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Global Warming - From Inside the Globe
Bill Kendrick writes "The National Post reports that a team of American and Canadian researchers has found evidence of real global warming: the temperature of the Earth's crust is increasing at a remarkable rate. What's really interesting is that heat absorbed by rocks slowly permeates into the earth. By boring holes in the ground, they can tell how hot the earth was years ago, in a 'reading tree rings' fashion."
Free Mac Mini
There are thousands and thousands of heaters. They are not natural and are causing the planet to warm up. If people would just keep their doors closed with the heater on it would be very beneficial to the animals.
The Articale says 'crust tempature rising' wich to me.. says its heating from the inside outwards
but reading the entire thing says that rocks closer to the surface are warmer.. wich to me says its heating from the outside inwards
and would most (if not all rocks) from the 1950's still be visable? let alone burried?
The More Knowledge you have the Luckier you Get- J.R. Ewing
Heat from 150 years ago is 100 metres below ground? (Depending on the rock). Sort of like tree rings...
"Tree Rings" are the result of bark cycles of the tree. This is *not* the same thing... We're talking about rock that has never seen the light of day... so we're talking about radiation permeating the surface and being stored there like a BATTERY...
What about temperature cycles? Can he "see" the great cold snap of '78?
What about dispersal patterns? Does radiation permeate equally?
And does that mean that the caves that have a constant temperature of ~60 degrees WERE the temperatures thousands of years ago?
What *we* do know... is that its science that makes for good press, politics, and money...
PK
Based on this last comment in the article, what are we supposed to do?
...scientists predict the warming will bring with it a rise in the number of so-called "extreme weather events" such as ice storms, droughts and hurricanes.
"That's what worries me the most," Dr. Beltrami says.
Ok, that is something to worry about. We all know they are events on the planet (and off the planet) that we can't control that impact our lives greatly: earthquakes, hurricanes, global climate change, etc. Is all this research being done so we know how bad life is going to become or do these scientists believe they may actually be able to do something to stop nature's course?
Drilling a hole generates heat. Sometimes harder substances generate more heat, sometimes less. While the "heat tree rings" may exist, as seems logical, the act of attempting to observe them corrupts your data.
Using extremely old holes could mitigate this somewhat, but then you have no measure of the geological composition, and therefore thermal properties, of the rock the hole was bored through.
This makes any measurements made of core earth temperature so speculative as to be worthless, except as a very "scientific" expensive way to spread fud. There are quit a few "scientific" methods to measure global warming that are in fact just pseudo scientific pawns in the politically charged arena of environmentalism.
To imagine that we have had no impact on global warming is obviously false. Any argument contrary to what should be painfully obvious to the most casual observer is pure political bullshit.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Higher temps means more energy is available to make interesting weather.
Ice storms seem to be caused by fronts shifting quickly (warm enough for rain, then cold front moves in quickly)
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
What's their problem? Everyone and their dog knows that the heat comes from the sun, THE SUN. It does not come from humans (all you 14th centuary hippies and selfproclaimed gods out there, give it up, it's pathetic) and it does not come from evil poor people trying to make a living in undeveloped countries (hello EU, USA, UN?).
Why is it every time someone calls someone "hippies" they're always spouting nonsense? Did you read the article before you posted? HALF the heat in the crust is coming from the center of the earth. This heat is generated by radioactive decay. The other half comes from the sun.
When people say humans are causing an increase in the global temperature (whether you agree with this or not), what they mean is that humans are generating atmospheric gases that trap solar heat by interfering with its thermal radiation into space. Saying the heat "comes from the sun, not from humans" is correct in a narrow literal sense, I guess, because we aren't warming it up with our breath.
We are not going to destroy the planet by global warming. The earth has endured a great deal of meteorological change and life goes on. The fact is that temperatures are going to change whether we like it or not. I almost think that whether we are making the planet warming by .01 degree is irrelavant because natural changes are probably making it warmer by .5 degrees anyway.
There are better reasons to not cut down forests and to reduce emissions. When people argue global warming, they just pollute the issue and reduce their credibility.
