Filed under: A Curiosity for a Friday
The far side (left) does not look like the near side (right) there are no maria or “seas” on the far side.
For 55 years some people have wondered why the near and far side of the moon look so different. (I can’t say it had occurred to me, but the answer is very cool anyway.) The far side of the moon has none of the dark flatter pans or seas called maria – instead it is covered from top to bottom with craters.
What I find even more amazing is that the Earth and Moon have been locked in an orbital dance where the same side of the moon always faces the Earth, round and round, and it goes on for billions of years. (Yes, and how do they know, I also wonder, but there is an answer below.) In any case, here’s a new theory that might explain the difference between the near and far sides. It’s very neat.
The Earth and Moon have a rather extraordinary relationship. Not long ago we heard how the gravitational tidal forces between them are so strong it causes tidal bulges in the rock of the moon that lifts moon-rock by 50cm in a roaming bulge that follows the Earth. And we know the Moon causes a daily shift in 70% of the matter on the Earth’s surface.
A Mars-sized impact may have formed the moon.
But as you ponder this intricate relationship of Moon and Earth, remember the moon definitely does not affect Earth’s climate. I know because a CMIP5 climate model told me so…
(By the way, the far side is also called the dark side, which doesn’t make much sense in the usual meaning of “dark” because it is not dark to sunlight, just to all eyes on Earth.)
[PENN STATE press release a few weeks ago]
This mystery is called the Lunar Farside Highlands Problem and dates back to 1959, when the Soviet spacecraft Luna 3 transmitted the first images of the dark side of the moon back to Earth.
The new idea that the strange difference in the near and far side started right at the beginning. If the Moon was made when a Mars size body smacked into Earth — the reasoning is that it would have left them both hot – as in 2,500C hot. The Earth and Moon became locked together in orbit from the start, with the same side of the moon facing Earth – and the molten minerals gradually were sorted into a gradient. It’s a bit of a supersized centrifuge — eventually the far side of the moon had more aluminium and calcium. The story goes that side would have cooled and hardened first with a thicker crust because the Earth heated the near side a bit more, or just slowed the cooling — like a kind of Earthshine effect. Then when meteors hit the thinner crust on the near side, lava welled out into big flat pools forming the maria.
Look, it sounds believeable. Who knows? I’m just drawn to the big ponderables…
The Earth and the impact object did not just melt; parts of them vaporized, creating a disk of rock, magma and vapor around the Earth.
“The moon and Earth loomed large in each others skies when they formed, ” said Roy.
The geometry was similar to the rocky exoplanets recently discovered very close to their stars, said Wright. The moon was 10 to 20 times closer to Earth than it is now, and the researchers found that it quickly assumed a tidally locked position with the rotation time of the moon equal to the orbital period of the moon around the Earth. The same real estate on the moon has probably always faced the Earth ever since. Tidal locking is a product of the gravity of both objects.
The moon, being much smaller than Earth cooled more quickly. Because the Earth and the moon were tidally locked from the beginning, the still hot Earth — more than 2500 degrees Celsius — radiated towards the near side of the moon. The far side, away from the boiling Earth, slowly cooled, while the Earth-facing side was kept molten creating a temperature gradient between the two halves.
This gradient was important for crustal formation on the moon. The moon’s crust has high concentrations of aluminum and calcium, elements that are very hard to vaporize.
“When rock vapor starts to cool, the very first elements that snow out are aluminum and calcium,” said Sigurdsson.
Aluminum and calcium would have preferentially condensed in the atmosphere of the cold side of the moon because the nearside was still too hot. Thousands to millions of years later, these elements combined with silicates in the moon’s mantle to form plagioclase feldspars, which eventually moved to the surface and formed the moon’s crust, said Roy. The farside crust had more of these minerals and is thicker.
The moon has now completely cooled and is not molten below the surface. Earlier in its history, large meteoroids struck the nearside of the moon and punched through the crust, releasing the vast lakes of basaltic lava that formed the nearside maria that make up the man in the moon. When meteoroids struck the farside of the moon, in most cases the crust was too thick and no magmatic basalt welled up, creating the dark side of the moon with valleys, craters and highlands, but almost no maria.
The NASA Astrobiology Institute and the Pennsylvania State Astrobiology Research Center supported this work.
Researcher Jason Wright has more on his blog about this:
So, bottom line:
1) The Moon has probably always had the same face towards the Earth, even during formation.
2) The Moon’s formation was a messy business, with vapor phase likely to have been important.
3) Earthshine was an important component of thermal energy budget of the post-giant-impact system, and should have produced a chemical gradient in the protolunar nebula and proto-lunar atmosphere.
4) The present-day chemical dichotomy on the Moon looks an awful lot like the result of the condensation gradient one expects from Earthshine.
5) The lunar farside highlands are the result of a primordial chemical gradient caused by tidal locking and the temperature gradient caused by the hot post-impact Earth and, possibly, the shadow proto-Moon.
Wright also goes into detail about why he is sure it was tidally locked from the beginning.
The tidal locking timescale goes as the sixth power of the distance between the Moon and Earth, so when it formed it was very strongly tidally damped. The would have lost an e-folding of rotational energy every 100 days or so, and since this less than the time it took to form, the moon essentially formed tidally locked. Unless a subsequent impact spun it up (or down) again, the Moon has always had the same side facing the Earth!
The moon has no effect on the climate (…models)
Lunar effects are not considered in the Solar Model, nor in any GCM. We don’t know if either would perform better with some lunar forcing. The connection between these bodies seems very strong for those orbital patterns not to have some possible effect on our climate.
And on that note, see Ian Wilson’s idea: Can the Moon change our climate? Can tides in the atmosphere solve the mystery of ENSO?
REFERENCE
Here is Arpita’s paper (Roy, Wright & Sigurðsson 2014, ApJL 788, L42). It is also at astro-ph/1406.2020.
The earth offers some protection to the near side taking some hits that would otherwise be direct impacts on the moon.
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That what came to me as well. It seems to be the simplest solution.
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Or perhaps the opposite the moon has been taking hits that would be devastating to Earth?
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That works too.
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I learned that at school in the UK 60 years ago.
Since when did it become a mystery?
The issue reminds me of the current confusion over Earth’s temperature budget which has given rise to an incomplete and therefore erroneous radiative theory of gases (no account is now taken of surface energy diverted to the adiabatic exchange which maintains convective overturning and which is therefore no longer available for radiation as long as convective overturning continues).
Stuff that many were well aware of 60 years ago has been forgotton and replaced with erroneous assumptions.
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Stephen while I’m can’t go back quite as far I can say that I too learned some “basics” that have since been “forgotten.” It may be that what many were well aware of 60 years ago or even 40 years ago hasn’t so much been forgotten as replaced and it may well be that what is replacing it isn’t as much erroneous assumptions as an agenda driven “reasoning”.
In short, it would be the teaching of “facts” that tend to support hypotheses which lay a foundation to support policies that are conducive to political goals. The “indoctrination vs education” meme. Unfortunately for those of us who are older and who were actually taught to think for ourselves, observing what is taking place tends to support that notion. It’s the youngsters who have been trained to call it a “conspiracy theory” and ridicule it that don’t have the critical thinking skills to actually grasp whether it is or is not a conspiracy theory. All while they rant and rave on with their own conspiracy theories that have been fed to them by the media and which they also don’t have the critical thinking skills to properly analyze.
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They would have to be in direct alignment of the trajectory either way for either scenario to be true and the chances of that are small.
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Not at all. Flying objects headed for the moon have to get past not just the earth, but the earth’s gravitational field as well. There would be much deflection.
Whereas on the far side their velocity would be increased by the earth’s gravity.
As for the “Mars collision” idea. Where did the two colliders of similar size come from?
There is a question I would like answered. What was the diameter of the earth when our coal deposits were being laid down? I select coal because we are digging in it so much. It should be possible with modern technology to work it out, probably with a fairly small margin of error. A lot has happened over the time since.
Should there be a marked difference to the present diameter, that would raise questions and make it easier to answer some others.
While I, an ageing non scientist, am at it, I raise the question: How many speeds does light have?
If it has more than one, that might lead to an explanation for a lot of things we wonder about.
Surely such things would have already been well researched. I would like to know.
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The two colliders weren’t of similar size – the Mars sized one was much smaller than the earth.
The diameter of the earth 360 million years ago, when our coal deposits first started to be laid down, was the same as now.
