Haven’t had one in awhile. Too tired and cold (4C and raining in Ballarat) to do much else.
Keep it clean. Play nice.
Bonus picture regarding events of this week:
Image from the Oregonian, h/t to “Gore Lied“
Haven’t had one in awhile. Too tired and cold (4C and raining in Ballarat) to do much else.
Keep it clean. Play nice.
Bonus picture regarding events of this week:
Image from the Oregonian, h/t to “Gore Lied“
I wonder if Leif would be able or willing to comment on the graphs shown here (solar ones)
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/06/ipcc-consensus-on-solar-influence-was.html
they show a clear cut solar effect on climate. Also on the way the IPCC has handled this.. Its scandalous.
Anthony: A critical, as in constructive, observation for your consideration.
WUWT has evolved from one man’s commentary on puzzling things in life, nature, science, weather, climate change, technology... into an international sounding board attracting powerful minds and their wisdom, and, in consequence, now now has a worldwide readership — and exerts an international influence — on matters which seriously affect the future of mankind.
Because of that I believe an editorial board is necessary to sift the stories which bear the imprint of WUWT.
The authority of your place here on the web must be carefully guarded to preserve that authority, and to keep it a place where those people of wisdom you attract can confidentally seek to publish.
An important, though not unique, attribute of WUWT is that it has embraced the concept of published commentary from the man in the street as a guard and therefore a caution against the ivory tower — a new form of peer review of immense value.
We ask, and expect, a great deal of you as an individual, and if it requires some form of foundation to allow you to continue then it is up to we, your readers, to join to see such an organisation is funded beyond the individual, and no doubt sporadic, tips into the jar.
Perhaps WUWT needs to become a formal publisher to reach its full potential.
You are tired – it’s Ballarat 😉
REPLY: yeah when I’m tired I have trouble with L’s and R’s thx -A
Hope you take warm clothes with on your tour to Perth next week!
Perth’s cold snap chilliest in four years
http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/perths-cold-snap-chilliest-in-four-years-jandakot-continues-to-freeze/story-e6frg13u-1225884611858
Pretty warm here in England! It’s going to be 30 deg c here today (86 deg f for all you Americans). Tomorrow is the same.
The “Ice Dancing” thread below reminded me of ‘Snow Flakes Are Dancing’! Superb. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igHOaMOzzUo&feature=related
Go down to Craigs, in Ballarat, they have a nice fire in the bar, good food etc. Or go to Murphy’s for a Guinness. There’s also a good Indian restaurant at Bakery Hill that will warm the inner parts. Ballarat has great food from all over the world. If you fancy a bit of the other go to the Bonshaw (so I hear).
The Ballarat Environment Network formed in 1993 to provide a voice for environmental and nature conservation issues in Ballarat and surrounds[41]. Another large lobby group for sustainability in the city is the Ballarat Renewable Energy And Zero Emissions – BREAZE formed in 2006[42]. The City of Ballarat released an Environment Sustainability Strategy for the city in 2007[43].
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballarat,_Victoria
Oh you poor chap, Ballarat in winter! I swear it is almost as cold as the South Pole (and that is probably where the winds are coming from!). Agree with Mike, there are some good eateries. The steak at Assuntas on Sturt St is definitely worth a visit and the Boatshed does a good breakfast (and you can look out onto the Ballarat evidence for global warming – a dry lake, unless the recent rain has filled it up again).
Dont worry, Canberra will be cool as well so get your Damart thermals out!
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/111965
This is a “MUST READ” article in my humble opinion.
Frightening but brilliant journalism.
It would be good to see a forum on alternative energy here.
I see that as having two parts-the necessity (or not) desirability, costs, security implication, technology involved and the overall desirability of Governments using renewables as the main plank in their energy policy-such as in the UK where we have a looming energy crisis.
The second part would involve the practicalities of individuals being able to use renewables cost effectively in real world situations. What renewables are cost effective, which are most advanced, practicalities 0of using electric cars, the upsides and downsides of various systems ec.
tonyb
I do not understand the obsession with arctic sea ice. Every week there are two or more posts here discussing arctic sea ice. Surely there are more interesting topics. (Reminds me of a skit where Howard Coselle (SP) describes paint drying.)
Yes, the earth is warming. Has been sinse about 1715. (Probably not caused by human activity.)
Yes, we are due for a slow descent into an ice age. Whereby the arctic ice cap will extend to about the Ohio River. (Where are all the people going to be put?)
Yes, the polar bears are going to survive it all. (Polar Bears in Central Park?)
Surely, there are enough interesting science based global climate topics, that you guys could insert here to replace at least one arctic sea ice post per week. (Such as the energy content of the various solar spectra incident on the earth, and their variability)
A big “thank you”. I’ve learned a lot from WUWT.
May I enter a plea to maintain the objective nature of debate as far as possible? I realise this is difficult, given the stakes (disaster from no action v disaster from stupid action, both seasoned by loads of money for some) but some of the threads recently, notably about Arctic ice, have been a little too heated and ad hom?
Different interpretations from different data and different models of not -fully-known provenance seem to abound re Arctic ice, so folk have to agree to differ, while trying to learn from each other? Yes, I know I’ an idealist…
(I’m not even clear that a warmer Arctic is a bad thing – it must dump a lot of heat out of the climate system. Bad if it is a tipping point before global cooling I suppose… dare i say “tipping point” these days!)
But thanks to all for your contributions
The Ghost Of Big Jim Cooley,
Maybe in London it is; barely 25 C here in Oxford and away from the big City; and about time too: what a Spring we have had!
F D
Since CAGW promoters seem to universally defend “Mike’s Nature trick” do you all think it would be fair to start calling them “trickers” or “tricksters”?
I’ll bet the Sun emits microwave energy. How much? Why aren’t we roasting like hot dogs? Sven??
Here’s a more complete english translation of the article about the German solar subsidies.
http://sppiblog.org/news/german-solar-energy-gravy-train-%e2%80%93-the-coming-meltdown
BTW, our Bundesrat (the second parliamentary chamber with representatives from the Länder – the provinces; we have a federal structure) has blocked the reduction of the subsidies and the Vermittlungsausschuss (mediation committee or something like that) is busy finding a compromise. Much like the Senate – Congress – conflicts you have in the U.S.A. The provinces fear for the pork jobs.
This relates to the golf of Mexico deep water horizon situation.
I know that not core issue but there are further conserns emerging.
In short, its emerging that its a ‘down the hole leak’. The lining is shattered and oil and gas is permeating into the sea bed strata and seeping out several miles from the BOP. The strata of the sea bed is showing signs of stress and structural failure and if that happens we could see an abrupt release of oil and gas sinking or damaging the rigs and vessels on the surface and the possibility of an tsunami produced by an underwater sink hole or landslide event. There are tilt meters installed on the BOP. It is clear the flow on the camera is not big enough to be the only flow. Its also clear that they haven’t sealed the flow from the BOP because that would transfer pressure to the seeps and speed geologies failure. Some of the links in my blog are from very strange groups on the web but we get called that to. Even a conspiracy theorist can get it right and find a scoop sometimes.
http://appliedimpossibilies.blogspot.com/2010/06/oil-leak-potential-catastrophe-and.html
The main stream media is catching on too.
BP and the government is stuck for a solution.
I have a solution here. I involves pitching large plastic tents over the leaks, anchoring them with robots inside the tents and clearing the methane hydrates with more robots. Then the leak can go freely without any pressure being applied to it.
http://appliedimpossibilies.blogspot.com/2010/06/capping-gulf-oil-leak-with-plastic.html
Any help getting this solution implemented would be appreciated.
See you in Canberra Anthony.