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
Dr. Beltrami and his colleagues from the University of Michigan found that more than half of the land's heat gain over the past 500 years came during the 20th century, and 30% since 1950.
So, they believe the rate of warming for 1951-2000 was less than half what is was for 1901-1950. I don't have much basis for an opinion on the meaningfulness of these researchers' results, but I would sure like to know how they explain this apparently levelling off.
Things sure aren't getting any colder.
<a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>
*Dig, Dig, Dig*
...
*Dig, Dig, Dig*
...
"Hey Jack, we got two holes dug for ya. Now whatcha want us to do wit'em?"
"Lower the temperature guage into each hole and measure the temperature of the crust at the bottom of each hole. While you do that, I'll calculate the historical dates for each hole based on their depth..."
"Okey dokey boss...well, this here hole's got a readin' of 42 degrees...whatcha make out it's date to be?"
"Okay, according to my calculations, that one is from January of 1849, and the other one is dated to be around July of 1968."
"Okey, well, the udder' hole's got a readin' of 74 degrees."
***Next Day's Newspaper Headlines"***
"Experts Discover Dramatic Global Warming in the Earth's Crust"
If you don't understand then perhaps you ought to take the time learn more about meteorology and climatology. Not everything is easily understood by a laymen and the pysics involved in meteorology is very difficult indeed.
War is necrophilia.
Therefore unless if we can know the temperature of the surface of the earth in the past, there is no way of knowing the temperature of the surface of the earth in the past. Am I the only one who thinks this is weird science?
(It's been ten years since I took a PDE course, so parts of this could be slightly off.)
The heat equation looks like this:
du/dt = A * (d/dx)^2 u
where u is temperature, and the partial derivative with respect to time is proportional to the second partial derivative with respect to space (depth). (A is a constant determined by the thermal conductivity of the material.)
To use the heat equation to solve for u(x,t), you need boundary conditions surrounding a two-dimensional domain (space and time). Time here runs from 1500 AD to 2000 AD, and space runs from 0 meters at the surface to 1000 meters at the bottom of the hole. So there are four boundary functions along the extremes of both dimensions:
1. u(0 meters, t)
2. u(1000 meters, t)
3. u(x, 2000 AD)
4. u(x, 1500 AD)
The first one is the function they're trying to get- it's their unknown. The second they have to assume is constant, because there is no way to directly measure it. But since temperature perturbations at the surface of the earth won't have penetrated that deep over the time scale they're looking at, and most of the variability will originate at the surface, this is a fairly safe assumption. The third just requires them to drop a thermometer down the hole, as they have done. The fourth is what you're worrying about, but they don't need it because they have 2. and 3. and can use the heat equation to extrapolate over the rest of the domain.
A problem arises because the left side of the heat equation is a first derivative in time. As time progresses, features in the temperature profile u(x) degrade. (Partial differential equations that have second derivatives on both sides, like the wave equation, don't have this problem.) What you don't want to find, when you measure the temperature down one of these holes, is that the temperature increases uniformly with depth. That means you've waited too long, everything has equilibrated, and both sides of the heat equation are now zero, which prevents you from extrapolating backward. Apparently they must have found some curvature in u(x), or we wouldn't be seeing this article posted.
There are other complications. The thermal conductivity constant won't be uniform with depth, for example. What that means is they need computers to solve for u(x,t) numerically. Partial differential equations can almost never be solved symbolically anyway, so this isn't much of an issue.
Looking at all your posts, it looks like there is zero evidence that you can comprehend the real possibility that you are just plain wrong. No doubt you will write a lengthy reply proving my point.
Great, now maybe we can finally nationalize all of the remaining private property in the U.S.A.
</sarcasm>
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
I am devoting my life to the continuation of global warming. I promise I will not rest until the North/East (my home) has Florida like weather conditions year round.
If we cooled the planet by say 20 degrees we'd have fewer weather events such as ice storms??? Excuse me?!?
