Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[jimbob]

The correct unit of mass for English measurements is the slug, BTW

It is a mass that accelerates by 1 ft/s*s when a force of one pound-force is exerted on it.

I'd rather say that it is the unit for mass in one imperial scheme that was (is?) popular in the US. AFIK it never really was that common in England (or indeed the rest of Britain) which (again AFIK) tended to use the pound and pound force (lb and lbf).

Or is there an American use of the word "English" when discussing measurement systems? In the UK that is something that was British, not English.

ETA: The pound, in the US and UK is now defined in terms of kilograms and is equal to 0.45359237 kg and is a unit of mass.

 

[lomiller]

citations look like support until you see what they say.

The reason the citation is there is so you can look and see for yourself. If you don't it's nobody's fault but your own and certainly the fact that you don't bother to check the citation isn't a valid argument against it.

 

[jimbob]

I have learned something from this discussion. I had to think about the concept of "insulation". Insulation is measured by the change in the difference in temperature between too bodies (source and sink) per unit time.

I don't have an answer for the question about the surface temperature of Venus and Mercury, except to observe that "the surface temperature of Venus" makes more sense than "the surface temperature o fMercury", since a dense fluid atmosphere would scatter sunlight and transport heat by convection, reducing day/night and equator/pole temperature differences, while on an airless rocky planet with a day almost as long as its year and small axial inclination, you would expect extreme variation between midday and pre-dawn temperatures and between polar and equatorial temperatures.

I went looking for the post in which I mentioned the peaks in CO2 from Vostok ice cores. This was not one way or the other in this discussion, just curious. It looks like CO2 peaks some time before the official start of the next ice age. Dunno what this means. Maybe a post-modern glaciologist could explain it.

Thermal resistance is usually defined in terms of power flow per unit of temperature difference; "insulation" refers to thermal resistance.

Why is this different to your statement?

I have learned something from this discussion. I had to think about the concept of "insulation". Insulation is measured by the change in the difference in temperature between too bodies (source and sink) per unit time.

To grossly simplify: the difference in temperature, multiplied by the heat capacity of the object plus any latent heat for state changes between the two temperatures will give the energy change "available" to flow along the thermal resistance, which as it is in units of power per Kelvin, allows you to solve the differential equation to work out the temperature over time.

Using just temperature difference over time won't give you the right answer as it will vary with the temperature difference and the objects that are being insulated even with the same insulation and the same temperature difference. In other words, what you have described is a function of insulation (aka thermal resistance), temperature and the materials being insulated.

Because that consideration does not apply equally to both planets. Mercury gets to cool down on the night side.

And Venus doesn't... Because of its greenhouse effect.

That's our argument, isn't it? I mean, let's take an extreme case: put four rocky spheres (say, 50 meters in diameter) into an orbit around the sun that takes, say, six Earth months. Orient them so that the axis of rotation is perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic. Rock is a decent thermal insulator, right? I have handled without gloves lava cinders that glowed red on one side. Put two thermometers on each sphere, at the equator and at the pole. Set them spinning such that two keep the same face to the sun and two rotate every 24 hours. Cover one slowly-rotating sphere with a 1-meter coat of a metal that melts on the sunward side of the rapidly-rotating sphere. "Greenhouse effect" doesn't apply, right? Wouldn't you expect smaller equator-to-pole difference on the spheres with a liquid-metal coat?

Look, Ma, no insults!

Malcolm, just walk into a greenhouse on a sunny day. It doesn't matter that the air doesn't escape from the greenhouse, because it doesn't from the atmosphere, and the IR reflecting effect also works on heating surfaces even if there is air flow past them.

 

[lomiller]

Anyway, some of Malcolm Kirkpatrick's rather peculiar writings reminded me of something related and I wanted to ask all you guys:
Is there or have you ever heard of a denialist who actually knows anythig at all about Venus' atmosphere and it's workings? Who actually has attempted to explain it's observed features? With the observed IR-windows and their opacities/transparencies in their heights and wavelengths and all? Has there ever been such a thing? Or even an attempt in the denialsphere?

There are a coupe real climate scientists on the denier side, they mostly don't publish a lot anymore and when they do they are much close to mainstream climate science than what they put in their blogs. (Lindzen, Christy, Spencer, Pelkie Sr, who isn't to be confused with his son Pelkie Jr who is a political scientist but actively comments on climate science)

Most of what they do publish involves trying to insert uncertainty at the margins. While this isn't going to result in advancing the science, which they don't want anyway, but there is still some value in vetting the certainty levels in others results.