I imagine Steve Schneider and his Climate Scientist list was compiled in this fashion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adXuwZU-6lg
German Solar Energy Gravy Train, the coming meltdown.
http://pgosselin.wordpress.com/2010/06/22/german-solar-energy-gravy-train-the-coming-meltdown/
I just picked on an article at Greenie Watch
‘Her name is Judith Lean (photo left). On the basis of this “consensus of one” solar physicist, the IPCC proclaimed solar influences upon the climate to be minimal. Objection to this was raised by the Norwegian government as shown in the AR4 second draft comments below (and essentially dismissed by the IPCC):
Judith Lean and Claus Frohlich (authors of the single study noted above) “manipulated” the data. People who were in charge of the satellites and created the original graphs (the world’s best astrophysics: Doug Hoyt, Richard C. Willson), protested in vain against such manipulation. Wilson: “Fröhlich has made changes that are wrong’
http://climaterealists.com/?id=5910
See also
This is the next big thing, see it grow:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&as_q=judithgate&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&num=10&lr=&as_filetype=&ft=i&as_sitesearch=&as_qdr=all&as_rights=&as_occt=any&cr=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&safe=images
Stephan says:
June 26, 2010 at 1:13 am
I wonder if Leif would be able or willing to comment on the graphs shown here (solar ones)
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/06/ipcc-consensus-on-solar-influence-was.html
they show a clear cut solar effect on climate. Also on the way the IPCC has handled this.. Its scandalous.
No more scandalous than your link. I feel sure Leif will be be to respond to much the content as it looks to be based on old ideas and reconstructions (e.g. the increase in geomagnetic activity over the past century). However I’ll leave that to him.
I do have a couple of comments to make.
1. There is not a cooling trend in the satellite record since 1998, which is a bit surprising considering the deep solar minimum observed in the last 4 or 5 years.
2. The TSI/NH temperature link (7th plot) has completely broken down since 1980. You may notice that the author of the blog uses data only up to 1992. The temperature plot would be at least 0.2 deg higher if it were extended up the the present day while the TSI plot would be at much the same level (or lower). So, even if, there were a link (and I have some doubts) this suggests that causes of warming since ~1980 are most definitley not due to the sun.
It’s odd that those who argue for a strong solar link actually strengthen the AGW case.
I’m hoping for snow in Perth on Monday evening.
That should provide a refreshing view to those attending the sermons by Lewendowsky et al. at UWA.
Temperate at a nearby (to where I live) Ag. Research Station fell to -0.8 degrees C last night. And it was -0.2 degrees C the night before. It was sunny for most of yesterday with 12.3 MJ/m^2 for the whole day. Minimum RH fell to 34%, presumably the moisture got “dewed-out” with an observed max RH >99%.
It’s near sunset and the live feed says:
Time 17:25
Air Temp 10.5
Rel Hum 66.3
Soil Temp 11.4
SolarW/m² 4.3
Wspeed kph 1.4
Station Data
And, As long as I am picking nits… I have about 100 semester hours in college credit in science courses, from Astronomy to Zoology. and there is a fair portion of what you guys (the generic “you”)write that looses something in translation. (I frequently think of my friend who finished high school just in time to be an anti-aircraft gunner in WW II)
How about this rule: “If it has more than 16 letters it needs simplification”
It probably wouldn’t kill you to use fewer acronyms. Real words are easier to understand.
hello Anthony – am enjoying my visits as always, but would love to see the solar data come back as a daily feature – other than the widget – like you had before. And to have UAH and other monitoring with clear unadorned graphs that I can lift easily for use! Stephan’s link above to the hockeystickblogspot reminded me of what I was missing.
Ballarat is always cold, and in an Australian winter, its colder than cold.
Of course, we are a bunch of pussies. In the USA you get snow. We just think anything below about 12 degrees C is cold 🙂
After thinking about the McCartney thread, I think there’s an opportunity here.
Celebrity lifestyles often generate large carbon footprints. Because celebrities are often busy, they don’t have the time to offset that carbon themselves. So they buy their offsets from banks and financial institutions. But this may cause ethical conflicts for some celebrities who are anti-capitalism or anti-globalisation.
The rationale for offsetting seems to be the precautionary principle. So paying large amounts of money to prevent something that may never happen. Doctors could perhaps learn from this, so if a patient presents with an ingrowing toenail, amputate their leg. It resolves the toe problem and prevents the problem re-occuring.
So I think we should offer PPO’s, that is Precautionary Principle Offsets. Many existing offset schemes are flawed by uncertainty that the offsetting mechanism actually offsets any CO2. Examples may be investing in ‘renewables’ like wind generation, where there is already a large carbon footprint in creating the offset mechanism and additional carbon emitted when they work in a sub-optimal fashion.
PPO’s however can provide stronger guarantees. So for example Sir Paul chartering a 747 to fly London to NY may generate a carbon debt of 650 tons. Typical retail price for offsetting that is £14/ton, so £9100 per 747 return flight. We could offer PPO’s for £10 and guarantee not to emit an equivalent amount of Co2 via mechanisms such as not chartering private jets to go watch him play.
Money paid for PPO’s would be reinvested in green, renewable, low carbon schemes that would demonstrably provide more reductions than competing schemes, such as described here-
http://www.airmiles.co.uk/content/generatePage.do?destination=the+world+in+mind+travel+xiaohe
“Xiaohe aims to create 30 permanent jobs and 360 temporary jobs, bringing in $48.20 million via salaries and employee welfare per year. This increase in funding will give people in the region the opportunity to break away from poverty.”
That scheme suggests a cost per employee of $125k per head. That money may unfortunately be invested in luxuries which increase carbon footprints and creates additional resource demands.
By contrast, PPO’s would enable our heroic volunteers to work full-time, dedicated to the pursuit of a low carbon, sustainable and environmentally friendly lifestyle, all at a lower cost to high carbon emitters like Sir Paul.
PPO’s would create low carbon, green jobs. Carbon would be sequestered and recycled in the following ways, as examples-
C6H10O5. This would be a fundamental building block to enable low carbon transportation for our dedicated offsetters. Our organic, biodegradeable and recyclable sailing ships would sail between PPO bases, creating permanent green jobs for the crew, as well as temporary workspace for dedicated PPO offset team members.
C2H5OH. This is another essential part of the PPO carbon conversion and sequestration process, providing a vital fuel source for PPO employees to work hard, and help reduce your carbon footprint.
C400H620N100O120P1S1. Just look at the amount of carbon that can be reprocessed, recycled, and sequestered here, not to mention Nitrogen and Sulphur, which can also be damaging to the environment. This compound will be used in a variety of ways, including as solid fuel and will be provided in a form suitable for vegetarians.
Our dedicated PPO workers can also provide other valuable benefits to the environment. We all know about the albedo effects. Our workers can sail to locations where solar effects are high, and (particularly N.Europeans) boost the local albedo, reflecting dangerous energy back into space by risking their own bodies.
But buy PPO’s. We will adopt a low carbon lifestyle, so you don’t have to!
(Investors can buy in early via the tip jar)
pesadilla,
Sorry, but an article based on the premise of the ‘corruption of the Bush years’ is a non-starter.
And when it is implying that Obama is the clean-up guy to take care of that corruption, I recheck the article to see what edition of the The Daily Onion it is from.
Now an article pointing out that the biggest difference between Nero and Obama is that Nero did not play golf would be good reading.
What will be interesting is to see how much hype and fear mongering Tropical Storm Alex will generate. Its preceding wave and depression are possibly the most heavily reported tropical weather events of all time.
DocWat says: (June 26, 2010 at 2:15 am) I do not understand the obsession with arctic sea ice. Every week there are two or more posts here discussing arctic sea ice.
Agreed, DocWat; it encapsulates my call made in the second post on this Open Thread: “Because of that I believe an editorial board is necessary to sift the stories which bear the imprint of WUWT.”
Not an easy call, but I believe a necessary one.
Hey Anthony, I really feel for you being in Ballarat, nice place in summer, but damn cold in winter and as the citizens of other rival Victorian Provincial cities always claim, its situation normal for the weather to be dismal and raining in Ballarat!
I just hope that some in Ballarat extend the hand of kindness and escort you out for a nice meal in front of a roaring log fire, and a glass of excellent Port to be consumed, while contemplating on the ways and means of saving the world!!
Geez being originally from one of those rival Provincial cities, you could not have picked a worse place to experience “Global Warming” in Australia it always feels colder in Ballarat, snow would be a welcome warming.
Still it does have a lot of Australian union style history of the rough and tumble of Australian politics and Sovereign Hill and the nearby gold museum are o.k. – though sovereign hill in winter, with the only warming being the horse manure dropped on the gravel roadways, a bleak reminder of where the warmist’s want our world reduced to if they get their way!!
