Every once in awhile I read a news release and do a facepalm. I note that “simulations” are not “evidence” and chaos (and uncertainty) works backward in time too. – Anthony
From EurekAlert – Venus had Earth-like plate tectonics billions of years ago, study suggests
Simulations produced by a Brown-led research team offer evidence that Venus once had plate tectonics — a finding that opens the door for the possibility of early life on the planet and insights into its history.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Venus, a scorching wasteland of a planet according to scientists, may have once had tectonic plate movements similar to those believed to have occurred on early Earth, a new study found. The finding sets up tantalizing scenarios regarding the possibility of early life on Venus, its evolutionary past and the history of the solar system.
Writing in Nature Astronomy, a team of scientists led by Brown University researchers describes using atmospheric data from Venus and computer modeling to show that the composition of the planet’s current atmosphere and surface pressure would only have been possible as a result of an early form of plate tectonics, a process critical to life that involves multiple continental plates pushing, pulling and sliding beneath one another.
On Earth, this process intensified over billions of years, forming new continents and mountains, and leading to chemical reactions that stabilized the planet’s surface temperature, resulting in an environment more conducive to the development of life.
Venus, on the other hand, Earth’s nearest neighbor and sister planet, went in the opposite direction and today has surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead. One explanation is that the planet has always been thought to have what’s known as a “stagnant lid,” meaning its surface has only a single plate with minimal amounts of give, movement and gasses being released into the atmosphere.
The new paper posits that this wasn’t always the case. To account for the abundance of nitrogen and carbon dioxide present in Venus’ atmosphere, the researchers conclude that Venus must have had plate tectonics sometime after the planet formed, about 4.5 billion to 3.5 billion years ago. The paper suggests that this early tectonic movement, like on Earth, would have been limited in terms of the number of plates moving and in how much they shifted. It also would have been happening on Earth and Venus simultaneously.
“One of the big picture takeaways is that we very likely had two planets at the same time in the same solar system operating in a plate tectonic regime — the same mode of tectonics that allowed for the life that we see on Earth today,” said Matt Weller, the study’s lead author who completed the work while he was a postdoctoral researcher at Brown and is now at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston.
This bolsters the possibility of microbial life on ancient Venus and shows that at one point the two planets — which are in the same solar neighborhood, are about the same size, and have the same mass, density and volume — were more alike than previously thought before diverging.
The work also highlights the possibility that plate tectonics on planets might just come down to timing — and therefore, so may life itself.
“We’ve so far thought about tectonic state in terms of a binary: it’s either true or it’s false, and it’s either true or false for the duration of the planet,” said study co-author Alexander Evans, an assistant professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences at Brown. “This shows that planets may transition in and out of different tectonic states and that this may actually be fairly common. Earth may be the outlier. This also means we might have planets that transition in and out of habitability rather than just being continuously habitable.”
That concept will be important to consider as scientists look to understand nearby moons — like Jupiter’s Europa, which has shown proof of having Earth-like plate tectonics — and distant exoplanets, according to the paper.
The researchers initially started the work as a way to show that the atmospheres of far-off exoplanets can be powerful markers of their early histories, before deciding to investigate that point closer to home.
They used current data on Venus’ atmosphere as the endpoint for their models and started by assuming Venus has had a stagnant lid through its entire existence. Quickly, they were able to see that simulations recreating the planet’s current atmosphere didn’t match up with where the planet is now in terms of the amount nitrogen and carbon dioxide present in the current atmosphere and its resulting surface pressure.
The researchers then simulated what would have had to happen on the planet to get to where it is today. They eventually matched the numbers almost exactly when they accounted for limited tectonic movement early in Venus’ history followed by the stagnant lid model that exists today.
Overall, the team believes the work serves as a proof of concept regarding atmospheres and their ability to provide insights into the past.
“We’re still in this paradigm where we use the surfaces of planets to understand their history,” Evans said. “We really show for the first time that the atmosphere may actually be the best way to understand some of the very ancient history of planets that is often not preserved on the surface.”
Upcoming NASA DAVINCI missions, which will measure gasses in the Venusian atmosphere, may help solidify the study’s findings. In the meantime, the researchers plan to delve deep into a key question the paper raises: What happened to plate tectonics on Venus? The theory in the paper suggests that the planet ultimately became too hot and its atmosphere too thick, drying up the necessary ingredients for tectonic movement.
“Venus basically ran out of juice to some extent, and that put the brakes on the process,” said Daniel Ibarra, a professor in Brown’s Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences and co-author on the paper.
The researchers say the details of how this happened may hold important implications for Earth.
“That’s going to be the next critical step in understanding Venus, its evolution and ultimately the fate of the Earth,” Weller said. “What conditions will force us to move in a Venus-like trajectory, and what conditions could allow the Earth to remain habitable?”
The study also included Alexandria Johnson from Purdue University. It was supported by NASA’s Solar System Workings program.
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Isn’t this how science fiction is written? The author posits some idea that might be plausible, and then builds a narrative around it, expanding on the possibilities.
It’s called “science”. That is how science works. Science always begins with observations, then a question is posited that needs explanation, and a theory is a possible explanation of the observations. Theories can be tested and proved likely or unlikely, plausible or unplausible, but once proved with demonstrated data, a theory becomes a theorem.
No, it is not science. The authors observe that Venus has no plate tectonics at present, postulate that it might have had in the past, and with no evidence to support their postulation fantasize about possible effects tectonics may have had on life. That is clearly not science but is mediocre science fiction. But then they got paid didn’t they? That is what most climate science is about these days – getting paid.
