Ok maths gurus.

[The Natural Philosopher]

A simple question.

The answer I get makes me believe I have got it wrong.

Google the data, but the question is, what proportion of total earth
insolation (i.e watts per square meter averaged), is the consumption of
'artificial' energy. (i.e fossil and nuclear)?

And if you are feeling brave, how much of the incoming energy would be
needed to make 'renewable' electricity, if every person in the world
were to have a western lifestyle, and would there be any left over to
grow food?

--
“Progress is precisely that which rules and regulations did not foresee,”

– Ludwig von Mises

[Alan Jones]

On 20/01/2022 13:32, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> A simple question.
>
> The answer I get makes me believe I have got it wrong.
>
> Google the data, but the question is, what proportion of total earth
> insolation (i.e watts per square meter averaged), is the consumption of
> 'artificial' energy. (i.e fossil and nuclear)?
>
> And if you are feeling brave, how much of the incoming energy would be
> needed to make 'renewable' electricity, if every person in the world
> were to  have a western lifestyle, and would there be any left over to
> grow food?
>

I'll have a go at the easy arithmetic bit (energy in) in case it helps:

Total insolation per day per m2 might be 6 kWh = 21.6 MJ.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance
"The actual figure varies with the Sun's angle and atmospheric
circumstances. Ignoring clouds, the daily average insolation for the
Earth is approximately 6 kWh/m2 = 21.6 MJ/m2."

The surface area of the planet is around 5.1e14 m2.
So daily insolation for the planet is 6 kWh/m2 * 5.1e14 m2 = 3.06e15 kWh
Annual insolation would then be 365 days * 3.06e15 kWh/day = 1.1e18 kWh
In million tones of oil equivalent (Mtoe) that is 1.1e18 kWh / 11.63e09
kWh/Mtoe = 96e06 Mtoe, all per annum.

Total world coal, oil and gas production is around 12,450 Mtoe/yr
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_supply_and_consumption

The insolation would then be 96e06/12,450 = 7,700 times the
fossil+nuclear production.

So, at around 28% efficiency (storage, H2 production and generation
etc.), perhaps 1/2,000th of that would need to be harvested to maintain
current world levels.

To TMP: is that in line with your working? Without checking, I could
easily have missed the odd factor of 1000, but your working can be the
cross-check (:-).

Next steps:

That was the easy bit. Now you reasonably and bravely consider bringing
the entire world population up to western levels, which seems a much
harder calculation because of transport geography, trade distortions,
food supplies etc., and the hopefully falling energy consumption of a
typical western lifestyle.

Even a tiny bit like "do electric cars use less energy overall than
petrol cars" seems like a hard question to answer, as one has to count
the grid, storage, or H2 or ...

And finally, you would want to know how much could reasonably be
harvested with known renewable technologies, like PV in the deserts
producing H2 at the shores, wind in its many forms, even a bit of
wave/tidal. Biofuels may be only be viable for specialist purposes (e.g.
some aviation requirements like the F/A18 Super Hornet), and from waste
streams, because of the greater need for food/feed crops.

Did you have a go at some of this, or find any papers from those that
have? The EU plans for carbon neutrality by 2050 may help, but that's
only for the EU, and is focussed more on emissions avoidance, e.g. it
includes carbon capture to offset the residual unavoidable emissions.

See:
https://ec.europa.eu/clima/eu-action/climate-strategies-targets/2050-long-term-strategy_en

Sanity-check of energy production:

Linked from that page, overviews for some sectors are in the following
paper (third key document, "In-depth analysis accompanying the
Communication"), including some overall energy figures aound page 47:

https://ec.europa.eu/clima/document/download/dc751b7f-6bff-47eb-9535-32181f35607a_en

The baseline on those pages seems to have nuclear + fossil at around 550
Mtoe per annum for the EU in 2020, which seems broadly in line with the
wikipedia page (811 Mtoe for geographical Europe in 2018) since there is
300Mtoe outside the EU for Norway and the UK.

Cheers from Alan Jones.

[Fevric J. Glandules]

Alan Jones wrote:

> That was the easy bit. Now you reasonably and bravely consider bringing
> the entire world population up to western levels, which seems a much
> harder calculation because of transport geography, trade distortions,
> food supplies etc., and the hopefully falling energy consumption of a
> typical western lifestyle.

I googled "us energy consumption" and got 6.8toe per capita. [1]
"World population" => 7.9 billion.

Multiply.

So roughly 50,000 Mtoe/yr compared to your (current) 12,450 Mtoe/yr.

@TNP: what are you driving at?

[1] let's assume worst case. Other industrialised nations seem
to get by on less.

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 20/01/2022 19:32, Brian Morrison wrote:

> On Thu, 20 Jan 2022 19:01:06 +0000
> Alan Jones <ajn...@exospan.com> wrote:
>
>> The insolation would then be 96e06/12,450 = 7,700 times the
>> fossil+nuclear production.
>

> I've seen a previous figure which says 1/3200 for human energy
> generation relative to total climate energy, which is probably meant to
> mean total insolation.
>
> Ned Nikolov and Karl Zeller have an interesting paper on planetary
> temperature vs insolation. It seemed entirely believable to me where
> the other things I see are not thermodynamically sensible.
>
Now level up world population to Western consumption standards...

--
To ban Christmas, simply give turkeys the vote.

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 21/01/2022 00:51, Fevric J. Glandules wrote:
> Alan Jones wrote:
>
>> That was the easy bit. Now you reasonably and bravely consider bringing
>> the entire world population up to western levels, which seems a much
>> harder calculation because of transport geography, trade distortions,
>> food supplies etc., and the hopefully falling energy consumption of a
>> typical western lifestyle.
>
> I googled "us energy consumption" and got 6.8toe per capita. [1]
> "World population" => 7.9 billion.
>
> Multiply.
>
> So roughly 50,000 Mtoe/yr compared to your (current) 12,450 Mtoe/yr.
>
> @TNP: what are you driving at?
>

Nothing really. Just interested to see how much direct heating effect
burning nuclear/fossil fuels had.

And to get some ideas of how amazingly dangerous it would be to put
several days worth of energy into e.g. hydrogen or a battery,

Short answer is that burning fossil fuels or nuclear energy has almost
zero impact on energy balance. Lets not go into CO2 arguments.

Chixculub was a 100,000 gigaton event so 8 years of global energy
production.

And yet we were assured that a nuclear winter would occur if even a
fraction of world nuclear weapons were detonated.

So many people take one dimensional Boolean type ArtStudent™ narratives
as read without doing the actual calculations to see if they make sense.

One of the interesting questions was 'would transiting from fossil to
nuclear result in direct planetary warming' and the answer would seen to
be 'not at current levels of population and consumption'.

Another interesting question is just how much storage (never mind the
cost) would be needed to make intermittent 'renewables' work, and what
impact the detonation of such a store would have on the local or global
environment.

E.g. a weeks worth of storage to underwrite no sun/no wind UK winter
demand - not just of electricity, but in a 'net zero' scenario, total
energy demands - is around a 100GW weeks or 16.8 TWh. So a 13 megaton
bang if someone sticks a screwdriver across the terminals?

Again if my calcs are correct. I am too old for keeping track of power
of ten :-(

'Uncle Target' for terrorists ...

Just thinking we ought to think things through before engaging in any
more of 'Carrie Antoinettte's'* net zero initiates.

*Let them have heat pumps and electric cars instead.

