JoNova
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Statistics
Heat wave eh!
What it has caused is a spike in electrical power consumption, and that of itself offers me so many different things to explain, but let’s just go with that hackneyed old stand by for all those green urgers, household air conditioning, the so called root cause of this alleged huge consumption.
A lot has been said this last week about how home air conditioners, all of it basically false.
After much chasing down, incidentally after that wonderful article from ABC environmental journalist, Sara Phillips. (at this link) I found some interesting little facts.
It’s now fact that a little over half Australian homes now have air conditioning. There are currently 7.8 Million homes in Australia (last census data) so that’s around 3.9 Million homes with air conditioning, well, according to Sara anyway.
So then, let’s say that half of those homes had the aircon going during the day, with the compressor (the big electricity consumer) cycling around the temperature settings. The other half of them were all off at work, and arrived home at around 5PM or so, and walking into a house that was outrageously hot, they all turned their air conditioners on to flat out to cool their home down.
The average sized unit in Australia consumes around 2KW with the compressor going, and to cool the home down from very hot to the set low temp, those compressors would all be working flat out. So, here was have around 2 million units each consuming 2KW for the time it takes to cool down the home, a total consumption of, wait for it, 4,000MW.
So, immediately, we have this huge spike in power consumption of that extra 4,000MW.
Look at the Load Curve (at this link) for this day, Wednesday January 15th, the actual Load Curve for what was day two of the five day heat wave, and the day prior to that ABC article, you know one of those alleged five or so days a year they refer to laughably as Peak Power days, and Wednesday’s consumption topped out at over 33,500MW.
It’s the third graph down on that page, the upper black line. As you can see for yourself, that peak was from 2PM to 4PM.
Now, if all those aircon units were turned on at once, hell, even over the next hour or more after the commute, then there would be that pretty dramatic spike of an extra 4,000MW.
Hmm! Well, no, it didn’t happen. In fact, from 4PM onwards power consumption started to fall off. All those work places were still hot, most of them still operational. All the high rises in every city and town gradually emptied out, however, with the air supply to those buildings still going, as those units on those high rises are in fact principally used to circulate breathing air into and out of those buildings, conditioning it on the way in.
All the Malls are still open. All the Coles and Woolies with their monumentally huge banks of cool and cold storage are still operational, so this alleged household air conditioning spike is over and above all that consumption.
It’s just not there. It never has been there, and never will be there. It’s supposedly a huge spike, but it never even shows up.
Change the date to any of the days either side for the 5 Load Curves, all up around that 33,500MW total if you like, all of them stinking hot work days. No spike on any of those days, as in fact power consumption drops off after 4 or 5PM on each day.
Now, keep in mind that power consumption in the Residential sector only makes up 26% of all Australian power consumption.
Household air conditioning is most definitely NOT the boogey man it is made out to be.
Blah blah blah, and on it went. They exhort all home owners to set their conditioners at 25C. On the Queensland ABC on Thursday morning, they asked a Doctor what people should do in this stinking heat. He mentioned if they had no aircon units at home, they should frequent shopping malls to cool down. When pressed as to what temperature setting they should have for their home units if they had them, the Doctor said preferably around 20C, but no higher than 23C.
For all you people faltering on whether or not to believe all this, because there is just so much of it being said, have no qualms, because home air conditioning is not to blame.
By the by, now scroll back up to the second graph, the output from every wind tower in Australia, East of the WA border. Note how during the most intense heat of the day, for around 3 hours from Midday to 3PM, the total from Wind comes in at around 100MW (at a Capacity Factor of 3.8%) so Wind power is supplying, umm, 0.3% of what is actually being generated for consumption. That’s around 50 towers with blades actually turning, out of a total of around 1300 towers. How much did all those wind plants cost, and for virtually nothing.
THAT is why wind power is an absolute failure, its total inability to supply power at even a reasonable level.
Tony.
540
Your number of homes suggest about 5.5 people/home. I suggest checking this as the number/home is less than this
27
Apologies. You said nothing of the sort. Bed time for me.
191
Rather more Holmes than Watson there Sherlock.
130
Tony I posted this thought on an earlier thread but it is germane to your post here:
230
You mean like the Goracle was doing to Congress way back in ’88 to get this whole show on the road ?
60
From The Climate Fix
40
I wonder how many of our warmist friends turned off their AC last week?!
40
Graham Lloyd of the The Australian agrees with you Tony.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/state-politics/wind-fails-test-as-demand-soars/story-e6frgczx-1226804532811
90
And the ASRF here too.
http://www.afr.com/p/national/wind_and_solar_can_handle_heat_1CUoBSO9TiXNfFa2dIYsCK
If it dont blow, it can’t generate.
10
Tony,
I don’t know exactly how many homes we have in the U.S. but we certainly dwarf you in Oz – California alone has roughly 35 million people (stuffed into big cities too). For a place nearly as large as the U.S. you’re really sparse.
But here’s a question. Do you have any figures on power consumption of household refrigerators and freezers? Aside from A/C those would be the biggest power consumers in a home and they run at need, 24/7.
50
Roy,
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) offers the most up to date electrical power generation data on Earth, and that is my go-to source for U.S. power data. I only wish other Countries were as detailed as what this is.
For the sake of comparison, I have two Residential Power consumption pie charts for you to look at, one from the U.S. and one from Australia, and I want you to notice here that there are some differences, minor really.
U.S. residential power consumption pie chart
Australian residential power consumption pie chart
In the Australian chart, they have put cooling and heating into the one slice, but when you add together the U.S. slices for cooling, heating, and furnace fans, they come out at U.S. 30% and Oz 38%. Split the Oz slice in half (half for heating in Winter and cooling in Summer) then the cooling slices, U.S. 16% and Oz 19% come in close to the same, when you consider it is specifically Air conditioning in the U.S. and just stated as Cooling in Oz, and cooling is all of aircon, plus roof fans, plus other fans plus water based cooling units, so aircon would be relatively similar in both cases.
There is difference in refrigeration and freezers, and a very slight difference in lighting, and with respect to lighting, I want you all to remember the hype on how we all needed to change our light bulbs to those CFL bulbs.
I’ve explained it in greater detail before, but the savings here amounted to 75% of 8 to 9% total for lighting of 26%, or 1.37% of power consumption, taking that slice down from its original 8.5% to what is now 7%, and that’s if 100% of the population changed those bulbs.
Can you see how green spin is based, not on actual facts, but on guilt.
Tony.
111
Thanks!
And yes,
trivial savings as I knew all along. Just lip service really, something government finds much easier to do than actually come to grips with real issues and problems. It does about as much good as daylight saving time but the politicians can mandate it and then say, “See what I’ve done for you? Now vote me back into office.”
40
Although I’ll guess that some people actually do get an advantage from the longer evening daylight hours. But then the lights burn more in the morning to make up for it.
20
Roy,
To add to the green-guilt syndrome, I learnt some years back from very lefty govt types that recycling our household waste was also a guilt complex issue – it was economically totally unsustainable.
41
Louis,
Could that be why I’m charged to haul away the recycle bin?
And long time no see. I miss Bullwinkle. 🙂
10
This so called huge uptake of home air conditioning has supposedly exploded in the last two years or so, and I can see how some people may actually question an explanation of the data shown in the Load Curve I linked to in Comment 1.
So then, compare that Current 4 day old Load Curve with the Load Curve for a day in January of 2010, four years ago. (a screen shot image is shown at this link and note the url address line for Summer 2010)
You can see how the Load Curves are almost identical, a similar daily maximum up around 33,500MW, peaking at around 4PM, and then gradually dropping off.
If that uptake of home air conditioning in the last couple of years was so huge, then there would be a significant difference between these two Load Curves.
Also, some may question the Residential sector power breakdown where I mention that this sector only consumes 26% of all power being generated in Australia. I have explained this breakdown at a Comment here at Joanne’s site way back in August of 2012, at this link.
As Mark D mentions above, this is a ploy being used by green urgers aimed at the guilt associated with a personal indulgence for the sake of comfort, and how we all need to suffer for the sake of Mother Gaia.
Tony.
232
Hi Tony,
Not sure if this is relevant but I know in the drier regions there is evaporative air con included with the refrigerated air con which uses less power.
Ours got us through the heat last week pretty well.
30
Tony I just love the way you explain electrical power usage /delivery and this should be shown in such form for all Australians to take in and realize how much green laced crap they have been given concerning the subject being a huge but overlooked part of their lives.
“TonyfromOz’s Power Point presentations” has a good ring to it.
90
TonyfromOz Should you stop publicising these facts, fascinating as they are? This is in no way meant to detract from or criticise your remarkably cogent and informative comments but I fear the ungodly (in the shape of the proponents of RET and most of those on the “greens” end of the spectrum will start to read them. In this weekend’s Australian Financial Review, which, to be fair, although a part of the Fairfax press is usually fairly even handed, the lead story focussed on the air-con spike. The headline was “Wind and Solar can’t handle heat”. If anybody reads this comment of mine my apologies for bringing this dire news to your attention as I suspect you believe, like the Greens and the ALP, wind and solar will save us all from the fearsome and dreaded CO2. Although, removing tongue from cheek, most here know that that is a load of bollocks. The piece comments on the dollars that have been poured and still are pouring, into alternative forms of energy generation and overall gives a very critical and refreshingly different viewpoint from that provided in most of the MSM.. Back to my earlier point, if TonyfromOz keeps comprehensively showing that the “air-con spike” is a fallacy, will this lead the people to believe that wind and solar really can cope? The URL is http://tinyurl.com/kdaz474 but may be paywalled
40
I have quite often wondered how long this hard data record will remain open to the public gaze … until enough of the general populace become aware of it to threaten a significant difference in public opinion, I guess
30
A long time ago, in a blog far, far away….
You said: “CH (Chief Hydrologist) has 75% convinced me that climate is chaotic, non-linear with unknown thresholds to strange attractors, and only describable (poorly) within a probability matrix”.
I would like to hear more, could you email me at: [email protected]
10
OK then, let’s offer up two scenarios here, about what the green and the left might do with respect to residential air conditioning, which (as they have hyped out of all proportion) they say is causing these huge spikes in power consumption. (end sarc)
1. The answer to so dire a problem (/sarc) is quite obviously to ban residential aircon outright, and that would then obviously stop the problem, you know, in much the same manner as they have banned coal fired power because those CO2 emissions are causing dangerous warming. (/sarc)
2. They could impose legislation to make make those residential home owners who have aircon pay extra for their electricity, you know, to pay for all the drama they cause. So, paying more amounts to literally a tax on air conditioning really, you know, in much the same manner as they placed a Tax on CO2 to stop those emissions.
Now, you tell me which option is the most attractive to the greens and the left here, and there’s no prizes for guessing correctly, in fact, we all would lose.
Don’t ban it, make money from it, just like we did with the CO2.
Tony.
90
Tony,thanks for the time and effort you put in to this information,it must be bothersome to have to repeat it for the morons.The best news about taxing air con units is that the left and gangreens don’t run the show anymore.With the low energy light globes,you may save a small amount of power,but the cost of the globes more than eats up the saving.Being a part of the gangreen effort makes some feel warm and fuzzy,the rest of us just spend more money.
40
Tony
Air conditioning in a building is one thing, have you considered the power draw by lifts and escalators? I’d say that for your average highrise, the lifts would be a big chunk of the energy budget as well.
