Starship Asterisk*

aristarchusinexile wrote:Science is a search after knowledge, Chris.

bhrobards wrote:Why don't you show the current image instead of the summer image?

aristarchusinexile wrote:

starnut wrote:I have a selfish reason too for believing that we are responsible for the climate change, and it is to hope that we wake up and do something to stop it, or at least not make it worse, for my children and grandchildren's sake.

Move your family to high ground, Gary, because we can't do anything about the sun's effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_dimming wrote:
<<Global dimming is the gradual reduction in the amount of global direct irradiance at the Earth's surface that was observed for several decades after the start of systematic measurements in the 1950s. The effect varies by location, but worldwide it has been estimated to be of the order of a 4% reduction over the three decades from 1960–1990. It is thought that global dimming was probably due to the increased presence of aerosol particles in the atmosphere caused by human action. Aerosols and other particulates absorb solar energy and reflect sunlight back into space. The pollutants can also become nuclei for cloud droplets. Water droplets in clouds coalesce around the particles. Increased pollution causes more particulates and thereby creates clouds consisting of a greater number of smaller droplets (that is, the same amount of water is spread over more droplets). The smaller droplets make clouds more reflective, so that more incoming sunlight is reflected back into space and less reaches the earth's surface.

Some scientists have suggested using aerosols to stave off the effects of global warming as an emergency geoengineering measure. Russian expert Mikhail Budyko understood this relationship very early on. In 1974, he suggested that if global warming became a problem, the planet could be cooled by burning sulfur in the stratosphere, which would create a haze. According to Ramanathan (1988), an increase in planetary albedo of just 0.5 percent is sufficient to halve the effect of a CO2 doubling. In a weblog posting, Gavin Schmidt stated that "Ideas that we should increase aerosol emissions to counteract global warming have been described as a 'Faustian bargain' because that would imply an ever increasing amount of emissions in order to match the accumulated greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, with ever increasing monetary and health costs.">>

BMAONE23 wrote:Here are the last 3 years indicating Snow Coverage (2005 feb is missing, 2004 and prior don’t indicate snow coverage)

bhrobards wrote:

BMAONE23 wrote:Here are the last 3 years indicating Snow Coverage (2005 feb is missing, 2004 and prior don’t indicate snow coverage)

BMAONE23-So why in the 1998 image is Greenland white? Bill

That, of course, is utter nonsense. Scientifically, the case for global warming is stronger than ever, and the percentage of climate scientists who think otherwise is very small.

Your comment, however, wonderfully demonstrates the grave risk we face having such a scientifically illiterate populace. We no longer live in a world where a lack of understanding of science (in its true sense, as a method of understanding) can be tolerated.

BMAONE23 wrote:

bhrobards wrote:

BMAONE23 wrote:Here are the last 3 years indicating Snow Coverage (2005 feb is missing, 2004 and prior don’t indicate snow coverage)
BMAONE23-So why in the 1998 image is Greenland white? Bill

The white area in Greenland is residual Ice Cap as opposed to annual snow cover.

bhrobards wrote:(snip)
So, whats up with the western mountains in Canada and Alaska, ice cap as well?

BMAONE23 wrote:The concern about GreenHouse Gases comes IMO from studies of Venus. Venus is very similar to earth in size and gravity. So the concern of GreenHouse Gasses on Earth comes from the fact that Venus can not sustain our type of life. Both Venus and Mars have atmospheres containing more than 95% Carbon Dioxide. Mars though isn't warm because 1 it is further from the sun and 2 it doesn't have the gravity to support a thicker atmosphere but Earth does have a Gravity capable of supporting an atmosphere similar to Venus.

Venus’ atmospheric facts
http://www.daviddarling.info/encycloped ... atmos.html
Mars’ atmospheric facts
http://www.daviddarling.info/encycloped ... atmos.html

So the worry is allowing a runaway scenereo that leads Earth to transform into Venus.

9tronium wrote:As does your lack of a basic understanding of scientific principles, Chris.
Here's the problem with the rising waters theory; the ice shelf is already floating (says so in any research you run across on the ice shelf. ) Therefore there can be no rising of sea levels any more than the level of water in your glass changes just because your ice melts in your drinking glass. The ice already displaced all of the volume it's going to. This proof is over 2000 years old (research Archimedes, it's a hoot!)

