I thought I’d cover another science topic today, after this week’s fill of politics. Most of you have probably heard mention of Milanković Cycles (the spelling usually Anglicized to Milankovitch Cycles) in relation to the study of the earth’s climate. Today I’ll explain what they are, and why they’re relevant to the CAGW debate.
Those of you with training in the physical sciences will regard what follows as old hat, and are free to continue your darts match in the corner. Everyone else, grab a drink and gather round.
Milutin Milanković (1879-1958) was a Serbian civil engineer who, having been interned by the Austro-Hungarian army at the beginning of the First World War and given a job in the library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, found himself with a lot of free time on his hands. Bored, he started wondering about the variations of the earth’s orbit about the sun, and what effect they might have on the earth’s climate (now that’s really bored).
Bored Guy: Milutin Milanković
If you’ve done any high-school physics, you’ll know that the earth’s orbit around the sun isn’t quite circular; since Johannes Kepler’s 1609 Astronomia Nova (a reprint of which sits, rather pretentiously, on my bookshelf) we’ve known the orbits of the planets tend to be slightly elliptical (an ellipse is a flattened circle, with two focal points as opposed to a circle’s centre. The sun sits at one of these foci. You can wiki it all here).
What you probably weren’t told in high-school physics is that the shape of the earth’s orbit isn’t quite a perfect ellipse, nor does it remain constant. Situated in a wildly chaotic universe, it’s subject to numerous fluctuations; some periodic and predictable, some not. Most are too small to be of any importance, but Milanković identified the three most significant ones:
Eccentricity. This is a measure of how flattened an ellipse is. An ellipse with an eccentricity of zero is actually a circle. The earth’s orbital eccentricity varies between about 0.005 and 0.05, predominantly in two superimposed oscillations of 100,000 and 400,000 years. The 100,000 year one is the most important Milankovitch cycle, as we’ll get to later.
Milankovitch Cycles: Eccentricity
This is important because, firstly, at some times the earth is closer to the sun, and at others further away, and secondly, because it skews the lengths of the seasons (as measured by the astronomical equinoxes and solstices). These variations have the effect of changing the insolation at any given point on the earth’s surface (insolation being a term coined very late one night many years ago, when an extremely drunk physicist stood up on a pub table and attempted to pronounce incident solar radiation. Why can’t modern physicists hold their booze? But I’m straying into another thread).
Obliquity. Not only does the earth’s elliptical orbital shape vary, but so does its axial tilt. You’re all aware, I’m sure, that the earth’s axis of rotation is tilted about 23½ degrees from the perpendicular, with respect to the ecliptic (plane of orbit). This is what gives the northern and southern hemispheres opposite seasons; why, in other words, I’m freezing my arse off as I sit here in Tasmania typing this, while most of you are luxuriating in a supposed barbecue summer. Why hasn’t anyone told people on the Californian coast?
This 23½ degree figure changes over time; it actually oscillates between about 22° and 24½°, with a period of about 41,000 years. Which means, I guess, if Club Med’s tropical resorts are around long enough, someone’s eventually gonna sue them for false advertising.
Milankovitch Cycles: Obliquity
Precession of the axes. Ever watch a spinning top? As the top slows, the axis of rotation itself starts revolving about the vertical. The earth’s axis does much the same thing, as this diagram illustrates:
What this means is that the equinoxes move a little west every year, with respect to the fixed stars; therefore at some times the northern summer occurs at the perihelion (closest approach of earth to sun), so northern summers are more “insolated” (read hotter) than southern summers; at other times vice versa. A complete such cycle of the earth’s axis takes about 26,000 years. Gravitational interactions with Jupiter and Saturn, though, cause a precession of the orbit’s ellipse itself (apsidal precession), meaning the effect you see in the diagram above actually takes closer to 21,000 years. Those of you with permanent time-share holiday accommodation, consider yourselves warned.
So, what does all this have to do with Global Warming?
If you’ve been following the preceding discussion, you’ll see that the amount of solar radiation hitting the earth’s surface has varied over history, being a function of solar output, distance from the earth to the sun and, at any particular point on the earth’s surface, the angle to the sun measured by the tilt of the earth’s axis. As we’re able to calculate historical insolation (we believe) to a fair degree of accuracy, we can then compare the effects of the Milankovitch Cycles to the history of the earth’s climate, and draw some conclusions about their effects. Look what happens when we put the graphs of the Milankovitch Cycles, together with their derived insolation (solar forcing) next to the history of glaciation, as inferred from the Vostok ice cores:
Note particularly the 100,000 year oscillation (blue line), compared to glaciation. Pretty obvious, isn’t it? What it amounts to is this: when the earth’s orbit is nearly circular, the seasons are more even; currently there is about a 6% difference in insolation between aphelion (furthest point on the orbit from the sun) and perihelion (nearest point). Conversely, when the earth’s orbit is more elliptical, that difference can be in the order of 25%. Furthermore, something called the Stefan-Boltzmann Law magnifies the emissivity (heat radiated back out to space) as temperature difference to the fourth power; meaning, for example, that a drop of temperature from 22°C to 12°C will result in a percentage change in grey-body emissivity of… anyone?…
Izen! Bring your crayons over here and work it out on the board for us while we talk, there’s a good fellow?
It’s more complicated than that, of course, but you can see why many scientists believe that long-term trends in the earth’s climate are driven primarily by the Milankovitch Cycles. Try fighting them.
*****
Yeah, yeah, OK Ozboy, but what about the exploding chook shed? When are you going to get to that bit?
Oh, all right, very well, if you insist—but it’s not a very pleasant tale. You see, the evangelists of Global Warming keep telling me that the Milankovitch cycles are irrelevant in explaining more recent shifts in the earth’s climate; that in fact, my little corner of the world is set to become hotter, and drier—and it’s all my own fault, apparently. Never mind that last year my rain gauge recorded over 1,200 millimetres—nearly double the local long-term average.
This year had been drier however, about 30% less rain at this date then we would have had normally. Maybe it’s all true, I thought. Maybe, maybe I really am contributing to Global Warming, drought, famine and misery. Gosh… I’ve been wrong all along! Quick—what can I do to fight climate change? To save the planet? What protest marches can I join? What—
And at that point, God unzipped, and took a leak on my head.
At least, that’s what it felt like. One hundred and fifty millimetres (six inches) of rain in a single day: a record in my lifetime. Just walking about on my property became difficult, as boots would sink up to the ankles in mud and become stuck.
About a hundred metres away from my house, there’s an old chook shed. It was built from rough-cut logs hewn locally, and roofed with corrugated sheet iron. Mrs Oz and I had done some work on it recently, and were planning to move our chooks (sorry, Aussie slang: chickens) into it by the end of this year. Next to the shed, a few metres up a gentle slope, stood a tree. A rather big tree, even by Tasmanian standards. Both shed and tree have stood since the property was first gazetted, over 40 years ago. Both had endured everything the elements have thrown at them over the decades, but 14,000 tons of water dropped on the Ozboy estate in a single day was more than even our sandy and exceptionally well-draining soil could cope with; hypersaturated, it gradually took on greater and greater fluid properties, until on Wednesday night we were awoken with an almighty BANG…
Former Chook Shed (axe shows scale): Isn't the climate supposed to be getting dryer?
The Domino Effect (almost): errant tree came close to threatening an even BIGGER tree, whose fall would have had disastrous consequences. When the hell is AGW going to arrive?
My chook shed, as I’m sure John Cleese would eulogize, is no more. It has expired. It has ceased to be.
God is subtle, quipped Einstein, but never malicious.
There are days, however, when this chronicler, for one, believes neither.
Be Responsible - Be Free! 
It is wet and cold in the UK as well, this must be the dawning of the Age of Aquarius…
Or it is another HOTTEST EVER (Just in a cold wet way) summer?
NoIdea
Ozboy,
Thanks for the decipherable translation of why my running the spare beer fridge isn’t going to destroy the planet.
Your chook shed serves to illustrate why Green Policies actually kill people.
About 40 years ago a work colleague had a horrifying experience. He lived in a northern Sydney beach suburb and had wanted to have a giant gum tree removed from his property, mostly because its falling leaves and bark were clogging up his roof guttering, and this was the era when local councils started getting “touchy/feely” about saving trees and a permit for removal was required. Permission was refused.
One night, after an extended period of soaking rain (as you’ve described) followed by high winds, that tree came crashing through the roof of his house. He said “something” woke him a split second before and for some unknown reason he rolled out of bed to the floor just as the giant tree smashed through the ceiling, a branch skewered through his sleeping wife, through the bed and into the floor. She was pinned there for a long time as rescuers tried to free her, in total blackness and pouring rain.
She survived, spending many months in hospital and suffering grave injuries.
In more recent years a Victorian couple applied to have a tree removed fearing its proximity to their house and council refused permission. Predictably, the tree crashed on their home killing the husband. The widow sued the council but nobody was found to be culpable, despite a long paper-trail showing repeated efforts to remove the tree.
It’s all very well for the likes of Green Christine Milne (as shown in your link) to wax lyrical about mung beans and hen houses, but the true impact of their “preserve everything at all costs” policies entirely escapes them. People have died and their lives ruined by the Panda Brigade. Their response? Sh*t happens.
Thanks again Ozboy, you’ve helped a lot of us to grasp this issue and render the “Co2 is a pollutant” Farce to be even more criminal in its implications.
Oz
Sorry about your flat shed.
No doubt the insurance company will cite Global warming and the Milankovitch cycle as the cause.
The insurance company could confiscate the tree and charge you for its removal in this bad world.
Hopefully this is just a bad dream and you will have fire logs for many a future cold winter.
The serious point however it that insurance companies are designed never to pay out and in the near future Global Warming or Climate Change —— Whichever they think they can get away with, will be used as a clause for non payment.
In the UK households who have suffered floods over the last few years are finding it increasingly difficult to get insurance at any price. Perhaps even your sandy soil is the wrong kind of soil to grow trees or build sheds.
Pleased though you your family and the chooks all survived though.
OzBoy, you’re in the company of James Hansen here. He has long attributed periodic ice ages to the Milankovic cycles. Trouble is…the numbers don’t line up all that nicely to yield a tight correlation. I have little doubt that these natural oscillations affect global climate in some manner but I’m not totally convinced. You also neglected to mention our position in the galaxy.
Hansen used the Milankovic cycles to explain away past climate variations while asserting that any variation in the last 100 years or so simply HAD to be due to mankind’s influence on climate. From the perspective of the present day CAGW imbroglio, I prefer to focus on what we know (or don’t know) about the last 1,000 years of climate history. I will be long dead by the year 2100. I suspect my friend’s grandchildren will dead (or near death) by the year 2100. I am more concerned about the here and now…or the now and 30 or 40 years from now. I want answers to the central question – can mankind really affect global climate?
The short answer (to date) is, theoretically yes…by a little bit after a long while…if nothing else changes. Could this anthropogenic influence be utterly eclipsed by natural variation? Answer…YEP! Is there any real world evidence that raising atmospheric CO2 concentrations to, oh, say 800 ppm would have any appreciable effect on global climate ? Not so far.
The motivations behind this CAGW fraud are financial and political. They have nothing to do with “saving the planet”. A better question…realistically, is there any damn thing we can possibly do about climate change? Not really. We could freeze to death in caves for 30 years and hardly make any appreciable impact on atmospheric CO2 concentration. Politicians can’t control the movement of the Earth, the radiation of the sun, the interaction of the atmosphere with deep space, the wind, the rain, the clouds or the currents in the oceans. What’s left? CO2…and from the perspective of an antihumanist or a politician, this is a DANDY thing to control.
Let me just ask this. I don’t have children so I’m completely selfish in this regard. But what would be worse – leaving your children’s children with a world that is vastly poorer and less developed…or with a world that is a couple degrees warmer? Think back to the year 1920 and consider the technological revolutions in the last 90 years. Does anybody think we will be producing and using energy the same way 90 years from now as we do today?
Oh…Good Morning, by the way.
Dave
G’day Dave, always a pleasure to see you here and read your contributions.
You’re absolutely right, I didn’t mention the sun’s motion through the galaxy, nor did I a number of other factors, such as comets, than can influence earth’s orbit about the sun. The three I have discussed—eccentricity, obliquity, and precession—are the principal ones enumerated in most online articles on this topic; as I mentioned at the top, there are many others.
For what it’s worth, my own pet theory on why the 100,000 year cycles don’t correspond neatly to glaciation is that a) reversals of the earth’s magnetic field—which have a similar periodicity—are somehow involved, and b) we’re due for another reversal any time now, with potentially catastrophic effects, particularly on modern technology – Oz
Hey Ozboy,
Your financial future is assured……yippee!!
Farmers’ climate change lure
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/election/farmers-climate-change-lure/story-fn5zm695-1225905104104
Note how little detail is involved.
Well looking at the graphs we are about to slide into an ice age fairly soon in geologic terms it usually gets very hot before a plummet in the temperatures so if you live another 1000 years you may just get to see the next ice age.
Currently the only BBQ that is happening is that of people getting roasted we have another week or so of this and dearly need a hurricane to come through the gulf to move the high pressure mass out of the way. We have already had 15 deaths because of the heat.