Chin up
Anthony
I know you must be exhausted by now criss-crossing Australia but I just want to say we Australians really appreciate your decision to do the tour. I’ve alerted three sons in Perth and my husband and I have booked accommodation at Coffs Harbour for next Friday’s talk. It never freezes at Coffs Harbour, can even be balmy in winter, and it’s whale-watching season as well. See you there.
REPLY: I’m not going to be able to make Coffs Harbor. My slide show will, as will David Archibald, who will present his and mine, but Coffs Harbor was a last minute addition after everything already firmed up. Coffs Harbor travel was an impossible scheduling scenario for me to get back in Sydney in time to catch my plane back to the states, which was scheduled weeks ago. I’m sorry. – Anthony
Breezy in Ballarat, eh? I think I’ll have to head back to Australia soon (permanently!) as it’s raining oil here in northern Florida.
Mentioning the cold makes me think of the Sun, who is starting to do its disappearing act (yes Leif, I will gladly answer any questions you may have about this ~ wink, wink):
http://www.lmsal.com/solarsoft/latest_events/AIA20100626_103908_0193_2048.png
DocWat says:
June 26, 2010 at 2:28 am
I’ll bet the Sun emits microwave energy. How much? Why aren’t we roasting like hot dogs? Sven??
Have a look at the sun spectrum. They end it at about 2.5 microns. Microwaves start at one centimeter. Extending the plot to microwaves frequencies is possible, but it will be a very small part of the spectrum and will be absorbed by the atmosphere anyway..
http://bouman.chem.georgetown.edu/S02/lect23/Solar_Spectrum.png
An O’Slick Trick.
Of “Experts, schmexperts” and our “age of “punctuated wrongness,”.
…-
“Strife Over Stem Cells
German Scientists Dispute Medical Breakthrough
By Cinthia Briseño
Pictures from Japanese researchers showing stem cells that can develop into various types of human tissue: (clockwise from L) Stem, cartilage, neural tissue and muscle cells.
Pictures from Japanese researchers showing stem cells that can develop into various types of human tissue: (clockwise from L) Stem, cartilage, neural tissue and muscle cells.
A German research team stunned the world in 2008 by extracting stem cells from testicular tissue. Now, though, other scientists dispute the claim. The result has been a very public back-and-forth in the pages of the scientific journal Nature — and very little certainty.
In the realm of natural sciences, it is a given that one must be precise. If a scientist makes a groundbreaking discovery, other researchers must be able to replicate the results of his, or her, work. Only then, are the findings considered truly relevant and certain.
But what happens when other researchers are not able to do so?
The current edition of highly respected journal Nature contains an example:”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,702864,00.html
…-
“The Openness Elixir
In the marketplace of ideas, progress depends on freedom—and the expectation of error
The word “slick” did not come to mind as Tony Hayward, the embattled chief executive of BP, foundered in a sea of congressional questioning this week. Never in the face of righteous political indignation did expertise look so unconvincing and so unworthy of its status. But in many respects Mr. Hayward and BP were simply unlucky: They were caught out by an event they didn’t think would happen and then compounded the problem by sounding clueless when asked to explain what went wrong or how they would fix it.
As David H. Freedman notes in “Wrong: Why Experts Keep Failing Us—And How to Know When Not to Trust Them,” such cluelessness is all too common in our expert-mediated world. Look at all those economists who failed to predict the great crash of 2008 or the rating agencies whose metrics melted into mere wishful thinking. Realtors, who are supposed to know more than you or I about the housing market, predicted housing prices would trend up for 2008. Experts, schmexperts.
We are, as Mr. Freedman puts it, living in an age of “punctuated wrongness,” usually misled, occasionally enlightened. His goal is a broad account of this phenomenon, how it takes shape through specific problems in measurement, how it spreads through the general idiocy of crowds, and how we might identify and avoid it. Bravo!
What emerges from this infernal journey is that there are few incentives in research to acknowledge that error is to be expected and not something to be scorned or obscured. As Robert Boyle, one of the founding fathers of modern science, recognized, experimental error is part of the slow advance toward any scientific truth; you can’t have trial without error.
But the current market creates the wrong kinds of incentives for doing good research or admitting failure. Novel ideas and findings are rewarded with grants and publication, which lead to academic prestige and career advancement. Researchers have a vested interest in overstating their findings because certainty is more likely than equivocation to achieve all of the above. Thus the probability increases of producing findings that are false. As the medical mathematician John Ioannidis tells Mr. Freedman: “The facts suggest that for many, if not the majority of fields, the majority of published studies are likely to be wrong.”
The problem is that the media tend to validate these findings before they have been properly interpreted, qualified, tested, and either refuted or replicated by other experts. And once a lousy study gets public validation— think of Andrew Wakefield’s claim about autism and vaccination—it can prove almost impossible to invalidate.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704009804575309610811148630.html
Roger Carr says:
June 26, 2010 at 1:29 am “The authority of your place here on the web must be carefully guarded to preserve that authority, and to keep it a place where those people of wisdom you attract can confidentally seek to publish.”
Yes, vitally important. My parting words to Anthony after the Melbourne afternoon meeting were more or less “Please keep going. What you and Steve (McIntyre) are doing is of importance to the World”. It’s a tough call on them both, but good men come to the aid of the party.
>> Roger Carr says:
June 26, 2010 at 4:07 am
DocWat says: (June 26, 2010 at 2:15 am) I do not understand the obsession with arctic sea ice. Every week there are two or more posts here discussing arctic sea ice.
Agreed, DocWat; it encapsulates my call made in the second post on this Open Thread: “Because of that I believe an editorial board is necessary to sift the stories which bear the imprint of WUWT.”
Not an easy call, but I believe a necessary one.
<<
One of the things I like about WUWT is it's having several stories a day. Some I skip over, but so what? If you don't want to read about Arctic ice, just wait for the next story.
Roger Carr says:
June 26, 2010 at 1:29 am
“The authority of your place here on the web must be carefully guarded to preserve that authority”
Hmmmm…..I would like to see that this does NOT happen. I dont want authorithy and concensus. I like freedom better. Many small impulses working in different directions.
All these small impulses will work in different directions, and over time there is a low pass filter effect where the truth shows through and slowly moves us in the right direction.
This effect was called “The invisible Hand” by Adam Smith. It works.
O Blesséd Anthony and his Devout Followers, Greetings!
I crave three boons:
– A thread on Shale Gas technology, and the likely impacts on the world’s energy markets, geopolitics, pollution etc.
– A thread on the analysis of the MLO data-series. As the rising ‘average’ of this series is the very foundation stone of the CO2 = AGW conjecture. So, we have to be sure about it.
– A thread on the geology of the oil-spill, and to what extent it wil impact attempts to stop the leak.
Yours in anticipation,
Tony
Tom_R,
If the Arctic sea ice threads were eliminated, what would R. Gates and Villabolo have to occupy their time?
That would be a human tragedy. Please, think of the children!☺
I am curious about the currently fluctuating magnetic field of the earth. How or does this affect climate?
Here’s the summary from the late-night talk show Coast to Coast AM of Saturday night’s program:
Comments?
Brace yourselves, now there’s been another BP spill!
Anthony: on my only trip to down under, my luggage was lost also. Luggage knows when it is critical to a mission, and only goes missing then.
Anthony: I have two observations, one for you and one for general consideration.
1) I hope you are preparing for the evolution of WUWT because of its ever growing scope and influence. This is remarked on above by Roger Carr and others. I can’t recommend what you should do but, in my opinion, it is becoming a large operation which might need careful thought about its structure and operation. I hope wholeheartedly that the openness and access to all points of view continues.
2) I am interested in the ice extent issue, as are many others. The continuing arguments point how very difficult it is to predict natural events with certainty. This is true for “our side” as well as for the “other side.”
wesley bruce says:
June 26, 2010 at 2:36 am
This relates to the golf of Mexico deep water horizon situation.
With regards to the Deepwater Horizon…..
Those two men interviewed are not “knowledgeable” in the field…they are investment bankers. Since when do investment bankers know geology, engineering and drilling???
