Eva: Actually, no, turbulent models would be remanded over to 'Physics'. Actually, I can't interpret that. At GFDL, turbulence modeling was not remanded over to 'Physics.' Atmospheric/climate modeling is multi-disciplinary. Mellor, a world authority in turbulence modeling, long headed GFDL, and was a professor who taught fluid dynamics in the Aerospace and Mechanical Sciences Department, in the Princeton Engineering School. He taught an undergraduate course in fluid dynamics, which is where I first met him. I later approached him because of my then interest in turbomachinery aerodynamics -- he was the author of 'the Mellor Charts' from NACA days, at the cusp of NACA->NASA.. He was then head of GFDL and was focused on turbulence modeling, had some modeling projects, and agreed to mentor my undergraduate research-- part of which was him teaching me the limitations of numerical modeling. He had me formulate the model equations, clearly identify the necessary tweak points, render the resulting second order non-linear DEs computable via finite difference modeling, model the boundary and initial conditions, and most importantly, apply to experimentally measured flow conditions where possible, in an attempt to verify/calibrate the models. He taught me why 'ensemble' runs are a necessary evil of such numeric modeling, how to estimate quantifiable uncertainty in such models. He was also my undergraduate advisor, one of those who encouraged me to go to grad school at MIT, where I landed in the Gas Turbine Lab(translated: found an R.A.) When I got there and started moving into my office, I opened up the drawers in my old wooden desk and found Mellor's files in the same desk from 25 years earlier, when he was in graduate school there. I recognized his handwriting. Nobody cleans out anything at MIT, desks get passed from grad student to grad student, they are like an unofficial museam of history up there. Walk out the basement of GTL onto the side campus street, and there, just inside the door, is a Whittle Engine, a German ME-262 jet engine, and a German comprex(buzz bomb) 'flapper valve' engine, just sitting there, waiting for decades for someone to figure out where to put them. Too historically significant to just throw into the trash, too interesting to not have somewhere in the Lab, but nowhere to put them. No guards. Not so much as a locked door. Anyone could just walk in the basement and lay their hands on those items from history. Few did; it couldn't be valuable, because it wasn't behind locked doors... Both calibrattion and estimation of quantifiable uncertainty are areas that are inherently difficient in climate modeling. In the one area where they can be calibrated, however, the evidence is damning, not only of the models, but of the entire theory of enhanced greenhouse effect from any source, much less, mankind's emissions of CO2. Nobody is disputing long term global warming-- there were once glaciers covering Manhattan, of course there is long term global warming. The debate is over whether there is measurable/detectable man-made global warming which is significantly accelerating this trend due to CO2 emmissions. But in addition to these CO2 models, which predict an enhanced greenhouse effect as the mechanism by which this MMGW occurs, there is just the basic understanding of how greenhouse warming works; it is not simply Boyles Law at work in a thick gaseous atmosphere under the action of gravity(P increases, and T increases as a result.) Short wave radiation passes inward, is absorbed by the earth's surface and is reflected back as longwave radiation, which is more effectively absorbed by water vapor and CO2 in the breadbasket of our atmosphere. This doesn't just occur only in the first several meters of the atmosphere-- greenhouse gases are fringe consituents in what is mostly N2 and O2, and so throughout the atmosphere, and the very CO2 models this entire theory depends on predict a mid-altitude (10km centered) warming signature that isn't found in two sets of independent measurements: radiosonde/weather balloon and satellite sounder data. The only trends that can be detected are at the surface--which is consistant with the source orf the trend being primarily solar, even if indirectly(as in, changes in the makeup of the local absorbtive land, which is a manmade effect on a manmade measurement of -surface/area temperature. If that signature is inconveniently missing, then not only can we not say that the source is man made CO2 emissions, but we cannot even say that the source is increased greenhouse effect from any source, such as, water vapor. The signature just isn't there. Now, folks have tried to explain this lack of thermal signature at 10KM with some very exotic theories-- direct conversion of radiative energy to kinetic energy (wind shear, turbulence) without any intermediate thermal signature. A stretch at best, it comes across as desperation.. But it reminds me of your explanation of MMGW as really a convective trick being played on us... warm air rises... drawing cooler air towards temperate altitudes...which draws warmer air towards the poles. So the effect of MMGW, at least, is to move the poles towards mid-latitudes, and the tropics to the poles. Except for one observational fact: the evidence at the two poles is not similar, they have totally different trends. Which is what we should -expect- if the driver is primarily solar. The reason for that is, inclined orbit (opposite summer/winter in the two hemispheres), Perihelion(the Sun is now closer to the earth in Northern Winter than Southern Winter), plus the unequal impacts of summer melthing vs. winter freezing in determining polar ice coverage. We can't suddenly rely on imadequate hemispherical mixing, as if Maxwell's Demon was now at the equator, because the exact opposite argument was just used to explain the Antarctic ozone hole-- thorough hemospherical mixing(which is immediately obvious to anyone whos ever looked at full disk water vapor imagery.) On what basis do we focus on area averaged temperatures over time? Why are mass averaged temperatures ignored? The answer to that is simple-- we barely have accurate mass averaged temperatures of right now--today, never mind, over any history. 