Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Back in August 2010, WUWT ran an article wherein it was claimed that variations in the sun changed the rate of radioactive decay. This, of course, flew in the face of years and years of experimental evidence, starting with the Curies, that the rate of radioactive decay is constant, unaffected by pressure or temperature or anything else.
However, this claim that the sun could change radioactive decay rates was shortly challenged by a follow-up article at WUWT and then a second follow-up, both of which threw cold water on the idea.
Figure 1. Mass of the universe, by type. SOURCE
So I was interested to stumble across an announcement issued by Purdue University in August 2012, which strongly confirmed the reality of the phenomenon. Purdue has applied for a patent for the use of this effect as a means to supply advance warning of solar flares.
I found this most interesting, however, not because it affords a chance to have warning of another Carrington Event, although that would be great in itself. Instead, I found it interesting for a curious reason involving the mechanism whereby the sun is able to affect the rate of radioactive decay.
The thing I really like about the mechanism, about the way that the sun is able to influence the rate of radioactive decay, is that we don’t have any idea what it is or how it works.
Truly. Nobody has a clue. It was first noticed in 2006, and to date we have no idea how the sun does it. But Purdue says it clearly, repeatably, and demonstrably works. When the sun changes, radioactive substances all over the world change their rate of decay.
There have been years and years of attempts to see if we could artificially change the rate of radioactive decay. Obviously, if you could do that, it would be incredibly useful. But despite experiment after experiment, no one has ever discovered any combination of environmental variables that would change the rate of radioactive decay … until now, or so it seems at this time.
Now, don’t get me wrong here. I don’t think that the sun rules the climate, and I’m not discussing the sun for that reason. I’m not one of the “It’s the sun, stupid” folks. I don’t think any of the forcings rules the climate—not the sun, not CO2, not methane, not volcanoes, none of them.
Instead, I think the earth’s temperature is set by interlocking homeostatic mechanisms. These natural and poorly studied emergent phenomena have laughed off the effects of huge meteor strikes, and long-term vulcanism, and a slow rise in the solar output, and kept the earth within a surprisingly narrow temperature range at all scales, from centuries to millions of years. We think nothing of the fact that next year won’t be much different from this year … and yet that stability, of plus or minus one tenth of a percent in the global average surface air temperature variation over the last century, is actually quite surprising and demands explanation.
So I’m not talking about the sun affecting the climate. I bring up this question of the sun affecting the rate of radioactive decay for one reason—to highlight just how much we don’t know about this marvelous, mysterious infinity that surrounds us. People talk about Trenberth’s famous “missing heat”, where he described one of the many parts of climate science that is poorly understood—energy that he says is incoming but can’t be found or accounted for.
But given that we seem to have misplaced both the dark energy and the dark matter that make up 96% of the mass of the universe … well, when you can’t find hide nor hair of almost everything the universe contains, that kinda makes not finding a few zetajoules in the climate system pale by comparison …
Let me take another example. In 2010 it was discovered that thunderstorms function as huge natural particle accelerators. Who knew? Here’s a description of the mechanism:
… when particularly intense lightning discharges in thunderstorms coincide with high-energy particles coming in from space (cosmic rays), nature provides the right conditions to form a giant particle accelerator above the thunderclouds.
The cosmic rays strip off electrons from air molecules and these electrons are accelerated upwards by the electric field of the lightning discharge. The free electrons and the lightning electric field then make up a natural particle accelerator.
The accelerated electrons then develop into a narrow particle beam which can propagate from the lowest level of the atmosphere (the troposphere), through the middle atmosphere and into near-Earth space, where the energetic electrons are trapped in the Earth’s radiation belt and can eventually cause problems for orbiting satellites.
I loved that last bit. Using a giant particle accelerator to affect a satellite? Good science fiction, but utterly outrageous that it’s actually happening. One way to recognize emergent behavior is that it is not readily predictable from a knowledge of the conditions. I’d say a thunderstorm suddenly forming a giant particle accelerator that can blast a satellite, well, that would definitely qualify as unexpected and not predictable … and here’s another one.