The first relief well is approximately 200′ away from the original wellbore currently and is “on target”. This is the best method of plugging the wellbore……not nuking it which introduces a whole miriad of other problems that we don’t need to deal with.
re Atomic Hairdryer: June 26, 2010 at 3:42 am
(C6H10O5 + C400H620N100O120P1S1) and (C2H5OH) = burgers and beer ??
Sounds like a good sequestration plan. ☺
/dr.bill
Was just cleaning up, was about to throw out latest issue of Mechanical Engineering mag, flipped through to see if anything worth reading, my eyes caught mention of Anthony Watts, in a letter from a Paul Williams, of Medina, Ohio. Apologies if this has been mentioned here before, if not, here’s a link:
http://memagazine.asme.org/Articles/2010/June/Letters.cfm
Scroll down to second letter.
Great work, Anthony, really appreciated, I love what you do – PJ
Smokey says:
June 26, 2010 at 5:40 am
“Brace yourselves, now there’s been another BP spill!”
GREAT find, Smokey! LMAO!
Stephan says:
June 26, 2010 at 1:13 am
they show a clear cut solar effect on climate.
That was just a rehash of old, tired, incorrect reconstructions. As regards TSI, various people have tried to form composite time series from various satellite data sets. This is not ‘manipulation’ of the data, but best efforts to get a homogeneous set of values. The composites vary because this is complicated business. The problem is that detectors degrade by being exposed to the harsh environment of space and X-ray and UV radiation. So, all measurements by everybody have to be ‘manipulated’ and corrected for the degradation. One way of doing this is to have two [or more] detectors, e.g. one that is open all the time and another one that is only open every other day. Then the former will degrade more than the latter, and the difference in TSI values from the two detectors can be used to keep track of the degradation. Even after best efforts to correct for all systematic errors [incl. degradation], the TSI series still do not agree between different experimenters. The best TSI measurements at the moment are those from SORCE [ http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/data/tsi_data.htm ]. Here is am example of such disagreement: http://www.leif.org/research/PMOD%20TSI-SOHO%20keyhole%20effect-degradation%20over%20time.pdf
Other instruments [e.g. ACRIM] have other [and worse] problems. In the future, better calibrations and comparisons will largely remove such problems, but we have to deal with the past data as well.
Here are some of my own speculations on the topic:
http://www.leif.org/research/Does%20The%20Sun%20Vary%20Enough.pdf
Anthony,
In the past week I received David Archibald’s new book. It’s beautifully done (lot’s of graphs/charts on very high quality paper) and compiles a stunning amount of information in a very readable format. Please pass on the accolades to David and my thanks. http://davidarchibald.info/
On another note, I happen to enjoy the Arctic postings and all the rest. I hope you keep serving up the eclectic and the personal interests of your contributing authors. The thought of a “content consensus committee” (whoa, that’s a different ‘C3’ than my C3) is a very depressing thought.
Jim at C3
anna v says:
June 26, 2010 at 4:29 am
DocWat says:
June 26, 2010 at 2:28 am
I’ll bet the Sun emits microwave energy. How much? Why aren’t we roasting like hot dogs? Sven??
Because, as anna says, the energy at the region of the spectrum is extremely small. We do observe the microwaves. It is the so-called F10.7 flux [the 10.7 is the wavelength: 10.7 cm] that we use as a measure of solar activity.
Below is a copy of a letter in today’s UK Daily Telegraph, don’t you just love it when a plan comes together?
Converting solar power
SIR – Some six weeks ago, I had a photovoltaic solar panel installed on my roof to take advantage of the microgeneration feed-in tariffs, which became available from April 1 this year.
Since installation, despite the magnificent sunshine, the unit has produced nothing, because the installer was unable to supply an inverter – a relatively straightforward piece of equipment that turns the electricity generated by the solar panel into useful energy for domestic use.
I am informed by the installer that this is a national problem. He has no idea when my inverter will be available. It might be August. It might be October. It could even be later.
I have written to Chris Huhne to ask him to rectify this sad state of affairs. If his department were to order these units, I am sure there are many British companies that would be delighted to supply them for distribution to the people who could make immediate use of them.
Rupert Wilson
Shepley, West Yorkshire
PJB says:
June 26, 2010 at 5:33 am
I am curious about the currently fluctuating magnetic field of the earth. How or does this affect climate?
There is no credible evidence that it does. The magnetic field of the Earth was large about 2500 years ago and has been decreasing since: http://www.leif.org/EOS/2007GC001881.pdf
Re: Roger Knights. “Comments?” (on Art Bell, Larry Schweiger)
WWF material fits quite well with Coast to Coast’s usual discussions of UFOs, Little Green Men, etc.
Connections. That’s what’s important, and what is not adequately addressed. Not just the physical, scientific connections; but the connections between all aspects of human society and the planet. For example: How will new financial rules (recently in the news ) effect things such as UHI, population growth and concentrations, etc.?
Likewise technology, energy, food production, distribution/logistics, religions, cultural differences, et al. It’s all massively interconnected. Worth pondering, imho.
Roger –
Nice praise – I agree entirely. But is the main idea to provide funding? Or control content?
The funding idea is admirable – but mandatory firewalls, pay-to-read fees act as critical filter on readership – which is how people (like myself) gain interest and become better informed. Hard to think of a way to make those work.
As to an “editorial board” – my ‘spider sense’ is tingling….
DocWat says:
June 26, 2010 at 3:05 am
And, As long as I am picking nits… I have about 100 semester hours in college credit in science courses, from Astronomy to Zoology. and there is a fair portion of what you guys (the generic “you”)write that looses something in translation. (I frequently think of my friend who finished high school just in time to be an anti-aircraft gunner in WW II)
How about this rule: “If it has more than 16 letters it needs simplification”
It probably wouldn’t kill you to use fewer acronyms. Real words are easier to understand.
______________________________
I agree with the acronym sentiment. Could the site put up an acronym glossary, perhaps?
anna v
The question is not “is there microwaves” rather “how much, how variable”
Tom_R
When I see a article on sea ice I don’t read it/ Just look at the pictures… Like Playboy.
Roger Carr
Editorial boards may not be as good an Idea as Tom_R’s. You Know there is no accounting for taste, so who is to judge? And who is to judge the judges?
Smokey
A little rest will do them good.
RE: wesley bruce: (June 26, 2010 at 2:45 am) “Simmons Says Nuclear Device Only Option to Sto[p Oil Leak]”
I would consider that a nuclear device to be the option last resort, even if all the well-casing has been expelled. Before that, I would think it might be better to try or at least consider inserting a metal plug with a chemical reaction or slow-explosive, expandable diameter and with enough weight behind it to resist the static pressure from below. I propose a slow-explosive reaction to give all the oil trapped in the middle time to be squeezed out and escape. Once the flow is stopped, the rest of the hole could be filled with concrete. I think the insertion device could be equipped with sensors to determine the quality of the bore-hole surface. This is my *non-expert* 2 cents worth.
Here is the site for klimaskeptik in English by the author V Kremlik….
http://climatechange.thinkaboutit.eu/think2/post/judithgate_ipcc_consensus_was_only_one_solar_physicist
and his site…
http://www.klimaskeptik.cz/english/
Very good reading….. All the best Jeff
Smokey,
Your YouTube link to BP’s “other” spill was HILARIOUS! I’d say it’s a “must see”.
“Could the site put up an acronym glossary, perhaps?”
Top of the page – 5th box.
DocWat says:
June 26, 2010 at 7:57 am
The question is not “is there microwaves” rather “how much, how variable”
Much less than a billionth of a Watt, so can be neglected, incl. its variation.
BP has deployed a Crack Team to the gulf to finally cap the well.
I see that the tour schedule gives you a “free” day on Sunday, but as you’re travelling from Ballarat Vic. to Narrogin WA for Monday evening’s presentation, I guess you’ll have about enough spare time to reset your watch. 🙂 No time to become bored.
I’ve never had a flight out of Melbourne that wasn’t delayed. It must be airport management policy.
