I’m taking the rest of the weekend off – for two reasons:
1. With 100million views under my belt, I’ve earned it.
2. I’m rebuilding my home personal computer as it is becoming flakey, and such things take three times as long as you figure. Windows doesn’t take well to new mobos, and backup/prep must be done. So I’ll be down anyway.
Talk quietly amongst yourselves on any topic within site policy – don’t make me come back here until late Sunday night whenI start my regular work week. 😉 – Anthony
UPDATE: Sunday AM – My computer rebuild went well, and I learned some valuable things that I’ll share in an upcoming post. I went from an old AMDx2 64 dual core to a Intel I5 quad core CPU, doubled my memory speed, doubled my video card speed, and went from a SATA2 to SATA3 SSD. I can blog even faster now. Speaking of which, my email load this morning contained two stories (one quite dramatic) that I’ve put on auto-scheduled publishing that will appear soon. I’m still taking the rest of the day off though. – Anthony
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EXPLORING THE OCEAN BASINS WITH SATELLITE ALTIMETER DATA
David T. Sandwell – Scripps Institution of Oceanography
and
Walter H. F. Smith – Geosciences Laboratory, NOAA
The surface of the ocean bulges outward and inward mimicking the topography of the ocean floor. The bumps, too small to be seen, can be measured by a radar altimeter aboard a satellite. Over the past year, data collected by the European Space Agency ERS-1 altimeter along with recently declassified data from the US Navy Geosat altimeter have provided detailed measurements of sea surface height over the oceans. These data provide the first view of the ocean floor structures in many remote areas of the Earth.
The global gravity grids reveal all volcanoes on the seafloor greater than about 1000 m tall. Approximately 1/2 of these volcanoes were not charted previously.
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/bathymetry/predicted/explore.HTML
“Data produced by radar sensors like ERS-1 have been used to produce global seafloor elevation data. Radar pulses cannot penetrate the deep ocean, but they can be used to accurately measure the height of the sea surface relative to a global ellipsoid such as WGS 84. As you know, the geoid is defined as mean sea level adjusted to account for the effects of gravity. Geodesists invent reference ellipsoids like WGS 84 to approximate the geoid’s shape with a figure that is easier to define mathematically. Because gravity varies with mass, the geoid bulges slightly above the ellipsoid over seamounts and undersea volcanoes, which often rise 2000 meters or more above the ocean floor. Sea surface elevation data produced by satellite altimeters can thus be used to predict fairly detailed bathymetry, as shown in the map below.”
https://www.e-education.psu.edu/natureofgeoinfo/book/export/html/1763
..and this is just totally cool
Gravity satellite yields ‘Potato Earth’ view
Gravity is strongest in yellow areas; it is weakest in blue ones.
(sea level is highest in yellow areas, and lowest in blue)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12911806
…and sea level is highest exactly where GOCE (gravity) says it should be
http://www.aviso.oceanobs.com/en/news/ocean-indicators/mean-sea-level/products-images/index.html
R. Gates says:
January 8, 2012 at 12:27 pm
“To those who think and can prove that gravity and the ideal gas law explain the whole thing, there is a Nobel Prize in Physics waiting for you, and your name will be as famous as Newton and Einstein. Good luck…”
I hate it when the children-eating, puppy dog-kicking warmists misrepresent our position…
Bomber_the_Cat says:
“There is some variation between night and day, but not much.”
Yea, what’s anywhere from 10 to 100 W/m2 when we’ve got 3.7 W/m2 to worry about? Come on, the “back radiation” (DLR) has a significant diurnal cycle especially in very DRY climates because (can we guess?); the DLR is mostly due to water vapor on cloudless nights. That’s why temperature differences between day and night are greater in the desert. The diurnal cycle is highly dependent on location; CO2 doesn’t seem to help much (keeping it warm through the night) in places with low humidity.
As noted by the “DOOM” science salesman previously linked showing the “significance” of CO2 to DLR (to his credit he at least alludes to his cherry picking): “The proportion of DLR from CO2 is much higher than we would see in the tropics, simply because of the lack of water vapor in Antarctica.” Actually, if he were telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, he would admit that a graph from Antarctica DLR has very little to do with the average global DLR.
“More informatively, there are also measurements of the spectral distribution of this ‘back radiation’ which show the strong fingerprint of CO2 centered on a wavelength of 15 microns.”