“Theories can be tested and proved likely or unlikely, plausible or unplausible, but once proved with demonstrated data, a theory becomes a theorem.”
It becomes a theorem? A theorem is mathematics. You’re confusing disciplines. You can only disprove a theory, law, or hypothesis.
Devising a computer model is not proof of an idea. Science does not work by proving computer models. It works by accumulating observations and explaining them.
The observation sparks an idea to explain the observation; this is called a hypothesis. Then the scientist makes more observations, and devises tests to test out the hypothesis. If the tests continue to support the hypothesis–that is, they do not disprove it–it will eventually rise to a theory. This is true for all branches of science. Theorems are principles in math, as Jim explained.
Here, somebody had an idea, with literally no observations to support the idea, and then used a self-devised computer model to prove the idea and predict a future. That is science fiction.
Thanks for unjumbling that for us
Deductive VS Inductive reasoning. With inductive you start at the end then come up with a way to get there, then declare you were correct. The deductive method starts with something you want to figure out, then removes anything that doesn’t fit the observation, and doesn’t affect the observation when it is removed.
If removing something (a chemical, some data, an object in a puzzle) alters the observation then that thing is essential to it.
An example would be putting all the parts to one complete puzzle in a box, then part of the pieces of several others. You must deduct all the pieces that don’t go to the complete puzzle.
You know nothing about science, what observations of Venus are they talking about?
Look mate, last time I was on Venus I noticed something and took notes…….
No, No, No. Yes, in science you start with observations. Observations lead to hypotheses. Hypotheses are formed so they can be tested. Hypotheses that are supported by the preponderance of the evidence are called theories. Like the theory of evolution. Theories that explain the evidence can be supplanted by new theories that better explain the evidence. Laws are theories where no counter-evidence exists. Like the Law of Gravity.
You mean like “An Inconvenient Truth?” Nobel prize stuff, that. Facts are unimportant when your heart is pure.
“It was a Higher Truth, not bound by mundane logic.”
Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land.
“Isn’t this how science fiction is written? The author posits some idea that might be plausible, and then builds a narrative around it, expanding on the possibilities.”
Both vaguely tied to science. E=MC2 (squared). Star Trek (and the movie The Fly) took that into fantasy land with it’s teleporters and replicators. (Why didn’t they just scoop up particles of matter to convert it into power instead of relying on dilithium crystals to power their “warp drive”?)
Fantasy is Lord of Rings and Doctor Who and Cinderella type stuff.
Both science fiction and fantasy require the reader or watcher to “suspend belief” and temporarily accept the premise is true.
CAGW, AGW, Man-made “Climate Change” wants us to “suspend belief” and permanently accept the premise is true and brings us to 1984, Fahrenheit 451 (Written before PCs.) and Animal Farm becoming reality.
“suspend belief”
I think the term you’re looking for is “suspend disbelief.”
Possibly a more accurate statement might be: “suspend all higher brain functions.”
Better.
The point being to temporarily accept the false to enjoy the rest of the show/book while knowing it’s really not true.
Nothing to “enjoy” about the falsehood of Man-made “Climate Change”.
Am I wrong to just marvel that academics are allowed to waste public money on such pointless simulation, better described as unknowing speculation? THis such overtly and poinless nonsnese. Making it up in models has to be the end of the scientific method.
When people who calim to be scientists believe you can prove anything you like to believe in a model, no need to have any physical laws you have to prove by observation (Venus is a good one for this) then science is reset to before the enlightenment.
CEng, CPhys
We need a new word for this kind of stuff – maybe something like sciencieness. One of the clear indicators of sciencieness is putting forward a claim where there is zero chance of anyone ever being able to produce evidence that it’s wrong. Computer models are now an indispensable tool in pursuit of sciencieness, a process developed and perfected in the anthropogenic climate change industry.
Absolutely.
Simulation has gone from a method to choose between valid and competing outcomes, to only way to come up with an outcome at all.
Typical science skepticism ya got there. Everything in science is about building models. Whether the understanding yielded by the model is useful or pointless, it’s not up to you or I to decide. A large proportion of scientific discoveries and useful engineered products start out as “basic scientific research”, such that the eventual benefits of such understanding are not necessarily clear at the outset. One discovery or bit of understanding leads to another in what might be a very long daisy chain of discovery.
In the 18th century, experimentation associated with electrical energy, such as was famously pursued by Ben Franklin, were thought by “practical people” to be useless and leading nowhere. But today electricity powers everything – even oil and gas production could not exist without electrical energy.
In the early days of American expansion west, it was believed by most “practical” people in the east of the US that the American west was but a vast desert, of no use to anyone but wild Indians. No valuable minerals, no valuable agricultural capacity, “too empty” and “too dry”. But it took a great deal of practical experience combined with data collection, formation of theories and eventually theorems and proofs, and here we are. But none of that could be accomplished without scientific and engineering research, modeling, and development of technologies to harness the “Great American Desert”, with a whole lot of trial and error involved too.
The difference as I see it with this Venus research though Duane is that that the other examples you cite (electricity, wild west) DID actually exist, and were observable.
So exploration, research & further discovery efforts at least had some grounding in reality.
This Venus stuff on the other hand is 100% made-up conjecture right from the get-go.
It make a mockery of the scientific method if we take seriously the fantasized computer doodlings of callow youths.
The Venus chatter wouldn’t be so bad if the authors offered it as mere speculation instead of saying models offer evidence.
Models can tell you that 1+1=2.
In the hands of an idiot, they can also tell you that 1 pear + 1 apple = 2 bananas.
“Typical science skepticism ya got there.”
That is supposed to be one of the characteristics of a good scientist.
