UPDATE: Graph added below per request from Joe Bastardi.
But first, let’s listen to expert on all things public, scientific, and climatic, Rosie O’Donnell
From Fox News:
Living in an era when pop culture celebrities can assert “expert” opinions on any subject, why wait for science to catch up with pesky facts?
If Rosie O’Donnell says global warming caused Joplin’s destruction, then it must be true, right? As Hollywood knows best, there’s no need for lab research, instant proclamations are good enough. It worked for claiming fire hadn’t melted steel before 9/11, so why not weather can’t cause deadly tornadoes outbreaks before this? Must be global warming then. Yeah that’s the ticket.
Alright, now having weathered that, here’s Joe Bastardi on Fox News talking the science.
UPDATE: Joe Bastardi writes in and asks this graphic to be included (which apparently never made it into the interview). Click for a very large version.
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Nice to see Ms O’Donnel still can’t refrain from commenting authoritatively on subjects she knows nothing about.
MarkW says:
June 3, 2011 at 2:07 pm
If you try to teach me something in the chemistry of combustion you fail miserably.
Burning gasoline in an open pit is far from a complete combustion and the smoke you see is a perfect sign of it. A near complete combustion is what your IC engine achieves. Do you see black smoke coming out of your exhaust pipe? A perfect combustion give only colorless water and carbon dioxide and the maximum heat.
The bridge in question was made manly of concrete. Concrete is not a conductor of heat and and becomes very brittle when heated to high temperatures. This is why it was damaged. The iron bars (which are not structural steel) are not made to support the bulk of the weight, they are there to give the concrete a little more flexibility.
Rosie O’Donnell does prove that “Global Stupidity” is real.
Here in the northwestern part of the U.S., whenever there has been a forest fire that spawns a firestorm, temperatures are reached in which the steel in the left-behind fire-fighting equipment is melted. To only consider the max temperature of a burning fuel in an open environment, without considering other factors such as enclosures and wind, is to do what AGWers do – ignore science.
thereisnofear, you are mistaken.
I plugged kerosene and air into CEA, a program used by rocket engineers like me to predict the combustion and performance of rocket engines. I set the “chamber” conditions to be 14.7 psi, with room-temperature ingredients, kerosene and air at a mixture ratio of 14:1 air:kero. The adiabatic flame temperature is 2227 Kelvin, or 3548 Fahrenheit. You bet your ass kerosene fires can melt steel, even without containment of the heat.
THEORETICAL ROCKET PERFORMANCE ASSUMING EQUILIBRIUM
COMPOSITION DURING EXPANSION FROM INFINITE AREA COMBUSTOR
Pinj = 14.7 PSIA
REACTANT WT FRACTION ENERGY TEMP
(SEE NOTE) KJ/KG-MOL K
FUEL kerosene 1.0000000 -506264.000 .000
OXIDANT air 1.0000000 .000 .000
O/F= 14.00000 %FUEL= 6.666667 R,EQ.RATIO= 1.059263 PHI,EQ.RATIO= 1.059263
CHAMBER THROAT EXIT
Pinf/P 1.0000 1.7962 26.180
P, BAR 1.0135 .56428 .03871
T, K 2227.09 2011.48 1150.26
RHO, KG/CU M 1.5489-1 9.5713-2 1.1490-2
H, KJ/KG -238.90 -603.30 -1819.31
U, KJ/KG -893.26 -1192.85 -2156.25
G, KJ/KG -21620.9 -19915.2 -12862.8
S, KJ/(KG)(K) 9.6009 9.6009 9.6009
M, (1/n) 28.298 28.368 28.384
(dLV/dLP)t -1.00181 -1.00035 -1.00000
(dLV/dLT)p 1.0552 1.0119 1.0000
Cp, KJ/(KG)(K) 1.9662 1.5679 1.3384
GAMMAs 1.1970 1.2362 1.2802
SON VEL,M/SEC 885.0 853.7 656.8
MACH NUMBER .000 1.000 2.707
@Bublhead says:
June 3, 2011 at 11:13 am
“…Nothing that he said indicates the atmospheric CO2 levels are not historically high and still rising….”
Good name. Now Joe might not refer in a 2-minute segment to “historically high CO2 levels” but here’s a few references for you to chew on:
http://earth.geology.yale.edu/~ajs/2001/Feb/qn020100182.pdf
http://www.biocab.org/Carbon_Dioxide_Geological_Timescale.html
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/CO2_Temp_O2.html
These show, within the time frame of the last 600 million years (where we have much rock in which to find a record), CO2 is essentially at historically low levels. We’re not too far from killing off lots of plants. We are in fact in a global ice age that will probably last tens of millions of years.
Now, you may dispute these analyses (I suspect you’ll just ignore them) but then you have to overturn the science used in making these estimates. Good luck with that. There a several independent studies that give similar results.
This whole “AGW” thing makes me angrier by the day. There are many contributors to whether the Earth is a place hospitable to life, or a cold, sere ball of ice. CO2 is about as important as the second-team punter in the game of life.
That cheese rain would probably turn me into a believer, depending on the type of cheese as it wouldn’t be too unusual to see American cheddar rain.