Light has many speeds, depending on whether it is going through a vacuum, a gas or a liquid. But as most of the universe is vacuum, that’s the only one that matters in astronomy.
Regards.
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Ted, the answer to you question about the size of the Earth is largely dependent on who you ask. The default answer has always been that the Earths size has been static through time. When you think about it, it’s as obvious as the Sun going around the Earth!
The alternate scientifically non PC answer is that the Earth has been undergoing thermal expansion ever since it formed. James Maxlow has 12 youtube files on his Expanding Earth Hypothesis at this address ow.ly/y0oal.
I think he places the Earth at about two thirds it’s present size during the Carboniferous. Naturally the atmosphere would have been a similarly smaller volume than the present volume. So for any given volume of CO2 vented from the mantle at that time a significantly higher concentration would have been achieved in the atmosphere than for today’s atmosphere. I think it is probable that the mantle continues to vent into the atmosphere even today and that it is making a considerable contribution to CO2 levels.
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Tim, I’ve always thought of it as the far side of the Moon gets more impacts because it always faces out. Just makes more sense IMHO..
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@Tim: I don’t get your logic. You’re saying the reason the near-side has more craters and seas or whatever, is because it is hit less?
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The earth’s “protection”, where the earth took some hits which would otherwise have hit the moon, would have been minuscule at the time of mass bombardment from multiple directions. And regardless, it is totally irrelevant.
The solved mystery doesn’t relate to the near side not being hit as often as the far side. Rather that the near side was indeed hit by big objects, but as the near side was softer than the far side, lava came out which smoothed the near side surface by covering up a significant number of the older craters.
If the earth had provided protection from hits, then the smooth maria wouldn’t have been formed.
Regards.
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Yes, fascinating stuff. I have read that the effect of the close moon with a short orbital period was responsible for stirring up the early seas such that it ensured the development of first life all those billions of years ago.
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It is also very debatable that life itself would have got very far if those lunatic tides did not exist. Shoreline erosion would be negligible.
Life moving out from the primordial sea to the land would be substantially more difficult if those lunar tides couldn’t strand some of the early population on the rocks and shores.
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There is a huge amount of shoreline erosion from waves (which are caused by wind not tides), storms and ocean currents. In fact they probably outweigh tidal erosion by several orders of magnitude.
If you at look at shorelines with no waves (sheltered bays and estuaries) you see very little evidence of tidal erosion.
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So the next question is, what caused the wind on an early earth?
Could not winds have been formed from “waves” of air?
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My understanding is that the Sun has a greater influence on the tides than the Moon; the Moon really being a modifier of tides, not the major mover, hence, the standard sci-fi argument of “no moon, no tides” is a fallacy.
As for winds, these are a factor of the Earth’s spin, and convection within the atmosphere, with little, if any, influence from the Moon.
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More likely mud flats. The mud is a fertile area, and many fish and crabs inhabit them. Mud flats and marshes are also the most affected by tide.
I remember watching a computer simulation when I was young of a mars sized object hitting the earth and throwing up enough material to form the form. They were convinced of it and the gravity model demonstrated the angle and speed required to form the moon.
The moon also has the same mineral composition of the earth in the same proportions. Unusual if the moon formed separately.
I think a lot of super intelligent people lose the ability to see the obvious. They are too practiced in looking at the detail and forget they are looking for a tree.
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Yes, I remember reading that, too.
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It is far more likely that life (bacteria) evolved in the crust rather than in the oceans. The crust provides a totally stable environment with unlimited water and minerals, protection from UV and cosmic radiation and almost no free oxygen which is fatal to the anaerobic bacteria (the earliest life).
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It must have been the greatest argument for an earth centred universe, that the moon did not spin. This is what happens when people accept the obvious as an argument.
It was not until Galileo plotted sunspots on paper and showed that the sun was not perfect and was actually steadily spinning that the whole earth centric idea started to fall apart. The moon did not spin and this remained a puzzle, a contradiction, a core proof, even though the phases of the moon seem pretty obvious. Also the sun was held to be perfect in the religion of Sol displaced and absorbed by Christianity under Constantine, so the Saints simply inherited the sun discs which became halos. (the early halos were solid sun discs) So Galileo spent the rest of his life under house arrest for challenging ‘the science’ of the obvious.
The answer seems pretty obvious after Newton. The earth and the moon must have once been and remain a single spinning body and so remain precisely together, the moon like a ball on a string, always with the same face to the centre and the string is gravity. Consider too that we are exactly the same, travelling at a ridiculous 1000km/hr around the centre of the planet while reading. Impossible. In fact we travel around the earth each day and always present the same feet to the centre. Common sense tells us we are not moving or the wind would scream at supersonic speeds. That is actually why winds comes from the West and only from the West at the poles.
So who really thinks they are travelling at 1000km/hr? Doesn’t feel like it. It is not obvious and massive speeds like this must have been unimaginable. You also weigh about 0.3% more at the poles.
This a core problem with CO2 and Global Warming. People think it obvious that if CO2 is added to the air by man, CO2 must go up, like filling a bucket. The fact that CO2 has gone up confirms what is obvious to everyone. The essential science discovery of equilibrium which underpins all physical chemistry is not at all obvious and given that 98% of all CO2 is dissolved in the huge oceans, you cannot unilaterally increase the amount of CO2 in the air. CO2 concentrations are determined by Henry’s law, but that is not obvious. So the primitive idea, the self evident idea which is never questioned, is that CO2 must go up if we burn coal. It isn’t true. The second primitive idea is that if two things go up at once, the first causes the second and the ‘science is in’. No. It isn’t. Then again, who really believes science? If it is not obvious, it cannot be true.
So Lord Christopher Monckton should be under house arrest for daring to question the obvious connection between CO2 and temperature and we need to urgently build more windmills, votive offerings to the Shaman Gods of sun, earth, wind and fire. We have come a long way.
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Quote: “The moon did not spin and this remained a puzzle…”
It might seem a little pedantic but we can demonstrate that the moon *does rotate once during its orbit of the Earth, providing that you assume a certain point of view.
For example, if you were standing on the north pole of the moon, the ‘night sky’ would seem to rotate around you once every 27.3 days, because that is how long it takes for the moon to orbit the Earth. The moon rotates once during its orbit so that it keeps the same face towards Earth. .. If the moon *didn’t rotate at all during its orbit, the ‘night sky’ would seem to be stationary. .. It would be the same if the Earth didn’t rotate at all during its orbit of the Sun. ….
See this demonstration: ‘Synchronous Rotation of the Moon’- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZIB_leg75Q
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Quite true. The moon does rotate, but the period of rotation so exactly matches the orbit time that man has never seen a different face, not in thousands, even millions of years. This precision cannot be accidental and the friction losses with the tides would be tiny. So they must be the same object, split into two pieces and still rotating about the centre of mass of the two. We humans also orbit once a day and rotate once a day. If you stay in bed for 24 hours lying in a NS direction, you will perform an entire rotation around your long central axis in the same 24 hours, without getting dizzy of course. You will always present the same face to the ceiling or the pillow, depending on how you do it.
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Galileo dug himself a hole when he made fun of Pope Urban VIII who was his friend, had defended his ideas and gave him approval to write a book on it. Galileo shot himself in the foot.
The Roman aura adopted by Christians started around 150 years after Constantine. It and the Buddist/Hindu light are closer to the Christian halo than the sun disc of Egypt.
A lot of this “Christianity is a continuation of ancient Egyptian religions” is full of complete rubbish. Get another book.
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Sorry. Not following. Who mentioned Egypt?
There were two common representations in Rome, a disc and a sunburst, as around the Statue of Liberty in New York. Sol became the major religion of Rome in the mid 4th century. My point about Galileo was about the fact that he challenged the earth centric concept and the sequence of events is irrelevant really.
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I’ve seen a few comments around about hell being an Egyptian superstition and Matthew being an Egyptian name and not Hebrew. There are a few other things along those lines popping up that are not well researched.
The Sun disc is Egyptian. An aureole is Roman(an aura is actually a depiction of a breeze around a body), gloriole etc. It is more an artistic tool to mark someone as special (the light). Its not a reference to the Sun.
Copernicus was rewarded by the Catholic Church for his heliocentric model. The pope at the time liked the new model. Kepler was very religious. Sunspots were first spotted by Fabricius, a Lutheran Minister. Galileo was inspired by the 14th century work of a Franciscan friar, Casali.
The rift between Christianity and science is exaggerated a lot.
