Correlation of Net CO2 emissions with climate properties shows that the growth in CO2 may be natural
Story submitted by WUWT reader Steve Brown
The narrative of the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming has been challenged at many levels but this presentation by Professor Murry Salby, Chair of Climate at Macquarie University rips up the very foundations of the story.
The talk (in the video below) was given at the Sydney Institute 2nd Aug 2011
He elegantly shows that there is a solid correlation between natural climate factors (global temperature and soil moisture content) and the net gain (or loss) in global atmospheric content when the latter is averaged over a two year period. The hanging question remains, if natural factors drive more than 90% of the growth in CO2 how significant is the contribution of human generated emissions. The answer is simple… not very.
The talk has been covered in the past on Judith Curry’s blog, and an abstract of the talk is here . But this is the first time I have encountered a video of the talk or been able to see the slides which he referenced.
Fascinating.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Bart, I said the natural environment was opposing the rise, that is the net effect of both the sources and the sinks takes more CO2 out of the atmosphere that it puts in. Pointing out that sinks always oppose the any increase is just an attempt to evade the key point, which is that if total emissions from all natural sources are less than the total uptake by all natural sinks then the natural environment is opposing the rise in atmospheric CO2 not causing it.
Mrrh, volcanic emissions of CO2 are tiny (I agree that they will be C14 depleted). As Fred Singer points out anyone who thinks vocanic emissions produce significant amounts of CO2 need to explain why there isn’t even a blip in atmospheric CO2 ollowing even major volcanic eruptions. Now if you think that volcanic emissions explain the observed isotopic changes, then run the numbers and see if it pans out.
Imo, the material (mass) balance argument fails both in time and space.
The system is dynamic, not static – the system is not in equilibrium – it is always seeking equilibrium in both time and space.
Further, some locations on the planet are CO2 sources and others are CO2 sinks, and these sources and sinks change location and magnitude with time.
To suggest the material balance argument works is to suggest this planet is the size of a teacup, does not rotate on its axis, and does not orbit the Sun (has no seasons).
Hint:
We do know that CO2 lags temperature at several different time scales. The rest is probably just details.
dikranmarsupial says:
April 20, 2012 at 4:52 pm
Mrrh, volcanic emissions of CO2 are tiny (I agree that they will be C14 depleted). As Fred Singer points out anyone who thinks vocanic emissions produce significant amounts of CO2 need to explain why there isn’t even a blip in atmospheric CO2 ollowing even major volcanic eruptions. Now if you think that volcanic emissions explain the observed isotopic changes, then run the numbers and see if it pans out.
=======================
Because, firstly, carbon dioxide is heavier than air, it isn’t capable of ‘accumulating in the atmosphere’ to be measured.. Secondly, Keeling had no way of telling what was his mythical ‘background’ CO2 from the volcanic CO2 produced in great abundance every day in Hawaii.
The conclusion: no one knows what they’re talking about here re the figures because the measurements of CO2 have been corrupted because the basics about it are a mess. For example, again from link above:
—–
It seems that Gerlach (2011) drew his interpretation (quoted above) from a preference for the “global” “magmatic” carbon dioxide emission estimate of Marty and Tolstikhin (1998) which was devoloped from the generalisation of isotope ratios across provinces of varied geochemistry. This multimodal generalisation, as I have shown in the example of Laki (Section 2, above), can be spectacularly inaccurate. Gerlach reports this figure in the following contrastive statement:
“The projected 2010 anthropogenic CO2 emission rate of 35 gigatons per year is 135 times greater than the 0.26-gigaton- per-year preferred estimate for volcanoes.”
In the units I am using here, that translates to a “preferred” estimate of worldwide volcanic carbon emission at 0.071 GtCpa. At this point, I think it worth contrasting this with a quote from Cardellini et al. (2011) who are actually engaged in some real research:
“Quantitative estimates provided a regional CO2 flux of about 9 Gt/y affecting the region (62000 km2), an amount globally relevant, being ~ 10% of the present-day global CO2 discharge from subaerial volcanoes.”
That 9GtCO2pa translates to 2.45 GtCpa for just one region, which is more than 34 times the latest personally “preferred” “global” estimate offered by Gerlach (2011). One may well be keen to ask how it is possible that anyone would prefer to propagate a “global” estimate which is almost 35 times smaller than only one of the many provincial figures that must be summed in order to arrive at a worldwide estimate in the first place?
