1

The Environment / Re: (What's) the optimal temperature for life?

« on: 08/05/2022 10:54:46 »

Anyway it's interesting to learn that CO2 makes Britain colder, regardless of the facts.

It will if it disrupts the gulf stream.
But that's only a fact.

More like a lie than a 'fact'. Atmospheric CO2 does not disrupt the Gulf Stream. I'm only stating the null hypothesis here. Someone, somewhere, may have written a model explaining how it can be done. But models don't describe the real world. Even if every single equation in a model has been validated, the way these equations are combined together hasn't been. Non-validated science is fake science when it refuses both the challenge of validation and it refuses to talk to its critics.

2

The Environment / Re: (What's) the optimal temperature for life?

« on: 01/05/2022 16:11:28 »

in a sterile desert, more life will grow if the temperature falls

No. In a sterile desert more life will grow if there is more water available at the surface. Of course - more water available at the surface will also cause surface temperatures to fall, due to increased evaporative cooling. Temperature is an issue in many hot arid areas - such as the Sahara - due to lack of water. The equator gets more sunlight above it, but also has more clouds, and more water (at the surface) to cool it. So water is the issue in arid areas - not temperature.

BTW: In some arid regions of China day-time, growing season, temperatures fell by over 6C when mass irrigation was introduced. See: Yang/Huang/Tang, 2019

3

The Environment / Re: (What's) the optimal temperature for life?

« on: 01/05/2022 15:51:50 »

global warming deniers … will no longer say global warming is a hoax

I can't read minds, like some people here, so I don't even know what global warming deniers will say. I say human global warming is mostly fraud. The premise for global warming is a greenhouse gas effect, GHGE, warming the surface of earth +33C (or is it +60C ?) above what it'd be without its atmosphere. This GHG warming is mostly due to the action of radiatively active gases such as CO2, and H2O(g) - the so-called greenhouse gases, GHG. So we're told. "Back-radiation" emitted by more CO2 and H2O(g) - due to humans (directly or indirectly) - causes extra surface warming - which is, ultimately, responsible for the global warming, causing the "climate emergency". So the narrative goes.

Q: But, where are empirical measurements of this extra "back-radiation"?
A: Nowhere to be found it seems!

Q: Has anyone here so much as read an empirical study of back-radiation?
A: If so, please cite your strongest study.

Q: What kind of "scientist" "believes in" "climate crisis" and "climate emergency" without having read and discussed empirical studies of the back-radiation supposedly causing the climate emergency ?
A: A pseudo-scientist.

Earth's surface is warmer than calculated (by climate alarmists) because their calculations are faulty, and they do not account for adiabatic warming. For current purposes adiabatic warming simply means that the denser an atmosphere is the warmer it will be. Atmospheres of planets and moons are densest closest to the centre of gravity. In the case of rocky planets this is normally at the surface. James Clerk Maxwell explained adiabatic atmospheric warming over a hundred years ago and published it in later editions of his "Theory of Heat" book. Adiabatic compression causes the (dry) Lapse Rate. All planets with atmospheres show adiabatic compression. The Lapse Rate is an effect, beginning with pressures above 0.11 bar. As seen below:

4

The Environment / Re: How come the ice core temperature curve always leads the CO2 curve?

« on: 30/04/2022 11:28:11 »

Because anthropogenic global warming, AGW, is scientific fraud?

5

The Environment / (What's) the optimal temperature for life?

« on: 30/04/2022 11:25:30 »

Optimum = the most favourable situation or level for growth, reproduction, or success.
"the plant grows within a range of 68 and 78°F, the optimum being 74°"

Note: 74°F = 23.3C
Note 2: Mean surface temperature of Earth is about 15°C.

• These scientists found the optimal temperature for photosynthesis was above 20C.
  
• "Mean surface temperature about 5°C higher than on Earth"
  Scientists declare the optimal temperature for life is a planet with an average surface temperature of 20C.
• The UK government recommended home temperature = 21°C
• Cold kills 7 times more people in Pune city, India than heat does. Despite Pune being a risk area for 'heat waves'
• Cold kills far more people than heat does, in England and Wales, Recent ONS Report Finds.
  In summary, the less harsh winters in England and Wales saved about half a million lives over the 20-year period.
• A 2015 multi-country study of temperature-related mortality found that cold kills 17 times more people than heat. Even in tropical countries where there are no severe cold spells: cold still kills more people
  
• I was going to add links to the "The Holocene Climate Optimum" (HCO) and "Early Eocene Climatic Optimum" (EECO). Guess why climatologists call these periods climate optimums?  I'll let the reader find those links.

