Open Thread?
Thank you, Anthony, and some of the rest of you for your perseverance, dedication and integrity. This site is one I seek out daily for accurate news and information on climate change.
I’ve made a few donations along the way. Will do more in the future.
To all of you who contribute to this site, including those who comment so impressively, I am grateful to you for your efforts.
And I look forward to the day when we all realize that it’s about seeking the truth.
Best,
Felix
The latest (JULY) issue of ” Physics Today ” has some generally interesting stories.
There is one good story about an ongoing study that purports to have detected dark matter. The story is interesting to climate skeptics, because the situation relative to this experiment are similar to those found in climate research.
The project under discussion is known as DAMA.
It has been ongoing since the 1990s and the team says that it continues to give signals consistent with the detection of dark matter.
They posit that dark matter consists of fairly massive particles that respond to both gravitational force and also to the Weak Force.
The gravitational force effect of the dark matter affects the structure and rotation of galaxies, which is the reason for dark matter being postulated in the first place. Galaxies do not contain enough ordinary mass, to have the structure they are observed to have; more mass is needed than can be seen.
The weak force sensitivity evidently provides a means of detecting dark matter particles independent of their observed effect on galaxies. So evidently some physical materials can absorb dark matter particles via some weak force interaction which I presume is akin to the beta decay reactions that are mediated by the weak force.
So the problem is that the purveyors of DAMA have steadfastly refused to share their information with anybody who wants to study their results. “What ! you want me to let you try to disprove my results ?? ”
So other teams have tried to independently detect dark matter using different materials.
Now DAMA use sodium Iodide Crystals, which is a well known scintillation detector crystal. You get flashes of light when it absorbs various energetic particles. Well they claim it does the same for dark matter .
But nobody has obtained any signals using any other form of scintillation detector, including ones that detect all the ordinary particles that NaI does.
The crystals have to be extremely pure and you can’t have any traces of radioactive potassium, hiding in the NaI lattice, so the material is very expensive, and they use something like 250 Kg of the stuff, and only one company makes material that pure. And the DAMA people won’t let that company sell high purity NaI of that same quality to anyone else, who might try to replicate their results.
So no you can’t have my code, or a look at my apparatus, of buy any of my secret formula sodium iodide crystals.
The purported detection signals vary seasonally, and this is explained as due to the fat that earth’s orbital velocity around the sun, reverses after six months so our speed through the galaxy fluctuates cyclically with a yearly cycle.
So this gizmo is buried under some mountains in France (I think) and some competitors are setting up shop under the same mountains.
So nobody else has detected any such signal with any other scintillation detector, but the DMA team have been getting funded for a couple of decades now, but won’t show anyone how they get their results.
Sounds familiar; doesn’t it.
G
The gravitational force effect of the dark matter affects the structure and rotation of galaxies, which is the reason for dark matter being postulated in the first place.
Whenever “dark matter” is mentioned I usually always asked the question that ……. “If the gravitational force exerted by the dark matter directly or indirectly affects the rotation of galaxies then why in ell doesn’t that same gravitational force affect the trajectory of periodic comets, ….. such as Haley’s Comet?”
White Holes, yes, …..Black Holes, yes, ……… but Dark Energy and Dark Matter, a resounding “NO”.
Sam, I’m probably not putting the evidence for dark matter correctly. But as to your query, I’m not sure what the effect would be having a body orbiting inside a more or less uniform field of mass, made of particles that don’t want to interact much with ordinary matter, except for their gravitational effect. Perhaps it takes galaxy sized regions for the dark mass impact to be noticed.
I’ve read several SA type of articles, and thought I understood it, but I can’t say I really do understand it.
Supposedly there are things called WIMPS, which means something like Weakly Interacting Massive Particles or something like that. Dunno if that is what dark matter is supposed to be, but it does seem to mention Weak interactions, which I suppose does mean weak force interactions. Never caught on to that when I first heard of WIMPS.
G
Reminds me of the search for ether. Everyone believed in ether and there were a lot of mind tricks used to explain why the ether could not be detected. Lorenz developed equations to adjust the length of instruments utilized in searching for ether.
Ironically, these same equations were used by Einstein to demonstrate his special theory of relativity.
George it seems much more likely to me that Hubble was wrong. It’s extremely odd that thousands of scientists would spend huge amounts of time (and of course research money) essentially looking for the little man who wasn’t there rather than accept Hubble was wrong about his constant. Hubble had a theory, later promoted to a Law, that simply doesn’t agree with observation. However, in the world of post-modern science, when theory disagrees with observation, we toss the observation.
I predict this will not end well.
Pointluck
July 9, 2016 9:29 am
I would appreciate any comments/graphs, etc on how best make points in a college class setting. Thanks in advance for any feedback.
Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them
Those are the exact same words that a friend in marketing told me re. our paper’s presentations. #B^)
PL, I have lots of presentation experience to college level people once they are out of college. About 25 years worth. Board Directors, corporate officers, general managers. Three very good guidelines:
1. As simple as possible. Don’t crowd a slide. Don’t add interesting but unessential details. Its not about how much you know. Its about what the audience needs to understand and remember. Usually that is much less than you had to know to reach whatever conclusion in the first place.
2. As visual as possible. A picture is worth a thousand words. Graphs and charts always better than number tables. Illustrations always better than prose explanations. Excel and Google images makes this easy once sources are checked.
3. Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them (intro, body, summary). The repetition helps not only cognition, but any audience confusion will evidence between intro and body and allows you to clarify. Then repeat any clarification in summary.
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward R. Tufte (1983 Graphics Press, Cheshire, Connecticut 06410) John W. Turkey: “A tour de force”
Avoid Tufte’s “chart junk”. He said that no pixel should be lit that does not convey information.
My personal feeling is that this topic should be firstly presented as one of confirming an appreciation of the reality of “climate change”. Climate change is very real and we should recognize the immense changes in climate that can occur over relatively short time frames.
Here in the UK, I would firstly recommend looking into the recent history of this island – during the period in which it has been populated by recognizably modern humans.
If we tie together in the minds of student, the changing climate and geography with some coincident events in human history such as the construction of the first pyramids in Egypt – then I think that a huge advance could be made in their future understanding.
Once the point has been grasped that climate change has been sometimes extraordinarily rapid and dramatic in the last few thousand years – then – it would be possible to bring up graphs of empirical measures of sea level rise trends from the last century and show that the overall rate is neither dramatic by historical comparison, nor is it significantly accelerating over the course of that century.
That would be my approach.
Here is the first image that I would employ. (If you live in the U.S. then maybe locate a similar image of the Laurentide Ice Sheet and extended coastal boundaries of 20,000 years ago.) http://www.nationalgeographic.fr/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/4-MAP-Doggerland.jpg
Submitted for R&C.
340 W/m^2 arrive at the ToA (100 km per NASA), 100 W/m^2 are reflected straight away leaving 240 W/m^2 continuing on to be absorbed by the atmosphere (80 W/m^2) and surface (160 W/m^2). In order to maintain the existing thermal equilibrium and atmospheric temperature (not really required) 240 W/m^2 must leave the ToA. Leaving the surface at 1.5 m (IPCC Glossary) are: thermals, 17 W/m^2; evapotranspiration, 80 W/m^2; LWIR, 63 W/m^2 sub-totaling 160 W/m^2 plus the atmosphere’s 80 W/m^2 making a grand total of 240 W/m^2 OLR at ToA.
When more energy leaves ToA than enters it, the atmosphere will cool down. When less energy leaves the ToA than enters it, the atmosphere will heat up. The GHE theory postulates that GHGs (at 50 km) impede/trap/store the flow of heat reducing the amount leaving the ToA and as a consequence the atmosphere will heat up. Actually if the energy moving through to the ToA goes down, say from 240 to 238 W/m^2, the atmosphere will cool per Q/A = U * dT. The same condition could also be due to increased albedo decreasing heat to the atmosphere & surface or ocean absorbing energy.
The S-B BB temperature corresponding to ToA 240 W/m^2 OLR is 255 K or -18 C. This ToA “surface” value is compared to a surface “surface” at 1.5 m temperature of 288 K, 15 C. The 33 C higher 1.5 m temperature is allegedly attributed to/explained by the GHE theory.
Comparing ToA values to 1.5 m values is an incorrect comparison.
The S-B BB ToA “surface” temperature of 255 K should be compared to the ToA observed “surface” temperature of 193 K, -80 C, not the 1.5 m above land “surface” temperature of 288 K, 15 C. The – 62 difference is explained by the earth’s effective emissivity. The ratio of the ToA observed “surface” temperature (^4) at 100 km to the S-B BB temperature (^4) eqiuals an emissivity of .328. Emissivity is not the same as albedo.
Because the +33 C comparison between ToA “surface” 255 K and 1.5 m “surface” 288 K is invalid the perceived need for a GHE theory/explanation results in an invalid non-solution to a non-problem.
References: ACS Toolkit, Trenberth et. al. 2011 “Atmospheric Moisture Transports …….” Figure 10, IPCC AR5 Annex III, http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=7373
So what am I missing here? This went to the ACS authors of the tool kit & received zero response.
Coming at this from the outside , it is important to note that if the ball has a flat spectrum , ie gray , it doesn’t matter whether it reflects 100 w%m^2 or 300 , or 0 . It’s equilibrium temperature will be the same 278.26 K given by the “black body” 340 w%m^2 . That’s the fundamental fact demonstrated by Ritchie’s 1830s experiment and formalized by Kirchhoff , Stewart and others around 1860 .
Nicholas,
Working through this atmospheric math is important as a first step in understanding what the climate change debate is all about. At least it was for me. IMO, the second step is to realize how confounding the jargon is. Greenhouse should never be used because it has nothing in common with the atmosphere except that the temperature inside is greater than outside. So what is responsible for the temperature gradients from surface to the TOA? Is it convection caused by absorption of radiation by IR-active gases or is it a theoretical equilibrium equal to g/Cp?
Most people are aware that Earth temperatures are warmer and less variable with an atmosphere than without. But what would the average temperatures of the Earth be without IR-active gases? Certainly more extreme. Thus a certain critical composition of IR-active gases would raise global temperature by virtue of making the globe more temperate. But do incremental increases in CO2 above present levels increase global temperatures further? Is there any definitive evidence for that?
I think I’m agreeing with you, but endless discussions about energy budget numbers never get resolved.
Nicholas,
If you remember a recent post on here about TSI. It was dropping and dramatically.
First, NASA rounded up the TSI number from 1368 to 1370 w/m^2. That’s the only way you get 340 w/m^2 at ToA. Second, it has been shown and if you look for some of the graphs on here that show TSI from 2000 the TSI is quite a bit higher. The reason for that is that there was a failure in the equipment and was leaking light in. The new and improved source of measure is from SORCE. The new and improved number is 1360 w/m^2.
Now 1360/4 = 340 w/m^2 and 1370/4 = 342.5
Therefore 342.5*(1-a) = 239.75 or 240… more rounding up.
But 340*(1-a) = 238… not 240 w/m^2
That is a significant number reduction in global warming. The 240 is wrong.
I have a problem when they estimate numbers that are to warming advantage, and then mix in exact formulas to give precise readings in the 1/hundredth. Is there a +/- on that 100 reflected straight away? They kept the 100, but in previous equations they used (1-a). I mean what does that do if 110 is reflected straight away? Or something smaller 102? Depending on what and how they estimate those numbers has a very big impact. If they are going to use a method, they need to be consistent with it… (1-a).
When you start looking into the numbers… I’m still trying to decide if I’ve made an error somewhere. When I put in a higher w/m^2 the numbers go the wrong way in the math that shows warming from co2. More wattage should equate to more warming. I get just the opposite. And less wattage I get more warming.
Just these numbers destroys their 95% certainty rate where they have shown what the temperatures will be.
“I have a problem when they estimate numbers that are to warming advantage, and then mix in exact formulas to give precise readings in the 1/hundredth. ”
WR: Right. In presenting numbers in 1/hundreth it is suggested that things are exactly measured. Which is not, when the original numbers are estimated. Scientists have to be clear about that in every presentation, otherwise they are on the misleading path.
I’m a biologist, but it seems to me that the 239 W/m^2 coming in must be exactly matched by a 239 W/m^2 going out–no matter how much GHG there is; otherwise the earth would become intolerably hot or cold in a few days. It reminds me of obesity. A heavy person burns exactly as much food as he eats, the calories in = the calories out; otherwise he blows up or shrinks to nothing in a few days and dies. It is his set point, the equilibrium point, that is different. If he eats a 500 calory hamburger, he burns 500 calories within a minute fraction of a percentage being stored as fat or glycogen. So, the truth is that he is taking in 3500 calories a day and is burning 3499.5 if he is gaining weight; and 3500 if his weight is stable.
Obviously, you could have a sudden increase in CO2 as from giant forest fire, that could suddenly reduce the 14u photons leaving the earth and a new set point could occur. If this did occur, the 239 W/m^2 going out might be reduced to 235 W/m^2, say, but to keep the in-coming energy and outgoing energy the same, something would also happen to the incoming, maybe the albedo would be decreased, so that it would become 235 W/m^2. This is one topic that is not discussed. I.e. if the CO2 were suddenly increased, what happens to the incoming energy at the TOA? and why?
Obviously GHGs do cause warming, so how does this occur? The 14u photons from the sun–or coming up from the surface or from the atmosphere–hit the CO2 molecules and are absorbed and set them jiggling. These molecules jostle surrounding air and water molecules and a few 14u photons are emitted, although these are rapidly absorbed by CO2 before they leave into space. But the kinetic energy of the jostled water molecules and molecules in the air, finally is emitted as LW EMR. This causes the 239 W to remain the same–a constant.
So, the reason CO2 and other GHGs warm the atmosphere must be because it delays the exit of kinetic energy into space from the CO2-induced jostling of mostly-water molecules. The same 239 is coming in and the same 239 is going out. So it is like adding a thermos bottle to the boundary of the atmosphere. A thermos delays the exit of kinetic energy from the fluid within. CO2 delays the exit of kinetic energy from the 14u photons coming in from the sun and from the ground,water and air molecules, coming at it from all directions.
Is this somewhere near?
Why do you say,” ghg’s must cause warming”? Much of the commentary and questions on this site are about the extent and cyclicality of natural variability. If CO2 is causing warming now, why doesn’t it fit the models? What caused previous warmings, such as the Medieval Warm Period, the Roman Warm Period or the Holocene Optimum? You’re a biologist, so what was the state of the earth’s biosystems when the CO2 levels were 1000 ppm? 2000 ppm? What is the problem, exactly, that needs trillions out of the pockets and mouths of rich and poor alike.
10% off the top doesn’t hurt the rich much. It’s life and death to the 2 billion poor.
As I understand it the GHGs do their stuff at around 50 km. So what does CO2 at MLO say about 50 km? Plus the density has dropped so much by 50 km that the jostling molecules become few and far between. BTW NASA says the radiative balance occurs at 100 km where those molecules are really far apart. I read somebody’s analogy that said a molecule would have to travel a full km before it finds another molecule to “jostle.” Also the “back” radiation has to travel 360 degrees, not just “back” to earth. The 8 models shown on Trenberth;s Figure 10 have significant differences creating substantial uncertainties.
@John Harmsworth
Oh for sure Ghgs cause warming at a certain level, but they are inside a massive NEGATIVE feedback loop (not positive, as the warmists claim)
So the actual effect is lost in the noise and much larger signals of other planetary wide thermal systems like ocean currents, winds clouds and so on.
William Palmer,
The atmosphere is NOT like a thermos bottle. There is no convection accelerating loss of heat from a thermos like there is with the atmosphere. It is NOT obvious that IR-active gases cause warming. At current levels of CO2 and water vapor, any IR radiating off the surface that doesn’t go straight to space is absorbed within meters of the surface. Most of that radiation energy is transferred to the bulk air by collisions. What is re-emitted is rapidly re-absorbed. The bulk air expands and rises. Only when the air density is thin enough at high altitude do the majority of emissions go directly to space. Above the level where water vapor condenses, there isn’t much IR-active gas left but CO2. It’s the only way the upper atmosphere cools. So more CO2 will block some of the surface IR going directly to space, but more CO2 in the upper atmosphere might more than compensate for that. Does anyone have any actual data (not models) to show otherwise?
Nicholas Schroeder,
I believe most emission to space from CO2 occurs in the troposphere around 10-12 km although I can’t cite a specific source for that. That’s what I infer from spectrograms of outgoing radiation. I would be interested in a reference for NASA’s radiative balance. I would think radiative balance would be anywhere above the troposphere where there is no more convection.
Leo Smith
Not looking to start an argument with somebody who’s already on my side. I have A LOT of trouble believing that an extra 40 molecules in a million has any quantifiable effect on temps. No worthy empirical evidence says it does and if the effect exists but is less than the natural variability that is not understood AT ALL, that is the same, scientifically, for now; as not proven to exist.
Nicholas Schroeder: “Also the “back” radiation has to travel 360 degrees, not just “back” to earth.”
WR: I don’t understand back radiation. As I can imagine, at 100 km height above our round Earth, in a simple model with only six possibilities (going up, down, left, right, forward or backward) 5 out of every six re-radiations result in disappearing into space. Only the downward re-radiating one will stay. Given the speed of the process, energy will soon be lost to space.
A greenhouse with all the windows on all sides completely opened will soon loose all of its heat. If not, where am I going wrong?
Nicholas Schroeder July 9, 2016 at 1:52 pm: “As I understand it the GHGs do their stuff at around 50 km.”
Oh brother. This would not seem to account for rapid, deeper cooling seen at the surface on cloudless nights with low humidity, a ‘phenomena’ one can observe and verify with very little instrumentation.
Wim Röst July 10, 2016 at 1:33 am: “WR: I don’t understand back radiation.”
Works like a mirror, only more ‘reflective’ in varied directions, depending on vibrating molecule orientation.
Don’t forget LWIR and even light are EM (electromagnetic) waves or energy, and obey all applicable ‘laws’ and rules …
The temperature difference of 33 C is just a theoretical measure of the GH effect. There is no doubt that we have the GH phenomenon in the atmosphere but to show an exact measure is almost impossible, because we cannot estimate the situation of the radiation balance, if there were no GH gases in the atmosphere. The 33 C is the simplest way to show the GH efffect, because it is relatively easy to understand. If we calculate the difference between the emission rate of the earth surface (395 W/m2) and the outgoing radiation at TOA (240 W/m2), it would be 155 W/m2. The GH gases are responsible to this difference but it is pretty hard to understand, what it really means.
That cannot be correct. Heat out equals heat in minus the enthalpy increase/decrease for a given time period. 19 years went by with no apparent temperature or enthalpy increase. That is nearly iron clad proof of zero radiative energy difference. In the place of an increase we have faulty theory, faulty models, political opportunists, damage to the process and credibility of science (deserved), and abject liars!
Happy to entertain your thoughts regarding these statements.
aveollila,
Saying “there’s no doubt that we have a GH phenomenon in the atmosphere” is wrong, because the atmosphere is nothing like a greenhouse. Just because you can’t estimate what temperatures would be without IR-active gases doesn’t mean that 33 C is the difference and IR-active gases make it that. Air would still heat up every day and be convected upward. Where is the heat at high altitude going to go?
As for the 155 W/m2 difference, realize that the Earth didn’t start out cold. The Earth surface retains some heat from the past corresponding to 155 W/m2 on average. Every day another 240 W/m2 on average is added to that and on average 240 leaves. No mystery, only confusion generated by energy balance diagrams.
Off topic comment.
I think some GHE talk is much a red herring. But I’m interested in how much GHE consists of solely pressure only and how much on the atmospheric composition. Had we 90 bars of pure nitrogen, what would be the approximate temperature at surface?
What about 90 atm air or 90 atm CO2?
What is often lacking in TOA energy-balance discussions is the recognition that the Earth’s atmosphere is warmed from below primarily by moist convection (mislabeled as “evapotranspiration” by Trenberth), not by interception of LWIR by water vapor and trace GHGs. Without this non-radiative mechanism that affects the bulk of the troposphere, the so-called greenhouse effect would be much milder, because of the tiny proportion of GHG molecules available to transfer heat to bulk constituents via molecular collisions. Moreover, there’s a cross-over point in altitude where adding GHGs starts to increase atmospheric emissions to space, rather than reduce them.
Not only is the actual role of GHGs often grossly misrepresented, but the storage of thermal energy–which sets the actual equilibrium temperature in ways not recognized by blackbody theory–is misplaced in the atmosphere. In observable reality, it is in the oceans that the overwhelming majority of thermal energy is quasi-permanently stored. The standard explanation of the greenhouse effect thus is fundamentally misguided in accounting for the observed surface temperatures. GHGs are merely a minor player in a subordinate domain of the thermodynamic system dominated by oceanic energy storage and temperature controls via the hydrological cycle.
I mostly agree with you, but why do you continue to use greenhouse terminology? Referring to greenhouse gases is tacit agreement that the presence of CO2 and water vapor in the atmosphere cause the observed temperature gradients. This is not settled science. No one knows what the temperatures of the planet would be without IR-active gases in an otherwise N2/O2 atmosphere. Is there any definitive evidence that an increment increase in CO2 above current levels will increase global temperatures?
Chic:
Having exposed the conceptual failings of standard “greenhouse effect” explanations, the standard terminology is impugned ipso facto. Besides, it would require more time than I’m willing to spend on largely semantic issues of what more properly should be termed the “atmospheric effect.” BTW, that doesn’t constitute tacit agreement that GHG’s “cause the observed temperature gradients.” The basic physics of various GHGs is not in question; it’s their role in a highly complex, interactive geophysical setting that I dispute.
Nor do I really agree that “no one knows what the temperatures of the planet would be without IR-active gases in an otherwise N2/O2 atmosphere.” That is a relatively simple, idealized problem by comparison. But it has little to do with our Earth, whose oceans preclude such simplicity.
Having exposed the conceptual failings of standard “greenhouse effect” explanations, the standard terminology is impugned ipso facto.
What does that mean? What is standard terminology if not greenhouse this, greenhouse that? I agree with you that the role of IR-active gases are misrepresented, but greenhouse terminology reinforces that misrepresentation by implying they are responsible for the planet’s surface being warmer than one without an atmosphere. You don’t have to argue semantics. Just stop using greenhouse terminology.
1sky1 July 9, 2016 at 5:34 pm: “Nor do I really agree that “no one knows what the temperatures of the planet would be without IR-active gases in an otherwise N2/O2 atmosphere.””
Taking a look at one of satellite WV (water vapor) images produced by the WV sensors on the sats should give one a rough idea, though not a quantifiable figure, of the amount and extent of the energy radiated to space by water vapor …
Well there are a number of things you are missing”
“”.. Actually if the energy moving through to the ToA goes down, say from 240 to 238 W/m^2, the atmosphere will cool per Q/A = U * dT. ..””
That does not follow. You are assuming that the differential irradiance gets absorbed by the atmosphere. For the solar spectrum incoming radiation that is not at all true, since the atmosphere absorbs only a fraction of incoming solar spectrum frequencies.
Same goes for LWIR radiation going out. Only selected portions of that spectrum get absorbed by the atmosphere.
But you will never get a real picture of what is happening, if you persist in using the wrong numbers.
TSI at TOA is NOT 342 W / m^2; it is 1362 (average value for the annual value due to orbital eccentricity).
So the earth and atmosphere heat up after sunrise very much faster than would occur at 342 W/m^2. Earth climate is a dynamic system, and it pays no attention whatsoever to the average value of anything. It is not even aware of what an average value is. It responds ONLY and here and now to the present instantaneous values.
Human beings are unique among all living species, and all non livening elements of the universe. We are alone by ourselves, in being aware of or paying attention to the average value of anything. Nothing else in the universe does so.
G
The math I use is derived from accepted and published numbers from NOAA/NASA the IPCC and universities that support climate change. Using the same formulas and statements result in different outcomes when using the corrected TSI from SORCE. It does not mean that I agree with the method that they got there. Only using that information, they are still wrong just on this one account. The end result, and I’m pretty sure, is about a 30% reduction in the warming that was attributed to co2. That falls outside correlation.
( actually 35%, but some contend 1362)
In other words, AGW is founded on overstated math. They tried to make a case with overstated numbers. You can’t get 240 w/m^2 using 1362 or 1360. Do you think they are going tell us if part of the spectrum, like UV, falls 5 or 6 w/m^2?
2 w/m^2 sounds like a small amount, it isnt.
The end result, and I’m pretty sure, is about a 30% reduction in the warming that was attributed to co2.
I don’t think there is any global forcing at all, there are some regional changes in the oceans that have moved surface temps, but only in some places. I can’t disprove that any of that heat isn’t from co2, but there are a lot of people who feel co2 is not very effective heating water.
And the energy in entropy in the atm, it is what regulates surface temps, and it’s variability in energy (condensation and evaporation ) are many times bigger that co2.
Think of the power output of hoover dam, and the impact of plugging in a cellphone charger, it’s insignificant. More climate scientists need a background in electronics where that science has moved into engineering so they can explain climate.
I think before this can begin to make sense is you have to correctly describe the solar input signal, and the response. Solar input is a partial sine wave type signal, peaking well over 300W/m2, but the length of forcing changes from one day to the next, in a sine wave, shortest warming period, while at the same time the longest night, wintertime Northern hemisphere is losing energy, and by spring the increase in day, while nights get shorter. TOA isn’t going to be in balance except when incoming energy matches outgoing around the longest day, end of June as well as the shortest Day the end of December. The rest of the year the surface station has to be out of balance.
While you can do averages, you can not forget that it is a every changing dynamic system, with only periodic equalibrium points.
Every day the Sun “rings” the atm and surface, and let’s it decay, only to do it again at sunrise.
I don’t follow your statement about invalid comparisons I am afraid. I thought In a thermal network that one may pick any two points one chooses to and calculate heat flow between them. Certainly I do not recall the possibility of getting a problem in heat transfer theory wrong by making an incorrect comparison.
Any level in the atmosphere may be said to have an average temperature in this sort of lumped calculation.
I would guess that GHG are the most important factor in calculating the earths effective LW emissivity from the surface at 1.8m to outer space, since these absorb much of the LWIR radiation from the surface and would radiate LW both back to the surface and to outer space.
There is a particular level in the atmosphere, I think in the upper troposphere, that has the same average temperature as the earth would be if it were a black body with the same albedo, which is your 255K.
Thanks to H2O, CO2 and methane, as well as ozone perhaps, the surface is substantially warmer.
I also do not understand your “S-B” acronym. Saying ‘ToA “surface”‘ is very confusing.
Peterg
S-B is Stefan-Boltzmann.
