Since late 2023, I have been posting a link to a time-lapse video about Energy Conversion in the Atmosphere:
[kinetic energy]–>[internal energy + potential energy] (positive values in W/m^2)
[internal energy + potential energy]–>[kinetic energy] (negative values in W/m^2)
This post is a follow-up to that video, a link to which I will paste in a reply.
Here is a new link to a Google Drive folder where I have placed an updated Readme file and 8 new histograms of the “vertical integral of energy conversion” hourly parameter from the ERA5 reanalysis model for 2022. The plots are for latitudes 10N/S, 23.5N/S, 45N/S, and 66.5N/S. At each latitude there are 1440 longitude gridpoints x 8760 hours = 12,614,400 values.
I conclude that energy conversion in the general circulation massively overwhelms any tendency for the computed incremental static radiative effect of rising concentrations of CO2, CH4, N2O, etc. to drive sensible heat gain on land, in the oceans, and in the atmosphere itself. I hope these new histograms help readers here appreciate the dynamic power of the general circulation to dispose of the energy involved in the so-called “forcings.” The influence on the end result is vanishingly weak, negligible, and undetectable. It cannot be otherwise and make any sense at all of the physics of compressible fluid motion on which the models are based.
This is the time-lapse video of the ERA5 “vertical integral of energy conversion” at latitude 45N for all of 2022. You have likely seen this before, but I am posting it here again for handy reference.
So, David, let me get this straight, the 4 watts due to doubling of CO2, if that 400 ppm increase were to occur over the next say 150 years, is the energy equivalent of putting a small laptop computer cooling fan rated at 4 watts…at the bottom of a column of air 1 meter square by 10 km tall weighing 10 tonnes and expecting it would somehow upset the existing convective and advective motion of the atmosphere. So technically a small finite amplitude, commonly referred to as SFA.
It’s good Henry. If only politicians would avail themselves to speaking to people who can do such calcs instead of consulting their science departments who tell them diseases are moving North because of CC…floods…droughts…govt control imperative before it’s too late…..yada yada…go trough snorkeling team go…
You mention you did some line by line IR work, I think it would be worth a paragraph on what you calculated, I assume with Modtran…I calc less than 1 degree surface temp “offset” at fixed RH for a doubling of CO2 in clear sky ( the hottest surface temp case)…giving us about 150 years to convert half of present emissions to nuclear, biofuels, solar and improve batteries…the other half being absorbed into the ocean anyway.
Ahhh, evil FORTRAN. A few of us who are software engineers prefer OOP languages. My favorite is JAVA, because it is very SmallTalk-like. They have convoluted FORTRAN from its original format into something that only Dr. Frankenstein would recognize.
I used to get into arguments about the precision of floating point verses fixed point calculations. Floating point is more sparse, but it seems to be the preferred method of choice.
Sometimes one needs to look at the effect of differences, not just absolute values.
Trenberth-type calculations of Earth’s power flux (W/m^2) balance, assuming a quasi-steady-state condition and that such can be calculated to such accuracy, currently show something like 1 +/- 1 W/m^2 excess of outgoing radiation versus the time- and surface-averaged incoming solar radiation of about 341 W/m^2 at TOA.
With this perspective, a hypothetical increase of 4 W/m^2 would represent a quadrupling of excess outgoing LWIR from Earth associated with claimed ECS, assuming no other offsetting or feedback effects.
So much for a “SFA” when considering the currently-well-balanced situation.
1 watt isn’t even within the accuracy capability of most of the measurement equipment, pyrgeometers, pyranometers, and so on, not to mention varying readings with cloud cover over 15 minutes making integration over the year a bit like calculating the number of worms in your garden from random shovelfuls… Even the solar constant was once evaluated by the best available instrumentation to be 1366 W/m^2 and is now 1361 W/m^2, a change of 5 times Trenberth’s number over his climate scientist career. BTW, I am a fan of Trenberth’s contribution to our understanding of the radiation budget.
Again, thank you, David, for insisting that the discussion about “climate” must be focused on energy and its transport in, out, and around the Earth. I wholeheartedly agree with your conclusion that “ energy conversion in the general circulation massively overwhelms” any slight increase in GHG contribution.
For clarity’s sake, am I correct in assuming that your term “internal energy” includes latent water-vapor energy as well as heat (temperature) and actual kinetic energy – surface velocity (depending on latitude) plus the vector of wind velocity relative to the surface. This makes the KE at various latitudes devilishly difficult to “average”, as the winds are constantly changing altitude, latitude and direction. Surface speed is a COSINE function, as you know, so, for example, the surface speed at 45 lat., while 0.7 of the equator’s speed is only half the KE.
Thank you for your reply. “For clarity’s sake, am I correct in assuming that your term “internal energy” includes latent water-vapor energy as well as heat (temperature) and actual kinetic energy – surface velocity (depending on latitude) plus the vector of wind velocity relative to the surface.”
No, that is not correct. “Internal energy” is not my term. I am using “internal energy” as the ECMWF defines it within ERA5 and as Lorenz uses it per the reference links and quotes I gave. It does not include the latent energy of water vapor. Kinetic energy (i.e. the kinetic energy of bulk motion) is separate, again as ECMWF and Lorenz handle it. And please understand that the surface coordinate system is the fixed frame of reference for computation of the horizontal component of velocity of any element of the atmosphere in the ERA5 model, and thus for computing the kinetic energy of that element. And because kinetic energy is not a vector, the vertical integral of all the layers in the model is such that variable wind direction with altitude does not matter to the sum of the kinetic energy values of the layers. I hope this helps.
Thanks for the clarification. I had a vain hope that you had recognized the complexity of the problem of energy transport across the surface of the actual, rotating, Earth. Alas, it was not to be. The “fixed frame of reference” for calculating KE is suitable only for a stationary body, and the Earth is not stationary.
Let’s take a simple example. Consider a volume of air at the surface on the equator. As it absorbs energy, it becomes warmer and more humid (Evaporation, by the way, an isothermal process, is orders of magnitude more important to energy transport than mere temperature change.) and begins to rise. In rising it converts both thermal and kinetic energy to potential energy. It no longer has sufficient velocity (a vector) to remain above the original spot on the surface, therefore it drifts to the West. Measured from the original (rotating) spot it has gained both potential and kinetic energy. Not so! It has lost some of its original speed (~1000 mph) and thus corresponding KE. The remaining KE will show up as this volume of humid air moves latitudinally to areas of lower surface rotational speed. How this excess energy shows up in connection with the enormous energy discharge of condensation and precipitation, I’ll leave as an exercise for the meteorologists.
Sir, please understand that the question here is mainly about the choice of a rotating reference frame vs. an inertial frame. It’s not that I don’t understand your points, which arise from motion in an inertial frame of reference. I am simply using the terms and conventions that have been chosen for meteorology and modeling of the general circulation. I hope you don’t remain stuck.
“An Earth-attached and thus rotating reference frame is almost always used for the analysis of the atmosphere and ocean. The equation of motion transformed into a general rotating frame includes two terms that involve the rotation rate — a centrifugal term and a Coriolis term.”
And about mass and energy transport and the complexity of it all, sure. That is why I use the outputs of the ERA5 reanalysis model, as the complexities have been handled way before I got curious enough to examine those outputs.
If you could cast your mind back to 18th May 1700 you would realise it is quite a bit warmer the same day of the year in 2025. The reason being that you are 183,000km closer to the Sun than back in 1700.
Climate models are blind to this reality because they are based on energy accumulation rather than solar power.
My solar panel at 37S gets higher solar peak power flux than any solar panel at 37N. So my solar panels have higher peak output than the same unit located at 37N. The peak power output is directly related to the peak solar power. Likewise the peak temperature of any body is directly related to the peak solar power; usually with some time lag due to thermal inertia.
So if your temperature records in the NH are showing an increase in temperature, you need look no further than Earth’s orbit.
Sorry, Rick, but as far as I can tell this isn’t true.
Regards,
w.
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No primary source exists supporting the claim that on 18 May 2025, Earth is 183,000 km closer to the Sun than it was on 18 May 1700, nor that this would result in a significantly warmer day for this reason.
Direct empirical data from astronomical ephemerides show that the variation in Earth’s distance from the Sun due to orbital changes (including precession and orbital eccentricity) over centuries is much smaller than 183,000 km. The maximum range in perihelion and aphelion distances due to natural orbital variations over centuries is on the order of 20,000–30,000 km, not hundreds of thousands of kilometers [1] [6] [2]. On 18 May 2025, the Sun-Earth distance is approximately 151,320,000 km [3]. There is no evidence that the distance on 18 May 1700 differed by 183,000 km from this value; such a large change would require a dramatic and unobserved shift in Earth’s orbit.
Furthermore, the annual variation in Earth’s distance from the Sun due to the elliptical orbit is about 5 million km (from perihelion to aphelion), which corresponds to a ~3.4% change in distance and about a 7% change in solar irradiance [5] [9]. However, the difference in Earth’s distance from the Sun on the same calendar date across centuries is negligible compared to these values and is not sufficient to cause a significant temperature difference.
Climate and temperature differences between specific years (such as 1700 and 2025) are primarily due to atmospheric composition, solar activity, volcanic eruptions, and other factors, not changes in Earth’s distance from the Sun on the same date [10] [4] [8].
No primary source exists supporting the claim that Earth is 183,000 km closer to the Sun on 18 May 2025 than on 18 May 1700, nor that this would cause a significant temperature difference. The claim is not supported by direct astronomical or climatological evidence.
No apology necessary. The data comes directly from NASA JPL using the Horizons app. If it it is wrong then you should take it up with JPL not me.
Distance in AU 18 May 1700 1.1273447051427
Distance 18 May 1.01151143626832
Difference 0.00122303
1AU is 149597870
So distance in km 182,963km
You will probably find the Astripixels distances you are using are with respect to the barycentre rather than the Sun. It is a common error that people make in assuming the Sun does not move in the solar system..
Sometimes the Sun does not even orbit the barycentre. It takes a short cut. The Sun also moves in the Z direction relative to the elliptic plane. That is important because it shifts the declination relative to Earth, which impacts on latitudinal sunlight from year-to-year.
Let’s estimate this. The earth’s orbit is, as a first order approximation, a constant distance (about 150 million km) plus a cosine function with an amplitude of about 2.5 million km, and a date of closest approach on January 4, aphelion around July 4. So, with t in days from July 4. The rate of distance change in this model is a Sine function with amplitude . The maximum amplitude of the sine function, in this case of the rate of increasing distance, is close to the equinox, and the Sine function has a value of 1 at this maximum. Thus a linear approximation of the total distance change near the time of most rapid change is . Between 1700 and 2000, the orbit precessed by . Thus, is about 300,000 km.
Now the change in this case is going to be much less because May 18 is getting close to the peak of my hypothetical cosine function where change is not so rapid. However, AI is not so good with problems with an underlying mathematical basis, and perhaps RickWill’s estimate is pretty good?
Kevin
It was not my estimate, I simply used NASA JPL data from the Horizon app: https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons/app.html#/
18 May 2025 1.5130416660E+08
18 May 1700 1.5148877739E+08
But what you have done is much better than what Willis came up with.
The other imp[ortant fact from the perspective of the solar EMR at latitude is declination, which has an even more significant imp[act at higher latitudes. The ToA daily average sunlight at 60N is 1.75W/m^2 higher on 18 May 2025 than it was on 18 May 1700 purely due to orbital changes.
True. A lot goes into the calculation. What I also wanted to emphasize is that AI can do a very poor job with anything mathematical. It is a language processor. I learned this in writing my Energy Balance part I paper last autumn. AI had all sorts of trouble with units. Didn’t understand them, but could report to me in a way that I thought for a moment that AI did understand what it was doing.
Checking the references that AI supplies is important.
