This press release is brought to you by our friends at the National Science Foundation, it is not a joke. However, it is too odd not to spoof a bit.
Here are some preliminary results, there’s more at the end of this article.
Broken Glass Yields Clues to Climate Change
Ordinary drinking glasses and atmospheric dust particles break apart in similar patterns
The comparative sizes of dust particles in the atmosphere, from a dust storm satellite photo. |
December 27, 2010
Clues to future climate may be found in the way an ordinary drinking glass shatters.
Results of a study published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences find that microscopic particles of dust can break apart in patterns that are similar to the fragment patterns of broken glass and other brittle objects.
The research, by National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) scientist Jasper Kok, suggests there are several times more dust particles pumped into the atmosphere than previously believed, since shattered dust appears to produce an unexpectedly high number of large fragments.
The finding has implications for understanding future climate change because dust plays a significant role in controlling the amount of solar energy in the atmosphere.
Depending on their size and other characteristics, some dust particles reflect solar energy and cool the planet, while others trap energy as heat.
“As small as they are, conglomerates of dust particles in soils behave the same way on impact as a glass dropped on a kitchen floor,” Kok says. “Knowing this pattern can help us put together a clearer picture of what our future climate will look like.”
The study may also improve the accuracy of weather forecasting, especially in dust-prone regions. Dust particles affect clouds and precipitation, as well as temperature.
“This research provides valuable new information on the nature and distribution of dust aerosols in the atmosphere,” says Sarah Ruth, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences, which funds NCAR.
“The results may lead to improvements in our ability to model and predict both weather and climate.”
Kok’s research focused on a type of airborne particle known as mineral dust.
These particles are usually emitted when grains of sand are blown into soil, shattering dirt and sending fragments into the air.
The fragments can be as large as about 50 microns in diameter, or about the thickness of a fine strand of human hair.
The smallest particles, which are classified as clay and are as tiny as 2 microns in diameter, remain in the atmosphere for about a week, circling much of the globe and exerting a cooling influence by reflecting heat from the Sun back into space.
Larger particles, classified as silt, fall out of the atmosphere after a few days. The larger the particle, the more it will tend to have a heating effect on the atmosphere.
Kok’s research indicates that the ratio of silt particles to clay particles is two to eight times greater than represented in climate models.
Since climate scientists carefully calibrate the models to simulate the actual number of clay particles in the atmosphere, the paper suggests that models most likely err when it comes to silt particles.
Most of these larger particles swirl in the atmosphere within about 1,000 miles of desert regions, so adjusting their quantity in computer models should generate better projections of future climate in desert regions, such as the southwestern United States and northern Africa.
Additional research will be needed to determine whether future temperatures in those regions will increase as much or more than currently indicated by computer models.
The study results also suggest that marine ecosystems, which draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, may receive substantially more iron from airborne particles than previously estimated.
The iron enhances biological activity, benefiting ocean food webs, including plants that take up carbon during photosynthesis.
In addition to influencing the amount of solar heat in the atmosphere, dust particles also are deposited on mountain snowpacks, where they absorb heat and accelerate snowmelt.
Physicists have long known that certain brittle objects, such as glass, rocks, or even atomic nuclei, fracture in predictable patterns. The resulting fragments follow a certain range of sizes, with a predictable distribution of small, medium, and large pieces.
Scientists refer to this type of pattern as scale invariance or self-similarity.
Physicists have devised mathematical formulas for the process by which cracks propagate in predictable ways as a brittle object breaks.
Kok theorized that it would be possible to use these formulas to estimate the range of dust particle sizes. By applying the formulas for fracture patterns of brittle objects to soil measurements, Kok determined the size distribution of emitted dust particles.
To his surprise, the formulas described measurements of dust particle sizes almost exactly.
“The idea that all these objects shatter in the same way is a beautiful thing, actually,” Kok says. “It’s nature’s way of creating order in chaos.”
-NSF-
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Here are other ways to use broken glass to forecast and interpret your local climate issues:
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I can’t decide whether I am disgusted at the utter waste of human minds, or if I am grateful that they remain distracted by such minutae.
