That's where it gets somewhat complicated. While I have a pretty good grasp of the chemistry involved, I am a dilettante when it comes to atmospheric dynamics on the large scale. The stratospheric conditions over Antarctica seem to be particularly good for activating chlorine compounds into the catalytically active ClO-radicals. Cooling of the air in winter leads to sinking of the air masses which then, via the coriolis effect, form a very stable vortex that lasts into summer. This polar vortex isolates the antarctic stratosphere. Polar stratospheric clouds form and are confined to the antarctic region by the dynamics of this vortex. The particles in these clouds, water ice and nitric acid, help with the formation of active chlorine compounds. Due to confinement by the vortex, these compounds get not diluted out and lead to strong ozone depletion as soon as the sun comes up again. Over the arctic, this confinement effect is lower, so the clouds get "diluted out" - they only can form in the extreme cold, so less active chlorine is formed and the arctic effect is weaker. That's it in a nutshell.
Hehe, agreed - I caught me some positively capital shrubbery with the fly. But tomorrow, it's gonna be a classic bait meeting with the local carp population. Lawnchair, sixpack, stare at the bobber until you reach some zen-like state.
You thoroughly refuted the hypothesis "CO2 is the only determining factor for global average temperature". Congratulations! Only, no one posits that hypothesis. Do not despair, noble Don Quixote - there are more windmills on the horizon that you can attack. Or are those even wind power plants? Charge, brave knight, CHARGE!
You are aware of noise in every measurement and about the fact that you need enough data points to establish significance? Especially when starting from a randomly chosen local maximum? I guess you are. You are just deliberately distorting the truth - the whole context of that Jones quote has been trotted out 1E6 times lately, but you still cite a question that has been designed to lead to a misleading answer as argument towards your position? Pitiful.
I doubt that he is profiteering himself. Those people usually do not post on slashdot. That's the sad thing. He just gobbled down the propaganda hook, line and sinker. Which reminds me that I should refrain from such discussions on slashdot and rather prepare my fishing tackle for tomorrow. Way better for my blood pressure.
Hypothesis: The equilibrium between solar energy influx, blackbody radiation efflux and CO2 absorption/reemission gives a certain predicted average global temperature. Falsification: The global average temperature measured deviates from the prediction. Experiment: The measured temperatur conforms with the prediction. Conclusion: Not falsified.
Depends on the molecular species in question - e.g. hydrogen will reach escape velocity just from the thermal velocity distribution. You are completely right that I neglected convective mixing in the post above, which of course is a strong effect. If you release a lot of heavy gas at once, yes, you get layering. But even that might diffuse out given the long timescales which you need to take into account when talking about the atmosphere as whole. I just wanted to give the nutshell presentation. It's nearly 2 am here, I am drunk and will be raptured in 4 hours, so bear with me;)
All I want to know is when the ISS crew is getting raptured, assuming there is one Real True Christian(TM) on board... I read a New Yorker interview with that nutcase Camping. Why oh why don't they ask the really interesting question like that in their interviews??
Only if the also predicted earthquake and the subsequent opening of the graves happens, too. They hedged against your theory. Hmm, wait... nutcase predicts opening of the graves on saturday AND the CDC publishes a zombie survival guide?? Excuse me, I am off to clean my shotgun again.
The radiative equilibrium between incoming sunlight and blackbody radiation for Earth would result in a temperature about 20K lower than observed, when not taking atmospheric effects into account. Accounting for absorption and reemission by atmospheric CO2 you arrive at the actual average temperature. Said spectroscopic properties of CO2 are simply measurable in the lab. I actually did the experiment in a lab session about 14 years ago - part of the physical chemistry II lab. Are you seriously questioning the existance of the greenhouse effect as such?
Of course we will need to make overhauls - what are we even arguing about here? After all, it's not like every IC engine will be magically converted into electric overnight. The infrastructure change is not impossible, and not even fundamental. To say it can't work is like saying "We would have to exchange every stable for a gas station to get rid of horse buggies. This will never work" - well, it worked, on the timescale of two to three decades. On the same timescale the next transition can and will work.
