Knud Jahnke and Rasmus Benestad
After having watched a new documentary called the ‘Cloud Mystery’ – and especially the bit about the galaxy (approximately 2 – 4 minutes into the linked video clip) – we realised that a very interesting point has been missed in earlier discussions about ‘climate, galactic cosmic rays and the evolution of the Milky Way galaxy.
It is claimed in ‘The Cloud Mystery’, the book ‘The Chilling Stars’, and related articles that our solar system takes about 250 million years to circle the Milky Way galaxy and that our solar system crosses one of the spiral arms about every ~150 million years (Shaviv 2003).
But is this true? Most likely not. As we will discuss below, this claim is seriously at odds with astrophysical data.
Here is a little background on the Milky Way: The arms of spiral galaxies are not constant entities in time. They are results of gravitational instabilities in the disk or are induced by external companions. These instabilities are moving mass ‘overdensities’ containing old stars and gas, but also newly formed stars recently created from local collapse of the overdense gas.
Arms move around a spiral galaxy with a pattern speed that is defined by the mass distribution. This pattern speed differs from the motion of individual stars, just like the speed of an ocean wave differs from the movement of water particles. Estimating the pattern speed is difficult, as it is not coupled to the motion of individual stars but can only be inferred indirectly. For this reason it has not yet been reliably measured for our Milky Way – unlike for some other spiral galaxies, for which our clear and unobstructed view from the outside allows an estimate.
So how did Shaviv come up with this number?
Measuring the rotational velocity of stars in the Milky Way disk or other spiral galaxies is straightforward. The rotation is not rigid, but depends on the encircled mass inside the orbit of a star, including the Dark Matter, a yet unknown but solidly established source of gravitational attraction. It is easy and a standard technique to measure rotation curves of galaxies as a function of radius, and this is also possible for the Milky Way.
The two different rotating velocities of arms and stars have a different radial dependence – to first order the arms get preserved as entities while the stars further out have much smaller angular velocities than stars further inside – so the relative velocity of a star with respect to the nearest spiral arm will depend on its distance from the centre of the galaxy. At a certain radius, the radius of co-rotation, the two velocities are identical and a star at this radius has zero relative velocity with respect to the spiral arm pattern. It stays “forever” in the same spiral arm – or outside of it.
What are the best estimates for the relative velocity of the Sun with respect to the spiral arm pattern of the Milky Way? As mentioned, the pattern speed of the spiral arm in the Milky Way has not been firmly established.
When investigating other spiral galaxies, however, it was found that almost independently of the wide range of possible assumptions on which the pattern speed estimate was based, the radius of co-rotation follows a simple law: rcorot=r0 * (3.0 +/- 0.5), where r0 is the scale length of the exponential disk of the galaxy (the surface brightness of spiral galaxies drops very close to exponentially from the center to the outside, setting a characteristic size scale). This was measured by Kranz et al. 2003.
Since the Milky Way is a completely normal spiral galaxy, we can apply this result to it. The scale length of the Milky Way disk has recent estimates ranging from 2.6 kilo-parsec (kpc, 1pc=3.3 light years) from the SDSS survey (Juric et al. 2008), through 2.8 kpc (Ohja 2001) to 3.5 kpc (Larsen & Humphreys 2003).
We also know the Sun’s distance to the galactic center well, 7.9 +/- 0.4 kpc (Eisenhauer et al. 2003), which means that the range of values for rcorot=9.1 +/- 1.9kpc. In other words, from this calculation the co-rotation radius of the Milky Way is between 7 and 11 kpc, and at 8 kpc our Sun is close to or at the radius of co-rotation. It almost certainly is not 6 kpc further inside, as Shaviv (2003) claims.
Shaviv (2003) lists in his Table 3 a number of values for the pattern speed of the spiral arms, taking from publications ranging from 1969 to 2001, two years before his article. In these papers the derived relative motion of the Sun relative to the arms ranges from Omegarel=+13.5 km/s/kpc to -4km/s/kpc, and includes estimates that are close to zero (-4km/s/kpc < than Omegarel < +7), i.e. a location near the radius of co-rotation in the majority of the publications, and most of the more recent ones. However, he selectively disregards most of these results.
If we add the above evidence that the radius of co-rotation lies at 9kpc distance and not further out, and convert this to relative velocities, e.g. by using the Milky Way rotation curve by Merrifield 1992, we obtain Omegarel =+3.2 km/s/kpc with an error range from -2.5 to +7.1km/s/kpc, and including zero. Shaviv’s derived “period for spiral arm crossing” of p=134 +/- 25Myr for four spiral arms is well outside the range derived from these values.
So it seems that Shaviv’s “periodicity” estimate for crossing of spiral arms by the sun does not hold up under scrutiny when using current astronomical results as the work by Kranz et al. This comes in addition to the previously shown fact that the correlation of cosmic ray flux with paleoclimatic data proposed by Shaviv and Veizer (2003) only arises “by making several arbitrary adjustments to the cosmic ray data” (Rahmstorf et al. 2004).
Note also that the question of current climate change is quite another matter from that over time scales of many millions of years – despite Shaviv’s remarkable press-release claims that “The operative significance of our research is that a significant reduction of the release of greenhouse gases will not significantly lower the global temperature”. As we repeatedly pointed out over the years: that global warming over the past decades is not linked to cosmic rays is clear from the fact that the cosmic ray measurements over the past 50 years do not show any trend (Schiermeier 2007).
Remarkably, the poor scientific basis of the galactic cosmic ray hypothesis seems to be inversely related to the amount of media backing it is getting. At least 3 documentaries (‘The Climate Conflict’, the ‘Global Warming Swindle’, and now ‘The Cloud Mystery‘) have been shown on television – all with a strong thrust of wanting to cast doubt on the human causes of global warming.
References:
Eisenhauer et al. 2003, ApJ, 597, 121; http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003ApJ…597L.121E
Kranz et al. 2003, ApJ, 586, 143; http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/367551
Juric et al. 2008, ApJ, 673, 864; http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008ApJ…673..864J
Larsen & Humphreys 2003, AJ, 125,1958; http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003AJ….125.1958L
Merrifield 1992, AJ, 103, 1552; http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1992AJ….103.1552M
Ohja 2001, MNRAS, 322, 426; http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2001MNRAS.322..426O
Rahmstorf, S., et al., 2004: Cosmic rays, carbon dioxide and climate. Eos, 85(4), 38, 41.
Schiermeier, Q., No solar hiding place for greenhouse skeptics. Nature, 2007. 448: p. 8-9.
Shaviv, N., 2003, NewA, 8, 39; http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003NewA….8…39S
Shaviv, N. and J. Veizer, Celestial driver of Phanerozoic climate? GSA Today, 2003. 13(7): p. 4-10.
I know this is a little off topic, but I wanted to ask on the most recent thread so I have a chance of being answered. I have heard that if there is major Greenland melting, the Atlantic circulation pattern would be disrupted and warm water would not move North.
