savethesharks (19:08:50) accuses me of “Yeah but that is a little bit of ***-kissing that i probably doubt even Leif himself would approve.”
Sometimes, savetheharks, the obvious needs to be stated. This is a case where I believe it was needed, and even though it has brought your puerile response I stand by what I said.
Easy, folks, easy… It is said [from both sides] so let it be.
Muzzle on. 🙂
Well….back to TOPIC:
Would really like to hear what JIM from his site http://www.nwra-az.com/): has to say about if whether or not we have hit the solar minimum yet and more commentary on the site. Very interesting. Would be stoked to hear more of what you had to say!!
Chris
Norfolk, VA
savethesharks (19:36:56) wrote: “…people can hide behind their computer screens and hurl personal insults using such incendiary words.”
Not hiding, Chris. Real name. All relevant details easy to find on a Google search.
AGAIN….back to the thread topic at hand:
Would really like to hear what JIM from his site http://www.nwra-az.com/): has to say about if whether or not we have hit the solar minimum yet and more commentary on the site.
Very interesting. Would be stoked to hear more of what you had to say!!
Chris
Norfolk, VA
Correction:
http://www.nwra-az.com/
Sorry about the type-o.
Rob S (17:00:44) : It seems like predicting the sun and the stock market have a lot in common. By the time you know for sure … its to late.
It doesn’t have to be too late 😎
They have far more in common than you might imagine… Not the least of which is that the stock market has a fairly decent correlation with the solar activity level! Just look at the present sleeping sun and moribund market for the latest example…
FWIW, I think that many of the tools / indicators developed for tracking stocks could probably be of some benefit in climate analysis. For example, in stock markets you draw trend lines above or below the price graph connecting either the peaks on the top side of a trend or the bottoms of the valleys on the downsides. You look for a “failure to advance”. A “higher high” that isn’t higher or a “lower low” that isn’t lower. That typically is a reversal point (i.e. a top or a bottom). Right now the AGW folks have a “failure to advance” on their hands since the 1998 high has not been surpassed (in stock terms, the “prior high has not been penetrated”. The trend is broken. You can think of this as the average slope going to zero and looking at a 10 year moving average line you would see zero slope now.
As expected they are cooking up all kinds of excuses – just as owners of a stock cook up all kinds of excuses for why they ought to keep on holding that stock (while the traders are selling out – called “distribution phase” by traders).
Traders use various averages (just as climate folks do); but the traders recognize that “Averages hide more than they reveal. -e.m.smith” and use them to remove information that is confounding the trade decision; where the AGW folks think averages add information somehow.
Traders are very interested in indicators that get past the timing lag you mentioned. That is why Simple Moving Averages are good at postdiction, but usually too late for prediction. There are lots of attempts to cure this. The Exponential Moving Average is the most common (latest data gets added weight). Taking two moving averages and comparing them gives a fairly reliable signal much sooner (The MACD – Moving Average Convergence Divergence) and there are a variety of magic hand waving indicators that look for changes in the lows of the day vs the highs of the day (trying to find a failure of the highs to make new highs even if the average did; or looking for the lows to make new lows (or not make them) even as the highs march on.) Ultimate Oscillator, Williams %R, Slow Stochastic, there’s a long list. Most of them useful to some degree.
I would expect something similar to work with climate (and so do other folks who intuitively “get it” by asking if there have been new high records made – the first sign of cooling ought to be failure to advance of the highs, even if the lows are still ‘catching up’ as the energy absorbed to date soaks in…)
One of my biggest annoyances with the whole approach to climate modeling is that it is based from the outset on broken data that have had too much information removed by averaging. The high / low of the day are averaged. (Now you lose all that valuable divergence data inside the day and the failure to advance of the highs vs lows and more …) then these are averaged into a monthly average. (Now you lose all moving average data and rate of change data for the month). Then these are averaged over many geographies (and you lose what in stock terms would be the “sector” information – in climate terms the U.K. might well be a “leading sector” due to the influence of the North Atlantic peculiarities; and that is lost..) By the time you are done it will take a decade to see a new trend. THEN they go and average it to a single global annual anomaly! There’s no information left in it at all by then.
So I look at what is done to the data and just cringe. If it was stock data and you tried to predict the market with the average of all daily high and low price for stocks averaged over all stocks and averaged over the month and over all markets and sectors you could never make a trade. There is nothing left to inform you of anything. You would just be dancing in the error bands of your math. And that is precisely what GIStemp does.
Frankly, while the utility of climate to making trades got me interested to begin with; it is the incredibly crude way the data are handled that caused my jaw to drop and compelled me to look inside the GIStemp code. (Which just make me shudder even more!)
