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.
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]