billiards
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Arc, I think I have run out of words for you. I will leave with this very nice post I found by Ophiolite on another thread "spotting pseudo science." Arc, you fall squarely into the latter camp (my bold in the quote above).
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Wow that's a long post to answer the least important of my criticisms. I still believe a global analysis would be more robust. But please, let's not dwell on that. So ... • why don't you use a proper earthquake catalogue? • why only use earthquakes that cause damage? Brief responses appreciated. As a side note, your plot with the earthquakes arbitrarily plotted on the delta 14C curve is just awful. Why not plot the earthquakes as a histogram?
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So you're only considering earthquakes "which caused significant damage or casualties". In your source it says: "The present list is not exhaustive and reliable and precise magnitude data is scarce for earthquakes that occurred prior to the development of modern measuring instruments." Why don't you use a proper earthquake catalogue? Why don't you do a global analysis? so as to increase your confidence in the "correlation"? i.e. to protect yourself from statistical anomalies by including more data -- Many large earthquakes occur that cause little/no damage, why not include those? Post #275 is completely useless, it is bunk. Here is a histogram of number of earthquakes per year from a recent catalogue... You have to be careful with these though, this catalogue deliberately has cut-off magnitudes that "were selected prior to the start of the project (Fig. 1) and were dictated by the time constraints and availability of funds: 1900-1917: Ms≥7.5 worldwide + smaller shallow events in stable continental areas 1918-1959: Ms≥6¼ 1960-2009: Ms≥5.5" http://www.isc.ac.uk/iscgem/overview.php That's why you see those steps. If you look at the yellow bars, the Mw>=7.5, the trend is not affected by these deliberate cutoffs. There might still be biases in the data though, as older records are more likely to be lost, and record keeping would have been less rigorous than it is today.
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Despite my better mind wishing to "cut and run", I just can't resist to point out the major flaw in arc's oft-self-heralded "post #275." Here arc claims to show a link between solar flux and earth seismicity (in Japan). Firstly the presentation is horrendous, so much so that it is not entirely clear that the "correlation" he finds exists whatsoever. Even if we forgive the lack of any statistical analysis, the graphical presentation is laughable. If you wish to show an increase in frequency with time, use a measure of frequency on the y-axis, please! The argument rests on the observation that in the last 100 years solar flux is observed to increase (according to tree ring data), and the number of earthquakes detected also seems to increase. Here's the massive flaw: In the past 100 years we've got good at detecting earthquakes, and therefore we have measured more of them. The "correlation" arc has observed is simply an artifact of the bias in sampling. Post #275 debunked.
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Another reactionary post, not addressing any of the scientific details. I'm checking out.
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LOL. I'll leave this one, tempting as it is to get sucked into another jungle of misunderstanding and over zealous misinterpretation on your part, I have not the time right now. I see Acme has taken up the challenge here so I will leave it to him/her. Wow. If you think you can expand the core by >30% with less than 1 degree of heating then you are living in "cloud cuckoo land." Well then your whole "climate argument" falls by the wayside -- if you insist on millions of years time scales then you can't explain processes operating over tens of thousands of years. You can't have it both ways. I admire your enthusiasm, but you are not doing science. I'm sorry. But it is true. You are not a scientist as you yourself say, so I do not see this as a weakness in you. It is a great strength that you have the imagination to do this. Your weakness is that you really believe you are doing science. Please, take the time to learn the science from the experts, challenge all you like but listen. Develop your idea, and develop it scientifically. Try to prove yourself wrong, listen to criticisms, build. Who knows, maybe this idea doesn't work, but if you keep challenging yourself, you might find yourself publishing something RELEVANT in a bonafide scientific journal one day.