Some of these probably could do tan analysis of Venus that could pass peer review, but as I said the stuff they prepare for peer review is FAR less controversial than the stuff they put in their blogs. When you read anything by them, you pretty much always need to ask where this is blog fodder or something that could pass peer review.

 

[jimbob]

Because that consideration does not apply equally to both planets. Mercury gets to cool down on the night side.

And Venus doesn't... Because of its greenhouse effect.

That's our argument, isn't it? I mean, let's take an extreme case: put four rocky spheres (say, 50 meters in diameter) into an orbit around the sun that takes, say, six Earth months. Orient them so that the axis of rotation is perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic. Rock is a decent thermal insulator, right? I have handled without gloves lava cinders that glowed red on one side. Put two thermometers on each sphere, at the equator and at the pole. Set them spinning such that two keep the same face to the sun and two rotate every 24 hours. Cover one slowly-rotating sphere with a 1-meter coat of a metal that melts on the sunward side of the rapidly-rotating sphere. "Greenhouse effect" doesn't apply, right? Wouldn't you expect smaller equator-to-pole difference on the spheres with a liquid-metal coat?

Look, Ma, no insults!

Malcolm, I am trying not to be rude, but do you see a disconnect between you still struggling to understand what insulation is and your arguing about whether the surface of Venus is significantly hotter because of the greenhouse effect? Why do you think your views on that should carry any weight, given your proclaimed lack of expertise?

I am afraid that whilst google is a brilliant resource, you do need a certain level of education to interpret what you find with it.

 

[CapelDodger]

Is there or have you ever heard of a denialist who actually knows anythig at all about Venus' atmosphere and it's workings? Who actually has attempted to explain it's observed features?

I've not seen anyone with real science chops and all their marbles still in the bag approach this, and I doubt there are any. The only reason for getting into it is denial of the greenhouse effect, and not even Monckton goes there. So it's left to the ones you've no doubt seen, most of whom believe the pressure creates heat - and as a consequence have to deny conservation of energy.

From there it's a short step to running your SUV on water, so you can understand the attraction.

 

[CapelDodger]

[The slug] is a mass that accelerates by 1 ft/s*s when a force of one pound-force is exerted on it.

A slug's insides accelerate faster than that when my foot pounds them.

 

[Acleron]

A slug's insides accelerate faster than that when my foot pounds them.

The messy way of doing physics.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Good news! A weak and short Niño or no Niño at all is forecast for the next several months.

 

[ginjawarrior]

hello can anyone help i think i've heard that climate models have been run in reverse to compare against temperature records has anyone got any links?

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

The reason the citation is there is so you can look and see for yourself. If you don't it's nobody's fault but your own and certainly the fact that you don't bother to check the citation isn't a valid argument against it.

The cite, Abram 2003, did not support the Skeptical Science claim

Studies from around the world show no signs of bleaching dating back many thousands of years, until recent decades (Abram 2003), (Aronson 2003).

. Unless 1830 is "recent decades", Darwin's observation (and common sense) rebuts this. Corals die back whenever a yearly low tide coincides with a clear sky and noonday sun. Just as grass cropping coincides with the passage of a herd of bison. Abram describes a coral die back due to a periodic ocean oscilation (i.e., normal occurance) combined with algal fertilization from wildires.

Update: "Sea surface temperature reconstructions" will not find real-world evidence of bleaching by the non-thermal means the report describes (fertilization by wildfires).

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Let's just get straight to the heart of the matter: What role, if any, do you think all the carbon dioxide in Venus' atmosphere plays in warming its surface temperature?

I don't know.

 

[Megalodon]

They shouldn't. But neither should the claims of expertise be believed from people who don't have any idea where chalk comes from, or who misrepresent their expertise about ocean CO2 sinks.

Don't be too hard on yourself, nobody is taking your claims seriously. And hopefully you learned something about those subjects.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Don't be too hard on yourself, nobody is taking your claims seriously.

And hopefully you learned something about those subjects.

Have you?

 

[Megalodon]

Have you?

Yes, I've been learning for a long time, and keep doing it everyday. That's why I was able to explain to you the misconceptions you had on those subjects. I suspect you still hold on to those same misconceptions, but I'm sure some lurkers appreciated my efforts.

