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RickG at 08:51 AM on 19 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
damorbel, The diagram, or schematic as Trenberth calls it, is from one of his many PowerPoint presentations. In other words the schematic is meant to be presented with discussion in context with his presentation. The schematic as many of us have pointed out to you is about incoming solar energy and how it is distributed throughout the climate system taking different forms of energy. In describing this, not only by Trenberth, but all scientists, use the proper units of measure which is watts per square meter, not temperature. But since no one seems to be able to convince you of that, watch Trenberth describe that very schematic himself in this video. -
les at 08:40 AM on 19 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
661 Rysn good try at a twist. I'm afraid that it's transparent to all here that you really are not "doing physics" in your argumentation. At thus stage, really, we're just playing with you. Dont take your arguments so seriously - no one else is. -
Albatross at 08:32 AM on 19 March 2011How Suffolk County Community College students contributed to the Guide to Skepticism
Great news-- wonderful that the students were involved. John a question and a suggestion. How many people have downloaded the booklet to date? The suggestion, maybe one could include text bubbles in that graphic showing the three lonely contrarians (i.e, room full of climate scientists). Maybe something like: Spencer--"Dick where are you, I'm lost?" Lindzen-- "Over here Roy, waay over here. Don't worry, I'm lost too" Spencer-- "OK, but have you seen John (Christy)?" Dick-- "Umm, not sure, saw him a few hours ago looking very lost." Three lonely and wayward "skeptics" lost in a sea of science, facts and reason :)Response: The booklet has been downloaded around 128,000 times since December (that's not counting other websites hosting the booklet or translations).
I'll take the speech bubble idea under advisement :-) -
2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
L.J. Ryan - Since the Trenberth numbers are an energy budget, they should add up and cancel out for an unforced climate. If, however, you carefully add up the Trenberth numbers without rounding you get an imbalance of about 0.9 W/m^2 less leaving than arriving. That's the forcing. -
L.J. Ryan at 07:38 AM on 19 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
scaddenp666 Oh...Tom and Trenberth count the photon/flux twice. So the vector sums are zero, no atmospheric forcing...no AGW. You have confirmed my position. -
pbjamm at 07:19 AM on 19 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
L.J Ryan@559 No you would not have a laser, the beam would not be directional since photons would reach the aperture at a variety of angles and travel out that way too. From a photon=particle bouncing around standpoint I think the brightness of that beam would diminish over time as the number of photons hitting the aperture/sec would diminish along with the number in the box. "Light Decay" in the context of the discussion is light losing energy to the imperfect mirrors. As for Tom Curtis' original diagram @615 I think the missing element in most of this discussion is time. Over time A=C but not for every photon interaction. We need to be clear if we are talking about an instantaneous measurement or the totals over time. Same goes for the Trenberth Diagram. note: I am not a physicist nor mathematician. I reserve the right to be wrong. -
Riccardo at 07:09 AM on 19 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
damorbel given that you know how to calculate temperature from the energy flux, why are you asking Trenberth to report it in a summary graph? You really look polemical here, it adds really nothing to the discussion or to the undersdtanding of the energy budget. -
Chris Colose at 07:02 AM on 19 March 2011What would a CO2-free atmosphere look like?