—–
What does Singer know? He’s pushing AGW fisics without providing any evidence that carbon dioxide is capable of doing what he claims. And, as he is visciously against those questioning this lack of evidence of the physical mechanism, calling them deniers and wanting to shut them out rather than provide answers, he is not someone I would give any credibility in the figures he provides. Your mileage may vary.
dikranmarsupial says:
April 20, 2012 at 4:41 pm
“…if total emissions from all natural sources are less than the total uptake of natural production by all natural sinks then the natural environment is opposing the rise in atmospheric CO2 not causing it.”
Fixed that for you. However, if total emissions from all natural sources are less than the total uptake of natural and anthropogenic production by all natural sinks, then there is not enough information to establish cause, and you need to gather information on the efficiency of the sinks.
Smokey says:
April 20, 2012 at 4:40 pm
Thanks for the moral support, Smokey. I really am shocked that something so elementary can fly over the heads of so many.
Myrrh says:
April 20, 2012 at 6:04 pm
“Because, firstly, carbon dioxide is heavier than air, it isn’t capable of ‘accumulating in the atmosphere’ to be measured.. ”
Of course it can accumulate in the air. Check out “Dalton’s Law of partial pressure” . , and Scale Height.
Scale height measures the height over which partial pressure drops to a factor of 1/e, =0.367..
The formula is
H = kT/Mg, where H is scale height, M is the mass of the molecule. N2 has a relative mass of 28, O2 has a relative mass of 32, CO2 has a relative mass of 44. True, CO2 has a lower SCALE height than O2 or N2, it will drop off 44/28 as fast as nitrogen, and 44/32 as fast as oxygen, regardless of the fractions of the 3 gases in the atmosphere.
From Dalton’s law, given 3 gases N2, O2, and CO2, the total atmospheric pressure will be the N2 pressure + the O2 pressure + the CO2. pressure. The CO2 will NOT settle out of the air because it’s heavier, it will reduce in density in direct proportion to its scale height.
Alan;
don’t bother. Many have battered themselves silly trying to educate Myrrh. It can’t be done. In any case, by now he has asserted his idée fixe (one of several) so many times that he can’t possibly change his story, to himself or anyone else.
Mrrh wrote: “Because, firstly, carbon dioxide is heavier than air, it isn’t capable of ‘accumulating in the atmosphere’ to be measured..”
This is obviously incorrect. If it were true then mining would be impossible as the heavier than air CO2 would fill up the mine and suffocate the miners, but it doesn’t. If it were true then there would be no CO2 measurable on top of mountains, but there is. If it were true then the programs that sample air from the upper atmosphere wouldn’t be able to detect any CO2, but they can and do. If it were true then it wouldn’t be possible to detect the effect of CO2 in outbound IR from different heights in the atmosphere, but it is.
As to Fred Singer, you do know he is a leading skeptic scientist, don’t you?
Brian H wrote “There was much discussion of this on Climate, Etc. last fall, and this winter some asked if the promised paper had been killed or rejected”
Actually the speculation was that Salby had withdrawn the paper, not that it had been killed or rejected.
Allan MacRae says: April 20, 2012 at 5:44 pm Rev.1
Hint 1:
We do know that atmospheric CO2 lags temperature T at several different time scales.
Hint 2:
We also know that in the “short-term” cycle derived from modern instrument records, the rate of change with time dCO2/dt varies ~contemporaneously with temperature T.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf
The rest is probably just details.
Bart wrote “Ea(t) – Una(t) is the net anthropogenic input, and En(t) – Unn(t) is the net natural input. And, we have no idea what the proportions are of one to the other.”
I now see the error in your thinking more clearly. It is straightforward to show by analogy why it is wrong.
Assume I share a savings jar with my wife as before. I put in four euro per month, all in Belgian minted coins [corresponding to Ea(t)] and my wife puts in 90 euro a month [corresponding to En(t)] all in Fench minted coins so you can tell who put them in the jar. However my wife thinks that the jar would be neater if it only contained French coins, so each month she takes out all of the Belgian coins she finds in the jar [i.e. Una(t) = Ea(t)] plus an extra 88 french minted coins [Unn(t)]. Our savings still rise by 2 euros per month, but at the end of the month all of the coins are French, there are no Belgian coins, yet most rational people would agree that I am responsible for the rise in our savings as I am saving more than I take out, and that my wife is opposing the rise because she is taking more out of the jar than she is putting in.