[Alan Jones]

On 21/01/2022 12:15, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 21/01/2022 00:51, Fevric J. Glandules wrote:
>>
>> @TNP: what are you driving at?
>>
>
> Nothing really. Just interested to see how much direct heating effect
> burning nuclear/fossil fuels had.
>
> And to get some ideas of how amazingly dangerous it would be to put
> several days worth of energy into e.g. hydrogen or a battery,

Much of the present work is on distributed storage (electricity or
hydrogen), so that the grid is cheaper and more resilient. E.g. placing
the hydrogen generation where offshore wind comes ashore, or co-sited
with nuclear plants to reduce the need to modulate the nuclear output.

However, depending on complex cost tradeoffs, large-scale storage of
e.g. hydrogen might be effective in some geographies.

There may also be a place for hydrogen grids, and they are certainly
being considered now for large complexes of chemical plants.

But talking of grids, the organisations ENTSO-G and ENTSO-E produce
zoomable pdf maps of the gas and electricity grids like these:

https://www.entsog.eu/sites/default/files/2021-11/ENTSOG_CAP_2021_A0_1189x841_FULL_066_FLAT.pdf

https://www.entsoe.eu/Documents/Publications/maps/2019/Map_ENTSO-E-4.000.000.pdf

There might one day be continental-level high-voltage DC grids, or even
hydrogen grids, but it is early days yet, and the full extent of the
"hydrogen economy" is not yet clear.

Alan.

[Roland Perry]

In message <ffee819f-143d-f974...@exospan.com>, at
13:25:54 on Fri, 21 Jan 2022, Alan Jones <ajn...@exospan.com> remarked:

>On 21/01/2022 12:15, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>> On 21/01/2022 00:51, Fevric J. Glandules wrote:
>>>
>>> @TNP: what are you driving at?
>>>
>> Nothing really. Just interested to see how much direct heating
>>effect burning nuclear/fossil fuels had.
>> And to get some ideas of how amazingly dangerous it would be to put
>>several days worth of energy into e.g. hydrogen or a battery,
>
>Much of the present work is on distributed storage (electricity or
>hydrogen), so that the grid is cheaper and more resilient. E.g. placing
>the hydrogen generation where offshore wind comes ashore,

If the offshore wind is coming ashore, where's the wind turbine? On the
beach perhaps.

--
Roland Perry

[Keith Willshaw]

On 20/01/2022 19:01, Alan Jones wrote:

>
> Did you have a go at some of this, or find any papers from those that
> have? The EU plans for carbon neutrality by 2050 may help, but that's
> only for the EU, and is focussed more on emissions avoidance, e.g. it
> includes carbon capture to offset the residual unavoidable emissions.
>
> See:
> https://ec.europa.eu/clima/eu-action/climate-strategies-targets/2050-long-term-strategy_en
>
>
> Sanity-check of energy production:
>

The Net Zero Teesside project and its partner on Humberside, ZeroCarbon
Humber, are now building 2 hydrogen production plants. One referred to
as Blue Hydrogen will be producing H2 with electricty provided by CCGT
with carbon capture.

The Teesside CCGT plant will initially be sequestering the CO2 in sub
sea acquifers. The second phase will be using surplus electricity from
the Dogger Bank C Wind farm to produce H2 which will be stored in Salt
Cavities previously used to store Natural Gas.
https://doggerbank.com/about/
https://www.netzeroteesside.co.uk/
https://eastcoastcluster.co.uk/

[The Natural Philosopher]

Total waste of taxpayer money


--
Any fool can believe in principles - and most of them do!

[Alan Jones]

On 20/01/2022 19:32, Brian Morrison wrote:
> On Thu, 20 Jan 2022 19:01:06 +0000
> Alan Jones <ajn...@exospan.com> wrote:
>

>> The insolation would then be 96e06/12,450 = 7,700 times the
>> fossil+nuclear production.
>

> I've seen a previous figure which says 1/3200 for human energy
> generation relative to total climate energy, which is probably meant to
> mean total insolation.
>
> Ned Nikolov and Karl Zeller have an interesting paper on planetary
> temperature vs insolation. It seemed entirely believable to me where
> the other things I see are not thermodynamically sensible.

Hi Brian. Which other things are not thermodynamically sensible? Do you
have a link?

With regards to the figures, TNP was admirably specific to "total earth
insolation", whereas "total climate energy" is not a term I understand.
Do you know what sort of energies (or energy flows, since you compare it
to power generation) it includes?

For example, could it a vague term for all the energy inputs that drive
the climate, perhaps including the loss of energy of the earth-moon
system, or energy emanating from the earth's core etc?

The following reference has a figure of 3.93 E24 sej y-1 for annual
emergy contributed by solar radiation, whereas my rough figure of 1.1e18
kWh is 3.96 E24 J y-1, so a damn close match.

https://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_record_Report.cfm?Lab=NHEERL&dirEntryID=63611

You will see there that the energy released from the core (earth's deep
heat) is estimated at 4.07 E24 sej/y, so slightly greater than the
insolation. Anyone know what the power transferred by tidal forces is?

Alan.

[Vir Campestris]

On 21/01/2022 12:15, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

> And yet we were assured that a nuclear winter would occur if even a
> fraction of world nuclear weapons were detonated.

That's nothing to do with the amount of energy (which as has been shown
above is trivial) but down to the amount of dust that would be lifted
into the air where it would reflect solar energy.

Andy

[tony sayer]

In article <sskg13$ai4$1...@dont-email.me>, Vir Campestris <vir.campestris@
invalid.invalid> scribeth thus

Well if Mr Putin carries on with his plans we may see if the weather
will get that much colder!..

Is Cambridge still a target anyone any idea?. Isn't Marshals airfield
also RAF Teversham?...

--
Tony Sayer


Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.

Give him a keyboard, and he will reveal himself.

[The Natural Philosopher]

In fact precisely the same as any meteorite impact or volcanic eruption.
It is of course the energy that lifts the dust.
Duh!

Doublethink.

> Andy


--
“Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”

H.L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy

[Alan Jones]

On 23/01/2022 22:20, Brian Morrison wrote:
> On Sat, 22 Jan 2022 19:13:45 +0000

> Alan Jones <ajn...@exospan.com> wrote:
>
>> On 20/01/2022 19:32, Brian Morrison wrote:
>>> On Thu, 20 Jan 2022 19:01:06 +0000
>>> Alan Jones <ajn...@exospan.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> The insolation would then be 96e06/12,450 = 7,700 times the
>>>> fossil+nuclear production.
>>>
>>> I've seen a previous figure which says 1/3200 for human energy
>>> generation relative to total climate energy, which is probably meant to
>>> mean total insolation.
>>>
>>> Ned Nikolov and Karl Zeller have an interesting paper on planetary
>>> temperature vs insolation. It seemed entirely believable to me where
>>> the other things I see are not thermodynamically sensible.
>>
>> Hi Brian. Which other things are not thermodynamically sensible? Do you
>> have a link?
>

> This is what I watched, I found it fairly persuasive:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnt9YZyCTAQ
>
> but I'm sure a warmist will tell me that the laws of thermodynamics and
> the various gas laws are wrong.

>
>>
>> With regards to the figures, TNP was admirably specific to "total earth
>> insolation", whereas "total climate energy" is not a term I understand.
>

> No, I had not heard it before either but I took it to be essentially
> heat input into a closed system.

>
>> Do you know what sort of energies (or energy flows, since you compare it
>> to power generation) it includes?
>>
>> For example, could it a vague term for all the energy inputs that drive
>> the climate, perhaps including the loss of energy of the earth-moon
>> system, or energy emanating from the earth's core etc?
>

> I didn't look into it to be honest, because as someone who doesn't
> think that climate changes in anything other than a cyclic fashion I'm
> entirely free of the desire to investigate much.
>
Hi Brian,

I had a look at the video, and it may be saying that the temperature of
the earth cannot be increased by radiation reemitted from greenhouse
gases, because that would effectively be a perpetual energy machine
where energy emitted from a warm surface was emitted back, and further
warmed the surface.

