Powerline Pic

The choices this week were so many and so good, I could hardly choose one. So you should go there to see for yourself ... see: This Week in Pictures.

Settled Science

Einstein was a very bright fellow. He understood that science is never settled ... old theories will forever be replaced by newer, more informed ones. Therefore Galileo’s notion of gravity as a simple undiscriminating force of nature, later updated by Newton’s Law which included relative masses, could be debunked by calling it a “warp in the space-time continuum.” Sometime in the future, Einstein will be debunked by some upstart scientist ... an on and on into the indefinite future.

Is this wrong? Why can’t science be forever settled? Simple. Because we keep discovering new things. Darwin is being relegated to the dustbin of history by advances in DNA science. So is Freud by advances in brain science. And so will be other Nobel Prize winning scientist for as long as these Norwegians believe that we have found the ultimate answer to anything “scientific.” (Global warming?)

And this is not bad. It is the way science works ... and will continue to work. The thing that might worry me is what happens when scientists get it wrong. Did we really understand everything about nuclear fission before we tested that first A-bomb? I kind of doubt it ... but the best minds turned out to be right enough that we didn’t annihilate ourselves.

But there are many things about atomic energy production that we still don’t understand. Does this mean we should stop our quest for harnessing this fundamental energy source? Of course not! But we should insist that we not rush into (or away from) scientific conclusions based upon any uninformed political motivations.

Know what I mean?

A Few Observations

From the daily timewaster blog:

- If global warming is “settled science,” then all those climate alarmists should not need any more research grants

- All those blackouts now occurring in California are nothing but beta testing for the “Green New Deal.”

-The next time that the NBA plays a game in Red China ... are any players going to “take a knee” when the Chinese national anthem is being played?

Grain of Salt

Anyone who is not skeptical about "settled science" is, let's be frank, a motley fool ... a court jester ... a country bumpkin. My hackles get turgid every time I hear politicians use this term ... and when "scientists" use it, I want to slit my wrists, or rather figuratively  theirs.

There has been no scientific finding that has not been later modified or even reversed, Salt (sodium) causes high blood pressure ... NOT ... see:  Salt Is Good For You. Eating fat causes heart attacks ... NOT ... see:  Fat Is Good For You. CO2 causes global warming. I know that this "settled science" canard cannot be an absolute truth because the Ice Age melted without the help of this vital gas. Yes, carbon dioxide is introduced into greenhouses to stimulate plant growth and it can increase the temperature slightly. But the Earth is not an enclosed greenhouse and likely dozens of things are raising and lowering the temperature on our planet besides CO2. And Weird Al Gore now wants 15 trillion dollars to save our planet! What poppycock!

Yes, I have to be consistent and say that science may eventually tilt back to showing the "alarmists" might be right ... but somehow I doubt it without stronger evidence than now is being put forward by these greedy charlatans ... whose computer models don't work and who fudge their data. We likely will never know for absolute certainty what causes our climate to change ... and, if we ever do, I doubt if we might be able to fix things (let's make the sun less hot) ... particularly since, if this "science" proved to be wrong, we might be committing Earthly suicide.

So relax boys and girls ... take every "scientific" pronouncement with a grain of salt ... and don't fool with Mother Nature without a lot more evidence than is now being offered by this settled science.

The Cookie Crumbles

Judith Curry, a tenured professor and Chairman of the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Science at George Tech, is quitting the battlefield. This cookie has been castigated and cursed by her peers for now being a sceptic of the "science" behind the global-warming mania ... read her professional obit here: The Powerline Blog. And so she has to be crushed.

She once was a member of the 98% "consensus" on climate change ... but has had the scales fall from her eyes and is now one of the 2% of scientists who doubt this climate-change hokum is "settled science." So another quiet heroine is being burned at the stake of "carbon dioxide is a pollutant."

Little by little the Church of Climate Change is loosing membership as many of its wild-eyed prophesies are not coming true and the polar bears refuse to die off. I think that the upcoming confirmation hearings of Donald Trump's appointments might be the death knell of these carbon crunching moonbats (except maybe Rex Tillerson).

We can hope ...

Afterward: See also: The Daily Caller Interview.

Settled Science

Over 97% of 250 doctors and surgeons who answered an American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) survey concerning Hellery Clinton's health ... answered that they did not believe that such questions were politically motivated ... meaning that only 3% thought that they were. The remaining answers were either definitive in saying that they were seriously concerned about Clinton's health (71%) or that concerns may be overblown but still should cause her health records to be made public (20%) or had no opinion (6%) ... see: PR Newswire Story.

Given these percentages, can we then conclude that Hellary is very likely having serious-enough health problems that they should be publicly revealed. And can we say that this is ... "settled science"?

Settled Science

Obummer has repeatedly quoted that false narrative that 97% of scientists think that there is man-made global warming and therefore "the science is settled" ...  a quote meant to be echoed in the main-stream media in order to shut up the deniers of this clap trap. Such drivel drives true scientists up the wall because they know that there never is any science that is truly "settled." This is not the true nature of science. New information continually causes science to review previous axioms to see if they still hold up ... which often they don't.