My question: Isn’t this a major negative feedback loop? It is always presented as a consequence of AGW, but then it seems that people say things will keep on warming. Wouldn’t this change warming to cooling, re-freeze the arctic and Greenland, provide higher albedo etc.? If that warm water stays in the tropics, does that latitude get a lot warmer or does evaporation etc. regulate it’s temperature.
thanks.
Thanks Martin for the link (129). I agree, Cooperstock and Tieu have a long way to go to be fully convincing. Their latest submission claims to answer all the critics, but since my education stopped shy of tensor calculus, I could be convinced of anything. ;)
Wow, Jim Cripwell and gusbob – what a team! Gusbob, it may give you a thrill (and perhaps JC also) to feel that you have put down scientists who post on this site. But you need to understand that with anyone who matters, that is, who actually understands the science, you are simply coming across as silly. You do not have to know everything to avoid that. Just do a little homework so you can ask intelligent questions, and then ask them in a respectful manner.
I realize that hard working scientists think they have for the most part settled the global climate warming, but now real lawyers are to be brought in and settle this once and for all.
Weather Channel Founder: Sue Al Gore for Fraud
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102×3226832
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,337710,00.html
So the mean temperature of several other planets of the solar system, including Earth, have not risen over the last three decades?
I’ll try to get back on this …, but don’t anyone hold there breath waiting. I got things to do. :~)
In reply to Ike Solem’s #144 comment: “The oceans haven’t cooled. Here, for example, is the 1993-2003 record of ocean heat content.”
Ike,
I am did not say the oceans cooled 1993-2003. I said GCR increased 2007 to 2008 and mid 2007 electroscavenging has greatly reduced. As a result of the reduction in electroscavenging and increased GCR there should be increased cloud cover over the oceans (see comment), which should result in cooling of the oceans. Based on the data the oceans have cooled 2007 to 2008. What are your thoughts?
This is a graph representation of the current ocean temperature anomalies. (Blue is cold temperature anomalies, red are warm temperature anomalies. More Blue than red.)
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/anomnight.3.13.2008.gif
This is the ocean-land temperature anomalies, by month, tabulated. As note in the table, the ocean-land temperature trend is down.
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/anomnight.3.13.2008.gif
Comment:
This is a link to a daily solar observation site. Note the sun is spotless and has been in a low state for the last two years. Recently (last 6 months), the solar coronal holes which had been creating solar wind bursts have started to dissipate. The solar wind bursts cause the terrestrial electroscavenging effect and remove cloud forming ions. For the past couple of solar cycles coronal holes formed late in the cycle and drifted up to solar equator. They created solar wind bursts which masks the increase in GCR that occurs at the end of every solar cycle.
http://www.dxlc.com/solar/
“I could tell you were a newbie in the field.”
You’re one to talk. Your ignorance is almost laughable. Lets look at some of the brilliant statement’s you’ve made that demonstrate massive amounts of ignorance.
“Now every time there is a gravitational anomaly it becomes “verification” of this unknown dark matter.”
You don’t have the slightest idea how verifications are done.
“First why does the solar wind accelerate away from the suns and past the planets. Gravitational theory alone suggests it should decelerate.”
You don’t know how solar wind works.
“Second why does the temperature beginning at the photosphere,5800K , drop in the chromosphere and then jump to over 1 million K in the corona. Shouldn’t we get cooler as we stand further from the fireplace.”
You don’t know how radiative balance works.
“And since you mention the neutrino, why are we missing the predicted neutrinos postulated for a strictly nuclear sun.”
You don’t know landmark physics developments. If you did know and was waiting for somebody to give you the mainstream and accepted result, then you were simply wasting our time.
“And to generate neutrinos here on earth don’t we use particle accelerators created by electromagnetic forces?”
You don’t know how particle accelerators work.
“And if you could be so kind, I would appreciate a few links to your sources on how well the electric fields have been measured.”
You don’t know about basic experiments.
You can complain about sniping about your ignorance, but when you make several posts in a row that spectacularly do demonstrate your lack of knowledge, you might find it shocking that nobody expects that next one to be any better. Given that you seem to lack knowledge about all sorts of basic physics, you’d better get used the fact that nobody is going take your suspicions seriously.
Ray Ladbury says Think about it. You start with almost all electron neutrinos. There are 3 different flavors of neutrinos, so at any given time after some distance of propagation, a third will be electron neutrinos, a their muon neutrinos and a third tau neutrinos–hence 1/3 will register,”
Thanks for the thought experiment.I thought about it and what you said was a marvelous restatement of the observed deficit. It just a little shy on cause and effect to change my simple mind. What you are describing sounds more like directional neutrino decay rather than neutrino oscillation. Are you saying electron neutrinos are the only neutrinos with enough energy to transform into the other flavors? I am so confused. This maybe another thing that you “know”, but I am still going to wait for Neutrino Factory type experiments before I feel comfortable with neutrino behavior.
Your expertise with chips however would be of great use in clearing up the oft cited misconception by RC posters that plasma is electrically neutral. They obviously know nothing of the Van Allen Belts. Of course on a grand macroscopic level it could be said everything is neutral, but they must be ignoring how magnetic fields can separate charges. They must also be ignoring well documented differences in plasma densities and temperatures. And we all know from plasma physics that double layers will form at the interface of plasmas with different characteristics. The “neutral” silicon chip is an excellent analogy to how electric fields can be created. The p-n junction and depletion zone are very similar to what happens in the formation of plasma double layers. Those dynamic processes may be appreciated more coming from you.
Now these double layers can create tremendous voltage drops and accelerate particles. Reading Alfven’s “Double Layers and Circuits in Astrophysics” could help clear up a few things. Why believe me when a Nobel prize winner can explain it, eh? And it might clear up that troubling notion of magnetic reconnection you think explains the coronal heating. I sensed you were new to thinking about that one, so its okay to say you aren’t sure yet. It seems that often the acceleration at double layers is misconstrued as magnetic reconnection because the different plasma bodies have different magnetic fields that “meet” at the double layer.
But you know what a simple mind I have. Well I pictured magnetic lines to be similar to other vector field lines like in a gravitational field . So I pictured these gravity field lines connecting the earth and moon. Then I pictured a plane flying between the two and breaking the lines as the earth line “grabbed” and pulled on the plane. The moon too. Then as the plane moved the lines left the plane and reconnected but unlike magnetic reconnection, gravity reconnection doesn’t release energy. So I thought neither should magnetic reconnecition. So perhaps you can prevent others from making that same silly analogy regarding field lines and explain how magnetic field line do reconnect. I just can’t get past my gravity field analogy.
Ray Ladbury says: Right now, you are getting the stick. Go off and learn some actual science and I promise I’ll give you a “good boy”, ‘kay?”
Ray ever since your very first posted you have been giving me the schtick. But to know I could get a “good boy” from you, well I can’t tell you how much that means to me. Really. I can’t tell.
