outsidethecube

2009-12-05T23:49:00.000-08:00

Climategate and Mediocre mathematics,A schoolboy howler

The Climategate saga continues to provide interesting revelations.Whilst the emails are deeply disturbing,a damning revelation that the code reveals problems of the simplest form are revealing of the standard of skill by these "modelers"

One of the simplest observations e have is the earth is a sphere,from the circumference we can deduce the surface area of the planet around 510,072,000 km2.

It seems an incorrect circumference measurement is used in the ?code of the UEA.

As was reported on BBC 2's Newsnight on Wednesday, UK programmer John Graham-Cumming has begun some analysis of the software code contained in the files released two weeks ago. So far, he has documented 4 bugs that he has found on his weblog here. It is impossible to ascertain at this time the effect those bugs would have on calculations performed with temperature records, but Graham-Cummings speculates:

"So some information is lost for data being plotted near the 180 degrees line. Admittedly, that's in the middle of the Pacific Ocean (although it does cut through some land mass). But if there are any ocean temperature measurements at the 'edge of the world' then bits of their data isn't being taken into account.

I wonder what, if any, impact these three bugs have on the output of this program.

PS. There's actually a fourth problem with this code. The number 110.0. It's being used to convert from kilometres to degrees of longitude and latitude. The same number is used for both even though the Earth isn't a perfect sphere.

The code is using a value of 39,600 km for the circumference of the Earth, whereas the mean value is actually 40,041 km. But, hey, what's an error of 1% between friends?"

I find it interesting that the software used to measure global warming has a 1% error in the Earth's circumference. I find it odd that they didn't adjust the numbers appropriately when converting kilometres to longitude and latitude.

Its worse then we thought.

2009-12-03T00:07:00.000-08:00

Nasa announces New Study adds to findings of life on ancient mars

As outlined in the previous post,Nasa has announced the findings of Thomas-Keprta et al 2009.

Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
11.30.09

RELEASE : J09-030

New Study Adds to Finding of Ancient Life Signs in Mars Meteorite

HOUSTON — Using more advanced analytical instruments now available, a Johnson Space Center research team has reexamined the 1996 finding that a meteorite contains strong evidence that life may have existed on ancient Mars.

The new research focused on investigating alternate proposals for the creation of materials thought to be signs of ancient life found in the meteorite. The new study argues that ancient life remains the most plausible explanation for the materials and structures found in the meteorite.

In 1996, a group of scientists led by David McKay, Everett Gibson and Kathie Thomas-Keprta of NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston published an article in Science announcing the discovery of biogenic evidence in the ALH84001 meteorite. A newly published paper revisits that original hypothesis with new analyses. The paper, “Origin of Magnetite Nanocrystals in Martian Meteorite ALH84001,” by Thomas-Keprta and coauthors Simon Clemett, McKay, Gibson and Susan Wentworth, all scientists in the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Directorate at JSC, is in the November issue of the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta of The Geochemical Society and The Meteoritical Society.

Magnetite crystals in ALH84001 have been a focus of debate about the possibility of life on Mars. Magnetite is an iron-bearing, magnetic mineral. On Earth, some water and soil bacteria secrete the mineral within their cells. The 1996 study suggested that some magnetite crystals associated with carbonate globules in ALH84001 are biogenic because they share many characteristics with those found in bacteria on Earth. Other scientists have argued instead that the magnetite in ALH84001 was likely caused by inorganic processes, and that those same processes can be recreated artificially in the laboratory by heating carbonates in a process known as thermal decomposition, forming magnetite identical to that found in the Mars meteorite.

In this new study, the JSC research team reassessed the leading alternative non-biologic hypothesis that heating or shock decomposition produced the magnetites. The authors argue that their new results do not support the heating hypothesis for the formation of the magnetites. They conclude that the biogenic explanation is a more viable hypothesis for the origin of the magnetites.

“In this study, we interpret our results to suggest that the in situ inorganic hypotheses are inconsistent with the data, and thus infer that the biogenic hypothesis is still a viable explanation,” said lead author Thomas-Keprta, senior scientist for Barrios Technology at JSC.

“We believe that the biogenic hypothesis is stronger now than when we first proposed it 13 years ago,” said Gibson, NASA senior scientist.

There are full links to the paper and a review paper in the links above and here

In addition to the new paper on ALH84001, the JSC team has published a paper that identifies shapes or morphologies in Martian meteorites that resemble known microfossil and microbial shapes in samples from Earth. These new shapes, seen with a scanning electron microscope, are termed biomorphs because of their close resemblance to known, biologically produced features on Earth.

The morphology seems consistent with a biological origin,such as seen in hydrothermal vents such as thermophiles,which exudate high acidic residues,this will be a lively debate.

2009-11-28T13:22:00.000-08:00

ALH 84001 Discovery or Diversion ?

Nasa is to announce on Monday the 30th November "evidence of life on Mars" by reanalysis of the Antarctic Meteor ALH 84001.

Wiki gives us a general outline.

Allan Hills 84001 (commonly abbreviated ALH 84001[1]) is a meteorite that was found in Allan Hills, Antarctica on December 27, 1984 by a team of US meteorite hunters from the ANSMET project. Like other members of the group of SNCs (shergottite, nakhlite, chassignite), ALH 84001 is thought to be from Mars. On discovery, its mass was 1.93 kg. It made its way into headlines worldwide in 1996 when scientists announced that it might contain evidence for microscopic fossils of Martian bacteria.

The Times has a hyped story on this.

Nasa scientists have produced the most compelling evidence yet that bacterial life exists on Mars.

It showed that microscopic worm-like structures found in a Martian meteorite that hit the Earth 13,000 years ago are almost certainly fossilised bacteria. The so-called bio-morphs are embedded beneath the surface layers of the rock, suggesting that they were already present when the meteorite arrived, rather than being the result of subsequent contamination by Earthly bacteria.

“This is very strong evidence of life on Mars,” said David Mackay, a senior scientist at the Nasa Johnson Space Centre , who was part of the team of scientists that originally investigated the meteorite when it was discovered in 1984.

In a 1996 study of the sample, Dr Mackay and others argued that the microfossils were evidence of life, but sceptics dismissed the claims, saying that similar-shaped structures might not be biological. The new analyses, the product of high resolution electron microscopy, make a strong case for the Allan Hills 84001 Meteorite having carried Martian life to Earth. The microscopes were focused on tiny magnetite crystals present in the surface layers of the meteorite, which have the form of simple bacteria. Some argued that these could be the result of a carbonate breaking down in the heat of the impact.

The abstract of the paper reads.

The Martian meteorite ALH84001 preserves evidence of interaction with aqueous fluids while on Mars in the form of microscopic carbonate disks. These carbonate disks are believed to have precipitated 3.9 Ga ago at beginning of the Noachian epoch on Mars during which both the oldest extant Martian surfaces were formed, and perhaps the earliest global oceans. Intimately associated within and throughout these carbonate disks are nanocrystal magnetites (Fe3O4) with unusual chemical and physical properties, whose origins have become the source of considerable debate. One group of hypotheses argues that these magnetites are the product of partial thermal decomposition of the host carbonate. Alternatively, the origins of magnetite and carbonate may be unrelated; that is, from the perspective of the carbonate the magnetite is allochthonous. For example, the magnetites might have already been present in the aqueous fluids from which the carbonates were believed to have been deposited. We have sought to resolve between these hypotheses through the detailed characterization of the compositional and structural relationships of the carbonate disks and associated magnetites with the orthopyroxene matrix in which they are embedded. Extensive use of focused ion beam milling techniques has been utilized for sample preparation. We then compared our observations with those from experimental thermal decomposition studies of sideritic carbonates under a range of plausible geological heating scenarios. We conclude that the vast majority of the nanocrystal magnetites present in the carbonate disks could not have formed by any of the currently proposed thermal decomposition scenarios. Instead, we find there is considerable evidence in support of an alternative allochthonous origin for the magnetite unrelated to any shock or thermal processing of the carbonates.

This suggests an ecological connection in so far as geological process seem to be eliminated.The paper has been online since June,and one might wonder if this is a 'good news" balance of the climategate problem.

2009-11-21T21:13:00.000-08:00

Climate Mafia,Mediocre Mathematicians and the Mind Projection Fallacy

The strength of a government depends on the people’s ignorance.Moreover, he said, the government is aware of this and would therefore always fight against the people’s education

Tolstoy

The release of emails and other data exposing the mindset of climate scientists in resisting dissent by distorting or withholding of datasets, will bring questions,however the main uncertainty that needs to be asked is why global warming has stopped.

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong.
- Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and a lead author of the 2001 and 2007 IPCC Scientific Assessment of Climate Change

This is a clear case of the mind projection fallacy (My own ignorance) - (Nature is indeterminate)eg Jaynes Probability as Logic,

It seems that mankind has always been occupied with the problem of how to deal with ignorance.Primitive man, aware of his helplessness against the forces of Nature but totally ignorant of their causes, would try to compensate for his ignorance by inventing hypotheses about them. For educated people today, the idea of directing intelligences willfully and consciously controlling every detail of events seems vastly more complicated than the idea of a machine running; but to primitive man (and even to the uneducated today) the opposite is true. For one who has no comprehension of physical law, but is aware of his own consciousness and volition, the natural question to ask is not:What is causing it?", but rather:Who is causing it?"

The answer was to invent Gods with the same consciousness and volition as ourselves, but with the additional power of psychokinesis; one in control of the weather, one in control of the seas, and so on. This personication of Nature must have been going on for thousands of years before it started producing permanent written records, in ancient Egypt and Greece. It appears that the adult citizens of those times really believed very literally in all their local Gods This oldest of all devices for dealing with one's ignorance, is the firrst form of what we havecalled the Mind Projection Fallacy".

One asserts that the creations of his own imagination are real properties of Nature, and thus in effect projects his own thoughts out onto Nature. It is still rampant today, not only in fundamentalist religion, but in every field where probability theory is used Of course, we are not arguing against a scientist's practice of formulating hypotheses about what is happening in Nature. Indeed, we see it as the highest form of creativity { far transcending mere mathematical manipulative skill { to conceive the right hypothesis in any field, out of one's educated imagination. Copernicus, Newton, Faraday, Darwin, Mendel, Pasteur, Wegener, Einstein are our heroes for having done this The difference between an imaginative scientist on the one hand, and primitive man and religious fundamentalists on the other, is that the scientist clearly recognizes the creations of his imagination as tentative working hypotheses to be tested by observation; and he is prepared to test and reject a hundred different hypotheses in order to find the right one.

Indeed as see the interbreeding of ideas of a small community of very ordinary scientists,has seen a field stagnate into a toxic cesspool that controls peer review and browbeats editors and censors ideas plausible or otherwise as a heresy.

Tommy Gold spoke of this at Nasa.

Another area where it is particularly bad is in the planetary sciences where NASA made great mistakes in the way in which they set up the situation. NASA made the grave mistake not only of working with a peer review system, but one where some of the peers (in fact very influential ones) were the in-house people doing the same line of work. This established a community of planetary scientists now which was completely selected by the leading members of the herd, which was very firmly controlled, and after quite a short time, the slightest departure from the herd was absolutely cut down. Money was not there for anybody who had a slightly diverging viewpoint. The conferences ignored him, and so on. It became completely impossible to do any independent work. For all the money that has been spent, the planetary program will one day be seen to have been extraordinarily poor. The pictures are fine and some of the facts that have been obtained from the planetary exploration with spacecraft - those will stand but not much else.

Indeed the decrease of scientific diversity (interbreeding) is akin to an Appalachian mining town.

Clearly these limitations are skill based and one could conjecture that this western phenomena is a result of the antiscientific mathematical cnstraint as outlined by Vladimir Arnold.

In the middle of the twentieth century a strong mafia of left-brained mathematicians succeeded in eliminating all geometry from the mathematical education (first in France and later in most other countries), replacing the study of all content in mathematics by the training in formal proofs and the manipulation of abstract notions. Of course, all the geometry, and, consequently, all relations with the real world and other sciences have been eliminated from the mathematics teaching.

Define the multiplication of natural numbers by the long multiplication rule. The
commutativity of the multiplication (ab = ba) becomes then a difficult theorem, which
one can however deduce logically from the definition. Forcing poor students to learn such proofs, the left-brained criminals had inevitably created the present negative opinion, of society and governments, of mathematics.

But the left-brained ill people have succeeded in breeding generations of mathematicians,who understand no other approach to mathematics and are able only to continue to teach it the same way. The aversion to mathematics of the ministers who have suffered through the humiliating teaching of this type in high school is a normal and healthy reaction.

Unfortunately, their aversion to mathematics is acting indiscriminately on all of it and can kill it completely. One of the dangerous trends is to eliminate the proofs from the high-school mathematics.The role of the proof for mathematics is similar to that for orthography or even calligraphy for poetry. A person, who had not mastered the art of the proofs in high school, is as a rule unable to distinguish correct reasoning from that which is misleading Such people can be easily manipulated by the irresponsible politicians. Mass hypnosis and the disastrous social events may result.

The continuity of the dumbing down of mathematics and science is criticized in the Royal society of Chemistry on the UK examination standards.

The question ran: 'A solid cube has sides of length 5 cm. Work out the total surface area of the cube. State the units of your answer.'

Dr Pike said, 'The correct answer can be arrived at within seconds, by noting that the area of each face of the cube is 5 x 5, or 25 square centimetres, and there are six faces to a cube, so that the result is 150 square centimetres.'

He added, 'Two important issues emerge from this. Firstly, schools in the independent sector are moving increasingly to International GCSEs (IGCSEs), which are seen as more demanding, and prepare pupils more effectively for A-Level. This is creating a two-tier system in education, since these are not recognised in the state sector, and is further attractive to schools because the curriculum is relatively stable, unlike for GCSEs where some observers see the incessant modifications as principally an income source for those involved in producing educational materials.

'Secondly, it raises the questions: Who is in charge of GCSEs? Who monitors? Who challenges? Why is it that, with dozens of agencies, authorities, boards, institutes and quangos, these extraordinary outcomes still surface?

Dr Pike said, 'Until we all get to grips with this fiasco, with some tough talking, this country risks sliding down the road to mediocrity'.

The last word returns to Tolstoy.

I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth, if it be such as would obliged them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.

2009-11-17T00:51:00.000-08:00

Random walks or how models drown in a sea of mathematical theory.

What I suggest is that in a persistent way, a system may exhibit historical behaviour, instead of recurrence.

David Ruelle a question to Yasha Sinai.

Another interesting paper from Demetris Koutsoyiannis shows the divergence of skill,between modelers and mathematical physicists.

According to the traditional notion of randomness and uncertainty, natural phenomena are separated into two mutually exclusive components, random (or stochastic) and deterministic. Within this dichotomous logic, the deterministic part supposedly represents cause-effect relationships and, thus, is physics and science (the “good”), whereas randomness has little relationship with science and no relationship with understanding (the “evil”). We argue that such views should be reconsidered by admitting that uncertainty is an intrinsic property of nature, that causality implies dependence of natural processes in time, thus suggesting predictability, but even the tiniest uncertainty (e.g., in initial conditions) may result in unpredictability after a certain time horizon. On these premises it is possible to shape a consistent stochastic representation of natural processes, in which predictability (suggested by deterministic laws) and unpredictability (randomness) coexist and are not separable or additive components. Deciding which of the two dominates is simply a matter of specifying the time horizon of the prediction. Long horizons of prediction are inevitably associated with high uncertainty, whose quantification relies on understanding the long-term stochastic properties of the processes.

http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci-discuss.net/6/6611/2009/hessd-6-6611-2009.pdf

"Long horizons of prediction are inevitably associated with high uncertainty,"

Indeed as DK cites the Kolmogorov-Chaiten problem of convergence-divergence due to slow-fast oscillators where relaxation times of the oscillator may be hiddem in the mists of time such as spin glasses etc. or randomness may be simply exhibiting historical in stead of recurrent behavior as rigorously proven by Yasha Sinai.

eg Ya G Sinai (1982) Limit behaviour of one-dimensional random walks in random environments,

Some more examination of this paper and the previous post is in order.

2009-11-17T00:12:00.000-08:00

Models and muddles the divergence of science from theory.

It is inevitably necessary to think of all as contained within one
nature; one nature must hold and encompass all; . . . But within the
unity There, the several entities have each its own distinct existence.

Nalimov Faces of science p136

Models are abstracts of the real world (and are bounded by our understanding of natures laws).The models are formally experiments or measurements that unfold our understanding of real world process.If a model or experiment is published that violates natures laws and yet correlates with the experiment,we are left with a simple binary question (and answer).That either the model(experiment) is incorrect or the natural law is wrong.

One would think that this would be a significant barrier to publication in a kournal such as nature or science,but this seems not to be the case.

Ontogenetic growth: models and theory

Anastassia M. Makarieva, Victor G. Gorshkov and Bai-Lian Li

We re-analyze the assumptions underlying two recently proposed ontogenetic growth models [Nature 413 (2001) 628; Nature 417 (2002) 70] to find that the basic relations in which these models are grounded contradict the law of energy conservation. We demonstrate the failure of these models to predict and explain several important lines of empirical evidence, including (a) the organismal energy budget during embryonic development; (b) the human growth curve; (c) patterns of metabolic rate change during transition from embryonic to post-embryonic stages; and (d) differences between parameters of embryonic growth in different taxa. We show how a theoretical approach based on well-established ecological regularities explains the observations where the formal models fail. Within a broader context, we also discuss major principles of ontogenetic growth modeling studies in ecology, emphasizing the necessity of ecological theory to be based on assumptions that are testable and to be formulated in terms of variables and parameters that are measurable.

Evidently a problem but the continued repeating of the error in subsequent papers,suggests a significant failure of the peer review process.

eg Anastassia Makarieva

The validity of the fundamental laws of nature and of good theories based on them
has been tested on such a great amount of empirical data that it is a good theory that can tell you whether the empirical data are of good or bad quality rather than the data tell you something about the theory. For this reason, good theories can be used for making predictions, like the existence of many elementary particles was predicted in theoretical physics prior to their actual discovery. How justified is the use of models for making predictions?

During model development the priority is given to reaching a satisfactory agreement
between the data and the mathematical structure of the model. On the basis of theavailable sets of data points taken from the general ensemble of all empirical evidence the modelers determine linear and non-linear correlations between the chosen measurable variables, including their temporal changes. The resulting time dependence of model variables allows one to make a forecast for the future. Such a forecast, however, is nothing but a limited extrapolation of what has been observed in the past. With changing the empirical datasets the model structure and forecasts change. With inclusion of ever growing amounts of observations the models become more and more complex, while their agreement with the available observations naturally improve. Thus, an ideal model ultimately comes as an exact and convenient, i.e. mathematically formalized, representation of all the available data. However, to the degree the model is a model and not a theory, it lacks the predictive power. Because of the obvious fact that it cannot be expected that the calibrations made on the basis of the knowndata will remain valid in the domain of predicted (i.e. still unknown) data. This is a conceptual, fundamental problem with the modeling approach. The universal laws of nature predict things

Based on our own scientific expertise, we can illustrate the above points with specific examples of models that were judged to be most successful based on their agreementwith the data and claimed derivability from a "universal" theory, yet shown to confront the fundamental laws of nature. As one can see, the problem transcends across the natural science as a whole. The biological model of organismal growth (West et al., 2001) misinterpreted the energy conservation equation and replaced it with the one conflicting with the energy conservation law. Despite that, the model showed perfect agreement with the data. After the error was identified (Makarieva et al., 2004) it took the model’s authors four years to explicitly admit it (Moses et al., 2008) and re-formulate the model. The re-formulated model re-calibrated using the same data as the original (wrong) one showed equally good agreement with the data and got equally well published (Hou et al., 2008). Thus, irrespective of conflicting with the energy conservation law or not, the model agreed with the data, was widely cited and raised little concern in the reading audience

One could reflect on Alven Tofflers suggestion that the illiterate of the future will not be an inability to read and write.but to learn and think.

2009-10-10T15:07:00.000-07:00

Reality Clouds climate crystal balls

It is obvious that in any real-life activity it is impossible to wholly rely on such deductions. The reason is at least that the parameters of the studied phenomena are never known absolutely exactly and a small change in parameters (for example, the initial conditions of a process) can totally change the result. Say, for this reason a reliable long-term weather forecast is impossible and will remain impossible, no matter how much we develop computers and devices which record initial conditions.

In exactly the same way a small change in axioms (of which we cannot be completely sure) is capable, generally speaking, of leading to completely different conclusions than those that are obtained from theorems which have been deduced from the accepted axioms. The longer and fancier is the chain of deductions ("proofs"), the less reliable is the final result.

Vladimir Arnold..

In what could be perceived as an about turn in reporting the BBC has separated the "forecasts" for climate to the "reality" that the observations have shown that global warming has stopped

This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.

But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.

And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.

So what on Earth is going on?

Climate change sceptics, who passionately and consistently argue that man's influence on our climate is overstated, say they saw it coming.

They argue that there are natural cycles, over which we have no control,

As we see with quasiperiodic systems the return to a “previous climate” state is regularly seen in the NAO.,PDO and IPO. These are sates with long periodicity for a climate regime of warmer then normal or cooler then normal climate states.

The ability for a recurrent periodic state such as the PDO or an inverse temperature “state” is in essence a binary transformation or bifurcation.. The transformation as a velocity inversion has the same effect as a time inversion, (v to - v ) (t to - t )

A fundamental consequence of the aperiodicity of the atmospheric and climate dynamics is the well-known difficulty to make reliable predictions.Contrary to simple periodic or multiperiodic phenomena(such as eclipses,tides ets) for which a long term prediction is possible, predictions in meteorology and climate are limited in time.

The most plausible (and currently admitted) explanation is based on the realization that a small uncertainty in the initial conditions used in a prediction scheme (usually referred as error") seems to be amplified in the course of the evolution. Such uncertainties are inherent in the process of experimental measurement, The uncertainty being in the “closeness of the boundary to the point of bifurcation, and the error in linear equations.” An important aspect discussed by Arnold and Shulinov.

As the “natural variability” and inverse regimes are often accompanied by inverse temperature states always and everywhere(except in gcm predictions) explanations are clearly in order.

2009-10-07T00:07:00.000-07:00

Solar recession causes global cooling.

Our calculations provide the maximum semi-annual value of W in cycle 23
equal to 110–122 and the epoch of maximum in the first half of 2000. Hence, the
present cycle is not as high as was expected and predicted several years ago, nor as low as forecasted by some authors. This shows that the Gnevyshev–Ohl–Kopecký rule fails in this cycle. The end of the cycle is expected at 2006–2007. Proceeding from the current CGL brightness (the second half of 1999), we can predict a low cycle 24 with the maximal W not exceeding 50 (similar to cycles 5–6) and the epoch of maximum at 2010–2011. Thus, as inferred by our results, we are on the eve of a deep minimum of solar activity similar to that at the beginning of the 19th century.

BADALYAN et al 2000

One of the conundrums of the IPCC and the pro-contra arguments of AGW verses natural variability is with the sensitivity to Greenhouse gases,and the proportion of natural variability such as solar forcing.

There are many arguments, with the measurement problem ,solar variance such as TSI , volcanism, PDV etc

The main argument has been there is no trend in TSI(in the instrumental record) and if solar flux has not increased ,.Therefore the presumed causal mechanism is GHG..

One could then ask what happens if the sun enters a period of “Solar recession” an extended period of “inactivity” such as was seen during the maunder minimum and the little ice age of the 18-19th centuries.

As we observe in the botton graph, global temperatures have plateued and moved slightly negative in the last decade,and solar cycle 23 involved a decrease in TSI and a deep continuous minimum from which it is now possible to construct for the first time a trend in TSI which is negative and correlates to a decrease of 0.2w.

Evidence of a long-term trend in total solar irradiance
C. Fröhlich 2009

ABSTRACT
Aims. During the solar minimum of 2008, the value of total solar irradiance at 1AU (TSI) was more than 0.2Wm−2 lower than during the last minimum in 1996, indicating for the first time a directly observed long-term change. On the other hand, chromospheric indices and hence solar UV irradiance do not exhibit a similar change.
Methods. Comparison of TSI with other activity parameters indicates that only the open solar magnetic field, BR, observed from satellites at 1AU show a similar long-term behaviour. The values at the minima correlate well and the linear fit provides a direct physical relationship between TSI and BR during the minimum times.
Results. This correlation allows an unambiguous reconstruction of TSI back in time, provided the open solar magnetic field can be determined from e.g. geomagnetic indices or cosmogenic radionucleides. Since the solar UV irradiance has no long-term trend, the mechanism for the secular change of TSI must differ from the effect of surface magnetism, as manifested by sunspots, faculae, and network which indeed explain well the intra-cycle variability of both total and spectral irradiance. Conclusions. The long-term trend of TSI is most probably caused by a global temperature change of the Sun that does not influence the UV irradiance in the same way as the surface magnetic fields.

One might ask what is the rate of viscosity or contraction for an inverse forcing?

2009-09-22T12:23:00.000-07:00

Carbon emissions fall by steepest in 40 years

The IEA is to announce a decrease in anthropogenic emissions by 2.6% in the last 12 months in early October,the announcement has been brought forward for the UNFCC meeting in Thailand.

Reuters report

Global emissions of the commonest man-made greenhouse gas carbon dioxide will fall by the sharpest rate in 40 years in 2009 following tumbling factory output, the International Energy Agency said on Monday.

The world must use the drop of about 2.6 percent to drive a global fight against climate change, rather than allow emissions to rise again as after previous recessions, Fatih Birol, IEA chief economist, told Reuters in an interview.

"The biggest fall (in about 40 years) was in 1981, at 1.3 percent, after oil price shocks and economic troubles," Birol said. "We estimate this year the fall will be around twice that."

As these are significant numbers(and the IPCC) tell us they can calculate the manmade proportion in the observations to 4 significant muners to the right of the decimal point,one would expect the "signal" will be observable in the Mauna loa record,singularities which as in essence a velocity inversion are a good test of the accuracy of measurements.

2009-09-21T00:19:00.000-07:00

Evidence of Abiogenic Hydrocarbons

One of the paradoxes of hydrocarbons is they are ubiquitous in the universe,eg Titan.The mechanism of their production has been a matter of some robust debate(in the west,)it is important to also note that this is an additional source.

An interesting paper on this has been released in nature.

Researchers at KTH have been able to prove that the fossils of animals and plants are not necessary to generate raw oil and natural gas. This result is extremely radical as it means that it will be much easier to find these energy sources and that they may be located all over the world.

“With the help of our research we even know where oil could be found in Sweden!” says Vladimir Kutcherov, Professor at the KTH Department of Energy Technology in Stockholm.

Together with two research colleagues, Professor Kutcherov has simulated the process of pressure and heat that occurs naturally in the inner strata of the earth’s crust. This process generates hydrocarbons, the primary elements of oil and natural gas.

According to Vladimir Kutcherov, these results are a clear indication that oil supplies are not drying up, which has long been feared by researchers and experts in the field.

He adds that there is no chance that fossil oils, with the help of gravity or other forces, would have been able to seep down to a depth of 10.5 kilometres in, for example the US state of Texas, which is rich in oil deposits. This is, according to Vladimir Kutcherov, in addition to his own research results, further evidence that this energy sources can occur other than via fossils - something which will cause a lively discussion among researchers for a considerable period of time.

“There is no doubt that our research has shown that raw oil and natural gas occur without the inclusion of fossils. All types of rock formations can act as hosts for oil deposits,” asserts Vladimir and adds that this applies to areas of land that have previously remained unexplored as possible sources of this type of energy.

This discovery has several positive aspects. Rate of success as concerns finding oil increases dramatically – from 20 till 70 percent. As drilling for oil and natural gas is an extremely expensive process, costs levels will be radically changed for the petroleum companies and eventually also for the end user.

“This means savings of many billions of kronor,” says Vladimir.

Nikolai Kudryavtsev formulated the discussions in the early 1950's,and the Russian oil company has around 350 deep wells in production after first drilling in 1970 (a wildcat well)

The nature paper is here

Methane-derived hydrocarbons produced under upper-mantle conditions

Anton Kolesnikov1,2, Vladimir G. Kutcherov2,3 & Alexander F. Goncharov1

Abstract

There is widespread evidence that petroleum originates from biological processes1, 2, 3. Whether hydrocarbons can also be produced from abiogenic precursor molecules under the high-pressure, high-temperature conditions characteristic of the upper mantle remains an open question. It has been proposed that hydrocarbons generated in the upper mantle could be transported through deep faults to shallower regions in the Earth's crust, and contribute to petroleum reserves4, 5. Here we use in situ Raman spectroscopy in laser-heated diamond anvil cells to monitor the chemical reactivity of methane and ethane under upper-mantle conditions. We show that when methane is exposed to pressures higher than 2 GPa, and to temperatures in the range of 1,000–1,500 K, it partially reacts to form saturated hydrocarbons containing 2–4 carbons (ethane, propane and butane) and molecular hydrogen and graphite. Conversely, exposure of ethane to similar conditions results in the production of methane, suggesting that the synthesis of saturated hydrocarbons is reversible. Our results support the suggestion that hydrocarbons heavier than methane can be produced by abiogenic processes in the upper mantle.