Following you argument, my net input to the savings is Ea(t) – Una(t) = 4 – 4 = 0 euros per month, and my wifes net input is En(t) – Unn(t) = 90 – 88 = 2 euros per month, so you would conclude that my wife is causing the rise in our savings even though she is taking more out of the jar than she is putting in. That is clearly absurd, and shows that your reasoning is faulty.
Note in this analogy I have made it a dynamic system as my wifes withdrawals depend on my deposits. However the argument is valid whether the fluxes are static or dynamic,
Your error is to concentrate on where idvidual molecules of CO2 rather than what is causing the imbalance between total emissions and total uptake, and and Prof. Salby explains very clearly in his presentation, it is this difference that causes atmospheric CO2 to rise or fall. Each year about 1/5 of the atmospheric reservoir is exchanged with CO2 from the oceans and terrestrial biosphere. However this is merely an exchange, it has no effect at all on atmospheric CO2 levels.
If you read my paper in Energy and Fuels, you will find it is very well known that only a small proportion of the additional CO2 is of directly anthropogenic origin as a result of this exchange flux, however it is anthropogenic emissions that cause the difference between total emissions and total uptake to be positive, and hence is responsible for the rise.
[Moderator’s Note: Mr. Marsupial, if you want people to read your paper, you will need to provide a reference or link. Somehow I doubt the paper was published under the nom-de-plume of “Marsupial, D.” -REP]
Good point REP, indeed it wasn’t by D. Marsupial ;o) For those who didn’t see it on the previous thread, the paper was published here: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ef200914u
On the Atmospheric Residence Time of Anthropogenically Sourced Carbon Dioxide
Gavin C. Cawley
A recent paper by Essenhigh (Essenhigh, R. H. Energy Fuels 2009, 23, 2773−2784) (hereafter ES09) concludes that the relatively short residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere (5–15 years) establishes that the long-term (≈100 year) rise in atmospheric concentration is not due to anthropogenic emissions but is instead caused by an environmental response to rising atmospheric temperature, which is attributed in ES09 to “other natural factors”. Clearly, if true, the economic and political significance of that conclusion would be self-evident and indeed most welcome. Unfortunately, however, the conclusion is false; it is straightforward to show, with considerable certainty, that the natural environment has acted as a net carbon sink throughout the industrial era, taking in significantly more carbon than it has emitted, and therefore, the observed rise in atmospheric CO2 cannot be a natural phenomenon. The carbon cycle includes exchange fluxes that constantly redistribute vast quantities of CO2 each year between the atmospheric, oceanic, and terrestrial reservoirs. As a result, the residence time, which depends upon the total volume of these fluxes, is short. However, the rate at which atmospheric concentrations rise or fall depends upon the net difference between fluxes into and out of the atmosphere, rather than their total volume, and therefore, the long-term rise is essentially independent of the residence time. The aim of this paper is to provide an accessible explanation of why the short residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere is completely consistent with the generally accepted anthropogenic origin of the observed post-industrial rise in atmospheric concentration. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the one-box model of the carbon cycle used in ES09 directly gives rise to (i) a short residence time of ≈4 years, (ii) a long adjustment time of ≈74 years, (iii) a constant airborne fraction, of ≈58%, in response to exponential growth in anthropogenic emissions, and (iv) a very low value for the expected proportion of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere. This is achieved without environmental uptake ever falling below environmental emissions and, hence, is consistent with the generally accepted anthropogenic origin of the post-industrial increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
I have put the bit of the abstract that relates to Bart’s error in bold. Anybody who understands the carbon cycle understands that the large exchange fluxes means that anthropogenic CO2 is exchanged with CO2 from natural sources within 5 years or so. However an exchange has no effect whatsoever on atmospheric CO2 concentrations as it is just a straight swap. It is the difference in total emissions and total uptake that determines whether CO2 levels rise or fall, as explained by Prof. Salby.
This is one of the canards, which Fred Singer rightly says gives skeptics a bad name, and it is well past the time it was dropped.
Atmospheric CO2 is a “Catch and Release” system.