Funny thing about weather and time of day. Here is is about dinnertime (yesterday for those of you in Australia). The weather is sunny, about 32 degrees C, the humidity about 15%. I’m thinking about firing up the charcoal in the ol’ Weber (grill) and preparing cheeseburgers (with New Mexican green chile) and fresh sweet corn for dinner. Got a cold one at my side even as I speak…uhh…type.
Ya’ll have a wonderful weekend!
Foamy the squirrel Go green rant…
Caution strong language.
Ozboy: I am really excited by your article, but as it is the end of the day and my brain is glazing over, I’ve taken in only half of it and want to give it my full and fully sober attention tomorrow. However, it’s obvious already that I shall learn from your piece (excellent show-and-tell, by the way) and enjoy my new learning, as well. This is a really, really first-class site, and I thank you for giving so much time and effort to it. My only question: Where’s that Donate button?
Off-topic: I happened to notice, in looking through a previous thread, that Blackswan mentioned my wetsuit and something about wiggling into it. ‘Wiggling’ is what you do in a sleeping-bag; in this case it would be more like Battle of the Titans, or me against Zeus in neoprene form. Actually this may be a great form of exercise: get into your wetsuit over half an hour, then desperately get yourself out of it. Three reps would be more than enough!
Actually, I have to tell you guys: one time I was shopping in a designer boutique called Georgiou (in the World Financial Center). Hubby was lurking somewhere in the store (probably looking out the window to the World Trade Center). I was in the fitting room, trying on a dress. Well, I tried to take it off and got stuck. After a little while Mr A wondered what was going on, so he went into the dressing room (I was the only customer at the time), and I said, ‘god help me get this damn thing off!’ It was twisted around me this way and that, and respiration was becoming something of a problem. Anyway, between the two of us we managed it. Ever since then, I’ve been wary of short zips and anything tight….
Crown: I saw earlier that you stuck up for Florida’s honour: thank you. Let’s hear it for The South!
Amanda the south shall rise again well it would if people could actually drive well when it gets sunny unless that’s a Memphis thing where the driving rest consists of driving 100 yards on a small track and answering 20 out of 25 multiple choice questions correctly.
I went in for my learners permit and walked out with my drivers license. Only in Memphis I suppose we even dumbed down the driving test.
As for my Foamy the Squirrel it’s an acquired taste and the language can be bad so I have only posted the milder stuff so watch at your peril.
Thank you, Crown: being a person of refined tastes and maidenly blushes, I shall take your warning and give it a miss.
By the way, I’d rather the Memphis test than the English one, for which any life is far too short: backing round a corner past a pond up a hillside through a graveyard is more driver manoeuvering than I ever want to do or think wise!
Amanda well I do not want anyone to be offended but it’s more of a guy thing that cartoon and I think Walt would like it. The regular cartoons can be bad and offensive but the rants by the squirrel on various subjects are just darned funny.
I never got around to getting my drivers license in England as I could get around with my legs or public transport which turned out to be quicker than actually driving at the time.
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Amanda also had the grandbairn over and today he was not so cranky and I got him to laugh and smile a lot by making funny faces and funny high pitched voices. For some reason he likes Fox news but then again the ceiling fan is amazing.
Crown, :^) I just hope he grows up to be rather like you…
The way the driving process is, legging would be quicker than driving even now…
I was too chicken to take my test in the end — couldn’t back round a corner two inches from the curb at all times to save my life — but Chris passed with a full bladder (no loos at the test site) while tilting his head back with a nose-bleed: some people are just good, know what I mean? So now I’m an Englishwoman with only an expired learner’s permit, but my New York-born husband is the bees’ knees on any road in England….
I meant ‘the way the testing process is’
Amanda….Crown, :^) I just hope he grows up to be rather like you…
Oh gosh I hope not.
Or should that be ‘kerb’… You see why I had trouble in England… I’m too ambi-national, but not always in the same proportion.
Why not? He’ll have a heart of gold, a good mind, and some outstanding nurgles on his hairdo. What could be better?
Oh, but I ought to add that I passed my test in Canada (stick shift, too, not automatic) and have a Texas license. Just not a UK one.
G’day Crown, Amanda….
Your discussion of driving tests sounds so weird to me.
In Oz “learners” learn on the road, and take their driving tests on the road.
A Traffic Inspector hops in with the aspirant and off they go into the traffic. Learners have a log book and have to have (I think) about 100 or 150 hours of instruction signed off by the accompanying licensed driver, all in ordinary traffic. There’s no test track.
Amanda, who (in their right mind) would have anyone reverse around any corner for any reason. As though that exercise would come in handy anytime. Is it even legal?
I’ve only known one person over the age of 18 who doesn’t drive. Shows why Aussies are always berated by the Greens as having the largest carbon footprint per capita…LOL we drive everywhere. Probably because our public transport system is so unreliable and expensive. Tasmania closed down the passenger rail system years ago and now we only use it for freight.
G’day Blackswan:
Most people I think don’t test on a track. Canada, USA anyway: it’s highways and byways and real roads. Chris (Mr A) did his first test in Florida on some Disneyland mock-up but I don’t understand why; anyway he drives just fine.
Actually, much as I resented it at the time, in England it IS useful to be able to back up: Chris and I were confronted by a big truck in a country lane one time, and by golly, Chris had to back up round a corner up some little driveway to let the big truck pass. But yes: it’s not safe to do if you can possibly avoid it. I didn’t think it ought to be part of the test.
As for public transport: who can wait for the bus to show up, to pull up, and to huff an puff its way to your destination? I’ve taken plenty of buses, trams, and subways in my time — New York, London, Toronto, Bath etc. — and I pretty much hate public transportation. Lefties love it either because they’re too cheap for taxis or they live in NY and it’s part of the scene or they never take it so they can wax lyrical about it. You know: ‘one rule for me the enlightened, another for the benighted masses’.
Amanda and Blackswan the test in Memphis had to be changed because it would be racist to actually enforce the Tennessee driving test. That says a lot about this city and why it sucks. Also why why effer can drive here no one knows how to signal and crossing three lanes of traffic is a good idea.
Hallo,
if you like the idea of Milankovitch cycles you might also like this idea from Dr Richard Muller at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory:
http://www.muller.lbl.gov/
click on the link “Glacial Cycles”
“We present an alternative theory: that the climate is related to changes in the Earth’s orbital inclination, and to varying extraterrestrial accretion as the orbit moves in and out of the Sun’s Zodiacal ring.”
Welcome asmilwho!
Hello Ozboy !
An excellent post !
Er, as a matter of interest, ‘insolation’ is a fine French word, too. (grin).
It means, more or less, ‘heat prostration’ (at least in SoCal). (wider grin)
Best,
L’Amerloque
Amerloque 20100814 09h45 Paris time (CET)
Omerta.
Of post normal science.
Sorry Oz but feel I have to disseminate this little gem of intransigence and ‘closed shop’ attitudes which pervade the AGW (BS) conjecture.
“It appears that Bob Carter is representative of the group of the relatively little-published 2% group of scientists who generally are not mainly working in real climate science (Bob Carter is a geologist not a climate scientist, and is published in You-tube and popular magazines, not peer-reviewed journals), who oppose the real climate science consensus. This appears to be correct based on your notice of the meeting and his website. In this case he does not deserve equal time to the 98% of scientists regularly published on climate change in peer-reviewed journals. There is no counter consensus! I question the wisdom of giving this man the Engineers Australia podium.”
https://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2010/08/closing-out-dissent
People who oppose the ‘consensus’ have to use alternative mediums with which to air their views, because of the ‘closed shop’ mentality of these post normal nutters.
Though, these days would a reputable scientist necessarily be desirous of having an article published in say, Nature or the New Scientist – one’s credibility would be shot away, would it not?
IMHO because he is a ‘Geologist’ that makes him all the more credible, climatology is in the same category as Alchemy and Astrology – a humanities based subject not in any way related to the study of pure sciences.
Ed.
The previous preferred term was “non-person”; I presume Professor Carter is now a “non-scientist” – Oz
New app’s here:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/storage/ipanic.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1281721027532
With thanks to Bishop Hill and Josh.
Izen? Izen? Izen!
Where the hell has he gone?
Slightly off topic but with due deference to Ozboys almost chuckie shed we now have sticks, henceforth to be called Milankovitch sticks.
Sticks
Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me!
How true but it seems in our namby pamby pc world, words out of place get us fines and even thrown into jail.
We are surrounded by sticks:-
Match sticks, Broom sticks, Candle sticks, Joss sticks, Bean sticks, Walking sticks, Data sticks, Dowsing sticks, Gear Sticks, Joy Sticks, Flagellation sticks, Yard sticks, Stirring sticks, Punishment sticks, Riding sticks, Bread sticks, Tooth sticks, Cocktail sticks, Hockey sticks, Polo sticks, Measuring sticks, Sticks of rock, Sticks of Dynamite, Stick insects and so on.
Of these Data sticks are perhaps the least understood by the public, 1meg, 2meg, 4meg, 8meg and all the way to 32meg are not only achievable but 8megs sticks and below are now incredibly cheap. These sticks are so common place that they are taken for granted in terms of their data capacity when used not only with pc’s but TV’s, Cameras, Video cameras, mp3 players, mp4 players and e books.
Data sticks provide an ideal transfer medium which via the common usb interface always can be hosted on the ubiquitous pc, our digital technology workhorse. A whole library of books, an impossible number of songs or 100’s of videos are easily stored, analysed and transferred with impunity.
Data bases like those lost by government of National Insurance details or Medical records or a store which lost a large quantity of transaction and credit card details are the sticks available to the criminals to beat us with.
Data like the leaked Climategate emails are trivial to a data stick as well as other items like the topical 9100 Afghan intelligence reports are easily accommodated. In fact Data sticks are a technology minefield and almost indestructible (one of mine went through the full washing machine cycle and after drying on a radiator still worked ok) Data can also be recovered from such devices even after overwriting. So be warned with sensitive or personal data, the only solution as with hard discs is to drive over them with the car or similar.
The world has become adept even obsessed with collecting data, and processing that data, it’s what computers do best! The great danger is to use computers via simulators to draw conclusions from that data, the equivalent of mixing cordon bleu ingredients in a cement mixer and expecting an appetising result. The Milankovitch cycle above has been based on data collected and interpreted by humans leading to a sound visible theory, unlike AGW where only incomplete or manipulated data has been fed into the same cement mixer and come out with rather smelly and dubious conclusions.
One final stick however the stick the AGW brigade wield against ‘deniers’, ‘flat earthers’ and ‘sceptics’ is but a soft stick which will never hurt us, regardless of how often it is raised against us. Ultimately it is us who will beat them by the force of logic and truth.
Man on the Moor
I KNEW there was something from the previous thread that I meant to go back to, but got side-tracked.
Begging your pardon NoIdea, but it’s just TOO important so I’m reposting it here…….
NoIdea says:
August 14, 2010 at 3:39 am
More dodgy temperature records, apologies if this link has been mentioned already.
http://www.climatechangefraud.com/climate-reports/7491-official-satellite-failure-means-decade-of-global-warming-data-doubtful
From a quote by NOAA’s Chuck Pistis (a newt?) I was intrigued to note that a service had been arranged to monitor coats. “since the inauguration of our Coatwatch service in 1994. I have never seen one like this.”
What is it with melons and coats that cause them so much confusion?
I’m wondering why this isn’t making Headlines, just like the CRU Emails.
These temps have been cited ad nauseum to justify CAGW.
On these threads we’ve seen Brewster (er, izent’it?) and his little apprentice BJE harping about this “measurable” PROOF of AGW Fact.
Turns out there is so much Trash chucked in with legitimate temps, that the Whole lot of it should be considered Contaminated and Worthless.
And not a peep in the MSM.
Edward. said at August 14, 2010 at 6:35 pm […] iBurn[…]
ROFL! See also “Scorchio” (From Channel 9 news in the 1980s)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctaszjeaDK0 (fast forward to 2:40 for the meteo)
Blackswan Tasmania said: August 14, 2010 at 7:48 pm
My first reading when this came up was that it was a one-off glitch in data processing or fancy WEB or TV graphics which caused totally crazy temperatures (600F in Egg Bay according to Coatwatch) to appear on the online system on one or days and I didn’t pay much attention. A public relations nightmare perhaps, and a few guffaws, but not a major mistake either in the raw data or the preceding data nor deliberate intent to deceive, and not a Climategate II. From what you say, the whole data really is suspect or even trash. Is this true? Should I update my first reading?
Main article:
Locusts says: August 14, 2010 at 6:36 pm Izen? Izen? Izen!
If I may pick up this orange-flavoured earwax-tainted crayon for a moment…
A 10 degree drop from 22° C to 12°C is a drop of 10K starting from 295K (degC=degK-273). So for a black body, according to Stefan’s Law, the percentage power being radiated drops by the following amount:
((295^4-284^4)/(295^4))*100, which is about 13%. (Rule of thumb: small percentage change in radiation is four times small percentage change in absolute temperature.) (NB: it’s all absolute temperatures, not temperature “differences”.)
This is all a bit crude, and the climatologists would point out that the emissivity (which for a black body is 1, and for the Earth varies around 0.8?) should be taken into account in a big way, especially as a 10 K drop in temperature would make the white bits at the poles and the high bits extend rather a long way down.