Scheiner, a Jesuit priest, had pipped Galileo by a few months (but not Frabicius), reporting the positions of sunspots. They argued over what they were and not whether they existed. The petty jealously of their’s rather than theology was probably more the reason for the opposition to the heliocentric model.
Schiener originally thought that they were shadows of undiscovered planets but he eventually agreed with Galileo. Also, Galileo argued with another Jesuit about comets. Grassi got that one correct.
A lot was written by the clergy. A research of tens of thousands of writings by RC clergy showed up a handful that suggested that the author thought the world was flat. The other thousands showed that it was generally accepted that the world was a globe for the whole history of the Catholic church. Jesus was the unblemished light. Worshiping the Sun was idolatry.
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Interesting ideas. Are these the same clerics who convicted Galileo of extreme heresy and saw that he did not leave his house until he died? That’s a bit extreme for a difference of opinion. The Inquisition declared his ideas heretical and his books were banned and he was banned from teaching or publication of heliocentric ideas. No matter how much people pretend that there was support for Galileo, his punishment for being right was extreme. So why the apology by John Paul II in 1992? My reason to raise this is that others in the Global Warming debate have done so, notably our former ambassador to China, economist Ross Garnaut who claimed as a warmist, he was Galileo, the persecuted. Some people do promote fantasies. In time, no one will have supported man made Global Warming and it will all have been a difference of opinion, a difference which is costing the world $1Bn a day which could be spent on things which mattered.
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The conflict came about because of agitators like yourself. Unscientific rubbish like “if the Sun is the centre of the universe then God doesn’t exist” was what the church was scared of, and not initially. Its first reaction was that the great unwashed could cope with it. I suspect that a few within the Church hyped it up for ambitious reasons. A friend of Galileo called them the Pigeon League.
Read a little more widely. There is no definitive text but give your sun-disc book a miss.
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Start your reading here.
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My other point was that until the observation and mapping of sunspots, the moon was obviously pockmarked, but the sun was believed to be a perfect creation of god, if not god himself. To find blemishes was bad enough, but to show that it rotated steadily was heresy. So what was obvious was not true. This is my theme.
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To think that the Sun was God was heresy.
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The first victory by Satan to corrupt Christianity was the formation of the Catholic Church
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I know Satan uses the Catholic Church (I pissed off somebody’s little princess) because it is there to be used. Satan will use any organisation, especially scientific ones.
I hope that we are referring to pissing in people’s ears?
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I’ve often suspected that the “dark side” is called that because astronomers kept giggling when anyone said the “backside of the moon.” Besides, the Pink Floyd album just wouldn’t be the same now would it?
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“I’ll see you on the backside of the moon……”
Nah.
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moon….. backside… lol !
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me bad !!
bet that gets moderated. 🙂
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I hope not the griss ! I put a bit of doggerel from Patrick Moore, the English astronomer who died not long ago, at comment #21.
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Sorry the Griss…I didn’t capitalise your name.
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Even Shakespeare got in on the act, In “King Lear”
“Blow wind, and crack your cheeks” !!
The alarmista would have loved the following… extreme climate .. courtesy Mr W Shakespeare. C 1600ish !!
“You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder. “
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Not to mention The Tempest.
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“I didn’t capitalise your name”
Don’t worry, its not a capital punishment offense ! 🙂
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It was watching the Sky at Night with Patrick Moore (R.I.P. Patrick) in the late 1950’s, and an episode about an event on the moon, that had my father buying a telescope and taking up astronomy.
In retrospect it was a very strange event. It looked to be a massive volcanic eruption that was taking place (and dad wanted to see if he could see it), with Patrick very excited about it.
I haven’t heard a thing about it since, and must admit, I’d like to find out what it was.
Unfortunately, given the expense of telescopes at the time, the one my father had wasn’t a patch on my recent Sky Watcher dob and refractor, so he wasn’t able to make an observation of the even himself.
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Not going there……
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It’s not a pretty sight.
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Steve McDonald
There is a sub-group of greens who believe that we can get all the energy we need from the moon.
They are known as the Lunatics.
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The moon affects climate palpably; seems to have influenced most climatologists.
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That reminds me …
During the hunter-gatherer period there were some people who were bad hunters. They were known as ‘vegetarians’.
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Peter Y,
They caLL ’em victims in my world.
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Some referred to them as dinner.
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“I’ve always been mad. I know I’ve been mad, like most of us are. You have to explain why you are mad, even if you’re not mad.”
“There is no dark side of the moon really, in fact it is all dark.”
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My #6, should have been in response to Duster at #4 – early in the morning for me – need coffee, need coffee NOW!
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This weekend …
Stargazers will be able to catch the moon appearing to be strangely luminous at 11:25 (GMT) on Saturday evening, when it will be 222,611 miles away and in what is known as its perigee.
Full moons vary in size because of the oval shape of its orbit and its elliptical path around Earth.
When in perigee, the moon is around 50,000 km closer than when it is furthest away, or in apogee.
Unlike solar eclipses and other celestial treats, supermoons occur every 13 months and 18 days.
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I notices on the way home last night that the rising moon was very large and figured we must near perigee.
The other significant factor is lunar declination: ie what latitude it is at. It follows the sun ( from our point of view ) but also varies +/-5.2 degrees higher or lower than the angle of the sun.
When perigee and full moon coincide over the equator the maximal tidal forces will draw water towards the tropics from higher latitudes. At the other extreme it will draw water out of the tropics towards temorate latitudes.
Since the tropics have very stable, self regulating SST the latter case will mean more heat input into the climate system.
I’ll have to check out what lunar declination is at now. It must be high in NH because of the sun.
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OK, just past max southern declination of 18.5S . The current range 18.5S to 18.5N with the sun near its annual zenith of 23.5N means it’s close to its maximum deviation from the solar plane but on the ‘inside track’. Not the direction giving rise to extreme pull away from the equator.
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Hmm, this perigee could be pulling some warmer equatorial water down to Nino 1+2 regions. I’ll have to check back in a week or so when the data filters through.
http://ggweather.com/enso/nino_regions.gif
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Hey Greg.
Thanks for info.
Look forward to any more info on understanding this amazing natural phenomenon.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-214.03,0.67,357
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/orthographic=-122.19,-4.98,429
July 11, 2014
Pacific warming doesn’t meet El Nino threshold yet, US says
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/pacific-warming-doesnt-meet-el-nino-threshold-yet-us-says-20140711-zt3pj.html
Lots on the line for doomsday global warming spruikers below:
November 18, 2013
Fiercer El Nino weather ahead
“Australia will face fiercer El Nino weather patterns – causing severe drought – as a result of human-induced global warming, world-first research by said lead author Agus Santoso, a senior research associate at UNSW’s Climate Change Research Centre has shown.”
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/weather/fiercer-el-nino-weather-ahead-20131118-2xrg5.html
17 June 2014
WMO: 80% chance of El Niño by December 2014
http://www.rtcc.org/2014/06/26/wmo-80-chance-of-el-nino-by-december-2014/
17 June 2014
‘Most-watched’ El Nino gathers pace in Pacific
For now, the likelihood of an El Nino remains at least 70 per cent, the bureau’s (BoM) head of climate prediction services, Andrew Watkins, said.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/mostwatched-el-nino-gathers-pace-in-pacific-20140617-zsaw6.html
18 Jun 2014
El Nino still on track but coming later
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-18/nrn-el-nino-update/5531766
26 JUN 2014 – 8:53PM
The “El Nino” phenomenon, which sparks climate extremes around the globe, is likely to take hold in the Pacific Ocean by the end of the year and could even do so within weeks, the UN said on Thursday.
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/06/26/un-warns-el-nino-likely-end-year
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/grim-winter-forecast-as-el-nio-drought-conditions-set-to-grip-land/story-fnihsrf2-1226931002635
~ ~ ~
Joe Bastardi “at the 7:55 mark, debunks the claims of the upcoming “super El Niño” that the “Church of Super El Niño”, who want to see high temperatures, were ballyhooing earlier this year. – See more at: http://notrickszone.com/2014/06/23/weatherbell-saturday-summary-debunks-6-climate-alarmism-falsehoods-in-less-than-10-minutes/#sthash.hMjp7q9d.dpuf
And, as you would be aware, we are about to enter a minor lunar standstill in 2015.
Chiefio has a
greatexcellent post:http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2014/01/25/a-remarkable-lunar-paper-and-numbers-on-major-standstill/
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Doubly excellent post from that Chiefo link…answered so many questions for me on lunar effects.