Ike Solem Says: The oceans haven’t cooled.”
The more recent Lyman paper disagrees with you Ike.
The paper by Lyman(discussed here at RC), is under some dispute due to profiling errors in the floats found in the mid Atlantic. See http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/people/lyman/Pdf/heat_2006.pdf
However accepting the profiling error, if we look at the map of changes in ocean temperatures on page 11, the data shows large areas of the oceans cooling other than locations of the faulty profilers. Also the graph on page 10 shows temperatures cooling based on two populations of data. It appears that eliminating the in situ profiles there is still a considerable temperature drop but not as great. The correction paper also mentioned the Gouretski and Koltermann (2007) paper that suggests the XBT data gave artificially warm readings. I am not sure why the uathors would interpret that as less cooling. I interpreted that to mean the oceans simply hadn’t heated as much as had been originally claimed. Therefore the whole graph just moves lower on the y axis. Was the correction paper ever accepted? It just says revised and submitted.
Ray reminisces “I often say that abnormal psych was the best physics class I ever took–as it taught me how to deal with physicists.”
Still didn’t prepare you for gusbob, did it ;-)
Eric writes:
[[High clouds are warming (they are cold as viewed IR satellites) so if high GCR’s (due to low solar activity) create more clouds, that would produce more warming in periods of low solar activity. But the historical record shows the opposite.]]
You are confusing high clouds with clouds in general.
You likely have as much chance of converting gusbob to “reality” as there is of CA acolytes paying obeisance to Prof. Mann.
For those disinterested in science, you have the Electric Universe of Talbott and Thornhill. Go weep!
Re 135 and 144: different time periods. William Astley’s charts show cooling mainly in 2006 and 2007. Ike Solem’s papers predate that period (including the 2007 paper). The most recent global averages are here: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadsst2gl.txt and show cooling mostly in 2007
Re #150 Where Consumer says “My question: Isn’t this a major negative feedback loop? It is always presented as a consequence of AGW, but then it seems that people say things will keep on warming.”
Yes, if the scientists are right and the melting Greenland ice were to stop the THC then the northern hemisphere would cool and the Greenland ice would stop melting. So back to square one and obviously no disaster.
But that is not the way it works. It was not the THC that caused the Younger Dryas micro ice age. It was the sea ice spreading out of the Arctic Ocean into the GIN (Greenland, Iceland, and Norwegian) Seas. The ice prevented the warm Gulf Stream water being cooled by the air, and so the THC stopped, although only in the North Atlantic. It was the sea ice that stopped the THC, not the THC stopping which caused the cooling or the sea ice.
When that sea ice melted there was an abrupt warming and the Younger Dryas ended. Now the Arctic sea ice is melting. When that is complete we will have another abrupt warming. The scientists will have egg on their faces because they were still talking about a THC halt, and a rapid cooling!
HTH,
Cheers, Alastair.
Hi Martin,
Oh, actually, gusbob is pretty mild. What I don’t understand is why someone who is trying to pass themselves off as scientifically knowledgeable would come onto a site full of scientists to spew their BS. It seems almost masochistic. I always have the vain hope that once they see their BS isn’t flying that they will maybe want to actually learn some science. Still hoping.
Knud Jahnke’s comment #137
“But if we look at all the evidence, it is not a debate about computing “the” pattern speed, but it is clear that the pattern speed, the actual spiral arm pattern and the persistence time of the Milky Way arms are just not known to date to a precision that allows to make the statement that there is a certain periodicity in spiral arm crossings….Some studies will be consistent, many are clearly inconsistent with a “140Myr period” and the arguments that Shaviv uses to hammer home his message are … handwaving.”
Knud,
Perhaps we should step back and look at the problem from a broader perspective. What are the competing hypothesis? Is there any other logical analysis/arguments that supports Shaviv’s hypothesis?
What is the competing hypothesis for why there have been four planetary ice-houses, roughly ever 140MM years, in the last 500MM years. Is the argument the ice house periods did not occur? Why are we currently in an ice house period? What is forcing the earth’s climate on a very long term, long term, and short term basis?
Are Shaviv’s scientific arguments are supported by Svensmark and Palle’s research on the GCR/solar magnetic cloud modulation mechanism? (i.e. Is there a mechanism that can be tested in addition to simple correlation?) If that mechanism is shown to be correct, then the evidence of past ice house at specific periods in the past can be used to support the occurrence of solar system galactic arm crossings. For as you state, the current astronomical data and analysis is not sufficient resolved, to confirm or disprove Shaviv’s hypothesis. The paper I linked to shows there is no astronomical evidence to disprove Shaviv’s hypothesis. It proves astronomical evidence to support a four arm Milky Way galaxy.
In addition, Shaviv’s analysis includes the study of isotopes in meteorites which supports correlation in time, of high cosmic ray flux at the specific time of the ice house periods. The importance of that correlation depends on whether GCR/solar magnetic cycle changes actually do modulate clouds and the changes in clouds significantly affect planetary temperature.
What are your thoughts?
Gusbob:
Maybe I missed it, but what is your background? What formal training do you have in physics? What subject do you teach? At what level?
I can’t be the only one here who wants to know.
Martin Vermeer Says: I looked at your links, and none of them appear relevant to your claim. Especially not the monopolar motor one (fun though). The others contain lots of hand waving, pretty pics, but no real (relevant) explanations. The galaxy’s rotation curve isn’t even mentioned.”
Gee Martin. I am stunned that you called the homopolar motor irrelevant to our discussion. You made the odd claim that “How do you explain the rotation of the galaxy by electrostatic forces? It has to be an attractive force to do the job. Dark matter gravitation is. Electrostatic forces are repulsive between like charges, so we must have a distribution of opposite charges to do the job.”
You are flat out wrong to believe that there is no separation of charge in the abundant heterogeneous plasma clouds. The youtube clip for a homopolar motor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aPQqNt15-o
was such a simple, yet elegant example of non-gravitational forces causing rotation.
Three simple things, a potential difference(battery), a magnetic field (magnet) and plasma current and voila rotational force. Now perhaps you find it odd to think of the copper wire as plasma, but that is to be expected because of our everyday use of wires and not plasma. So I can forgive that oversight. But it is acceptable to see the free moving valence electrons as making up a plasma current. And despite those electrons having 1000’s of times less mass than the “neutral” atoms of copper, the flow of just those free electrons “effortlessly” generated rapid rotation of the copper wire.
Plasma physics has firmly established the existences of double layers. You can even see it in the electrical schematics as DL in many of Alfven’s diagrams of galactic currents on the other link I provided.Unless you were looking for it you probably missed though.
It is also well known that depending on the environment there is adequate ionization of the plasma to produce enough free electrons to produce a current that could rotate the neutral plasma molecules just as the current rotated the wire. And it is well known that currents create magnetic fields. All the ingredients for a homopolar motor are there. And many of those pretty pictures were there to show that many of the astronomical structures actually observed in the universe are very similar to what is observed in plasma labs.