I conclude that the optimal temperature of earth is at least 20C, a good 5C above our current average surface temperature. Anyone up for a geoengineering project to raise the average surface temperature by the necessary 5C to improve life on earth?

Related post: "Re: Why is Global Warming a threat?"

6

Technology / Re: Double Glazing: Why is argon used between panes?

« on: 18/12/2021 19:05:48 »

Using units: mW/m/K, at 100 kPa pressure, and 300 K temperature, thermal conductivities of some gases are :

Xenon _____ 5.5
Krypton ____ 9.5
CO2 _____ 16.8
N2O _____ 17.4
Argon ____ 17.7

I excluded gases with: thermal conductivities greater than Argon, low boiling point, toxic, chemically reactive, CFCs, ...  I see why xenon isn't used due to its high cost. But why not krypton? Krypton costs about $0.50 / L.  Also: why are CO2 or N2O not used in place of argon?

7

Technology / Double Glazing: Why is argon used between panes?

« on: 18/12/2021 16:40:03 »

The internet tells me that argon is used in double-glazing, between glass panes, because argon is denser than air. This explanation makes no sense.

I noticed that inert gases have the lowest heat capacity of all gases ( = 20.8 Joule/mol/K - that same for all ). Argon is also the most abundant, so cheapest, inert gas.

So, a low heat capacity means argon will conduct less heat between the window panes from inside to outside. This makes far more sense. Is this the real explanation?

8

Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: Is exogenous glucose beneficial to plant growth?

« on: 13/10/2021 14:10:47 »

In the plant science books I have, they grow roots in vitro in 2% sugar solution (plus other nutrients). So (some) roots certainly absorb sugar. The only times I seen sugar recommended for plants is:
1) In the example above - cut flowers kept in sugar water
2) When transplanting root suckers. A sucker is a new shoot which sprouts from the roots of an existing plant. When transplanting suckers, the suckers will often die when one attempts to transplant a sucker with an inadequate root system. So gardening books recommend one cut a circle around the sucker 2 months before transplanting it. This gives the plant time to learn how to survive on its own root system - as the sucker will grow new roots after it's isolated from the mother plant. In practice, cutting holes into ones garden around the suckers will significantly impact the mother plant's root system, and likely as not, cause even more suckers to sprout next year!  A vicious circle. An alternative may be to carefully dig into the soil, avoiding damaging the parent plant's roots until one is able to isolate the sucker with one strategic root cut. Once a sucker is isolated like this it can be transplanted but it has a low survival rate - as its own roots may be almost non-existent. Because of this it's recommended to feed the transplanted sucker on sugar (2% looks good), for a few weeks to help it overcome transplant shock. The best time to transplant suckers seems to be in the the plant's dormant stage; in early winter.

I would not feed seeds on sugar solution.

9

The Environment / Re: Are we due for a grand solar minimum?

« on: 22/01/2021 09:40:43 »

The question of whether the sun is completely chaotic (as I'm told here) or has regular patterns in its magnetic behaviour will be resolved in the next 33 years as we experience either a GSM or something else. I have a hard time seeing how fluid mechanics relates to the sun's internal magnetic fields; as some people claim. If the solar minimum continues past this current cycle (which ends in 2031), then it's "grand"; and the self-styled climate consensus are unable to explain how the sun behaves. Let's wait and see.

Either way: I don't see how fluid mechanics / chaos fans / IPCC "climate consensus" can explain even the last 3 cycles. Peak magnetic activity going from strong, to medium, to weak (evidenced by sun spot number decline). If they cite research based on actual observation I can be convinced. Sitting on a high horse,like Platonists, declaring they know everything about nature convinces only their acolytes. Dictats aren't part of the scientific method; careful observation certainly is.

10

The Environment / Re: If the UK all switched to heat pumps, would it affect winter temperatures?

« on: 21/01/2021 19:55:36 »

I suppose it may reduce the urban heat effect marginally, but that's not really a climate effect it's an effect on thermometers. 95% of people live in 5% of the land mass. So 95% of land has only 5% of the world's population. Heat pumps will only be installed in the Northern Hemisphere. So the answer is not that anyone will notice.

A more sensible question is how much will they cost?, and how well will they work in coldest winter and what will happen if we have another (cold) winter like early 1963?

11

The Environment / Re: How could you stop the earth's poles from warming?

« on: 21/01/2021 19:40:55 »

The propaganda has been going on since the 1980s. The idea of catastrophic climate change derives from positive feedback term(s) in climate models. But there are no positive feedback terms in the real climate system. We should not take models seriously unless they've been tested and validated to the same, or similar, level as scientific ideas such as hypotheses and theories are.

