Below is a GRACE satellite map. The Earth looks like a warty ball, with red bumps and blue pits that represent measured fluctuations in the planet’s gravity. Note Greenland in the red. We’ve covered GRACE before, suggesting it may not be a good tool to measure ice loss in Greenland. See this WUWT story.
The red spots represent measurements where Earth’s gravity is stronger. The blue ones are where it is measured to be weaker. The universal force of gravity itself does not vary, but the pits and bumps are a local indication that Earth’s mass distribution isn’t smooth and uniform. As seen on the image above, tectonic mountain building in South America produces red zones; elsewhere, tectonic movements produce thin, blue, ones.
Even more interesting is the fact that the map changes over time, Earth as we know is not static.
CO2 science reviews this new paper, which suggests that for sea level rise and ocean mass, the signal to noise ratio is high low and adjustments further complicate the issue. It also suggests some studies aren’t appropriately correcting for these issues. For example, GRACE measurements related to Greenland and West Antarctica (which we also criticized in WUWT here and here):
“…non-ocean signals, such as in the Indian Ocean due to the 2004 Sumatran-Andean earthquake, and near Greenland and West Antarctica due to land signal leakage, can also corrupt the ocean trend estimates.”
Ocean Mass Trends (and Sea Level Estimates) from GRACE Reference
Quinn, K.J. and Ponte, R.M. 2010. Uncertainty in ocean mass trends from GRACE. Geophysical Journal International 181: 762-768.
Background
The authors write that “ocean mass, together with steric sea level, are the key components of total observed sea level change,” and that “monthly observations from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) can provide estimates of the ocean mass component of the sea level budget, but full use of the data requires a detailed understanding of its errors and biases.”
What was done
In an effort designed to provide some of that “detailed understanding” of GRACE’s “errors and biases,” Quinn and Ponte conducted what they describe as “a detailed analysis of processing and post-processing factors affecting GRACE estimates of ocean mass trends,” by “comparing results from different data centers and exploring a range of post-processing filtering and modeling parameters, including the effects of geocenter motion, PGR [postglacial rebound], and atmospheric pressure.”
What was learned
The two researchers report that the mean ocean mass trends they calculated “vary quite dramatically depending on which GRACE product is used, which adjustments are applied, and how the data are processed.” More specifically, they state that “the PGR adjustment ranges from 1 to 2 mm/year, the geocenter adjustment may have biases on the order of 0.2 mm/year, and the atmospheric mass correction may have errors of up to 0.1 mm/year,” while “differences between GRACE data centers are quite large, up to 1 mm/year, and differences due to variations in the processing may be up to 0.5 mm/year.”
What it means
In light of the fact that Quinn and Ponte indicate that “over the last century, the rate of sea level rise has been only 1.7 ± 0.5 mm/year, based on tide gauge reconstructions (Church and White, 2006),” it seems a bit strange that one would ever question that result on the basis of a GRACE-derived assessment, with its many and potentially very large “errors and biases.” In addition, as Ramillien et al. (2006) have noted, “the GRACE data time series is still very short,” and results obtained from it “must be considered as preliminary since we cannot exclude that apparent trends [derived from it] only reflect inter-annual fluctuations.” And as Quinn and Ponte also add, “non-ocean signals, such as in the Indian Ocean due to the 2004 Sumatran-Andean earthquake, and near Greenland and West Antarctica due to land signal leakage, can also corrupt the ocean trend estimates.”
Clearly, the GRACE approach to evaluating ocean mass and sea level trends still has a long way to go — and must develop a long history of data acquisition — before it can ever be considered a reliable means of providing assessments of ocean mass and sea level change that are accurate enough to detect an anthropogenic signal that could be confidently distinguished from natural variability.
References
Church, J.A. and White, N.J. 2006. A 20th-century acceleration in global sea-level rise. Geophysical Research Letters 33: 10.1029/2005GL024826.
Ramillien, G., Lombard, A., Cazenave, A., Ivins, E.R., Llubes, M., Remy, F. and Biancale, R. 2006. Interannual variations of the mass balance of the Antarctica and Greenland ice sheets from GRACE. Global and Planetary Change 53: 198-208.
For information, GRACE consist of two satellites, which follow each other and their mutual distance is measured with extremely high precision. The idea of GRACE is, that when passing more mass beneath, stronger gravity delays the leading satellite and the distance shrinks a bit and vice versa.
Anthony,
“CO2 science reviews this new paper, which suggests that for sea level rise and ocean mass, the signal to noise ratio is high and adjustments further complicate the issue. ”
I don’t think “high” is the adjective you intended to use in that sentence. A high signal to noise ratio is a good thing – much more signal than noise.
REPLY: thanks for pointing out my error. You are correct, fixed, Anthony
Anthony- “…the signal to noise ratio is high and adjustments further complicate the issue.”
I think you meant to say the signal to noise ratio is low, or poor.
It is very difficult to measure changes in total ice volume when the changes are in the low ppm/year, and the uncertainties are in the ppm/year. On the other hand, it creates lots of opportunities for interpretive shenanigans to support a policy position.
The force of gravity itself does not vary
It does!, as the image itself shows it. It can be, say, 9.79, 9.81, (acceleration in m/sec.sq.)
REPLY: I agree, poor wording. I was talking about it in the broader sense, I’ll make it clearer. – Anthony
IOW, GRACE is GROSS.
“The force of gravity itself does not vary, but it is an indication that Earth’s mass distribution isn’t smooth and uniform.”
Sure it varies. That’s exactly what the map shows. That’s what the satellites are measuring.
REPLY: I wasn’t clear with the original sentence, a bob-boo on my part due to starting the post, getting interrupted by a phone call, and coming back to it. I’ve clarified it now. – Anthony
There is strong correlation between North Atlantic Temperature anomaly and the gravity/magnetic anomaly in the Hudson Bay region.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NATA.htm
They don’t even know the neutral density of the atmosphere at that altitude, so the drag could vary considerably.
Environmentalists have attempted to use the GRACE satellites to claim water levels in Indian aquafers could no longer sustain rice crops.
With GRACE like that, who needs ill favor?
“”” Enneagram says:
July 20, 2010 at 2:27 pm
The force of gravity itself does not vary
It does!, as the image itself shows it. It can be, say, 9.79, 9.81, (acceleration in m/sec.sq.) “””
Not according to my Physical Chemistry Book.
It says that ( g ) is 9.80665 and THAT IS AN EXACT VALUE ! ( ms^-2 )
But what of the surface of the ocean; is it in hydrostatic equilibrium.
Gravity is supposed to be stronger at the poles since one is closer to the earth center; so does water run “downhill” from the equator; does the rotation create a equatorial hill that water runs off or dows all that shape the surface to a gravitationally level surface so water doesn’t tend to run anywhere ?
When attempting to quantify the gravitational effects of the Earth as a function of position (i.e., model the Earth’s gravitational effects), measurements are made of entities that are affected by the Earth’s gravitation. A model is then constructed that couples quantitative values of the model parameters to those measurements. Values for the model parameters are then estimated that in some sense “best fit” the measurements. Three commonly used “best fit” criteria are: (1) weighted-least-squares (WLS), (2) maximum likelihood (ML), and (3) minimum variance (MV). As I understand it, provided the errors associated with the measurements are zero mean and Gaussianly distributed with known standard deviations, all three “best fit” criteria will produce the same estimates of the model parameters. However, if the measurement errors aren’t Gaussian with known standard deviations, the three “best fit” criteria will give different estimates of the model parameters.
No matter which “best fit” criterion is used, when estimating the values of model parameters from a set of measurements, all models contain three kinds of parameters: (1) model parameters that are exactly known (called constants), (2) model parameters that are treated as known but are in fact estimates (often called “Q-parameters” or “consider parameters”), and (3) model parameters (sometimes called “P-parameters”) whose values are to be estimated from the measurements. Examples of constants are the speed of light in a vacuum, pi, e, etc. Examples of Q-parameters are the total mass of the Earth, the force on an orbiting object from the solar wind, the force on an object from friction, the mass and position of the moon, etc. In theory, the state of knowledge of the Q-parameters can be expressed as a correlation matrix. In practice, it is sometimes the case that the diagonal elements of the Q-parameter correlation matrix are known fairly well, but many off-diagonal terms are unknown. The model Q-parameters will have various effects on the measurements–ranging from negligible to significant. For example, an error in the position of Pluto may have a negligible effect on the measurements while an error is the solar wind may have a significant effect.
When using measurements to estimate P-parameters values, the Q-parameters are often treated as constants–i.e., uncertainties in their values are ignored. This is a common practice and works in many applications. However, when characterizing the accuracy of the P-parameter estimates (i.e., quantifying the P-parameter uncertainties), it is often critical to include the Q-parameter uncertainties. Ignoring these uncertainties often leads to P-parameter estimated errors that are significantly smaller (better) than their actual errors.
For the GRACE system to generate estimates of the change in ice volume over areas of the Earth’s surface, a model must exist that couples ice-change to the measurements made by the GRACE system. Because in practice it is often impossible to treat every component of a model as a P-parameter, expect the GRACE system model that relates model parameter values to GRACE system measurements will undoubtedly contain both constants and Q-parameters. Any discussion of the accuracy of the GRACE system in estimating the change in ice volume must include a discussion of all model Q-parameters. Maybe they have, but I doubt it. Experience has taught me (a) a full treatment of Q-parameter effects on P-parameter estimates is seldom performed, and (b) that without such a treatment, reported P-parameter accuracies are often meaningless.