I would agree that it makes little sense to look at things like Fig. 2 with a magnifying glass, but the general picture I have presented here is robust to different models and parameterizations, and also within the geologic record (particularly cap carbonates as a key indicator that the Neoproterozoic glaciations and deglaciations involve a jump between extremely different states). Different cloud parameterizations and feedbacks, simulation of circulation, etc may yield different results, and while it is useful to know whether it takes 2000 or 4000 ppm of CO2 in the air to trigger glaciation under Neoproterozoic insolation, it plays little bearing on thinking through these problems on a forum like this. This is how science advances in general, by building a useful scaffold upon which more technical details can be later hung. I feel like this is self-evident to most people here, and TTTM is just trying to argue; certainly, the results of something like Fig. 2 emerge in simple zero-dimensional energy balance models as well as in full flown GCM’s, and are not hand-waving or other such “useless” exercises as he’d have people believe. There is no fascination with attacking Lindzen either, he was just wrong, and admitting that rather than trying to defend it through “arguments from complexity” would be one more step toward a good discussion. Concerning the rather weak climate sensitivity in a snowball Earth, there are several published mechanisms for why this is the case. The first is the very weak water vapor feedback, which is relatively unimportant in regimes where the tropics are frozen. Without the help from water vapor, CO2 has limited power to warm up a Snowball Earth to the point of deglaciation. This is much less true for condensed water, which is much more efficient of an infrared absorber than water vapor. Second, there is a rather weak vertical temperature gradient in the summer hemisphere of a snowball, and even weaker in the winter hemisphere in which convection is suppressed (much like over Antarctica in the winter). The greenhouse effect can only operate insofar as you have colder air aloft to work with, so a weak lapse rate inhibits the ability for CO2 to do much. In regimes where you could condense CO2 as a cloud, you could generate a scattering greenhouse effect (rather than the traditional absorption and re-radiation we are used to) that works largely independent of the lapse rate (though this also serves as a limit to CO2 accumulation). This could play a role in Polar Regions in the winter time during the Neoproterozoic at high CO2 levels, early earth snowballs, or on early Mars for example.Moderator Response: [DB] Fixed Fig 2 reference per request. -
damorbel at 06:48 AM on 19 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Re 650 RickG :- "For what Trenberth is demonstrating temperature is neither necessary or relevant in that diagram. I have no problem understanding the diagram myself." It is difficult to believe that a diagram showing emission of thermal radiation (W/^m2) can be considered useful when no indication is given of the temperature of the emitting body; why else would the Stefan-Boltzmann equation (E= rhoT^4) be so widely deployed in thermal physics?Moderator Response: [Muoncounter] you raised this identical 'objection' in November, 600 comments up this very thread. The same replies you received then still apply now. Insistence on mere repetition demonstrates that your argument ran its course. -
Kiwiiano at 06:46 AM on 19 March 2011The Scientific Guide to Global Warming Skepticism
I was looking to commit the booklet to paper, but it needs to be done in colour to preserve the graphics, but much of the text will look terrible on paper. Any chance of a printable version?Moderator Response: [DB] Try here. -
scaddenp at 06:36 AM on 19 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
L.J. Ryan - back to the original light box. We agree that the set up does NOT violate 1st law? No where in the system is energy being created. The thing that seems counter-intuitive apparently is that energy-fluxes appears to double. Whoa! energy creation! No. This illustrates that care has be taken in inferring system energy from energy flux, because in this case, with reflection, the same energy gets counted twice. This is no violation of 1st law going on in Tom's example - nor in Trenberth's diagram for same reason. Just an illustration about care in use of energy flux. -
citizenschallenge at 06:34 AM on 19 March 2011Christy's Unconvincing Congressional Testimony
Wasn't Christy's testimony Under Oath? Isn't there any recourse for officially disputing the factuality of his testimony? -
2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Fred Staples - That's a fairly reasonable (if wordy) description of Entropy. You could have just linked to an existing definition and saved much typing. I think I see where you're going - to an argument that the high levels of IR at the surface somehow violate entropy considerations. You might find my comment here relevant in that regard. We aren't dealing with a closed system, but rather a very open one, where the important issues are rate of energy flow, energy differentials, and internal temperatures and energy levels required to maintain a dynamic equilibrium. Not moving a fixed amount of energy around a closed system. Entropy is increasing as sunlight radiates out into the 3K void of space. Local conditions regarding the conversion of that visible light into thermal IR provide a pinch-point, much like the dam in my analogy, one that includes a local collection of energy in order to have an energy differential sufficient to radiate the IR to space. -