Oh yes, CO2 is very “powerful” right there in it’s sweet spot, but look at water vapor baby. It’s RANGE is HUGE by comparison to CO2 therefore the MAGNITUDE of it’s effect is greater, much, much greater. And don’t even get me started on clouds, they out perform any GHG as they actually absorb and radiate as a grey body.
“You see these things are actually measured. It is not just someone’s imagination or unsubstantiated theory. It is empirical data.”
No they don’t make it up; they just show the portion that they want you to see, like any successful con artist. I’m always skeptical of any collection of facts that leads to only one conclusion.
Prime example: http://www.dhmo.org/
Anthony,
Glad the rebuild went well. I just rebuilt my computer as a Christmas present to myself. Those SSDs really speed the system up. I just wish the price per Gigabyte would come down. I went from Windows XP pro to Windows 7 64 pro and the differences are pretty significant. Being able to use 16 gigabytes of RAM has really helped some of my code runs too. Things have come a long ways since the first 8088 based system I built in the 80s.. I also appreciate not having to code in assembler. I don’t know how many times I messed up on what was in which register and came up with garbage. Higher level languages are definitely the way to go. I really liked my first BASIC interpreter and things have gotten better and better since.
Have fun with the new rig.
Bomber_the_Cat says: “The greenhouse effect works night and day. The amount of downwelling radiation from the atmosphere (‘back radiation’) is continually monitored by a network of BSRN stations (Baseline Surface Radiation Network) around the world. It is typically about 340 Watts/sq.m”
The only way to actually measure backradiation would be to measure any warming effect. You would think it would be quite simple to compare different temperatures between identical metal plates one of which was shielded from backradiation. But no. No one ever seems to be able to do so – correct me if I’m wrong! Why? Because the backradiation does not warm the plate. So, instead they do things like point an infra-red thermometer upwards and determine the temperature somewhere up there, the thermometer doing so from the frequency of the radiation which is proportional to temperature. Then they bung this temperature into the SB equation and, bingo, we have a “measure” of backradiation. Or do we?
I’m never quite sure why it’s called backradiation anyway. Quite a bit of incoming radiation from the Sun is in the infra-red spectrum and is thus absorbed by trace gases such as carbon dioxide. That which is sent back to space helps prevent the warming it would have caused. That which gets re-radiated in the direction of Earth (where it was going anyway) gets lumped in with the “backradiation.” So why is it that plots like this only seem to show radiation from the Sun without a lot of extra radiation in there in the infra-red spectrum? http://earth-climate.com/spectral-content.gif We can see the “pockets” where water vapour and carbon dioxide have absorbed some of the incoming infra-red radiation, thus having a cooling effect, but why aren’t these pockets filled up again and indeed overflowing because of all the backradiation?
Now, as I have pointed out, the radiation from the atmosphere which comes from a point which is cooler than the surface it “hits” will not be converted to thermal energy in the surface, but will instead be “bounced off” because it is immediately re-emitted with the same frequency and thus the same energy. This process takes no significant time and so does not slow the cooling process one iota. Only incident solar radiation has enough energy to surpass the threshold frequency and thus produce warming. Such thermal energy can sink deep into the oceans, or not so deep into the land surfaces, and then come back out again hours or even months later. All of which is why the surface does not act like a perfect blackbody and why the so-called atmospheric “greenhouse effect” is a physical impossibility.
Latitude says: “http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12218 Thousand of new volcanoes revealed beneath the waves “”Satellites can detect volcanoes that are more than 1500 m high because the mass of the submerged mountains causes gravity to pull the water in around them. This creates domes on the ocean’s surface that can be several meters high and can be detected from space.””
Excellent. So what produces Rossby waves?
R.Gates wrote;
“However, there does appear to be a great divergence in correlation in the later part of the 20th century (after about 1980) between solar activity (as measured any number of ways) and global temperatures. How do skeptics to AGW explain this?”
I, for one dismiss your observations as MEASUREMENT ERRORS….. I have yet to see a “climate scientist” that could in any way apply proper error bars to their measurements.
The unfortunate TRUTH is that the “climate scientists” are OFF by about PLUS/MINUS 2 degrees F in their ALLEGED measurements…..
If you can only measure a physical characteristic within a few degrees F, you (and others) have a WHOLE LOT OF NERVE STATING what WILL HAPPEN in a CENTURY………….
The “Greenhouse Effect” when applied to the atmosphere of the Earth only changes the “Response Time” of the gases in the atmosphere………………
Cheers, Kevin.
dr.bill:
January 8, 2012 at 3:29 pm
Hi Bill. I’m sorry, James not Karl. My slip.