Now 300 scientists and economists have signed a letter to NOAA, the keeper of  the primary global temperature data, demanding that it release their undoctored data. This is so other unbiased scientists can use this data use to check the results of the inner circle of those claiming that the Earth is warming ... see: Daily Caller Article.

And this is also because it has recently been revealed that this data has been corrupted by these government "scientists" who felt that they needed to "adjust" this data so that it would agree wth their foregone conclusions. These  conclusions are being refuted by actual results which are not agreeing with their computer models. In other words, if the data does not support the "science," change the data. This is a profound corruption of the scientific method and hiding the original primary data from the rest of the scientific world corrupts this corruption.

More interestingly, since 288 of these 300 letter signers are true scientists, if they perhaps were the full contingent of the 3% deniers in Obummer's oft-repeated quote, the the other 97% would represent 9,600 other scientists who unequivocally support this global warming fiction. It would be very nice and very scientific if Obummer would produce a list of these 9,600 "settled" scientists.

From the People ...

Who brought you global warming. 

John Podesta is leaving the White House after over a year heading up the president’s effort to combat global warming. Isn’t it just a little ironic that the man who claims that global warming is “settled science,” also believes in UFOs and space aliens … see: Yahoo News Story. And for further background, see: CBS News Story.

Podesta’s next gig is as a member of Hillary Clinton’s posse … perhaps to work on her campaign … perhaps to beam her up.

Hogwash!

At one of my regular blog stops, Watts Up With That, its most recent entry explores the surprising role that diatoms play in regulating the temperature of our planet. This was discovered at the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research in Germany. This gist of the article is in the first paragraph:

Diatoms play an important role in water quality and in the global climate. They generate about one fourth of the oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere and perform around one-quarter of the global CO² assimilation, i.e. they convert carbon dioxide into organic substances. Their light receptors are a crucial factor in this process. Researchers at the Leipzig University and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research have now discovered that blue and red light sensing photoreceptors control the carbon flow in these algae. These results have been recently published by the scientists in the well-known online trade journal, PLOS ONE

For the scientifically inclined, to explore the details of this new discovery further see: Watts Up With That.

Moreover, there is one comment on this post that I found particularly interesting and it was written by Willis Eschenbach. He stated on October 20, 2014 at 3:59 pm:

A most excellent post, Anthony. I’ve long held that the ocean conditions don’t determine life, it works the other way around—life determines the ocean conditions.

In addition to making lots of oxygen, phytoplankton (microscopic floating ocean plants) have some hidden effects. 

First, where there is no phytoplankton, the water is clear, and all of the absorbed solar energy is converted into heat. But when there is a lot of phytoplankton, much of the absorbed solar energy is not converted into heat. Instead, it is used in the making and breaking of chemical bonds, and in growing plant mass. 

Now, to be sure, this energy is eventually reconverted into heat, it’s the nature of entropy … but that may not happen at the surface of the ocean. It may happen, for example, in the abyss. In the abyss, there is a constant rain of organic stuff, bits and pieces of everything from phytoplankton to zooplankton to small fish to whales. When this organic detritus decomposes, it releases the energy it contained, energy it absorbed near the surface … but it releases it at the bottom of the ocean. In addition, some of the energy is used to create gases (including both oxygen and CO2) that leave the ocean entirely. So when that oxygen rusts a bit of iron at a later date, the energy is released on land rather than in the ocean. 

Next, phytoplankton significantly change the vertical thermal structure of the ocean. Phytoplankton are plants, so as one might expect, they are all in competition for the light. As a result, they are thickest right at the surface. This means that instead of the solar energy warming the lower part of the mixed layer, it is absorbed right at the surface. So plankton make the surface warmer and the subsurface cooler. 

Next, he ability of ocean diatoms to utilize both red and blue light, while surprising, is logical. Every diver knows that the blue light penetrates deeply, but the red light is absorbed nearer the surface … so much so that if you cut yourself at depth, you bleed green. Since the competition is at the surface, we’d expect to find the diatoms using the abundant red light. But of course they need to be able to survive the times when they are deeper and get only blue light. The article says that in blue light they photosynthesize but they don’t grow … so they are “hibernating” when they are down deeper. Another unknown aspect of this marvelous world. 

Finally, an oddity. Plankton emit dimethylsulfide (DMS). This, in turn, forms cloud condensation nuclei, which favors the formation of clouds … how curious, that the smallest plants in the ocean should be able to affect the rate of cloud formation. And of course, the more light striking the surface, the warmer it is, the more DMS is produced … another lovely example of thermal regulation by emergent phenomena, in this case the emergent phenomenon we call “life”. There’s a good discussion of DMS and plankton here. To me, this is the best part of the extremely young and unsettled science of climate. There is something new to be learned every day. 

My best to all, w.

And for those climate prelates among us who are constantly proselytizing and who usually start their sermons by saying that climate change is “settled science,” I have but one word.

Hogwash!