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+1 And furthermore the picture looks bleaker when we consider it is the difference in energy that is important. A qualitative consideration should be sufficient to highlight the concern: Question: How much energy would it take to raise the temperature of the core by 1 degree? Answer: a hell of a lot. Question: How much temperature change do you need to expand liquid iron by 1% at high pressure? Answer: a hell of a lot. (estimate of thermal expansivity of iron at these P-T conditions are available in the literature, so we could check this) Question: How much do we even need to expand the core for the mechanism to work? Answer: a hell of a lot (I think I worked out it was at least 30%) Question: So how much energy required just to heat the core enough? Answer: A hell of a lot times a hell of a lot. Question: How much energy is available? Answer: Not that much. At best all the energy from the Sun (as Unity famously assumed) -- and then yes we can do some crazy things! However that is clearly a wild over estimate. The strength of the external magnetic field is about 1% the strength of the internal magnetic field at Earth's surface (as can be seen by Gauss's method of decomposing the fields). From this we should be able to work it out, but it will not be much. Then it will get smaller when we consider that it is the change from minimum to maximum that is important. What are some crazy implications of the hypothesis? 1) Paradoxically: The death of the Earth's magnetic field! Because of the basic physical phenomenon that magnetic fields can't penetrate into conductive materials, the influence of the external field will only affect the surface of the core -- and if the "hot stuff" remains at the top because it is buoyantly stable there, core convection shuts down and the geodynamo switches off. So arc's theory actually predicts the death of the Earth's magnetic field. 2) Complete melting of the mantle. If arc's hypothesis is that these changes are important over the 1000s of year timescales in which climate variations have been observed, then this heating must happen very quickly, and indeed, the cooling must also happen very quickly. But the mantle is a very poor conductor of heat. So arc's theory cannot be right unless a mechanism for very rapid cooling is invoked. No such mechanism exists. Even if the core could lose this heat somehow, the mantle would still be burdened with it, and inevitably it would get so hot it would eventually completely melt. This is not the case as clearly observed by the propagation of shear waves through the mantle.
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Paper shows a high negitive forcing from human activity
billiards replied to Tim the plumber's topic in Climate Science
Because it's part of a complex system and is difficult to isolate. I'm not trying to be antagonistic, I just wanted to know your source. -
Paper shows a high negitive forcing from human activity
billiards replied to Tim the plumber's topic in Climate Science
Where do you get that from? I don't buy that. You're assuming that nature does not flush out aerosol. The real significance of that statement is expressed in the conclusions of the paper: So it has major implications for palaeo-climate modelling. -
Well, the split is more like somewhere between 33 to 63 % favour AGW hypothesis (depending on who appraises) Vs 0.7 to 1.8 % reject AGW hypothesis. There are a lot of papers that sit in the middle, not taking a stance either way. The fault of Powell's analysis is that he lumps those papers into the pro AGW camp (or at least he makes it looks that way). See my post #175 for sources. If you look at the papers that take a stance it is something lie a: 97.5-2.5% split, plus or minus a few tens of a percent. Just saying as the 99.99% type figure is getting bounded about a bit too readily in my opinion. It's still a strong scientific consensus, though. I am not a "denier".
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Is Science to blame for the Depletion of the Ozone Layer?
billiards replied to Iwonderaboutthings's topic in Climate Science
The scientist has the share of responsibility of any citizen, naturally. But far greater, they have a responsibility given to them by virtue of their understanding, which policy makers and the general public do not share. It is their duty to ensure that any and all dangers of their science, if foreseen, are guarded against and properly forewarned. A discovery that could kill millions? You should probably disseminate the idea to the people that can best prevent such a disastrous outcome. Completely covering up the idea does not guarantee that someone else will make the discovery, that it will leak, and that disaster will ensue. -
Hi arc, No I didn't say his work had discredited the standard theory. He has worked on a small anomaly that requires dynamics to explain it. Absolute plate motion is beyond the original tenet of the founding forefathers of plate tectonics, who described plate motion in terms of relative velocities with other plates (a so-called no-net rotation frame). Things have moved on since then and we have recognised that there is a net rotation of the lithosphere. It is workers like Doglioni who are helping to push things along .. towards a full dynamic description of plate tectonics, in an absolute plate motion reference frame. You are interpreting the above to mean that the standard model is debunked. But that's a bit like saying that Newtonian physics is debunked because now we have Einstein. And then, to make matters worse, rather than trying to understand the new theory of Einstein, coming along and proposing an altogether new theory to replace the now debunked Newton! Anyhow, I only reply to inform you that with just the tiniest search of the literature I have found a wealth of work which pertains to explain the westward lithospheric rotation, some of which is authored by Doglioni himself! Hopefully you will read at least one (and prefereabl all and more) of these papers. But for the lazy I will summarise: the net westward lithospheric rotation is explained by lateral variations in upper mantle viscosity -- predominantly the order of magnitude viscosity difference in the upper mantle beneath oceans and beneath cratons. If you put these into a model you get the 2 cm/yr net westward lithospheric drift. e.g., Ricard, Y., Doglioni, C., & Sabadini, R. (1991). Differential rotation between lithosphere and mantle: A consequence of lateral mantle viscosity variations. Journal of Geophysical Research-Space Physics, 96(B5), 8407. doi:10.1029/91JB00204 Zhong, S. (2001). Role of ocean-continent contrast and continental keels on plate motion, net rotation of lithosphere, and the geoid. Journal of Geophysical Research-Space Physics, 106(B1), 703. doi:10.1029/2000JB900364 Becker, T. W. (2006). On the effect of temperature and strain-rate dependent viscosity on global mantle flow, net rotation, and plate-driving forces. Geophysical Journal International, 167, 943–957.