Cheers,
Speedy
40
I’m actually a little disappointed that none of the warmists have come in and disputed this, because, after all, this could just be a case of Tony just saying this to support his point of view.
So then, can I back it up?
Well, yes, I can, and it’s as simple as comparing the Summer Load Curve with any Winter Load Curve.
Look at this 2012 Winter Load Curve (at this link).
Note the Minimum power needs, (that 24/7/365 absolute requirement) a total here of around 19,000MW, at around 3/4AM.
Then, as everybody wakes for the morning, consumption rises, with heaters being fired up, breakfast, showers, morning chores etc.
Then most of that is done and people go off to work, and power falls off. It rises again late in the afternoon as people come home, turn on heaters do the evening chores turn on the lights, cook dinner, watch TV etc.
Now, the most important thing here is that dip after the morning peak.
This level of residential consumption is the same or similar during Summer, only it is hidden by the daily daytime bulge.
That dip is indicative. If heating was such a large consumer as aircon, then the Load Curves would look similar.
However, that Summer bulge indicates that the bulk of power consumption is during working hours.
What is critical here is all those high rise buildings.
They are primarily used to re-circulate breathing air throughout the building. The temperature is set at virtually a constant level all year round, so it feels cooler in Summer, and feels warmer in Winter.
The air is conditioned as it enters the building, via those huge electricity consumers, the compressors.
In Summer, those tall buildings, anything over 2 or 3 levels are hot boxes in Summer, and with all that glass, the ambient temperature inside rises very quickly, so the compressors are running virtually all day as the heat inside is magnified by what is reflected from outside. Hence the huge Summer power consumption bulge during Summer.
In Winter however, and a fairly benign Australian Winter when compared with colder Countries, the ambient temperature inside rises with what is reflected from outside, hence, being much cooler in Winter inside and the outside reflected rise in temperature, then the ambient inside stays relatively stable, hence those compressors work very little in the Winter, the the fans on those rooftop units just re-circulating the air throughout the building.
So, the mid daylight bulge you see in Summer is not there, with Winter middle of day maximum anything up to 6,000 to 8,000MW lower.
Now, this is for EVERY building taller than 2 or 3 levels, the same for all shops, the same for all Malls, the same for all that cool and cold storage in all the Coles and Woolies. The compressors do not work anywhere near as hard as they work during Summer.
Now, some might still say I’m selectively using these Load Curves to make my point, but since the time when electrical power was first stating to be used, these Summer/Winter Load Curves have been the same for both Seasons, long, long, long before air conditioning became popular in residential homes.
The green and left can say whatever they like and the guilt ridden will just accept it blindly it seems.
However, what those greens and leftists neglect is to understand what these Load Curves, actual data, actually do tell us.
Residential air conditioning is but a minor blip, if that at all.
Oh, and if you still think I’m making it up, look at this load curve for yesterday, Saturday 18th January, another stinking hot day in the South, and in fact not a work day, a day when most people are at home in their residences, and because they are home for most of the day, then the aircon units will have been in regular use all through the day, and not just at the times when they come home from work at around 5PM each work day.
Look at the Load Curve for generation/consumption shown at this link, the third graph down the page)
Note the consumption here, the Peak a full 8,000MW lower than for a normal work day, during this umm, heat wave.
Same thing here also. Power consumption is lower on Saturdays and Sundays, and has been since electrical power became available, on days when people are at home and not all at work or school.
Sometimes, it just needs a correct explanation to show how left green spin is just that ….. spin, aimed at collective guilt.
Tony.
70
The third graph down, electricity demand, is surely smoothed and does not show any peaks which might trip local substations perhaps ?
I have many relatives in OZ some of whom have suffered electricity cuts recently, yet the electricity company seems unable or unwilling to offer an explanation apparently.
10
I live in Norway. My house is build to be warm in cold weather. So during summer it gets easily very warm inside when the sun is shining and it’s +20 deg C outside.
Turning the A/C unit on first when the house is really hot late in the afternoon takes to many hours to cool the house down again.(the unit is a air/air pump designed to warm the house, but it can also cool)
So I leave the A/C on from morning to evening.
20
In the US, we were told to turn our furnaces down 5 to 10 degrees F at night to conserve energy. This may work with a conventional gas or propane furnace, but not with heat pumps or radiant floor heat. There is no “one-size-fits-all” solutions. Turning back the thermostat with radient heaters is even more likely to increase costs. As Jon notes, whether your house was built for staying warm or for staying cool matters also. The only way to save energy (but not always money, mind you) is to test your home for what actually works. In other words, stop listening to “experts” and actually look at your situation and figure out what works best for you.
10
A trio from the Church of Latter Day Saints rattled my front door this afternoon asking if I wanted to hear some sort of message of eternal love or some similar marketing ploy. I told them No Thanks and that I had already thought a lot about issues like that.
But it got me thinking again. Seems to me that people sometimes have to believe in some idea for which there is no actual evidence just to give themselves the motivation to do what rationality would tell them to do anyway. Know what I mean?
Of course it’s only my assumption that there’s no God. I recognise it’s a choice. I just choose to assume whatever can’t be proven and then wait for evidence that disproves that assumption. I figure that’s the scientific way. Which leads me to my question.
Seriously. For the people who believe in a god of some sort, but didn’t believe it when they were a kid, was there any series of events later in life which led you to your belief?
[ yeah I prefer big ideas over small talk. The Unthreaded can only get better from here. 🙂 ]
152
Andrew,if you looked at every religion to find one that suited you,there are so many ,death would find you before you made a decision.With all the insurance adds for funerals,income protection,health and death its a wonder we are not all raving loonies.You could go broke insuring your family and when you add to that ‘Praise the lord and give me money’what chance have you got.Religion is for those who can afford it
92
Andrew,
It seems clear to me that if no one had heard the word god until science came along far enough to explain natural phenomena like droughts, bad storms, lightning and thunder, and a long list of other things, then there would be no need for invention of some superhuman power who was responsible for those things. I don’t think we’d know the word.
The basic reason people believe there’s a god is because they’ve been told that, probably over and over. And that has been passed down trough thousands of years to the present. Even when they didn’t believe it, that nagging doubt can be there and eventually, some experience becomes convincing.
Then there’s this: As I’ve looked at the universe or the beautiful intricacy and complexity of the human body I have no choice but to wonder if that could all happen by accident. If this planet of ours wasn’t destined to develop life from before it existed, I’ll be very disappointed. Something set it all up to end up where it is, teeming with life; full of things so complex that we don’t understand even the inner processes of a single cell.
Does that constitute a god? I don’t have the slightest answer for you.
120
People believe in all kinds of things that cannot be proven scientifically. Love, for example. If we reduce it to neurons and synapses, and study it a bit longer, would it still be “love”. No more romance novels, no novels on charming bad guys, etc. It’s all explained and very deterministic. Do you love your child–or is it just neurons firing? Yes, we can reduce everything to science most probably, but do we want to?
Question: Where did the original idea of “God” come from?
90
There is no such thing as ‘love’. It simply is the feeling of well-being we experience when certain primitive needs are satisfied: the need to find a breeding partner and, more insipidly, the need to feel worthy.
As to religion, witchdoctors were its early practitioners. In prehistoric times the strongest male became leader of the tribe. There was no means for anyone weaker than the leader to gain tribal power. But one day some clever individual found a way to gain tribal power by exploiting people’s fear of things around them that could not be explained, such as volcanoes, eclipses and so on. This individual realised that if he could be seen as the channel through which the cause of these events could be explained (gods) it would give him immense power in the tribe. His early attempts were probably met with scepticism, but before too long he realised that if he ritualised it with beads and silly hats people would defer to his authority. Bring it forward a few thousand years and you have the explanation as to why priests wear silly hats and engage in such elaborate rituals. And on the subject of garb, notice how many people groom and dress themselves in a way that is meant to create an image that elevates them socially amongst their tribal peers – think of people wearing hats when they don’t need to or wearing ornaments such as chains and ear rings. And, pathetically, people defer to such individuals as possessing socially superior qualities. Pathetic, isn’t it, that in this day and age people still respond psychologically to others who display different sorts of ‘plumage’.
And so we come to the modern-day witchdoctors: the climate change alarmists. Hollywood made a fortune out of scaring us with disaster films and, now, the entire global warming ‘industry’ is making a fortune out of exploiting our primitive ingrained fear of the forces of nature. Think of the loaded terminology they use: ‘tipping point’ and ‘energy in the atmosphere’. And of course there is the latest scare: that the heat is going into the ‘deep oceans’. Note the use of the term ‘deep’ to give it a menacing sound and so exploit people’s fears – quick everyone, run and huddle in your caves, there’s a boogie man lurking in the deep oceans. Pathetic, isn’t it. It just shows what psychopaths our modern-day climate change witchdoctors are. They are no different to ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ type characters. They callously exploit people to make money – think of one carbon billionaire whose business model is to sell untruths that exploit people’s fears.
83
Wow, not the answer I expected on love, but very honest, I would guess.
I’m still not clear on how humans came up with God. I can see the witch doctor telling people things to give himself power, but I still have a difficult time figuring out how primitive people came up with beings that were not of this world. After all, they had no idea what the heavens were–one supposes it just looked like a ceiling to them. Yet somewhere along the way, someone came up with a being that created the universe and wrote hundreds of words concerning this being. I cannot fathom where they got the creation by an alien being from, nor how they wove together such intricate books such as the Bible. Seems like a lot of work when you could just keep scaring people with thunder and lightening. Perhaps I am missing something here. I’ve tried researching this, but no satisfactory answer was to be found.
I agree that humans just love a good scare. However, I hold people responsible for following the “witch doctors” as much as the “witch doctors” for exploiting them. Callously exploiting people only works when people line up and volunteer for the exploitation. I would also note that if there’s no love, I doubt there’s any callousness. People do what they do because it works and fullfills their needs. Nothing emotional about that–just doing what people do naturally. The only way to stop it is to educate people and hope they are happier as independent people than dependent followers.
20
We need to think in terms of powerful beings in the sky rather than gods in the heavens. Remember, most scary natural phenomenon in some way manifest themselves in the sky – comets, volcanoes, bushfires, eclipses, thunderstorms and so on. Since the sky is not normally ‘angry’, if something makes it angry it must be a being of some sort. Voila: you have the ingredients for a god that has human form and is immensely powerful. I have never read of any group of people, right down to the level of individual tribes, who do not have a deity of some sort. This suggests that all primitive people follow the same mental processes when trying to come to terms with things they do not understand.
It is interesting that my original post has a few ‘thumbs down’. Browsing through the other posts I note that all the posts with ‘thumbs down’ are those that are in some way dismissive of religion. Interesting.
10
Barry–the thumbs down may reflect your view on love.
You have an interesting idea. Humans do seem to anthropomorphize in virtually everything (thus, my biggest arguments with “scientists” who write that animals have families, including mom and dad and baby) so if one looks at the sky, the same thing starts to occur. I can see that being possible. Then the legends get passes down. It’s a start.
Actually, your statement all human groups having a concept of diety could be used to argue that this is because there is a diety. Just saying. 🙂
00
Barry,
You seem to have the same idea as me although I frame it in terms of religion rather than the divine.
Religion is a man-made construct designed to give a small group of people power over a larger group of people. It has no other function and serves no other purpose.
As for God, I see the question of the existence of God as giving you the two sides of the same cursed coin. Failure to prove the negative does not prove the positive. So, not being able to prove the existence of God does not mean that God does not exist and not being able to disprove the existence of God does not mean the He does. It is a pointless and circular argument that achieves nothing.