This would make a good introduction to climate for A-level kiddies: the mere fact that you can make any numerical estimate, however crude, of the planetary outer temperature based merely on astronomical distances and insolation and Stefan’s constant and albedo seems to amaze them; perhaps being brought up from babyhood on a diet of sound-bites doesn’t help.
I wouldn’t worry them yet about not-quite-elliptical orbits though. And I understand that the current models predict a thousand years or so for the magnetic field to toggle. And a very messy process it is, though it doesn’t seem to worry the humans.
(Anyone else for the crayon?)
Oz…another great post.
I guess you now have a large supply of pre-prepared spatchcock chicken…
http://www.reallynicerecipes.com/recipe/poultry/spatchcock
suffolkboy says:
August 14, 2010 at 7:58 pm
G’day Suffolkboy,
I don’t know enough about the “science” to argue too much about it, but I’ve watched others argue back and forth, and they claim that these figures indicate “trends”, averages etc etc.
If such nonsensical temps as 600 or 700 degs have been automatically factored into those equations, surely they MUST be seriously compromised. If those figures were automatically fed into CRU computer models, they MUST have warped the predictions for the future, as wouldn’t the distortion they cause have increased exponentially the longer the time-frame extended?
If such “glitches” were insignificant and of no import, why have ALL the temp records been taken off-line.
I need blokes like you to put stuff like this into context. If you say it “duzzen madda” – I’m good with that, but I only operate on old-fashioned common sense, and it just seems to me such distortions fed into computer models MUST have significant outcomes.
Am I mistaken?
Blackswan Tasmania says: August 14, 2010 at 8:34 pm
I think somebody would have spotted say +600 being put in by mistake. But I could be wrong: if it is heavily automated and averaged (with good reason) conceivably it might not show up. We should keep an eye on this.
I expect they withdrew the data while they carry out the inquiry as a precaution rather than an admission of gross FUBAR or deliberate intent to mislead. I would be seriously worried, however, if there were much more subtle inaccuracies, such as a progressive drift even of 0.01 degree over a decade, as this would introduce consistent errors equal to or greater than the changes they are trying to detect! No amount of “obvious garbage” filtering would spot that. I’d call for patience rather than jumping in with the rotten fruit at NOAA on this particular point. (PS: I’ve just noticed that wattsupwiththat are not throwing fruit as well: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/13/chicago-climate-exchange-still-flatlining-employee-cuts/ kwik at August 13, 2010 at 7:39 am)
Help!! Knowing very little apart what I pick from you guys can anyone tell me whether, in view of all the “fubar” data in the system, it will ever be possible to get ACCURATE and UNIMPEACHABLE data ever again? Seems to me everyone has to go back to square one, but exactly where is that? Where do you start?
suffolkboy says:
August 14, 2010 at 8:47 pm
Thanks suffolkboy. I was thinking “automated” feed of data. After the UEA CRU was exposed as being so slack, “losing” data et al, I don’t see them as path-finders – after all, the US DoE has already shoved US$20 million down their gullets – they are only justifying their existence. I could just imagine them sitting with their feet on the desk, allowing this “parcel” of satellite information to automatically feed into their modelling.
Can’t have scrupulous attention paid to mere details like Facts interrupt their coffee break.
Suffolkboy,
BTW, with the CCX at 10cents a ton for Carbon, Australian Greens are throwing figures such as A$30 a tonne about and nobody has challenged them.
meltemian says:
August 14, 2010 at 9:02 pm
Hi Meltemian,
My thoughts too. If it weren’t for the expertise of many contributors to Ozboy’s threads I’d be even more clueless than I am already.
Besides, they seem to be very patient about us asking them questions – that’s the best bit.
Meltemian
Don’t feel bad about feeling that way Meltemian. After the Climategate emails, and even more importantly, certain bits of computer code, were made public, several prominent scientists, not all of them “sceptics” – some quite firmly in the “warmist” camp – were saying exactly the same thing:
That on the basis of what had been revealed, the existing databases weren’t worth a fart, and it was time to go back to the beginning and do it all over again, starting with the original raw data.
That’s when it came to light that, in many cases, the original raw data had been “destroyed” cos it would have cost too much to store it.
Blackswan Tasmania says: August 14, 2010 at 9:12 pm re CCX
Hang about, we’ve leapt from temperatures to carbon prices. My understanding is that there is no natural price for carbon credits, as it is a totally artificial market based on “targets” set by bureaucrats for emissions rather than, say, how much actual carbon we have dug out of the ground. Or alternatively it is a lottery based on whether some thermometer (or average temperature) reads “0.2 up on last year”, rather along the lines of the sideshows (“guess the weight of the cake; weigh-in will be at 4pm”) in church fund-raising fetes. What seems to be happening is that a whole industry has grown up which is entirely speculation based. Consequently some people have risked billions in predicting if (or perhaps nudging) this thermometer is going to go up or down by 0.2 over ten years, and so are willing to spend millions on getting a better guess than their competitors. All I am seeing is phoney “can’t fail” betting systems and punters with large wallets and larger optimism; the science disappeared, if ever it was there, years ago. I’ll stop here before I have an apoplectic heart attack.
In terms of the corrupted data from the satellite, there is a scenario in which the data may be recovered. If the corruption was caused by onboard software and if it was consistently being corrupted, then it’s possible to correct the data by post-processing. eg If 0.5% was being added to all temperatures then simply reduce all figures by 0.5%. If it’s a detection instrumentation problem then the entire data set has to be thrown away since there can be no way of proving the hardware was consistently malfunctioning.
It’s yet another example of scientific/academic IT having little or no quality control when compared to commercial IT. Numbers flowing through commercial systems always have sanity checks automatically applied to the figures.
Pointman
G’day MV
Am I way off base? I have such a simplistic view of the world, that maybe you could feed 600 degs into a model and it wouldn’t make any difference.
Suffolkboy
Welcome to my world…LOL
My usual state is one of total confusion.
If we had no carbon price, who’d be bothering with AGW?
Carbon Credits and CRUs all over the world – an entirely symbiotic relationship.
Pointman says:
August 14, 2010 at 9:27 pm
Hi Pointy,
Thanks, that makes sense. Can you imagine if the Banking Industry had similar “glitches” – some of us could unexpectedly become millionaires overnight…LOL
Blackswan Tasmania says: August 14, 2010 at 9:32 pm: If we had no carbon price, who’d be bothering with AGW?
Spot on, if I understand you. If we hadn’t invented this market, few other than the incurably panicky would have been worried about AGW and what a thermometer is going to read in 2015. So perhaps we should stick with no carbon price. I don’t understand economics! Who sets it? What does it mean? What would happen to the market?
Taking the first Google result on “setting a price on carbon” in the last week…
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Resource-Wars/2010/08/13/Carbon-capture-needs-a-price-study/UPI-10001281714839/
Blackswan Tasmania says: Pointman says: August 14, 2010 at 9:27 pm
This is getting confusing! A banking glitch won’t make me a millionaire or bankrupt overnight. If the utility company mistakenly credit my account with $999,999 because of a computer bug, they will get it back. I don’t become a millionaire, and the banking system doesn’t fall apart because of one glitch. In the case of Egg Harbour, I would, at least initially, expect the same ideas to prevail. However, as Pointy says, “…If it’s a detection instrumentation problem [rather than a glitch] then the entire data set has to be thrown away …”. And as I think you are saying, somebody will have the tedious task of unmerging the results from any global data collection.
“… scientific/academic IT having little or no quality control when compared to commercial IT…”. That’s probably true, and the scientists are aware of it. However, what seems to be happening bizarrely is that scientists are aware of this, but other people set up elaborate gaming systems sorry commodity markets that hinge on this poor data. If I order oil for my central heating I look at the rough gauge on the tank, get the figure accurate to a few tens of litres, and order a few hundred litres. I don’t expect whole future futures derivative market to be set up and for billions to hinge on exactly how many molecules of oil might be in my tank next year.
I must go now and buy a spatchcocked chicken for my dinner.
suffolkboy August 14, 2010 at 10:07 pm
In my own optimistic way, I was pointing out possibly the single scenario that would make the data recoverable. What I didn’t go on to mention was how the data corruption will have cascaded into other data sets and polluted them by their inclusion. And it gets worse. Most of these other data sets will have been ‘normalised’ or boiled down to bottom line figures. Even in the optimistic scenario, these other data sets will have to be thrown away too. Essentially, it’s a disaster.
Pointman
Suffolkboy,
This is what I meant (tongue-in-cheek)……LOL
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30885401/
There have been numerous cases here where banks have inadvertently credited customers accounts with huge amounts of money, similarly some have had funds vaporize (and not necessarily to Nigeria).
It all gets “sorted out” eventually (unless you nick off with the cash), but then who is “sorting out” the phony data and whether its inclusion in models impacted on outcomes?
O.K. Here I go again, showing my ignorance. CCS is a method of extracting CO2 and then storing it? I don’t even begin to think I could understand how they extract it but my real problem is WHERE are they going to store it? Fuel Dumps? Under the sea? and what are they going to store it in? Seems to me a whole lot of escaping CO2 would be worse than just letting it go bit-by-bit as it is produced. That’s always supposing it’s not just “plant food” and IS bad for the environment.
Blackswan
“G’day MV
Am I way off base? I have such a simplistic view of the world, that maybe you could feed 600 degs into a model and it wouldn’t make any difference.”
You are asking the wrong person Blacky, for I am no scientist. The only science I ever quote here is the stuff I learned at high school, and even there stats were not my strong suit. I am more the record keeper of who said what before, with large dollops of what seems to me “common sense” thrown in. However, in those terms, I will try and answer you.
I would imagine, in a well kept, strictly controlled database with stringent checks and balances, a 600 deg “glitch” would set off so many alarm bells that even the cleaners and the kids playing hopscotch outside would know something was amiss.
However, let’s imagine a less than perfect database – let’s see – I’m sort of going to have to reach out into fantasy land and make this up as I go along – but let’s imagine a database that was so cockeyed that it – I don’t know – maybe it was so screwed that it gave a little “hockey-stick” kick at the end that “proved” man-made global warming no matter what figures you fed into it – even random numbers.
And let’s say – just off the top of my head mind you – that this database was so skewed that it managed to “average out” both the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age so that they never happened.
And – and I know this will sound ludicrous – but let’s say the people charged with monitoring this sort of thing – let’s give them a really official-sounding alphabet name like “IPCC” or something – let’s say that they were so inept or corrupt, or both, that they didn’t even notice that both the MWP and the LIA had disappeared, or that the database gave a hockey-stick no matter what garbage figures you fed in.
Under those circumstances, yeah, I can imagine a 600 deg “glitch could go unnoticed.
But let’s face it Swanny, we live in the REAL world. Nothing so outrageous could ever possibly happen in the REAL world, could it?
Thanks MV,
I was beginning to think I was lapsing into some sort of paranoid dementia…..LOL
Swan and MV. ROFL. I forwarded you comments to the IPCC helpdesk. Perhaps I got this response.
“There is absolutely no way the bizarre scenario you describe at August 14, 2010 at 10:42 pm could take place in our data warehouse. We have stringent data checks, peer-reviews, creative graphic designers and regular data audits from the Serious Fraud Office to ensure that only wholesome fair-trade carbon-neutral data is used in our cooking (and we ban all nuts from our data factories for your health and safety). And, should you be unsatisfied in anyway with our product, our complaints department will immediately set up a panel to wash away any unjustified concerns you may have. We also know where you live.”
Meltemian
The science of carbon capture is very simple and straightforward. You’ll find it under the same section as perpetual motion machines at your local library. It goes like this:
You have an electrical power station, fired by coal, oil or gas, that produces CO2. What you do is you take about a million tonnes of steel in the form of pipes, valves, pumping stations, pumps and motors to power the pumps (all produced by carbon-neutral technologies of course – otherwise it would defeat the purpose) and you compress the CO2 and pump it “somewhere”, where by the grace of God and green technology it stays.
Of course, to do this, you need to power the pumps, and that takes electricity. So you build an electrical power station, fired by coal, oil or gas, that produces CO2. Then you take about a million tonnes of steel in the form of pipes, valves, pumping stations, pumps and motors to power the pumps (all produced by carbon-neutral technologies of course – otherwise it would defeat the purpose) and you compress the CO2 and pump it “somewhere”, where by the grace of God and green technology it stays.
Of course, to do this, you need to power the pumps, and that takes electricity. So you build an electrical power station, fired by coal, oil or gas, that produces CO2. Then you take about a million tonnes of steel in the form of pipes, valves, pumping stations, pumps and motors to power the pumps (all produced by carbon-neutral technologies of course – otherwise it would defeat the purpose) and you compress the CO2 and pump it “somewhere”, where by the grace of God and green technology it stays.
Of course, to do this, you need to power the pumps, and that takes electricity. So you build an electrical power station, fired by coal, oil or gas, that produces CO2. Then you take about a million tonnes of steel in the form of pipes, valves, pumping stations, pumps and motors to power the pumps (all produced by carbon-neutral technologies of course – otherwise it would defeat the purpose) and you compress the CO2 and pump it “somewhere”, where by the grace of God and green technology it stays.
Cut and paste the above paragraph until a net carbon capture effect is achieved.