Bottom line, given the preponderance of funding to find any evidence that supports global warming, at this point in time I’m skeptical that the GRACE system can determine, for example, Greenland ice loss/gain to any meaningful accuracy.
The universal force of gravity itself does not vary, but the pits and bumps are a local indication that Earth’s mass distribution isn’t smooth and uniform. . . . Even more interesting is the fact that the map changes over time, Earth as we know is not static.
Gravity is a curvature of space-time that just looks like a force. The GRACE satellites use a 1-dimensional distance to map a 4-dimensional entity, and that takes a lot of assumptions plugged into computers to get answers. Gravity field changes measurable at the resolution you get with GRACE take geological time scales, and the satellites have been up only a brief time. The only map changes you will see are increased resolution as more passes build up the database.
If you want to measure the force aspect of gravity directly, you can use gravimeters, which have much higher accuracy, one millionth of a ‘g’ for a coffee can sized portable one. I recall that they can tell the difference between the top and the bottom of a step ladder.
GRACE has the advantage of quick worldwide coverage, but it’s measuring the field several hundred miles above the earth, hundreds of miles away from the Greenland ice cap. Only a surface based gravimeter survey could provide the accuracy needed to measure ice cap mass changes.
Anthony,
Gravity is a curvature of space-time in the presence of mass, not a “force”, as I am sure you are aware. The curvature varies with the mass since there is no elemental force of gravity as was believed by Newton. If we think of it properly, there is no mistake. Of course mass is also itself relativistic, rest mass visa vi mass in motion and the energy/mass imparted to such a system. So, the entire analysis per GRACE is somewhat more complicated and less enlightening, to me at least, particularly given the signal to noise situation involved per the above. Not sure any of this GRACE stuff is of much practical use or can really be shown to have any effect on climate.
Thanks for the gravity lesson, but I was thinking in Newtonian terms, not Einsteinian.
I may be being terribly dim here but aren’t these coupled satellites measuring, (allegedly) changes in gravity?
What effect does the recent “unprecedented” collapse of the
Ionosphere /Thermosphere have on the measurements?Even, leaving aside the paper’s criticisms, it appears the data is of no use to measure ice anywhere.
I bet I f’d up the strike thing again. Sigh.
“Gravity is a curvature of space-time that just looks like a force.”
Actually “gravity is due to radially oriented electrostatic dipoles inside the Earth’s protons, neutrons and electrons.” Therefore, “If the electric field within the Earth changes, the amount of this dipolar distortion will change and the force of its gravity will change.”
Hope that helps.
“Electric Gravity” and “Newton’s Electric Clockwork Solar System,” by Wal Thornhill
“GRACE-derived assessment, with its many and potentially very large “errors and biases.”
So NASA spends $100 million putting two tinker toys in orbit
and the data they send back really means nothing
Maybe social services wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
@ Zeke the Sneak July 20, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Why would they need to know the neutral density of the atmosphere? How would that affect one satellite and not the other?
From the paper you cite by Quinn and Ponte –
“Perhaps the most significant development of recent years is the realization that mass contributions from land ice have contributed to contemporary SLR much more than assumed just five years ago. Related to this finding is the fact that large polar ice sheets appear to be much more sensitive to surface warming than previously realized, such that surprisingly large dynamical changes are now being observed on the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets.”
There is nothing in this paper that appears very encouraging from a denier’s point of view. I am surprised you chose it as an example of “doubt and error” in the climate community.
REPLY: “GeoFlynx” if you call me a “denier” again, I will ban you.
Trollbox for you until you apologize
– Anthony
This is from the “flintstones universe”, directly from “The Twilight zone”:
Gravity is a curvature of space-time that just looks like a force
In 50 – 100 years or so, maybe this will have produced enough data to tell us something. Or not. I won’t be hear except in component form. So I won’t care and will never know.
Zeke the Sneak says:
July 20, 2010 at 4:01 pm
“Gravity is a curvature of space-time that just looks like a force.”
You are right. Excuse them, they are a production “Hanna-Barbera”, Characters of the Flintstones Universe, they believe in a universe made out from round stones and where phantoms like anti-matter, black holes exist. However their time is over.
So, as these satellites are travelling around the Earth, how do they account for the gravity effects of the moon, planets, sun, etc?
Even if the more distant objects have no or little effect, surely the moon must have to be accounted for if they are measuring gravity to such fine tolerances.
Great article and i love how the readers dont let you get away with anything!!!!
REPLY: thanks, our readers, with the exception of a few trolls, are generally pretty sharp- Anthony
Thanks for the discussion. Reed Coray and Mike McMillan give a clear description, that for that too. My experience with gravity is confined to mineral and petroleum exploration. Useful tool but not in any way, shape or form definitive. I have often wished it was so but it is not. No geophysical remote sensing tool to data has replaced direct measurements. Given the gravity texture of the underlying structures and the scales at which they exist, combined with the texture of the surface and attempting to map on near continent wide basis; I think it will be a long, long time before any results like ice thickness from GRACE can be trusted.
“”” Zeke the Sneak says:
July 20, 2010 at 4:01 pm
“Gravity is a curvature of space-time that just looks like a force.”
Actually “gravity is due to radially oriented electrostatic dipoles inside the Earth’s protons, neutrons and electrons.” Therefore, “If the electric field within the Earth changes, the amount of this dipolar distortion will change and the force of its gravity will change.” “””
That’s wonderful; we know that electrostatic forces can both attract and repel; so if your theory is correct; then one must be able to get gravity to push, as well as pull.
If that were the case; then we really wouldn’t need any energy at all.
We know how to completely shield from the EM forces; but so far we haven’t found any gravity shields. Gravity does have infinite range like EM does.
Does the GRACE team also have contemporaneous high accuracy surface atmospheric pressure measurements to compensate for the inverse barometer effect on the sea surface level? Come to think of it they would also require contemporaneous surface wind measurements in order to work out how the wind has piled the water up against coasts etc.
I’m willing to bet they model this if they bother correcting at all. Another source of some (relatively) big errors ( 1 millibar = 1 cm change in sea level).
I think the important thing to remember in all this “expert knowledge” that is pushed on us everyday is that these so-called experts are only specialists, not really experts, and they know a lot less than they let on.
Their fancy and expensive tools help them learn a bit more, but they still don’t know it all, and each and every one of them suffer from tunnel vision. Everything they say should be viewed with skepticism. It is foolish to do otherwise.
Alex Buddery says:
July 20, 2010 at 4:05 pm
@ Zeke the Sneak July 20, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Why would they need to know the neutral density of the atmosphere? How would that affect one satellite and not the other?
As you know the two GRACE satellites fly in tandem, measuing minute accelerations between them. This assumes that the acceleration was due to gravitational forces acting on the first sattelite.
However, important questions concerning the density of the thermosphere and nongravitational accelerations need to be addressed. Satellite drag could vary with solar activity or Joule heating in the 120-600 km region. Thank you.
read more here:
http://lws-trt.gsfc.nasa.gov/trt04_Crowley.pdf
George E. Smith says:
July 20, 2010 at 4:20 pm
“That’s wonderful; we know that electrostatic forces can both attract and repel; so if [this] theory is correct; then one must be able to get gravity to push, as well as pull.”
The Electric Gravity theory does not say that gravity itself is electrostatic force. It says that subatomic particles are distorted by the electrostatic force, with the inner pole positive and the outer pole negative. In this way, they all weakly line up. “Since the particles are free to rotate, their dipoles will line up and the weak dipole force of each particle will add up to produce the effect of gravity.”
In general relativity, gravity is a pseudo-force in the sense it doesn’t accelerate it follows geodesics in spacetime.
In Newtonian gravity, i.e, in the framework where objects accelerate,
F_gravity= G*M*n/r^2where G is the universal gravitational constant.The force of gravity varies on the Earth because the mass is not homogeneous and it’s not a sphere.
The
F_gravity=m*gequation where g is a constant assumes the earth is homogeneous, uniform and spherical, and all the mass can be concentrated at the center (which is close enough for undergraduate physics courses.)g is not a universal constant.
Reed Coray says:
July 20, 2010 at 3:38 pm
“Experience has taught me (a) a full treatment of Q-parameter effects on P-parameter estimates is seldom performed, and (b) that without such a treatment, reported P-parameter accuracies are often meaningless. ”
I agree totally! And this applies not just to GRACE measurements. In many cases, even the distinction between P and Q parameters is blurred to get the “results” that agenda-driven “science” is looking for. This leads to a lot of hoopla (and hooey) about noise subjected to oh-so-sophisticated treatment.
The article fails to tell the whole story from Church and White 2006:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2005GL024826.shtml
“Here, we extend the reconstruction of global mean sea level back to 1870 and find a sea-level rise from January 1870 to December 2004 of 195 mm, a 20th century rate of sea-level rise of 1.7 ± 0.3 mm yr−1 and a significant acceleration of sea-level rise of 0.013 ± 0.006 mm yr−2. This acceleration is an important confirmation of climate change simulations which show an acceleration not previously observed. If this acceleration remained constant then the 1990 to 2100 rise would range from 280 to 340 mm, consistent with projections in the IPCC TAR. ”
Has anyone bought and studied this paper ?
Just a small point but the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was the Sumatra – Andaman earthquake not Sumatra – Andean as it is quoted twice in the article. I note it is in quotes in both cases so is the error yours, Anthony, or in the original?
Interesting that you guys are still citing amazing grace despite being refuted
[snip]
Lets not let ice dynamics and glaciology get in the way of the “real” science, shall we?
Grace matches up well with all the other methods of estimation for ice losses.
Okay,
Maybe it can not measure sea ice to any useful degree, but that OP picture is just a “quick render”.
