It appears “global warming” is now the most potent force in the universe, according to a scientist from the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics. An actual scientific paper preprint published in the Cornell University science archive makes the connection to black holes in the title, and includes “climate change” in the abstract.
Sigh. It isn’t even past coffee on Sunday morning and already we have our winner. This one… is weapons grade stupidity. I would not believe that a scientist from a prominent research institute could utter such a statement had I not read it in a prominent science magazine. It’s another “Vinerism” in the making: Children just aren’t going to know what black holes are.
It immediately reminded me of the famous line uttered by Tom Cruise in the movie a A Few Good Men:
“Should we or should we not follow the advice of the galactically stupid!
But then again, this is The New Scientist. Read on, emphasis mine.
…
Something must have limited the growth of these black holes. Now Takamitsu Tanaka at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany, and colleagues have a climate-based explanation.
…
Black holes need cool gas to grow so this would have slowed down the growth of other black holes in smaller protogalaxies, even as the growth of black holes in the most massive protogalaxies continued apace (arxiv.org/abs/1205.6467v1).
“This global warming process could have basically quenched the latecomers,” says Tanaka. “The early ones end up being the monsters and they prevent the overgrowth of the rest.”
Tanaka probably should have said the “galactic warming process”, and maybe he did, and this could is a misquote by the unnamed author of the article at TNS. UPDATE: This line from the abstract tends to suggest it was a deliberate statement from the scientist:
Our calculations paint a self-consistent picture of black-hole-made climate change, in which the first miniquasars – among them the ancestors of the z 6 quasar SMBHs – globally warm the IGM and suppress the formation and growth of subsequent generations of BHs.
Either way, it shows how global warming on the brain tends to create an environment for such ridiculous comparisons to make it to press.
I decided I should make a screencap of the paper abstract, becuase I have a feeling it will disappear:
Next I suppose we’ll be reading comparisons of the “global warming process” to problems at the atomic interaction level, such as maybe the sun is now producing fewer neutrinos or some such rot. Don’t laugh, it could happen.
Read The New Scientist article here.
Unfortunately, comments are only allowed from subscribers, so if there are any subscribers out there, please leave a comment pointing out this idiotic comparison. Better yet, write a letter to the editor of the magazine.
In the meantime, feel free to use this motivational poster:
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Ric Werme says:
June 10, 2012 at 7:41 am
I think you’re being a bit harsh. Japanese researcher working in Germany reported by a journalist who doesn’t understand English in a magazine that doesn’t understand science….
That could also describe a typical inanimate-object-as-temperature-proxy-study team…
I love the abstract :
“Our calculations paint a self-consistent picture of black-hole-made climate change , in which the first miniquasars – among them the ancestors of the z 6 quasar SMBHs – globally warm the IGM and suppress the formation and growth of subsequent generations of BHs. We present two specific models with global miniquasar feedback that provide excellent agreement with recent estimates of the z=6 SMBH mass function.”
Well it shows that global warming is hindering BH growth, such a pity, as said above it becomes clear that children just aren’t going to know what black holes are.
8:50am, Sunday, 6/10/12….. Sorry jaymam, it’s there. I just read it, as advertised.
What’s wrong with Tanaka’s viewpoint is that if he is right, then Global Warming is a GOOD thing, otherwise there would be an out-of-control proliferation of black holes.
If in fact New Scientist has misquoted him, then they’ve reduced themselves to the level of scientific integrity and understanding of Time magazine, or Newsweek. Or Real Climate.
Are “stunted black holes” a bad thing?
Personally, I always found the idea of them lurking around out there, sucking everything up, a bit scary.
I think I might stick to my SUV and stunt them a bit more to be on the safe side.
I love WUWT but the readiness to heap on the scorn without looking or seeking to understand is beginning to undermine the solid foundation of the site. I’d hate to see WUWT ruin it’s good reputation built on solid reporting and facts by getting in the habit of taking cheap shots at every comment out there.
Take the time to try to understand what is being said before flinging scorn and make sure of your target – whether it is the scientist, the New Scientist or whether the New Scientist is simply misusing information that makes sense in context.
“Our calculations paint a self-consistent picture of black-hole-made climate change, in which the first miniquasars – among them the ancestors of the z 6 quasar SMBHs – globally warm the IGM and suppress the formation and growth of subsequent generations of BHs.”
Making fun of things that are actually correct in context undermines WUWT.
REPLY: I probably should have made the abstract part of the original article, that is now rectified. The money quote from the abstract is:
So, I think the scientist deserves scorn for trying to link the “climate change” phrase to something otherworldly and temporally almost at zero hour for the universe, but TNS even more so for editorial failure. – Anthony
Tanaka -neat name. Like something from a Bond movie, or Flash Gordon.