Here's the problem with global warming theory. If there were warming of any significance happening, just like a spinning skater, the earth's rotation would be slowing down as the equator grew from rising sea levels. As of this date there have been no additional changes to the times, tables or calculations for sun rises or sun sets. The explanation can only be that there is no growth at the equator and therefore no appreciable warming. Again, this type of proof is well over 2000 years old.

Chris Peterson wrote:Take a beaker and put some ice cubes in it, then fill to the brim with saltwater, 3.5% w/w. Let the ice melt. I guarantee, the beaker will overflow.

Chris Peterson wrote:Take a beaker and put some ice cubes in it, then fill to the brim with saltwater, 3.5% w/w. Let the ice melt. I guarantee, the beaker will overflow.

bhrobards wrote:

BMAONE23 wrote:The concern about GreenHouse Gases comes IMO from studies of Venus. Venus is very similar to earth in size and gravity. So the concern of GreenHouse Gasses on Earth comes from the fact that Venus can not sustain our type of life. Both Venus and Mars have atmospheres containing more than 95% Carbon Dioxide. Mars though isn't warm because 1 it is further from the sun and 2 it doesn't have the gravity to support a thicker atmosphere but Earth does have a Gravity capable of supporting an atmosphere similar to Venus.

Venus’ atmospheric facts
http://www.daviddarling.info/encycloped ... atmos.html
Mars’ atmospheric facts
http://www.daviddarling.info/encycloped ... atmos.html

So the worry is allowing a runaway scenereo that leads Earth to transform into Venus.

Dude, you're channeling Carl Sagan. You are quite right about snow cover, I was so exhuberant I just jumped off the cliff. Very embarassing being wrong. But, I feel better now that I've confessed.Bill PS you're wrong about Venus. I don't mean that people don't believe that just that its not nearly so clean cut.

Chris Peterson wrote:

StACase wrote:Chris Peterson wrote:

Yearly records are completely useless. The shortest time scale that is used in models and predictions is decadal ...

We're expected to believe that the ten year projection is good when the one year isn't? That doesn't make any sense.

Besides, if you look at figure 10.5 of the IPCC AR4 it sure looks like the resolution is much finer than your ten year claim.

I'm sorry, but you clearly don't understand how any of this works. I don't think you're qualified to have an opinion. Decadal analysis and prediction isn't the same as predicting for ten years (although yes, I do think that we can make reasonable predictions about the climate decades into the future). You don't seem to understand the difference between weather (which is basically what a one year projection would be) and climate (which is what a ten year projection deals with). And you can make a plot with any time scale resolution- days if you want- where every point is a 10-year average- and that's what most of the IPCC trend plots are doing.

Study some statistics, learn how to properly analyze these reports and papers, and then come back with a well-founded opinion.

10.3.1 Time-Evolving Global Change

The globally averaged surface warming time series from each model in the MMD is shown in Figure 10.5, either as a single member (if that was all that was available) or a multimember ensemble mean, for each scenario in turn. The multi-model ensemble mean warming is also plotted for each case. The surface air temperature is used, averaged over each year, shown as an anomaly relative to the 1980 to 1999 period ...

Chris Peterson wrote:You're making a bit of a fool of yourself here. A little knowledge (emphasis on little) is a dangerous thing. Read the previous posts explaining the error in what you're saying here. Or, do the experiment... it isn't hard. I do it every year for middle school students. Take a beaker and put some ice cubes in it, then fill to the brim with saltwater, 3.5% w/w. Let the ice melt. I guarantee, the beaker will overflow.

Again, bad physics, or bad data (or both). It's easy to estimate the effect of rising sea levels on the Earth's rotation rate. Since angular momentum is conserved, you can solve for the change in angular velocity as a function of the change in radius. Taking the observed increase in sea level since 1993 of 3.2 cm, you can calculate that the day has gotten shorter by about 600 microseconds (actually, a bit less, since the sea level rise isn't quite equivalent to the radius of the Earth increasing by that amount). And indeed, this is included in the model for delta-T, the rate variation in Earth's rotation. The effect of increasing sea level is offset by the continuing rebound of northern and southern land masses because of the loss of polar ice after the last period of glaciation. In short, your argument holds no water. (Nothing affects the Earth's rotation rate fast enough to show up in sunrise/sunset times- those calculations are not made to the necessary precision.)