I agree that this is barred by the laws of thermodynamics.

Around 9m30s he makes an analogy with a campfire and says that it we add
a ring of people around it, the campfire cannot get hotter just from the
increased emission of IR back from those surrounding people as that is
thermodynamically impossible. This gives a clue as to where his thinking
may be flawed.

The fire is heated by the chemical reactions of the fire, and reaches an
equilibrium temperature where the power emitted by radiation, convection
etc. balance the chemical power and other inputs. If the outgoing
radiations are intercepted by bodies around the fire, and some of it is
re-emitted back towards the fire, then I actually think that the
equilibrium temperature of the fire will rise until the the power output
from the fire has increased enough to again balance the chemical inputs
plus the extra incoming re-emissions from those people. This effect may
not be easily observable, as the main energy outputs of the fire (hot
air and radiative emissions not intercepted) increase rapidly with
temperature, so a small rise of perhaps a few degrees is enough to
rebalance for the incoming radiation from the people's bodies. And a few
degrees over the maybe 500C of the active fire elements.

That is also how the greenhouse effect operates. The surface is warmed
by the sun (and some lesser power inputs), and the temperature rises
until all of the incoming power to a given bit of surface matches the
outgoing power. It is a good thing that the outgoing flows increase
faster with temperature than the incoming flows, so that we do indeed
reach an equilibrium without the system moving into a competely
different state.

So, what is happening in the atmosphere is that the greenhouse gases are
reemitting SOME of the outgoing infrared radiation back to the surface,
so not all of it escapes to space. This means that the earth has a
higher equilibrium temperature (to produce more infrared radiation
released to space) that it would otherwise reach. If we add more
greenhouse gases, then a slightly higher proportion of the infrared is
returned to the surface, and the temperature of the surface rises (which
increases the IR emissions amongst other things) until the system is in
balance again.

The man in the video seems to think that the greenhouse effect lies in
the earth gaining energy just from the emissions being reemitted back,
but that is not the case. The earth is warmed by other factors (mainly
the incoming solar radiation), and the amount of reemission back changes
the equilibrium temperature that is reached.

Calculating the equilibrium temperature is compicated by all the
possible energy flows, including through evaporation, rainfall
(gravitational PE), effects of surface composition, motions within the
atmnosphere etc. However, an increase in the reemission of infrared back
to the surface is a major contributing factor to an incease in the
equilibrium temperature in all models. The effect should be easily
verifiable at the lab scale, but far more complex in the dynamics of the
atmosphere, which is why measurements from ground, air and space are so
important to both verify the magnitude and the sensitivities of the
various equilibrium states, some of which may even be oscillatory (if
you can call a stable oscillatory state an equilibrium?)

Many scientists spend their days working to improve the models (e.g. at
finer grid scales or incorporating new cloud formation schemes), or to
make predictions from the models so that they can be verified (e.g. of
thermal emissions measured at different points in the atmosphere).

Any researcher who could persuade others that the models were
fundamentally flawed would probably earn a nobel prize, and I am sure
that many would try if there was any hint of success.

Sorry for the long reply,

Cheers from Alan.

[Keith Willshaw]

On 22/01/2022 16:06, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

>> https://eastcoastcluster.co.uk/
>
> Total waste of taxpayer money
>
>

For the record it is funded by a group of companies incuding BP, Eni,
Equinor, National Grid, Shell and Total.

For some odd reason the oil and gas companies want to stay in business.

[The Natural Philosopher]

yes, they dont want to take on the angry mobs of green idiots.

It all comes out of the marketing budget and the taxpayers.




--
“it should be clear by now to everyone that activist environmentalism
(or environmental activism) is becoming a general ideology about humans,
about their freedom, about the relationship between the individual and
the state, and about the manipulation of people under the guise of a
'noble' idea. It is not an honest pursuit of 'sustainable development,'
a matter of elementary environmental protection, or a search for
rational mechanisms designed to achieve a healthy environment. Yet
things do occur that make you shake your head and remind yourself that
you live neither in Joseph Stalin’s Communist era, nor in the Orwellian
utopia of 1984.”

Vaclav Klaus

[Alan Jones]

On 24/01/2022 21:07, Brian Morrison wrote:

> On Mon, 24 Jan 2022 11:52:01 +0000
> Alan Jones <ajn...@exospan.com> wrote:
>
>> I had a look at the video, and it may be saying that the temperature of
>> the earth cannot be increased by radiation reemitted from greenhouse
>> gases, because that would effectively be a perpetual energy machine
>> where energy emitted from a warm surface was emitted back, and further
>> warmed the surface.
>>
>> I agree that this is barred by the laws of thermodynamics.
>

> Indeed, where the 'traditional' warmists claim that the re-radiated
> energy is greater per square metre than the solar input is where my
> suspicious mind immediately says "Er, what?"
>
Where is that said? It may be someone explaining badly that with
additional greenhouse gases, the solar input that reaches the ground
(over all frequencies) is augmented by GHG re-emission of some outgoing
IR that would otherwise be lost to space. I have never seen anyone claim
that the re-emitted IR alone is anything like as much power as the
direct solar input.

>> The fire is heated by the chemical reactions of the fire, and reaches an
>> equilibrium temperature where the power emitted by radiation, convection
>> etc. balance the chemical power and other inputs. If the outgoing
>> radiations are intercepted by bodies around the fire, and some of it is
>> re-emitted back towards the fire, then I actually think that the
>> equilibrium temperature of the fire will rise until the the power output
>> from the fire has increased enough to again balance the chemical inputs
>> plus the extra incoming re-emissions from those people. This effect may
>> not be easily observable, as the main energy outputs of the fire (hot
>> air and radiative emissions not intercepted) increase rapidly with
>> temperature, so a small rise of perhaps a few degrees is enough to
>> rebalance for the incoming radiation from the people's bodies. And a few
>> degrees over the maybe 500C of the active fire elements.
>

> I don't have a quick calculation of this, but I suspect a few degrees
> might actually be a few hundredths or thousandths of a degree.

Yes, it could be too small to measure, and I haven't attempted a
calculation, but doesn't the thought experiment demonstrate the principle?

Then, when all the effects are calculated as fully as we can for the
planet processes and the measured GHG increases, the temperature rise is
of the order of degrees, and the implications of that is what all the
fuss is about.

>> That is also how the greenhouse effect operates. The surface is warmed
>> by the sun (and some lesser power inputs), and the temperature rises
>> until all of the incoming power to a given bit of surface matches the
>> outgoing power. It is a good thing that the outgoing flows increase
>> faster with temperature than the incoming flows, so that we do indeed
>> reach an equilibrium without the system moving into a competely
>> different state.
>

> It's not a good name, the actual greenhouse effect is caused by the
> trapping of warm air and the near elimination of convective action and
> thus heat loss due to the glass envelope isolating the interior from
> the exterior. That isn't what happens with radiation, it's down to
> density and gravity with warm gases rising and cooler ones falling.

That is quite possible - glass greenhouses are not a good model as there
are so many confounding factors. But for better or worse we have adopted
the term "greenhouse effect" for the processes by which the increased
concentrations of certain gases in the atmosphere leads to a rise in
global surface temperatures.