10
Truthseeker: Your description is very accurate when applied to scientism also.
00
Me thinks too much of the cynic in you, Barry.
10
Many years ago at uni I came across a psychology paper arguing that the memory could not tell the difference between dreams, fantasy and reality. We need to constantly check our experiences against reality. I used this paper as a basis for an assignment I had to write about the origins of the concept of God. Basically my argument was that mankind asked him/herself the age old questions of where did all this come from, what is out there, etc (questions most children ask of their parents) Mankind speculated and came up with theories which over time became confused with what they really knew as fact. So the theories became accepted as reality. That is a very short summary. I wish I could remember more about that paper because its findings are very relevant today. I think (but not sure) it was used to debunk the repressed memory furore.
20
I forgot to add that asking and answering those big questions is built into us. The sort of answer we accept is partly a result of our own character, our upbringing and, of course, our memory.
30
To the direct question of where did we come from I confess total ignorance. I’ve said before that the more important question to me is not how we got here but why are we here. If we could answer that it might well unlock the how/where answer as well. But again, I’ve not a clue.
60
To answer “why are we here” will depend on the answer to “what happens when we die”.
Some possibilities.
1. Nothing – we cease to exist – in which case, what was the point of life?
2. We continue to exist in some other realm, dimension, heaven etc – in which case “why are we here?”
So to contemplate life we really need to contemplate “death”. But for now – just relax and enjoy “life”
60
As I said, I’ve no answer. But at the same time I’ll argue that life can be worthwhile and it should be. I think the secret is that it’s up to us to make our individual lives worthwhile to us. It seems like some of us make it and some don’t.
What ever lies beyond death — I think it likely that we cease to exist — I don’t want to arrive at my dying moment and regret that I didn’t tackle the things that challenged me or that I didn’t offer a helping hand to someone I could have helped or (and in spite of the conversation above) that I did not love someone.
20
Roy,
I like your philosophy on life irrespective of what happens at “death”
Another possibility – we could mainly exist in another realm and “death” would be coming to Earth and “life” would be “dying” on earth and going back home to “life” in the other realm! The opposite of how we view life and death here on earth 😉
10
Meaning in Life is to satisfie ones needs and instincts.
Meaning of Life is to satisfie needs and instincts one experience Life as it is can not satisfy.
This obsession with death just tells Me that they are lost.
If you want to find an answer to your obsession you have to start with the question “why Am I obsessed about one day dying”.
Because you have a basic survival instinct program inside you telling you that one of the meanings in life is to survive? The problem is that Man along it’s evolution also developed a high level of abstract thinking. So what we have is a problem between our basic survival instinct and our own negative thoughts about long term survival? If you put this into basic programming :
10 Survive
20 you will not survive
You will get a syntax error non functional program.
You can’t do anything about basic survival instinct in Man. So the only thing one can do is either to stop your mind telling your survival instinct that you eventually will die or become religious and trick your mind and survival instinct with the idea that there is more life after death?
00
To ask the question “Why Am I here” one first have to be aware of ones “I Am”.
So the reason you would or could ask that question is because you are aware that “you are”?
And from this follows the question why do I have this feeling of “I Am” ?
Could it be a very important part or reference for the survival instinct
And that the answer to the first question is basically because of your survival instinct?
10
Agreed on the love thing. It’s just oxytocin and dopamine triggered by instinctive mate selection indicators which are somewhat randomized and malleable. I disagree on some of your specifics though. I do not feel that novels on charming bad guys are missing from my life! I’m assured that this is normal and it’s because my gametes are more compatible with ova. But let’s rapidly change topic to your Big Question.
Probably Barry is on the money with the tribal power angle, but that only explains organised religion. Where he alludes to “things around them that could not be explained” contains the real answer.
(Message from the future: in hindsight this turned into a ramble. Budget
5m:48sfor what follows. )I’m not a theologian and on this issue I can’t be stuffed looking up what the scholars have said. My guess is that “gods” are simply a useful abstraction. Our minds learn patterns from observation, the pattern is an abstraction, the abstraction is a modular way of understanding the present and extrapolating to the future. The hidden forces that control our environment can be abstracted a bunch of ways. One problem solving strategy is relate a new problem to an old one, so reusing the abstraction of one object in the environment as a template for understanding something else is not so crazy from a problem solving perspective. Animals were a popular choice, especially for the Australian aboriginals where their creation stories often involve enormous animals creating some part of the landscape. To anthropomorphize these forces as a Sky Man character is therefore not unusual, but it carries the baggage of imbuing everyday natural events with deliberate intent.
Dawkins’ concept of the meme probably applies here too. The meme is kept if it does no harm and is either practically or psychologically helpful. Believing that some invisible being loves you is probably of great interest to the disaffected, whether they are in Al Qaeda or the Lonely Hearts Club. If modelling life choices as a moral dialogue with a god helps people decide and take action then that is a productive belief, so they keep it. The erosion of the power of religion after the European Enlightenment was old memes being abandoned in favour of a more useful and unifying (and less judgemental) set. Suddenly birth defects weren’t the mother’s fault, epidemics were not due to gambling and whoring. Although the AGU resisted plate tectonics for a few decades, eventually earthquakes were seen as not due to peoples bad behaviour. The effect on rainbows was twofold…
With the enlightenment, rainbows were no longer God’s deliberate message of hope to the faithful. Okay, I got scholarly and had to look up this part. From the holy text of the Christians (my emphasis):
Of course I find this comical, because a rainbow doesn’t appear with just any old cloud, it can only appear when it is raining. So it’s actually a guarantee that some other poor bastard is getting flooded and not you! 😀 Some covenant!
On the other hand, although rainbows were no longer magical messages of reassurance, the understanding of refractive optics which allowed a natural explanation for them would also have many other uses such as designing lenses for telescopes and lighthouses. With this understanding everybody could benefit in very practical ways, not just by spiritual reassurance. The new meme displaced the old one.
It is interesting how we toy with analogies when a new abstraction presents itself. Think of the Matrix movie which suggests (spoiler alert!) that all of this life is a giant computer program. The idea that our lives are somebody else’s dream is an old one in philosophy, but we could not conceive of life as a simulation in a machine until we had invented computers.
The ability to conceptually model other members of the tribe is important to social animals like gorillas and chimps and humans. The Person would be one of the first and most useful abstractions. Eventually explaining everything as the manifestation of a Sky Man became very likely at that point. We were just reusing a successful model.
So it should be no surprise that I believe that when Christians go to their church on the weekend they are receiving a church service in the most material sense of the word service. It’s an organisation which expects “donations” from its customers and in return provides counselling, moral support, guidance, investment advice, introductions, and barbecues to keep `em coming back next week. Churches are a franchise business, plain and simple. They clearly have a lot of satisfied customers or the customers wouldn’t keep putting money into it. (Which all makes their tax-free status very suspicious.)
And none of that answers the question of life’s origins and a grand Design for the universe.
Knowing that answer would still not help in making many of life’s important decisions… what career path to develop, which job to take, who to shack up with, how to get a high score on Sydney Shark, etc.
Even if all the religions have got it all wrong, there might still be gods of some sort outside of the universe who by their own choice are unable to intervene in their creation. There may be a Prime Mover who designed the present and set the whole thing in motion simply by tweaking the fundamental physical constants and initial state of the proto-universe, much like a pool player doing a trick shot by bouncing the cue ball off two sides and two other balls before sinking their ball in the corner pocket. A cosmic nerd in other words.
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Cute remark on the rainbow. Actually, though, you can have a rainbow without any flooding so it’s not really a bad covenant. Besides, it was a promise not to flood the planet to destroy “all flesh”. So as long as the whole planet doesn’t flood, it’s still a promise kept. Interestingly, even if all the ice melts, the planet does not get covered in water. Just a stray thought.
Your explanation makes quite a bit of sense. There are still a couple of problems. What rainbows are scientifically speaking does not in any way affect religion. Or it shouldn’t. I still am struggling to figure out how primitive people came up with the complex ideology in religion or even the idea of creatures from the sky. Christain religion puts heaven in a place where it can’t be located without permission (sorry for the clumsy wording). If you look at the inticracy of the stories and documents, and look at the world at the time of the creation of the documents, it’s amazing. Yes, the Matrix was amazing, but I don’t think we can put it on the same level as the Bible.
I do like your admission there might be some gods even if religion got it wrong. Thank you for the explanation. This is just something I ponder as I try to figure out how things work. It seems to me that the concept of God without having an actual God is like someone today coming up with a theory for which there is no current idea–something completely revolutionary based on nothing anyone has ever seen on earth nor will they ever see it. It’s mind-boggling.
It may be in part that I am not so much asking if God exists, but rather how we could have imagined him in the first place.
Thanks.
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Sorry, I can’t help myself:
A solution without a problem. Remind you of anything? 😉
20
Had they been able to see a rainbow from the air they might have had a different opinion about it. From the air looking down on it a rainbow is a rain-circle. Flying near an area of precipitation on a commercial jet (high altitude) will get you some surprised passengers if someone points out a rainbow. If you fly a lot you may have seen it yourself.
But back to the discussion. I can’t believe that rainbows weren’t seen before the great flood. That leads to suspicion that the flood story is a composite of maybe several oral history tales that finally got written down long after whatever the real “flood” was.
The beauty of oral history is that it changes and sometimes even grows. It seems likely to me that putting things to poetry or to music so they could be sung was a way to improve the reliability of what was passed on because both poetry and singing make the content much easier to remember. To this day, some cultures sing their histories and important events as a celebration.
00
Andrew,
For someone who said, “I’m not a theologian and on this issue I can’t be stuffed looking up what the scholars have said,” you appear to have done a lot of thinking about the subject. That’s to your credit, by the way, not a complaint from me.
As to the main question here, is there a god, a God or some other form of creator to whom we owe something, I admit that I don’t know. Nonetheless I choose to be a Christian. I long ago gave up on the organized churches for various reasons, among which, they simply don’t resemble the Christianity I can read in my bible. I try to follow Jesus — and that’s hard enough without any extra rules added or anyone else to be accountable to.
I do this because — and it may sound too simple — I’ve found nothing better by which to live. A very personal experience a long time ago (36 years) convinced me and I’ve stayed as true as I can to that conviction.
Each person is going to understand the world around them in their own way, whatever it is. It’s quite obvious that simply making rules for people to follow falls far short of doing the intended job, whether it be religion or any other rules. If we don’t get them by example from our parents and other influential adults like teachers as we grow up then we’re on our own and you sometimes get Jim Jones of Jonestown fame, Jim Bakker of the 700 Club or Barack Obama leading people around.
But of one thing I remain convinced: everyone is looking for a savior, a way to feel accepted and worthwhile. That need to belong to something that makes your life important is built in and we can’t escape it.
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Well it certainly did not come from the atheistic religions such as Buddhism, Jainism, Confucianism,Taoism some forms of Hinduism etc, etc.
One could be forgiven for wondering if Bertrand Russell got his doctrine of his eternally existing uncreated universe from one of those religious sources. Oh my how modern contemporary atheists are.
It is interesting to note that that great muso aka the “sweet singer of Israel”, David who was on the scene a bit over 3000 years ago seemed to know all about the atheistic religious of his day. Here’s his opinion of them In Ps 14v1:
“For the director of music. Of David. “The fool says in his heart there is no God”.