Still, the flights manage to get to Perth without too much delay. Enjoy the flight. The air is still fairly dry, at least in the first cell that you’d encounter, so weather radar on the aircraft may not be able to help to avoid a bumpy flight.
If you’re lucky, you’ll experience perhaps a second of weightlessness on approach to Perth Airport over the Darling Ranges (it’s a scarp). A very special treat! Best not to be holding a drink at the time.
John Finn says:
June 26, 2010 at 2:57 am
No more scandalous than your link. I feel sure Leif will be able to respond to much the content as it looks to be based on old ideas and reconstructions.
Leif Svalgaard says:
June 26, 2010 at 6:46 am
That was just a rehash of old, tired, incorrect reconstructions.
If ever you need someone to deputise in your absence, Leif 🙂
Spector –
The idea of a ‘stinger’ inserted in the wellbore is predicated on assumption that the flow is coming up inside the casing. The problem is that the flow is alos coming up thru the annulus – outSIDE of the casing. So if one closes off the wellbore flow – the flow redirects to the annulus – perhaps making matters even worse.
The idea tho is valid – which is why they tried pumping a) mud and then b ) ‘junk’ of various sizes and density thru the part of the bop that works. But ultimately – that process needs to take place closer to the reservoir – where both the formation and casing have some integrity ..
That’s what the relief wells are all about. And THEN they will pump in mud and material at a pressure greater than the reservoir pressure – which should stop the flow ..
Shame on BP for this ‘accident’. It was preventable –
To Chris1958:
The spelling of Ballarat is interesting. As far as I remember (correction invited), the city spelled the name one way and the railway spelled it another, I think with a double”a” in the middle rather than a single one. Anyone know more about it?
Thanks for the open thread Anthony, gives me a spot to mention this otherwise off-topic subject namely stochastic resonance and climate. I happened to be looking up effect of stochastic resonance in the visual system and, on Googling it, was surprised to find that stochastic resonance was first proposed as the mechanism behind ice ages! This is puzzling as the change in TSI from eccentricities in the earth’s orbit is ~0.1% which would imply a very sensitive climatic system. What is even more curious is that stochastic resonance doesn’t seem to be mentioned by the warmists as the high climate sensitivity that is implied in the ice-age transitions should work in the opposite direction although humans aren’t producing a noisy CO2 signal but rather a step change (in geologic timescales). Are volcanoes the source of the “noise”?
The other point is that I’ve just finished reading Nassim Taleb’s The Black Swan and it’s one of the most significant books I’ve read this decade. Taleb’s analysis of “expert” predictions and his devastating attacks on economic models (which are just as important when it comes to GCM’s) are well worth reading. Taleb’s discussion on the significant unknown unknowns (Black swans) is far more logical to me than what Dr. Ravetz had to say on WUWT a couple of months ago. Unlike Ravetz, Taleb actually had the opportunity to test his theories in the financial sector. I can see why Steve McIntyre is reluctant to consider the junk science produced by Mann et al to be fraud as confirmation bias and the narrative fallacy could just as easily explain their results.
For a different opinion from Dr. Svalgaard regarding changes in the TSI 1970 -2000 and influence on climate, see Dr. Nicola Scafetta’s EPA presentation:
http://yosemite.epa.gov/ee/epa/wpi.nsf/2efc4c5acad95f918525669800666fd7/7a5516152467a30b85257562006c89a6/$FILE/scafetta-epa-2009.pdf
Judith Gate, IPCC relied on one solar scientist.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/06/judithgate-ipcc-relied-on-one-solar.html
also on this topic see Joe D’Aleo’s essay:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Lockwood_and_Frolich_Review.pdf
Roger Carr says:
June 26, 2010 at 1:29 am
“Anthony: A critical, as in constructive, observation for your consideration.
WUWT has evolved from one man’s commentary on puzzling things in life, nature, science, weather, climate change, technology… into an international sounding board attracting powerful minds and their wisdom, and, in consequence, now now has a worldwide readership — and exerts an international influence — on matters which seriously affect the future of mankind.
Because of that I believe an editorial board is necessary to sift the stories which bear the imprint of WUWT”. (etc.)”
Great. We could do a Wikipedia and keep out any view that does not meet with our consensus. We could ensure that no warmist gets a hearing here. We would have authority and gravitas too. The pity is that we would no longer have the very best site on the worldwide web.
I have been lurking on this sight for some months much impressed with the articles and comments. I have been reluctant to join the discussions because clear and concise elucidation of my thoughts has never been my forte. I have recently found three articles that describe my thoughts far better than I can. The first article is a brilliant explanation and demonstration of the 1st law of thermodynamics . He clearly debunks the idea that absorbed radiation is reradiated toward earth, thereby heating it.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/06/why-conventional-greenhouse-theory.html
Mindbuilder says: “Since CAGW promoters seem to universally defend “Mike’s Nature trick” do you all think it would be fair to start calling them ‘trickers’ or ‘tricksters’?”
But then we’d have to say their primary activity is “doing tricks.”
Ken Harvey says:
June 26, 2010 at 1:02 pm
“[…]
We could ensure that no warmist gets a hearing here.[…]”
Hey, all the remaining warmists are on Steven Goddard’s ice threads. So that’s pretty much accomplished as long as you ignore the ice threads. Kinda like a bait.
John Innes says:
“The spelling of Ballarat is interesting. As far as I remember (correction invited), the city spelled the name one way and the railway spelled it another, I think with a double”a” in the middle rather than a single one. Anyone know more about it?”
This reminds me of Smartsville, California, a town founded old Gold Rush era up in the Sierra Nevada Foothills.
Way back when, when submitting paperwork to establish postal service, someone from the federal gov’t left out the “s” in the middle, and it became “Smartville” to the federal gov’t.
This soon bled over onto all the maps, and official documents and apparently the State of California gov’t documents as well.
So even though all the world of officialdom and even the road signs called it “Smartville, ” the locals know it as “Smartsville,” and will remind you. So the sign on the Post Office reads “Smartville,” the sign on the local Fire Dept. across the street says “Smartsville”
But recently, after years of trying, supposedly they recently won the right to get their “s” back.
Another Gold Rush town about 50 miles from there, apparently had even even more of a beef with the federal gov’t. Back in the 1800’s the little hamlet of “Rough and Ready” broke with the Union, declared independence, and became “The Republic of Rough and Ready.” I don’t know if they ever actually had a skirmish with the union troops over it, but their independence was short-lived.
When the 4th of July rolled around, and people started looking forward to the celebrations, they eventually figured out they had nothing to celebrate. So they rejoined the Union.
Hockey Schtick says:
June 26, 2010 at 12:44 pm
For a different opinion from Dr. Svalgaard regarding changes in the TSI 1970 -2000 and influence on climate, see Dr. Nicola Scafetta’s EPA presentation
It tries to use a reconstruction by Krivova, Solanki and others, to claim thet the ACRIM data is correct. Here is what those authors say themselves:
http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL040707.pdf
“[1] A gap in the total solar irradiance (TSI) measurements between ACRIM-1 and ACRIM-2 led to the ongoing debate on the presence or not of a secular trend between the minima preceding cycles 22 (in 1986) and 23 (1996). It was recently proposed to use the SATIRE model of solar irradiance variations to bridge this gap. When doing this, it is important to use the appropriate SATIRE-based reconstruction, which we do here, employing a reconstruction based on magnetograms. The accuracy of this model on months to years timescales is significantly higher than that of a model developed for long-term reconstructions used by the ACRIM team for such an analysis. The constructed ‘mixed’ACRIM—SATIRE composite shows no increase in the TSI from 1986 to 1996, in contrast to the ACRIM TSI composite.”
In addition to that misuse, Scafetta also uses the obsolete Hoyt&Schatten TSI reconstruction and other misconstructions. I wouldn’t place much credence in his views. But to each his own. If you are taken in by his presentation, I guess it is your [voluntary] loss.
Richard Garnache says:
June 26, 2010 at 1:05 pm
I have been lurking on this sight for some months much impressed with the articles and comments. I have been reluctant to join the discussions because clear and concise elucidation of my thoughts has never been my forte. I have recently found three articles that describe my thoughts far better than I can. The first article is a brilliant explanation and demonstration of the 1st law of thermodynamics . He clearly debunks the idea that absorbed radiation is reradiated toward earth, thereby heating it.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/06/why-conventional-greenhouse-theory.html
Hardly brilliant, the author doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he clearly doesn’t realize that the human eye is a square law detector for one thing.