Colonel Takana: General Kala! Black Hole approaching!
Kala: What do you mean, “Black Hole approaching?”
Colonel Takana: On a Hawkman rocket-cycle. Shall I inform Karoly?
Kala: Imbecile! Karoly would shoot you for interrupting his peer reviewing with this news! Fire when Black Hole’s in range!
[Black Hole escapes]
Kala: It’s escaping, idiot! Dispatch war rocket CO2 to bring back Its body
All this from New Scientist about black holes but nothing about carbon’s effect on white holes? Is this a clear case of hole color prejudice?
Come on. The abstract said globally warm, warming in a spherical volume. Climate referred to the conditions around the black hole. Tanaka said nothing wrong. The incompetents at New Scientist have CAGW on the brain and didn’t even understand what he was talking about. They just knee jerked when they heard climate, global and warming used in the same paragraph. And I used to read that mag.
Gary says:
June 10, 2012 at 9:04 am
Making fun of things that are actually correct in context undermines WUWT.
How is “Our calculations paint a self-consistent picture of black-hole-made climate change, in which the first miniquasars – among them the ancestors of the z 6 quasar SMBHs – globally warm the IGM and suppress the formation and growth of subsequent generations of BHs” correct in context?
Scratch that — how is “…miniquasars…globally warm…” correct in *any* context?
The use of the word “global” is a very poor choice technically speaking (not to mention geometrically speaking) in the context of gases and black holes. Technical writing, be it for research or manual reporting, requires clarity, not color. Technical clarity comes from three methods: Organization, sentence structure, and word choice. This effort fails at least on word choice.
Is not the universe expanding, leading to overall cooling? Culminating in heat death of the universe?
I wonder if the MSM picks this up? What a hoot that would be! 🙂
“it becomes clear that children just aren’t going to know what black holes are.”
I’m sacred now…Oh wait…I never knew what Black Holes were in the first place.
Does anyone?
Gary says:
June 10, 2012 at 9:04 am
“Our calculations paint a self-consistent picture of black-hole-made climate change, in which the first miniquasars – among them the ancestors of the z 6 quasar SMBHs – globally warm the IGM and suppress the formation and growth of subsequent generations of BHs.”
Sorry, still doesn’t make much sense. It sounds like an ad for some special cooker or something.
“Our calculations paint a self-consistent picture of black-hole-made climate change, in which the first miniquasars – among them the ancestors of the z 6 quasar SMBHs – globally warm the IGM and suppress the formation and growth of subsequent generations of BHs.”
@Gary Young: so, are you saying the terms “climate change” and “globally warming” are usual terms of reference in this subject?
I’m not disputing, just asking for clarity
The €uro is in meltdown. Rio +20 is a farce waiting to happen. So what do “scientists” do when they need sponsorship? Scare the [snip . . kbmod] out of gullible voters so that they support politicians that want to save the planet and tax us more and more based upon the fraud that pays the “scientists” to produce yet more fraudulent research …. for the children. I worked for such a man, and utterly despised him.
But it is the politicians that are most to blame. Without cataclismic global warming there is no need to tax us to hell.
Gary, the title of the paper, per the link by harrywr2, is:
“X-ray emission from high-redshift miniquasars: self-regulating the population of massive black holes through global warming”
I mean, really…. massive black hole … MBH … Mann, Bradley, Hughes ……….
MBHes regulating their own population using “global warming ….
If that doesn’t beg for parody, I don’t know what does.
RTF
It may have been a correct quote but the term is out of context. Remember, global is often used as a synonym for “total” and “all.” So, IOW, a “global” effect can be meant to say an “everywhere” or “all-encompassing” effect. His usage just happened to trip over a buzz word. My 2 cents.
So it is gravity, not CO2 that drives temperature after all.
Japanese into German into English likely left a bit of the meaning on the editor’s desk. What an embarrassment. I suspect auto-translation.
“There ain’t no squiggly, red lines under any words, so I guess that means it’s good science.” –Cletus Dootweiler MD, DDS, PhD, ASCAP, BMI
A large pool of cool gas is needed, as hot gas is (necessarily) expanding and exiting the neighborhood. Chowing down local stars isn’t enough; they’re just minor debris in the mass represented by large cool gas volumes.
I have heared that to get funding it’s best to link it to global warming. 😉
I read this and tried to shoot myself in the head. As luck would have it, global warming has warped the nature of reality, changed the laws of physics, and the gunpowder in the bullet would not ignite. …. There is no depths to which these guys will not sink, and apparently that’s a good strategy. I seem to remember some WWII leader who wrote a book that mentioned speaking to the lowest common denominator.
Oh my…