RoR: Forum

re 36:

Fred,

The essence of your argument is undeniably true. Yet its truth presents us with the paradox that because the atmosphere is not as hot at 10km as would be predicted by the early Hansen model, the problem is far more serious than imagined.

In other words, imagine a scenario in which all heated carbonated gas escapes. No surface warming, therefore, no problem, right?

Early Hansen modeling assumed a given ratio of carbon-caused heat (Keeling) to a rise in

climate temp. Clearly then, from the get-go, no one was saying that the relationship of heat to temperature was a simple linear, slope 1.

For example, referring back to para 2, if all heat escaped, then plotting Keelings against the earth’s temp on the vertical axis would give zero slope….

In other words, it was understood that many factors would have to be explained to account for the apparent discrepancy between Keeling and real earth measurement.

In passing, a fissile unit on the board mentioned the absurdity of the Venus comparison which, if inferred directly, would have been true. So, give me the additional coefficients…..

Gravity, rotation, and a Reynolds effect factor into the equation. One such recent discovery was that Reynolds works better than imagined, smashing down, adhering , and trapping heat in the ocean…for the last ten years. In other words, what we’ve learned is climate measurement is not enough.

Then we’re discovering lop-backs, as the aforementioned polar breezes that convex towards the equator as the ice melts.

Next, we have the chemical reality that carbon tends to pick up other elements like a vacuum cleaner (oxygen and sulphur in particular), thereby weighing down and preventing carbon’s escape to the aforesaid 10 km. So we have the pollutant issue that becomes intertwined.

Then, of course, we have the fact that un-free carbon, being bonded, heats gas at a lower rate commensurate to atomic weight. That means carbon even at the 10km altitude will somewhat fail to heat the gasses, per 1880-ish chemical principle.

Lastly, anthropogenic skeptics demand a formal model which, as McKibben said, will not be produced. Hence the epistemological issue, which rapidly degenerates into political polemics. What you have is a version of truth that’s coherent, which is to say that we’re far better with than without, and whose parts, from version to version, will internally contradict.

In this sense, the climatology of AGW somewhat resembles the early years of Quantum Mechanics, with its plethora of equations that vary from particle to wave. Even today, ‘action at a distance’ cannot be explained, although any Dust Bunny U can rig up an Aspect experiment.

What’s amazing, then, is the progress, under the threat of dire urgency, that’s been developed within the recent 20 years…..

Eva

Post 41

Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - 8:55am

Eva:

The 'carbon' we are talking about is not free carbon; it is the C in CO2. The essence of your argument is that CO2 does not thoroughly mix -- not only between hemispheres(which is what some folks try to claim to explain the different trends at the poles), but vertically, in the atmosphere. Whereas the exact opposite argument has long been widely accepted to explain the mixing of highly reactive complex Fluorocarbons-- high into the topmost atmosphere, to explain the 'ozone hole' over the Antarctic. We don't get to have it both ways as needed to explain away reality.

We used to closed loop test with the Freons (to simulate high Mach numbers at low speed). Freon gas is an exreemely 'heavy' high mole weight gas. And yet, it has been argued(and accepted), throuroughly mixes vertically in the atmosphere-- to reactively create the ozone hole.

Is CO2 more reactive than those Flurocarbons? How are we to believe that Flurorcarbons freely mix thoroughly in the atmosphere(part of the basis of the ban on them), but CO2 is biased towards the surface?

It comes across as desperation to explain away missing observational data; if the greenhouse effect is the greenhouse effect, and CO2 is the greenhouse gas that man emits that is driving MMGW through increased greenhouse effect, then the required evidence of increased greenhouse effect is missing from observational data, and no amount of dancing is going to make that fact go away.

No, not only is there no evidence of measurable, significant, increased greenhouse effect from manmade CO2 emissions, but no evidence of increased greenhouse effect from any source.

But moot; the fact is, we live in a turbulent boundary layer, not a laminar boundary layer; atmospheric mixing is thorough because of all the vertical components, at many scales, of turbulence. (Advection.)

Fred

Post 42

Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - 9:15am

Eva:

I'm not sure what you mean by heated gas from the surface; hopefully you dont mean, via mankind's energy emissions. The MMGW argument is based on increased greenhouse effect. The source of the heat is the sun, not the burning of fossil or other fuels. The mechanism proposed is, the added CO2 converts more reflected long wave radiation to heat in the gaseous fraction of our atmosphere. This is different than particulates impacting albedo(which has an equally weighted impact on net solar loading as solar radiance does.)