SO2 is insofar part of the subject in question as the crackpot mentioned above rants about acid rain not existing in the quoted blog. As for the references. Yes, ClOOCl photolysis under stratospheric conditions modelled in the lab is by a factor 6 lower than previously predicted. So? To quote the abstract of the paper in question: "This large discrepancy calls into question the completeness of present atmospheric models of polar ozone depletion" - true that. At no point, the basic mechanism is questioned, though. To quote the part of Rex' quote you conveniently omitted: "Overwhelming evidence still suggests that anthropogenic emissions of CFCs and halons are the reason for the ozone loss.". In summary - you and the crackpot above take part of the usual scientific process, which is characterized by continuous refinement of models, out of context and construct a fundamental disagreement from it, which never existed in the first place. Basic propaganda tool.
Of course it is correct - in the absence of other evidence. The implication is done by providing the mechanism. So may I suggest the corollary "In the presence of a physically connecting mechanism between two phenomena, correlation does imply causation"?
Maybe your infrastructure just sucks? I live in the first world, personally. In particular, in a country that hasn't let its grid go to shit for some decades. All I see is overcapacities. But you don't really want to argue about the possibility of changing the status quo, you are absolutely convinced that it should not be changed, therefor it CANNOT be changed. When your argument boils down to "electrification of commuter traffic will kill the elderly", well, then you'd better admit that you lost, before you dig yourself deeper into the bullshit.
As for the smoking -> cancer mechanism, large parts of it are known for decades. Polycyclic aromates in the smoke are potent intercalators, which put themselves between basepairs in DNA and mess with replication. Given how fast biochemistry has developed in the last century, that mechanism is positively prehistoric. There are other mechanisms, some of which have been found more recently, but the basics are known for ages.
Naturally that is part of the solution - there is nothing fundamentally impossible about that, though. You just gotta start at some point. Why not start with implementing an electric infrastructure that allows city traffic to go mostly electric. Apart from climate problems, you get the smog shit out of the way, even if you go with coal plants for now - the filtering is way simpler there. Then you can shift to renewables without changing your traffic infrastructure. 2-3 decades, and it can be done without pain.
Nice crackpot you found there. My favourite - his acid rain piece. "Decades of monitoring to detect an effect". Right. Tell that to the deforested mountain ridges in my home county that have recovered just fine after SO2 was essentially removed from coal plant exhaust. As for that nature reference - you conveniently omit that this is not a paper, but a news blurb. Serious papers on the issue? Well, rather thin in that department. I met Paul Crutzen on several occasions and had some nice talks with him. Calling him a tool of special interest lobbying is quite... off the mark.
The causation paper for climate change would win you zilch at all, since the basic mechanism has been published by Arrhenius about 130 years ago. All the open questions are more in the realm of systems theory, not in the realm of basic mechanisms.
Well, for the usual commute, electric cars should do just fine. The only infrastructure update you would probably need are charging ports at all parking lots at your workplace and your home. That should take care of 90% of commutes. The longer-term solution would be rethinking city planning, which way too often is completely focused on cars. I live in a European city which mostly did it right. Living in the city, half an hour commute with public transit and yet, still lots of green areas around my home, so it is not at all some urban wasteland.
In a nutshell, because the thermal, i.e. kinetic energy of atmospheric molecules is way too high to get separation by weight. They are moving in random directions too fast to settle down. As for the ozone layer being where it is, yes, it is being produced up there. The layer is a dynamic process - ozone being produced from oxygen by UV activation and reacting back. You get the layer at a certain height where you have the right balance of O2 concentration and UV intensity. CFCs are a catalyst that shift that equilibrium to the side of oxygen, removing the conditions that lead to the dynamic formation of the layer in the first place.
The only thing that makes it complicated is the fact that you have to wade through layers upon layers of obfuscation produced by the business-as-usual propaganda machine.
As far as I understand, they don't want to measure dark matter directly, but rather anomalous peaks in the energy spectra of the directly detected cosmic rays that are predicted by certain theories about dark matter, in particular, effects of neutralino-neutralion collisions, that would result in detectable particles at certain energies.