Thunderstorms give off burst of gamma rays. They found out by accident a few years ago when the gamma ray satellite “Fermi” looked at the Earth. Not only that, but the gamma rays in turn give off bursts of antimatter, which get shot off into outer space …
I’ve had no success trying to establish the amount of energy in one of these terrestrial gamma-ray bursts, no clue. But there are about 1,100 of them per day, and although they are short they are very energetic … so how much energy is lost to space that way?
I find both of these phenomena quite interesting in that they appear, at least, to be a way that the world loses energy to space that is not accounted for in the usual budget. Among other things, we’re blasting positrons into space … go figure.
Remember that the tropical thunderstorms are an emergent phenomenon. They are formed and cluster around the hot spots, so they are removing energy directly where it is needed. As a result, although it may not seem like a lot when it is averaged over the surface of the planet, in the area where it is happening it is very significant.
Here’s another way the planet loses energy that’s not in the conventional accounting. Consider lightning. My back of the envelope calculations show that at something like 5 billion joules per strike, it accounts for about 0.2 W/m2 of energy averaged over the earth’s surface. Some of that is released in the form of heat, and some in the form of light … and that’s where it gets interesting, because something like half of that light will be radiated upwards. You can see it clearly from the space station.
Now, very rough calculations I’m sure someone can improve upon, if light is half the lightning energy and heat is the rest, and half the light escapes to space, that’s less than a tenth of a W/m2 … but again, that’s averaged around the globe. The thunderstorms mostly occur in certain areas and certain times where they are needed to cool the surface. And in those areas and times, the loss of energy to space in the form of light could easily reach several watts per square metre.
I bring up all of this stuff because it’s unknown, it’s stuff we barely understand, or not even that much. But it’s hard for me to describe the point I’m trying to get across, so let me give a couple of quotes that may explain it. First, from the famous scientist J. B. S. Haldane:
Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.
I find that greatly encouraging. It means there will always be new things to find out. Like the poet Robert Browning said, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp. Or what’s a meta phor?”
Then we have the famous scientist William Shakespeare, who might have been describing the sun affecting radioactive decay when he has Horatio say: :
HORATIO
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!
HAMLET
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
I suspect that eventually we’ll figure out just how it is that the sun is able to affect radioactivity, something that we thought could not be affected by anything. Of course, by then there will be some new phenomenon that’s just as mysterious.
And in the meantime, as we discover any new and fascinating thing about the climate, it seems to me that we should “as a stranger give it welcome”.
My point relates to the famous claim by Gro Harland Bruntland, the chief climate cheerleader for the IPCC, who said:
So what is it that is new today? What is new is that doubt has been eliminated. The report of the International Panel on Climate Change is clear. And so is the Stern report. It is irresponsible, reckless and deeply immoral to question the seriousness of the situation. The time for diagnosis is over. Now it is time to act (Brundtland 2007).
Well … no. Doubt has not been eliminated, nor will it ever be … and that’s great news.
And as for the consensus of more than 97% of scientists, you know, the ones who said that nothing could change the rate of radioactive decay? …
It’s doing about as well as consensus science ever does, meaning it’s right until it’s wrong, and in neither case does it affect the truth on the ground.
My best to all, keep up the questioning,
w.
Max™ says:
May 14, 2013 at 8:57 pm
Thanks, Max. A gigaelectronvolt is a very small amount of energy, about 1.6-10 joules.
So if that’s the minimum, it’s indistinguishable from zero.
I was actually after something else, the average energy given off by a terrestrial gamma-ray flash. From your interesting explanation, which I appreciated, we know the minimum … but what’s the average size?
Best regards,
w.