Click to the evil Potsdam Institute:
http://icgem.gfz-potsdam.de/ICGEM/ICGEM.html
Once the fugly, bumpy globe pops up, click to move the globe to the area you want to view, then change the “boost” to 5000 or 2000 and the “grid” to 0.2deg.
When the java finishes rendering the object it should be pretty respectable (But slow…)
When you zoom in on an area of area of interest, you can turn the “boost” back up to see more detail. I am not sure if it is a tool, but it is not too bad.
What about the GPS measurements of crustal uplift that support GRACE measurements of the loss of ice mass? Nothing like two independent methods cross validating each other.
O/T but pertinent:
20 July: The Atlantic: IPCC Chief Says Grassroots Must Lead on Climate Action
Rajendra Pachauri, the occasionally controversial head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that climate action would have to bubble up from the bottom, rather than coming down from on high.
“I really think the time has come for us to build from bottom to top. There is enough initiative in different countries that all this will bubble up and perhaps lead to an accord,” Pachauri told The Atlantic during a break at the Clean Energy Ministerial meeting convened by the Department of Energy. “I think the drive really has to come from communities, from the grassroots level, and the public at large.”…
But no international accord has come together, and climate legislation remains stalled in Congress. Maybe that’s why Pachauri is sounding the grassroots note: twisting the arms of national leaders just hasn’t worked
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2010/07/ipcc-chief-says-grassroots-must-lead-on-climate-action/60120/
I get the feeling we’re going to see another “trick” to make the data look the way they want it to look.
Amazing GRACE alooking down,
you’re checking gravity.
We thought you were the boss
but not if earth’s not round.
We’ll all just wait and see.
Dr A Burns says: July 20, 2010 at 5:10 pm
. . . a 20th century rate of sea-level rise of 1.7 ± 0.3 mm yr−1 and a significant acceleration of sea-level rise of 0.013 ± 0.006 mm yr−2. This acceleration is an important confirmation of climate change simulations which show an acceleration not previously observed. If this acceleration remained constant then the 1990 to 2100 rise would range from 280 to 340 mm, consistent with projections in the IPCC TAR.”
The CSIRO paper abstract indicates an unending increase in sea-level rise rate is needed to prove TAR correct, and that we’re all doomed, grant please. But a one foot rise in more than a century is not going to put the Maldives or Holland out of business.
Since 1993, the Jason/Topex satellites have measured an unaccelerated rise rate of 3.2mm/year, which will give us the bottom of the CSIRO rise by 2100. If the IPCC TAR used sophisticated climate models to predict what a grade schooler could have found with straightedge, I can’t see what we’re paying them for.
Neither does a 13 hundredths of a mm acceleration rate teased out of noisy ancient tide records stand up to the quality of the Jason/Topex ongoing series, which doesn’t show any overall acceleration.
As Agile Aspect points out, g isn’t a constant.
Yet, though the oceans as mass are fluid, they principally occupy the same space within tidal changes and currents until a glacial.
Isn’t the magnetic core principally responsible for changes in the gravitational field and polarity flips from N to S?
Wait a sec? you snipped all the evidence refuting this one? including the 3 skeptical science posts this past week on this very subject? There was nothing offensive in the comment, THAT is censoring to try and keep from getting refuted. I expected better than that.
REPLY: Robert, Anthony here. Not sure what you are referring to. I’m a bit out of the loop on this, when did this happen? I just approved one below, is that what you are referring to? – Anthony
UPDATE: I now see the comment above, snipped by another moderator. Not sure why. But links have been provided by John Cook below. -Anthony
http://www .skepticalscience.com/Part-Three-Response-to-Goddard.html
Now are you going to snip the above website? I think that when a response on a similar subject has been shown then I have every right to present it. There are certainly lots of people who post links that get through, why does this one not? Is it because it refutes the amazing grace analysis and has not/cannot be responded to because it is correct?
[Reply: You are putting up other blogs to do your arguing for you. -1 for laziness. Make your own arguments here. ~dbs, Mod.]
BTW the link in your post above is broken, becuase you added a space between www and the period. Would you like me to fix it for you?
Thanks, Anthony, for this post. This topic drew out new commenters which is great and reminded me of the paucity of my scientific knowledge. I’m inspired to learn more.
Note that this study applies to measurements of ocean mass, not land ice. There are multiple measurements of ice loss from Antarctica and Greenland – both GRACE satellite data and a number of other independent measurements which all find consistent rates of ice loss. Some good summaries of the full body of evidence can be found at:
[snip. repeatedly flogging your blog is at least immodest. ~dbs, mod.]
Hi John,
Just a short question, do you spend most of your time at WAU with the “Skeptical Science” blog now? It seems like it has become full time.
Also, who funded those handouts in Perth?
The GRACE satellites travel through the thermosphere (500km above ground) and Solomon recently showed large unexpected changes in the thermosphere over recent years. Does anybody with the appropriate brain power know whether this will have any effect on the satellites?
REPLY: Well for one thing, less drag as the thermosphere shrinks, more drag as it expands -Anthony
Anthony Watts says:
July 20, 2010 at 7:17 pm
Antony are you looking for nefarious actions here? The quest for morale authority by both sides of this debate is one of it’s less appeals aspects.
REPLY: Huh, no, Just curious. I don’t know much about Skeptical Science, I don’t know if it is university funded, privately funded, NGO sponsored, or if John just does it all on his own like I do with WUWT. Since he seems to have some things that would cost serious money, like that iPhone app, it’s an honest question. – Anthony
Sorry Anthonthy- no insult intended. What does your group wish to be called?
REPLY: skeptics
“Well for one thing, less drag as the thermosphere shrinks, more drag as it expands ”
Thanks for the reply. But it just highlights I asked the wrong question. I meant if it has any affect on the data?
I have to agree with John Cook. This quote from your article jumped out as a bit misleading when I read it.
“It also suggests some studies aren’t appropriately correcting for these issues. For example, GRACE measurements related to Greenland and West Antarctica”
The paper CO2 science highlights only discusses GRACE sea level estimates. The quote you use from the paper suggests what is happening in Greenland and Antarctica is affecting this measurement not that the Greenland and Antarctic data is in someway inaccurate itself. That may be true or not but it’s not what this paper is describing.
pat says:
July 20, 2010 at 6:28 pm
O/T but pertinent:
20 July: The Atlantic: IPCC Chief Says Grassroots Must Lead on Climate Action….
But no international accord has come together, and climate legislation remains stalled in Congress. Maybe that’s why Pachauri is sounding the grassroots note: twisting the arms of national leaders just hasn’t worked.
_______________________________________________________
Pachauri is not talking about real grassroots, he is talking about the UN lead NGOs. A few years ago I traced another “grassroots” initiative straight back to the UN.
dp says:
July 20, 2010 at 6:49 pm
I get the feeling we’re going to see another “trick” to make the data look the way they want it to look.
_____________________________________________________________
We have already seen what a mess can be made with something as simple as a thermometer reading. This is vastly more complicated from what I have read here so far, so it is certainly open to “misinterpretation.” Like the temperature data, I think the error is going to be larger than is publicly acknowledge.
John Cook and skepticalscience.com are entirely correct.
Temperature has nothing to do with ice melting.
Obviously, only CO2 (and climate scientists) can make ice melt.
And there were no icebergs in 1912 when the Titanic sank because CO2 was only 300 ppm at the time and the CO2 forcing was only 0.4 watts/m2 and temperatures were 0.8C less than today.
Its not like 3.8 km high glaciers push out to the sea and eventually break off or anything (caused by gravity which is what this post is all about). Now if temperatures are -50C at the 3.8 km high peak and -10C where they break off as icebergs, CO2 will still cause the ice to melt.
skepticalscience is different than logical science.
Plate tectonics and continental drift were refuted for 70 years, because most scientists believed that the earth was rigid and fixed. The same mistake which some people are making to arrive at incorrect interpretations of GRACE data.
Anyone who has studied geology knows that it can vary considerably over even very short distances. Yet GRACE interpreters delude themselves into believing that the earth is steady and fixed over vast distances underneath the ice and oceans.
The Skeptical Front of Judea…a pox on those buggers from the Judean Popular Skeptics Front.
Zeke the Sneak says:
July 20, 2010 at 4:01 pm
“Gravity is a curvature of space-time that just looks like a force.”
Actually “gravity is due to radially oriented electrostatic dipoles inside the Earth’s protons, neutrons and electrons.” Therefore, “If the electric field within the Earth changes, the amount of this dipolar distortion will change and the force of its gravity will change.”
Hope that helps.
“Electric Gravity” and “Newton’s Electric Clockwork Solar System,” by Wal Thornhill
Since you seem to seriously considering this proposal I find it necessary to stress, for the people who are not scientifically oriented and are reading this blog that there is no iota of scientific proof in the statement you propose.
Therefore it should be treated as science fiction at best.
For science fiction I recommend the series of books by Terry Prachett on Diskworld, a delightful universe he has invented where gravity does amazing things.Fun for satire, but it would be impossible to be taken seriously.
“Gravity is a curvature of space-time that just looks like a force.” is what has been verified experimentally at the moment. The statement might change in the future, but it will change in the way Newtonian statements have changed with the emergence of general relativity, become incorporated in a more encompassing theory.
Dr A Burns
Is there any real need to be particularly worried about a 28 to 34 cm rise in Sea Level by 2100? Surely that is somethng that the human race can adapt to!
What we can take from the study if you are correct is that the mean 20th C rate of SL rise is not worse than was previously thought, that the acceleration is no worse than previously thought, and that the projection for the future it is probably in the lower portion of the IPCC estimate range.