See – simple.
Thanks MV – I now understand it’s a load of …………..
Meltemian
No! No! It can’t possibly be a load of . . . . . . . .
The OZ guvmint just committed another $800 million of taxpayers money into researching it. NO guvmint would ever commit so much of its citizen’s hard-earned money to research a load of . . . . . .
C’mon – a dose of reality please.
MV
I can see why Mrs Thumper says you’re good fun at a party….LOL
Seeing as Co2 is indeed Plant Food (pumped into greenhouses to give us those big fat truss tomatoes), haven’t they been using it to grow algae which, when used as commercial organic fertilizer, returns the “captured” carbon to the soil thence to the food chain.
AGW aside, wouldn’t this be a good idea simply to return a commercial value to a by-product which would otherwise be burned off? Just asking.
meltemian says:
August 14, 2010 at 10:36 pm
Hello meltemian,
You ask rather pertinent questions, I hope that I can provide some help.
Carbon capture and storage is glibly talked about by politicians with no clue, this is highly dubious untested, IMHO totally impossible ‘technology’, there is at the moment no real working scheme in operation. The costs outweigh the benefits, in the end there is no point.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/search/label/carbon%20capture
The above post nicely encapsulates where we are at the minute, this doesn’t however halt Chris (Buf)Huhne projecting/pontificating about new CCS coal plants – with Huhne it is all blah blah.
@pointman,
Hola Pointman,
I don’t want to throw a grenade into the discussion really…………..but I am going to anyway. Even if the raw Temperature raw data sets could be ‘redeemed’, this presupposes that they are worth recovering, the way temperatures are measured is not uniform or indeed completely accurate, some are better than others.
The temperature record of the world is totally FUBAR.
It all is a really obscured picture and nothing can ever really be retrieved out of the Stygian waters.
We need to go back to Year Zero, agree a uniform temperature measurement and a spatially uniform set of stations, at differing; latitudes/altitudes/longitudes etc and well away from the UHI effect.
They then need to assess these figures and compare them with Remote sensing records and calibrate all records openly and with complete honesty………………………..Ha Ha Ha……what are the chances of ever reaching agreement on this?
Only then could we all scan the temperature fig’s and completely trust them.
It aint just merely reading the wall thermometer.
Carbon de-sequestration
Edward. says: August 14, 2010 at 11:43 pm
The reverse process, that is, turning calcium carbonate (which is a waste product of the sequestration process) back into carbon dioxide, is of course trivial. Pour a load of sulphuric acid on it. The useful side effect is that the resulting calcium sulphate is bigger than the carbonate, plus the extra bonus of a sort of rigid foaming meringue from the carbon dioxide, giving a sort of in-situ breeze block. It has been proposed as way of joining India to Sri Lanka. You have to build wind turbines on the resulting causeway in order to manufacture the carbon offsets that you needed to buy to offset the carbon dioxide you made while building the causeway.
Click to access 1351.pdf
Blackswan
Mrs Thumper can sometimes be very biased in her outlook towards me – not all that often mind you. Last night happened to be one of those times – she got it into her head I was very ill – women’s intuition sort of thing – which accounts for her other rather weird posts last night as well.
The concept of pumping ALL of the exhaust from a coal or oil-powered electricity station into a vast ring of green/glass houses was first thought-of and researched over sixty years ago (France I believe). The plants got the benefit of both the CO2 and the elevated temperatures.
The stumbling block back then was the relatively high concentrations of sulphur dioxide (SO2), which knocks plants (especially your truss tomatoes) for six. It was this research that ultimately led to the development of the platinum catalytic converter, a version of which now forms part of your car’s exhaust.
The SO2 problem in power stations was solved long ago with higher temp – elevated oxygen level burns. For the life of me I cannot tell you why ALL power is not now generated by coal-fired powered stations surrounded by a (say) mile -wide ring of green/glass houses, growing highly nutritious fresh foods to feed everybody, including the less fortunate in the Third World, year – round.
Since it’s so simple, obviously I must have missed something.
@- Ozboy –
“Izen! Bring your crayons over here and work it out on the board for us while we talk, there’s a good fellow?”
Sorry I’m late sir, stuff to do back in the real world…
Okay, first covert to Kelvins, then raise to the power of 4 and express the ratio of the answers as a percentage….
13% drop in emissivity for the 10degC drop in temp.
Workings (in reverse polish notation…)
22 273.15 + 4^pr =E1
12 273.15 + 4^pr =E2
E2 E1 / 100 * =100 – percent
Correct.
I know you’re very pleased with yourself, but next time try not eating the crayon when you’re finished? – Oz
Izen
How good to hear from you. I know you will not believe this, but I was becoming genuinely concerned by your absence.
It is way passed my beddy-bye time for when I am in camp, and I’m still getting over a rather trying experience last night. So unfortunately I’m not going to be able to stay around and cross swords with you, even if you promise to be gentle for a change.
However, I go to bed knowing you will keep the troops on their feet with your “unique” brand of science, so all is in good hands.
Good night all.
memoryvault says:
August 14, 2010 at 11:56 pm
Don’t get me started on waste power from power stations, in Sweden the excess heat in the form of steam is pumped into hospitals and schools, too simple for Britain.
I live on a salient overlooking a plain where there are a series of power plants, I watch the steam evaporate into the ether and think everytime – what a waste of energy.
And we could be growing stuff as well…………..OMG.
This is a cause the greenies should be pursuing.
@suffolkboy,
“has been proposed as way of joining India to Sri Lanka. You have to build wind turbines on the resulting causeway in order to manufacture the carbon offsets that you needed to buy to offset the carbon dioxide you made while building the causeway.”
Sound logic as ever suffolkboy!
Fancy a job on a panel headed by a certain railway engineer? ?**!!!/11??!!! OFF!…………. NO?
Now that’s not very polite.
Ed.
-@- MV
I go to bed knowing you will keep the troops on their feet with your “unique” brand of science, so all is in good hands.
You win any competition between us on the ‘uniqueness’ of the science we offer.
Here’s a flashback to your guest thread….
@rastech says: (last post on the Dobson, Dykes… thread)
August 12, 2010 at 8:44 pm
“I’ve steamed in on this Ozone issue for many years now, and have never yet had a response from the eco fascists contradicting what I have posted.
Not just ‘not contradicting’ it, but no response at all. Ever. Total silence.
The thrux of what I have always said, is Ozone is a charged particle.
The ‘North’ Pole and the ‘South’ Pole, are also charged (hence basic junior school science classes discussions of ‘Polarity’)”
.
Its always a little irritating when a last post appears on a past thread that raises a new issue ….
Rastech suggests that because ozone is charged the magnetic field of the Earth will repell it from the poles and this has something to do with the distribution of ozone.
It is tempting to point out that ozone is NOT electricaly charged, mixing up N/S magnetic poles with positive and negative electrical polarity is so stupid I can only guess its a ‘POE’ and congratulate Rastech for the joke… but what if it is meant for real ?!
Ozone is NOT an ionic compound and therefore is not influenced by the electrical fields in the stratosphere.
Without getting into the fact that the magnetic poles are not coincident with the geographic rotational poles.
But it occurred to me that it might be a misunderstood, or mangled version of something that could have an element of reality to it. So I went looking to see if it did.
Well yes…. and No.
Ozone with pair electrons is not ionic, but it is diamagnetic. That means that there is a very small force upon it in a magnetic field towards the lower field flux.
This effect is tiny, and given the Debye value for ozone is minuscule, around a third the value for water molecules. Although I don’t suppose you suggest there is less water vapour at the poles because of the magnetic poles….
But it IS possible to demonstrate this force quite spectacularly by levitating a frog. In a strong enough magnetic field the repulsion between the field and the water in the frog can suspend it…..
http://www.ru.nl/hfml/research/levitation/diamagnetic/
Now it would be possible to calculate the forces involved, the frog trick needs a magnetic field many orders of magnitude stronger than the Earths magnetic flux and the forces I think are several orders of magnitude smaller than the gravitational forces, which I hope we all agree does NOT cause significant vertical fractionation of the atmosphere with all the heavy stuff at the bottom.
Until Rastech provides some numbers showing the flux intensities and variations at the relevant altitudes are sufficient to ‘de-mix’ all the atmospheric components with their various magnetic permeability’s then I think this is tosh.
The floating frog is cool though….
suffolkboy says:
August 14, 2010 at 11:54 pm
My best guess is carbon sequestration also makes copious amounts of calcium carbide, which in contact with water makes acetylene which in turn makes kaboomies heard round the world, rather like lighting off whale or polar bear beer farts except MUCH bigger.
Crownie, I think the Squirrel routine is rather nifty if a bit foul-mouthed, which of course I am copiously but only around evangeltards, jesoids and other former serving members who like having their members served by members of the opposite sex. Thanks for the link. Liked also the squirrel catapult on station a few days earlier.
It’s a bit busier for me here as, having covered 40% of the monies for the film through Quebec and am now looking for American partners to ruin the project and render it unwatchable altogether, which anti-skill I am perfectly capable of deploying myself without trained and experienced assistance, I can actually cover my medical bases posthaste for some reason; Mass Gen is also Hahvard Med School, so I thought it best to take a poke at some little injuries the VA missed. I really think most of us Yanks are taking a breather and postponing getting medical work under the risible assumption it is going to be cheaper in 2012 when the Obama Kill All The White People Medical Plan kicks in. Surely we jest or more accurately continue to live in the “when you wish upon a star” Jiminy Cricket universe 75 years after that green MoFo got crunched flat by Gepetto’s mallet. The Mouse you need to hit, Geppie, not the grasshopper.
This is why the hospitals are so empty right now, I guess, or maybe it’s summer. Nonetheless, I actually have all my bases covered, three definite REAL appointments with real doctors on three real and separate issues. This free market is surely evil. When 2012 kicks in it will be the Canadian plan: six months to get an x-ray (as opposed to an ex-ray, which is what your wife uses on you in divorce court to incinerate your personal finances, also known as a lawyer), though the walk-in field medic style clinics with 5-10 nurses and one sawbones are really what make Canadian medicine work, that and honest to G_d house calls in some parts I have visited.
So…I am very thankful for summer global warming, as while everyone else is off toasting on the beach or working as roofers (try it some time should you wish to recapture the true flavour of your youth’s travails) one can get some real work done. I am so grateful I think I will let Al Bore borrow my inflatable Hilary Palin doll with the O-shaped mouth if he promises to wash it out after using it.
Of course the latter holds true only if you subscribe to the libtard notion than anything that works equally for all without bumping working people off the recipient list of services is evil. It is really amazing to watch so many people see how things proceed today as inevitable and as progress, and I still hear people rant on about Kablama being in trouble because of Bush’s pecadilloes. Blame Washington and the formation of the American Republic, if you are going back for people to blame, President Hussein. And it is entirely the white man’s fault.
For any who follow DT content politics
I have made an important observation, Chris Booker that staunch anti-AGW champion appears to have been muzzled. His last AGW related post was three weeks ago (Desperate days for the warmists 24/7/10)
To lose one anti-AGW proponent could be an accident, but Gerald Warner seems to be have been knobbled as well , last AGW related post July 8th, thus an accident is no longer an accident but a planned gagging.
The Locusts China story and the corrupted NOAA data as examples, would normally have been picked up and reported by these two worthies.
Thus only James D is left isolated and alone as the challenge to the AGW scam, which of course begs the question, if this change represents DT policy where does that leave James?
The last 2 or 3 James blogs have a different feel, James is now interacting with the posters, plus the China blog referencing the Oz/Locust piece seemed to be both a departure from the norm and a formal recognition of the Oz and Liberty Gibbert.
Am I being paranoid?
Is the JD blog at risk?
Is there any way of influencing the apparent changes?
Basically I have NoIdea and we must just await developments!
Man on the Moor
Man on the Moor
Am I being paranoid?
Is the JD blog at risk?
Is there any way of influencing the apparent changes?
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The ice and blade throws of outrageous fortunes,
Or to take arms against a sea of turbines
And by opposing end them?…..Goodby-the sheep.
MOTM, NI and L…Misses is downloading all our stuff onto an external HDD. Seems that it’s affecting chat at ‘founding sons’…probably gonna have to wait another day or so before it manages to copy all those rude pictures I’ve been looking at.
Thanks Scud probably done in less than 24 hours I expect — good luck
I posted the following stupid questions on JD’s blog and achieved zilch response. SA suggested I try here:
Does a rise in the ‘average’ of temperatures that we choose to measure in our atmosphere necessarily indicate a rise in total energy within that same atmosphere?
Mass x Specific Heat x Temp Change = Heat In/Out.
How do we measure the various masses at the temperatures we record?
Australian Federal Election in 2 weeks…………
Coalition to Redirect $400m from Clean Coal Projects
“About $160 million over four years would also be used to fund clean coal technology, including carbon geosequestration associated with coal-fired electricity generation.”
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-election/coalition-to-redirect-400m-from-clean-coal-projects-20100814-123r2.html
That headline doesn’t reflect the detail of the article itself and the following para is at the end of the story.
“About 95 per cent of the $420 million directed to the new programs would be stripped from the $1.9 billion carbon capture and storage flagships program established to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
Almost $2 BILLION allocated by Labor to CC&S, but the headline is about Abbott doing something different with a mere $400 million.