The best indicators use all the available data. Open, High, Low, Close for the day (for temps I’d use High, Low, Time Of Observation) and combine them in ways that let you extract something useful. (For example, when the highs fail to advance, but the lows are just catching up to them, then the lows start to drop away while the highs continue to not advance and the averages have still not moved much there are indicators that make a big noise about this.) They are calling a top, a “failure to advance” in almost real time. You can’t do that with monthly averages of daily averages of highs and lows…
If anyone wants to look at some examples of such indicators I show how to use them here:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/03/15/indicators/
If you see one you like, a google of it with the words “stock indicator” will likely lead you to a page that describes how they are constructed (or I can find it for you if you get stuck). So “google MACD stock indicator” ought to get you more than you want 😉
The bottom line is that stocks, solar activity, and weather are all trying to predict semi-stochastic systems with metastable points (stochastic resonance effects) and high noise to signal ratio. But one heck of a lot more time, money, and brainpower has been spent trying to predict markets. Personally, I think markets are harder conceptually (since there is little like physics under them – it is more psychology and a bit of economics) but better predicted(!). Dozens of traders do it regularly. (Not your average guy, the professional traders. I’ve done OK at it and I’ve taught a couple of friends, so it’s a transferable skill.)
On this page:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/03/16/daily-financial-stock-market/
There is a daily chart. The indicators on it say to me that tomorrow ought to be a down day. I would further predict that the week will end to the up side (based on a longer time cycle chart, a 1 year daily chart). We’ll see if some news item blows up that prediction, but I’ve made it (actually as of last night…). We are headed up, but will take a downdraft pause, then resume the up trend. (Prices are fractal. Even longer term, we are in a bear market headed down long term. While it’s just a bit too soon to call the bear dead – I have a specific tool for that – we have had a “failure to advance” to the downside in many sectors.) The ‘hard part’ is picking a time frame in that price fractal to trade and sticking with it.
You see a very similar sliding time scale in the AGW biz. Is the “climate” colder now that this year is colder? That it hasn’t gotten colder on average in a decade? That the PDO has had a 30 year cycle? It’s always getting warmer and colder, but on what time scale? The 1500 year climate cycle? Rarely is it mentioned… No, they just move out the start date prediction for sunspots and say the “failure to advance” was just cold weather this year. Same psychology, different fields. In stock trading it’s a rookie mistake. The market wisdom is “Never turn a trade into an investment!” I.e. keep you time scale on trades set at short -days or less – and don’t drift.
So both stocks and weather have a series of nested cycles too! 10 year biz cycle, more or less synchronized with sunspots; 1 year weather cycle; quarterly reporting cycle; weekly cycle (traders close out on Friday tending to reverse the weekly trend Friday afternoon). You can drive yourself nuts with cyclomania in both fields…
I’d better stop now or I’ll blow a gasket over this… But there are many similarities and I’m certain that the AGW folks are making rookie mistakes for the same reason novice stock traders make the same mistakes from similar types of data series.
FWIW, you can make money if your prediction are right more than wrong to only a modest percentage. You just need to tilt the win / loss ratio to a small positive value. I’m happy with about 3 right for 2 wrong, but I’m frequently more right than that. It’s the execution that’s the hard part… I’ve predicted many more correctly than I was willing or able to put money down. And most of my big losses were in things I predicted would go down; but talked myself into holding “because I knew better”… Hubris – that’s another mistake the AGW folks are making… and I know it well…
Lief: the ssn graph in
http://www.leif.org/research/Napa%20Solar%20Cycle%2024.pdf
there is some trouble there.
We know from literary records that the 1790’s were brutally cold. Much writing and no secret. SC4 probably had a 2nd peak halfway down, in the position you have as a flat line (black). This cycle is already bumped up to what you indicate on the STAR graphs, same as SIDC Belgium. It may already be in error. That is sad because it shortens and diminishes the very records that we need all we can get of.
The resistance you are getting is the tendency of old works once remodeled is to be forgotten and discarded. They may exist in archives somewhere, but if they are seen as outmoded the level of care will fall off.
Caltech was horrified to find that the POSS plates were not well handled or stored. A lot of effort was compromised. The newer CCD based data had reduced importance and care of the polymer plates. I’ve seen the results of this in the digitizations. Had their importance not fallen off, data would not have been destroyed.
It may be that some of the discrepancy in the SSN data for the early days is just such happenstance. Lost due to copying of data to journals leading to great uncertainties when original works thought safe in other places likewise disappeared. The left hand did not know what would become of the right hand, and vice versa. Both suffered.
Yes, I see the resistance, I see also what you are trying to accomplish, and I see the pitfalls.
I know you are going to do this, so please, do keep in mind the human element that has led to grief in lost, misplaced or damaged records.
Roger Carr (18:53:12) :
Ninderthana (02:57:19) made the somewhat bitter comment that: “If Leif Svalgaard says it is true then it must be true!”
To which I respond: Leif projects as a most reasonable gentleman on WUWT? who has that precious attribute of suffering fools gladly whilst at the same time maintaining his integrity by displaying a firm basic honesty.
