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Post by nickcosmosonde on May 4, 2011 17:01:19 GMT 1
Tides in the air cause a very slight and just about measurable pressure difference, but this is swamped by the pressure differences caused by other things (such as day versus night, solar heating versus not heating). This entirely misses the point, as your previous dismissal of astronomical influences on climate because the gravitational effects must be too slight did. As in that case, the relevant factors here are electromagnetic - nothing to do with pressure. The "tides" caused by the moon's orbit are primarily occurring in the upper E and lower F layers of the ionosphere - large scale currents in the charged particles from the solar wind trapped in the magnetosphere. These are of course quite measurable, both directly and in their forcing influence on geomagnetic field fluctuations - these effects on the geomagnetic field, in its strength, direction, and atmospheric pulse generation - this is not "swamped" by anything, and were first observed using comparatively primitive magnetometers in the late 19th Century. Far from being "swamped", there is now no longer any question that the effects of the ionospheric charged particulate content on both the short-term "weather" and the long-term "climate" is of primary significance. Even the accepted IPCC computer models now assign 50% of the putative ground temperature measurements to the correponding sunspot number, for example - this supposedly accounts for their trumpeted increase in accurate correlation with the record (though the 50% assignment is entirely arbitrary - if that gives so much greater accuracy, who's to say it's not in fact 100%, and the other inaccuracies are not due to some other factor, other than the equally arbitrary weighting attributed to CO2? Answer: no one.) On the contrary. Total electron density in the ionosphere has been observed to be of the utmost importance - fluctuations simply over a period of 30 days have been shown to correspond directly and precisely to measurements of ground temperature in the same period. This is nothing to do with solar irradiance, but the strength of the solar wind. To the extent and period that we've been able to measure such parameters, given its immediate and direct effect on "weather", it is entirely reasonable to conclude that these fluctuations are far more important in determining global climate than the comparatively tiny effects of increased Co2 in the atmosphere. It's nothing to do with heat. It's to do with current flow, which is almost certainly the main driver of cloud formation and wind production. There is a small but measurable heat production, but not through tidal friction, but through excited ion interaction. This is now well observed through the studies of the effects of CMEs on the dark side of the Venusian atmosphere.
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Post by carnyx on May 4, 2011 18:36:43 GMT 1
Anybody up for some sums?
The current flow through the poles, interacting with the earth's magnetic field, and depending on the respective orientations ... ought to produce a magnetomotive force. What is the llikely value?
Could this force be the cause of the flows within the liquid part of the earth's metal ( i.e. conductive) core?
And what about the moon? is it conductive, too?
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Post by nickcosmosonde on May 4, 2011 19:21:09 GMT 1
Anybody up for some sums? The current flow through the poles, interacting with the earth's magnetic field, and depending on the respective orientations ... ought to produce a magnetomotive force. What is the llikely value? It's immeasurable, Carnyx. It depends on the electron and proton density of the magentosphere, for one thing, which is of course highly variable - not just on the solar output, but on the plasma density of the interpanetary field, which is unpredictably variable because we don't know the plasma density of the galactic environment that we're travelling through. That density has increased by over 50% since the first measurements were made in the 7-s, for example - the whole solar system is passing through a region of highly charged dust, increasing the interplanetary conductive conditions in an entirely unkown manner. The magnetic field strength interactions of Jupiter have doubled, for example, since first observed. Since that time. the motility of the magnetic poles on this planet has rapidly increased, by a factor of several thousands of percent.
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Post by marchesarosa on May 5, 2011 1:01:35 GMT 1
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Post by principled on May 5, 2011 4:30:01 GMT 1
Nick, I enjoyed reading your post. Well argued. I await STA's response. So let the battle commence! P
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Post by nickcosmosonde on May 5, 2011 5:33:36 GMT 1
Fascinating, Marchesa, but...no. Except in the most fundamental sense, of course. I was referring to Carnyx's query about calculating a magnetomotive force in the Earth's core. He's quite right, of course - Faraday demonstrated well over a century ago that the magnetic field lines of a rotating magnet do not themselves rotate, so the spinning Earth will be generating vast currents, which will themselves generate their own magnetic fields, in an impossibly complex feedback. Working out the strength and even action of such fields is impossibly complex. No one really knows how the Earth's magnetic field is generated in the first place, for a start - the best working theory is there are two vast conductive cores, rotating in countervailing directions at more or less right angles to each other, and this has been shown in the laboratory to give rise to a magnetic field with most of the characteristics of ours. The difficulty with Carnyx's question is the strength and number of the field lines entering back into these dual cores are highly variable. (Only about 90% of the Earth's field lines return, for a start: up to 10% of them get blown out behind us into space by the solar wind - some of them reconnect, especially in the few days around Full Moon, when the moon passes through and they wrap themselves around it, but most of them disappear into the interplanetary field). Then there's the problem of how they act electrically. We're constantly bombarded by charged particles in the solar wind (and, comparatively, a few cosmic rays) injecting electrons and protons into our magnetic field, primarily at the poles. A percentage of these bounce back and forth from pole to pole, attaining relativistic speeds close to the speed of light, acting like electrical wires, generating their own magnetic fields, which then interact with our domestically generated one. Then there are thousands of lightning strikes occurring at any time across the planet, sending out em waves across a wide spectrum, vibrating the whole field. These vibrations are trapped between the surface of the Earth and the ionosphere, in a resonant cavity, creating the so-called Schumann Resonances centred aroung 7.8 hz (the same frequency used by our brains for its most basic coordinating mass oscillating rhythm). This too is variable, depending on the ion content of the ionosphere, the time of day, the time of year, the phase of the Moon, and the meteorological conditions of the magnetic field. Then there's the question of what happens exactly to the magnetic field lines which extend out beyond the ionosphere. These lines do rotate, and so generate fields of their own as they interact with the solar magnetic field. They also pass through the Van Allen Belts, of course, vast reservoirs of charged particles trapped in the magnetosphere, like a gigantic dynamo in space. Then there's the plasma sheet, also inducing its vibrations onto to field lines that both contain it and move through it. The whole thing is impossibly complex, and highly dependent on the strength of the interplanetary plasma - which depends on the output from the Sun and the galactic environment we happen to be passing through. No one really understands these complex interactions - every time NASA visits a planet all their predictions about the magnetic fields they theoretically calculate are found to be completely wrong. No one even understands how the Sun's magnetic field is generated, or how it works, or why it's so unpredictably complex, flipping its poles, sometimes having opposite poles of the same sign, sometimes of opposite sign, sometimes having four poles, sometimes two, sometimes apparently none - it's as current theory stands completely incomprehensible.