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OK I'm checking out for a while. I hope you can keep this going without me. Good luck
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This is just sounding like a mantra now. It's a fallacy. Missing the point. The point is that the strain will not be magnified at the surface. If we cannot agree on this then we cannot make progress. Cognitive dissonance. The whole point is a massive fallacy. Patience. I commend you on taking a scientific approach -- finally! I was going to reply to this separately rather than mix it together with the pressure nonsense. Remember I don't owe you response, though. Don't take it for granted that I will invest my time in you. Edit: also the burden of proof is on the person making the claim (arc in this case -- or one of his supporters). Don't expect me to do the leg work. You show the trend -- don't expect me to.
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You keep talking about pressure as though it is some kind of magic bullet. It's note, it's a red herring. You don't even need to consider pressure to evaluate the geometry of the deformation. Pressure will be needed in considering the physics, as thermal expansion is a function of pressure. But I reiterate it will not affect the geometrical argument. If you put a marble at the core-mantle boundary you will not get a mountain at the surface, no matter what the pressure is down there. (and yes presure is large down there -- no need to find a link as i suspect this will be commonly accepted)
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Arc seems to think a small perturbation in strain at the core mantle boundary will magnify to a large strain at the surface. The "bending or shaping of a thick material" reminds me of bending an iron bar -- it probably invokes different images in different minds -- it's not clear, and does not consider the geometry of the problem at hand. No, but if you put a marble at the core mantle boundary, you would not expect a mountain at the surface. That's the point. Forget about the mattress, it was an allusion to the fairy tale "the princess and the pea".
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Hamm. A bunch of seemingly unrelated material followed by a claim. Make of it what you will. Arc, please stop referring to "your model" -- I do not have a model -- I suggest you refer to it as "the standard model". Your model (and this time it really is "your model" -- or perhaps we should call it the "proposed model") relies on something called the "plate matrix". The "plate matrix" is responsible for all active tectonics. It is also able to "predict" every surface phenomenon that has ever been observed. It's a bit like god really. If you don't understand how something works, then don't worry, it can be explained by "the plate matrix". It really is a very powerful and useful concept. Please stop inundating me with copy and paste. I must've read this about 10 times already. It's tiring -- why should I make the effort to write original material if you can't be bothered? It would be nice to see that this discussion is shaping your theory, that your theory is maturing. Not simply hammering home the same tired old material over and over again. This is basically "soap boxing". With respect you don't understand the current theories. You know a bit. But you are very selective in what you know. You tend to read the fringe "controversial" literature, the Don Andersons and Doglionis. You read their "criticisms" of current theory and interpret that to mean that EVERYTHING in the Earth science is wrong -- or as you put it "has lost its way". I would LOVE to see what Don Anderson and Doglioni would make of your theory. No offence but I'm pretty sure they would laugh it out of the water. YOU ARE!! Really? Seeing as you have claimed this please show the evidence. Please, not a 20,000 word essay. A table. A simple table of subduction zone, back arc deformation, and plate size. And if you're feeling especially keen, a graph, to show the relationship. Seeing as you claim this with such confidence this should be EASY for you to show. Also it would be nice to look at some EVIDENCE for once. If you're looking for some data, try this paper: Heuret A. et S., Lallemand, 2005. Plate motions, slab dynamics and back-arc deformation. Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors 149, 31-51 (Actually I'm teasing you a bit here, I already KNOW that you're wrong. For example along the Aleutian trench the back arc deformation style varies from compressional to extensional. This happens along one subduction zone! Complex isn't it! -- Don't worry though the "plate matrix" has now "predicted" it -- add that one to your list from me.) Come on. How can you really think that strain increases with distance? We've actually been through tis before. If you increase the volume of a sphere by a constant amount, the amount of strain will depend on the size of the initial sphere. For example if you have a sphere of volume V, and you increase its volume by V, then the strain at its surface will be much greater than if you were take a sphere of volume 1000 V and add V to it. This is just obvious, and trivial to prove mathematically. This is the correct analogy to use. Your "bending or shaping of thick materials" is a confusing and misleading analogy.