…and absolutely vital. The eternal issue the skeptic has is this — the activists do not or will not attempt to understand the mind or motivation of the skeptic. Skeptics, or more specifically empirical skeptics retain an open mind to evidence, and the subsequent interpretations and conclusions drawn from such evidence.
Skepticism It is not science denialism, it is simply an open minded, critical empirical thought process that is based in reason and objectivity. There is no story telling, no narrative, no endless theory, no ideology, no politics, no group think, no consensus just evidence.
We know science isn’t your strong suit. Now we can add history.
“ such as was famously pursued by Ben Franklin, were thought by “practical people” to be useless and leading nowhere.” Seems the ‘practical people of Franklin’s time were quite a bit smarter than you. They knew the results of those experiments led to the invention of the lightning rod by Franklin, and they almost immediately began implementing the concept.
I know it is difficult for you, but when you think of something, research it before trying to expound on it.
Great analogy, Duane!
That the west was nothing but useless desert was built on a model that was correct for the limited information at the time. The further west that you went, the dryer it got. The south west coast was dry. What can you do with petroleum oil?
Inputting that information into a computer would not have made it correct but better at entrenching so much that is not true in the minds of children.
No you are not wrong to marvel at this and wonder how we got to such a stage.
I once worked on a project involving water use in the west. Part of the project–not my part thank goodness–involved modeling people’s propensity to use water (farmer’s irrigation) and their thoughts on climate change to produce results that would be fed into another model to predict water usage in the future, and to devise ways to get farmer’s to take climate change seriously. All I could think as I listened to the pH.D professor of engineering who was describing this model upon model strategy is that her results were likely to be garbage. She probably got paid too.
Anthony, thanks for the post. Regarding news releases: If I did a facepalm every time I read a nonsensical news release, my forehead would be concave from the constant pressure.
Regards,
Bob
Speculation. Guessing. Simulation. Possibilities. It “may have.”
Recourse to mathematics and computer simulation seems to be all that’s left for a science, astronomy and astrophysics, that’s up against a barrier of diminishing returns in the last 50 years. Telescopes and super-colliders can only get so big until the cost outweighs the reward. All that’s left is computer models.
It’s a science that exists for the curiosity of an idle, prosperous society. Sorry to pour cold water on it. I like astronomy, too. It’s fascinating. But it’s not that important after all.
But it’s not that important after all.
_____________________________
In the far far far distant future it will be.
By then though we’ll all be in the far queue.
All scientific and engineering advancement requires speculation, guessing, possibilities, and may haves. Not understanding that means you don’t know how knowledge is acquired.
Yes, but discipline & rationality also needs to be exercised in choosing what these efforts are applied to.
Otherwise we’d have Nature Biology publishing papers on –
“The Concentration Of Methane In Unicorn Farts, and How To Mitigate The Effects On Future Greenhouse Gas Composition”
“. . . you don’t know how knowledge is acquired.”
Apparently, you don’t either. Before you start speculating, you need actual data–not made up fantasies.
Yuh, but saying models offer evidence is one bridge too far.
Something that revolves around an axis. Hmm … Lets slaughter all our horses now to reduce their “droppings” in the street.
In the meantime we’ll discover the “wheel” and finance research papers to decide what is best. Square wheels or rectangular?
We don’t know. But in the meantime, slaughter the horses.
And all cars have wheels but not all wheels are on cars. A lot more than ‘speculation, guessing, possibilities, and may haves’ are required before you can claim it’s science. Otherwise, the neighborhood gossip would be considered a senior scientist.
All science and engineering, and the products that result therefrom, requires mathematics. All of it. The computer you are posting on, the internet you use to distribute your comment, the chair you’re sitting on, the building you’re sitting in, the road or rail or air transport network you used to get to where you are sitting right now are all built upon mathematics and simulation. All of it. Even in ancient days going back to the pyramid builders in ancient Egypt depended upon mathematical simulations to build buildings, track the stars and navigate and use the heavens to guide when to plant and when to harvest, all of that is based upon mathematical models. A farmer uses math and science to grow the food you eat today.
Is there mathematics involved in the language you’ve just used to express your opinion? Don’t see a single number there. Maybe in the western culture where the language of science is indeed numerology there’s a failure to accept that there are other successful less numerate methodologies, past and present, that worked out just fine for those involved.
Not understanding the basic contradiction between these two statements indicates a sort of mindless argumentation.
might need to toss a coin. Heads it’s maths, Tails ii’s guesswork.
The other, most likely possibility is that neither is right. Maybe “two up” or a three sided coin?
“. . . the pyramid builders in ancient Egypt depended upon mathematical simulations to build buildings . . . .”
I guess their math wasn’t all that good, because some pyramids fell down. There’s the bent pyramid–halfway through they changed the slope of the sides. The mathematical model must have been asleep that day.
“. . . all of that is based upon mathematical models.”
Or maybe knowing when the Nile was going to flood–from when it flooded in the past.
you do not realize the difference between calculus and modeling , go back to school , here there is educate people talking
Mr. Layman here.
Well, some of us are “educated”. (Can put letters behind our names.)
Some of us just have common sense and can put “2+2=” together.
Some of
us… you guys … can do both.You have the wrong order. All science and engineering first begins with observations and collecting data. Then come the mathematics to explain the observations.
Do you think Newton developed the math for gravity or first made an observation and then collected data?
Do you think Max Planck first worked out the math for heat radiation? He didn’t, he created experiments, made observations, and recorded data. Then he developed the math that explained it.
The authors posit that plate tectonics were a prerequisite for life. This is an hypothesis for which there is no evidence. Much more likely that tectonics and life derive from the same condition: the presence of liquid water. Water lubricates and the mixing of water into molten rocks at subduction zones lowers the melting point of the mix and thus fuels volcanos with lava and facilitates the slow moving of plates.