Sounds like a hit song from 1000BC.
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#2.3.4 was meant to be a response to Sheri’s Question: Where did the original idea of “God” come from?
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I dislike rituals and have a science background. I haven’t been to church for years and that was a christening. What I have noticed is why people would say things like ‘If you believe in nothing, you’ll believe in anything’ or ‘You don’t worship God for Gods sake. You do it for your own.’ I’ve also noticed that our ancestors were smarter than us on more than one occasion.
If its not for you, don’t be so vain and look down on religious people. Remember that Big Bang theory was first proposed by a Catholic priest (peer-reviewed publication).
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Vic
Science is about “How”, Religion is about “Why”. To me, the Big Bang Theory is a mechanism of creation; it started with a “singularity”. The BBT doesn’t tell us how the “singularity” was created.
Evolution is also a mechanism – it says so in the Gospel. (Something about the going rate for sparrows being two for a penny, but not one falls to the ground without the Father’s knowledge.) The good news is that we’re worth more than sparrows…
Cheers,
Speedy
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Matthew 10:29 if you don’t believe me…
30
You’re point is a good one but may I put it a little differently?
00
The point is about principles not belief in what someone else tells you you should believe.
Much of the trouble we have now is directly related to our failure to examine the principles by which those demanding our votes live their lives.
00
Principals and belief are tied together. Anti or pro-abortion comes down to your belief on the status of a foetus (fetus? Really?). Even murder being wrong is dogma, not a scientific fact.
I replied once to a comment that we have had two days of gay marriage and the world hadn’t crumbled. My point was that the opposition to gay marriage was about our society becoming a place where people were more likely to protest about a McDonalds in their street than a brothel. A week later, there was a large protest about a McDonalds being built in a shopping precinct.
00
True. I was trying to say, have your own set of principles, know why you have them and be able to explain why you have them. Don’t adopt someone else’s principles just because that’s easier than thinking for yourself or politically expedient.
I see that I stated it rather poorly. 🙁
I want to allow others to have certain rights because I want the same rights. If I can’t allow them for everyone else then I have to expect someone to want to take away some of my rights some day. I clearly have a great interest in not losing my rights so I’ve no choice but to allow them to others. I may criticize the way someone uses those rights but I can’t try to stop them.
I oppose abortion because it kills something provably human no matter at what stage of pregnancy it happens. Personally, that offends me. I can make some exceptions but abortion is not contraception.
I will abide by the vote of the people about gay marriage. But I’ll be damned if I think any judge has the right to impose such a thing on a state that, like California to this day, clearly doesn’t want it as of the last vote on the subject.
I’ve the same objection to the Supreme Court finding some right to privacy where the constitution clearly doesn’t provide for one and then squeezing in a decision to allow abortion based on that nonexistent right. Put it to a vote. And it’s a state issue, not federal.
Those are my principles and why I hold to them.
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I usually invite these annoying door knockers to come back at midnight to celebrate a black mass, preferably clad in white robes….
11
The last God worshipper that came to my door was informed of the CAGW scam and sent off with a few CDs to study up on.
Converted the converter?
30
I asked the JW’s is met with if they thought we would destroy the planet without God’s permission. They were somewhat surprised by the question and did give it some thought. In later discussions, they were careful to note that I had pointed out we could only destroy the planet and ourselves with God’s permission. I don’t know if they came to be actual questioners of the theory (they had, unfortunately, watch “An Inconvenient Truth”, before I met them), but at least for a bit, they did realize CAGW might conflict with their doctrine. We did actually discuss some of the science. These two were very polite and very willing to discuss things, so I found it enjoyable.
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All that coal, trees buried eons ago, and all that oil…
All there READY FOR USE JUST WHEN WE NEED IT !!
IF there is a god planning all this, then we are MEANT to be using this coal and oil. !!!
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A pair of Mormon missionaries — teenagers doing their obligatory missionary service — stopped at my place a few years ago. I was in the driveway wanting to go back into the garage for something and I wasn’t much appreciative of the interruption. But I remined polite and civil.
They started with a series of questions:
1. Do I have a minute? OK, I’ll give them a minute.
2. Have I heard of the Mormon Church? Yes.
3. Have I heard of the Book of Mormon? Yes.
4. Have I read it? Also yes, since at one time I traveled a lot and spent numerous lonely nights in motel rooms and the Book of Mormon is as common in motel rooms as the Bible.
5. What do I think of it? I gave the honest answer: “I think it’s a fraud.”
They didn’t like that at all. One said to me, “Have you prayed about it?” Of course, this was to make it my fault that I didn’t get the point they wanted me to get, an obvious guilt trip. At that point I could have turned confrontational and said something like, “Nice try but it won’t work on me,” and tried to put their problem back on them. But instead I said, “Sorry but you came to me, I didn’t go to you. You asked the question and if you don’t like the answer there’s nothing I can do for you.” I would have given my reasons if they’d asked but they weren’t interested.
They left very angry, making various accusations at me as they went. Yet all I did was give honest answers to their questions.
Now, If you’re a Mormon reading this you’re going to believe whatever you want to and I know it. But whatever you think, I’m simply relating an experience that made the Mormon Church look bad because its ambassadors were not able to handle an honest answer. I have nothing against you, even though I don’t accept the Book of Mormon as being what it’s said to be. I don’t accept a lot of the Bible as being literally true either and some of it is certainly invented out of nothing to explain the otherwise inexplicable.
Apparently Jehovah’s Witnesses can do a better job as Sheri has related above.
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Andrew,
In my time, I have been shot at, blown up, bitten by a snake, suffered from gangrene … There are no agnostics in a foxhole.
I am buddhist, I will die, I will go back onto the wheel to reflect on my life, and what I could have done better, and then I will come back to another life, a little wiser than I am now.
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There are no atheists in a foxhole. Duh!
40
Agnostics, will do. no room for fence sitters. Athiest is a better fit however.
00
No harm intended for you,but if your death happens any time soon,on your return could you send us a post.Jo could claim records with the amount of comments on that.Once I was told that love was just LUST that lasted for a long time.
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Don’t assume that reincarnation is limited by space or time. It could be anywhere and anywhen, even to the point of plurality.
The point, is having multiple opportunities to learn and improve. I am a different person, because of my experiences in this life, but I will need to have other experiences, in other lives to develop in other ways.
So sorry, a post to Jo’s site will probably not be high on my agenda. 🙂
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Rereke,I don’t assume anything about reincarnation,the only time I can recall anyone I know talking about it was a good friend who said he wanted to come back a bicycle seat on a girls bike.Too much of my time and effort is taken up with this life to worry about if there is anything next.Thing is,whatever or where ever you are drop us a line,you just never know what you’re new interest may be,it may just be more of the same.What good would a previous life be if you are not able to build on what you have learned?
00
I can only conclude that this is my first time around the wheel.
More pertinently, if you have never met anybody who had so much wisdom that that you were convinced they were on the 2nd time around the wheel… how does one know if there is a wheel?
It’s just wheely confusing.
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Interesting! Forgive my ignorance but I didn’t know Buddhists believe in reincarnation. You learn new things all the time.
00
“The Story of God” by Robert Winston could you provide you with some insight.
If there were no God, and you are a believer, there is not only no benefit to you, but no downside risk.
However, if God exists, and you are not a believer, there is no benefit, but substantial risk!
Seriously, belief has provided people with a moral compass for generations.
If you can maintain that moral direction with no belief, then good on ya.
I consider that for many people that is not the case, which is a big part of the human condition in which we find ourselves.
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Pascal’s Wager
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Pascal’s Wager always seemed a bit trite. If there is a God, seems people just hedging their bets by believing wouldn’t really score points. I don’t think it counts as belief. If the wager only applies to those who sincerely believe, then it’s not so much a wager.
I do agree that lack of religion does seem to be causing problems–though in reality we may really be seeing what attacking religion results in. So much of today’s behaviour is to show that religious people are just mean and nasty and we don’t “need no religion”. So lack of religion may not be as bad as attacking it openly. I do know atheists and agnostics who are very well behaved. But they are not hostile to religion–they just don’t believe. That being said, most were raised in churches, which may be why they are well-behaved.
00
Amen!
Far too many cannot maintain that moral compass without something greater than themselves.
10
Man is born with a lot of needs and instincts that we are aware off and many we are not so aware off.
We.also have a high level of abstract thinking enabling us to create and use technology to make the World less hostile and more easier and comfortable for us.
But there still are some instincts and needs we experience not being and never will be fulfilled here on Earth.
So that’s why we have created religion and radical ideology?
00
Jon-perhaps. But many religions don’t promise rewards and many of the ancient Gods were very cruel. Personally, I always thought we created war because there were things we could not find here on Earth. If we can’t find what we want, then no one else should either and war made sure they didn’t. It also gave us a chance to find something someone else had that might fulfill our needs a bit anyway. Maybe that’s your “radical ideology”? Religion is often used as a club, yes, but that does not make it a club. You can use a doorstop as club, but it’s still a doorstop.
00
Light Bulb Experiment
Readers of the Watts Up With That Blog may recall that Anthony Watt refuted the claim that a light bulb cannot be heated or become brighter if it is exposed to its own reflection.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/27/new-wuwt-tv-segment-slaying-the-slayers-with-watts/
This experimental result has importance because a similar effect is the basis of the Greenhouse Gas Effect. In the so called atmospheric Greenhouse Effect, H2O and Co2 molecules absorb long wave infrared radiation from the earth’s surface and then re radiate the energy at the same wave length but in all directions. Approximately half of the radiation is directed back toward the surface. Absorption of this redirected radiation is said to warm the earth surface by 33C.
Almost everyone, except the Slayers, accepts that explanation. Alan Siddons has said however that such an effect is impossible. Well either it happens or it doesn’t. Anthony Watts says it does and that his experiment proves it.
Anthony Watts reflected the light of a spotlight back on its surface and showed some warming, which he interpreted as refuting the claim that a light bulb cannot warm its self by it own reflection.
I have a reservation about the Watts experiment because Watts was measuring the temperature of the frosted glass surface of his spot light. The filament of the bulb however is several thousand degrees hotter than the glass surface. The glass mostly transmits the light energy from the filament, but absorbs some of it and hence is heated to about 220C. Reflecting the light back onto the surface of the bulb allows the frosted glass to absorb a bit more of the high energy light radiation. An analogy would be placing a large mirror in space and reflecting more of the suns rays toward the earth.
I have attempted a similar experiment based on that analogy and found a different result from Anthony Watts.
In my experiment I separated the heat source (bath room heat lamp), from the target (black metal plate). Shining the lamp onto the target makes it quite hot (about 90C).
If I place a mirror so that it shines some more light on to the target it gets hotter (100C). That is the equivalent of the warming that Watts obtained in his experiment.
If the mirror is then repositioned so that it returns only radiation from the target I also get a very small amount of warming. I interpret that as double reflection from lamp to the surrounds of the target, to the mirror and back to the target. By revising the stand on which the black metal target is held I reduced the effect from about 1.5C to 0.5C.
Since a Stephan Boltzman calculation indicated that the reflected radiation from the target should produce about 30C warming of the target I am coming to the view that a body is not warmed by reflection of its own radiation. If that is the case then a radiative GHGE cannot warm the earth. It also means that a real black body (black metal plate) does not behave as an theoretical black body is supposed to (ie absorbs all the radiation energy incident apon it), and hence there is problem with our understanding of radiation physics.