If Earth were 25% further from the Sun, the consequences for climate, habitability, and life would be dramatic and likely catastrophic.
Solar Energy and Temperature
The intensity of sunlight (solar flux) decreases with the square of the distance from the Sun. If Earth moved from 1 astronomical unit (AU) to 1.25 AU, the solar energy received would drop to about 64% of its current value ((1/1.25)2=0.64), meaning Earth would get 36% less solar energy.
This reduction would cause global temperatures to plummet. For comparison, Mars is about 1.52 AU from the Sun and receives about 43% of Earth’s solar energy, resulting in an average surface temperature of about -63°C (-81°F).
Climate Effects
A 36% drop in solar energy would likely push Earth out of the Sun’s “habitable zone,” the region where liquid water can exist on a planet’s surface.
The average global temperature would fall well below freezing, causing oceans to freeze over and ice sheets to expand toward the equator.
The colder temperatures would reduce evaporation, leading to less atmospheric water vapor and fewer clouds, further cooling the planet in a feedback loop.
The frozen oceans and increased ice would reflect more sunlight (higher albedo), compounding the cooling effect.
Impact on Life
Most current life forms, especially complex multicellular organisms, would not survive the extreme cold. Ecosystems would collapse as plants could not photosynthesize efficiently and food chains would break down.
Only extremophiles-microbes that can survive in very cold, low-light conditions-might persist, likely deep underground or near hydrothermal vents.
The biosphere as we know it would cease to exist; Earth would resemble a frozen, barren world more like Mars than present-day Earth.
Atmospheric Changes
With less warmth, atmospheric circulation would weaken. Weather patterns would become sluggish or nearly nonexistent.
The atmosphere might become thinner over time, as colder temperatures make it harder to retain gases, especially water vapor and carbon dioxide.
ConclusionIf Earth were 25% further from the Sun, it would receive much less solar energy, resulting in a frozen, inhospitable world where complex life could not survive. The planet would likely resemble a colder version of Mars, with frozen oceans, little to no precipitation, and only the hardiest microbes enduring the harsh conditions
strativarius
May 18, 2025 2:36 am
Et tu Brute?
Revealed: European ‘green’ investments hold billions in fossil fuel majors … despite fossil fuels being the root cause of the climate crisis. Some of these investment funds used branding such as Sustainable Global Stars and Europe Climate Pathway. … Paul Schreiber at Reclaim Finance said: “We need strict rules that ban investments in companies developing fossil fuels from any fund with an ESG-related description. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/may/18/revealed-european-green-investments-hold-billions-in-fossil-fuel-majors
As the man from BlackRock put it: “BlackRock’s funds are managed in accordance with their investment objectives, that are clearly disclosed in each fund’s prospectus and on BlackRock’s website.”
Surely, the investment objective is to make a return on that investment, not to throw it down the drain?
Frankly, I don’t understand how someone can use the words “climate crisis” with a straight face. They might as well wear a rosette for participation as a useful idiot.
In one , a water company promised that what came out of my tap would be 100% whisky.
On the offchance that it is not, they promise to offset the water by buying a certificate stating that a distillery in Scotland has made some whisky.
In the other leaflet, a power supply company promised that my electricity through the National Grid would be from 100% renewable sources.
Whisky on tap , while saving the planet at the same time.
CO2 evenly blankets the globe; in other words, CO2 concentration is a constant per location.
The quantum mechanics of the CO2 molecule doesn’t change per location, so the backradiation of CO2 evenly blankets the globe.
What has changed over time is the concentration of CO2 over time. The scientific challenge then becomes how to design a controlled experiment that isolates the impact of CO2 on temperatures. How do you tease out the effect of the Urban Heat Island, water vapor, and other exogenous factors?
In other words how do you design this experiment : Temperature = f(CO2) and not Temperature = f(CO2, Water Vapor, UHI, and other factors)
The solution is relatively simple. One simply needs to choose locations, mostly the dry hot and cold deserts, that are shielded from large swings in H2O and impacted by the UHI. When you do that, you see that the temperature doesn’t increase with an increase in CO2. The obvious reason for that is that CO2 shows a log decay in the backradiation with an increase in concentration, and the CO2 concentration and Backradiation function forms an asymptote, and at the current concentration, the slope is approaching 0.00 quickly.
In real science one needs to only find one example where the results don’t agree with the model to reject the null. The above link provides plenty of examples that defy the CO2 causes warming hypothesis.
Albert Einstein famously stated, “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.”
Cees Le Pair, a Dutch Physicist/Professor, wrote a paper some time ago in 2017.
He was aiming at a tutorial for freshmen TU Delft students in the Netherlands, because he thought that every major in physics and geology knew this.
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As the calculation required some knowledge of mathematics, he put that in an appendix and the particular one about 145 K is in paragraph B of that appendix: https://www.clepair.net/Appendix(KST-2).pdf
The whole tutorial, also in Dutch, https://www.clepair.net/temperatuurverevening-2.html.
It is simple like this: If the world were a ball body, the black sphere’s shadow would be is 0 K.
The sun influx on every point of the solar side depends on the angle between incident beam and surface at that point.
As with most such derivations….there is not enough discussion about Albedo….ocean being about .1 and clouds being .8…cloud cover over large parts of the planet varying from 0 to 100% depending on convective activity. Such discussion would make it clearer that it is clouds that control the surface temperature of the planet…with possibly better scientific effort expended on whether CO2 emissions affect that water vapor and hence cloud distribution or not.
While Fresnel’s equation is rarely taught in undergraduate courses, I’d be surprised if Happer et al. were unaware of it. One of the more interesting consequences of Fresnel’s equation is that as the angle of incidence approaches 90 degrees, the spectrum of the reflected light approaches the spectrum of the incident light as a limit.
Lambertian albedo is appropriate for clouds, although using a BRDF would probably be better. However, the essence of my article is that albedo is inappropriate for open water, especially at angles of incidence above about 60 degrees, and using the nadir (normal) reflectance only gives a lower-bound on the amount of energy reflected the water class.
45 years ago, Mt. St.Helens exploded. It was no surprise that it did, but the lateral blast surprised everyone and killed several.
Over on FaceBook, “USGS Volcanoes” has been posting daily news from exactly 45 years ago, it’s been an interesting read, see https://www.facebook.com/USGSVolcanoes if you tolerate FaceBook.
I prepared a comment for yesterday:
May 17th _was_ the last relatively halcyon day at Mt St. Helens for a while, so today _is_ a good day for this comment:
A long time ago when I was in my early teens I came across a daily spot on the local radio station that was a brief news summary from the Civil War – 100 years ago that day. I knew a little bit about that war and one thing I appreciated from the daily updates was the chronology behind the newsworthy events.
So I was delighted to discover that USGS was doing the same with MSH, though 45 years seems a bit of an odd interval. I suppose a lot of people who remember that year won’t be around for the 50th anniversary, I hope to be around the reruns. I’ve lived in New England since 1974, my main ties to the Cascade volcanoes come from a 2,700 mile solo bicycle tour from Palo Alto CA to Billings MT via Canada. I think I saw MSH, but I spent a couple of days in Seattle in very clear weather and saw Mt. Rainier as both awesome and a threat. (Awesome threat?)
I did keep tabs on MSH once it woke up, especially as the bulge formed and kept growing, and as Harry Truman refused to leave his home. The USGS review, and format, have been a wonderful read. The comments that have maintained the theme have been most welcome. The corrections about the date not so much – perhaps the Civil War stories had so many historic events that people weren’t confused then. Of course, they had no social media to display their confusion.
Thank you, USGS Volcanoes, for your idea to run this series. I’m pleased with how much I do remember. I appreciate the gaps you’ve filled and the behind the scenes notes about the scientists involved. I have two daughters, both are living in Seattle. I hope you won’t have reason to do a daily log of similar events at Rainier in real time for a while!
He loved the mountain.
Alas, it didn’t love him back.
“Nature wants you dead.”
— the first thing to remind someone who professes his great love of nature. https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/05/when_the_mountain_roared.html
P.S. the early Summer of ’80 was a horrible season across the northern USA, maybe Canada too, anywhere downwind of the Eruption. I drove solo from Ogden UT to upstate NY, mainly along the I-80, in late June, and after Cheyenee WY the sky just looked awful. Folks tense or angry, but that may have been the hated 55MPH speed-limit, strictly enforced.
Russian Demands for Peace in Ukraine are Draconian, but the Alternative for Kiev is Capitulation https://willempost.substack.com/p/russian-demands-for-peace-in-ukraine?r=1n3sit&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true
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Putin is winning the war, and his conditions fully reflect that fact.
The Corporate Media is filled with ‘leaks’ regarding the Russian demands for peace in Ukraine.
The Kremlin has responded by saying, the negotiations are being held behind closed doors, and therefore the Russian will not comment, but for once we can be pretty sure the list being circulated is legit.
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Unlike the ever-changing Ukrainian conditions and red lines, Vladimir Putin’s Russians have been very consistent in their demands since the beginning of the war, with one exception: the territorial demands.
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During the 2022 negotiations in Istanbul, Russia demanded the totality of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions,
During the 2025 negotiations in Istanbul, Russia also demanded the Zaporozhian and Kherson regions.
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It’s been reported, when yesterday’s Istanbul talks broke down, the Russian delegation warned that ‘next time’ the number of Ukrainian regions conquered can be 6 or 8.
. 1) Ukraine must adopt a neutral status without the presence of foreign troops and no weapons of mass destruction on its territory. 2) Kiev must renounce its demands for reparations from Moscow. 3) Ukraine must come to terms with the loss of Crimea and four other regions. 4) Putin will agree to a ceasefire only after Ukraine withdraws its troops from these regions. 5) The Kremlin wants all five regions to be recognized as Russian at the international level.
. Thus, the peace proposal is:
1) No NATO membership 2) Neutral status 3) Restoration of rights of the Russian population 4) Restoration of the church 5) No possibility for the west to use Ukraine as a proxy again! 6) Taken territories in Ukraine become Russian” .
While this is a more informal formulation, it does include the respect for the Russian-speaking populations, a fundamental reason for the war, and a real-life problem in Ukraine that also affects the Hungarian minority.
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The restoration of the banned Ukrainian Orthodox Church – for alleged Russian ties – is another real issue.
. Russian troops on the move: for Kiev, alternative to peace is to risk capitulation
The territorial concessions are an almost insurmountable problem, as Russia demands Kiev withdraw from small portions of the four regions it has not yet conquered.
Just to illustrate how dramatic that is, this would include, for example, Zaporozhian City – with 700+ thousand inhabitants.
The only reason for Zelensky and his regime to even entertain these draconian conditions is that, if they do not, they risk a much worse settlement later on, or even total capitulation.
Not really, as Russian has been banned in all Ukrainian schools, and in any official documents. Yes, Z man is a native Russian speaker, and he has a poor grasp of Ukrainian, but, then,–he isn’t the man in charge. The Ukrainians were bombing the sh*t out of the Russian speaking Donbass from 2014 (date of the CIA sponsored coup), and in spite of signing both Minsk I, and II agreements, never stopped. Ukraine is only getting what it deserves from listening to the western/ NATO/ US dictates.
Zelensky rejected Minsk 1 and 2 (a real good deal for Ukraine) and rejected already-signed Istanbul 1 in 2014 (also a real good deal for Ukraine)
Ukraine AND ESPECIALLY THE WEST (for face-saving), desperately need a ceasefire, because the Ukraine armed forces face total destruction in a few months; it loses 1400 killed and seriously wounded each day..
The West does not give a shit about the killing of the Slav Russians and Slav Ukrainians, otherwise it would have stopped it in 2014
The EU wants to sell goods and services to the Ukraine market and have low-cost access to its resources, and turn Crimea into a NATO base, and a Cruise ship destination, a la Monaco…..