The fact that Venus has a 96% CO2 atmosphere is because at 400C at surface carbonate rocks like Magnesium and Calcium carbonates cannot exist and dissociate into the metal oxide and CO2. If on Earth the surface rocks, the lot, would be heated to a similar temperature also our atmosphere would exist of mostly CO2 and a bit of nitrogen on the side.
That may be the other reason for this worthless pile of model output. They may be trying to resurrect the ‘runaway greenhouse effect on Venus’ idea that should have been dead and buried years ago. Earth and Venus are different planets, you can’t get there from here.
Venus has an atmosphere that is 95% CO2 and it’s hot enough to melt lead, and Mars has an atmosphere that is 95% CO2 and it’s so cold on Mars that it snows dry ice. Earth has an atmosphere that is 0.04% CO2 and it’s …..
Venus has about 90 x as much atmosphere as Earth, and a convective “troposphere” that is many times thicker than Earth’s measly 12 Km. So lapse rate over the convective zone is hundreds of degrees warmer down to surface from its radiative altitude, not a few dozen degrees like Earth’s.
And it’s closer to the sun and Mars is farther away from the sun. You point out why it’s so hot on Venus, our good friends on the left have pointed to CO2. I point out that CO2 doesn’t have much to do with it, as do you. Thanks for your reply.
Earth has clearly hit the Goldilocks lottery when it comes to atmospheres and CO2.
Someone wrote a book. I think it was called something along the lines of, “Earth. The Goldilocks Planet”.
I believe being “hit” by a large object to spilt off Earth’s moon and probably inducing Earth’s high spin made the difference for Earth.
The lack of spin has to be a major factor in Venus reaching such high temperatures. The surface does not get much sunlight but over 110 days or so of faint sunlight the surface still gets quite hot. That causes mainly super-rotation of the atmosphere. It goes around in 4 days compared to the surface taking 225 Earth days.
The fast speed of the air mass helps distribute heat to the dark side but there is still quite a difference in atmospheric conditions for dark to lit.
All the inner planets were likely formed from the accretion of similar stellar particles with similar level of volatiles. But water was able to condense on Earth to form oceans as the volatiles gradually outgassed from the mantle. Surface water created the conditions for existing life that locked away most of the CO2 and Nitrogen so water became the dominant volatile but exists over the surface as liquid..
However it happened, it is not too hot and not too cold (at least in most places) and is just about perfect, at least to allow humans and our other travelers to adapt and live.
Earth’s spin is not that high, it’s virtually identical to Mar’s and slower than all of the outer planets.
https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/days/en/
“Earth’s spin is not that high . . . .”
It was in the past. Assuming the Moon formed just outside the Roche limit, the Earth’s rotation would have been about 18 hours. Tidal effects pushed the Moon away which slows the Earth’s rotation–angular momentum is conserved.
At 18 hours, it’s still slower than almost all of the outer planets. Jupiter’s is about 12 hours.
I was thinking that it was 10 hours, but you made me look. We actually don’t know what the original preferred rotation speeds were. Mercury is tidally locked with the Sun in a 2:3 ratio. There’s a huge crater on Mars named the Hellas Basin. Is it a meteor crater? Did the impact change the rotation of Mars? And how do you know that Venus was hit by a large body in the past? The surface of Venus is only about 300 million years old and doesn’t show any such major impact sites..
Earth, Venus and Mars had similar atmospheres when they were young.
If I remember correctly, Venus has about 4 times Earth’s amount of nitrogen. If the collision theory that created the moon is correct, it’s likely that Earth lost 3/4 of its primordial atmosphere in the collision.
The collision (I personally think it’s likely because it explains a lot) also means that modeling Earth and Venus as equally likely to have plate tectonics is idiotic.
Venus also had a very big collision sometime in its past, its why Venus’s spin is so slow. The collision was steep enough that the Earth was able to capture much of the debris, some formed the moon, some made our core larger.
Venus’s collision was at a shallower angle and almost all of the debris escaped.
Richard,
Are you sure!? I think Brandon and Kamala are considering building a high speed maglev rail that runs to the Moon, with only a transfer required to reach Venus!
Congresswoman AOC has a “better” idea than “Brandon” and Kamala–send spaceships to study the sun, but only at night so they don’t burn up! Apparently “genius” AOC hasn’t figured out yet that at night wherever she is, the sun still shines on the other side of the earth!
She thinks you’re silly for thinking something as big as the sun could move fast enough to get to the other side of the Earth in just twelve hours.
I would consider a high speed maglev that went to earth orbit, but maybe not as far as the moon, either of them.
“The authors posit that plate tectonics were a prerequisite for life.
This is an hypothesis for which there is no evidence.”
____________________________________________________
Stating the obvious is always good policy.
Why is “I Feel the Earth Move Under My Feet” a prerequisite to “Stayin’ Alive”?
Ed,
I have an alternative hypothesis. I propose that in the primordial soup that were the early oceans of our planet, a chance occurrence of chemicals met with a bolt of lightning from the skies and, voila, the first molecule of caffeine was created! Nanoseconds later Life formed, and has been engaged in its pursuit ever since!
One might theorize that the dinosaurs were wiped out from excess caffeine consumption, followed by the dearth of any sources after the event off the Yucatán Peninsula. Going “cold turkey” would be devastating; I saw ‘Jurassic Park,” those velociraptors were definitely caffeine freaks, and probably sugar, too!