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Over at Watts place I have been explaining just this effect. It’s just reflective insulation.
The Temperature of any physical object is dependent on the power flux (amp hours) in and out.
If I take a light bulb and shovel 100 Watts into it, it the filament will heat to a temperature at which 100 Watts escape from it (Energy conservation), some of that is light and some is heat. Now If I cover that globe with reflective foil, then at a given temperature I reduce the energy that can escape from the system. Energy conservation forces the light bulb to increase in temperature until the loss is 100Watts again. Temperature is not energy.
You don’t need back radiation to explain this, traditionally we set a boundary and consider the net flux in and out from the boundary, what happens inside the boundary we don’t care about. Climate science wants to look at the reflected energy so they invent this back radiation thing, that describes “diffused reflection” or back scattering as we used to call it. Sometime I wish Climate science would use standard terms.
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I’m suspicious of these experiments because it is impossible to eliminate an airspace between the glass and the foil. This will create an insulation effect besides the reflection.
30
I’m suspicious of these experiments because its impossible to eliminate the headspace of the experimenter and their misunderstanding of the principles involved.
There’s nothing wrong with trying to figure out the Universe for yourself though. It’s an endless journey and should be a personal one, even if everyone else has done it a thousand times.
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Peter C,
You may be interested to know that a real physicist (not a theoretical one) has done a complete debunking of Watts’ experiment here.
Definitely worth a look.
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As bobl puts so much better, temperature isn’t heat.
CO2 doesn’t warm the planet any more than CO2 acidifies the oceans. CO2 just delays cooling, as so do clouds to a much greater extend.
Put your light bulb in a tin can and its going to get hotter, as long as you keep pumping energy in via the electric. Obstruct the escape of energy by reflecting any of it back and it will get hotter, because you have delayed its cooling. Reflective insulation – it’s not rocket science even if they call it the space blanket.
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Why anyone would spend $40 trillion agonising over minute traces of CO2 when they don’t understand clouds defies belief. As Gavin squirms.
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No offense intended but I’m not so sure it even does that. If it did, the theory behind it demands that we be much warmer than we are. Why do we believe a theory that has fallen apart?
60
OK None taken, but perhaps I should have said , in theory or at most, but acknowledging the theory is also part of demolishing what has been constructed around it, though not one a slayer would have a part in I grant you.
30
Was the experiment done in a
Vacuum ???
20
No Alfred it was not. I agree that the result would be more convincing if the experiment had been conducted in a vacuum. Heat transfer by conduction and convection is a confounding factor. Maybe NASA can be persuaded to try this at the space station.
In my experiment I covered the front of the metal plate with a thin air gap and a thin film of glad wrap to limit convective losses. The back and sides are insulated by the wooden frame (MDF).
10
Also, are we talking about how hot the light filament gets or the temperature profile of the surrounding environment? There are no circumstances which will increase the heat of the filament over and above the energy it is getting from the electrical current. Since it is the source of heat in that environment, it cannot be made hotter by the environment because the environment is not adding any energy. So any “delays to cooling” relate to the environment, not to the light filament itself.
11
Truthseeker
No, No – read my lips, Temperature is NOT energy. The temperature depends on the energy flux, and the emissivity
Take the filament, and put foil around it (Paint the glass on the inside with reflective paint) effectively focusing all the energy emitted back on the filament, will the filament get hotter – my word it will, it will get as hot as necessary so that the loss equals the input energy – Conservation of energy dictates that. You may not want to believe it but it’s true.
Let’s use a different example
Take a light bulb and paint the back of the bulb in reflective paint aim the unpainted bit at the wall, is the wall brighter than with the unpainted unfocussed lightbulb?
Take another light bulb at the same wattage, put it at the beam centre. Is the wall brighter than with the new bulb alone ,,,, well yes now take all those escaping photons and focus them back on the original filament, is the area at the surface of the filament brighter than before?
What you are doing here is reducing losses, you are storing the photons, they are emitted then reabsorbed as heat by the filament, the stored photons represent energy as reflected in the temperature of the filament, think of it as combining the photons that were emitted this millisecond with those emitted last millisecond, but are still bouncing around in there. Here’s some math.
P = AɛσT^4 where
A – Area (In our case a constant because the area of our covered bulb vs uncovered bulb does not change)
P – Watts
ɛ – Emissivity
σ – SB Constant ( A Constant value)
T – Temperature
Rearrange the formula to make T the subject
T^4 = P/(Aɛσ)
Now wrapping the aluminium foil around the globe is going to change the emissivity from nearly 1 to about 0.1 what will happen to T^4 of Course T^4 will be 10 times higher which means T will be higher.
***** Jo, Superscript tags seem not working?
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bobl,
I agree that the whole debate has gone into the nether regions of stupidity because scalars and vectors are being added together because they are both numbers. You are right that it is energy flux that is what is important. However taking you foil covered light bulb example, it is the air between the filament and the globe that will get hotter because it’s emissivity has been reduced by the foil covered globe. The blocking of convective heat loss will have this effect (just like a real greenhouse), but the actual filament will not get hotter because it’s emissivity has not changed and there is still only one source of energy.
This exact example has been dealt with in detail here, using the same precise terms that you have.
10
Truthseeker, there is no air between the filament and the globe, light globe filaments are in a vacuum. Please be a bit open minded here
Conservation of energy must be obeyed, look at my math, if the filament is not able to lose energy (because the energy is reflected back to it) then the temperature MUST rise until the loss = the input power. This is what the Stephan-boltzmann equation in my previous post does. Energy in must = energy out, to achieve that the emitter must get hotter along with the other parts of the lamp within our chosen boundary (or the input power must fall to match the output).
Take the reflective layer (currently painted on the inside o the glass bulb) and contract it around the filament in your mind, the same rules apply, take it to the limit (that the emissivity of the filament itself is lowered) – the filament must get hotter, there’s no hat trick here
11
bobl, you say “Truthseeker, there is no air between the filament and the globe, light globe filaments are in a vacuum.”
I think we are talking about different light bulbs. The standard filament light bulb I am referring to does not have an internal vacuum. There is no way that the relatively weak glass could maintain a vacuum at normal pressures.
10
Argon seems to be the filling of choice in many tungsten filament lamps. Just something to keep the oxygen at bay and the tungsten filament from being pulled apart though.
00
“There are no circumstances which will increase the heat of the filament over and above the energy it is getting from the electrical current. ”
True at any instant but the energy taken from the electric circuit can change.
As the temperature of the filament is raised its resistance is caused to rise, so :-
EITHER A) the voltage developed across it will also rise to maintain the higher temperature
OR B) the current through it will drop , reducing the energy being fed into it.
Whether A or B happens will depend on the nature of the power source feeding the filament, whether designed to maintain voltage or current or neither.
21
Peter. You bring up some interesting points. I would like to address one of them. Specifically, you wrote:
Approximately half of the radiation is directed back toward the surface. Absorption of this redirected radiation is said to warm the earth surface by 33C.
In my opinion, the first statement is for the most part true–i.e., approximately half of the radiation (call this radiation, backradiation) is directed toward the surface; but the second statement does not follow–i.e., absorption of this redirected radiation will warm the earth surface by 33C.
[As an aside, even if backradiation increases the surface temperature of the earth, I contest the value of 33C. The number 33 is derived by using an average earth albedo of 0.3. But the 0.3 albedo value is largely due to reflection of solar energy by clouds. Clouds are formed from water vapor. Water vapor is the dominant “backradiating” greenhouse gas. Without water vapor there would be no clouds. Without clouds the earth’s average albedo would be closer to 0 than to 0.3. Using an albedo of 0, the difference between the theoretical earth surface temperature and the measured average earth surface temperature is closer to 9C than it is to 33C.]
Please note: I am not a “slayer”–i.e., I am not saying that gases that absorb and radiate electromagnetic energy in sub-bands of IR (commonly called greenhouse gases) won’t produce an increase in earth surface temperature. What I am saying is that the mere existence of backradiation does not guarantee a temperature increase. To determine the temperature change in the earth’s surface all forms of energy transfer between the surface and the atmosphere (conduction, convection, radiation, and evaporation) must be considered. In general, the existence of backradiation where none existed before does not always result in a temperature increase.
Using only Planck’s blackbody surface radiation law and Newton’s law for conductive cooling, I believe it can be shown that backradiation can simultaneously exist with both warmer and cooler surface temperatures. Specifically, consider the case of an active blackbody sphere (an active object is an object that possesses an internal source of thermal energy) possessing a constant-rate internal source of thermal energy. Place the sphere in the vacuum of cold space removed from all other matter. The surface temperature of the sphere will eventually stabilize at a value, Ti (“i” for isolated), such that the rate energy radiates from the sphere surface equals the rate energy is supplied internally to the sphere.
If an inactive object (an inactive object is an object devoid of all internal sources of thermal energy) is placed in the vicinity of the active sphere, (a) heat transfer from the active sphere to the inactive object will cause the temperature of the inactive object to be greater than 0 Kelvin, and (b) as a consequence, those surface portions of the inactive object that have line-of-sight visibility to the active sphere will radiate energy (backradiation) from the inactive object to the active sphere. I believe that if radiation is the only means of energy transfer between the active and the inactive object, then for the case that both objects exist in the vacuum of cold space, the presence of the inactive object will result in an active object temperature greater than Ti. However, if heat can be transferred between the active and inactive objects via means other than radiation, then the presence of the inactive object may result in an active object temperature lower than Ti.
For a system consisting of an active blackbody solid sphere and a surrounding, thin, concentric, inert, blackbody spherical shell, I have developed the equations for (a) the surface temperature of the active sphere, (b) the surface temperature of the inactive shell, and (c) the rate of backradiation–i.e., the rate radiation originating from the surface of the shell is absorbed by the active sphere. I have developed similar equations for the case where the above two objects are connected by highly-thermally conducting rods. Depending on the geometries of the solid sphere/spherical shell/rods, even in the presence of backradiation from the shell to the solid sphere, the temperature of the active solid sphere can be lower/higher/equal to the temperature of the active solid sphere in isolation. As such, the presence of backradiation affects the temperature of the active object; but the presence of backradiation does not guarantee an active object temperature increase.
30
Reed,
You do not have to play around with black bodies and the like to debunk the “greenhouse gas” effect. You only have to look at the following;
1) Water cycle
2) Spherical Earth
3) Day/Night Cycle of a rotating Earth
4) Using the correct amount of incoming energy from the Sun (1370W/m2)
You can start here and then continue on to here to get a complete picture of the fraud.
30
I have read the first reference you give Truthseeker that states:
“The power of sunlight is listed as 168 W/m^2 absorbed on the surface. This is equivalent to -40 degrees Celsius (which is the same numeric value in Fahrenheit at that temperature, coincidentally).
1: Does sunshine feel like it is -40F to you, when you stand outside in it?
2: Can that value of sunshine power create the water cycle? (i.e. can it evaporate water, or even melt ice into water?)
No. Hence, there is a fundamental, raging mad, paradox in here somewhere. Something is badly wrong.”
Yes its wrong but not because of the reasons given. It’s only half the “story”.