Rainwater has the ability to wash CO2 out of the atmosphere, and may be an important mechanism in the ocean – atmosphere exchange. Rainfall over land could contain 49 to 68 Gt CO2/yr (as Carbon so we can compare to the atmospheric CO2 estimates). And for the ocean rainfall, it comes to 183 Gt/yr to 252 Gt/yr (as carbon). Compare with of 6 – 8 Gt/yr man made CO2/yr (as Carbon).
If those estimates are correct, it is likely that virtually ALL of the man made CO2 is removed from the atmosphere, then re-released by natural surface processes. That certainly fits with Dr Salby’s presentation, and would be consistent with a temperature and soil moisture correlation.
The land rainfall could end up ’stored’ in a river or lake, go into the soil or plants, or could splat on a parking lot and re-release the CO2 to the air when the water evaporates. My guess is the ocean rainfall could most likely be incorporated into the ocean and the CO2 with it (there is way more CO2 dissolved in the oceans than ‘free’ in the atmosphere), then released in natural temperature processes, or sequestered in biological exchanges.
My estimates used 10 to 20 deg C rain temperatures. From a global water balance, I found an estimate of total global rainfall that came to about 100,000 Gt/yr (as H2O) over land, and 400,000 Gt/Yr over the oceans.
elementary can fly over the heads of so many.
Alan D McIntire says:
April 20, 2012 at 10:15 pm
Myrrh says:
April 20, 2012 at 6:04 pm
“Because, firstly, carbon dioxide is heavier than air, it isn’t capable of ‘accumulating in the atmosphere’ to be measured.. ”
Of course it can accumulate in the air. Check out “Dalton’s Law of partial pressure” . , and Scale Height.
Scale height measures the height over which partial pressure drops to a factor of 1/e, =0.367..
The formula is
H = kT/Mg, where H is scale height, M is the mass of the molecule. N2 has a relative mass of 28, O2 has a relative mass of 32, CO2 has a relative mass of 44. True, CO2 has a lower SCALE height than O2 or N2, it will drop off 44/28 as fast as nitrogen, and 44/32 as fast as oxygen, regardless of the fractions of the 3 gases in the atmosphere.
From Dalton’s law, given 3 gases N2, O2, and CO2, the total atmospheric pressure will be the N2 pressure + the O2 pressure + the CO2. pressure. The CO2 will NOT settle out of the air because it’s heavier, it will reduce in density in direct proportion to its scale height.
===================
“The total pressure of a mixture of gases is the sum of the partial pressures of each gas in the mixture. The law was established by John Dalton (1766–1844). In his original formulation, the partial pressure of a gas is the pressure of the gas if it alone occupied the container at the same temperature. Dalton’s law may be expressed as P = PA + PB + ···, where PJ is the partial pressure of the gas J, and P is the total pressure of the mixture; this formulation is strictly valid only for mixtures of ideal gases. For real gases, the total pressure is not the sum of the partial pressures (except in the limit of zero pressure) because of interactions between the molecules.”
http://www.answers.com/topic/dalton-s-law
As I’ve said before in these discussions, AGWScienceFiction has created a world which doesn’t exist. Its molecules are ideal gas, which is an artificial imagined construct there is no such critter.
So, what do we have? We have an atmosphere of empty space of a container of ideal gas in this AGW through the looking glass with Alice world, where molecules zip through empty space at great speed bouncing off each other in elastic collisions off their container greenhouse glass imaginary pressure, there is no attraction, no weight, no gravity, no volume, no convection, no bloody any real world basic bog standard physics because there are no real world molecules and so no real world properties and processes in the real world ocean of heavy gas under gravity pressing down on us a ton a square foot. How do you get clouds in your world?
In the real world, if you’d care to step back through the mirror and look around you, real gases have real weight relative to each other; lighter than air gases will rise and heavier than air gases will displace air and sink, it takes work to change that. Carbon dioxide is one and a half times heavier than air, it will sink.
It will not readily rise into the atmosphere, because it is heavier than air as I posted earlier:
“Usually the large amounts of carbon dioxide released by Kilauea get dispersed by winds so we can breathe nice, healthy, oxygen-rich air on the caldera floor. Because CO2 is heavier than air, it doesn’t readily rise into the atmosphere and, instead, tends to pool in low areas.” From – Don’t daydream in low-lying places in Kilauea caldera
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/archive/2005/05_06_02.html
My bold. Real gases, real world. The AGWSF comic cartoon energy budget is fictional fisics of a world of fictional properties and processes. You’ve been had.