ToA is Top of Atmosphere which per the link in my original post NASA defines as 100 km and the baseline for balancing ISR (incoming solar radiation – about 340 W/m^2) minus reflected albedo (about 100 W/m^2) and OLR (outgoing long wave radiation- about 240 W/m^2).
ToA “surface”
S-B applies to the “surface” of a body. A block of wood, a sheet of metal, a pane of glass, a body of water all have a defined “surface.” What’s the “surface” of a gas? The surface of each molecule? The collective surface of the molecules? How does S-B even apply to a gas? Well, not very well, quite frankly. Plus everyone ignores real life grey body emissivity. The BB values don’t really mean much.
A “surface” emitting 240 W/m^2 has a BB temperature of 255 K or -18 C. Does his occurs at ToA of 100 km or ToT, top of troposphere. In either case it can not be compared to the 15 C surface “surface” which IPCC defines as 1.5 m above the ground. SST is not included. -18 + 15 = 33 C and totally meaningless, but generates the excuse for the GHE explanation.
The ToT has an actual temperature of -80 C, 193 K. Keeping mind the T^4 in S-B would yield a grey body emissivity of about .33.
Peterg July 10, 2016 at 2:03 am: “I would guess that GHG are the most important factor in calculating the earths effective LW emissivity from the surface at 1.8m to outer space, since these absorb much of the LWIR radiation from the surface”
The word “much” used above is probably the wrong term to use, because, the earth’s surface *does* cool noticeably overnight …
Well Nicholas how do you explain the simple fact that the sun which is neither a solid body nor a liquid one has no trouble radiating nearly black body radiation ??
The largest mass of gas which we are familiar with is earth’s atmosphere, and it does not have anything like 100% absorption of all possible wavelengths from zero to infinity.
So we must conclude that the atmospheric body has a very low emissivity, probably because of its very low mass density, so we would not expect it to radiate at anything like the rate for a totally absorbing black body at the same temperature.
Other than that the sun shows us that gases radiate thermal spectrum energy just fine.
Well only when they are above zero kelvin temperature of course.
G
And now for something completely different.
A. Opening premise as contained in ACS climate change toolkit: “The S-B BB radiation w/o an atmosphere is 240 W/m^2, 255 K, -18 C. The observed surface temperature (1.5 m above land) is 15 C, 288 K. The 33 C difference is explained by the GHE theory.”
a. 240 W/m^2 is WITH an atmosphere.
b. The upwelling/downwelling/”back” radiation of GHE theory is thermodynamic/S-B nonsense.
c. Upwelling is calculated from applying the S-B BB equation to the observed surface temperature of 15 C, 395 W/m^2. This is wrong and creates net 330 W/m^2 out of thin air.
d. The GHGs live in the troposphere and stratosphere where it is very cold with low molecular density and low emissivity and must radiate in all directions not just “back” to earth. The small S-B grey body downwelling/”back” radiation might as well not exist.
B. Bob Armstrong
a. When heat (a thermal process) strikes an object/surface it is 1) reflected, 2) transmitted, 3) absorbed. The absorbed energy increases the temperature of the object per its specific heat capacity which then releases it to the surroundings by 1) conduction, 2) convection, 3) radiation. Conduction and convection must have molecules, the more the better and will work through the troposphere, not too much beyond that.
b. 340 W/m^2 minus albedo reflection of 100 W/m^2 leaves 240 W/m^2 to be absorbed by the atmosphere and surface. So outgoing radiation at ToA (wherever that is, 100 km per NASA) equals 240 W/m^2.
c. Do you have a link to your references? Thanks.
C. Chic Bowdrie
a. ACS tool kit and Spencer Weart both opine that the greenhouse is an unfortunate and inappropriate analogy.
b. 0.04% of the atmosphere is insignificant. If the non-water IR gasses went missing I doubt the temperature would notice. All the dead plants and people would or not.
D. Rishrac
a. 1,368 W/m^2 is the energy applied to a disc of r radius. The same energy spread over a sphere of radius r would have ¼ the density. 1368 / 4 = 342. 2 W/m^2 is trivial.
b. The 8 models on Trenberth’s figure 10 have significant uncertainties.
c. If albedo increases then less energy will be absorbed, less rises through the atmosphere and Q/A = U * dT says the surface temperature goes down. If albedo or the ocean or GHGs reduce the energy flowing from surface to ToA the surface temperature will go down.
E. Wim Rost
a. Uncertainties, significant figures, and statistical hallucinations are not considered.
F. William Palmer
a. An imbalance is corrected by changing the dT, cooling or warming as needed, but not escalating more than what is needed. No thermal positive feedback runaway tipping point.
b. It’s the thermal conductivity of the atmosphere, i.e. N2, O2, Ar that determines the dT and surface temperature, 0.04% GHGs don’t.
G. John Harmsworth
a. The atmosphere is 99.95% N2, O2 and Ar. 0.04% is meaningless.
H. Rishrac
a. Incoming LWIR cannot equal outgoing LWIR. There are always losses. S-B produces heat, the photo-electric equation does not.
I. Wim Rost
a. The GHGs cannot send radiation “back” to the surface, period.
J. Chic Bowdrie
a. Well, I think the atmosphere is very much like a thermos bottle, or the walls of a house. Heat (a thermal process) is energy (a thermal property) in motion, flowing through the troposphere according to Q/A = U*dT. U is thermal conductivity of troposphere.
K. _Jim
a. No, S-B is not like a mirror. The GHGs occur at very cold temperatures and have low to no emissivity so they have no radiation to “reflect” back to the surface.
L. Aveollila
a. Yes, simple and wrong. 395 W/m^2 is the S-B BB radiation at a surface temperature of 15 C and is a gross misapplication of S-B. Per Figure 10 the power flux/heat, i.e. energy in motion, leaving the surface is 17 thermals, 80 evapo, 63 LWIR, 160 subtotal. There is no place for 395 W/m^2. All the other numbers add up and 395 has to appear out of nowhere.
M. George e. smith
a. The power flux balances everyone uses including Treberth’s Figure 10 are not true “heat balances.” They do not consider night or day or seasonal fluctuations. And it is: 342 at 100 km ToA minus 100 reflected by albedo equaling 240 absorbed/transferred by atmosphere and surface.
N. Rishrac
a. Yeah, 2 W/m^2 is trivial esp compared to 340 and the wide uncertainties.
O. Micro6500
a. The sensible and latent heats of water/vapor are huge compared to GHGs and they run the climate.
P. George e Smith
a. The sun has a definable very hot and dense surface and a high emissivity. The GHGs in the earth’s atmosphere are relatively cold and thin with a low emissivity and what tiny S-B radiation they produce goes everywhere, not just “back” to “warm” the earth.
Hi Nicolas,
I do not think it is possible to discredit the basic physics of radiation theory. Green house gases do absorb long wave radiation and do radiate energy back to the earth’s surface. (Mind you I would say that greenhouse gas radiative properties at the partial pressures found in the atmosphere may not be well established experimentally. The properties used in the calculations are probably inferred by extrapolation from more concentrated measurements.)
Where there is room to discredit the catastrophist model is in what would happen to an incremental extra amount of back radiation.
If it can only be disposed of by increasing temperature to the point where radiative emissivity will cause an equilibrium at a higher temperature, then that is probably bad.
However non-radiative mechanisms can dispose of the heat. Overturning ocean currents may squirrel any extra heat away to the depths. Evaporation may cause cloud cover to increment changing the albedo, or it may power the atmospheric circulation to increase slightly having a cooling effect. Certainly research funding will only be directed to mechanisms likely to seem even more catastrophic. Mechanisms that provide negative feedback are unlikely to be investigated or modelled. This is probably why the models are so wrong.
Nicholas,
I think we agree that CO2 probably has a negligible effect on global temperatures above current atmospheric concentrations. And apparently we agree that a greenhouse is a bad analogy for the atmosphere. Why do you insist that a Thermos (or a house) is a good analogy? A Thermos has no rotating heat source, no evaporation, no convection/wind, and no realistic lapse rate. For a nice description of how the atmosphere works and an alternative to the ACS toolkit model, see this comment by William Haas: http://edberry.com/blog/ed-berry/a-physics-view-of-climate-change/#comment-7527
BTW, where does NASA say “the radiative balance occurs at 100 km where those molecules are really far apart.”
It has always been my ‘memory’ that waaaaay back when all the BS began they claimed that both poles would be melting equally and at the same time. Today’s ill-educated alarmists tell me that ain’t true, but I’ll be darned if I can find evidence either way.
CO, your memory is correct. ‘Polar amplification was supposed to be at both poles. It is in the climate models. It is not in reality, as Antarctica is not cooperating. Hence the recent paper by Meehl et. al. claiming the modeled Antarctic amplification is being temporarily obscured by ocean currents on decadal time scales. As feeble as claiming the pause compared to modeled temps is just ‘interal’ variation.
Channelling the mindset of the Alarmists, I envision: “The reason that the poles are not showing the same Polar Amplification is because the Earth’s axial tilt points the northern hemisphere at the sun and the southern hemisphere away from the sun.” /sarc
To the best of my knowledge there is no dataset that indicates ocean warming that is a) anywhere near fully representative or b) not a “pretend”, official value of .00something degrees. Ocean warming is as elusive as ocean ” acidification “.
Reply to: ristvan July 9, 2016 at 9:50 am
Yes and what is blazingly obvious in the Meehl et. al. argument is the lack of circumspection! Even the smoked glass they look through can’t protect them. Welding goggles are necessary but seeing and asking the obvious question – “What, the models didn’t model reality!” (The reality of those ocean currents)” – is unavoidable. 😉 Honestly, if you didn’t laugh you’d have to cry!
Karlo Foskolo
July 9, 2016 10:06 am
Do somebody know how much sand, stones and so on are released from the rivers (and coming from the mountains/felds) and from landslides every year into the oceans?
What is the contibute of this mass to the sea level change? It should be measurable.
I could’t find any information about this.
Your correct… .00005….
But reading that report it wasn’t clear how they measure flood situations……this is when velocities really increase resulting in significantly more deposits.
A complicated calculation.
Sea level would also be affected by the continual addition of material at mid-ocean ridges.
However you would also have to account for the volume of rocks/sediments removed from oceanic crust by subduction which would lower sea level. Though perhaps 70% of this subducted material would eventually be returned to the oceans and 30% added to the land [above sea level] surface via sub-aerial eruptions.
Janice Moore
July 9, 2016 10:06 am
Dedicated to All of You… Keep Pursuing Your Dreams…
… for Farmer Hoggett knew that little ideas that tickled and nagged and refused to go away should never be ignored for in them lie the seeds of
destiny.
(“Babe,” 1996) Get busy livin’, or get busy dyin’.
(“Shawshank Redemption” — youtube)
They made it.
(youtube)
So can you. Make a plan. Talk it over with a friend and…
GO FOR IT.
WUWT started in November, 2006 when one man said with a hopeful smile:
“So does anybody have any gee-whiz questions?”
YOU — CAN — DO — IT!!!
Your WUWT pal,
Janice
#(:))
Thank-you Janice, Great movie. As middle aged, jailled as such with life and work, I long for freedom too sometimes. Life is good though, life it good. May I find my beach.
Dear Duncan,
Thank you, so much, for letting me know. I was so hoping someone, even just one — you! — might be encouraged by that. Perhaps, you can think of “freedom” as “next chapter.” As my dearest person in the world once said to me when I was very discouraged about my career situation, referring to myself as a “has been” …]: “Gonna be.”
May you, indeed, find your “beach.” (just prayed you would!)
Glad to hear that life is good.
Take care… out there…,
Janice
P.S. And if anyone reads what I wrote just above and thinks, “I’m too old to… .” STOP IT RIGHT NOW. (grr) If you can physically make it happen (even a wheelchair can go lots of places!), you CAN. Ask for help. Moses was 80 years old when he FINALLY started his career. Caleb was 85 when he set out on his big project (Joshua 14:6-14). So, set that goal, choose that project, that destination, and go for it!
“By perseverance……… the snail………………… reached…………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………..the ark.
One step at a time. You will get there!
#(:))
Janice Moore
July 9, 2016 at 8:39 pm
P.S. And if anyone reads what I wrote just above and thinks, “I’m too old to… .” STOP IT RIGHT NOW. (grr) If you can physically make it happen
Thanks for writing that Janice, I was told many(too many) years ago that I would never be anything but a mother and housewife. Although that did happen, I also buried my dreams all these years.
If I ever get to that ‘dream’ I’ll be sure to credit you as an huge inspiration. Thanks.
( I can still picture that 3rd grade report card with my teachers recommendations, which was ignored by my parents)
Ej
Dear EJ,
That – is – wonderful! No regrets. Just keep your eyes on that goal. You are reaching it by a long detour – which was meant to be. (And, I must be sure to acknowledge this fact, being a loving parent is the greatest achievement on earth.) Oh, boy, that God used my words to inspire you is just so amazingly wonderful.
And you who “has high potential” (paraphrasing some of what that 3rd grade report card likely said), still HAVE high potential. Sure would be great to know you have made it – I would be honored if you would e mail me (this is the permission to mods to give out my e mail address to EJ) and tell me… someday.
Someday…… SOON!
With a SMILE and high hopes for you,
Janice
P.S. Do not listen to the Eeyores, to the “you’ll never make it” defeatists. Just keep on, eyes ahead, and cover your ears to those anti-cheerleaders (very likely, they are green eyed with envy at your making the attempt – human nature is kinda nasty at times; or they may just selfishly want you to serve their interests to the exclusion of yours). And get a buddy on board to be your encourager. AND (will I ever stop talking!) for inspiration remember this: your achieving that goal (even the attempt!) is going to inspire your children and grandchildren – do it for you, but do it for THEM, too!
Janice Moore
July 11, 2016 at 8:35 am
Dear EJ,
Sure would be great to know you have made it – I would be honored if you would e mail me (this is the permission to mods to give out my e mail address to EJ) and tell me… someday.
Someday…… SOON!
You’re such an inspiration, Janice.
Ha ! I doubt it would be someday soon, but hey, it’s a dream right? (or did you mean e mail soon?, matters not, which ever it is).
The moderators here can give me your e mail? okay, I’ll bite that, why not, nothing for me to lose. If that’s the case, they can share my e mail with you also. Sound fair ?
I don’t know how they do that, but if I write some words that are ‘moderated’ they probably would read this then?
hopefully the mods would remove (snip) this next set of words from my post? please
Chemtrails denier Anthony Watts ( absolutely not my true feelings )
Has anybody figured out any real information about the closing of the USGS lab in Colorado amid allegations that they had been altering data relevant to coal and water for the last 20 years? Publicly the only part that is being disclosed is that two papers have been withdrawn without even identifying the papers. No motives have been attributed to the falsifiers except to claim it was not corruption. A real paucity of information about what’s going on.
Denver Post had a writeup on 7/1. The operator of their Colorado lab mass spec instrument manupulated data to ‘correct’ for calibration failures. Mass spec is a common way to quantitatively measure proportions of trace elements and minerals. The manipulated data affects 24 research programs costing $108 million. Obvious QC failures as calibration is essential to getting correct quantities. USGS being very tight lipped about how bad the situation actually was, and for how long. A case of ‘good enough for government work’ not being good enough.
but one doesn’t close a lab because somebody made an error in calculation. What else is going on I wonder? Heck they didn’t even close the FBI lab when it was discovered that they were falsifying forensic results in order to help prosecutors pursue their cases. But they did fire some people and had harsh words to say.
The Indian government recently (June 16th) approved membership in the International Continental Science Drilling Programme consortium. The MoU will in force for next 5 years and it will enable India in engaging internationally renowned experts with profound expertise in different aspects of scientific drilling.The drilling investigations will be conducted in Koyna region in Maharashtra.
The resulting cores will be analyzed for evidence of impact, similar to the Chicxulub crater.
See http://www.pagalguy.com/articles/daily-current-affairs-17th-june-2016-friday-44351954
Yirgach-
Thank you! I have been interested in this likely impact crater for many years. I have been under the impression that no one knew about it. There are many who still refuse to accept that the Chicxulub impact was the major cause of dinosaur extinction. That includes many of the AGW crowd who want to believe that CO2 from the Deccan traps caused killer warming.
The presence of a crater four times the size of Chicxulub and also from 65-66 mya tells a very different story. I think Mother Earth had two very bad days close together! The gradualists are dreaming!
Mark from the Midwest
July 9, 2016 10:47 am
I’m seeing a fair amount of evidence that many European countries are ignoring the sabre rattling that’s coming out of Brussels, and have been openly conversing with British officials on a number of topics related to the future relationship between countries. This is all very contrary to both Tusk’s and Merkel’s position that there would be no informal talks. l also see Soros back-tracking, (hedging), on topics related to the future of the EU. I get the sense that Brexit is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the total dressing-down, if not abandonment, of the EU. Any thoughts, or info? And will CRU just cease to exist without EU funding?
Mark from the Midwest” “… I get the sense that Brexit is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the total dressing-down, if not abandonment, of the EU…..will CRU just cease to exist without EU funding?…”
One can only hope.
The problems with the EU are obvious when you look at Juncker, the EU president and a knothead. Many groups in many countries are unhappy with things as they are. The EU core of Germany, France and Brussels bureaucrats have resorted to threats and diktats to try to herd the cats back to the EU corral, but I don’t think it’s working. Brexit is a bigger problem for the EU than for Britain. The battle now is between more integration and centralization or a more distributed, ” national units ” structure. The former will not work in my opinion and the latter is difficult to manage. If they’re smart and practical they will backtrack to a looser confederation, throw Greece out( but that’s a BIG problem for German banks), invite the UK to come back to a reformed organization and write a constitution that provides a minimum of political control at the local and regional levels.
I think the problems of EU are the exact same fundamentals problems of French régions, départements, communes: nobody knows who does what, who pays for what, who controls what. For politicians it’s a dream: someone else is responsible. The problem of EU isn’t politicians who claim it’s EU’s fault when they just approved a decision in a council of sinisters. The fundamental issue is that EU structurally allows that kind of games.
Because further integration is a politician dream (a nightmare) and structurally cannot happen, EU has it is now is doomed.
The proof that EU-as-European-USA doesn’t exist is that parties are purely national. It’s an European game: pretend EU is an analog of USA when it clearly is not (and cannot be).
I agree with s-t but I’m not very knowledgeable about Europe. I have relatives in England I talk to occasionally. I’m Canadian, which maybe provides a bit of insight into the differences between French and English philosophically. For a (more or less) free marketer like myself, Canadian governance structurally can be a pain in the neck, but it does keep the decisions that most affect people close to them and it’s pretty flexible. I think the Europeans and probably others could learn from it. If French and English can coexist here, who knows? Might have worked in Iraq.
@ John Harmworth, July 9 11:37 am, John , I have family in the EU that I talk to on a regular basis. Their information supplied by a MSM that is even more left wing than in Canada is frankly scary. They are smart, well educated people but some of the things they are being told about both Canada and the US are unbelievable. None of them had heard about the people dying during the winters in Brittain FI or the flooding there to mismanagement of the river deltas, for just a few examples. Their misunderstanding of the political process (Congress/ Senate and the WH) in the USA was astounding. They are being mislead, I have provided them with a few different outlets and they are embarrassed.
That I do not doubt. Much of Europe is developmentally fairly backward. This is how I understand modern Socialism; in 1983 (I think) I was in London on holiday. Maggie was fairly newly installed in Downing St. and Arthur Scargill (president for life!) had the mineworkers out on violent strike. I was shocked by what I saw. Self destructive, ideological economic warfare! Scargill and his ilk have no excuse. They were seeking power at any cost to the country. The workers are a different matter. Decades of the union using threats to sustain inefficient operations made the mines completely uneconomic. At that point the industry had to be rationalized and mines closed. The workers were afraid of reaping what they sowed with years of obstinance, and I felt for them.
Maggie decided that she was elected and Scargill wasn’t. By having the courage to go forward doing the right thing- courage the miners lacked, Maggie saved Britain. Leaders like her come along rarely. I would compare her to Churchill. The gutless Socialists retreated into the stunted intellectual reserves of union politics and academia to plot and scheme. We won’t have peace and progress until they’re rooted out given shovel work.
Are you surprised, Mark? Hammond (UK Foreign Secretary – equals Secretary of State just in case there are any American friends still unsure about these titles) is at a NATO meeting. Most of the EU countries are NATO members. Most if their Foreign Ministers are there as well. What is the hottest topic in Europe at the moment?
And the EU Commission expected no-one to talk about it?! In their dreams!
And one of the hottest parts of this hot topic (which has already caused a parliamentary spat) is the question of what happens to EU citizens currently resident in the UK and vice versa because theoretically once the UK leaves they all become aliens with no right to remain unless some reciprocal agreements have been reached.
“The EU”, which appears to mean Juncker and the members of the EU Commissariat are doing their best to make life as difficult for the UK as they possibly can, apparently blissfully unaware that their heavy-handed approach is only going to make things worse for them!
There is a commonality of interest here because it is in the interests of most European countries to reach agreement on that particular subject promptly even if on no other. With 3 million + EU citizens resident in the UK and 1.5 million Brits living in mainland Europe the chaos that would be caused if no agreements were reached can be imagined!
Not only that, the whole “let’s punish the brexiters” theme reflects poorly on EU’s image (officially, “EU brings peace to countries in Europe”).
So the commentators, editocrats and experts are backtracking as fast as they can and now say “out is out, but it isn’t a punishment of UK”.
No one is more existentially threatened by Brexit and it’s follow on effects than Juncker and his unloved and unwanted pseudo government and associated hyperactive bureaucracy. Backing up the EU bus means taking away power, money and relavence from the EU parliament and cohort.
‘and 1.5 million Brits living in mainland Europe the chaos that would be caused if no agreements…’
This has always begged the question of the millions of British born and their children who live outside the British Isles.
Once Britain entered the EU they would have to ‘join the queue’ to get into Britain.
Notably their opinion on Remain was never canvassed, despite their birthright and stake in the outcome.
As such the plebiscite was ultimately a rigged vote, never to be close if all the British family was allowed a vote.
If this were the case, Brexit would have romped home.
As for Europe’s ‘problem’ of localization of nationalities.
The best solution is to adopt subsidiarity and have each Nation make up its mind who to keep, rather than a ‘one size fits all’; from Brussels.
If this were to happen the smarter nations would keep everyone working in their country on a grandfathering basis, the rest would do themselves secular damage to their economies and nation by alienating the newcomers.
The “seismic after-effects” are going to be considerable for UK (if it survives?), but at least as much in Europe. Juncker et al don’t get-it, and — driven by hubris — prob’ly won’t ever. The higher they ride, the further they’ll fall. Emperor Juncker wouldn’t recognize he hasn’t any clothes when standing in front of the mirror.
BrExit is good news for those of us internationally who challenge the self-interested Doomsday Alarmist crowd. Britain (at long last) has to come to terms with less ‘airy-fairy’ philosophy and more internal ‘house-keeping’ issues, such as keeping the lights on, and at a price affordable by impoverished little old ladies in dead-winter. It spells the end of pie-in-sky Greenist objectives, and a reconnection with pragmatist policies like — gasp!! — cheap energy for the average Joes. This is good dose of reality for all of us, and a severe jerk on the reins of the wide-eyed Green-Futurists (who’d have us all back to the caves tomorrow, given half a chance).
If it fails in this, then …. “Hello Third World!”: 3 hour a day of brown-out electricity and a concomitant collapse in society (think hospitals, commuting, distribution of goods & services, etc.)
A LOT of sea change going on here. I have some ideas, but I think its too soon to put them onto the net.
Lets just say that ‘world leaders’ are revealing themselves to be narrow venal, immature and incompetent, except for Tony Blair, who is revealed as a liar snd a deceiver instead.
Oh well. Feet of clay feet of clay….
Ross P, add this one as well:http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-36734578. I wish the UN would get their priorities straight and spend a few bucks on problems like this instead of the GAW scam. But I guess the UN in essence is the scam.
Roguewave1
July 9, 2016 10:50 am
My “comment” is actually a question. What is the status of the NASA Water Vapor Project (NVAP) and tracking of water vapor, which is critical to the Warmists’ theory? My queries seem to find a drop-off after 2013 and data after 2009. Did the satellites fail?
This is the last article I can find here — https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/06/nasa-satellite-data-shows-a-decline-in-water-vapor/
Ross King
July 9, 2016 10:59 am
Am a newbie here, but am ‘blown-away’ by how good this Blog is.
You raise excellent issues in a thoughtful way, and you obviously have intelligent & knowledgeable readers, contributors & commentators, including active practitioners in relevant scientific fields..
The repartee is witty and fun, and the put-downs well-deserved and well crafted.
Keep up the good work, Anthony!
If you were seeking $ contributions for specific projects, I wd be wiling to consider chipping-in.
Welcome to WUWT, Mr. King. Glad you are here!
(I realize that you were addressing Anthony, but, wanted you to know you were heard — you’ll have to just get used to that around here; most of your comments will go un-responded to by anyone, just “the way things are.”)
Dear Ms. Moore (may I call; you Janice?)
Many tks yr +ve reply. I completely understand that you have a VERY HEALTHY & WIDE READERSHIP and traffic is heavy!
I am really happy to find myself in a Club of like-minded, intelligent, reasoning, calm & anti-hysterical, questioning of supposedly “Received Wisdom” as proclaimed by the Pontificate. While feeling overwhelmed by the knowledge and skill-sets offered by you by yr contributors & subscribers, I hope an added vote from a lay-person helps forward momentum to the Ultimate Truth (wishful thinking?!)
With best regards, Janice.
Ross.
Dear ClimateOtter:
I’m not sure I understand yr rather oblique Q., but here goes in struggling with what “here” means:
1. “Here, as in WUWT”. Via Global Warming Policy Fdn. (U.K. based & very good). If you don’t know it, check it out. They have positioned themselves as political advocates against GreenExtremism. As I’ve indicated, I feel I have arrived in Nirvana as to like-mindedness here on WUWT.
2. “Here” as a Luke-warmer trending to Denialist: I am a natural cynic, and always ‘lean into the wind’. Mixing my metaphors, if the brainless Lemmings are being propagandized into running one way, I’m looking to run the other! Mannipulation (sic) of data et seq,, strips intellectual honesty & integrity from the Alarmists. An error in reporting (if corrected) is one thing, but outright deception & lying is beyond the pale.The politicization of the whole issue appalls me.
3. “Here” geographically? B.C. Canada since 1981; ex-Brit.
4. “Here” in terms of qualifications to speak to learned issues? Civil engineering consultant by education and 1/2 life practice; MBA, entrepreneurialism, mgt. consulting, VenCap,, Start-Ups. So I am strictly a lay-person as to the “Science” but a keen observer, esp’lly when it comes to Snake-Oil Salesmen, of which there appear to be slews in the :”Global Warming Industry”.