With adequate funding I intend to build a computer model that proves, oops, I meant ‘tests’ my hypothesis! Send all monies to Abolition Man, care of WUWT!
no no no, you are wrong, my theory is that tomato plants induce tectonic movement due its magnetic field involved in tomato growing system, that is very difficult to find , but it is there, the proof of that is the total absence of tomato plants in venus,so if we assure tomato production we will be safe.
So it was the killer tomatoes that did in the dinosaurs. It seems logical. I’m sure a model will
provedemonstrate it correct.But of course the obvious fundamental flaw in your hypothesis is your reliance on the assertion that caffeine can be a derivative of soup.
Whereas it is universally observed that soup can only be transformed by natural processes into methane and solid & liquid forms of faeces.
I’ve got a vague memory of a sci fi book, can’t remember the name. One concept, as part of the overall storyline, was that plate tectonics was not necessary for life alone, but it was necessary for competitive life (and competitive society).
Non-plate tectonic planets evolved an intelligence that worked together and that could not functionally risk their individual lives; and there were very few earthlike planets in the galaxy. In the great ongoing galactic war, earthlings were recruited because of their ability to compete and give their life for the greater effort without paralyzing fear.
Now that the authors of this Brown university paper have asked/answered questions about the certainties of biological evolution as associated with plate tectonics, the social scientists can (and should) now move forward to model the social aspects of living/evolving on a world with plate tectonics. As a result, when the great galactic conflict reaches us, here on the outskirts, we will know how to respond in the most socially responsible way.
References to the subject paper (in the new social science papers) can provide academic plaudits to the original authors (and Duane can give them all a positive review). Except he will need to question why other non plate tectonic societies even exist, and why they are coming around here, and whether or not the original paper has any real meaning.
If anybody wants to label the above as a theory, and study it, you are welcome. I don’t need any credit.
The Damned Trilogy by Alan Dean Foster
A Call to Arms
The False Mirror
The Spoils of War
So. A team of enthusiastic but not terribly bright researchers studied Venus, couldn’t understand the atmospheric dynamic so just made stuff up that never happened to fill in the bits that they were not bright enough to comprehend.
And this is what the modern ‘scientific method’ looks like in action? If you don’t understand it guys, go back and study harder, learn more, don’t just make stuff up in order to get your names on another worthless paper.
That’s not how academia works.
If you need more time to understand something and so don’t publish.. you are bundled out of academia.
It’s publish something (anything) and keep researching or only publish sound science and thus never publish anything.
There is a reason that scientific progress has slowed. There is a reason we have a replication crisis.
Thee is a reason why China has overtaken the West in numbers of patents.
They can/could publish in bits and pieces … the stuff that they do understand.
But, they don’t. They are afraid that they would be told they are wrong about the bits and pieces. Or they will be told that their bits & pieces are too redundant, and they really haven’t done anything new.
So, they published science fiction as a big picture scenario.
They called it science, simply because they used a computer.
Was up this so-called model ever verified against something real? Something like Earth.
Science Fiction all the way down. Circular reasoning and confirmation bias personified.
The moment you read…
“”study suggests…””
you know it’s bolleaux
If you really want to know build a Time Machine.
Just build a model of a time machine and claim that it models real time travel, then run your other models through it to get confirmation.
That’s how it works now, right?
These enthusiasts are not that bright. Their idea of a time machine is a wristwatch.
“That’s going to be the next critical step in understanding Venus, its evolution and ultimately the fate of the Earth,” Weller said. “What conditions will force us to move in a Venus-like trajectory, and what conditions could allow the Earth to remain habitable?”
Have they discovered if Venus has junk ICE vehicles scattered about the remains of coal-fired power houses?
I read the Mad Magazine story “Captain Tvideo.” It appears that dirty, un-American Venusians are taking over the bodies of TV actors and eating cigarettes.
I remember to have seen a docu on TV about Venus possible tectonic activities I did a little “research” and found, that the comparision of radar pictures of different dates seem to have shown an existing plate tectonic.
Turns out, Venus (almost) has tectonic plates
and
Scientists might have spotted tectonic activity inside Venus
Venus’ Surface Tectonics is More Like Pack ice on Earth
Btw, earlier speculations started in the 90ies with several publications.
That may be true but ‘almost had’, ‘might have had’, ‘maybe’, ‘possibly’,’could have’ are still not definite. Speculation is all very well but it gets you nowhere without some facts to nail down the edges.
Computer modeling of today reminds me of alchemy in our distant past. It may one day rise to the level of a science just like alchemy rose to chemistry, but right now it is little more than mythology and philosophy.
Chicken entrails! Modern scientific modeling is akin to oracles of old using chicken guts for their divinations! Look at the climate scientists; they’re predominantly chickens, lacking guts!
In areas that are well understood, models are great.
Electronics companies model hundreds of circuits before they decide to prototype the most promising ones.
Auto and aerospace companies model planes and cars before they build their first prototype.
In all cases, nobody goes directly from model to production, they all know that while useful, no model is perfect.
Even in areas that aren’t well understood, models can help you figure out what it is you don’t know.
You put your current best understanding into a model, run the model, then try to determine why the model differed from reality.
You can either go gather some data, or you can come up with a theory then put your theory into the model. If your theory doesn’t help the model be closer to reality, dump it. If it does make the model better, then go out into the real world to see if you can find some data to support your theory.