2009-09-17T01:10:00.000-07:00

Temperature trends in the South Pacific, some ordinary observations of interest..

“Fear feeds ignorance” said James Lovelock in the Ages of Gaia,*and a great niche was opened for fear when science became incomprehensible to those who were not its practitioners”

Mathematical theory tells us there is am infinite way of describing the average statistic of temperature in a set of observations. Peterson and Vose.(1997) An Overview of the Global Historical Climatology Network Temperature Database found over 100 different averages of temperatures have been used in meteorology and climate studies.

The standard or arbitrary axiom is to use the anomalies (variation) from some arbitrary set of observations (a temporal set of usually around 30 years) and “picture” the variations from today’s weather (usually on a monthly basis) with the moving averages. and explain that this is proof of forthcoming cataclysm.

In reality this is not proof in a mathematical sense, as the mathematical theory of climate (and its variations) is yet to be published

The complexity of both the science and the mathematical description is often perplexing to the “ordinary person” so the graphs pictured are more readily comprehensible we used the set of observations for the New Zealand Airports, stations Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Invercargill. Data is from the WMO reported series.

This covers a geographic slice of increasing latitudes of around 1200 kilometers and the trends (station specific) get progressively cooler towards the higher(polar) latitudes.

Auckland 0.0086c/yr (extrapolating to 120 yrs + 1c)
Wellington 0.0016c/yr (extrapolating to 610 yrs+ 1c)
Christchurch -0.00649c/yr (extrapolating to 160 yrs- 1c)
Invercargill -0.076c/yr (extrapolating to 13 yrs -1c)

2009-09-05T23:59:00.000-07:00

Climate Cooling natural variability outweighs AGW

Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd
Of the Two Worlds so wisely — they are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn
Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

In an interesting reversal of projections since the IPCC AR4 report was released,9and how natural variation was significantly downplayed0 as the trend or flat lining of the positive anomalies is now apparent,we see a remarkable "hedging of positions" ny authors of the IPCC,

New Scientist reports

Forecasts of climate change are about to go seriously out of kilter. One of the world's top climate modellers said Thursday we could be about to enter "one or even two decades during which temperatures cool.

"People will say this is global warming disappearing," he told more than 1500 of the world's top climate scientists gathering in Geneva at the UN's World Climate Conference.

"I am not one of the skeptics," insisted Mojib Latif of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University, Germany. "However, we have to ask the nasty questions ourselves or other people will do it."

Few climate scientists go as far as Latif, an author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But more and more agree that the short-term prognosis for climate change is much less certain than once thought.

Latif predicted that in the next few years a natural cooling trend would dominate over warming caused by humans. The cooling would be down to cyclical changes to ocean currents and temperatures in the North Atlantic, a feature known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO).

Another is from lEAN AND RIND 2009

How will Earth's surface temperature change in future decades?

Abstract

Reliable forecasts of climate change in the immediate future are difficult, especially on regional scales, where natural climate variations may amplify or mitigate anthropogenic warming in ways that numerical models capture poorly. By decomposing recent observed surface temperatures into components associated with ENSO, volcanic and solar activity, and anthropogenic influences, we anticipate global and regional changes in the next two decades. From 2009 to 2014, projected rises in anthropogenic influences and solar irradiance will increase global surface temperature 0.15 ± 0.03°C, at a rate 50% greater than predicted by IPCC. But as a result of declining solar activity in the subsequent five years, average temperature in 2019 is only 0.03 ± 0.01°C warmer than in 2014. This lack of overall warming is analogous to the period from 2002 to 2008 when decreasing solar irradiance also countered much of the anthropogenic warming. We further illustrate how a major volcanic eruption and a super ENSO would modify our global and regional temperature projections.

This suggests that we have entered into a period or transformation from solar maxima to solar minima,there is some evidence that the transformation is yet to occur ie a greater decrease lies ahead .

eg Lockwood et al

ABSTRACT. We use geomagnetic activity data to study the rise and fall over the past century of the solar wind flow speed V SW, the interplanetary magnetic field strength B, and the open solar flux F S. Our estimates include allowance for the kinematic effect of longitudinal structure in the solar wind flow speed. As well as solar cycle variations, all three parameters show a long-term rise during the first half of the 20th century followed by peaks around 1955 and 1986 and then a recent decline. Cosmogenic isotope data reveal that this constitutes a grand maximum of solar activity which began in 1920, using the definition that such grand maxima are when 25-year averages of the heliospheric modulation potential exceeds 600 MV. Extrapolating the linear declines seen in all three parameters since 1985, yields predictions that the grand maximum will end in the years 2013, 2014, or 2027 using V SW, F S, or B, respectively. These estimates are consistent with predictions based on the probability distribution of the durations of past grand solar maxima seen in cosmogenic isotope data. The data contradict any suggestions of a floor to the open solar flux: we show that the solar minimum open solar flux, kinematically corrected to allow for the excess flux effect, has halved over the past two solar cycles.

2009-05-25T20:42:00.000-07:00

Russia continues nuclear fuel supply treaty

This month Russia has completed a nuclear fuel agreement with Japan.

TOKYO, May 12 (RIA Novosti) - Russia and Japan signed an intergovernmental nuclear cooperation deal on Tuesday during Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's visit to Tokyo.

The agreement, signed after talks between Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, opens the door for cooperation in the field of nuclear fuel cycle services and the construction of nuclear power plants.

This follows last years supply agreements with India and China.

Following the G8 energy ministers statement from Italy(see previous post)

We note that in the opinion of a growing number of countries nuclear power can contribute to diversify the energy mix, to increase power generation security and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We reaffirm that the fundamental prerequisite for the peaceful use of nuclear energy is the international commitment to safety, security and safeguards for non-proliferation (3S), while supporting the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

We call all States to adhere to existing international nuclear treaties
and continue to promote development and implementation of robust
international treaties, standards, recommendations, and monitoring
procedures both at international and national levels.

Now Russia and the US utilities will sign a nuclear fuel supply agreement.

MOSCOW — Russia, already a large supplier of nuclear-reactor fuel to Europe and Asia, is expected on Tuesday to sign its first purely commercial contract to supply low-enriched uranium to United States utilities.

With the signing, Russia’s nuclear-fuel trade with the United States will shift to a commercial footing, similar to Russia’s dealings with other consumers of fuel, like France and the Netherlands, both longtime buyers of Russian uranium.

For the United States, the change is a sign that Washington is acquiescing to the idea of a major Russian role not only in the international nuclear power market, but also in the domestic market. Russia’s outsize role in supplying uranium to American utilities had previously been justified because the fuel was a byproduct of a program to eliminate nuclear weapons. Now the Russians will be selling nuclear fuel from virgin uranium.

2009-05-25T18:08:00.000-07:00

A BALANCED JOINT STATEMENT BY THE G8 ENERGY MINISTERS

Energy security the Italy G8 energy initiatives.Overview.

One of the cornerstones of the G8 Energy ministers following on from initiatives at the St Petersberg summit, is on energy security, with multifaceted solutions across a broad series of energy resources, technology and innovation. There is no simple solution of an emergent technology that is better than an existing one, each is limited by economic or perceived constraints real or imagined.

What the G8 initiatives will do, is to implement transparency of the energy complex, identify areas of cooperation in energy resource management and transfer. Provide structure for the efficient and economic transfer of technology to the worlds poorest countries to enable development and independence, This will also enable those countries to bypass the carbon cycle where possible and to enable positive economic growth and improved standards for education,health,and infrastructure.The initiatives will enable existing economic growth .

The statement ( policy initiatives) is in two parts, One a broad statement on the coupled energy –climate complex and transparency, expansion of electricity to the 2 billion who live without, and secondly on mechanisms such as carbon capture, energy diversification including nuclear.

Part 1

While recognising varied national circumstances among the participating countries, we agree that we must play an important role in achieving global energy availability and access, while contributing to sustainable development.

Energy Investments

1. We believe that coping with the interlinked issues of energy investments,
energy access and availability, and the climate change challenge
is key to the future of our countries. The current financial and
economic crisis must not delay investments and programmed energy
projects which are essential to economic recovery and sustainable
prosperity through the world.

2. We stress the need to define and share long-term scenarios on energy
policy with the aim to increase transparency and reduce volatility in
the energy markets. Consequently, we urge governments and energy
companies to adopt a long-term view in planning their investments in
energy infrastructure.

Energy Access for the Poor: Focus on Africa
1. We recognise that though energy demand is growing worldwide, modern
electricity services are steadily available for only one fourth of the world population.

2. Energy poverty remains widespread in many areas, most notably in Africa and region of Asia and Latin America. We commit to take resolute action without delay, together with countries’ governments, international financial institutions, local communities and the private sector
.
3. We confirm that access to modern and commercial energy services
while combating energy poverty, is an important element of economic
development and improvement of human and social living standards,
including clean water, education, health care while contributing to the
achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

Part 2

The climate change challenge has a global nature asking for the involvement
and collaboration of all countries, developed and developing based on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.

We endorse a comprehensive approach to address all greenhouse gas emissions. We recognise the importance of increasing energy efficiency through the entire energy chain and of accelerating the demonstration, development and deployment of low-emission energy technologies, including renewable energy sources, smart grid systems and energy storage, refurbishment of power generating facilities and cogeneration, sustainable mobility and low-emission transport vehicles, advancing demonstration of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), and for those of us interested, nuclear power.

4. We are aware that despite diversification strategies, fossil fuels will continue to be a key component of the energy mix in worldwide, for many decades into the future. Therefore, the development of innovative technologies such as Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) will contribute to tackle the climate change challenge.

We support the launch of large – scale CCS demonstration projects globally and call for the active involvement of the private sector in this endeavour.

We support work by the International Energy Agency, Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute and Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum (CSLF) to advance this technology. The International Energy Forum, OPEC and other institutes may join their effort. We expect that the CSLF Ministerial Meeting to be held in London on October 12-13, 2009 might represent a timely opportunity to assess the state of the art and to identify financing mechanisms

The two main points here are goals for the development of indigenous energy in Africa such as hydro (although this will be opposed by the various NGO whose vested interest occupation is keeping Africa poor).

The realization that an immediate transformation from fossil fuels to alternatives is technically and economically impossible. This due to the immense destruction of wealth of existing assets, and the 45 trillion dollar replacement problem.

Global Carbon Capture and Storage has a wealth of transparent information ,and some interesting innovative mechanism eg.

Advanced Concepts

Advanced Chemical and Biological Approaches Recycling or reuse of CO2 from energy systems would be an attractive alternative to storage of CO2. The goal is to reduce the cost and energy required to chemically and/or biologically convert CO2 into either commercial products that are inert and long-lived or stable solid compounds.
Two promising chemical pathways are magnesium carbonate and CO2 clathrate, an ice-like material. Both provide quantum increases in volume density compared to gaseous CO2. As an example of the potential of chemical pathways, the entire global emissions of carbon in 1990 could be contained as magnesium carbonate in a space 10 kilometers by 10 kilometers by 150 meters.

2009-05-18T14:26:00.000-07:00

Ocean Acidification a negative feedback.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Groundbreaking Victoria University research shows that ocean acidification may have no negative effect on tropical corals and local sea anemones - in fact it may improve photosynthesis.

Ocean acidification is when carbon dioxide from the atmosphere dissolves into our oceans and makes them more acidic. Research to date has shown that if carbon dioxide emissions are not reduced, ocean acidification could have severe—and irreversible—consequences for marine life.

But Victoria Master’s student Michael Doherty says his research shows that ocean acidification has no negative effect on photosynthesis in the coral and sea anemone he studied, and that it might actually improve the process.

“Plants and algae get carbon from the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide, and photosynthesis is the process by which the organism turns this carbon into sugar—providing essential energy for life. Algae live within ‘animals’ like corals and anemones, and through photosynthesis provide energy for themselves and the animal,” says Mr Doherty.

Indeed Ingrid Zondervan found similar findings with Phytoplankton,

GLOBAL BIOGEOCHEMICAL CYCLES, VOL. 15, No. 2, PAGES 507-516, JUNE 2001

Decreasing marine biogenic calcification: A negative feedback on rising atmospheric pCo2

Ingrid Zondervan, Richard E. Zeebe1, Björn Rost, and Ulf Riebesell
Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research Bremerhaven, Germany

Abstract. In laboratory experiments with the coccolithophore species Emiliania huxleyi and Gephyrocapsa oceanica, the ratio of particulate inorganic carbon (PIC) to particulate organic carbon (POC) production decreased with increasing CO2 concentration ([CO2]). This was due to both reduced PIC and enhanced POC production at elevated [CO2]. Carbon dioxide concentrations covered a range from a preindustrial level to a value predicted for 2100 according to a "business as usual" anthropogenic CO2 emission scenario. The laboratory results were used to employ a model in which the immediate effect of a decrease in global marine calcification relative to POC production on the potential capacity for oceanic CO2 uptake was simulated. Assuming that overall marine biogenic calcification shows a similar response as obtained for E. huxleyi or G. oceanica in the present study, the model reveals a negative feedback on increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations owing to a decrease in the PIC/POC ratio

2009-05-10T22:20:00.000-07:00

The Maldives highstand sealevels in the Holocene

An interesting discussion on the future of sea level rise and low stand Islands involves the Maldives,and is used often by Al Gore as a catastrophic example.

This is discussed in the blogosphere for example.

Some of the statements regarding sea levels from the global warming crowd have been silly. The conservative increases predicted were minimal, and more importantly, within the error range and thus meaningless.

Surely that makes sense too. We have had a forty year temperature rise of less than a degree, now ended that is within the temperature channel associated with the Holocene for which we have zero evidence of significant convincing sea level variation.

As the Holocene is the emergence from the iceage to present and the temperature was of the same increasing gradient an intersting problem arises in Geology where sealevels were higher in the Maldives 2100-4000kbp .

Holocene reef growth in the Maldives: Evidence of a mid-Holocene sea-level highstand in the central Indian Ocean

P.S. Kench1, S.G. Smithers2, R.F. McLean3 and S.L. Nichol1

Radiometrically calibrated ages from three reef cores are used to develop a Holocene reef growth chronostratigraphy and sea-level history in the Maldives, central Indian Ocean. Last interglacial reef (U-series age 122 ± 7 ka) was encountered at 14.1 m below mean sea level. An age of ca. 8100 calibrated (cal) yr B.P. immediately overlying this Pleistocene surface records the initiation of Holocene reef growth. Massive in situ corals occur throughout the cores and the consistency of the three age-depth plots indicate that the reef grew steadily between 8100 and 6500 cal yr B.P., and at a decreasing rate for the next 2 k.y. The position of modern sea level was first achieved ca. 4500 cal yr B.P. and sea level reached at least 0.50 ± 1 m higher from 4000 to 2100 cal yr B.P. before falling to present level. Emergent fossil microatolls provide evidence of this higher sea level. Results are significant to two long-standing issues relating to Maldivian sealevel history. First, the ambiguity of a late Holocene highstand has been resolved with clear evidence of its existence reported here. Second, the uncertainty of the regional pattern of sea-level change in the central Indian Ocean has been clarified, the Maldivian results broadly agreeing with island records in the eastern, rather than western Indian Ocean. Our results provide the first field evidence confirming geophysical model projections of a highstand 4–2 k.y. ago in the central Indian Ocean, though the observed level (+0.50 ± 0.1 m) is lower than that projected.

2009-05-03T23:01:00.000-07:00

New Zealand proposed Agriculture emissions trading scheme, Why bother?

In an interesting debate in New Zealand on the planned introduction of an emissions trading scheme. Which mostly effects its competitive export agriculture industry we ask why bother?.

As an example a submission to the select parliamentary review committee from Dairynz.

DairyNZ says don't tax farmers

DairyNZ says it would make no sense to tax dairy farmers for greenhouse gas emissions until technology exists to enable farmers to reduce the emissions. It would also be unwise to place obligations on New Zealand's leading industry when none of its international competitors are likely to face similar charges.

In a submission to the Emissions Trading Scheme Review Committee today [4th May], DairyNZ Chairman John Luxton said dairy farmers were willing and capable of adopting farming practices that will increase resource use efficiency and reduce dairying's environment footprint.

"Little exists by way of mitigating technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from dairy farming, so it would be economically unjust to hold farmers liable for those emissions," he said.

He urged the Committee to consider this carefully when deciding the place of agriculture in an emissions trading scheme.

As this is related to Methane and nitrate oxide emissions as we have previously discussed ,this is in effect a waste of time as the imposed constraints eg IPCC and Kyoto are based on outdated scientific understanding ( as per previous post)

Previously stated

Morowitz outlined four rules that bound the construction of “scientific” hypothesis and limit the ability of “men to play god”

Two that are appropriate here are,

1 Though shall not violate the laws of physics and chemistry, for these are expressions of divine eminence.

2 Though shall not eschew miracles, for as Spinoza taught, they contravene the lawfulness of the Universe

Cause and effect benefits, and the profit/loss portion of the regulatory algorithm are never identified let alone quantified. The elementary physics suggest that always the Le Chatelier-Braun Principle(If any change is imposed on a system in near equilibrium, the system will change in such a way as to counteract the imposed change.)

Indeed if we use the Nox for example rather then write a lot of legislative rubbish we can write the simple algorithm

( SNOx--NOx--O3 –OH)

An important atmospheric sink for methane is the OH (hydroxyl) radical. The reaction of methane with OH radicals is the first step in a series of reactions which eventually leads to compounds that are readily removed from the atmosphere by precipitation or uptake at the surface. OH radicals also act as a chemical sink for other trace gases. For this reason, OH radicals are known as "the detergent of the atmosphere" (Crutzen, 1995).

In an interesting paper we see indeed that soil NOx emissions (SNOx) do indeed lower troposphere CH4 levels in southern latitudes.

Influence of modelled soil biogenic NO emissions on related trace gases and the atmospheric oxidizing efficiency

J. Steinkamp1, L. N. Ganzeveld2, W. Wilcke3, and M. G. Lawrence1

Abstract. The emission of nitric oxide (NO) by soils (SNOx) is an important source of oxides of nitrogen (NOx=NO+NO2) in the troposphere, with estimates ranging
from 4 to 21 Tg of nitrogen per year. Previous studies have examined the influence of SNOx on ozone (O3) chemistry. We employ the ECHAM5/MESSy atmospheric
chemistry model (EMAC) to go further in the reaction chain and investigate the influence of SNOx on lower tropospheric NOx, O3, peroxyacetyl nitrate (PAN), nitric acid (HNO3), the hydroxyl radical (OH) and the lifetime of methane ( CH4 ). We show that SNOx is responsible for a significant contribution to the NOx mixing ratio in many regions, especially in the tropics. Furthermore, the concentration of OH is substantially increased due to SNOx, resulting in an enhanced oxidizing efficiency of the global troposphere, reflected in a 10% decrease in CH4 due to soil NO emissions. On the other hand, in some regions SNOx has a negative feedback on the lifetime of NOx through O3 and OH, which results in regional increases in the mixing ratio of NOx despite lower total emissions in a simulation without SNOx. In a sensitivity simulation in which we reduce the other surface NOx emissions by the same amount as SNOx, we find that they have a much weaker impact on OH and CH4 and do not result in an increase in the NOx mixing ratio anywhere

So decreasing SNOx increases CH4 why bother.

2009-04-19T11:57:00.000-07:00

Methane production in plants a defensive strategy

As we have discussed the methane production from plants with Keppler et al 2006,and further refinement from Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen and who estimated the global production at 8%.

The possibility of plant methane production as a defense mechanism was in the 2008 UNEP report on ozone,UNEP. (2008). Environmental effects of ozone depletion and its interactions with climate change: Progress report, 2008. Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences.

A further paper examines the causal mechanism.

Physical injury stimulates aerobic methane emissions from terrestrial plants

Z.-P. Wang1, J. Gulledge2,3, J.-Q. Zheng1, W. Liu1, L.-H. Li1, and X.-G. Han1

Abstract. Physical injury is common in terrestrial plants as a result of grazing, harvesting, trampling, and extreme weather events. Previous studies demonstrated enhanced emission of non-microbial CH4 under aerobic conditions from plant tissues when they were exposed to increasing UV radiation and temperature. Since physical injury is also a form of environmental stress, we sought to determine whether it would also affect CH4 emissions from plants. Physical injury (cutting) stimulated CH4 emission from fresh twigs of Artemisia species under aerobic conditions. More cutting resulted in more CH4 emissions. Hypoxia also enhanced CH4 emission from both uncut and cut Artemisia frigida twigs. Physical injury typically results in cell wall degradation, which may either stimulate formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) or decrease scavenging of them. Increased ROS activity might explain increased CH4 emission in response to physical injury and other forms of stress. There were significant differences in CH4 emissions among 10 species of Artemisia, with some species emitting no detectable CH4 under any circumstances. Consequently, CH4 emissions may be species-dependent and therefore difficult to estimate in nature based on total plant biomass. Our results and those of previous studies suggest that a variety of environmental stresses stimulate CH4 emission from a wide variety of plant species. Global change processes, including climate change, depletion of stratospheric ozone, increasing ground-level ozone, spread of plant pests, and land-use changes, could cause more stress in plants on a global scale, potentially stimulating more CH4 emission globally.

http://www.biogeosciences.net/6/615/2009/bg-6-615-2009.html

We can also correlate this with intense solar activity such as flares in solar cycle 23 as the above CH4 "spikes show" and as a defensive response to increased uvb.

2009-04-14T22:30:00.000-07:00

Wall street fueled own demise with commodities trading

In an interesting article James Hamilton explains a paper he presented to the Brooking s institute.

Consequences of the Oil Shock of 2007-08

Eventually, the declines in income and house prices set mortgage delinquency rates beyond a threshold at which the overall solvency of the financial system itself came to be questioned, and the modest recession of 2007:Q4-2008:Q3 turned into a ferocious downturn in 2008:Q4. Whether we would have avoided those events had the economy not gone into recession, or instead would have merely postponed them, is a matter of conjecture. Regardless of how we answer that question, the evidence to me is persuasive that, had there been no oil shock, we would have described the U.S. economy in 2007:Q4-2008:Q3 as growing slowly, but not in a recession.

This is a clear example of how speculators try to "Double up there bets" as they entered the commodities area following substantive losses in the equity arena and how we discussed here.

How a Schoolboy Howler Fueled the Peak Oil Fallacy and Caused a Global Recession

The secretary general of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), Rilwanu Lukman, says the world oil market is held captive by the derivatives markets. The old rules of supply and demand have been distorted, he says, by the creation of what he calls "paper barrels" of oil.

The physical ("wet barrel") market is awash in oil. Saudi Arabia, the world's top exporter, had to cut production from 9.5Mbpd level of the past 2 years down to 9.1Mbpd (-400,000 barrels per day) since April-06, because it can find no buyers for it, The Wall Street Journal quoted Oil Minister Ali Al Naimi as saying on 5-Jun-2006.

All "demand" keeping prices at these absurd levels of $70+/bar is happening in the futures derivatives markets, off which real physical oil is priced. Derivatives is what OPEC calls "paper barrels", with open contracts just in NY futures market being ~1.6 BILLION "paper barrels". Nearby month futures contracts in NYMEX and ICE trading about ~250 million "paper barrel

But the gamblers with MBA etc still failed to understand the ST Petersberg Paradox the law of diminishing returns

The IEA in the graph shown have set new forecast of oil being around 2.4 mb day off the 2008 mean and around 5mbbld off the heights of 2008,so stability of pricing will be seen to 2010.

This of course means emissions are also less across the OECD as similar trends are seen in combustion electricity production around 13% on December month on month figures as industry slows.This in turn should see carbon offsets trend lower.

This of course allows one to ask the important questions,

1)Do we require a cap and trade or emissions trading market.
2)To what extent will this defacto tax burden exasperate the economic contraction.
3)Do we want financial markets playing in a defacto tax market.

2009-03-25T20:26:00.000-07:00

Freeman Dyson accuses An Inconvenient duo of Lousy science.

Brilliant minds have the ability to view a complex set of problems,and reduce it to its obvious conclusion (its irreducible part)as far as we know.And it is an important part of science and especially mathematical physics of the part to where we cannot reduce the equation further.

In biological systems there is NO reducible algorithm ( The complexity described cannot be described more concisely then by writing down all the observed phenomena) eg Monod 1972 IE 10^27 DEGREES OF FREEDOM.

A standard weather forecast has around 10^12 DOF but excludes ocean coupling.

There is no mathematical theory of climate.Hence we cannot not reduce the climate to a set of mathematical qualities.Hence the conundrum with "climate models"This has been understood for a long time eg Kolgomorov 1956 Landau 1965

In an interesting article in the NYT there is an intersting perspective on Freeman Dyson

FOR MORE THAN HALF A CENTURY the eminent physicist Freeman Dyson has quietly resided in Princeton, N.J., on the wooded former farmland that is home to his employer, the Institute for Advanced Study, this country’s most rarefied community of scholars. Lately, however, since coming “out of the closet as far as global warming is concerned,” as Dyson sometimes puts it, there has been noise all around him. Chat rooms, Web threads, editors’ letter boxes and Dyson’s own e-mail queue resonate with a thermal current of invective in which Dyson has discovered himself variously described as “a pompous twit,” “a blowhard,” “a cesspool of misinformation,” “an old coot riding into the sunset” and, perhaps inevitably, “a mad scientist.” Dyson had proposed that whatever inflammations the climate was experiencing might be a good thing because carbon dioxide helps plants of all kinds grow.

IT WAS FOUR YEARS AGO that Dyson began publicly stating his doubts about climate change. Speaking at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University, Dyson announced that “all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated.” Since then he has only heated up his misgivings, declaring in a 2007 interview with Salon.com that “the fact that the climate is getting warmer doesn’t scare me at all” and writing in an essay for The New York Review of Books, the left-leaning publication that is to gravitas what the Beagle was to Darwin, that climate change has become an “obsession” — the primary article of faith for “a worldwide secular religion” known as environmentalism. Among those he considers true believers, Dyson has been particularly dismissive of Al Gore, whom Dyson calls climate change’s “chief propagandist,” and James Hansen, the head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and an adviser to Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth.” Dyson accuses them of relying too heavily on computer-generated climate models that foresee a Grand Guignol of imminent world devastation as icecaps melt, oceans rise and storms and plagues sweep the earth, and he blames the pair’s “lousy science” for “distracting public attention” from “more serious and more immediate dangers to the planet.”

We can predict that the pseudo intellectuals will have the "knitting needles out" as they bey for his head.

However like most brilliant men foresight is forearmed and the most complete "defensive strategy" and mitigation policy that was written some 33 years ago is still public record.Preceding the IPCC and Hansen so simple as often solutions to complex problems are.

CAN WE CONTROL THE CARBON DIOXIDE
IN THE ATMOSPHERE?

FREEMAN J. DYSON?
institute for Energy Analysis, Oak Ridge, TN 37830. U.S.A
(Received 26 July 1976)

Abstract-The carbon dioxide generated by burning fossil fuels can theoretically be controlled by growing trees. Quantitative estimates are made of the size and cost of a plant-growing program designed to halt the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

http://adamant.typepad.com/seitz/files/Dyson_Energy_1977.pdf

2009-03-23T15:32:00.000-07:00

Are Green technologies a logical fallacy?

The no-mind not-thinks no-thoughts about no-things

The Buddha

The political solution for climate change mitigation and its policies are driven by the priori reasoning that an increased taxation regime (with cap and trade) carbon taxation etc . will make the "green technologies" financially viable,and economically available.

This is driven by the idealistic "target of 450 ppm co2 ceiling.This would require the OECD countries to have 0 emissions by 2030 AND developing countries to have 0 growth or to spend their next 20 years gdp growth on solely on Green energy technology.

DOE secretary Steven Chu has said we need Nobel caliber breakthroughs.I disagree common sense is a better attribute, solutions that are available although challenging require innovative thinking,and this will require a quantum step,that we uses to see in the 19th and early 20 th century,and is now sadly lacking.

First lets look at some numbers using some quoted in Newsweek.

That is also the view of energy chemist Nate Lewis of the California Institute of Technology. "It's not true that all the technologies are available and we just need the political will to deploy them," he says. "My concern, and that of most scientists working on energy, is that we are not anywhere close to where we need to be. We are too focused on cutting emissions 20 percent by 2020—but you can always shave 20 percent off" through, say, efficiency and conservation. By focusing on easy, near-term cuts, we may miss the boat on what's needed by 2050, when CO2 emissions will have to be 80 percent below today's to keep atmospheric levels no higher than 450 parts per million. (We're now at 386 ppm, compared with 280 before the Industrial Revolution.) That's 80 percent less emissions from much greater use of energy.