5. “Here” as to practical suggestion? 3 weeks after Fukushima, I ‘invented’ FLONUPS (floating Nuclear Power Stations). I wrote a paper (still available on app.) and sought I.P. Rights. Sad to say, I was ‘wanting’ on one of the 3 I.P. criteria, so it has never ‘taken-off’ …. despite being a ‘no-brainer in today’s zeitgeist. I’m still pushing it (and will try to get a Guest Article written on WUWT).
6. “Here” for my grandchildren? Am appalled by those who are working to impose GreenExtremism on the World for THEIR OWN SELFISH ENDS; who want to turn the clock back to pre-industrialization times of eco-purity. FOR WHICH READ THE NEW FEUDALISM and impoverization (if not genocide) of the hoi-polloi. (If you think I’m going paranoid, I can assemble some damning literature addressing same. These people exist and are active, funded by like-minded elitist plutocrats, many from USA. They are Public Enemy No.1 in terms of future democracy.)
So, ClimateOtter, I’m “here” — hook, line & sinker! And FLONUPS!
Jamie
July 9, 2016 11:11 am
I was reading an article about the West Virginia floods. They were of course trying to link this to global warming. They asked Kevin trenberth about this and as I remember he said that with the temperature increasing by 1.5 degrees F the atmosphere can hold more moisture. I would thing that he is entirely wrong about this. The heavy rain clouds exist primarily between 30 to 60,000 feet. ( troposphere to upper troposphere). Not at the surface where they show the 1.5 degrees. He would need to use the radiosondes and satellites for this. However they only show about .4 for the troposphere and about .15 for the upper troposphere since 1979. This is not a large increase and the amount of additional water held would be pretty minimal.
He totally ignored what is proper to advance an alarmist position.
Deceiving, diverting, obfuscating, cheating & lying are becoming increasingly necessary tactics for this self-serving, sinecure-protecting mob of so-called ‘Scientists’ as the truth is increasingly laid bare … that it is all a quasi-religious scam and a ‘house of cards’ with wobbly foundations.
‘Publications’ such as WUWT serve a vital role in exposing the fact that “The Emperor” really has no clothes. Does anyone among ‘us’ seize upon *major* challengeable statements (such as in this case with Trenberth???) *and* issue piece-by-piece rebuttals in Press Releases, scripted by qualified critics? Sort-of chess-play: move & counter-move? Methinks by now that select major media are increasingly inclined to pick-up on this emerging story of lies & deception & tendentious statements by the self-anointed Pontiffs of Absolute Faith in GW’ism.
“There is a tide in the Affairs of Man, which — taken at the flood ….” (Shakespeare: ‘Julius Caesar’) Alt’ly put: “Seize the moment!”
(Apologies for an excess of mixed metaphors!)
I hope you’re right, Ross. There are many on here regularly who are completely qualified to comment to the press as you suggest. Which publications would accept is another matter. If you check out the profiles of some of our best you will find that Wikipedia can be a place to essentially slander good people. Any letters we write need to be rational and factually accurate. I would suggest focussing on the biggest questions. If people just start looking at what they’re being fed, they have to start thinking. Hopefully?
Hi John:
Pleased to make the acquaintance of a like-mind.
Sigh! … and so, we’re back to “winning hearts & souls”, PR. propaganda & political will (won’t!!) reminds me of: “Popular Delusions & the Madness of Men”, written over a century ago. ‘Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose’. Lemming-like we mindlessly follow anyone we (obliviously?) choose to follow on the spur of the moment. Over the cliff?
I have just scripted a Comment on BrExit and how it’s good news for ‘Us’ (sic). The Brits will have to scrap internationalist, idealistic, impractical, expensive Greenism, and focus on housekeeping essentials, like keeping aging Grannies alive in mid-winter with *affordable* energy prices. Bye-bye windmills; Hello refurbished coal-fired plants! The Brits can no longer claim their energy policy is dictated from Brussels and wash their hands, faced by fundamental, pressing, domestic issues.
The future in Nuclear … if you’re interested, ask for my Paper on floating Nuclear Power Stations (FLONUPS). Answers everything — the perfect solution to today’s needs!
Hi Ross and welcome to you! Considering your comments it occurs to me that with so many prospective leaders diving for the ditch, you may be left with someone who has the mettle for the job. Life is hope!
John Harmsworth — re: yr. July 9, 2016 at 10:52 pm.
I have written voluminously in various threads on WUWT on the subject.of ‘leaning into the wind of ‘Received Wisdom’ from the Pontificate (the ‘Mannipulators’!)
You say: ” …it occurs to me that with so many prospective leaders diving for the ditch, you may be left with someone who has the mettle for the job. Life is hope!”
This perplexes me as to whom you refer by: “Prospective Leaders” and “You” (me?) and “Someone” (who, in person or which Counter-‘Received-Wisdom’ Group).
Personally, I’m game but will be dismissed as nothing in the hierarchy of ‘heavy-hitters’. But when it comes to the ‘peripherals’, my (self-perceived!!) skills as a Comminicator may be of help in challenging the Pontificate of Received Global Warming Alarmism.
Count me in as a loyal ‘foot-soldier’ for what little I can contribute.
The majority of heavy rainfall events come from convective clusters i.e thunderstorms. The moisture/energy that drives these storms comes from the near surface layer so if the surface is warmer it could in theory hold more water vapour which then condenses out in the strong updraughts within TS. More water vapour means potentially more precipitable water and therefore potentially stronger flooding events.
That’s why commercial airliners typically fly at 300,000 to 400,000 feet to be sure they are well above those dangerous water laden clouds at 30,000 to 60,000 feet.
g
Happy as hell that England voted to leave EU. This I think may weigh very heavy the Greenies.
No Dough, No Go. by the by, why isn’t anybody biitching about carbonated drinks? that CO2 has to go somewhere.. just saying. Also I really like to see Hillary disappear. any way a tornado find her plane?
Carla, thanks for showing those sun clips. It reminded me to check to see what, if any, the “holes” do to our atmosphere. Recently, since the spots diminished, our barometric pressure has stablized enough to see what these long term variables do. If the atmosphere continues to hold steady for several months, some of my solar questions may be answered.
Preliminary observations show that the pressure begins to rise slightly 7 days later. I have seen two cycles and this one today should start the pressure to rise next week. (Or maybe not)
Others that are interested, watch the barometer and take readings at noon and midnight. I find it better than averages. If it remains stable, the two readings should be close to the same reading.
Lee Osburn July 9, 2016 at 9:27 pm
…Others that are interested, watch the barometer and take readings at noon and midnight. I find it better than averages. If it remains stable, the two readings should be close to the same reading.
——————————————————————————————————————-
Sounds like a daily variation. diurnal
The coronal holes release high speed streams of sometimes Earth directed solar wind. I noted some wind speeds from coronal holes over 600 km/second.
There were some narrow bands of coronal holes on the solar disk during the recent spotless period.
These high speed winds produce geomagnetic activity here on Earth.
There are coronal holes and polar coronal holes. Not sure of their significance for the solar cycle though.
Crossings of the heliocurrent sheet and its associated corotating interaction regions (CIRs), also are related to geomagnetic activity.
Marlow Metcalf
July 9, 2016 11:39 am
It would be interesting to have the chart of the 10 years of the U.S. Climate Reference Network compared to a chart of the best sites of weather stations that have been in operation in the US for over a 100 years. If the last 10 years match that could mean something.
Does anyone have an example of the Government defining what they mean by “Climate Change”?What does for example, the Canadian Government mean when they say “Combating Climate Change”?
Anyone have a handy reference to a site where these “interesting people” define their terms?
So far It seems to be waffle all the way down.
From Environment Canada’s Science to the constant talking about Climate Change while inferring man made global warming.
So what is this climate change?
What is its range? In degrees C?
What duration?
Do the melting of the ice sheets covering my hometown at about 2 miles thick,20 000 years ago, fit the bill?
What does the concerned citizens hope to accomplish?
Reinstate the Laurentian Ice Fields?
Refreezing the mouth of the MacKenzie River?
I really would like the actual definition,as used for government policy.
What do my mendacious “servants” mean; When they speak of Climate Change?
So far All I have found is weather.
And a stunning ignorance of past patterns/cycles.
Methinks these generally-obfuscating pols & b’crats, and prosletyzers of The Faith, have ***NO*** interest in terminological specificity. “They” all want flexibility to express their tendentious (‘designed to deceive’) statements so as not to be pinned-down after the fact as to specificity of meaning …. “Let’s keep it vague-enough, and interpret it subsequently any way we want the gullible to understand it:.
Humpty Dumpty.
‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory”,’ Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t — till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”‘
‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument”,’ Alice objected.
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’
I know that some of the big fish around here dismiss solar activity as a significant driver of global temperature, but many of us who can’t let go of the assumption that the sun is the primary driver. It appears that the sun is running its own experiment, exhibiting the lowest activity for over a hundred years. http://notrickszone.com/#sthash.IWKoMNwA.dpbs
This is a chart I compiled for one of my recent articles ‘the intermittent little ice age’
Undoubtedly there appears to be some sort of correlation with lack of sunspots around the 1670 period but the correlation at other times is not so clear.
I think the sun must have an influence on our climate but not necessarily restricted just to sunspots unless the inactivity of these is very considerable and coincides with other factors.
Tonyb
Being only a Civil Engineer (but with some mathematical skills & an enquiring mind) I ran some numbers (using not much more than Wikipedia — now lost unfort’ly) based on the Q:
What is Anthropogenic annual warming as a % of:
a) Insolation (completely insignificant)
b) The cyclical VARIATION of insolation (the answer I got — from memory — was 0.0003%).
In layman’s terms, if insolation is ‘down’ for cyclical reasons and we tried to compensate, we’d have to increase our AGW by a factor of 1/0.0003% = 333,333 times +/- (If my memory got the no. of zeros wrong, the revised answer is 33,333 times!)
If this doesn’t put the AGW argument into perspective, I don’t know what does!
Someone more qualified than I … *please* check me out.
*****
(Having said, I think homo sapiens is running excessive risks by burning fossil-fuel deposits (accumulated over paleo-historic eras) infinitely(?) faster than they are being lain-down today.
The answer is renewables — to a practical max. of (what?) 20% — and the base-load N.Powered.
More anon……! One thing at a time!
For sure the relationship between the sun and climate is more complex than ssn, but the little ice age just happened to roughly coincide with the maunder minimum, and our current warm period just happens to roughly coincide with the highest period of solar activity on record. Even if we aren’t going into a new maude minimum, for sure the maximum has ended, and if there is a correlation the temp should be headed down in the next few years.
Goldrider:
I think I understand what you’re saying, but, at risk of pedantry ….
Ref: Wikipedia, “Tilting at windmills is an English idiom which means attacking imaginary enemies. …. The phrase is sometimes used to describe confrontations where adversaries are incorrectly perceived, or courses of action that are based on misinterpreted or misapplied heroic, romantic, or idealistic justifications. It may also connote an importune, unfounded, and vain effort against adversaries real or imagined for a vain goal.”
To me, *this* enemy is NOT imaginary;
Is this ‘adversary’ incorrectly perceived? I think not;
Are ‘our’ courses of action … based on misinterpreted or misapplied heroic, romantic, or idealistic justifications? No!
Are ‘our’ efforts ‘unfounded, and vain … against adversaries real or imagined for a vain goal.” Absolutely not!
(Maybe it is to you, perhaps??)
I WILL TILT!! In the words of “Jerusalem!”
” … I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have [vanquished the Bull-Shi**ers, intellectually dishonest, sinecure-seeking & self-serving]
RH July 9, 2016 at 1:24 pm For sure the relationship between the sun and climate is more complex than ssn, but the little ice age just happened to roughly coincide with the maunder minimum, and our current warm period just happens to roughly coincide with the highest period of solar activity on record.
Not so, RH: https://www.iau.org/news/pressreleases/detail/iau1508/
I thought this has been partially addressed by recent studies from Scaife et al where they discovered that during low sunspot periods, the UV radiation responsible for ozone production reduced by up to 8 times. Lower ozone in the stratosphere destabilises the wintertime polar vortices resulting in polar cold escaping further towards lower latitudes primarily from more blocked circumpolar westerly wind flow. This affect is more notable in the N Hemisphere and is why most long range Mets believe winters 17/18 through winter 19/20 perhaps even 20/21 will likely see very cold winters particularly eastern N America and Europe.
@Lsvalgaard On the Silso site it appears to state that the Version 1 series will disappear. Please tell me that the version 1 will remain archived and always accessible just not created any more.
@Timo:
V1 will always be available, but is not updated anymore. Since V1 has errors, it should not be used. If you use it anyway, you are not doing valid science.
It is and will be regularly updated here
You cannot update V1, and if you try you are not doing science.
The new sunspot number should not be called the ‘SSN Svalgaard’, but the ‘SSN Wolfer’.
“The new sunspot number should not be called the ‘SSN Svalgaard’, but the ‘SSN Wolfer’.”
Svalgaard has more punch to it; having a pack of wolves in there: Wolf, Wolfer & Vuk-cevic (vuk google-images) it would be just too menacing.
One can play with cherry-picking.
The group number for the time since 1936 is 5.16, and for the period 1726-1799 it was 5.32. These differences are not significant and do not warrant calling the ‘recent’ sunspot numbers the ‘highest ever recorded’.
What solar activity may look like in the centuries to come?
In this link you can see two projections based on the past data extrapolation.
Vukcevic extrapolation is based on the 9Kyr long d18O’s spectral composition from the China’s Dongge cave stalagmites.
Do somebody know how much km3 of sand, stones… are released from the rivers (and coming from the mountains/felds) every year into the oceans?
What is the contribute of this mass to the sea level change?
I could’t find any information about this.
Do somebody know how much sand, stones… are released from the rivers (and coming from the mountains/felds) every year into the oceans?
What is the contribute of this mass to the sea level change?
I could’t find any information about this.
KF, nobody probably knows. The main conventional contributors to SLR are ice sheet melt, thermosteric rise, and GIA/tectonics in that order. There has been an effort to claim groundwater extraction as a fourth, IMO de minimus. For sedimentation, Look at all the major river deltas around the world. Also de minimus compared to ocean and ice sheet vastness.
I’ve often thought about this. What I have noticed I that when I inspect building foundations is that the grades on older homes (30+ yr old) are frequently about an inch or more below where grade was when the concrete was poured. Adjacent grades appear to be lower too. I suspect that they was being carried away by runoff. ..the mountains are continually being eroded. And if you look at the sea level rise graph it’s pretty linear even during heating and cooling periods. 1.5 mm/yr SLR equates to about 6 mm/yr of land erosion. However I don’t think its to that degree but I believe it is a factor in SLR. ..it’s also something that would very difficult to measure. It’s totally ignored by scientists and not even mentioned
Jim G1
July 9, 2016 12:18 pm
Lots of smart people on this site, and yes, some not so smart, maybe me included. But I still have not received any response from ligo or anyone else on how they can measure, observe, gravitational waves from our reference frame, right here on good old earth, when from here time would be about stopped in the reference frame of the black holes, per general relativity which they are claiming to verify. Time dilation has been proven, experimentally, to occur in gravity wells. Someone going to tell me that it has been experimentally proven not to hold for black hole mergers? And don’t give me a bunch of equations with undefined terms from some model. What is the Logic? Where is the experiment that proves time dilation gets set aside for black hole mergers?
The gravitational collapse of a star to a black hole is supposed to generate a gravitational wave. This would come from outside the event horizon. So, I think the right way to look at the black hole( or any mass), is as creating a gravitational field gradient that extends outward 3 dimensionally into space. Changes to this gradient ( such as the collapse), propagate through spacetime like a ripple through water, even after the pebble that caused it is resting on the bottom.
Time would slow proportionately for someone in our reference frame as the black holes approached each other and the graphic published by ligo does not show this and actually depicts the merger. This could not be observed from our reference frame as it would take forever as viewed from earth. Time dilation is an experimentally proven fact. Atomic clocks run slower in a gravity field than in a weaker gravity situation.
Time is frozen at the event horizon. The gravitational field gradient extends outward from that surface. Where the gradient is disturbed by interacting with another gradient, gravitational waves will be propagated.
JH,
According to general relativity theory gravity waves will be produced. According to experimentally proven general relativity we would not see the merger from our frame of reference due to time dilation and certainly not as graphically depicted by the info produced by LIGO. Before time “freezes” it first slows down dramatically as the black holes approach each other. Graphics from LIGO actually purport to show the merger. This cannot be per GR theory.
Hey Jim! I’m back and on the spot I guess. As Popeye said, ” I ain’t no phisikist, but I know what matters “! I don’t know what the sensitivity of LIGO is but the gravitational gradient between two objects attenuates infinitely with distance. The disturbance of the gradient would be significant when the two black holes were many millions of miles apart, at a distance and gravitational level where time dilation is well below ” stopped”. That disturbance will propagate. Is that any better or am I misunderstanding the question?
Just because you didn’t get an answer doesn’t mean it isn’t thought about. I’ve wondered about the link between time dilation and gravitational waves as well. Is light separate from time? Light certainly isn’t separate from gravity. I can’t think of an experiment that measures time against gravity. There would have to be some formula where light affects gravity, or time affecting gravity. Or time affecting light. Suppose an experiment is being run at CERN, and a gravitational wave passes through at the moment the energies collide. What would that look like? How would we know?
I’ve thought of it as we exist in the bell shaped portion where the relationship is fairly stable. Extending out to the edges of the curve, things become a little less certain and stable. And those things exist in bigger amounts in other places.
It’s always interesting to think about black holes. There was a question asked years ago about lillies on a pond. It takes 30 days to cover the pond. If the lillies double each day, when is the pond half covered? On the last day. I think of black holes in the same way. Except we don’t know when the last day is since we don’t know what time it is. It’s an idea that there is a god of all clocks and everything is timed off of that clock.
Why not invite him? Seriously! If you don’t ask, you rarely get!
“Dear Prof. Hawking”:
You may not have heard of our Blog-site which attracts millions of ‘eyeballs’ and an impressive array of informed, unbiased commentators on matters ranging from Black Holes, Gravity Waves, etc. (your domain) through integrity of the Scientif Process in today’s world to La Nina and plastic particulate pollution in the oceans. We question ‘Received Wisdom Encyclicals’ and throw them open to debate.
The question has arisen amongst our contributors on what your learned views would be on the question of [……….]
We cordially invite you to visit our site, formulate a specific response, and — hopefully — become a regular contributor.
Yours respectfully,
John Harsworth.”
Ha! He puts my name on it! Might as well sign “on behalf of”, and send it. Oh! Too bad! Post office is shutting down. However will we communicate? You have my permission, Ross!
Reply to Jim G1 July 9, 2016 at 12:18 pm
Actually, the more I thought about your question the more brilliantly it illuminated many answers and raised many more questions!
Here is my take on it though. A dude named Bell proved* with very simple mathematics that at the sub-atomic or quantum level the universe is non-local. Meaning that everything in infinite time and space is instantly connected. Any causal event happening any ‘now’ or any ‘here’ affects any “when” and “anywhere” instantly. At the very tiniest scale possible, space is a singularity the same as a black hole, without the mass. Events are a-causal in that sense, except that no information as we know it, can travel faster than C. Big in breath…here! So… the universe is a field called spacetime, the warping of which we call Gravity. A black hole is an extreme distortion of space and time that light and matter can’t escape but gravity isn’t an energy field it is spacetime itself and as such it isn’t subject to the affects of time dilation. Changes effecting matter (That those scientist measured) propagate at light speed but the field they travel in is unaffected by time dilation. Ok this doesn’t make sense but it does if you think of spacetime as a wave and the water it travels in as gravity rather than vice-versa. So from the frame of reference of spacetime the blackholes do their stuff in a particular amount of “time” in a particular “space” but the propagation of this message (Undilated) still can’t get to us faster than C.
Another way to put it : “A black hole is an extreme distortion of space and time due to a very dense mass. Such a spacetime distortion can prevent light and matter from ever escaping. But the spacetime distortion is also gravity. It doesn’t need to escape the black hole, because it is the black hole.”
(https://briankoberlein.com/2015/08/21/how-does-gravity-escape-a-black-hole/)
*And I believe him (His maths that is!).
Colorado University has published somewhat regular releases of their Satellite Seal Level data over the years and most of the time series are available on the Internet Archives WayBack Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
The take home information for each release is the rate or since 2016 the trend (same thing) which over the years as increased from 2.6/mm/yr to 3.4 mm/yr today. Using Excel’s slope formula it is easy to plot out the trend for each data point along the way from 1992 to the end of the series and plot the results out as a function of time. Selecting a time series for each year (2009 is missing) a representation of the changes in the rate and the changes in the raw data can be displayed. It looks like this: http://oi67.tinypic.com/2s7yxxz.jpg
For example, if you follow the results for 2004 up through the various releases, you find that the overall rate for 2004 has evolved over the last decade or so from 2.6 to 2.9 to 3.2 to 3.4 and finally over 3.5 mm/yr. The highest posted rate was over 3.6 mm/yr in 2006 as calculated from the 2011 release #2. And you can see that it has been revised downward since then as shown in the current release.
A few years back CU’s Sea Level Research Group responded to questions about the changes to the raw data to say: Thanks for your inquiry. The sea level time series release from 2004 is
over eight years old, and in that time many parts of the TOPEX and
Jason-1 processing have been updated to reflect instrument and ancillary
data improvements. Without recreating each processing change over the
last eight years, I cannot point to any specific update that is the main
cause of the differences between the 2004 and the current release. But a
partial list of the more influential updates include:
– updated orbits
– updated radiometer corrections
– updated tide models
– updated sea state bias models
– updated dynamic atmosphere
A review of the release notes
(http://sealevel.colorado.edu/content/release-notes) shows how we
continually apply what the altimeter science community considers to be
the most up-to-date set of processing parameters. In fact, the Jason-2
data is currently being re-released and updated to the GDR-D standard,
and this will most likely affect the altimeter time series due to these
improvements.
Why the changes have been made, the motives, the reasons etc. are a matter of opinion, that they have been made is a matter of fact.
I don’t believe they can accurately measure SLR from outer space. The medium they measure through is something that the speed of light changes frequently. …waves, tides, sea level gravitational difference all add significant noise to their measurements. On the order of many feet. Their signal to noise ratio is like 1 to 100. This is entirely to low to get a meaningful signal from no matter how many samples you have. …this is why there’s a significant difference from land and satellite. Also. They can’t even be sure if the diameter of the earth is changing. Just a thousandth of a degree change (flux) in temperature can mess their measurements through thermal expansion of the earth. With something that at as hot as the earth a 1000th degree change would be quite normal I believe
It is great to have an open thread. Unfortunately for me, I don’t have time today to say much.
What I will say is that this should become a weekly feature, and the parameters of the discussion should be loosened for the open thread. No flames or name calling of course, but there should be some controversy allowed.
I would like to see a mod be able to tell someone on a normal post to “save that for an open thread”.
~ Mark
Age writing here:
1957 was declared “International Geophysical Year” . I completed a degree in 1962. At the time, lecturers reviewed that ice ages might have been caused by an open Arctic Ocean providing lots of precip over a cold land mass. The other explanation was Milankovitch periodicity. There was not enough evidence to support either.
So, since the 1970s it has been fascinating to watch the data come in–generally supporting periodicity.
More recently the confirmation of theories about clouds and cosmic rays really fills in a working explanation of real climate change,
Authoritarians have been showing a lot of audacity. That they can “manage” the climate is amazing. But the promotion is falling apart on this impressive solar minimum.
Over in central banking land, they are fixed on the number “2”. If they can’t get inflation above 2% something bad will happen. “Warmers” insist that if the global temp goes up “2” degrees something bad will happen to the climate.
Both methods of intrusion get hung up on notions about positive feedback.
The next recession will bury central planning of the economy. The solar minimum will finish off the promotion about man-caused climate change.
Exciting times.
I expressed a similar thought regarding an open Arctic back in 2010 on Newsvine. This was during my second year of reading about the AGW debate. The question which I asked was “Would it be possible with a more open Arctic condition to experience the equivalent of a Great Lakes lake-effect snow storm on a scale never conceived of”? No one had an answer for the question.
-Bob Hoye
Yes, 2 is the important number!
For 2 long 2 many politicians told 2 many lies and spent 2 much money. Now it’s 2 late 2 cut taxes because the debt is 2 high. Way 2 high! We likewise can’t get growth up 2 even 2% because nobody really believes the growth story anymore so the same s2pid government started 2 print money because they think we’re 2 s2pid 2 know that making fake money 2 buy windmills 2 increase our energy costs is 2 s2pid even for words! Maybe we are that s2pid when I look at the 2 bit leaders we elect. It’s Trudeau here in Canada now and that’s 2 much (2 X 2) for me! I no longer give 2 s#!ts!
Lower solar cycles are normally long solar cycles but this cycle is beginning to look like it might be low and short.
So I was wondering if that means the solar minimum may be quite long. Most solar mins are just one year long but the last one was two years long. When coincidentally we had 8 inches of snow on the ground here in the middle of southern brexit land. Normally we never get any snow that settles.
It will be interesting to see if this solar minimum is longer than two years and if we get snow again. If we do, I can try out my new tyres. http://www.evo.co.uk/features/15600/michelin-cross-climate-vs-winter-and-all-season-tyres
In my opinion, we will experience a longer time at minimum for this cycle and the next 3 to 4 cycles. That thought comes from viewing the overall pattern in the solar minimums which I think I see in the record.
Scott
July 9, 2016 3:15 pm
I had to laugh at fishermen comments at the boat launch today for the start of the Salmonarama tournament on Lake Michigan … “I’ve never seen the water at the ramp so high.” Three years ago water levels were very low, global warming were clapping their hands in glee at the evidence of global warming, and that launched millions upon millions of dollars worth of harbor dredging to combat the “global-warming caused” low lake levels. Of course by the time dredging actually occurred, a year or two later, the lake levels were already rebounding back to normal but the money was already allocated and had to be spent. Now lake levels are very high and houses a few miles from the harbor are falling into the lake because high water erosion is eating into the bluffs.
There seems to be some sort of lesson to be learned here but no one seems to be asking why did we spend so much on something that wasn’t really necessary (harbor dredging) when we could have spent it on something that was necessary (bluff erosion prevention).
Governments, politicians really, have to be seen to be doing something. They are just idiots with ambition, so they don’t know good spending (hey! It’s possible!) from bad spending! Many are lawyers and professionally amoral, so….they have that…quality. Also, we pay them excessively to do this, so they have to. Otherwise, they can’t earn their ridiculous pensions. It’s a great system!