Here’s the latest alarmist BS.
Contrary to some on this thread, I would like to give my thumbs up to the Sea Ice posts.
It’s one of the huge focal points, at least from the drum-pounding media’s perspective, of the whole AGW controversy.
It’s a great way to examine the reality up there in contrast to to what’s being stated by the latest “press-it release-science” and gov’ t science institutions, and to get a gauge on their accuracy. And also to compare some of the parameters involved which Steve has pointed out, with the linear decline scenario.
Also, it’s nice to watch how the seasonal accumulation and melt actually works, and some of the factors involved. And also to look forward to seeing what happens at the end of the year.
It kind of reminds of something that they call a ‘benchmark” in radio. That is something that you know that comes up regularly, like say Paul Harvey’s “the Rest of the Story,” and gives you one more reason to stay tuned.
Phil 4:25 PM:
Since you obviously “know what you are talking about”, please enlighten us how GHGs only radiate unidirectionally back to the earth (see Trenberth/IPCC energy budget diagram) and not an equal amount of IR to outer space, and add energy to the system beyond that supplied by the sun.
Thanks for the open thread, I’ll take the opportunity for a comment that’s percolating in my head. I have always been a lefty greenie. I was hugely worried about AGW and even had a small website on the topic, we have solar hot water, and drive a Prius. My politics have always been left-leaning, and I note with Anthony’s trip round Australia, that many of the venues he’s speaking in and the organisations hosting Anthony are right wing organisations. The MSM’s that speak sceptical views are more right wing than left. It seems that there is a rule embedded in here and elsewhere that to be left-wing means you must believe in AGW. Now I’m trying to hold 2 seemingly opposing views in my head, moderate left wing, and climate science scepticism.
You’ve convinced me on the science, but from my philosophical and political viewpoints I often feel on the outer here. This is larger issue than just me. The right wing, one gathers, are pretty happy to hear the sceptical argument (although in Australia its mostly only the far right), the converts from here on in are going to be further to the left of the political spectrum. They could well feel like me.
Is this a political blog, or a scientific blog? I love the articles on the science, but don’t like the (very few) ad homs and the unverified cuts from right-wing news sources. I know Anthony and the mods work very hard on this, but its inevitable they slip through occasionally. This is a great site, I check it daily, and enjoy the arctic sea ice stories and other based on science . Also love the respectful comments made with genuine thought behind them. I wonder if any others feel like me on the politics?
HB
With acronymns and abbreviations, I tend to go by the age-old practice of “Netiquette” (network etiquette evolved over decades of Usenet) which is to expand the abbreviation immediately at first use and then to use the abbreviation. There are exceptions when it’s not necessary (indeed it can be annoying); as when there is common use or when it has already been expanded earlier in the thread.
It is also recommended to expand an abbreviation even if it’s in a glossary “beside” the posting. The reader’s flow will not be interrupted.
Write for the reader.
RE: LearDog says: (June 26, 2010 at 10:31 am) “Spector – The idea of a ‘stinger’ inserted in the wellbore is predicated on assumption that the flow is coming up inside the casing.”
In this case, I believe all I was assuming was a clean bore-hole in solid bedrock and an expandable diameter plug that, I would hope, could be designed to produce a Morrison-like seal on the expected available surface. This *is* one case where the “devil would be in the details” of implementation. I would think that the degree of expansion required would depend on the minimum clear open diameter available for insertion.
Potential problems I see with the ‘nuclear option’ would be the formation of fissures or cracks in the bedrock around the explosion that might allow continued seepage and the potential radioactive contamination of the gulf biosphere.
Volcanoes, volcanoes, volcanoes!
Plume altitude, altitude, altitude!
Volume, volume, volume!
Location, location, location!
Or lack of volcanoes!
http://gladcorn.gourmetfoodmall.com/
“Addictive”, whole grain, gluten free, natural corn snacks kids and adults will enjoy. Not popcorn or CORN NUTS (R). Better than the bottom of the popcorn bowl! GLAD CORN® brand A-Maizing Corn Snack
This stuff will drive you crazy(er)!
LearDog says: (June 26, 2010 at 7:22 am) Roger – Nice praise – I agree entirely. But is the main idea to provide funding? Or control content?
1. Control of content is not the intention of a proposed “editorial board”. The purpose of such a ‘board” would be to ensure that authors do not rush into print before the ink on their work is dry. Some of the material appearing on WUWT is modified by the authors following publication, and would have had far more value if there has been a moment of contemplation before it had rolled from the virtual presses. Editors can provide that cushion. Right or wrong is not my point; it just must not be raw.
2. Funding: No paywalls. No mandatory subscriptions. It would require individuals to willingly commit to support.
I cannot see how WUWT can keep pace with its growing importance unless Anthony and others can devote other than “free time” to it
__________
Ken Harvey says: (June 26, 2010 at 1:02 pm) Great. We could do a Wikipedia and keep out any view that…
Either I put my point badly, Greg; or you missed it entirely. No. I am not advocating censorship.
HB says:
June 26, 2010 at 6:29 pm
“[…]
Is this a political blog, or a scientific blog?”
It has a political science section 😉
If I can pose a question to the moderators.
How do you handle comments coming in 24hrs a day ? I write from east coast Australia in the afternoon, and have noticed that later in the afternoon moderating time takes longer, this is understandable, it is bed time in the US. Do you really moderate 24/7 and would you prefer comments to be submitted at a more respectable (US) time ?
[REPLY – We do our best. Feel free to post anytime. Your comments go in queue and we catch them as we can. (Thanks for your consideration. All points of view welcome here.) ~ Evan]
Gee, obviously they wanted to you to think the world wasn’t warming by putting you up at Ballarat. Lovely place, but very cool. Given the cold this weekend in Victoria, you would have been better at Geelong or the Surf Coast to the south of it – or even the Bellarine Peninsula.
Re: Spector says: June 26, 2010 at 9:17 pm
Potential problems I see with the ‘nuclear option’ would be the formation of fissures or cracks in the bedrock around the explosion that might allow continued seepage and the potential radioactive contamination of the gulf biosphere.
—
I think this shares problems with the ‘plug’ approach, ie the geology and countering the upward pressure from the well. As I understand the way the Russians did it with nukes, they used a nuke to shunt a rock formation sideways to seal their well. I’ve no idea what the geology around this well is, and whether it’d be possible to do similar, or practical to drill for that rather than letting the relief wells (hopefully) do their job.
Usual result of underground detonations is a cavity, which then usually collapses. It seems to me there’s a large risk of fracturing the rock as you say, and making the problem much worse. If the relief wells fail, maybe it’ll be an option to use one of those, but I’d hate to be the geologists making that call.
Didn’t have to be a nuclear explosion, a properly sized conventional explosive would have done the job a long time ago. But BP knows that after this fiasco it wouldn’t likely be allowed to re-drill the hole, so no matter what the geological structure that was not an option they wanted on the table.
Art Bell, the former host of the show, has been retired for about six years and appears about six times a year to guest-host a show, as he did on Friday night. (Not Saturday as I said at first.) He’s a warmist, having co-authored The Day After Tomorrow. The current host, George Noory, is a climate contrarian and regularly hosts skeptics like Tim Ball and Roy Spencer.
‘The gift that just keeps on giving’ to the misinformed liberal alarmists!
Hope this isn’t too late to generate some feedback.
The more I come to understand about ‘climate change’ the more I am convinced that it is the organisation and ‘soicology’ of the climate science industry – as an artefact lying somewhere between academe and politics – that contributes greatly to poorly evidenced opinions and theories becoming the received wisdom of ‘the consensus’. Organise it differently and you’d likely get a different set of results.
In the pure scientific/statistics areas, many people contribute greatly…McIntyre and Montford have shown me great things…Monckton has amused and enlightened me..Booker, North and Delingpole have swept away vast acres of AGW bullshit. The list could and should be much much longer…but space does not permit.
