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Timini Cricket

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Posts posted by Timini Cricket

    Any idea what's causing this CO2 etc. plume @480+ppm?

    in Space, Science & nature

    Posted

    Thanks BFTV, Flicking through the timeframes on the earth.nullschool.net atmospheric chem view in the Northern territories and Western  Australian outback there are several ongoing SO2 plumes at surface level, but only the one I indicated had high CO and CO2 levels too - I guess there must have been a lot of old standing Eucalyptus timber burning, relative to the other sites, where they were likely to be predominantly bushfires on younger, shorter growth nearer to the ground where the sulphur sources would be found.

    Any idea what's causing this CO2 etc. plume @480+ppm?

    in Space, Science & nature

    Bárðarbunga and Askja - Volcanic Activity

    in Space, Science & nature

    Posted

    Apart from the fireworks, vedur.is has published a full preview of a paper on:

     

    Volcanic system: Bárðarbunga system

    Alternative name: Veiðivötn system
    Compiled by:
    Gudrún Larsen and Magnús T. Gudmundsson
    Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Iceland
     
     
    note and summary:
     
    Note to readers: The text on Bárðarbunga is a pre-publication extract from the Catalogue of Icelandic 
    Volcanoes. The full Catalogue will be made publically available in the coming months. The Catalogue of 
    Icelandic Volcanoes is a collaboration of Icelandic Meteorological Office, Institute of Earth Sciences University 
    of Iceland, and Iceland Civil Protection. The Catalogue is funded by International Civil Aviation Authority and 
    the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme under Grant Agreement No. 308377 (Project 
    FUTUREVOLC). 
    Date of publication: 25 August 2014
    Summary: The Bárðarbunga volcanic system has been highly active in the Holocene with at least 26 eruptions in 
    the last 11 centuries. The last eruption took place in 1910 CE. The Bárðarbunga system lies on the Eastern 
    Volcanic Zone and is about 190 km long and up to 25 km wide, consisting of a central volcano rising to 2009 m 
    a.s.l. and a fissure swarm partly covered by the Vatnajökull ice cap. The central volcano has an 80 km2
    ice-filled caldera. The characteristic activity is explosive basaltic eruptions occurring on central volcano flanks or the 
    fissure swarm. Known eruptions have mostly been VEI 3-4 but occasionally VEI 5-6 (bulk volume of tephra up 
    to 10 km3). The largest eruptions occurred in the early Holocene, effusive basaltic eruptions on the fissure swarm 
    with lava volumes ≥20 km3.Eruption frequency during the last 1100 years is 1 eruption per 50 years on average. 
    Eruptions on the ice covered part of the system have the potential to cause major floods in several rivers flowing 
    southwards and northwards from the Vatnajökull ice cap. 

     

     

    Miscellaneous weather photos

    in Archived weather photography area

    Posted

    Here's an example of a cloud that I fail to understand the  reasons for it being so grey:

     

    Posted Image

     

    The view is looking north towards the south downs from Portsea Island (Portsmouth), 1:50pm July16 2014. The sky is brilliantly clear overhead, with just a few thin cirrus over towards the north, and hot sunshine behind the photographer. Yet these more distant clouds are fringed (on all edges, top and bottom) with dark grey, and there is no indication that they are bathed in sunlight, as they surely must be, since there are no other clouds between these and the sun. 

     

    So I am wondering if anyone can explain how the illusion works?

    Warm SE Pacific to blame for stormy winter?

    in Spring Weather Discussion

    Posted

    I've never had the physics explained, of the supposed ability of the jet stream to influence the movement and variation in the weather systems of the lower troposphere.

     

    How can a phenomenon with high speeds in the near friction-free thin atmosphere at around 250 millibar (i.e. with 75% of the atmospheric column below it and upwards of 20% of the atmosphere above), at a temperature of around minus 40 C, contain enough energy to influence the planetary boundary layer with the necessary friction that the dense atmosphere near the surface imposes on the topology of the surface features?