12

The Environment / Re: Are we due for a grand solar minimum?

« on: 21/01/2021 19:32:03 »

This is a somewhat chaotic behavior, so patterns could come and go randomly

The solar research team I know of around Valentina Zharkova strongly dispute the "chaotic" idea. They think it is as regular as clockwork.

13

The Environment / Re: Are we due for a grand solar minimum?

« on: 21/01/2021 19:28:13 »

1. There's no way we can "prepare" for a Grand Solar Minimum, because, no one has been promoting the idea, so no one really cares about it.
2. Even people who believe it is happening, cannot agree what the worse effects will be, nor how much the planet will, cool, for how long, ...
3. The evidence for a GSM consists of projection from a model derived from statistics of just 3 solar cycles. Many people will not believe it is happening until they experience it. Why would you?

14

The Environment / Re: How much does human heat contribute to global warming?

« on: 04/12/2019 15:24:57 »

It depends on how it contributes, and on how we measure that contribution.

Consider this. We can split global land surface temperatures into 2 main groups. Ocean air sheltered, OAS, regions and Ocean air affected, OAA, regions (see ref 1). When we look at each separately we see there's been no global warming for OAS regions since 1950s.  Warming is all in OAA regions. That is, of course, totally incompatible with a greenhouse gas effect. Greenhouse gas warming should not discriminate between OAA and OAS regions. It begs the question: How can we explain the OAA warming, without OAS warming?  Easily. Consider than 95% of people live on just 5% of the land surface. It follows that only 5% of people live in the other 95% of land. People generally prefer to live closer to the coast; which means the vast majority of people live in OAA regions. We also measure temperatures close to where we live.  Many temperatures are biased by an urban heat island effect, UHI. This UHI is predominantly experienced as a warming at night; just like the greenhouse gas is supposed to act!

Because many surface climate stations are located close to populations and people build more building, parking lots, etc., overtime the great majority, 92.1%, of stations in, for example, the USA are subject to UHI corruption. These stations should not be used for monitoring land surface temperature. I see no reason to believe the situation elsewhere in the world is any better.



(1) "Temperature trends with reduced impact of ocean air temperature", 2018, Frank Lansner, Jens Olaf Pepke Pedersen; https://doi.org/10.1177/0958305X18756670"

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The Environment / Re: How much heat is generated from methane from burning vs. the greenhouse effect?

« on: 04/12/2019 14:48:53 »

Over the course of 100 years, 1000 kg of methane "traps" about 30 times as much energy as 1000 kg of carbon dioxide.

Methane is a reducing chemical. The atmosphere is oxidising. No way is the atmospheric lifetime of methane 100, years, or even 10.

Reading these descriptions of climate doom, I can't help noticing how much of it is just made up. Like fairy stories.

16

Question of the Week / Re: QotW: 19.07.29 What causes monsoon rain and will global warming affect it?

« on: 14/11/2019 09:30:04 »

Why is exactly then GW seen in a negative limelight?

You are exactly right. See diagrams in my post. In figure 3, the period about 52 million years ago is called the Eocene Optimum.  It was a very warm, moist, period when life on earth flourished. Hence the term "optimum".  The worse recent period for life on earth was during the depth of the last glaciation just over 70,000 years ago. Volcanic eruptions combined with solar cycles to nearly wipe out the human race. Reducing the human population to about 20,000 brave souls. Tropical rainforests like the Amazon were about 10% of current size during this severe glaciation. Much of earth's area was essentially desertified because the combination of cold and low precipitation weren't good enough to keep plants alive.

Q: Why is warmth seen in a negative light?

A: Because careerist climate modelers have to sell their worthless product somehow. Their models cannot predict climate so they predict gloom. Modelers keep their jobs as doom-mongers because humanity are gluttons for punishment.  Our toff, public school, establishment sell this to the public as it both satisfies their better than thou self-image, their contempt for the fossil fuel guzzling lower orders. All the while keeping those most incompetent of scientists - climate modelers - on a secure career trajectory.

17

Question of the Week / Re: QotW: 19.07.29 What causes monsoon rain and will global warming affect it?

« on: 14/11/2019 09:05:41 »

Global warming will warm the oceans, which will put more moisture in the atmosphere.
No one knows for sure how bad this will be.

Yes we do. We have the palaeoclimatology record to guide us.  Paradoxically, earth has been getting colder for the last 52 million years (figure 3). All the while politicians, media, muppets and careerist scientists try to scare you to death so that they can both virtue signal and promote their careers.