I haven’t been to church in over 40 years but it reminds me of the saying “let those who have eyes see.” And you wouldn’t need to have an abnormal psyche to see such possibilities. Just an open inquisitive mind.
At the very least one would need to admit that electric forces may contribute to the rotational forces of which all are being attributed to unfalsifiable dark matter. Which was my simple contention that launched this many sided discussion.
For those who would rather to do more math than observation of actual structures may be you could start with Peratt’s paper “Te Evidence for Electrical Currents in Cosmic Plasma”
http://plasmascience.net/tpu/downloads/PerattEvidenceCurrents1990.pdf
I must confess that I don’t know the degree of their abnormal psyches. So be cautious in accepting what they say.
Nick Gotts Says:
1) Apology accepted.
2) If, as you admit, you’re ignorant enough to conflate the SSM with cosmological models, might that not suggest it would be advisable for you to go away and learn a bit more..”
Nick are you sure my apology was accepted because I am still not feeling a lot of love from you. My ignorance to which I referred was in regards to conflating two separate posts into one and rushing to post. Boy, it is dangerous to show a little humility here.
Nick Gotts said “4) My questions (slightly edited in an attempt to improve clarity) were whether you thought (before your first post here on this issue) either:….”
Nick I thought the following was an adequate answer to your question on #113 “Nick I was glad my mountaintop musings on craters elicited such a response. I never doubted that some craters even a few circular ones were caused by meteorites. What I doubted was that the overwhelming number of craters would be circular. I assumed that most entry angles would be below 45 degrees and make elliptical craters. After discussion here I looked at some of the literature for the first time and found various lab estimates for entry angles of less than 20 down to less than 5 degrees in order to create ellipticals. And if that holds true than the observed 5 percent occurrence of ellipticals would certainly minimize any arc induced craters.”
But if you want to probe more deeply into the depths of my “abnormal psyche” I will offer a little more fodder for my antagonists. I had seen videos of scientists imitating crater formation. So again I had no problem that meteors caused many of the circular craters. I too had visited the crater rim in Arizona. But I had no prior awareness of how different entry angles would lead to different crater geometries. And further research held little interest regarding that topic until this summer.
I have been pondering for many years what contributions an electric universe would make to our understanding of astronomical features. The accelerating solar wind and high temperatures of the sun’s corona were explained nicely in electrical terms. Debates among several amateur astronomers about the “disappearance” of an emission nebula alsowere nicely explained by a very plausible changes in current density shifting plasma into dark mode vs a glow mode. This summer while several of us were observing at a Star Party in the Sierra Nevada, an interested bystander asked what a comet was.
When I suggested the common model of the dirty snow ball, several astronomers suggested that such a view was being modified. I was referred to a paper by Thornhill because several people were impressed by his prediction that there would be a pre-impact flash due to the different charges of the comet and the impactor. Since both coming from different sectors of the heliosphere, it was expected that charge equilibrium had not yet been reached, especially due to the insulating quality of a double layer that forms when differently charged objects travel through the plasma. I checked out the paper and was impressed myself by his predictions. Quotes from NASA scientists seemed to support his predictions. For example regarding the pre-impact flash he claimed, “NASA investigator Peter Schultz’s description of the event: “What you see is something really surprising. First, there is a small flash, then there’s a delay, then there’s a big flash and the whole thing breaks loose.”
Here is the link to Thornhill’s presentation at the IEEE conference.
http://www.thunderbolts.info/pdf/ElectricComet.pdf
The observed arcing as well as the distinctive cratering observed on several comets supported Thornhill’s assertions. And for me the pictures of distinctive craters on a “dirty ice ball” suggested a paradigm shift. I wondered how many craters would be created by electric arcing. Subsequent observing nights looking at the moon felt like I was looking at the moon for the first time as all the craters seemed round and that seemed unexpected. Could they be due to arcing? For a while everything was “could there be arcing involved” Maybe it is peculiar to me, (I suspect not) but it seems one intense experience can promote a way of observing my everyday reality for the next few days, or more,and perceptions get filtered by that experience. For example I had to use a chain saw for the first time ever, to clear several dangerous tree from my property. After a day of “uneasy”cutting, every tree and telephone pole I looked at in the next two days, conjured visions of cutting it.
Sitting beneath a totally dark sky framed by mountain peaks on a warm August night, where one can readily find Andromeda with the naked eye, and peering into Sagittarius and the heart of the galaxy, while several shooting stars streak by is an awe-inspiring time. Views of the moon’s craters were vivid and thoe images lingered. When Kevin mocked me with the Saturn and other questions, about how I viewed the solar system, it prompted me to share my musings about craters because, now for the first time I believed that many craters could be due to electric arcs. But after reading several responses and doing a few google searches myself, I realized that most of the round craters could be easily explained by entry angle experiments. That’s what I was trying to convey when in answer to your question I admitted that now it “ would certainly minimize any arc induced craters.” I still believe that some craters could be generated by arcing, but how many is not within the grasp any testable hypothesis. And like my visions of cutting all trees faded, I so did the vision that most craters are created by arcing.
I hope that satisfies your need to understand some of the ways I pursue my need to understand.
# Ron Taylor Says: You do not have to know everything to avoid that. Just do a little homework so you can ask intelligent questions, and then ask them in a respectful manner.”
Ron perhaps you can review this thread and the Antarctica thread and show me where the first signs of disrespect appear. You might be surprised to find the disrespect did not originate with me.
# 38 and # 135 William Astley,
You are certainly persistent in your attempts to find a solar reason to eliminate, reduce or mitigate the effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gases on climate change. You first linked to the Tinsley paper over a year ago. Since that time you have repeated this link and many of the same arguments in eleven Real Climate threads. In the early threads, Real Climate scientists tried to point out the weaknesses in your arguments and the weakness and/or your misinterpretation of the literature references you repeat in each thread. In later threads our very talented amateurs have tried to do the same thing. About the only concession anyone has been able to get is that you will give up some of your solar cycle speculation if the current cycle doesn’t go as you predict. Perhaps you could indulge us by holding off any further repetition till the data is in.
#42 cce pointed out two very significant references indicating no significant trend in cloud cover detectable in current satellite and ground observations. At least one of these references was pointed out to you some time ago. # 134 Ike Solem points out that contrary to your assertion, there has been no long term trend in neutron counts. Your notion that the ocean has cooled overall because the central Pacific is in a La Nina phase is curious indeed. Perhaps you could hold off on any more discussion of “electroscavenging” until there is at least some observed, significant, detectable trend in clouds and/or causative effects (GCR’s, solar activity, neutrons, fairy dust)
I think Gusbob is yet another example of a pathology I have noticed: Nonscientists, who are moderately intelligent but untrained, and have no understanding of how science is done adopt a minority or pseudoscientific theory/idea to try to show that they are smarter than all those smart scientists. You see it with relativity, evolution, climate science, and in the case of Gusbob, the “electric universe” and other Velikovskian BS. The arguments they use are almost always based on “common sense” or strained analogies deriving from a misinterpretation of the science. There’s never a mathematical treatment, so disciplines like quantum mechanics seem to be pretty much immune, since you can’t make any headway without “doing the math”.