     

    I can understand that this feature is easier to model computationally, and thus to extrapolate to the motions  of the lower troposphere for forecasting models, but surely it is the energetic features below that impart a little of their energy to the layer below the tropopause, rather  than the other way around?

     

    Like cracking a whip - the tip may break the sound barrier, but the arm that wields it supplies the much greater force that powers it!

    • Like 1

    Plate Tectonics and Earth's Climate...

    in Climate Change

    Posted

    For on moment, imagine if the earth had 2 suns.

     

    One, the one we know so well, which is the source of all of our incident energy, more or less, 93 million miles away, radiating with a surface temperature of 5 to 6 thousand deg C.

     

    The other one, with apparent diameter from earth, and apparent temperature the same, but where the moon is, a quarter of a million miles away, orbiting just like the moon does.

     

    How would that change the conditions on earth? Twice as much incoming energy, but with a highly variable frequency of irradiation.

     

    Now instead of where the moon is, move that glowing sphere of energy, radiating with the black body temperature of an estimated 5 to 6 thousand deg C to about 2,000 miles away from every point on the earth's surface.

     

    The only way to do that is to move it inside the earth.

     

    Hang on though, it's there already!

     

    If  you had created a vertical shaft 2,000 miles deep, the surface at the bottom would glow like the sun.

     

    It is estimated at that temperature because the pressure, density and physical characteristics suggest a solid core of iron and nickel and a fluid core surrounding it of iron and nickel with some oxide and silicate components helping to keep it fluid like a solderer's flux.

     

    Its been there for 4.5 billion years, cooling at a rate of perhaps a degree or less per century, but also has an energy source of an unknown quantity of fissile nuclear fuel keeping it hot, according to all the estimates that have been made, meaning that the data we have about it is actually quite sparse.

     

    That this is a negligible source of heating at the surface (or any number of points near the surface) is just as much of an educated guess.

     

    It could be described as a large known unknown.

     

    The IPCC does not figure it is worthy of a mention in the current climate analysis.

    • Like 1

    Did the Russian Meteor lead to a cold Arctic this year?

    in Climate Change

    Posted

    Since 2005, The American Meteor Society has kept logs of fireball sightings reported in to them:

     

    http://www.amsmeteors.org/fireballs/fireball-report/

     

    lots of good information there

     

    post-11725-0-32802400-1380896145_thumb.p (2013 to date)

    2005	467	2006	517	2007	591	2008	730	2009	699	2010	954	2011	1636	2012	2145	2013	2250	pending	201

    This indicates an almost five-fold increase in sightings over the last 8 years. Why would this be?

     

    More fireballs or more observer-hours watching the skies? It is certainly easier to communicate to report by mobile phone/internet services, so there may be some observational bias here.

     

    More fireballs is also possible - more satellite debris falling to earth would increase fireball numbers, or is our region of space just getting dirtier? Is the solar system passing through a debris cloud?

     

    NLC -noctilucent clouds, Polar Mesospheric clouds have been linked to meteor burn-up debris or meteor smoke as nuclei for formation, and have been increasingly observed over the past few years. http://www.spaceclouds.info/ for lots more info, incl Chelyabinsk and Volcanic effects. 

     

    (Megatonne explosion = equivalent weight of TNT to get that explosive effect, and is nothing to to with the mass of the object as it enters the atmosphere.)

     

    Pull Up A Chair And Relax For A Bit

    in Climate Change

    Posted

    The BBC IPlayer has a treat for Archaeology Buffs here:

     

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/collections/p018818x/archaeology-at-the-bbc

     

    Featuring the oh-so BBC presentation and style of early TV, with characters such as Sir Mortimer Wheeler, and a young Magnus Magnusson. Of course the programmes are historical features in themselves, with live recordings, BBC English plummy dialogue, 4:3 ratio, black and white, and 405 lines, but none the less still enjoyable IMHO.

     

    I particularly enjoyed the following from 1954:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01819j0/Buried_Treasure_The_Peat_Bog_Murder_Mystery/

    - not least for the Bronze Age cooking spot and a fashion show featuring a rather embarrassed young model trying to hide her long legs in a very short Norse number that would not be reprised until the mid nineteen sixties!