Given that the global ocean does not appear to have gained much heat since about 2003 or so I suspect there will be a leveling off in the rate of SL rise. Not much to be truely alarmed about.
anna v says:
“Since you seem to seriously considering this proposal I find it necessary to stress, for the people who are not scientifically oriented and are reading this blog that there is no iota of scientific proof in the statement you propose.”
“In 1850, Faraday performed experiments trying to link gravity with electromagnetism that were unsuccessful. However, his conviction remained: “The long and constant persuasion that all the forces of nature are mutually dependent, having one common origin, or rather being different manifestations of one fundamental power, has often made me think on the possibility of establishing, by experiment, a connection between gravity and electricity …no terms could exaggerate the value of the relation they would establish.”[12]
Faraday’s estimate of the importance of such a connection still stands. Today, there are a number of scholars pursuing this obvious line of inquiry. After all, the electrical and gravitational forces share fundamental characteristics—they both diminish with the inverse square of the distance; they are both proportional to the product of the interacting masses or charges; and both forces act along the line between them.”
~Wal Thornhill
@ Zeke the Sneak July 20, 2010 at 4:33 pm
“However, important questions concerning the density of the thermosphere and non-gravitational accelerations need to be addressed.”
They have accelerometers to adjust for external gravitational forces. Different external effects will cause different changes in acceleration (this is commonly used in process control to assess the origin of a signal). The work you refer to uses the data to calculate the neutral density. There is still improvement to be done but you don’t get anywhere unless you try.
@ John Trigge July 20, 2010 at 4:15 pm
You ask about external influences and specifically about the moon. You can calculate the influence of the moon yourself using acceleration = Gm/r^2. The worst case scenario would be when the two satellites have the biggest difference in their distance from the moon. This would be when they are travelling away from the moon and at their furthest distance apart (270km). Taking into account the distance of the earth’s centre from the centre of the moon and their height above the earth one would be about 384.465 and the other about 384.736 million meters away from the moon. Taking into account the mass of the moon as 7.35×10^22 kg the difference in the acceleration due to the moon’s gravity over the distance of 270km is about 4.77 billionth of the acceleration due to the earths gravity. As the satellites are trying to measure to an accuracy of 1 millionth of the acceleration of the earths gravity the moon would create a maximum error of about 0.5% of the measured value. This error, even though it can just be ignored, is quite predictable however. For unpredictable errors there are accelerometers on board. The nature of the signal will then give an idea of its source. For example high frequency erratic acceleration will probably be caused by wind.
Did you actually read the paper that you pretended to criticize?
ftp://ftp.csr.utexas.edu/pub/ggfc/papers/ngeo694.pdf
They specifically consider Post Glacial Rebound in their analysis.
Please attempt to accurately describe the research that you pretend to judge.
Zeke the Sneak says:
July 20, 2010 at 10:25 pm
Zeke,
The unification of all “forces” is the holy grail of current theoretical research. The difference with the quote you give is that the effort is not ad hoc, with whatever interesting “model” flies through one’s brain, ignoring the data of centuries that have been organized in very useful theories, and the inevitable non sequiturs that come from that.
The current effort to unify all known forces and incorporate the old theories are the string theories, the only ones that allow for quantization of gravity. They look hopeful but it will be a long time before experimental tests will be able to uphold or reject them.
There are lovely models in science fiction, as I said the Diskworld of Terry Pratchett, where the world is a disk carried on the back of four elephants that have to lift a leg when the sun comes under it :). The whole is resting on the turtle which swims in the vacuum. In the same way one has to suspend knowledge of the current world to enjoy the science fiction world, one would have to suspend knowledge of the real data to entertain models like the one you quote.
anna v says: “There is no iota of scientific proof in the statement you propose. Therefore it should be treated as science fiction at best.”
Electric Gravity theory states in part that:
1. There are alternative explanations for the proofs offered for Einstein’s theory of gravity, ie the bending of light and Mercury’s orbit.
2. Insoluble mysteries for current understandings of gravity include: Astronomical Unit (AU) inflation, Lunar eccentricity, the ‘Pioneer Anomaly’, and oddball orbits.
“Surprise results are a signal that our understanding of the problem is faulty. We should be re-examining the assumptions that underpin our models rather than adding more complexity to patch over the cracks.” ~Wal Thornhill
It is true that Electric Gravity challenges Einstein’s theories. But it is now high time for that; if to do so is “science fiction” in some people’s minds, so be it.
Chris Noble
The fact that someone says they are making an attempt to do something does not mean they are doing it either correctly or in a meaningful fashion.
Why is it that the same people who nitpick about the most trivial details here, are willing to blindly accept AGW BS without the even the most simple questioning or doubt?
Because it is a faith based religion.
Chris Noble says:
July 20, 2010 at 10:35 pm
In the previous thread linked above, there was extensive discussion of the lack of taking into account tectonic changes and volcanic ones too. Ice rebounds are not even half of the story. If one looks at the warty globe above, one sees large variations due to tectonic motions all over the globe, where no ice was. The antarctic and the arctic are not immune to these motions, and subject only to ice rebound and pressure changes. There are too many variables with too few equations to be able to solve for ice thickness using the GRACE data.
If I was unclear, Electric Gravity does not attempt to find a holy grail. As I understand, it makes a strong and detailed case that mass is an electrically variable property of matter, and that gravity is happening at a subatomic level.
Zeke the Sneak says:
July 20, 2010 at 11:25 pm
It is true that Electric Gravity challenges Einstein’s theories. But it is now high time for that; if to do so is “science fiction” in some people’s minds, so be it.
What you and the people peddling their pet theories refuse to see is that the known world is influenced by four forces, not only by gravity and electromagnetism. ( btw the Kaluza Klein theory had unified those, I think before the war, but fails to take into account weak and stong forces as we have extensively measured and observed).
Many attracted by the glory of defeating Einstein go around like Don Quixote tilting at windmills.
Electromagnetism in the gauge theory formulation of Maxwell gave the input to unify all three forces, electromagnetism, weak and strong in what are called gauge theories that have been verified beautifully with the experiments at LEP, in CERN the past decades.
Theorists trying to include gravity in, and gravity is also a gauge theory, and unify all four forces had the problem that gravity’s infinities could not be compensated/calculated. This is due to the nature of gravity: no antigravity.
Until string theories.
In a nutshell, from string theories the standard particle model comes out naturally and at the same time gravity is included and quantized.
Simplified, each particle is a vibrational mode on a string ( the music of the spheres).
There is a long way to go until this string dream is verified, but at least there is no contradiction with existing data from the start.
The problem with ad hoc theories grabbing out of the bag electromagnetism and gravityin order to have the glory of defeating Einstein is that they cannot include/predict the beautiful data for the other two forces, weak and strong.
“What about the GPS measurements of crustal uplift that support GRACE measurements of the loss of ice mass? Nothing like two independent methods cross validating each other.”
Unfortunately there aren’t any GPS measurements where it counts, i. e. under the icecaps. Also note that crustal uplift and loss of ice can but need not be related. In Scandinavia for example uplift is still considerable (up 10 mm/year) more than 10,000 years after the ice melted. Since the ice in Antarctica and Greenland retreated from the continental shelf approximately at the same time uplift round the edges of the icecaps is only to be expected.
Quite amazing that in all the years since Newton we still do not have a solid understanding of the mechanism underpinning his simple gravity equation. Perhaps no surprise then that the GRACE results are less than solid.
One effect not taken into account by the various computer models used by GRACE is gravitomagnetism, and this could further skew the measurements. The NASA satellite, Gravity Probe B, is currently trying to confirm the existance/size of the gravitomagnetic effect, although it seems they could have been beaten to the punch.
“…in a lab in Austria, Martin Tajmar and his team have already succeeded in detecting a faint signal that seems to be due to this elusive component of gravity. A reason for celebration? Not quite. Puzzlingly, the force they seem to have generated is vastly more powerful than anyone else expected.”
New Scientist magazine, 11 November 2006 – “Gravity’s Secret”
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19225771.800-gravitys-secret.html?page=1
Chris Noble says:
“Did you actually read the paper that you pretended to criticize?
ftp://ftp.csr.utexas.edu/pub/ggfc/papers/ngeo694.pdf
They specifically consider Post Glacial Rebound in their analysis.
Please attempt to accurately describe the research that you pretend to judge.”
In that paper they used the IJ05 model for glacial rebound. The paper describing the model (http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=355410&jid=ANS&volumeId=17&issueId=04&aid=355409)
contains this rather significant sentence:
“Our estimate of the error in ice load history is that a one sigma level error is roughly at 50 to 100% for any given
post-LGM time for ice differential thicknesses larger than about 500 m.”
Meaning that the Post Glacial Rebound is rather uncertain, to put things mildly.
Alex Buddery says:
July 20, 2010 at 10:30 pm
Thanks for the data and the explanation.
Now, as tides are caused by the gravity effect of the moon and some tides have a low/high variance of many 10’s of feet (from Wiki: The world’s biggest tidal differential occurs in the Bay of Fundy in Eastern Canada, where the sea level changes by up to 17 meters (55 feet) during the day.) what gravity variances are there due to such huge amounts of sea water moving around?
Does GRACE make allowances for high/low tides?
“Grace matches up well with all the other methods of estimation for ice losses.”