Twisted? Biased? Nah, the MSM wouldn’t do that, surely?
Now for the REALLY IMPORTANT story of the day………
Hold the ice: crate of Shackleton’s scotch cracked open
http://www.smh.com.au/world/hold-the-ice-crate-of-shackletons-scotch-cracked-open-20100814-1243d.html
After all…….we have to get our priorities straight.
Climate change will cost us all
“For those who think we’re going to hell in a handbasket, it’s all too hard and can’t be stopped, Hennessy’s figures are a wake-up call: ”low” warming (beneath the so-called 2 degree guardrail) is much safer than ”high” warming (3 or 4 degrees, which is where we’re heading based on the world’s post-Copenhagen pledges).”
http://www.smh.com.au/business/climate-change-will-cost-us-all-20100813-1232a.html
This bloke is claiming that based on IPCC projections, “high warming” of 3 to 4 degs C is a “risk” we are taking by not “taking action”. ????????
Now where did I put my Hawaiian shirt and straw hat?………….
Hi Swanny,
“…it’s all too hard and can’t be stopped…” – Nothing’s unstoppable, nobody’s unbeatable.
Pointman
G’day Pointy,
Great movie, but as Freeman said, “Hope can drive a man insane”.
That’s what’s wrong with us, we’re all nuts…….lol
Well, we’re all still sane so I guess we’re crap at giving up.
Pointman
Another goodie – great music.
How must it feel to sit at a piano and pick out notes like that? I always said I’ll learn to play the piano before I shuffle off my mortal coil – at my age time’s running out so I guess I’d better move it up a little on my to-do list…lol
Do you play the piano?
Like yourself mate, love music but never got past chopsticks. It’s on my todo list. I suspect I’ll debut on the spoons or the Jew’s harp. Always had too many interests; mastered a few and jack-of-all trades in others. Art was my thing. Could always paint and draw.
Pointman
Now you’ve been added to our lengthening list of artistic “thinkers” – Fenbeagle, Walt, Amanda………
Odd how Thinkers have an artistic bent – da Vinci comes to mind…lol
Tried the guitar once but it blistered all my fingertips and as I’m left-handed, it really cramped my style at work so I gave it a miss. Pity I didn’t persevere.
Blackswan, Pointy
Good morning – if this guy can learn to play the piano, ANYBODY can.
Incidentally – a great clip to give those who think the world “owes them”, or “it’s all too hard” and crap like that.
Now get to it, you two – no more excuses
Good morning MV
Sheesh, you really know how to make a swan feel better…..
Pretty amazing. Now I’m intimidated. Think I’ll stick to playing a gum leaf.
memoryvault August 15, 2010 at 9:37 am
Marvelous clip. It’s precisely why I fight anti-humanist ideas like AGW. We, the rich advantaged 20% of humanity, have a duty to fight for those who have no access to the debates in which their fate and the fate of their children is being decided. To do nothing would be a mortal sin. Standing on the sidelines grumbling about it means you’re doing nothing.
The last century was the century of physics but this one is the century of biology and especially of genetics. We’re heading into some stark ethical waters and unless people are prepared to fight for humanity, no matter how imperfect in any individual, we’ll be heading for a Hell beloved of the population ‘controllers’ and the Eugenicists. That’s worth fighting for. Given their way, this kid would never have been born.
Pointman
Very well put, pointy. A fitting way to mark LibertyGibbert’s 7000th comment!
Many thanks to all my readers and contributors; you’ve made this place what it is – Oz
He’s pretty good on a guitar as well http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1DMbWf0MrI
Pointman
Pointman
Agree entirely. Every now and then I feel like chucking the whole thing – in fact, have done. Then something like that clip comes along, and I know it’s time to re-don the battle armour and head once more into the breach.
Blackswan
YOU feel intimidated! I had eight years of the best piano lessons my mother could buy, and I couldn’t play like that – ever.
Mrs Thumper says I am still quite good with the organ though.
MV, rumours of you ability to play with your organ have even spread to the Northern Hemisphere …
Pointman
Pointman
I suppose so – even Izen has alluded to it on occasion . . . . .
Pointman says:
August 15, 2010 at 10:16 am
“heading for a Hell beloved of the population ‘controllers’”
We’re well on the way.
A California clinic implants 8 embryos into an unmarried mother of 6 – 14 kids on welfare. Treating the not-too-bright woman like a two-legged lab-rat. Italian clinics engineering the pregnancies of women in their 60s.
Millions of terminations funded by taxpayers, while subsidising fertility treatments – the “unwanted” versus the privileged progeny of the rich, and conveniently labeled “Choice”.
Women in the 3rd World hired as incubators for the rich. IVF for unmarried and homosexual “couples” on the grounds that it doesn’t really matter “who” loves a child.
Sperm & egg donors where the recipients can take their pick of attributes out of glossy catalogues.
These developments were only in the dreams of late 19th/early 20th century Eugenicists. Their end-game is the stuff of nightmares and it’s all given massive funding and research on the basis of “human rights”.
Don’t get me started………
memoryvault says:
August 15, 2010 at 10:30 am
In the 1950s at the Roxy Cinema in Parramatta there was a bloke wearing white tie & tails who used to play the organ at intermission.
I used to be fascinated watching his feet move about.
Do you move your feet about a lot when playing with your organ MV?
Absolutely loved the Roxy, though I’m twenty years after you swanny. Many, ermm, fond memories – Oz 😉
PS
I forgot to mention it was a BIG pipe organ.
Blackswan
To be honest mate, I’ve never really noticed. Mrs Thumper might know, but she tends to be otherwise engrossed to notice too many details when I am playing my organ.
A lot of organs have a sustain pedal, but I take a pill for that now.
Blackswan – your PS
Is there any other kind?
As to size, I have never been in a position to do much of a comparison.
Again, probably best deferred to Mrs Thumper.
Blackswan Tasmania August 15, 2010 at 10:48 am
When a woman doesn’t have the physical capability to carry a baby to full term, I’ve no problem with surrogacy. It’s when they elect for it, I have problems. It’s an abuse of technology, creating a whole new market for exploitation of the worst kind. What kind of parent will they make anyway?
Pointman
Many a good tune played on an old fiddle……..
Antonio Stradivari knew all about it….lol
Blackswan please do not encourage him. He is already incorrigible.!
Pointman
Probably the same kind of parent as celebrities who adopt colour-coded orphans.
“Well let’s see, I’ve got a nice little black piccanini to go with my evening outfits, and a China Doll, to match my Chung-San. Now I really need an American Indian to offset my designer cowboy boots . . . . . ”
Don’t take offence Pointy. I make light of that which I find truly abhorrent. It’s my way of dealing with the rage that would otherwise engulf me.
G’Day Mrs. Thumper.
You know the way he is. Once he’s on a roll …
Pointman
Oh – ohhh. Management’s here.
Good morning Dear. Sleep well.
I can explain . . . . .
memoryvault says:
August 15, 2010 at 11:17 am
Don’t apoligise. I share your rage about celebrity adoptions. It’s one step away from people trafficking, except it’s somehow more ‘moral’. A PR exercise of the most cynical type.
Pointman
Good morning Mrs MV
Begging your pardon ma’am. We have to alternate bad stuff and fun stuff or we’ll all be wearing jackets with reeeally long sleeves tied in back………..
Pointy,
I can’t agree……..I think it IS baby trafficking.
My thoughts always go to the resultant children of these “experiments”.
There have been volumes written about the terrible psychological effects on children who were adopted. They called it the Primal Wound. In other words “they” finally recognised, and this could be construed as conjecture, that the baby was traumatised by being removed from its mother. Not all children. But nearly 77%. So the stats are quite high. And most adopted children still live with the emotion “my mother did not want me”. Even though in many cases the mothers did want to keep their babies, but back then pregnancy out of wedlock was not condoned. And even if the adopted child is aware of this knowledge it still does not heal the hurt.
How then, does a child/adult of a genetic experiment or, “off the shelf” fertilised embryo, come to terms with “where did I come from”? Personally, if it were me, I would ask where did the love go?
It’s scary.
Well, the land of Nod beckons in the old world and yet the day is young in Oz. As usual, it was good chatting with you folks. I’ll take my leave to the sound of the pipes.
Pointman
Blackswan
Mrs Thumper keeps threatening to buy me one of those jackets with the reeaally long sleeves.
She reckons it would come in handy for those times when she wants to do a solo on my organ.
Pointman
Night Pointy – see you back on the battlefield after you’ve recharged the batteries.
Pointman 11.17
Classic!
Blackswan 11.25
It’s OK. I have been LOL.
He’s only got two sleeps to go and he is getting a bit frisky.
Mrs MV
The thing is……..does he wear white tie & tails?
There’s something about those emperor penguins….
Nah – not white. Black
Mrs Thumper
Not always – there was that night we hit that classy restaurant in Maroochydore, you as the super-high priced hooker in a black micro-mini, stilletoes and fishnets, and me in the black, red-satin lined villain’s cape, with top hat and cane.
You remember – the night all the other patrons gawped so much their expensive dinners went cold and the waiter spilled an entire table’s meals off his tray?
I wore a red tie that night.
The tears of laughter are clogging up my keyboard.
The food and service was good too – I hope you tipped the waiter.
What some people will do for fun.
Blackswan at 8:54 (I think):
Hope’s what you need when you don’t have plans. I’d rather have plans.
My mum’s always talking about hope. She’s penniless.
I didn’t like Mr Hope-and-Change from the beginning, but I don’t have illusions about Hope!
Walt in a Bear Suit:
What’s wrong with former members who like having their members served by the opposite sex? Just wondering.
Aside: As always, here I am adding value. I have no idea what Izen’s numbers mean or how he got them, though I do hope he enjoyed the crayons; but I am here to raise the essential question about why Bear made the comment he did.
Blackswan: How nice to be included on your list… Do take up the piano or the keyboard, rather soonerish. You and me both, mate.
Amanda
Poor lady – life with no hope.
Two nights ago I was in a really bad way – it had been building up for a week. It’s happened before and I recognised the signs.
I know I should have called an ambulance but I’ve been there and done that before – all they do is wheel you into intensive care, strap lots of noisy monitoring equipment to you – including the machine that goes BING! and keeps you awake all night. It doesn’t actually do anything FOR you – just confirms whether you are only asleep or actually dead when the nurses come through on their rounds.
Last time they shoved a piece of wire down my neck attached to a temporary pacemaker I had to carry around with me. It was five days before I could get the buggers to remove it so I could go home.
So I thought “stuff that”, had another glass of wine and a cigarette, and went to bed instead, with only the “hope” (and maybe a little prayer) that I would, indeed, actually wake up the following morning and see the lovely Mrs Thumper and the tiddliewinks (grandkids) once more.
Well, hope springs eternal; I did, in fact, wake up, and I’m still here.
Don’t knock hope Amanda. Sometimes it’s all we have.
That, and a little prayer now and then.
August 15, 2010 at 7:04 am
“I posted the following stupid questions on JD’s blog and achieved zilch response. SA suggested I try here:
Does a rise in the ‘average’ of temperatures that we choose to measure in our atmosphere necessarily indicate a rise in total energy within that same atmosphere?”
Welcome anzon, to Oz’s place.
It isn’t a stupid question, in fact it is at the heart of the AGW debate.
Or at least the science of it….
The answer is YES
For the reason Oz had me calculating the emissivity change with temperature change.
Because emissivity of energy is related to the fourth power of the temperature, you can raise the minimum by far more than you need to lower the maximum values to keep the energy in/out the same.
This is why the average temperature of the Earth is higher than the average for the moon even though both are getting the same energy.
The much higher maximum temperatures on the moon lose energy proportionaly faster than the higher minimum temperatures on the Earth.
The way in which average temperatures can vary while the emissivity and amount of energy in/out can remain constant is discussed in detail here –
http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/06/03/lunar-madness-and-physics-basics/
MV: that’s true, as your story demonstrates. But I like my hope lined with a little realistic encouragement.
Amanda from what you have mentioned in the past I think the term overly optimistic hope or head in the clouds hope not memoryvaults day to day hope.
Hope is nice but common sense and realism work best, I hope to be trillionaire by next Thursday or I hope it’s fish n chips for dinner puts it in perspective.
Amanda
Me too.
That’s why I had another glass of wine and a fag. I like to let my body know what it will miss out on if it carks it. Thumper can be VERY encouraging that way – unfortunately she is 3,000 miles away at the moment.
Besides, I’d have never got away with it if she’d been around. She has Triple Zero (emergency in OZ) on her speed dial. We’ve probably had almost as many fights over the subject of calling ambulances, as we’ve had over the correct position for the toilet seat.
MV: Mmm, you have to know when to make that call. 999 in Britain; 911 in the USA.
I had a moment — went temporarily blind, bounced off the door jam on the way to sitting down where I was white as a sheet and perspiring profusely: Mr A asked ‘should I call 911?’ He’d asked it once or twice before and I said ‘of course not’. This time was different: I was scared. Next thing I knew, a couple of burly firemen were in my bedroom sticking EKG wires on my chest. I was OK: they left. Extremely low blood sugar. I took the warning. Diabetes runs in the family….