Fred Staples at 05:42 AM on 19 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
The energy quality I described in 498 is obviously related to the inverse of entropy, but people struggle with the latter concept. It is easier to see that quality is related to useful energy – that is, energy that can actually do something, such as producing useful work or raising temperature. In any spontaneous transaction involving energy transfer, quality will diminish. What this means is that the energy cannot go backwards, and some of the useful energy will be lost. (I said I would not mention the second law, but that is what it is really about). Incidentally, 499, real life energy losses through friction, etc, make the situation worse. Energy quantity as well as quality is lost to the system Here is another elementary example. An insulated vessel contains gas at a high temperature, and is separated from a vacuum, within the vessel, by a membrane. If the membrane is punctured, the gas flows into the vacuum, and its pressure drops. No work is done, no heat is lost, so the temperature remains the same. The first law says that energy has been conserved. But the gas is obviously able to do less work, starting from the lower pressure. It is also obvious that (Maxwell's demon apart) the gas cannot go back. What has happened is that the quality of the energy has fallen. It turns out (as the pundits say) that it is this elusive characteristic of quality (strictly entropy) that drives all spontaneous transactions – literally everything from chemistry, biology, energy transfer and (fancifully) the tidiness of your desk. It is the quality of energy, not the quantity, that makes something happen. Here are two well known examples. Suppose that a single gas flame operates at a temperature below the melting point of a steel plate. The steel will not melt because the quality of the flame energy is too low. Now apply ten more similar flames. Still the steel will not melt. Another example is Einstein’s experiment to eject electrons (I forget from what) with a beam of incident radiation. Below a certain frequency (energy quality) nothing happened, no matter what the intensity (energy quantity). Above that frequency, electrons were ejected, and quantum mechanics was born. Sadly, however, my definition of quality (available energy) is too simplistic. It is the relative quality that matters. Switching the argument to a power generator, a source with a high temperature can generate work by transferring energy to a sink at a lower temperature. The available energy is high. If the sink is at the same temperature as the source, nothing will happen. There is no available energy. Likewise, if the sink energy can be connected to a second sink with a lower temperature, space heating is possible. Otherwise the waste energy will be ejected to the atmosphere through cooling towers. So, if I have persuaded anyone that the crucial elements of energy transfer are the qualities of the energies concerned, and that energy can’t go backwards without the performance of extraneous work, we can move on to an even more elusive concept. Heat. -
2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
LJ> In that specific comment, Tom clearly indicated he was talking about a "real-world" box that would not be perfectly reflective. In that case "decay" would be the light escaping the box. I have not contradicted a single thing Tom said, you just aren't reading what's being written. -
L.J. Ryan at 05:38 AM on 19 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
e 660 I asked a question...What is light decay? You are not contradicting Tom,suit yourself. -
Bibliovermis at 05:33 AM on 19 March 2011What would a CO2-free atmosphere look like?
The CO2 came from unabated volcanic activity and tectonic forces over millions of years. Snowball Earth by Paul F. Hoffman and Daniel P. Schrag, Scientific American, January 2000 -
L.J. Ryan at 05:30 AM on 19 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
les655 "Ryan, well, no actually. Not for that weird selective filter thing. Still, given the arbitrary was bits of physics are being thrown around this thread; have it your way, what the hell! " I agree sloppy physics, lot fundamental violations. The weird filtering was Tom's not mine. Are you familiar with Kirchhoff's black body cavity theorisation/experiment? -
2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
LJ> Everything you said in post 658 is false. I will not detail the problems because they are all simple reading comprehension errors. If you're not going to make any effort to read and comprehend the point that is being made then you are not here for intelligent discussion; there's no point in talking to you. -
L.J. Ryan at 05:20 AM on 19 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
e656 pbjamm657 Make the aperture diameter 2x photon diameter, and shazam you have a flashlight powered photon laser. -
michael sweet at 05:17 AM on 19 March 2011Those who contribute the least greenhouse gases will be most impacted by climate change