But who is studying and writing about what I crudely call the organisation and sociology of climate science?? I’d love to understand more and see if my own nasecnt ideas have any value…and/or maybe to contribute something original and helpful myself.
Hope this isn’t too rambling…its been (by UK standards) a very hot day, and I’m just bacj from my libgest bicycle ride of the year. All and any ideas gratefully received.
Spector says:
June 26, 2010 at 9:17 pm
RE: LearDog says: (June 26, 2010 at 10:31 am) “Spector – The idea of a ‘stinger’ inserted in the wellbore is predicated on assumption that the flow is coming up inside the casing.”
In this case, I believe all I was assuming was a clean bore-hole in solid bedrock and an expandable diameter plug that, I would hope, could be designed to produce a Morrison-like seal on the expected available surface. This *is* one case where the “devil would be in the details” of implementation. I would think that the degree of expansion required would depend on the minimum clear open diameter available for insertion.
—…—…
From engineers inside the industry, this is the case – and casing. 8<)
Outer pipe is 21 inches in diameter, 1 inch thick walls. Inner pipe is a little under 6.625 inches diameter OD also with 1 inch thick walls. Oil pressure at seabed floor is estimated at 15000 psi. At top of reservoir (under all the rock and muck and sediment) is right at 20,000 psi. Net upwards force is approximately 850 tons force if you try to plug the pipe: if you cap the outer pipe, the inner pipe (which is carrying the oil up) pressurizes the outer pipe within seconds (because both are full of liquids and gasa already) and so you have a 19 inch diameter ID pipe filled with high pressure fluid forcing its way against any "plug" you try to insert into the pipe .
If you want to consider "squishing" the pipes to stem the flow, you have to figure out how to compress both inside and outside pipes – which can't be done because the outer pipe can't close around the inner pipe and shut off flow.
Ed Murphy says:
June 27, 2010 at 6:48 am
Didn’t have to be a nuclear explosion, a properly sized conventional explosive would have done the job a long time ago. But BP knows that after this fiasco it wouldn’t likely be allowed to re-drill the hole, so no matter what the geological structure that was not an option they wanted on the table.
I doubt whether the explosive approach would have done the job. Probably the most famous wild well tamer was Red Adair, if it was so easy to stop the blow out with explosives I wonder why he took 10 months to stop the very similar blow out at Ixtoc-I, which was actually in shallower water.
Smokey Reur June 26, 2010 at 5:33 am
If you want to learn a drop about climate science, how about you read-up on Ray PierreHumbert (iconic author and oracle for RC and Tamino et mal.)
Re:Phil
I doubt whether the explosive approach would have done the job.
—
From lurking over at the oil drum, the geology has been discussed and commentors seem to be saying the rock is mostly shale. I’m not a geologist, but isn’t shale quite fragile? If so, that would seem to give a higher risk of uncontrolled fracturing if they tried using explosives.
Well I assume that “Open Thread” means open season too ; but keep it clean.
So I would like to add a favorite rant; well one that I have never ranted on, but have endured the irk while rantless. Well no more; time to rant.
It gets tiresome reading all the claims that “there is no greenhouse effect”; or that CO2 is only 0.038% of the atmosphere so it couldn’t possibly do anything.
If only you knew it; you wouldn’t be here reading this on your computer, if it wasn’t for trace impurities in the very high purity silcon crystal pieces that are inside your computer; and every bit of modern electronics; and 0.038% would be regarded as a veritable avalanche of pollution; compared to the actual (deliberate) impurity levels carefully impressed into silicon chips.
So enough of that nonsense; at about one molecule of CO2 per 2565.47 of the atmospheric ordinary gases (yes I did subtract the CO2 molecule; and used today’s gizmo value); there is plenty of CO2 in the atmosphere to do things.
But my rant is about that other CO2 claim; that LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS have proved that having more CO2 in the atmosphere makes it warmer (which postulate I am not even questioning). It’s the EXPERIMENT that I don’t like.
Well we’ve all seen it demonstrated by fools everywhere on TV and the like.
You take some (dry) air; maybe sans CO2 and some with CO2; or maybe it is ordinary (dry) air; and some air with more CO2 added.
So you place thermometers in the two samples and shine a light bulb on them; to show that the one with the CO2 reaches a higher temperature; and the critics immediately complain that you haven’t protected the thermometers themselves enough from direct radiation from the light bulb; so you can’t really tell, whether the CO2 did the warming or one thermometer is seeing the lamp better than the other.
Well of course if you have followed this so far; and agree that is your objection too; then of course you haven’t understood the experiment.
If you go outside and look around in typical environments; at lawns, and roads, and parking lots, and gardens or buildings or beaches, or lakes; the one thing that you DO NOT SEE, is a whole lot of light bulbs pointed up at the upper atmosphere.
These LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS are a fraud, because they do not employ a source of primarily LWIR radiation.
Trenberth gives the surface radiation of the earth surface as 390 W/m^2, and as I recall, that is precisely the calculated Black Body Stefan Boltzmann radiation corresponding to a surface temperature of 15 deg C, or 288 K; the supposed mean global surface Temperature.
Wien’s Displacement law tells us that the peak of the energy spectrum is at 10.1 microns thereabouts; which is about where the water atmospheric window resides. And CO2 reacts to the 15 micron tail region of that spectrum.
So if you are going to do this CO2 laboratory experiment correctly; you need to use an actual source of LWIR radiation with a spectrum that matches the 288 Kelvin Black Body spectrum; because that is the spectrum that the atmosphere (on average) has to deal with; along with its 0.038964% CO2.
So forget the light bulb; that’s a deliberately falsified energy source. Peronally, I like a brick; an ordinary Philadelphia red brick; like Grace Kelly’s father used to lay down.
Now I think a slab of nice black Basalt would be better; but a red brick is easier to come by.
So you could take a Coleman cooler chest, and put some tap water in it; which usually is about 68 deg F or 20 deg C, so far too hot; so you have to dump some ice cubes in the chest to cool the water down to 15 deg C.
Well hell; don’t bother; I’m a generous and forgiving man; and I don’t care whether you like the 15 deg C mean global surface Temperature or not; or whether you are happier with 20 deg C or even 25 deg C Good grief I would even buy 30 deg C.
So just fill the cooler chest, and then put your red brick into a plastic garbage or freezer bag; just something to protect it from the water; and then drop it in the water, and let it reach equilibrium; so we know your brick or premium basalt slab is at whatever temp in the 15-30 deg C range you chose.
So now you take your dry air samples and add some CO2 to one; maybe a short burst from the CO2 fire extinguisher; or a sliver of dry ice should do the trick. So set those up with the two thermometers; in some place out of the drafts so no wind chill factors; and then you take your brick out of the water , and remove it from the pastic bag.
Hold that brick close to your cheek; and feel the heat exuding from its pores onto you delicate skin.
So set the brick up equidistant from your two air samples, and let it sit there and watch the thermometers.
Don’t forget to report back here on your results after you complete the experiment; the whole world wants to know whether CO2 absorbed LWIR actually warms up the atmosphere in the laboratory or not.
For the record, I will state that I do believe in the greenhouse effect; and I do believe that one CO2 molecule in 2566.47 molecules actually does something; and I do believe that that something involves the LWIR that comes from my red brick.
But I don’t believe that climate has anything to do with lightbulbs.
As a corollary to the above experiment; I am also running an opinion poll:-
Question; your Opinion ! is 10.1 micron peaked black body LWIR radiation properly describable as “heat” by human senses ?
Enjoy; George.
Next article on the evils of CO2 should/could be entitled…
“Et tu CO2”
Inspired by the story on the CO2 kill in Mammoth Forest. The commenters on the story lead me down several rabbit trails including limnic eruptions and the potential unintended consequences/perils of carbon capture and storage.
Concerning the warmer cloudy nights: is it really back radiation from clouds, or just slowed down conduction? The bigger difference between warm surface and cold upper air, the higher up-flow of warm air and down-flow of cold air. But with clouds above, the warm air hits the upper deck and the temperature difference is not that high, thus slowing down the uplift of warm air, thus keeping the surface less cooled = warmer. Are we sure, that we are attributing warmer cloudy nights to hypothetical back radiation instead of simple physics?