Lewis's numbers show the enormous challenge we face. The world used 14 trillion watts (14 terawatts) of power in 2006. Assuming minimal population growth (to 9 billion people), slow economic growth (1.6 percent a year, practically recession level) and—this is key—unprecedented energy efficiency (improvements of 500 percent relative to current U.S. levels, worldwide), it will use 28 terawatts in 2050. (In a business-as-usual scenario, we would need 45 terawatts.) Simple physics shows that in order to keep CO2 to 450 ppm, 26.5 of those terawatts must be zero-carbon. That's a lot of solar, wind, hydro, biofuels and nuclear, especially since renewables kicked in a measly 0.2 terawatts in 2006 and nuclear provided 0.9 terawatts. Are you a fan of nuclear? To get 10 terawatts, less than half of what we'll need in 2050, Lewis calculates, we'd have to build 10,000 reactors, or one every other day starting now. Do you like wind? If you use every single breeze that blows on land, you'll get 10 or 15 terawatts. Since it's impossible to capture all the wind, a more realistic number is 3 terawatts, or 1 million state-of-the art turbines, and even that requires storing the energy—something we don't know how to do—for when the wind doesn't blow. Solar? To get 10 terawatts by 2050, Lewis calculates, we'd need to cover 1 million roofs with panels every day from now until then. "It would take an army," he says. Obama promised green jobs, but still

Some large numbers here several global GDP'S infact if we back of the envelope calculate at around 500-1000 US$ PER KW.

Clearly incremental taxation regimes upon intensive capital expenditure are NOT sustainable.(Unless the raison d'etre is to reduce the OECD countries GDP to the economic values of the third world )

We will examine some "innovative" solutions and use some thinking that is of course outside of the cube.

As we previously discussed some time ago on prescient thinking.

This piece from the Scientific American september 8 1860 in response to the prize offer from Thadeous Hyatt for a flying machine ...

Of all the inventions of which it is possible to conceive in the future,there is none which so captivated the imagination as that of a flying machine.The power of rising up into the air,and rushing in any direction at the rate of a mile or more a minute,is a power fo which mankind would be willing to pay for liberally.What a luxurious mode of locomtion!To sweep along smoothly how perfectly it would eclipse other means of travel by sea and distance of land.

But the thing that is really wanted is machine driven by some natural power.so the flyer may ride at his ease.For this purpose,we must have a new gas,electric ,or chemical engine.What we require are two or more substances ,solid or liquid,which by bringing into contact ,would be converted into gas.Place these in the reaction or Avery engine,which by running at high velocity,would yield a large power in proportion to its weight,and it is possible-yes probable-that the machine would drive spiral fans with sufficient force to lift itself from the gorund.Would not the binoxoyd of hydrogen and charcoal fill these conditions.This engine would run with such velocity that the fans would have to be very small by proportion;and it is probable that a widening of the arms themselves giving spiral inclination -would be the true plan.There might be two generating vessels that supply the engine that when was was exhausted the other would fulfill its requirements.

We might add several other hints to inventors who desire to enter on this enticing field;but we will conclude with only one more.The newly -discovered metal aluminium,from its extraordinary combination of lightness and strength,is the proper material for flying machines.

UPDATE

Preliminary numbers are around 45 trillion dollars between now and 2030

2009-03-05T18:40:00.000-08:00

Uncertainty a climate reality.

All traditional logic habitually assumes that precise symbols are being employed.It is therfore not applicable to this terrestrial life,nut only to the celestial one.The law of the excluded middle (A or not-A)is true when precise synbols are employed,but it is not true when aynbols are vague,as in fact all symbols are.

Bertrand Russell. 1923

In another recent paper where uncertainty,and sustainability are integrated,we see some interesting arguments.

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 13, 247–257, 2009

“Climate, hydrology, energy, water: recognizing uncertainty and
seeking sustainability”

D. Koutsoyiannis, C. Makropoulos A. Langousis, S. Baki, A. Efstratiadis, A. Christofides, G. Karavokiros, and N. Mamassis

Abstract. Since 1990 extensive funds have been spent on research in climate change. Although Earth Sciences, including climatology and hydrology, have benefited significantly, progress has proved incommensurate with the effort and funds, perhaps because these disciplines were perceived as “tools” subservient to the needs of the climate change enterprise rather than autonomous sciences. At the same time,research was misleadingly focused more on the “symptom”,i.e. the emission of greenhouse gases, than on the “illness”, i.e. the unsustainability of fossil fuel-based energy production. Unless energy saving and use of renewable resources
become the norm, there is a real risk of severe socioeconomic crisis in the not-too-distant future. A framework for drastic paradigm change is needed, in which water plays a central role, due to its unique link to all forms of renewable energy, from production (hydro and wave power) to storage (for time-varying wind and solar sources), to biofuel production (irrigation). The extended role of water should be considered in parallel to its other uses, domestic, agricultural and industrial. Hydrology, the science of water on Earth, must move towards this new paradigm by radically rethinking its fundamentals, which are unjustifiably trapped in the 19thcentury myths of deterministic theories and the zeal to eliminate uncertainty. Guidance is offered by modern statistical and quantum physics, which reveal the intrinsic character of uncertainty/entropy in nature, thus advancing towards a new understanding and modelling of physical processes, which is central to the effective use of renewable energy and water resources

This is a critical paper, that will set the “tongues wagging” eg

"According to data presented by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), the global temperature was stable in 2002-2005 and had a slight decreasing trend since then; i.e., the last years were cooler than about 10 years ago, and the highest global temperatures were recorded 11 years ago, in 1998 (Fig. 1). One should also keep in mind that according to IPCC AR4 (Randall et al., 2007) general circulation models (GCM) have better predictive capacity for temperature than for other climatic variables (e.g. precipitation) and their quantitative estimates of future climate are particularly credible at continental scales and above. Hence, the fact that the historical evolution of temperature at the global scale resists GCM predictions may also indicate that the predictive capacity of GCMs for other variables and scales is even poorer…

,,,Furthermore, the current “climate” in the environmental scientific community, which favours (almost fanatical) ideological views of scientific issues, is genuinely becoming an issue of concern. Scientists arguing against “orthodox” and established “beyond doubt” views on the climate are often mistreated (and examples unfortunately abound). This non-scientific “climate” is at odds with the basis of scientific inquiry and puts its credibility at risk. Scientific progress presupposes diversity, rather than dominance of a single group or idea. Falsification of current research trends is a likely possibility (cf. Miller, 2007) and history teaches that, sooner or later, myths collapse (cf. the “predecessor” myth of “global cooling”, which prevailed in the 1970s; Gwynne,
1975; Ponte, 1976).

Lifting a single sentence from the above paragraph we can see the importance of the paradigm.

“ Scientific progress presupposes diversity, rather than dominance of a single group or idea”

Exactly so Bertrand Russel in his book on skeptics ,tells us “the greatest controversies are those, of which there is no clear evidence one way or the other.”

That said his coauthor of Principia Mathmatica Whitehouse said also “that a clash of doctrines is not a reason for concern, it is an opportunity.

An as an example of the scientific method, we can falsify some of the conclusions of Koutsoyiannis 2009 by our previous post here

2009-03-04T20:10:00.000-08:00

Global warming postponed time for a Tea break (lukewarm)

There seems to be an incessant rush,to implement grand schemes mostly excessive taxation regimes ( stealth taxes) at a time when there are limited technology substitutions due to the lag phase of implementation.

At a time when the worlds economic structure is far from equilibrium( ie it has not found its bottom or more correctly,its attractor.Non linear systems have preferred states called attractors in mathematics)

As we observed an exogenous forcing such as an additional taxation regime will enhance the instability,most probably for decades.

In an interesting paper Has the climate recently shifted?
Kyle L. Swanson Anastasios A. Tsonis 2009

We see the reality of the present.

This paper provides an update to an earlier work that showed specific changes in the aggregate time evolution of major Northern Hemispheric atmospheric and oceanic modes of variability serve as a harbinger of climate shifts. Specifically, when the major modes of Northern Hemisphere climate variability are synchronized, or resonate, and the coupling between those modes simultaneously increases, the climate system appears to be thrown into a new state, marked by a break in the global mean temperature trend and in the character of El Nin˜o/Southern Oscillation variability. Here, a new and improved means to quantify the coupling between climate modes confirms that another synchronization of these modes, followed by an increase in coupling occurred in 2001/02. This suggests that a break in the global mean temperature trend from the consistent warming over the 1976/77–2001/02 period may have occurred.

Insofar as the global mean temperature is controlled by the net top-of-the-atmosphere radiative budget [IPCC 2007], such breaks in temperature trends imply discontinuities in that budget. Such discontinuities are difficult to reconcile with the presumed smooth evolution of anthropogenic greenhouse gas and aerosol radiative forcing with respect to time [Hansen et al. 2005]. This suggests that an internal reorganization of the climate system may underlie such shifts [Zhang et al. 2007].

Tsonis et al. (2007) applied concepts of the theory of synchronized chaos to show that the extrema associated with the 70-yr GST cycle are special in a dynamical sense and are thus likely to be parts of internal, rather than forced variability

Ghil et al(2008) details the uncertainties

The last IPCC report has investigated climate change as a result of various scenarios of CO2 increase for a set of 18 distinct GCMs. The best estimate of the temperature increase at the end of the 21st century from AR4 is about 4.0 C forthe worst scenario of greenhouse-gas increase, namely A1F1, this scenario envisages, roughly speaking, a future world with a very rapid economic growth. The likely range of end-of century increase in global temperatures is of 2.4–6.4 C in this case, and comparably large ranges of uncertainties obtain for all the other scenarios as well]. The consequences of these scientific uncertainties for the ethical quandaries arising in the socio-economic and political decision-making process involved in adaptation to and mitigation of climate changes are discussed in An essential contributor to this range of uncertainty is natural climate variability of the coupled ocean-atmosphere system. As mentioned already in [10], most GCM simulations do not exhibit the observed interdecadal variability of the oceans’ buoyancy-driven, thermohaline circulation [11]. This circulation corresponds to a slow, pole-to-pole motion of the oceans’ main water masses, also referred to as the overturning circulation. Cold and denser waters sink in the subpolar North Atlantic and lighter waters rise over much wider areas of the lower and southern latitudes.

Indeed
Sensitivity to the initial conditions-the principle signature of deterministic chaos-is thus not an artifact arising from when lower order models are used but is, rather, deeply rooted in the physics of the atmosphere.

Nicolis and Nicolis Foundations of complex systems page 223

2009-03-04T19:50:00.000-08:00

Climate Catastrophe averted unknown asteroid misses(just)

An asteroid of a similar size to a rock that exploded above Siberia in 1908 with the force of a thousand atomic bombs whizzed close past Earth on Monday, astronomers said on Tuesday.

2009 DD45, estimated to be between 21 and 47 meters across, raced by at 1344 GMT on Monday, the Planetary Society and astronomers' blogs reported.

The gap was just 72,000 kilometers, or a fifth of the distance between Earth and the Moon and only twice the height of satellites in geosynchronous orbit, the website space.com said.

The estimated size is similar to that of an asteroid or comet that exploded above Tunguska, Siberia, on June 30 1908, flattening 80 million trees in a swathe of more than 2,000 square kilometres.

Interesting enough this asteroid not identified to Saturday and hence an unknown quantity.

This has been recently discussed in Russian scientific literature eg Dorman 2008,and inthe Russian press.

MOSCOW. (Andrei Kislyakov for RIA Novosti) - Humankind has created a major problem: space debris, now threatening long-term space travel.

So much space junk has accumulated that the international community must take urgent action to prevent major accidents at high altitude and on Earth.

Space debris denote manmade objects in orbit around Earth that no longer serve any useful purpose but which endanger operational satellites, primarily manned spacecraft. In some cases, space junk may threaten Earth during reentry because some fragments do not burn up completely and can hit houses, industrial facilities and transport networks.

Right now, 40 million fragments of space debris weighing several thousand metric tons circle Earth. In mid-February, the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) reaffirmed the importance of guiding principles to prevent the formation of space debris for all nations.

On December 17, 2007, the UN General Assembly passed its Resolution 62/101 stipulating recommendations on enhancing the practice of states and international intergovernmental organizations in registering space objects.

Concerted international efforts and the dangers of hypothetical space debris crashes will make it possible for humankind to cope with this problem in the long term. However, Earth is still threatened by asteroids and various comets.,,

It is common knowledge that a new comet annually enters the solar system. Judging by the average lifespan of comets, about 3,000 of them fly through the solar system each year. In reality, astronomers register only 25 comets.

Scientists seem to have solved this contradiction. This discrepancy between theoretical calculations and practical observations is explained by the fact that many comets cannot be detected by optical systems.

It appears that such objects are created when a celestial body's nucleus loses most of its water due to evaporation. This makes new comets too dark to be observed through optical telescopes and a potential threat to planet Earth.

The latest studies of terrestrial and lunar craters show that most of them were gouged by comets. This news is not very encouraging either.

Of further interest Nasa's chief climate catastrophe theorist was buried in snow at a global warming protest in Washington.

Fortunately with Nasa unavailable we have someone who understands the mathematics a little better.

A 13-year-old German schoolboy corrected NASA's estimates on the chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth, a German newspaper reported Tuesday, after spotting the boffins had miscalculated.

Nico Marquardt used telescopic findings from the Institute of Astrophysics in Potsdam (AIP) to calculate that there was a 1 in 450 chance that the Apophis asteroid will collide with Earth, the Potsdamer Neuerster Nachrichten reported.

NASA had previously estimated the chances at only 1 in 45,000 but told its sister organisation, the European Space Agency (ESA), that the young whizzkid had got it right.

The schoolboy took into consideration the risk of Apophis running into one or more of the 40,000 satellites orbiting Earth during its path close to the planet on April 13 2029.

2009-03-02T20:17:00.000-08:00

Business cycles and chaos.

As we observe the global economy is in what is described by various commentators as in a catastrophic regime.Mathematically this is also correct as the inversion from global growth to global contraction is a velocity inversion ( ie a dissipative phenomena also known as dampening)
(V TO -V)=(T TO-T)

How far the contraction will go at present is not well understood.As we observed in the previous post as the global markets were approaching instability,the derivatives and hedge funds "fueled" the bifurcation by distorting the commodities markets.We can understand this in terms of the inversion of the gamblers paradox also known as the St Petersberg paradox.( for which there are never winners doubling up is financial suicide eg the Nick Leesing syndrome )

In the most recent central bank update I can find the Reserve Bank Governor of New Zealand call this the greatest destruction of wealth ever.

Credit related losses $2 trillion
Equity markets $30 trillion
Housing market $4 trillion
Lost productivity $3 trillion

There may be some distance to fall as some estimates of the derivitives market have been quoting liabilities of 600b us.The Housing prices in the US have fallen further in some areas with now the median price of houses in the US city of Detroit at around 7500 US$.This is around 10 % of the median price of a dwelling in Soweto,

It may be tough to get financing for a new car these days, but in Detroit you can buy a house with a credit card.

The median price of a home sold in Detroit in December was $7,500, according to Realcomp, a listing service.

Not $75,000. Remove a zero—it's seven thousand five hundred dollars, substantially less than the lowest-price car on the new-car market.

This brings us to the problem of ETS,carbon markets etc.As we observe the instability is chaotic and endogonous changes will exasperate that eg

Business Cycles, Bifurcations and Chaos in a Neo-Classical Model with Investment
Dynamics

Stephane Hallegatte, Michael Ghil Patrice Dumas Jean-Charles Hourcade

Abstract

This paper is motivated by the rising interest in assessing the effect of disruptions
in resources and environmental conditions on economic growth. Such an assessment
requires, ultimately, the use of truly integrated models of the climate and economic
systems. For these purposes, we have developed a Non-Equilibrium Dynamic Model
(NEDyM) by introducing investment dynamics and nonequilibrium effects into a
Solow growth model. NEDyM can reproduce various economic regimes, such as
manager- or shareholder-driven economies, and permits one to examine the effects
of disruptions on the economy, given either an assumption of steady-state growth
or an assumption of business cycles with transient disequilibrium. We have applied
NEDyM to an idealized economy that resembles in certain respects the 15-state
European Union in 2001.

The key parameter in NEDyM is investment flexibility. For certain values of this
parameter, the model reproduces classical business cycles with realistic characteristics; in particular, NEDyM captures the cycles' asymmetry, with a longer growth phase and more rapid contraction. The cyclical behavior is due to the investment{profit instability and is constrained by the increase in labor costs and the inertia of production capacity. For somewhat greater investment flexibility, the model exhibits chaotic behavior, because a new constraint intervenes, namely limited investment capacity. The preliminary results presented here show that complex behavior in the economic system may be due entirely, or at least largely, to deterministic, intrinsic factors, even if the economic long-term equilibrium is neo-classical in nature. In the chaotic regime, moreover, slight shocks { such as those due to natural or man-made catastrophes { may lead to significant changes in the economic system.

This paper introduces a modeling framework for macroeconomic growth dynamics
that is motivated by recent attempts to formulate and study \integrated models" of the coupling between natural and socio-economic phenomena. These attempts are driven, at least in part, by public debate about global issues, such as anthropogenic climate change. The challenge is to describe the interfaces between human activities and the functioning of the earth system over the very long term. In this context, economists have used primarily longterm growth models in the Solow tradition, relying on the idea that, over time scales of decades to centuries, the golden-age paradigm is an acceptable metaphor. This approach appears, however, to be increasingly at variance with the nature of the policy debates in the field. Advocates of stringent emission limits are concerned about the cost of damages caused by climate change, while their opponents worry about the cost of greenhouse gas abatement. But balanced growth models that incorporate many sources of flexibility tend to suggest that the damages caused by disruptions of the natural | i.e., physical and biological | planetary systems, as well as the mitigation policies proposed to prevent these disruptions, will entail only \a few percent" of losses in gross domestic product (GDP) over this century (IPCC, 2001). Both categories of activists tend thus to suspect that the figures suggested by current models underestimate either type of costs, since real economies rarely manifest a tendency to steady-state behavior

Hence a Priori to any legislative reactionary response to Climate Mitigation taxation regimes or cap and trade or whatever the dialectics "of the day is" the science of the mathematics must be robust and predictable,of which to date it has not eg Stern.ie it had no predictable qualities.

eg V. G. Gorshkov, A. M. Makarieva, B.-L. Li*

Comprehending environmental and economic sustainability: Comparative analysis
of stability principles in the biosphere and free market economy

Abstract
Using the formalism of Lyapunov potential function it is shown that the stability
principles for biomass in the ecosystem and for employment in economics are
mathematically similar. The ecosystem is found to have a stable and an unstable
stationary state with high (forest) and low (grasslands) biomass, respectively. In
economics, there is a stable stationary state with high employment, which
corresponds to mass production of conventional goods sold at low cost price, and an
unstable stationary state with lower employment, which corresponds to production
of novel goods appearing in the course of technological progress. An additional
stable stationary state is described for economics, the one corresponding to very low
employment in production of life essentials such as energy and raw materials. In this
state the civilization currently pays 10% of global GDP for energy produced by a
negligible minority of the working population (currently ~0.2%) and sold at prices
greatly exceeding the cost price by 40 times. It is shown that economic ownership
over energy sources is equivalent to equating measurable variables of different
dimensions (stores and fluxes), which leads to effective violation of the laws of
energy and matter conservation.

In other words if instability of the energy markets already exists (excessive pricing) and is instrumental in creating a global meltdown,how will an enhanced taxation regime not fail to extend the Economic inversion from years to decades

2009-02-06T01:05:00.000-08:00

How a Schoolboy Howler Fueled the Peak Oil Fallacy and Caused a Global Recession

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail

As the old proverb above tells us a small oversight, or error in an initial condition (or measurement or metric), can cause substantive exponential errors or results later with an effect on both scientific method, and behavioral responses to the arbitrary axioms.

This is well known with the butterfly effect

The butterfly effect is a phrase that encapsulates the more technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory. Small variations of the initial condition of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system. This is sometimes presented as esoteric behavior, but can be exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill might roll into any of several valleys depending on slight differences in initial position

As the heading of this essay says a simple arithmetic error in Global oil reserves, and the “Malthusian Prophecies” of peak oil, have caused irreparable damage in the short to medium term in three interconnected areas.

For ease of understanding we will divide them by classification.

1) The global economy
2) Vehicles and mechanisms for anthropogenic climate mitigation.
3) The energy technology complex( r&d) process and mechanism development and transformation.

These are an interrelated complex system, and are coupled so we can not “tinker “with one part of the complex without causing an equal response in another. The issue is rather simplistic, the effects widespread. For ease of explanation we will create a simple model.

Global Oil reserves are depleting- oil price rises-investment into oil sector-oil price rises furher-investment into short term substitutes (biofuels etc)-price volatility in energy sector-speculators enter markets-energy prices rise-investment into unsound and costly short-term substitutes –substantive cost inflation enters energy technology sector-energy commodities prices rise further-speculation bubble arisies-global inflation rises-gdp starts decreasing etc. .

First let’s examine the first primary or stationary part of our model above the statement that “global oil reserves are depleting”

They are but not in the short term .Not now ,not 5.15,25 years but they will stay reasonably high well into the 22nd century.

In 2006 Richard Pike Chief executive of the Royal Society of chemistry published an interesting paper.

The June issue of the authoritative journal Petroleum Review will publish an article by Royal Society of Chemistry chief executive, Richard Pike - a career petrochemicals industry executive - in which he claims that the world's oil reserves have been, and are still being, grossly underestimated, with profound implications for the global environment this century and possibly beyond.
Dr Pike, formerly an international senior manager with one of the world's biggest oil companies, writes that widely-accepted, but nevertheless flawed, calculation practices are employed to estimate world reserves and he goes on to suggest the way that oil reserves should be calculated. The first is typically based on a simple addition of proven reserves while the second should be based on a more sophisticated probabilistic analysis which may be up to twice the size....

...Addressing the consequences of the mistaken methodology he writes:
"Rather than there being general agreement on the quantitative limits of these resources, which would encourage all parties to address remedies and also seek out alternative energy routes, the relative abundance of oil recognised by individual producers themselves may inhibit this search.
"Despite transparency and innovative approaches by some of the leading oil companies, the overall global response has been inconsistent and uncoordinated."
He added: "There is also anecdotal evidence that some countries are under-reporting proven reserves to maintain a high oil price. Altogether as a result, the world is under-stating the environmental challenge facing generations to come, and appears unprepared for the difficult compromises that will have to be made.
"For more coherent global energy and environmental planning, it will be essential to use estimates that reflect proven plus probable reserves, and address issues of openness and confidentiality that this raises."

Indeed as we stated here on both the issues st the g8 in St Petersberg on transparency in may 2006.

The known hydrocarbon resources and the existing investment and technological capabilities are sufficient to ensure the reliable and affordable supply of adequate amount of energy in the foreseeable future . This, however, will only come through an efficient system of global, regional, and local markets, in which the role of governments would be to set the rules, defend and protect key energy facilities, insure against market failures, stimulate technological innovation, and - importantly - ensure environmental sustainability of energy development.

Sustainable global energy security requires security of demand as well as of supply, which in turn implies a need for more transparent and predictable activities at the level of statistics and energy policies. This tremendous objective will be achieved through further producer-consumer dialog, fair distribution of investment risks, mutual openness to capital. More transparent, predictable, and stable energy markets are key to success.

We also commented then on the speculators.

The secretary general of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), Rilwanu Lukman, says the world oil market is held captive by the derivatives markets. The old rules of supply and demand have been distorted, he says, by the creation of what he calls "paper barrels" of oil.

The physical ("wet barrel") market is awash in oil. Saudi Arabia, the world's top exporter, had to cut production from 9.5Mbpd level of the past 2 years down to 9.1Mbpd (-400,000 barrels per day) since April-06, because it can find no buyers for it, The Wall Street Journal quoted Oil Minister Ali Al Naimi as saying on 5-Jun-2006.

All "demand" keeping prices at these absurd levels of $70+/bar is happening in the futures derivatives markets, off which real physical oil is priced. Derivatives is what OPEC calls "paper barrels", with open contracts just in NY futures market being ~1.6 BILLION "paper barrels". Nearby month futures contracts in NYMEX and ICE trading about ~250 million "paper barrels" per day (vs ~80 million barrels per day world production).

Richard Pike has recently revisted this with regard to Climate change mitigation.

The much-heralded Climate Change Act, given Royal Assent last week, which aims to reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, sets the right agenda for the UK and the science community, says Richard Pike, chief executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

But, he warns, on a worldwide basis, where emissions are fifty times the UK figure, current international plans will remain an unfulfilled fantasy because of mathematical errors in basic assumptions and a global underestimate of the true challenge ahead. His concerns are published in the December issue of the journal Significance, published this week by the Royal Statistical Society.

Dr Pike said: "This is an extraordinary challenge that must begin with the right facts. The RSC is sending a copy of the Significance article to the mathematics department of every secondary school, to expose the 'schoolboy howler' in statistics that is misleading governments everywhere, and compromising our ability to address the potential catastrophe that lies ahead."

"Getting this right will enable us to focus collectively on the science to deliver, safely and securely, the solutions we need. It is this that will inspire youngsters to see these as great career opportunities."

The paper is here

Over the next few posts we will examine the issues of the complex and the economics,technologies and simplistic solutions.

As we can see from the above simple gauge model the oil and energy bubble was the accelerant that fueled the Global meltdown.

These a issues of global significance and yet you will not see them in the mainstream media

2009-02-02T21:28:00.000-08:00

Famous Climate Scientist calls Carbon Trading “A Gigantic Scam”

Ye wise Philosophers explain
What Magick makes our Money rise,
When dropt into the Southern Main;
Or do these Juglers cheat our Eyes?
Put in your Money fairly told;
Presto be gone - 'Tis here agen:
Ladies, and Gentlemen, behold,
Here's ev'ry Piece as big as Ten.

Jonathon Swift

James Lovelock, as yet the only climate scientist whose prediction has come true as we observed here..

“Fear feeds ignorance” said James Lovelock in the Ages of Gaia,*and a great niche was opened for fear when science became incomprehensible to those who were not its practitioners”

The attachment of a number to anything or anyone implies a significance that was missing from its physical description .A telephone number is valuable tool in comparison the observation that atmospheric abundance of perfluoromethyl cyclohexane is 5.6x10-15 ,or that whilst you have read this line of text a hundred thousand of the atoms in your body will have disintegrated.whilst interesting confer neither benefit or significance to your health.

But once numbers are attached to say an environmental property the means will soon be made to justify their recording,and before long a data bank of information about the distribution of substance x or radioactive isotope y will exist.It is a small step to compare the different databanks ,and in the nature of statistical distributions there will be a correlation of the distribution of substance x and disease Z

It is no exaggeration to observe that once some curious investigator pries open such a niche,it will be filled by the opportunistic growth of hungry professionals and their predators.A new subset of society will be occupied in the monitoring of substance x and disease Z as will as the makers of the instrumentation. Then there will be the lawyers who make the legislation for the beaurecrats to administer and so on.”

In the New Scientist he recently labeled the carbon industry as a gigantic scam.

Not a hope in hell. Most of the "green" stuff is verging on a gigantic scam. Carbon trading, with its huge government subsidies, is just what finance and industry wanted. It's not going to do a damn thing about climate change, but it'll make a lot of money for a lot of people and postpone the moment of reckoning. I am not against renewable energy, but to spoil all the decent countryside in the UK with wind farms is driving me mad. It's absolutely unnecessary, and it takes 2500 square kilometres to produce a gigawatt - that's an awful lot of countryside.

This opens a number of interesting issues namely the “capture “of the energy industry and the environmental “elitists” such as dodgy lawyers, accountants, and merchant bankers whose only vested interest is to make a quick buck at the expense of the consumer, producer ,and the underdeveloped poorer countries.

This goes against the ideals and conclusions of the Combined academies of science as we mentioned here.

The g8 Joint science academies have released the outline for the global situation and the security of the energy complex for sustainability, innovation,and development.As we have suggested there are a number of interesting developments ,that will see a mix of new technology,efficiency and evolution of existing technology.

Broad international consensus recognizes three principal, inter-related components of sustainable development: economic prosperity, social development, and environmental protection. Sustainable and reliable supply of energy is one of the major conditions for achieving these three goals ,for all countries of the world: if energy sustainability and security fail, the primary human development goals cannot be achieved.

Over a number of following posts we will examine the issues and how the Governments of the world are deceived in the polices by encompassing a simple arithmetic error in their policy development programs and has been described as a “schoolboy howler “.

2009-01-15T23:25:00.000-08:00

The Medea Hypothesis the dark side of the Gaia Equation

The utter vulgarity of the herd of men comes out of their preference for the sort of life a cow leads.

Aristotle
Ethics

In an interesting article doing the rounds we see another perspective of the nice homogenous world told to us of the distant pre anthropic past..Where climate was stable and an a multitude of fauna and megafauna inhabited the earth in some peaceful coexistence.

A nice story but far from the reality of the hard and fast facts of evolutiom

WHEN WE LOOK at nature, it has become commonplace to see a fastidiously self-regulating system at work: wildebeest trim the savannah grasses, lions cull the wildebeest herds, and vultures clean the bones of both. Forests take in the carbon dioxide we exhale, use it to grow, and replace it with oxygen. The planet even has a thermostat, the carbon cycle, which relies on the interplay of volcanoes, rain, sunlight, plants, and plankton to keep the earth's temperature in a range congenial to life.

This idea of nature's harmonious balance has become not just the bedrock of environmental thought, but a driving force in policy and culture….

…According to the paleontologist Peter Ward, however, nothing could be further from the truth. In his view, the earth's history makes clear that, left to run its course, life isn't naturally nourishing - it's poisonous. Rather than a supple system of checks and balances, he argues, the natural world is a doomsday device careening from one cataclysm to another. Long before humans came onto the scene, primitive life forms were busily trashing the planet, and on multiple occasions, Ward argues, they came close to rendering it lifeless. Around 3.7 billion years ago, they created a planet-girdling methane smog that threatened to extinguish every living thing; a little over a billion years later they pumped the atmosphere full of poison gas. (That gas, ironically, was oxygen, which later life forms adapted to use as fuel.)