Dear N&Z
I would like to congratulate you on your recent nomination for a Nobel prize by R. Gates.
Although to be realistic, I’m not certain that how much weight his nomination carries. After all, this is the same R. Gates who made a bet with me regarding Al Gore’s on air experiment. R. Gates was convinced that if the experiment was replicated, the results would match those illustrated on air. R. Gates failed to notice that Al Gore used an infrared heat source, and so results demonstrating the greenhouse effect would have been impossible in the first place. Then he suggested that to simplify relpication of the experiment, the globes be removed as they were superflous. Apparently R. Gates failed to grasp the need for there to be something in the jar to aborb radiation and re-radiate it in order to demonstrate the greenhouse effect.
So, sadly, his nomination likely carries little weight.
Doug Cotton said “Four simple questions for you all – true or false?”. OK, I’ll take the bait:
1. True, but I suggest lacks relevance. Instead, take two similar flasks, one mirrored and one not; pour equal quantities of coffee into the flasks at the same temperatures. The mirrored flask will remain warmer than the non-mirrored flask at all times until they both cool to the ambient temperature of the room (if cooler than the coffee of course).
2. Again true but I suggest lacks relevance. Take two patches of earth close to one another, one having the reflecting mirror over it and one without. Assuming the patch without the mirror cools then (ignoring convective effects) the one with the mirror also cools, but more slowly.
3. Agreed, true.
4. True, but it’s the relative rates of warming/cooling (with/without the “mirror”) that are the true issue. If, say, the sun’s radiation is blocked for a month (as in Freddie Hoyle’s “the black cloud”) surface temperatures will cool eventually to the same levels with or without CO2 or other greenhouse gases.
Live long and prosper.
Yeah, it’s a problem. Runaway CO2 cooling! Or at least collaboration with a natural cooling trend.
Even if we knew what precipitated Ice Ages, and ended interglacials, adaptation is likely — VERY likely — all that could be done (short of space mirrors, etc.) We’re gonna need really HUGE greenhouses …
And why does a car “radiator” have a fan?
and why is the engine water, or air, cooled?
Why do we get thunderstorms at night if convection has stopped?
Why do flames rise upwards?
Real Climate Alexa Data:
Upstream Sites
Which sites did users visit immediately preceding realclimate.org?
% of Unique Visits Upstream Site
34.78% google.com
28.26% wattsupwiththat.com
13.04% scienceblogs.com
8.70% climateaudit.org
8.70% yahoo.com
6.52% twitter.com
WUWT sharing the Love with the Team!!
****
Jerker Andersson says:
January 8, 2012 at 2:49 pm
But if such fast and massive temperature changes can happen both ways and they are permanent, we certainly dont want a downward spike, I dont think 10C up would be an good idea either though.
****
From our current interglacial state, such a rise isn’t possible — the planet is in “warm” mode. No land glaciers at low-enough latitudes to melt & produce enough albedo change to support it. Greenland & Antarctica’s ice-masses are too large, thick & far poleward to melt very fast.
If you’re thinking the route that ocean current or atmospheric changes could cause a 10C rise, I don’t see how. The large changes you refer to are often centered in the N Atlantic (Greenland) and presumably produced by Gulf Stream/thermocline changes. Presently the thermocline is in a “warm” state — it historically doesn’t increase any more than it already has during this IG (or any other according to the ice-core history). But the thermocline could certainly shut down or move southward, and 10C drops are certainly possible at any time from a “warm” state.
So I don’t think there any climatological evidence to think a 10C rise could occur now in this IG. A 10C drop is quite plausible, tho, if at/near the “end”. Fear the cold….
According to huffington post some find the freezing temperatures of Greenland preferable to the Texas ‘heat’.
Doug Cotton says:
January 8, 2012 at 7:10 pm
Bomber_the_Cat says: “The greenhouse effect works night and day. The amount of downwelling radiation from the atmosphere (‘back radiation’) is continually monitored by a network of BSRN stations (Baseline Surface Radiation Network) around the world. It is typically about 340 Watts/sq.m”
The only way to actually measure backradiation would be to measure any warming effect. You would think it would be quite simple to compare different temperatures between identical metal plates one of which was shielded from backradiation. But no. No one ever seems to be able to do so – correct me if I’m wrong! Why? Because the backradiation does not warm the plate. So, instead they do things like point an infra-red thermometer upwards and determine the temperature somewhere up there, the thermometer doing so from the frequency of the radiation which is proportional to temperature. Then they bung this temperature into the SB equation and, bingo, we have a “measure” of backradiation. Or do we?