Heating our atmosphere directly is not the issue, or this argument would have been laughed away decades ago. You can do the math easily. If mankind were to stop everything it is doing, and devote 100% of worldwide energy consumption to the task of heating up our oceans, it would take a number of the order of 10,000 years to heat the oceans by 1 deg C at present worldwide -total- energy consumption.

The sun is the big gun heater and driver of our climate; mankind needs to impact or leverage that big driver in order to have any noticeable impact at all on climate. So, particulates, yes, (ironically, largely unburnt hydrocarbons, which would somehow escape the surface trap that only CO2 is prey to?)

Aside: there was once -- in the 60s and 70s-- a hypothetical proposal to put large solar arrays in orbit, capture solar energy and microwave the harvested 'free' energy to earth groundstation receiving stations. Even if inefficent(subject to technological advances), the energy was 'free.' But it was recognized that this would long term increase the net solar loading of the earth, as we would effectively be increasing the full disk size of the interception of our mote of solar radiance at our orbit; we would heat the earth. So althought it could be done, it is not done. Because solar loading is the big driver.

Fred

Post 43

Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - 1:49pm

Jules:

Cap and trade is just another socialist idea for redistributing wealth from those nations that are prosperous to those that have not taken it upon themselves to become self sufficient.

I agree that is the case for CO2. But in the instance of SOx/NOx emissions, the science wasn't in dispute at all, and the regulatory scheme of 'cap an trade' was actually a reasonable way to get done what -needed- to be done. The Cap was an industry wide cap, but specific instances could choose to address their individual quotas either by investing in scrubbers, or, by buying credits from firms that had reduced emissions below target. It was a reasonable idea. In practice, it was kind of a mess; because of the massive industry wide need for SOx/NOx, and while we were at it, particulate/opacity and even CO2 constant emissions monitoring, there was a period in the 90s when that was the WIld, Wild West of CEMS(constant emissions monitoring systems) development. There wasn't nearly enough supply (of trained talent able to make the required measurements) to meed the sudden nationwide demand. The result was companies that were delivering home heating oil deciding that they could get into that business and throw up a CEMS into the marketplace. The only thing that really needed to be done correctly was to spit out the state reports in the right format. It was one of the heydays of engineerless engineering, and look how much we can save on our bottom line if we just cut out all that nonsense we neer udnerstood anyway! Who will ever know? . These properly formatted reports would be submitted to state bureaucrats who would dutifully sign the reports, but the CEMS themselves were often random number generators, developed by folks who had no concept of all of the nature of the measurements they were taking, or how they were making them. A classic and repeating blunder was to use a wide open a/d (no input filtering at all) to take a 'steady state' measurement, and then apply no additional numeric filtering at all. They would take 'a' reading once a minute, as required, then average an hour worth of those, as required, and dutifully report the random numbers. I spent a few years in the 90s making part of my living cleaning up messes after the fact, of which there were no end. (Eventually someone would notice 'These numbers are crap; what's up?") But in the end...it sort of worked. Enough operators actually reduced SOx/NOx and particulate emissions that the nation was able to conclude 'close enough.' But if that was close enough, then why make all those operators juimp through regulatory hoops that had holes in them a mile wide? There was massive waste in the effort, so many of those CEMS were pony shows, even with the state inspectors dutifully doing their extended welfare jobs and signing off on the reports. It was a joke. Why was CO2 being monitored? Not as a pollutant, but as a sanity check on power calculations-- the operators quota was based in part on power consumption history. The CO2 emissions was needed as an input into a mandated sanity check power calculation(and inf act, it was the discrepencies in those that often highlighted the shabby nature of the measurements being reported.).

But now, cap and trade is being abused with un-ripe and even contradictory theories regarding CO2 emissions. MIght as well regulate H20 emissions on the same basis-- why not? H20 by far dominates CO2 as a greenhouse gas. Our massive oceans dominate our thin whispy atmosphere, and totally buffer it with regard to H20...as well as CO2. But H20 dominates.