     

    But there are 24 to choose from altogether...

    • Like 1

    What Springlike Signs Have You Seen?

    in Space, Science & nature

    Posted

    It's the best mushroom spring for many years. Fairy Ring Champignons, St Georges Mushroom, Blewits and the first Horse Mushroom of 2012 have appeared in the local playing fields of West London, and ended up in soups, fry-ups and preserved in jars of oil. Collecting well over a pound weight a day for the last week. All easy to find because of the rings of lush grass giving away the position of the mushrooms, even if hidden by the grass.

    Mostly due to the rains in April and May, but also due to the warm March kick-start. The cool damp weather keeps the fungus flies at bay too. Just hope the council grasscutters keep off too!

    Near Earth Asteroid Visible In Daylight

    in Space, Science & nature

    Posted

    Interesting density though - perhaps Iron/Nickel enriched with Iridium?

    Just done the sums - it would have to be about 17% iridium, if the nickel : iron ratio were about 1 : 4 - to give a density of 10.5 - that of silver.

    It would be worth about £5Trillion, about five times more than if made of solid silver.

    Now that it is on an earth-grazing orbit out to the asteroid belt, we may meet again...

    Near Earth Asteroid Visible In Daylight

    in Space, Science & nature

    Posted

    I don't see it myself - JPL ephemeris (set for Greenwich Observatory) puts its apparent magnitude at about 12 - hardly a daylight object. Typically a good pair of 7X50 binoculars just make out objects with apparent magnitude of 9 under excellent viewing conditions. During daylight, it is just possible to make out objects as bright as Venus, and the crescent moon for a day or so around new moon, but you do have to know the exact place to look. The only other daylight visible objects have been comets, and Mercury (in transit across the face of the sun).