As long as you know the limits of the models, and only use the models within those limits, models can be very useful.
but this is not the case anyway,I can build a model that shows whatever I want to show if I put the corrrect algorithms in it, and previolusly to build a model I have to know some just proved theories in it , not suppositions
The thing about Engineering models, is that they have been verified against reality many times. Then any errors have been sorted and the program run again, and checked. The difference with “scientific” (weather, climate, venus, Covid, whatever) is that they have not been verified with reality. Take the Covid or climate models, (the worst rubbish ever seen) are the designers working on them to match reality? I don’t think so, they have the money and nothing else matters. I would be happy to go from an electronics model to production, I have enough knowledge and experience to do that, and semiconductor manufacturers (IBM for example) do just that, if the model doesn’t work the product is useless. They very rarely are.
Hagel (and his understudy, Marx) was a big fan of alchemy. He believed alchemy is the only way for society to move forward. That would include science. Oh, and science he considered to be basically a mundane type of knowledge. There is “higher knowledge” to be had. Blame Hagel for all of it.
There are a considerable number of living things that deserve to be properly studied in our world but has received little or no attention. Some of these will produce meaningful and useful insights but Venus – not so much. 🙁
Although this modeling may or may not be accurate, it would take a time machine to test it. It is my understanding that Venus’s crust undergoes catastrophic melting periodically and that the crust present now s only a few hundreds of million years old. So any evidence to support this theory will be long gone. Even rigorous sampling from a Venus cloud city colony could not prove it one way or another.
of course, there are inffinity pass to get to the actual situation, so a modelisjust one of them if it it accurate, and this is under discussion
“. . . if it it accurate . . . .”
Yes, that would be something alright. Just how would you show that? They can’t show if their climate models are accurate.
See my comment above. Compare to reality, then…
As a EE, I’m aware of models. We EE’s are lucky because our differential equations are linear, so we can apply linear techniques. However, our electrical models are approximate. Ohm’s law for a resistor is v = i*R. The Laplace transform is just R. However, we know that this “model” doesn’t apply in all cases. Real resistors have wattage limits and tolerances. They also don’t behave as simple resistors at high frequencies. The equivalent network for a typical resistor at high frequencies is a complex circuit with multiple inductors, capacitors, and resistors.
There’s a quote by George Box. He said all models are wrong, but some models are useful.
I wish I had access to SPICE as a EE student.
“The researchers say the details of how this happened may hold important implications for Earth.”
No.
What happens on Venus stays on Venus.
It drives me absolutely nuts when people who consider themselves scientists seem to always start with the assumption that all planets were destined to be Earth-like until something “went wrong.” Venus is just exactly the way Venus ought to be. It had no predetermined destiny. How do we know that Earth shouldn’t have been more like Saturn until the soufflé collapsed and it became rocky and wet?
Because of where they formed, Earth, Venus and Mars started out with pretty much the same recipe of stuff.
According to theory, they all should have been close to the same size, yet Mars ended up being smaller.
Question 1, why did Mars end up smaller. Is the theory wrong, or is there something missing from the theory?
The Grand Tack theory explains why Mars ended up smaller. Now, can we find data to support the Grand Tack model.
Earth and Venus should have started out very similar, but ended up very different. Why?
Is the theory about how planets formed wrong? Is it something else?
One difference that has been noted, is that Venus has a smaller core than the Earth does.
Why?
One explanation for this is the Theia model, which postulates that a Mars sized object collided with the Earth billions of years ago. Much of Theia’s crust and part of the Earth’s crust was knocked off by the collision and formed the Moon. Theia’s core was captured by the Earth and joined the Earth’s core.
Another difference is that Venus has a very slow rate of rotation.
A smaller core combine should mean less energy available for tectonics. Smaller cores also cool faster. A smaller core combined with slower rate of rotation means a weaker magnetic field. This means that the Sun’s influence on Venus’ atmosphere will be different from the Earth’s.
It’s not that they assume that all planets should end up Earth like, it’s just that they are surprised that two planets that started out so similar, would end up so different.
I would simply point out that if a theory says something should be a certain way, but that something is not that way, then obviously there is something wrong with the theory. I’m no Richard Feynman but, I have a problem with scientists that say something “should be” anything. Things are the way they are, and the surprise is in discovering that scientists don’t know nearly as much as they think they know.
Sometimes your theory is wrong, sometimes it is just missing something.
The theory regarding how big the inner planets should be, was missing a Jupiter plowing it’s way into the inner solar system and throwing Mars’ lunch all over the solar system, only to be pulled back out by Saturn.
but it is usefull to bring terror to believers of CO2 and greenhouse gases hoax
Especially in connection with “runaway” doom scenarios and “tipping points”.
I don’t understand Anthony’s criticism here. When it comes to astrophysics, hard measurable data are very hard to come by. So astrophysicists have to rely upon computer modeling to try and make sense of what is measured. There is nothing wrong with that.
There is a strong tendency of WUWT writers and readers to dismiss all modeling as somehow fake or BS. What such people fail to recognize is that all science and engineering, valid and otherwise, is always based upon models. Mathematics is models. Virtually all engineering is models. One cannot design anything without a model. Even the earliest architects, builders, shipwrights, and inventors going back to antiquity built models, either physical models, or mathematical models, prior to building physical structures or inventions.
One cannot build a building without models. One cannot build a computer without models. One cannot build an automobile, or a refrigerator, or a TV, or a can opener without models, either physical or mathematical. All engineering and architectural drawings and specifications are in fact models of the real world. All scientific knowledge is built upon the use of models to explain and understand the physical world. After all, one cannot “see” an atom, let alone its component parts. One cannot describe how living matter functions without models.
The problem with models in so-called “climate science” is that the models are all too often used to attempt to prove and promote an existing theory.
The difference between a theory and a theorem is The theory can be defined based on a pattern or events, which cannot be demonstrated through an axiom or statements; however, the theorem is a proposition of an event that can be demonstrated. Theories are not rendered false simply because they cannot be demonstrated, as that is what a theory is. But there are theorems that have been demonstrated, and generally all theorems must begin with a theory.