The 168W/m2 is only due to the Short Wave (SW) radiation that passes through the atmosphere unimpeded. But there is also the Long Wave (LW) radiation that amounts to 327 W/m2 that is absorbed from the Atmosphere. The SW radiation yields a temperature on its own of 255 Kelvin that’s about 30 Kelvin colder than the earth’s surface of 288 Kelvin. The colder 255K (due to SW alone) applies at the top of the atmosphere (jump out of an aircraft at that height and see if you sense heat!). At the earths surface it’s the 168 W/m2 (SW) plus the 372 W/m2 (LW) that’s relevant to a warmed atmosphere that we live in.
I suggest reading Salby’s ‘Physics of the Atmosphere and Climate.’ 665 pages, Cambridge University Press, Section 1.4 ‘The Global Energy Budget’. A much better reference given its a recognised textbook on the subject.
You’ll also see of course in that reference that primarily water vapour and clouds cause the so-called ‘Greenhouse Effect’. So no disagreement I presume on that issue.
10
Frankly Skeptical,
The source I quoted also recognised Salby’s work in this area so I think we are on the same page. However with your aeroplane example, it is the lapse rate and pressure profile which is why the air is cold at high altitudes. I think clouds have a convective blocking effect (both for incoming solar energy and outgoing terrestrial energy) and are of course liquid suspended in a gas, so they have a much greater mass density than the surrounding gas and therefore heat storage capacity.
What I see from the evidence that has been actually presented is the CO2 helps plants grow and has no effect on the ambient temperature of the planet.
10
I should have added this link as a reference for my last sentence.
10
I am getting a bit confused here.
Greenhouse gases cool the surface. Transfer of heat by IR radiation from the ground to the air is better than conduction. Any IR radiation that is in the strong absorbing bands of the gasses gets absorbed at very low altitudes. The gasses of the atmosphere also emit IR radiation. It should be better with more greenhouse gasses than if it were just nitrogen and oxygen, but it would still occur.
The modelling of the atmosphere has the upper troposphere (where heat transfer by convection of heat and water vapour becomes negligible) hotter and so a stronger emitter of IR radiation, leading to a warming of the hotter lower layers. This is supposed to give you an estimate of how much all this absorbing and emitting, that is different for every centimetre of altitude, occurring over 20 km will insulate the Earth. Shouldn’t this second law business really be about does the description of the atmosphere really make sense rather than is it physically impossible for greenhouse gasses to insulate the Earth?
00
Oops. First bit should be ’emitting IR radiation cools the surface’. Shouldn’t type before having a coffee.
00
Thou shall not Air/con their home. Repent sayeth the Lord and your sins will be Forbidden. <:o)
30
What really shiits me:
Bitumen still melting in Tassie heat?
Shane Gregory, general manager of transport infrastructure services at the Department of Infrastructure, Energy and Resources Tasmania says:
This guy must be brain dead. Different mixes or constituents of bitumen will determine the melting point. Tasmania is well known for it’s recycling of bitumen, and 29 seperate councils serving less than 3 million people, the cost cutting by the Greens is staggering. The roads are first to suffer. Most new roads in Tassie have potholes in less than two years.
Shane Brain Dead Gregory should travel to NT, QLD or WA to see how bitumen roads should be made. Also the layering of the stone from 15mm to 10mm to 6mm has got to be done properly. One recycle plant in Hobart only crushes to 15mm.
GREENS melt roads in TASMANIA not temperature.
Grrrr…..The reporting on this should be the criminal cost cutting by Greens of Taxpayer money on infrastructure, a cost that will triple in the very short term. GREEN IDIOTS.
1st job to fix roads, SACK Shane Gregory.
172
Speaking of Tasmania Island (population +/- 500,000 depending on the time of year) here is a letter which appeared in “The Australian” yesterday- (no tea/coffee/milk, jaw firmly clamped shut before reading):
“IAN Chubb has nailed it, distilling into one column the reality of predictive climate models (“Surely CO2 is a climate culprit”, 17/1).
Another point that sceptics evade is an understanding of the law of conservation of mass. The likes of Chubb and Brian Schmidt should not take as a given that the population understands this principle of science.
If we have pumped 2 trillion tonnes of carbon into the air, where has it gone? Nowhere.
Every atom of carbon that we have mined from the ground and put into the atmosphere is still hanging there.
The law of conservation of matter is a part of the Year 9 curriculum. As a science teacher, I make sure to teach it well in such an important context.
Instead of laying bets, perhaps Maurice Newman should be tested for his understanding of this concept before entering the debate.
Dr Peter Wilson, Fentonbury, Tas”
Good stuff eh? No wonder the Tasmanian standard of education is so low if this is the standard of teaching. I wonder how he earned the honorific- Green University?
50
Yes I was going to post this as well Gnome. After reading in the same Oz about the utter tosh in the current educational ‘Sillybus’ I’m not at all surprised by the drivel and naivety expressed in that letter. Perhaps someone should send him a primer on the Carbon Cycle. Every carbon atom “is still hanging there”. God help the education system in Australia.
20
Saturday afternoon on the way to pick up eldest grand daughter from Chadstone and listening to 3AW on the car radio and shock, horror they were giving the warmists the rounds of the airwaves. They were rubbishing the concept of AGW. Unfortunately missed most of the programme but hey – not so long ago that would have been heresy and the presenters hauled off to some ideological gulag.
Perhaps sanity is returning.
130
OMG
THE producers of a new television series about global warming are using celebrities and Republicans to help spread the stories beyond people who already believe it’s an important issue.
The Showtime series Years of Living Dangerously begins in the US on April 13.
Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who was in Pasadena to promote the series, is among the celebrities who travel to different sites to illustrate the effect of climate change.
Actors Matt Damon, Jessica Alba and Don Cheadle also take part.
LINK
41
Arnold Schwarzenegger – Republican in Name Only (RINO).
Now he’s gone back to acting – which he is better at then running a state…
(yes – I know the implication of what I just wrote)
110
Yes, because we all know we get such good and accurate science from Hollywood.
After all they give Mythbusters so much material to work with …
110
Well now everyone knows what a Polar Vortex is because they saw it on the Day After Tomorrow.
So the Media have a ready made fantasy feed, from the cold snap recently touching on N.America.
70
Corrn.: That was fantasy to feed the confirmation bias of their conditioning by Hollywood,
50
Ignorance is not bliss. Another ship of fools prepares to set sail. 🙁
100
They may have got away with this 5 years ago, but aren’t they just going to sail into another ocean freezing over with public mistrust,, of people now much better informed (thanks to Jo et al.) knowing they are just being used. Of course it will appeal to the cheer leaders but not much else.
50
My question is whether people who pay for Showtime and swatch hows like “Dexter”, “Weeds”, “Shameless” and “Californication” are really going to sit and watch propaganda on climate change?
60
One can think with what’s at either end of the torso I guess. I expect it’s always been that way but we used to know better than to cater to such an irresponsible attitude as will allow “Californication” to be advertised on the Los Angeles Metro buses.
I’m afraid to ask what comes next.
10
G’day Roy,its all part of obumas change.Lower the countries morals and self respect,downgrade religion and community organizations,over tax those still willing to work and stand over those who speak out.When you have enough of the population on govt employ and welfare the change to the United Socialist States of America won’t be far away
00
See the article in the Age on UHI? City of Melb worked out that roads reach 80C in summer. (Could also have tried touching it or walking on it, would have been cheaper). Think they will work out where the temp records come from?
70
It’s surprising nobody has scientific temps during these ‘heat waves’ to warn people of the dangers of blisteringly hot BEACH SAND.Councils could be sued,surely there is some smartar’e out there that will have a go at it.
00
Mr. Lalonde:
Thank you for your email. It is difficult to respond to your specific issues, because you used very general statements without specific references, such as to what models you were referencing or how they are ‘failing.’
Nevertheless, I want to assure you that NASA’s policy of providing grants to individuals associated with institutions does not in any way weaken the models or science that results; in fact, the tried and true method of peer review has been the standard for selecting the best available science for over 100 years.
NASA uses peer review panels consisting mainly of outside experts in academia and industry (as well as some peer reviewers from NASA field centers or other federal agencies) to select the roughly 1,700 Earth science grants we award each year; each proposal is judged on its scientific and technical merit and cost reasonableness. The models and research that result are then peer reviewed as part of their preparation for publication and published in the open scientific literature, where anyone can evaluate and comment on the results. These models and results are often challenged by other researchers and the interactive nature of the scientific process (including the presentation of conflicting papers at scientific conferences) has allowed science, especially Earth system science, to make huge advances in the 53 years since NASA was established.
Thank you again for your interest in NASA’s Earth science research programs.
Sincerely,
— Jens
T. Jens Feeley, Ph.D.
Deputy Director
Strategic Integration & Management Division
Science Mission Directorate
On 1/12/14 7:51 AM, “Joe Lalonde” wrote:
Dr. T. Jens Feeley,
NASA has generated a huge educational problem by their own policy of
having selecting ONLY individuals who MUST be confined by
institutional restrictions.
No public input has been allowed nor theories allowed to be challenged
to show inconsistencies or errors.
Vast areas of research is reported and then shelved rather than that
research be incorporated into science. This has left us with no viable
theories that is correct when incorporating them together to
understand our own planet.
Our computer generated models are failing due to not enough outside
input that should have been incorporated into the models.
An example is the temperature data models are confined to specific
short term data analysis and failed to include the many factions that
generated the temperatures themselves. Nor did it include the
planetary changes that have been occurring for the last 3 decades.
Why did these scientists not include outside data?
They were confined to the SPECIFIC area of research hired by NASA.
Thank you for your time and consideration,
Joe Lalonde
Canada
Reply | Reply to all | Forward | Print | Delete | Show original
Add star Joe Lalonde Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 9:03 AM
To: “Feeley, Jens (HQ-DM000)”
Reply | Reply to all | Forward | Print | Delete | Show original
Dear T. Jens Feeley, Ph.D.,
Sir, the problem with academic “peer-review” is it generates a vast
network of like-minded academics that have no clue to any education
outside the constraints of their knowledge.
Theoretical models have been made to be facts when if fact, they are
working models that have failed to include new technological advances
into the “old theories” due to the theories are teaching models and
encouraged to grow off of these instead of looking to improve or find
the model is failing.
I can show areas NEVER in consideration as they have NEVER been
“peer-reviewed” or published.
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/guest/lalonde-joe/world-calculations.pdf
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/guest/lalonde-joe/world-calculations-2.pdf
You would not know that water at sea level changes directions at the
48 degree latitude.
This then has to change the theory on “Glaciation” actions.
Areas NEVER in consideration due to the theoretical box that has been
generated is:
Planetary tilting.
Atmospheric pressure(Not pressure on water).
Pressure study(not adjusted to sea level).
Atmospheric density differences.
Solar ray distribution.
Sun’s activities.
Velocity differences.
Planetary shape.
Oceans density difference.
Ocean salinity.
The make up of space particles.
Density differences of material.
Density reaction to heat and cold.
Water loss to space.
The big one is atmospheric Nitrogen interaction with water vapour in
changing temperatures.
Sir, when you incorporate all of the above, it gives you a far better
understanding of the planet, especially when you change timelines to
the past.
Thank you for your response and consideration,
Joe
80
When you can’t say anything else with a straight face, fall back on peer review. So much for NASA. 🙁
110
I have hundreds of e-mails with ‘scholars’/’scientists’ that I NEVER here from them again at THIS point.
70
Can someone please enlighten me… A letter, written by a science teacher Dr Peter Wilson from Tasmania, is published in the Australian today
(http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/letters/were-stuck-with-carbon/story-fn558imw-1226804530754). Part of that letter goes like this:
“…Another point that sceptics evade is an understanding of the law of conservation of mass. The likes of Chubb and Brian Schmidt should not take as a given that the population understands this principle of science.