MV
What an odd coincidence. A couple of years ago I had a nightmare which woke me up with a thudding heart and heaving chest (I have realistic dreams), but the problem was, it wouldn’t stop. After about 2 hours drenched in sweat I thought maybe I’d better wake my better-half for a drive to the hospital.
Halfway there I envisaged the ER – no staff, a doctor straight off the plane from Calcutta whose accent I can’t understand, in a curtained cubicle listening to raving druggies, victims of pub brawls and car accident victims shrieking and decided That wasn’t where I wanted to be. So we did a U-turn (under threats of getting a taxi home), said my goodbyes with messages for my nearest and dearest, and settled down to a blissful night’s sleep – with the “hope” that I’d wake up and deliver the messages myself.
And so I did. The upshot of the story is that, anytime Fate decrees, I’m “good to go”.
But then I wasn’t 3,000 miles away from those who cared about me. Tough choice.
jamb.
Jam is what you put on toast. Except if you’re diabetic…
Or Australian – Oz
Blackswan: I can relate. I had broken out in hives and the worst itchiness on my hands that I’ve ever experienced — an utter torment — all emotional, triggered by a thought. Was in the car with my mother at the time. We went to a hospital (in England) and we learned there would be a wait (it was night), so I said to Mum: let’s go into the ladies’ room and you have a look at me and tell me if I’ll live. She looked me over and said: ‘You’ll live. And if you come home with me right now we’ll both get a decent night’s sleep’. So that’s what we did. Never had hives before or since. Just a complete psychosomatic reaction, over by the morning.
I have to add: it wasn’t nothing: the hives (rash) were all over my body and looked totally alarming, especially as I’d never had it before and didn’t even know what it was at first.
A jolly subject for a Saturday night/Sunday morning!
For all the Apple lovers:
Oops
Hope this one works
MV & Thumper
Did you really do the cape and fishnet tights routine? Love it, love it, love it. Takes me back a few years to my own escapades. I love “taking the mickey” out of pretentious farts who take themselves too seriously.
Blackswan
Yeah – and when it lasts for a week you just know it’s going to be big trouble eventually. But it passes, or it doesn’t, and we live to see another day. Or we don’t. Personally I subscribe to the Hunter S Thompson school of thought on the subject:
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”
Lived his whole life on the edge. And when he finally went, was cremated, and his ashes were incorporated into firweorks blown out of a cannon.
Think of it – gas for the crematorium, gunpowder for the fireworks, and explosives for the cannon.
What a man, what a life, and even at the end, what a carbon footprint.
Blackswan
I wanted to send a link on Billy Connelly’s take on beige people, but it looks like the powers that be have taken them all off the internet.
MV
I like it. When we lived in Canberra (if G_d wanted to give the world an enema, Canberra is where he’d stick the hose) I told my family that if I dropped off my perch they should bring my ashes “home” to Tassie and scatter me on the Huon River.
Today, my ashes will only have to be chucked over the back fence into the River Derwent…..LOL
Mrs MV
Is that right? – no Billy on the internet, gadzooks!!
Just as well we have so many of his DVDs – a favourite of mine.
Did you see The Man Who Sued God? It was a goodie.
Blackswan I have just fallen off the stool. ROFL
Blackswan
Yeah – we really did – Thumper organised it all as a surprise, and rented all the gear from a theatrical company – including a long, blonde “Bridget Bardot” wig. I already had the “villain’s moustache”.
The movie “Basic Instinct” had come out the year before and Thumper kept doing her Sharon Stone leg crossing impersonation. That’s how/why the waiter spilled the meals, and why several middle-aged husbands got thumped repeatedly with handbags by overweight, overdressed, irate middle-aged wives. I might add that Thumper’s figure and legs are every bit as good as the delectable Ms Stone’s – even to this day.
It’s also why I figured I didn’t have to tip the waiter too much.
We finished the night laughing our heads off, sipping champagne in a spa in the honeymoon suite of a motel.
I’ll relate that story to Mrs. Oz… after we’ve put the kids to bed, that is. Today’s our anniversary – Oz 😉
Blackswan
No no Billy is there – just not the one where he is chucking off at the beige. It must have upset too many “pretentious farts who take themselves too seriously” – beige people.
Amanda says:
August 15, 2010 at 1:55 pm
Where on earth did you find a Vegemite ad? That wuz me – Oz I never met a non-Aussie who could stand the stuff, while we regard it as a staple in the pantry. Tried to feed it to some young GIs out here on R & R in the ’60s and they swore I was an enemy agent trying to poison them….LOL
I like your Mum, she’s sounds like a practical sort of lady – I never heard of emotional hives. I’ll put that info in the neck-top data base in case I stress the Cygnet out and she breaks out in itches (which is likely)…lol
Well I’m sure I will get into trouble for this one…
OO
Billy Connolly
Blackswan
I reckon some day somebody is going to do some serious research into Vegemite.
Let’s face it – we are (or at least have been) one of the most resourceful and talented peoples on earth. In science, engineering, arts, music, acting and individual sports, we have acquitted ourselves with honour against far larger, far more populous, far more developed countries, time and time again.
And the only underlying, fundamental, common link I can find is, our almost universal consumption of –
Vegemite.
Think about it.
Blackswan: Oh yes, emotional hives. My mother had asked in the car ‘why don’t you leave him?’ And that was my reaction: a kind of bodily protest and drawing-back. A kind of panic.
Oz found the Vegemite ad, I don’t know where. Seems so longwinded and clumsy by contemporary standards.
Brits of course eat Marmite, though I always preferred Bovril. Until they took the actual beef content out, on account of hoof-and-mouth disease. That ruined everything: I haven’t touched a jar of Bovril since.
Vegemite brewers yeast extract giving the little kiddies a taste for beer at a young age shame on you all.
MV
Maybe I’m going to completely ruin your day.
When you get home (when/if you get a spare minute), check out your Vegemite Label.
There’s a “recycle” logo, a kangaroo “Made in Oz” logo and………..
a Halal approved logo. Kraft pays the A.F.I.C. (whoever that is) big bickies to declare the stuff Halal approved.
If you attribute our ingenuity and fortitude to Vegemite it looks like our days are numbered.
Hi Crown,
No, it’s the mega salt content that’ll give the kiddies high blood pressure. Then they’ll need a beer to settle them down again.
Crown,
BTW, I like Billy’s sheep story especially the high cliff bit – means you don’t need to put their back feet in turned-around gumboots.
Blackswan
Yeah, I know – they’ve messed with our Vegemite.
Amongst other things, I blame that for:
The Thorpedo retiring
Leighton not being able to win an Open
Losing the Ashes, and
The CSIRO now being filled with “Climate Scientists”.
As I said earlier – the subject needs some serious study.
Ozboy,
I just scrolled back (something I don’t often do) and found your Comments – makes me wonder how many I’ve missed when they are embedded in the post you’re responding to. Just a thought.
Firstly – Pointman’s got the 7,000th Comment……..Brilliant.
Congratulations Ozboy and Libertygibbert……..it’s a credit to you (and Mrs Oz).
A question I ask on behalf of many of us “Where’s your Donate Button?” Surely your exposure now is significant enough to attract commercial interest.
I noticed a “pingback to body workout 101”, pinged and got a blank page. What’s that all about?
As for “Absolutely loved the Roxy, though I’m twenty years after you…”
That was when I was a little kid. By the time I was older we had Drive-in Movies. And that is another whole story.LOL
Congratulations again Oz – good times at the Bar & Grill.
Crown
Vegemite tastes NOTHING like Brewers Yeast – or anything else for that matter. As a culinary experience it is – unique.
Blackswan
Up here on the Mainland ( the bit that’s not part of Antarctica) the kiddies have a higher salt need.
Blacky and Crown
You DO realise rubbishing Vegemite not only attracts heavy legal penalties, it screws up your Karma for your next four life-cycles.
G’day all,
Here’s something which sobered me up:
Post normal thinking, in the accolytes and proselytes of AGW, just this morning perusing the comics, I came across this from a regular contributer, this is what realists are up against.
A tale, all about a bunch of alchemists, NACAR, The Met Office and NOAA, well what a fine bunch of co-conspirators we have here (wonder what happened to JONESY?).
From this piece of idiocy in the Observer.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/15/climate-change-predict-next-disaster
A reply to the above and I quote:-
TBombadil
15 Aug 2010, 1:23AM
“To predict the global climate several decades in the future or local weather several days in the future is feasible but to try and predict climate affected local weather events weeks ahead sounds challenging.
It was obvious several months ago that record breaking temperatures somewhere in the northern hemisphere were highly likely as a result of a moderate El Nino imposed on top of the long term warming trend. However predicting where the record temperatures would occur was not possible. Yet that seems to be what they are going to attempt.
Jet Streams seem to be key to predicting where climate affected extreme weather events are likely to occur so predicting the dynamic behaviour of Jet Streams is likely to be a key piece of research.
By running multiple simulations of their models they may be able to assess the probability of extreme weather events at a given location and issue a warning when the risk passes some probability threshold.”
Unquote.
If we take the first paragraph, what is that supposed to entail, that we can predict future climate, ERR…….weather a few days hence but not ‘climate affected local weather events’………errr what?
And then, it was obvious record breaking temps in NH were gonna happen cos of ‘moderate’ El nino! Well how weaselly worded, yes ‘we do admit to high temps because of EL nino’………. but it was only a small one (moderate) and it was predicted, so still on message = of CAGW.
Then Lo! – something we can both agree on, predicting where and when of major events and the whereabouts of the jet stream (is the major factor) is quite correct.
But gulp, the final paragraph is a muddle headed obscure piece of waffle, so typical of many of the replies to these reports in this paper and it’s sister the grauniad.
“Running multiple models” – doesn’t matter how many times you run ’em, they’re still not gonna provide answers.
And the final quote is priceless; “when the risk passes some probability threshold!”…………………..think of a number. Garbage in, Garbage out.
Oh dear, dear me.
I would normally have replied on the original site but thought I’d bring it over here, no doubt someone (a realist) will pick up on it too, over there. – I wanted to highlight it, because it is a perfect example of the ‘thinking’ of many of these people who believe in anything ex – IPCC/Mann/CRU/WWF/EU/Hadley Centre/GISS/Greenpeace, is ‘Gospel’.
What can you do or for that matter say, other than, er what?
If I remember my Tolkein correctly Tom Bombadil rescued Frodo but was a freaky ‘loop de loop’ in the book.
I have argued with this guy/lady, at times before and we never have much common ground if any, I reminds me of someone, Izal do you have a sister?
Ed.
MV
“rubbishing Vegemite” – Who? Moi? Nevaaah!!
I’ve even thought of buying the catering size bucket of it at the wholesalers..lol
Morning all. It’s 10:00 a.m. here in Corfu. You HAVE been busy overnight down in Oz. I’m just about to catch up with all the posts.
G’day Ed,
Here at the Black Swan laboratory I can predict earthquakes, mudslides, floods, droughts, blizzards, cyclones, dust storms and volcanic eruptions WITH CERTAINTY.
ALL OF THE ABOVE WILL DEFINITELY HAPPEN.
I just don’t know where or when.
Now…where’s my taxpayer funding?
meltemian says:
August 15, 2010 at 4:57 pm
Morning Mel,
Hope you found something of interest in our (at times) mad conversations here at Ozboy’s Bar & Grill.
Blackswan
With sloppy research like that I’m not surprised you can’t get any funding.
Obviously they will occur in two specific time periods, and one specific location:
SOONER and LATER and PRETTY MUCH EVERYWHERE (within the given time period).
And I can say with absolute certainty the climate will have changed, be changing, and will change afterwards as well.
So it’s all obviously caused by AGW.
Regarding catering-size quantities of Vegemite: I reckon we should start the “World Topless Vegemite Wrestling Championships”.
Only true-blue Aussie girls would be game enough to get into the pool in the first place, so we’d win by default.
Happy Anniversary Ozboy and Mrs Oz.
Vegemite causes global warming.
Thanks for reminding me Mrs MV
Anniversary Congratulations to Mr & Mrs Oz – hope the kiddies settle down early.
Have a nice evening.
Mrs MV
Don’t tell me – let me guess. You’ve even got the Oz’s anniversary in “the diary”?
Crown 5.18
You could be correct. There has been a lot of hot air in here today and we, at Oz, all eat vegemite.
Should we tell the IPCC? We could be the secret ingredient (element) that has been missed in their scientific papers.
Be polite Mr MV – you don’t read your posts properly.
Mrs MV yes we should tell the IPCC Vegemite is the main cause of global warming I have a graph in crayon to prove it.
Mrs MV
Sheesh, don’t tell the IPCC. We’ve already got the methane emissions police on the case after that pea & ham soup, now it’ll be the brewers yeast exhalations at the other end.
Give us a break.
Mrs MV
Well, Dear, I’m supposed to be the professional writer, and you’re supposed to be my principal editor and proof-reader.
So, if there’s errors in the final version – what can I say?
My proof is brewers yeast produces CO2 in the production of beer Australians drink lots of beer simple really.
Pointman……’Freebird’ ….. Brilliant, thank you
Crown
Then it’s not my fault. I haven’t been able to drink beer since my gall bladder exploded back in ’07.
Sigh – another bloody trip to the emergency ward.