Willis, I am only speaking of physics and mathematically modeled sciences. The mathematical models are a way of economically containing a lot of experimental measurements. A model can be a theory if it is also predictive. Take a mathematical model of the surface of an island, it can be done . That model has the measured parameters of the island but certainly is not predictive, its extrapolations may or may not show other islands but nobody expects them to be there. If ever there is a mathematical theory predicting islands, this mathematical model should be part of it :).
I already left, Mr. Watts. don’t worry. Just forgot about it for a moment.
After all this, there is another question to be answered. Did Darth Vader Blew Up the Death Star?
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/03/18/turns-out-darth-vader-blew-up-the-death-star
@- Willis Eschenbach
Semantic quibbling is not useful. Energy IS being added to the climate system however you want to describe that process. The ERBE experiments first showed that and further direct observations have confirmed it.
@-
Tyndall.
@-
Civilisation has only arisen since the exceptionally stable climate of the Holocene. During 50,000 years of human existence during several ice-ages and interstadials agriculture and city state civilisation never arose. There may be other reasons for that than just climate stability, but it is certainly a factor. The rather small variations seen in the climate over the last six millennia have resulted in massive collapses of previous civilisations. Do you really think history supports the idea that human civilisation is resilient in the face of agricultural collapse or environmental degradation? If so I have some prime coastal swampland or midwest dustbowl I could sell you…
I know everything and still I know nothing!
A big Thank You to everyone that has commented on this thread, this layman learns every time he comes here, must be something to do with the hosts open and honest mind to science.
Willis,
I thought it was thermodynamic forces not thermostatic ones
Willis
So in short, you’re quite happy to abuse me for not knowing the answer to a question, but you didn’t answer it either. It was a simple question, too—how much energy is lost through the gamma-ray bursts and the resulting generation of antimatter?
First. I didn’t abuse you. On the contrary I concluded that I generally liked your posts and your common sense. I can even tell that I specifically liked your “thermostat hypothesis” and am convinced that this kind of non linear processes is what governs the climate dynamics. That and the oceanic oscillations.
However I also wrote that there are domains where common sense alone doesn’t help and actually misleads. This is typically quantum mechanics and the Standard Model mentionned by AnnaV too. Going into this terrotory with ONLY the common sense leads to either embarassing oneself or saying non sense or both. As that’s what you did,, I stated a fact that these things were (obviously) far above your head.
I am surprised that somebody who swears by facts and empirical evidence feels a statement of fact as “an insult”. It clearly isn’t and wasn’t intended as such but yes, I confirm, you misunderstood about everything that could have been misunderstood about beta decay,dark matter and anti matter.
What is specially annoying and misleading in your post is you writing that “We don’t understand this or that” only because you don’t understand this or that.
The purpose of my post was basically to say that many understand what you don’t and to give some answers.
Like AnnaV rightly wrote later – beta decay is explained und understood by the Standard Model.
Anecdotically the famous “god particle”, the Higgs boson recently found at the LHC, was “only” the Standard Model Higgs what dispapointed some scientists which hoped to see some new physics (actually supersymmetry and the dark matter explanation) “beyond” the Standard Model.
So no,, the beta decay rate constant is actually not a constant even if the name stayed for historical reasons and this was known for decades etc etc.
And yes, I did answer your question. Please note that I don’t comment on the particle pair creation by thunderstorms because that would lead too far. I just assumed that the hypothesis is right.
You confuse gamma and antimatter. What Fermi shows is a positron count. So I interpreted your question as “What is the energy in the antimatter flow ?”.
The positrons in this hypothesis are created (necessarily) by 1 MeV photon (double of the positron energy because there is also an electron created but not detected) – this is energy lower bound.
The Fermi count is given by FC = Nb positrons/µs
Assume that an average duration of one thunderstorm is N (seconds).
Assume that the average number of thunderstorms per year is M.
Then the average released “antimatter energy” per year is : FC x 10^6 x N x M x 1 MeV.