The EU/US would have rather broken up a weakened Russia and taken over its resources, which are at least 25 times more valuable than Ukraine’s.
His father is/was a professor, and he taught classes in Russian.
Russian is the everyday and at work language,
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Ukrainian is a dialect of the Russian language, which the nationalists in Kiev have mandated to be THE state language.
In Crimea, after it was returned to Russian ancestral lands in 2014, there are three official languages, Russian 70%, Ukrainian 20% and Tartar 10%.
People speak Polish, Slovakian, Hungarian and Romanian in West Ukraine. See below
Russian Lands to Central and Eastern Ukraine SSR
The Central Committee of the USSR established the borders of the Ukraine SSR in 1922
It transferred lands (formerly the Crimean Tartar Khanate) to give the Ukraine SSR access to the Black Sea
It placed the Azov Sea area under joint control with the Ukraine SSR
It added Crimea to the Ukraine SSR in 1954, as part of the 300-y celebration of the Pereyaslav Treaty of January 1654.
. Russian Lands to Western Ukraine SSR
Western Ukraine is mostly made up of lands ceded by various countries to the USSR:
1) Poland ceded Eastern Galicia and Volhynia to the USSR in 1939
The USSR added those lands to the Ukraine SSR in 1939
2) Czechoslovak ceded Transcarpathia to the USSR by treaty in 1945.
The USSR added it as Zakarpattia Oblast to the Ukraine SSR in 1946
3) Rumania ceded Bessarabia and northern Bukovina to the USSR.
The USSR added them to the Ukraine SSR in 1940 and 1948 .
The USSR lasted from 1922 to December 26, 1991
The Ukraine SSR declared independence on August 24, 1991, which was affirmed by a referendum on December 1, 1991, where 90% of voters supported independence. Ukraine finally became a sovereign country at the end of 1991
NOTE: The 90% was likely due to Ukrainians thinking Russia would be similar to the USSR, which turned out not to be the case, especially after Putin became President on 7 May, 2000, after the disastrous/chaotic rule of Yeltsin, who resigned, and told Putin to “save Russia”, which he did by 1) liberalizing Russia, 2) creating a strong defense of Russia, 3) limiting Western activities in Russia, 5) aligning with China and India, and 6) creating BRICS, a growing alliance of like-minded nations. . If a Presidential election were held in Ukraine in the near future, the EU likely would have many voting stations in West Europe, etc., to enable Ukrainians to vote, but allow only a few stations in Russia, as was done during the recent Moldova Presidential election.
OK Ivan, how’s the weather in Moskva? Russian ancestral lands, my foot. Until Cathy the Great conquered it Crimea was part of the Ottoman Empire for more than half a millennium. The original Tartar population was ethnically cleansed by your hero Stalin, who also murdered a few million Ukrainians by starving them. Those people do not like your benevolent Russians. I wonder why.
Why would people vote by over 90% to rejoin Russia, the 5 territories, including Crimea, that were historic Russian lands going back to 1654, when the Zaporozhian Cossack Hetmanate requested to become a protectorate of Russia, as a defense from aggressive Poland.
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The Ottoman Empire, after losing a few wars against Russia, whose Czar was a German Princess, ceded the Tartar Khanate to Russia in 1783, which put an end to the slave trade of the Tartars. See my URLs
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These people do not speak Turkish, they speak Russian.
Putin counted the votes. How did you think it was gonna turn out? The 90% figure is a good giveaway that it wasn’t an honest count. That’s the range you see for votes in autocracies
Russian is winning a three-month war that’s going on 3 years? Certainly, the Putin regime has the numbers behind it, and not much else.
The problem with peace is the Russian government cannot be trusted. The peace terms are merely a setup so that Putin can just easily occupy all of Ukraine when he’s ready.
Almost everyone in the Eastern Europen former Soviet satellite states are native Russian speakers, so that’s pretty meaningless.
“The only reason for Zelensky and his regime to even entertain these draconian conditions is that, if they do not, they risk a much worse settlement later on, or even total capitulation”.
Zelensky and the clan has never accepted any ukrainian territory to be called russian. Ever. Crimea might be, for the moment, conceded to be de facto russian but not de jure( legally). Zelensky and the west hold on to their demands of a russian retreat and are ideologically opposed to any settlement. They clearly do not care about ukrainian people or their interest. They see only their own interest which is not giving an inch. As the saying goes: until there are no ukrainians left to fight. And we will see the europeans shuffling back when they finally have to admit that they A: have no weapons and more important B: no willing soldiers to face the vast russian army.
It is grandstanding but this is a continuous road to defeat. Many leaders face strong opposition in their own countries. War talk is a smokescreen. They might as well get a tourbus and travel all over with Zelensky on board. These guys want to be anywhere BUT home. They’re in Albania now. Im sure they can find some musicians and actors to join them.
CLOWNSHOW.
Ukrainian, a War-Mongering Proxy of the West
Zelensky was told to reject Minsk 1 and 2 (a real good deal for Ukraine)
Zelensky was told to reject already-signed Istanbul 1 in 2022 (also a real good deal for Ukraine)
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Ukraine and especially the West (for face-saving reasons), desperately need a ceasefire, because the Ukraine armed forces face total destruction in a few months.
At present, it is losing about 1400 killed and seriously wounded each day, and Russia is returning more and more Ukrainian regions to Russia’s ancestral lands.
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The West does not give a damn about the killing of the Slav Russians and Slav Ukrainians, otherwise it would have stopped Kiev’s 8-y genocide of ethnic Russians in East Ukraine from 2014 to 2022.
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The EU wants: 1) to sell its goods and services to the Ukraine market, 2) have low-cost access to Ukraine resources, and 3) turn Crimea into a major NATO base and cruise ship destination, a la Monaco.
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The EU/US had been aiming to weaken Russia and take over its resources, as it almost succeeded from 1991 to 2000. Those resources, and Northern Sea Passage are at least 25 times more valuable than Ukraine’s.
As a consolation prize, the EU/US is desperately trying to get as much “value” out of Ukraine as possible.
All true. Better track the Caravan. From Albania to Rome now. More statements to follow. Tiresome clownshow. Never a day goes by without hyped grandstanding. You can just imagine the russians scratching their heads..
I believe you need to study history a little more. Most of what is now Eastern and Southern Ukraine did not become “Ukraine” until 1922 when Stalin made it so. It was done for bureaucratic reasons, and most of the folks living there were at the time “native Russians” Crimea was not added to Ukraine until 1954 when Khrushchev (a Ukrainian BTW) gifted the peninsula to Ukraine, not that it made much difference since it was all the USSR at the time. Don’t know if this link will post, but it is a map showing Ukraine of 1991 and how it grew from the minuscule “frontier” (the meaning of the word Ukraine) in 1654.
Actually, the map is grossly incorrect. See my URLs with maps
Ukraine NEVER existed as a sovereign country until 1991, after the USSR ended
It was part of a territory called Ukraine, with Kharkiv as its capital from 1917 to 1922
It was called Ukrainian SSR, one of 15 SSRs of the USSR from 1922 to 1991
.
The USSR had all sovereign powers. It determined borders, as needed. It had embassies. It dealt with other countries.
.
None of the SSRs had any sovereign powers.
The Zaporozhian Cossack Hetmanate, stretched beyond Kiev in the west and beyond Kharkov in the East.
In 1654, it requested to become a protectorate of Russia, because of aggressive Poland.
After Poland lost several wars against Russia, Russia annexed the entire Hetmanate, plus several other areas, such as most of present Belarus.
Waymo is operated by Alphabet, Google’s parent company, and has over 1,500 vehicles on the road across San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin, Texas, running over 250,000 fully self-driving paid rides per week. The company plans to add services in Atlanta, Miami, and Washington, D.C. in 2026.
They have a tendency to not see narrow things like poles:
Last year, the company recalled more than 670 cars after one of the vehicles hit a wooden utility pole in Phoenix, Arizona in May 2024.
The Los Angeles Times reported that the NHTSA launched an investigation into Waymo in May 2024 after receiving reports of 22 incidents involving the fifth-generation software.
NHTSA officials said in a report that several incidents being probed involved collisions with “clearly visible objects that a competent driver would be expected to avoid,” CNBC noted.
In Phoenix earlier this year, I witnessed one of these experiments trying to make a left turn at a suburban intersection across four yellow lines, right after an intersection with a traffic light where there was no turn lane, to the annoyance of cars behind it. This despite fifth or sixth generation of the software.
Notice the common feature of all the test markets? Lack of snow to confuse the sensors…the Wash. DC experiment should be “interesting”, it never snows in DC.
From Duck assist: UPS drivers primarily make right-hand turns to improve efficiency and safety, with about 90% of their turns being right turns. This strategy helps reduce fuel consumption and the risk of accidents, especially in busy traffic areas.
David your Readme file says that internal energy involves temperature and pressure. This contradicts Joule’s experiment and conclusion where he says that internal energy is a function of temperature. u = u(T)
” . . . he says that internal energy is a function of temperature. u = u(T).”
Well, not true per modern thermodynamics as applied to gases confined by a gravitation field.
Internal energy is the total kinetic and potential energy within a system. Potential energy (such as that arising from height differences in a gravitational field) is NOT a function of temperature.
The Joule’s free expansion experiment (leading to Joule’s second law) established a relationship between internal energy and temperature for gases, particularly ideal gases. In this experiment, a gas was allowed to expand freely into a vacuum, and Joule measured the temperature change. He found that for an ideal gas, the internal energy depends only on temperature and not on pressure or volume. This led to an understanding that the internal energy of an ideal gas increases with temperature, but not that it is solely dependent on temperature.
Considering changes of P, V and T of gases in Earth’s atmosphere, there are gravitation effects (i.e., potential energy considerations) which were not evaluated in Joule’s experiment, PLUS the gases of the atmosphere never experience free expansion to vacuum.
So, no, in terms applicable to gases within Earth’s atmosphere, internal energy is not solely a function of temperature.
That’s all well and good but not what David said. He listed internal, kinetic, and potential as separate items. Kinetic = internal + potential if you are correct then his equations don’t make sense either.
Your definition of internal energy is totally different than my thermodynamics book. I will have to look up this modern thermodynamics you speak of. But thanks for the answer.
“Joule’s conclusion from the free expansion experiment—that the internal energy of an ideal gas depends only on temperature—is still valid for ideal gases.”
Yes. Ideal gasses, from their derivation from kinetic theory, demand zero sized non-interacting particles for which there would be no compressibility factors nor any effect from expansion.
In atmospheric thermo it is difficult to separate internal and potential energy because as gasses rise or fall they do work against the surroundings or have surroundings work on them, respectively, and so temperature of rising/falling atmosphere has a large component of its temperature (i. e. its internal energy) related to this pressure-volume work. Most scientific disciplines formulate thermodynamics in slightly different ways; sign conventions differ, and physicists look at it all statistically.
Well, also not true. In mechanical engineering kinetic and potential energy are separate components of mechanical energy handled separately from internal energy. Energy has a undefined zero value so, generally speaking, only changes in internal energy are significant. The first law defines change in internal energy as
; where Q is heat added and W is work extracted from the material domain involved. Mechanical engineering sign convention for W. It turns out that U, for ideal gasses equals where specific heat is possibly a function of temperature.
Compressibility and Joule-Thompson effects are non-ideal behavior.
“Compressibility and Joule-Thompson effects are non-ideal behavior.”
Strange. The ideal gas law, PV=mRT, is based on the the fundamental relation of how volume (V) and temperature (T) change as a fixed mass of gas (m) is compressed or expanded (i.e., variation in volume, V).
All gases are compressible substances.
Methinks you may have been intending to reference the compressibility factor, not compressibility per se. The compressibility factor (Z), defined as Z = (PV)/(nRT), measures how much a real gas deviates from ideal behavior. For ideal gases, Z = 1, while real gases have a Z value that can be greater or less than 1, depending on conditions.