“wpryan says:
December 29, 2010 at 1:58 pm
…it looks like the current inhabitants of the White House are ahead of the curve on this one. The EPA already wants to regulate dust. See here: http://www.news9.com/global/story.asp?s=12899662”
Yup, “big farm”, a necessity for a prosperous civilization, must be eliminated.
It’s a simple formula for the simple minded.
PRD says:
December 29, 2010 at 12:19 pm
So SiO2 is the new CO2? Beware the great silicon dioxide monster! Silicosis will abound and its caused by carbon dioxide generating drought and coriolis storms circling the waterless globe… nah that’s from reading too much of Frank Heberts good works.
Maybe someone should create some government subsudies to take this silicon and bind it in some kind of usable substance. Oh crap, solar cells. Never mind 😉
PRD says: December 29, 2010 at 12:19 pm
quote
So SiO2 is the new CO2? Beware the great silicon dioxide monster! Silicosis will abound and its caused by carbon dioxide generating drought and coriolis storms circling the waterless globe
unquote
Here’s a sequence for you: more dissolved silica will increase the number of diatoms in the oceans as this is the limiting resource for those delicate little plants. They will displace the calcareous plankton — diatoms win as long as there is silica for their shells. The calcareous plankton are better at pulling down and sequestering CO2 and they have a fixing sytem which discriminates against the heavy isotopes of C. No coriolis storms but if diatom levels rise then there will be a reduction in CO2 pull down and a light isotope signal in the atmospheree which the uncritical will be able to read as the result of fossil fuel burning.
Dennis Nikols, P. Geol. says: December 29, 2010 at 12:56 pm
quote
Okay, my only question about this relates to the mineralogy of the fragmenting materials and the distribution of that mineralogy.
unquote
A lot of the dust is just agricultural, which I would guess is silica, but I’ve not seen a breakdown of the composition.
Do you know what happens to a particle in sea water? How quickly does it dissolve and have we, over the last two hundred years, increased dissolved silica levels?
There was a recent Sockeye salmon glut caused by a volcano in the North Pacific but with no increase in CO2 pull-down. Silica feeding?
JF
“Since climate scientists carefully calibrate the models”
TWEEEEEEET!!!! Penalty flag. Thirty yard penalty for B/Sing the public.
As a reader of press releases, I have a couple of questions.
(1)First of all: What did Jasper Kok actually do?
Did he, as I thought at the start of the release, conduct experiments in which he broke apart dust (undoubtedly in a machine called “The Dust Buster”), and then measure the resultant particles? Or, as is later indicated, did he apply a pre-existing formula to dust, only to discover that it worked?
(2) While it’s useful knowing the ratio of different particulate sizes, what is the rate at which they are produced? How fast does the sand have to be going, and how much sand produces how much extra particulate? And how does this relate to non-sand? I have to presume they know this, or at least have a good idea, but it would help put things in perspective to mention it.
(3) According to Kok, the importance of this ratio is its role in making computer models more accurate in their prediction of future climate. Of course, the advantage of computer models is that they can be used in reverse. New data can be applied to past projections to see if they more closely mirror the reality. If so, more research is justified. If not, it’s time to look at something else.
So here’s third question: As a means of justifying their confidence in the ratio, why is there no mention of how well it did in this test?
And if in the unlikely event the test hasn’t been done — well, why is Kok issuing a press release? There’s nothing to say yet.
Those are my questions. Or at least, those are a few of my most pressing questions.
PS: Not wanting to be picky, but as an editor these things fairly leap off the page, and to relieve my OCD in this area, I have to pick a nit.
The sentence reading:
Is obviously meant to read:
I know. It’s silly how some of the obvious mistakes can make it through.
George Carlin comes to mind, in the spirit of this post and press release –
“What’s the difference between a drop and a droplet? After all, if you divide a drop into smaller parts, all you really get is smaller drops. Big or little, a drop is a drop.”
“Same thing with a crumb. But the odd thing about a crumb is that if you cut a crumb in half, you don’t get two half-crumbs, you get two crumbs. To me, that sounds like magic. I gotta ask David Copperfield how they do that.”
What we should learn from history is that we can NOT predict the future, any of the future, including future climate and future weather, by examination of and extrapolation from past data. To attempt to do so is a fool’s errand.
It is possible, to an extent, to examine the present, and better find out what is actually occurring.