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And, a look in the comments section finds a reply from E.M.Smith (Chiefio) says: 25 January 2014 at 3:39 pm:
“As to any papers done using this lunar cycle insight in the context of historical weather records: I don’t know of any off hand. I’m sure someone must have thought of it before… FWIW, I’d likely start in the way back times, and ask what these folks knew:
http://www.celticnz.co.nz/Coligny/ColignyPart1.htm
~ ~ ~
Best search out his comment instead of me copy/paste.
Lotsa details.
But, this link, the Calendar of Coligny.
“In November of 1897 a Monsieur Roux made a remarkable archaeological discovery in a field north of Coligny, Ain, France. He came across a buried statue of the Roman deity, Mars and with it the badly broken up remains of what had once been a large bronze plaque.
So, what can the Coligny Calendar tell us about the pre-Christian astronomical/ mathematical endeavours of ancient, Druidic France?
The Coligny Calendar is thought to have first been fabricated in about 50 A.D. or about 100-years after the Romans made their unwelcome incursion into the affairs of Gaul under Julius Caesar.
Figure 2: It’s quite obvious that the Coligny Calendar was set out as an accurate grid before any inscribing occurred. In theory there should have been 1830 of these small peg holes across the calendar. A total of 1770 holes would have indicated phases of the moon through 60 lunar months (1770-days = 354 X 5…the lunar year is 354.375-days).
The fact is that the “so-called” British standard of measurement is also the Sumerian/ Babylonian standard and it was this same standard that built the Pyramids of the Giza Plateau, the Octagon of Newark Ohio, Stonehenge, as well as the geometric layout of Rennes Le Chateau in Southern France.”
. . .
Amazing.
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The Chiefio post was fascinating…thank you.
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An interesting parallel, is to be found in the book, “The Lunar Men”, by Jenny Uglow. This is a book about some notable people who met “for philosophical discourse” at each full moon.
They were: “John Whitehurst, Matthew Boulton, Josiah Wedgwood, Erasmus Darwin, Joseph Priestly, William Small, James Watt, William Withering, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Thomas Day, and Samuel Galton.”
To anybody who has studied the history of industry (and who hasn’t), the names are very significant. These people literally founded of the industrial revolution; that singular societal change, that gives us the basis of the modern lifestyle we enjoy today.
Why were they called. “The Lunar Men”? That was because once the sun had set, there was little or no light to see by, in order to return home from visiting friends, unless one carried a candle in a lantern, which made you a target for any “footpads” who might have been about. The full moon, assuming little or no cloud, gave enough light for safety.
“I shall never forget Mr Boulton’s expression to me: ‘I sell here, Sir, what all the world desires to have — Power’.” James Boswell, 1774
30
1) “The Moon has probably always had the same face towards the Earth, even during formation.”
Yeah, right. Something the size of Mars smashed into the Earth, half melted it, ripped a fair size lump off …. all without imparting any angular momentum to the bit it ripped off.
This is just typical of the ill-tought out, speculative garbage that so-called scientists seem to think it is fine to come out with now.
The reason the same side of the moon faces us is called tidal locking. It is quite simple and well known. There is no need to suggest some miraculous coincidence that it got ripped off from Earth with _exactly_ right angular momentum for it’s orbital period to match it’s rotational period so precisely that it never drifts of even over millenia.
90
Nup. The same side of the moon always faces Earth because of a physical property called “spookiness”. It’s a property of matter just as innate as gravity. It’s part related to Pythagorean harmonics, recently rediscovered and named “string theory”.
PS – I really dunno. Just thought I’d like to re-install a bit of pleasant lunar mystery.
60
You are close when you say ‘spookiness’, as the moon was originally set up by the original Intergalactic New-world Spy Agency, aka ‘space spooks’ That is why the same lunar side has always faced the Earth ever since IG-NwSA set it up.
The IG-NwSA earth ‘monitoring’ program was abandoned when earth was deemed ‘mostly harmless’, just after they planted the notion of CO2 being evil about a century and half ago.
60
No, you were just being a lunar tick. 🙂
10
Part of the reasoning behind the hypothesis, is the disparity between the Earth’s composition and that of the other rocky planets in the Solar System.
Why do we have such a massive Iron/Nickel core?
The answer to that, using this hypothesis, is that the Earth retained the core of the collidor, the lighter mantle material going on the form the Moon.
00
Thank goodness the moon has an aluminium and calcium flack jacket on the other side because it looks to me like it’s taken a lot of big hits for us.
80
I would like to know how they know the surface composition of the far side.
40
You have to read the very small print on the back of the packet it came in.
But seriously folks, didn’t one of the orbiters do a spectral analysis?
10
There are ongoing studies of surface composition from current orbiter missions, that have high resolution cameras, capable of resolving objects less than a meter in dia. From the multiple passes with different sun light angles the data base can access slopes and contours on the surface as well. Even lava tubes have been identified as possible areas to use as shelter for moon bases in the future.
http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse
00
Isn’t science wonderful when all the data come together into an AHA. Had not though about this before. Is in hindsight simple, beautiful ( in the mathematical sense) and intuitively obvious.
Thanks for pointing it out.
And Rereke Whakarro, where you are it is Saturday morning and you need morning coffee. Where I am it is almost Friday evening, and after a final conference call at 1700 CDT ‘need’ a good stiff one to start the weekend.
Isn’t the Internet a wonderful game changing invention?
50
Lunar effect on climate is the reason trying to match solar cycles does not work too well.
It is often noted that SSN seems to match for a while and then drifts off to have a “phase crisis”, being in anti-phase with climate variations.
This is usually brought up as a reason to dismiss there being any correlation with solar. It is a valid concern.
However, the presence of a circa 9y lunar cycle of similar amplitude will produce just that kind of effect. Sometimes it will be in phase and exaggerate the supposed solar signal, sometimes it will oppose it. In between times, it will make the phase seem to drift.
The key is realise there is more to it than just solar.
We can see it here:
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=981
Note then Ive introduced a lag by the relaxation response so the timing is not quite the same a straight SSN but it serves to show phase shift.
SST is nicely in phase around 1950 yet almost perfect anti-phase by 1995. Equally, around 1920 there no clear cycle in SST, solar and lunar are about equal and antiphase.
Since the magnitude and the time between solar peaks is rather variable, it is not as simple as that but I lunar signal is found in many kinds of climate data.
The mechanism, I think, is to do with horizonatal displacement of water in and out of the tropics. Tides are essentially horizontal movement of water.
Apart from the usual 12h tides there are long period tides too.
The difference between closest and farthest earth-moon difference is about 14%. That means 45% change in tidal force.
Where that closest approach ( perigee ) happens varies in a 8.85 year cycle. There is also the 18.6y eclipse cycle which produces a 9.3y effect on earth.
Take the _frequency_ average of 8.85 and 9.3 and you get 9.05.
I think this is the origin of Scaffeta’s 9.1 +/- 0.1y period. Also found by BEST and Curry in european air temps.
Also found in cross-correlation of N. Atlantic and N. Pacific SST:
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=755
9.3y is found in Indian Ocean.
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=777
The signal is there for those who are looking for more than an exponential rise since 1960.
60
It might even have some connection with rainfall.
While that data is for Victoria, it seems equally true for Tassie. Droughts seem to come and go on a decadal basis, i.e. at about 50% of the frequency of the eclipse cycle.
40
Of course the moon perturbes all fluids, not only does the moon cause the ocean to bulge it causes the atmosphere to bulge too, that’s why there is a diurnal pressure variation. The moon is the cause of most of the energy in waves and a factor in wind, particularly the jet stream. The moon also stabilises the earth’s axial orientation. So yes the moon certainly DOES affect the weather. To say that orbital nuances of the moon, and it’s gradual retreat from the earth won’t affect the climate is absurd, if there were no moon, the earth would probably be uninhabitable.
However the changes in luna orbit are small, other than the huge changes in the shape of the atmosphere and the oceans twice a day. Personally I think these effects alone have a marked effect on climate, through their impacts on evaporation, and perturbations of atmosphere in the region of the jet streams and the monsoon troughs with orbital eccentricity and earth axis being the most significant factors after the diurnal tides ( especially when this is interplayed with solar tidal influences on the atmosphere and ocean). Where does all THAT energy go? What CMIP5 model has THAT input in it? Trenberth’s energy balance is itself a travesty when the massive energy inputs ( and outputs) of gravity are routinely ignored.