An indeed it is this well understood.and is also an evolutionary catalyst.. The living world is nowadays subdivided into three ”domains” or main organismal groups, i.e. Archaea, Bacteria (eubacteria, or just bacteria), and Eukarya (eukaryotes, which comprise all organisms known 200 years ago, and many others, plants, fungi, animals, and people). Photosynthesis has arisen only in the domain Bacteria. That plants, too, can carry out photosynthesis is because the precursors of plant cells have combined with bacteria

The Evolution of Photosynthesis and its Environmental Impact(extract Bjorn and Govindjee)chapter12

When we think about how photosynthesis has affected our environment, we may first
remember that it has produced the oxygen we breathe, and (directly or indirectly) the
food we eat. But the impact of photosynthesis is much wider. The oxygen produced
by photosynthesis has also given rise to the ozone layer, which protects the biosphere from the ultraviolet-B radiation from the sun The fossil fuel,has been produced by photosynthesis in times past. The sequestration of carbon from the atmosphere has given us a human-friendly climate,.We must not fall into the trap of believing that photosynthesis has always resulted in a good environment for the inhabitants of our planet. The free oxygen is still a hazard for our own cells, and even for the chloroplasts producing oxygen. Photosynthesis has not always had a friendly, Gaia-like influence on inhabitants of the Earth. When oxygen first started to accumulate, it almost certainly killed off a large part of the terrestrial population by direct poisoning. It was even a hurdle to the producers themselves. Many of the cyanobacteria (as many other bacteria as well as archaea) carry out nitrogen fixation by means of nitrogenase. Nitrogenase is extremely sensitive to oxygen and easily inhibited by it, and organisms had to invent various methods for protecting the nitrogen fixing enzyme from oxygen. Some of the filamentous forms developed special cells (heterocysts) for a special kind of photosynthesis, which fixes nitrogen using PSI only, and does not fix carbon dioxide or evolve oxygen. From morphological fossils it has been deduced that this arrangement is 1.5 Ga old. In modern cyanobacteria there is a strict correlation between occurence of heterocysts and of akinetes.Before cyanobacteria evolved, the oxygen content of the atmosphere was below 10-5 of the present. The initial effects of photosynthetic oxygen production on climate were disastrous. Before the oxygenation of the atmosphere the earth was kept comfortably warm (too warm for the human taste) by not only a high atmospheric content of carbon dioxide, but also by another greenhouse gas, methane. When oxygen arrived, methane was first oxidized to carbon dioxide by an emerging new group of microorganisms. Then also the concentration of carbon dioxide was drastically lowered by cyanobacterial assimilation. This led to a sharp temperature decrease and a glaciation which lasted for about 70 million years, between 2.32 and 2.22 Ga ago. Since traces from this time of glaciation (the Makganyene glaciation) are found near the ancient equator, some scientists believe that the whole globe became covered with ice and snow during at least part of this time. There was what has been called a ”snowball earth” The ice cover prevented silicate weathering, a process that consumes carbon dioxide, and continuing volcanism increased the carbon dioxide content again and eventually put an end to the long ice age. In the meantime the hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the sea had spewed out nutrients at a rate which could not under the icy conditions be matched by consumption. Therefore, many cyanobacterial nutrients were abundant at the end of the glaciation, but probably not all.

There is also another process based on the dictum of you cant beat theem join them assimilation as we discussed here.

“Let us imagine a palm tree, growing peacefully near a spring, and a lion hiding in the bush nearby, all of its muscles taut, with blood thirsty eyes, prepared to jump upon an antelope and to strangle it. The symbiotic theory, and it alone, lays bare the deepest mysteries of this scene, unravels and illuminates the fundamental principle that could bring forth two such utterly different entities as a palm tree and a lion. The palm behaves so peacefully, so passively, because it is a symbiosis, because it contains a plethora of little workers, green slaves(chromatophores) that work for it and nourish it. The lion must nourish itself. Let us imagine each cell of the lion filled with chromatophores, and I have no doubt that it would immediately lie down peacefully next to the palm, feeling full, or needing at most some water with mineral salts.”

(Konstantin Sergeevich Mereschkowsky (1905)

We see this within all humans now with our mitochodria developed form other phenotypes.Indeed around 50% of yours and my drymatter by weight is mitochodria,and we may even have some martian mitochondria in us having arrived on a meteor as we discussed earlier but that is another story.

2009-01-10T21:49:00.000-08:00

Nasa confuses reality with rhectoric

As we see here with the previous post Nasa is not always the best place to find impartial scientific facts.

Thomas Gold cited the behavior of the Nasa consensus of ‘in-house peer review”as the closed herd (neutron star rotation).

Another area where it is particularly bad is in the planetary sciences where NASA made great mistakes in the way in which they set up the situation. NASA made the grave mistake not only of working with a peer review system, but one where some of the peers (in fact very influential ones) were the in-house people doing the same line of work. This established a community of planetary scientists now which was completely selected by the leading members of the herd, which was very firmly controlled, and after quite a short time, the slightest departure from the herd was absolutely cut down. Money was not there for anybody who had a slightly diverging viewpoint. The conferences ignored him, and so on. It became completely impossible to do any independent work. For all the money that has been spent, the planetary program will one day be seen to have been extraordinarily poor. The pictures are fine and some of the facts that have been obtained from the planetary exploration with spacecraft - those will stand but not much else.

Here they not only get the the science completely wrong,but make the most absrd statement that is recently been disproved as we observe.

Continued operation of the oceanic conveyor belt is important to northern Europe's moderate climate because of northward transport of heat in the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current. The system can weaken or shut down entirely if the North Atlantic surface-water salinity somehow drops too low to allow the formation of deep-ocean water masses. This apparently happened during the Little Ice Age (about 1400 to 1850 AD). The conveyer system shut down and northern Europe's climate became markedly colder. Old paintings from this era show Dutch skaters on frozen canals-something that would not occur during today's climatic regime. Cores extracted from deep-sea sediment deposits contain evidence of earlier cold periods.

Todays climate regime has the dutch out skating in their millions and the global conveyor firing on all cylinders.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – The Dutch strapped on skates and flocked to icy canals this weekend as freezing temperatures afforded an increasingly rare chance to skate across their flat country.

After more than a week of cold, an estimated 2.3 million skaters, out of a population of 16 million, have taken to frozen canals and lakes, according to a poll released ahead of the weekend.

That number is expected to double if Queen Beatrix decides to don her skates as well.

"The number of opportunities you have to skate in the Dutch winter is decreasing," said Jochem van de Laarschot, who usually speaks on behalf of Dutch food retailer Ahold but took a half a day off last week to skate.

Ocean Conveyor's 'Pump' Switches Back On
How will climate warming affect ocean circulation? The answer isn't so simple.

One of the “pumps” that helps drive the ocean’s global circulation suddenly switched on again last winter for the first time this decade. The finding surprised scientists who had been wondering if global warming was inhibiting the pump and did not foresee any indications that it would turn back on.

The “pump” in question is in the western North Atlantic Ocean, where pools of cold, dense water form in winter and sink beneath less-dense warmer waters. The sinking water feeds into the lower limb of a global system of currents often described as the Great Ocean Conveyor. To replace the down-flowing water, warm surface waters from the tropics are pulled northward along the Conveyor’s upper limb.

The phenomenon has far-reaching impacts on climate. It transports tropical heat to the North Atlantic region, keeping winters there much warmer than they would be otherwise. And it draws down the man-made buildup of carbon dioxide from air to surface waters and eventually into the depths, where the greenhouse gas is stored for centuries and offset global warming.

As we see from the graphic the flows are Asymmetric with flows in inverse states in each hemisphere.This is rather simplistic and the flows are also driven by wimd gyres ie the planet rotates the wind blows.This is also understood in comparative atmospheres eg Jupiter (sobolov meteorology of a rotating planet)and as seen in transport of the Giant red spots.

Makirieva et al gives some qualitative energy flows for the thermacline circulation.

Thermohaline circulation is the global overturning of the ocean, with water masses sinking in the polar regions and upwelling elsewhere at lower latitudes. Global mean temperature of the oceanic surface is 15C.Oceanic waters below 1 kmhave constant temperature of 4 C world over. In the absence of thermohaline circulation,
oceanic waters would have had uniform temperature at all depths. The reason for the constant low oceanic temperatures at depths below 1 km consists in the unique physical properties of water. Water has maximum density, i.e. it is the
heaviest, at 4 C. In the result, the cold polar waters sink to the depth of the ocean. The power of this downward flux, which occurs around the poles, is F _ 1015m3 year_1 = 3 _ 107 m3 s_1 (Stuiver and Quay, 1983). To compensate for this flux, water
masses undergo upwelling over the remaining area of the world ocean, S = 3.6 _ 10^14 m2. The water masses ascend and heat up to the surface temperature. The mean upwelling velocity is u = F/S _ 2m year_1 = 5 _ 10_8 ms_1. The waters
are warmed from 4 to 15 C, i.e. DT = 11 K, during their upwelling from depth to the surface, at the expense of solar radiation. The energy flux of this heating is rcDTu, where r = 103 kgm_3 is water density, c = 4.2 kJ (kg K)_1 is water heat
capacity. The total global power of thermohaline circulation is thus rcDTuS = rcDTF = 1.4 _ 10^15W_ l _ 10^3 TW

2009-01-10T02:02:00.000-08:00

Peer review an incestuous relationship

Once again one of the significant problems in science has arisen.As we have discussed here.

One of the Great controversies is how the “closed shop” of scientific review for publication and funding can lead to the passage of scientific consensus into blind cul-de-sacs of scientific theory .Indeed we can cite many Nobel laureates who when questioning the ‘Paradigm” were treated with contemptuous ridicule from the “consensus club”

Thomas Gold cited the behavior of the Nasa consensus of ‘in-house peer review”as the closed herd (neutron star rotation).

Another area where it is particularly bad is in the planetary sciences where NASA made great mistakes in the way in which they set up the situation. NASA made the grave mistake not only of working with a peer review system, but one where some of the peers (in fact very influential ones) were the in-house people doing the same line of work. This established a community of planetary scientists now which was completely selected by the leading members of the herd, which was very firmly controlled, and after quite a short time, the slightest departure from the herd was absolutely cut down. Money was not there for anybody who had a slightly diverging viewpoint. The conferences ignored him, and so on. It became completely impossible to do any independent work. For all the money that has been spent, the planetary program will one day be seen to have been extraordinarily poor. The pictures are fine and some of the facts that have been obtained from the planetary exploration with spacecraft - those will stand but not much else.

Now we see some french geophysicist caught reviewing their own colleagues papers.

Geophysicists accused of breach of publishing ethics

Scientists at the Institute of Geophysics in Paris (IPGP) have been accused of acting as editors for dozens of papers by IPGP colleagues published from 1992 to 2008 in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters while they were members of the editorial board. The allegations follow a joint investigation by science journalists at the French newspapers Le Monde and Libération.

Among the authors of the articles involved is Claude Allègre, a former research and education minister in the French government and former IPGP head, whom French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been rumoured to be wooing to take up a ministerial position; and Vincent Courtillot, the institute's current head and a member of the journal's editorial board from 2003 to 2005.

Courtillot has dismissed the allegations, pointing out in Le Monde that all editors of papers submitted to the journal by the IPGP were openly identified. Allègre has described the allegations as "ridiculous". But Friso Veenstra, publisher of the Elsevier journal, maintains that reviewing papers from one's own institution runs against the journal's ethics policy.

Sort of like Chinese walls in a financial institution,and we can see where they hace all ended up.

2009-01-10T01:08:00.000-08:00

Diamonds scratch Younger Dryas from Climate catastrophe race

As we have previously shown here the cataclysmic examples of abrupt climate change used by the central committee for the reformation of science have once again been seen to be coincidences of a random nature and not a "sign" of some forthcoming event.

We mentioned this previously

The Younger Dryas occurred as an Ice Age was ending. As the climate began to warm, a huge and sudden rush of fresh meltwater broke out from the Great Lakes and swept out to sea. The water surge was monumental enough that the meltwater lowered the salinity of the ocean, shut down the Atlantic conveyor currents, which disperse the planet's heat, and threw the northern hemisphere back into another thousand years of Ice Age. It raised temperatures near Greenland by a startling 15 degrees C, even as it doubled annual rainfall.

Modern climatologists have savored the Younger Dryas event as massive evidence of what comes when we push the planet's climate too close to a "tipping point." Further human-driven warming, they say, will make such abrupt climate changes more likely, with searing droughts, torrential rainfall, and extreme heat.

The National Academy of Sciences issued a 2002 report titled Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises, which said abrupt climate changes have been especially common when the climate system was being forced to change most rapidly. According to that theory, greenhouse warming today could be drastically increasing risks from climate change.

Arbitary assumptions from the “model makers” and their creationist theories of a “steady state planet”

The NSF have released an interesting article on a ‘Hammer of God” event that provides evidence that the model makers are wrong and an “extraterrestrial event” in the form of a comet was the precursor

In an article in the NYT

Now researchers are reporting that the abrupt cooling — which took place about 12,900 years ago, just as the planet was emerging from an ice age — may have been caused by one or more meteors that slammed into North America.

That could explain the extinction of mammoths, saber-tooth tigers and maybe even the first human inhabitants of the Americas, the scientists report in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.

The hypothesis has been regarded skeptically, but its advocates now report perhaps more convincing residue of impact: a thin layer of microscopic diamonds found in rocks across America and in Europe.

Already the disciples for the doctrine of the infallibility of the order(ipcc) are trying to muddy the waters but hte isotopes already sing the ship (and it is not rising sea levels)

A dramatic increase about 12,000 years ago in levels of atmospheric methane, a potent greenhouse gas, was most likely caused by higher emissions from tropical wetlands or from plant production, rather than a release from seafloor methane deposits, a new study concludes.

This research, to be published Friday in the journal Science, contradicts some suggestions that the sudden release of massive amounts of methane frozen in seafloor deposits may have been responsible – or at least added to - some past periods of rapid global warming, including one at the end of the last ice age.

The findings were made with analysis of carbon isotopes from methane frozen in Greenland ice core samples, by researchers from Oregon State University, the University of Victoria, University of Colorado, and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California-San Diego.

For climate researchers, an understanding of methane behavior is of some significance because it is the second most important "greenhouse gas" after carbon dioxide. Its atmospheric concentration has increased about 250 percent in the last 250 years, and it continues to rise about 1 percent a year.

"Methane is a gas that makes a significant contribution to global warming but has gone largely unnoticed by the public and some policy makers," said Hinrich Schaefer, a postdoctoral research associate in the OSU Department of Geosciences. "Its concentration has more than doubled since the Industrial Revolution, from things like natural gas exploration, landfills, and agriculture. We need to know whether rapid increases of methane in the past have triggered global warming or just been a reaction to it."

To better answer this question, researchers studied two stable isotopes of carbon found in methane, that can provide a better idea of where the methane came from during a period thousands of years ago when Earth was emerging from its most recent ice age, and entering the interglacial period that it is still in. At that time, methane concentration went up 50 percent in less than 200 years.

Several things naturally produce methane, including biomass burning, geologic sources, wetlands, animals, and aerobic production by plants, a mechanism that was unknown until just recently. And huge amounts of methane – with more carbon stored in them than all the known oil and gas fields on Earth – are found in methane hydrates on the seafloor. In this setting, the cold temperatures and pressure keep the methane stable and prevent it from entering the atmosphere.

But some researchers have theorized that something might release the trapped seafloor methane – submarine landslides, a drop in pressure caused by dropping sea levels, or warming of ocean waters.

As we also no changes in isotopic levels in the biosphere are also present after an extraterrestrial event such as Tunguska are also seen.

The Tunguska catastrophe in 1908 evidently led to high levels of acid rain. This is the conclusion reached by Russian, Italian and German researchers based on the results of analyses of peat profiles taken from the disaster region. In peat samples corresponded to 1908 permafrost boundary they found significantly higher levels of the heavy nitrogen and carbon isotopes 15N and 13C.

The highest accumulation levels were measured in the areas at the epicentre of the explosion and along the trajectory of the cosmic body. Increased concentrations of iridium and nitrogen in the relevant peat layers support the theory that the isotope effects discovered are a consequence of the Tunguska catastrophe and are partly of cosmic origin. It is estimated that around 200,000 tons of nitrogen rained down on the Tunguska region in Siberia at that time.

"Extremely high temperatures occurred as the meteorite entered the atmosphere, during which the oxygen in the atmosphere reacted with nitrogen causing a build up of nitrogen oxides," Natalia Kolesnikova told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti on last Monday. Mrs. Kolesnolova is one of the authors of a study by Lomonosov Moscow State University, the University of Bologna and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), which was published in the journal Icarus in 2003.

The same is also seen in the younger dryas with elevated levels in the biosphere.

Pleistocene faunal δ15N variations are thought to reflect changes in climatic and environmental conditions. Researchers are still unclear, however, which climatic/environmental parameter is the primary control on Pleistocene faunal δ15N values. Through extensive nitrogen isotope analysis of Late Pleistocene reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) collagen we investigated whether permafrost development during the Late Pleistocene coincided with changes in δ15N values. After 45 ka BP reindeer δ15N declined, with lowest δ15N values observed after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), between 15 and 11 ka BP. The decline in δ15N appears to be of a greater magnitude in more northern regions than in the South of France, a pattern similar to that previously observed for horse. On a global scale, ecosystem δ15N is controlled by the relative openness of the nitrogen cycle, which in turn is controlled by climate. Low soil and plant δ15N are observed in cold and/or wet regions and high δ15N are seen in hot and/or arid areas. The regional pattern in reindeer δ15N decline mimics the pattern of climatic deterioration in Europe culminating at the LGM, with climate cooling being more intense in northern Europe than in southern Europe. However, the lowest reindeer δ15N values are observed after temperatures started to rise. This may have been due to a lag in the response of the nitrogen cycle to increasing temperatures. Alternatively it may have been linked to the influence of permafrost degradation on soil and plant δ15N and thus faunal δ15N. The renewed climatic cooling during the Younger Dryas did not see a fall in reindeer δ15N. Limited data does, however, suggest a post Younger Dryas depletion in reindeer δ15N values.

2009-01-08T22:37:00.000-08:00

New Zealand Futures trader opens casino on Global Temperatures

In an interesting development on the Climate Prediction a registered securities trader has opened a global temperatures prediction casino.

As the two indices are posed as a binary question ie yes/ no. this is in essence a coin toss question. As we have previously discussed.

Describing the mathematical problems (some years before the celebrated Hilbert’s list) Poincare divided them into two parts: the binary problems (similar to the Fermat problem, where the answer is a choice between the two possibilities: “yes” or “no”), and the interesting problems, where the progress is continuous, studying first of all the possibility of the variations of the problem (like, say, the variation of the boundary conditions for a differential equation) and investigating then the influences of these variations on the properties of the solutions (which would be hidden, if the problem were formulated as a binary one)…an inverse temperature“state” is in essence a binary transformation or bifurcation.. The transformation as a velocity inversion has the same effect as a time inversion,(v to -v ) (t to -t)An interesting property is the probability P+=P- = 0.5

Is 2009 going to be the hottest year on record?

iPredict launches new climate change stocks

With the New Zealand summer already reaching record temperatures, online prediction market iPredict today launched new stocks asking just how hot we think 2009 will be.

For as little as $5 traders can buy and sell stocks that pay out depending on whether global temperatures in 2009 are warmer than last year, or are the hottest ever.

"Everyone has an opinion on climate change, it is the defining environmental issue for our time. Indications are 2008 was the coldest year since 2000 – is this a one-off anomaly? Could 2009 do the opposite?" says iPredict CEO Matt Burgess.

Two climate change stocks are being traded. The first stock asks whether 2009 will be warmer than 2008. A second stock asks whether 2009 will be the warmest year ever, beating the record set in 1998.
Victoria University Professor of Climate Change Martin Manning says traders will not have an easy time predicting the climate.
”While scientists are quite confident about our understanding of long term climate trends, the large amount of year to year variability in global average temperatures makes the question behind each of these stocks a challenge for anyone, including the experts,” said Professor Manning.
“This new initiative by iPredict should tell us more about how people think about climate, and I hope it can be used to improve the way we communicate what science does and does not know.”
Mr Burgess says the stocks are based on the HadCRUT3 time series from the University of East Anglia, Norwich. “This is a well-respected global temperature data series going back to 1850,” says Mr Burgess.
iPredict is authorised by the Securities Commission as a futures dealer and is owned by Victoria University and the Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation. The primary purpose of iPredict is research and education. Anybody can browse iPredict and see the predictions for free by going to www.iPredict.co.nz. Traders must be 18 years and older to set up an account. Accounts are free to set up and people can start trading with as little as $5.

As we see Victoria University Professor of Climate Change Martin Manning says traders will not have an easy time predicting the climate.in the short period of 1 year we can see they have not been better at other long scales either, with error bars exceeding the amplitude of the temporal evolution.

Whilst most scientific models have error bars within the amplitude This is definitely not the case for a typical atmospheric variable(such as temperature) where large deviations around the mean are comparable to the mean itself. More generally, this should hold true in any nonlinear dynamical system in which the evolution equations admit multiple solutions or give rise to chaotic dynamics,

The divergence in the temporal horizon suggest the predictive values are of limited qualities.ie there is a temporal boundary.on longer predictions. Here the house always wins.

2008-12-13T22:03:00.000-08:00

PDO and ENSO Fluctuation theory,Gravity and Dissipative systems

A thing, in fact becomes a manifold when, unable to remain
self-centered, it flows outward and by that dissipation takes extension:
utterly losing unity it becomes a manifold, since there is nothing
to bind part to part; when, with all this overflowing, it becomes
something definite, there is a magnitude.

Whatever is an actual existence is by that very fact determined
numerically . . . approach the thing as a unit and you find it
manifold; call it a manifold, and again you falsify, for when the
single thing is not a unity neither is the total a manifold . . . Thus it is
not true to speak of it [matter, the unlimited] as being solely in flux

V Nalimov

As we observed here with the PDO, we can divide the climate and its related interpretations into two components.

A) The fluctuations within a persistent regime or state, and
B) The supercritical or inverse oscillations of persistent states that are described as positive or negative (hotter or cooler)

Here A is a subset of B, and we can find a trend within the state being positive or negative, but we cannot use a trendline between states as this has different stochastic attributes. This is a fundamental flaw with using moving mean anomalies with data between two states with inverse symmetry.ie it tends to amplify a trend

As we see here

The Pacific Decadal Oscillation is a long-term fluctuation of the Pacific Ocean that waxes and wanes between cool and warm phases approximately every five to 20 years. In the present cool phase, higher-than-normal sea-surface heights caused by warm water form a horseshoe pattern that connects the north, west and southern Pacific. This is in contrast to a cool wedge of lower-than-normal sea-surface heights spreading from the Americas into the eastern equatorial Pacific. During most of the 1980s and 1990s, the Pacific was locked in the oscillation's warm phase, during which these warm and cool regions are reversed. For an explanation of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and its present state’

In its negative of cooling state the PDO can be described as a dissipative system or Gaussian thermostat. ie it dissipates energy.

Some descriptions

A system that exits far from thermodynamic equilibrium (see thermodynamics), hence efficiently dissipates the heat generated to sustain it, and has the capacity of changing to higher levels of orderliness (see self-organization). According to Prigogine, systems contain subsystems that continuously fluctuate. At times a single fluctuation or a combination of them may become so magnified by possible feedback, that it shatters the preexisting organization. At such revolutionary moments or "bifurcation points", it is impossible to determine in advance whether the system will disintegrate into "chaos" or leap to a new, more differentiated, higher level of "order". The latter case defines dissipative structures so termed because they need more energy to sustain them than the simpler structures they replace and are limited in growth by the amount of heat they are able to disperse. (Krippendorff)

A system with e_(p_) > 0 is referred to as dissipative. Dissipative Gaussian thermostats provide a large class of examples to which one can apply the Fluctuation
Theorem of G. Gallavotti and E.G.D. Cohen extended to Anosov flows by
G. Gentile and this theorem is perhaps one of the main motivations for determining
precisely which thermostats are dissipative. Observe that Gaussian thermostats
are reversible in the sense that the flip (x, v) 7→ (x,−v) conjugates _t with _−t (just as in the case of geodesic flows). We recall that the chaotic hypothesis of Gallavotti and Cohen asserts that for systems out of equilibrium, physically correct macroscopic results will be obtained by assuming that the microscopic dynamics is uniform

So what changes the enso dynamics in a word gravity. as Federov explains.

ABSTRACT
How unstable is the tropical ocean–atmosphere system? Are two successive El Niño events independent, or are they part of a continual (perhaps weakly damped) cycle sustained by random atmospheric disturbances?How important is energy dissipation for ENSO dynamics? These closely related questions are frequently raised in connection with several climate problems ranging from El Niño predictability to the impact of atmospheric “noise” on ENSO. One of the factors influencing the system’s stability and other relevant properties is the damping (decay) time scale for the thermocline anomalies associated with the large-scale oceanic motion. Here this time scale is estimated by considering energy balance and net energy dissipation in the tropical ocean and it is shown that there are two distinct dissipative regimes: in the interannual frequency band the damping rate is approximately (2.3 yr) 1; however, in a near-annual frequency range the damping appears to be much stronger, roughly (8 months)

On interannual time scales, the perturbation available potential energy E is anticorrelated with sea surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific so that negative values of E correspond to El Niño conditions, and positive values correspond to La Niña conditions (Fig. 1). This correlation is related to changes in the slope of the thermocline associated with El Niño and La Niña. When the thermocline slope increases (as during La Niña; Fig. 1a), the warmer and lighter water is replaced by colder and hence heavier water thus raising the center of mass of the system and increasing its gravitational potential energy..

2008-11-29T22:20:00.000-08:00

The paradox of a quiet sun

In a recent article in Movosti there is discussion on the problems from flare and cme activity during the new solar cycle

Our Sun is muscling up again. According to NASA, it is beginning another 11-year cycle of activity. Considering that the Sun is to blame for some unfavorable climate changes on the Earth, the coming decade could spell more trouble for our planet.

The first measuring instruments made their appearance 440 years ago. They showed that our nearest star treats the Earth to more than just solar eclipses. Sunspots, solar flares, faculae and other phenomena affect everything on the Earth: from atmospheric events to human behavior. These phenomena are known collectively as solar activity.

This activity, expressing itself through bursts of solar radiation, magnetic storms or fiery flares, can vary in intensity, from very low to very strong. It is the storms that pose the greatest danger to civilization.

On August 28, 1859, polar lights glowed and shimmered all over the American continent as darkness fell. Many people thought their city was aflame. The instruments used to record this magnetic fluctuation across the world went off their scales. Telegraph systems malfunctioned, hit by a massive surge in voltage.

This was an actual solar storm. Its results for humankind were small, because civilization had not yet entered a hi-tech phase of development. Had something similar happen in our nuclear space age, destruction would have been catastrophic.

Meanwhile, according to scientific data, storms of such size occur relatively seldom: once in five centuries. But events with half the intensity happen every 50 years. The last one took place on November 13, 1960 and disturbed the Earth's geomagnetic fields, upsetting the operation of radio stations.

We have already discussed this here and here

A basic outline is here.

Society reliance on electricity for meeting essential needs has steadily increased for many years. This unique energy service requires coordination of electrical supply, demand, and delivery—all occurring at the speed of light. Disturbances caused by solar activity can disrupt these complex power grids. When the Earth's magnetic field captures ionized particles carried by the solar wind, Geomagnetically-induced currents (GIC) can flow through the power system, entering and exiting the many grounding points on a transmission network. GICs are produced when shocks resulting from sudden and severe magnetic storms subject portions of the Earth's surface to fluctuations in the planet's normally stable magnetic field. These fluctuations induce electric fields in the Earth that create potential differences in voltage between grounding points—which causes GICs to flow through transformers, power system lines, and grounding points. Only a few amps are needed to disrupt transformer operation, but over 200 amps have been measured in the grounding connections of transformers in affected areas. Unlike threats due to ordinary weather, Space Weather can readily create large-scale problems because the footprint of a storm can extend across a continent. As a result, simultaneous widespread stress occurs across a power grid to the point where widespread failures and even regional blackouts may occur. Systems in the upper latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere are at increased risk because Auroral activity and its effects center on the magnetic poles. North America is particularly exposed to these storm events because the Earth’s magnetic north pole tilts toward this region and therefore brings it closer to the dense critical power grid infrastructure across the continent.

Routine grid and transformer failures can be expected fom moderate to severe the frequency and severity (which obeys a powerlaw ie the larger the event the less frequency) can be seen here

Climatically there will be seen similar cooling events as linked above and seen in SH summer 2006.As these are essentially random prediction is not possible,

2008-11-21T23:13:00.000-08:00

SHORTWAVE RADIATIVE FORCING AND ENSO

In an interesting paper K. G. Pavlakis et al have found that changes in downward shortwave radiation (by changes in cloud cover) are a significant forcing in the enso oscillation.