Yes, as a matter of fact, there would be a LOT fewer ice storms if the entire planet were 20 degrees cooler. Colder air + water == less evaporation == less moisture falling out of the sky in any form.
Let's drive the point home: guess which continent has the lowest amount of annual precipitation?
Here we agree:
It's still mostly our fault.
But in any case it doesn't really matter: if changes in the Sun's dynamics are making the Earth hotter, it will suck just that much more when we add insult to injury.
"To imagine that we have had no impact on global warming is obviously false."
Here we disagree:
Artificial heating locally will quickly re-equilibrate with the natural observed heat profile.
The facts in the Bible will quickly re-equilibrate with the facts of the Bible.
Do you have an independent observational verification of temperature gradients that is not full of corrupt data also? If so, why do we care about 614 holes that are all similarly flawed? The experiment is self-consistent but that does not prove that it is factually consistent.
Our difference is that I will not let my opinion on the subject of global warming bias my interpretation of the data or accept experiments that cannot comply with scientific method even if they support my opinion.
If you have ever spent any time standing in hot drilling mud, you would know that the thermal impact of drilling a hole is amazing. If a hole requires a 3500 hp V12 detroit diesel to run for 3 months, nearly 90% of that mechanical energy is converted to heat inside the hole. Additionally, the steel casing conducts heat 6 times better than, for instance, basalt and will smooth measured temperature gradients enough to make any data meaningless.
Let me put it into physics terms for you, since that is your field. The observer affects the observed. In the case of measuring the temperature of bore holes, the observer has had such a vast impact on what the observer is measuring, that all the data is irreversibly corrupt.
Yes, global warming exists and is primarily caused by humans. But this data, while supporting that fact, is corrupt, and therefore must be ignored. The experiment as conceived is flawed.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
We are badly in need of facts from someone schooled in heat transfer and/or geology
I'm no expert in heat transfer: I slept through most of the (7AM!) Thermodynamics course I took back when I was a student. I decided to bone up on it, however, the book is lodged in the middle of a stack of textbooks holding up one side of the shelf that my monitor rests upon. So, instead I'll bullshit my way through it. Just think of the earth to a big computer: the crust is the CPU, the atmosphere is the heatsink and the seas are the liquid cooling system God put in so He could overclock the world.
After thoroughly reading Tom's Hardware Guide, HardOCP, and a bunch of other sites on the web, I can say with all the authority of an expert in a completely different science making a bad analogy that we just need to shave a few mountains, apply a nice, thick layer of thermal compound and put tall enough (must reach beyond the atmosphere) heatsink/fan combos on top. Or maybe the Overclocked Jesus can turn the seas to liquid nitrogen and save us all! Of course, I'd never have a taste of fried halibut again, but I'm willing to make sacrifices.
If, in fact, there is a global warming trend, which I'm not inclined to dispute as there may well be, just what can we realistically do to prevent it? At this point, I'd suggest adapting, since there's only one other certain solution...
Give them an inch and they'll take a foot. Much more than that, you won't have a leg to stand on.
You know, I was wondering why nobody could spell all of a sudden whenever the topic of global warming came up.
I think it's great, actually. As long as they're kept busy indoors posting vitriol to web sites and unleashing scripts against online polls, their SUVs are parked outside and not emitting any greenhouse gases.
People who don't think global warming is possible are the same kinds of people who don't belive in evolution, that is to say people who don't belive the obvious scientific evidence in favor of something that is more in synch with their pre-heald beliefs or ideologies.
Yeh, it's possible that global warming isn't happening or isn't caused by humans, but if you look at all the data rather then a few slashdot posts or propaganda from one side or the other, it's pretty clear that the earth is getting warmer, and has been recently, and that there's a resonable chance that we might be causing it.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I wonder how many "sciantists" you could get to sign a "anti-evolution" petition. A lot, probably.
The number of "sciantists" who sign an online petition isn't proof of anything.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Duh ! What is this silly nonsense? Do you think heat is some kind of liquid that is affected by gravity and slowly soaks down through the rocks? Heat flows in all directions.