Yes, you have shown the compressibility factor. In most engineering textbooks though, the factor is provided on a chart known as a “generalized compressibility chart” — the word factor being omitted.
Has anybody looked into micro plastics in the human body? In particular found in the human brain. They claimed to have used an electron microscope. I find difficult to believe you can chemically analyze something that small. Also how did it get across the blood brain barrier?
To continue our discussion on the James Hansen thread:
“You’re not looking at the same chart I’m looking at, Hansen 1999 shows cooling during the 1940’s, not warming”
No I am looking at YOUR chart, which shows warming in the early 1940’s, due to the absence of volcanic eruptions, 1937-1943.
“For the period 1950-1980, levels of industrial SO2 aerosol pollution rose from 56 million tons to 141 million tons, an increase of 65 million tons.
” You need to put this in the context of volcanic eruption equivalents”
Since 1980, the amount of SO2 emitted by volcanic eruptions has been measured by satellites. For the period 1980-2022, there were 46 VEI4 and larger eruptions, with their SO2 levels averaging 0.4 million tons, a very small amount, as compared to the millions of tons of reductions due to global “Clean Air” and Net-Zero efforts.
“and you need to explain the similar cooling that took place from the 1880’s to 1910, when there was no industrial increase in SO2”
Actually, industrial SO2 aerosols DID increase over that period, from 9 to 31 million tons!
In addition, there were also 21 VEI4-VEI6 volcanic eruptions over that 30-year period, so the cooling was caused by the large amount of volcanic and industrial SO2 aerosol pollution in the atmosphere during those years..
So you are talking about that little Blip at 1940, which looks like about two-tenths of a degree to me, and you think this bolsters your theory. It looks like a small blip in a long downtrend to me.
Let’s start out with something we know: Large Volcanic Eruptions *can* cool the temperatures in the atmosphere temporarily. This is a fact. We have evidence. The eruption of the Pinatubo volcano, in 1991, injected SO2 into the stratosphere that caused a cooling of about 0.5C for around two years.
Industrial production of SO2 does not send SO2 into the stratosphere the way volcanoes do, so how does SO2 behave in the troposphere, as compared to the stratosphere?
How much SO2 did Pinatubo inject into the atmosphere as compared to the SO2 industries on Earth?
The cooling from the late 1800’s to the 1910’s was of the same magnitude as the cooling from the 1930’s to the 1980’s, yet you don’t show nearly as much SO2 in the air in 1910’s as you do in the 1980’s, but you say they are equivalent? How so?
No, I am not basing my theory on the little blip in the 1940’s–just pointing out that it occurred, prior to the long down trend in temperatures due to rising levels of industrial SO2 aerosols between 1950 and 1980..
“industrial production of SO2 does not send SO2 into the stratosphere the way volcanoes do, so how does SO2 behave in the troposphere, as compared to the stratosphere?”
Quoting from “NASA Facts online” Atmospheric Aerosols: What Are They, and Why Are They So Important, they state that Volcanic Aerosols “reflect sunlight, reducing the amount of energy reaching the lower atmosphere and the Earth’s surface, cooling them”
And for human-made sulfate aerosols “they absorb no sunlight but they reflect it, thereby reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface “. Therefore, their cooling effects are identical.
“You don’t show nearly as much SO2 in the air in 1910’s as you do in the 1980’s” (you mean 1950-1980)
I didn’t show how much SO2 there was in the air in the runup to 1910, except that there was a LOT of it, because of the 24 VEI 4-VEI6 (like Pinatubo) eruptions, in addition to the 22 Million ton increase in industrial SO2 aerosol emissions.
“How much SO2 did Pinatubo inject into the atmosphere as compared to the SO2 industries on Earth?”
The Pinatubo eruption on June 15, 1991 reportedly injected 18.2 million tons of SO2 into the stratosphere, and the Cerro Hudson eruption of Aug 9, 1991 added another 4 million tons. In 1991, industrial SO2 aerosol emissions totaled 132.5 million tons.
I will say that I would be more willing to believe SO2 was causing changes in the Earth’s atmosphere than CO2. I don’t see CO2 causing any changes in the Earth’s atmosphere.
So you apparently think the atmosphere is so sensitive to SO2 amounts that a little reduction from 1937 to 1940 actually caused an increase in temperatures.
How much industrial SO2 does it take to reduce the temperatures by 0.5C? What’s the formula?
“Therefore, their cooling effects are identical.” That’s your statement, not NASA’s. Right?
That’s one of my questions: Are volcanic eruptions and SO2 produced by industry identical with regard to reducing atmospheric temperatures?
“So you apparently think the atmosphere is so sensitive to SO2 amounts that a little reduction from 1937 to 1940 actually caused an increase in temperatures”
According to the HadCrut4 data set, temperatures ROSE from (-).041 deg C. in 1939 to (+)0.076 deg. C. in 1940, an increase of 0.117 deg. C.
This increase is also shown on Hansen’s chart.
Temperatures normally rise whenever there is a period of about 3 years between volcanic eruptions, because all of the volcanic SO2 aerosols have settled out of the air. I can give you other examples.
“How much industrial SO2 does it take to reduce temperatures by 0.5C. What’s the formula?”
A very good question that I have struggled with. However, since there is no difference between the climatic effect of volcanic or industrial SO2 aerosols, the Pinatubo/Cerro Hudson temp. decrease of 0.5 deg C for an increase of 22.2 million tons of SO2 suggests that the answer is roughly 22 million tons..
.”Therefore their cooling effects are identical” That’s your statement, not NASA’s. Right?
NASA’s assessment is that their climatic effects are identical
“Are volcanic eruptions and SO2 produced by industry identical with regard to reducing atmospheric temperatures?”
The effects of SO2 aerosol pollution are identical, wherever they come from.
A 1% decrease in Earth’s albedo would have cascading impacts on global temperatures, ecosystems, and human societies. This reduction in reflectivity would add to existing warming, affect weather patterns, and disrupt ecological and societal stability. Below is a detailed analysis of the potential consequences: Climate ImpactsAccelerated global warming: A 1% albedo reduction would increase solar radiation absorption, potentially raising global temperatures by approximately 0.5–1.0°C over decades. For context, a 0.23°C temperature rise in 2023 was linked to recent albedo declines Societal ImpactsFood and water security:
Agricultural regions like the North China Plain and India’s breadbaskets would face erratic rainfall and prolonged droughts.
Fisheries dependent on stable marine ecosystems would collapse, affecting food supplies.
Economic costs:
Coastal cities could see trillion-dollar losses from flooding and storm surges.
Energy demand for cooling would strain power grids, disproportionately impacting low-income communities.
Health risks:
Heat-related deaths would surge, particularly in urban heat islands.
Vector-borne diseases like malaria could expand into new regions.
Mitigation ChallengesCurrent climate models may underestimate albedo feedbacks, potentially bringing forward the 1.5°C warming threshold by decades. Restoring albedo would require:
Urban planning: Increasing rooftop reflectivity or green infrastructure could offset the warming.
Arctic geoengineering: Proposals like reflective aerosols face technical and ethical hurdles.
Without urgent action, albedo-driven warming could render current climate adaptation strategies obsolete, underscoring the need for albedo preservation measures. Rapid surge in global warming mainly due to reduced planetary albedo, researchers suggesthttps://phys.org/news/2024-12-rapid-surge-global-due-planetary.html#google_vignette
…would trigger severe and multifaceted climate disruptions, combining regional cooling, hydrological shifts, and ecological stress. Here’s a breakdown of the key impacts: Immediate Temperature Drop
Global average temperatures would plummet rapidly. For context, the Little Ice Age (13th–19th century) saw a 2°C drop linked to milder solar minima, while modern simulations suggest a 1.3 W/m² solar irradiance decline (far smaller than a 10% dimming) could reduce warming by 10%. A 10% sunlight loss would likely cause >5°C global cooling, exceeding historical analogs.
Polar regions would freeze faster, expanding ice sheets and lowering sea levels, while mid-latitude regions might experience extreme winter storms.
Hydrological Disruption
Reduced evaporation from cooler oceans and land would suppress rainfall globally. During past dimming episodes (e.g., 1950s–1980s), polluted regions saw 10–30% less sunlight, contributing to monsoon failures like the 1984 Ethiopian famine.
The tropical rain belt could shift southward, as observed during mid-20th-century dimming, destabilizing agriculture in Africa, Asia, and South America.
Ecosystem Collapse
Marine ecosystems would suffer from colder ocean temperatures and reduced photosynthesis. Phytoplankton populations-critical to marine food chains-could crash, as seen in regions with 10%+ sunlight loss.
Land plants would face shorter growing seasons and lower photosynthetic efficiency, leading to widespread crop failures. The Little Ice Age’s agricultural crises in Europe would likely recur globally.
Interaction with Greenhouse Gases
While cooling would temporarily offset some global warming, high CO₂ levels (e.g., 400+ ppm) would complicate outcomes. Studies show that at 560 ppm, no Milankovitch-driven ice age could occur for 500,000 years, suggesting CO₂ might dampen-but not eliminate-cooling effects.
Aerosol pollutants (which cause dimming) have a short atmospheric lifespan. If dimming were suddenly reversed (e.g., by pollution cleanup), rapid rebound warming could occur, stressing ecosystems further.
Regional Variability
Cooling would be uneven. The IPCC notes solar impacts often manifest as circulation changes rather than uniform cooling. For example:
North America and Europe: Enhanced cooling from albedo feedback (snow/ice reflecting more sunlight).
Tropics: Intensified droughts due to stalled convection cycles.
Arctic: Accelerated sea-ice growth, further reducing planetary albedo.
Human Consequences
Energy demand for heating would surge, straining power grids.
Agriculture would require radical adaptation (e.g., cold-resistant crops, indoor farming).
Geopolitical tensions over water and arable land would escalate.
In summary, a 10% solar dimming would thrust Earth into a climate crisis combining ice-age-like cooling, disrupted monsoons, and ecosystem collapse, exacerbated by interactions with modern CO₂ levels. Recovery would hinge on balancing solar rebound effects with long-term greenhouse gas management
There’s already a 30 – 35% reduction in sunlight reaching Earth. And a jolly good thing too, otherwise we’d all boil. Are you suggesting that the US passes a law making a further 10% reduction illegal?
Michael Flynn
May 18, 2025 5:00 pm
Fun with AI. A problem posed by a 12 year old –
A pole with a string attached to the top is placed vertically on ground. The string is 3 feet longer than pole. The string meets ground 5 feet from post. No fractions or decimals in answer.
AI response –
Final Answer
There is no whole number (integer) solution for the height of the pole with the given conditions.
The height of the pole is 8/3 feet, the only solution, but this is a fraction. If you must have a whole number answer, the problem as stated has no solution.
Presumably, an answer without fractions or decimals (whole numbers) is reasonably obvious to anybody human who is smarter than a 12 year old. So much for AI in this instance!
First off, there is no question associated with the “problem” as you stated it. What’s up with that?
However, assuming the question was “What is the height of the pole?”, the right triangle formed by the vertical pole and string (with string assumed to be perfectly straight and meeting the ground at the same elevation as the base of the pole) would have height of x with a base of 5 feet and a hypotenuse of (x+3) feet. In this case, simple algebra and geometry (the Pythagorean theorem) states that (x+3)^2 = 5^2 + x^2, yielding the reduced equation (6x+9) = 25, which in turn reduces to x = 16/6 = 8/3 = 2.6666666666 . . .
So, the hand math backs up the answer provided by whatever AI you used.
I’m now very curious—assuming your are smarter than a 12 year old (your words)—as to what you assert is the “reasonably obvious” answer (in whole numbers) to the problem.
Many apologies. “How high is the pole?” was the question. Looks like I accidentally deleted it, but you read my mind anyway, so no problem.