>>
>> So, what is happening in the atmosphere is that the greenhouse gases are
>> reemitting SOME of the outgoing infrared radiation back to the surface,
>> so not all of it escapes to space. This means that the earth has a
>> higher equilibrium temperature (to produce more infrared radiation
>> released to space) that it would otherwise reach. If we add more
>> greenhouse gases, then a slightly higher proportion of the infrared is
>> returned to the surface, and the temperature of the surface rises (which
>> increases the IR emissions amongst other things) until the system is in
>> balance again.
>

> While this may be the case from what I see the IR window of the
> atmosphere is mostly allowing the energy to escape, so the effect is
> very small. CO2 is a trace gas, there has been a higher percentage in
> the past and that didn't lead to runaway warming.

Yes, the concentrations are small, but the most advanced models,
measurements and calculations suggest that those trace gases will
eventually create the few degrees rise that is causing such concern.

As for "runaway warming" I am also a sceptic/optimist. Was that the
"hockey stick" or "tipping point" theories? I would have naively
expected the planet to have perhaps switched into the "high temperature"
state in the past and stuck there if it really was a more stable
equilibrium. Processes that are predicted to reinforce (accelerate) the
warming are a matter of concern to scientists, but hopefully there may
be other unknown stabilising effects from processes (biological,
geological, atmospheric etc) that we have not yet discovered. Let's hope
that they are compatible with human life though.

On a related note, I do notice that some of what you call "warmists" do
have an almost religious need to be right, even though what they are
hoping for is disastrous. I think they are a tiny minority.

I do really believe that climate scientists (+ ecologists, physicists,
chemists, oceanographers etc.), in general, would love to find reasons
that the global temperature increases would be lower than current
predictions, but they haven't got there yet, and I don't think they are
very confident that they can lower the predictions.

>> The man in the video seems to think that the greenhouse effect lies in
>> the earth gaining energy just from the emissions being reemitted back,
>> but that is not the case. The earth is warmed by other factors (mainly
>> the incoming solar radiation), and the amount of reemission back changes
>> the equilibrium temperature that is reached.
>

> As I say, I think this is a really small effect. Do I have calculations
> to prove it? No, life is short enough without me doing that as well as
> things I have to and some I like.
>
I agree, life is too short. I have not attempted the calculations
myself, but the re-emitted IR is easily measurable and separable from
the solar input, and the effects on the surface equilibrium quite
straightforward to first order, so I would be very surprised if so many
people had got it all wrong.

> I'll just say adiabatic lapse rate and tropopause height, that aspect
> of the video I referenced seems bizarre.

I didn't go that far into the recording, so cannot really comment.

>> Calculating the equilibrium temperature is compicated by all the
>> possible energy flows, including through evaporation, rainfall
>> (gravitational PE), effects of surface composition, motions within the
>> atmnosphere etc. However, an increase in the reemission of infrared back
>> to the surface is a major contributing factor to an incease in the
>> equilibrium temperature in all models. The effect should be easily
>> verifiable at the lab scale, but far more complex in the dynamics of the
>> atmosphere, which is why measurements from ground, air and space are so
>> important to both verify the magnitude and the sensitivities of the
>> various equilibrium states, some of which may even be oscillatory (if
>> you can call a stable oscillatory state an equilibrium?)
>

> Well that may be the case, but I would argue that, given the way that
> some organisations including NASA seem determined to alter the
> historical record and how the models do not accurately model the known
> past and seem to be predicting temperatures rising way about the current
> slight warming I would say that the models are horribly deficient.
>
I thought the models predicted a degree or two of warming by 2050
depending on emissions reductions, with dire consequences if we let it
go much higher.

>> Many scientists spend their days working to improve the models (e.g. at
>> finer grid scales or incorporating new cloud formation schemes), or to
>> make predictions from the models so that they can be verified (e.g. of
>> thermal emissions measured at different points in the atmosphere).
>

> I don't disagree with doing this, however you will note that
> disagreement with the 'consensus' seems to lead to being shouted down
> and sent to Coventry. If you ask me it's because most of these
> scientists are so dependent on grants to continue their direction of
> research that they are essentially forced into negating all
> alternatives. This is unhealthy.
>
There will be some poor research out there, as there is for most
important (and fashionable) topics. However, most of the people that I
encounter would LOVE to demonstrate processes that lower the estimates.
I seem to remenmber some well-accepted papers that demonstrate
processes, or more optimistic modelling, that might slightly reduce the
predicted temperature increases. I would try to give a few links but
it's hard to quickly find the right search terms (maybe site:ac.uk? or
site:edu?).

>> Any researcher who could persuade others that the models were
>> fundamentally flawed would probably earn a nobel prize, and I am sure
>> that many would try if there was any hint of success.
>

> As I say, it depends whether they are permitted to get to that end. It
> seems that the philanthropists who want to fund this sort of research
> are absent, they have worked out that they will gain a lot of money by
> denying it to the poor and hungry who actually need it. Politicians are
> too thick to realise that they're being had, of course they also get
> the cash because of the mates rates aspect.
>
> I was heavily influenced by the graphs towards the end that determine
> that surface temperature is dependent on solar input and atmospheric
> pressure at the surface, matched using a wide variety of assumptions
> being rejected and whittled down to match known values from our solar
> system. I can't see any easy rebuttal to this, gas laws say higher
> pressure gives higher temperature and it seems to be correct using what
> we know and should not dispute beyond confirming the original
> derivations of those laws.
>
Yes, for a uniform fixed volume of an ideal gas in equilibrium,
increasing the absolute temperature will proportionally increase the
pressure. PV=nRT and all that. So global warning might increase some
pressures? Even if it was that simple, it doesn't prevent the warming.

As for the curves, when you only have a small number of planets, and
start with a decent collection (e.g 10?) basic measurements for each,
perhaps from different parts of their atmospheres, and curve fit to
perhaps a few thousand combinations and permutations of those 10
measurements, you will always find some sets of them that will lie
closely on a simple curve. And maybe the planet will still be roughtly
on the curve when you change the parameters of its atmosphere by
changing the power flows and increasing the temperature. The surface
temperatures have been very different in the geological past, so why not
again?

>> Sorry for the long reply,
>

> Sorry for appearing to be bitter and twisted. In fact I am. And very,
> very angry.
>
No problem. Thinking about all this is more challenging and interesting
than playing "wordle", "doom", or whatever, and I hope to live long
enough to see it play out one way or the other. A couple of decades
should do it (:-).

[Alan Jones]

On 25/01/2022 00:00, Alan Jones wrote:
> On 24/01/2022 21:07, Brian Morrison wrote:
>>
>> Indeed, where the 'traditional' warmists claim that the re-radiated
>> energy is greater per square metre than the solar input is where my
>> suspicious mind immediately says "Er, what?"
>>
> Where is that said? It may be someone explaining badly that with
> additional greenhouse gases, the solar input that reaches the ground
> (over all frequencies) is augmented by GHG re-emission of some outgoing
> IR that would otherwise be lost to space. I have never seen anyone claim
> that the re-emitted IR alone is anything like as much power as the
> direct solar input.

I am replying to myself as I may have misunderstood you. I immediately
thought you meant "re-radiated energy" by the GHG, but sleeping on it, I
think you meant "re-radiated energy" from the earth's surface, as that
will be much higher.

I don't know the figures in detail, but the surface gains energy from
sources including solar, deep core heat, heat conduction from warmer
air, tidal forces etc., and loses the same amount in (quasi-)equilibrium
by radiation, heat conduction to colder air, etc., to name but a few.

So why shouldn't the radiated emissions from a given bit of surface
(across the week say) be slightly higher than the solar input (across
the week) alone, once the sum of all the the average energy inputs and
outputs balance each other?