@mrrh wrote “In the real world, if you’d care to step back through the mirror and look around you, real gases have real weight relative to each other; lighter than air gases will rise and heavier than air gases will displace air and sink, it takes work to change that. Carbon dioxide is one and a half times heavier than air, it will sink. “
In that case, as I pointed out earlier, why is it that CO2 being heavier than air doesn’t sink into mineshafts and displace the air and suffocate the miners?
Myrrh said:
“It will not readily rise into the atmosphere, because it is heavier than air as I posted earlier:”
If you had not noticed, the atmosphere is not still. It’s in constant motion, even on a calm day. Air motion (ie the wind) is constantly mixing it.
If your theory of carbon dioxide sinking was correct, you’d have to worry every time you went into a basement that you’d be suffocated by carbon dioxide that had sunk down there. There would also be no carbon dioxide at hill tops so presumably plants would not grow there.
Besides, your theory is easily falsified by measurements. People have been measuring carbon dioxide concentrations at different altitudes since the 19th Century. You appear to believe this sinking property of carbon dioxide has managed to escape notice for more than a hundred years!
fisics of a world of fictional properties and processes. You’ve been had.
dikranmarsupial says:
April 21, 2012 at 7:57 am
@mrrh wrote “In the real world, if you’d care to step back through the mirror and look around you, real gases have real weight relative to each other; lighter than air gases will rise and heavier than air gases will displace air and sink, it takes work to change that. Carbon dioxide is one and a half times heavier than air, it will sink. “
In that case, as I pointed out earlier, why is it that CO2 being heavier than air doesn’t sink into mineshafts and displace the air and suffocate the miners?
==================
It can do, for those unaware of the dangers that it displaces oxygen to pool on the ground – instant suffocation. So also, if invited to a p*ss up in a brewery don’t fall asleep on the floor.. Methane in mines is a known hazard also, because it is lighter than air and will rise and layer at the ceiling – covering oneself with wet towels and carrying a lighted candle on a long pole to get rid of any used to be standard practice entering new mines.
The extract I posted came from the article titled:
“Don’t daydream in low-lying places in Kilauea caldera”
I really don’t know what to suggest, perhaps if you read it a few times to re-orientate yourself, and checked out other real world examples of gases layering because heavier or lighter than air you’d see how the AGWSF fisics is describing a different world.
This is very much a well known hazard around venting volcanoes, but also quite recently the unusual event at Lake Nyos where carbon dioxide responsible for the deaths of over 1700 people:
http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/Nyos.html
“The CO2-rich cloud was expelled rapidly from the southern floor of Lake Nyos. It rose as a jet with a speed of about 100 km per hour. The cloud quickly enveloped houses within the crater that were 120 meters above the shoreline of the lake. Because CO2 is about 1.5 times the density of air, the gaseous mass hugged the ground surface and descended down valleys along the north side of the crater. The deadly cloud was about 50 meters thick and it advanced downslope at a rate of 20 to 50 km per hour. This deadly mist persisted in a concentrated form over a distance of 23 km, bringing sudden death to the villages of Nyos, Kam, Cha, and Subum.”
Heavier than air, really means that in the real world. In huge quantities like this or smaller volumes in confined spaces such as mines or hollows in the ground in the path of flows from venting volcanoes, it kills by suffocation, displacing oxygen.
http://www.neatorama.com/2007/05/21/the-strangest-disaster-of-the-20th-century/
However, it is absolutely essential to us Carbon Life Forms, without it we can’t live as it is the basic food and necessary for optimum body processes. http://theroadtoemmaus.org/RdLb/11Phl/Sci/CO2&Health.html
Because CO2 is heavier than air, it doesn’t readily rise into the atmosphere and, instead, tends to pool in low areas.
Then that begs the question as to why the US Air Force has spent so much taxpayer money investigating the IR absorption properties of CO2 in the atmosphere (where heat-seeking missiles fly).
mrrh People have been mining for 5,000+ years, and digging tunnel and room pits for over 1,000 years. Can you give me a single doccumented account of a mine that has filled with CO2 and suffocated all the miners?