Slashdot Mirror
That's where it gets somewhat complicated. While I have a pretty good grasp of the chemistry involved, I am a dilettante when it comes to atmospheric dynamics on the large scale. The stratospheric conditions over Antarctica seem to be particularly good for activating chlorine compounds into the catalytically active ClO-radicals. Cooling of the air in winter leads to sinking of the air masses which then, via the coriolis effect, form a very stable vortex that lasts into summer. This polar vortex isolates the antarctic stratosphere. Polar stratospheric clouds form and are confined to the antarctic region by the dynamics of this vortex. The particles in these clouds, water ice and nitric acid, help with the formation of active chlorine compounds. Due to confinement by the vortex, these compounds get not diluted out and lead to strong ozone depletion as soon as the sun comes up again. Over the arctic, this confinement effect is lower, so the clouds get "diluted out" - they only can form in the extreme cold, so less active chlorine is formed and the arctic effect is weaker. That's it in a nutshell.
Hehe, agreed - I caught me some positively capital shrubbery with the fly. But tomorrow, it's gonna be a classic bait meeting with the local carp population. Lawnchair, sixpack, stare at the bobber until you reach some zen-like state.
You thoroughly refuted the hypothesis "CO2 is the only determining factor for global average temperature". Congratulations! Only, no one posits that hypothesis. Do not despair, noble Don Quixote - there are more windmills on the horizon that you can attack. Or are those even wind power plants? Charge, brave knight, CHARGE!
You are aware of noise in every measurement and about the fact that you need enough data points to establish significance? Especially when starting from a randomly chosen local maximum? I guess you are. You are just deliberately distorting the truth - the whole context of that Jones quote has been trotted out 1E6 times lately, but you still cite a question that has been designed to lead to a misleading answer as argument towards your position? Pitiful.
Besides, where ARE those hippies? Haven't met many, lately. And usually all we conspire about is bogarting the spliff...
I doubt that he is profiteering himself. Those people usually do not post on slashdot. That's the sad thing. He just gobbled down the propaganda hook, line and sinker. Which reminds me that I should refrain from such discussions on slashdot and rather prepare my fishing tackle for tomorrow. Way better for my blood pressure.
Hypothesis: The equilibrium between solar energy influx, blackbody radiation efflux and CO2 absorption/reemission gives a certain predicted average global temperature.
Falsification: The global average temperature measured deviates from the prediction.
Experiment: The measured temperatur conforms with the prediction.
Conclusion: Not falsified.
Science, do you speak it, motherfucker?
Depends on the molecular species in question - e.g. hydrogen will reach escape velocity just from the thermal velocity distribution. You are completely right that I neglected convective mixing in the post above, which of course is a strong effect. If you release a lot of heavy gas at once, yes, you get layering. But even that might diffuse out given the long timescales which you need to take into account when talking about the atmosphere as whole. I just wanted to give the nutshell presentation. It's nearly 2 am here, I am drunk and will be raptured in 4 hours, so bear with me ;)
All I want to know is when the ISS crew is getting raptured, assuming there is one Real True Christian(TM) on board... I read a New Yorker interview with that nutcase Camping. Why oh why don't they ask the really interesting question like that in their interviews??
Only if the also predicted earthquake and the subsequent opening of the graves happens, too. They hedged against your theory. Hmm, wait... nutcase predicts opening of the graves on saturday AND the CDC publishes a zombie survival guide?? Excuse me, I am off to clean my shotgun again.
He's not even desiring a level of proof, he finishes the discussion with a good old argument from incredulity. Which is the weakest of all fallacies.
The radiative equilibrium between incoming sunlight and blackbody radiation for Earth would result in a temperature about 20K lower than observed, when not taking atmospheric effects into account. Accounting for absorption and reemission by atmospheric CO2 you arrive at the actual average temperature. Said spectroscopic properties of CO2 are simply measurable in the lab. I actually did the experiment in a lab session about 14 years ago - part of the physical chemistry II lab. Are you seriously questioning the existance of the greenhouse effect as such?
Of course we will need to make overhauls - what are we even arguing about here? After all, it's not like every IC engine will be magically converted into electric overnight. The infrastructure change is not impossible, and not even fundamental. To say it can't work is like saying "We would have to exchange every stable for a gas station to get rid of horse buggies. This will never work" - well, it worked, on the timescale of two to three decades. On the same timescale the next transition can and will work.