Well it would. Since you cannot use the raw data from GRACE directly, you need to feed it into a computer model to get any results at all. And since GRACE is used to measure ice loss, it would not surprise me at all to discover that the results from GRACE have been calibrated to match the estimate of ice loss from other means. Given that GRACE is not sufficiently accurate to detect known geological features on the surface of planet Earth such as the Mid-Atlantic ridge, it would be extraordinary if it could detect small changes in ice volume over short periods with sufficient accuracy to confirm the existing estimates of ice-loss.
I suspect that the models are merely gross examples of confirmational bias.
I, for one, find it extraordinary that anyone suggest the GRACE measures anything very useful at all. The measurements that GRACE produces (if you assume they have anything like the accuracy suggested) are monitoring the dents in spacetime caused by “gravity” – and are therefore subject to mass changes throughout the entire sphere. At the same time they are influenced by the Sun and the Moon which change the shape of the sphere itself by up to 0.55m at the equator whilst also shifting up to 17m of water across the surface. It would be extremely difficult to extract these effects with the required accuracy to leave you with a distriubtion of the stationary mass at the surface, let alone very small changes in that mass.
Agile Aspect says:
July 20, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Thank you for emphasising the difference between G and g. It’s really elementary physics, shame it’s not so well understood.
I have yet to see an estimate of the spatial resolution of this lettle pair of coupled toys. There is not really a fixed resolution, just a complex reduction of g with distance. Has ontone seen figures like “90% of the instantaneous measured signal comes from an earth area of 100,000 sq km” or whatever?
The ditance measurement between the satellites is so small that puffs of cosmic wind would upset it, or a hit from a micrometeorite. Does anyone know if a correction is applied for turbulence, small though it might be?
Zeke the sneak,
“It is true that Electric Gravity challenges Einstein’s theories. But it is now high time for that; if to do so is “science fiction” in some people’s minds, so be it.”
Challenge by all means, with all scientific rigor. But earlier in your post you asserted the electric dipole theory of gravity as if it was a fact, when it is clearly only a conjecture.
The idea of curved space time acting like a force is difficult to intuit. According to theory, all bodies will move in a straight line through space-time unless acted on by a force. So from this I conclude that when a body curves and accelerates towards a massive object, it is actually moving in a straight line at a constant speed through space-time, so the latter must be curved in some way. Moreover, since acceleration is a function of time, then the rate of time must also be changed by the massive object.
Massive objects do indeed slow time by a small degree. Another prediction of general relativity is that a clock will move from A to B in such a trajectory that the clock will show the smallest elapsed time. This is why a body must fall to earth. If it followed any other trajectory over a given distance, the clock would not show the smallest possible elapsed time.
All these effects of clock changes are built into the GPS system, which compensates for the effects of general relativity. I’m just wondering if this is allowed for in the GRACE system?
George E. Smith says:
July 20, 2010 at 3:16 pm
“”” Enneagram says:
July 20, 2010 at 2:27 pm
The force of gravity itself does not vary
It does!, as the image itself shows it. It can be, say, 9.79, 9.81, (acceleration in m/sec.sq.) “””
Not according to my Physical Chemistry Book.
It says that ( g ) is 9.80665 and THAT IS AN EXACT VALUE ! ( ms^-2 )
Reading this imediately had me reaching for my year 1 physics text book. College Physics by Weber manning & White pp 56 (yes I still have it, and it dates me). It shows g in St Michael, Alaska as 9.822 m/s^2, and Key West Fla as 9.79 m/s^2. Both of these at 1 m elevation. So it appears that back in 1965 g was accepted as not being an exact value.
[Reply: You are putting up other blogs to do your arguing for you. -1 for laziness. Make your own arguments here. ~dbs, Mod.]
Actually, I wrote the articles. -1 for being presumptuous.
UPDATE: I now see the comment above, snipped by another moderator. Not sure why. But links have been provided by John Cook below. -Anthony
followed by:
John Cook
[snip. repeatedly flogging your blog is at least immodest. ~dbs, mod.]
Umm So Anthony approved of the links being shown as provided by me and John Cook and yet they’ve been refuted by the moderator twice now?
Certainly when there has been a response to an article to do with this subject then there is a right to have it posted. Anthony seems to allow individuals to do so but why doesn’t the moderator?
The links are as follows:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Part-One-Why-do-glaciers-lose-ice.html
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Part-2-How-do-we-measure-Antarctic-ice-changes.html
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Part-2-How-do-we-measure-Antarctic-ice-changes.html
REPLY: Robert I’m approving these, but you both really do need to dial it back a bit -1 for being snarky to both 😉 – Anthony
Anthony Watts says:
July 20, 2010 at 7:08 pm
BTW the link in your post above is broken, becuase you added a space between www and the period. Would you like me to fix it for you?
Yeah I figured if I broke the link it might get through the moderation. I know it isn’t your intention to have this whole moderation mess occur with this stuff but unfortunately it has. I tend to like this site for some of the analysis but I have been having a big beef with Goddard’s analysis of Greenland and Antarctica that’s why I posted links to the posts over there which tried to address Goddard’s criticism for Antarctica.
Zeke the Sneak says:
July 20, 2010 at 4:01 pm
…so, ” get me a ground line and I will discharge down that sneaky gravity”
tty says: stuff about uplift.
Wouldn’t uplift result in underestimations of ice losses then with altimetry which measures elevation changes?
George E. Smith says:
July 20, 2010 at 4:20 pm
I think IT IS electrostatic, so you can rub a comb on your sweater and attract small pieces of paper against gravity. To cancel gravity you should find a way to discharge that electrostatic charge to ground, but where is it that ground connection?
@Jantar
So it appears that back in 1965 g was accepted as not being an exact value.
Nope, I studied back in 1958 and my first lab practice on gravity was to measure it letting a ball drop on a inclined plane.
Robert
If Greenland and Antarctica are melting down as GRACE misinterpreters claim, why hasn’t the rate of sea level rise increased? Where is the melt going? Have they defied the laws of conservation of mass?
The fact that we do not understand gravity in this space age should cause alarm. Our cosmology — our view of our situation in the universe — is based on a mystery! The ‘big bang’ is a monumentally expensive work of fiction.
http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=89xdcmfs&pf=YES
Anna, Vince, Zeke,
Thank you, all, for the contributions on relativistic gravity. My original point was that I do not believe that all of the various space-time curvature, relativistic mass changes and time dilations involved in general relativity have been accounted for when thinking of gravity as a “force”. Sorry but I cannot yet buy “electric gravity”. Yes, there may be some missing understanding of gravity given the inability of present physics to combine quantum physics and general relativity or really explain the theorized dark matter or the theorized accelerated expansion of the universe. At the same time Einstein’s theory is at the present time, like Newton’s theory was at his time, the closest experimentally proven theory compared to scientific observations. And I do not believe, correct me if I am wrong, the GRACE information above is taking this all into account. Of course, all of these effects may be so miniscule as to be irrelavent but thinking of gravity as a force leads to missing the point about mass distributions.
PS: Anthony, no offense intended regarding the “gravity lesson”.
stevengoddard says:
July 21, 2010 at 7:57 am
Robert
If Greenland and Antarctica are melting down as GRACE misinterpreters claim, why hasn’t the rate of sea level rise increased? Where is the melt going? Have they defied the laws of conservation of mass?
GeoFlynx – The yearly contributions of melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica, some ~300 gigatonnes, would add .8 mm to sea level rise (my own calculation – maybe not so precise). The error bar for yearly sea level change ranges from .4 mm to .7 mm over a total rise of 2.8 mm/year to 3.1 mm/year (wiki). Perhaps this signal is not so obvious.
GeoFlynx
You seem to be suggesting that the GRACE measurements are in the noise.
REPLY: Robert I’m approving these, but you both really do need to dial it back a bit -1 for being snarky to both 😉 – Anthony
I’ll tone down the snarkiness, people get frustrated from time to time i guess.
stevengoddard says:
July 21, 2010 at 7:57 am
>>If Greenland and Antarctica are melting down as GRACE misinterpreters claim, why hasn’t the rate of sea level rise increased? Where is the melt going? Have they defied the laws of conservation of mass?<<
Cazenave et al. (2009) "We note that land ice plus land waters has
contributed for 75%–85% to recent sea level rise, i.e., significantly
more than during the decade 1993–2003 (Bindoff et al., 2007)."
"Between 1990 and 2003, the IPCC 4th Assessment Report
determined a Glacier and Ice Cap (GIC) contribution to sea level rise
of 0.77+/−0.22 mm/yr (Lemke et al., 2007)."
"Summing the ice sheet and glacier contributions as discussed
above, leads to a total land ice component of 2.1+/−0.25 mm/yr ESL
over 2003–2008."
"we show that recent years sea level rise can be mostly explained by an increase of the mass of the
oceans. Estimating GRACE-based ice sheet mass balance and using published estimates for glaciers melting, we further show that ocean mass increase since 2003 results by about half from an enhanced contribution of the polar ice sheets – compared to the previous decade"
Cazenave et al. 2009 "Sea level budget over 2003–2008: A reevaluation from GRACE space gravimetry, satellite altimetry and Argo"
“”” Enneagram says:
July 21, 2010 at 7:27 am
George E. Smith says:
July 20, 2010 at 4:20 pm
I think IT IS electrostatic, so you can rub a comb on your sweater and attract small pieces of paper against gravity. To cancel gravity you should find a way to discharge that electrostatic charge to ground, but where is it that ground connection? “””
To whom it may concern; please be advised that I SAID NO SUCH THING !!
Please don’t cite something as being something I said; unless you can cut and paste it from something I actually did say.
stevengoddard says:
July 21, 2010 at 7:57 am
>>If Greenland and Antarctica are melting down as GRACE misinterpreters claim, why hasn’t the rate of sea level rise increased? Where is the melt going? Have they defied the laws of conservation of mass?<<
First little note, don't call GRACE scientists misinterpreters, you are the one who FALSELY claimed that east antarctica couldn't be losing ice because it is too cold. You were called out and shown to be wrong but have yet to admit it.