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Continuing to work through your "long-post". I just don't buy this. Why oh why would the strain get greater the further away you get from the source of displacement? If I put a marble the size of a pea under my mattress it does not swell up to a bulge the size of a pumpkin under my bed sheet. This seems to be what you are suggesting.
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Wow it's cold down here. Predictions? OK. Let's see. The model predicts where the plates are going to be in millions of years time. Of course we won't be around by then, but it is still predicted. Can your model predict where the plates will be? But let's look a bit more closely for a prediction. In 1969 Dan McKenzie used a simple analytical model to predict that slabs would dip at about 50-60 degrees. Guess what, he was right. If you actually look for them, predictions are there. Except you haven't shown how your theory actually makes said predictions. Only taken some surface observations and moulded a cartoon model around them to make them fit into a nice story. This is how fiction works, not science. It's simple if you ignore all the details. But if you start looking at the details of your theory it becomes immensely complicated. You can't just cover your eyes to the hard science, only focus on the soft bubbly clouds, and then claim you have a simpler theory. This kind of selective thinking is self-reinforcing, which leads to delusions of grandeur.
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Hi arc, I'm going to have to work through your post in "bite-size" chunks. I agree. There are people working on for example the dynamics of subduction, the dynamics of mid-ocean ridge systems, the dynamics of mantle plumes, the nature of the lithosphere asthenosphere boundary (and much else) ... The dynamics of plate motion will be an integration of all these things. But for now we are still working out the details of the individual pieces. In general terms plate motion is driven by a slab-pull component, a ridge push component, and a basal drag component. This looks to me like a red herring. Who would disagree with this? Not me. The question is. Is your mechanism actually simpler? I argue that it is not ... The standard model expects that plate motion is a phase of planetary evolution that exists under the right conditions (water content, size of planet, composition of planet, temperature, etc.) ... basically it is the expression of mantle convection which happens in accordance with the basic laws of thermodynamics. The mantle acts as a fluid over long time scales, and fluids convect if cooled from the top and internally heated. Your model must also obey the laws of thermodynamics (I assume -- and if not there is a huge problem). The mantle must also be fluid over long timescales. There is presumably a requirement that your planet fits within a parameter space of "right conditions". But in addition to the standard model you require: • a planet with an oscillating volume • large (so far unquantified) amount of energy input from an extraterrestrial source So is your model really simpler?