I don't have the figures on radiation (in and out) to hand, but if the
amount of radiation from the warm earth's surface seems surprising
(because we don't feel it as readily as the heat from the sun?), at
least it isn't hard to measure and confirm, for a wide range of surface
sites. This is what people have been doing for decades at least, by a
variety of different methods, and it seems unlikely that they are all
wrong in the same way.

Alan.

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 25/01/2022 00:00, Alan Jones wrote:

> I thought the models predicted a degree or two of warming by 2050
> depending on emissions reductions, with dire consequences if we let it
> go much higher.

Alan: not a single prediction of temperature change made by any model
has been confirmed within the limits of experimental error.

The models are simplistic, incomplete, and make false assumptions.

The panic is politically useful to certain parties and commercially
useful to others, and that's all it is.

In reality warming by 2050 will be less than half a degree. And will
probably have stopped by then anyway.




--
"First, find out who are the people you can not criticise. They are your
oppressors."
- George Orwell

[Roland Perry]

In message <ssomse$tp5$1...@dont-email.me>, at 11:28:14 on Tue, 25 Jan
2022, The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> remarked:

>On 25/01/2022 00:00, Alan Jones wrote:
>> I thought the models predicted a degree or two of warming by 2050
>>depending on emissions reductions, with dire consequences if we let it
>>go much higher.
>
>Alan: not a single prediction of temperature change made by any model
>has been confirmed within the limits of experimental error.
>
>The models are simplistic, incomplete, and make false assumptions.
>
>The panic is politically useful to certain parties and commercially
>useful to others, and that's all it is.
>
>In reality warming by 2050 will be less than half a degree. And will
>probably have stopped by then anyway.

JOOI, how much by the drastic carbon-reduction schemes being put in
place, and how much by something quite independent of that?
--
Roland Perry

[The Natural Philosopher]

The carbon reduction schemes will have no effect whatsoever on anything
except corporate profits and citizens poverty. two years of lockdown and
the CO2 in Hawaii just keeps on rising.

The data clearly show that CO2 is not a dominant factor in modern
climate change. In particular the so called 'positive feedback' can
clearly be shown not to exist.

Climate is a fully chaotic system of non linear partial derivatives with
many attractors and overall strong negative feedback.

Trying to represent it with simple linear partial derivatives and
parametrising things like clouds and turbulence is simply completely
inadequate.Then adding in 'positive feedback' to explain why the model
doesn't match a 10 year warming trend, and extrapolating that 100 years
into the future is so unjustifiable that any graduate student not in
climate science would have their thesis thrown out.


--
Truth welcomes investigation because truth knows investigation will lead
to converts. It is deception that uses all the other techniques.

[Patrick Gosling]

In article <ssovq8$sha$1...@dont-email.me>,

The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>Climate is a fully chaotic system of non linear partial derivatives with
>many attractors and overall strong negative feedback.

This sounds impressive.

What properties of a non-linear system do you think make it chaotic?

--
Patrick.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Where did I claim that its non linearity was what made it chaotic?

That just makes it impossible to calculate simply.

--
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as
foolish, and by the rulers as useful.

(Seneca the Younger, 65 AD)

[Patrick Gosling]

In article <t0f1h8$118$1...@dont-email.me>,

The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>On 10/03/2022 21:11, Patrick Gosling wrote:
>> In article <ssovq8$sha$1...@dont-email.me>,
>> The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>> Climate is a fully chaotic system of non linear partial derivatives with
>>> many attractors and overall strong negative feedback.
>>
>> This sounds impressive.
>>
>> What properties of a non-linear system do you think make it chaotic?
>>
>Where did I claim that its non linearity was what made it chaotic?

You referred to a chaotic system, and I'm assuming that in this context
you're not about to propose that it has infinite dimensionality.

So I'll return to my question.

--
Patrick.

[The Natural Philosopher]

And you will get the same answer. Its non linearity is orthogonal to its
chaos-icity, and the two together render it insoluble


--
"An intellectual is a person knowledgeable in one field who speaks out
only in others...”

Tom Wolfe

[Patrick Gosling]

In article <t0ftsn$qg9$4...@dont-email.me>,

The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> So I'll return to my question.
>>
>And you will get the same answer. Its non linearity is orthogonal to its
>chaos-icity, and the two together render it insoluble

You appear to be asserting that a finite-dimensional linear system can
exhibit chaotic behaviour.

Do you believe that to be the case?

--
Patrick.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Depends on what you mean by 'dimensional'

Engineers understand that term differently to mathematicians.


--
“The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to
fill the world with fools.”

Herbert Spencer

[Patrick Gosling]

In article <t0iagq$lc7$1...@dont-email.me>,

The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>On 12/03/2022 13:55, Patrick Gosling wrote:
>> In article <t0ftsn$qg9$4...@dont-email.me>,
>> The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>>> So I'll return to my question.
>>>>
>>> And you will get the same answer. Its non linearity is orthogonal to its
>>> chaos-icity, and the two together render it insoluble
>>
>> You appear to be asserting that a finite-dimensional linear system can
>> exhibit chaotic behaviour.
>>
>> Do you believe that to be the case?
>>
>Depends on what you mean by 'dimensional'
>
>Engineers understand that term differently to mathematicians.

Do you believe that a linear system of a finite number of variables
can exhibit chaotic behaviour?

--
Patrick

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yes. I know it.

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 12/03/2022 20:40, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 12/03/2022 17:25, Patrick Gosling wrote:
>> In article <t0iagq$lc7$1...@dont-email.me>,
>> The Natural Philosopher  <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>> On 12/03/2022 13:55, Patrick Gosling wrote:
>>>> In article <t0ftsn$qg9$4...@dont-email.me>,
>>>> The Natural Philosopher  <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>> So I'll return to my question.
>>>>>>
>>>>> And you will get the same answer. Its non linearity is orthogonal
>>>>> to its
>>>>> chaos-icity, and the two together render it insoluble
>>>>
>>>> You appear to be asserting that a finite-dimensional linear system can
>>>> exhibit chaotic behaviour.
>>>>
>>>> Do you believe that to be the case?
>>>>
>>> Depends on what you mean by 'dimensional'
>>>
>>> Engineers understand that term differently to mathematicians.
>>
>> Do you believe that a linear system of a finite number of variables
>> can exhibit chaotic behaviour?
>>
> Yes. I know it.
>

Cf the three body problem.

Not many variables in there, and chaotic for nearly all initial conditions.

"The three-body problem is a special case of the n-body problem. Unlike
two-body problems, no general closed-form solution exists as the
resulting dynamical system is chaotic for most initial conditions, and
numerical methods are generally required. "

That's what wiki says.

Didn't you know that? Wow!

A lot simpler than climate.

[Patrick Gosling]

In article <t0j3p3$5a8$1...@dont-email.me>,

The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> Yes. I know it.
>>
>Cf the three body problem.

And you're proposing that the three body problem is linear?

--
Patrick.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I am certainly denying that it has an infinite dimensionality


--
Climate Change: Socialism wearing a lab coat.

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 13/03/2022 09:25, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 12/03/2022 22:49, Patrick Gosling wrote:
>> In article <t0j3p3$5a8$1...@dont-email.me>,
>> The Natural Philosopher  <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>>> Yes. I know it.
>>>>
>>> Cf the three body problem.
>>
>> And you're proposing that the three body problem is linear?
>>
> I am certainly denying that it has an infinite dimensionality
>
>

I finally understand what you are driving at. Different use of 'linear'
. I was meaning 'linear' the the description of what - scratching back
at maths lessons - you would probably call a smooth continuous function.
Not a polynomial with exponent of one.