If anyone was wondering where all the weather is on this planet, have a look at windyty.com.
This is a beautiful way to look at weather, the first thing I noticed is that all the nasty energetic weather occurs over the oceans. This should be called planet water. Man is so self absorbed at being the centre of the universe that all the climate studies seem to focus on the land. Oceans are where its at.
so true.
“It requires an astronomical amount of ignorance and arrogance to claim humans are the only reason the temperature and climate began to change.”
—quote from CHANGING Climate Change
We live in a water world and the Southern Hemisphere is predominantly water vs. land. We are in our summer up in the N. hemisphere, but down under it is winter. The declining solar cycle is hitting mostly water now and this is a harbinger of the cold to come. The ocean is the storage mechanism for solar isolation, and it is not getting “charged”.
Peruse “iceagenow” to see the record setting cold in the S. Hemisphere. Add the growing Antarctic ice, and the tipping point for cold may just be down under.
Fantastic!
Great forum — thanks for having the open thread.
For me, the most concerning part is what is behind Al Gore’s theory of anthropogenic global warming.
I just finished writing a book explaining how and why Gore’s theory of anthropogenic global warming is wrong. Pretty much any post on this thread disproves Gore’s theory.
Hey Kevin! That’s terrific! I have been saying for some time that we need a counter presentation or anti- An Inconvenient Truth video. I blame the moron Gore for popularizing this lame brain AGW idea. Sounds like your book would be a worthwhile read. What is the title and is it published?
Thanks John! I appreciate your interest. The title is “CHANGING Climate Change” and is currently only available on the publisher’s website: http://www.bigumbrellapub.co
Until July 31, you can enter coupon code: CHANGING CC for a 15% discount.
I agree, there has to be a counter-movement to Al Gore’s theory of AGW. It’s time to liberate climate change from the green propaganda machine!
This echos my comment a coupla(?) days ago. Why shd the Devil always play the best tunes?
A big concern is the brain-washing our kids are getting in educational institutions. the “Received Wisdom” needs to be challenged whenever & wherever.
Apropos which, I offered to buy for our local High School’s Library 12 copies of Lomborg’s book, and I was refused, on account of the fact that it was not on the “Approved Reading List” (or somesuch) of the B.C. Min.Education. Meantime, Gore’s egregious movie was played over-and-over to the kids. If this isn’t brain-washing, I don’t know what is.
It’s incumbent on all us steady-thinkers to challenge back-room bias, bigotry, hypocrisy and the reimposition of feudalism by the glitterati at *every* opportunity. It’s a long uphill task but “Every long march starts with the first steps!” (Mao, I think?)
“We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength …. we shall defend [the Ultimate Truth], We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender,” (With apologies to Winston S. Churchill)
Timo Soren
July 9, 2016 4:03 pm
Just wanted to share a link from Retraction Watch: http://retractionwatch.com/2016/07/08/authors-retract-study-that-found-pollution-near-fracking-sites/
That talks about the retraction of a analysis of pollution and other health info associated with fracking, it got a bunch of headlines; Causes Cancer etc…..
Now the article has been retracted because they got it all wrong. The risks they had looked at now are non-existent and well below any EPA worries let alone any real human concern. Spreadsheet error caused by wrong units apparently.
Will the media cover this? I kinda doubt it.
Lastly, anyone know what happened to Lucia’s Rankexploits?
Anti-fracking is part of the shut down fossil fuels movement. Hoped for results will be to force the use of renewables such as wind and solar.
Shut down ones set of lies and another pops up!
I wonder if activist scientists would consider putting out a paper they know to be bogus, let it circulate for a bit then retract it knowing that it achieved a goal to influence media and public opinion?
Johnny Galt
July 9, 2016 5:47 pm
Just finished Steyn’s “A Disgrace to the Profession” and I highly recommend it. Masterful job of citing actual quotes from prominent scientists to overcome fear of being a ‘denier’.
Every once in a while I’ve made a comment about LENR (aka cold fusion) without getting a sensible response. It seems really odd to me there is no interest in that subject here as it shows every sign of significantly reducing the use of fossil fuels over the next couple of decades. I think it likely it will end the debate on AGW.
There are two main varieties of LENR. The one started by Fleischmann and Pons using Palladium and deuterium in 1989, that researchers failed to replicate at first and so got cold fusion a bad name. In fact it has been replicated several times since and it is now understood why the early attempts failed. They didn’t know what they were doing, were in a rush to publish and failed to load the Palladium sufficiently for the process to work.
The other newer system involves nickel, lithium and hydrogen. The foremost experimenter with this is Andrea Rossi, whose 1 mega Watt plant completed a one year trial in Feb 2016. According to the ERV (independent consultant paid to monitor the results) it operated with a COP of >50
Industrial Heat Ltd had agreed to pay Rossi $89 million if the plant worked with a COP >6 as the final payment for the intellectual property and rights to sell the technology in America and some other countries. They failed to pay. As a result Rossi had taken them to court (trial Sept 2017) and declared their license is now invalid. In fact it doesn’t really matter. It looks like Rossi has developed a much superior system that also produces light and electricity directly. Very little is known of this new development until patents are granted, except it is tiny – 1mm x 40mm and produces 100 Watts of heat.
Should anyone be interested I would be happy to elaborate.
Adrian Ashfield commented: “….it is tiny – 1mm x 40mm and produces 100 Watts of heat. Should anyone be interested I would be happy to elaborate…”
Yes, I’m interested
markl,
I can’t tell you more about the tiny reactor, except it is called the QuarkX as a temporary name. Rossi says that although this is still in R&D it looks like the future to him. He proposes to join.many of them together to get the required output. He also says that up to 50% of the output can be as electricity but any power taken that way reduces the heat output accordingly. I speculate that he has gone to a smaller size because it is easier to control. The larger sizes operate best at high temperature but are prone to run away and melt.
A whole lot more is known about the the earlier, large, low temperature versions. The basics are provided in his patent. The patent is worded a bit strangely to get past the Patent Office’s automatic rejection of cold fusion.. http://ecat.com/ecat-technology/ecat-patents
Well, I know nothing about the guy in question, but your description of the events rings many alarm bells, as it is the exact same story we’ve heard time and time again from people seeking to dupe investors with the next great miracle device. Change his name and the name of the device, and the story is exactly the same as a million scams that came before it. Right down to the “I can’t explain how it works because I haven’t got a patent yet”, and “I’m being attacked by big business seeking to rip me off or suppress my invention” parts.
The story is always the same.
I mean, the guy has already been convicted of tax fraud and environmental crime, with a business that claimed to be able to turn toxic waste into oil…. But hey, if you claim a big enough miracle, and tug on the right heart strings with stories of how “the man” is keeping you down, you can get investors for just about anything. That this scam is so common as to be easily recognizable speaks to its effectiveness.
Philip,
It looks like Rossi was run out of business in Italy by the Mafia. They considered he was threatening their waste disposal business. They persuaded the government to retroactively class the waste he had collected as hazardous.
Your warning not to give him money is without merit too. Only large companies “that understand the risk” can. I wish I could and I understand the risk..
I have been following Rossi’s ecat and now quark-x story for over 5 years. Its a very tangled story that still has me a little confused but there are several others in the works. Brillioun Power, some Russian guys, Chinese- too many to remember. I have no doubt anymore that LENR or “cold fusion” is real. It’s a shame what was done to Pons and Fleischman. It may take some time to get practical devices out of this idea but catalyzed fusion reactions will be the story of the 21st century.
If all this AGW nonsense gets you down, I suggest reading ” The Singularity is Near”. The future will be more amazing than we can imagine. If we get there, lol!
John,
Like you I have been following Rossi since his first public demo in 2011. LENR is the opposite of AGW in that the consensus doesn’t believe it but the facts back it up. Brilliant Light Power (nee Blacklight Power) have had some impressive demos lately, but have a long record of failing to produce a commercial product.
A long time ago Rossi forecast that no demo would ever satisfy the skeptics but only the sale of working commercial units. Rossi is optimistic he will have a commercial 1 MW plant working before the end of 2016.
Technical reporter Mats Lewan has written an excellent book called “An Impossible Invention” that covers Rossi’s story. See also his long “webinar” about LENR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ3S3YMH96s&feature=youtu.be
ps. Here are some photos of the I MW plant being built. http://andrea-rossi.com/1mw-plant/
The reactors shown in the center photo were of an earlier design and are just there as “stand-by” in case the main reactors failed. The heat was produced by four 250 kW units shown in the bottom center image, with Rossi listening to the water boiling with a stethoscope.
An unverified analysis of the ash after the one year’s operation is discussed here. If these figures are correct it would be proof that the 1 MW plant operated as claimed. Read the comments too. http://www.e-catworld.com/2016/07/08/document-isotopic-composition-of-rossi-fuel-sample-unverified/
pps.
E-cat World have a link to Brilliant Light Power’s latest two hour demo video to generate power @ 0.1 cents/kW.
Seems to me there are a lot of difficult engineering problems, so their forecast of commercial units next year looks optimistic to me. Mills argues that the device is sufficiently cheap that they would just swap them out, but I would like to see several units run for up to a year in order to get a better handle on the problems before they are out in the field.
Amongst other things Mills claims quantum mechanics is wrong. He does have a point. http://www.e-catworld.com/2016/07/10/brillliant-light-power-posts-demo-video/
Rossi is currently sueing a forms partner for non completion on his one year demo. The jointly agreed test referee signed off as meeting the test criteria and the payment was to be 89 million. The IP is likewise somewhat in the wind. I believe he is way ahead of the others as control of the reaction seems to be difficult and critical. Rossi appears to have that aspect figured out.
u.k(us)
July 9, 2016 7:04 pm
I usually just post my inane comments on the nearest thread.
Suddenly I’m speechless.
TA
July 9, 2016 7:06 pm
I just watched a tv program about NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter. It’s pretty exciting. We should learn a lot about a lot of things, if the spacecraft can manage to stay functional in the high radiation environment it has to deal with.
So far, so good.
Philip Schaeffer
July 9, 2016 9:13 pm
I’d like to see two new rules here:
1: If you write an article for this site, and produce figures or graphs, you should provide all the data and methods necessary to replicate your work. There is no excuse for not doing this. If you’re not confident enough in your results to supply the necessary information to allow them to be checked, you shouldn’t be publishing them in the first place.
1: If you use an article published here to make personal attacks, then you should be prepared to be judged by the same standards you judge others by. If you are going to make someones character part of the topic, then you should accept criticism of your own character as on topic too.
If however, you just want to talk about the science, then that’s fine, your character has nothing to do with it… But when you make it an issue….
Alan Ranger
July 9, 2016 9:43 pm
I’m looking for a web site or similar which provides a good, clear explanation of the logarithmic nature of the “greenhouse warming” effect. If a doubling of GHG gives a certain temperature rise, why does it take another doubling to get that same rise again? How does the greenhouse effect become saturated? Thanks for any leads.
I think that comes out to zero, also. 🙂 We are still working on that first input of CO2 and its effects. Theoretically it has an effect, but does it practically? Is there a feedback that cancels the effect out? Noone knows?
There must be some kinetic energy deposited in the atmosphere by meteorites, solar mass ejections, cosmic rays, and collapsing or moving magnetic fields and maybe electrostatic fields in the galaxy. And there is a tiny bit coming in as light from the moon. Also, coming from below as geothermal sources, boiling vents in the ocean floor, undersea volcanos, kinetic energy and friction from tides and heat from landslides and falling icebergs.
Also, photosynthesis takes energy from the atmosphere as photons subtracted from heating other things such as water, oxygen and nitrogen; and respiration and fermentation adds heat to the atmosphere as it burns carbohydrates into water and CO2 and/or alcohol.
I wonder if these sources of energy have any significance on the energy budget of the earth? or are they essentially minuscule? compared to the 239W/m^2 coming in from the sun?
I was wondering why no one has written a paper that looks at the pause from a multi variable perspectve?
What I mean is that if you look at temperature alone it is easy to dismiss the pause whether by data manipulation or reference periods etc.
However, there appears to be signs of the pause elsewhere. I live in Singapore and I downloaded data from the NEA singapore. The temperatures here rose during the 90s then levelled off just like many other obs stations around the world. This same signal can also be seen in the observed precipitation, increasing during the 90s then levelled off.
Stratospheric temps lowered in the 80s until mid 90s then flatlined.
There could be cases argued for similar trends in storms, droughts etc.
It seems to me that a new climate equilibrium was found and perhaps the globe after an initial jolt upwards has settled into this new equilibrium.
Coalition Govt has scraped over the line as Labor concedes- http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/election-2016malcolm-turnbull-claims-victory-after-bill-shorten-concedes-defeat/ar-BBu8vnm?li=AAavLaF&ocid=spartanntp
Whether they reach a majority in their own right (76 seats in a 150 seat House of Representatives) is still a moot point but the PM already has the support of 3 independents and one of them could serve as Speaker of the House. Nevertheless they don’t have a majority in the Senate (House of Review) so unpopular legislation will be difficult to pass without some deals being struck with minor parties/independents.
Thanks, reading the news in North America leaves a lot to be desired.
observa
July 10, 2016 2:08 am
‘Close to 10,000 hectares of mangroves have died across a stretch of coastline reaching from Queensland to the Northern Territory.
International mangroves expert Dr Norm Duke said he had no doubt the “dieback” was related to climate change.’ http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/shocking-images-reveal-death-of-10000-hectares-of-mangroves-across-northern-australia/ar-BBu8Px9?li=AA4Znz&ocid=spartanntp
So I was interested in how unprecedented this mangrove dieback is and came up with a Florida example- http://floridabay.org/pub/bw_report/mangroves.shtml
Interesting how the Florida dieback is on islands and the Gulf of Carpentaria one seems to be a similar strip of mangroves surrounded by seawater and it would appear drought and the lack of fresh water is problematic for the mangroves. In that case it will be interesting to see how they recover with a return to normal wet seasons.
Brett Keane
July 10, 2016 3:10 am
Hugs
July 10, 2016 at 2:24 am
Off topic comment.
I think some GHE talk is much a red herring. But I’m interested in how much GHE consists of solely pressure only and how much on the atmospheric composition. Had we 90 bars of pure nitrogen, what would be the approximate temperature at surface?
What about 90 atm air or 90 atm CO2?
All the solar system atmospheres measured (quite a few), show that the gas laws rule. That is, gaseous mass, gravity, and solar distance govern temperatures. Gas species are irrelevant, though basal pressures under those of our tropopause eg Mars cannot hold a normal lapse rate, because of wider molecular gaps allowing radiative domination. Whatever gas gas they hold.. In denser atmospheres, radiation is always subordinate below the 500hPa level..
None of the planets have a gasosphere containing only nitrogen. So the question is a bit theoretical.
London247
July 10, 2016 4:25 am
I have wondered if there is a speed of gravity. If the Sun was to be removed in an instant the we could observe the lack of light some 7 1/2 minutes later. but how long would it take for the earth to start moving in s straight line without the gravitational influence of the Sun?
On a different aspect. At the time of the Big Bang there was a fixed amount of energy in the universe. Some of this energy was in the form of mass. As Suns use up their mass to convert matter to electromagnetic energy then the level of gravity in the Universe diminishes. There being less gravitational attraction then the Universe would expand at an accelerated rate which matches the observation of an increasing Universe. This is just an opinion.
Pretty sure physics says the gravitational effect can’t be faster than light speed. Question #2 is tougher but I think you have to fall back on mass/energy equivalence as opposed to conversion. So technically, when energy is absorbed by matter its mass increases.
London, the “speed of gravity” is the same as the speed of light. If the sun suddenly magically disappeared we’d feel the earth fly off into space the same moment as we saw the sun’s light go out.
Converting the mass of the sun into light doesn’t affect the overall “level of gravity” in the universe. Mass and energy are equivalent as far as gravity is concerned.
Gravity… it’s everywhere. Light doesn’t have a field. A gravity wave may not be subject to time aspect of motion. Light is affected by gravity, and has a time component. When 2 black holes merge, the furthest reaches of its gravity moves at the same time. Twisting the wand on venetian blinds move the slats at the same time.
– Rishrac
Can you expand a little on”a gravity wave may not be subject to the time aspect of motion”? My grasp of astrophysics is pretty meager I’m afraid.
I don’t know everything about gravity. Until asked questions or involved in conversations like this, I try not to think about it. Quantum and string physics is easier to understand. I never really thought about time like light. Perhaps time can be reflected. That would be interesting. Both seem to travel in one direction. In astrophysics they say the universe is expanding. Is there an inverse relationship between time and expansion? There is a book, it’s called Gravity. There is a lot of math in it.
Light is really strange. It’s not as simple as some think it is. There’s information in starlight.
I mentioned the god of all clocks. As far as I can see most things are timed to that universal clock. But then why would a black hole need a Clock? Just part of the universe turned inside out. Nothing in it. Any matter falling on it gets torn apart and ejected. The line between existence and non existence. I’ve thought of doing that, calculating the mass of a star and seeing how much energy is expelled when a black hole eats it. There are some black holes that are slow munchiers. The thing I’d like to see is the death of a black hole. There are time frames, a black hole forms, a black hole lives, and a black hole dies. So either a black hole dies and keeps track of time, or a black hole never dies and has no need of time, it doesn’t keep it.
I’m self aware. Sometimes when conversations run like this, I sometimes ask myself, what the heck am I talking about. It’s good to be in a room that has walls with whiteboards. There are so many tangents you can loose sight of the original goal. So you have to write that down, you will forget, or it will come up again later, and wow that’s something I didn’t think of. Morgan LeFey trapped Merlin in his own reflection. I know how she did it.
I do think that there is a relationship between light, time, and gravity. In the real sense that they can interfere, react, and act on each other.
At points in talking about things like this, the conversation turns more philosophical. We have to think about what something is doing, then go about seeing if it is.
I do think that there is a relationship between light, time, and gravity
Best I can follow Einstein, lights time dilatation is really just light following the curvature of spacetime.
But this is what I keep picturing, time is a “real” dimension, just like x,y and z, and we are in free fall in that direction. And gravity changes the angle between our x,y and z, and time.
visualize this as a sort of a tetrahedron.
I was thinking something similar. Like one of the oddly shaped rooms where you can looker much taller or smaller depending on where you’re standing. I think there are angles between light,time, and gravity. If we left this solar system would time be different? It seems the stronger the gravity, the faster time passes. But that’s something different I envision in or near a black hole. Those giant nebulas I have thought might be from a black hole becoming unstable and exploding. We will have to see one to find out. On the one hand I can see where time would stop, and then it could pass very quickly. If a black hole doesn’t die, it means that there is nothing vibrating in it. No way to measure time. I think some of this is due to our lack of abilities to understand some kinds of concepts. For example, some monkeys have much better memory when it comes to number sequence than humans. What they seem to lack is cognitive thought. There might be a level of cognitive thought that would make this very simple.
http://www.newsmax.com/Finance/Economy/china-global-economy-g-20-fix/2016/07/09/id/737894/
China: G-20 Must Fix ‘Grim’ Global Economy
“The global economic situation is grim and major economies must lead the way in tackling problems including sluggish growth and weak trade, China’s trade minister Gao Hucheng said on Saturday.
Gao made the remarks at the start of a two-day meeting of trade ministers from G-20 economies in Shanghai, as uncertainty hangs over the outlook for a slow-growing global economy now beset by post-Brexit reverberations.
The global economic recovery remained “complicated and grim,” Gao said.
“Global trade is dithering, international investment has yet to recover to levels before the financial crisis, the global economy has yet to find the propulsion for strong and sustainable growth.”
Don’t blame BrExit. All those things existed before BrExit came along.
Yeah, the G20 needs to fix the world economy. I got a little chuckle out of that one.
One way to fix the economies is to quit bankrupting them by forcing them to install inferior, costly, deadly electrical generation facilities such as windmills.
Here’s an interesting article with a few interesting things to say …
“Antarctic sea-ice expansion between 2000 and 2014 driven by Pacific decadal climate variability”
“Antarctic sea-ice extent has been slowly increasing in the satellite record that began in 1979.”
Increasing, Antarctic sea ice has been slowly increasing.
“Since the late 1990s, the increase has accelerated, but the average of all climate models shows a decline.”
The REAL WORLD shows an increase but the average of all the CLIMATE MODELS show a decline. Check.
“Meanwhile, the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation, an internally generated mode of climate variability, transitioned from positive to negative, with an average cooling …”
“average cooling”
“… of tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures, a slowdown of the global warming trend …”
“A SLOWDOWN OF THE GLOBAL WARMING TREND”
“… and a deepening of the Amudsen Sea Low near Antarctica.” http://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2751.epdf?shared_access_token=-4vAzZ6a2_pPasntoQe7rdRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0PiRwMr0KAnSTgYyD10-F94hS1A4ilc1GFMTaeoLSR6XK6ebOSFLzQeECI2MuPs3fEJDhLWcI0VoV6_-kKccWyT8k8oQPLD4F71JX5Nk8-MZjySxJWTOWouVG9zLO39zKM%3D
amirlach
July 10, 2016 10:59 am
Two examples of left wing hypocrisy and censorship all rolled into one.
Sir/Madam:
You strike a chord! The Offended vs. the Offensive.
The “Offended” are typified by the Glitterati hell-bent on re-establishing Feudal hegemony behind castle walls, and the “Offensive” — 99% of us, the great unwashed — whom they’d like to blame for all perceived environmental ills. The Offended include the uber-rich groups funding so-called “Environmental Causes”, many of them out of USA, and most of them anti-development, and ultra-Green.
All to the exclusion of the average Joe looking to earn a crust of bread to support his family.
The Brits, for example, spent centuries shaking-off the shackles of serfdom. We must fight the New-Feudals to the last, lest we revert to the Dark Ages: penury, lack of a social welfare-net & health-care, a lifespan of 40 if you’re lucky, pestilence & famine, living off what you can scrabble in the dirt-patch outside your hovel.
Society has advanced by harnessing energy. We live in an integrated society. We … the 99% … cannot turn the clock back, and we won’t.
Challenge the “Offended” at every turn.
luysii
July 10, 2016 12:01 pm
June 2016 in Massachusetts seemed to be the coolest in memory. Naturally no stories to this effect appeared in the media. Perhaps I’m wrong. There must be records on this sort of thing, but I’m unable to find them using Google. Any ideas?
“Any ideas?”
The data I produce and make available would have a csv file of surface temps and various averages, and I go down to 1×1 degree grids. But I can only give you a round about way there today. https://micro6500blog.wordpress.com/2015/11/18/evidence-against-warming-from-carbon-dioxide/
On that link is a url to source forge, in the reports subfolder there’s a zip, should be labeled clear enough to figure out which is 1×1, there will likely be both daily averages and annual averages. You’ll need to find your coordinates and find the right cell, they are labeled based on the coordinates and there is a xxxx _ST.csv that has the station list and their coordinates. Depending on the part of the world the label can be at the lower boundary of the cell, or the upper boundary, but you can alway look at the station list.
Open Thread?
Thank you, Anthony, and some of the rest of you for your perseverance, dedication and integrity. This site is one I seek out daily for accurate news and information on climate change.
I’ve made a few donations along the way. Will do more in the future.
To all of you who contribute to this site, including those who comment so impressively, I am grateful to you for your efforts.
And I look forward to the day when we all realize that it’s about seeking the truth.
Best,
Felix
+100
The latest (JULY) issue of ” Physics Today ” has some generally interesting stories.
There is one good story about an ongoing study that purports to have detected dark matter. The story is interesting to climate skeptics, because the situation relative to this experiment are similar to those found in climate research.
The project under discussion is known as DAMA.
It has been ongoing since the 1990s and the team says that it continues to give signals consistent with the detection of dark matter.
They posit that dark matter consists of fairly massive particles that respond to both gravitational force and also to the Weak Force.
The gravitational force effect of the dark matter affects the structure and rotation of galaxies, which is the reason for dark matter being postulated in the first place. Galaxies do not contain enough ordinary mass, to have the structure they are observed to have; more mass is needed than can be seen.
The weak force sensitivity evidently provides a means of detecting dark matter particles independent of their observed effect on galaxies. So evidently some physical materials can absorb dark matter particles via some weak force interaction which I presume is akin to the beta decay reactions that are mediated by the weak force.
So the problem is that the purveyors of DAMA have steadfastly refused to share their information with anybody who wants to study their results. “What ! you want me to let you try to disprove my results ?? ”
So other teams have tried to independently detect dark matter using different materials.
Now DAMA use sodium Iodide Crystals, which is a well known scintillation detector crystal. You get flashes of light when it absorbs various energetic particles. Well they claim it does the same for dark matter .
But nobody has obtained any signals using any other form of scintillation detector, including ones that detect all the ordinary particles that NaI does.
The crystals have to be extremely pure and you can’t have any traces of radioactive potassium, hiding in the NaI lattice, so the material is very expensive, and they use something like 250 Kg of the stuff, and only one company makes material that pure. And the DAMA people won’t let that company sell high purity NaI of that same quality to anyone else, who might try to replicate their results.
So no you can’t have my code, or a look at my apparatus, of buy any of my secret formula sodium iodide crystals.
The purported detection signals vary seasonally, and this is explained as due to the fat that earth’s orbital velocity around the sun, reverses after six months so our speed through the galaxy fluctuates cyclically with a yearly cycle.
So this gizmo is buried under some mountains in France (I think) and some competitors are setting up shop under the same mountains.
So nobody else has detected any such signal with any other scintillation detector, but the DMA team have been getting funded for a couple of decades now, but won’t show anyone how they get their results.
Sounds familiar; doesn’t it.
G
Perhaps they use spheres of NaI and that’s the reason they don’t want to show them. Crystal balls.
George e comments on the DAMA claim, to wit:
Whenever “dark matter” is mentioned I usually always asked the question that ……. “If the gravitational force exerted by the dark matter directly or indirectly affects the rotation of galaxies then why in ell doesn’t that same gravitational force affect the trajectory of periodic comets, ….. such as Haley’s Comet?”
White Holes, yes, …..Black Holes, yes, ……… but Dark Energy and Dark Matter, a resounding “NO”.
Sam, I’m probably not putting the evidence for dark matter correctly. But as to your query, I’m not sure what the effect would be having a body orbiting inside a more or less uniform field of mass, made of particles that don’t want to interact much with ordinary matter, except for their gravitational effect. Perhaps it takes galaxy sized regions for the dark mass impact to be noticed.
I’ve read several SA type of articles, and thought I understood it, but I can’t say I really do understand it.
Supposedly there are things called WIMPS, which means something like Weakly Interacting Massive Particles or something like that. Dunno if that is what dark matter is supposed to be, but it does seem to mention Weak interactions, which I suppose does mean weak force interactions. Never caught on to that when I first heard of WIMPS.