    Date__(UT)__HR:MN	R.A._(ICRF/J2000.0)_DEC  APmag		 delta	  deldot	S-O-T /r	S-T-O
    *******************************************************************************************************
    $$SOE
    2012-Mar-31 16:00 *m  09 41 55.26 -14 13 35.7  13.92 0.00387334102614  -7.9390510 134.8241 /T  45.0175
    2012-Mar-31 17:00 *m  09 44 55.01 -15 18 29.2  13.80 0.00368345834323  -7.8363924 135.3445 /T  44.5062
    2012-Mar-31 18:00 *m  09 48 09.73 -16 29 59.0  13.67 0.00349636707492  -7.7071774 135.8719 /T  43.9876
    2012-Mar-31 19:00 Cm  09 51 43.21 -17 48 54.3  13.54 0.00331269976896  -7.5520104 136.4056 /T  43.4626
    2012-Mar-31 20:00 Am  09 55 40.53 -19 16 11.1  13.40 0.00313307194138  -7.3716350 136.9444 /T  42.9321
    2012-Mar-31 21:00  m  10 00 08.33 -20 52 53.4  13.26 0.00295808399731  -7.1664796 137.4858 /T  42.3987
    2012-Mar-31 22:00  m  10 05 15.22 -22 40 13.6  13.12 0.00278833523160  -6.9361104 138.0244 /T  41.8679
    2012-Mar-31 23:00  m  10 11 12.36 -24 39 32.9  12.97 0.00262445190980  -6.6786122 138.5486 /T  41.3510
    2012-Apr-01 00:00  m  10 18 14.14 -26 52 19.1  12.82 0.00246713080448  -6.3899302 139.0377 /T  40.8688
    2012-Apr-01 01:00  m  10 26 39.29 -29 20 02.0  12.68 0.00231719847791  -6.0632333 139.4559 /T  40.4570
    2012-Apr-01 02:00  m  10 36 52.40 -32 04 02.1  12.53 0.00217568459770  -5.6884074 139.7459 /T  40.1729
    2012-Apr-01 03:00	 10 49 26.07 -35 05 08.6  12.39 0.00204390402510  -5.2518754 139.8218 /T  40.1020
    2012-Apr-01 04:00 A   11 05 03.71 -38 23 00.0  12.27 0.00192353613536  -4.7370759 139.5639 /T  40.3642
    2012-Apr-01 05:00 N   11 24 42.69 -41 54 58.5  12.16 0.00181667979585  -4.1261027 138.8214 /T  41.1098
    2012-Apr-01 06:00 *   11 49 35.98 -45 34 33.2  12.09 0.00172584896602  -3.4030900 137.4300 /T  42.5030
    >>>>>
    2012-Apr-01 07:00 *   12 21 07.10 -49 09 19.9  12.06 0.00165386218831  -2.5596331 135.2498 /T  44.6836
    <<<<<
    2012-Apr-01 08:00 *   13 00 26.30 -52 19 36.0  12.08 0.00160358335047  -1.6014580 132.2151 /L  47.7172
    2012-Apr-01 09:00 *   13 47 34.04 -54 39 47.5  12.15 0.00157751156833  -0.5536921 128.3760 /L  51.5537
    2012-Apr-01 10:00 *   14 40 07.31 -55 45 48.3  12.28 0.00157730106372   0.5392331 123.9037 /L  56.0220
    2012-Apr-01 11:00 *   15 33 15.71 -55 26 54.0  12.45 0.00160337607247   1.6214332 119.0526 /L  60.8679
    2012-Apr-01 12:00 *   16 21 53.51 -53 52 26.9  12.67 0.00165480865144   2.6387033 114.0970 /L  65.8174
    2012-Apr-01 13:00 *m  17 03 08.12 -51 25 49.3  12.92 0.00172951171156   3.5504221 109.2724 /L  70.6351
    2012-Apr-01 14:00 *m  17 36 38.85 -48 32 19.2  13.19 0.00182464589964   4.3349194 104.7439 /L  75.1561
    2012-Apr-01 15:00 *m  18 03 27.25 -45 31 30.1  13.46 0.00193706832504   4.9879385 100.6035 /L  79.2885
    2012-Apr-01 16:00 *m  18 24 54.86 -42 35 40.1  13.73 0.00206369240145   5.5174307  96.8849 /L  82.9989
    2012-Apr-01 17:00 *m  18 42 14.70 -39 51 19.2  14.00 0.00220171345150   5.9380446  93.5830 /L  86.2922
    2012-Apr-01 18:00 *m  18 56 24.10 -37 21 09.8  14.25 0.00234871696058   6.2670169  90.6718 /L  89.1948
    2012-Apr-01 19:00 Cm  19 08 05.85 -35 05 40.9  14.50 0.00250270805131   6.5216962  88.1153 /L  91.7425
    2012-Apr-01 20:00 Am  19 17 51.46 -33 04 11.2  14.73 0.00266209717063   6.7182885  85.8756 /L  93.9734
    2012-Apr-01 21:00  m  19 26 04.16 -31 15 26.9  14.94 0.00282566511552   6.8713218  83.9160 /L  95.9241

    Interesting density though perhaps Iron/Nickel enriched with Iridium?

    Earth May Have Had Two Moons

    in Space, Science & nature

    Posted · Edited by Timini Cricket

    Do we need another speculative hypothesis?

    I believe that the moon has been tidally locked so that the nearside permanently faces the earth for the greater part of the roughly 4-4.5 billion years since the earth-moon system originated, by whatever mechanism, in the early solar system. It is a necessary result of the fluid nature of the earth's mantle, crust, oceans and atmosphere causing tidal braking on the more rigid, solid, moon.*

    If one moon is gaining height due to the effects of tidal braking, why is not the other moon moving to a higher orbit too?

    I thought that the earthwards side of the moon was less pock-marked and rubble-strewn because any space rocks on a direct collision course would hit the much bigger target of the earth either first, or instead of the moon, or be perturbed in their motion by the earth's gravitational pull, missing completely. Of course the spacewards side would get anything hitting it and stuff attracted to earth from that direction as well if the moon got in the way.