I really think there’s a wonderful subject here for a PhD thesis in psychology here. It really is an interesting pathology.
Re #167 [gusbob] “it is dangerous to show a little humility here.”
How would you know?
RE #117 & 132: Aaron, I read your link, and I couldn’t disagree with you more. First of all you assume that mitigating GW will cost money — well, yes, some measures have upfront costs, but pay for themselves over time, as in “it takes money to make (or save) money.” So when I purchased my SunFrost frig in 1991 (for $2600, see http://www.sunfrost.com — uses one-tenth the energy of a regular energy-efficient frig), I calculated that the $130 savings in electricity each year would pay for the difference of a regular frig in about 16 years, and for the Sunfrost itself in 20 years. And I figured this was a better investment than keeping that money in a CD or stocks. What I didn’t expect was the tremendous savings on vegetables not spoiling. So it paid for itself in about 12 years, and we’ve been saving money ever since.
Let me tell you about the $6 low-flow showerhead with off-on soap-up switch that saves $2000 (in water and water-heating) over its 20 year lifetime, and you can’t feel the difference (note that water requires energy to pump, treat, heat, and disposal treat). Actually the gov did pass legislation in the 90s requiring such new water fixtures to conserve water, so the regs are already upon us, and not wreaking the havoc you imagine. I remember a woman complaining that the low-flow toilets don’t flush well. Not so. We had an old 5 gallon/flusher that often took 2 flushes, which we replaced with a 1.5 gal/flusher and it flushed much better. It only cost $100, and is saving us $100 per year. With our many other measures, plus getting onto GreenMountain 100% wind-powered electricity (a few dollar cheaper per month than conventional electricity), we’ve reduced about 70% of our 1990 GHG emissions while increasing our living standard and our quality of life.
And there are myriad other money-saving items and measures in the global warming mitigation scheme. Read http://www.natcap.org to get other ideas about tunneling through, etc, that if applied at a societal level could cut our GHGs by more than 75% without lowering our productivity or our living standards.
So the upshot is this, we are taking economic risks of great loss if we do not mitigate GW, even if GW and all the other enviro & political/war & resource depletion problems that such mitigation measures would mitigate are not happening.
OTOH, if GW is happening and we fail to mitigate we not only risk certain & proven economic loss from all these great mitigation schemes, but further economic loss from agricultural decline, etc, not to mention loss of life. The GW risks could be quite severe — read SIX DEGREES by Mark Lynas.
So I’ll certainly take the win-win-win-win path of mitigating GW, over the lose-lose-lose path of not mitigating. Call me crazy.
Meanwhile, back on Earth:
gusbob #166:
Ah, now I see where your (and thus my) misunderstanding comes from.
You see, you don’t need to “cause rotation”. It’s already there. The galaxy has been rotating since day one and will continue to do so until the cows come home, without any expenditure of force.
What you need a force for, is to keep those rotating parts from flying away to infinity. A central, attractive force, as Newton figured out. If you want them to rotate (orbit) faster, you must provide more such force.
… and yes, I do understand the similarity between copper and plasma as conductors. What I fail to see is the similarity between copper, as a single material with one density, and a heterogeneous mix of plasma, neutral clouds, dust and stars (and more), with densities ranging over dozens of powers of ten. Which are all seen to move together and even all the time being converted to each other (formation of young stars from cold gas, ionization of gas to plasma by young stars embedded in them, etc.) Gravitation is an equal-opportunity force for all of them. EM is most certainly not.
BTW the Just_Curious question is bugging me too…
BPL (159): I should have said high clouds in both cases. The theory summarized in #24 was “high clouds (and subsequent cooling)”. I was just trying to point out that this was incorrect. IR satellites show high clouds as cool, therefore the earth is not throwing off heat, therefore the earth is warming, not cooling. This is generally true day or night in the tropics, oceans and temperate zones, although not true at night in the winter and polar regions. The bottom line for the GCR theorists is they must show that lack of solar activity (e.g. Maunder minimums) which lead to higher GCR’s, must NOT create high clouds in general, because high clouds are warming in general. Low clouds vary considerably more, they can be warming or cooling depending on their properties.
gusbob (#156) wrote: “What you are describing sounds more like directional neutrino decay rather than neutrino oscillation. Are you saying electron neutrinos are the only neutrinos with enough energy to transform into the other flavors? I am so confused.”
Nick Gotts already explained this in #149, but I’ll give it another go: the most symmetric oscillation scheme is one in which there is some positive probability p that (over some fixed period) a given neutrino (of any type) changes into a neutrino of a given different type. That is, starting with a neutrino of flavor A, there is probability p that it turns into flavor B, probability p that it turns into flavor C and probability (1 – 2p) that it doesn’t oscillate (no matter whether A means electron, muon or tau). Under such an oscillation, the distribution of neutrinos will approach 1:1:1 (1/3rd electron, 1/3rd muon, 1/3rd tau), regardless of the initial distribution. This is simply a fact about random processes, i.e. it has nothing to do with the physics of neutrinos or anything else.
As Nick Gotts notes, there are plenty of other modes of oscillation that would result in the same outcome, but in particular a symmetric oscillation will result in a symmetric final distribution, and since there are three types of neutrino, a symmetric distribution contains 1/3rd electron neutrinos.
Re #168:
Whatever the answer, it’s looking like SC24 is going to put the nail in whichever coffin is wrong. SC24 officially started in January, but it’s taking it’s sweet time actually starting, and it was late arriving.
A decline in the aa-index would be nice right about now, too.
William (155), interesting images; but anamolies are meaningful over a time span. Do you know the time span of the two images?
William Astley posts:
[[What is the competing hypothesis for why there have been four planetary ice-houses, roughly ever 140MM years, in the last 500MM years.]]
There haven’t been. As I recall, there was the Huronian snowball Earth 2.3 billion years ago, the Sturtian 800 million years ago and the Varangian 630 million years ago. Are you counting episodes of glaciation to any extent? That might give you every 140 mya, though I don’t think it was that even.
A few people have suggested that I need to do some homework. I agree that that is always the case. One or two of those suggestions seemed sincere. Others felt more like an intellectual equivalent of a ghetto shouting match where the tactic is to most vigorously tell the other he ain’t worth feces. So this is addressed to those who sincerely see a specific error that needs correcting and I would like to limit it to any of my misunderstandings of magnetic fields.
I thought Gauss’s Law for Magnetic Fields simply expressed that the net magnetic flux on a surface is zero. That magnetic lines do not stop and start but circulate. I also thought magnetic fields are created by electric currents and the stronger the current the stronger the field. Armed with that simple understanding the idea of an accelerating solar wind suggested that it was not a magnetic field that accelerated the articles past Pluto’s orbit. More likely it must be an electric field which do have start and stop points. So to direct my homework please explain my misconception and what law regarding magnetic fields I am misunderstanding.