I don't think you understand something. Nowhere in the article did it say heat was "affected by gravity". Heat does show limited properties of signal propagation, because it flows at a finite rate along a gradient of decreasing temperature and is always conserved. (Meaning, because of the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics.)
And measuring temperature alone provides little useful information, you also need to know the thermal conductivity and specific heat of the medium(rocks), which is highly non-uniform.
This just requires extra data on rock composition, which is well known and easily accounted for in any computational heat equation model.
Old boreholes? Give me a break. The air convection in the hole will effect the measured temperature.
Air convection is unlikely to be much of a problem at all. Air is a good insulator and a borehole of air has low thermal mass. Water convection is a much larger problem. This is from their web site, explaining how they get rid of environmental interference:
Temperature perturbations in boreholes are produced by several processes. For climate reconstruction it is important to distinguish between a changing temperature through time at the Earth?s surface and other sources of temperature perturbations.
Geologic conditions and processes, other than climate change, that produce curvature in temperature-depth profiles include the following: (1) systematic variation of thermal conductivity with depth, (2) radioactive heat generation in rocks, (3) topography, (4) lateral variation of surface temperature caused by surface orientation, changing vegetation, or variable snow cover, (5) uplift and erosion or subsidence and burial at the site, and (6) vertical percolation of groundwater.
Several approaches are taken to isolate and correct for temperature anomalies from these sources. Available topographic and geological information available at each borehole site allows one to compute the magnitude and expected shape of temperature perturbations from each source. Sites can be discarded if the geologic disturbances are too large, otherwise corrections can be made. It is also possible to combine or stack temperature anomalies from several nearby drillholes. As geologic, topographic, and hydrologic conditions at each hole are unlikely to be identical, spurious temperature anomalies are likely to cancel. If each hole has experienced a similar climatic thermal signal, the climatically induced temperature anomalies will constructively interfere in the stacked temperature profiles.
There is one very efficient method of isolating climate change effects in borehole temperatures but the method requires patience. All of the non-climate sources of temperature anomalies are steady state, or quasi steady state relative to the time scale of climate change. Thus curvature in temperature profiles from these sources is stationary in time. By measuring and remeasuring borehole temperatures after an appropriate time lapse, changes in temperature with time can safely be ascribed to climatic sources. Several monitoring experiments are in progress. With present technology available to measure temperatures in boreholes to better than 10 mK accuracy, the repeat time to isolate climate-change signals is about 5 years.
So it appears they have thought of some of these things.
I for one don't believe any such thermal signal more than a few years old can exceed the noise threshold.
It's clear you haven't read the paper, but I guess I'll take your word for it. You should know.
Dr. Beltrami and his colleagues from the University of Michigan found that more than half of the land's heat gain over the past 500 years came during the 20th century, and 30% since 1950.
Sorry, I blew it, so I'll publicly take responsibility for my error. As the responses by "dhogaza" and "PhuCknuT" correctly point out, I misread that sentence. Beltrami et al claim that 30% of the temperature increase over that past 500 years happened since 1950, not just 30% of the temperature increase since 1900. Although I obviously puzzled over that sentence for before posting about it, I will endeavor to be more diligent against making this kind of mistake in the future. Sorry for wasting everyone's time with a simple misreading.
If you talk to Europeans, they accept that the Earth is warming up and think that something must be done to prevent it from messing up the balance of nature.
If you talk to people from the USA, they come up with who knows what explanations about why the Earth is not warming up. Why is it so? Do they teach you at school that the Earth may not warm up and thus it is perfectly safe to pump more CO2 and other greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere?
There still is an ozone hole. The Earth is warming up. Okay, the ozone hole is not so large as it was a few years ago, but this was because ozone-layer eating gasses were banned.
Think about it, if everyone had thought "what a bunch of hippie communist propaganda, ozone-schmozone, ha" things would be different now. In that scenario you had better not go to Southern Australia for a vacation.
So, please explain what drives especially people from the US to close their eyes from the facts and cite corporate spin doctors who offer "proof" about why the planet is NOT warming and hence it is safe NOT to invest in expensive modifications of manufacturing plants or environmentally friendly technology.