Curiousgeorge says:
June 3, 2011 at 10:45 am
The fact that I would be perfectly able to embed a video of my own making that then pops up a random (well, google-chosen) video that may be played in the embedded frame makes a complete mockery of that.
Bublhead says:
June 3, 2011 at 11:13 am
As far as I can tell, you must be deliberately missing his point in order to make your own irrelevant point.
Joe’s point was that this sequence of weather is not created by Global Warming. He in no way tries to refute Global Warming itself. He is scathing of those who are trying to pin this not-unprecedented tragedy on Global Warming.
What bit of that is not immediately clear?
The funny thing is that I’ve shown countless people the NOAA data on F3-F5s and on F5/EF5s, and they just dismiss it because it’s “obvious” that stronger tornadoes are linked to global warming.
Talk about “deniers.”
The skyscraper was not filled with jet fuel so the scale is irrelevant. Most of it ignited immediately upon impact as you can see by the massive fireballs blasting out of the WTC buildings.
This is a largely scientific site. Anyone who can filter thru this much AGW bullshit shouldn’t have a problem looking at the work performed by Richard Gage et al at Architects & Engineers to determine that official 9/11 theory is just as bunk as AGW.
They even have an ad hominen, derogatory nickname for such people, “Truthers”, which as “Deniers” we should be able to empathize with them as well as recognize the establishment tactic of inventing such slogans to be used by main stream canned commentary.
Near the end of Joe’s video there is what looks like a tornado spout going sideways. Was it really, or was that just an optical effect? Being from the UK, we don’t get many (thank $deity) and hadn’t seen video of one doing that before. What causes that? Guessing may be windshear?
You mean fire has melted steel?
@TravisB:
There is no reason for empathy. B.S. is B.S. and the truthers are just as full of in as the alarmists.
Re: Thereisnofear said regarding Rosie O’donnel, “she is absolutely correct when she states that fires cannot melt steel, so that they flow like rivers, as noted by WTC structural engineer Leslie Robertson:: Rosie O’donnel was correct.”
There was a forest fire several years ago, and it engulfed a tram system at Bridal Falls. The girders were all twisted and bent. I didn’t know that the steel in the WTC flowed like a river.
I cannot believe that this discussion has taken place. Anyone who has seen a blacksmith work, seen video of a blacksmith working, or even heard of a blacksmith should know that fire melts steel all the time.
The WTC was going to have asbestos foam fire proofing, but it was found that asbestos causes cancer. There was no readily available substitute at the time that was as light and as fire proof. What was used was not adequate.
thereisnofear says:
June 3, 2011 at 12:45 pm
Gray Monk:
The melting point of steel is 1510 deg. C. A hydrocarbon fire (jet fuel), under optimum atmospheric conditions, burns at about 815 deg. C. Office materials are similar. There were no other conditions present that could have doubled the available temperature to produce rivers of molten steel.
If office fires could melt (not just weaken) steel, it would NEVER be used as a structural material.
Why the “not just weaken” caveat? The steel didn’t have to melt. All it had to do was “weaken,” then buckle due to the load to collapse the building(s). Are you saying that….Eh, never mind.,
I believe what Rosie was trying to say was that never before in history (until 9/11) had we witnessed steel frame buildings collapsing due to fire. I don’t know whether or not that is factually correct; however, she did make an interesting point that building 7s collapse was the result of small fires started by falling debris, not jet fuel. It is pretty amazing to think that a building fire could cause an implosion like the one that news crews filmed of WTC 7.
Are you a metallurgist – or can you give a metallurgical cite, something – anything about modulus of elasticity regarding steel at elevated temperatures?
Like this: http://www.engineersedge.com/manufacturing_spec/properties_of_metals_strength.htm
or this: http://www.engineersedge.com/manufacturing_spec/average_properties_structural_materials.htm
You also might need to know the exact type of steel alloy …
(See, steel doesn’t simply melt like ice …)
.
MarkW you are right about Bublhead but some sources indicate that the Bublhead was off by even more than you have indicated. This link http://www.ff.org/centers/csspp/library/co2weekly/2005-08-18/dioxide.htm shows a CO2 concentration of about 7000ppm during the Cambrian.
Or just the graph may be seen here http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image277.gif
That’s gotta be the best description of the alarmist world view I have ever heard.
Thanks once again Joe, you have made my day.
@Michael Jankowski
A history channel program on the collapse of the twin towers several years ago revealed that only the lower 1/4 of the support beams in the twin towers were insulated against fire because when the building reached that point a ban against asbestos was in put in place at that time. So no insulation, lots of fuel and a building that acts like a big chimney, of course it’s going to collapse. BTW the asbestos that was used was in a location where after it was applied no one would ever come into contact with it.
The Gray Monk says: (June 3, 2011 at 12:25 pm)
…but steel can be melted … It is rare, but it was also noted after the fire storms that destroyed Hamburg and Dresden to name just two.
Thank you. A little history is a wondrous thing.
Lest We Forget.
I don’t think you can get a better explanation than this as to why the towers collapsed.The steel did not need to melt,just buckle.
For Elizabeth
I don’t know about you but when I use my BBQ, which has a near perfect combustion stoichiometry (thus maximum temperature), I don’t see the grid melting away every time I use it.