Second standard models suggest sunspots are cooled because magnetic fields block the heat that is convecting upwards. I didn’t know a magnetic field could do that. I am totally unaware of any use of magnetic shielding to stop heat, only to protect agsinst electric and magnetic fields. Where would one look to find out how magnetic fields block heat.
Being ignorant of the claim magnetic fields can block heat. I was attracted to the interpretation that the strong magnetic fields associated with sunspots weren’t blocking heat but caused by electric currents flowing out of these spots. So the leap to thinking that the sunspot magnetism is due to increased electric currents seams reasonable. Furthermore evidence to support the idea of a stronger electric currents with increased sunspot activity, comes when we compare depths within the sun imaging different wavelengths. At a sunspot there is less visible light but using xray imaging from Chandra we see that the most active xray emission sites are just above sunspots. For example in the picture linked here:
http://www.electric-cosmos.org/spotstack.jpg
In the three images of a sunspot group
1. The top one is the photosphere – taken in visible light. The umbrae are dark and cool.
2. The middle image is taken in ultraviolet light and shows the chromosphere / transition region.
3. The lower panel is an X-ray image showing the violent activity in the lower corona.
The interpretation is the field aligned currents leaving the sunspots do exhibit low heat until they interact with the corona creating violent random motion measured as temperature.
Likewise using xray imaging the surface of the sun, it goes dark during sunspot minima and is bright during sunspot maxima. There doesn’t appear to be any significant temperature change to explain this phenomenon where xrays change over 100 fold during the sunspot cycle.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2007/images/solar-cycle.jpg
The correlations of aurora and sunspots also suggest electric currents. The great auroras of Halloween 2003 created tremendous geomagnetic storms and knocked out electric grids in Sweden and the Van Allen’s belt temporarily lost 60% of its altitude as this accelerating electrified gas(current) smashed into our magnetosphere.
http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2004/400.html
So without understanding how magnetic fields block heat in sunspots the wealth of evidence led me to an electrical current interpretation.
To conclude with this last observation. I asked about the magnetic ropes observed by Themis as examples of an electric current connecting the earth and sun. It was only answered (or dismissed) by saying of course there is a magnetic connection. But such dismissal didn’t address the issue.
All images of the earth and sun’s magnetic fields present them emanating from standard dipoles. Although we see the modification of those fields due to the solar wind, never in those models do we see magnetic ropes connecting the sun and earth. The solar wind, an electric current, does connect them. My understanding suggests you need an electric current to create these magnetic ropes. And the spiraling currents are well known to create self containing magnetic fields that lead to the observation of magnetic ropes.This is a standard Birkeland current. However it gets reported as if the magnetic ropes appeared out of no where and the solar wind rides these magnetic ropes. (That would be the biologiical equivalent of saying the Helicobacter pylori was an opportunistic visitor to ulcers and not the cause. It was a boon for psycholgists however) So how do we get magnetic ropes without an electric current?
I look forward to your sincere and specific guidance so hopefully I can learn where my mistaken understanding lies and we can be more on the same page.
173. Lyn– Crazy, ;)
I certainly wouldn’t want to deter you from doing a cost benefit analysis when you purchase your next fridge or shower head, or anything you choose to do as an individual to try to cut your emmission, cost, and consumption. It doesn’t hurt to experiment,try, and learn. I trust you on the calculations and will look into the options you suggest next time I need to make a purchase.
But we are talking about totally different things. These efforts are a drop in the bucket, and also don’t scale (Choosing a more efficient model when it’s time to replace what you have or building new is one thing. If everyone did a replacement it for the heck of it, the whole equation changes. There’s also the fact that your choice doesn’t stop the production of other shower heads etc, that infastructure is already in place and would be a huge waste to just dismantle or not use. In reality the head you don’t buy will go to somone else [but you do encourage future production to be better, and better choices to be made the next time the plant upgrades/changes]).
When I’m talking about cost, I’m not necessarily/generally talking about finance (cost benefit is a good start though, NPV is a good way to be economical on an individual and business scale–do consider the likely life and maintenance of the product as well). Money is more like the dye to monitor the flow with in the system.
When I’m talking about cost, I’m talking about an economic cost, which compounds over time. Population growth, productivity etc.
Back on to consumption,
When you do your taxes, look at your expenditures. It pretty much all equates to energy consumption. All of your consumption– services, good– all require energy to produce. Everything that doesn’t go into investment/savings is consumption, and it all requires energy. My electric, gas, and water for my house are nothing. A tiny fraction of just the interest payment on my house. That interest is paying for someone else to burn a bunch of fossil fuels to find and ship wine and truffles over to the states or grow a bunch of wheat to feed some overweight welfare kid, or build a hybrid car to sell below cost.
I saw the movie (Nation Geographic).
Read The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Very simple and relavent concept. And, a great read just for the fun of it, and to get a nice list of good historical works.
Ref 178. I am not sure which authority decides when SC 24 officially starts, but I dont think it has. I know little about the subject, but I read on the internet, messages posted by people who I think do know what they are talking about. The facts are as follows. A small sunspot at high latitude and with magnetic polarity associated with SC 24 appeared at the beginning of January 2008. It was not called Sunspot 1 of SC 24, but sunspot nine hundred and something of SC 23. Since then two small sunspots at low latitudes and with the magnetic polarity of SC 23 have appeared. I have seen an opinion that SC 24 has to “muscle” SC 23 out of the way. If this does not happen before June 2008, then it was forecast that SC 24 is unlikely to start before November 2009. How accurate this forecast, is I have no idea.
Martin Vermeer Says: Ah, now I see where your (and thus my) misunderstanding comes from.
You see, you don’t need to “cause rotation”. It’s already there. The galaxy has been rotating since day one and will continue to do so until the cows come home, without any expenditure of force.”
Martin this is where we choose different lines of research and explains the root of the hostile debate here with others. I have always had trouble with the Big Bang. If the Big Bang is correct then your constraint on motion in the universe is valid. If the hypothetical Big Bang is not correct then we need to consider other explanations for galactic motions.
I prefer to stay within an observable world. Right now the world of the big bang is accessible only by belief in the numbers and formulas a select few choose to use and constrained only if they make a reasonable explanation of observations. Using Newton’s laws we did the math to estimate mass and it did not compute. Those that chose to do the “math”, created a new constant and “gravitated” to Dark Matter. I simply accepted that the math didn’t work and chose the other option of looking at other alternatives to explain why Newton’s laws do not always predict the behavior of visible matter.
Although believing in things that are not there is considered a pathology in some fields, the road to dark matter was a logical extension of reliable, time-tested explanations and thus a sane choice. Its correctness however still remains in question.