I would love to create stockholder value, but I'm constipated right now.
Could one of the editors please change the headline to something else that's not completely inaccurate?
I'm noticing a disturbing trend of headlines on Slashdot that completely contradict the article they reference. In this instance, a study has shown that thermal energy from the atmosphere penetrates surface rock layers, which then store that heat as a record of historical climate, much the same as rings on a tree indicate its age. If this study is to be believed, it is strong evidence that the earth's atmosphere has warmed dramatically in the last hundred years.
The headline implies precisely the opposite; that the earth's crust is being warmed by its molten core. This is misinformation.
I'd appreciate seeing a little more careful work on the part of the editors. Lots of people are going to see that headline, not bother reading the article to find out the details, and then wander off assuming that global warming has been resolved and that it doesn't matter if they buy that Ford Explorer they've been thinking about.
I know I'm going to be flamed by people who don't buy the concept of global warming, or think that the study is flawed. That's not the issue. The issue is that this study is being represented as evidence for one side of the debate, when in fact it is evidence for the other.
Slashdot is a clearinghouse for information that influences a lot of people. That's only a positive thing if great care is taken to not spread misinformation. Inaccurate or misleading information is worse than no information at all, and just decreases the signal-to-noise ratio.
Monkeytreats
No one's going to listen to you here. Slashdot these days is full of scientifically ignorant right wing bums.
.. it IS a greenhouse gas you know .. how many ways are there to pretend it isn't. Let the slashdotters count the ways. Maybe the Earth is just plain getting warmer ... many measurements indicate the fastest rate of warming since the start of the holocene, which is kind of an amazing coincidence that it should happen when we are pumping so much CO2 into the atmosphere.
... they object , find ways around it blah blah .. then the fishing stocks crash bye bye industry. Wonderful planning guys. Total idiots.
I mean they fuckin even got the basis of this article wrong. It is heat conducting down from the surface. Similar measurements, on permafrost, have been done for the last decade. The earth is getting warmer, there is absolutely no doubt on that. Is it due to CO2. Well fuck me
Am I a greenie ? Nope. Do I think global warming is going to stuff things up big time ? Yep. Do I think humans will actually do anything to stop it ? No. Just look at history. Humans aren't really good at planning long term. Better still look at all the fishing grounds and the reaction when scientists point out the consequences of continued levels of fishing
Normally I don't get this pissed off. But the level of ignorance is totally frightening. Oh well that's what natural selection is for.
Bitter and proud of it.
Oh god no you said something intelligent. That'll only confuse the Slashdotters. But it will be funny waiting for the replies. Lets see. There'll be the obligatory: "Well then why don't you go and live in Russia^H^H^H^H^H^HChina". Or even better "We saved your ass in WW2", yeah like they had a choice. Fact is most of the anger comes from ignorance, these guys don't really know what Leftism is anyway. Totally knee jerk reaction. As I said it just so amusing watching the reactions ... its almost pitiful.
Bitter and proud of it.
They can get that from boring holes? Wonder what they could get from interesting holes?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
If 70 degree days in the middle of January are the "price" of car pollution, you'll forgive me if I keep my old Pontiac.
--Your Emmy Award-winning host, Kent Brockman
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Uh, yes. Just ask your neighborhood tree or plant what they like to eat. They'll tell you they like water (which there will be more of if the earth warms and there is more evaporation) and CO2 (which apparently we're poisoning the atmosphere with).
So, yes, thanks to the plants CO2 does disappear.
Uh, no. We're taking carbon from deep underground (oil) and putting it into the atmosphere. Plants may take that carbon back out of the atmosphere but it's just temporary. As soon as that plant dies and burns/rots the carbon goes back into the atmosphere. The carbon never makes it back underground from where it originally came.
The way I see it the only environmentally safe fuel to burn is hydrogen. Solar/wind power can be stored in the form of hydrogen that can used to power automobiles. I guess alcohols based from grains/plants would also be good as they wouldn't change the CO2 ratio of the atmosphere. Either way, it all comes from solar power.