I don’t mind getting old – it’s the ever increasing component failure rate that’s getting me down.
Crown
But is it a hockey stick graph? They will not accept anything that deviates from their already preconceived, thought out, researched and reviewed data.
What colour was that crayon?
Mrs Mv tasted purple
I had eaten all the other ones.
Crown,
I think you will find the correct scientific term for the flavour of purple crayons is “Deepest Berry”
Scientists like to use berry flavour when they get confused with graphs about the sun.
Do they not use orange, as you have eaten all the orange crayons?
NoIdea
Crown
You’ve made me feel ill now – one crayon should have cured you of eating more!
I was going to ask what “purple” tasted like, but I bet they all tasted the same. Yuk.
No – the colour of the graph has to be the same colour as that depicted by the IPCC.
Without gargling who knows the answer?
No Idea you just got in before me.
Crown
No good asking me what they taste like – I’m colourblind.
Oops time to cook dinner. Double entendres going on here.
ALL
I just had the wackiest mental image.
Meltemian just chimed in from Corfu, and said he was going off to read all the posts. Well, those who have actually been posting all day know full well how we got from one subject to another. But someone coming in cold and reading the whole lot in one hit?
I reckon any minute now he’s going to hit somewhere between OMG and WTF, and maybe go off and hide somewhere and never come back.
Memoryvault… Meltemian is female.
MV
Perpetual motion
A wondrous notion
Snake oil salesman
Cerptitude loan plan
Averages taken and raised
Insane models are praised
Integrity not bent, but broken
No warming yet, no token
No catastrophe too cold to use
Tis the heat, that’s the truth
No crayons of Cerumen flavour
Purple called berry the saviour
And that is kind of our journey
How we got here, I am still learning?
NoIdea
MV No I’m still here…. I wish I could have seen both of you dressed-up for your Big Night Out, you don’t have any photo’s do you. Mr M and I did once go to a “Tarts & Vicars” night, he was the tart & I was the vicar! He looked just like Nana Mouskori (spelling?) but that was before he grew the beard. He only lasted half-an-hour in the frock & wig so I guess he’s not a cross-dresser.
Never tasted Vegemite, is it anything like Marmite? I love that.
Sorry – forgot to wish Oz & Mrs Oz Happy Anniversary – mind you that was probably yesterday by now. Can’t get the hang of the time difference, I think you’re 7 hours ahead of me here.
Crown
Meltemian is a girl?
But last night she was asking scientifical type questions about carbon capture and stuff.
Girls don’t usually do that.
Blackswan Tasmania says:
August 15, 2010 at 5:01 pm
Evenin’ Swanny,
Yep with predictive climate analysis skills like that (Blackswan Labs – never heard of that one….wonder if the ‘railway engineer’ has heard of you?), I am quite sure Mr. Mann might be able to wangle a research post for such a learned bloke, at the climatology ‘seance’ unit at Penn State Uni’.
LOL.
Ed.
No Idea
That was confusing enough to be good – I think.
Mv/Crown,
I think we might have overdone it today.
Poor Meltemian, she checked in ages ago, probably freaked out and galloped off.
Please come back Mel, we didn’t mean it. I promise to be civil again.
After the heat in Corfu you’ll be feeling the chill in a wintry Tasmania. Look, you can have the easy chair in front of the fire. I’ll make you a nice hot cocoa.
memoryvault says:
August 15, 2010 at 6:26 pm
Wow, dangerous territory.
Don’t go there mv………………..I wash my hands.
Amanda! It aint nuffin to do wiv me.
Ed.
Blackswan
Thanks, no sugar in mine.
Meltemian,
Ah, you’re back. Phew, that’s a relief – I thought we’d scared you off.
Blackswan
Mrs Swan lets you talk to GIRLS?
I am gonna be in deep doodoo when Thumper gets back from dinner and finds out I’ve been talking to other girls in the playground – even this virtual playground.
Mr MV
I want to have words with you. “Girls don’t usually do that.” Check your email.
Amanda feel free to thump him as well!
MV
“Girls don’t usually do that.”
Sure we do.
Meltemian Vegemite is similar to Marmite but not as strong tasting.
@-Edward. says:
August 15, 2010 at 4:40 pm
“Post normal thinking, in the accolytes and proselytes of AGW, just this morning perusing the comics, I came across this from a regular contributer, this is what realists are up against.
From this piece of idiocy in the Observer.
-link-
A reply to the above and I quote:-
TBombadil
15 Aug 2010, 1:23AM
…..
What can you do or for that matter say, other than, er what?
I have argued with this guy/lady, at times before and we never have much common ground if any, I reminds me of someone, Izal do you have a sister? ”
No, but I recognise the problem and I suspect I know the reason why you are talking past, instead of to, each other.
You have it right in ‘common ground’ between you. The poster is trying to make a short reply consistent with the limits of a blog and makes statements that you find ‘muddled and obscure’ because there is a whole load of background context that has been omitted.
Take the first para you object to –
“To predict the global climate several decades in the future or local weather several days in the future is feasible but to try and predict climate affected local weather events weeks ahead sounds challenging.”
The context of this is the difference in the processes that affect decades of climate, and the daily local weather.
At larger scales and longer timescales the physical conditions on the Earth follow simple (compared to biological systems) thermodynamic mechanisms.
However those thermodynamic processes drive a chaotic movement of energy at the local level – the daily weather.
A simpler example is the pan of water on the stove. If you turn on the heat and you know the quantities of heat, water and rate of heat loss from the pan it is possible to predict how long it will take for the water to boil.
But not where the first bubbles will appear.
Despite the chaotic nature of the local weather it is possible to predict a few days because there is a loose linkage between the past conditions and future weather.
Despite the chaotic movement of energy at the local/daily level the total weather averages out to match the thermodynamic energy flows globally over longer timescales.
I think the poster is using the ‘civil service’ meaning of “sounds challenging” in this context, its an understatement.
Then the final paragraph –
“By running multiple simulations of their models they may be able to assess the probability of extreme weather events at a given location and issue a warning when the risk passes some probability threshold.”
You complain that
“But gulp, the final paragraph is a muddle headed obscure piece of waffle, so typical of many of the replies to these reports in this paper and it’s sister the grauniad.
“Running multiple models” – doesn’t matter how many times you run ‘em, they’re still not gonna provide answers.”
The muddle may not all be on the part of the writer.
Notice they have specifically said -“running multiple simulations of their models” -NOT multiple models.
The distinction is important because it reveals what sort of models the writer is referring to.
Now I share you suspicions of the robustness of results from models. But they get used in many branches of science for the good reason that they work – at least to some extent.
There is a reasonable range of simulation software around that has some record in successful hindcasting and projection.
Chaotic systems produce weather that is loosely linked to the previous conditions, and causally independent from the initial conditions. It is inherently impossible to predict future behavior from past conditions in a chaotic system beyond a certain point.
However it IS possible to describe the RANGE of possible results from a chaotic system. This is its envelope and while any single event/local weather is indeterminate, that it will lie within that envelope is a consequence of the thermodynamics of the driving system.
Because of this, it is possible to run climate models multiple times and get the range of possible events that could occur at a specific location at a specific time. It may even be apparent that there is a probability distribution within that range with a skewed likelihood of very high rainfall rather than low.
Now it is a case of GIGO, but the usefulness of any such probability numbers is directly related to how accurate they are. If this method is no better than throwing dice then it is irrelevant. ONLY if it gives better results than chance will it have any influence.
Think of it this way. If scientists said they had a way to predict the probability of numbers on a roulette wheel, but made no money you wouldn’t take them seriously.
If they said they had a means of projecting the future numbers and showed you them winning consistently and at rates much better than chance…. you might take them seriously?
http://www.springerlink.com/content/fq38j4akpcthgnxl/
Better change the subject.
And another thing wot makes me seethe with righteous indignation, in the EUSSR, that happy federation of tyranny and oppression, a certain cretin by the name of Hilary Benn took it upon himself to make Britain to be the first country in Euro-reich to ban the incandescent light bulb.
100watts have gone, followed by 60s and soon 40s will go too, the reason for all of this escapes me………………..oh yeah (I’ve remembered…..there is no reason other than to be first in Europe, eco nuttery strikes again!) incandescents bad, CFLs good blah blah.
In the states the eco-creep is different but still there.
You can lead the horse to water but cannot drink it for him, especially if said mount smells putrid decay, in the States they do, yersee it still is a democracy there (only just).
We are told (by politicians at every turn) that Britain is still a democracy but we know that they are kidding.
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/08/13/the-incandescent-bulb-ban-another-regulatory-overreach/
@Izen,
If someone told me that they could with a ‘computer model’ – predict the future Grand National winners in 10 or 20years time, without knowing even the runners/riders, I would take that with (big) ‘a pinch of salt’.
If someone told me they had a (computer model) surefire system of predicting winners of races a few days hence, better odds but still not proven…… if someone told me by using the near future (a few days) methodology of winners of races could be used to predict the winners of the national in 10 or 20 years hence, I would say that they needed locking up.
Ed.
Edward
Totally with you on the lightbulb thing. I HATE the low energy ones, take ages to light up and make you look ill. I’ve still got a supplier stocking the old ones here (yes I know it’s probably illegal to sell them in the EU but we don’t take any notice of that here in Greece) just hoping they don’t run out too soon, meanwhile I’m stockpiling.
As for the global weather event forecasting – does that mean they are going to issue warnings, probably incorrect, and panic the wrong people at the wrong time or is that a long way in the future?
WHAT’S BEEN GOING ON HERE THEN? The moment I leave the room for a quiet meal with Suffolkgirl the whole class has cracked open the beer, gone wild, spread Vegemite over the desks, written suggestive grafitti on the walls, played loud music on the video juke-box and disrupted the local restaurant by dressing up in silly clothes. And where are the crayons? I know it is the week-end and so we have no lessons and can let our hair down a bit. But this will not do at all. Silence immediately!
Now we have a new guest, anzon, and izen has tried to ask a question on behalf of the guest: “Does a rise in the ‘average’ of temperatures that we choose to measure in our atmosphere necessarily indicate a rise in total energy within that same atmosphere?” AND YOU SHOWER ALL COMPLETELY IGNORED THE QUESTION! That’s very rude. You also completely ignored izen’s and my response to the Head Teacher’s question at the top of this exam paper, on “Stefan-Boltzman”. (It’s still pinned up above the bar^^^^).
Now, I’m not going to answer anzon’s question. Teachers are there to teach the kiddies how to ask the right questions. Anzon is clearly making friends with swot izen and will learn a lot of izenscience during the next term. However, I am going to set Anzon and Izen some homework, based on the stuff I have to teach SuffolkKiddies next term. The rest of you can watch, but please put up your hand if you think you know the answer; don’t all shout at once.
I want all answers, NEATLY, presented for marking by the Head Teacher’s secretary Mr Milanković at 0845 BST 15th August 2010 sharp. Now file out quietly. And stop fiddling with your organs.
suffolkboy says:
August 15, 2010 at 7:21 pm
Thank God somebodyhas finally noticed. I had to bite my tongue to remind MV that Izen was back and everyone had ignored him.
You know how welcome MV makes Izen to the Bar and Grill.
Welcome anzon!
Suffolkboy, all of these questions were such a doddle I’m not even going to bother submitting the answers, except for Q10, which has left me completely stumped.
suffolkboy says:
August 15, 2010 at 7:21 pm
Mr Suffolk Sir,
I have to hand it to you, you’ve encapsulated a really mad day.
I reckon Oz is about to turf me out of the Bar & Grill.
Speaking for myself, I couldn’t answer anzon’s question and I prefer not to answer Brewster (er, izent’it?) unless specifically compelled to do so. I haven’t been moved to do so.
As for the Vegemite all over the place, Sir, Oz chucked it in the room. Ooops, that makes me a dobber. I did my homework but the dog ate it. If you give me detention I’ll miss the bus, and me Mum’ll go all unnecessary.
Bother! I was hoping to crib someone else’s answers.
meltemian says:
August 15, 2010 at 7:44 pm
Gee, I was hoping you’d explain the questions.
It’s OK. I’ll give you the answers but you will have to wait an hour. I need to talk to Mr MV to get them.
Don’t tell the chalkie though.
For anyone reading my posts on 3 August about Street View I inadvertently set Ozboy some homework.(11:00 am. August 3rd)
I am pleased to say the homework has now been received and marked 10/10.
Oz has kindly added an entry to Rare Scribbling above to answer and explain my question.
So it wasn’t a world in a giant egg cup used to predicts the disaster points of global warming after all!
Thank you Oz your efforts very much appreciated.
Man on the Moor
Just spoke to Mr MV – we have some disagreement over the answers! Well, now, we will just say his ‘answer’ and ‘mine’. By the way teacher, this is not collusion – we are not conspiring with the enemy. Just consolidating resources. A bit like the IPCC. Where do we get that grant?
Teach why do you go on and on about nuts? Peanut butter is the second favourite spread in Oz – after Vegemite of course.
Good night. Time to dream and hope.
‘Night Mrs MV. Sweet Dreams.
Suffolkboy
Never did any homework at school, and have no intention of starting now. However, Thumper has a “thing” about being “Teacher’s Pet”. Personally, I prefer the maid’s uniform. But the word is, if I don’t answer for her, there’ll be neither this trip home. So, on her behalf, carefully researched answers to your quiz.