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Post by Joanne Byers on May 7, 2011 15:43:13 GMT 1
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Post by speakertoanimals on May 9, 2011 23:23:00 GMT 1
As regards the moon, the point is simple (tides aside, atmospheric tides WAS the question asked) -- the moon ain't moving significantly over time scales concerned. Hence effect on climate negligible. Periodic fluctuation, periodic being the operative word. unless anyone wants to claim that the moon has shifted significantly over the time scales concerned with current climate change................
I do wish some people would be clearer as to exactly what hypothesis they are arguing about, rather than moving the goal posts half way through the game..................
Plus, we don't understand a tinkers cuss about A, therefore it might all be down to that, is hardly an argument. Compared to say, the effects of CO2 where we DO understand the relevant physics, and have a reasonable model as to HOW it not just might effect climate, but why it very probably SHOULD effect climate. And that is an old hypothesis as well, the greenhouse effect.
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Post by marchesarosa on May 10, 2011 11:29:38 GMT 1
How very beentheredonethatboughttheTshirt, if I might so describe your "attitude". I call it an "attitude", cos it sure ain't "science".
Lab experiments shining light through bottles of CO2 can hardly be claimed to "model" the behaviour of the atmosphere, can they? Or am I being picky?
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Post by marchesarosa on Jun 12, 2011 8:09:53 GMT 1
Here's another research effort concerning the moon - Project Earthshine.www.bbso.njit.edu/Research/EarthShine/science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2002/12apr_earthshine/It is actually a measure of Earth's changing albedo which is calculated from the changing amount of light from Earth reflected from the shaded part of the moon's face. Why is this important? Well, because there are basically only two stories currently in contention about how the Earth's average temperature may vary. Norm Kalmanovitch states it this way There are essentially two sides to the climate debate; either changes to the outgoing energy from the "insulating" effect of greenhouse gases are causing global temperature changes or changes to incoming energy are causing global temperature change
1. CO2 absorbs and re-emits a bit of IR radiation from Earth which slows its escape to space. If there is a little more CO2 it is supposed to raise the temperature slightly, if there is a little less it is supposed to cause a slight drop in temperature. (Mr Sonde has already explained elsewhere why changing CO2 levels are probably caused by changing temperature and not vice versa since a change in temp always predates a change in CO2 whether up or down) 2. Variation in sunlight actually reaching Earth caused by changes in cloud cover. It is posited that changes in cloud cover reflecting sunlight back to space BEFORE it reaches Earth can account for ALL observed variations in Earth's temperature. Satellite measurement of reflected Earthshine shows that there are indeed large variations in Earth's albedo seasonally and decadally. The mechanism is not clearly understood but these changes certainly have implications for global temperature. This is why the Cloud experiments at CERN and Arhus are being conducted - to try to understand the mechanism which accounts for the cloud variation which in turn permits more or less of the sun's output to reach Earth. Kirkby and Svensmark et al propose that variation in the solar wind causes changes in the amount of Galactic Cosmic Radiation reaching Earth which in turn affects the amount of cloud.
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Post by marchesarosa on Jun 13, 2011 13:31:16 GMT 1
bump
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Post by speakertoanimals on Jun 13, 2011 13:57:03 GMT 1
Or why not some element of both. IF CLOUD manages to establish a physical mechanism to explain the observed correlation between cosmic rays and cloud cover, that doesn't mean that AGW is dead in the water, it just means we have another effect to include in climate models.
Just because this increasingly daft non-DEBATE has polarised into two sides, DOESN'T mean the science will...............................
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Post by marchesarosa on Jun 15, 2011 13:58:53 GMT 1
There is no reason at all why it shouldn't be a bit of both but I think the "bit" allocated to CO2 will be trivial.
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Post by StuartG on Jun 15, 2011 16:53:24 GMT 1
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Post by marchesarosa on Aug 26, 2011 15:59:55 GMT 1
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