The ridicule in this case is the assumptions and conclusions being drawn.
As a professional architectural model builder I can tell you that there is a difference between what gets modeled and what gets built. It needs to be understood that a model of any kind only takes you so far. It just doesn’t have the level of detail that the real thing has and is an idealized version of reality. I’m sure even the Titanic was modeled to be “unsinkable.”
The builders of the Titanic never called it unsinkable. It was reporters who gave it that moniker.
From Encyclopedia Brittanica- “The idea that the ship was unsinkable was advanced by newspaper and magazine articles as well as by advertisement materials from the shipping company.”
A good scientist will form a hypothesis from facts alone with maybe one testable assumption. This paper is nothing but assumptions, it’s built like a house of cards out of pure speculation and assumptions. It’s not science, it’s fiction.
I dont need a model to build my house, only a meter, and some knowledge of geometry and math. , to add and to rest opeartions are not models,how egipcians built their pyramids wihout computers tu run ther supposed models? it is nonsesical what you affirm
You may not need a model, but architects do. The Egyptians also built several pyramids that failed, before they finally got the form right.
Duane – For ‘theory’ and ‘theorem’, try ‘hypothesis’ and ‘theory’. I’m perfectly comfortable with someone hypothesising that Venus had plate tectonics in the past and trying to model it (yes it was that way round). In a way, it shouldn’t be all that controversial, because we should have learned to be a bit more cautious with criticism after the intense criticism of the continental drift hypothesis on Earth. Not to mention intense criticisms of other hypotheses that later turned out to be correct. Maybe their case is overstated, eg. using the word ‘evidence’ to describe their modelling and tying it into the existence of life, but not I think by much. Try comparing it with the Big Bang hypothesis, and I suggest that it is in similar territory. Like the Big Bang, I will regard it as an interesting but as yet unproven hypothesis. One of the nice things about Big Bang is that it has the potential to overturn the second law of thermodynamics as currently written. Maybe this Venus hypothesis will lead somewhere too. Let’s wait and see.
Hmm. This exercise MIGHT qualify as a theorem. A theorem has: 1) fully defined predicates; 2) a mathematical relationship between the predicates and the result; and 3) a proof that, given the predicates, this mathematical relationship ALWAYS holds, producing the same result every time.
So – if their predicates are fully defined (the early state of Venus), their mathematical relationship (the model) is complete, AND given the beginning state and the model, the current state ALWAYS results – they have a theorem (albeit rather complex).
However, a theorem does not need to have ANY relationship to reality. The theorem of Pythagoras, that is proven for any planar surface, requires major modifications for a sphere. Airlines would lose BILLIONS in fuel costs if they were foolish enough to plan routes based on “c squared is equal to a squared plus b squared.”
One of the major differences between mathematics and science is that in mathematics, the domain of discourse is defined. We don’t have that obvious benefit in science. We have no idea what the actual domain of discourse is, but we are trying to discover what it is.
“. . . the current state ALWAYS results . . .”
Ahhh yes, the one example that always results in the same state.
Actually, what I suggested was not using ‘theorem’ at all.
Oh, completely agree. Mathematics and science are two entirely separate disciplines. As noted by Jim above – there is no such thing as a theorem in science. (Even the predicates are not fully defined.)
That is why a majority of modeling is not science – it is mathematics. Which, in the case of climate modeling, is mathematics based on predicates that do not exist in the real world.
“But there are theorems that have been demonstrated, and generally all theorems must begin with a theory.”
No. All theorems began as conjectures. They were then proven correct. You are mixing mathematical terms with scientific terms. All theories begin with a hypothesis. If sufficient evidence is available, and there is no evidence that disproves it–it might become a theory.
Which theory can be debunked at any time. Such as the explanation of Mercury’s peculiar orbit by the theory of a planet (Vulcan) between the Sun and Mercury. The evidence was clear – the Newtonian Theory of Gravitation had even more evidence going for it, and applying it “proved” that there must be another, not yet discovered, body influencing the orbit.
It isn’t modeling that is being criticized, it is the issue of treating the output of models that have not been validated as if that output was the same as objective observations. That is not a valid scientific practice. A model is only a hypothesis and should be presented as such.
I’m going to have to dig out my favorite T-shirt from my university days; the one that shows a globe with an humongous spike through North America, and states “Help stop plate tectonics!”
It should be great fun to link Climate Catastrophism to the motions of our continental plates, and then watch the True Believers squirm with anxiety while they consider how to stop the process!
Thanks, Anthony! This Climate Science Fiction stuff is really amusing!
Modeling Gone Wild?
That could only happen if a pack of lies, accompanied with scare-mongering, were believed/heeded by people. If they knew the truth, and if the views of real scientists, part of the 3%, were heeded none of that would happen.
CO2 IS A LIFE GAS; NO CO2 = NO FLORA AND NO FAUNA
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/co2-is-a-life-gas-no-co2-no-life
EXCERPT
The below image shows various carbon flows (Pg/y, in red) and carbon storages (Pg, in blue)
1 Pg = 10^15 gram = 1 billion metric ton
1 Metric ton = 10^6 gram
Storages
Atmosphere 750 Pg; is increasing by about 2 – 3 ppm/y, due to various inflows and outflows
Surface ocean 725 Pg
Intermediate and deep ocean 37,275 Pg
Plants 560 Pg
Soils 500 Pg
Earth crust 10^8 Pg
Fossil fuels 5,000 to 10,000 Pg
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Henry’s Law of Partial Pressures
Henry’s Law is one of the gas laws. It was formulated by a British chemist, William Henry, in 1803. It states that the solubility of a gas in contact with a liquid surface, such as the ocean, is proportional to the partial pressure of the gas.