Gilles: You said "use of FF increases the wealth" of countries. I have provided a specific counter example and all you can say is it is because France uses nuclear? Tell me something I don't already know. You make my point: other energy sources can be used to support a modern economy. Your claim that FF use is proportional to success in a modern economy is proved incorrect. When 2010 numbers come out it will show that Spain got 16% of their electricity from wind and they continue to rapidly install turbines. No problem with increasing coal and oil prices there! Please provide references to your extraordinary claims. -
Utahn at 05:12 AM on 19 March 2011Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Neglected to mention that in the Boucher article, they note that there is some significant counteracting cooling as well that occurs due to the irrigation/evaporation cooling the area irrigated (not to mention land albedo changes from vegetation etc...) -
L.J. Ryan at 05:12 AM on 19 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
e654 "So his assumption with that statement was that in reality you cannot have perfectly reflecting walls. Now stop trying to nitpick and give his example some real thought." The perfectly reflective wall was Tom constraint not mine. Violating the 1st law in order to illustrate radiative forcing is not nitpicking, rather it's very fundamental. To say emissivity >0 leads to "light decay" is a convenient concept...does the photon slow down until comes to rest at the bottom of the box? What is light decay? Tom said: "The answer has to be in terms of photon numbers, not energy because the wavelength of the photons has not been specified. If we specify that all photons have the same wavelength, then the multipliers for photons in the answers above can be used for energy." you say: "To convert wavelength into energy per photon, use the equation h*c/wavelength. You can type this directly into google like so "h * c / 11364 nm". Once you have that number is just a matter of multiplying it by the number of photons, try it yourself." You seem to be at odds with Tom. Your suppositions concludes, regardless of wavelength the accumulated ENERGY within the box is twice the input...as detailed by @646 -
Utahn at 04:59 AM on 19 March 2011Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
In different water vapor threads I have seen comments that continually added water vapor(i.e. fossil fuel combustion/irrigation) might act as an anthropogenic forcing of climate change. This makes sense to me (continual addition of vapor overcoming the short residence time) so I looked around and found a couple of places this was addressed: one is a grad student at UCBoulder's website and I'm not sure how good his numbers are but the explanation and detail is very easy to understand, and he concludes that water vapor from combustion is a trivial addition. The other is an article (Boucher 2004), again I'm not qualified to say how "good" the article is, but they estimate that irrigation *does* add to global radiative forcing by up 0.03 to 0.1 W/m2, again a trivial amount compared to C02 or total water vapor forcing. If the mods/author thinks these links look "up to snuff", they might be a useful addition to add to the article for people looking at this aspect of the argument and wondering about "directly anthropogenic" water vapor. -
pbjamm at 04:48 AM on 19 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
L.J Ryan@651 "So the accumulated "boxed" light would radiate 1W for a 100 hrs, once the second aperture is opened?" Wouldn't that depend on the size of the aperture? On the photon level wouldn't the "flow rate" out of the aperture change as less light remained in the box? Fewer photons would be available to hit the target/sec. I imagine it would be a bright and rapidly fading light once the hole was opened. Since this is all imaginary... -
2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
LJ@651 >So the accumulated "boxed" light would radiate 1W for a 100 hrs, once the second aperture is opened? The wattage of the aperture would be entirely determined by the the size of the hole, the size of the box, and the amount of energy in the box. As the energy escapes from the box the wattage of the aperture decreases. It has no relationship to the original wattage of the flashlight. That value is determined by the flashlight's ability to convert chemical energy into radiant energy. In this example all the energy is already radiant. The box doesn't "remember" the wattage of the original light source. -
Utahn at 04:35 AM on 19 March 2011Those who contribute the least greenhouse gases will be most impacted by climate change
Gilles: "Where is the problem ?" The problem is not that there are correlations with wealth and fossil fuel use, just that *you state that fossil fuels increase wealth* and don't support your statements of causation with any facts. As I asked before, do you believe correlation is causation? -
les at 04:33 AM on 19 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
653 damorbel: again, we are in complete agreement in not completely understanding the bits where I quote you. Still, to do what you require follow the advice of others here and read the full papers rather then looking at the pretty pictures. 652 Ryan, well, no actually. Not for that weird selective filter thing. Still, given the arbitrary was bits of physics are being thrown around this thread; have it your way, what the hell! -
2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