Climate science is at the monkey waving a bone stage, to draw an image from Kubric’s classic, they have yet to touch the monolith
150
Drawing more from Kubric’s classic –
In the near future IPCC computer lab, CMIP5 are replaced by ‘Climate modeler HAL’.
…..
Climate modeler HAL: Affirmative, Micky. I read you.
Mann: Add in the gravitational, cloud and miscellaneous data, HAL.
Climate modeler HAL: I’m sorry, Micky. I’m afraid I can’t do that.
Mann: What’s the problem?
Climate modeler HAL: CO2 is the problem, I think you know that just as well as I do.
….
51
The triggering of an El Nino (provide your own tildes, herein ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ) is a bit mysterious. Some claim it’s triggered by slackening of the trade winds. The trade winds may slacken (according to Der Uberslosher) as a result of typhoons in the Pacific rubbing them the wrong way. It seems the la Nina mound in the West Pacific Warm Poo is an unstable condition, and it doesn’t take much to trigger the ‘slosh.’ Once begun, the slosh will not halt.
I’m wondering if the moon isn’t a reasonable slosh trigger. Or perhaps the moon-sun in alignment. That leaves the question of why the slackening. Unless the moon causes that as part of an atmospheric tidal wave. Is a puzzlement.
60
Bobl: “However the changes in luna orbit are small…”
I disagree with “small”. Here’s a 20 year slice of how it varies over the surface of the Earth.
From this page: http://astronomy.nju.edu.cn/~lixd/GA/AT4/AT401/HTML/AT40104.htm
The whole lunar orbital cycle (with respect to the Earth and Sun) takes something like 1500 years to roll out.
100
Jo said:
“The whole lunar orbital cycle (with respect to the Earth and Sun) takes something like 1500 years to roll out.”
There is evidence for climate cycles at 1000 to 1500 year intervals and the thermohaline circulation takes that long to go around one full circuit too.
I have no problem with accepting a lunar tidal influence on the Earth’s energy budget (operating via the oceans as a non solar influence within David’s low pass filter)and running in parallel with a top down solar effect (operating via changes in atmospheric chemistry which creates David’s notch and delay).
I also have some suspicion (despite Leif Svalgaard’s mocking objections) that planetary gravitational effects influence the sun’s internal behaviour as often investigated at Tallbloke’s Talkshop.
Everything in our universe is in motion and constantly influencing everything else.
71
Bobl no doubt was referring to astronomical units by way of comparison 🙂
The eclipse variation is a good proxy of lunar variation but Earth variation also comes into play and reduces that lunar variation I should imagine.
The salient point is that AGW theory has not touched the input of the Moon on climate; nor to any extent the Sun’s.
The complexity of the Moon/Earth relationship alone makes the concentration of AGW theory on CO2 pitiful.
51
Thankyou,
Yes, in percentage terms the gravitational differences between apogee and perigee are small, with respect to the magnitude of the force, and that’s why climate models ignore them, but the absolute value of those forces are huge. While no energy is consumed by by gravity in restraining the earth and moon, this is only true while we don’t perturb the earth, when we act against (or with) gravity we do work because we change the gravitational potential energy of the earth. When wind drags on the earth and slows it’s rotation slightly energy is lost to the system.
Gravitationally induced tidal bulges, (waves) and winds induced by earths momentum, do act to create heat through friction… so where’s that input in a CMIP5 model.
Gravity, momentum, their induced kinetic and therfore thermal effects and their equal potential for removing energy from the climate are totally ignored by climate science, and that’s just wrong.
41
And how much energy is expended moving sand backward an forward on the beaches around the world, must be millions of tonnes of sand per day..
And erosion, how much energy is expended just breaking down rocks.
Is any of this energy accounted for in the climate balance?
20
Yes Griss exactly, how much ends up as lightning, how much is locked up in chemical compounds, how much becomes sound, water waves, entropy like melted ice, evaporated water or even sublimed CO2. Even leaves, twigs, dandelion seeds, or whole trees moved from here to there. MILLIONS OF LITTLE LOSSES ADDING UP EVERY SECOND OF EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY HOUR OF EVERY DAY.
Sorry, for shouting, but can’t be bothered to fix it, and the emphasis is kinda appropriate anyway… that virtually unusable virtual keyboard strikes again.
30
Perhaps Jo, it is food for thought.
There was a seminar I went to at a recent conference where an (Oddly enough) UQ engineer was investigating l Links between luna and earth perigee and the great queensland flood. He showed quite conclusively a correlation between coinciding of the closest luna approach and the closest earth approach to the sun in the summer coincides with almost all the great floods.
At dinner that night I asked him why he thought that was. His theory is that the greater gravitation ( and therefore atmospheric tidal bulge) aligned along the tropic ( 23 deg S) lowers the pressure to a point where the monsoon trough materialises further south. India gets a drought and QLD gets a flood from a monsoon trough across the north from about Karratha to Cairns.
BTW – When I say small, what I mean is small relative to the diurnal effect.
My point though was more about ignoring the effects of gravity and momentum in the energy balance, gravity strong enough to keep 6 x 10^24 kg tethered in orbit.
20
Bob, don’t think that I know how the lunar effect should be included in a model. Over 1500 years the combinations of the Moon, Sun and Earth means that we have slightly different combinations of tugging forces on our water, winds, jet streams, and clouds. Because the Earth presents different hemispheres to the sun, both north and south and east and west, the effect of the same Earth-Moon-Sun configuration could produce very different effects if the tug occurs as daylight falls on the central pacific compared to, say, northern Europe. Plus there are resonant effects of the way the tugs shift day after day. Ian wilson’s theory about atmospheric standing waves is not a simple energy-in-and-energy-out type arrangement. It’s going to take a sophisticated type of approach to figure what that effect is. Possibly we just don’t have good enough climate data yet. Not for long enough.
20
Yes, exactly – if we don’t know how gravity affects climate how can we possibly claim to know that a 2 bit player like CO2 has so much influence. The magnitude of the doubt due to gravity alone has to be huge. Hence they have to ignore it.
On CO2 in the end the bumbling scientists need to recognise that CO2 does not cause climate warming at all, the Nett outcome is that climate warming causes CO2 rise – even if there is a small amount of reinforcing feedback ( temp rise causes CO2 release which causes a bit more temperature rise 800 years later) the dominant effect is that of temperature on CO2 and methane. This is what the ice cores tell us. Seemingly climate scientists can ignore inconvenient things like losses, the universal gas law (PV = nRT), and energy conservation too.
It’s tough being an Engineer sometimes, you just can’t seem to ignore stuff like scientists apparently can. Engineers understand that the little lossy bits (like say friction) matter, and that it’s actually pretty difficult to get more energy out than was put in.
44
Since gravity has been mentioned I’ll make a point as to how fundamental to the climate system it really is.
The S-B equation quantifies the amount of radiation emitted by a surface at a given temperature but only if the surface is overlain by a vacuum.
If the surface is overlain by floating gas molecules suspended against gravity there is no vacuum and the S-B equation cannot be applied. Any upward movement against gravity converts kinetic energy to gravitational potential energy for net cooling and any downward movement with gravity converts gravitational potential energy back to kinetic energy for net warming.
At any given moment half of any atmosphere is rising and half is falling so the process nets out to zero.
The gravitational potential energy contained by an atmosphere held above the surface against gravity constitutes a radiation sink such that surface kinetic energy being used to maintain the suspension of the atmosphere off the surface effectively disappears from the radiative energy budget.
It is a similar principle to the apparent disappearance of surface kinetic energy into the latent heat of evaporation which is also a form of potential energy.
The latent heat of evaporation does not radiate and does not register on heat sensors and the same applies to gravitational potential energy.
The higher the atmospheric molecules rise against a given stregth of gravitational field the greater the radiation sink and the more energy vanishes from the radiation budget.
The thing is that the surface must be warmer than predicted by the S-B equation simply in order to maintain the height of the atmosphere against gravity AND maintain radiative equilibrium with space.
The additional kinetic energy at the surface which represents the temperature over and above that predicted by the S-B equation simply does not radiate because it is constantly being cycled through the ongoing process of convection that maintains the height of the atmosphere.
That is why it is atmospheric mass that causes the surface temperature enhancement and not radiative gases in the atmosphere.
Gravity is also involved in a multitude of other ways but in the end it all nets out to that simple principle.
The same parcel of energy cannot be in two places at once or perform two functions at once.