Abstract. We have studied the spatial and temporal variation of the downward shortwave radiation (DSR) at the surface of the Earth during ENSO events for a 21-year period over the tropical and subtropical Pacific Ocean (40_ S–40_ N, 90_ E–75_ W). The fluxes were computed using a deterministic model for atmospheric radiation transfer, along with satellite data from the ISCCP-D2 database, reanalysis data from NCEP/NCAR for the key atmospheric and surface input parameters,and aerosol parameters from GADS (acronyms explained in main text). A clear anti-correlation was found between the downward shortwave radiation anomaly (DSR-A) time-series, in the region 7_ S–5_ N 160_ E–160_W located west of the Ni˜no-3.4 region, and the Ni˜no-3.4 index timeseries. In this region where the highest in absolute value DSR anomalies are observed, the mean DSR anomaly values range from −45Wm−2 during El Ni˜no episodes to +40Wm−2 during La Ni˜na events. Within the Ni˜no-3.4 region no significant DSR anomalies are observed during the cold ENSO phase in contrast to the warm ENSO phase. A high correlation was also found over the western Pacific (10_ S–5_ N, 120–140_ E), where the mean DSR anomaly values range from +20Wm−2 to −20Wm−2 during El Ni˜no and La Ni˜na episodes, respectively. There is also convincing evidence that the time series of the mean downward shortwave radiation anomaly in the off-equatorial western Pacific region 7– 15_ N 150–170_ E, precedes the Ni˜no-3.4 index time-series by about 7 months and the pattern of this anomaly is indicative of ENSO operating through the mechanism of the western Pacific oscillator. Thus, the downward shortwave radiation anomaly is a complementary index to the SST anomaly for the study of ENSO events and can be used to assess whether or not El Ni˜no or La Ni˜na conditions prevail.

Whilst this is an additional indicator,the enso oscillation is a highly coupled mechanism that is both internally driven(self organized far from equilibrium) and externally forced,both the fluctuations and inversions are a result of highly coupled
feedbacks both positive(amplifying) and negative(dissipative),this is a well understood open problem for long term predictive modelling.

2008-10-18T16:01:00.000-07:00

GCR reduction in the concentration of ozone

Changes to the radiative windows of incoming and outgoing radiation are well described in the literature but seemed to have been "overlooked" by the proponents of AGW.

OZONE plays a very important part in atmospheric radiative transfer. The absorption of the solar ultraviolet radiation by ozone is the dominant heating mechanism in the stratosphere. At thermal infrared wavelengths the main ozone contribution comes from the 9.6 µm band. Clark et al. 1 were unclear, however, whether the supernovae removal of ozone from the atmosphere of the Earth would heat or cool the surface of the planet. There is evidence, reported here, which enables a more precise statement to be made of the effect upon the global Earth. The reduction in the concentration of ozone will cool the stratosphere, troposphere and surface layers of the Earth.

Sensitivity of Surface Temperature and Atmospheric Temperature to Perturbations in the Stratospheric Concentration of Ozone and Nitrogen Dioxide

V. Ramanathan, L.B. Callis, and R.E. Boughner

Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences

Article: pp. 1092–1112

ABSTRACT
The present paper examines, with the aid of a radiative-convective model, the sensitivity of the globally-averaged surface temperature and atmospheric temperature to perturbations in the concentration of O3 and NO2 within the stratosphere. The analysis considers reductions in stratospheric O3 with and without a simultaneous increase in the stratospheric concentration of NO2. Ozone is reduced uniformly in a region between 12 and 40 km within the stratosphere. The ratio of the percentage change in NO2 to the percentage change in O3 is denoted by δ; three values of δ (0, −6 and −10) are considered.
For all the cases considered, it is shown that reducing stratosphere O3 cools the atmosphere and the surface. If the reduction in O3 is accompanied by a simultaneous increase in NO2, the increase in solar absorption by NO2 partially compensates for the reduction in solar absorption due to a decrease in stratospheric O3. Consequently, the decrease in atmospheric and surface temperatures is smaller for larger values of −δ. The results for the surface temperature changes depend on the adopted cloud model. The change in the surface temperature for the constant cloud-top temperature model is 1.6 times larger than that for the constant cloud-top altitude model.

The model also indicates that the surface temperature is sensitive to the vertical distribution of O3 within the atmosphere. Increasing (or decreasing) the altitude at which O3 density is maximum has a cooling (or warming) effect an the surface temperature. The consequences of O3 reduction to the latitudinal energy distribution are also discussed.

The results should be considered as reflecting the sensitivity of the present model rather than the sensitivity of the actual earth-atmosphere system. However, the present results should be indicative of the potential environmental consequences due to perturbations in the stratospheric concentrations of O3 and NO2

2008-09-26T23:52:00.000-07:00

Solar System shield lowering increasing Galactic Cosmic ray flux

The ESA and Nasa have issued a joint statement on the decreasing solar wind output.

23 September 2008
Data from the joint ESA/NASA Ulysses mission show that the Sun has reduced its output of solar wind to the lowest levels since accurate readings have become available. This current state of the Sun could reduce the natural shielding that envelops our Solar System.

"The Sun’s 1.5 million km-per-hour solar wind inflates a protective bubble around the Solar System and can influence how things work here on Earth and even out at the boundary of our Solar System, where it meets the galaxy," said Dave McComas, Principal Investigator for the Ulysses solar wind instrument and senior Executive Director at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. "Ulysses data indicate the solar wind’s global pressure is the lowest we have seen since the beginning of the space age."

The Sun's solar wind plasma is a stream of charged particles that are ejected from the upper atmosphere of the Sun. The solar wind interacts with every planetary body in our Solar System. It even defines the border between our Solar System and interstellar space.

This border, called the heliopause, is a bubble-shaped boundary surrounding our Solar System where the solar wind's strength is no longer great enough to push back the wind originating from other stars. The region around the heliopause also acts as a shield for our Solar System, warding off a significant portion of the cosmic rays outside the galaxy.

Galactic cosmic rays carry with them radiation from other parts of our galaxy," said Ed Smith, NASA's Ulysses Project Scientist from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, USA. "With the solar wind at an all-time low, there is an excellent chance that the heliosphere will diminish in size and strength. If that occurs, more galactic cosmic rays will make it into the inner part of our Solar System."

This is evident in the Moscow neutron graph in the previous post..There we see the topology of the peak/plateau modulation in the odd/ even solar cycles, and seen in the idealized mathematical model above.

The 22-year cycle is seen in the GCR intensity, since during solar cycles with negative polarity of the Sun’s northern polar field (field is directed into the Sun) cosmic-ray time dependence has a peaked form and during cycles with positive polarity (field is directed out of the Sun) it has a plateau form. Such an effect is caused by the difference in cosmic ray drift directions during positive and negative phases of the magnetic cycle. The time behavior of galactic proton flux was theoretically investigated by Jokipii (1991)

It is evident that integrated cosmic-ray flux during the plateau phase of the cycle is twice as large as during the peaked phase. Clearly, if the Earth’s atmosphere reacts effectively to the cosmic-ray flux integrated over the corresponding cycle, appreciable bidecadal variation in climate may arise. This variation should be more pronounced at high latitudes, because cosmic rays are more intense in the polar regions.This is indeed the case with high levels of Nox over the south pole.

M. G. OGURTSOV et al explain the causal mechanisms.

Optical mechanism, which takes into account changes of atmospheric transparency
caused by changes in fluxes of galactic cosmic rays (GCR) and solar cosmic rays (SCR), consisting mainly of energetic protons (energies up to few GeV), can reach even the Earth’s surface. Their fluxes change substantially with solar activity and can influence atmospheric opacity in two ways. The first is connected with the changes in atmospheric chemistry. The SCR and GCR particles react with N2 and O2, which lead to their dissociation and ionization. Ions of N+2 ,O+2 , N+, O+ are formed and they are involved in a complex of photochemical reactions, which produce nitrogen oxide, NO. NO and atomic oxygen O effectively destroy ozone. Hence, the input of high-energy particles into the atmosphere causes destruction of ozone and the generation of NO2 (Pudovkin and Raspopov, 1992). Such changes are particularly strong during proton events. For example, on 4 August of 1972, at 30–35 km altitude, the concentration of ozone decreased ten times and the concentration of NO2 increased by factor 2. Inasmuch as NO2 absorbs intensively solar radiation in the green and blue part of the spectrum, the irradiance at the Earth’s surface decreases. Ultraviolet flux increases, due to ozone depletion of the stratosphere, and the radiation balance of the atmosphere changes, which may result in changes in atmospheric circulation. It should be noted that ozone depletion probably leads to the cooling of the Earth’s surface, because the greenhouse effect of ozone exceeds the effect of UV heating (Larin, 2002). Thus, besides changes in the circulation pattern, variation in the chemical composition of the atmosphere, caused by input of energetic particles, can cool the lower troposphere. A change of the temperature altitude profile in the atmosphere, caused by high-energy particles, is described by Pudovkin and Dementeeva (1997).

The times they are a changing.

2008-09-19T15:13:00.000-07:00

Comic Rays and Ozone holes cooling the Southern Hemisphere

As w have seen here previously on GCR

NOx is produced in dissociation of molecular nitrogen by the primary and secondary solar particles and, to a lesser extent, in ion chemical reactions following the ion pair production. Production of HOx is solely due to ion chemistry,involving a rather complex scheme of water cluster ion reactions. The depletion of ozone is due to the increase of NOx and HOx, which accelerates the catalytic ozone loss cycles involving these species.The magnitude and duration of depletion depends on the particle flux, altitude,season(solar illumination level and atmospheric dynamics),and the chemical state of the atmosphere. The short-term ozone depletion due to HOx increase lasts some hours and can be greater than 90% in the middle mesosphere, while the long-term decrease, several tens of percent, is typically seen in the upper stratosphere and is due to NOx increase. Because of the long chemical lifetime of NOx, the effects on ozone can last for months and the produced NOx can be transported from the location of the precipitation, so that lower altitudes and latitudes may also be affected.

Nitrous oxide is a cooling agent for the upper atmosphere and during high energy events from either SPE or during high GCR activity we can see around 5 watts per metre removed from the radiative energy budget.

Recent commentary on this years Sizable ozone hole are now appearing.

A new Canadian study says that cosmic rays, not chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), are the main cause of the depletion of the ozone layer in the earth's atmosphere. The study also predicts that the largest ozone hole - larger than the size of the US and Canada combined - will occur over Antarctica in ``one or two weeks.''

The ozone layer in the earth's atmosphere absorbs the sun's high-frequency ultraviolet rays which are deadly for life on earth and cause diseases such as skin cancer and cataracts.

As we will be in a persistant state of high gcr the probability of warmer summer temperatures in the SH ARE NOT SIGNIFICANTLY HIGH.

2008-09-13T00:20:00.000-07:00

Predictions of deep solar minimum

Makarov et al 2001

Indeed our analysis shows that the magnetic flux from the Sun increases by a factor of 1.4 since 1964 and this agrees with the observations. But we have found an increase of polar magnetic field strength (Bp) from the observations of the annual mean number of polar faculae (Npf ) in this period. Consequently the mean polar magnetic field _Bp_ has been estimated of 2.5 G in cycle 21 and 4.0 G in cycle 23, i.e., an increase by a factor of 1.6. Hence there was an increase of the value of the polar field of the Sun, but on an interval of time of about two to three 11-year cycles. Long-term increase of magnetic flux from the Sun was mainly caused by growth of the area of polar cap of the Sun occupied by the unipolar magnetic field.

A new index of polar activity of the Sun _Apz_ (area of polar cap occupied by a unipolar fields) has been compared with the aa, W and A∗-index. We used the correlations between _aa_ and _Apz_ to estimate the limit latitude of the highlatitude zone boundary θ2m to be about 60◦. Its minimum is < 38◦, the present value.We suggest that θ2m practically coincides with the conical blades where ∂rω = 0 and thus that these conical blades have a similar oscillatory motion between say 60◦ and < 38◦. It is supposed that deep minima of solar activity may occur when these conical blades reach extreme latitudes. This may be an indication that we are approaching a new deep minimum.

The relation between the concentration of 14C and solar activity is well known. Stuiver and Quay (1980) have detected a few periods of very low activity of the Sun: the Maunder Minimum (1645–1715), the Spörer Minimum (1416–1435, 1470–1534), the Wolf Minimum (1282–1342) and, probably, the Oort Minimum (1010–1050). The mean duration of low activity is about 60 years and the mean length of time between the minima is about 220 years, or about 20 solar cycles. This corresponds to a latitude drift of the zone boundary of 24◦. Again this is an indication that the Sun may be turning soon (in 1 or 2 cycles?) into a period of low activity with a duration of about 60 years. Some other papers also predicted the period of very low solar activity at the beginning of the XXI century (Chistyakov,1983; Badalyan, Obridko, and Sýkora, 2001).

One may wonder whether there is a contradiction between Apz increasing (and contributing to global warming) and a grand minimum. However, a grand minimum may constitute a phase of reorganization so that θ2m and θ1m occur again at higher latitudes. Anyway in a grand minimum the activity becomes so low that the corresponding flux practically vanishes.

2008-09-11T21:14:00.000-07:00

Please keep me posted if there's more confirming evidence of the Maunder minimum

Global Cooling the inverse consensus

In 2005, Russian astronomer Khabibullo Abdusamatov predicted the sun would soon peak, triggering a rapid decline in world temperatures. Only last month, the view was echoed by Dr. Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. who advised the world to "stock up on fur coats." Sorokhtin, who calls man's contribution to climate change "a drop in the bucket," predicts the solar minimum to occur by the year 2040, with icy weather lasting till 2100 or beyond.

In 2003 Schatten and Tobiska in a paper Solar Activity Heading for a Maunder Minimum? Suggested that cooler times are ahead.

Please keep me posted if there's more confirming evidence of the Maunder minimum

Long-range (few years to decades) solar activity prediction techniques vary greatly in their methods. They range from examining planetary orbits, to spectral analyses (e.g. Fourier, wavelet and spectral analyses), to artificial intelligence methods, to simply using general statistical techniques. Rather than concentrate on statistical/mathematical/numerical methods, we discuss a class of methods which appears to have a "physical basis." Not only does it have a physical basis, but this basis is rooted in both "basic" physics (dynamo theory), but also solar physics (Babcock dynamo theory). The class we discuss is referred to as "precursor methods," originally developed by Ohl, Brown and Williams and others, using geomagnetic observations.

My colleagues and I have developed some understanding for how these methods work and have expanded the prediction methods using "solar dynamo precursor" methods, notably a "SODA" index (SOlar Dynamo Amplitude). These methods are now based upon an understanding of the Sun's dynamo processes- to explain a connection between how the Sun's fields are generated and how the Sun broadcasts its future activity levels to Earth. This has led to better monitoring of the Sun's dynamo fields and is leading to more accurate prediction techniques. Related to the Sun's polar and toroidal magnetic fields, we explain how these methods work, past predictions, the current cycle, and predictions of future of solar activity levels for the next few solar cycles.

The surprising result of these long-range predictions is a rapid decline in solar activity, starting with cycle #24. If this trend continues, we may see the Sun heading towards a "Maunder" type of solar activity minimum - an extensive period of reduced levels of solar activity. For the solar physicists, who enjoy studying solar activity, we hope this isn't so, but for NASA, which must place and maintain satellites in low earth orbit (LEO), it may help with reboost problems. Space debris, and other aspects of objects in LEO will also be affected.

Please keep me posted if there's more confirming evidence of the Maunder minimumEasterbrook suggested as early as 2001 that this may indeed be happening.

Please keep me posted if there's more confirming evidence of the Maunder minimum

What is the significance of the icy 2007-2008 record-breaking winter and the past 6-year cooling trend? Some of the possible ramifications of this are really interesting. Keeping in mind that any single year is weather, not climate, some interesting patterns are beginning to emerge, and when considered in terms of past climate changes, may be pointing to some truly significant changes in store for the world. For example:

Global temperatures during the Medieval Warm Period (900-1300 AD) were slightly higher than at present but plunged about 4° in only 20 years, initiating the Little Ice Age that caused severe famines in Europe and leading to the deaths of about one third of the population. Unfortunately, the Medieval Warm Period pre-dated direct observation of sun spots, but for about 100 years (beginning in 1609), sun spots were rare (the Maunder Minimum) and global climate was icy. Virtually all scientists now accept a solar cause of the Little Ice Age. The concern of the Canadian and Russian astrophysicists is that, leading into the coming predictable solar cycle, they are seeing a much lower level of sun spot activity than expected, resembling that which accompanied the plunging global temperatures at the beginning of the Little Ice Age. This is a distinct possibility. However, I think a more likely scenario is that we may be heading for a deeper global cooling than the last one (~1945 to 1977), perhaps similar to the 30-year cool period from 1880 to 1910 when many cold weather records were set.

What is the significance of the present globally icy winter? By itself, it’s weather and arguably not statistically important. However, when considered in the light of the past 5-year cooling trend, the continuation of that pattern is important because if we are to believe the IPCC’s prediction of a 1° F warming by 2011, that will require warming of almost 1° F in the next three years! As pointed out in your column, the IPCC recasts its predictions every year to match actual conditions so they appear to stay ‘on-track.’ However, they made finite predictions some years ago and if IPCC is to remain credible, those predictions need to be accountable. In a nutshell, in 2001, I put my reputation on the line and published my predictions for entering a global cooling cycle about 2007 plus or minus 3-5 years, based on past glacial, ice core, and other data. As right now, my prediction seems to be right on target and what we would expect from the past climatic record, but the IPCC prediction is getting farther and farther off the mark. Now with the apparent solar cooling cycle upon us, we have a ready explanation for global warming and cooling.

Please keep me posted if there's more confirming evidence of the Maunder minimum

Over a reasonable period of time 20-30 years we see the pendulum of climatic oscillation return to its previous state as the set remembers its previous position in phase space.like an elastic band..

2008-08-09T22:51:00.000-07:00

UV Radiation and biogenic methane coupling

In an interesting paper I. Vigano et al 2008,we see the instantaneous emission of ch4 from plant under controlled uv irradiance.This is plants release ch4 as a defensive response to increased uv irriadiation.(ch4 being an important atmospheric sink and part of the ozone nitrogen cycle).

As we have seen here, there are a number of ways the sun effects climate

. -A change in the solar constant of (wavelength) irradiance output.
-Changes in ultraviolet irradiance that modulates temperature, atmospheric chemistry, and climatic dynamics such as precipitation and cloud formation .
-Indirect and indirect influences by solar radiation and cosmic radiation(galactic)
-Changes in magnetic and gravitational constants(solar).
-Changes in magnetic connections heliospherical couplings

The biospheric response is another indirect coupling to fluctuations in exogenous forcing. These experiments were first performed by the Russian biophysicist Alexander Gurwitsch. Here in 1923 he first observed biophotons or ultra-weak biological photon emissions; weak electromagnetic waves which were detected in the ultra-violet range of the spectrum.

Abstract. The recently reported finding that plant matter and living plants produce significant amounts of the important greenhouse gas methane under aerobic conditions has led to an intense scientific and public controversy. Whereas some studies question the up-scaling method that was used to estimate the global source strength, others have suggested that experimental artifacts could have caused the reported signals,

and two studies, one based on isotope labeling, have recently reported the absence of CH4 emissions from plants. Here we show – using several independent experimental analysis techniques – that dry and detached fresh plant matter, as well as several structural plant components, emit significant amounts of methane upon irradiation with UV light and/or heating. Emissions from UV irradiation are almost instantaneous,

indicating a direct photochemical process. Longtime irradiation experiments demonstrate that the size of the CH4 producing reservoir is large, exceeding potential interferences from degassing or desorption processes by several orders of magnitude. A dry leaf of a pure 13C plant produces 13CH4 at a similar rate as dry leaves of non-labeled plants produce non-labeled methane

This puts the “carbon offsets community” in a rather fraudulent industry

2008-06-28T00:25:00.000-07:00

Anthropogenic methane bubble bursts again

As we saw previously the arbitrary assumptions of the IPCC "accountants" and their bottom up brick build of the ratio of natural/anthropogenic production of CH4 take a swan dive with Keppler et al and the Heavy Brigade from Max Planck,another conundrum arises.

Most methane in Earth’s atmosphere is made by primitive microbes called archaea that reside in anaerobic locations like rice paddies and the guts of ruminants like cows. However, methane is also produced non-biogenically, by reactions between water and hot, carbon-bearing rocks, or by the natural decay of coal and petroleum.

Methane, composed of one carbon and four hydrogen atoms, attracts a lot of attention from astrobiologists “because it is a key biomarker,” says Bebout. “But methane can be produced by non-biological means, so when you see it in the atmosphere of a planet, biology was not necessarily involved, and that’s why we want to know about isotopes.”

Isotopes are key to understanding the origin of methane because organisms tend to use more of the lighter isotopes. Biogenic methane usually – but not always – contains a higher percentage of the lighter carbon-12 than non-biogenic methane, which contains relatively more of the heavier carbon-13. The two types of carbon atoms both have the same number of protons, but carbon-13 has one more neutron than carbon-12

First the brickbuild is bad methodology and there are well defined reasons in mathmatical physics as Poincare portrayed.Poincare followed rather the ideas of Francis Bacon (who claimed that to start scientific investigations from general axioms and principles is a dangerous and damned method, leading to unavoidable mistakes), than the Cartesian theory (saying that the conformity to any reality is unrelated to the science, which is the art of the deductions of the corollaries of arbitrary axioms).

Secondly extrapolation of generalized axiomx(isotopic biogenuc modulation) across taxa is pseudoscience,There are no constants end of story.Even within taxa the modulation rate varies with both competition and geographic location.

Bottom line we do not know the partition ratio for natural/anthropogenic ch4 production.

2008-06-28T00:05:00.000-07:00

Atmospheric prediction caught in quicksand.

Oh tell me, designer of desert,

Geometrician of quicksand,

Is that true that boundless lines

Are stronger than blowing wind?

0 . Mandelshtam, 1933

In forecasting,the comparison with reality can be made only at the moment when the prediction comes true. At the time of its formulation, it cannot be tested and, therefore, in its most general form, it has no scientific status.
Logical Analysis of the Problem of Forecasting

V. V. NALIMOV

DRAFT March 29, 2006
Spotlight on Global Temperature
by James Hansen, Makiko Sato, Reto Ruedy, Ken Lo, David Lea and Martin Medina-Elizalde

Early model predictions of global warming proved accurate,the Pacific Ocean seems charged for a potential super-El Nino, and global temperature is poised to reach record, perhaps dangerous, levels.

SUPER EL NINO IN 2006-2007? We suggest that an El Nino is likely to originate in 2006 and that there is a good chance it will be a "super El Nino", rivaling the 1983 and 1997-1998 El Ninos, which were successively labeled the "El Nino of the century" as they were of unprecedented strength in the previous 100 years (Fig. 1 of Fedorov and Philander 2000). Further, we argue that global warming causes an increase of such "super El Ninos". Our rationale is based on interpretation of dominant mechanisms in the ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) phenomenon, examination of historical SST data, and observed Pacific Ocean SST anomalies in February 2006.

As we see the prediction was inverted by a La Nina or out in its trajectory by 180 degrees.Why?Model error.

One of the more interesting attributes of the weather atmospheric forecasting community is its evolutionary skill. As we have previously seen the “idea”of increased computer power and model integration is seen as the solution of the open problem of forecast, or predictive capabilities.

At first glance this would be seen as logically correct, however the atmosphere (weather –climate system) is a complex system not in thermodynamic equilibrium(often far from TDE) and in a perpetual state of reorganization .Here the rules of the game, where idealistic assumptions for the instantaneous state of the atmosphere are not valid when the equations of motion(transformation) to a future state are presently applied.

This is evident when seen in the evolution of the weather forecast model ability of the ECMWF.A widely used model producing forecasts in the range for a few days to a number of weeks. The preparation base is a n-day forecast with n= 10 days of the global atmospheric state.

In any forecast there is an error dependent on initial conditions (due to arbitrary assumptions/estimates of unknown qualities) with the ECMWF model over the last 20 or so years in a paradox the model error has increased.

In 1982 in a seminal paper in which ECMWF data was first used ,to measure predictive ability. Edward Lorenz found the mean error evolution (doubling time of initial error) was two days, presently has dropped to 1.2 days.

This suggest that there is a limiting of predictive capabilities for long range weather forecasting with models of increasing sophistication ,owing to interconnected complexity in the atmospheric dynamics.

Sensitivity to the initial conditions-the principle signature of deterministic chaos-is thus not an artifact arising from when lower order models are used but is, rather, deeply rooted in the physics of the atmosphere.

Nicolis and Nicolis Foundations of complex systems page 223.

2008-06-13T23:47:00.000-07:00

Life and Chirality an asymmetric universe.

As we previously posted on panspermia.

Panspermia did life come from outer space?

A vocal minority of biological investigators, including Nobel winner Francis Crick have put forward views stating that life as we know it ,did not commence here on Earth at all, but was imported from outerspace. Specifically that the ingredients and precursors such as spores or microorganisms from life bearing planets are transported across the Galaxy.

The first proponent of the Panspermia theory was chemist Svente Arrhinius .His view was the life bearing spores floated across space propelled by solar radiation .Francis Crick suggested it was transported on meteorites ,Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe suggested it was in the interstellar clouds that earth encounters on the grand precession that earth takes around the outer spiral of the Galaxy lasting some 150 million years.

The latter has some substance as the paleo records show “feast and famine’ in biodiversity and severe climatic oscillations ,due to changes in density in the interstellar medium.

We see some more interesting news.

Scientists have confirmed for the first time that an important component of early genetic material which has been found in meteorite fragments is extraterrestrial in origin, in a paper published on 15 June 2008.

The finding suggests that parts of the raw materials to make the first molecules of DNA and RNA may have come from the stars.

The scientists, from Europe and the USA, say that their research, published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, provides evidence that life’s raw materials came from sources beyond the Earth.

“Because meteorites represent left over materials from the formation of the solar system, the key components for life -- including nucleobases -- could be widespread in the cosmos. As more and more of life’s raw materials are discovered in objects from space, the possibility of life springing forth wherever the right chemistry is present becomes more likely.”

Necessity and chance suggest the left chemistry is more likely in a left dominated universe where asymmetry(chirality) is more dominant(Galctic spirals,dna.etc).

“These meteorites were bringing in what I call the ‘seeds of chirality,’” stated Breslow. “If you have a universe that was just the mirror image of the one we know about, then in fact, presumably it would have right-handed amino acids. That’s why I’m only half kidding when I say there is a guy on the other side of the universe with his heart on the right hand side.”

These amino acids “seeds” formed in interstellar space, possibly on asteroids as they careened through space. At the outset, they have equal amounts of left and right-handed amino acids. But as these rocks soar past neutron stars, their light rays trigger the selective destruction of one form of amino acid. The stars emit circularly polarized light—in one direction, its rays are polarized to the right. 180 degrees in the other direction, the star emits left-polarized light.

The term Chiral is derived from the Greek name kheir meaning "hand" and apparently was coined by Lord Kelvin in his Baltimore Lectures on Molecular Dynamics and the Wave Theory of Light in which he stated ..."I call any geometrical figure, or group of points, chiral, and say it has chirality, if its image in a plane mirror, ideally realized, cannot be brought to coincide with itself."
While the concepts of "asymmetry" were developed by J.H. van’t Hoff and J.A. Le Bel in 1874 following the resolution by Louis Pastuer of a mixture of tartaric acid salt isomers during the period 1848-1853, in which he picked out the differing crystal types by hand - doing so on the basis of the differing physical appearance of the salt crystals . Pastuer recognized that two of the isomers polarized light differently (one to the left and the other to the right) and that this must be due to an asymmetric grouping of atoms in the optically active molecules.

And here we see the fundamental reality of nature,the absence of linearity,that growth and form is heliophysical (chiral=helix) always and everwhere.

Image above http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Belousov-Zhabotinsky_reaction

2008-06-08T11:33:00.000-07:00

Antarctic Icemass increase is...Massive

The Antarctic icemass has set a new record for the period of observations.

May he, whom Nature's laws obey,

Who lifts the poor, and sinks the proud,

"Quiet the raging of the sea,

And still the madness of the crowd!"

While some build castles in the air,

Others build them in the seas;

Subscribers plainly see them there,

For fools will see as wise men please

"Now buried in the depth below,

Now mounted up to Heaven again,

They reel and stagger to and fro,

At their wits' end, like drunken men

Ye wise philosophers, explain

What magic makes snow and ice arise,

When dropt into the Southern main;

Or do these jugglers cheat our eyes?

(With apologies to Jonathon Swift)

An interesting perspective is as we see with a prolonged solar minimum,negative (inverse) climatic states such as the IPO and PDO and the ability of the Antarctic to act as a "heat sink" in the reversible carnot cycle ie in refrigerator mode.

Abstract.We discuss the heat balance of Antarctica using observations from satellites and automatic weather stations and modelling results. Qualitatively, the surface radiation budgets of Antarctica and Greenland resemble those of large deserts, with a small net surface radiation compared to the zonal mean. As a result, atmospheric radiative cooling over the large ice sheets is significantly smaller than, for instance, over the

Arctic basin. A unique feature of the large ice sheets is that the annual mean net radiation at their surface is negative. This is compensated by a flux of sensible heat from the atmosphere. This introduces additional cooling in the lower atmosphere, especially in the katabatic wind zone, where a positive feedback exists between surface cooling and downward sensible heat transport. This close interaction between the radiation

climate and boundary layer dynamics makes the large ice sheets extraordinary components of the global climate system.