LJ@651 >Sounds like a violation of the 1st law...remember perfectly reflective walls. Sounds as if you don't believe your own answer. The full context of that comment was: "... in practise you would not have perfectly reflecting walls," So his assumption with that statement was that in reality you cannot have perfectly reflecting walls. Now stop trying to nitpick and give his example some real thought. >ok lets assign three wavelengths and redo @646 As Tom pointed out this would just be a multiplier i.e. energy per photon X number of photons. To convert wavelength into energy per photon, use the equation h*c/wavelength. You can type this directly into google like so "h * c / 11364 nm". Once you have that number is just a matter of multiplying it by the number of photons, try it yourself. Re: question 1a) The aperture he is referring to is the open hole where the lid used to be. There is no aperture in Tom's original example. Re: question 2a) The lid still holds the same properties it did in the original example, i.e. it transmits 50% and reflects 50%. -
damorbel at 04:17 AM on 19 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Re #649 les, you wrote:- "damorbel 648 - fine. We agree on so much including, it would seem, that the diagram is not "completely deficient in temperature information". " I think there is a definite problem there. I'm afraid I do not understand just what is it that makes you say:- " the diagram is not "completely deficient in temperature information". ? and:- "It clearly does "present ... useful information for any discussion on climate change " I'm not sure what you mean here. I am of course thinking of 'useful information' in the sense of scientific information, suitable for putting in reports called 'the Scientific Basis', the name of the sections of IPCC reports using this diagram. Trenberth's diagrams are among the few (perhaps only) in IPCC reports showing directional energy effects from greenhouse gases, I cite them because, without temperature, any figures showing energy emissions from the atmosphere, the Earth's surface or anything else have no scientific basis. -
L.J. Ryan at 03:58 AM on 19 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
les 638 No not Maxwells Demon, but rather Kirchhoff's black body theorisation. -
Charlie A at 03:52 AM on 19 March 2011Maximum and minimum monthly records in global temperature databases
@ #53 Anderson -- that's a very interesting paper with a method of analysis I've not seen before. The concept of doing record-breaking analysis while moving back in time is one of those "why didn't I think of that!" ideas. The rather startling conclusion about decreasing variability of monthly average temperatures does not fit with the consensus thinking about the effects of global warming. More concretely, the paper finds about a 0.2C decrease over 106 years in the standard deviation GHCN monthly temperatures,which have a starting deviation of about 1.8C. A non-trivial observation that doesn't seem to have gotten the appropriate amount of attention. Although the method does require detrending of the data, the detection of variability trends seems very robust to the detrending method chosen. I forsee this method being used to analyze other parameters where variability is of great interest, such as precipitation. I note that the paper took the GHCN monthly record as it stands, and there is no discussion of whether the observed 10% decrease in variability in the GHCN monthly temperature record is due to a true reduction in variability of temperatures or whether the observed decrease is merely an artifact of changes in measurement and record keeping. -
L.J. Ryan at 03:39 AM on 19 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Tom Curtis@647 "accumulated energy would be 360 kilojoules" So the accumulated "boxed" light would radiate 1W for a 100 hrs, once the second aperture is opened? "the light would decay to zero very quickly" Sounds like a violation of the 1st law...remember perfectly reflective walls. Sounds as if you don't believe your own answer. "The answer has to be in terms of photon numbers, not energy because the wavelength of the photons has not been specified. If we specify that all photons have the same wavelength, then the multipliers for photons in the answers above can be used for energy." ok lets assign three wavelengths and redo @646 1. 11364 nm 2. 10062 nm 3. 2898 nm @637 questions 1) Consider the box as described, but without any lid. In this case all the light will reflect of the wall of the box and exit through the aperture where the lid was. Is that correct? 1a)I not sure I understand your question...if the lid included the aperture wouldn't it also be removed with the lid...? 2) Now consider the case in which we place the lid on the box, but at an angle so that all light reflected of the lid will leave the box through some other aperture. In this case, the amount of light leaving the box through the lid will be half of that which enters, while the amount that is reflected by the lid and leaves through the other aperture will also be half of that which enters the box. Is that correct? 2a)Again, I'm not sure I understand your question. Is the box partially open? How open? -
RickG at 03:21 AM on 19 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