Willy
can we assume that the sun just puts out a given ammount of energy that only fluctuates a little bit and on long timescales? so, while the sun maintains the temperature, humans create all kinds of changes that warm the planet.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Thank heavens someone answered ... I was starting to think I'd have revise the intelligence level of slashdot upwards.
20 million dead. hmph. That was Communism dork. Not leftism. There is a difference. Oh you didn't know ? Figures. BTW I'm not even a leftist.
Bitter and proud of it.
Man is incredibly capable of affecting his environment. He just sucks at predicting consequences. The question of whether Man or Nature is doing this warming is stupid. Change happens. The current change is warming. This is a Bad Thing- The sea levels are just fine where they're at, and droughts suck. What little groundwater that we haven't polluted yet isn't enough for us to drink, wash our cars and water our lawns forever.
Unless the warming is mainly because Earth's orbit is decaying a bit and we're getting closer to the sun, we can affect it. The niche we've evolved into is changing, folks. I don't want to find myself owning property that suddenly turned into beachfront. We're better off changing our behavior to maintain the status quo than changing our behavior because we don't have the port cities or crop production levels that we got so used to.
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
Really? Are you sure? This is Slashdot we're posting on...
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
We're seeing typoes on some otherwise quite respectable sites recently, so this isn't as obvious an incompetence indicator as it once was. Sad, really.
Regardless of typoes and propaganda sites, there are at least 25,000 card-carrying scientists in the USA alone who reckon that evolution is a non-starter.
Evolution is only one of a very large number of sacred cows which should be on the conveyor-belt headed towards the mincer. As textbooks still occasionally hawk the centuries-ago-disproven ontogeny-recapitulates-phylogeny lie, so they also still tell us that aeroplanes stay up because of the Bernoulli principle (and so they fly upside-down how...?), and that oil is formed from the compressed bodies of dinosaurs (and so the domes are refilling themselves how...?).
Aside from the fact that many of them are also raving loonies, and aside from observing the many honest scientists I know, I'm occasionally tempted to agree with the concensus-reality crowd's view of science, ie, that all scientific conclusions are based on ideological assumptions so of course the answers will fit same ideologies. As with many things in life, it seems to have a thread of truth running through it, but not nearly enough to make the whole deal worth taking aboard.
So I settle for a general air of skepticism and tossing the odd spanner into the works. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Good point. Are these methane-fixers you're talking about?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
This was a very intriguing post! Now if you would actually back up some of what you are saying, I would be most impressed.
:-)
As for reckoning, scientists are free to think whatever they like. If their beliefs are to be restricted, that is the duty of their respective governments or religions, not their scientific principles. What an individual scientist believes is only scientifically significant so far as they are willing to submit the belief to validation via the scientific method. That said, where did you pull this figure of 25K from, and where can I buy one of these cards?
Where was the recapitulation of phylogeny via ontogeny disproven? I don't believe that the theory exen existed for multiple centuries, much less that it was disproven over 199 years ago. There are many theories of evolution, Charles Darwin held one significantly different than his grandfather Erasmus, or Lamark did.
There is no reason that the Bernoulli principle only works in one direction - do Iomega Bernoulli drives or standard winchester hard-drives fail when they are mounted upside down? Passengar aircraft don't fly upside down, because that is illegal. While air foils are more efficient when designed for non-interable flight, there is no reson that a symmetric wind can't be used. The more significant problem is that of keeping the fluids available to the engine during upside-down flight.
Oil is indeed formed from pressurized organic material dating from prehistoric times. What domes are refilling themselves? Do you mean that oil is a renewable resource? We won't have to tap ANWR after all, because previous cachets of oil are refilling themselves? That is great news!
A general air of skepticism can be healthy, but only if you proactively work with what's available. Our current system of science, while not perfect, can handle the odd monkey wrench now and then. It has much less success dealing with innuendo and vapor. I suppose I settle for general airs of open-mindedness, and tossing the odd goat to the trolls.