While I agree with and second most all of what you said, I would suggest that some times his suffering is not so glad while at others it has a bit more glee than one might expect 😎
(Sorry, I just can’t resist a good set-up! )
“It sounds ridiculous, but is actually true. Have you ever gone to the shore and notice by the smell that you are getting close? That’s dissolved sea salt as an aerosol. Also, there are certain cave features (e.g., popcorn) that can only be accounted for by deposition of salts from the air.”
–Mark
You’re joking, salt does not evaporate into the air. And “WTH” Aerosol are you talking about? Ridicules yes, because if what you say is true all rain should smell like sea salt, no that’s just nitrates and sulfur coming off the sea bed.
Water vapor is pure, unless it hits a nuclei, then it’s a rain drop that’s formed, then passing through the ground to hallows and caves.
http://www.nps.gov/archive/wica/Speleothems.htm
Speleothems
The different types of features that decorate the cave are collectively called cave formations or speleothems.
Most of the speleothems in the cave form by similar processes. The water passes downward through the soil above the limestone, absorbs carbon dioxide, and becomes acidic. As a weak acid, the water is able to dissolve a small amount of the limestone rock as it passes through cracks and pores on its journey down into the cave. As this water drips into the air-filled cave, dissolved carbon dioxide is given off. Because the water has lost carbon dioxide, it cannot hold as much dissolved calcium. The excess calcium is them precipitated on the cave walls and ceilings to make up many of the different kinds of formations.
Popcorn commonly forms in one of two ways in the cave:
“where water seeps uniformly out of the limestone wall and precipitates calcite; or, when water drips from the walls or ceilings of the cave and the water splashes on the floor or on ledges along the walls. This splashing action causes loss of carbon dioxide and the subsequent precipitation of calcite.”
http://www.nps.gov/archive/wica/images/Popcorn_Frostwork-1542.jpg
A gas concentration forming the calcite.
http://www.nps.gov/archive/wica/images/Frostwork-1110.jpg
I think what gas you may be talking about is “frostwork”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frostwork
“The origin of frostwork is somewhat controversial. Formation of cave frostwork has been attributed to moist, circulating air which, containing dissolved calcium carbonate, drifted against rock surfaces and coated them with the delicate crystals. Frostwork has also been attributed to water seepage from cave passageways in which there are relatively high evaporation rates.”
This is just heavy gas like CO2 concentrated in limestone making calcium carbonate be bubbling up into the cave from moister/ heat and forming carbonate crystals.
But like I said, rain drops/snow have the salt/CO2 in it already, so the reasonable assumption is that the great majority makes it to the caves, streams, rivers, oceans. Not going back up into the atmosphere to cause AGW.
Co2(
1.5189)
is close in specific gravity propane(
1.5219)
That’s why it hangs low to the ground .
Sulfur dioxide : or SO2
2.26
, belongs to the family of sulfur oxide gases (SOx). These gases dissolve easily in water. Sulfur is prevalent in all raw materials, including crude oil, coal, and ore that contains common metals like aluminum, copper, zinc, lead, and iron.
All gases are measured with air being 1.0 specific gravity , so I hope you get the picture, heavy gas doesn’t go up into the air. It seeks out the lowest equilibrium, then coasts and is absorbed…
Rodger Carr,
Haven’t you ever wondered why Leif Svalgaard spend so much time on excellent blogs like this trying to put out spot fires to make sure that great unwashed are not led astray.
No one questions Leif’s scientific credentials which are suburb. However, I and many others who read this Blog question the certitude with which he dismisses arguements or interpretations that disagree with his own.
Science is not about “one truth” which is explained by one person who acts as the filter of “all truth”.
Leif (and anyone else who works in the field of climate science or solar physics) knows that there are often many different interpretations
of the obseravtions and data. Curently, they are not being heard here because
of Leif’s efforts at subtly shutting down scientific debate. I am suspect that Leif is not consciously aware of his effect on the debate but some one has to say this while acknowledging the excellent contributions that Leif makes to the overall discussion.
While I would be the first to admit that Leif does a wonderful Job at explaining the Science for the non-specialists, I am not a great admirer
of the way in which he effectively shuts down any speculative discussions that do not agree with his narrow interpretaion of the facts.
By claiming to be an innocent by-stander who is just trying to help explain the Science involved, Leif subtly diverts attention away from the fact that he acts as a gate-keeper to what can and cannot be said on this blog.
I am sure that Leif is a fine man who has the best of intentions but someone has to point out that it is possibe to have different views
and interpretations from him and base these on relatively sound scientific principles.
I hope that Leif does not offense at my comments because
this blog would substantially poorer if it were not for his contributions.
Reply: If anything, Leif may wonder why you think his credentials are suburban ~ charles the moderator