SO2 is insofar part of the subject in question as the crackpot mentioned above rants about acid rain not existing in the quoted blog. As for the references. Yes, ClOOCl photolysis under stratospheric conditions modelled in the lab is by a factor 6 lower than previously predicted. So? To quote the abstract of the paper in question: "This large discrepancy calls into question the completeness of present atmospheric models of polar ozone depletion" - true that. At no point, the basic mechanism is questioned, though. To quote the part of Rex' quote you conveniently omitted: "Overwhelming evidence still suggests that anthropogenic emissions of CFCs and halons are the reason for the ozone loss.". In summary - you and the crackpot above take part of the usual scientific process, which is characterized by continuous refinement of models, out of context and construct a fundamental disagreement from it, which never existed in the first place. Basic propaganda tool.
Of course it is correct - in the absence of other evidence. The implication is done by providing the mechanism. So may I suggest the corollary "In the presence of a physically connecting mechanism between two phenomena, correlation does imply causation"?
Maybe your infrastructure just sucks? I live in the first world, personally. In particular, in a country that hasn't let its grid go to shit for some decades. All I see is overcapacities. But you don't really want to argue about the possibility of changing the status quo, you are absolutely convinced that it should not be changed, therefor it CANNOT be changed. When your argument boils down to "electrification of commuter traffic will kill the elderly", well, then you'd better admit that you lost, before you dig yourself deeper into the bullshit.
As for the smoking -> cancer mechanism, large parts of it are known for decades. Polycyclic aromates in the smoke are potent intercalators, which put themselves between basepairs in DNA and mess with replication. Given how fast biochemistry has developed in the last century, that mechanism is positively prehistoric. There are other mechanisms, some of which have been found more recently, but the basics are known for ages.
Naturally that is part of the solution - there is nothing fundamentally impossible about that, though. You just gotta start at some point. Why not start with implementing an electric infrastructure that allows city traffic to go mostly electric. Apart from climate problems, you get the smog shit out of the way, even if you go with coal plants for now - the filtering is way simpler there. Then you can shift to renewables without changing your traffic infrastructure. 2-3 decades, and it can be done without pain.
Nice crackpot you found there. My favourite - his acid rain piece. "Decades of monitoring to detect an effect". Right. Tell that to the deforested mountain ridges in my home county that have recovered just fine after SO2 was essentially removed from coal plant exhaust. As for that nature reference - you conveniently omit that this is not a paper, but a news blurb. Serious papers on the issue? Well, rather thin in that department. I met Paul Crutzen on several occasions and had some nice talks with him. Calling him a tool of special interest lobbying is quite... off the mark.
The causation paper for climate change would win you zilch at all, since the basic mechanism has been published by Arrhenius about 130 years ago. All the open questions are more in the realm of systems theory, not in the realm of basic mechanisms.
Well, for the usual commute, electric cars should do just fine. The only infrastructure update you would probably need are charging ports at all parking lots at your workplace and your home. That should take care of 90% of commutes. The longer-term solution would be rethinking city planning, which way too often is completely focused on cars. I live in a European city which mostly did it right. Living in the city, half an hour commute with public transit and yet, still lots of green areas around my home, so it is not at all some urban wasteland.
The correct form would probably be "correlation does not necessitate causation", while, on the other hand, causation necessitates correlation.
In a nutshell, because the thermal, i.e. kinetic energy of atmospheric molecules is way too high to get separation by weight. They are moving in random directions too fast to settle down. As for the ozone layer being where it is, yes, it is being produced up there. The layer is a dynamic process - ozone being produced from oxygen by UV activation and reacting back. You get the layer at a certain height where you have the right balance of O2 concentration and UV intensity. CFCs are a catalyst that shift that equilibrium to the side of oxygen, removing the conditions that lead to the dynamic formation of the layer in the first place.
The only thing that makes it complicated is the fact that you have to wade through layers upon layers of obfuscation produced by the business-as-usual propaganda machine.
As far as I understand, they don't want to measure dark matter directly, but rather anomalous peaks in the energy spectra of the directly detected cosmic rays that are predicted by certain theories about dark matter, in particular, effects of neutralino-neutralion collisions, that would result in detectable particles at certain energies.