I’m never quite sure why it’s called backradiation anyway. Quite a bit of incoming radiation from the Sun is in the infra-red spectrum and is thus absorbed by trace gases such as carbon dioxide. That which is sent back to space helps prevent the warming it would have caused. That which gets re-radiated in the direction of Earth (where it was going anyway) gets lumped in with the “backradiation.” So why is it that plots like this only seem to show radiation from the Sun without a lot of extra radiation in there in the infra-red spectrum? http://earth-climate.com/spectral-content.gif We can see the “pockets” where water vapour and carbon dioxide have absorbed some of the incoming infra-red radiation, thus having a cooling effect, but why aren’t these pockets filled up again and indeed overflowing because of all the backradiation?
Now, as I have pointed out, the radiation from the atmosphere which comes from a point which is cooler than the surface it “hits” will not be converted to thermal energy in the surface, but will instead be “bounced off” because it is immediately re-emitted with the same frequency and thus the same energy. This process takes no significant time and so does not slow the cooling process one iota. Only incident solar radiation has enough energy to surpass the threshold frequency and thus produce warming. Such thermal energy can sink deep into the oceans, or not so deep into the land surfaces, and then come back out again hours or even months later. All of which is why the surface does not act like a perfect blackbody and why the so-called atmospheric “greenhouse effect” is a physical impossibility.
—————————–
The reason they don’t include thermal ir direct from the Sun is because they claim it doesn’t get throught the atmosphere, and certainly doesn’t get down to Earth ..
Regardless that some still know that the heat we feel from the Sun is the invisble thermal infrared, and if we can feel it warming us up so can the land and oceans, the claim from the AGW Science Fiction department has it that it is shortwave from the Sun that heats land and oceans and this heated land and oceans then radiate out the invisible thermal infrared, and so they continue in this weird fictional world, this then back-radiates to heat the land and oceans even more, or some variation on that theme, they’re not consistent… 🙂
What I find horrifically shocking is that this fiction that visible light can heat land and oceans is accepted as if real science even by those arguing against AGW.. It’s been very successfully introduced into the general western education system and some get very upset to think they’ve been duped like this, so argue against it being fiction, but won’t provide any proof that blue visible light as from the Sun can heat water, etc..
But also, this measuring infrared by pointing thingie up into sky, I came across something about this a few days ago, let me see if I can find it.
Not that I can understand what MIC are actually saying, one micron? But calibrated to measure selectively over 8-14 microns?
Anyway, I put it in here for interest, if there is any.., together with the pre and post AGWSF re-education as found in this example: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/28/spencer-and-braswell-on-slashdot/#comment-711614
“thankyou for posting that link to the NASA site which shows clearly that it has now stopped teaching traditional well-known and understood differences between Light and Heat energies from the Sun and replacing it with AGWScience fiction memes. This corruption of basic science is deliberate and systematic – dumbing down science education for the masses.
I think this agenda should be brought into the spotlight and a comparison of the NASA pages pre and post corruption is an excellent example as it easily conveys the extent this manipulation has reached. NASA’s reputation is being used to promoted science fiction. I am greatly saddened by it.
..
NASA original page teaching previously traditional real world physics to children: http://science.hq.nasa.gov/kids/imagers/ems/infrared.html
From this NASA page:
compare with:
NASA page now teaching that thermal infrared doesn’t even reach us!: http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/emspectrum.html
So.., all that heat we feel from the Sun when on summer hols is … good grief, they really believe it’s from visible light…
..because that’s what they are taught. 🙂
I would like to draw your attention to the ideas of the only group of scientists who are close to “getting it” as regards climate and why the Greenhouse Effect from Infra Red Interacting Gasses (IRIG’s) is a pure myth.
Heat always passes from a hot object to a cooler object, therefore the “”Greenhouse Effect”” from back Infra Red is impossible.
http://www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/
See also the book “Slaying The Sky Dragon”.
regards
John
Myrrr, you are spot on with your comments! WUWT should post your comments as an article, but as a fully paid up Lukewarmer blog, I’m afraid it won’t.
regards
John
Thanks John! 🙂
John, Myrrh is a badly mixed bag. His delusion that SW light radiation magically avoids degrading into thermal energy is an ongoing multi-blog joke. But his overall views on CAGW are pretty accurate. (His other delusion is that CO2 falls to the ground and stays there, never being distributed throughout the atmosphere by Brownian Motion or convection or wind.)
It’s great to be an autodidact — but you have to get lucky in your choice of teacher.