 

[Reality Check]

What do you think will happen to Foraminifera due to global warning

The cite, Abram 2003, did not support the Skeptical Science claim . ...

Quote mining the Skeptical Science claim is really bad.

One more time: They claimed "no evidence of coral bleaching until recent decades" in the context of mass coral bleaching.
How global warming is driving mass coral bleaching

Looking only at bleaching though, we find that the incidence of mass coral bleaching increases dramatically in the last few decades. Despite modern records being biased by better monitoring and reporting in recent times, there seem to be little evidence of mass coral bleaching further back in time when examining long-lived coral communities. Studies from around the world show no signs of bleaching dating back many thousands of years, until recent decades (Abram 2003), (Aronson 2003). In the Caribbean there are no signs of previous mass bleaching dating back 220,000 years (Pandolfini & Jackson 2006)

(my emphasis added)

And what does Abram et. al. 2003 say:
(Abram, et al) Coral Reef Death During the 1997 Indian Ocean Dipole Linked to Indonesian Wildfires
"Sea surface temperature reconstructions show that although some past upwelling events have been stronger, there were no analogous episodes of coral mortality during the past 7000 years, indicating that the 1997 red tide was highly unusual."

Try reading and understanding that the bit in bold supports "Studies from around the world show no signs of bleaching dating back many thousands of years, until recent decades" and what cited paper follows that text Malcolm Kirkpatrick: "(Abram 2003)" !

Getting back to the thread topic rather than your quote mining of Skeptical Science:

Originally Posted by Reality Check
Malcolm Kirkpatrick: Species of Foraminifera could not adapt to temperature changes that took thousands of years.
What do you think will happen to Foraminifera when similar temperature changes take place over a couple of centuries or even decades?
Revised question from 10th September 2012

(originally What do you think will happen to Foraminifera when CO2 changes over decades?)

25 days and counting.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

A friend of mine was a History PhD student who studied Central Asia. He once said to me that many Soviet historians did useful work. All you had to do to benefit from their research was to skip the first page ("Guided by the principles of Marxism/Leninism we investigate blah, blah, etc) and last page ("We see the relatiion exposed by our research confirms the predictions so brilliantly elucidated by Marx and Lenin blah, blah, blah"). In between, there was real research. Today, if a biologist wants to study _X_, it can't hurt to request funds to study "How global warming will affect _X_". That's what that Abram 2003 paper looks like to me.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Quote mining the Skeptical Science claim is really bad.

One more time: They claimed "no evidence of coral bleaching until recent decades" in the context of mass coral bleaching.

Ahhhhh, "context".

 

[Reality Check]

Please explain to the lurkers why you call "wrong" my answer to your question:
...
(Malcolm): "Foraminifera incorporate it into calcium carbonate and it precipitates and forms chalk."

I can answer that - because you were wrong !
Chalk:

Chalk is a soft, white, porous sedimentary rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. Calcite is calcium carbonate or CaCO3. It forms under reasonably deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite plates (coccoliths) shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores. It is common to find chert or flint nodules embedded in chalk. Chalk can also refer to other compounds including magnesium silicate and calcium sulfate.

The Wikipedia article is slightly wrong, thus: (Megaloon): "Forams exist, they form shells, of different types. So? You were talking about chalk deposits, which are predominantly formed by coccoliths."
Chalk (from a professional geologist)

These rocks consist mainly of coccolith biomicrites formed from the skeletal elements of minute planktonic green algae, associated with varing proportions of larger microscopic fragments of bivalves, foraminifera and ostracods. The planktonic coccoliths and many of the foraminifera (the planktonic species) lived floating in the upper levels of the oceans. When they died their skeletons sank to the bottom, combining with the remains of bottom living bivalves, foraminifera and ostracods, to form the main components of the Chalk.

No mention of foraminifera tests or shells where there is calcium carbonate.


A more charitable way to say it is that you are mostly wrong:

• No parts of foraminifera make up chalk (the mineral) but ...
• Bits of foraminifera, bivalves and ostracods are included within chalk as fossils.

 

[Reality Check]

Ahhhhh, "context".

Ahhhhh, "the lying that is quote mining to distort or conceal the context".
Ahhhhh, the inability to read a web page and see that the context is mass coral bleaching and then going on about local coral bleaching !
Ahhhhh, repeating your mistake a few times !