--
“People believe certain stories because everyone important tells them,
and people tell those stories because everyone important believes them.
Indeed, when a conventional wisdom is at its fullest strength, one’s
agreement with that conventional wisdom becomes almost a litmus test of
one’s suitability to be taken seriously.”

Paul Krugman

[Patrick Gosling]

In article <t0kep8$26o$1...@dont-email.me>,

The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>I finally understand what you are driving at. Different use of 'linear'
>. I was meaning 'linear' the the description of what - scratching back
>at maths lessons - you would probably call a smooth continuous function.
>Not a polynomial with exponent of one.

Ah, so you use "linear" to mean "differentiable". This isn't my
terminology, but never mind.

Going back to your original sentence, you said:

> Climate is a fully chaotic system of non linear partial derivatives with
> many attractors and overall strong negative feedback.

Can you explain what your interpretation of the words "fully chaotic
system" is?

I know what the usual technical meaning of "chaotic system" is, but I can
see more than one way that someone might consider categorising them into
"fully" vs "not fully", and I wonder which you are considering?

What do you think the non-differentiable partial derivatives are in your
proposed climate model that has the property of being "fully chaotic"?

That is, what physical properties of the observable world do they describe,
and what broadly do they look like as equations?

--
Patrick

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 13/03/2022 12:03, Patrick Gosling wrote:
> In article <t0kep8$26o$1...@dont-email.me>,
> The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> I finally understand what you are driving at. Different use of 'linear'
>> . I was meaning 'linear' the the description of what - scratching back
>> at maths lessons - you would probably call a smooth continuous function.
>> Not a polynomial with exponent of one.
>
> Ah, so you use "linear" to mean "differentiable". This isn't my
> terminology, but never mind.
>

Actually sorry, I know what I am trying to say, but my language and
maths are rusty...

> Going back to your original sentence, you said:
>
>> Climate is a fully chaotic system of non linear partial derivatives with
>> many attractors and overall strong negative feedback.
>
> Can you explain what your interpretation of the words "fully chaotic
> system" is?
>

The concept I was trying to express is that its like the stalled wing on
an aircraft, the airflow isn't 'mostly laminar, with small turbulent
vortices' its full on breakdown of predictable laminar flow, into
totally chaotic behaviour on a large scale over a large time period.

The issue being that when e.g. chaotic turbulence is contained within
bounds, you have some hope of predicting the broad behaviour of the
system using numerical methods. If you get fully turbulent airflow,
prediction of even such a simple system ans a wing in air, becomes
extremely difficult, and what works at one speed may not even work at
another. Cf 'control reversal' in transonic flight etc etc.

> I know what the usual technical meaning of "chaotic system" is, but I can
> see more than one way that someone might consider categorising them into
> "fully" vs "not fully", and I wonder which you are considering?
>
> What do you think the non-differentiable partial derivatives are in your
> proposed climate model that has the property of being "fully chaotic"?

Much of it lies in the water cycles. E.g, you can add heat to an ice
sheet and it will stay at 0°C for as long as its not all melted. latent
heat etc. Likewise the relative humidity of air that leads to cloud
formation as humidity approaches 100%, with a sudden step change in
albedo and radiation input. Cloud or not-cloud is a fraction of a
percent humidity change that leads to huge changes in incident versus
reflected radiation. Those are the sorts of processes that I do not
believe can be modelled by current climate models. Edge processes.
Whether those are 'not differentiable ' is something you could comment on.

In addition using the other definition of non linear, IIRC around 50% of
the heat lost by the earths surface is lost via convection high into
the stratosphere above most of the carbon dioxide, invalidating simple
linear assumptions made in climate models, that is governed broadly by
(mathematically) true non linear partial derivatives in the Navier
Stokes equations.

In short the whole model of global heat transport is largely one of a
turbulent flow of hot wet air and hot water in the tropics to points
where it can radiate, which are the poles and the stratosphere. Whereas
climate models tend to assume direct radiation to space from the ground.
This is what CO2 affects by and large.

We also know that there are (pseudo) periodic 'oscillations' in warm and
cold ocean currents, and jet streams air masses and the like.

>
> That is, what physical properties of the observable world do they describe,
> and what broadly do they look like as equations?
>

See above. I have no idea what they look like as equations. very
complicated fluid dynamics partials with added gotchas is about as far
as I got. Hence the original question.

How can we say that 'all modern warming is caused by CO2, that is man
made. to a first approximation', when the whole climate mechanism has of
and by itself over the last fifty thousand years been subject to a
massive ice age and series of interstadials, during which time the
continents and volcanic activity have remained broadly constant, as have
CO2, levels?

I know the warmists have erased the mediaeval warm period claiming it
'wasn't global' but global or not, we absolutely know that really large
changes in climate have happened at least locally allowing the rise and
fall of civilisations, post ice age, all apparently while CO2 levels
remained stable.

Which leads me to two points.

Firstly, what affects us as humans is local climate change. Droughts and
famines and floods have been happening since recorded history began, and
earlier. An ounce of local flooding, like the 14th century floods that
wiped out central Europe. (St Mary Magdalene's flood), which killed
thousands and rewrote the terrain completely, is far more a problem than
a pound of 'global warming' . which merely reduces a few glaciers for a
few years.

Secondly, although there are inputs like Milankovitch cycles that are
associated with climate change globally, the actual variation in
temperature from e.g, ice core records does not seem to show just smooth
variations synchronised to these. Ergo one concludes that something else
is going on as well. We know it is not carbon dioxide, because ice cores
show us that at least on fairly long timescales, the variation doesn't
explain the changes.

Ergo, the proposition that climate is in fact a chaotic system with
several different attractors, makes sense of the data. Periods such as
the Younger Dryas may not need to be explained by external inputs: a
chaotic system is capable of a thousand year mini ice age *all by
itself* as it shifts from one attractor to another, triggered by what
might be trivial inputs, or *no inputs at all*.

And if its capable of that, how much more is it capable of a 50 year
period of very mild warming, followed by a 20 year period of almost no
warming at all?

The concern is that we may be chasing a chimera. spending trillions on
the basis that because the only thing we know of that has varied over
the last 50 years is CO2, therefore any temperature change over that
period is caused by it. Not only does it break the rule that
correlation is not causation, we also know that the correlation is
extremely weak.

I.e. the temperature rise from around 1950-1995 (insofar as we can
accurately measure it, but that is another story) is smooth and
reasonably monotonic and correlates well with CO2 rise, but the
temperature in the 21st century does not, despite vain efforts to make
'adjustments' to the record. In crude terms CO2 has continued to rise,
temperatures have not done so nearly as much as the late 20th century
records predicted that they would. If CO2 was the (sole) cause.

Now the response of the warmist has been "so what else is causing it
then?" - my point being to propose that the answer is 'nothing is
causing it, the climate is quite capable of wobbling around by several
degrees for no external reason at all, simply because it is a complex
system of non linear equations with lots of time delayed feedbacks in
it, most of which are negative (i.,e the hotter it gets the more heat is
lost via radiation ) but some of which are not (e.g. the albedo of ice
is much higher than the albedo of open sea - so ice makes the sea
colder... )

Consider a hypothesis. The arctic ice melts, increasing the cold polar
currents which after a few years increase the gulf stream flow warming
the arctic leading to further ice melts, until the arctic is essentially
ice free at which point the Labrador current slows, and a few years
later so does the gulf stream plunging the arctic into a freeze cycle.
The freeze cycle starts to bleed off cold water at its edges now much
further south in warmer climes, restarting the Labrador current.