G
Reminds me of the search for ether. Everyone believed in ether and there were a lot of mind tricks used to explain why the ether could not be detected. Lorenz developed equations to adjust the length of instruments utilized in searching for ether.
Ironically, these same equations were used by Einstein to demonstrate his special theory of relativity.
George it seems much more likely to me that Hubble was wrong. It’s extremely odd that thousands of scientists would spend huge amounts of time (and of course research money) essentially looking for the little man who wasn’t there rather than accept Hubble was wrong about his constant. Hubble had a theory, later promoted to a Law, that simply doesn’t agree with observation. However, in the world of post-modern science, when theory disagrees with observation, we toss the observation.
I predict this will not end well.
I would appreciate any comments/graphs, etc on how best make points in a college class setting. Thanks in advance for any feedback.
Pointluck: I suggest making your question narrower/more specific — greater chance someone will answer.
Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them
Those are the exact same words that a friend in marketing told me re. our paper’s presentations. #B^)
PL, I have lots of presentation experience to college level people once they are out of college. About 25 years worth. Board Directors, corporate officers, general managers. Three very good guidelines:
1. As simple as possible. Don’t crowd a slide. Don’t add interesting but unessential details. Its not about how much you know. Its about what the audience needs to understand and remember. Usually that is much less than you had to know to reach whatever conclusion in the first place.
2. As visual as possible. A picture is worth a thousand words. Graphs and charts always better than number tables. Illustrations always better than prose explanations. Excel and Google images makes this easy once sources are checked.
3. Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them (intro, body, summary). The repetition helps not only cognition, but any audience confusion will evidence between intro and body and allows you to clarify. Then repeat any clarification in summary.
Ristvan, a very good guideline.
The more complicated the matter (climate), the simpler the message has to be.
Elegant recommendation!
most excellent – you have set a good example, for our forum. THX GK
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward R. Tufte (1983 Graphics Press, Cheshire, Connecticut 06410) John W. Turkey: “A tour de force”
Avoid Tufte’s “chart junk”. He said that no pixel should be lit that does not convey information.
My personal feeling is that this topic should be firstly presented as one of confirming an appreciation of the reality of “climate change”. Climate change is very real and we should recognize the immense changes in climate that can occur over relatively short time frames.
Here in the UK, I would firstly recommend looking into the recent history of this island – during the period in which it has been populated by recognizably modern humans.
If we tie together in the minds of student, the changing climate and geography with some coincident events in human history such as the construction of the first pyramids in Egypt – then I think that a huge advance could be made in their future understanding.
Once the point has been grasped that climate change has been sometimes extraordinarily rapid and dramatic in the last few thousand years – then – it would be possible to bring up graphs of empirical measures of sea level rise trends from the last century and show that the overall rate is neither dramatic by historical comparison, nor is it significantly accelerating over the course of that century.
That would be my approach.
Here is the first image that I would employ. (If you live in the U.S. then maybe locate a similar image of the Laurentide Ice Sheet and extended coastal boundaries of 20,000 years ago.)
http://www.nationalgeographic.fr/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/4-MAP-Doggerland.jpg
This is not quite so beautifully presented – but this is an equivalent for the Laurentide ice sheet thaw:
the Indefatigable, you must be a Remain-er not the Brexiter forwarding the image ( well done ! )
You could get a copy of Jo Nova’s Sceptic’s Handbook and present that. I’m sure she’d be happy for you to use it and to spread The Gospel!
Submitted for R&C.
340 W/m^2 arrive at the ToA (100 km per NASA), 100 W/m^2 are reflected straight away leaving 240 W/m^2 continuing on to be absorbed by the atmosphere (80 W/m^2) and surface (160 W/m^2). In order to maintain the existing thermal equilibrium and atmospheric temperature (not really required) 240 W/m^2 must leave the ToA. Leaving the surface at 1.5 m (IPCC Glossary) are: thermals, 17 W/m^2; evapotranspiration, 80 W/m^2; LWIR, 63 W/m^2 sub-totaling 160 W/m^2 plus the atmosphere’s 80 W/m^2 making a grand total of 240 W/m^2 OLR at ToA.
When more energy leaves ToA than enters it, the atmosphere will cool down. When less energy leaves the ToA than enters it, the atmosphere will heat up. The GHE theory postulates that GHGs (at 50 km) impede/trap/store the flow of heat reducing the amount leaving the ToA and as a consequence the atmosphere will heat up. Actually if the energy moving through to the ToA goes down, say from 240 to 238 W/m^2, the atmosphere will cool per Q/A = U * dT. The same condition could also be due to increased albedo decreasing heat to the atmosphere & surface or ocean absorbing energy.
The S-B BB temperature corresponding to ToA 240 W/m^2 OLR is 255 K or -18 C. This ToA “surface” value is compared to a surface “surface” at 1.5 m temperature of 288 K, 15 C. The 33 C higher 1.5 m temperature is allegedly attributed to/explained by the GHE theory.
Comparing ToA values to 1.5 m values is an incorrect comparison.
The S-B BB ToA “surface” temperature of 255 K should be compared to the ToA observed “surface” temperature of 193 K, -80 C, not the 1.5 m above land “surface” temperature of 288 K, 15 C. The – 62 difference is explained by the earth’s effective emissivity. The ratio of the ToA observed “surface” temperature (^4) at 100 km to the S-B BB temperature (^4) eqiuals an emissivity of .328. Emissivity is not the same as albedo.
Because the +33 C comparison between ToA “surface” 255 K and 1.5 m “surface” 288 K is invalid the perceived need for a GHE theory/explanation results in an invalid non-solution to a non-problem.
References: ACS Toolkit, Trenberth et. al. 2011 “Atmospheric Moisture Transports …….” Figure 10, IPCC AR5 Annex III, http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=7373
So what am I missing here? This went to the ACS authors of the tool kit & received zero response.
Coming at this from the outside , it is important to note that if the ball has a flat spectrum , ie gray , it doesn’t matter whether it reflects 100 w%m^2 or 300 , or 0 . It’s equilibrium temperature will be the same 278.26 K given by the “black body” 340 w%m^2 . That’s the fundamental fact demonstrated by Ritchie’s 1830s experiment and formalized by Kirchhoff , Stewart and others around 1860 .
Nicholas,
Working through this atmospheric math is important as a first step in understanding what the climate change debate is all about. At least it was for me. IMO, the second step is to realize how confounding the jargon is. Greenhouse should never be used because it has nothing in common with the atmosphere except that the temperature inside is greater than outside. So what is responsible for the temperature gradients from surface to the TOA? Is it convection caused by absorption of radiation by IR-active gases or is it a theoretical equilibrium equal to g/Cp?
Most people are aware that Earth temperatures are warmer and less variable with an atmosphere than without. But what would the average temperatures of the Earth be without IR-active gases? Certainly more extreme. Thus a certain critical composition of IR-active gases would raise global temperature by virtue of making the globe more temperate. But do incremental increases in CO2 above present levels increase global temperatures further? Is there any definitive evidence for that?
I think I’m agreeing with you, but endless discussions about energy budget numbers never get resolved.
Nicholas,
If you remember a recent post on here about TSI. It was dropping and dramatically.
First, NASA rounded up the TSI number from 1368 to 1370 w/m^2. That’s the only way you get 340 w/m^2 at ToA. Second, it has been shown and if you look for some of the graphs on here that show TSI from 2000 the TSI is quite a bit higher. The reason for that is that there was a failure in the equipment and was leaking light in. The new and improved source of measure is from SORCE. The new and improved number is 1360 w/m^2.
Now 1360/4 = 340 w/m^2 and 1370/4 = 342.5
Therefore 342.5*(1-a) = 239.75 or 240… more rounding up.
But 340*(1-a) = 238… not 240 w/m^2
That is a significant number reduction in global warming. The 240 is wrong.
I have a problem when they estimate numbers that are to warming advantage, and then mix in exact formulas to give precise readings in the 1/hundredth. Is there a +/- on that 100 reflected straight away? They kept the 100, but in previous equations they used (1-a). I mean what does that do if 110 is reflected straight away? Or something smaller 102? Depending on what and how they estimate those numbers has a very big impact. If they are going to use a method, they need to be consistent with it… (1-a).
When you start looking into the numbers… I’m still trying to decide if I’ve made an error somewhere. When I put in a higher w/m^2 the numbers go the wrong way in the math that shows warming from co2. More wattage should equate to more warming. I get just the opposite. And less wattage I get more warming.
Just these numbers destroys their 95% certainty rate where they have shown what the temperatures will be.
“I have a problem when they estimate numbers that are to warming advantage, and then mix in exact formulas to give precise readings in the 1/hundredth. ”
WR: Right. In presenting numbers in 1/hundreth it is suggested that things are exactly measured. Which is not, when the original numbers are estimated. Scientists have to be clear about that in every presentation, otherwise they are on the misleading path.
I’m a biologist, but it seems to me that the 239 W/m^2 coming in must be exactly matched by a 239 W/m^2 going out–no matter how much GHG there is; otherwise the earth would become intolerably hot or cold in a few days. It reminds me of obesity. A heavy person burns exactly as much food as he eats, the calories in = the calories out; otherwise he blows up or shrinks to nothing in a few days and dies. It is his set point, the equilibrium point, that is different. If he eats a 500 calory hamburger, he burns 500 calories within a minute fraction of a percentage being stored as fat or glycogen. So, the truth is that he is taking in 3500 calories a day and is burning 3499.5 if he is gaining weight; and 3500 if his weight is stable.
Obviously, you could have a sudden increase in CO2 as from giant forest fire, that could suddenly reduce the 14u photons leaving the earth and a new set point could occur. If this did occur, the 239 W/m^2 going out might be reduced to 235 W/m^2, say, but to keep the in-coming energy and outgoing energy the same, something would also happen to the incoming, maybe the albedo would be decreased, so that it would become 235 W/m^2. This is one topic that is not discussed. I.e. if the CO2 were suddenly increased, what happens to the incoming energy at the TOA? and why?
Obviously GHGs do cause warming, so how does this occur? The 14u photons from the sun–or coming up from the surface or from the atmosphere–hit the CO2 molecules and are absorbed and set them jiggling. These molecules jostle surrounding air and water molecules and a few 14u photons are emitted, although these are rapidly absorbed by CO2 before they leave into space. But the kinetic energy of the jostled water molecules and molecules in the air, finally is emitted as LW EMR. This causes the 239 W to remain the same–a constant.
So, the reason CO2 and other GHGs warm the atmosphere must be because it delays the exit of kinetic energy into space from the CO2-induced jostling of mostly-water molecules. The same 239 is coming in and the same 239 is going out. So it is like adding a thermos bottle to the boundary of the atmosphere. A thermos delays the exit of kinetic energy from the fluid within. CO2 delays the exit of kinetic energy from the 14u photons coming in from the sun and from the ground,water and air molecules, coming at it from all directions.
Is this somewhere near?
Why do you say,” ghg’s must cause warming”? Much of the commentary and questions on this site are about the extent and cyclicality of natural variability. If CO2 is causing warming now, why doesn’t it fit the models? What caused previous warmings, such as the Medieval Warm Period, the Roman Warm Period or the Holocene Optimum? You’re a biologist, so what was the state of the earth’s biosystems when the CO2 levels were 1000 ppm? 2000 ppm? What is the problem, exactly, that needs trillions out of the pockets and mouths of rich and poor alike.
10% off the top doesn’t hurt the rich much. It’s life and death to the 2 billion poor.
As I understand it the GHGs do their stuff at around 50 km. So what does CO2 at MLO say about 50 km? Plus the density has dropped so much by 50 km that the jostling molecules become few and far between. BTW NASA says the radiative balance occurs at 100 km where those molecules are really far apart. I read somebody’s analogy that said a molecule would have to travel a full km before it finds another molecule to “jostle.” Also the “back” radiation has to travel 360 degrees, not just “back” to earth. The 8 models shown on Trenberth;s Figure 10 have significant differences creating substantial uncertainties.
@John Harmsworth
Oh for sure Ghgs cause warming at a certain level, but they are inside a massive NEGATIVE feedback loop (not positive, as the warmists claim)
So the actual effect is lost in the noise and much larger signals of other planetary wide thermal systems like ocean currents, winds clouds and so on.
William Palmer,
The atmosphere is NOT like a thermos bottle. There is no convection accelerating loss of heat from a thermos like there is with the atmosphere. It is NOT obvious that IR-active gases cause warming. At current levels of CO2 and water vapor, any IR radiating off the surface that doesn’t go straight to space is absorbed within meters of the surface. Most of that radiation energy is transferred to the bulk air by collisions. What is re-emitted is rapidly re-absorbed. The bulk air expands and rises. Only when the air density is thin enough at high altitude do the majority of emissions go directly to space. Above the level where water vapor condenses, there isn’t much IR-active gas left but CO2. It’s the only way the upper atmosphere cools. So more CO2 will block some of the surface IR going directly to space, but more CO2 in the upper atmosphere might more than compensate for that. Does anyone have any actual data (not models) to show otherwise?
Nicholas Schroeder,
I believe most emission to space from CO2 occurs in the troposphere around 10-12 km although I can’t cite a specific source for that. That’s what I infer from spectrograms of outgoing radiation. I would be interested in a reference for NASA’s radiative balance. I would think radiative balance would be anywhere above the troposphere where there is no more convection.
Leo Smith
Not looking to start an argument with somebody who’s already on my side. I have A LOT of trouble believing that an extra 40 molecules in a million has any quantifiable effect on temps. No worthy empirical evidence says it does and if the effect exists but is less than the natural variability that is not understood AT ALL, that is the same, scientifically, for now; as not proven to exist.
Translational motion does not always re convert back to LWR.
Nicholas Schroeder: “Also the “back” radiation has to travel 360 degrees, not just “back” to earth.”
WR: I don’t understand back radiation. As I can imagine, at 100 km height above our round Earth, in a simple model with only six possibilities (going up, down, left, right, forward or backward) 5 out of every six re-radiations result in disappearing into space. Only the downward re-radiating one will stay. Given the speed of the process, energy will soon be lost to space.
A greenhouse with all the windows on all sides completely opened will soon loose all of its heat. If not, where am I going wrong?
Nicholas Schroeder July 9, 2016 at 1:52 pm: “As I understand it the GHGs do their stuff at around 50 km.”
Oh brother. This would not seem to account for rapid, deeper cooling seen at the surface on cloudless nights with low humidity, a ‘phenomena’ one can observe and verify with very little instrumentation.
Wim Röst July 10, 2016 at 1:33 am: “WR: I don’t understand back radiation.”
Works like a mirror, only more ‘reflective’ in varied directions, depending on vibrating molecule orientation.
Don’t forget LWIR and even light are EM (electromagnetic) waves or energy, and obey all applicable ‘laws’ and rules …
The temperature difference of 33 C is just a theoretical measure of the GH effect. There is no doubt that we have the GH phenomenon in the atmosphere but to show an exact measure is almost impossible, because we cannot estimate the situation of the radiation balance, if there were no GH gases in the atmosphere. The 33 C is the simplest way to show the GH efffect, because it is relatively easy to understand. If we calculate the difference between the emission rate of the earth surface (395 W/m2) and the outgoing radiation at TOA (240 W/m2), it would be 155 W/m2. The GH gases are responsible to this difference but it is pretty hard to understand, what it really means.
That cannot be correct. Heat out equals heat in minus the enthalpy increase/decrease for a given time period. 19 years went by with no apparent temperature or enthalpy increase. That is nearly iron clad proof of zero radiative energy difference. In the place of an increase we have faulty theory, faulty models, political opportunists, damage to the process and credibility of science (deserved), and abject liars!
Happy to entertain your thoughts regarding these statements.
aveollila,
Saying “there’s no doubt that we have a GH phenomenon in the atmosphere” is wrong, because the atmosphere is nothing like a greenhouse. Just because you can’t estimate what temperatures would be without IR-active gases doesn’t mean that 33 C is the difference and IR-active gases make it that. Air would still heat up every day and be convected upward. Where is the heat at high altitude going to go?
As for the 155 W/m2 difference, realize that the Earth didn’t start out cold. The Earth surface retains some heat from the past corresponding to 155 W/m2 on average. Every day another 240 W/m2 on average is added to that and on average 240 leaves. No mystery, only confusion generated by energy balance diagrams.
Off topic comment.
I think some GHE talk is much a red herring. But I’m interested in how much GHE consists of solely pressure only and how much on the atmospheric composition. Had we 90 bars of pure nitrogen, what would be the approximate temperature at surface?
What about 90 atm air or 90 atm CO2?
What is often lacking in TOA energy-balance discussions is the recognition that the Earth’s atmosphere is warmed from below primarily by moist convection (mislabeled as “evapotranspiration” by Trenberth), not by interception of LWIR by water vapor and trace GHGs. Without this non-radiative mechanism that affects the bulk of the troposphere, the so-called greenhouse effect would be much milder, because of the tiny proportion of GHG molecules available to transfer heat to bulk constituents via molecular collisions. Moreover, there’s a cross-over point in altitude where adding GHGs starts to increase atmospheric emissions to space, rather than reduce them.
Not only is the actual role of GHGs often grossly misrepresented, but the storage of thermal energy–which sets the actual equilibrium temperature in ways not recognized by blackbody theory–is misplaced in the atmosphere. In observable reality, it is in the oceans that the overwhelming majority of thermal energy is quasi-permanently stored. The standard explanation of the greenhouse effect thus is fundamentally misguided in accounting for the observed surface temperatures. GHGs are merely a minor player in a subordinate domain of the thermodynamic system dominated by oceanic energy storage and temperature controls via the hydrological cycle.
I mostly agree with you, but why do you continue to use greenhouse terminology? Referring to greenhouse gases is tacit agreement that the presence of CO2 and water vapor in the atmosphere cause the observed temperature gradients. This is not settled science. No one knows what the temperatures of the planet would be without IR-active gases in an otherwise N2/O2 atmosphere. Is there any definitive evidence that an increment increase in CO2 above current levels will increase global temperatures?
Chic:
Having exposed the conceptual failings of standard “greenhouse effect” explanations, the standard terminology is impugned ipso facto. Besides, it would require more time than I’m willing to spend on largely semantic issues of what more properly should be termed the “atmospheric effect.” BTW, that doesn’t constitute tacit agreement that GHG’s “cause the observed temperature gradients.” The basic physics of various GHGs is not in question; it’s their role in a highly complex, interactive geophysical setting that I dispute.
Nor do I really agree that “no one knows what the temperatures of the planet would be without IR-active gases in an otherwise N2/O2 atmosphere.” That is a relatively simple, idealized problem by comparison. But it has little to do with our Earth, whose oceans preclude such simplicity.
1sky1,
What does that mean? What is standard terminology if not greenhouse this, greenhouse that? I agree with you that the role of IR-active gases are misrepresented, but greenhouse terminology reinforces that misrepresentation by implying they are responsible for the planet’s surface being warmer than one without an atmosphere. You don’t have to argue semantics. Just stop using greenhouse terminology.
1sky1 July 9, 2016 at 5:34 pm: “Nor do I really agree that “no one knows what the temperatures of the planet would be without IR-active gases in an otherwise N2/O2 atmosphere.””
Taking a look at one of satellite WV (water vapor) images produced by the WV sensors on the sats should give one a rough idea, though not a quantifiable figure, of the amount and extent of the energy radiated to space by water vapor …
Well there are a number of things you are missing”
“”.. Actually if the energy moving through to the ToA goes down, say from 240 to 238 W/m^2, the atmosphere will cool per Q/A = U * dT. ..””
That does not follow. You are assuming that the differential irradiance gets absorbed by the atmosphere. For the solar spectrum incoming radiation that is not at all true, since the atmosphere absorbs only a fraction of incoming solar spectrum frequencies.
Same goes for LWIR radiation going out. Only selected portions of that spectrum get absorbed by the atmosphere.
But you will never get a real picture of what is happening, if you persist in using the wrong numbers.
TSI at TOA is NOT 342 W / m^2; it is 1362 (average value for the annual value due to orbital eccentricity).
So the earth and atmosphere heat up after sunrise very much faster than would occur at 342 W/m^2. Earth climate is a dynamic system, and it pays no attention whatsoever to the average value of anything. It is not even aware of what an average value is. It responds ONLY and here and now to the present instantaneous values.
Human beings are unique among all living species, and all non livening elements of the universe. We are alone by ourselves, in being aware of or paying attention to the average value of anything. Nothing else in the universe does so.
G
The math I use is derived from accepted and published numbers from NOAA/NASA the IPCC and universities that support climate change. Using the same formulas and statements result in different outcomes when using the corrected TSI from SORCE. It does not mean that I agree with the method that they got there. Only using that information, they are still wrong just on this one account. The end result, and I’m pretty sure, is about a 30% reduction in the warming that was attributed to co2. That falls outside correlation.
( actually 35%, but some contend 1362)
In other words, AGW is founded on overstated math. They tried to make a case with overstated numbers. You can’t get 240 w/m^2 using 1362 or 1360. Do you think they are going tell us if part of the spectrum, like UV, falls 5 or 6 w/m^2?
2 w/m^2 sounds like a small amount, it isnt.
I don’t think there is any global forcing at all, there are some regional changes in the oceans that have moved surface temps, but only in some places. I can’t disprove that any of that heat isn’t from co2, but there are a lot of people who feel co2 is not very effective heating water.
And the energy in entropy in the atm, it is what regulates surface temps, and it’s variability in energy (condensation and evaporation ) are many times bigger that co2.
Think of the power output of hoover dam, and the impact of plugging in a cellphone charger, it’s insignificant. More climate scientists need a background in electronics where that science has moved into engineering so they can explain climate.
Micro, if there is warming from co2, it’s background noise. I did say If.
I think before this can begin to make sense is you have to correctly describe the solar input signal, and the response. Solar input is a partial sine wave type signal, peaking well over 300W/m2, but the length of forcing changes from one day to the next, in a sine wave, shortest warming period, while at the same time the longest night, wintertime Northern hemisphere is losing energy, and by spring the increase in day, while nights get shorter. TOA isn’t going to be in balance except when incoming energy matches outgoing around the longest day, end of June as well as the shortest Day the end of December. The rest of the year the surface station has to be out of balance.
While you can do averages, you can not forget that it is a every changing dynamic system, with only periodic equalibrium points.
Every day the Sun “rings” the atm and surface, and let’s it decay, only to do it again at sunrise.
I don’t follow your statement about invalid comparisons I am afraid. I thought In a thermal network that one may pick any two points one chooses to and calculate heat flow between them. Certainly I do not recall the possibility of getting a problem in heat transfer theory wrong by making an incorrect comparison.
Any level in the atmosphere may be said to have an average temperature in this sort of lumped calculation.
I would guess that GHG are the most important factor in calculating the earths effective LW emissivity from the surface at 1.8m to outer space, since these absorb much of the LWIR radiation from the surface and would radiate LW both back to the surface and to outer space.
There is a particular level in the atmosphere, I think in the upper troposphere, that has the same average temperature as the earth would be if it were a black body with the same albedo, which is your 255K.
Thanks to H2O, CO2 and methane, as well as ozone perhaps, the surface is substantially warmer.
I also do not understand your “S-B” acronym. Saying ‘ToA “surface”‘ is very confusing.
Peterg
S-B is Stefan-Boltzmann.
ToA is Top of Atmosphere which per the link in my original post NASA defines as 100 km and the baseline for balancing ISR (incoming solar radiation – about 340 W/m^2) minus reflected albedo (about 100 W/m^2) and OLR (outgoing long wave radiation- about 240 W/m^2).
ToA “surface”
S-B applies to the “surface” of a body. A block of wood, a sheet of metal, a pane of glass, a body of water all have a defined “surface.” What’s the “surface” of a gas? The surface of each molecule? The collective surface of the molecules? How does S-B even apply to a gas? Well, not very well, quite frankly. Plus everyone ignores real life grey body emissivity. The BB values don’t really mean much.
A “surface” emitting 240 W/m^2 has a BB temperature of 255 K or -18 C. Does his occurs at ToA of 100 km or ToT, top of troposphere. In either case it can not be compared to the 15 C surface “surface” which IPCC defines as 1.5 m above the ground. SST is not included. -18 + 15 = 33 C and totally meaningless, but generates the excuse for the GHE explanation.
The ToT has an actual temperature of -80 C, 193 K. Keeping mind the T^4 in S-B would yield a grey body emissivity of about .33.
Peterg July 10, 2016 at 2:03 am: “I would guess that GHG are the most important factor in calculating the earths effective LW emissivity from the surface at 1.8m to outer space, since these absorb much of the LWIR radiation from the surface”
The word “much” used above is probably the wrong term to use, because, the earth’s surface *does* cool noticeably overnight …
Well Nicholas how do you explain the simple fact that the sun which is neither a solid body nor a liquid one has no trouble radiating nearly black body radiation ??
The largest mass of gas which we are familiar with is earth’s atmosphere, and it does not have anything like 100% absorption of all possible wavelengths from zero to infinity.
So we must conclude that the atmospheric body has a very low emissivity, probably because of its very low mass density, so we would not expect it to radiate at anything like the rate for a totally absorbing black body at the same temperature.
Other than that the sun shows us that gases radiate thermal spectrum energy just fine.
Well only when they are above zero kelvin temperature of course.
G
And now for something completely different.
A. Opening premise as contained in ACS climate change toolkit: “The S-B BB radiation w/o an atmosphere is 240 W/m^2, 255 K, -18 C. The observed surface temperature (1.5 m above land) is 15 C, 288 K. The 33 C difference is explained by the GHE theory.”
a. 240 W/m^2 is WITH an atmosphere.
b. The upwelling/downwelling/”back” radiation of GHE theory is thermodynamic/S-B nonsense.
c. Upwelling is calculated from applying the S-B BB equation to the observed surface temperature of 15 C, 395 W/m^2. This is wrong and creates net 330 W/m^2 out of thin air.
d. The GHGs live in the troposphere and stratosphere where it is very cold with low molecular density and low emissivity and must radiate in all directions not just “back” to earth. The small S-B grey body downwelling/”back” radiation might as well not exist.
B. Bob Armstrong
a. When heat (a thermal process) strikes an object/surface it is 1) reflected, 2) transmitted, 3) absorbed. The absorbed energy increases the temperature of the object per its specific heat capacity which then releases it to the surroundings by 1) conduction, 2) convection, 3) radiation. Conduction and convection must have molecules, the more the better and will work through the troposphere, not too much beyond that.
b. 340 W/m^2 minus albedo reflection of 100 W/m^2 leaves 240 W/m^2 to be absorbed by the atmosphere and surface. So outgoing radiation at ToA (wherever that is, 100 km per NASA) equals 240 W/m^2.
c. Do you have a link to your references? Thanks.