Q1 – High, higher and highest – cos low, lower and lowest just wouldn’t make any sense.
Q2 – Too hot, too cold, and just right – at least according to the Goldilocks Principal.
Q3 – Emissivity – the increasing tendency of a male body to ejaculate as it approaches orgasm.
Energy Flux Density – the difference in energy levels in male primates between A) 30 seconds prior to orgasm, and B) five minutes afterwards.
There IS no difference for a black body and to suggest otherwise is racist. Besides, it’s just another ploy to make us white guys feel inferior.
Q4 – None of the above. The truth is the gold stuff is the same coloured alfoil used to line cigarette packets. NASA buys it in bulk cheap from ALCAN, thereby freeing up much-needed funds for climate research.
Q5 – Cos Kodak stopped making film a couple of years ago – cheap Chinese crap is all you can get these days.
Q6 – Thumper’s brother Kelvin says he has no interest in raising the Pacific Ocean at all. Thumper’s brother Kelvin is not interested in any exajoules either. Says his wife already has too many damn joules. And pairs of shoes. This is not an approximation – it’s exactly what he said.
Q7 – ALL of it that falls on the earth in any one year, that isn’t radiated back.
Q8 – Every last cent that the thieving b^*st^*ds can lay their sticky fingers on.
Q9 – Let their wives dial 000. Well, at least it would have worked in my case (actually, another four hours and I really WOULD have been on a plane).
Q10 – Blow Job – obviously. Who else could it be?
There’s a long tradition of scientific pioneering associated not only with Oz but with Tassie specifically. Not many people know it, but the atom was first split in a Chook shed in Tasmania. The science is beyond me but the results (especially at 3:25 mins in) are impressive to say the least.
Pointman
Hi Honey Pie you make me cry with laughter.
Just having the sleeping pill (the last glass of wine). On the verandah.
Pointman I thought this was great until he tuned into a little klutz …..
….http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j6IBdHW_rY
Suffolk, my answers. All my own work and without a single google. I did phone a friend though.
Q1. Easy; smelly, smellier and the smelliest.
Q2. My estimate would be warmish.
Q3. A trick question, Chalkie. It all depends on how up the “black body” is for a bit of fun and games.
Q4. Obviously answer vii – We already know squirrels can breathe in space.
Q5. Old kit innit? Everyone else has a camera on their phones nowadays.
Q6. Nobody could push up the Pacific Ocean although those wonderbra people might have some ideas …
Q7. I give up on that one.
Q8. Another trick question Chalkie but you can’t catch me out. They’ll tax the ass of the GDP to save the planet but everyone knows it’ll really be spent paying off loans.
Q9. Silly question. If you take away the steps, nobody will be able to get on the plane.
Q10. It was either the Squirrels or Monica Lewinsky
Pointman
Mrs. MV,
Jeez, that’s some voice. I wonder what it’ll sound like when it breaks.
Pointman
@-suffolkboy
“Three steel ball bearings, each one inch in diameter, are in a circular orbit around the Sun at a distance of 1 Astronomical Unit from the Sun. One is painted matt black. The second is painted matt white. The third is covered in a thin shiny coating of gold.
Q1: Rank the temperatures of the ball bearings in increasing order of temperature, explaining your reasoning.
Need to know more about the specific spectral albedo’s of the surfaces to be able to answer this, if they are in thermal equalibrium then there will be very little difference…
Q2: Estimate the temperatures of the three ball bearings.
259K
Q3: Define the terms “emissivity” and “energy flux density”; what is the emissivity of a hypothetical “black body”?
total energy radiated per unit surface area per unit time .
Q4: Why are satellites often covered in gold…
(i)…
None of the above options
Combination of reflecting solar radiation to slow the rate of heating and dispersing static electrical charge.
Q5: Why do mountain rescue teams carry survival blankets containing Mylar film?
Best insulation for lightest weight.
Q6: Estimate how much energy is required to raise the entire Pacific Ocean by one Kelvin. Express your answer in exajoules. State your approximations.
I must have slipped up with the decimal point by three somewhere because I make it –
2.6*10^24 J, or about a quarter-million exajoules.
Using 622KM3 for the pacific volume and 4.1kJ/Kg/degC as the specific heat of water.
Q7: Estimate how much electromagnetic radiation energy from the Sun is absorbed by the Earth in one year.
~About 5*10^24J
Q8: What percentage of Australia’s GDP is going to spent on saving the planet during 2011?
Half of what is spent on cosmetic adverts.
Q9: What steps can be taken at airports to prevent passengers boarding planes while carrying exploding gall bladders?
All air travel to be undertaken naked.
Q10: Who’s eaten all the nuts?”
Not All of them, I’m still here….
Damm…
neophyte student mistake on –
Q7: Estimate how much electromagnetic radiation energy from the Sun is absorbed by the Earth in one year.
read it as received, not absorbed.
with average albedo of 0.3…
About 3.8 *10^24 J
Izen
Thank you Sir, I am significantly in your debt.
Mrs MV
See Hunny Bun – I TOLD you he’d do it.
I win.
Remember I want a bowler hat this time, like James Bond.
A most fulfilling day that ended better than I could ever have hoped for.
Night all
-@ MV
“See Hunny Bun – I TOLD you he’d do it.
I win.
Remember I want a bowler hat this time, like James Bond.”
If you were betting I would rise to the challenge of engaging with verifiable scientific facts then you were on a sure thing. Not something true of all here….
If I find you are using my predictability to conduct your flirtations I may have to modify my tactics, even unwitting involvement in that I find slightly…. tasteless.
I thought 007 wore a trilby….. I can see him now chucking it on to Moneypenny’s hat stand.
Izen, don’t be a prude.
Pointman
More evidence and information about the delays and procrastination by the government and Chris Huhne over nuclear energy.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/7945867/Britain-is-struggling-to-power-the-nuclear-revolution.html.
It seems clear that our dim witted minister and government are unable to grasp the impact of the lights going out.
The situation is now critical and within twelve months we will have meltdown.
Perhaps Dave has a plan ‘B’ to ask our friends in the EU ever so nicely, if we pay an extra 50% to the EU kitty, we can carry on using our nice coal fired power stations.
(Late) ‘morning All.
MV: by common consent you are due for a thumping.
Ed: I appreciate your sensitivity, sir. I am ignorant about many things but am willing to take instruction. Especially if it’s done as well as Ozboy does it.
(Late) ‘morning All.
MV: by common consent you are due for a thumping.
Ed: I appreciate your sensitivity, sir. I am ignorant about many things but am willing to take instruction. Especially if it’s done as well as Ozboy does it.
Post this WordPress and don’t tell me it’s a duplicate comment when it ain’t!
Well I’ll be bug-eyed. It was. I could have sworn I didn’t touch a thing.
Pointman: What’s wrong with prudery?
SB,
I find myself in awe of your teaching methodologies, despite setting Izen homework on more than one occasion I found my self in receipt of a very sloppy piece of guess work on the first homework given. The second homework set there was not even an attempt at an answer, I was very disappointed.
I will attempt to answer your questions using the no cheating looking things up method.
Q1: I am feeling (from a gut sensation) that they will all be similar. Although the black has better absorbativity it also has an equal and opposite emissivity. Equilibrium rules.
Q2: Taking the Balls to be none rotating, I would guess one side much hotter than the other. (Like the moon)
Q3: The term emissivity suggests to me the capacity to emit. The energy flux density is something I am unsure of; I feel it is related to the amount of energetic activity related to the amount of matter per unit. The emissivity of a hypothetical “black body” is 1.
Q4: Because it is shiny.
Q5: Because the generators to run electric blankets proved too heavy.
Q6: Lots. Lots and lots. An exajoule is not recognized by my spellchecker, ergo it does not exist.
Q7: one Zerg.
Q8: 110%
Q9: The metal ones on wheels take those away and no one is getting on.
Q10: Me.
NoIdea
Amanda says:
August 16, 2010 at 1:21 am
“What’s wrong with prudery?” – Dunno, ain’t seen her lately.
Pointman
Speaking of Prudence …
Pointman
I’m bored of lager
zider goes down that much better.
How about a very smooth and mellow Barolo?
I’d be more than willing to have a sup if you hadn’t have embedded the video!
-@ Pointman
“Izen, don’t be a prude.”
Yes, I know, viewed disspasionately from an altitude of around 8 kliks up its a slight and trivial matter and I can grasp its comedic potential.
But while it is of great credit to both MV and Mrs MV that they still share a romantic commitment after many years, its possibly very sweet that they are prepared to share that expression of their personal relationship for all and sundry at the Oz bar-n-grill; but from personal point of view I am reluctant to be an unintentional voyeur.
It is obvious given my expressed antipathy that I would not choose to participate in their public flirtations, and I find the fact that part of its dynamic is behind the scenes bets about what a poster who has made clear their dislike will do… well just a bit creepy.
Just my take on it.
By the way, hate the boy singer, commercial pap, try this-
| |
Amanda says:
August 15, 2010 at 12:46 pm
Nothing is wrong with them whatsoever, as in fact they are the preferred associates of me truly. Perhaps my syntax and circumlocutions have been somewhat slightly incomprehensible owing to working again with a laptop as opposed to the Wayback Machine of recent yore.
Crownarmourer, don’t let the bairn watch the ceiling fan rotate too much, or he shall grow up to be a helicopter pilot, verily and forsooth.
I still welcome the US Administration to address how the budget will one day be balanced within the framework of 25% and more of the able-bodied population not working, which is pretty much the case now, while the expenses of new programmes are being piled on. The spectre of enforced reduced incomes does not bode well for increasing tax revenues.
Simple plan:
1. switch to prompt call, same as cash, on all Federal purchases, net ten proximate, and eff the banks altogether;
2. De-link bank interest and loan rates from the baffling idiocy of presuming they have anything to do with inflation (50,000 kids got their PhD’s proving just that empirically over the past 70 years since Keynes did the first de-link as a test runn which was a success), peg both rates at 10 points while issuing a Nixon era “hold the lone” price control fix for just 8 months;
3. Re-finance all outstanding Federally-held foreign aid loans, which are the best payers right now on the planet (and always have been, that’s why we shark the developing world, we would be doomed without them LOL);
4. Outlaw gambling and pull the plug on credit cards for a year;
5. FORGIVE the liars’ loans lenders or line them up against a wall and shoot them; the longer no choice is made the worst the decision shall be either way;
6. Tell the energy derivative traders that in six months they will be Federally regulated AND TAXED prompt call factors (accounts receivable bankers) rather than futures pimps, then pull that trigger, too;
7. Throw a three year tax holiday for new manufacturing operation startups in the States, which the GATT and WTO allow nations to do (vide COMMUNIST China).
And Bob’s your uncle. WTF? Any citizenry would buy into that, left or right.Then the greentards can make profit-only subsidy-free based windmill projects until their nonexistent gonads fall off.
Let it so be written, let it so be done, or the Egyptian Army gets free swimming lessons.
That’s hold the line. YAGGGGH! Digitarditis again.
Izen: Mmm. You’d think the privacy of e-mail….
Bear : No, *this* is Hold the Line: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71IFbyQ7D-o
oo
Izen: lovely: my two main thoughts when seeing young children play (or reading about it) are 1) I wish my parents had given me lessons young; we *had* a piano, for heaven’s sake; and 2) Do the children actually like it and what are they giving up to do it?
Me again. Trust me, doing laundry isn’t fascinating. Re: Drink up the zider: It looks as though they already have!
More renewables farce as the solar panel fairy prepares to deal out large amounts of subsidy to benefit the suits and politicians.
Sales hype and no joined up thinking (except perhaps using wet rubber bands to connect these panels back to the grid) , has no one told them this did not work in Germany 500 miles further south, or have the politicians an extra supply of sunshine predicted by their global warming simulator.. — This we need to know.
Otherwise it is just the same old scam to get the taxpayer to pay for chicken droppings.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/7945714/Renewable-energy-is-the-cash-crop-of-the-future-for-British-farmers.html
Weather report 103F feels like 128F that’ 39c feels like 52c so if you have any nasty old relative you don’t like push them out into the back yard to enjoy the sunshine, wrap them up tightly in blankets.
Crown, that’s so vicious! If they’re anything like Mr A’s grandmother, blankets won’t be warm enough.
amanda well all my old relatives are likable so they are safe for now. At least your down on the Gulf with some nice breezes coming in off the ocean, it has been this hot before back in the early 90’s so as soon as I can I’m away from here it’s the humidity that’s the killer.
G’day folks. I’m out today, but there’s a bucketload of new material for you in the next thread, here.
Enjoy!
Oz
Minor Louise Gray
articlecut-and-paste space filler:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/7946613/Mankind-is-using-up-global-resources-faster-than-ever.html
The article is about fish, transitions, sustainability, rising global temperatures. She introduces “Earth Overshoot Day” and quotes Andrew Simms (boardmember on Greenpeace)
as saying “the earlier humans use up Earth’s resources,…..driving climate change…. ”
probably derived from
http://www.neweconomics.org/blog/apachesolr_search/programmes/publications/interdependence .
You have a way of conveying things, that is certainly rather straightforward. Many thanks for clear and helpful insight.
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