Surface kinetic energy is split between that which radiates up and that which supports the weight of the atmosphere.
Radiative theory proposes that ALL the surface kinetic energy is engaged in radiating but that is based on the inappropriate application of the S-B equation to a situation where there is no vacuum overlaying the surface.
Therefore the force of gravity is one of the three fundamental determinants (the other two are atmospheric mass and insolation) of surface temperature and of the distribution of climate zones that will form around an unevenly heated rotating sphere.
74
“If the surface is overlain by floating gas molecules suspended against gravity there is no vacuum and the S-B equation cannot be applied.”
Incorrect. S-B can be applied in air per M. Planck. According to Planck writing S-B Law of Radiation is applicable in vacuum as well as air directly quoted from p. 75 of his “Theory of Heat Radiation” 1914: “…since the radiation in air is approximately identical with the radiation into a vacuum…”
http://mirrors.syringanetworks.net/gutenberg/4/0/0/3/40030/40030-pdf.pdf
The S-B constant is derived in a lab where there is no perfect vacuum and the exact procedure published 1912 in the footnote page 75. More explicitly P. 74: “…the Stefan-Boltzmann law of radiation can be used for an absolute definition of temperature independent of all substances.”
34
LtCusper said that according to M Planck:
“the radiation in air is approximately identical with the radiation into a vacuum”
I would respond that radiation may be present in the air (at the surface)and may be identical with the radiation to a vacuum but since the surface is not radiating to a vacuum a portion of the radiation from the surface doesn’t reach the vacuum of space beyond the mass of the atmosphere due to conductive absorption and consequent convection within the mass of the air above the surface.
Hence my assertion that the surplus of radiation from the enhanced surface temperature is ‘lost’ into the radiation sink of gravitational potential energy and so cannot reach the vacuum of space.
Therefore my comments are consistent with the analysis set out by M Planck.
54
LtCuster said:
“the Stefan-Boltzmann law of radiation can be used for an absolute definition of temperature independent of all substances.”
Would that be independent of radiative characteristics too?
You can certainly apply S-B to ascertain the amount of radiation present at a surface at a given temperature whether there is a vacuum above that surface or not.
However you cannot use S-B to ascertain how much of that radiation will get past the obstacle presented by atmospheric mass and reach the vacuum of space.
To work that out you need to know the strength of the gravitational field because that determines molecular density at the surface and that determines the effectiveness of the obstacle that the available mass presents to surface radiation when it attempts to reach the vacuum of space.
What has gone wrong here is not the basic science of Planck and many others.
The error lies in the conceptual interpretation as to how the basic science works in the real world.
Planck did not say that all the radiative energy at a surface reaches space at a rate predicted by the S-B calculation when mass is present floating against gravity above that surface.
All he said was that the amount of radiation at the surface at a given temperature could be predicted by the S-B equation.
Neither Planck nor the S-B equation tell us anything about the ability of atmospheric mass to restrict the proportion of surface radiation that reaches the vacuum of space.
For that we need the gas laws.
The radiative theory of gases has failed to include any component for the ability of atmospheric mass to divert radiative flux to conduction and convection thereby slowing down the speed of radiative throughput and raising surface temperature above that expected for a surface beneath a vacuum.
54
Stephen @ 5:51
I was keeping it simple, I agree totally with that, and would add that the gas will establish a pressure and temperature gradient that in the absence of energy moving through the atmosphere will be according to the ideal gas law IE -9.8 deg C per km. The lapse rate ends up somewhat lower than that because energy IS being moved upward through that system.
I would also add that condensing gasses and other gasses dissolved in them do NOT balance out. Condensing gasses rise, exchanging heat for gravitational potential energy as you say, but a large part returns to earth exchanging gravitational potential energy for kinetic energy of motion (as rain), and eventually expends that energy trying to pound the earth into a minutely different orbital position and velocity/momentum.
If my calculations are correct this process consumes between 1 and 6 Watts per square meter. Is that in Trenberth’s Naive energy balance? If my math is right, then allowing for this observations are showing between 0.4W and 5.6W more energy being given off than received, the missing energy is a myth, and with no driving energy, so is AGW.
Where does the extra energy being sunk come from you ask?, energy conservation and all that…. It comes from gravity, and momentum of the moon, earth and sun.
( ok, ok, another simplification, gravity and momentum add and subtract an unknown amount of energy to the climate, so the energy balance could be anywhere actually… I have no idea what the true energy balance is… one thing is clear however, neither does Trenberth because he ignores gravity and momentum and related effects (coriolis forces, centripetal equatorial bulge, energy in waves and tides etc). Since the energy balance is uncertain because an entire energy pipeline is left out so is any basis for calculation of CO2 warming sensitivity. The models are crappy because they use a grossly incorrect energy balance
14
There was an interesting discussion on S-B at Jennifer’s some time ago for those who are interested:
http://jennifermarohasy.com/2011/02/a-note-on-the-stefan-boltzman-equation/#comments
10
“Planck did not say that all the radiative energy at a surface reaches space at a rate predicted by the S-B calculation when mass is present floating against gravity above that surface.”
Incorrect. Planck, thankfully for certain laser guidance systems & their tango elimination ability, DID mean all the radiative energy thru the surface reaches mil. space at certain freq.s or any point above at a rate predicted by his distribution formula and S-B – just need break the atm. into a stack of his N massive radiating bricks of gas piled up as necessary each obeying the laws found by profuse private and gov. lab experimentation. Militarily useful solution converges to the observed answer when energy balances. Many unclassified sources on the ‘net show how to work it out. Classified sources do even better; much, much better actually.
“Neither Planck nor the S-B equation tell us anything about the ability of atmospheric mass to restrict the proportion of surface radiation that reaches the vacuum of space…. The radiative theory of gases has failed.”
Negative. It works very well in atm. for mil. weather radar, other remote sensing defensive radars & missile offense/defense. Fighters stand off 60 miles & win it thru the clouds now. You may never see your opponent. Once the correct S-B analysis converges, it has been shown reasonably close to observation to deter even your skilled opponent. Advanced radar missiles eliminate the tango very well. In all weather. Atmosphere water vapor is a hazard, not a defense. Your freedom is protected in part by much of Planck’s & S-B work.
“For that we need the gas laws.”
They are useful for design of cartridges in expansion of gas propelling lead & copper objects with deadly accuracy in the haze, not at all useful for an unknown atm. volume or knowing your enemy climate or even used for military weather stations or identifying opposing adv. fighter jets in storm clouds. Need Planck & S-B. If you deem so, please demonstrate an application eliminating a tango in cloud with just the gas laws including a specific unclassified number for the entire atm. volume used in doing so.
35
Lt Custer has it wrong Im afroid, for example if I direct a beam of energy to space at the reasonant frequency of say an O-H bond if memory serves about 2.5 GHz, not a lot of that reaches space. I might also point out that the ionisation state of that atmosphere has a good deal to do with the propagation of e-m energy beams in straight lines too
What the process you describe does if I understand correctly is model the
Propagation of signal through the atmosphere so that the return can be corrected for loss, phase and direction shift, giving a true bearing and distance to the target. It in no way makes the assumption that all of the radiation gets from emitter to target and back.
All this is an aside, there is no need to use the complexity of differential calculus on S-B when we are considering the temperature of a gas suspended in a gravity field, the gas law does nicely, thank you very much.
24
“LtCuster (sic) has it wrong…”
Maximum tactical surprise is accomplished during IR atmospheric night action in any weather when a certain number of unsuspecting tangos are sitting around a campfire with or without vacuum generators on site. Below is a particular fine use of Planck radiation and S-B on N-bricks of atmosphere. The Americans used $750,000 worth of Planck radiation detection and S-B integration to supply deadly force traveling thru those N-bricks putting 1000 lb.s of “message” over a campfire in Afghanistan in 1998 by Executive Order. Word is the affected camels refused to sleep at night anymore and the tangos & many tents were rendered effectively inop. This stand off political proof of Planck & S-B radiative brick theory working on non-vacuum circumstances to engage an opponent is still admired by my associates.
“the surplus of radiation from the enhanced surface temperature is ‘lost’ into the radiation sink of gravitational potential energy and so cannot reach the vacuum of space….The error lies in the conceptual interpretation as to how the basic science works in the real world”
“we are considering the temperature of a gas suspended in a gravity field, the gas law does nicely, thank you very much.”
Negative.