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Typically unity, you ignore all the science and just get on with the job of attacking my character. If you (or another user) ask me more nicely ... This is what is known as a strawman. What exactly are you asking me to prove, friend? I'm sorry you feel that way, but arc has managed to cope with it. Perhaps you should toughen up a bit. Sorry but when I smell BS, I might just I pull you up on it. If you reply with waffle I might just call you out. If you can't handle the heat, step out of the kitchen. This has already happened once with your "maths". Actually it is important for someone to do this, to stop the spread of misinformation which contaminates the discussion. Also, your criticism of me smacks of hypocrisy. Remember post #205 directed to me:
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So you would agree that plate tectonics is fundamentally driven by mantle convection? It is the requirement due to the laws of thermodynamics that the Earth tends towards a state of thermodynamic equilibrium with space (i.e. it cools down) that drives plate motion. That is a loose mechanism. The dynamics have not been worked out. But the simplicity of the idea is elegant isn't it? At this point it is worth mentioning that the dynamics of arc's theory/hypothesis have not yet been worked out either. Dynamics requires physics and maths, and arc has readily admitted that his theory lacks in that department. Hang on a minute. Attack?? Very strange interpretation. I simply asked arc to put his money where his mouth is. This is standard procedure in scientific discourse. Arc presented Doglioni's work which highlights a certain inadequacy of plate tectonics. The net westward lithospheric rotation (e.g. Doglioni, 2004; Becker et al. 2008). If this phenomenon turns out to be true (and I believe it might be) then we still can't explain it, and it really is a bit of a problem. There are ideas floating around, but none that have been numerically tested as far as I am aware. If arc is using this to discredit the standard theory then it would be expected that his theory can do a better job of explaining it. Otherwise his theory is equally discredited. So I ask again, arc (if you're there) -- how does your theory explain this net westward lithospheric rotation? Mostly from this site (worth a serious read, and I think arc would benefit especially): http://www.phy6.org/Education/wmap.html A reminder to readers: we are talking about the transfer of heat from core to mantle at the core mantle boundary. The absolute numbers are unknown but there are order of magnitude estimates. If you are serious about knowing these numbers then I would appreciate seeing some effort on your half with the mathematics before I start digging around. Is this just a fancy way of admitting you don't know what you're talking about?
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The strength of the Sun's magnetic field is about 1/10000 the strength of the Earth's magnetic field as felt from the surface of Earth. The 11 year solar cycle can perturb the Earth's field by 0.1%. Strong magnetic storms can perturb the Earth's field by about 1% at the equator. The Earth's magnetosphere protects us from the Sun's field, and the changes in the field we observe mainly involve currents in the ionosphere and in groundwater in the crust. It is highly unlikely that these perturbations could penetrate all the way down into the core. This is due to the fundamental problem that highly conducting fluids (e.g. the core) shield out external magnetic fields. So does that answer your question as to why I don't think this mechanism could provide anywhere near enough energy? Another unknown I'm afraid. Not a figure of speech I've come across before. Generally if you make a mathematical statement about an equation, you should know what equation you are talking about.
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Hi unity Actually I did not assume this. In fact if you read my post it says: What exactly do you mean by "unstable" in this context? I do not see this. Can you explain? Bear in mind that miniscule changes over time won't cut it. The core needs to heat up quickly. Why? Because if you wait too long the heat will be leaked. So the rate of heating needs to be greater than the rate of cooling (which will be a function of temperatute). Which equation? Can you prove this?
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Just to add on to iNow's contribution ... John Cook and co-author's have completed a study very similar to the one done by James Powell, their conclusions match very closely with Powell's. It can be downloaded for free here: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article Also the "video abstract" can be viewed here: http://bcove.me/c1li8rcl One thing that is missing from Powell's pie chart presentation is the number of articles that remain neutral on AGW and the number that endorse AGW. If we convert Powell's numbers to percentages, the black region (all papers that don't reject AGW) works out to 99.8%. A glance at the Cook et al. paper reveals 32.6% endorse AGW, 66.4% are neutral, 0.7% reject AGW, and 0.3% are uncertain. So actually there are a lot of papers "on the fence". Interestingly when the authors were asked to self-appraise the position of their papers, those that replied were a lot more partisan than Cook et al.'s analysis suggests. 62.7% endorse AGW, 35.5% neutral, and 1.8% reject AGW. The number of papers "on the fence" thins out and the percentages on either side are bumped up. (Incidentally, when I first saw this I thought it must be due to a sampling bias, only 14% of authors agreed to self appraise and I thought that perhaps this 14% represented the more galvanised members of the community. But apparently not as shown in Table 5 of the paper.) If we look at only those papers which take a stand on AGW. About 97.9% are pro AGW by Cook et al's analysis, and 97.2% are pro AGW by self appraisal. The bottom line is that the consensus remains overwhelming.