2008-06-02T21:42:00.000-07:00

The Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation a Binary climate phenomena.

As we have seen in the previous post, we can divide the climate and its related interpretations into two components.

A) The fluctuations within a persistent regime or state, and

B) The supercritical or inverse oscillations of persistent states that are described as positive or negative (hotter or cooler)

Here A is a subset of B, and we can find a trend within the state being positive or negative, but we cannot use a trendline between states as this has different stochastic attributes. This is a fundamental flaw with using moving mean anomalies with data between two states with inverse symmetry.ie it tends to amplify a trend.

We see this illustrated with the PDO and IPD where both phenomena changed phase near the time of the Pacific “climatic shift” around 1976 and which apparently influenced global temperatures.

The Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) is (almost) the Pacific-wide manifestation of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation of Mantua et al (1997), with as much variance in the Southern Hemisphere Pacific down to at least 55oS as in the Northern Hemisphere. The IPO is a multidecadal sea surface temperature (SST) pattern quite like that of ENSO, but differing in several ways. It shows a marked amount of symmetry about the equator. It was introduced by Power et al (1999) based on work by Folland et al (1999). Power et al showed that the IPO modulated ENSO climate teleconnections to

Australia

. The near equivalence of the PDO and IPO and some likely independent effects of the IPO relative to ENSO on the South Pacific Convergence Zone were shown by Folland et al (2002). The concept of the IPO has recently been used in South Pacific paleoclimatic studies by Linsley et al (2004) and has been related to tropical rainfall patterns by Meinke et al (in press). The latter also compared IPO influences to those of SST on purely decadal time scales. The physical nature of the IPO is under investigation; it is still not clear, despite the above studies, to what extent the IPO is really independent of ENSO red noise and especially of SST variations near a decadal time scale.

These global bifurcations are called ‘‘Shilnikov phenomenon” and are well described in mathematical literature.

In the presence of inversion symmetry, we note that a periodic orbit can always be classified as either asymmetric or symmetric, with asymmetric orbits always

occurring in pairs in which each member transforms into the other under the inversion operation, while symmetric orbits are unique.

In a (supercritical) Hopf bifurcation, the real parts of the eigenvalues of a fixed point increase through zero from negative to positive, causing the stationary point to lose stability and a stable periodic orbit to be created.(see previous post Andronov)

So as we see the return to a period of cooler climatic persistence will falsify a substantive number of predictions , and is why we can predict an increasing amount of negative “forecasts” by researchers to ‘hedge their positions”so to speak.

2008-05-31T21:49:00.000-07:00

Climate Science a Brain of two halves.

Our brain has two halves: one is responsible for the multiplication of polynomials and languages, and the other half is responsible for orientation of figures in space and all the things important in real life. Mathematics is geometry when you have to use both halves.

Vladimir Arnold

Describing the mathematical problems (some years before the celebrated Hilbert’s list) Poincare divided them into two parts: the binary problems (similar to the Fermat problem, where the answer is a choice between the two possibilities: “yes” or “no”), and the interesting problems, where the progress is continuous, studying first of all the possibility of the variations of the problem (like, say, the variation of the boundary conditions for a differential equation) and investigating then the influences of these variations on the properties of the solutions (which would be hidden, if the problem were formulated as a binary one).

Vladimir Arnold in Bifurcation theory reduces it to an easy understanding.

Poincare bifurcation theory was elaborated by the Russian mathematicians Pontryagin
and Andronov already in the 20’s and in the 30’s (due to the need to apply these bifurcations to radiophysics). Andronov published (with all the proofs) the theory of the birth of a periodic motion of a dynamical system under the generic loss of stability of an equilibrium position, in the case when two eigenvalues of the linearised system cross the imaginary axis, moving from the stable to the unstable complex half-plane.

Andronov’s theorem claims that (depending on the sign of some higher term of the Taylor series) exactly two generic cases may occur: Either the stability of the equilibrium position is inherited by the new-born limit cycle (whose radius grows like the square root of the difference between the new value of the parameter and the value at the stability loss), or else the radius of the attraction domain, diminishing like the square root of the difference between the growing parameter value and the future value, at which the stability will be destroyed, disappears at the stability loss moment.

The first case is called the mild stability loss, the new-born periodic motion-attractor describes a small oscillation near the old stationary regime. The second case is called the hard stability loss, the behaviour of the system after this stability loss being very far from the equilibrium, loosing its stability. The proofs of these results of Andronov on the phase portraits bifurcations were based on the Pontryagin’s extension of Poincare’s results in the holomorphic case to that of the smooth systems of differential equations.

As we see with quasiperiodic systems the return to a “previous climate” state is regularly seen in the NAO.,PDO and IPO. These are sates with long periodicity for a climate regime of warmer then normal or cooler then normal climate states.

The ability for a recurrent periodic state such as the PDO or an inverse temperature
“state” is in essence a binary transformation or bifurcation.. The transformation as a velocity inversion has the same effect as a time inversion,(v to -v ) (t to -t)
An interesting property is the probability P+=P- = 0.5 To put this in perspective, for records generated by statistically independent processes with finite standard deviation for periodic bifurcations , where there can be either hard or soft stability loss the exponent is ½.

A fundamental consequence of the aperiodicity of the atmospheric and climate dynamics is the well-known difficulty to make reliable predictions.Contrary to simple periodic or multiperiodic phenomena(such as eclipses,tides ets) for which a long term prediction is possible, predictions in meteorology and climate are limited in time.

The most plausible (and currently admitted) explanation is based on the realization that a small uncertainty in the initial conditions used in a prediction scheme (usually referred as \error") seems to be amplified in the course of the evolution. Such uncertainties are inherent in the process of experimental measurement, The uncertainty being in the “closeness of the boundary to the point of bifurcation, and the error in linear equations.” An important aspect discussed by Arnold and Shuliminov.

As the “natural variability” and inverse regimes are often accompanied by inverse temperature states always and everywhere(except in GCM PREDICTIONS) one wonders if we have a problem of cataclysmic proportions.

2008-05-09T23:53:00.000-07:00

Climate Prediction or how the soothsayers wept

For Dante soothsayers and diviners are practitioners of "magic frauds". In Inferno they are condemned to walk backwards because their heads are twisted so ... with tears running down their backs for false predictions

As the BBC reports. This week, about 150 of the world's top climate modellers have converged on Reading for a four day meeting to plan a revolution in climate prediction.

And they have plenty of work to do. So far modellers have failed to narrow the total bands of uncertainties since the first report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1990.

And Julia Slingo from Reading University admitted it would not get much better until they had supercomputers 1,000 times more powerful than at present.

"We've reached the end of the road of being able to improve models significantly so we can provide the sort of information that policymakers and business require," she told BBC News.

"In terms of computing power, it's proving totally inadequate. With climate models we know how to make them much better to provide much more information at the local level... we know how to do that, but we don't have the computing power to deliver it."

But can bigger and more powerful computers help with predictions, in a word no.

In an interesting chapter entitled Engineers Dreams from his book Infinite in all directions, Freeman Dyson explains the reasons for the failings of Von Neumann and his team for the prediction and control of Hurricanes.

Von Neumann’s dream

“As soon as we have good enough computers we will be able to divide the phenomena of meteorology cleanly into two categories, the stable and the unstable”, The unstable phenomena are those that are which are upset by small disturbances, and the stable phenomena are those that are resilient to small disturbances. All disturbances that are stable we will predict, all processes that are unstable we will control”

Freeman Dyson page 183.

What went wrong? Why was Von Neumann’s dream such a total failure. The dream was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of fluid motions. It is not true that we can divide cleanly fluid motions into those that are predictable and those that are controllable. Nature as usual is more imaginative then we are. There is a large class of classical dynamic systems, including non-linear electrical circuits as well as fluids, which easily fall into a mode of behavior that is described by the word “chaotic” A chaotic motion is generally neither predictable nor controllable. It is unpredictable because a small disturbance will produce exponentially growing perturbation of the motion .It is uncontrollable because small disturbances lead only to other chaotic motions, and not to any stable and predictive alternative.

A fact also addressed by Vladimir Arnold

"For example, we deduce the formulas for the Riemannian curvature of a group endowed with an invariant Riemannian metric. Applying these formulas to the case of the infinite-dimensional manifold whose geodesics are motions of the ideal fluid, we find that the curvature is negative in many directions. Negativeness of the curvature implies instability of motion along the geodesics (which is well-known in Riemannian geometry of infinite-dimensional manifolds). In the context of the (infinite-dimensional) case of the diffeomorphism group, we conclude that the ideal flow is unstable (in the sense that a small variation of the initial data implies large changes of the particle positions at a later time).Moreover, the curvature formulas allow one to estimate the increment of the exponential deviation of fluid particles with close initial positions and hence to predict the time period when the motion of fluid masses becomes essentially unpredictable.

For instance, in the simplest and utmost idealized model of the earth’s atmosphere (regarded as two-dimensional ideal fluid on a torus surface), the deviations grow by the factor of 10^5 in 2 months. This circumstance ensures that a dynamical weather forecast for such a period is practically impossible (however powerful the computers and however dense the grid of data used for this purpose)"

The modellers continue,...

“One trouble is that as some climate uncertainties are resolved, new uncertainties are uncovered.Some modellers are now warning that feedback mechanisms in the natural environment which either accelerate or mitigate warming may be even more difficult to predict than previously assumed.”

Yes this is also well known the mathematics (Fokker plamk equation) already tell us this. The Kolgomorov backwards equation (kpe) naturally tends towards global cooling in any bi-stable simulation (hot-cold)

Lorenz called it almost intransitive, this is why climate models have biased towards heating(over paramatization).

NICOLIS, G also showed this

Stochastic aspects of climatic transitions additive fluctuations

The Fokker-Planck equation, corresponding to a zero-dimensional climatic model showing bistable behavior, is analyzed. A climatic potential function is introduced, whose variational properties determine the most probable states of the stationary probability distribution. Both the static and the time dependent properties of the fluctuations are monitored by two basic quantities: (1) the climatic potential, U, and (2) the variance of the noise. A sensitivity analysis of U with respect to system parameters, particularly the temperature feedback coefficient, shows a distinction between a regime where present climate dominates and a regime where a deep freeze climate dominates. Conditions of coexistence of these two regimes in terms of the characteristic parameters were also determined. For small variance, the stationary probability distribution is very sharply peaked around the dominant state while the time scale of evolution becomes exceedingly slow. Moreover, an increase in the temperature feedback coefficient tends to favor the deep freeze climate.

Heck and they are telling us to shut the fires down.

2007-11-03T21:43:00.000-07:00

La Nina deepens in Negative Pacific Decadal Oscillation

One of the more interesting natural oscillations of climate is the Pacific decadal oscillation,This is a phase reversal in climatic events and sees a return of cooler then normal SST to the Pacific in its negative phase as opposed to the higher then normal sst during the positive phase. Anomalous responses are seen in deeper or more persistent climate regimes following phase reversals of the PDO.

As we see here with the WMO La Nina outlook.

La Niña conditions are now present in the central and eastern Equatorial Pacific, where sea surface temperatures are now about 1.5 degrees Celsius colder than normal. The atmosphere in this region is now closely coupled to this sea surface temperature pattern, with trade winds strengthened and cloudiness reduced.

Below the surface of the central and eastern Equatorial Pacific, conditions also reflect the presence of La Niña. Water just below the surface is typically 1 to 3 degrees Celsius colder than normal, and seems primed to reinforce the already cold waters at the ocean surface. Almost all forecast models interpret the current situation as one that is ready to sustain a La Niña event for the next 3-6 months into the first quarter of 2008.

While the increasing possibility of this La Niña development has been reported throughout 2007, the actual development occurred in two phases. Developments early in the year hinted at a La Niña event, but the situation stalled during April-June. Then, during July-September, developments surged again toward La Niña conditions. The pause during April-June suggests that the development of this event has been unusual and somewhat delayed compared to the majority of La Niña events that show initial indications earlier in the year.

The Pacific Decadal Oscillation and Pacific Regime Shifts

Mantua et al. (1997) coined the term “Pacific Decadal Oscillation” (PDO) to describe the interdecadal climate variability associated with regime shifts initiated in 1925, 1947, and 1977. The canonical pattern of PDO sea surface temperature (SST) variations indicating an east-west see-saw in anomalies: when SSTs are above average in the northeast Pacific, they tend to be below average in the central and western North Pacific, and vice versa. This pattern is clearly evident in the decadal changes observed following the 1976/77 regime shift.

The PDO is often described as a long-lived El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-like pattern of Pacific climate variability (Zhang et al. 1997). As seen with ENSO, extremes in the PDO pattern are marked by widespread variations in Pacific Basin and North American climate Viewed from another perspective, extremes in the (tropical)ENSO cycle often influence North Pacific climate in PDO-like ways. The exceptional tropical El Niño event of 1997-1998 is a clear case in point, wherein changes in tropical rainfall and atmospheric circulation “forced” strong and persistent climate anomalies over the North Pacific (Barnston et al. 1999).Two main characteristics distinguish the PDO from ENSO. First, typical PDO “events” have shown remarkable persistence relative to that attributed to ENSO events.

In this century, major PDO regimes have persisted for 20 to 30 years. Second, the climatic fingerprints of the PDO are most visible in the North Pacific/North American sector, while secondary signatures exist in the tropics. The opposite is true for the year-to-year climate changes associated with ENSO.

Speculation suggests that 1998 may have witnessed the latest PDO climate regime shift (Hare and Mantua 2000, Schwing and Moore 2000), in this case shifting from warm (positive) to cool (negative) PDO conditions. Coincident with the demise of the extreme 1997-98 (tropical) El Niño event, SSTs along the Pacific coast of North America and in the Bering Sea cooled to below average values while SSTs warmed to above average values in the interior north Pacific. This pattern of SST anomalies bears some resemblance to the cool PDO pattern, and the PDO index has been mostly negative from mid-1998 to mid-2002

Mantua 2002

As this simplistic cartoon shows we see persistence in each regime as the ball remains in the well of each phase for 20-30 years before returning over the lisp into the other regime. This of course reduces the predictability of GCM as the colder then normal sst effectively returns the energy exchange component to zero.

2007-10-27T01:06:00.000-07:00

Magnetic connection and convection

The Sun influences Earth in many ways. On one hand it provides the light and heat that sustains life on our planet. On the other hand it bathes the Earth in ultraviolet light, showers it with x-rays, gamma-rays, electrons, and atomic nuclei, and wraps the Earth in the folds of its own magnetic field.

By mapping convection cells in Earth's magnetic field for the first time, scientists have shown that the behavior of the cells is linked to solar activity. The activity of our Sun has profound implications for the habitability of Earth.

Scientists have fully mapped convection cells in Earth's magnetic field for the first time using Cluster data. Results show that the behavior of the cells is heavily linked to solar activity. The activity of our Sun is closely connected to the habitability of planet Earth. The Sun provides much of the energy that allows life to survive. Additionally, solar activity has profound effects on our climate as well as the safety of satellites and astronauts in orbit. Recently, scientists discovered links between solar activity and heavy rains in eastern Africa and today we continue to find unique ways in which Sun is tied to our global climate. Studying the links between the Sun and the habitability of Earth can provide important clues for astrobiologists trying to determine the conditions necessary to produce habitable planets beyond our Solar System.

Convection cells, made of plasma, an ionized and highly variable gas, are found at altitudes of hundreds kilometers over the polar caps. Their behavior pattern is intimately linked to the response of the Earth's magnetic environment to solar activity. Although Earth is largely protected from the hazards of interplanetary space by the magnetosphere and atmosphere, they don't form an isolated bubble.

The solar wind, a stream of particles continuously blowing from the Sun, compresses Earth's magnetosphere on the dayside and stretches it into a long tail on the nightside. Most solar wind is deflected by the magnetosphere but some material manages to enter. Understanding how this works is of crucial importance to space-borne infrastructure (GPS, telecommunication satellites) and for the safety of astronauts.

One way to monitor this interaction is to study the convection cells. In the region, called the high-latitude ionosphere where they are located, the behaviour of the plasma cells strongly depends on the response of the magnetosphere to the orientation of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF, an extension of the solar magnetic field, carried by the solar wind). This means that the behaviour of polar cap convection cells is a good tracer of the Sun-Earth connection.

As Tinsley 2007 in The role of the global electric circuit in solar and internal forcing of clouds and climate shows the change in the ionospheric coupling from the solar wind that induces changes of the global electrical circuit produced from polar cap ionospheric convection potential changes.

Reports of a variety of short-term meteorological responses to changes in the global electric circuit associated with a set of disparate inputs are analyzed. The meteorological responses consist of changes in cloud cover, atmospheric temperature, pressure, or dynamics. All of these are found to be responding to changes in a key linking agent, that of the downward current density, Jz, that flows from the ionosphere through the troposphere to the surface (ocean and land). As it flows through layer clouds, Jz generates space charge in conductivity gradients at the upper and lower boundaries, and this electrical charge is capable of affecting the microphysical interactions between droplets and both ice-forming nuclei and condensation nuclei.

Four short-term inputs to the global circuit are due to solar activity and consist of (1) Forbush decreases of the galactic cosmic ray flux; (2) solar energetic particle events; (3) relativistic electron precipitation changes; and (4) polar cap ionospheric convection potential changes. One input that is internal to the global circuit consists of (5) global ionospheric potential changes due to changes in the current output of the highly electrified clouds (mainly deep convective clouds at low latitudes) that act as generators for the circuit.

The observed short-term meteorological responses to these five inputs are of small amplitude but high statistical significance for repeated Jz changes of order 5% for low latitudes increasing to 25–30% at high latitudes. On the timescales of multidecadal solar minima, such as the Maunder minimum, changes in tropospheric dynamics and climate related to Jz are also larger at high latitudes, and correlate with the lower energy component ( 1 GeV) of the cosmic ray flux increasing by as much as a factor of two relative to present values. Also, there are comparable cosmic ray flux changes and climate responses on millennial timescales. The persistence of the longer-term Jz changes for many decades to many centuries would produce an integrated effect on climate that could dominate over short-term weather and climate variations, and explain the observed correlations.

Thus, we propose that mechanisms responding to Jz are a candidate for explanations of sun–weather–climate correlations on multidecadal to millenial timescales, as well as on the day-to-day timescales analyzed here.

We also see this in Troshichev et al with troposphere coupling

The detail analysis of the aerological data from Vostok station (Antarctica) for 1978–1992 made it possible to find the dramatic changes of the troposphere temperature influenced by strong fluctuations of the interplanetary electric field ESW. The warming is observed at ground level and cooling at h>10 km if the electric field of dawn–dusk direction is enhanced (when interplanetary magnetic field ΔBZ<0).>10 km) is observed if the dawn–dusk electric field decreases (when ΔBZ>0). There is a linear relationship between the value of ΔESW and ground temperature at Vostok station: the larger is leap in the ESW the stronger is temperature deviation. The effect reaches maximum within one day and is damped equally quickly. The temperature deviations occur not only while passing the front of the interplanetary shocks but while crossing the layers of interaction between the quasi-stationary slow and fast solar wind fluxes those are not accompanied by the cosmic ray variations at all. The appropriate response to the ESW changes is observed in tropospheric pressure and wind as well. It is suggested that the interplanetary electric field influences the katabatic system of atmospheric circulation, typical of the ice dome in winter Antarctic.

2007-10-27T00:28:00.000-07:00

SOLAR VARIABILITY, COUPLING, AND CLIMATE

There are a number of ways the sun effects climate.
-A change in the solar constant of (wavelength) irradiance output.
-Changes in ultraviolet irradiance that modulates temperature, atmospheric chemistry, and climatic dynamics such as precipitation and cloud formation .
-Indirect and indirect influences by solar radiation and cosmic radiation(galactic)
-Changes in magnetic and gravitational constants(solar).
-Changes in magnetic connections heliospherical couplings

There are a number of flawed assumptions on the adequacy of GCM models to accurately reflect the exogenous variable forcings such as solar. The assumed parameters of solar variance are normally based on the infrared oscillations or the seasonal oscillations of direct heat(w/m2) and vertical energy transport. Measurements and analysis is usually undertaken on 1 or 2 parameters and the simplistic models used in GCM do not reflect the observations.

The solar activity in all its manifestations is subject to regular and irregular chaotic variations in quite large ranges of amplitudes, durations, and other characteristics that have revealed themselves some way in the time intervals under analysis. This general rule does not exclude coronal mass ejections and flares, which represent with respect to each other not the cause and effect (sometimes, such an unjustified assumption is made),but rather two observable manifestations of a single dissipative process related to an increased transport of free energy from the interiors of the Sun outwards into its upper atmosphere and heliosphere and dispersal into space and the solar system. This free energy is redistributed in thermal, magnetic, kinetic, gravitational, and radiation forms, their relative fractions being changed from event to event depending on the situation determined by the boundary conditions and initial state.

The inadequacy of analysis to review long term orbital parameters(long frequency)or short term(short frequency) such as the 11 year cycle or the suns 27 day rotational cycle or indeed the energetic upper atmosphere ionisation during solar events(x-ray flaring) Previous observations and modeling of the responses of planetary ionospheres to changes in solar flux have generally compared solar maximum and minimum conditions. Varying solar fluxes also modify the neutral atmosphere,and thus ionospheric changes result from two highly coupled processes. Changes in photon flux due to a flare from far slower changes in the neutral atmosphere, thereby providing a way to constrain or liberate photochemistry. This is particularly important for x-ray photons that carry energy far above that needed to ionize an atom or molecule(around 2.5 magnitudes,a single photon with an energy value of around 36kev can ionize around 200000 molecules.). In such cases, the electron liberated by ionization has so much extra energy that it ionizes other atoms and molecules via collisions. This secondary ionization by photoelectrons has an amplification effect on upper atmosphere chemical genesis (thermo diffusion).

Indeed as an x-ray photon enters a water molecule for example, it severs the chemical bonds,the component parts of the water molecule,which in the presence of O2 form hydrogen and hydroxyl radicals ,super oxide ions, and hydrogen peroxide. The process also releases substantial energy as thermal emissions.

Some progress has been made by the SPARC group of the WCRP, mostly by the SOLICE group and Haigh et al. Examples such as the 8 k differential in solar minima-maxima forcings and vertical profiling of temperature gradients are improvements. However insertion of CCM models into standard GCM is not a standard assimilation.

Other progress has been made by the Climate research group (Schelisinger, Andronova, et al) and Rozanov .Also work by the FUB reflects some progress with solar variance and photochemical assimilation.Solar UV is as important as IR solar output in conjunction with a CCM they find that intergration of TSI (solar irriadiance), Solar UV and the effects of solar energetic precipitation during changes from solar minima to maxima have significant photochemistry effects.

SUV findings
-Ozone increases by 3% in the upper stratosphere and 2% in the lower stratosphere.
-Warming of 1.2 K in the stratosphere and acceleration of both polar night jets.
-Simulated zonal wind and temperature response reproduces the observed downward and -poleward propagation.
Weak wave driving (mostly in SH):
- waves refracted into subtropics
- strong polar night jet
- cold polar stratosphere
- polar chemical ozone loss and reduced
ozone transport (weak BD circulation)

High wave driving (mostly in NH)
- wave propagation towards pole
- weak polar vortex
- warm polar stratosphere
- enhanced ozone transport & reduced
polar chemical ozone loss (strong BD
circulation

Rozanov et al

It was shown by Hood [2004], Rozanov et al. [2004],and Egorova et al. [2004] that the simulated responses of ozone and temperature to solar irradiance variation over the 11-year solar cycle do not agree with the solar signal extracted from the observational data. This discrepancy could be due to insufficient data not allowing the extraction of the solar signal with sufficient accuracy or due to physical and/or chemical mechanisms missing in the Chemistry-Climate models (CCMs). Energetic electron precipitation (EEP) events leading to enhanced NOy (NOy = NO +NO2 + NO3 + HNO3 + ClNO3 + 2*N2O5 + HNO4) is one potential candidate. These events have been shown to substantially alter stratospheric chemistry. The EEP mechanism has been proposed by Callis et al. [1998]. Electrons trapped in the outer radiation belt of the Earth’s magnetosphere,stimulated by the high-speed solar wind, are accelerated and can, after precipitation, penetrate into the atmosphere over the auroral and sub-auroral regions. They ionize neutral components providing a source of reactive nitrogen and hydrogen. During the cold season total reactive nitrogen may descend into the stratosphere destroying ozone and affecting the entire atmosphere. Measurements show that EEP events are more frequent and intense during the declining phase of solar activity, when coronal holes migrate towards the solar equator and the solar wind is more nearly directed toward Earth. This fact is supported by satellite observations [Callis et al., 1998] and by observations of precipitation events measured in the Murmansk region [Bazilevskaya et al., 2002].

From these results we draw the following conclusions.The simulated influence of EEP on the atmosphere consists of reactive nitrogen enhancement, ozone depletion,and cooling almost in the entire stratosphere. Effects are most pronounced over high latitudes and intensify the polar vortices resulting in the SATs increasing over Europe,Russia and the U.S. by up to 2.5 K during boreal winter.

Potentially, EEP effects on ozone and temperature are stronger than the influence of solar irradiance. The intensity of EEP is most pronounced during the declining phase of the solar activity cycle, that is, closer to solar activity minimum, therefore all effects mentioned here should be approximately reversed if we compare solar maximum relative to solar minimum. This means that EEP and UV mechanisms work in phase in the extra-polar stratosphere, but out of phase over the high latitudes and in the troposphere. The polar vortices are more intense for the solar maximum case due to the enhanced solar irradiance, but less intense due to EEP.

2007-10-27T00:21:00.000-07:00

IHY New Insights into Helio-Terrestrial physics Zvenigorod 2007

Pevtsov's Law: there is a clear relationship between the magnetic flux and the associated power dissipation throughout heliophysics

As part of the International Heliophysical Year and the 50th Anniversary of Sputnik,the Russian Astrophysics organizations will host a symposium on the connections and coupling of the earth-sun relationship.

The Symposium is intended for cooperation of scientists from different fields of space research: solar, heliospheric, magnetospheric, atmospheric etc. and discussion of the Sun - Earth system as an integrated complex. The International Heliophysical Year should result in development of global models of solar phenomena influence on the near-Earth environment. Such models are necessary to protect technological systems, ecology and human life itself. For this purpose, all of the available experimental data obtained by different in-situ, remote and imaging methods should be summarized, and all modeling efforts should be combined.

The goal of the symposium is to present and discuss the first advances in International Heliophysical Year execution and to coordinate the future activities in 2008.

We will examine some interesting questions in a number of posts that we have covered previously.

As we observed here in McCracken 2007

For example, the upper atmospheres of planets, including Earth, are dramatically affected by energetic inputs originating at the Sun in the form of photons, particles, and fields.

How ever, there are many pathways by which that solar energy is transformed and redistributed throughout the atmosphere until the energy is ultimately re-radiated to space. Connected with these processes is much of the inherent variability of the atmosphere over daily to millennial time scales. The lower atmosphere is periodically pumped and heated, giving rise to a spectrum of small scale gravity waves and longer-period oscillations. These waves can propagate into the mesosphere and thermosphere depositing momentum. The atmospheric mean circulation is thereby modified, resulting in changes to the temperature structure and redistribution of radiation absorbers and emitters. The mean wind and temperature structures in turn influence the propagation of the waves and the manner in which they couple the lower and upper atmosphere.

2007-10-21T13:30:00.000-07:00

Russian scientific pioneers neglected outside of Russia Konstantin Mereschkowsky

“Let us imagine a palm tree, growing peacefully near a spring, and a lion hiding in the bush nearby, all of its muscles taut, with blood thirsty eyes, prepared to jump upon an antelope and to strangle it. The symbiotic theory, and it alone, lays bare the deepest mysteries of this scene, unravels and illuminates the fundamental principle that could bring forth two such utterly different entities as a palm tree and a lion. The palm behaves so peacefully, so passively, because it is a symbiosis, because it contains a plethora of little workers, green slaves(chromatophores) that work for it and nourish it. The lion must nourish itself. Let us imagine each cell of the lion filled with chromatophores, and I have no doubt that it would immediately lie down peacefully next to the palm, feeling full, or needing at most some water with mineral salts.”

(Konstantin Sergeevich Mereschkowsky (1905)

The theory that chloroplasts are derived from cyanobacteria, which were long ago
taken up by non-photosynthetic organisms is more than one hundred years old. (Mereschkowsky)Complete proof that it is correct has been obtained from molecular biology. By comparisons of DNA sequences the cyanobacterial ancestry of chloroplasts has been established, just as it is now certain that mitochondria are descendents of another bacterial clade.

Among chloroplasts there are two developmental lines, the “green line” (in green
algae and plants) and the “red line” (in red algae and most other algae). Even if some researchers still believe that these two lines start with two separate endosymbiotic events, the contrary view prevails. This means that all chloroplasts are derived from one original chloroplast, which has appeared when a cyanobacterium entered another cell. It is a little surprising that it is so, since we have so many other examples of very intimate symbiotic relationships between a number of algae and a number of other organisms.