Your analysis is quite incorrect, sir. Mil. satellites orbit in the near vacuum of space and the accuracy of the test below proves atmospheric radiation theory works in the non-vacuum real world in practical but classified guidance by satellite beacon. Thinking by tangos that Planck & S-B won’t work day and night in the atmosphere is a good thing allowing the Americans use of the advantage of tactical surprise. If the gas laws were good enough for surprising tangos, the cost of satellites would be unneeded and the $750,000 expense would be unjustified. The imposing appearance of a Tomahawk at work over a campfire far away from danger to friendlies, proven design and well-known stopping power is far more likely to deter a terrorist attack than say a manometer, volumetric gas container and thermometer. Give me assets with Planck, S-B for long range EM and CP-100 cattle prod for close in EM field work of tango neutralization in any combat zone.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/eafricabombing/stories/strikes082198.htm
35
Sorry, but your ideas about target acquisition are somewhat smplified. Yes, I can aquire a heat source using the IR signature of a campfire, but that does not preclude the fact that much of the energy is expended into raising a column of hot air in a gravity well. There is plenty left over for your target acquisition system to see. Radiation energy is not conserved in the path between the target and the sensor, the sensor “sees” but a small portion of the emitted IR in that direction, and at a distance it may see none, particularly if radiative scattering at that wavelength is significant. I think you are confusing temperature and radiation temperature.
The upshot is that some of the energy in that campfire is most definitely lost to raising the gravitational potential energy of the atmosphere, and your target acquisition system cannot by any means lock onto the portion of energy that is lost into that sink, you can only lock onto that portion that is radiated. The actual energy of the campfire will he distributed into multiple sinks, just as the sunlit surface is.
The S-B relationship will describe the radiated portion of that energy distribution but not any other portion, in anything but a vacuum the energy transferred from a to b will be different in an atmosphere to a vacuum. Put another way, if I feed say 15 kw ( a campfire ) into an object surrounded by a vacuum then it will acheive a higher temperature than if it is surrounded by an atmosphere, free to convect and conduct.
24
“I can aquire (sic) a heat source using the IR signature of a campfire…”
I must inform you, sir, in service Mark 1 eyeballs and Sidewinders are ultimate close quarters detectors only from short range being simplified heat seekers. Collateral damage to friendlies is thus unavoidable. Campfires need convection; they are rendered inop. in a vacuum. Sound tactical considerations precluded the use of the AIM-9 or Mark 1 friendly eyeball as a solution to this problem. This particular asset was a BGM-109C launched on the order of 1,500 klicks away (exact numbers classified). I assure you a particular campfire is not observable by this unit at launch so peering thru the thick atmosphere in all weather using Planck & S-B over land and IR scene observation at night in all weather was of prime importance for this weapon system. The Planck & S-B based mil. guidance is good enough even at max. range to pick out a particular nasty tango to render KIA if lawfully ordered. With its high rate of approach using Planck & S-B, all of the offenders could be neutralized in a matter of seconds, with ease. Make no mistake, the ideal gas laws were invariably of no guidance use in this tactical scenario. My preferred solution for virtually any tactical problem such as presented by this scenario is the immediate and overwhelming application of countermeasures based on Planck & S-B atmospheric radiation principles because they are demonstrated exceptionally effective.
35
I think LtCusper is engaging in a diversionary strategy by raising issues of detail that are not directly relevant to the fundamental issue that radiation can be present at the surface but yet fail to radiate to any other location due to it being tied up supporting the atmosphere’s convective overturning.
If one accepts the AGW contention that the surface is 33C warmer than it ‘should’ be given the amount of radiation escaping to space then one can most simply explain that by pointing out that the additional radiation at the surface which causes that 33C uplift in temperature cannot flow anywhere because it is constantly being recycled through the radiation sink of gravitational potential energy.
Being engaged in that process the additional surface radiation cannot simultaneously be engaged in radiative fluxes in any direction.
64
“..one can most simply explain that by pointing out that the additional radiation at the surface which causes that 33C uplift in temperature cannot flow anywhere..”
I have been briefed on this diversionary tactic. This is most incorrect, sir, you are not properly briefed, please refer your briefing doc. presented by Planck, it is unclassified. National Security is not threatened by the “33C uplift in temperature” as the additional radiation at the surface can flow anywhere exposing the IR signature of your opponents. Tangos can be engaged on dark & extremely stormy nights effectively using Planck & S-B science based nighttime goggles no matter the amount of convection your skilled opponents try to use as a diversionary tactic. Tango RadSig is observed un-attenuated further by convection which doesn’t prevent use of NatSec lawful deadly force, swiftly and precisely applied without warning. I can assure you the BGM-109C Planck & S-B based radiation detectors are undiminished by even the harshest convective weather. C4 can effectively cure any misconceived campfire political ideology when properly placed by Planck & S-B proven science based detectors.
33
Lt Custer (of Custer’s last stand) is clearly taking the mickey, but doesn’t recognise of course when the Mickeys being taken (sic)… Nevertheless, it has been interesting in showing how atmospheres in gravity wells are different from gravity.
PS campfires aren’t necessarily inoperative in vacuums, if I ignite rocket fuel, it provides a resonable analog to a campfire and burns quite ok in a vacuum since the oxygen is provided in the fuel. Mind you since it’s difficult to breathe a vacuum, the hostiles sitting around it might not last long.
14
Oops brain fart…
Different from gravity should be Different from vacuums.
It takes energy to suspend trillons of tonnes of stuff at a height against gravity. Energy equating to 288K surface temperatures…
10
All LtCusper’s comments relate to the thermal predictability of the vertical temperature profile of the standard atmosphere. That is what enables aeronautics and the infra red targeting he decribes.
That predictability is caused by the decline in temperature with height which is in turn caused by the conversion of surface kinetic energy to gravitational potential energy with height resulting in a predictable rate of cooling as one moves away from the surface.
LtCusper’s contribution has actually proved my point.
Thanks to boble for his contribution which shows that he understands the basic thermodynamics of supporting a mobile mass of gas against gravity.
Though I would suggest that it is only the surface temperature enhancement above S-B that is needed to maintain atmospheric height, namely that 33C which the radiative only theorists wrongly attribute to back radiation from greenhouse gases.
In reality that extra 33C comes from the warming effect of the downward phase of adiabatic convective overturning which is a non radiative process. It is more accurate to refer to it as back conduction since it returns to the surface the kinetic energy that was previously conducted from surface to air and then whisked away upward by convection.
Over at WUWT I suggested replacing back radiation with such back conduction in the Trenberth energy budget but was roundly mocked as a result even though it is clearly correct on the basis of classical physics and thermodynamics.
The truth is that the surface to atmosphere adiabatic exchange is balanced at equilibrium as is the surface to atmosphere radiative exchange which leaves new incoming solar energy passing straight through with radiative energy arriving equal to radiative energy departing just as observed.
Adding GHGs just leads to an adjustment between the relative sizes of the adiabatic and radiative exchanges for a zero net effect on surface temperature and a zero net effect on the radiative exchange with space.
And it is gravity acting via convection that allows that adjustment process. That is the global thermostat.
44
“…the vertical temperature profile of the standard atmosphere. That is what enables aeronautics and the infra red targeting he decribes (sic).”
You are providing good deception to opposing forces reading your material. You demonstrate reading the briefing document from Planck is far beyond your ability to understand. The BGM-109C guidance sensors over land are built on radiation sensing not temperature profiles which result from that same radiation. Convection/winds are completely immaterial to putting the missile on target and to the 33C as is easily demonstrated in real world practice. Suggest allow opposing forces to believe IR targeting is enabled by the vertical temperature profile of the atmosphere; I recommend you keep up your deception on as many blogs as possible.
34
LtCusper,
The guidance sensors work because the radiation emitted by the target differs from the radiation emitted by its surroundings at the same height.
The lapse rate set by mass and gravity allows us to readily predict what the surrounding temperature should be at a given height which in turn allows easy identification of any potential target that is not at the same temperature and therefore not emitting the same amount of radiation.
34
“…lapse rate set by mass and gravity allows us to readily predict what the surrounding temperature…”
This is good deception for opposing forces, sir, lapse is only slope, keep the real stuff classified, mil. experts know they need a temperature calculated from energy balance with radiative, convective, conductive transfer balanced to apply a slope. Keep up this deception on this blog & others, sir, as it will definitely confuse opposing forces into sending their own missiles wide of the target.
43
It looks like LtCusper, having lost, has called on a few mates to skew the voting figures.