Of course as you don’t exacly know N and M, you’ll get vast uncertainty bands but the order of magnitude will be right.
TomVonk says:
> However I also wrote that there are domains where common sense alone doesn’t help and actually misleads. This is typically quantum mechanics and the Standard Model…
These are the domains where common sense (or any sense) has been specifically outlawed since Bohr and Heisenberg. “Shut up and calculate” is the new scientific method. Fair enough. Just don’t expect us to applaud you for your discoveries of text-messaging particles, virtual particles, zero-sized particles, particles without mass, particles interfering with themselves, infinite mass, time dilation, and other mathematical beauties. I will happily admit those ideas to be over my head. Paradoxes are over my head, too, and are boring. All they tell me is their authors can’t think straight.
All,
Meant no disrespect to anyone, I just think that speculations on fundamental physics from amateurs does not add any value.
Moreover, it does not help our “cause” (i.e. to promote a more rational, pragmatic, and evidencd based approach to CAGW).
Regarding “what we don’t know”, I repeat my opinion that “any scientist worthy of that title will assure you that the beauty of science is that the more we know, the more we know that we do not know.”
Izen, as an outside observer, I think I should point out to you that your performance on this thread was so abysmal that I doubt Willis will even bother to apply the coup-de-grace to your feeble, pathetic and outdated assertions.
Does this put time travel back on the table?
Willis says…Thanks, Max. A gigaelectronvolt is a very small amount of energy, about 1.6-10 joules.
So if that’s the minimum, it’s indistinguishable from zero.”
Yes, but this is for the amount of energy gained (or lost) by the charge of a single electron moved across an electric potential difference, is it not? I have no idea of the total energy involved.
William R. Corliss, recently deceased, published meaty collections of anomalies, culled from scientific publications. They are what science should be getting its teeth into. Here’s his author’s page on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_adv_b/?search-alias=stripbooks&unfiltered=1&field-keywords=anomalies&field-author=corliss&field-title=&field-isbn=&field-publisher=&node=&field-p_n_condition-type=&field-feature_browse-bin=&field-subject=&field-language=&field-dateop=&field-datemod=&field-dateyear=&sort=relevanceexprank&Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.x=31&Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.y=7
Anna V.
Explain to me:
1. What causes CHARGE.
2. What causes the Yukka Potential.
3. What order there is in the nuclear structure (the Nuclear Many Body Problem).
4. What causes gravity. (Weak forces)
5. What causes “magnetic force lines”.
The whole premiss of the particle bangers is based on 1/r i.e., as you get small and smaller the “binding energy” goes up. They can tell you the “structure” of elementary particles, but CANNOT come up with a comprehensive theory for the structure of the nucleus in a multi-Boson atom (say carbon, iron, lead).
WHAT forces cause “high energy” interactions? Things in the GeV range? How important are they overall? INSIGNIFICANT compared to compression due to a weak force, gravity. The “standard model” has super Nova making elements > iron, as fusion stops at iron. We’ve observed maybe 4 super nova in the last 2000 or 3000 years, best estimate. Yet now we have 2500 planets found around suns in our galaxcy.
The particle bangers and the cosmologists are FULL OF CONTRADICTIONS AND WHOLES. And yet you treat their pronouncements as “religious belief”. Hail Mary, Hail Hawkins. Me, I say, thanks for Willis and for Julian Barbour!
The particle “bangers” have been doing their “high energy dance” based on the FAULTY assumption
Max Hugoson: let’s be grateful to Anna V. — she gave us a beautiful explanation of what modeling is. Extension of validity is a great concept.
I’d love to know what Anna thinks about charge, but let me jump in and refer you to a man who can show you what charge is not:
http://www.ivorcatt.co.uk/x343.pdf
Ivor Catt, like Anna, is an experimentalist who (unlike Anna?) “doesn’t get it”. A very wise man, although not very well organised — good luck navigating through his web site.