(Quasi) periodic climate effects are known to happen all over the place
- El Niño/La Ninã cycles, the North Atlantic Oscillation, the Pacific
decadal oscillation, itself a combination of other dynamic effects, the
Arctic and Antarctic oscillations...periods of low rainfall, periods of
high rainfall. (seven good years and seven lean years)

And the proposition is that somehow on this massively modulated non
linear climate system you can superimpose a linear effect, rising CO2 -
and get a rising temperature?

If we look at the actual undisputed physics of CO2 as a greenhouse gas,
IIRC the actual figure ought to be that ex of any feedback in the
system, and all other things being equal, a doubling of CO2 would make
plants grow amazingly better and lead to something like a 1 °C rise.

Because 'climate science' was based on the default assumption that, ex
of any other probable cause, any warming *had* to be a function of CO2
increase, when the actual rises seem to exceed the credible results of
CO2, the step was taken of adding a *positive* feedback term that would
multiply the effects of CO2 .

At no stage was it considered that something unknown might be going on,
or that in fact that nothing beyond natural variation of a chaotic
system was going on.

A Cambridge PhD Geologist dismissed global warming of the human kind by
saying that as someone who has studied palaeogeology, if such positive
feedback existed, life could never have developed on the planet at all.
Naturally he was retired and no longer had to keep up a paid position at
a university.

My question in the end is this.
Is there any way to prove that there are enough feedback terms in enough
non linear equations within what we are fairly sure of represents the
climate system to at least show that temperature variations of the sort
of ±2-3°C are *possible* and even *likely* without the need to invoke
external causes?

Because if that can be shown, then, irrespective of whether CO2 induced
climate change exists at all, is greater or less than we believed, and
so on, it becomes *irrelevant in the context of climate change*. That
is, climate change is going to happen - as it always has - whether or
not we do this or that drastic action, so the so called ' precautionary
principle' also becomes null and void. Why waste money on something that
*might* be going to happen, when it wont stop something equally bad (or
good) that is *bound to happen anyway*?

So, what it boils down to is this: If it can be shown by reference to at
least the main parts of the global climate system, that climate is
within an overall negative feedback system still capable of variations
of several degrees centigrade over historical time periods - which seems
to have been the case at least on Europe and the middle east - without
reference to any solar or CO2 variations, simply by dint of there being
long time delay negative feedback loops and a non linear system to start
with - (radiation is T^4 to start with) - comprising a chaotic enough
system to be able to achieve that variation without external inputs,
then no argument for spending money to *stop climate change*, is a
rational response, whereas contingency plans to ameliorate its effects
become far far more relevant.

It seems to me that this is a study that should be done. Urgently.
Unfortunately whoever dose it will lose his job if that is at a
university. Net Zero is now 'too big to fail'

--
"I am inclined to tell the truth and dislike people who lie consistently.
This makes me unfit for the company of people of a Left persuasion, and
all women"

[Tim Ward]

On 13/03/2022 15:19, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>
> The concept I was trying to express is that its like the stalled wing on
> an aircraft, the airflow isn't 'mostly laminar, with small turbulent
> vortices' its full on breakdown of predictable laminar flow, into
> totally chaotic behaviour on a large scale over a large time period.
>
> The issue being that when e.g. chaotic  turbulence is contained within
> bounds, you have some hope of predicting the broad behaviour of the
> system using numerical methods. If you get fully turbulent airflow,
> prediction  of even such a simple system ans a wing in air, becomes
> extremely difficult, and what works at one speed may not even work at
> another. Cf 'control reversal'  in transonic flight etc etc.

I do get that how a wing generates lift is not fully understood.

However as a pilot the practicalities, expressed as:

"Push forwards, cows get bigger. Pull back, cows get smaller. Pull back
further, cows get bigger again."

are easy to remember.

--
Tim Ward - 07801 703 600
www.brettward.co.uk

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 13/03/2022 21:06, Tim Ward wrote:
> On 13/03/2022 15:19, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>>
>> The concept I was trying to express is that its like the stalled wing
>> on an aircraft, the airflow isn't 'mostly laminar, with small
>> turbulent vortices' its full on breakdown of predictable laminar flow,
>> into totally chaotic behaviour on a large scale over a large time period.
>>
>> The issue being that when e.g. chaotic  turbulence is contained within
>> bounds, you have some hope of predicting the broad behaviour of the
>> system using numerical methods. If you get fully turbulent airflow,
>> prediction  of even such a simple system ans a wing in air, becomes
>> extremely difficult, and what works at one speed may not even work at
>> another. Cf 'control reversal'  in transonic flight etc etc.
>
> I do get that how a wing generates lift is not fully understood.

Oh, its understood, but its not calculable.
CFD simply runs out of computer power well before anything useful
happens, and as you know, what happens is hugely time dependent.
Buffeting is a massive variation in lift over the wing in the time and
spatial domains.
So 'how much lift does a stalled wing have' is not even a question that
has a single answer.
For example.
Just as 'what is the earths climate?' is not single valued, either.
I looked for maths research investigating limits and boundaries in
chaotic systems, but there isn't much even of that.
For engineers (and pilots) regimes of chaos are marked as 'don't go
here: results unpredictable' (literally).
Climate science simply ignores it. The response of a well respected
professor of physics in the USA was pretty much 'your models are totally
valueless, this is the hardest problem in modelling there is, we don't
know the equations fully and we don't know the starting conditions'.

>
> However as a pilot the practicalities, expressed as:
>
> "Push forwards, cows get bigger. Pull back, cows get smaller. Pull back
> further, cows get bigger again."
>
> are easy to remember.
>

I am sure the climate change aficionados would be delighted with 'if it
rains, put brolly up' as a response to their dire predictions....:-)

--
“Progress is precisely that which rules and regulations did not foresee,”

– Ludwig von Mises

[Patrick Gosling]

In article <t0mtuh$qms$1...@dont-email.me>,

The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:

>I looked for maths research investigating limits and boundaries in
>chaotic systems, but there isn't much even of that.

The keyword to use is "non-linear dynamic system" rather than "chaotic
system".

You could start, for instance, with
https://www.aimsciences.org/journal/1078-0947

--
Patrick.

[Patrick Gosling]

In article <t0l22c$pnk$1...@dont-email.me>,

The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>In addition using the other definition of non linear, IIRC around 50% of
>the heat lost by the earths surface is lost via convection high into
>the stratosphere above most of the carbon dioxide, invalidating simple
>linear assumptions made in climate models, that is governed broadly by
>(mathematically) true non linear partial derivatives in the Navier
>Stokes equations.

I'm very wary indeed of this paragraph, because I cannot clearly
interpret the different kinds of "heat" being lost by different kinds
of thing in different ways, from the words you've used.

As a result, I can't either refute or agree with it, but what I can do
is ask:

Once heat has reached the stratosphere by convection, how does it then
leave the overall "earth system"?

It can't be by conduction or convection. How much radiation is the
upper atmosphere capable of doing?

--
Patrick.

[Patrick Gosling]

In article <99B*Q1...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>,

In the context of these questions,

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspa.1937.0224

is rather fun.

--
Patrick.

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 14/03/2022 12:31, Patrick Gosling wrote:
> In article <t0l22c$pnk$1...@dont-email.me>, The Natural Philosopher
> <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> In addition using the other definition of non linear, IIRC around
>> 50% of the heat lost by the earths surface is lost via convection
>> high into the stratosphere above most of the carbon dioxide,
>> invalidating simple linear assumptions made in climate models, that
>> is governed broadly by (mathematically) true non linear partial
>> derivatives in the Navier Stokes equations.
>
> I'm very wary indeed of this paragraph, because I cannot clearly
> interpret the different kinds of "heat" being lost by different
> kinds of thing in different ways, from the words you've used.
>

This is fairly well accepted science.