C. Chic Bowdrie
a. ACS tool kit and Spencer Weart both opine that the greenhouse is an unfortunate and inappropriate analogy.
b. 0.04% of the atmosphere is insignificant. If the non-water IR gasses went missing I doubt the temperature would notice. All the dead plants and people would or not.
D. Rishrac
a. 1,368 W/m^2 is the energy applied to a disc of r radius. The same energy spread over a sphere of radius r would have ¼ the density. 1368 / 4 = 342. 2 W/m^2 is trivial.
b. The 8 models on Trenberth’s figure 10 have significant uncertainties.
c. If albedo increases then less energy will be absorbed, less rises through the atmosphere and Q/A = U * dT says the surface temperature goes down. If albedo or the ocean or GHGs reduce the energy flowing from surface to ToA the surface temperature will go down.
E. Wim Rost
a. Uncertainties, significant figures, and statistical hallucinations are not considered.
F. William Palmer
a. An imbalance is corrected by changing the dT, cooling or warming as needed, but not escalating more than what is needed. No thermal positive feedback runaway tipping point.
b. It’s the thermal conductivity of the atmosphere, i.e. N2, O2, Ar that determines the dT and surface temperature, 0.04% GHGs don’t.
G. John Harmsworth
a. The atmosphere is 99.95% N2, O2 and Ar. 0.04% is meaningless.
H. Rishrac
a. Incoming LWIR cannot equal outgoing LWIR. There are always losses. S-B produces heat, the photo-electric equation does not.
I. Wim Rost
a. The GHGs cannot send radiation “back” to the surface, period.
J. Chic Bowdrie
a. Well, I think the atmosphere is very much like a thermos bottle, or the walls of a house. Heat (a thermal process) is energy (a thermal property) in motion, flowing through the troposphere according to Q/A = U*dT. U is thermal conductivity of troposphere.
K. _Jim
a. No, S-B is not like a mirror. The GHGs occur at very cold temperatures and have low to no emissivity so they have no radiation to “reflect” back to the surface.
L. Aveollila
a. Yes, simple and wrong. 395 W/m^2 is the S-B BB radiation at a surface temperature of 15 C and is a gross misapplication of S-B. Per Figure 10 the power flux/heat, i.e. energy in motion, leaving the surface is 17 thermals, 80 evapo, 63 LWIR, 160 subtotal. There is no place for 395 W/m^2. All the other numbers add up and 395 has to appear out of nowhere.
M. George e. smith
a. The power flux balances everyone uses including Treberth’s Figure 10 are not true “heat balances.” They do not consider night or day or seasonal fluctuations. And it is: 342 at 100 km ToA minus 100 reflected by albedo equaling 240 absorbed/transferred by atmosphere and surface.
N. Rishrac
a. Yeah, 2 W/m^2 is trivial esp compared to 340 and the wide uncertainties.
O. Micro6500
a. The sensible and latent heats of water/vapor are huge compared to GHGs and they run the climate.
P. George e Smith
a. The sun has a definable very hot and dense surface and a high emissivity. The GHGs in the earth’s atmosphere are relatively cold and thin with a low emissivity and what tiny S-B radiation they produce goes everywhere, not just “back” to “warm” the earth.
Hi Nicolas,
I do not think it is possible to discredit the basic physics of radiation theory. Green house gases do absorb long wave radiation and do radiate energy back to the earth’s surface. (Mind you I would say that greenhouse gas radiative properties at the partial pressures found in the atmosphere may not be well established experimentally. The properties used in the calculations are probably inferred by extrapolation from more concentrated measurements.)
Where there is room to discredit the catastrophist model is in what would happen to an incremental extra amount of back radiation.
If it can only be disposed of by increasing temperature to the point where radiative emissivity will cause an equilibrium at a higher temperature, then that is probably bad.
However non-radiative mechanisms can dispose of the heat. Overturning ocean currents may squirrel any extra heat away to the depths. Evaporation may cause cloud cover to increment changing the albedo, or it may power the atmospheric circulation to increase slightly having a cooling effect. Certainly research funding will only be directed to mechanisms likely to seem even more catastrophic. Mechanisms that provide negative feedback are unlikely to be investigated or modelled. This is probably why the models are so wrong.
Nicholas,
I think we agree that CO2 probably has a negligible effect on global temperatures above current atmospheric concentrations. And apparently we agree that a greenhouse is a bad analogy for the atmosphere. Why do you insist that a Thermos (or a house) is a good analogy? A Thermos has no rotating heat source, no evaporation, no convection/wind, and no realistic lapse rate. For a nice description of how the atmosphere works and an alternative to the ACS toolkit model, see this comment by William Haas: http://edberry.com/blog/ed-berry/a-physics-view-of-climate-change/#comment-7527
BTW, where does NASA say “the radiative balance occurs at 100 km where those molecules are really far apart.”
Chic Bowdrie July 12, 2016 at 5:25 am
“BTW, where does NASA say “the radiative balance occurs at 100 km where those molecules are really far apart.””
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=7373
It has always been my ‘memory’ that waaaaay back when all the BS began they claimed that both poles would be melting equally and at the same time. Today’s ill-educated alarmists tell me that ain’t true, but I’ll be darned if I can find evidence either way.
CO, your memory is correct. ‘Polar amplification was supposed to be at both poles. It is in the climate models. It is not in reality, as Antarctica is not cooperating. Hence the recent paper by Meehl et. al. claiming the modeled Antarctic amplification is being temporarily obscured by ocean currents on decadal time scales. As feeble as claiming the pause compared to modeled temps is just ‘interal’ variation.
Channelling the mindset of the Alarmists, I envision: “The reason that the poles are not showing the same Polar Amplification is because the Earth’s axial tilt points the northern hemisphere at the sun and the southern hemisphere away from the sun.” /sarc
– Ristvan
I assume they provide no water temp data to support that claim.
JH, it was polar atmospheric warming in the models. I didn’t research polar oceans beyond thermohaline circulation.
To the best of my knowledge there is no dataset that indicates ocean warming that is a) anywhere near fully representative or b) not a “pretend”, official value of .00something degrees. Ocean warming is as elusive as ocean ” acidification “.
Reply to: ristvan July 9, 2016 at 9:50 am
Yes and what is blazingly obvious in the Meehl et. al. argument is the lack of circumspection! Even the smoked glass they look through can’t protect them. Welding goggles are necessary but seeing and asking the obvious question – “What, the models didn’t model reality!” (The reality of those ocean currents)” – is unavoidable. 😉 Honestly, if you didn’t laugh you’d have to cry!
Do somebody know how much sand, stones and so on are released from the rivers (and coming from the mountains/felds) and from landslides every year into the oceans?
What is the contibute of this mass to the sea level change? It should be measurable.
I could’t find any information about this.
My calculations come to 0.05 mm per year of sea level rise due to sediment transport.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t8AdmoU_jcChSE1xaL-2JZkNa4zXN4dmjq_9zgel44k/edit?usp=sharing
I think you made a mistake…..18,000,000,000/360,000,000,000,000 = .0005 or .5mm/yr
Your correct… .00005….
But reading that report it wasn’t clear how they measure flood situations……this is when velocities really increase resulting in significantly more deposits.
A complicated calculation.
Sea level would also be affected by the continual addition of material at mid-ocean ridges.
However you would also have to account for the volume of rocks/sediments removed from oceanic crust by subduction which would lower sea level. Though perhaps 70% of this subducted material would eventually be returned to the oceans and 30% added to the land [above sea level] surface via sub-aerial eruptions.
Dedicated to All of You… Keep Pursuing Your Dreams…
(“Babe,” 1996)
Get busy livin’, or get busy dyin’.
(“Shawshank Redemption” — youtube)
They made it.
(youtube)
So can you. Make a plan. Talk it over with a friend and…
GO FOR IT.
WUWT started in November, 2006 when one man said with a hopeful smile:
“So does anybody have any gee-whiz questions?”
YOU — CAN — DO — IT!!!
Your WUWT pal,
Janice
#(:))
Thank-you Janice, Great movie. As middle aged, jailled as such with life and work, I long for freedom too sometimes. Life is good though, life it good. May I find my beach.
Dear Duncan,
Thank you, so much, for letting me know. I was so hoping someone, even just one — you! — might be encouraged by that. Perhaps, you can think of “freedom” as “next chapter.” As my dearest person in the world once said to me when I was very discouraged about my career situation, referring to myself as a “has been” …]:
“Gonna be.”
May you, indeed, find your “beach.” (just prayed you would!)
Glad to hear that life is good.
Take care… out there…,
Janice
P.S. And if anyone reads what I wrote just above and thinks, “I’m too old to… .” STOP IT RIGHT NOW. (grr) If you can physically make it happen (even a wheelchair can go lots of places!), you CAN. Ask for help. Moses was 80 years old when he FINALLY started his career. Caleb was 85 when he set out on his big project (Joshua 14:6-14). So, set that goal, choose that project, that destination, and go for it!
“By perseverance……… the snail………………… reached…………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………..the ark.
One step at a time. You will get there!
#(:))
Janice Moore
July 9, 2016 at 8:39 pm
P.S. And if anyone reads what I wrote just above and thinks, “I’m too old to… .” STOP IT RIGHT NOW. (grr) If you can physically make it happen
Thanks for writing that Janice, I was told many(too many) years ago that I would never be anything but a mother and housewife. Although that did happen, I also buried my dreams all these years.
If I ever get to that ‘dream’ I’ll be sure to credit you as an huge inspiration. Thanks.
( I can still picture that 3rd grade report card with my teachers recommendations, which was ignored by my parents)
Ej
Dear EJ,
That – is – wonderful! No regrets. Just keep your eyes on that goal. You are reaching it by a long detour – which was meant to be. (And, I must be sure to acknowledge this fact, being a loving parent is the greatest achievement on earth.) Oh, boy, that God used my words to inspire you is just so amazingly wonderful.
And you who “has high potential” (paraphrasing some of what that 3rd grade report card likely said), still HAVE high potential. Sure would be great to know you have made it – I would be honored if you would e mail me (this is the permission to mods to give out my e mail address to EJ) and tell me… someday.
Someday…… SOON!
With a SMILE and high hopes for you,
Janice
P.S. Do not listen to the Eeyores, to the “you’ll never make it” defeatists. Just keep on, eyes ahead, and cover your ears to those anti-cheerleaders (very likely, they are green eyed with envy at your making the attempt – human nature is kinda nasty at times; or they may just selfishly want you to serve their interests to the exclusion of yours). And get a buddy on board to be your encourager. AND (will I ever stop talking!) for inspiration remember this: your achieving that goal (even the attempt!) is going to inspire your children and grandchildren – do it for you, but do it for THEM, too!
Janice Moore
July 11, 2016 at 8:35 am
Dear EJ,
Sure would be great to know you have made it – I would be honored if you would e mail me (this is the permission to mods to give out my e mail address to EJ) and tell me… someday.
Someday…… SOON!
You’re such an inspiration, Janice.
Ha ! I doubt it would be someday soon, but hey, it’s a dream right? (or did you mean e mail soon?, matters not, which ever it is).
The moderators here can give me your e mail? okay, I’ll bite that, why not, nothing for me to lose. If that’s the case, they can share my e mail with you also. Sound fair ?
I don’t know how they do that, but if I write some words that are ‘moderated’ they probably would read this then?
hopefully the mods would remove (snip) this next set of words from my post? please
Chemtrails denier Anthony Watts ( absolutely not my true feelings )
Janice, a response to you is forthcoming, I intentionally put words in it to force it into moderation. : )
Has anybody figured out any real information about the closing of the USGS lab in Colorado amid allegations that they had been altering data relevant to coal and water for the last 20 years? Publicly the only part that is being disclosed is that two papers have been withdrawn without even identifying the papers. No motives have been attributed to the falsifiers except to claim it was not corruption. A real paucity of information about what’s going on.
Closed in anticipation of rising sea levels? Lol!
Denver Post had a writeup on 7/1. The operator of their Colorado lab mass spec instrument manupulated data to ‘correct’ for calibration failures. Mass spec is a common way to quantitatively measure proportions of trace elements and minerals. The manipulated data affects 24 research programs costing $108 million. Obvious QC failures as calibration is essential to getting correct quantities. USGS being very tight lipped about how bad the situation actually was, and for how long. A case of ‘good enough for government work’ not being good enough.
but one doesn’t close a lab because somebody made an error in calculation. What else is going on I wonder? Heck they didn’t even close the FBI lab when it was discovered that they were falsifying forensic results in order to help prosecutors pursue their cases. But they did fire some people and had harsh words to say.
mercury in fish &etc perhaps?
Open thread but maybe too OT. Does anyone know anything about the Shiva crater?
The Indian government recently (June 16th) approved membership in the International Continental Science Drilling Programme consortium. The MoU will in force for next 5 years and it will enable India in engaging internationally renowned experts with profound expertise in different aspects of scientific drilling.The drilling investigations will be conducted in Koyna region in Maharashtra.
The resulting cores will be analyzed for evidence of impact, similar to the Chicxulub crater.
See http://www.pagalguy.com/articles/daily-current-affairs-17th-june-2016-friday-44351954
Yirgach-
Thank you! I have been interested in this likely impact crater for many years. I have been under the impression that no one knew about it. There are many who still refuse to accept that the Chicxulub impact was the major cause of dinosaur extinction. That includes many of the AGW crowd who want to believe that CO2 from the Deccan traps caused killer warming.
The presence of a crater four times the size of Chicxulub and also from 65-66 mya tells a very different story. I think Mother Earth had two very bad days close together! The gradualists are dreaming!
I’m seeing a fair amount of evidence that many European countries are ignoring the sabre rattling that’s coming out of Brussels, and have been openly conversing with British officials on a number of topics related to the future relationship between countries. This is all very contrary to both Tusk’s and Merkel’s position that there would be no informal talks. l also see Soros back-tracking, (hedging), on topics related to the future of the EU. I get the sense that Brexit is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the total dressing-down, if not abandonment, of the EU. Any thoughts, or info? And will CRU just cease to exist without EU funding?
Mark from the Midwest” “… I get the sense that Brexit is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the total dressing-down, if not abandonment, of the EU…..will CRU just cease to exist without EU funding?…”
One can only hope.
The problems with the EU are obvious when you look at Juncker, the EU president and a knothead. Many groups in many countries are unhappy with things as they are. The EU core of Germany, France and Brussels bureaucrats have resorted to threats and diktats to try to herd the cats back to the EU corral, but I don’t think it’s working. Brexit is a bigger problem for the EU than for Britain. The battle now is between more integration and centralization or a more distributed, ” national units ” structure. The former will not work in my opinion and the latter is difficult to manage. If they’re smart and practical they will backtrack to a looser confederation, throw Greece out( but that’s a BIG problem for German banks), invite the UK to come back to a reformed organization and write a constitution that provides a minimum of political control at the local and regional levels.
I think the problems of EU are the exact same fundamentals problems of French régions, départements, communes: nobody knows who does what, who pays for what, who controls what. For politicians it’s a dream: someone else is responsible. The problem of EU isn’t politicians who claim it’s EU’s fault when they just approved a decision in a council of sinisters. The fundamental issue is that EU structurally allows that kind of games.
Because further integration is a politician dream (a nightmare) and structurally cannot happen, EU has it is now is doomed.
The proof that EU-as-European-USA doesn’t exist is that parties are purely national. It’s an European game: pretend EU is an analog of USA when it clearly is not (and cannot be).
I agree with s-t but I’m not very knowledgeable about Europe. I have relatives in England I talk to occasionally. I’m Canadian, which maybe provides a bit of insight into the differences between French and English philosophically. For a (more or less) free marketer like myself, Canadian governance structurally can be a pain in the neck, but it does keep the decisions that most affect people close to them and it’s pretty flexible. I think the Europeans and probably others could learn from it. If French and English can coexist here, who knows? Might have worked in Iraq.
@ John Harmworth, July 9 11:37 am, John , I have family in the EU that I talk to on a regular basis. Their information supplied by a MSM that is even more left wing than in Canada is frankly scary. They are smart, well educated people but some of the things they are being told about both Canada and the US are unbelievable. None of them had heard about the people dying during the winters in Brittain FI or the flooding there to mismanagement of the river deltas, for just a few examples. Their misunderstanding of the political process (Congress/ Senate and the WH) in the USA was astounding. They are being mislead, I have provided them with a few different outlets and they are embarrassed.
That I do not doubt. Much of Europe is developmentally fairly backward. This is how I understand modern Socialism; in 1983 (I think) I was in London on holiday. Maggie was fairly newly installed in Downing St. and Arthur Scargill (president for life!) had the mineworkers out on violent strike. I was shocked by what I saw. Self destructive, ideological economic warfare! Scargill and his ilk have no excuse. They were seeking power at any cost to the country. The workers are a different matter. Decades of the union using threats to sustain inefficient operations made the mines completely uneconomic. At that point the industry had to be rationalized and mines closed. The workers were afraid of reaping what they sowed with years of obstinance, and I felt for them.
Maggie decided that she was elected and Scargill wasn’t. By having the courage to go forward doing the right thing- courage the miners lacked, Maggie saved Britain. Leaders like her come along rarely. I would compare her to Churchill. The gutless Socialists retreated into the stunted intellectual reserves of union politics and academia to plot and scheme. We won’t have peace and progress until they’re rooted out given shovel work.
Are you surprised, Mark? Hammond (UK Foreign Secretary – equals Secretary of State just in case there are any American friends still unsure about these titles) is at a NATO meeting. Most of the EU countries are NATO members. Most if their Foreign Ministers are there as well. What is the hottest topic in Europe at the moment?
And the EU Commission expected no-one to talk about it?! In their dreams!
And one of the hottest parts of this hot topic (which has already caused a parliamentary spat) is the question of what happens to EU citizens currently resident in the UK and vice versa because theoretically once the UK leaves they all become aliens with no right to remain unless some reciprocal agreements have been reached.
“The EU”, which appears to mean Juncker and the members of the EU Commissariat are doing their best to make life as difficult for the UK as they possibly can, apparently blissfully unaware that their heavy-handed approach is only going to make things worse for them!
There is a commonality of interest here because it is in the interests of most European countries to reach agreement on that particular subject promptly even if on no other. With 3 million + EU citizens resident in the UK and 1.5 million Brits living in mainland Europe the chaos that would be caused if no agreements were reached can be imagined!
Not only that, the whole “let’s punish the brexiters” theme reflects poorly on EU’s image (officially, “EU brings peace to countries in Europe”).
So the commentators, editocrats and experts are backtracking as fast as they can and now say “out is out, but it isn’t a punishment of UK”.
No one is more existentially threatened by Brexit and it’s follow on effects than Juncker and his unloved and unwanted pseudo government and associated hyperactive bureaucracy. Backing up the EU bus means taking away power, money and relavence from the EU parliament and cohort.
‘and 1.5 million Brits living in mainland Europe the chaos that would be caused if no agreements…’
This has always begged the question of the millions of British born and their children who live outside the British Isles.
Once Britain entered the EU they would have to ‘join the queue’ to get into Britain.
Notably their opinion on Remain was never canvassed, despite their birthright and stake in the outcome.
As such the plebiscite was ultimately a rigged vote, never to be close if all the British family was allowed a vote.
If this were the case, Brexit would have romped home.
As for Europe’s ‘problem’ of localization of nationalities.
The best solution is to adopt subsidiarity and have each Nation make up its mind who to keep, rather than a ‘one size fits all’; from Brussels.
If this were to happen the smarter nations would keep everyone working in their country on a grandfathering basis, the rest would do themselves secular damage to their economies and nation by alienating the newcomers.
The “seismic after-effects” are going to be considerable for UK (if it survives?), but at least as much in Europe. Juncker et al don’t get-it, and — driven by hubris — prob’ly won’t ever. The higher they ride, the further they’ll fall. Emperor Juncker wouldn’t recognize he hasn’t any clothes when standing in front of the mirror.
BrExit is good news for those of us internationally who challenge the self-interested Doomsday Alarmist crowd. Britain (at long last) has to come to terms with less ‘airy-fairy’ philosophy and more internal ‘house-keeping’ issues, such as keeping the lights on, and at a price affordable by impoverished little old ladies in dead-winter. It spells the end of pie-in-sky Greenist objectives, and a reconnection with pragmatist policies like — gasp!! — cheap energy for the average Joes. This is good dose of reality for all of us, and a severe jerk on the reins of the wide-eyed Green-Futurists (who’d have us all back to the caves tomorrow, given half a chance).
If it fails in this, then …. “Hello Third World!”: 3 hour a day of brown-out electricity and a concomitant collapse in society (think hospitals, commuting, distribution of goods & services, etc.)
Daily Mail cartoonist Mac had a good cartoon on the eve of the vote.
http://r.duckduckgo.com/l/?kh=-1&uddg=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailymail.co.uk%2Fnews%2Farticle-3653473%2FMac-Time-Britain-bold-Brexit.html
A LOT of sea change going on here. I have some ideas, but I think its too soon to put them onto the net.
Lets just say that ‘world leaders’ are revealing themselves to be narrow venal, immature and incompetent, except for Tony Blair, who is revealed as a liar snd a deceiver instead.
Oh well. Feet of clay feet of clay….
There are all sorts of problems , not the least are the financial problems
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/687844/IMF-EU-brink-of-collapse-euro-currency-scrapped
Given the UK was a net financial contributor to the EU it is no wonder they are running around in circles behind the scenes.
Tony’s mask slipped off a long time ago!
Ross P, add this one as well:http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-36734578. I wish the UN would get their priorities straight and spend a few bucks on problems like this instead of the GAW scam. But I guess the UN in essence is the scam.
My “comment” is actually a question. What is the status of the NASA Water Vapor Project (NVAP) and tracking of water vapor, which is critical to the Warmists’ theory? My queries seem to find a drop-off after 2013 and data after 2009. Did the satellites fail?
This is the last article I can find here —
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/06/nasa-satellite-data-shows-a-decline-in-water-vapor/
Am a newbie here, but am ‘blown-away’ by how good this Blog is.
You raise excellent issues in a thoughtful way, and you obviously have intelligent & knowledgeable readers, contributors & commentators, including active practitioners in relevant scientific fields..
The repartee is witty and fun, and the put-downs well-deserved and well crafted.
Keep up the good work, Anthony!
If you were seeking $ contributions for specific projects, I wd be wiling to consider chipping-in.
Welcome to WUWT, Mr. King. Glad you are here!
(I realize that you were addressing Anthony, but, wanted you to know you were heard — you’ll have to just get used to that around here; most of your comments will go un-responded to by anyone, just “the way things are.”)
Dear Ms. Moore (may I call; you Janice?)
Many tks yr +ve reply. I completely understand that you have a VERY HEALTHY & WIDE READERSHIP and traffic is heavy!
I am really happy to find myself in a Club of like-minded, intelligent, reasoning, calm & anti-hysterical, questioning of supposedly “Received Wisdom” as proclaimed by the Pontificate. While feeling overwhelmed by the knowledge and skill-sets offered by you by yr contributors & subscribers, I hope an added vote from a lay-person helps forward momentum to the Ultimate Truth (wishful thinking?!)
With best regards, Janice.
Ross.
Hi, Ross,
Glad you are happy to be here.
Your ally for science realism
who is also a non-tech major
and who is happy for you to call her,
Janice
-Janice Moore
(un) official greeter! Lol!
I agree, Ross King, one hundred percent.
Hello Ross! May I ask where you started from to arrive here? *g*
Dear ClimateOtter:
I’m not sure I understand yr rather oblique Q., but here goes in struggling with what “here” means:
1. “Here, as in WUWT”. Via Global Warming Policy Fdn. (U.K. based & very good). If you don’t know it, check it out. They have positioned themselves as political advocates against GreenExtremism. As I’ve indicated, I feel I have arrived in Nirvana as to like-mindedness here on WUWT.
2. “Here” as a Luke-warmer trending to Denialist: I am a natural cynic, and always ‘lean into the wind’. Mixing my metaphors, if the brainless Lemmings are being propagandized into running one way, I’m looking to run the other! Mannipulation (sic) of data et seq,, strips intellectual honesty & integrity from the Alarmists. An error in reporting (if corrected) is one thing, but outright deception & lying is beyond the pale.The politicization of the whole issue appalls me.
3. “Here” geographically? B.C. Canada since 1981; ex-Brit.
4. “Here” in terms of qualifications to speak to learned issues? Civil engineering consultant by education and 1/2 life practice; MBA, entrepreneurialism, mgt. consulting, VenCap,, Start-Ups. So I am strictly a lay-person as to the “Science” but a keen observer, esp’lly when it comes to Snake-Oil Salesmen, of which there appear to be slews in the :”Global Warming Industry”.
5. “Here” as to practical suggestion? 3 weeks after Fukushima, I ‘invented’ FLONUPS (floating Nuclear Power Stations). I wrote a paper (still available on app.) and sought I.P. Rights. Sad to say, I was ‘wanting’ on one of the 3 I.P. criteria, so it has never ‘taken-off’ …. despite being a ‘no-brainer in today’s zeitgeist. I’m still pushing it (and will try to get a Guest Article written on WUWT).
6. “Here” for my grandchildren? Am appalled by those who are working to impose GreenExtremism on the World for THEIR OWN SELFISH ENDS; who want to turn the clock back to pre-industrialization times of eco-purity. FOR WHICH READ THE NEW FEUDALISM and impoverization (if not genocide) of the hoi-polloi. (If you think I’m going paranoid, I can assemble some damning literature addressing same. These people exist and are active, funded by like-minded elitist plutocrats, many from USA. They are Public Enemy No.1 in terms of future democracy.)
So, ClimateOtter, I’m “here” — hook, line & sinker! And FLONUPS!
I was reading an article about the West Virginia floods. They were of course trying to link this to global warming. They asked Kevin trenberth about this and as I remember he said that with the temperature increasing by 1.5 degrees F the atmosphere can hold more moisture. I would thing that he is entirely wrong about this. The heavy rain clouds exist primarily between 30 to 60,000 feet. ( troposphere to upper troposphere). Not at the surface where they show the 1.5 degrees. He would need to use the radiosondes and satellites for this. However they only show about .4 for the troposphere and about .15 for the upper troposphere since 1979. This is not a large increase and the amount of additional water held would be pretty minimal.
He totally ignored what is proper to advance an alarmist position.
Good catch! If it’s warmer, I’ve been wondering where all the water is. I don’t have it!