99.9% of the earth's atmospheric mass is tied up as liquid water-- the oceans. The atmosphere is a thin, whispy 0.1% of that atmospheric mass, that is fully buffered and dominated by the thermal mass of the other 99.9%, the oceans. Our oceans act as long time scale integrators of net solar loading. See 'thermocline uncertainty' for a hint at the magnitiude of the problem of determining anything like a mass averaged 'the global temperature', either today, or at any time in history. Surface area averaged trends are a lousy indicator of anything significant; why would a square mile of 80 deg F surface temp water 10 ft deep be weighted the same as a 3000 ft column of water with a surface temp of 60 deg F? Not to mention, when 1500 of the worlds leading Hollywood Jewelers and Florists and Lit Department mavens get together under the IPCC seal of approval to angst about an 0.5C change in something they call 'the Global temperature' without more than 3 of them having a hint as to whether they are angsting about an area averaged or mass averaged number, what the uncertainty is in the number, or even, what uncertainty means in that context, then why would any technical literate take any of their angst seriously? A political scientist, maybe. I don't deny that there might be an impact of manmade CO2 emmissions. What is missing is, some evidence that impact is measurable or detectable in the midst of all the really huge drivers, as it is, with our massive buffering oceans of H20(and CO2), their long time scale actions as solar loading integrators(hundreds -- even thousands of years) and other known(and unknown)cyclic drivers of solar loading, including, indirect (but 1:1) drivers such as the now known dependency on cloud formation on cosmic ray/radiation from space and their impact on albedo(which shares an equal weighting to solar output in the determination of net solar loading.) The mechanism that determines earth albedo must be incredibly stiff -- this we know from observation, because the measured value of full disk earth albedo varies only over an incredibly narrow range. Why is it that we never see cloud cover covering the entire surface of the full disk? Why is it that we never see clear skies covering the entire surface of the full disk? How can it be that the measured albedo varies over such a narrow range unless the feedback mechanism is incredibly stiff? Is the safe thing to do 'something?' No, because we have no idea in what direction we should be pushing or pulling. I can't forget that the original birth of MMGW via CO2 emissions was the result of angst in the 70s on how to counteract MMGC and avert an ice age. Nor can I ignore the blossoming of this CO2 emissions industry as a direct result of Thatcher politicizing the science institutions in the UK in order to push nuclear and take on the coal unions. That happened at an opportune time -- the death throes of the God that Failed -- and the flotsam swimming in Marx's wreckage found hope in a new crusade, and latched onto CO2 and global warming harder than a lifelong bureacrat jetting on a junket to the latest Earth Summit for the latest round of 'Rich vs, Poor.' The thought of the arrogance being floated today -- the folks who want to seed the oceans with massive amounts of iron oxide to stiimulate algae growth and kick enhqnce the carebonate cycle to scrub more CO2 out of the atmosphere -- come across as folks looking for funding so they can smakc the side of the refrigerator with a sledge hammer to see if they can fix it. I don't think we should be blindly smacking thr side of any refrigerators with sledge hammers unless there is a demonstrated reason to be smacking refridgerators with sledge hammers. This is exaclly what was being proposed in the 70s to aver the coming ice age(we were told, being brought about my mankind's emissions of particulates)when the same flavor of arrogrant pinheads wanted to massively increase the burning of fossil fuels in and of itself in order to increase global warming! As if we are all Mr. Amazing No Short Term Memory Man. And mankind -can- impact earth albedo; the INDOEX and other ongoing studies demonstrate that clearly. Pinatubo sized events for certain directly imapct climate, and if mankind is careless with particulates, or God forbid, light off widescale conflagerations via global nuclear war, we could indeed impact climate. But even Pinatubo sized particulate events scrub themselves from the atmosphere, and mankind -- at least the West -- has increasingly focused on reducing particulate emissions, effectively. As well, the SOx/NOx indistries wide reduction programs -- through intelligent regulation based on indistry wide caps and trading credits, which is where the idea came from for trading CO2 caps and trading credits, was effective. But CO2 is neither particulates nor SOx/NOx. There was objective evidence of both of those as polliutants. With some irony, catalytic converters have, as their intended mission since the 70s, the goal of converting exhaust gasses into harmless H20 and CO2. Particulate emiission reductions and SOx/NOx reductions were largely not resisted, the science was clear. Not so with CO2. The irony of attendees at the latest CO2 summit opening up their cans of Coke(complete with friendly polar bear)to release their personal cans of CO2 into the atnmosphere, after having jetted halfway across the world to the latest confab, should not go unlaughed at. (CO2 for 'carbonated beverages' is not freshly scrubbed from the atmosphere; that would be as stupid as condensing water from the atmosphere for the same purpose. CO2 for carbonation, in the quantities neededs, is largely generated via fresh combustion of fossil fules/natural gas.) We can laugh at that fact and point out "But the contribution is so small, relative to mankind's total emissions, so it is ignorable." However, what we can't do is point out that mankinds emissions are so small, relative to nature's total emissions, so it is ignorable. Nor can we point out that the fraction of mankinds emmissions of CO2 that we will actually be able to reduce is so small relative to either, so it is ignorable. None of any of that justifies UN control over world commerce -- the imposition of CO2 emission caps and trading credits paid as tax to some made up authority as a proxy for implementing an agressive strain of creeping global socialism. That is not me ignoring science. That is me ignoring political science, which is what this CO2 debate is based on. Fred
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