    Also the denser basaltic maria remain facing the earth for the same tidal locking reason - think of the centre of gravity of an object being at its most stable when the mass is at the base - nearest the earth, with the less dense crustal rocks on the opposite face. This is not because the maria were formed before the tidal locking took place - they formed much later.

    *Synchronous rotation of 1:1 per orbital period is the lowest energy configuration for a tidally locked body.

    Mercury also is tidally locked with the rapidly rotating, fluid sun, but the planet is "nudged" by the tides caused by the gas giant planets to provide a 2:3 orbital resonance and a rather eccentric orbit.

    I was always amazed by the lack of violent collisions in the solar system. Except for the comets, almost everything is on a fairly stable, and often complex, orbit, and when things do fall into bigger objects, they tend to do so on slowly decaying orbits. Even in stable orbits, a satellite is in free-fall towards the main gravitational attractor, held in orbit by the centripetal force acting on the angular momentum of the mass of the satellite, and not a "centrifugal" force. That's why astronauts spend their time on the ISS floating around weightless, and not peeling themselves off the ceiling of the ISS, as they would if there was any "centrifugal" force involved.

    Even sun-grazing comets are only rarely observed in apparent impact, and Shoemaker-Levy was also a rare event.

    Up In The Atmosphere

    in Climate Change

    Posted · Edited by Timini Cricket

    Ozone has a short half life, especially in the presence of water and organic matter, a few minutes at ambient temperature, before it oxidises some reduced substance ( e.g. an incompletely oxidised hydrocarbon) or forms hydroxyl free radicals with water. Despite a continuous cycle of production from chemical sources, electrical ionisation and radiation, below 12 Km, ozone is so transient as to have negligible effects on the long wave radiation in the Troposphere, compared to the major component greenhouse gases.

    In the Stratosphere, it's half-life is also quite short due to thermal decomposition, but measured in units of a few days near the Stratopause at 270K, up to months near the colder Tropopause at about 220K.

    As well as screening the more active solar ultraviolet radiation wavelengths, the Ozone layer absorbs solar infrared too in the complex series of photo- and thermo-chemical reactions of the Chapman cycle, and little if any of this part of the longer wave solar spectrum directly reaches the troposphere. Atmospheric chemists usually like to discount the thermal part of the reaction by invoking an entity "M" which stands for "a molecule that carries off the excess heat", a sort of a non-specific catalyst. This is a peculiar kludge by chemists, who are usually as obsessive as accountants in making their books or equations balance. :)

    edit to make quotation marks balance!

    New Research

    in Climate Change

    Posted · Edited by Timini Cricket

    To quote the authors of the Lloyds report :

    "This report shows that climate trends can be hidden unless the data is analysed at an appropriate granularity."

    They then go on to show how easily data may be plausibly obfuscated to provide a slant on the climate to their own organization's advantage.

    Lloyds are kind enough to publish their Spreadsheet from which some of these statistics are derived here. (Sadly, they do not archive their entire or raw data.)

    Of the "Extreme Rainfall" events analysed, 7/10 occurred within the 20-year period 1958 -1979, and the remaining 3/10 occurred in the 10 years between 1992 and 2003. Their "granular analysis" approach does not seem to take into account the random clumping in time such events seem to possess. (It is also not pointed out that all these events occur from June to September (isolated thunderstorms, perhaps?), yet much is made in the paper of the analysis of seasonal and annual rainfall statistics.)

    The researchers could have made their case so much more convincing if they had chosen the period 1909 - 1957, with zero extreme rainfall events over 45mm, and contrasted that with the 48 years from 1958 - 2006 with ten extreme rainfall events! Infinity percent over 96 years is so much more convincing that just 900% over 92! The next 48 years may perhaps see Lloyds moving from their EC3 City address to somewhere less flood-prone, such as NW3, Hampstead? Not on the basis of this study.

    All in all this pamphlet shows what Lloyds stockholders will want to hear, that more can (and will) be "justifiably" charged for premiums depending on the effects of severe weather, whatever the actual current trends show. This is exactly what may be expected from a financial institution with vested interests, but it is not a valid piece of scientific analysis.

    Ain't statistics marvellous?