David says:
May 15, 2013 at 4:56 am
Yes, but this is for the amount of energy gained (or lost) by the charge of a single electron moved across an electric potential difference, is it not? I have no idea of the total energy involved.
When an electron accelerates through a potential difference of a gigavolt, it gains an energy of 1 gigaelectronvolts. In units of joules, you can apply E = qV = 1.60 x 10^-19 C x 10^9 V = 1.6 x 10^-10 J.
@- philincalifornia
Thank you for your critique. As an outsider here myself I do wonder if your view might be coloured by disagreement with the points I make.
I have observed before that reminding people here what is positively known about the climate, and pointing out that they are a minority fringe compared with the weight of mainstream science sometimes garners negative reactions.
Thanks, Willis.
Food for thought …
Gene Selkov
Just don’t expect us to applaud you for your discoveries of text-messaging particles, virtual particles, zero-sized particles, particles without mass, particles interfering with themselves, infinite mass, time dilation, and other mathematical beauties. I will happily admit those ideas to be over my head. Paradoxes are over my head, too, and are boring. All they tell me is their authors can’t think straight.
Well that’s modern physics for you even if “infinite mass” doesn’t exist neither do “zero sized particles” (this would violate the Uncertainty principle).
.And the beauty of it is that it makes predictions that have been experimentally verified with an ever increasing accuracy over 100 years.
After all there is no reason why Mother Nature should pay attention to your demands that the microscopical world must behave like what your everyday’s experience is telling you at your scale.
The language of physics is definitely mathematics. At macroscopic scales you can supplement that with eyes an ears but at nuclear scales you have only your brain.
So yes, the Aspect experiments have no equivalent or analogy in your (macroscopic) world but this doesn’t prevent them to exist and make perfect sense for who knows the language they speak.
I can even tell you that there is “worse” for common intuition than the mere Standard Model – it is quantum gravity (string theory) but there is no law forbidding humans to try to understand and to model Nature’s behaviour at the Planck’s scales.
It just puts a constraint on the ability and time investment to learn the language and here the technicalities are above my head too so I won’t give my uninformed opinion about what we know or don’t know in this domain.
Willis, this is one of your best posts yet.
Thanks,
Max Hugoson says:
May 15, 2013 at 7:02 am
“Anna V.
Explain to me:
1. What causes CHARGE.
2. What causes the Yukka Potential.
3. What order there is in the nuclear structure (the Nuclear Many Body Problem).
4. What causes gravity. (Weak forces)
5. What causes “magnetic force lines”. ”
A blog entry is not a substitute for years of graduate study.
This said, one has to keep in mind that physics answers in the end only “How” questions. From a huge number of data mathematical models have been constructed into theories predicting not yet seen behavior, dependent on very few axioms. “What” questions finally hit on the axioms, and the word axiom itself means that there is no further explanation.
All that physical theories can do is explain within their axiomatic construct the observed behavior of particles and matter, how from the axioms and postulates one arrives to the observed behavior. In a similar way a map describes the territory but is not the territory. At the same time to be useful and not a mapping of known facts a physical theory has to be predictive and yes our particle theories are predictive ( as well as all the classical theories).
I think Tom Vonk is correct. People should acknowledge their limits of understanding: I can enjoy a symphony orchestra but would be really stupid to assume that I can play an instrument without training or read the symphony’s notes and lead the orchestra.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_decay#Changing_decay_rates
Tom Vonk, I note your long response above.
I had started out with you with this interaction
Naturally, other than abusing me for my lack of knowledge, you didn’t answer the question. So in my stupid way that is FAR below you, I asked the question again.
I note that despite my asking again, and despite how FAR above me you claim that your mental actuity reaches, you still haven’t answered my question.
You’re happy to waste electrons bloviating on how all of this sciencey stuff is all too much for my lack of eddication … but you didn’t answer the question either.