The AI got an integral answer with a bit of prompting – 32 inches. As I said, “reasonably obvious”, depending on your definition of “reasonably” I suppose.
It was just a bit of fun to see how much prompting AI would take to realise an endlessly repeating decimal (or a fraction) was not necessary or particularly useful in reality, if other options existed. I should have copied the exchange, which was both lengthy and funny – at least AI doesn’t get upset by being asked for more detail.
The alarmist faction think that CO2 (and other trace greenhouse gases) are or are going to make the Earth too warm. Then a logical question is:
“What is the optimum temperature for Earth?”
Although many say that averaging the temperature over the whole earth is non sensical in scientific terms, I have never seen any discussion of what is the optimum temperature for the Earth’s surface or atmosphere.
How would we know if the current or future projected temperatures are “dangerous” if we haven’t defined the optimum temperature and if we are below or above the optimum temperature?
Since late 2023, I have been posting a link to a time-lapse video about Energy Conversion in the Atmosphere:
[kinetic energy]–>[internal energy + potential energy] (positive values in W/m^2)
[internal energy + potential energy]–>[kinetic energy] (negative values in W/m^2)
This post is a follow-up to that video, a link to which I will paste in a reply.
Here is a new link to a Google Drive folder where I have placed an updated Readme file and 8 new histograms of the “vertical integral of energy conversion” hourly parameter from the ERA5 reanalysis model for 2022. The plots are for latitudes 10N/S, 23.5N/S, 45N/S, and 66.5N/S. At each latitude there are 1440 longitude gridpoints x 8760 hours = 12,614,400 values.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1PDJP3F3rteoP99lR53YKp2fzuaza7Niz?usp=sharing
I conclude that energy conversion in the general circulation massively overwhelms any tendency for the computed incremental static radiative effect of rising concentrations of CO2, CH4, N2O, etc. to drive sensible heat gain on land, in the oceans, and in the atmosphere itself. I hope these new histograms help readers here appreciate the dynamic power of the general circulation to dispose of the energy involved in the so-called “forcings.” The influence on the end result is vanishingly weak, negligible, and undetectable. It cannot be otherwise and make any sense at all of the physics of compressible fluid motion on which the models are based.
Thank you for your patience.
This is the time-lapse video of the ERA5 “vertical integral of energy conversion” at latitude 45N for all of 2022. You have likely seen this before, but I am posting it here again for handy reference.
https://youtu.be/hDurP-4gVrY
The ‘read me’ file is already very clear. It is an important one..Thanks ( again) David!!😊
Ive been growing some nice potatoes.
Good to hear!
So, David, let me get this straight, the 4 watts due to doubling of CO2, if that 400 ppm increase were to occur over the next say 150 years, is the energy equivalent of putting a small laptop computer cooling fan rated at 4 watts…at the bottom of a column of air 1 meter square by 10 km tall weighing 10 tonnes and expecting it would somehow upset the existing convective and advective motion of the atmosphere. So technically a small finite amplitude, commonly referred to as SFA.
Ja. Maybe my latest post is something to consider? Let me know your honest opinion.
https://breadonthewater.co.za/2025/05/10/an-evaluation-of-the-greenhouse-effect-by-carbon-dioxide-2/
It’s good Henry. If only politicians would avail themselves to speaking to people who can do such calcs instead of consulting their science departments who tell them diseases are moving North because of CC…floods…droughts…govt control imperative before it’s too late…..yada yada…go trough snorkeling team go…
You mention you did some line by line IR work, I think it would be worth a paragraph on what you calculated, I assume with Modtran…I calc less than 1 degree surface temp “offset” at fixed RH for a doubling of CO2 in clear sky ( the hottest surface temp case)…giving us about 150 years to convert half of present emissions to nuclear, biofuels, solar and improve batteries…the other half being absorbed into the ocean anyway.
I don’t trust Modtran or Fortran. Did everything by myself. Step by step analysis of the relevant co2 spectra.
https://1drv.ms/x/s!At1HSpspVHO9pws8aNzcnG9n6skv?e=b6IwLG
My results are at the beginning of column K, L and M. If you know excel you can figure it out.
Ahhh, evil FORTRAN. A few of us who are software engineers prefer OOP languages. My favorite is JAVA, because it is very SmallTalk-like. They have convoluted FORTRAN from its original format into something that only Dr. Frankenstein would recognize.
I used to get into arguments about the precision of floating point verses fixed point calculations. Floating point is more sparse, but it seems to be the preferred method of choice.
Sometimes one needs to look at the effect of differences, not just absolute values.
Trenberth-type calculations of Earth’s power flux (W/m^2) balance, assuming a quasi-steady-state condition and that such can be calculated to such accuracy, currently show something like 1 +/- 1 W/m^2 excess of outgoing radiation versus the time- and surface-averaged incoming solar radiation of about 341 W/m^2 at TOA.
With this perspective, a hypothetical increase of 4 W/m^2 would represent a quadrupling of excess outgoing LWIR from Earth associated with claimed ECS, assuming no other offsetting or feedback effects.
So much for a “SFA” when considering the currently-well-balanced situation.
1 watt isn’t even within the accuracy capability of most of the measurement equipment, pyrgeometers, pyranometers, and so on, not to mention varying readings with cloud cover over 15 minutes making integration over the year a bit like calculating the number of worms in your garden from random shovelfuls… Even the solar constant was once evaluated by the best available instrumentation to be 1366 W/m^2 and is now 1361 W/m^2, a change of 5 times Trenberth’s number over his climate scientist career. BTW, I am a fan of Trenberth’s contribution to our understanding of the radiation budget.
It’s not even a “needle in a haystack” – and the massive haystack is being shuffled constantly. The modelers know this.
Again, thank you, David, for insisting that the discussion about “climate” must be focused on energy and its transport in, out, and around the Earth. I wholeheartedly agree with your conclusion that “ energy conversion in the general circulation massively overwhelms” any slight increase in GHG contribution.
For clarity’s sake, am I correct in assuming that your term “internal energy” includes latent water-vapor energy as well as heat (temperature) and actual kinetic energy – surface velocity (depending on latitude) plus the vector of wind velocity relative to the surface. This makes the KE at various latitudes devilishly difficult to “average”, as the winds are constantly changing altitude, latitude and direction. Surface speed is a COSINE function, as you know, so, for example, the surface speed at 45 lat., while 0.7 of the equator’s speed is only half the KE.
Thank you for your reply.
“For clarity’s sake, am I correct in assuming that your term “internal energy” includes latent water-vapor energy as well as heat (temperature) and actual kinetic energy – surface velocity (depending on latitude) plus the vector of wind velocity relative to the surface.”
No, that is not correct. “Internal energy” is not my term. I am using “internal energy” as the ECMWF defines it within ERA5 and as Lorenz uses it per the reference links and quotes I gave. It does not include the latent energy of water vapor. Kinetic energy (i.e. the kinetic energy of bulk motion) is separate, again as ECMWF and Lorenz handle it. And please understand that the surface coordinate system is the fixed frame of reference for computation of the horizontal component of velocity of any element of the atmosphere in the ERA5 model, and thus for computing the kinetic energy of that element. And because kinetic energy is not a vector, the vertical integral of all the layers in the model is such that variable wind direction with altitude does not matter to the sum of the kinetic energy values of the layers. I hope this helps.
Thanks for the clarification. I had a vain hope that you had recognized the complexity of the problem of energy transport across the surface of the actual, rotating, Earth. Alas, it was not to be. The “fixed frame of reference” for calculating KE is suitable only for a stationary body, and the Earth is not stationary.
Sir, please understand that the question here is mainly about the choice of a rotating reference frame vs. an inertial frame. It’s not that I don’t understand your points, which arise from motion in an inertial frame of reference. I am simply using the terms and conventions that have been chosen for meteorology and modeling of the general circulation. I hope you don’t remain stuck.
https://www2.whoi.edu/staff/jprice/wp-content/uploads/sites/199/2019/01/aCt_2003.pdf
“An Earth-attached and thus rotating reference frame is almost always used for the analysis of the atmosphere and ocean. The equation of motion transformed into a general rotating frame includes two terms that involve the rotation rate — a centrifugal term and a Coriolis term.”
And about mass and energy transport and the complexity of it all, sure. That is why I use the outputs of the ERA5 reanalysis model, as the complexities have been handled way before I got curious enough to examine those outputs.
If you could cast your mind back to 18th May 1700 you would realise it is quite a bit warmer the same day of the year in 2025. The reason being that you are 183,000km closer to the Sun than back in 1700.
Climate models are blind to this reality because they are based on energy accumulation rather than solar power.
My solar panel at 37S gets higher solar peak power flux than any solar panel at 37N. So my solar panels have higher peak output than the same unit located at 37N. The peak power output is directly related to the peak solar power. Likewise the peak temperature of any body is directly related to the peak solar power; usually with some time lag due to thermal inertia.
So if your temperature records in the NH are showing an increase in temperature, you need look no further than Earth’s orbit.
Sorry, Rick, but as far as I can tell this isn’t true.
Regards,
w.
===
No primary source exists supporting the claim that on 18 May 2025, Earth is 183,000 km closer to the Sun than it was on 18 May 1700, nor that this would result in a significantly warmer day for this reason.
Direct empirical data from astronomical ephemerides show that the variation in Earth’s distance from the Sun due to orbital changes (including precession and orbital eccentricity) over centuries is much smaller than 183,000 km. The maximum range in perihelion and aphelion distances due to natural orbital variations over centuries is on the order of 20,000–30,000 km, not hundreds of thousands of kilometers [1] [6] [2]. On 18 May 2025, the Sun-Earth distance is approximately 151,320,000 km [3]. There is no evidence that the distance on 18 May 1700 differed by 183,000 km from this value; such a large change would require a dramatic and unobserved shift in Earth’s orbit.
Furthermore, the annual variation in Earth’s distance from the Sun due to the elliptical orbit is about 5 million km (from perihelion to aphelion), which corresponds to a ~3.4% change in distance and about a 7% change in solar irradiance [5] [9]. However, the difference in Earth’s distance from the Sun on the same calendar date across centuries is negligible compared to these values and is not sufficient to cause a significant temperature difference.
Climate and temperature differences between specific years (such as 1700 and 2025) are primarily due to atmospheric composition, solar activity, volcanic eruptions, and other factors, not changes in Earth’s distance from the Sun on the same date [10] [4] [8].
No primary source exists supporting the claim that Earth is 183,000 km closer to the Sun on 18 May 2025 than on 18 May 1700, nor that this would cause a significant temperature difference. The claim is not supported by direct astronomical or climatological evidence.
Citations
[1] https://astropixels.com/ephemeris/perap/perap1701.html
[2] https://astropixels.com/ephemeris/perap/perap1901.html
[3] https://theskylive.com/how-far-is-sun
[4] https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/11/09/earth-sun-distance-dramatically-alters-seasons-in-equatorial-pacific-in-a-22000-year-cycle/
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
[6] https://astropixels.com/ephemeris/perap/perap1601.html
[8] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/100707-aphelion-heat-wave-earth-sun-science-weather-nation
[9] https://www.rutgers.edu/news/earth-sun-distance-sharply-alters-seasons-tropical-pacific-22000-year-cycle
[10] https://repository.tudelft.nl/record/uuid: 4c54d78d-089a-4c3d-be5c-90d5fc881a90
No apology necessary. The data comes directly from NASA JPL using the Horizons app. If it it is wrong then you should take it up with JPL not me.
Distance in AU 18 May 1700 1.1273447051427
Distance 18 May 1.01151143626832
Difference 0.00122303
1AU is 149597870
So distance in km 182,963km
You will probably find the Astripixels distances you are using are with respect to the barycentre rather than the Sun. It is a common error that people make in assuming the Sun does not move in the solar system..