Onto the study,
To clarify, the authors indicate that thermal expansion is contributing far less as ocean heat content has not risen as much as over the previous decade BUT ice sheets have begun to lose mass extensively which has kept the Sea level rise going significantly.
Also before anyone trashes on any of the authors note that people were certainly ready to support berthier’s work (one of the co-authors and a leader in glaciology) when he published a study reducing alaskan glacier losses.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/07/new-study-using-satellite-data-alaskan-glacier-melt-overestimated/
So are we going to be as unbiased as we were then and give the cazenave paper a chance?
I have difficulty grasping the concept that there is a gauge theory for gravity like for the other 3 forces yet gravity is said to create a curvature of spacetime.
Why don’t the other 3 forces bend spacetime – or is the curvature of spacetime an obsolete concept when we talk about gravity as quantum gravity?
IOW, what’s special about gravity when it’s a force transmitted by some bosons just like the others?
“”” Jantar says:
July 21, 2010 at 5:37 am
George E. Smith says:
July 20, 2010 at 3:16 pm
“”” Enneagram says:
July 20, 2010 at 2:27 pm
The force of gravity itself does not vary
It does!, as the image itself shows it. It can be, say, 9.79, 9.81, (acceleration in m/sec.sq.) “””
Not according to my Physical Chemistry Book.
It says that ( g ) is 9.80665 and THAT IS AN EXACT VALUE ! ( ms^-2 )
Reading this imediately had me reaching for my year 1 physics text book. College Physics by Weber manning & White pp 56 (yes I still have it, and it dates me). It shows g in St Michael, Alaska as 9.822 m/s^2, and Key West Fla as 9.79 m/s^2. Both of these at 1 m elevation. So it appears that back in 1965 g was accepted as not being an exact value. “””
Perhaps one of us, may be having some problems with the English Language.
“””””” Not according to my Physical Chemistry Book.
It says that ( g ) is 9.80665 and THAT IS AN EXACT VALUE ! ( ms^-2 ) “”””””
That is an exact cut and paste from my post; so it IS what I wrote; and it IS what you extracted; so what part of it do you have a problem with ??
The “Physical Chemistry Book” to which I referred is:- “Physical Chemistry” ninth edition authored by Peter Atkins and Julio De Paula ISBN-13:978-1-492-1812-2 published in 2010 with earlier versions published back to 1998. And the value I cited is directly from an opening page Table of General Data and Fundamental Constants.
That table also cites that ( c ) = 2.99792558 E8 ms^-1 is also an exact value.
My Physics Handbook also cites exact values for the two variables known as epsilon naught, and mu naught, the permittivity, and permeability of free space. The latter of course is also 4 pi .E-7 and both parameters must be exact since ( c ) is the inverse of the square root of their product.
My Physical Chemistry Book is also the Official Text for the current year at Stanford University, in presumably Physical Chemistry.
So I simply stated what the book said ( g ) has the exact value 9.80665 ms^-2
The discerning reader would also note that the book gives 9.80665 ms^-2 as the exact value of the constant ( g ).
It says nothing about what the acceleration is under local gravity in Alaska or Florida or any place else.
The Warty GRACE globe presumably IS a map of the local acceleration; it is NOT measuring the constant ( g ).
Oh, i see. It’s only a figure of speech.
George E. Smith’s g seems to be called the standard gravity according to the wikipedia and is well-defined:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_gravity
Robert
Please describe your theory of how ice 700 km inland in Antarctica is responding to minor changes along the coast over the last decade.
Lots of people who have no idea what they are talking about say all kinds of things. I choose to ignore them.
stevengoddard says:
July 21, 2010 at 10:03 am
GeoFlynx
You seem to be suggesting that the GRACE measurements are in the noise
GeoFlynx – This would be a consideration when the ice loss volume is divided over the Earth’s oceans and is being measured in terms of sea level rise. The loss of ~200 gigatonnes yearly, in a more confined area such as Greenland, produces a more negative gravity response that has been measured by the GRACE instrument.
Goddard,
see http://www.skepticalscience.com/Part-Three-Response-to-Goddard.html
It has many maps showing how the regions you are questioning as being too far inland are in fact losing ice and responds to some other allegations you make. If you have no intention of reading it then that is your choice but don’t sit back and argue it can’t happen when there’s a link right there which addresses this issue.
Robert
That article made no attempt to address my question about claimed recent losses far away from the coast. He did set up lots of strawman arguments, supposedly in response to my articles.
Jantar says:
July 21, 2010 at 5:37 am
“… according to my Physical Chemistry Book … ( g ) is 9.80665 and THAT IS AN EXACT VALUE ! ( ms^-2 )”
Reading this imediately had me reaching for my year 1 physics text book. College Physics by Weber manning & White pp 56 (yes I still have it, and it dates me). It shows g in St Michael, Alaska as 9.822 m/s^2, and Key West Fla as 9.79 m/s^2. Both of these at 1 m elevation. So it appears that back in 1965 g was accepted as not being an exact value.
_______________________________________________________________________
Standard gravity, commonly labelled g, is defined as exactly 9.80665m/s2. However, over the Earth’s surface the acceleration due to gravity varies slightly from the standard value; the approximate value is given by:
g(lat,alt)/(m/s2)=9.80615-0.025862cos(2lat)+0.000059cos2(2lat)-0.000003alt.
@ John Trigge July 21, 2010 at 12:35 am
‘As predictable as the tide’ is a saying I come across reasonably frequently. In addition to having two satellites with accelerometers at each of their centre of mass the grace measurement data is compared to an idealised model which accounts for predictable influences such as the tide but assumes that the mass distribution in the earth is equal. In this way the background influences such as the tides can be subtracted from the grace data and then other corrections can occur.
Of course if you keep going like this you will find something that the GRACE satellite currently doesn’t correct for or doesn’t correct for very well and there are definitely such things out there. The big point to mention is that the GRACE mission is one of exploration as is all science. It is on a mission of discovery. There are plenty of papers out there which deal with early mistakes of the GRACE project and evolved understanding due to new data and analysis. The GRACE mission is a very elegant experiment but it is still an experiment, it is a learning experience. Science is about evolution. In evolution a lot of mistakes occur before a useful advancement is made. A mistake in science isn’t a bad thing; there are plenty of papers out there detailing early mistakes of the GRACE project. You learn from the mistakes and move on. That’s why scepticism is so important in science because it searches for mistakes. Unfortunately some scientists don’t accept obvious mistakes very well and refuse to evolve.
Once again, calculate the expected sea level rise from the estimated mass loss from Antarctica and Greenland and see whether they are inconsistent with sea level changes.
Your initial statement Yet GRACE interpreters delude themselves into believing that the earth is steady and fixed over vast distances underneath the ice and oceans. was false. Admit it.
They don’t assume that the Earth is fixed and steady.
“”” DirkH says:
July 21, 2010 at 11:06 am
George E. Smith’s g seems to be called the standard gravity according to the wikipedia and is well-defined:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_gravity “””
You chaps will have to be a whole lot faster on the uptake; to keep up with this old codger.
I usually do not make this stuff up. I also never go to wikiwonderland to look for stuff either; but I’m happy to hear they are awake too.
The same Text book also cites exact values for the Calorie (4.184 Joules), one Atmosphere (101.325 kPa = 760 Torr) and also for the centigrade zero point (273.15 Kelvins).
If you read the scientific article that you pretend to critique then you would see that they do not make the claim about mass loss far from the coast.
Vince Causey says:
July 21, 2010 at 5:03 am
Zeke the sneak,
Challenge by all means, with all scientific rigor. But earlier in your post you asserted the electric dipole theory of gravity as if it was a fact, when it is clearly only a conjecture.
Now you are stating that it is conjecture as if that was a fact.
🙂 The words I quoted are “an obvious line of enquiry,” taking up where Michael Faraday left off.
DirkH says:
July 21, 2010 at 10:52 am
I have difficulty grasping the concept that there is a gauge theory for gravity like for the other 3 forces yet gravity is said to create a curvature of spacetime.
Why don’t the other 3 forces bend spacetime – or is the curvature of spacetime an obsolete concept when we talk about gravity as quantum gravity?
IOW, what’s special about gravity when it’s a force transmitted by some bosons just like the others?
The holy grail of present theoretical aspirations is to unify all forces.
The way string theories do it, at very large energies there is only one”force” ( rather interaction) and one gauge boson and one type of “particle”, the string. This has vibrational modes and each vibrational mode has zero mass and the quantum numbers of the symmetries that have been documented. As the energy goes down from the Planck mass, there is symmetry breaking and mass is acquired by the individual vibrational modes.
There are surprising predictions: mini black holes for example.
There is a plethora of extra dimensions that could accommodate many science fiction scenaria , let alone dark matter.
The relevance to our reality has to be proven, maybe at the new LHC experiments in CERN.
When one quantizes gravity space and time are quantized (gaps between seconds and gaps between cms 🙂 ). All energy/mass bends space time “macroscopically”.
anna v says:
July 21, 2010 at 12:04 am
In a nutshell, from string theories the standard particle model comes out naturally and at the same time gravity is included and quantized.
Simplified, each particle is a vibrational mode on a string ( the music of the spheres).
There is a long way to go until this string dream is verified, but at least there is no contradiction with existing data from the start.