It's fair to say they (modelers) generally don't have a clue but climate scientists (not modelers) who study climate do.  Here is earth's temperature record for the past 5.5 million years (Figure 1). We are now located on the extreme right-hand side at at 0°C (grey dashed line baseline).  The last 2.5 million years show the history of the current Ice Age. We are now at the top, close to the warmest. The general trend is getting colder from here.

The current climate is relatively warmer than the past 700 years. This is due to shorter term solar cycles associated with:

• the relationship between the sun and planets, and
• the net strength of the solar magnetic field

The short term trend will be cooling. Peak cold between 2030 and 2041. Getting back to the current 'warm' earth at about 2052. Then warming slightly more before cooling again. The warming cycles are called the Bray cycle and Eddy cycle. These are 2500 year and 1000 year respectively. The cooling cycle (for the next 33 years) is the de Vries cycle. See figure 2.

PS: An Ice Age, in climate science, is a period when both poles of earth are substantially glaciated - as they currently are. A glaciation during an Ice Age is what we colloquially call The Ice Age.

PS 2: There are many solar cycles which interfer (cancel) and reinforce each other. These range in periodicity from 11 to 100,000 years. In addition, there is a moon cycle, and very long-term cycles associated with the solar system motion around the Milky Way.

Figure 1.


Figure 2


Figure 3

18

General Science / Re: Is 'heat ' the absence of 'cold ' ?

« on: 14/11/2019 07:46:41 »

Cold is the absence of heat, and energy. Simplest way to explain it is: when something gets colder its because the energy moved away. Every warm thing radiates energy away all the time according to the Stefan–Boltzmann Law (AKA Stefan's Law). Electrons in higher energy orbitals literally move to lower energy orbitals and emit photons which radiate away.

Other examples of warm things (with more potential energy) getting colder are:
conduction, convection, loss of kinetic energy, transformation of state (e.g. a liquid takes warmth from its immediate environment and uses it to change state - to a gas) as latent energy, and nuclear radiation.

Radioactive decay is an interesting one. Here the thing with greatest potential energy has a less stable neutron to proton ratio in its atomic nucleus. It "decays" to a more stable ratio, and emits alpha, beta, and/or gamma radiation. It loses nuclear binding energy which is emitted as energy during its decay. Nuclear fission and fusion are 2 more examples of things with more potential energy transforming to things with less potential energy.

Notice the trend - loss of energy, or, better, sharing it out, is the natural state of things. It's a bit like utopian socialism : at the end of the day everything gets to be equal (in energy) with everything else. There should be a law for that, and there is.

19

That CAN'T be true! / Re: Scientists promote fake science

« on: 10/11/2019 14:57:33 »

Thanks for the list which vanished and has now returned.  Did you find a single climate scientist on the list?  I found some people who might qualify but where are your big names? - the Mann of the climate galaxy?

geologist (35),
meteorologist (20),
atmospheric physics (64),
paleoclimatology (3),
solar physics (2),
modeler (2),
oceanographer/oceanography (108).

Well done. You got one actual climate modeler, and 2 solar physicists to sign up.
~~
What of Antonia Mills? the "expert in reincarnation", who "teaches undergraduate and graduate courses ... on indigenous perspectives on reincarnation and rebirth".  Did she quit or was she axed?

20

That CAN'T be true! / Scientists promote fake science

« on: 10/11/2019 12:33:43 »

Last week BBC Science News, Guardian and many others published a news story about 11000 scientists supporting new science warning of an imminent climate emergency.

The journalist who published it was recently awarded €100k journalism prize. Once upon time journos awarded themselves tiny prizes for anti-establishment journalism. Today journos award themselves massive prizes for pro-establishment, fake science journalism.  All of it with a green light from UK science establishment such as: The Royal Society, Naked Scientists, Martin Rees, Alice Roberts, Brian Cox, Richard Dawkins, every science journalist, Science Media Centre, ...

As for the news story:
* Few of the 11258 scientists on the list appear to be actual scientists. For example not one of the 300 Canadians of the list could be legitimately called a scientist.
* Yet the list included Mickey Mouse, Hogwarts headmaster Professor Dumbledore, and at least one scholar and teacher of rebirth and reincarnation.
* The science article these 11k supported is a ViewPoint in science journal BioScience.
* The actual list of the of the 'Alliance Of World Scientists' vanished for a time. It's back but many fictional characters and the reincarnation scholar/teacher see to have been purged.

As for award winning science journalist Matt McGrath, he's back publishing more fake science climate news.