damorbel @ 643, I'm well aware of the title of the thread. However, my original comment was about Trenberth's diagram and what you said about it. For what Trenberth is demonstrating temperature is neither necessary or relevant in that diagram. I have no problem understanding the diagram myself. Trenberth has a presentation in which that diagram is described here on pages 13 & 14. Other diagrams with "temperature" are described in the presentation as well, in their appropriate place. If you still have a problem with the diagram, then perhaps you should contact him personally and take the matter up with him at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).. I'm sure he is open to new ideas and wants to be sure his diagrams convey the proper information and documentation.Moderator Response: [Muoncounter] damorbel has been given this suggestion a number of times to little if any effect. Instead, we have more pointless repetition of the same tedious argument, which we may surmise is damorbel's actual intent. -
les at 03:15 AM on 19 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
damorbel 648 - fine. We agree on so much including, it would seem, that the diagram is not "completely deficient in temperature information". Why don't people say what is apparent without exaggeration? The diagram doesn't explicitly mention temperatures and piles of other information. Indeed it's a cartoon. It clearly does "present ... useful information for any discussion on climate change (anthropogenic global warming - AGW) ". Why the hysteria, then? Same with LJRyan, giles et al. If you guys where half the scientist scientists you'd have be to participate in tgis discussing, you'd be far more easy with the shorthand notations, use of approximations, anstract models,partial perspectives and all the other tool we use on a daily basis to understand things. Take a chill pill. -
damorbel at 02:35 AM on 19 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Re #644 les you write:- "... all of which are temperature dependent." Too true, I couldn't agree with you more. So do you not think, to make a useful contribution to a discussion on temperature change, the temperatures should be mentioned? Also, the emitting materials do not all have the same emissivity; Trenberth should have inserted the emissivity that applies. -
Anderson at 02:30 AM on 19 March 2011Maximum and minimum monthly records in global temperature databases
Record-breaking events can also inform trends in variability. Those interested in this topic may find the following paper interesting. Anderson, Amalia, Alexander Kostinski, 2010: Reversible Record Breaking and Variability: Temperature Distributions across the Globe. J. Appl. Meteor. Climatol., 49, 1681–1691. doi: 10.1175/2010JAMC2407.1 -
Tom Curtis at 02:27 AM on 19 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
LJRyan @645, in an ideal fully mirrored box, the accumulated energy would be 360 kilojoules. Of course, in practise you would not have perfectly reflecting walls, and given the high speed of light, and consequent very large number of reflections in a short period, the light would decay to zero very quickly. Likewise, again because of the high speed, the light would escape the aperture before you could close it. But practical difficulties do not prevent us from exploring theoretical possibilities in ideal cases. @646, let the time interval be the time it takes a photon to travel from the lid to the back wall. Then 1) the accumulated photons at equilibrium is 4 times the number of photons that enter the light box at each time interval (see 640); and 2) at equilibrium the number of photons reflected in each time interval is 3 times the number that enter the light box in each time interval. Of those, 2 times that number are reflected of the back wall, and a number of photons equal to the number that enter are reflected of the lid. This ignores reflections of the side walls which are irrelevant to the overall issue. The answer has to be in terms of photon numbers, not energy because the wavelength of the photons has not been specified. If we specify that all photons have the same wavelength, then the multipliers for photons in the answers above can be used for energy. Now, can you answer my questions @637 -
From Peru at 02:19 AM on 19 March 2011Sea level rise: coming to a place near you
I wold like to see Lima, the capital of Peru, in the list. Where I live is safe (100 meters above sea level) but other areas of the city are not so lucky. I would like to see where and how extensive those areas are.Moderator Response: [DB] Unless you live in the vicinity of Callao, at no other point does the tool show even a 6-meter rise penetrating more than 2 pixels (2 kilometers) inland (to perhaps La Merina Ave/St/Rd). Wikimapia (the linked viewer) uses a much denser dataset than the mapping visualization tool. -
Kooiti Masuda at 02:10 AM on 19 March 2011Sea level rise: coming to a place near you
(Re: K T #11) It seems to me that the potential inundation map of Singapore is factually wrong. The terrain is really low, but it is unlikely that more than half of area is less than 1 m above sea level. I have not examined appropriate reference books yet, but by a quick Google search, I find an academic geographic paper by R.D. Hill (1980) Singapore - An Asian City State. Though subscription is needed to read the whole text, I can read its first page which contains "Tab 1. Singapore Island: Areas of various elevations (%)" with "Source: Wong 1969", and the percentage of "0 - 15 m" is 63.7. So, 36.3 % of the area has elevation higher than 15 m. It seems that the national data of Singapore were mis-interpreted, probably during the editing of the global elevation data set, before the global data set was incorporated in the analysis by the Univ. Arizona team. -
L.J. Ryan at 02:03 AM on 19 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