We did more math on grander scales and now it seems the universe is accelerating faster than our original equations determined. We can add more dark matter but that would decelerate not accelerate the expansion. So now we need dark energy. Now when I do the math it seems like the universe is now about 70% dark energy 26% dark matter and only 4% ordinary matter.
Instead of increasing the known world, the universe is becoming more and more hypothetical and relies on formulas and equations that only of few us mortals can grasp and hold. Some of us don’t have a clue to where in reality the cosmological constants of your equations derive from. If we can’t see them we are reduced to faith in the super-human qualities of the physicists. Until you can make these things observable there will be a lot of skeptics.
So some of us ordinary people, left in the intellectual primordial dust, look for ways that are more observable. Our conjectures need to be testable and constrained by accessible observations. The homopolar motor created rotation with easily observed and measurable factors without inventing dark matter and dark energy. But still it is considered crazy to extend those time-tested principles into a cosmological understanding.! Well if looking for a more observable framework to guide my explanations is pathological heresy, so be it. Time will tell.
gusbob —
The magnetic fields in the sun don’t “block heat,” as far as I know. But plasma aligns along magnetic field lines, and aligned means less random, and heat is randomized molecular motion. Thus sunspots are cooler than the rest of the photosphere. Note also the existence of “magnetic refrigerators” for some substances. Of course you need a polar molecule for it to work.
As to the Big Bang, there are five major things it explains.
1) The cosmological red shift. In general, the further something is from us, the faster it’s receding from us. There’s nothing special about us, you would get the same effect from any vantage point. But clearly the universe is expanding. If you run it backward according to the best reconstructions of the Hubble constant through universal time, you get to a point where the universe was either infinitely small or infinitely dense about 13.7 billion years ago.
2. The distribution of elements. There is no easy natural way to make hydrogen, but hydrogen does get fused to helium and beyond in stars. The chemosynthetic aspects of Big Bang theory predict that the original material was mostly hydrogen with about 20-25% helium and trace deuterium and lithium. If the universe were infinitely old, as in the Steady-State theory or its variations, all the hydrogen would be gone.
3. The cosmological background radiation. The theorists of the Big Bang predicted that there would be background radiation from the Big Bang at the equivalent of a few degrees K everywhere in the sky. They predicted this in the ’40s. In 1965, Penzias and Wilson found it accidentally while trying to remove background noise from a Bell Labs antenna.
4. Olbers’s Paradox. Consider the Universe as concentric spheres starting from wherever you are. The surface area of a sphere follows the square of the radius, so a shell twice as big should hold four times as many stars (or galaxies). But light falls off as the inverse square of distance, so those stars (galaxies) should appear 1/4 as bright on average. The two effects cancel. Each shell should contribute an equal amount of light, and if the universe is infinite or even very big, the sky should blaze like sunlight. It doesn’t. The red shift gets rid of some of the light, but not enough. The best explanation — first figured out by Edgar Allen Poe, of all people — is that the Universe is not infinitely old, so there hasn’t been time for most of the light to get here.
5. The frequency of radio galaxies and quasars varies with distance, which means there were different fractions of these objects at different times in galactic history. In Steady-State’s “perfect cosmological principle” there should be no variation with time, since the Steady-State universe is infinitely old.
Gusbob, Your basic problem is that you don’t understand how science is done–and the first thing you need to realize is that being wrong in science is not a grave sin. Scientists advance theories, test them and then accept/modify/abandon the theories in accord with the results of the tests. Since science is inherently conservative, modification of the theory is the most common result. You are not even straight on what experimental results support what models. You are not clear on what the models predict and you haven’t even bothered looking into the implications of your own kooky ideas (they do no rise to the level of theories).
Another thing you need to understand is that scientists do not take all theories equally seriously. The Big Bang Theory is quite firmly established, and the data fit this model going back to at least the first trillionth of a second (thanks to WMAP). Indeed there is hope we can extend our glimpse back to the first trillionth of a trillionth of a second. So the evidence is observable. You simply are not trained to even recognize it as evidence, just as an untrained observer will see a stromatolite as a “rock” rather than evidence for evolution of life. Dark matter is now fairly well established. It is merely a consequence of the inverse square law of gravitational force–and I don’t know anyone sane who challenges that. Dark energy seems to exist, and it is exciting precisely because it suggests new physics, but for the same reason it is not as well established.
Gusbob, the problem is that when I say that you are ignorant of science, you take that as an insult or ad hominem attack rather than as a diagnosis. I have not said you are stupid. Ignorance is 100% curable. You could easily learn enough math to understand why physicists have accepted these theories as the most plausible. Instead you latch onto completely untested or discredited theories without even understanding enough of the math to understand why they are discredited. Not only do you not understand what the physicists believe (and why), you don’t even understand what you profess to believe yourself–and that’s sad.
JBL says,”This is simply a fact about random processes, i.e. it has nothing to do with the physics of neutrinos or anything else.”
I agree with you and Nick that if all neutrinos are interchangeable then a strictly random process would create the equal distribution.It is just like a diffusion equilibrium, so my criticism in that regard was wrong and unfounded.But a likely scenario is not proof that the detected populations originated in the sun and then oscillated.
With the virtual lack of interaction of neutrinos with ordinary matter, what is the signature of each flavor that allows you to determine their origin and original state? If neutrino oscillation is random interchange of flavors then why wouldn’t we observe equal proportions of all neutrinos whenever and where ever? A controlled neutrino factory type of experiment still remains at the needed proof.
gusbob… sigh.
Gusbob, So, let me get this straight: Despite the fact that we know the neutrinos are coming from the direction of the Sun. Despite the fact that we know neutrinos oscillate and that if you start with a single flavor of neutrino, you get 2/3 turning into other flavors on average over distance; despite the fact that all the observations are consistent with the theory with zero tweaking, you’re not going to believe that nuclear fission is the power source of Mr. Sun unless you can follow all the neutrinos from the site where they come into being until they are detected? Good luck with that. I think I’ll stick to science.
In reply to Paul Middents’ comment #172
“…tried to point out the weaknesses in your arguments and the weakness and/or your misinterpretation of the literature references you repeat in each thread.”
Do you have any specific scientific comment concerning Tinsleys’ electroscavenging mechanism? Have you read Tinsley and Yu’s paper that summaries the solar cloud modulation mechanisms?
Do you have any comment to comment #156 above, concerning recent data that shows the ocean is cooling? As stated in that comment solar wind bursts have stopped which were for solar cycle 21, 22, and 23 creating a space charge in the ionosphere which according to Tinsley’s electroscavenging mechanism would remove cloud forming ions. Yes, if the ocean starts to suddenly warm, now that electroscavenging has stopped and GCR has increased, I would without hesitation, support the statement that the vast majority of 20th century warming was due to GHG.
You did not mention the three papers (which used three different logical arguments: Patterns in the Proxy record, Patterns of Barycentric motion correlating with past mininums, and a solar physical model.) I linked to that noted the sun was moving to a mimimum. That were written in 1989, 2003, and 2005. (The sun appears to be heading towards a minimum now.