Notice the non-sensical arguments: "But H20 leaves the atmosphere quickly." Well no shit. It also enters the atmosphere just as quickly(or else our atmosphere would be dry as the desert-- these folks don't understand even the most fundamental concepts of conservation/continuity.) Those kinds of half scientific sounding arguments -- 'H20 leaves the atmosphere quickly' -- are more than sufficient to bully techincal illiterates into believing anything. The point is, 100% during the time that H20 resides in the atmosphere, it totally domionates CO2 as a greenhouse gas. And thank God it does or we would be freezing to death.

So why is there no hue and cry for cap and trade on manmade H20 emissions? Evaporation from Golf courses, emissions from those same catalytic converters that spit out CO2? Because that is a much harder sell with our buffering oceans; it is apparent to even technological illiterates that it would literally be pissing in the wind to undertake such a campaign.

Less obvious with CO2. But they will come around.

regards,
Fred

Post 44

Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - 2:40pm

Eva:

The triple point of water is the triple point of water, both here, and on Venus.

At what point in the development of an atmosphere on Venus would it have been possible for water to be pooled in three states(ice, liquid, and vapor?)

Said another way; if earth were moved closer to the Sun, and all of its liquid oceans were boiled off into H20 vapor, and then, the earth established radiative heat balance with the Sun, what would the surface temperature be relative to what it is now, simply die to Boyle's law? We could assume, like Venus, that the resulting planetary albedo would be extremely high. In fact, today, theVenus equilibrium skin temperature is lower than Earths -- even as its surface temperature is higher--even as it is much closer to the Sun -- as it always was throughout its history of atmospheric development.)

So where is Venus' H20 from all those comets bombarding it? Why so dominated by CO2? Well, one theory is, the H20 has escaped over time. What we see today is the results after billions of years. Venus atmospheric system never supported H20 as pooled liquid and ice, and so, the atmosphere eroded the planet's surface and its 'carbonate' cycle is nothing like that on Earth. No buffering pools of liquid water. The hyper heated vapor escaped ther planet slowly over time; the surface buffered CO2 from rocks remains and is dominant.

It could never be H20; the triple point of water is the triple point of water. Any water on Venus was always at most hyperheated steam vapor. The eroded surface us now what buffers its thick atmosphere, determining the overwhelming makeup of CO2. CO2 on Venus was an effect, not a cause.

regards,

Fred

Post 45

Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - 11:33pm

re42

Fred,

First, the big picture:

Science resembles law in terms of standards of proof, but with one major exception.

Whereas in law the accused is always presumed innocent until proven guilty, in science there are many cases in which a new discovery stands as prima facie proof, thereby forcing the skeptics back on the defensive.

The classic example from Physics is the 1900 discovery by Planck of the Quanta. Yes, it raised lots of questions of particle/wave duality as a function of the particular experiment, the Heisenberg connundrum that gives speeds far beyong light, the phase-space configurations placing electrons in several places at once, the non-explanation of the transition of the phases, etc....

So although Feynman said that no one really understands the stuff, even high-school TAGsters find the stuff really easy to do.

That's why Bell, around 1965, told everyone just to shut up and get back to work. The Bell's theorem states that, in so many words, experimentation takes huge precidence over logic, working svience over meditative philosophy; the butrden of proof has always been with the sceptics from the get-go, God plays dice with the universe. Get over it, Albert!

Ditto the evidence for AGW (using 'anthropogenic').

*Measured CO2 has increased from 280 to 400ppm in the last 50 years.

* Having various isotopes, one can easily distinguish CO2's of human origin and those of plants. This immediately refutes the fissile/anecdotal gag that 'CO2 was much greater 50 million years ago'.

* Oceanography 101 studies the absorbtion of CO2 into what they study, as an easily identifiable acid. A huge reason why basic chemistry CO2...atmosphere = heated atmosphere fails is because of said absorbtion, said to be close to 90% of all carbon emitted by humans.

Acidification of the ocean has always been a major part of AGW in terms of the researchers themselves. The oppositiion has tried to salami it off via Fleet Street bongo bongo.

In other words, Keeling Curve works for the avauilable 10% of the total CO2.

What's interesting is how the 97% of working scientists within the field who agree with AGW do use Bell-styled argument to say to the minority 3%, "The burden of proof is on you. Moreover, your standards of proof indicate a Goldilocks version of epistemology in which everything has to be just right by standards set by a particular set of philosophers who have no idea as to how real science is done. If they had had their way about Quantum Mechanics not being a 'real' science until such-and -such got resolved, we'd still be without transistors".