The practical consequence of Henry’s Law is the maintenance of a constant ratio between the amount of CO2 in the oceans to that in the atmosphere for a given temperature. This ratio is about 50/1.
Therefore, the consumption of all the planet’s reserves of coal, oil, and gas (5,000 to 10,000 Pg) will result in about 100 to 200 gigaton of C of the CO2 being added to the atmosphere, an increase of 13% to 26%, over a period of about 75 to 100 years. The remainder will be absorbed by the oceans.
http://watsongallery.ca/ClimateReality/CR/Presentations/2016.07.10.IMPOSSIBLE-TO-DOUBLE-CO2.pdf
.
I tried to attach image, but was not successful
There is no evidence that it ever was not hot. It likely didn’t cool. The density of the atmosphere makes it hot and there no evidence of atmospheric changes.
But if you are one of the vast array of scientist looking for a meal, how could you not ignore the obvious and push for a generational effort to actually find out if it every had solid land. A pay check for the rest of your life is a good incentive and all think of all your fellow struggling scientists who would be employed by such a generational effort.
The incentives give the result.
“That’s going to be the next critical step in understanding Venus, its evolution and ultimately the fate of the Earth,” Weller said. “What conditions will force us to move in a Venus-like trajectory, and what conditions could allow the Earth to remain habitable?”
To quote from South Park: “Remember, there are no stupid questions. Only stupid people”.
The Sun is slowly getting warmer, several billion years from the now, there’s a good chance that the Earth could start looking like Venus.
I’m not going to lose sleep over it. If by some chance the Earth is still populated by intelligent beings, then they can use technology that is billions of years more advanced than what we have to move the planet. If they want to.
Or chaos has and may move it for us.
Have we though about sending hundreds of scientists (climate, the ones in the paper) to Venus just to test their hypothesis and models?
The “consensus” (there’s that word again) among WUWT readers seems to be there is no value in these models. I disagree. Models, even incorrect models, can aid in learning how things work or don’t work.
I do agree that models do not create “evidence.” Models do not output facts, data, or evidence.
But a lot of people are certain the models output are facts and even base their policy on that belief.
And if you look deeper in climate models, you may recognise they are BS resp. not to far away of that description.
If a bunch of people were convinced that hammers were a good method for driving screws, would that mean that hammers are of no value?
In that case screwdriver will be of no value 😀
Nonsense. A screwdriver can always be used as a chisel.
As an exercise in trying to understand how the climate works, some of the models are are useful. But many, if not most, of the models appear to be corrupted to show human greenhouse gas emissions are causing climate change. This makes them useless except as a political tool.
A proper model attempts to show how the climate system works. The researchers input their data, run the models and then compare output with real-world measurements. Then the modelers try to discover why the output doesn’t match measurements and they update the model. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Then the modelers try to discover why the output doesn’t match measurements and they update the model
Unfortunately they don’t follow your simple model.
Further:
Models, even incorrect models, can aid in learning how things work or don’t work.
Climate science modellers are not aware of that conclusion 😀
That is a problem with the so called climate scientists, not models.
Models can be fairly useful, if used correctly – testing out a single assumption when the other facts or mechanisms are known can be useful. However this model has so many assumptions and speculation with very little fact that it is completely useless. It tells us nothing.
The article mentions several similarities between earth and venus, but ignores a big one–some 27million miles. Proximity to old sol is the obvious reason for different geologic history and development.
Proximity to the Sun will make a big difference in how the atmosphere evolves, it won’t have much impact on how the geology evolves.
well , if you are only looking for details……………
The other big difference is the Venusian day being longer the Venusian year. Venus also has an axial tilt approximately 1/10 that of earth, therefore there are no seasons, if applied to earth wouldn’t we all experience tropical conditions with no icecaps?
This with the slow retrograde rotation would mean that every point on the surface would have an extended period of exposure to solar radiation.
I don’t know of any scientists who have ever said something that stupid.
There are a number of ways in which a planet with tectonics can lose it.
The two biggies are the core cooling and loss of water in the crust.
You can see exactly where this is heading, can’t you? Their next effort will probably contain dire warnings about what we need to do to avoid global
warmingheatingboilingburningincineration.This sort of quote (no doubt after heavy prompting from the Eurekalert writer or news release author) helps to reveal their underlying agenda.
BTW the assertion that 400C makes life impossible seems a bit feeble when you look at life in deep ocean hydrothermal vents, where crabs and shrimps (that don’t look much different from their shallow-water cousins) thrive in supercritical water loaded with heavy metals, sulphur and arsenic. Fifty years ago (before vents were discovered) that would have been scorned as science fiction. Or the bacteria living in cracks in rock a kilometre below the surface of the Canadian Shield. Life is a lot more robust and adaptable than we tend to give it credit for.
And also the assertion that plate tectonics is essential for life is exactly that – an unsupported assertion.
May not be a lot of them willing to be vocal, but you have to admire the courage of those that are:
Manufactured Climate Consensus Deemed False By Climate Scientist – ‘The Time For Debate Has Ended’ (msn.com)
I love the picture of the smokestacks in the second slide. We all know greenhouse gases are colorless. But see, something is coming out of the smokestack! We must be polluting! Oh wait, pollutants aren’t greenhouse gases. Nevermind, said nobody ever.
The “pollutant” in the photo is almost certainly water vapor. It is coming from the cooling towers, not the smokestacks.
So most definitely a ‘greenhouse gas”.