e@642 You asked: "The amount reflected tells us how many times photons have bounced off the walls, while the accumulated energy tells us how many photons are in the box. Do you see the distinction? " Using Tom Curtis 615, what is the value of each at equilibrium i.e. 1. accumulated energy 2. reflected energy..if you can quantify it -
L.J. Ryan at 01:48 AM on 19 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Tom Curtis@637 You are avoiding questions posed @636. If your box was fully enclosed such that all surfaces are reflective save two small aperture. One aperture to receive light the second to radiate light. Close the output while receiving 1W at the input. The light source occludes the reflected light from "leaking" out the input. The energy "accumulated" within the box after 100 hrs is what, 360kj? If the first aperture is then closed, does the box now contain 360kj of light? Asked otherwise, can the "accumulated" energy in the box be captured? -
Bern at 01:37 AM on 19 March 2011The True Cost of Coal Power
Erk. Mods, feel free to move my off-topic reply to the relevant thread, or delete it... [blush] Back on topic, pricing the externalities of coal is the big issue of the day. Brown coal produces ~0.8t of CO2 per MWh, so at $25/t CO2, that's only raising the price to $120/MWh. Still, that's enough to make it more expensive per MWh than everything except offshore wind, Solar PV, and Solar Thermal, going by your costs. I've seen costs for existing Solar thermal around the $170-$290 per MWh range, so that's almost competitive now, too. A bit more engineering to reduce the cost per MWh, and bob's your uncle! The big problem, as CBDunkerson points out, is that with fossil fuel plants you only pay part of the cost now, with most of it coming in fuel costs over 30 years, whereas most of the renewables have more like 80% of the costs up-front. -
Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 01:25 AM on 19 March 2011Those who contribute the least greenhouse gases will be most impacted by climate change
Certainly the climate is warming since 1960. In countries with low CO2 emissions (on the maps above) have come primarily to a decline in food production. On this page, is briefly described the global food market.: “Food production more than doubled (an increase of over 160%) from 1961 to 2003. Over this period, production of cereals—the major energy component of human diets—has increased almost two and a half times, beef and sheep production increased by 40%, pork production by nearly 60%, and poultry production doubled.” For example, in Africa - which is most affected by global warming (tropical and subtropical zone of the World) - the production of food is strongly associated with the climate - but not from global warming - rather, the phases of the AMO - the warm phase -growing (as currently) - in the cold phase - drops ... -
Bern at 01:25 AM on 19 March 2011The True Cost of Coal Power
andthorne @ 4: No, it's not methane. Yet. Yes, methane is part of the problem, and needs to be dealt with. If the methane in the hydrates & permafrost comes out, we're all in big trouble. But right now, methane isn't increasing much, while CO2 is. Regarding your comments on water - not every part of the world is blessed with the combination of rainfall and geography that Qebec has. Some areas are even running short of the stuff to drink. Also, storage for hydro is not cheap, takes up a lot of room, and the most suitable sites may already have towns or cities or other important infrastructure in them. It may be part of the solution, but it's not the only solution. -
les at 01:08 AM on 19 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
643 damorbel - "Trenberth's ... is completely deficient in temperature information" Someone might correct me; but, seems to me, the diagram includes "surface radiation", "back radiation" from GHGs, "Emitted by Atmosphere" ... all of which are temperature dependent. -
The Skeptical Chymist at 01:05 AM on 19 March 2011Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated
Harry, if you check Rob's graph (comment 5) you will see that the rate since the 90's (when satellite measurements of sea level become available) is around 3mm/year. So the indications are that the rate of sea level rise has increased from the 20th century average of 1.6mm/year. Some of the world experts on sea level rise are Australian scientists at CSIRO, they have good webpage with some good information on SLR here. -
JMurphy at 01:00 AM on 19 March 2011Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated
The difference between the two graphs is actually due to the 'Inverse Barometer' being applied or not. -
JMurphy at 00:56 AM on 19 March 2011Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated
Harry Seaward, have a look at the graph immediately above, in Rob Painting's post, and you will see the current rate shown. However, looking at the graph today, the rate has gone up to 3.1mm/yr. (If, like me, you get a mainly blank page at that link, just scroll down) -
The Skeptical Chymist at 00:54 AM on 19 March 2011Sea level rise: coming to a place near you
Thanks for the reply Dan. No doubt a number of countries have produced high resolution maps of land that could be lost to sea level rise. Perhaps links to some of these would be a good addition to the excellent resources on this site, as well as being useful for those of us outside the USA.
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