That plastids were once free-living cyanobacteria is now taken for granted by many, and for good reasons, for there is a wealth of data – in particular from the comparison of plastid and cyanobacterial genomes – that support this view. There is currently no seriously entertained alternative hypothesis to the view that plastids descend from cyanobacteria. But that was not always the case. Well into the 1970s there was a generally favoured alternative hypothesis, namely that early in evolution plastids arose de novo from within a non-plastid bearing cell (an autogenous origin) rather than through invasion by a cyanobacterium into a non-plastid-bearing cell with subsequent intracellular coexistence and reduction to an organelle (an endosymbiotic origin). Interestingly, the shift from autogenous to endosymbiotic hypotheses during the 1970s was a reversal of state for during the first two decades of this century, the endosymbiont hypothesis for the origins of plastids (and mitochondria, which will not be further discussed here) was very popular among biologists. It fell into disfavour shortly after the First World War, for reasons that are very difficult to summarize briefly, and remained scorned for 50 years (see Sapp, 1994, for an historical account in English, and Höxtermann, 1998, for a succinct historical account in German). So where did the first version of the endosymbiont hypothesis come from? In a nutshell, it came from Konstantin Sergejewiz Merezkovskij (usually written as Constantin Mereschkowsky), a Russian botanist of little standing who worked at a rather small and by no means prominent university in Kasan and who published a very remarkable paper in 1905. We are not aware of any true precedent for his paper, which draws upon three lines of evidence known at the time.

2007-10-21T13:27:00.000-07:00

Russian scientific pioneers neglected outside of Russia Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky

Konstantin Eduardovitch Tsiolkovsky was born in September, 1857 in the town of Izhevskoye, Spassk District, Ryazan Gubernia. He became a "people's school teacher" at Borovsk, Kulaga Province, in 1878.

On the merits of some of his early research and related writings, Tsiolkovsky was elected to the Society of Physics and Chemistry at St. Petersburg, Russia.

On March 28, 1883 Tsiolkovsky demonstrated the reaction principle through experimenting with opening a cask filled with compressed gas. He discovered that movement of the cask could be regulated by alternating the pressure of the gas released from it.

Tsiolkovsky completed a draft of his first design of a reaction thrust motor on August 25, 1898. The following year, he received a grant of 470 rubles from the Academy of Science's Physics and Mathematics Department to engage in research. This work was dedicated to the establishment of scientific principles, so no actual motors were developed.

In 1903, his first article on rocketry appeared in the "Naootchnoye Obozreniye" (Scientific Review). The article was entitled "Issledovanie Mirovykh Prostransty Reaktivnymi Priborami" (Exploration Of Space With Rocket Devices).

In the article, Tsiolkovsky clearly outlined in scientific terms exactly how a reaction thrust motor could demonstrate Newton's Third Law to allow men to escape the bounds of Earth.

Also in 1903, Tsiolkovsky drafted the design of his first rocket. It was to be powered by a combination of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, which would create an explosive mixture at the narrow end of a tube. Burning of the fuels would produce condensed and heated gases.

The gases would then be quickly cooled and rarefied at the wider end of the tube, located at the tail of the rocket. The resulting exhaust, escaping from a nozzle, would provide liftoff thrust at a relatively high velocity.

This design was indeed prophetic, especially when consideration is given to the fact that liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen have traditionally been combined as a fuel for various rocket components, not the least of which are the three main engines of the Space Shuttle.

In subsequent writings, Tsiolkovsky speculated on a multi-stage approach to spaceflight. He envisioned a fantastic "passenger rocket train of 2017" which employed 20 single-engine rocket stages, each of which carried its own fuel.

This rocket was to be about 300 feet long and 12 feet wide, just a bit smaller than the actual Saturn V rockets used to carry men to the Moon. It would be built from three layers of metal incorporating quartz windows and an outer skin made of refractory material to protect the spacecraft from the intense heat of moving through the atmosphere.

As each individual rocket stage consumed its fuel, it would be discarded to keep the overall weight of the vehicle as light as possible. Tsiolkovsky recognized that although this design was fanciful, it would actually require a tremendous amount of fuel for a rocket to reach escape velocity, and multiple stages would likely be needed.

He had calculated that a single-stage rocket would have to carry four times its own weight in fuel to reach escape velocity, and that a multi-stage approach would be more efficient. Even at the turn of the 20th century, Tsiolkovsky was absolutely confident that the reaction principle would some day carry men into space.

In 1919, Tsiolkovsky was elected to the Socialist Academy, which later became the U.S.S.R. Academy of Science. Between 1925 and 1932 he wrote about 60 works on astronautics, astronomy, mechanics, physics and philosophy. He died on September 19, 1935.

Indeed he predated Arthur C Clarkes space elevator by 50 years.

In 1895, the Russian scientist and school teacher looked at the Eiffel Tower in Paris and thought about such a tower. He wanted to put a "celestial castle" at the end of a spindle shaped cable, with the "castle" orbiting the earth in a geosynchronous orbit (i.e. the castle would remain over the same spot on the earth). The tower would be built from the ground to an altitude of 35,800 kilometers. It would be similar to the fabled beanstalk in the children's story "Jack and the Beanstalk," except that on Tsiolkovsky's tower an elevator would ride up the cable to the "castle".

One "spinoff" use of Tsiolkovsky's tower would be the ability to launch objects into orbit without a rocket. Since the elevator would attain orbit velocity as it rode up the cable, an object released at the tower's top would also have the orbital velocity necessary to remain in geosynchronous orbit. Building from the ground up, however, proved an impossible task. It took until 1960 for another Russian scientist, Y.N. Artsutanov, to propose another scheme for building a space tower.

2007-10-21T13:24:00.000-07:00

Russian scientific pioneers neglected outside of Russia Introduction

I sometimes wonder if the much encouraged and proclaimed interaction among western astronomers leads to a form of mental herd behavior which, if it does not actually put a clamp upon free thinking, insidiously applies the pressure to follow the fashion. This makes the writings of our Russian colleagues who have partly developed ideas in comparative isolation all the more valuable.

Yes, I have wondered whether one should in fact pursue subjects with a big wall between two groups that are working in the same field, so that they absolutely cannot communicate, and see a few years later whether they come even approximately to the same conclusion. It would then give some perspective of how much the herd behavior may have been hurting. But we don't have that. Even with our Russian colleagues, unfortunately, we have too much contact to have a display of real independence, to see where it would have led.

Thomas Gold

There are substantial differences in scientific thought between the west, and Russia as the history of Russian shows, the use of and the limitations of mathematics to scientific applications for one. That is the following of Hilbert and his axioms in the west. and Poincare and its geometric applications to time and space in the west.

Or as Vladimir Arnold says,

The real danger is not the applied mafia itself, but the divorce between pure mathematics and the sciences created by the (I would say criminal) formalization of mathematics and of mathematical education. The axiomatical-deductive Hilbert-Bourbaki style of exposition of mathematics, dominant in the first half of this century, is now fortunately giving place to the unifying trends of the Poincaré style geometrical mathematics, combining deep theoretical insight with real world applications.

Our brain has two halves: one is responsible for the multiplication of polynomials and languages, and the other half is responsible for orientation of figures in space and all the things important in real life. Mathematics is geometry when you have to use both halves.

As the 50th anniversary of space travel we will look at some of the greats of Russian science who are virtually unknown outside of Russia.

As we saw in our post on Vernadsky these pioneers are as well known in Russia as Darwin or Einstein are in the west.

2007-09-30T11:22:00.000-07:00

Kyoto Forest sinks sunk Trees confirmed as methane emitters.

Keppler's work on methane produced aerobically by green plants which was published early last year brought a substantial response of arguments both for and against the paper.

Recently Tom Dueck and colleagues have published in New Phytologist findings that they found no CH 4 emissions from plants.

This brought some interchange as reported on climate feedback at nature.

Both groups have criticized the other's choice of experimental method. Dueck says that Keppler's group kept plants in sealed plastic containers instead of flow chambers, and exposed them to sources of stress such as bright sunlight and high temperature, which could have produced methane as an artefact. Keppler retorts that the use of 13C is an artificial piece of chemical trickery with unknown effects on plant metabolism, and also argues that methane production can vary by up to three orders of magnitude between species.

Keppler says other teams will be publishing results that back him up on the methane; but Mike reports that at least one other team is siding strongly with Dueck

Now we see the publication from another team at Max Planck and the authors are some very heavy artillery.

Citation: Sinha, V., Williams, J., Crutzen, P. J., and Lelieveld, J.: Methane emissions from boreal and tropical forest ecosystems derived from in-situ measurements, Atmos. Chem. Phys. 7, 14011-14039, 2007

Abstract. Methane is a climatologically important greenhouse gas, which plays a key role in regulating water vapour in the stratosphere and hydroxyl radicals in the troposphere. Recent findings that vegetation emits methane have stimulated efforts to ascertain the impact of this source on the global budget. In this work, we present the results of high frequency (ca. 1 min−1) methane measurements conducted in the boreal forests of Finland and the tropical forests of Suriname, in April–May, 2005 and October 2005 respectively. The measurements were performed using a gas chromatograph – flame ionization detector (GC-FID). The average of the median mixing ratios during a typical diel cycle were 1.83 μmol mol−1 and 1.74 μmol mol−1 for the boreal forest ecosystem and tropical forest ecosystem respectively, with remarkable similarity in the time series of both the boreal and tropical diel profiles. Night time methane emission flux of the boreal forest ecosystem, calculated from the increase of methane during the night and measured nocturnal boundary layer heights yields a flux of (3.62±0.87)×1011 molecules cm−2 s−1(or 45.5±11 Tg CH4 yr−1 for global boreal forest area). This is a source contribution of circa 8% of the global methane budget. These results highlight the importance of the boreal and tropical forest ecosystems for the global budget of methane. The results are also discussed in the context of recent work reporting high methane mixing ratios over tropical forests using space borne near infra-red spectroscopy measurements.

As an amount equal to approximately 90% of the annual emissions (450 Tg year) is oxidized through photochemical reactions initiated by OH radicals in the troposphere,A 8-10 % source addition adds substantial uncertainty to the carbon credit industry and carbon offsets.

Or as David Lowe comments in National Geographic.

"And of course this also affects the understanding of the current conditions."

Lowe notes that any reassessment of current climate change models could include some interesting political ramifications.

For example, the Kyoto protocol—an international treaty designed to try and curb climate change—requires complex accounting that holds countries to specified greenhouse gas emissions limits.

"Several countries are counting their forests as vegetative sinks for carbon dioxide," he said.

"But are you absorbing more carbon dioxide than you are [possibly] releasing methane? I suppose that the Kyoto protocol accountants are going to be working overtime trying to figure that one out."

2007-09-29T16:48:00.000-07:00

The Trouble with Lichen

“This is not the age of reason, this is the age of flummery, and the day of the devious approach. Reason’s gone into the backrooms where it works to devise means by which people can be induced to emote in the desired direction.”John Wyndham, J. (1960), The Trouble With Lichen.

There is a popular belief that the ozone layer has been "saved". Not so, says Joe Farman, one of the scientists who discovered the Antarctic ozone "hole" - even as the Montreal Protocol celebrates its 20th birthday, much remains to be done. Reports the BBC

The mid-70s saw the publication of several seminal scientific papers identifying the possibility of ozone-destroying chain reactions in the stratosphere.

Ozone depletion in early spring over Antarctica had been reported in the journal Nature in May 1985, much more severe than any prediction, and confirmed by Nasa in October 1985.

Lets ask the question what if it has been always there,as evidenced by the biosphere in responding to spring ozone losses!

There are few methodologies to show suitable proxies to ascertain the UV levels and variation ,Nitric acid in ice cores is one,but the resolution is coarse and shows only multidecadeal variation signals .Another method is to view the response of the biosphere to changes in UV.

As we have discussed here and here the changes and effects of UV flux is the precursor mechanism for the oscillations in CO2 absorption and emission from the biosphere and hence changes in the atmospheric levels.

The ability of biological species to adapt to adverse environments is one of the paradoxes of Ecological science.

How the exclusion of some “players” from the” marketplace” will allow for smaller players to dominate the market due to enhanced adaptability.

Changes to the ozone levels and UV penetration are cyclical over the solar cycles from the 27 day rotation, the 11 year cycle ,the Gleissberg cycle and longer orbital parameters.

Solar variability is observed on three main time scales: solar rotation (27-day), solar cycle (11year) and the Grand Minima time scale. The magnitude of the variability progressively increases from the short to long scales. Earth's climate responses are now found on all these scales. The most recognized are the responses to solar irradiance variations. These variations strongly depend on wavelength rising from 0.1% per solar cycle in total irradiance (mostly infrared-optical range) to 10% in UV and 100% per solar cycle in X-ray range. The variations in the total irradiance produce a small global effect. More substantial is the effect of solar UV variability on large-scale climate patterns. These patterns are naturally excited in the Earth's atmosphere as deviations (anomalies) from its mean state.

How does the distribution of UVB, UVA, and photosynthetically active radiation vary on sensitive surfaces within the biosphere in the agricultural and forest canopies over the growing season? Plants have widely varying sensitivity to solar UV radiation. This can result in shifts in the competitive advantage of one plant species over another and consequently composition and health of both manages ecosystems.

The so-called "season responders" are species with an opportunistic strategy growing only under optimal light conditions mainly in summer, whereas the "season anticipators", grow and reproduce in winter and spring.

This suggests that the microalgae have adapted to predicting not only the early spring photosynthetically active radiation, but also high spring flux of UV due to ozone loss as seen by the levels of melanin pigmentation

Rozema et al in a number of physical experiments have shown proofs that the responses to changes in UV by the biosphere in both Antarctic algae, and various Lichen is equivalent to a 15% change in Stratospheric ozone.

The growth of the lower land organisms studied, i.e. the lichens Cladina portentosa, Cladina foliacaea and Cladonia arbuscula, and the club moss Lycopodiumannotinum, was not significantly reduced when grown under elevated UV-B radiation (simulating 15% ozone depletion).

Most of the plant species and plant groups tested were well adapted to the enhanced UV-B simulating a 15% depletion of stratospheric ozone.

Thus the evolution of plant and animal life on Earth seems partly to have been governed by the changing UV climate, seen today in the array of different life forms, field habitats, and protective strategies.

Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology B: Biology 66 (2002) 2–12

The role of UV-B radiation in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems—an
experimental and functional analysis of the evolution of UV-absorbing
compounds

2007-09-22T02:37:00.000-07:00

The inversion modulation of the heliosphere magnetic field and Cosmic radiation

Plasma populations are embedded in a back ground neutral gas throughout the solar system, from the solar transition region, to planetary upper atmospheres, to the heliosphere’s interface with the interstellar medium. These populations transfer energy and momentum through multi-scale, nonlinear interactions which act to redistribute the bulk flows that, in turn, feed energy back into the original coupling system. For example, the upper atmospheres of planets, including Earth, are dramatically affected by energetic inputs originating at the Sun in the form of photons, particles, and fields.

How ever, there are many pathways by which that solar energy is transformed and redistributed throughout the atmosphere until the energy is ultimately re-radiated to space. Connected with these processes is much of the inherent variability of the atmosphere over daily to millennial time scales. The lower atmosphere is periodically pumped and heated, giving rise to a spectrum of small scale gravity waves and longer-period oscillations. These waves can propagate into the mesosphere and thermosphere depositing momentum. The atmospheric mean circulation is thereby modified, resulting in changes to the temperature structure and redistribution of radiation absorbers and emitters. The mean wind and temperature structures in turn influence the propagation of the waves and the manner in which they couple the lower and upper atmosphere.

Similar processes are also key to understanding the upper atmosphere weather and climate on Mars and Venus. The ionospheric electron density distribution depends on thermospheric composition and winds, together with electric fields that can be generated within the I-T system or im posed from the magnetosphere. In turn, the ionospheric plasma can inhibit or accelerate thermospheric winds that produce electric fields via an electrodynamic interaction. The interactions and feedback mechanisms remain a mystery due to a lack of simultaneous measurements of all the parameters that describe the fully coupled system. These interactions can occur on a global scale, but can also pro duce mesoscale structures, such as high latitude thermospheric density cells that affect satellite orbits, or midlatitude electron density enhancements that disrupt aircraft navigation systems being implemented by the FAA.

In addition, smaller scale structures cause ionospheric irregularities that degrade communication system performance. Turbulence is another example of a very important multi-scale, nonlinear process that transports particles and fields effectively, but is not well understood. Numerical simulations and laboratory experiments demonstrate that, in the presence of rotation or magnetic fields, turbulent motions create small-scale and large scale dissipative structures. In addition, electrodynamic and mass coupling along magnetic fields are fundamental physical processes that cut across many disciplines of space science. The interface between the heliosphere and the interstellar medium is a coupling region about which we are just beginning to learn. Finally, mass loading through ionization and charge exchange is a phenomenon of broad interest from planetary and atmospheric erosion to energetic particle creation and loss.

In an interesting paper we see shown that the heliomagnetic field (HMF) near Earth increased steadily over the past 580 years, exhibiting the strongest fields during the last 50 years. The estimates indicate that the HMF at sunspot minimum has exhibited steadily increasing “floors” between the several Grand Minima, similar to the one evident in satellite data since 1965.

This helps understand the step like changes in the satellite record temperature record.

Changes in the cosmic ray and heliomagnetic components of space climate, 1428–2005, including the variable occurrence of solar energetic particle events
Ken McCracken ASR 2007

The cosmic-ray record has been used to study the variations in the space climate, 1428–2005. Inversion of the data shows that the heliomagnetic field (HMF) near Earth increased steadily over the past 580 years, exhibiting the strongest fields during the last 50 years. The estimates indicate that the HMF at sunspot minimum has exhibited steadily increasing “floors” between the several Grand Minima, similar to the one evident in satellite data since 1965. The cosmogenic data for the past 10,000 years contain an 2300 year periodicity, and it is proposed that the increasing HMF strength since the 15th century represents the first quarter cycle of a 2300 year quasi-periodicity. It is concluded that the 11-year average total magnetic flux of the Sun has increased by a factor of 4.5 over the past 580 years. It is speculated that this could indicate a factor of 9 variation over the 2300 year cycle. The cosmic ray data and theoretical considerations show that the 22-year periodicity in the cosmic radiation flux at Earth was more dominant at times of low solar activity, compared to the present epoch. Comparison of the occurrence of solar energetic particle events, and the estimated HMF, shows that a substantial decrease in the size and frequency of occurrence of GLE (ground level enhancements) after 1958 coincides with a substantial increase in the HMF. This is consistent with the conclusion of [McCracken, K.G., Dreschhoff, G.A.M., Smart, D.F., et al. A study of the occurrence of large-fluence solar proton events and the strength of the interplanetary magnetic field. Solar Phys., 224, 359–372, 2004.] that lower values of the solar magnetic fields result in increased values of the Alfven Mach number, and thence to more efficient acceleration of solar cosmic rays prior to 1958. It is suggested that the variability of the solar and heliospheric magnetic fields may have introduced long term changes into the nature of geomagnetic phenomena; particle acceleration throughout the heliosphere and heliosheath; and possibly to the luminosity of the facular network of the Sun.

The observed long term modulation of the cosmic radiation has led to the conclusion that the heliospheric magnetic field, and hence the open magnetic field of the Sun, has varied by a factor of 4.5 over the past 600 years. Section 5.4 has shown that this predicts long term changes in the acceleration of cosmic rays by the Sun, in accord with observation. The magnetic field has a pervasive influence on the physics of the solar wind, and the corona, and other long term effects can be expected. Several are suggested in the following for theoretical and experimental investigation in the future.
–Modulation of the interaction of the solar wind with the geomagnetic field, leading to long term changes in the nature of geomagnetic disturbances, and the efficiency of acceleration of auroral electrons.
–Substantial changes in the Alfven velocities leading to long-term changes in the acceleration of ions and electrons in shock waves throughout the heliosphere, at the termination shock, and in the heliosheath.

Lean et al. (1995) discussed the role of the photon emission from the network of faculae that normally covers the Sun, even during the sunspot minima in contemporary times. They speculated that the emission from the faculae would track the overall level of solar activity, being weaker during periods such as the Spoerer and Maunder Minima, and greater during periods similar to the present epoch. The faculae are magnetic phenomena, and this proposition appears plausible in view of the factor of 4.5 change of the solar magnetic flux inferred. Clearly, it is desirable to investigate the quantitative changes in the facular emission, and consequently the total solar irradiance of the Sun, as a consequence of this 4.5-fold change in the magnetic fields of the Sun.

The cosmic ray record has been used to investigate the variability of a number of the components of the space weather. Overall, this study shows that there have been large changes in a number of components of the “space climate” over the past 600 years and it further concludes that the space climate will exhibit an 2300 year periodicity.
The inversion process of Caballero-Lopez et al. (2004) has shown that the HMF increased steadily over the past 580 years, exhibiting the strongest fields during the last 50 years.

The inversion shows that the strength of the HMF at sunspot minimum was significantly less between 1901and 1944, compared to 1954, onwards. The estimates indicate that the HMF near Earth increased from an average of 2.5 nT for the sunspot minima in 1889 and 1901 (the Gleissberg minimum) to 3.5 nT averaged over the sunspot minimum of 1911–1944. Between 1944 and 1954, it increased to 5.2 nT, and the satellite and cosmic ray data show that the field at sunspot minimum remained at 5.2 nT between 1965 and 1996. Together, the cosmic ray and direct satellite measurements show that there was a step-wise and long lived increase in the strength of the HMF between 1944 and 1954.

The cosmogenic data for the past 10,000 years contain an 2300 year periodicity, and it is speculated that the increasing heliomagnetic field strength since the 15th century represents the first quarter cycle of a 2300 year periodicity in the HMF.
On the basis of these estimates, it is concluded that the total magnetic flux of the Sun has increased by a factor of 4.5 over the past 580 years. It is speculated that this could indicate a factor of 9 variation in solar magnetic flux over a 2300 year cycle.

2007-09-19T00:18:00.000-07:00

The Andromeda strain ?

As we discussed in Panspermia previously this month

A vocal minority of biological investigators, including Nobel winner Francis Crick have put forward views stating that life as we know it ,did not commence here on Earth at all, but was imported from outerspace. Specifically that the ingredients and precursors such as spores or microorganisms from life bearing planets are transported across the Galaxy.

We can see interesting developments from a meteorite in Peru.

Hundreds of people in Peru have needed treatment after an object from space - said to be a meteorite - plummeted to Earth in a remote area, officials say.

They say the object left a deep crater after crashing down over the weekend near the town of Carancas in the Andes.

People who have visited scene have been complaining of headaches, vomiting and nausea after inhaling gases.

A team of scientists is on its way to the site to collect samples and verify whether it was indeed a meteorite.

Whether it is a physical response to instantaneous high energy heating of the local environment or other reasons it is a truly unique phenomena.

2007-09-14T21:50:00.000-07:00

Solar minimum and the price of wheat

Reap the harvest ,hence you will sow,
Except fallow years, and depths of snow

Wheat Prices Send Italian Pasta Costs Up Is the headlines from the world press.

Consumer groups organized protests in Rome, Milan and Palermo — and even handed out free pasta, bread and milk to passers-by to help ease the pain for those who decided to support the strike and forego pasta purchases at supermarkets and restaurants.
Activists say Italians will soon be paying up to 20 percent more for their daily serving of fettuccine, spaghetti or linguine. They say prices are being driven up by middlemen, while earnings for farmers and producers remain flat.
"Prices increase by five times between production and consumption," Toni De Amicis, a leader of Italian farm lobby Coldiretti, said during a protest in Rome. "The right recipe is to reduce the gap between production and consumption."
Similar charges have been lodged in France, where shoppers are grumbling that their aromatic baguettes will soon cost more because of rising flour prices. A consumer group warned in August of likely bread price increases of about 8 percent.
The warning prompted accusations that supermarket chains were disproportionately hiking prices on breads, as producers noted that the price of flour only represents 5 percent of the total price of bread.

Competition for supply from non food manufacturers (biofuels) ,globalization,and climate change, have been arraigned as suspects.The effects of the solar cycle and wheat price behavior are well documented due to the importance of long life staples in the pre industrial era.

The first suggestion of a connection between wheat price and sunspots was made by William Hershel (1801). Over 40 years (1779 – 1818), Hershel regularly observed sunspots and their variations in number, form and size. Unfortunately, most of his observations took place in a period characterized by the lowest solar activity since the Maunder Minimum (later called the Dalton Minimum), when solar activity behaved very unusually: spots in minimums disappeared totally, and the max-max interval increased up to 17 years (1788-1805). These irregular variations of sunspot numbers prevented Hershel from discovering the 11-year period in solar activity. However, he paid attention to an evident correlation between the observed number of spots and the state of the wheat market, based on a series of wheat prices published by Adam Smith in his classical work “Wealth of Nations” (1776). As Herschel showed in his report to the Royal Society (1801), five prolonged periods of few sunspots correlated with costly wheat. In 1801, Hershel published the results of his observations of sunspots, remarking on the possible connection between sunspots and wheat prices, in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Unfortunately, his conclusions met with such strong and widespread rejection, even ridicule, that in spite of his great authority and his status as Royal Astronomer, he had to cancel his next public presentations of his results. However, it is known from his biography, that he continued sunspot observations and analysis up to last days of his life. Hershel suggested that a possible reason for the influence of sunspots on wheat prices was changes in the Earth climate produced by modulations in solar radiation, caused by variation of the emitted surface.

The next scientist in this field was the well-known English economist and logician William Stanley Jevons, one of the creators of Neoclassical Economic Theory. In his study (1875), he focused on the first part of the data published by Professor Rogers in the first volume of his work. Wheat prices over 140 years, from 1259 to 1400, were presented in this volume. Jevons discovered that the time intervals between high prices were close to 10-11 years. The coincidence of these intervals with the period of the recently discovered 11-year cycle of solar activity led him to suggest a solar cycle as a “synchronization” factor for fluctuations in wheat prices3 (Jevons, 1878).

In a paper by Lev A. Pustilnik , Gregory Yom Din entitled INFLUENCE OF SOLAR ACTIVITY ON STATE OF WHEAT MARKET IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND the authors correlate a direct link between prices of wheat and sunspots over 10 solar minimum periods from the 17th century.

ABSTRACT. The database of Prof. Rogers (1887), which includes wheat prices in England in the Middle Ages, was used to search for a possible influence of solar activity on the wheat market.We present a conceptual model of possible modes for sensitivity of wheat prices to weather conditions,caused by solar cycle variations, and compare expected price fluctuations with price variations recorded in medieval England.

We compared statistical properties of the intervals between wheat price bursts during years 1249-1703 with statistical properties of the intervals between minimums of solar cycles during years 1700-2000. We show that statistical properties of these two samples are similar, both for characteristics of the distributions and for histograms of the distributions.We analyze a direct link between wheat prices and solar activity in the 17th Century, for which wheat prices and solar activity data (derived from 10Be isotope) are available. We show that for all 10 time moments of the solar activity minimums the observed prices were higher than prices for the correspondent time moments of maximal solar activity (100% sign correlation, on a significance level <>

Whilst we have posted on this prior, the present depth of the solar cycle is the deepest for some time,TSI showing solar minimum was in early 2006,other indices show we maybe approachink it later this year.

2007-09-08T21:26:00.000-07:00

Climate controversies circa 1874 Royal Society NZ

Temperature

You will find at page 391 of the Transactions for 1873, a short notice of a discussion on Solar and Terrestrial Radiation, introduced by Mr. C. R. Marten, who explained that the black bulb thermometer in Southland frequently ranged as high as 170°, being 30° higher than in Sydney, and much higher than it has ever reached in the North Island.

As some doubts are implied in the printed report of the correctness of the readings, I wish to state that Mr. Marten is not only an enthusiast in meteorological pursuits, but a most painstaking observer, with whom my duties as first Director of Meteorological Stations in New Zealand brought me in very pleasing communication. As this is a subject on which I formerly took much trouble, and may claim-for myself the merit of having established all the principal Meteorological Stations in New Zealand, and as it was a great comfort to have the co-operation of Mr. Marten, I am anxious to explain why I believe the observations referred to are correct. Of course we all know how difficult it is to prevent “cooking” of observations. In looking over my correspondence with a distinguished savant who had a great deal to do with getting up meteorology in India, he notices how discouraging it was to work at the results of people who had no training in the use of instruments. The stupidity of some observers is impregnable. An intelligent, well-educated man supplied him a long series of wet-bulb observations obtained by holding a thermometer under water and reading off—the bulb was wet, what more could be wanted! You will understand, then, the comfort, in starting a number of Meteorological Stations, of having a Member of the Meteorological Society of England for a coadjutor.