Deceiving, diverting, obfuscating, cheating & lying are becoming increasingly necessary tactics for this self-serving, sinecure-protecting mob of so-called ‘Scientists’ as the truth is increasingly laid bare … that it is all a quasi-religious scam and a ‘house of cards’ with wobbly foundations.
‘Publications’ such as WUWT serve a vital role in exposing the fact that “The Emperor” really has no clothes. Does anyone among ‘us’ seize upon *major* challengeable statements (such as in this case with Trenberth???) *and* issue piece-by-piece rebuttals in Press Releases, scripted by qualified critics? Sort-of chess-play: move & counter-move? Methinks by now that select major media are increasingly inclined to pick-up on this emerging story of lies & deception & tendentious statements by the self-anointed Pontiffs of Absolute Faith in GW’ism.
“There is a tide in the Affairs of Man, which — taken at the flood ….” (Shakespeare: ‘Julius Caesar’) Alt’ly put: “Seize the moment!”
(Apologies for an excess of mixed metaphors!)
I hope you’re right, Ross. There are many on here regularly who are completely qualified to comment to the press as you suggest. Which publications would accept is another matter. If you check out the profiles of some of our best you will find that Wikipedia can be a place to essentially slander good people. Any letters we write need to be rational and factually accurate. I would suggest focussing on the biggest questions. If people just start looking at what they’re being fed, they have to start thinking. Hopefully?
Hi John:
Pleased to make the acquaintance of a like-mind.
Sigh! … and so, we’re back to “winning hearts & souls”, PR. propaganda & political will (won’t!!) reminds me of: “Popular Delusions & the Madness of Men”, written over a century ago. ‘Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose’. Lemming-like we mindlessly follow anyone we (obliviously?) choose to follow on the spur of the moment. Over the cliff?
I have just scripted a Comment on BrExit and how it’s good news for ‘Us’ (sic). The Brits will have to scrap internationalist, idealistic, impractical, expensive Greenism, and focus on housekeeping essentials, like keeping aging Grannies alive in mid-winter with *affordable* energy prices. Bye-bye windmills; Hello refurbished coal-fired plants! The Brits can no longer claim their energy policy is dictated from Brussels and wash their hands, faced by fundamental, pressing, domestic issues.
The future in Nuclear … if you’re interested, ask for my Paper on floating Nuclear Power Stations (FLONUPS). Answers everything — the perfect solution to today’s needs!
Hi Ross and welcome to you! Considering your comments it occurs to me that with so many prospective leaders diving for the ditch, you may be left with someone who has the mettle for the job. Life is hope!
John Harmsworth — re: yr. July 9, 2016 at 10:52 pm.
I have written voluminously in various threads on WUWT on the subject.of ‘leaning into the wind of ‘Received Wisdom’ from the Pontificate (the ‘Mannipulators’!)
You say: ” …it occurs to me that with so many prospective leaders diving for the ditch, you may be left with someone who has the mettle for the job. Life is hope!”
This perplexes me as to whom you refer by: “Prospective Leaders” and “You” (me?) and “Someone” (who, in person or which Counter-‘Received-Wisdom’ Group).
Personally, I’m game but will be dismissed as nothing in the hierarchy of ‘heavy-hitters’. But when it comes to the ‘peripherals’, my (self-perceived!!) skills as a Comminicator may be of help in challenging the Pontificate of Received Global Warming Alarmism.
Count me in as a loyal ‘foot-soldier’ for what little I can contribute.
Hi Ross
I didn’t realize when I wrote that you were no longer in the U.K.
The majority of heavy rainfall events come from convective clusters i.e thunderstorms. The moisture/energy that drives these storms comes from the near surface layer so if the surface is warmer it could in theory hold more water vapour which then condenses out in the strong updraughts within TS. More water vapour means potentially more precipitable water and therefore potentially stronger flooding events.
– Jamie
When I fly above 30,000 ft. I see no clouds above me. An extra zero maybe?
That’s why commercial airliners typically fly at 300,000 to 400,000 feet to be sure they are well above those dangerous water laden clouds at 30,000 to 60,000 feet.
g
Happy as hell that England voted to leave EU. This I think may weigh very heavy the Greenies.
No Dough, No Go. by the by, why isn’t anybody biitching about carbonated drinks? that CO2 has to go somewhere.. just saying. Also I really like to see Hillary disappear. any way a tornado find her plane?
You mean her broom?
+1000
Even if we don’t know, “what causes these,” how long do they persist?
This would be the opposite side in solar rotation wrt to the spotless side.
Newest ‘Hole’ in the Sun Is a Doozy
http://www.space.com/33047-nasa-spots-huge-hole-in-sun.html
By Kasandra Brabaw, June 2, 2016
“”””Between May 17 and 19, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured an image of a new — and massive — “hole” on the sun’s surface, NASA announced in a statement on Thursday (May 26).
….Coronal holes are associated with areas on the sun’s surface where magnetic fields stretch far out into space, according to NASA. But it is still unclear exactly what causes these mysterious low-density regions on the sun. ….””””
Coronal Holes: 17 May 16
http://www.spaceweather.com/images2016/17may16/coronalhole_sdo_200.gif
Coronal Holes: 13 Jun 16
http://www.spaceweather.com/images2016/13jun16/coronalhole_sdo_200.gif
Coronal Holes: 09 Jul 16
http://www.spaceweather.com/images2016/09jul16/coronalhole_sdo_200.gif
Carla, thanks for showing those sun clips. It reminded me to check to see what, if any, the “holes” do to our atmosphere. Recently, since the spots diminished, our barometric pressure has stablized enough to see what these long term variables do. If the atmosphere continues to hold steady for several months, some of my solar questions may be answered.
Preliminary observations show that the pressure begins to rise slightly 7 days later. I have seen two cycles and this one today should start the pressure to rise next week. (Or maybe not)
Others that are interested, watch the barometer and take readings at noon and midnight. I find it better than averages. If it remains stable, the two readings should be close to the same reading.
Lee Osburn July 9, 2016 at 9:27 pm
…Others that are interested, watch the barometer and take readings at noon and midnight. I find it better than averages. If it remains stable, the two readings should be close to the same reading.
——————————————————————————————————————-
Sounds like a daily variation. diurnal
The coronal holes release high speed streams of sometimes Earth directed solar wind. I noted some wind speeds from coronal holes over 600 km/second.
There were some narrow bands of coronal holes on the solar disk during the recent spotless period.
These high speed winds produce geomagnetic activity here on Earth.
There are coronal holes and polar coronal holes. Not sure of their significance for the solar cycle though.
Crossings of the heliocurrent sheet and its associated corotating interaction regions (CIRs), also are related to geomagnetic activity.
It would be interesting to have the chart of the 10 years of the U.S. Climate Reference Network compared to a chart of the best sites of weather stations that have been in operation in the US for over a 100 years. If the last 10 years match that could mean something.
I have a USA National Temperature Monitor here based on the CRN Network:
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/marka/crn.2016/usa48/usa48.htm
Check out the historical record link at the bottom which has monthly data back to 2005.
Does anyone have an example of the Government defining what they mean by “Climate Change”?What does for example, the Canadian Government mean when they say “Combating Climate Change”?
Anyone have a handy reference to a site where these “interesting people” define their terms?
So far It seems to be waffle all the way down.
From Environment Canada’s Science to the constant talking about Climate Change while inferring man made global warming.
So what is this climate change?
What is its range? In degrees C?
What duration?
Do the melting of the ice sheets covering my hometown at about 2 miles thick,20 000 years ago, fit the bill?
What does the concerned citizens hope to accomplish?
Reinstate the Laurentian Ice Fields?
Refreezing the mouth of the MacKenzie River?
I really would like the actual definition,as used for government policy.
What do my mendacious “servants” mean; When they speak of Climate Change?
So far All I have found is weather.
And a stunning ignorance of past patterns/cycles.
Methinks these generally-obfuscating pols & b’crats, and prosletyzers of The Faith, have ***NO*** interest in terminological specificity. “They” all want flexibility to express their tendentious (‘designed to deceive’) statements so as not to be pinned-down after the fact as to specificity of meaning …. “Let’s keep it vague-enough, and interpret it subsequently any way we want the gullible to understand it:.
“Fighting Climate Change” has the identical connotation as “Tilting at Windmills” for me.
Humpty Dumpty.
‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory”,’ Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t — till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”‘
‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument”,’ Alice objected.
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’
No wonder he was pushed! Eggxit!
I know that some of the big fish around here dismiss solar activity as a significant driver of global temperature, but many of us who can’t let go of the assumption that the sun is the primary driver. It appears that the sun is running its own experiment, exhibiting the lowest activity for over a hundred years.
http://notrickszone.com/#sthash.IWKoMNwA.dpbs
This is a chart I compiled for one of my recent articles ‘the intermittent little ice age’
Undoubtedly there appears to be some sort of correlation with lack of sunspots around the 1670 period but the correlation at other times is not so clear.
I think the sun must have an influence on our climate but not necessarily restricted just to sunspots unless the inactivity of these is very considerable and coincides with other factors.
Tonyb
Being only a Civil Engineer (but with some mathematical skills & an enquiring mind) I ran some numbers (using not much more than Wikipedia — now lost unfort’ly) based on the Q:
What is Anthropogenic annual warming as a % of:
a) Insolation (completely insignificant)
b) The cyclical VARIATION of insolation (the answer I got — from memory — was 0.0003%).
In layman’s terms, if insolation is ‘down’ for cyclical reasons and we tried to compensate, we’d have to increase our AGW by a factor of 1/0.0003% = 333,333 times +/- (If my memory got the no. of zeros wrong, the revised answer is 33,333 times!)
If this doesn’t put the AGW argument into perspective, I don’t know what does!
Someone more qualified than I … *please* check me out.
*****
(Having said, I think homo sapiens is running excessive risks by burning fossil-fuel deposits (accumulated over paleo-historic eras) infinitely(?) faster than they are being lain-down today.
The answer is renewables — to a practical max. of (what?) 20% — and the base-load N.Powered.
More anon……! One thing at a time!
For sure the relationship between the sun and climate is more complex than ssn, but the little ice age just happened to roughly coincide with the maunder minimum, and our current warm period just happens to roughly coincide with the highest period of solar activity on record. Even if we aren’t going into a new maude minimum, for sure the maximum has ended, and if there is a correlation the temp should be headed down in the next few years.
Goldrider:
I think I understand what you’re saying, but, at risk of pedantry ….
Ref: Wikipedia, “Tilting at windmills is an English idiom which means attacking imaginary enemies. …. The phrase is sometimes used to describe confrontations where adversaries are incorrectly perceived, or courses of action that are based on misinterpreted or misapplied heroic, romantic, or idealistic justifications. It may also connote an importune, unfounded, and vain effort against adversaries real or imagined for a vain goal.”
To me, *this* enemy is NOT imaginary;
Is this ‘adversary’ incorrectly perceived? I think not;
Are ‘our’ courses of action … based on misinterpreted or misapplied heroic, romantic, or idealistic justifications? No!
Are ‘our’ efforts ‘unfounded, and vain … against adversaries real or imagined for a vain goal.” Absolutely not!
(Maybe it is to you, perhaps??)
I WILL TILT!! In the words of “Jerusalem!”
” … I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have [vanquished the Bull-Shi**ers, intellectually dishonest, sinecure-seeking & self-serving]
RH July 9, 2016 at 1:24 pm
For sure the relationship between the sun and climate is more complex than ssn, but the little ice age just happened to roughly coincide with the maunder minimum, and our current warm period just happens to roughly coincide with the highest period of solar activity on record.
Not so, RH: https://www.iau.org/news/pressreleases/detail/iau1508/
I thought this has been partially addressed by recent studies from Scaife et al where they discovered that during low sunspot periods, the UV radiation responsible for ozone production reduced by up to 8 times. Lower ozone in the stratosphere destabilises the wintertime polar vortices resulting in polar cold escaping further towards lower latitudes primarily from more blocked circumpolar westerly wind flow. This affect is more notable in the N Hemisphere and is why most long range Mets believe winters 17/18 through winter 19/20 perhaps even 20/21 will likely see very cold winters particularly eastern N America and Europe.
@Lsvalgaard On the Silso site it appears to state that the Version 1 series will disappear. Please tell me that the version 1 will remain archived and always accessible just not created any more.
@Timo:
V1 will always be available, but is not updated anymore. Since V1 has errors, it should not be used. If you use it anyway, you are not doing valid science.
Mr. Soren
It will be regularly updated here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN0616.gif
Mr. Soren
It is and will be regularly updated here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN.htm
It is and will be regularly updated here
You cannot update V1, and if you try you are not doing science.
The new sunspot number should not be called the ‘SSN Svalgaard’, but the ‘SSN Wolfer’.
“The new sunspot number should not be called the ‘SSN Svalgaard’, but the ‘SSN Wolfer’.”
Svalgaard has more punch to it; having a pack of wolves in there: Wolf, Wolfer & Vuk-cevic (vuk google-images) it would be just too menacing.
Even using the new ssn you can see that the number was lower in the past, and that the period since about 1936 has been the most consistently high.
One can play with cherry-picking.
The group number for the time since 1936 is 5.16, and for the period 1726-1799 it was 5.32. These differences are not significant and do not warrant calling the ‘recent’ sunspot numbers the ‘highest ever recorded’.
What solar activity may look like in the centuries to come?
In this link you can see two projections based on the past data extrapolation.
Vukcevic extrapolation is based on the 9Kyr long d18O’s spectral composition from the China’s Dongge cave stalagmites.
Do somebody know how much km3 of sand, stones… are released from the rivers (and coming from the mountains/felds) every year into the oceans?
What is the contribute of this mass to the sea level change?
I could’t find any information about this.
Do somebody know how much sand, stones… are released from the rivers (and coming from the mountains/felds) every year into the oceans?
What is the contribute of this mass to the sea level change?
I could’t find any information about this.
KF, nobody probably knows. The main conventional contributors to SLR are ice sheet melt, thermosteric rise, and GIA/tectonics in that order. There has been an effort to claim groundwater extraction as a fourth, IMO de minimus. For sedimentation, Look at all the major river deltas around the world. Also de minimus compared to ocean and ice sheet vastness.
I’ve often thought about this. What I have noticed I that when I inspect building foundations is that the grades on older homes (30+ yr old) are frequently about an inch or more below where grade was when the concrete was poured. Adjacent grades appear to be lower too. I suspect that they was being carried away by runoff. ..the mountains are continually being eroded. And if you look at the sea level rise graph it’s pretty linear even during heating and cooling periods. 1.5 mm/yr SLR equates to about 6 mm/yr of land erosion. However I don’t think its to that degree but I believe it is a factor in SLR. ..it’s also something that would very difficult to measure. It’s totally ignored by scientists and not even mentioned
Lots of smart people on this site, and yes, some not so smart, maybe me included. But I still have not received any response from ligo or anyone else on how they can measure, observe, gravitational waves from our reference frame, right here on good old earth, when from here time would be about stopped in the reference frame of the black holes, per general relativity which they are claiming to verify. Time dilation has been proven, experimentally, to occur in gravity wells. Someone going to tell me that it has been experimentally proven not to hold for black hole mergers? And don’t give me a bunch of equations with undefined terms from some model. What is the Logic? Where is the experiment that proves time dilation gets set aside for black hole mergers?
It is caused by Global Warming – didn’t you know?
How about a gravitational disruption at the point where the event horizons meet or when they get close?
The gravitational collapse of a star to a black hole is supposed to generate a gravitational wave. This would come from outside the event horizon. So, I think the right way to look at the black hole( or any mass), is as creating a gravitational field gradient that extends outward 3 dimensionally into space. Changes to this gradient ( such as the collapse), propagate through spacetime like a ripple through water, even after the pebble that caused it is resting on the bottom.
Time would slow proportionately for someone in our reference frame as the black holes approached each other and the graphic published by ligo does not show this and actually depicts the merger. This could not be observed from our reference frame as it would take forever as viewed from earth. Time dilation is an experimentally proven fact. Atomic clocks run slower in a gravity field than in a weaker gravity situation.
Time is frozen at the event horizon. The gravitational field gradient extends outward from that surface. Where the gradient is disturbed by interacting with another gradient, gravitational waves will be propagated.
JH,
According to general relativity theory gravity waves will be produced. According to experimentally proven general relativity we would not see the merger from our frame of reference due to time dilation and certainly not as graphically depicted by the info produced by LIGO. Before time “freezes” it first slows down dramatically as the black holes approach each other. Graphics from LIGO actually purport to show the merger. This cannot be per GR theory.
Hey Jim! I’m back and on the spot I guess. As Popeye said, ” I ain’t no phisikist, but I know what matters “! I don’t know what the sensitivity of LIGO is but the gravitational gradient between two objects attenuates infinitely with distance. The disturbance of the gradient would be significant when the two black holes were many millions of miles apart, at a distance and gravitational level where time dilation is well below ” stopped”. That disturbance will propagate. Is that any better or am I misunderstanding the question?
JH,
You are misunderstanding time dilation relative to the results published by LIGO.
Just because you didn’t get an answer doesn’t mean it isn’t thought about. I’ve wondered about the link between time dilation and gravitational waves as well. Is light separate from time? Light certainly isn’t separate from gravity. I can’t think of an experiment that measures time against gravity. There would have to be some formula where light affects gravity, or time affecting gravity. Or time affecting light. Suppose an experiment is being run at CERN, and a gravitational wave passes through at the moment the energies collide. What would that look like? How would we know?
I’ve thought of it as we exist in the bell shaped portion where the relationship is fairly stable. Extending out to the edges of the curve, things become a little less certain and stable. And those things exist in bigger amounts in other places.
It’s always interesting to think about black holes. There was a question asked years ago about lillies on a pond. It takes 30 days to cover the pond. If the lillies double each day, when is the pond half covered? On the last day. I think of black holes in the same way. Except we don’t know when the last day is since we don’t know what time it is. It’s an idea that there is a god of all clocks and everything is timed off of that clock.
We need Hawking to visit our site!
Why not invite him? Seriously! If you don’t ask, you rarely get!
“Dear Prof. Hawking”:
You may not have heard of our Blog-site which attracts millions of ‘eyeballs’ and an impressive array of informed, unbiased commentators on matters ranging from Black Holes, Gravity Waves, etc. (your domain) through integrity of the Scientif Process in today’s world to La Nina and plastic particulate pollution in the oceans. We question ‘Received Wisdom Encyclicals’ and throw them open to debate.
The question has arisen amongst our contributors on what your learned views would be on the question of [……….]
We cordially invite you to visit our site, formulate a specific response, and — hopefully — become a regular contributor.
Yours respectfully,
John Harsworth.”
Ha! He puts my name on it! Might as well sign “on behalf of”, and send it. Oh! Too bad! Post office is shutting down. However will we communicate? You have my permission, Ross!
Reply to Jim G1 July 9, 2016 at 12:18 pm
Actually, the more I thought about your question the more brilliantly it illuminated many answers and raised many more questions!
Here is my take on it though. A dude named Bell proved* with very simple mathematics that at the sub-atomic or quantum level the universe is non-local. Meaning that everything in infinite time and space is instantly connected. Any causal event happening any ‘now’ or any ‘here’ affects any “when” and “anywhere” instantly. At the very tiniest scale possible, space is a singularity the same as a black hole, without the mass. Events are a-causal in that sense, except that no information as we know it, can travel faster than C. Big in breath…here! So… the universe is a field called spacetime, the warping of which we call Gravity. A black hole is an extreme distortion of space and time that light and matter can’t escape but gravity isn’t an energy field it is spacetime itself and as such it isn’t subject to the affects of time dilation. Changes effecting matter (That those scientist measured) propagate at light speed but the field they travel in is unaffected by time dilation. Ok this doesn’t make sense but it does if you think of spacetime as a wave and the water it travels in as gravity rather than vice-versa. So from the frame of reference of spacetime the blackholes do their stuff in a particular amount of “time” in a particular “space” but the propagation of this message (Undilated) still can’t get to us faster than C.
Another way to put it : “A black hole is an extreme distortion of space and time due to a very dense mass. Such a spacetime distortion can prevent light and matter from ever escaping. But the spacetime distortion is also gravity. It doesn’t need to escape the black hole, because it is the black hole.”
(https://briankoberlein.com/2015/08/21/how-does-gravity-escape-a-black-hole/)
*And I believe him (His maths that is!).
just for comic relief (thought Eric might have picked up on it) –
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/07/01/al-gores-daughter-among-23-arrested-in-boston-pipeline-protest.html?intcmp=ob_article_sidebar_video&intcmp=obinsite
(sorry for long hyperlink)
Colorado University has published somewhat regular releases of their Satellite Seal Level data over the years and most of the time series are available on the Internet Archives WayBack Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
The take home information for each release is the rate or since 2016 the trend (same thing) which over the years as increased from 2.6/mm/yr to 3.4 mm/yr today. Using Excel’s slope formula it is easy to plot out the trend for each data point along the way from 1992 to the end of the series and plot the results out as a function of time. Selecting a time series for each year (2009 is missing) a representation of the changes in the rate and the changes in the raw data can be displayed. It looks like this:
http://oi67.tinypic.com/2s7yxxz.jpg
For example, if you follow the results for 2004 up through the various releases, you find that the overall rate for 2004 has evolved over the last decade or so from 2.6 to 2.9 to 3.2 to 3.4 and finally over 3.5 mm/yr. The highest posted rate was over 3.6 mm/yr in 2006 as calculated from the 2011 release #2. And you can see that it has been revised downward since then as shown in the current release.
A few years back CU’s Sea Level Research Group responded to questions about the changes to the raw data to say:
Thanks for your inquiry. The sea level time series release from 2004 is
over eight years old, and in that time many parts of the TOPEX and
Jason-1 processing have been updated to reflect instrument and ancillary
data improvements. Without recreating each processing change over the
last eight years, I cannot point to any specific update that is the main
cause of the differences between the 2004 and the current release. But a
partial list of the more influential updates include:
– updated orbits
– updated radiometer corrections
– updated tide models
– updated sea state bias models
– updated dynamic atmosphere
A review of the release notes
(http://sealevel.colorado.edu/content/release-notes) shows how we
continually apply what the altimeter science community considers to be
the most up-to-date set of processing parameters. In fact, the Jason-2
data is currently being re-released and updated to the GDR-D standard,
and this will most likely affect the altimeter time series due to these
improvements.
Why the changes have been made, the motives, the reasons etc. are a matter of opinion, that they have been made is a matter of fact.
How does anybody measure sea level to mm? Has to be a statistical manifestation.
3.4 mm/y = .0034 m/y = .34 m/cty = 1.11 foot per century.
I don’t believe they can accurately measure SLR from outer space. The medium they measure through is something that the speed of light changes frequently. …waves, tides, sea level gravitational difference all add significant noise to their measurements. On the order of many feet. Their signal to noise ratio is like 1 to 100. This is entirely to low to get a meaningful signal from no matter how many samples you have. …this is why there’s a significant difference from land and satellite. Also. They can’t even be sure if the diameter of the earth is changing. Just a thousandth of a degree change (flux) in temperature can mess their measurements through thermal expansion of the earth. With something that at as hot as the earth a 1000th degree change would be quite normal I believe
Colorado University has published somewhat regular releases of their Satellite Seal Level data…
Wow! They can count seals from orbit! Far OUT man!
I think counting seals by satellite would be simpler than sea level because they are much bigger.
It is great to have an open thread. Unfortunately for me, I don’t have time today to say much.
What I will say is that this should become a weekly feature, and the parameters of the discussion should be loosened for the open thread. No flames or name calling of course, but there should be some controversy allowed.
I would like to see a mod be able to tell someone on a normal post to “save that for an open thread”.
~ Mark
Age writing here:
1957 was declared “International Geophysical Year” . I completed a degree in 1962. At the time, lecturers reviewed that ice ages might have been caused by an open Arctic Ocean providing lots of precip over a cold land mass. The other explanation was Milankovitch periodicity. There was not enough evidence to support either.
So, since the 1970s it has been fascinating to watch the data come in–generally supporting periodicity.
More recently the confirmation of theories about clouds and cosmic rays really fills in a working explanation of real climate change,
Authoritarians have been showing a lot of audacity. That they can “manage” the climate is amazing. But the promotion is falling apart on this impressive solar minimum.
Over in central banking land, they are fixed on the number “2”. If they can’t get inflation above 2% something bad will happen. “Warmers” insist that if the global temp goes up “2” degrees something bad will happen to the climate.
Both methods of intrusion get hung up on notions about positive feedback.
The next recession will bury central planning of the economy. The solar minimum will finish off the promotion about man-caused climate change.
Exciting times.
I expressed a similar thought regarding an open Arctic back in 2010 on Newsvine. This was during my second year of reading about the AGW debate. The question which I asked was “Would it be possible with a more open Arctic condition to experience the equivalent of a Great Lakes lake-effect snow storm on a scale never conceived of”? No one had an answer for the question.
-Bob Hoye
Yes, 2 is the important number!
For 2 long 2 many politicians told 2 many lies and spent 2 much money. Now it’s 2 late 2 cut taxes because the debt is 2 high. Way 2 high! We likewise can’t get growth up 2 even 2% because nobody really believes the growth story anymore so the same s2pid government started 2 print money because they think we’re 2 s2pid 2 know that making fake money 2 buy windmills 2 increase our energy costs is 2 s2pid even for words! Maybe we are that s2pid when I look at the 2 bit leaders we elect. It’s Trudeau here in Canada now and that’s 2 much (2 X 2) for me! I no longer give 2 s#!ts!
2 brilliant!
2-shay!
Lower solar cycles are normally long solar cycles but this cycle is beginning to look like it might be low and short.
So I was wondering if that means the solar minimum may be quite long. Most solar mins are just one year long but the last one was two years long. When coincidentally we had 8 inches of snow on the ground here in the middle of southern brexit land. Normally we never get any snow that settles.
It will be interesting to see if this solar minimum is longer than two years and if we get snow again. If we do, I can try out my new tyres.
http://www.evo.co.uk/features/15600/michelin-cross-climate-vs-winter-and-all-season-tyres
In my opinion, we will experience a longer time at minimum for this cycle and the next 3 to 4 cycles. That thought comes from viewing the overall pattern in the solar minimums which I think I see in the record.
I had to laugh at fishermen comments at the boat launch today for the start of the Salmonarama tournament on Lake Michigan … “I’ve never seen the water at the ramp so high.” Three years ago water levels were very low, global warming were clapping their hands in glee at the evidence of global warming, and that launched millions upon millions of dollars worth of harbor dredging to combat the “global-warming caused” low lake levels. Of course by the time dredging actually occurred, a year or two later, the lake levels were already rebounding back to normal but the money was already allocated and had to be spent. Now lake levels are very high and houses a few miles from the harbor are falling into the lake because high water erosion is eating into the bluffs.