On the other note, we have four MPs from Citizen Conservative party in our Slovak parliament elected recently, which are truly sceptics. I voted for them myself and I know personally one of them. We are small country and they are few, but bit after bit the Rome was built. This is the only way.
“”” Juraj V. says:
June 28, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Concerning the warmer cloudy nights: is it really back radiation from clouds, or just slowed down conduction? The bigger difference between warm surface and cold upper air, the higher up-flow of warm air and down-flow of cold air. But with clouds above, the warm air hits the upper deck and the temperature difference is not that high, thus slowing down the uplift of warm air, thus keeping the surface less cooled = warmer. Are we sure, that we are attributing warmer cloudy nights to hypothetical back radiation instead of simple physics? “””
Well Juraj, I have made quite a point of suggesting that they are putting the cart before the horse.
Many have commented that cloudy nights seem to be warmer than cloud free nights so clouds must be keeping it warm.
I have suggested that warm moist days result in cloudy nights; when that warm moist air created during the day, finally reaches the dew point elevation.
The standard teaching is that the low clouds cool, and the high clouds warm, and there’s a magic height where clouds do neither.
So the higher the clouds the more they warm; and vice versa.
That of course simply ignores things like the inverse square law; or the fact that atmospheric pressure, and density and temperature decrease with altitude; so the heat capacity, and the thermal radiation spectrum of high clouds simply get forever weaker and weaker as height increases.
They argue that the higher clouds stop very little solar radiation during the day; and being so high and cold at night they radiate very little to space.
Hey earth to cloud ! that same cloud that is a cold evanescent weak radiator to space is an equally weak radiator back to earth.
I know that there are sillier arguments in this whole climate debate; right off hand I can’t think of one though.
Clouds always cool, since any blockage of solar radiation from the ground, may result in some atmospheric warming (after the albedo reflectance is subtracted); but the re-radiation of LWIR from that warmed atmosphere is necessarily shared about equally between return to the ground, as LWIR, or exit to space. The result is ALWAYS a net loss of total surface irradiation in all spectral bands.
A recent issue of “Optics & Photonic News, (OPN) a publication of the optical Society of America (for June 2010) has a short article about Noctilucent Clouds.
Allegedly NLCs were first reported in Europe in 1885; which happens to be two Years after the 1883 Krakatoa Eruption. Note it says first reported in Europe. Don’t know if that means no previous reports; or no previous European Reports.
Anyway they say that NLCs are known to consist of H2O ice crystal clouds which form just above the “Mesopause” which it places at 80 km altitude, at the top of the Stratosphere which begins at the Stratopause at 50 km height.
Very simply their “atmosphere” starts at 15 deg C at the surface dropping (linearly) to -60 deg C at about 13-14 km at the tropopause with all the clouds and weather below that presumably in the troposphere.
Volcanic aerosols it places above the Tropopauses from about 14-20 km height, and the temperature rises back to zero deg C in a pseudo straight line curve at the Tropopause at 50 km. The temperature then falls about linearly to -100 deg C at the mesopause at 80 km, and then the temperature starts to rise again. They only show to +100 km and about -80 deg C and they place the Auroral zone at about 95-100 km height.
They assert that MLC ice crystals condense of nuclei of meteoric dust; Iron and nickel; so that argues in some sense for an extra terrestrial source but not of the water; just the nucleating micrometer dust particles.
Allegedly first North American sightings of NLCs was only in 1933; and not south of +45 degrees before 1993 in North Dakota.
They say it is unknown whether NLCs existed before 1885.
They don’t know whether the increase in sighting frequencise is an actual increase or just more research grant money being given to more people to look at them (my surmise).
Well I’m not going to extract from the whole article; but if you are interested in NLCs then it is worth a read; unless of course they are old hat to you; in which case maybe you wrote the article.
Joseph A. Shaw, of Montana State U Bozeman is listed as the author.
The Article asserts that the clouds are NOT self luminous; they are just so darned high that sunlight persists well after sundown with the sun 9-12 deg below the horizon for best visibility.
George
Juraj V. Reur June 28, 2010 at 2:00 pm
I think your question is very important, and at least partly correct, but I’m unaware of any studies into it, and how to quantify it seems to be very difficult. A useful reference is this NASA “Earth’s Energy Budget” diagram, but the derivation of the global average numbers is questionable. (as discussed elsewhere). From this figure, 58.9% of the energy leaving the surface is given as from conduction/convection plus evapo-transpiration. Radiatively, only 29.4% is shown absorbed by GHG’s, and 11.7% escapes directly to space.
I would argue that in addition to a reduction in conduction/convection with cloud cover, so too would evaporative cooling be less, because of the reduced temperature gradient and increased humidity. The two processes act in amplification together, so a twin reduction is intuitively significant. They are a potential bank of energy flux that is given as about double that of the radiative greenhouse effect.
Additionally, most of the greenhouse effect takes place rather close to the surface, and not as depicted here, in the clouds. (after Trenberth et al.) (as discussed elsewhere)
I apologize for posting here but it did say Open Thread: and you don’t seem to connect nitrogen to global warming any where else.
Physics of the ‘bends’: New study helps explain decompression sickness – Mozilla Firefox
Moon Dirt Mystery Piled Up Over Billions of Years – Space.com – Yahoo! Buzz
Both these podcasts contain NITROGEN & its strangeness. The Moon’s unusual nitrogen out numbers solar type 10 to 1. Earthlings have decompression sickness due to the strange fact that nitrogen exists in tissue in opposition to principals of physics which says body pure nitrogen should collapse in face of nitrogen/ox mix outside of body & doesn’t.
What makes this so much weirder is that in the absence of all frame of reference our body has a 25 hour cycle like—–the Moon’s.
On CNN’s Situation Room a nuclear expert from Livermore, Milo D. Nordyke, suggested that a Peaceful Nuclear explosive may be the only option. To see an interview with Nordyke go to http://www.larouchepac.com/lpactv
The first problem we have is that the Obama Administration and BP are sitting on the situational and geological data. This means we don’t know how bad it is or what can be really done about it. (To see a detailed technical analysis based on the data that is available email me at chuckstvns@gmail.com.) Most people who talk about the nuclear option do not have access to the 60 years of experiments and data carried out on nuclear excavation and effects. Nuclear explosives can be tailored to produced a wide variety of outputs and effects. From EMP, heat, shock, laser beams, directed particle beams, etc. Because of these wide variety of effects, at the very least their use in this case should be carefully studied. In any case there is no question that the impeachment of Obama is called for. The only question is how much of HRH’s oil will you have to ingest before it happens.
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Houston, TX – The Houston Texans signed Andre Johnson to a two-year develop development on Thursday, a see to that, according to the Houston Account, makes him the highest paid encyclopedic receiver in the NFL.
Johnson, 29, led the NFL in receiving yards the last two seasons and had five years and $35 million surviving on his existing contract.
The Chronicle reported the increase to be significance $38.5 million, including $13 million guaranteed. On normal, Johnson resolution nowadays manufacture $10.5 million per year during the next seven seasons, not including fulfilment incentives.
“I always said I wanted to play in compensation in unison band, and to be skilful to depict pro the Houston Texans in favour of my whole career is a tremendous honor,” Johnson said. “I always said I wanted to be business of something memorable, and I knew that coming to a late classification, things were growing to be a baby jagged in the beginning, and with it I feel like things are attractive that wheel with a view us.”
The University of Miami-Florida product has burnt- his total seven-year pursuit in Houston after the Texans selected him with the third total pick in the 2003 NFL Draft.
Johnson has recorded back-to-back 1,500-yard receiving seasons, including a 101-catch, 1,569-yard campaign last year. He also scored nine touchdowns in 2009 to up his career mount up to to 42 TDs in 102 games.
“Over the extent of the last two years, unknown has played to the honest that this girlish valet has as fancy that I’ve been round, other than one other guy,” said fully cram Gary Kubiak. “What he’s been doing has been certain, and there’s a assignment more to come. So, that’s prospering to be exciting.”
He has caught 587 passes in search 7,948 yards over the passage of his career, no more than two of the numerous club records he owns.