Ultimately of course all heat is lost by radiation. The key issue here,
is where the radiation takes place.

> As a result, I can't either refute or agree with it, but what I can
> do is ask:
>
> Once heat has reached the stratosphere by convection, how does it
> then leave the overall "earth system"?
>

This is fairly well accepted science.

Ultimately of course all heat is lost by radiation. The key issue here,
is where the radiation takes place. It can't be by conduction or

convection.

> How much radiation is the
> upper atmosphere capable of doing?
>

A heck of a lot. Consider clouds for example. they are perfectly capable
of radiation enough to turn into water and then ice.


Apparently around 50% is direct radiation from the earths surface, but
the other 50% is radiated from much higher in the stratosphere. It gets
there via two processes - evaporation of water and straight convection.
In the end I tend to lump the non radiating elements together and call
then 'convection' because a rising column of wet air is as far as I am
concerned, convection

https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-relative-contributions-of-radiation-conduction-and-convection-to-moving-heat-from-the-earths-surface-to-the-top-of-the-atmosphere

The totals are what the IR satellites measure

This is why the tropical maritime climates are essentially thermally
limited to around 28-30°C

If temperature gets higher than that massive evaporation occurs with
lots of latent heat involved, loads of steamy air rises to stratospheric
heights, where it radiates, cools, partly by adiabatic decompression,
and partly by radiation. Then it turns into very cold water or ice and
you get a nice after lunch thunderstorm that dumps the cold air back
down at the surface.

So the water cycle with massive latent heat potential is as great
stabiliser of temperature - a massive negative feedback system, that
stabilises tropical sea temperatures And that is ultimately where most
of the suns radiation falls...

Because of the height of tropical thunderstorms - well over 15,000 ft -
there is already at that altitude a situation where half the atmospheric
carbon dioxide is below the point of radiation.

Obviously the situation changes dramatically in low water regime -
deserts for example as far as I can tell are comparable in average
temperatures to equivalent latitude maritime areas - which surprised
me, but with massive diurnal ranges. It is not uncommon to e.g. get
overnight frosts in the Sahara, but with daytime temperatures exceeding 50°C

And the poles - especially the north pole - is a special case with most
of its heat coming via the gulf stream and nearly all of it lost by
direct radiation and convection, with very little going up as clouds. So
one would expect any CO2 induced warming to be most apparent there. Not
much actually is. Its been fluctuating around a high reached 20 years ago .

Again however there are signs that the gulf stream itself is a massive
negative feedback system: as the arctic warms more cold water is
produced driving the Labrador current and cooling the tropics and
reducing the temperature of the gulf stream which then slows, to cool
the arctic....The Antarctic which is landlocked, has been *cooling* over
the last few decades apart from volcanic activity.

[The Natural Philosopher]

My god, careful cautious tentative science surrounded by caveats and
carefully detailing the assumptions on which the extrapolations are based.

Wouldn't last a minute today would it?


--
Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have
guns, why should we let them have ideas?

Josef Stalin

[Patrick Gosling]

I should possibly have been clearer about the point I was trying to get
across.

Before you insist that because some parts of the system are chaotic,
we therefore can't possibly model the system as a whole, you need to look
very carefully at the behaviour of other parts of the system, to see whether
the chaotic bits matter, or if the effect they have on other parts of the
system is highly constrained.

You might do this by modelling the system, or you might do it by observing
it. I believe that we have quite a lot of observational data about the
temperature of the upper atmosphere.

--
Patrick.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Even the IPCC have admitted that the system is chaotic (in the fine print).

https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/TAR-14.pdf

*14.2.2 Predictability in a Chaotic System*

The climate system is particularly challenging since it is known that
components in the system are inherently chaotic; there are feedbacks
that could potentially switch sign, and there are central processes that
affect the system in a complicated, non-linear manner. These complex,
chaotic, non-linear dynamics are an inherent aspect of the climate
system. As the IPCC WGI Second Assessment Report (IPCC, 1996) (hereafter
SAR) has previously noted, “future unexpected, large and rapid climate
system changes (as have occurred in the past) are, by their nature,
difficult to predict.

This implies that future climate changes may also involve ‘surprises’.
In particular, these arise from the non-linear, chaotic nature of the
climate system ... Progress can be made by investigating non-linear
processes and sub-components of the climatic system.” These thoughts are
expanded upon in this report:

“Reducing uncertainty in climate projections also requires a better
understanding of these non-linear processes which give rise to
thresholds that are present in the climate system. Observations,
palaeoclimatic data, and models suggest that such thresholds exist and
that transitions have occurred in the past ... Comprehensive
climate models in conjunction with sustained observational systems, both
in situ and remote, are the only tool to decide whether the evolving
climate system is approaching such thresholds. Our knowledge about the
processes, and feedback mechanisms determining them, must be
significantly improved in order to extract early signs of such changes
from model simulations and observations.” (See Chapter 7, Section 7.7)"

and so on.

In short "the science is terribly unsettled, and we need lots more money
to try and settle it, because the problem is chaotic and we don't know
how" :-)


The butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil which is the classic example
of chaos, is from climate and weather forecasting.

I don't really want to argue a point on which in reality the science
does seem to be reasonably settled. Namely that the science - or anyway
the ability to turn the science into accurate integrable differential
equations that can be integrated to provide realistic forecasting of the
weather (because in the end no one cares about 'climate', what we care
about is floods and droughts and hurricanes, late frosts and cold
snaps, and blizzards) is a LONG way from being settled, and there is a
good chance that even if the science is settled, the ability to forecast
the future climate will be about as certain as predicting which way a
carefully dropped die with a carefully measured spin from a carefully
measured height would end up facing. In short, useless.

I was more trying to get a handle on where the bleeding edge of chaos
maths is these days, and how possible it is to prove the extent of the
chaotic nature. In order to answer the one salient point at issue, which
is "how unreasonable is it to assert, that there is *nothing* in the
climate _record_ to lend weight to the hypothesis that the worlds
climate variation is *dominated* by the carbon dioxide concentrations in
its atmosphere, *today*?

Personally after 10 years plus or minus looking at the data, it seems to
me that there is a huge uncertainty surrounding - not the basic physics
of CO2 absorption - but what the *feedbacks* are that will either make
that a second order unimportant aspect of climate, or a dominant force
of nature, that we can control by 'climate policy',

And that is before we get to the other issue, which is how effective
'renewable energy ' is, analysed holistically in a practical real world
system, at reducing carbon dioxide emissions *overall*, at all.

Viz Germany, the premier advocate of Energiewende, which just happens to
be the largest emitter of CO2 in Europe, per nation, per capita and per
MWh generated and is now unable to contemplate losing access to Russian
coal and gas...

It is now no longer a matter of political virtue signalling, and the
hand wavy 'precautionary principle', it is a getting to be matter of
life and death. Not because we risk destroying the planet - even the
late heavy bombardment or the great oxidation events didn't do that,
just nearly all its life - but that we risk destroying technical
civilisation through a refusal to explore genuine affordable energy
sources.

(It is amusing to note that the Great Oxidation Event nearly destroyed
all life on earth, because it REDUCED CO2 concentrations and rapidly
increased oxygen levels, destroying the primitive photosynthesising
organisms that produced it, and resulting eventually in the symbiotic
eukaryotes that represent most life on earth today).

“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere,
diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.”
― Groucho Marx