This, of course, easily spills over into the genre of political polemic that involves ulterior motive, which I try to avoid. Suffice to say, however, that it's absurd to say 'only' pro-AGW's speak with personal bias. Petrochemicals risk losing billions, therefore they fund the Anti's.

OTH, Climatologists can simply change their particular focus, obtaining the same grants with new interests. That's how The Highest Form of Social Parasitism works here at Dust Bunny U.

Eva

Post 46

Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - 12:58am

Now get to work on perfecting Thorium reactors if you want truly clean energy.

Post 47

Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - 9:10am

Eva:

You are conflating "recent increase in fringe CO2" with "said increase is the primary driver of climate/AGW." with no supporting connective tissue; what connective tissue actually exists refutes the hypothesis, no matter how many folks funding is dependent on claiming just the opposite. The required mid altitude signature is not there in two independent sets of profile measurements, and the magical vertical profile mixing behavior of CO2 vs. heavy flurocarbons is not convincing me of anything but desperation.

If you plot CO2 on a scale normlaized to CO2 in the atmosphere over time, you can scare the kids.

If you plot CO2 on a scale normalized to O2, N2, and especially H20 in the atmosphere, you can put the kids to sleep. As in, what is that line bouncing around the very bottom of this plot of atmospheric components, totally dominated by H20?

If you start with an unproven hypothesis (unproved even by -some- of the uncalibrated and uncalibratable CO2 as drive climate models)that fringe CO2 (of any isotope you care to point at)is a major driver of climate, and then focus like a laser beam only on Keeling, you can again scare the kids. But Gore's very own Vostok ice core(and other ice core)data negates that theory, and shows CO2 only as an effect, not a cause. The of order 1000 year lag between increases in global temps and following increases in CO2 point only at the massive nature of our oceans as long time scale thermal integrators of noisy solar loading, driven by myriad combination of cycles known and unknown. CO2 is an effect, not a cause.

Fred

Post 48

Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - 9:48am

Eva:

Here is a thought experiment related to what is really uinderlying the AGW debate. (I actually proposed this to Socolow at Princeton not too long ago, in writing. He of course thinks I'm insane.)

There is both Deuterium-Tritium and Deuterium-Deuterium targets for sustained fusion. The hurdles for D-D are far higher than for D-T, which is why D-T is targeted first. D is plentiful-- there is the energy equivalent of 300 gallons of gasoline worth of D in every gallon of seawater. T is rare and decays. Maybe 200 kgs worldwide at any given moment, and a competing use is in military hydrogen warheads, which must be kept fresh and ready to end the world.. So, the current primary hurdle for D-T is the scarcity of Tritium in the world, and the remaining proof of concept of self-breeding Tritium schemes. That hurdle is no longer sustaining D-T plasmas of arbitrarty duration. The ITER experiment currently being built will address the go/nogo of current thinking on self-breeding Tritium by evaluating several T breeding alternatives. (NASA, which provides the T for military stockpikes, is having trouble producing enough T for that purpose...)

But if that hurdle is breeched, then D-T fusion is no longer a research topic, it is a development project to completion in a few decades, with associated development time uncertainties. Assuming that hurdle is breached -- and this is key, there is uncertainty in how long it will take to breach that hurdle -- the coming future fusion economies will power mankind for thousands of years -- with some irony, to the stars,

A coherent present day energy policy would be to build a bridge of uncertain lenght to those future fusion economies. What would such a bridge look like?

It would look exactly like most of the steps proposed by the AGW crowd. Conservation of existing goto energy stocks, focus on efficient processes and alternative sources of energy, in order to build a bridge of uncertain lenght to those future fusion economies on the not so far but we don't know exactly how far away horizon.

And, here is where the thought experiment is inserted; who doubts that, with some POTUS making that case for a national energy policy -- with the intent being to build a bridge to those future fusion economies, that, even though the proposed actions of that policy were almost precisely the same as those proposed by the AGW folks, that both sides in this debate would immediately switch sides?

And in so doing, reveal the real nature of the debate, which is, based on an attack/defense of capitalism, industrialization, technology, and economic modernity?