In the Electric Gravity model, each particle is a resonant object, made up of smaller charged subtrons orbiting within the classical radius of that particle. “It is maleable and can be pushed out of shape, and by these simple deformations, you can explain magnetism and gravity” (radio interview, Thornhill). Really it is a return to classical physics.
Now I could listen to a physicist talk about string theory all day. 🙂 That is an interesting possibility. But I think the atom is probably not a ghostly imaginal world of possibilities, altered by the observer, as Einstein had it. And so no more “rest for the wicked,” the search for gravity continues.
Anthony, sorry for the delay in getting back to this conversation…
“Just a short question, do you spend most of your time at WAU with the “Skeptical Science” blog now? It seems like it has become full time.”
By WAU, do you mean the Uni of Western Australia (UWA)? No, I’m based in Brisbane on the other side of the country – I came over for a brief 4 day visit but due to poor timing, wasn’t actually there on the night of your talk in Perth or I would’ve attended. I’m not doing Skeptical Science full time – well, sometimes it feels like I’m spending full time hours on it but my efforts are not funded apart from the occasional paypal donation.
“Also, who funded those handouts in Perth?”
I created the handouts off my own bat (eg – unfunded as usual), UWA coughed up the $150 to get them printed.
REPLY: Thanks for the response. No worries. I had thought maybe you had switched to UWA since you had a “presence” there. – Anthony
You people are seriously arguing about the exact value of a standard gravity? And referring to chemistry textbooks?
Does no one still use the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics? That was THE reference when I was in college. There’s even an online version these days. Why, I still have my own then-current copy… somewhere.
stevengoddard says:
July 21, 2010 at 1:41 pm
>>That article made no attempt to address my question about claimed recent losses far away from the coast. He did set up lots of strawman arguments, supposedly in response to my articles.<<
The article shows these losses are occurring based upon multiple sources of evidence. Just because you don't understand the mechanism doesn't mean that it can't happen, especially when all the forms of evidence shown dispute your theory. Secondly, we both know very well that inland propagation of glacier velocities can occur very quickly if there is a large disturbance at the glacier terminus. This has been shown in Rignot et al. 2004 and Scambos et al. 2004 with respect to changes after ice shelve removal. Grounding line retreat can have a similar effect on the force balance at the downstream portion of the glacier. I don't think it is very difficult to understand why losses are occurring in the regions mentioned. There are large outlet glaciers which originate from those regions (shown in Allison et al. 2009) and they are carrying more and more ice from these regions which explains why the elevation is reducing (Gunter et al. 2009) based upon extremely accurate icesat data.
Finally, I don't see too many strawmen. I see someone who dug himself into a hole (you) and is having trouble getting out. You said in the comments that glaciers can't flow at high velocities, this article showed you're wrong and showed you these regions had high glacier velocities, you claimed that ice losses wouldn't occur in the EAIS this showed you wrong. You claimed that surface melt was an important mechanism in Antarctica, this article proved you wrong. You claimed that Grace was inaccurate, this article shows you many other studies using different methodologies which match up.
You can make fancy rhetorical statements about "strawmen" all you like but the truth of the matter is that someone caught you and you are not willing to admit it.
Robert,
“So are we going to be as unbiased as we were then and give the cazenave paper a chance?”
I love Cazanave’s paper. It shows how the rate of sea level rise has declined since 2003.
Zeke,
“But I think the atom is probably not a ghostly imaginal world of possibilities, altered by the observer, as Einstein had it.”
Einstein most definately did not believe that. What you describe are quantum mechanics, a field that Einstein spent most of his life attacking.
I had thought maybe you had switched to UWA since you had a “presence” there.
Anthony, you should know having recently travelled the length and breath of Australia that Brisbane is the best city in the country, heckling oceanographers withstanding 🙂
From: Zeke the Sneak on July 20, 2010 at 4:01 pm
From: Zeke the Sneak on July 21, 2010 at 10:08 pm
There should be an experiment to test that. We know light can be bent by gravity (actually the path of the photons is altered by the gravitational field). Light would not have those dipole structures, it is energy, also as far as it is a particle at all (I hope “electric gravity” is smart enough to not argue against wave-particle duality) it has no smaller pieces. Gravitational attraction is universal, that which gravity attracts also has its own gravitational field.
So see if one beam of light causes another beam of light to bend. It’ll actually be mutual, they’ll bend towards each other. If bending is not detectable, then the lack of those dipole structures can be considered to be the reason. If bending is detected despite the lack, “electric gravity” loses.
Possible setup, two coherent beams running parallel in a vacuum. The force of gravity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between objects, halve the distance and quadruple the force. So you measure the distance between the beams at fixed spatial intervals. Graphed out, one should see a curve, the distance between will get smaller faster over time, as the beams get closer they will bend faster. Even if not a perfect vacuum, with closely-spaced beams you should see the same rate of divergence for both. If the distance shortens by other than a linear rate, measuring from the edge of the beam, and shows a greater than linear decrease over time, then you have bending.
Now as these things go, one only has to figure out how to conduct the real-world experiment…
🙂
Quantum theory like general and special relativity actually does an excellent job of predicting experimental results to a certain level of statistical significance. Many issues, though, such as entangled particles and particles instantaneously traveling from one point to another under certain conditions are still not explained just like the missing graviton particle or the dark matter and accelerating expansion of the universe in general relativity. But since I have yet to see an explanation of how simple magnetism is propagated through space (graviton?) it just reminds us of how little we actually know with certainty. Prhaps the super colider will answer some of these questions but in the mean time, like climate.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
July 22, 2010 at 9:14 am
you quote Actually “gravity is due to radially oriented electrostatic dipoles inside the Earth’s protons, neutrons and electrons.”
and say:
There should be an experiment to test that.
There are beautiful and accurate experiments that show that protons and neutrons are composed of quarks held together by gluons, and that electrons and other leptons are not composite.
The so called “standard model”, with the symmetries SU2XSU3XU1 cannot be in question by anybody who knows anything about the matter.
All the particle physics experiments of the last 20 years show not even an iota of evidence of compositeness, i.e that quarks and leptons are composite in a further internal level. There is no need for new experiments to disprove the proposition that there are “electrostatic dipoles” inside protons and electrons. It is pure science fiction.
Anna,
My last post was for you and I was interupted. Should have said:
In the mean time, like climate, we are still more in the dark than we like to admit.
Vince Causey,
I don’t disagree that the rate has lessened. I think the paper shows that the sea level rise currently ongoing is a result of less ocean warming but more contributions of glaciers and ice sheets. I think that with regards to this aspect the science is pretty understandable. I don’t understand why Goddard and co are repeatedly saying that ice losses cannot occur because the rate is not increasing when this paper outlines very well what happened.
Re: anna v on July 22, 2010 at 11:09 am
Darling, although my BA in physics is largely unused and left to gather dust, I did not earn it so long ago that such basics of particle physics were not taught way back then. Don’t worry, I myself am not questioning such basics. However, other people seem to be questioning them, and I just tossed up an experiment to test the “electric gravity” assumption I saw here where gravity was arising from only mass.
Although I will admit when you toss out lines like “…with the symmetries SU2XSU3XU1…” I am lost. The program was broad, somewhat directed towards engineering, with required amounts of electives in certain areas rather than a rigid program of practically everything being specific required courses. Analog and digital electronics, programming including Pascal and assembly (80286), yes. Accumulating enough math credits a mathematics minor was virtually automatic, picking up linear algebra, advanced calculus, even non-Euclidean geometry, did that. Memorizing quark flavors, no. And what is considered here to be basic statistics, eh, that’s something you picked up in graduate school if you needed it. 😉
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
July 22, 2010 at 3:58 pm
There was nothing wrong with the experiment you suggested and it would give limits for other composite theories , of which there are a good number that fell by the roadside as more and more data were accumulated from LEP at CERN. Others are still surviving but not popular.
I was just pointing out that the already existing experiments throw out such a primitive model as protons and electrons consisting internally of dipoles.
Jim G says:
July 22, 2010 at 11:22 am
In the mean time, like climate, we are still more in the dark than we like to admit.
Well, I had a high school teacher for ancient greek who was not very good, but he did say something from his philosophy courses which has remained with me:
“Draw a circle: knowledge is within the radius of the circle. The more you learn and
establish as knowledge, the larger the radius and content of the circle. But also the larger the periphery, so there is much more unknown.”
Now about the magnetic field and fields in general, the Feynman diagram organization of the perturbative solutions of the equations explains them. There are always two particles necessary for a field to manifest, and they exchange the carrier of what macroscopically is seen as a force. In the case of the magnetic field, the photon. The exchange transfers energy and momentum and thus the field of one particle is seen by the other. As all fields seen macroscopically are really the sum total of individual particles, as observed by another aggregate of individual particles, there is no mystery about fields in present day physics, though we do get into the many body problem.
For the general audience, here is a link from CERN with its aspirations: http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/Science/Science-en.html
Vince Causey says:
July 22, 2010 at 6:25 am
Zeke,
“But I think the atom is probably not a ghostly imaginal world of possibilities, altered by the observer, as Einstein had it.”
Einstein most definately did not believe that. What you describe are quantum mechanics, a field that Einstein spent most of his life attacking.
Thank you. It would be better if I had said “as Einstein worded it.”
“In quantum physics, we do not deal with physical matter because we have no way of controlling it. If we go too deep in our search for matter, it begins to dissolve. Atoms appear to be not things, they seem like ghosts and we enter an imaginal world of theory.”
I had this written down somewhere and borrowed the wording from that. It is beautifully put, and I believe it is attributable to Einstein. (-?)