@RickWill: “You will probably find the Astripixels distances you are using are with respect to the barycentre rather than the Sun.”
The omniscient internet assures me that, depending on the relative positions of the planets, the barycenter of the Solar system can be anywhere from near the center of the sun to just above the visible surface of the sun. https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/barycenter/en/#:~:text=It%20is%20the%20center%20of,the%20surface%20of%20the%20sun
Given that the diameter of the sun is 1,319,400km, a 183,000km Earth-Sun distance offset between dates centuries apart seems quite plausible.
Thanks. I didn’t know that.
Sometimes the Sun does not even orbit the barycentre. It takes a short cut. The Sun also moves in the Z direction relative to the elliptic plane. That is important because it shifts the declination relative to Earth, which impacts on latitudinal sunlight from year-to-year.
Let’s estimate this. The earth’s orbit is, as a first order approximation, a constant distance (about 150 million km) plus a cosine function with an amplitude of about 2.5 million km, and a date of closest approach on January 4, aphelion around July 4. So,
with t in days from July 4. The rate of distance change in this model is a Sine function with amplitude 
. The maximum amplitude of the sine function, in this case of the rate of increasing distance, is close to the equinox, and the Sine function has a value of 1 at this maximum. Thus a linear approximation of the total distance change near the time of most rapid change is 
. Between 1700 and 2000, the orbit precessed by 
. Thus, 
is about 300,000 km.
Now the change in this case is going to be much less because May 18 is getting close to the peak of my hypothetical cosine function where change is not so rapid. However, AI is not so good with problems with an underlying mathematical basis, and perhaps RickWill’s estimate is pretty good?
Someone check my thinking…
Kevin
It was not my estimate, I simply used NASA JPL data from the Horizon app:
https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons/app.html#/
18 May 2025 1.5130416660E+08
18 May 1700 1.5148877739E+08
But what you have done is much better than what Willis came up with.
The other imp[ortant fact from the perspective of the solar EMR at latitude is declination, which has an even more significant imp[act at higher latitudes. The ToA daily average sunlight at 60N is 1.75W/m^2 higher on 18 May 2025 than it was on 18 May 1700 purely due to orbital changes.
True. A lot goes into the calculation. What I also wanted to emphasize is that AI can do a very poor job with anything mathematical. It is a language processor. I learned this in writing my Energy Balance part I paper last autumn. AI had all sorts of trouble with units. Didn’t understand them, but could report to me in a way that I thought for a moment that AI did understand what it was doing.
Checking the references that AI supplies is important.
Impact of Earth 25% Further from the Sun
If Earth were 25% further from the Sun, the consequences for climate, habitability, and life would be dramatic and likely catastrophic.
Solar Energy and Temperature
Climate Effects
Impact on Life
Atmospheric Changes
ConclusionIf Earth were 25% further from the Sun, it would receive much less solar energy, resulting in a frozen, inhospitable world where complex life could not survive. The planet would likely resemble a colder version of Mars, with frozen oceans, little to no precipitation, and only the hardiest microbes enduring the harsh conditions
Et tu Brute?
Revealed: European ‘green’ investments hold billions in fossil fuel majors
…
despite fossil fuels being the root cause of the climate crisis. Some of these investment funds used branding such as Sustainable Global Stars and Europe Climate Pathway.
…
Paul Schreiber at Reclaim Finance said: “We need strict rules that ban investments in companies developing fossil fuels from any fund with an ESG-related description.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/may/18/revealed-european-green-investments-hold-billions-in-fossil-fuel-majors
As the man from BlackRock put it: “BlackRock’s funds are managed in accordance with their investment objectives, that are clearly disclosed in each fund’s prospectus and on BlackRock’s website.”
Surely, the investment objective is to make a return on that investment, not to throw it down the drain?
Frankly, I don’t understand how someone can use the words “climate crisis” with a straight face. They might as well wear a rosette for participation as a useful idiot.
When it rains on their parade, it’s a “climate crisis”.
When it rains on your parade, it’s just the weather”.
From the days when the BBC were semi-impartial.
And had a sense of humour
Wonderful!
Not too long ago… Armstrong & Miller
That’s great
I got leaflets for 2 offers today.
In one , a water company promised that what came out of my tap would be 100% whisky.
On the offchance that it is not, they promise to offset the water by buying a certificate stating that a distillery in Scotland has made some whisky.
In the other leaflet, a power supply company promised that my electricity through the National Grid would be from 100% renewable sources.
Whisky on tap , while saving the planet at the same time.
I’m tempted.
This is the only website you need to debunk CO2 causes warming.
http://www.john-daly.com/stations/stations.htm
CO2 evenly blankets the globe; in other words, CO2 concentration is a constant per location.
The quantum mechanics of the CO2 molecule doesn’t change per location, so the backradiation of CO2 evenly blankets the globe.
What has changed over time is the concentration of CO2 over time. The scientific challenge then becomes how to design a controlled experiment that isolates the impact of CO2 on temperatures. How do you tease out the effect of the Urban Heat Island, water vapor, and other exogenous factors?
In other words how do you design this experiment : Temperature = f(CO2) and not Temperature = f(CO2, Water Vapor, UHI, and other factors)
The solution is relatively simple. One simply needs to choose locations, mostly the dry hot and cold deserts, that are shielded from large swings in H2O and impacted by the UHI. When you do that, you see that the temperature doesn’t increase with an increase in CO2. The obvious reason for that is that CO2 shows a log decay in the backradiation with an increase in concentration, and the CO2 concentration and Backradiation function forms an asymptote, and at the current concentration, the slope is approaching 0.00 quickly.
In real science one needs to only find one example where the results don’t agree with the model to reject the null. The above link provides plenty of examples that defy the CO2 causes warming hypothesis.
Albert Einstein famously stated, “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.”
Cees Le Pair, a Dutch Physicist/Professor, wrote a paper some time ago in 2017.
He was aiming at a tutorial for freshmen TU Delft students in the Netherlands, because he thought that every major in physics and geology knew this.
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As the calculation required some knowledge of mathematics, he put that in an appendix and the particular one about 145 K is in paragraph B of that appendix:
https://www.clepair.net/Appendix(KST-2).pdf
The whole tutorial, also in Dutch, https://www.clepair.net/temperatuurverevening-2.html.
It is simple like this: If the world were a ball body, the black sphere’s shadow would be is 0 K.
The sun influx on every point of the solar side depends on the angle between incident beam and surface at that point.
Stefan-Boltzmann leads to:
< Tφ > = {Iz.(1 – α) cos φ / σε}0,25
As with most such derivations….there is not enough discussion about Albedo….ocean being about .1 and clouds being .8…cloud cover over large parts of the planet varying from 0 to 100% depending on convective activity. Such discussion would make it clearer that it is clouds that control the surface temperature of the planet…with possibly better scientific effort expended on whether CO2 emissions affect that water vapor and hence cloud distribution or not.
D,
This is about our world being a blackbody sphere at 145 K, instead of our real world being at 288 K, an overall uphill climb of 143 K.
The IPCC claims 288 – 255 = 33 K overall uphill climb, but provides no calculations
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/12/why-albedo-is-the-wrong-measure-of-reflectivity-for-modeling-climate/
A very interesting explanation of estimating albedo
Cees Le Pair and William Happer would be interested in it.
While Fresnel’s equation is rarely taught in undergraduate courses, I’d be surprised if Happer et al. were unaware of it. One of the more interesting consequences of Fresnel’s equation is that as the angle of incidence approaches 90 degrees, the spectrum of the reflected light approaches the spectrum of the incident light as a limit.
Lambertian albedo is appropriate for clouds, although using a BRDF would probably be better. However, the essence of my article is that albedo is inappropriate for open water, especially at angles of incidence above about 60 degrees, and using the nadir (normal) reflectance only gives a lower-bound on the amount of energy reflected the water class.
45 years ago, Mt. St.Helens exploded. It was no surprise that it did, but the lateral blast surprised everyone and killed several.
Over on FaceBook, “USGS Volcanoes” has been posting daily news from exactly 45 years ago, it’s been an interesting read, see https://www.facebook.com/USGSVolcanoes if you tolerate FaceBook.
I prepared a comment for yesterday:
May 17th _was_ the last relatively halcyon day at Mt St. Helens for a while, so today _is_ a good day for this comment:
A long time ago when I was in my early teens I came across a daily spot on the local radio station that was a brief news summary from the Civil War – 100 years ago that day. I knew a little bit about that war and one thing I appreciated from the daily updates was the chronology behind the newsworthy events.
So I was delighted to discover that USGS was doing the same with MSH, though 45 years seems a bit of an odd interval. I suppose a lot of people who remember that year won’t be around for the 50th anniversary, I hope to be around the reruns. I’ve lived in New England since 1974, my main ties to the Cascade volcanoes come from a 2,700 mile solo bicycle tour from Palo Alto CA to Billings MT via Canada. I think I saw MSH, but I spent a couple of days in Seattle in very clear weather and saw Mt. Rainier as both awesome and a threat. (Awesome threat?)
I did keep tabs on MSH once it woke up, especially as the bulge formed and kept growing, and as Harry Truman refused to leave his home. The USGS review, and format, have been a wonderful read. The comments that have maintained the theme have been most welcome. The corrections about the date not so much – perhaps the Civil War stories had so many historic events that people weren’t confused then. Of course, they had no social media to display their confusion.
Thank you, USGS Volcanoes, for your idea to run this series. I’m pleased with how much I do remember. I appreciate the gaps you’ve filled and the behind the scenes notes about the scientists involved. I have two daughters, both are living in Seattle. I hope you won’t have reason to do a daily log of similar events at Rainier in real time for a while!
“Harry Truman refused to leave his home”
I remember that.
He loved the mountain.
Alas, it didn’t love him back.
“Nature wants you dead.”
— the first thing to remind someone who professes his great love of nature.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/05/when_the_mountain_roared.html
P.S. the early Summer of ’80 was a horrible season across the northern USA, maybe Canada too, anywhere downwind of the Eruption. I drove solo from Ogden UT to upstate NY, mainly along the I-80, in late June, and after Cheyenee WY the sky just looked awful. Folks tense or angry, but that may have been the hated 55MPH speed-limit, strictly enforced.
Russian Demands for Peace in Ukraine are Draconian, but the Alternative for Kiev is Capitulation
https://willempost.substack.com/p/russian-demands-for-peace-in-ukraine?r=1n3sit&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true
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Putin is winning the war, and his conditions fully reflect that fact.
The Corporate Media is filled with ‘leaks’ regarding the Russian demands for peace in Ukraine.
The Kremlin has responded by saying, the negotiations are being held behind closed doors, and therefore the Russian will not comment, but for once we can be pretty sure the list being circulated is legit.
.
Unlike the ever-changing Ukrainian conditions and red lines, Vladimir Putin’s Russians have been very consistent in their demands since the beginning of the war, with one exception: the territorial demands.
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During the 2022 negotiations in Istanbul, Russia demanded the totality of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions,
During the 2025 negotiations in Istanbul, Russia also demanded the Zaporozhian and Kherson regions.
.
It’s been reported, when yesterday’s Istanbul talks broke down, the Russian delegation warned that ‘next time’ the number of Ukrainian regions conquered can be 6 or 8.
.
1) Ukraine must adopt a neutral status without the presence of foreign troops and no weapons of mass destruction on its territory.
2) Kiev must renounce its demands for reparations from Moscow.
3) Ukraine must come to terms with the loss of Crimea and four other regions.
4) Putin will agree to a ceasefire only after Ukraine withdraws its troops from these regions.
5) The Kremlin wants all five regions to be recognized as Russian at the international level.
.
Thus, the peace proposal is:
1) No NATO membership
2) Neutral status
3) Restoration of rights of the Russian population
4) Restoration of the church
5) No possibility for the west to use Ukraine as a proxy again!