9tronium wrote:Boy, a twofer of bad info and bad experiments on your part, Chris. The reason your ice experiment overflows is because you allow the ice to touch the bottom of the beaker and don't achieve full displacement because the ice is still making contact with the vessel. Hint: pour the water in first, and then add the ice for full displacement. Heck, even Mister Wizard performed this one correctly. Now I know why my middle schooler comes home confused. How can you screw-up an experiment that’s been performed correctly countless hundreds of thousands of times?

Read my paragraph slowly and you'll see that warming requires that the earth rotate slower, not faster - as your paragraph states - in the presence of global warming. When seas rise, the mass is further from the axis, so the moment of inertia gets larger. You're simply supporting my theory of global cooling (less liquid water = smaller equator = faster rotation: apparently by 600MS).

And lastly, I notice you didn’t even try to comment on right ascension and declination calculations.

Chris Peterson wrote:

9tronium wrote:Boy, a twofer of bad info and bad experiments on your part, Chris. The reason your ice experiment overflows is because you allow the ice to touch the bottom of the beaker and don't achieve full displacement because the ice is still making contact with the vessel. Hint: pour the water in first, and then add the ice for full displacement. Heck, even Mister Wizard performed this one correctly. Now I know why my middle schooler comes home confused. How can you screw-up an experiment that’s been performed correctly countless hundreds of thousands of times?

You didn't do very well in school science, did you? Because you didn't listen, and you didn't follow directions. You're thinking about what happens when you melt freshwater ice cubes in fresh water. But sea surface ice is fresh, and it's floating in brine. And that's the experiment you need to do- as I suggested. The rise in water level has nothing to do with the ice touching the bottom (it isn't); the rise is caused because the density of freshwater is less than salt water.

Read my paragraph slowly and you'll see that warming requires that the earth rotate slower, not faster - as your paragraph states - in the presence of global warming. When seas rise, the mass is further from the axis, so the moment of inertia gets larger. You're simply supporting my theory of global cooling (less liquid water = smaller equator = faster rotation: apparently by 600MS).

My poor wording. The day length is increased by 600 us from a 3.2 cm increase in sea level (what, you never got a sign wrong? <g>). But that's not the only thing affecting the Earth's rotation rate, so this isn't the observed value. Rather, the observed value is close to the sum of all the effects that are modeled.

BTW, your theory of "global cooling" is not a theory. Neither is global warming. Global warming is an observation, which few scientists doubt. The theories have to do with what's causing it.

And lastly, I notice you didn’t even try to comment on right ascension and declination calculations.

Because I have no idea what you're talking about. The only thing that seems remotely relevant is that the RA of reference objects are regularly compared against their measured hour angles to determine how the rotation rate of the Earth is changing (because it isn't predictable over short periods). Is that what you're talking about? What's the issue?

9tronium wrote:Unless you’re talking about continental glaciers, sea-ice is saltwater ice. You simply said you put an ice cube in salt water; you neglected to mention anywhere that it was freshwater. Because true sea ice is saltwater, I thought you were using saltwater ice. My mistake. So, yes, you can melt a freshwater cube into saltwater and watch the level rise a negligible amount, but you're not teaching anyone about anything except density. As sea-ice is saltwater (not glacial ice, but true sea-pack) there is no density difference, and so there is no rise in sea level to even discuss. In fact, the entirety of the northern sea pack can melt with little or no effect on the ocean levels due to this fact.

Chris Peterson wrote:This APOD, and its discussion, is about Antarctic shelf ice...

Chris Peterson wrote:

aristarchusinexile wrote:Science is a search after knowledge, Chris.

That's where you are wrong- or at least, imprecise. In the modern sense, science is the search for knowledge using a specific, rational process. Philosophy is a search for knowledge as well, but it isn't remotely scientific.

There are many routes to knowledge, and I'm not offering any comparisons (although I obviously have my own opinions about how effective or useful different methods are). I'm just pointing out that this forum is about modern science, and that means that arguments that don't follow the dictates of the modern scientific approach are, by definition, unscientific. And for the most part, they don't belong here.