If we have pumped 2 trillion tonnes of carbon into the air, where has it gone? Nowhere.
Every atom of carbon that we have mined from the ground and put into the atmosphere is still hanging there.
The law of conservation of matter is a part of the Year 9 curriculum. As a science teacher, I make sure to teach it well in such an important context…”
My goodness, every single carbon atom? Just hanging there? I am sure some of those carbon atoms were in my breakfast porridge this morning, some are still trapped in my veggie patch, some more in my neighbour’s gum trees and still more in all the green stuff that grows on the surface of this planet.
But then I might be wrong, I am not a science teacher that teaches Global Warming. And I am a sceptic, too…
Is it me, or is it the way Tasmanian Science is taught, that is a bit… what’s the word…
170
Scientists suffer from the forever and ever syndrome where they NEVER think past the single second to realize that EVERYTHING is constantly in change.
CO2 does fall to the Earth when cooled as it has a HEAVIER molecular structure than O2.
62
Surely not the guy in this directory.
Perhaps the same “teacher” as this one reported on in The Australian.
Who knows. They might find out about the carbon cycle before Dr Wilson does.
130
Brilliant! It makes you wonder if CSIRO suggested that a change in career might be a good move for him.
00
And I thought that Dr. Wilson might be another Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells. He’s for real?
00
One might ask, so what? But the fact that the system is dynamic, not static seems to evade this science teacher.
90
The relevant search is annual human industrial CO2 emissions versus relevant annual increase in atmospheric concentration of CO2.
You will discover that less than half the volume of our CO2 emissions end up in the atmosphere. One conclusion is that the Earth’s biosphere takes up the rest.
By that conclusion not every atom of carbon “we mine ends up in the air”.
So here is a Tasmanian science teacher who has been too lazy to do a very easy search to see how much of the CO2 humans produce in an industrialised society ends up in the atmosphere.
(There is of course just the chance that that additional, less than half of our annual CO2 emissions ending up in the atmosphere, which atmospheric concentration increase at present is about 2 ppm by volume annually, is not ours at all but may be the result of the natural warming of the oceans post the little ice age and all our emissions are taken up by the biosphere. Unfortunately we would have to stop mining and burning “every atom of carbon” to find out.
One thing is certain though whatever is the cause more than half the amount of our CO2 emissions don’t end up in the air).
80
Mr. Science Teacher is apparently unaware of the process called “photosynthesis”. Plus, if I remember correctly, the Law of Conservation of Mass just says all the parts of the atom are still here. It does not address where they are or what they are doing. Say, for instance, what happens when a probe is sent to Mars or Jupiter. Have we catastrophically violate the Conservation of Mass, since the materials used for the space craft left the planet? It would seem so, since this teacher seems to believe the Law means nothing changes…..
110
I like that excellent example!
30
As noted, in Chubb’s piece to which the science teacher is responding, alarmist’s pollute their science with the Pagan concept of a fragile finely balanced Earth climate system (*re Roy Spencer).
So photosynthesis and other observable physical processes become subservient, in the alarmist’s thinking, to that dominant tenet of their religious faith directed at human emissions of CO2.
*”In Earth science, I find most researchers believe nature is fragile. But that is not a scientific position, it is a religious one. No less religious than my view that nature is resilient.” (Spencer)
60
And how do we account for all the meteorites that fall to earth, or burn up in the atmosphere, every single day? They weren’t here yesterday.
You know, I went through my early childhood thinking that atoms were were little balls, surrounded by rings with even smaller balls glued to them.
Then I got a teacher who told me that model was wrong. According to this teacher the central ball was actually lots of smaller balls, of various colours, that were also glued together.
Finally, I got a teacher who tried to tell me that they weren’t balls at all, but vibrations, but I knew that was wrong, because the teacher didn’t know what colour they were.
So I gave up on teachers, and decided to find out for myself, and I discovered that the vibrations idea was totally wrong. The center of an atom is made up of ducks. I know this because, if you poke one it goes, “Quark”.
110
And of course, every atom of carbon we take from the ground in the form of coal, was once in the atmosphere.
We are just returning it to where it SHOULD BE !!
120
And there was me thinking the Carbon Cycle was only made possible by and came long after the invention of the wheel.
30
Newsflash- Dr Peter Wilson discovers the Menstrual Cycle is a German made motorcycle that can be only ridden for short periods.
110
Apparently they’re temperamental and hard to ride 🙂
110
Quite so. I’ve taken to referring to coal as sequestered biomass, to annoy the warmies.
Now that we’ve forgotten about photosynthesis, can we also assume there’s no such thing as ocean acidification? That beat up is off?
50
I don’t want lumps of carbon in the atmosphere. We could all be wiped-out in an avalanche of falling coal.
40
Twenty things about CO2 that you are not being told …
30
Thank you. That is a keeper.
00
Rereke Whakaaro,
If you liked that, you are going to love this.
10
Just consider for a moment that our very own “Michael the Realist” has expended a career in WA indoctrinating kids with the same sort of crap. It’s not unique to Tassie.
10
wow. first, Newsnight, now this is a regular on the BBC World Service News Reports, tho when i heard it, they left out any reference to AGW, which was weird in itself. so much to critique:
18 Jan: BBC: Rebecca Morelle, Science reporter: Is our Sun falling silent?
“I’ve been a solar physicist for 30 years, and I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” says Richard Harrison, head of space physics at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire…
“It’s completely taken me and many other solar scientists by surprise,” says Dr Lucie Green, from University College London’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory…
Mike Lockwood, professor of space environment physics, from the University of Reading, thinks there is a significant chance that the Sun could become increasingly quiet.
An analysis of ice-cores, which hold a long-term record of solar activity, suggests the decline in activity is the fastest that has been seen in 10,000 years…
The era of solar inactivity in the 17th Century coincided with a period of bitterly cold winters in Europe.
Londoners enjoyed frost fairs on the Thames after it froze over, snow cover across the continent increased, the Baltic Sea iced over – the conditions were so harsh, some describe it as a mini-Ice Age.
And Prof Lockwood believes that this regional effect could have been in part driven by the dearth of activity on the Sun, and may happen again if our star continues to wane…
This means that less UV radiation hits the stratosphere – the layer of air that sits high above the Earth. And this in turn feeds into the jet stream – the fast-flowing air current in the upper atmosphere that can drive the weather.
The results of this are dominantly felt above Europe, says Prof Lockwood…
So could this regional change in Europe have a knock-on effect on for the rest of the world’s climate? And what are the implications for global warming?
In a recent report by the UN’s climate panel, scientists concluded that they were 95% certain that humans were the “dominant cause” of global warming since the 1950s, and if greenhouse gases continue to rise at their current rate, then the global mean temperature could rise by as much as 4.8C.
And while some have argued that ebbs and flows in the Sun’s activity are driving the climate – overriding the effect of greenhouse gas emissions, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concludes that solar variation only makes a small contribution to the Earth’s climate.
Prof Lockwood says that while UV light varies with solar activity, other forms of radiation from the Sun that penetrate the troposphere (the lower layer of air that sits above the Earth) do not change that much.
He explains: “If we take all the science that we know relating to how the Sun emits heat and light and how that heat and light powers our climate system, and we look at the climate system globally, the difference that it makes even going back into Maunder Minimum conditions is very small.
“I’ve done a number of studies that show at the very most it might buy you about five years before you reach a certain global average temperature level. But that’s not to say, on a more regional basis there aren’t changes to the patterns of our weather that we’ll have to get used to.”…
“This feels like a period where it’s very strange… but also it stresses that we don’t really understand the star that we live with.” says Prof Harrison.
“Because it’s complicated – it’s a complex beast.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25743806
18 Jan: UK Daily Mail: Mark Prigg: Is a mini ice age on the way? Scientists warn the Sun has ‘gone to sleep’ and say it could cause temperatures to plunge
2013 was due to be year of the ‘solar maximum’
Researchers say solar activity is at a fraction of what they expect
Conditions ‘very similar’ a time in 1645 when a mini ice age hit
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2541599/Is-mini-ice-age-way-Scientists-warn-Sun-gone-sleep-say-cause-temperatures-plunge.html
10
i don’t know how to read the data, but –
Andy_E at WUWT commented –
The Met Office Hadley Centre observations datasets webpage has been updated this month to include the 2013 annual figure of +0.1 celsius. The falling off a cliff trend of the temperature anomaly, compared to the period 1961-90, since the peak in 2006 continues.
CO2 levels of course continue to go in the opposite direction.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/
00
17 Jan: Nofrakkingconsensus: The invisible Judith Curry
A bona fide climate scientist tells US Senators we have no idea whether human-caused global warming will be a serious problem. The media doesn’t report it. Where are the headlines? Why didn’t Curry’s testimony lead the evening news? Does the public not have a right to know that a reputable climate scientist thinks the IPCC “does not have a convincing or confident explanation” as to why “there has been no significant increase in surface temperature” for the past 16 years?
Do we not deserve to hear that much of what we’ve been told about global warming could be wrong?
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2014/01/17/the-invisible-judith-curry/
30
In Praise of Star Trek
Some inventions that appeared in the TV show that inspired what we use today.
1. The iPad. (Video, 1.30 minutes)
2. The Replicator (3-d printing, it’s most basic form)
3. Quantum Transportation
– An international team of physicists has broken the distance record for “quantum teleportation” with the instantaneous transmission of quantum states encoded in photons over the 143 kilometers (89 miles) separating facilities on the islands of La Palma and Tenerife in the Canary Islands.
– There are few annoying starship-to-planet commutes in Star Trek.
Instead, the transporter turns you into energy and data, then instantly reassembles you into flesh and blood at your destination.
4. The medical tri-corder
“It may sound like the work of science fiction but engineers in California have taken their lead from the Star Trek franchise and developed a real-life version of the show’s medical tricorder.
The Scanadu Scout can read a person’s temperature, heart rate, blood oxygen levels, and more, simply being held against their forehead.”
00
You need to explain why their technology in things that really matter was so far ahead of their technology in things that sell. (would you dare let anyone see you talking in that?)
01
.
Aussie in Biofuel ripoff.
Nathan Stoliar is the Aussie.
“WASHINGTON—Two men have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Las Vegas for offenses involving the federal renewable fuel program that allegedly netted them more than $37 million, announced the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, Criminal Division, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Nevada. The 57-count indictment against James Jariv, 63, of Las Vegas, and Nathan Stoliar, 64, of Australia, includes allegations of conspiracy, wire fraud, false statements under the Clean Air Act, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy to engage in money laundering. …”
The Carbon Credit market, RET etc are all open to fraud and corruption, but our Aussie Nathan is a master at this game. Google him and he’s everywhere.
1. He started in 1982 with Voice Call
2. The jilted buyer is Mavestinio Limited, a company listed in Cyprus, which is owned by two former Israelis who live in Australia, Moshe Meydan and Nathan Stoliar.
3. Nathan also sold house in Nevada for $946,000 in 2011 to relatives.
You’d think Nathan at 64 would be a bit worried going to jail in Nevada for this. Stupid person.
The trouble with Biofuel rebates, CO2 Tax, RET, etc set up by the greedy Greens, is that there are very capable crooks out there stealing this out of the Green pigs trough. But it’s our taxpayer money. Lock up the Greens, stop all the renewable garbage, problem solved.