It would be as sensible to consult an oracle, or perhaps a seer.
A glassical piece of work, crystal clear conclusions, shard like observations by a cracked team.
Tom T says:
December 29, 2010 at 2:06 pm
Boy for a settled science there sure is a lot we are still learning.
Crow’s Law: Do not think what you want to think until you know what you ought to know – John Crow, as quoted in “Most Secret War” Prof. Jones (R.V. that is).
So we have more silt than expected in the atsmosphere to be broken down and deposited in the oceans. What effect does deposition of newly exposed CaCO3 have on downwind ocean waters?
Just asking.
…….dominated by silt size materials and characterised by low OC (average
0.71% ±0.13); CaCO3 varied widely, with an average of 45% ±18.
R. Gates says:
December 29, 2010 at 2:48 pm
Michael says:
December 29, 2010 at 1:38 pm
“CO2 has virtually nothing to do with the climate of the planet.”
____
I wonder why it would be that a natural climate feedback process exists whereby CO2 is naturally sequestered out of the atmosphere every time that gas gets to a certain level? Seems an odd sort of feedback to exist if this lowly “do nothing” gas is just sort of there and having no effect what-so-ever to the climate?
Argumentem ad ignoratum.
The sequestration of CO2 is not a “natural climate feedback”. It is a natural chemical process.
And what of the dusts of climates past? Had they no effect?
And studying the entrails of slaughtered animals will show omens of things to come. But only the priests can tell us what the signs mean!
the research is..phhht, but I loved the clever captions and pics:-)
I vote climate model is broken as the best.
The really weird, from a former science group, now turning propagandist for the government taxing scam. Obviously the guilt tripping didn’t work, so need new scare.
I was looking at mud splats today, and trying to figure out how they connect to global warming. But all I could come up with was damn it, now I got to wash the car.
How wonderful that scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research are studying the fragmentation dynamics of various kinds of dust. They think that the Warmists have their atmospheric clay particles right, but their silt particle models are off.
I suppose that after dust, our public money will fund research on belly-button lint and clothes washing / drying lint, which will lead to the conclusion that human produced lint is thousands of times more harmful to nature than natural dust, and is a leading contributor to
global warmingclimate changeclimate disruption whereby belly-button lint will combine with CO2 to burn us all to a crisp, unless we give all our money to the UN environmentalists who will give a pittance to the 3rd world while living fat on our dime, with no actual reductions in CO2 or belly-button lint.Is my sarcasm flag showing?
Another take: Dust Study May Invalidate Most Warming Modeling Work Done to Date
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=20516
The solution to climate change is now clear. We need to mine more coal and create more dust. The only problem at the moment is that half the world’s internationally traded coal comes from Queensland, which is currently underwater!!
Regarding my questions of December 29, 2010 at 11:51 pm (essentially, “What did Kok actually do?), can I take it that nobody else knows either?
Frank Lee MeiDere,
My suspicion: it’s all based on a model. A secret model.
Can’t let the Chinese get a leg up on us with a dust model gap.
I can’t imagine it would be easy for a dust model to walk the runway, either.
“Ordinary drinking glasses and atmospheric dust particles break apart in similar patterns”
Will NOT be surprised if a specific pattern of dust particle (or glass) causes blizzards, another hurricanes, another sleet, and another just plain old fashioned rain, another fog, another.. (Things are all connected, right?)
Pascvaks posted:
Will NOT be surprised if a specific pattern of dust particle (or glass) causes blizzards, another hurricanes, another sleet, and another just plain old fashioned rain, another fog, another.. (Things are all connected, right?)
The old joke science of a butterfly flapping its wings in China causing a typhoon. (Love your sarcasm!)
I often wonder why the enviro-whackos on’t scream about the atmospheric disturbance created by the high-speed motion of cars on freeways stiring the air, and pushing the air through and out in tunnels. Maybe I shouldn’t have posted this thought. It will soon be in a Monbiot or Hansen bleating or some stupid reporter’s (but I repeat myself) article about ruining the world.
Sigh… a neutral review of a scientific discovery that is followed up by a ridiculous set of pictures that add nothing but animosity towards a variety of global warming topics. What a complete waste of time.