Water Vapor and Greenhouse observations

The calorific rays of the sun pass through- air devoid of aqueous vapour with no appreciable loss; but if water in the form of invisible vapour be present, the air is not perfectly transparent to those rays, and offers, I believe, a slight obstruction to their passage. It is almost opaque to radiant heat from the surface of the ground. Transparency to heat and light is witnessed in the passage of the sun's rays through the glass windows of our dwellings. The heat in a close room into which the sun shines may be overpowering, while the glass, through which the whole of the heat has passed, remains cold. The greater the proportion of aqueous vapour the more solar heat is absorbed in its transit through the atmosphere. Now, the quantity of vapour in the air depends mainly on temperature. In the colder regions of the south, although the air may be saturated with vapour, the relative proportion of vapour to air is much less than in tropical climates;

Californian Tree huggers

I find that in California they are already alarmed at the rapid destruction of their forests, containing the largest and finest trees in the world. It is estimated that one-third of all the available timber has been consumed, and that the whole of the available timber will be consumed in twenty years. One of the worst features of the settlement of new countries is the reckless way in which the timber is destroyed. Not only is the practice condemned in severe terms by thoughtful men in California, but the opinion must be gaining ground that the State should interfere. The only remedy seems to them to be for the Legislature to take up the matter, and by proper laws to provide not only for the preservation of the forests, but for the planting of trees pari passu with the settlement of the country.

Greenland Glaciers

Professor Phillips, at a late meeting of the British Association, remarked that one is almost frozen to silence in presence of the vast sheets of ice which some of his friends, followers of Agassiz, believe themselves to have traced over the mountains and vales of a great part of the United Kingdom. He refuses to accept the proposition that these “ice-rubbers” plough out the valleys and lakes, until we possess more knowledge than has yet been attained regarding the resistance offered by ice to a-crushing force, seeing that under a column of its own substance 1000 feet high it would not retain its solidity.

I have alluded to Phillips' opinion, because I see in Geikie's late work that reference is made to the fact that from the foot of glaciers in Greenland streams of water issue and unite to form considerable rivers, one of which, after a course of forty miles, enters the sea with a mouth nearly three-quarters of a mile in breadth—the water flowing freely at a time when the outside sea was thickly covered with ice.

This flow of water, Geikie thinks, probably circulates to some extent below every glacier, and he accounts for it by the liquefaction of ice from the warmth of the underlying soil. I am sure you will find a more natural solution of this flow of water from glaciers—estimated not less than 3000 feet thick—in the suggestion first made by Professor James Thomson, and subsequently proved by his brother, Professor W. Thomson, that the freezing point of water is lowered by the effect of pressure 0.23° Fahr., or about a quarter of a degree for each additional atmosphere of pressure. Now, a sheet of ice 3000 feet thick is equal to a pressure of eighty-three atmospheres, at which pressure it would require a temperature of 19° below freezing point to retain the form of ice. In the state of running water below the glacier, it might readily, as Geikie states, absorb heat from the underlying soil sufficient to retain its liquid form, as the overlying weight gradually lessened at the edge of the glacier. In this, too, we have a safe assurance that these enormous thicknesses of glaciers can exist only where there is scarcely any or no inclination of the land to the sea board, and that no sheets of ice of such enormous thickness could possibly exist on the sides of mountains, as they would have between them and the mountain side a stratum of water; and, to use a common expression, would come down “ on the run.”

Climate glaciations European or global

Captain Hutton admits that the glaciers of the South Island have been at some former time of much larger dimensions than they are at present, and that there may have been a glacial epoch in the southern hemisphere. But he does not admit that such an epoch bears any relation to, or was contemporaneous with, that of Europe. He would refer it, if it ever existed at all, to a period long antecedent. At the same time he guards himself by stating that we have no proof of a change of climate;

Greenland warmer climate

In latitudes so high as those of Greenland, no hypothesis, based on an assumed elevation or depression of land, will account for the warm climate which must have existed in Greenland in times remotely ancient. We might look to changes in the great luminary whose rays vivify either directly or indirectly all growth on earth.

Professor Heer has concluded from his examination of the fossil flora that the temperature of Greenland was about 30° higher than it is now. You will find from Professor Heer's “Contributions to the Fossil Flora of North Greenland” much wonderfully calculated to revolutionize our notions of the climate of the north of Europe. In the deposits of the outskirting land under the great ice-field which now obliterates all indications of hill and valley were found “thirty different kinds of cone-bearing trees, including species allied to the gigantic Wellingtonia, at present growing in California, with other trees, such as beeches, oaks, planes, poplars, maples, walnuts, limes, a magnolia, hazel, blackthorn, holly, logwood, and hawthorn. These were represented not merely by leaves, which occurred, however, in vast profusion, but by fossil flowers and fruits, including even cones of the magnolia, thus proving,” says a writer in the “ Popular Review,” “that they did not maintain a precarious existence, but ripened their fruits. Vines twined round their trunks—beneath them grew ferns having broad fronds, and with them were mingled several evergreen shrubs.”

Transactions of the Royal society of NZ Volume 7, 1874

2007-09-08T15:52:00.000-07:00

APEC Leaders follow conclusions of Joint Academies of Science

The leaders of 21 nations participating in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum have adopted a draft declaration on greenhouse gases, accepting for the first time concrete global goals to reduce CO2 emissions.

Although the draft plan, dubbed the "Sydney Declaration" by Australian Prime Minister John Howard, sets only non-binding targets, it represents a dramatic compromise between rich and poor APEC economies and retains the UN climate change convention as the primary framework to fight global warming.

Most significantly, it is seen as a triumph for the U.S. and Australia in persuading China, a major polluter, and other developing nations to accept measurable reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.

With the Kyoto Protocol on climate change due to be replaced in the coming years by a more binding agreement, the APEC draft will likely serve as the basis for the UN climate change summit in Bali, Indonesia in December.

The statement, which was released ahead of Saturday's summit-level meeting, said in part: "We call for a post-2012 international climate change arrangement...that strengthens, broadens and deepens the current arrangement and leads to reduced global emissions of greenhouse gases."

Among the initial targets agreed to, energy efficiency in the Asia-Pacific region will be improved by at least 25% by 2030 over 2005 levels.

Forest areas in the region will also be increased by 20 million hectares by 2020.
The statement said that, if achieved, the new forest cover would store approximately 1.4 billion tons of carbons, equivalent to around 11% of annual global emissions.

As we reported on the Joint academies of science from the G8 Energy summit in Russia in 2006.

The g8 Joint science academies have released the outline for the global situation and the security of the energy complex for sustainability, innovation,and development.As we have suggested there are a number of interesting developments ,that will see a mix of new technology,efficiency and evolution of existing technology.

Broad international consensus recognizes three principal, inter-related components of sustainable development: economic prosperity, social development, and environmental protection. Sustainable and reliable supply of energy is one of the major conditions for achieving these three goals ,for all countries of the world: if energy sustainability and security fail, the primary human development goals cannot be achieved.

Providing for global energy sustainability and security will require many vigorous actions at national levels, and considerable international cooperation. These actions and cooperative steps will need to be based on wide- spread public support, especially in exploring venues for increased efficiency of energy use. Secondly, it will be necessary to develop and deploy new sources and systems for energy supply, including clean use of coal and unconventional fossil resources, advanced nuclear systems, and renewable energy. Diversification of engine fuels, increased use of low-emissions technologies in personal transport, and greater emphasis in deployment of urban mass transit would introduce much-needed flexibility and economy in a rapidly urbanizing world.

The necessary changes and transitions in energy systems and paradigms will not be possible without achievement of many challenging scientific, technical and economic objectives, and will require the investment of enormous resources in a sustained way over decades. They will also require major openness and transfer of knowledge, technology and capital.

We call on world leaders, especially those meeting at the G8 Summit in July 2006, to:
- Articulate the reality and urgency of global energy security concerns;
- Plan for the massive infrastructure investments, and lead times required for a transition to clean, affordable and sustainable energy systems;
- Itensify cooperation with developing countries to build their domestic capacities to use existing and innovative energy systems and technologies, including transfer of technologies;
- Promote by appropriate policies and economic instruments the development and implementation of cost-competitive, environmentally beneficial, and market acceptable clean fossil, nuclear, and renewable technologies;
- Ensure, in cooperation with industry, that technologies are developed and implemented and actions taken to protect energy infrastructures from natural disasters, technological failures, and human actions;
- Address the serious inadequacy of R&D funding and provide incentives to accelerate advanced energy-related R&D, also in partnership with private companies;
- Implement education programs to increase public understanding of energy challenges, and to provide for energy-related expertise and engineering capabilities;
- Focus governmental research and technology efforts on energy efficiency, non-conventional hydrocarbons and clean coal with CO2 sequestration, innovative nuclear power, distributed power systems, renewable energy sources, biomass production, biomass and gas conversion for fuels.

The InterAcademy Council, established by the Academies of the world, is now engaged in an in- depth examination of this energy technology transition challenge, to be completed by November there are some interesting perspectives in the initial drafts.

We can conclude that the "consensus" of the Joint academies is for innovative cost efficient solutions and technological transfers.It is a priori that there is incentive not disincentive for investment viz a viz the "taxation and command and control regimes" suggested by the strange inhabitants of the "eco groups"

2007-09-07T23:19:00.000-07:00

Note on Glacier-Recession, By T. V. Hodgson.

I would ask, what right have we to accept so readily the assumption that the temperature-conditions are becoming less severe, and that therefore the ice-cap is receding? It appears to me that the evidence is very weak at the best.
To begin with the Barrier, the amount of recession is small compared to its enormous area. It is greatest on the eastern side, where we have absolutely no knowledge whatever as to the source of supply. As compared to the mountains of the west, King Edward VII Land, from the little that has been seen of it, is low-lying country, and if such should ultimately prove to be the case it may also prove to be the larger feeding-ground.

Only in one spot has the rate of movement of the Barrier been measured. It was a rather crude measurement on a sledge journey near Minna Bluff, and is probably only local; it works out roughly at about a quarter of a mile a year. There is no evidence whatever as to the seasonal fluctuations of this ice-sheet: a series of mild or of severe seasons seems to me to be amply sufficient to account for the difference in the position of its northern face. The icebergs met with by the “Discovery” were for the most part very small, and I think I am right in saying that none of them were over three miles long.

As to glaciers, many of them do not come down to sea-level, but end abruptly, frequently at some considerable distance from it, and it is very much open to question if they have ever been anywhere near sea-level.

These facts have been interpreted as proof positive that the glaciation of the region is receding, it being regarded as certain that in no very far distant period in such a climate all these glaciers did come down to sea-level, and that those that do so now were formerly of far greater extent. This, I think, is far too hasty a conclusion, especially when we consider that McMurdo Sound has never previously been visited by man, and very little is known of the entire region from the point of view of its physiographical conditions. Some of the so-called glaciers, like that in McMurdo Sound described in the present paper, the Drygalski ice-sheet, and probably others, require more detailed examination before any really definite and satisfactory opinion can be pronounced.

Within forty miles of our winter quarters were no less than three active volcanoes, one smoking vigorously, the other two quiescent, and in such a volcanic district it is only fair to ask what would be the probable effect of—(1) volcanic eruption, (2) earthquake.

First with regard to volcanic eruption. For how long would the trace of such an occurrence be perceptible except by actual and close examination of the ground? Apparently not more than a few weeks. Lava-flows certainly might be conspicuous for a much longer period; but their age and finer characters are not to be detected at distances measured by the mile. Ashes and other volcanic ejecta might cover large areas, and under some conditions, such as seen in the Brown Island rubble-mass, would absorb the sun's heat and quickly effect considerable changes in the subjacent snow and ice. Under other conditions the snow might speedily and effectively hide all traces of any eruption as visible from a distance.

In the matter of earthquakes, their effect might be far more serious, and at the same time even less conspicuous. It is by no means inconceivable that the land in the vicinity of McMurdo Sound has undergone some change of level quite recently from a geological point of view. How could it be recognized on a first visit? Further, what would be the effect of a “good average” earthquake on the sea ice in such a region? It would certainly mean considerable rupture, with probably a serious effect on the adjacent shores. From such a sheet at the Great Ice Barrier it is quite reasonable to suppose that a single earthquake of any magnitude would make such a difference to that sheet as would take many years to replace.

Statement of a denier

2007-09-03T00:02:00.000-07:00

Why there is a consensus of Politicians on Climate Change

"One day sir, you may tax it." Faraday's reply to William Gladstone, then British Minister of Finance, when asked of the practical value of electricity.

Of course

2007-09-01T17:45:00.000-07:00

The Coefficients of Egoism or how Altruism is important until it affects my Political majority (Climate change mitigation)

A round of climate change talks under the auspices of the United Nations framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) concluded in Austria today with agreement on key elements for an effective international response to climate change.

“Countries have been able to reassess the big picture of what is needed by identifying the key building blocks for an effective response to climate change,” said UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer. “There is a consensus that the response needs to be global, with the involvement of all countries and that it needs to give equal importance to adaptation and mitigation.”

Government delegates also debated how the response can be enabled by an approach
that opens the way for financial flows to climate-friendly and climate-proof investments. This was based on a report on the investment and financial flows relevant to the development of an effective and appropriate international response to climate change, presented to the conference by the UN Climate Change Secretariat.

“The report clearly shows that energy efficiency can achieve real emission reductions at low cost,” said Yvo de Boer. “It also shows that many cost-effective opportunities for reducing emissions are in developing countries, but also that industrialised countries need aggressive emission reduction strategies”, he said, alluding to the potential of the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The CDM permits industrialized countries to invest in sustainable development projects and thereby generate tradable emission credits.

One of the primary reasons for the failure of the Kyoto protocol was the inadequacy in the beginning for the countries (actors) agreeing upon ``fair play'' principles, (a priori) in accordance to an equilibrium strategy. Quantative and qualitative attributes for the Kp were not ascertained prior but after the initial agreement ,meaning ratification of the KP was politically untenable for the US and others and as was seen in the 95-0 in the US Senate for emission and energy reforms under the Clinton/gore administration.

The St Petersberg school of game theory showed that this would be the outcome in the late 1990’s .

The late Yuri. M. Svirezhev, W. von Bloh, and H.-J. Schellnhuber showed the application of the “emission game” to Co2 perturbations that agreement and cooperation was a priori to an ESS(evolutionary stable strategy) in a NON-ANTAGONISTIC game.

If there are no doubts that we must reduce the total emission of carbon dioxide then the problem of how much different countries should be allowed to contribute to this amount remains a serious one. We suggest this problem to be considered as a non-antagonistic game (in Germeier's sense). A game of this kind is called an ``emission'' game. Suppose that there are n independent actors (countries or regions), each of them releasing a certain amount of CO per year (in carbon units)into the atmosphere, and that the emission would be reduced by each actor. Each actor has his own aim: to minimise the loss in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) caused by the reduction of emissions. On the other hand, taking into account that it is impossible to estimate more or less precisely the impact of the climate change on GDP for each country today, a common strategy will be to reduce the climate change. Since one of the main leading factors in global warming is the greenhouse effect, then the common aim will be to reduce the sum of emissions. This is a typical conflict situation. How to resolve it? We can weigh the ``egoistic'' and ``altruistic'' criteria for each actor introducing so-called ``coefficients of egoism''. This coefficient is very large, if the actor uses a very egoistic strategy, and conversely, if the actor is a ``super-altruist'', then the corresponding coefficient is very small. Using these coefficients we get the general solution of the game in a form of some Pareto's equilibrium. The solution is stable and efficient.

So what are ‘tenable solutions for the “problem’ perceived or otherwise As we analyzed here A Paradigm shift in Policy mechanisms for Energy Security from the G8 will produce more realistic outcomes then Kyoto. Part 2

As we previously suggested in our first report on the likely outcome of the G8 Gleneagles communiqué on Climate change, the communiqué has provided a consensus on additional strategic pathways for implementing the primary goal of stabilizing anthropogenic GHG emissions.

This multi faceted approach has brought consensus on outcomes, and will allow a global set of mechanisms that will introduce improvements to energy efficiency, renewable energy, cleaner energy systems, new technology and the transfer of technology to developing countries whilst maintaining global growth.

It also introduces a number of mechanisms for the low cost introduction of cleaner renewable energy systems for developing countries that will help to provide growth and allow them to bypass the use of carbon based energy systems.

The primary goals that were identified by the communiqué were

1 Transforming the way we uses energy
2 Powering a cleaner future
3 Promoting research and development
4 Financing the transition to cleaner energy
5 Managing the impact of climate change
6 Tackling illegal logging
7 Lower cost energy

These have signified a change from one of tariff based emission reduction to a broader role of technology and the delivery mechanisms of energy. This will create substantial opportunities in the areas of scientific research, engineering technology especially micro measurement, electrical efficiency and fuel technology.

What the G8 initatives will do,is to implement transparency of the energy complex,identify areas of cooperation in energy resource management and transfer.Provide structure for the efficient and economic transfer of technology to the worlds poorest countries to enable development and independence,This will also enable those countries to bypass the carbon cycle where possible and to enable positive economic growth and improved standards for education,health,and infrastructure.The initiatives will enable existing economic growth .

Therefore the simplest solution is the transfer of technology at low cost to the poorest countries instead of “financial largesse’ which has not worked over the last 50 years,This can include agriculture technology to enhance food output.

A win/win outcome.

2007-09-01T02:11:00.000-07:00

The Herd trampling on Tall Poppies, or the myths of peer review publications.

I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth, if it be such as would obliged them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.

Tolstoy

One of the Great controversies is how the “closed shop” of scientific review for publication and funding can lead to the passage of scientific consensus into blind cul-de-sacs of scientific theory .Indeed we can cite many Nobel laureates who when questioning the ‘Paradigm” were treated with contemptuous ridicule from the “consensus club”

Thomas Gold cited the behavior of the Nasa consensus of ‘in-house peer review”as the closed herd (neutron star rotation).

Another area where it is particularly bad is in the planetary sciences where NASA made great mistakes in the way in which they set up the situation. NASA made the grave mistake not only of working with a peer review system, but one where some of the peers (in fact very influential ones) were the in-house people doing the same line of work. This established a community of planetary scientists now which was completely selected by the leading members of the herd, which was very firmly controlled, and after quite a short time, the slightest departure from the herd was absolutely cut down. Money was not there for anybody who had a slightly diverging viewpoint. The conferences ignored him, and so on. It became completely impossible to do any independent work. For all the money that has been spent, the planetary program will one day be seen to have been extraordinarily poor. The pictures are fine and some of the facts that have been obtained from the planetary exploration with spacecraft - those will stand but not much else.

We have seen this with the conflicts with eminent scientists such as Arthur Eddington and the controversy with Chandrasekhar on neutron stars.

In astrophysics circles this controversy is usually described in terms of Eddington as a great man with deep philosophical beliefs and unorthodox views on how the laws of science might change i.e., it was not clear whether he was morally right in “putting down” a young man so thoroughly and consistently, but it was not clear either till much later that he was scientifically wrong. However, in 1946 I was a graduate student in physics, not in astrophysics, my thesis advisor was Rudolf Peierls and it was clear that Eddington was wrong right from the start! At least this was the situation with two very specific papers of Eddington’s.

These two papers(Eddington 1935a and 1935b) were mainly concerned with the laws of physics in existence at the time, especially quantum mechanics and special relativity, not with philosophy or the future (in one of them there was one delightful digression into the “magic numbers” in astronomy and physics which was vintage Eddington, but this did not impinge on the main text). There were two aspects to these papers: (i) they pointed out genuine difficulties that would be faced if one
wanted to carry out very rigorous and very accurate calculations, and (ii) an explicit calculation of the equation of state for relativistic electrons as Fermi-Dirac particles which not only gave the wrong result but consisted of sheer nonsense or double-talk or both! An example of (i) was how to treat Dirac electrons under high pressurewhen they are not free particles but are confined by a strong gravitational field. My thesis advisor had solved this problem within a year (Peierls 1936), although it was not a trivially simple calculation. And I have worried off and on over the last 50 years about (ii). Eddington was a great man and on some level of consciousness he must have known he had written nonsense — how could he live with himself and how could two respectable journals publish such papers? I have felt that much of the answer stems from the genuine problems in (i) obscuring the treatment in (ii).I consider the juxtaposition of macroscopic and several microscopic complications in one problem a particularly exciting challenge for a theorist.

One of the greatest examples is Alfvén

Alfvén became active in interplanetary and magnetospheric physics at a time when a contrary viewpoint prevailed. Alfvén's views were consistent with those of the founder of magnetospheric physics, the great Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland. At the end of the nineteenth century Birkeland had laid out a compelling case-supported by theory, laboratory experiments, polar expeditions, and a chain of magnetic-field "observatories" around the world -that electric currents flowing down along the earth's magnetic fields into the atmosphere were the cause of the aurora and polar magnetic disturbances.

However, in the decades following Birkeland's death in 1917, Chapman became the acknowledged leader in interplanetary and magnetospheric physics. Chapman proposed, in contradistinction to Birkeland's ideas, that currents were restricted to flow only in the ionosphere with no downflowing currents. Chapman's theory was so mathematically elegant that it gained wide acceptance over the Birkeland theory. Based on Chapman's theory, algebraic expressions of the ionospheric current system could, with complete mathematical rigor, be derived by any student of the subject. Birkeland's ideas might have faded completely had it not been for Hannes Alfvén, who became involved well after Chapman's ideas gained predominance. Alfvén kept insisting that Birkeland's current system made more sense because downflowing currents following the earth's magnetic field lines were required to drive most of the ionospheric currents. The issue was not settled until 1974, four years after Chapman's death, when earth satellites measured downflowing currents for the first time.

This story was typical of the difficulties Alfvén faced in his scientific career. Interplanetary space was commonly considered to be a good vacuum, disturbed only by occasional comets. This viewpoint was widely accepted because space "looked" that way, having been viewed only by using telescopes at optical wavelengths. In contrast, the electrical currents proposed by Alfvén generated a telltale signature only in the radio portions of the electromagnetic spectrum so they had not yet been observed. Thus Alfvén's proposal that there were electrical currents in space was received with great skepticism.

And as we see published in Science and reported in the New Scientist .

Elusive magnetic ripples called Alfvén waves have been spotted shimmering in the Sun's outer atmosphere, or corona, for the first time. The waves travel 10 times faster than the speed of sound and may help crack the mystery of why the corona is so much hotter than the Sun's visible surface.

At 2 million degrees Celsius, the corona is hundreds of times hotter than the Sun's visible surface, which lies beneath it and simmers at a mere 5000° C. But figuring out what injects so much heat into the corona has eluded scientists for decades.

One idea is that the corona is heated by magnetic ripples called Alfvén waves. These waves – which had been observed in the solar wind but never in the corona – are vibrations of the Sun's magnetic field lines.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtMyfuNOr6M

Returning to Thomas Gold

I sometimes wonder if the much encouraged and proclaimed interaction among western astronomers leads to a form of mental herd behavior which, if it does not actually put a clamp upon free thinking, insidiously applies the pressure to follow the fashion. This makes the writings of our Soviet colleagues who have partly developed ideas in comparative isolation all the more valuable.

Yes, I have wondered whether one should in fact pursue subjects with a big wall between two groups that are working in the same field, so that they absolutely cannot communicate, and see a few years later whether they come even approximately to the same conclusion. It would then give some perspective of how much the herd behavior may have been hurting. But we don't have that. Even with our Soviet colleagues, unfortunately, we have too much contact to have a display of real independence, to see where it would have led.

Transformation of Alfven waves and the effective propagation without dampening in loops and coronal heating is described in the Soviet literature by

Pickelner s And Liftshitz M 1964 Astron J 41 1887 (in Russian)
Pickelner S 1966 The principles of Cosmic Electrodynamics p 407(in Russian)

Just because it is not known or published in Western literature does not preclude the theory being less important then the “consensus’

Indeed the publications of the Royal society and in the US put cosmology down a blind alley for 30 years.

Or as American Scientist says

It appears that everybody is interested in cosmology. In one anthropological study, every one of the more than 60 separate cultures examined was found to have several common characteristics, including "faith healing, luck superstitions, propitiation of supernatural beings, … and a cosmology." Apparently, to be human is to care how the physical world came to be, whether it has boundaries and what is to become of it. Modern cosmology is a highly sophisticated subject funded by governments with hundreds of millions of dollars a year. It is unquestionably interesting, but is it, even in its modern guise, convincing?

The current Big Bang paradigm has it that the cosmos is expanding out of an initially dense state and that by looking outward into space, one can, thanks to the finite speed of light, look back to much earlier epochs. This understanding owes much to two accidents: astronomers' discovery of redshifts in the spectra of distant nebulae and the fortuitous detection of an omnipresent background of microwave noise, which is believed to be the remnant of radiation from a hot and distant past. Set in the theoretical framework of Einstein's general theory of relativity, such observations lead to a model that makes predictions and can thus be tested.

Of late, there has been much excitement over precision measurements of the cosmic background radiation and the discovery of very distant galaxies of great antiquity. There is even talk of a "concordance model" in which all of the observations come together to paint a coherent picture of how the universe must be constructed.

Alfven has some strong views on this

To Alfvén, the problems being raised were not surprising. "I have never thought that you could obtain the extremely clumpy, heterogeneous universe we have today, strongly affected by plasma processes, from the smooth, homogeneous one of the Big Bang, dominated by gravitation."

The problem with the Big Bang, Alfvén believed, is similar to that with Chapman's theories, which the scientific community accepted mistakenly for decades: Astrophysicists have tried too hard to extrapolate the origin of the universe from mathematical theories developed on the blackboard. The appeal of the Big Bang, said Alfvén, has been more ideological than scientific. When men think about the universe, there is always a conflict between the mythical approach and the empirical scientific approach. In myth, one tries to deduce how the gods must have created the world - what perfect principles must have been used."

To Alfvén, the Big Bang was a myth - a myth devised to explain creation. "I was there when Abbe Georges Lemaitre first proposed this theory," he recalled. Lemaitre was, at the time, both a member of the Catholic hierarchy and an accomplished scientist. He said in private that this theory was a way to reconcile science with St. Thomas Aquinas' theological dictum of creatio ex nihilo or creation out of nothing.

2007-08-25T16:27:00.000-07:00

Younger Dryas Climate Tipping Point Tossed in Bin

The Younger Dryas occurred as an Ice Age was ending. As the climate began to warm, a huge and sudden rush of fresh meltwater broke out from the Great Lakes and swept out to sea. The water surge was monumental enough that the meltwater lowered the salinity of the ocean, shut down the Atlantic conveyor currents, which disperse the planet's heat, and threw the northern hemisphere back into another thousand years of Ice Age. It raised temperatures near Greenland by a startling 15 degrees C, even as it doubled annual rainfall.

Modern climatologists have savored the Younger Dryas event as massive evidence of what comes when we push the planet's climate too close to a "tipping point." Further human-driven warming, they say, will make such abrupt climate changes more likely, with searing droughts, torrential rainfall, and extreme heat.

The National Academy of Sciences issued a 2002 report titled Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises, which said abrupt climate changes have been especially common when the climate system was being forced to change most rapidly. According to that theory, greenhouse warming today could be drastically increasing risks from climate change.

Arbitary assumptions from the “model makers” and their creationist theories of a “steady state planet”

The NSF have released an interesting article on a ‘Hammer of God” event that provides evidence that the model makers are wrong and an “extraterrestrial event” in the form of a comet was the precursor event.

New scientific findings suggest that a large comet may have exploded over North America 12,900 years ago, explaining riddles that scientists have wrestled with for decades, including an abrupt cooling of much of the planet and the extinction of large mammals.

The discovery was made by scientists from the University of California at Santa Barbara and their colleagues. James Kennett, a paleoceanographer at the university, said that the discovery may explain some of the highly debated geologic controversies of recent decades.

The period in question is called the Younger Dryas, an interval of abrupt cooling that lasted for about 1,000 years and occurred at the beginning of an inter-glacial warm period. Evidence for the temperature change is recorded in marine sediments and ice cores.

According to the scientists, the comet before fragmentation must have been about four kilometers across, and either exploded in the atmosphere or had fragments hit the Laurentide ice sheet in northeastern North America.

Wildfires across the continent would have resulted from the fiery impact, killing off vegetation that was the food supply of many of larger mammals like the woolly mammoths, causing them to go extinct.

Since the Clovis people of North America hunted the mammoths as a major source of their food, they too would have been affected by the impact. Their culture eventually died out.

The scientific team visited more than a dozen archaeological sites in North America, where they found high concentrations of iridium, an element that is rare on Earth and is almost exclusively associated with extraterrestrial objects such as comets and meteorites.

They also found metallic microspherules in the comet fragments; these microspherules contained nano-diamonds. The comet also carried carbon molecules called fullerenes (buckyballs), with gases trapped inside that indicated an extraterrestrial origin.

The team concluded that the impact of the comet likely destabilized a large portion of the Laurentide ice sheet, causing a high volume of freshwater to flow into the north Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.

"This, in turn, would have caused a major disruption of the ocean's circulation, leading to a cooler atmosphere and the glaciation of the Younger Dryas period," said Kennett. "We found evidence of the impact as far west as the Santa Barbara Channel Islands."

Of course we have nothing to worry about as near-Earth objects (NEOs) have been detected, primarily by ground-based optical searches, in the size range between 10 meters and 30 kilometers, out of a total estimated population of about one million; some information about the physical size and composition of these NEOs is available for only 300 objects. The total number of objects a kilometer in diameter or larger, a size that could cause global catastrophe upon Earth impact, is now estimated to range between 900 and 1,230.

2007-08-19T12:16:00.000-07:00

Greening your nether regions

How green can you be.Recycle your vibrator.