50
Put this scam with the EU carbon credit tax fraud and the gangreen scam is a nice little boon for the not so honest.
10
Tony:
Your post on residential air conditioning load in Australia is interesting. As a former utility engineer here in the USA, I can tell you that the residential air conditioning load in the Southeastern USA is significant. Instead of looking at the size of the peak, you might consider the results if you calculate the resulting peak load if you curtailed some or all of the residential air units.
We are talking about the utility saving really big bucks, here, because at peak those last few KW cost more than the power lower down the curve. If you can curtail one or two percent of the peak, you are possible talking millions of dollars. Once upon a time, some of the southern utilities in the US tried using radio switches (and other load management devices) to curtail some of the residential load, but I don’t think the consumers were willing to have their air conditioners turned off in the heat of the day.
To me the surprise was that the total wind power was at a minimum during the peak load at 1500 hours. Did I read that correctly? Of what use are all those windmills if all they are doing is furnishing off-peak generation?
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Bob,
you make some interesting points.
It’s a bit of a worry really, that they would even consider isolating stinking hot homes from air conditioning to save money required to pay the wholesale cost of electricity for those power retailers.
I suppose you can now see why there is a push for installation of Smart Meters.
It seems that shopping malls, shops, high rises, supermarkets are more important than the comfort of the people.
And where do you draw the line? Think of the people living in high rise accommodation, and there’s no thought that they can turn them off, as those rooftop conditioners actually supply the recirculated breathing air into those buildings.
So, it seems that in the average home it becomes verboten.
And hey, have you ever noticed that during times when power outages are considered, it’s always the areas of the residential sector which are switched off first.
As to wind power’s failure to deliver during extreme heat, that’s something I’ve been looking at for a couple of years now.
I won’t have accurate data for another 8 to 10 weeks, but what I really want to see is what happened with wind power in the recent Polar Vortex cold snap in the U.S.
Also, power consumption is something that is watched closely by grid controllers. As it starts to rise, more plants are called upon to deliver power so it is actually there to be used as the consumption rises. So, the controller can schedule a power plant to run up at a set and known time in advance, so that power is actually there.
Wind power delivery is all over the place at best, and in most cases, Wind power delivery is at its highest when it is not really needed, and as I pointed to in the earlier Comments here, it ceases to deliver when power is needed the most. What that causes is sudden short term need and grid controllers have to cover this, and in the main, that method of power generation is horrendously expensive as shown during this heat wave when the wholesale power costs in Victoria and South Australia spiked to enormous amounts ….. caused by the failure of wind power.
So, here we have wind power costing huge amounts of money when it is delivering, and then costing huge amounts of money when it is not delivering, as shown so graphically at this chart for power costs from the Australian energy regulator.
Now, I want you all to notice this.
Look at how Victoria and SA paid huge sums for their wholesale electricity.
Look at Tasmania. A negative cost.
That was because they were selling huge amounts of power, Tasmania’s hydro power into Vitoria via BassLink. That was costing Victoria an arm and a leg, and Tasmania cashed in big time.
All while wind towers just sat there like Ozymandias.
Tony.
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Bob, in Australia, when it’s hot it’s still.
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Just a thought;
has anybody considered whether the ice sheets moderate temperature swings?
i.e. as the climate warms, for whatever reason, ice melts and absorbs latent heat. Equally, as the climate cools the freezing ice releases the latent heat. A rough calculation says that the Greenland Ice sheet melting would absorb heat equivalent to 1.8ºC from the atmosphere for 100 years.
Antarctica about 1.7ºC over a 1,000 years.
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Yes, and it does, ice melts at zero degrees C and stays at that temperature while 334 kJ per kilogram are absorbed between having a kg of ice at 0 deg C and a kg of water at 0 deg C, this is extreme negative feedback, but it only occurs over a relatively narrow spatial area. Some alarmists will say, yes but that heat gets released back into the atmosphere when the water freezes again – to which I say, um… yes, when it refreezes, what is the temperature!
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I was trying to make the point that there are feedbacks in the weather/climate cycle, so the idea that the Greenland ice sheet will melt in decades and flood the sea side homes of the rich and infamous (Flannery, Gore, Suzucki, Gillard etc.) is preposterous.
And I didn’t allow for the heat necessary to warm the ice from -30 (or less)ºC to 0ºC, nor that to raise it to the Earth’s temperature, whatever that is. There can be no doubt that the ice will melt. It certainly seems Greenland was ice free in Cretaceous times, what with palm trees fossils found there, and that (a slightly more northerly) Antarctica only had seasonal snow during those times. But it would have taken a long time to achieve this state.
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I posted something the other day exploring whether extreme heat could be attributed to a warming atmosphere. There was a problem with looking at days above a certain temperature, for surely a 39.9 oC day is as extreme as 40.1 oC day. I have come up with a suggestion for a number to use in comparisons.
Its very subjective, but I believe that a 35 C day is 10 times as bad as a 32 C day. A 42 C day is 10 times as bad as 35 C and a 46 C day is twice as bad as a 42 C day. This moves me to define a number that indicates how extreme that day’s maximum temperature was, F (Flannery Number if you like), where F is the value of the number of degrees Celsius that the days maximum is above 32 oC, squared.
F=(Tmax/K-305)2 (the max is a subscript and the 2 should come out as a superscript)
This value is only useful in comparison so it is dimensionless.
First up is a plot of F for the three decades it has been in use in Adelaide.
The UAH anomaly was very high for a short time during the 1997/1998 summer (0.6-0.65) and was only 0.2 in early 2009 when Adelaide equaled its highest temperature recorded. More importantly, the period between 1984 and 1986 was between -0.4 and -0.3 and yet it appears as if the summer was just as angry as it was at the beginning of 1998. It gets even milder as the anomaly increase to 0 in 1987.
To see better if there were worse hot spells rather than one off extreme days, the next plot is of the totals for each month. Still a similar out come.
A problem with this method is that, like in 2009, a short hot spell could be spread over two months, so the final plot is a seven day moving average of F. A single very hot day in an otherwise cool spell will appear similar to a few days of less hot temperatures.
All three plots do not show that a slightly hotter atmosphere led to more extreme temperatures in SE Australia(which could appear to be the case if looking at the number of days above a certain temperature).
Please provide some feedback before I check whether the last decade was unusual compared to 100 years ago.
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A better plot of total F for the summer season. Its a running total over 180 days but looks like a column plot for the total for the summer months of that season.
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Vic G Gallus:
I’m not sure what you are trying to find.
Firstly, the humidity makes the apparent temperature worse. OK, for Adelaide it is usually dry when hot.
Secondly, as you go back I think you will find that temperatures were often recorded only to 0.5 of a degree.
Thirdly, where are your figures coming from? If from the BOM then they will have probably been adjusted. Nor will they make figures from before 1910 easy to find.
An annual temperature might show warming, but at least until 1999 there was no apparent warming in Adelaide.
See http://www.john-daly.com/ and go to bottom of page to Station Temperature Data. The figures he relied on were early ones and, I think, from before “adjusting” became rife.
Lastly, do you follow http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/ or kenskingdom.wordpress.com/ both of whom have spent years on this.
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I suppose I should really stick to matters relating to electrical power and all its aspects, because when I stray from that, I tend show that I’m not as full bottle on other subjects as I am on my core knowledge base.
However, I was wondering about temperature recording aspects.
Back when we first moved here to Queensland in 1960, when I was 9, we would watch the evening news and they would give the highest temperature in the State with each nightly weather report on the News. It was usually Urandangie, Cunnamulla, or some other of usually three or four other places in Central Northern Queensland, and that temperature was always in the mid 100’s Fahrenheit in the Summer Months and some weeks either side of that Summer beginning and end.
So, in those days, there were very few places around the State where they actually took data from.
Now, there are quite literally hundreds more places where they take recordings from. (and many hundreds more probably)
Would not that, of itself, artificially raise the average high temperature, even by just fractions of a degree, and with this CAGW thing, we’re only talking fractions of a degree anyway.
I know the same might apply for cold in Winter as well, but it seems that the only thing that matters is an increase in average temperatures.
Yeah, I know, I know, stick to electricity Tony.
Tony.
00
It is difficult to quantify what is meant by more extreme weather as 35 C in Adelaide is quite nice, usually. It rarely gets humid enough to be unbearable like in Darwin. I’m just trying to have a moving scale rather than counting number of days above 35 C or above 40 C, so that a plot can show whether there is some truth to the days are getting extremer or not. any choice is going to be very subjective.
Its just a suggestion for a quantity that takes into consideration the temperature and number of days. So 20 days of 35 C is equal to two days of 42 C or one day of 46 C.
I’ll check up on the links and reply further. There is a better plot of the totals for each summer month above.
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The data comes from BOM for Kent Town, and only 1979 to the present. I will get around to comparing the West Terrace data with the present. This short period does suggest that things are getting worse, but the turn of the last century was a nasty one. BOM does provide 30 year averages of number of days over 40 C and this suggests that 1890-1910 were awful. Adelaide had 11 days in January over 40 C in one year.
Yes, there will be a difference due to Kent Town being in a more built up area, and squaring the difference will make it worse, but it will still be good to compare.
00
From your link Graeme
The ABC reports – ACT under total fire ban as mercury soars – quoting Sean Carson from the Bureau of Meteorology who says – “By the time we reach Saturday we might have seen four days in a row in the ACT greater than 40 degrees, something we’ve never seen before in Canberra’s history,”
Bad luck Sean the 4 days 15th to 18th went – 40.2, 40.1, 39.7, 40.
But this does not hold a candle to January 1939 in Canberra at Acton which according to the ABC News Watch analysis – Fact checking the weather man – had five days over 40 with a gap of one day under 40. In 1939 from 10th Jan to 15th incl the readings went; 41.3, 42.4, 39.8, 41.9, 41.9, 40.8. – a six day heatwave I think the 1939 residents would have said and includes our hottest ever day.
So we see an example in the ABC News Watch analysis where warmists conveniently do not know our history.
This is what I’m trying to avoid.
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I’ll try again with the plot of a factor F that takes into account that very hot days are more extreme than just hot days. Its just a suggestion for a quantity that takes into consideration the temperature and number of days. So 20 days of 35 C is equal to two days of 42 C or one day of 46 C.
F=(Tmax/K-305)2 where the difference is positive and F=0 for maximum temperatures less than 32 C.
Its defined to be dimensionless so K was used. This is the same as the amount the temperature is above 32 degree C, squared.
This is the plot of F for Adelaide using both the West Terrace data and the Kent Town data. There is a small overlap where Kent Town is usually significant higher than West Terrace, except for the single day in early 1977.
This is a plot of the total F for the summer months (corresponding to the Jan of the year labelled). Its actually a moving total over 150 days that resembles a column graph that’s quicker to plot. Just pretend its a column graph.
There is an overlap for the summer of 1977/1978 that shows that West Terrace has 2/3 of the total for Kent Town because the latter usually records a higher temperature. Without having to take this into account, it does not appear that the last decade was any different to the turn of the last century, for extreme temperatures in Adelaide.
This is a plot for the total F for just the Kent Town data. The highest UAH anomaly is in the summer of 1997/1998. That summer in Adelaide was not particularly extreme. Dec, Jan and Feb didn’t get over 40 C (34.1, 39.0,39.4 C). The coldest global period for that time was the early 80s and it was quite extreme in Adelaide.
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