6) Taken territories in Ukraine become Russian”
.
While this is a more informal formulation, it does include the respect for the Russian-speaking populations, a fundamental reason for the war, and a real-life problem in Ukraine that also affects the Hungarian minority.
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The restoration of the banned Ukrainian Orthodox Church – for alleged Russian ties – is another real issue.
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Russian troops on the move: for Kiev, alternative to peace is to risk capitulation
The territorial concessions are an almost insurmountable problem, as Russia demands Kiev withdraw from small portions of the four regions it has not yet conquered.
Just to illustrate how dramatic that is, this would include, for example, Zaporozhian City – with 700+ thousand inhabitants.
The only reason for Zelensky and his regime to even entertain these draconian conditions is that, if they do not, they risk a much worse settlement later on, or even total capitulation.
That ‘respect for Russian speakers’ is a red herring. Zelensky’s mother tongue is Russian and he holds the highest office in the land.
Not really, as Russian has been banned in all Ukrainian schools, and in any official documents. Yes, Z man is a native Russian speaker, and he has a poor grasp of Ukrainian, but, then,–he isn’t the man in charge. The Ukrainians were bombing the sh*t out of the Russian speaking Donbass from 2014 (date of the CIA sponsored coup), and in spite of signing both Minsk I, and II agreements, never stopped. Ukraine is only getting what it deserves from listening to the western/ NATO/ US dictates.
is that from your revisionist history textbook ?
jvcstone,
Absolutely correct.
Zelensky rejected Minsk 1 and 2 (a real good deal for Ukraine) and rejected already-signed Istanbul 1 in 2014 (also a real good deal for Ukraine)
Ukraine AND ESPECIALLY THE WEST (for face-saving), desperately need a ceasefire, because the Ukraine armed forces face total destruction in a few months; it loses 1400 killed and seriously wounded each day..
The West does not give a shit about the killing of the Slav Russians and Slav Ukrainians, otherwise it would have stopped it in 2014
The EU wants to sell goods and services to the Ukraine market and have low-cost access to its resources, and turn Crimea into a NATO base, and a Cruise ship destination, a la Monaco…..
The EU/US would have rather broken up a weakened Russia and taken over its resources, which are at least 25 times more valuable than Ukraine’s.
His father is/was a professor, and he taught classes in Russian.
Russian is the everyday and at work language,
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Ukrainian is a dialect of the Russian language, which the nationalists in Kiev have mandated to be THE state language.
In Crimea, after it was returned to Russian ancestral lands in 2014, there are three official languages, Russian 70%, Ukrainian 20% and Tartar 10%.
People speak Polish, Slovakian, Hungarian and Romanian in West Ukraine. See below
https://willempost.substack.com/p/peace-would-be-a-blessing-for-ukraine?r=1n3sit&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true
Russian Lands to Central and Eastern Ukraine SSR
The Central Committee of the USSR established the borders of the Ukraine SSR in 1922
It transferred lands (formerly the Crimean Tartar Khanate) to give the Ukraine SSR access to the Black Sea
It placed the Azov Sea area under joint control with the Ukraine SSR
It added Crimea to the Ukraine SSR in 1954, as part of the 300-y celebration of the Pereyaslav Treaty of January 1654.
.
Russian Lands to Western Ukraine SSR
Western Ukraine is mostly made up of lands ceded by various countries to the USSR:
1) Poland ceded Eastern Galicia and Volhynia to the USSR in 1939
The USSR added those lands to the Ukraine SSR in 1939
2) Czechoslovak ceded Transcarpathia to the USSR by treaty in 1945.
The USSR added it as Zakarpattia Oblast to the Ukraine SSR in 1946
3) Rumania ceded Bessarabia and northern Bukovina to the USSR.
The USSR added them to the Ukraine SSR in 1940 and 1948
.
The USSR lasted from 1922 to December 26, 1991
The Ukraine SSR declared independence on August 24, 1991, which was affirmed by a referendum on December 1, 1991, where 90% of voters supported independence.
Ukraine finally became a sovereign country at the end of 1991
NOTE:
The 90% was likely due to Ukrainians thinking Russia would be similar to the USSR, which turned out not to be the case, especially after Putin became President on 7 May, 2000, after the disastrous/chaotic rule of Yeltsin, who resigned, and told Putin to “save Russia”, which he did by 1) liberalizing Russia, 2) creating a strong defense of Russia, 3) limiting Western activities in Russia, 5) aligning with China and India, and 6) creating BRICS, a growing alliance of like-minded nations.
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If a Presidential election were held in Ukraine in the near future, the EU likely would have many voting stations in West Europe, etc., to enable Ukrainians to vote, but allow only a few stations in Russia, as was done during the recent Moldova Presidential election.
OK Ivan, how’s the weather in Moskva? Russian ancestral lands, my foot. Until Cathy the Great conquered it Crimea was part of the Ottoman Empire for more than half a millennium. The original Tartar population was ethnically cleansed by your hero Stalin, who also murdered a few million Ukrainians by starving them. Those people do not like your benevolent Russians. I wonder why.
Why would people vote by over 90% to rejoin Russia, the 5 territories, including Crimea, that were historic Russian lands going back to 1654, when the Zaporozhian Cossack Hetmanate requested to become a protectorate of Russia, as a defense from aggressive Poland.
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The Ottoman Empire, after losing a few wars against Russia, whose Czar was a German Princess, ceded the Tartar Khanate to Russia in 1783, which put an end to the slave trade of the Tartars. See my URLs
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These people do not speak Turkish, they speak Russian.
Putin counted the votes. How did you think it was gonna turn out? The 90% figure is a good giveaway that it wasn’t an honest count. That’s the range you see for votes in autocracies
Russian is winning a three-month war that’s going on 3 years? Certainly, the Putin regime has the numbers behind it, and not much else.
The problem with peace is the Russian government cannot be trusted. The peace terms are merely a setup so that Putin can just easily occupy all of Ukraine when he’s ready.
Almost everyone in the Eastern Europen former Soviet satellite states are native Russian speakers, so that’s pretty meaningless.
I trust Russia like I trust the CIA.
Unhistorical humbug and demonstratively false. Do some reading ffs..
It was supposed to be a three day war.
“The only reason for Zelensky and his regime to even entertain these draconian conditions is that, if they do not, they risk a much worse settlement later on, or even total capitulation”.
Zelensky and the clan has never accepted any ukrainian territory to be called russian. Ever. Crimea might be, for the moment, conceded to be de facto russian but not de jure( legally). Zelensky and the west hold on to their demands of a russian retreat and are ideologically opposed to any settlement. They clearly do not care about ukrainian people or their interest. They see only their own interest which is not giving an inch. As the saying goes: until there are no ukrainians left to fight. And we will see the europeans shuffling back when they finally have to admit that they A: have no weapons and more important B: no willing soldiers to face the vast russian army.
It is grandstanding but this is a continuous road to defeat. Many leaders face strong opposition in their own countries. War talk is a smokescreen. They might as well get a tourbus and travel all over with Zelensky on board. These guys want to be anywhere BUT home. They’re in Albania now. Im sure they can find some musicians and actors to join them.
CLOWNSHOW.
Ukrainian, a War-Mongering Proxy of the West
Zelensky was told to reject Minsk 1 and 2 (a real good deal for Ukraine)
Zelensky was told to reject already-signed Istanbul 1 in 2022 (also a real good deal for Ukraine)
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Ukraine and especially the West (for face-saving reasons), desperately need a ceasefire, because the Ukraine armed forces face total destruction in a few months.
At present, it is losing about 1400 killed and seriously wounded each day, and Russia is returning more and more Ukrainian regions to Russia’s ancestral lands.
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The West does not give a damn about the killing of the Slav Russians and Slav Ukrainians, otherwise it would have stopped Kiev’s 8-y genocide of ethnic Russians in East Ukraine from 2014 to 2022.
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The EU wants: 1) to sell its goods and services to the Ukraine market, 2) have low-cost access to Ukraine resources, and 3) turn Crimea into a major NATO base and cruise ship destination, a la Monaco.
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The EU/US had been aiming to weaken Russia and take over its resources, as it almost succeeded from 1991 to 2000. Those resources, and Northern Sea Passage are at least 25 times more valuable than Ukraine’s.
As a consolation prize, the EU/US is desperately trying to get as much “value” out of Ukraine as possible.
All true. Better track the Caravan. From Albania to Rome now. More statements to follow. Tiresome clownshow. Never a day goes by without hyped grandstanding. You can just imagine the russians scratching their heads..
I believe you need to study history a little more. Most of what is now Eastern and Southern Ukraine did not become “Ukraine” until 1922 when Stalin made it so. It was done for bureaucratic reasons, and most of the folks living there were at the time “native Russians” Crimea was not added to Ukraine until 1954 when Khrushchev (a Ukrainian BTW) gifted the peninsula to Ukraine, not that it made much difference since it was all the USSR at the time. Don’t know if this link will post, but it is a map showing Ukraine of 1991 and how it grew from the minuscule “frontier” (the meaning of the word Ukraine) in 1654.
Actually, the map is grossly incorrect. See my URLs with maps
Ukraine NEVER existed as a sovereign country until 1991, after the USSR ended
It was part of a territory called Ukraine, with Kharkiv as its capital from 1917 to 1922
It was called Ukrainian SSR, one of 15 SSRs of the USSR from 1922 to 1991
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The USSR had all sovereign powers. It determined borders, as needed. It had embassies. It dealt with other countries.
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None of the SSRs had any sovereign powers.
The Zaporozhian Cossack Hetmanate, stretched beyond Kiev in the west and beyond Kharkov in the East.
In 1654, it requested to become a protectorate of Russia, because of aggressive Poland.
After Poland lost several wars against Russia, Russia annexed the entire Hetmanate, plus several other areas, such as most of present Belarus.
Google droid-taxis:
WAYMOs are creepy if you’ve encountered them
They have a tendency to not see narrow things like poles:
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/14/alphabets-waymo-self-driving-vehicles-investigated-over-unexpected-behavior.html
https://www.livenowfox.com/news/waymo-recall-self-driving-cars-crashes
In Phoenix earlier this year, I witnessed one of these experiments trying to make a left turn at a suburban intersection across four yellow lines, right after an intersection with a traffic light where there was no turn lane, to the annoyance of cars behind it. This despite fifth or sixth generation of the software.
Notice the common feature of all the test markets? Lack of snow to confuse the sensors…the Wash. DC experiment should be “interesting”, it never snows in DC.
From Duck assist:
UPS drivers primarily make right-hand turns to improve efficiency and safety, with about 90% of their turns being right turns. This strategy helps reduce fuel consumption and the risk of accidents, especially in busy traffic areas.
The latest iteration of this that I’m seeing is autonomous trucks – as in semis. I can’t imagine all the ways that could go wrong.
David your Readme file says that internal energy involves temperature and pressure. This contradicts Joule’s experiment and conclusion where he says that internal energy is a function of temperature. u = u(T)
Well, not true per modern thermodynamics as applied to gases confined by a gravitation field.
Internal energy is the total kinetic and potential energy within a system. Potential energy (such as that arising from height differences in a gravitational field) is NOT a function of temperature.
The Joule’s free expansion experiment (leading to Joule’s second law) established a relationship between internal energy and temperature for gases, particularly ideal gases. In this experiment, a gas was allowed to expand freely into a vacuum, and Joule measured the temperature change. He found that for an ideal gas, the internal energy depends only on temperature and not on pressure or volume. This led to an understanding that the internal energy of an ideal gas increases with temperature, but not that it is solely dependent on temperature.
Considering changes of P, V and T of gases in Earth’s atmosphere, there are gravitation effects (i.e., potential energy considerations) which were not evaluated in Joule’s experiment, PLUS the gases of the atmosphere never experience free expansion to vacuum.