As well, and I think this expalins the national dragging of feet, in a world where energy was as endemic as water, the geopolitics of scarce petroleum resources suddenly gets vaporized. Of what purpose far reaching force projecting navies and air forces and bases in far off lands? Suddenly, any nation with access to water also has access to endemic energy. Build capital plant, and just add water. (And, for some period of time until technology breaches D-D reactions, seed Tritium, which will be the next worldwide scarce resource, but less scarce if self breeding is conquered, and in fact, D-T is going nowhere for anyone unless self breeding is conquered.)

The current technology for manufacturing scarce T is to irradiate special targets in fission reactors, which no doubt should be a reason for wanting to build fisssion reactors on the short term. T will soon enough be even more of a strategic resource then it already is, but then, as self-breeding T reacrtors grow, will become a commodity and not a scarce rarity.

Maybe the national dragging of special interest feet will dissipate when D-T fusion becomes a development race and not a research topic. The research topic will move on to D-D, while the first generations of fusion reactors will all be D-T based(and it will be interesting to see how the competition for seed T works out...) Nations with operating fission plants will have an early advantage. T poor nations will beg from T rich nations intially. The process will be governed by a strange sense of interests, because the process will in some ways eliminate some missions of government in a world in which energy -- large scale energy -- is as endemic as water.

Fred

Post 49

Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - 1:01pm

Fred,

My knowledge of 3^H, or 'T' is limited to several factoids:

*It's rare

* It's leaky and messy to produce, which is why Savannah was shut down.

* It speeds up D-reactions.

* Since photons are all to happy to bounce off of its huge nucleon, T is great for atmospheric measurement and communication.

* It looks cool in Swiss Army watches.

For these reasons, at least as given, T is produced in rather small quantities and under such strict guidelines that no real incentive exists.

So yes, I do accept the insight that interest groups influence both what we know of T and its usefullness vis a vis other nuclear fuels. In other words, D is favored because the government has had a love affair with it ever since Nagasaki.

Taking a page from Weber (who took a page or two from your newest voodoo doll, Durkheim), bureaucratism works to favor its own interests, thereby forgetting its original task--as an de-volutionary process.

The solution is de-funding. And taking a page from Ockham (pardon the pun), complaining of government's evil intent is worse than useless. The most seeficient statement we can make is to say nothing except, "Denying government funding for science will open up research avenues directed towards free-market efficiency. Only then will we understand the true possibilities of Tritium, 3^He, and dozens of others. Moreover, we should always keep in mind that our present nuclear energy production is still based upon D models first used by Manhattin". So if you continue to give the governmeny money, advanced D-modeling is all you're going to get".

Eva

Post 50

Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - 2:21pm

Jules:

Re Thorium:

Yes, I wish we lived in that nation. That's is going to be China, too.

A similar achilles heel that is shared by the fusion concept is also somewhat shared with thorium reactors the negative public perception in the US to anything remotely fissiion based. Folks are energetically(no pun intented) "Yes but-ing" the facts of Throrium reactors, but seem to not be getting much traction in recent years. It seems like poison in Congress. Might even say 'radioactive.'

Thorium reactors also share the inherently safe characteristic as fusion reactors...to little avail. America has been Jane Fonda in a hardhat since 1979 when it comes to fission or even fusion.

Thorium based reactors seem so much more accessible/near term, and also fit into solving much more pressing strategic problems. I suspect that US sensibilities just won't engage.

I brought up the fission thing not because I actually think we'd ever have any such energy policy (Thorium reactors would make even more sense-- we could get there far sooner. There would be little need for a bridge to Thorium reactors-- more like, removing the self imposed locked gates.). I meant to use it only as the basis for that thought experiment -- that, if implementing a bridge of unceretain length to those economies, as the basis of an energy policy, included many/most of the things that the AGW-ers are advocating today, the two political sides would switch sides of the field, because the foundation of the conflict is really capitalism/industrialism/commerce/modern economic commerce based, not environmental/energy based. The environment/energy issue is a proxy for the underlying conflict..

Consider even thedevelopmetn of Thorium reactors as part of that bridge of indefinite length into the future: the AGWers would scream about such elements being part of any energy policy-- just as they would the goal of such an energy policy being a bridge to some future fusion economies. If a solution to any national strategic issue does not involve less capitalism/inductrialism/modern economic commerce(other than feel good/do nothing Solyndras or GM union political payoffs), or increased strangleholds over world commerce, then the AGW core wants no part of it.

reagrds,

Fred

Post 51

Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - 2:29pm