@Caerbannog I seem to recall reading that it was US Airforce data on IR absorption at altitude that Gilbert Plass used in the 1950s to produce the first modern numerical model of the greenhouse effect.
dikranmarsupial says:
April 21, 2012 at 7:57 am
@mrrh wrote “In the real world, if you’d care to step back through the mirror and look around you, real gases have real weight relative to each other; lighter than air gases will rise and heavier than air gases will displace air and sink, it takes work to change that. Carbon dioxide is one and a half times heavier than air, it will sink. “
In that case, as I pointed out earlier, why is it that CO2 being heavier than air doesn’t sink into mineshafts and displace the air and suffocate the miners?
============
And as I’ve answered, it’s a well known hazard in mining, it does.
http://www.everything2.com/title/Gas+in+Coal+Mines
“Carbon dioxide Besides being a part of both after damp and black damp, as noted above, carbon dioxide levels increase due to human and (in some cases, particularly in the past) animal respiration. Other sources include burning of candles or torches (less common since electricity came to mining), explosions, chemical reactions with certain rocks/minerals, even the decay of timber. One of the key tasks of a mine ventilation system is to get rid of carbon dioxide (hardly the most deadly, but the one most apt to build up in the day to day operation of a mine).”
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/smother.asp
“Yet carbon dioxide is also a deadly gas. Countless miners laboring underground have forfeited their lives to “choke damp,” the term for the oxidizing of carbon trapped within coal. When this process takes place in an enclosed space (such as the depths of a mine), the resulting carbon dioxide cannot dissipate and forms an invisible deadly cloud. Accounts given by people who witnessed choke damp in action described deaths that came so quickly the victims had no chance to escape. One person, recounting the fate of eight men and one woman who walked into an area where the gas had accumulated, said they “fell down dead, as if they had been shot.” Another narrative of a different death said the stricken miner was “without access to cry but once ‘God’s mercy.'”
Miners not only walked into deadly accumulations of choke damp; they were also sometimes lowered into them by being let down into mine shafts on ropes. If they hit pockets of carbon dioxide during their descents, they would fall from those ropes dead.”
There’s lots of info available – click a few keys.
@mrrh both of the examples you give there are a result of carbon dioxide generated within the mine, rather than having sank into the mine from the surface as your hypothesis would suggest.
http://theroadtoemmaus.org/RdLb/11Phl/Sci/CO2&Health.html
caerbannog666 (@caerbannog666) says:
April 21, 2012 at 10:18 am
Because CO2 is heavier than air, it doesn’t readily rise into the atmosphere and, instead, tends to pool in low areas.
Then that begs the question as to why the US Air Force has spent so much taxpayer money investigating the IR absorption properties of CO2 in the atmosphere (where heat-seeking missiles fly).
Yeah, very good question… They still won’t release the AIRS data for upper troposphere – or lower…
What carbon dioxide is found in the atmosphere will either come down because it is heavier than air, (the atmosphere isn’t churning around by constant wind…, looking out of my window now, none of the trees are moving, ah just begun a slight breeze at the very tops, stopped again), or, it comes down as rain, all pure clean rain is carbonic acid. Water vapour and carbon dioxide not being the imaginary ideal gases do not bounce off each other, but as real gases are mutually attracted to each other – so also in fog, dew, and that’s why iron rusts outside.
They really don’t want to produce any data about carbon dioxide. If I recall, a couple of satellites that were going to launched with the main brief of measuring CO2, didn’t make it, exploded or something.
Anyway, carbon dioxide has very low heat capacity, it quickly gets hot and as quickly cools down – if they’re worried about showing a trail or something? At those heights it’s cold, and oxygen and nitrogen also have low heat capacities, a little better than carbon dioxide but for all practical purposes it’s instant from hot to cold – the trails from planes are water vapour condensing out in the cold. Have to say I don’t understand what they’re doing, can you explain? afaik heat seeking missiles hit on, so to speak, the hot spots in the actual body of the plane targetted.
dikranmarsupial says:
April 21, 2012 at 5:33 am
“I now see the error in your thinking more clearly. It is straightforward to show by analogy why it is wrong.”
There is no error in my thinking. You analogies are facile and inapplicable. It is apparent you have no familiarity with feedback systems, and do not understand how they work.