Gosh. I get more abuse and still no answer, while you prance around acting like you are the king of science … you claimed when we opened this dialog that the reason I couldn’t answer the question was that things were FAR above me.
So … if my lack of college is why I can’t answer the question … why is it that YOU can’t answer the question either?
w.
PS—Just how much education does one need to read an estimate of how much energy is released by gamma ray flashes, or released by anything for that matter? I don’t need a PhD to read something like “terrestrial gamma-ray flashes on average release about X joules per flash”, do I? Because if you read my question, that’s all I was asking for.
I can’t answer the question because I HAVEN’T BEEN ABLE TO FIND THE DATA, Tom, not because of lack of mental acuity. Read the damn question again. I didn’t ask for an explanation of the procedure, just for an estimate of the amount of energy released.
So in fact, it appears like my question itself is FAR above your abilities, Tom … you thought I wanted understanding or an explanation, when all I was asking for was data.
anna v says:
May 15, 2013 at 8:31 am
anna, this is far below your usual style. I despise this kind of scattergun condemnation you are engaging in.
If you are not willing to specify exactly what someone said that you are referring to, don’t bother lecturing us about what’s right and wrong. It just makes you look pompous. From your mumbled imprecations I can’t tell if you are talking about me, about Tom Vonk, or about someone else entirely.
If you want to make an accusation, at least have to courage to make it specific, anna. Accusations about “people” don’t cut it. Vague accusations that may or may not include me or anyone else are the antithesis of science. I know you can do better.
w.
PS—Tom Vonk thinks I’m too dumb to listen to the symphony orchestra, while it appears he can’t even understand my question … or at least is unwilling or unable to answer it.
I asked, simply, for the amount of energy released in an average terrestrial gamma-ray flash. He thinks that single number is FAR above my understanding …
You sure you want to follow his lead? Because you will assuredly sink in my estimation if you do.
From the top of this marvelous Willis Eschenbach’s post:
“…this claim that the sun could change radioactive decay rates…”
— and then —
“…an announcement issued by Purdue University in August 2012, which strongly confirmed the reality of the phenomenon. Purdue has applied for a patent for the use of this effect as a means to supply advance warning of solar flares.”
Intuition holds that all physical processes are interrelated in some way, some more than others. Radioactive decay happens inside the space-time continuum, which is greatly influenced by the gravitational well of Sol — the sun. Earth has a gravity well, too, but it is massively (pun intended) dominated by Sol’s gravitational effects.
[Massive simplifications past here:]
The fusion reaction of Sol is in a quasi-equilibrium, where photons from the core push the plasma out, away from the core. This lessens the pressure in the core, which in turn decreases the rate of reaction, lowering the temp, if you will. This decrease in the core reaction produces fewer photons to push the plasma, and so, the plasma drops in toward the core (gravity works!), which increases the reaction.
Sol is an expanding and contracting hydrogen fusion reaction, until we switch over (with popping) to a helium fusion reaction. While Sol’s mass stays relatively constant, Sol’s density is also relatively stable.
The CAGW folks decry the output of the sun is too constant to drive earth temperature changes, but we scientists [reality adjusts our beliefs] hold that the sun’s fusion reaction controls the ice-age and warm period behavior.
What is the relationship between all this? Clearly Purdue believes that something on the sun can alter the rate of decay on earth. Perhaps there is some as yet unexplained field-effect? This is a very bad analogy, but given a volume of gas in a balloon at a pressure, the balloon size will expand if the ambient pressure is decreased, and the balloon size will shrink if the ambient pressure is increased.
Clearly we have yet to discover the mechanism, and perhaps even the methodologies required to discover what else we don’t know. I have never been one to accept chest beating by some scientists. I’m more of the mind that we know so very little. Granted, we know more than humans did in the 1800s, but I hope that in 2300, that they will laugh at what we “know,” and realize that in time, what they “know” will also be seen as quaint beliefs.