Do you have any comment to comment #166 above, concerning Shaviv’s hypothesis and his meteorite analysis?
RE #170 [gusbob] “Nick I thought the following was an adequate answer to your question on #113”
OK, you’ve outlasted me. I accept that you are not going to answer my questions. May I be cursed with whatever psychopathology you are suffering if I respond any further to your ramblings.
[Response: Ok. This thread hijacking has gone on long enough. No more please. – gavin]
RE #184, I suppose if it’s our galaxy and not us to be blamed for the warming, it would seem unnecessary to reduce our fossil fuel profligacy party. But if we want a truly better life, GW mitigation is the answer, even if it doesn’t mitigate GW.
Yes, my actions are just a drop in the bucket, but they do scale upward to true solutions, and it’s a crying shame we haven’t had the leadership in this country or the public will to make the necessary changes, which as you say will take years decades for people to replace their inefficient and non-conservative products and habits, move closer to work, get their local goverments to do the right thing re public transportation, get the car companies to offer plug-in EVs or hybrids, and the electric companies to offer wind or solar power.
All this could have been started on a massive scale 20 years ago, when we started our personal journey toward huge GHG reductions and money-saving & better, more satisfying lifestyle. Much time has been lost. We need the will of an informed people, leadership at all levels of government (not just regs and laws, but true leadership inspiring people to do the right thing), and a business community committed to goodness, not just profits.
I was developing a course on Business and the Environment in the mid-90s. Due to regs that were going to kick in 3M asked everyone from the engineers to the assembly-line workers to come up with ways to reduce pollution at lowest cost. When everyone started thinking about it, they came up with solutions that greatly reduced pollution and actually SAVED MONEY – to the tune of $millions. So they called it their 3P program: Pollution Prevention Pays. When the CEO asked the engineers why they hadn’t come up with those money-saving ideas before, the engineers said it wasn’t put to them that way (re preventing pollution in least cost ways).
And I have many many stories like that. We just have to put our minds and hearts into it, each and every one of us, and amazing things will happen. If Abu Dhabi can build a nearly carbon neutral city ( http://www.masdaruae.com ), why can’t we?
re 186, 187, 188 et al (Ray, BPL, gusbob….) There are not insignificant alternatives to the Big Bang theory, along with some significant holes in the theory itself. For one, Fred Hoyle’s hypothesis offers pretty good answers to BPL’s “proofs”, though his weakest is with the Cosmic Background Radiation stuff. (As an aside, to say CBR temperature of 2.7° was predicted in the ’40s is a major stretch — though if a “few” is a bunch, in very late ’40s, that’s probably close enough for your point.) Nor does he address Olber’s Paradox, though it, while interesting, requires so many greatly simplification assumptions to make it unworthy. (As another aside — a serious query: why do you say Hydrogen is hard to make? It strikes me as the most natural and easy as pi within the BB/expansion theory.)
I will admit that the current scientific probabilities strongly favor the BB (though of course not if executed by some super intelligent creator guy!). What annoys me, as I have said ad nauseam, is the religious fervor attached to the absolute certainty of some of your scientific beliefs. Apropos to this thread (blog), this applies to AGW. It’s probably a fine line. I expect and appreciate scientific advocacy; uncertainty (or at least being wishy-washy) would not likely be a helpful trait. Even so the ferociousness with which folks who suggest maybe something else deserves a little consideration get nuked and sprinkled with ad homs, IMHO, goes beyond the pale. (I know, Ray went out of his way to say he was not using ad homs — just calling gusbob a kook and an ignoramus only because he evidently is…..)
Lynn (194 et al), your scaling requires a whole lot of assistance from La-La Land. But I still do admire your enthusiasm.
Re 194 Lynn V : “I suppose if it’s our galaxy and not us to be blamed for the warming, it would seem unnecessary to reduce our fossil fuel profligacy party.”
What the business-as-usual (i.e., CO2 emissions-as-usual) proponents keep overlooking (or intentionally ignoring) is the inconvenient truth that the rising level of atmospheric CO2 is not so good for the ocean, or other aquatic ecoystems. Nor is it good for certain plants, such as the thousands of species of tropical plants carrying out C4 photosynthesis that provides some 25% of global primary productivity (Ellinger et al. 1997. Oecologia 112:285-299; Collatz et al. 1998. Oecologia 114: 441-454; Sage and Monson 1999. C4 Plant Biology, Academic Press). For these reasons, I think you are correct that “GW mitigation is the answer, even if it doesn’t mitigate GW.”
Rod, to call the scientific response to pseudoscience “religious” does a disservice to both science and religion. It does not take religious fervor to oppose–or even to be outraged by–lying. And to state that there is any scientific support for alternatives to anthropogenic causation of climate change, or for the Electric Universe theory, or astrology, or healing with crystals… is lying. The ignorance of the one who repeats the lie does not diminish the fact that it is a lie.
Moreover, in the case of climate science, the lies have had potentially severe consequences, with respected researchers called before Congressional witchhunts and threats of subpoenas for research materialsby ignorant food tubes in Congress. Compared to this, the criticisms levied against the ignorant proponents of pseudoscience are mild. Do you really think it is too much to ask that people remain silent about matters where they are ignorant, or if they wish to speak, to at least learn enough that they are not repeating lies?
Re #195 Rod B:
Within the BB yes indeed, but BPL was referring to the chemosynthesis taking place in stars after the BB. That is a one way path, from hydrogen to heavier elements releasing nuclear binding energy.
You mention correctly that the 2.7K background (and its now very well known, detailed properties) is the most serious argument against steady-state, and the one that made Hoyle give up on it. The background was predicted by Gamow in the 1940’s as an inevitable consequence of a hot beginning; I don’t remember what number he gave, but consider that at the time our understanding of the Hubble constant (and thus age and size of the universe) were off by 2x at least.
It is not the only problem of SS, however; the origin of elemental abundances is another. Hoyle’s SS assumed that matter was created out of nothing in-between galaxies, as they moved apart from each other; the theory needs the additional hypothesis that this new stuff is created in the right mix of H, He, D and Li. BB explains this quite naturally.
I don’t quite agree with BPL though that Olbers is a problem for SS, at least not for the Hoyle variety: the redshift in this also expanding model does the job of eliminating the paradox.
BTW about scientists being so cock-sure of their stuff: they aren’t. Read any article on frontline science, new, not previously done stuff, and you’ll see that 80% of the work, and of text written, is about
uncertainty, about what we do and don’t know, about which alternatives we can eliminate and which not yet, etc. And a value is not a scientific value if it comes without error bounds of some kind.
Now about non-frontline, textbook science, we are indeed pretty damn cock-sure. And when somebody barges in knowing better without the benefit of those textbooks, expect a strong response, yes. And no apologies :-)
Martin, Initial estimates of Universal temperature ranged from 5 to 50 K. One of my favorite cartoons:
http://xkcd.com/54/