    Day . Month . Year .. Amount (mm)

    12 ... 7 ... 1908 ... 51.3 ..... (not within analysis period)

    5 .... 9 ... 1958 ... 55.9 ..... (in 1915-1960 analysis data)

    3 .... 9 ... 1965 ... 79.0 ..... (in 1961-2006 analysis data)

    14 ... 9 ... 1968 ... 97.5 .......... "

    15 ... 9 ... 1968 ... 47.0 .......... "

    7 .... 8 ... 1970 ... 45.5 .......... "

    20 ... 9 ... 1973 ... 48.8 .......... "

    31 ... 7 ... 1978 ... 48.8 .......... "

    9 .... 6 ... 1992 ... 78.5 .......... "

    10 ... 8 ... 1994 ... 58.5 .......... "

    2 .... 9 ... 2002 ... 49.0 .......... "

    • Like 1

    Sea Surface Temperatures

    in Spring Weather Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Timini Cricket

    Hi

    I've been keeping my eye on the North Sea surface temperatures for the last week now on the BOSS4GMES site(http://project.ncof....p?indicator=sst ) and up until the 6th of December there appeared to be cooling of the North Sea then the temperatures have shot up.

    What could be causing the temperatures to rise so rapidly?

    Possibly the snow that fell on the channel and North Sea did cool the SSTs a little in the short term, but the scale change certainly makes it look dramatic. Certainly a lot of precipitation just missed the south coast travelling westwards. It's an interesting website though, Spawney, but where did you obtain the animation - I can't find it?

    Some charts from the same site:

    The SST anomaly for this area shows a definite downward trend over the last few years, and we have already beaten the low set earlier this year:

    Posted Image

    As does the heat content time series:

    Posted Image

    It's a very short time series, but the spring heat content has been steadily decreasing over the past 3 seasons. Autumn heat content held up until last year, but this year is decreasing too. is this a sign of things to come?

    Is Netweather.tv Accessing Your Computer? Big Brother Is Looking!

    in Help, support and feedback

    Posted

    I don't get any ads here, and very few anywhere else. Some ads out there can provide unwanted gifts, even without you clicking on them. I am not in any way saying that Netweather ad links are harmful, but there are many unscrupulous malware ads about.There is a site named Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File. Note the "related utilities" section for some easy to use options.

    You can inspect your own hosts file at %WINDIR%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts (hosts is a textfile without extension that will open in notepad), if you have XP or later and at ./etc/hosts on a linux system (usually the same unix location on Mac OS X, but it is more complicated to edit it, I am told.) (you could also copy C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts to a new tab in your browser, using your browser as a textfile reader)

    The hosts file act like a local proxy server. If a website directs your browser to visit an advert link, the host file directs that link to your loopback address (localhost, 127.0.0.1), which of course is not usually* a website with content. So it sends back a blank, which the browser ignores. The worst that can happen is a "site not found" message in the placemarker for the ad. There is also the possibility that the occasional link to a googleads etc., site that you want to visit is blocked, but you can delete or "comment out" that entry in your hosts file.

    Blocking ads with a hosts file speeds you up, since the local lookup of the hosts file is almost instant, it is much quicker to load webpages that do not have to gather images from all over the internet to fill those ads. Older systems with small amounts of memory (WinME, Win9x, Win2k) can be slowed up by large (500kb) hosts files, but this is unlikely in modern systems.

    *you could run a rudimentary website on your local system and use hosts to redirect all sites to its address - it could just say "blocked!"

    New Iceage? Much Evidence? - Global Cooling

    in Climate Change

    Posted · Edited by Timini Cricket

    Thanks for the figures Ice. I must say I can't see how the UHI argument works given the satellites are in such close agreement with the surface record.

    It's also interesting to be looking at such data again. It really speaks for itself.

    No-one doubts the UHI phenomenon is real and measurable. If the satellites record the whole land surface temperatures, they presumably record the UHI increased temperatures too (how could they exclude them?). If in agreement with surface measurements, those surface data must, by inference, be UHI contaminated too, despite the homogenisation etc.

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