Weekend Open Thread

So is this gonna be the official live thread Sunday Night for …

Curiosity closes in on Mars for high-stakes descent
“The $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory rover is closing in on the Red Planet for a white-knuckle descent to the surface using an untried “sky crane” technique to ensure a pinpoint landing on the floor of Gale Crater.

That is the story at Cnet (there are many more all over the place. Continuing …

“After slowing to around 1,000 mph, the craft will deploy a huge supersonic parachute, the heat shield will be jettisoned, and a sophisticated radar altimeter will begin sounding the surface. After the craft slows to less than 200 mph, the parachute will be jettisoned and Curiosity, bolted to the belly of a rocket-powered descent stage, will fall free for the final drop to the surface.
Unlike past landers, Curiosity’s jet pack doesn’t have legs. Instead, it will act like a flying crane, lowering the rover directly to the surface on the end of a 25-foot-long bridle as the “sky crane” slowly descends. When the flight computer senses “weight on wheels,” the bridle will be cut and Curiosity will be ready for initial tests and checkout.
Touchdown is expected at 10:17 p.m. PDT Sunday, but it will take radio signals confirming the event 13.8 minutes to cross the 154-million-mile gulf between Earth and Mars. That translates to 10:31 p.m. “Earth-received time.””

This is a really risky mission!

David A. Evans says:
August 4, 2012 at 3:21 pm
As it’s open thread, can anyone point me to a free replacement for Flash & PDF reader that integrate with Firefox on WinDoze?
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Take a look here http://www.techsupportalert.com/
Gizmo is always my first port of call when I need a free utility. Dip into the ‘Editor’s Choice’ option. You’ll find good reviews and criticisms of each of the selections.

Keith Pearson, formerly bikermailman, Anonymous no longer says:
August 4, 2012 at 7:48 pm
Came across that recently, and it does in fact look fun! Having had recent surgery and big bills to pay, I’m going to have to let this one wait til next year. The $30 fly gun looks extrememly satisfying, but my $.99 flyswatter will have to suffice. It does make me think about some old cartoon, maybe Popeye, where he’s trying to nap, the fly won’t leave him alone, and he winds up so frustrated he uses the shotgun. Doesn’t kill the fly of course, but his house is in shambles. Have felt that frustrated many times myself.
I had rats in my detached garage (80m²) last year, being in france my neighbour offered to bring his shotgun down and shoot them for me. My imagination just went wild as I saw this guy firing at everything that moved and missing.

Neville says
The graph shows all the models for the next 300 years, so where will that dangerous SLR come from I wonder? Can anyone tell me please?
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Sure. The paper you linked to takes into account only 2 factors: melting at the edges of ice sheets and accumulation of snow in the interior. It does not take into account increased rates of glacier outflow.
As for sea level rise land ice melt is only part of the reason for sea level rise. The most important factor is thermal expansion of water.

And an authoritative summary of ground-based radiation measurements.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/publications/annrpt23/chapter3_2.htm
Includes direct and diffuse solar, areosols, infrared etc.

Mr Lynn says:
August 4, 2012 at 12:14 pm
Hansen is back at it!
“By James E. Hansen, Published: August 4
When I testified before the Senate in the hot summer of 1988 , I warned of the kind of future that climate change would bring to us and our planet. I painted a grim picture of the consequences of steadily increasing temperatures, driven by mankind’s use of fossil fuels.”
If global temperatures are increasing over a time interval, it is out of the methods of science to predict global temperatures for the future, without the knowledge of the physical mechanism of increasing or decreasing global temperatures. Each disregard of this limit of physics is not a method of science and/or a fallacious argument, which includes in the case of an authority the fallacy Argumentum ad verecundiam (Appeal to authority). ‘The Appeal to Authority uses admiration of a famous person to try and win support for an assertion.’.
Independent from this argument it needs not much logic to conclude that with increased global temperatures the processes driven by a higher heat must change in its effects. It seems to be intelligent to take the consequences in the adaptability as humans ever have done.
A further disregard of the methods of science is to take the old fashion dept phantom, people have controlled by kings, religions, and governments for many millennia, and mix it into a prediction of an authority, without any valid scientific argument.
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/agw_poll.jpg
In a new analysis of the past six decades of global temperatures, which will be published Monday, my colleagues and I have revealed a stunning increase in the frequency of extremely hot summers, with deeply troubling ramifications for not only our future but also for our present.
To understand the nature of global temperatures it is necessary and possible to analyse the reconstructed and measured temperatures for the time interval of about 1 million years or for the time interval of about 10 ky to present. This is inalienable because a supposed linear increased temperature of 6 decades can be a phase of a oscillating function of centuries or millennia. From this it is not possible to extrapolate time interval of temperature into the future.
This is not a climate model or a prediction but actual observations of weather events and temperatures that have happened.
No Sir. You do say two times a word on prediction and future.
Our analysis shows that it is no longer enough to say that global warming will increase the likelihood of extreme weather and to repeat the caveat that no individual weather event can be directly linked to climate change.
No Sir. Your analysis shows simple that you think there is an connection between high global temperatures and effects from that level. But that is not a new recognition. That’s what wrong is, that your analyse shell show that‘global warming will increase’ something, because this suggests a knowledge about the future, but this is not analysed.
our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change.
That is not the point in climate science. The point in climate science is to explain the cause for the analysable global temperature periods from many kiloyears to month. Periods which are well known since Bond have analysed the frequencies after Fourier’s method with an example of about 1 period per 1800 years. But it seems that there are 2 periods in 1800 years, and the temperature reconstruction from Zorita et al. fit with Bonds data. There are 13 increasing temperature phases over 11.000 years but as you can see, there are also phases of decreasing temperatures after high global temperature levels
:
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/bond_vs_zorita2.gif
This may show that an analysis of your chosen time interval of 6 decades with an increasing phase is not useful to make predictions to the future. You cannot rule out from the scientific point of view that the natural period of 1800 years, or better 900 years, occurs in a new decreasing phase of the global temperature.
To whom it may concern, analysed solar tides can be simulated from 3000 BC until 3000 CE. The pattern of some solar tide functions indicate, it fits with Bond et al. and Zorita et al. and lower temperatures in the next decades to 2040 CE..
http://www.volker-doormann.org/images/bond_vs_zorita3.gif
V.

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Blade says:
August 5, 2012 at 1:05 am
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For those that can get it, the Science Channel will start coverage @ur momisugly 10PM EST Monday for the “show”.

Chill to the contemporary jazz stylings of the legendary Jackson Jeffery Jackson. Silly but very funny.

“”The Arctic Row group is going to be stuck for several days near Barrow as they have run into some unexpected “weather” as I suggested before they started.””
Strange. Barrow webcam shows calm sea. Not even an iceberg in site!
http://seaice.alaska.edu/gi/observatories/barrow_webcam