There seems to be some sort of lesson to be learned here but no one seems to be asking why did we spend so much on something that wasn’t really necessary (harbor dredging) when we could have spent it on something that was necessary (bluff erosion prevention).
Maybe they thought to find some of this:
http://www.lakesuperior.com/downloads/359/download/241copperlift.jpg?cb=e85bf5d1fafb6592f52fe08392c96350
That is native copper found on the lake bottom of Superior.
http://www.lakesuperior.com/downloads/359/download/241copperlift.jpg
Native copper
Yes indeed, government planning at it’s finest.
Governments, politicians really, have to be seen to be doing something. They are just idiots with ambition, so they don’t know good spending (hey! It’s possible!) from bad spending! Many are lawyers and professionally amoral, so….they have that…quality. Also, we pay them excessively to do this, so they have to. Otherwise, they can’t earn their ridiculous pensions. It’s a great system!
“It’s a great system!”, for those who lack moral standards, and do not care about the downstream effects on other people.
If anyone was wondering where all the weather is on this planet, have a look at windyty.com.
This is a beautiful way to look at weather, the first thing I noticed is that all the nasty energetic weather occurs over the oceans. This should be called planet water. Man is so self absorbed at being the centre of the universe that all the climate studies seem to focus on the land. Oceans are where its at.
so true.
“It requires an astronomical amount of ignorance and arrogance to claim humans are the only reason the temperature and climate began to change.”
—quote from CHANGING Climate Change
We live in a water world and the Southern Hemisphere is predominantly water vs. land. We are in our summer up in the N. hemisphere, but down under it is winter. The declining solar cycle is hitting mostly water now and this is a harbinger of the cold to come. The ocean is the storage mechanism for solar isolation, and it is not getting “charged”.
Peruse “iceagenow” to see the record setting cold in the S. Hemisphere. Add the growing Antarctic ice, and the tipping point for cold may just be down under.
Thanks for the link, Bill.
Here is the weathermap I look at everyday:
http://content.wdtinc.com/clients/koln/map2.php?MAPID=14116
Unfortunately, it doesn’t cover the entire world, but it covers what I’m interested in as to local weather.
Don’t know if you have this link already, but I’ll post it anyway, as it is a good one:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/700hPa/orthographic=-102.41,23.19,431
Thank You, very good links. 🙂
Great link, thanks for sharing!
Fantastic!
Great forum — thanks for having the open thread.
For me, the most concerning part is what is behind Al Gore’s theory of anthropogenic global warming.
I just finished writing a book explaining how and why Gore’s theory of anthropogenic global warming is wrong. Pretty much any post on this thread disproves Gore’s theory.
Hey Kevin! That’s terrific! I have been saying for some time that we need a counter presentation or anti- An Inconvenient Truth video. I blame the moron Gore for popularizing this lame brain AGW idea. Sounds like your book would be a worthwhile read. What is the title and is it published?
Thanks John! I appreciate your interest. The title is “CHANGING Climate Change” and is currently only available on the publisher’s website: http://www.bigumbrellapub.co
Until July 31, you can enter coupon code: CHANGING CC for a 15% discount.
I agree, there has to be a counter-movement to Al Gore’s theory of AGW. It’s time to liberate climate change from the green propaganda machine!
This echos my comment a coupla(?) days ago. Why shd the Devil always play the best tunes?
A big concern is the brain-washing our kids are getting in educational institutions. the “Received Wisdom” needs to be challenged whenever & wherever.
Apropos which, I offered to buy for our local High School’s Library 12 copies of Lomborg’s book, and I was refused, on account of the fact that it was not on the “Approved Reading List” (or somesuch) of the B.C. Min.Education. Meantime, Gore’s egregious movie was played over-and-over to the kids. If this isn’t brain-washing, I don’t know what is.
It’s incumbent on all us steady-thinkers to challenge back-room bias, bigotry, hypocrisy and the reimposition of feudalism by the glitterati at *every* opportunity. It’s a long uphill task but “Every long march starts with the first steps!” (Mao, I think?)
“We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength …. we shall defend [the Ultimate Truth], We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender,” (With apologies to Winston S. Churchill)
Just wanted to share a link from Retraction Watch:
http://retractionwatch.com/2016/07/08/authors-retract-study-that-found-pollution-near-fracking-sites/
That talks about the retraction of a analysis of pollution and other health info associated with fracking, it got a bunch of headlines; Causes Cancer etc…..
Now the article has been retracted because they got it all wrong. The risks they had looked at now are non-existent and well below any EPA worries let alone any real human concern. Spreadsheet error caused by wrong units apparently.
Will the media cover this? I kinda doubt it.
Lastly, anyone know what happened to Lucia’s Rankexploits?
Anti-fracking is part of the shut down fossil fuels movement. Hoped for results will be to force the use of renewables such as wind and solar.
Shut down ones set of lies and another pops up!
I wonder if activist scientists would consider putting out a paper they know to be bogus, let it circulate for a bit then retract it knowing that it achieved a goal to influence media and public opinion?
Just finished Steyn’s “A Disgrace to the Profession” and I highly recommend it. Masterful job of citing actual quotes from prominent scientists to overcome fear of being a ‘denier’.
Every once in a while I’ve made a comment about LENR (aka cold fusion) without getting a sensible response. It seems really odd to me there is no interest in that subject here as it shows every sign of significantly reducing the use of fossil fuels over the next couple of decades. I think it likely it will end the debate on AGW.
There are two main varieties of LENR. The one started by Fleischmann and Pons using Palladium and deuterium in 1989, that researchers failed to replicate at first and so got cold fusion a bad name. In fact it has been replicated several times since and it is now understood why the early attempts failed. They didn’t know what they were doing, were in a rush to publish and failed to load the Palladium sufficiently for the process to work.
The other newer system involves nickel, lithium and hydrogen. The foremost experimenter with this is Andrea Rossi, whose 1 mega Watt plant completed a one year trial in Feb 2016. According to the ERV (independent consultant paid to monitor the results) it operated with a COP of >50
Industrial Heat Ltd had agreed to pay Rossi $89 million if the plant worked with a COP >6 as the final payment for the intellectual property and rights to sell the technology in America and some other countries. They failed to pay. As a result Rossi had taken them to court (trial Sept 2017) and declared their license is now invalid. In fact it doesn’t really matter. It looks like Rossi has developed a much superior system that also produces light and electricity directly. Very little is known of this new development until patents are granted, except it is tiny – 1mm x 40mm and produces 100 Watts of heat.
Should anyone be interested I would be happy to elaborate.
Adrian Ashfield commented: “….it is tiny – 1mm x 40mm and produces 100 Watts of heat. Should anyone be interested I would be happy to elaborate…”
Yes, I’m interested
markl,
I can’t tell you more about the tiny reactor, except it is called the QuarkX as a temporary name. Rossi says that although this is still in R&D it looks like the future to him. He proposes to join.many of them together to get the required output. He also says that up to 50% of the output can be as electricity but any power taken that way reduces the heat output accordingly. I speculate that he has gone to a smaller size because it is easier to control. The larger sizes operate best at high temperature but are prone to run away and melt.
A whole lot more is known about the the earlier, large, low temperature versions. The basics are provided in his patent. The patent is worded a bit strangely to get past the Patent Office’s automatic rejection of cold fusion.. http://ecat.com/ecat-technology/ecat-patents
Well, I know nothing about the guy in question, but your description of the events rings many alarm bells, as it is the exact same story we’ve heard time and time again from people seeking to dupe investors with the next great miracle device. Change his name and the name of the device, and the story is exactly the same as a million scams that came before it. Right down to the “I can’t explain how it works because I haven’t got a patent yet”, and “I’m being attacked by big business seeking to rip me off or suppress my invention” parts.
The story is always the same.
I mean, the guy has already been convicted of tax fraud and environmental crime, with a business that claimed to be able to turn toxic waste into oil…. But hey, if you claim a big enough miracle, and tug on the right heart strings with stories of how “the man” is keeping you down, you can get investors for just about anything. That this scam is so common as to be easily recognizable speaks to its effectiveness.
Philip,
Not only did he turn toxic waste into fuel, but the process has been resurrected in America. So what was your point again?
Lol, good luck then. My point was to warn you. Hope you haven’t given this guy any of your money.
Philip,
It looks like Rossi was run out of business in Italy by the Mafia. They considered he was threatening their waste disposal business. They persuaded the government to retroactively class the waste he had collected as hazardous.
Your warning not to give him money is without merit too. Only large companies “that understand the risk” can. I wish I could and I understand the risk..
I have been following Rossi’s ecat and now quark-x story for over 5 years. Its a very tangled story that still has me a little confused but there are several others in the works. Brillioun Power, some Russian guys, Chinese- too many to remember. I have no doubt anymore that LENR or “cold fusion” is real. It’s a shame what was done to Pons and Fleischman. It may take some time to get practical devices out of this idea but catalyzed fusion reactions will be the story of the 21st century.
If all this AGW nonsense gets you down, I suggest reading ” The Singularity is Near”. The future will be more amazing than we can imagine. If we get there, lol!
John,
Like you I have been following Rossi since his first public demo in 2011. LENR is the opposite of AGW in that the consensus doesn’t believe it but the facts back it up. Brilliant Light Power (nee Blacklight Power) have had some impressive demos lately, but have a long record of failing to produce a commercial product.
A long time ago Rossi forecast that no demo would ever satisfy the skeptics but only the sale of working commercial units. Rossi is optimistic he will have a commercial 1 MW plant working before the end of 2016.
Technical reporter Mats Lewan has written an excellent book called “An Impossible Invention” that covers Rossi’s story. See also his long “webinar” about LENR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ3S3YMH96s&feature=youtu.be
Something tells me the inventor of cold a working cold fusion reactor wont live ling enough to see it work. Trillions of dollars would be a stake.
ps. Here are some photos of the I MW plant being built. http://andrea-rossi.com/1mw-plant/
The reactors shown in the center photo were of an earlier design and are just there as “stand-by” in case the main reactors failed. The heat was produced by four 250 kW units shown in the bottom center image, with Rossi listening to the water boiling with a stethoscope.
An unverified analysis of the ash after the one year’s operation is discussed here. If these figures are correct it would be proof that the 1 MW plant operated as claimed. Read the comments too.
http://www.e-catworld.com/2016/07/08/document-isotopic-composition-of-rossi-fuel-sample-unverified/
pps.
E-cat World have a link to Brilliant Light Power’s latest two hour demo video to generate power @ 0.1 cents/kW.
Seems to me there are a lot of difficult engineering problems, so their forecast of commercial units next year looks optimistic to me. Mills argues that the device is sufficiently cheap that they would just swap them out, but I would like to see several units run for up to a year in order to get a better handle on the problems before they are out in the field.
Amongst other things Mills claims quantum mechanics is wrong. He does have a point.
http://www.e-catworld.com/2016/07/10/brillliant-light-power-posts-demo-video/
Rossi is currently sueing a forms partner for non completion on his one year demo. The jointly agreed test referee signed off as meeting the test criteria and the payment was to be 89 million. The IP is likewise somewhat in the wind. I believe he is way ahead of the others as control of the reaction seems to be difficult and critical. Rossi appears to have that aspect figured out.
I usually just post my inane comments on the nearest thread.
Suddenly I’m speechless.
I just watched a tv program about NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter. It’s pretty exciting. We should learn a lot about a lot of things, if the spacecraft can manage to stay functional in the high radiation environment it has to deal with.
So far, so good.
I’d like to see two new rules here:
1: If you write an article for this site, and produce figures or graphs, you should provide all the data and methods necessary to replicate your work. There is no excuse for not doing this. If you’re not confident enough in your results to supply the necessary information to allow them to be checked, you shouldn’t be publishing them in the first place.
1: If you use an article published here to make personal attacks, then you should be prepared to be judged by the same standards you judge others by. If you are going to make someones character part of the topic, then you should accept criticism of your own character as on topic too.
If however, you just want to talk about the science, then that’s fine, your character has nothing to do with it… But when you make it an issue….
I’m looking for a web site or similar which provides a good, clear explanation of the logarithmic nature of the “greenhouse warming” effect. If a doubling of GHG gives a certain temperature rise, why does it take another doubling to get that same rise again? How does the greenhouse effect become saturated? Thanks for any leads.
And if the present rise gives zero warming, what does two times zero get us?
I think that comes out to zero, also. 🙂 We are still working on that first input of CO2 and its effects. Theoretically it has an effect, but does it practically? Is there a feedback that cancels the effect out? Noone knows?
I was hoping for some basic physics as opposed to comments. Perhaps something that extends upon this factual scientific sort of treatment of the greenhouse effect:
https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/greenhousegases/properties.html
There must be some kinetic energy deposited in the atmosphere by meteorites, solar mass ejections, cosmic rays, and collapsing or moving magnetic fields and maybe electrostatic fields in the galaxy. And there is a tiny bit coming in as light from the moon. Also, coming from below as geothermal sources, boiling vents in the ocean floor, undersea volcanos, kinetic energy and friction from tides and heat from landslides and falling icebergs.
Also, photosynthesis takes energy from the atmosphere as photons subtracted from heating other things such as water, oxygen and nitrogen; and respiration and fermentation adds heat to the atmosphere as it burns carbohydrates into water and CO2 and/or alcohol.
I wonder if these sources of energy have any significance on the energy budget of the earth? or are they essentially minuscule? compared to the 239W/m^2 coming in from the sun?
New York Times 23 Jan 2016 had an article entitled- A Lake in Bolivia Evaporates, and With It a Way of Life
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/world/americas/a-lake-in-bolivia-evaporates-and-with-it-a-way-of-life.html?_r=0
This article was updated and on 8 July 2016 the New York Times published another article- “Climate Change Claims a Lake,
and a Way of Life” http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/07/07/world/americas/bolivia-climate-change-lake-poopo.html?_r=0
“The water receded and the fish died. The stench drifted in the air for weeks. Then “the people of the lake” started to leave.
By NICHOLAS CASEY
Photographs and video by JOSH HANER”
This story was also published in the Guardian- Bolivia’s second-largest lake dries up and may be gone forever, lost to climate change – Friday 22 January 2016 13.10 AEDT
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/22/bolivias-second-largest-lake-dries-up-and-may-be-gone-forever-lost-to-climate-change
The Guardian has many comments attached to the article which picked up that the lake had dried up many times before and that a lot of water had been diverted for mining and agriculture.
There is a scientific study on the lake- http://www.lakescientist.com/lake-poopo-dries-up/
which confirms this and notes that there is a dam upstream which restricts water supply to the wet season. The collapse of the Tiwanaku civilization (c. AD 1100) has been attributed to an extended dry period (Binford et al.,
1997). http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1623/hysj.51.1.98
Would anybody have the interest, skills and time to pull all this together?
I was wondering why no one has written a paper that looks at the pause from a multi variable perspectve?
What I mean is that if you look at temperature alone it is easy to dismiss the pause whether by data manipulation or reference periods etc.
However, there appears to be signs of the pause elsewhere. I live in Singapore and I downloaded data from the NEA singapore. The temperatures here rose during the 90s then levelled off just like many other obs stations around the world. This same signal can also be seen in the observed precipitation, increasing during the 90s then levelled off.
Stratospheric temps lowered in the 80s until mid 90s then flatlined.
There could be cases argued for similar trends in storms, droughts etc.
It seems to me that a new climate equilibrium was found and perhaps the globe after an initial jolt upwards has settled into this new equilibrium.
@ Eric Worral, seeing it’s an open thread, can you update us on the election in Oz and what it means for the debate on CC? Thanks.
Coalition Govt has scraped over the line as Labor concedes-
http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/election-2016malcolm-turnbull-claims-victory-after-bill-shorten-concedes-defeat/ar-BBu8vnm?li=AAavLaF&ocid=spartanntp
Whether they reach a majority in their own right (76 seats in a 150 seat House of Representatives) is still a moot point but the PM already has the support of 3 independents and one of them could serve as Speaker of the House. Nevertheless they don’t have a majority in the Senate (House of Review) so unpopular legislation will be difficult to pass without some deals being struck with minor parties/independents.
Thanks, reading the news in North America leaves a lot to be desired.
‘Close to 10,000 hectares of mangroves have died across a stretch of coastline reaching from Queensland to the Northern Territory.
International mangroves expert Dr Norm Duke said he had no doubt the “dieback” was related to climate change.’
http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/shocking-images-reveal-death-of-10000-hectares-of-mangroves-across-northern-australia/ar-BBu8Px9?li=AA4Znz&ocid=spartanntp
So I was interested in how unprecedented this mangrove dieback is and came up with a Florida example-
http://floridabay.org/pub/bw_report/mangroves.shtml
Interesting how the Florida dieback is on islands and the Gulf of Carpentaria one seems to be a similar strip of mangroves surrounded by seawater and it would appear drought and the lack of fresh water is problematic for the mangroves. In that case it will be interesting to see how they recover with a return to normal wet seasons.
Hugs
July 10, 2016 at 2:24 am
Off topic comment.
I think some GHE talk is much a red herring. But I’m interested in how much GHE consists of solely pressure only and how much on the atmospheric composition. Had we 90 bars of pure nitrogen, what would be the approximate temperature at surface?
What about 90 atm air or 90 atm CO2?
All the solar system atmospheres measured (quite a few), show that the gas laws rule. That is, gaseous mass, gravity, and solar distance govern temperatures. Gas species are irrelevant, though basal pressures under those of our tropopause eg Mars cannot hold a normal lapse rate, because of wider molecular gaps allowing radiative domination. Whatever gas gas they hold.. In denser atmospheres, radiation is always subordinate below the 500hPa level..
None of the planets have a gasosphere containing only nitrogen. So the question is a bit theoretical.
I have wondered if there is a speed of gravity. If the Sun was to be removed in an instant the we could observe the lack of light some 7 1/2 minutes later. but how long would it take for the earth to start moving in s straight line without the gravitational influence of the Sun?
On a different aspect. At the time of the Big Bang there was a fixed amount of energy in the universe. Some of this energy was in the form of mass. As Suns use up their mass to convert matter to electromagnetic energy then the level of gravity in the Universe diminishes. There being less gravitational attraction then the Universe would expand at an accelerated rate which matches the observation of an increasing Universe. This is just an opinion.
Pretty sure physics says the gravitational effect can’t be faster than light speed. Question #2 is tougher but I think you have to fall back on mass/energy equivalence as opposed to conversion. So technically, when energy is absorbed by matter its mass increases.
London, the “speed of gravity” is the same as the speed of light. If the sun suddenly magically disappeared we’d feel the earth fly off into space the same moment as we saw the sun’s light go out.
Converting the mass of the sun into light doesn’t affect the overall “level of gravity” in the universe. Mass and energy are equivalent as far as gravity is concerned.
Gravity… it’s everywhere. Light doesn’t have a field. A gravity wave may not be subject to time aspect of motion. Light is affected by gravity, and has a time component. When 2 black holes merge, the furthest reaches of its gravity moves at the same time. Twisting the wand on venetian blinds move the slats at the same time.
– Rishrac
Can you expand a little on”a gravity wave may not be subject to the time aspect of motion”? My grasp of astrophysics is pretty meager I’m afraid.
I don’t know everything about gravity. Until asked questions or involved in conversations like this, I try not to think about it. Quantum and string physics is easier to understand. I never really thought about time like light. Perhaps time can be reflected. That would be interesting. Both seem to travel in one direction. In astrophysics they say the universe is expanding. Is there an inverse relationship between time and expansion? There is a book, it’s called Gravity. There is a lot of math in it.
Light is really strange. It’s not as simple as some think it is. There’s information in starlight.
I mentioned the god of all clocks. As far as I can see most things are timed to that universal clock. But then why would a black hole need a Clock? Just part of the universe turned inside out. Nothing in it. Any matter falling on it gets torn apart and ejected. The line between existence and non existence. I’ve thought of doing that, calculating the mass of a star and seeing how much energy is expelled when a black hole eats it. There are some black holes that are slow munchiers. The thing I’d like to see is the death of a black hole. There are time frames, a black hole forms, a black hole lives, and a black hole dies. So either a black hole dies and keeps track of time, or a black hole never dies and has no need of time, it doesn’t keep it.
I’m self aware. Sometimes when conversations run like this, I sometimes ask myself, what the heck am I talking about. It’s good to be in a room that has walls with whiteboards. There are so many tangents you can loose sight of the original goal. So you have to write that down, you will forget, or it will come up again later, and wow that’s something I didn’t think of. Morgan LeFey trapped Merlin in his own reflection. I know how she did it.
I do think that there is a relationship between light, time, and gravity. In the real sense that they can interfere, react, and act on each other.
At points in talking about things like this, the conversation turns more philosophical. We have to think about what something is doing, then go about seeing if it is.
Best I can follow Einstein, lights time dilatation is really just light following the curvature of spacetime.
But this is what I keep picturing, time is a “real” dimension, just like x,y and z, and we are in free fall in that direction. And gravity changes the angle between our x,y and z, and time.
visualize this as a sort of a tetrahedron.
I was thinking something similar. Like one of the oddly shaped rooms where you can looker much taller or smaller depending on where you’re standing. I think there are angles between light,time, and gravity. If we left this solar system would time be different? It seems the stronger the gravity, the faster time passes. But that’s something different I envision in or near a black hole. Those giant nebulas I have thought might be from a black hole becoming unstable and exploding. We will have to see one to find out. On the one hand I can see where time would stop, and then it could pass very quickly. If a black hole doesn’t die, it means that there is nothing vibrating in it. No way to measure time. I think some of this is due to our lack of abilities to understand some kinds of concepts. For example, some monkeys have much better memory when it comes to number sequence than humans. What they seem to lack is cognitive thought. There might be a level of cognitive thought that would make this very simple.
London, Tom van Flandern had an article on Meta Research (site vanished but available in the archive)
https://web.archive.org/web/20160607035428/http://metaresearch.org/cosmology/speed_of_gravity.asp
http://www.newsmax.com/Finance/Economy/china-global-economy-g-20-fix/2016/07/09/id/737894/
China: G-20 Must Fix ‘Grim’ Global Economy
“The global economic situation is grim and major economies must lead the way in tackling problems including sluggish growth and weak trade, China’s trade minister Gao Hucheng said on Saturday.
Gao made the remarks at the start of a two-day meeting of trade ministers from G-20 economies in Shanghai, as uncertainty hangs over the outlook for a slow-growing global economy now beset by post-Brexit reverberations.
The global economic recovery remained “complicated and grim,” Gao said.
“Global trade is dithering, international investment has yet to recover to levels before the financial crisis, the global economy has yet to find the propulsion for strong and sustainable growth.”
Don’t blame BrExit. All those things existed before BrExit came along.
Yeah, the G20 needs to fix the world economy. I got a little chuckle out of that one.
One way to fix the economies is to quit bankrupting them by forcing them to install inferior, costly, deadly electrical generation facilities such as windmills.
The Chinese have more reason to worry than most.
CRISPR- http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2014/crispr-a-game-changing-genetic-engineering-technique/
A clear explanation(somewhat limited) about one of the most significant genetic discoveries since Memdel.
Modifying bits of DNA, down to single point mutations if needed.
Wonderful, if it’s done ethically and properly.
Here’s an interesting article with a few interesting things to say …
“Antarctic sea-ice expansion between 2000 and 2014 driven by Pacific decadal climate variability”
“Antarctic sea-ice extent has been slowly increasing in the satellite record that began in 1979.”
Increasing, Antarctic sea ice has been slowly increasing.
“Since the late 1990s, the increase has accelerated, but the average of all climate models shows a decline.”
The REAL WORLD shows an increase but the average of all the CLIMATE MODELS show a decline. Check.
“Meanwhile, the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation, an internally generated mode of climate variability, transitioned from positive to negative, with an average cooling …”
“average cooling”
“… of tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures, a slowdown of the global warming trend …”
“A SLOWDOWN OF THE GLOBAL WARMING TREND”
“… and a deepening of the Amudsen Sea Low near Antarctica.”
http://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2751.epdf?shared_access_token=-4vAzZ6a2_pPasntoQe7rdRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0PiRwMr0KAnSTgYyD10-F94hS1A4ilc1GFMTaeoLSR6XK6ebOSFLzQeECI2MuPs3fEJDhLWcI0VoV6_-kKccWyT8k8oQPLD4F71JX5Nk8-MZjySxJWTOWouVG9zLO39zKM%3D
Two examples of left wing hypocrisy and censorship all rolled into one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWy3Yk95FYE
http://www.therebel.media/_controlled_feces_release_by_anti_pipeline_quebec_politicians_leads_to_massive_fish_kill_in_yamaska_river
http://www.therebel.media/rebel_s_new_billboard_banned_in_montreal_city_hall_fears_muslim_backlash_even_saudi_retribution
Tsk, tsk. We must not do anything to offend those who are offended by our very existence.
They might get offended.
Sir/Madam:
You strike a chord! The Offended vs. the Offensive.
The “Offended” are typified by the Glitterati hell-bent on re-establishing Feudal hegemony behind castle walls, and the “Offensive” — 99% of us, the great unwashed — whom they’d like to blame for all perceived environmental ills. The Offended include the uber-rich groups funding so-called “Environmental Causes”, many of them out of USA, and most of them anti-development, and ultra-Green.
All to the exclusion of the average Joe looking to earn a crust of bread to support his family.
The Brits, for example, spent centuries shaking-off the shackles of serfdom. We must fight the New-Feudals to the last, lest we revert to the Dark Ages: penury, lack of a social welfare-net & health-care, a lifespan of 40 if you’re lucky, pestilence & famine, living off what you can scrabble in the dirt-patch outside your hovel.
Society has advanced by harnessing energy. We live in an integrated society. We … the 99% … cannot turn the clock back, and we won’t.
Challenge the “Offended” at every turn.
June 2016 in Massachusetts seemed to be the coolest in memory. Naturally no stories to this effect appeared in the media. Perhaps I’m wrong. There must be records on this sort of thing, but I’m unable to find them using Google. Any ideas?
“Any ideas?”
The data I produce and make available would have a csv file of surface temps and various averages, and I go down to 1×1 degree grids. But I can only give you a round about way there today.
https://micro6500blog.wordpress.com/2015/11/18/evidence-against-warming-from-carbon-dioxide/
On that link is a url to source forge, in the reports subfolder there’s a zip, should be labeled clear enough to figure out which is 1×1, there will likely be both daily averages and annual averages. You’ll need to find your coordinates and find the right cell, they are labeled based on the coordinates and there is a xxxx _ST.csv that has the station list and their coordinates. Depending on the part of the world the label can be at the lower boundary of the cell, or the upper boundary, but you can alway look at the station list.