But this point touches on one of my real interests in atomic affairs, not being a physicist. It is that the real mysterious nature of the atom is, I think, not as much defined by its parts, but by the exquisitely tuned relationship between the parts. So I do not think that much will be proved and learned by smashing them up at CERN. If you want to study a watch or a living cell, you see how the parts communicate and work together.
In this model, a return to classical physics combined with computer technology can make “predictions for thousands of energies, distances, angles, and dipole moments that have been rigorously compared to experimental data.”
That is much better than wasting billions on collisions.
From: Zeke the Sneak on July 23, 2010 at 12:51 am
Heh, this “Millsian theory” bears a great resemblance to the classical electron shell description of the atom, only “change” is considering the electron not as a discrete particle traveling in a fixed boundary, a shell, but as an actual shell, thus it is a simplification for modeling purposes. I would expect it to give great results, as the electron shell description is very useful and gives great results for practically everything relevant despite its being technically inaccurate.
Yeah, well, some people concentrate on the assorted boards, devices, and other things that are assembled to make a working computer, others want to know what little bits are assembled to make those individual pieces. You can get a nice PC put together without knowing the differences between a northbridge and a southbridge or between NAND and NOR memory, but sometimes those fine details can be very important.
Anna says:
There are always two particles necessary for a field to manifest, and they exchange the carrier of what macroscopically is seen as a force. In the case of the magnetic field, the photon.
Has experimentation shown the actual existence of the photon “particles” involved in propagation of magnetism (as in the experiments showing the collapse of the electron wave function when observed, or the slit experiments with light photons) or are we dealing with pure mathmatical theory? Thanks.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says: “You can get a nice PC put together without knowing the differences between a northbridge and a southbridge or between NAND and NOR memory, but sometimes those fine details can be very important.”
But if you hand me a box of NAND and NOR, and a motherboard, and an empty tower, etc etc, have you handed me a computer?
The answer for me is “No.” Probably my 10 yo son could do something with it though.
🙂
There’s more to Mills’ classical approach, it gets even better. He has lowered the energy state of hydrogen to form a hydrino, and “the primary application is as a new primary energy source. Specifically, energy is released as the electrons of hydrogen atoms are induced by a catalyst to transition to lower-energy levels (i.e. drop to lower base orbits around each atom’s nucleus).”
That is true science. The discoveries lead to new powers and abilities, and also, wonderfully, to our appreciation of the ordinary every day occurances all around us. A real understanding of the atom can change our lives, because we can intelligently manipulate it, especially using electricity. And I think the relation of the parts involves an instantaneous force, which is where the deeper reality is.
From: Zeke the Sneak on July 23, 2010 at 10:10 am
http://www.blacklightpower.com/FLASH/SolidFuelReactorDesign.swf
They’re using sodium hydride in their “solid fuel reactor.” Metal hydrides are used for hydrogen storage. I saw a Scientific American Frontiers piece awhile back on alternate energy, they showed a hydrogen-powered car the founder of Ovonics (maker of flexible solar cells, sold since air date) was driving. Metal hydrides like to soak up hydrogen quickly, which would make them good for vehicles, but they generate a lot of heat in the process. This particular car, shown when refueling, used a combined connector that supplied compressed hydrogen as well as circulating water to cool the metal hydride storage tank. The releasing of heat while sucking up hydrogen has also led to metal hydrides being researched for use in fuel cells. To release the hydrogen then takes heat, a lot of it.
Here is a CNET piece from 2007 about commercial fuel cells using hydrides and water. Major thing to note is the clarification as to whether sodium hydride was used, as it is nasty stuff, reacts strongly with water and even air, highly corrosive, and when combined with water (which can be absorbed from the air) is strongly caustic. It is an explosion hazard, it is that reactive.
Now let’s look at that “reactor” design again. The sodium hydride is heated to “start the reaction” which may be enough to release any hydrogen it had stored (I don’t see the temp spec mentioned). Then the “self-sustaining reaction” is initiated where the sodium hydride is given lots of hydrogen to soak up, which releases lots of heat. Being so corrosive, the NaH is also trying to eat anything possible, which will release heat. And with NaH being too dangerous to handle pure in open air, most likely the “solid fuel” is pelleted with a binder and/or coating to make it safe(er) to handle. Which when heated may change into something the NaH will attack, releasing heat… Heating could also serve to melt out a binder or melt away a coating and expose the NaH for use.
Hopefully you can see why I have severe doubts about this new “hydrino” method of generating “free” energy.
BTW, what would one do with the hydrinos anyway? If you can remove energy from a hydrogen atom to make a hydrino, can you add energy to change them back? How do they react chemically? In the pursuit of this “free” energy, will they be generating a new type of toxic waste that will haunt us for generations?
BTW #2, the Wikipedia entry on Blacklight Power does not inspire confidence…
In answer to your of course excellent question, “What would one do with the hydrinos anyway?”:
BlackLight Power:
Rather than pollutants, the byproducts may have significant advanced technology applications based on their stability characteristics.
1. The “hydrino” reacts with another reactant to form a hydride ion bound to the other reactant to constitute a novel proprietary compound.
EX: hydrino hydride ions having extraordinary binding energies may stabilize a cation (positively charged ion of a battery) in an extraordinarily high-oxidation state as the basis of a high-voltage battery.
2. Alternatively, two hydrinos react to form a very stable hydrogen-type molecule called molecular hydrino.
EX: significant applications exist for the corresponding molecular hydrino wherein the excited vibration-rotational levels could be the basis of a UV laser that could significantly advance photolithography and line-of-sight telecommunications.
3. A plasma-producing cell based on the extraordinarily energetic BlackLight Process has also been developed that may have commercial applications in chemical plasma processing and as a light source. BlackLight has license agreements with companies to use its patented commercial processes and systems in heating and electric power generation, and is negotiating further power licenses as well licenses for chemical and laser products.
Noting the Wikipedia entry does not inspire confidence.
Then again, I know you do not get all of your information from Wikipedia. Just thumbing through here, thus says Wiki:
“Most of the observed temperature increase since the middle of the 20th century was caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases, which results from human activity such as fossil fuel burning and deforestation.[3] Global dimming, a result of increasing concentrations of atmospheric aerosols that block sunlight from reaching the surface, has partially countered the effects of greenhouse gas induced warming.”
I will now attempt to address your objection to the use of the very corrosive NaH.
-snip-
NOTE: This blog is not the place to promote Blacklight Power or Electric Universe quackery.. – the mods
Thank you moderator. I was not intending to promote BlackLight but to use it as an apt example of the usefulness of a return to classical physics. Then, KD Knoebel is a consistent and quality poster so I thought to give him the consideration of a thoughtful reply inre NaH.
I am not connected with any group, so I commend myself in matters of science as an interested (and exasperated) taxpayer only.
To you, wishes for a delightful summer afternoon.
Re: Zeke the Sneak on July 25, 2010 at 3:32 pm, ‘What to do with hydrinos?’
(Yes, I have been busy and didn’t check up on this post for awhile.)
But won’t it be like the fluoride-calcium problem? Fluoride replaces calcium but with stronger bonds, which leads to problems in the body as our chemistry is set for the lower-strength calcium bonds. If these hydrinos replace hydrogen atoms but with stronger bonds, and are freely released into the atmosphere, and chemicals made from hydrinos are likewise released…
” *** Electric Universe quackery.. – the mods ”
Not that I have any fondness the “E-U” concept, but, if you dig into alternatives to the standard model, you will also find that the very same issues regarding access to publication venues, access to research funding and facilities, apparent bias in “peer review,” and the like that bedevil climate science are endemic in many different aspects of physics as well. There is readily as much uncertainty in physics theory as there is in climate science and the proponents of some alternatives or simple questions are not “quacks” necessarily since they are also noted for the important contributions they have made to their discipline. Look up the discoverer of Alfven waves for instance, or look up the author of the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies – a standard reference in astronomy.
The collegial treatment of these researchers was and still is literally egregious because they raised questions about unquestioned “facts” in the standard model. Alfven, in addition to discovering the Alfven wave, also advanced the suggestion that has developed into the so-called Electric Universe, while Halton Arp who compiled the Atlas, made observations that were problematic with respect to the concept of a cosmological red shift. Neither suggestion was either unreasonable or illogical scientifically. At the very worst, research investigating the issues would have advanced our knowledge. Yet, because of accusations of “quackery,” the problematic observations made by Arp for instance remain to be investigated. Just imagine how much time, money, ink, and paper have been wasted trying find dark matter and dark energy if, in fact, the red shift is NOT cosmological, merely because an established clique preferred not to permit an “established fact” not to be questioned.
The fact is, skepticism is critical to the successful advancement of knowledge in ALL phases of science and, far from being “quacks,” it is reasonable to consider proponents of alternatives to be skeptics. They may well be wrong, in fact may well be quacks, but that really doesn’t justify shutting them off from research opportunity or data, any more than the “Team’s” confidence in AGW justifies their denial of access to their data to skeptics of AGW or their treatment of AGW skeptics as quacks. We can never progress as long as we assume we know all we need to in any field.
[REPLY: “you will also find that the very same issues regarding access to publication venues, access to research funding and facilities, apparent bias in “peer review,” and the like that bedevil climate science are endemic in many different aspects of physics as well” That may be, but it is the policy of the blog owner to not tolerate having threads having nothing to do with EU getting hijacked by EU trolls who can’t seem to take “no” for an answer. If you have an original story to contribute regarding developments in EU theory and their application to observed phenomena, you are free to email such to Anthony for him to review and post or reject, or get your own blog going. Further thread hijacking will result in site bans. – Mike]