So, no, in terms applicable to gases within Earth’s atmosphere, internal energy is not solely a function of temperature.
That’s all well and good but not what David said. He listed internal, kinetic, and potential as separate items. Kinetic = internal + potential if you are correct then his equations don’t make sense either.
Your definition of internal energy is totally different than my thermodynamics book. I will have to look up this modern thermodynamics you speak of. But thanks for the answer.
Checked with Grok.
“Joule’s conclusion from the free expansion experiment—that the internal energy of an ideal gas depends only on temperature—is still valid for ideal gases.”
Yes. Ideal gasses, from their derivation from kinetic theory, demand zero sized non-interacting particles for which there would be no compressibility factors nor any effect from expansion.
In atmospheric thermo it is difficult to separate internal and potential energy because as gasses rise or fall they do work against the surroundings or have surroundings work on them, respectively, and so temperature of rising/falling atmosphere has a large component of its temperature (i. e. its internal energy) related to this pressure-volume work. Most scientific disciplines formulate thermodynamics in slightly different ways; sign conventions differ, and physicists look at it all statistically.
Well, also not true. In mechanical engineering kinetic and potential energy are separate components of mechanical energy handled separately from internal energy. Energy has a undefined zero value so, generally speaking, only changes in internal energy are significant. The first law defines change in internal energy as
Compressibility and Joule-Thompson effects are non-ideal behavior.
Strange. The ideal gas law, PV=mRT, is based on the the fundamental relation of how volume (V) and temperature (T) change as a fixed mass of gas (m) is compressed or expanded (i.e., variation in volume, V).
All gases are compressible substances.
Methinks you may have been intending to reference the compressibility factor, not compressibility per se. The compressibility factor (Z), defined as Z = (PV)/(nRT), measures how much a real gas deviates from ideal behavior. For ideal gases, Z = 1, while real gases have a Z value that can be greater or less than 1, depending on conditions.
Yes, you have shown the compressibility factor. In most engineering textbooks though, the factor is provided on a chart known as a “generalized compressibility chart” — the word factor being omitted.
Has anybody looked into micro plastics in the human body? In particular found in the human brain. They claimed to have used an electron microscope. I find difficult to believe you can chemically analyze something that small. Also how did it get across the blood brain barrier?
Must have been a democrat’s brain, being so small.
And porous.
The instrument added to an electron microscope which has analysis capability is an EDX. I’ve used it in forensic evaluations.
Elemental analysis
Tom Abbott:
To continue our discussion on the James Hansen thread:
“You’re not looking at the same chart I’m looking at, Hansen 1999 shows cooling during the 1940’s, not warming”
No I am looking at YOUR chart, which shows warming in the early 1940’s, due to the absence of volcanic eruptions, 1937-1943.
“For the period 1950-1980, levels of industrial SO2 aerosol pollution rose from 56 million tons to 141 million tons, an increase of 65 million tons.
” You need to put this in the context of volcanic eruption equivalents”
Since 1980, the amount of SO2 emitted by volcanic eruptions has been measured by satellites. For the period 1980-2022, there were 46 VEI4 and larger eruptions, with their SO2 levels averaging 0.4 million tons, a very small amount, as compared to the millions of tons of reductions due to global “Clean Air” and Net-Zero efforts.
“and you need to explain the similar cooling that took place from the 1880’s to 1910, when there was no industrial increase in SO2”
Actually, industrial SO2 aerosols DID increase over that period, from 9 to 31 million tons!
In addition, there were also 21 VEI4-VEI6 volcanic eruptions over that 30-year period, so the cooling was caused by the large amount of volcanic and industrial SO2 aerosol pollution in the atmosphere during those years..
Let’s look at the chart (Hansen 1999):
So you are talking about that little Blip at 1940, which looks like about two-tenths of a degree to me, and you think this bolsters your theory. It looks like a small blip in a long downtrend to me.
Let’s start out with something we know: Large Volcanic Eruptions *can* cool the temperatures in the atmosphere temporarily. This is a fact. We have evidence. The eruption of the Pinatubo volcano, in 1991, injected SO2 into the stratosphere that caused a cooling of about 0.5C for around two years.
Industrial production of SO2 does not send SO2 into the stratosphere the way volcanoes do, so how does SO2 behave in the troposphere, as compared to the stratosphere?
How much SO2 did Pinatubo inject into the atmosphere as compared to the SO2 industries on Earth?
The cooling from the late 1800’s to the 1910’s was of the same magnitude as the cooling from the 1930’s to the 1980’s, yet you don’t show nearly as much SO2 in the air in 1910’s as you do in the 1980’s, but you say they are equivalent? How so?
Tom Abbott:
No, I am not basing my theory on the little blip in the 1940’s–just pointing out that it occurred, prior to the long down trend in temperatures due to rising levels of industrial SO2 aerosols between 1950 and 1980..
“industrial production of SO2 does not send SO2 into the stratosphere the way volcanoes do, so how does SO2 behave in the troposphere, as compared to the stratosphere?”
Quoting from “NASA Facts online” Atmospheric Aerosols: What Are They, and Why Are They So Important, they state that Volcanic Aerosols “reflect sunlight, reducing the amount of energy reaching the lower atmosphere and the Earth’s surface, cooling them”
And for human-made sulfate aerosols “they absorb no sunlight but they reflect it, thereby reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface “. Therefore, their cooling effects are identical.
“You don’t show nearly as much SO2 in the air in 1910’s as you do in the 1980’s” (you mean 1950-1980)
I didn’t show how much SO2 there was in the air in the runup to 1910, except that there was a LOT of it, because of the 24 VEI 4-VEI6 (like Pinatubo) eruptions, in addition to the 22 Million ton increase in industrial SO2 aerosol emissions.
“How much SO2 did Pinatubo inject into the atmosphere as compared to the SO2 industries on Earth?”
The Pinatubo eruption on June 15, 1991 reportedly injected 18.2 million tons of SO2 into the stratosphere, and the Cerro Hudson eruption of Aug 9, 1991 added another 4 million tons. In 1991, industrial SO2 aerosol emissions totaled 132.5 million tons.
A lot of good questions!
I will say that I would be more willing to believe SO2 was causing changes in the Earth’s atmosphere than CO2. I don’t see CO2 causing any changes in the Earth’s atmosphere.
So you apparently think the atmosphere is so sensitive to SO2 amounts that a little reduction from 1937 to 1940 actually caused an increase in temperatures.
How much industrial SO2 does it take to reduce the temperatures by 0.5C? What’s the formula?
“Therefore, their cooling effects are identical.” That’s your statement, not NASA’s. Right?
That’s one of my questions: Are volcanic eruptions and SO2 produced by industry identical with regard to reducing atmospheric temperatures?
Tom Abbott:
“So you apparently think the atmosphere is so sensitive to SO2 amounts that a little reduction from 1937 to 1940 actually caused an increase in temperatures”
According to the HadCrut4 data set, temperatures ROSE from (-).041 deg C. in 1939 to (+)0.076 deg. C. in 1940, an increase of 0.117 deg. C.
This increase is also shown on Hansen’s chart.
Temperatures normally rise whenever there is a period of about 3 years between volcanic eruptions, because all of the volcanic SO2 aerosols have settled out of the air. I can give you other examples.
“How much industrial SO2 does it take to reduce temperatures by 0.5C. What’s the formula?”
A very good question that I have struggled with. However, since there is no difference between the climatic effect of volcanic or industrial SO2 aerosols, the Pinatubo/Cerro Hudson temp. decrease of 0.5 deg C for an increase of 22.2 million tons of SO2 suggests that the answer is roughly 22 million tons..
.”Therefore their cooling effects are identical” That’s your statement, not NASA’s. Right?
NASA’s assessment is that their climatic effects are identical
“Are volcanic eruptions and SO2 produced by industry identical with regard to reducing atmospheric temperatures?”
The effects of SO2 aerosol pollution are identical, wherever they come from.
ALBEDO DOWN 1%?
A 1% decrease in Earth’s albedo would have cascading impacts on global temperatures, ecosystems, and human societies. This reduction in reflectivity would add to existing warming, affect weather patterns, and disrupt ecological and societal stability. Below is a detailed analysis of the potential consequences:
Climate ImpactsAccelerated global warming: A 1% albedo reduction would increase solar radiation absorption, potentially raising global temperatures by approximately 0.5–1.0°C over decades. For context, a 0.23°C temperature rise in 2023 was linked to recent albedo declines
Societal ImpactsFood and water security:
Economic costs:
Health risks:
Mitigation ChallengesCurrent climate models may underestimate albedo feedbacks, potentially bringing forward the 1.5°C warming threshold by decades. Restoring albedo would require:
Without urgent action, albedo-driven warming could render current climate adaptation strategies obsolete, underscoring the need for albedo preservation measures.
Rapid surge in global warming mainly due to reduced planetary albedo, researchers suggesthttps://phys.org/news/2024-12-rapid-surge-global-due-planetary.html#google_vignette
A 10% reduction in sunlight reaching Earth…
…would trigger severe and multifaceted climate disruptions, combining regional cooling, hydrological shifts, and ecological stress. Here’s a breakdown of the key impacts:
Immediate Temperature Drop
Hydrological Disruption
Ecosystem Collapse
Interaction with Greenhouse Gases
Regional Variability
Human Consequences
In summary, a 10% solar dimming would thrust Earth into a climate crisis combining ice-age-like cooling, disrupted monsoons, and ecosystem collapse, exacerbated by interactions with modern CO₂ levels. Recovery would hinge on balancing solar rebound effects with long-term greenhouse gas management
There’s already a 30 – 35% reduction in sunlight reaching Earth. And a jolly good thing too, otherwise we’d all boil. Are you suggesting that the US passes a law making a further 10% reduction illegal?
Fun with AI. A problem posed by a 12 year old –
AI response –
Presumably, an answer without fractions or decimals (whole numbers) is reasonably obvious to anybody human who is smarter than a 12 year old. So much for AI in this instance!
First off, there is no question associated with the “problem” as you stated it. What’s up with that?
However, assuming the question was “What is the height of the pole?”, the right triangle formed by the vertical pole and string (with string assumed to be perfectly straight and meeting the ground at the same elevation as the base of the pole) would have height of x with a base of 5 feet and a hypotenuse of (x+3) feet. In this case, simple algebra and geometry (the Pythagorean theorem) states that (x+3)^2 = 5^2 + x^2, yielding the reduced equation (6x+9) = 25, which in turn reduces to x = 16/6 = 8/3 = 2.6666666666 . . .
So, the hand math backs up the answer provided by whatever AI you used.
I’m now very curious—assuming your are smarter than a 12 year old (your words)—as to what you assert is the “reasonably obvious” answer (in whole numbers) to the problem.
ROTFL.
Many apologies. “How high is the pole?” was the question. Looks like I accidentally deleted it, but you read my mind anyway, so no problem.
The AI got an integral answer with a bit of prompting – 32 inches. As I said, “reasonably obvious”, depending on your definition of “reasonably” I suppose.
It was just a bit of fun to see how much prompting AI would take to realise an endlessly repeating decimal (or a fraction) was not necessary or particularly useful in reality, if other options existed. I should have copied the exchange, which was both lengthy and funny – at least AI doesn’t get upset by being asked for more detail.
This is pretty funny, AI takes on global warming. Be sure to share this one. https://app.screencast.com/DFd1viHxsRjq7
The alarmist faction think that CO2 (and other trace greenhouse gases) are or are going to make the Earth too warm. Then a logical question is:
“What is the optimum temperature for Earth?”
Although many say that averaging the temperature over the whole earth is non sensical in scientific terms, I have never seen any discussion of what is the optimum temperature for the Earth’s surface or atmosphere.
How would we know if the current or future projected temperatures are “dangerous” if we haven’t defined the optimum temperature and if we are below or above the optimum temperature?