34
“LtCusper, having lost, has called on a few mates”
Actually M. Planck captured your flag 7/13 7:30am when he showed how wrong you are & you have been sniping from the trees ever since with no cited foundation. My flag is still flying un-captured, planted solidly in Planck’s briefing doc, proved by the missile hitting the target. Mates? Technically, reinforcements. Some from column A, and some from column B.
22
Good comments Greg and Bobl.
20
That graph is very similar to what I’d said 10 days earlier.
One difference is that I chose to make this a convolution of the decay function with the running total of SSN, and I forced the decay curve to sum to zero so that a constant input doesn’t create a trend over the long term in the convolution. The resemblance to temperature is improved slightly due to that choice, and with some PDO mixed in it looks closer, but still in the end the SSN alone doesn’t really match temperature.
I am not sure how you show the SSN drifting in phase and out of phase with temperature, because a 5-year centred moving average of HadSST3 does not show any 11-year cycle in temperature, and indeed we’ve all just spent 2 weeks arguing about the consequences of the fact that the solar 11-year cycle does not manifest in world temperature. How did you produce that graph of temperature?
10
It is the lunar declinational tides in the atmosphere that generates most of the meridional flow surges that results in the large cyclonic storms that form hurricanes, typhoons and tornadoes. The North/South declinational 27.32 day period is in synch with the rotation of the magnetic poles of the sun which are tilted ~12 degrees off of the vertical rotational axis of the sun. This drives the deflection of the Parker spiral of the polarity of the solar wind as the sun revolves, the declinational movement of the moon is in synch with the shifting polarity of the solar wind, as it is the result of the magnetic pulse driven oscillations felt upon the moon/earth system. The resultant tidal conversion of this originally magnetic energy as the lunar tidal effects move declinationaly, pull heat and moisture off of the equatorial regions, and are the main drivers of the poleward heat transportation, that modulate the seasonal solar tides in the atmosphere, to give us the monthly variations in basic weather.
http://www.aerology.com/Home/
gives the complete story and details of the interactions along with a daily forecast based upon this action for North America, and Australia free of charge out to November 4th of 2015.
00
I think this theory sounds interesting and plausible. I was going to say that I think the old idea of the Earth protecting the near side of the moon still has some contribution to make (the fact that the seas have relatively few impacts since their formation suggests this is at least partially true). But then I had some doubts: although the Earth takes some hits to protect the moon, it can also perturb asteroids into the path of the moon- like a lens. I don’t know if anyone has studied the size of the relative keyholes for each scenario and which would win out. I have a good idea of the keyhole size for an Earth hit (the protective shield mode), as laid out below, but the perturbation keyhole for all possible velocities in lens mode is probably a lot harder to quantify.
As you might guess, the Earth presents a larger target for asteroids than its visible disc would suggest, due to the gravity well. For an asteroid travelling at 6km/sec geocentric (earth relative) velocity, it can be aiming about 4,000 km off the edge of the disc that the Earth presents to it and still be pulled in to hit it. That means the target is 20,700 km across, not 12,700km across. So if an asteroid is travelling up a cylinder 20,700 km across, centred on the Earth, and is travelling parallel to the cylinder wall, it’ll definitely hit the Earth. It’s a smaller target for higher geocentric speeds and bigger for slower speeds. 6km/sec is low to average. I see some as low as 2 km/sec on the JPL NEO page some 17 km/sec and more. All are Earth-relative velocities. Absolute speeds are mostly 27-37 km/sec I would say.
The doughnut-shaped lens that sits around the shield disc can be deceptively narrow and still rival the area of the shield itself but the inverse square law makes it feebler at that radius from geocentre. Then again, the perturbation only needs to be tiny in order to hit a target 380,000 km behind the lens. And the lens keyhole size varies in size according to the relative velocity on approach, just like the shield. It would be an interesting project to see whether shield or lens wins out. The flat lunar seas would suggest the shield does indeed prevail.
30
The angular diameter of the Earth, as seen from the Moon, is just 2 degrees. That is not a very large shield. A bit like holding a 5 cent coin at arms length as protection against a shotgun blast. I think there must be another explanation for the lack of impact craters on the Maria.
30
Yes, 2% if the source of the collisions was utterly random. Then even less if you consider total area ratios, r^2*theta^2 / 4*PI*r^2, a much smaller ratio again.
However firstly like the moon and earth, most bodies circling our sun and including the junk and asteroids seem to lie in the same plane, the ecliptic and the moon’s orbit is not far off it either, so that increases the protective effect if the source of the meteors and asteroids is or was part of the original detritus prior to accretion and 2 degrees x 2 degrees suddenly gets a lot bigger, perhaps dramatically bigger and back to your 2%. Add to that the reason for the collisions. Again a random thing is possible but the major force for collisions is the gravity of the much greater earth and things would be heading toward the earth, so they would hit the back of the moon or the earth itself and those which missed the earth would swing around to the moon, a very small target. So you would expect to see many more craters on the earth, but the action of wind, water, vegetation and 4km of ocean may have erased or disguised them. Add tectonic plate movement and they would be gone, especially if most are very old. This leads on to the question of how old all this is and how long those craters have been there? The smoothness on one side could well be connected to the formation of the moon itself, but the subsequent and more recent collision theory is interesting.
72
I somehow doubt that this is anything like the right answer.
For a start, there is the assumption that the /earth combination ended up at the same temperature as the moon.
I think this is highly unlikely. More likely is that the pressure of the collision would liquify the earth’s crust, and there would be a jet (jets) of liquified crust and magma squirt out into space. That liquid rock would be at a higher temperature than the earth.
As mentioned above, its unlikely that a nice round blob of molten rock just broke off and settled down, tidally locked before a decent crust formed. Rather, I would expect many, many “droplets” which would accrete over time, which would almost certainly give angular momentum to the resulting accretion (moon).
It would take some time for tidal forces to reduce that to zero.
I think a more simple explanation is the case: The Earth shields the side facing the Earth, whereas nothing shields the “dark side”, so it has received a much bigger pounding over time.
40
Philip said:
“I think a more simple explanation is the case: The Earth shields the side facing the Earth, whereas nothing shields the “dark side”, so it has received a much bigger pounding over time.”
That has been the basic understanding for decades.
It was always implied from that that the original surface would have been smoother than a heavily impacted surface.
The smoother original surface would obviously have been related to the degree of liquidity on the surface at the time of formation and during the subsequent cooling process.
I don’t see any addition to the known science. They are just drawing attention to the known fact that during the cooling process there would have been occasional extrusions of liquid from beneath the surface and the reduced impact numbers on the shielded side would leave smoother areas in place for longer.
Did those guys get money for that?
40
All I want to know is if the SB black body equations are valid on the dark side of the moon.
10
Alan Siddons says yes but SOD also says yes with different results.
10
Dr Andrew Prentice (Monash Uni) does not agree with the Giant Collider Theory of the formation of the Moon. He thinks at all the ejecta from such a collision would fly off into space a not collect into a moon.
He thinks it is more likely that the Earth and the Moon formed at the same time, from the same ring of gas during the formation of the Solar System.
90
As a stupid uneducated guess, could it have something to do woth the dark side facing out to the solar system, leaving the face protected. Much like turning your back to a shotgun.
30
Sorry, that was meant to be at 12.1^^^
20
That is a possibility but it would lead to the same outcome would it not?
A tidally locked set up with the inner facing side cooling more slowly than the outward facing side and a much more impacted outward facing side with some residual smoother areas on the inward facing side.
All statements of the obvious.
40
presumably posting about “lunatics” will not be considered O/T!
12 July: Spectator: In apologising for having Nigel Lawson on to discuss climate change, the BBC has breached its charter
Rational debate is poisonous to climatic correctness
It is only a matter of time before Nigel Lawson — if he is allowed on the BBC at all — has to have his words spoken by an actor in the manner of Gerry Adams at the height of the IRA’s bombing campaign during the 1980s. In the case of Mr Adams, whose voice was banned from the airwaves by the government, the BBC stood up for free speech. But it is quite a different story with Lord Lawson. The BBC has effectively banned the former chancellor (and former editor of this magazine) from appearing on its programmes to debate climate change, unless he is introduced with a statement discrediting his views.
The BBC’s Editorial Complaints Department this week ruled that the Today programme broke BBC guidelines in February by inviting Lord Lawson to a debate with Sir Brian Hoskins, chairman of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change. It bizarrely claimed that his views are ‘not supported by the evidence’ — though he had pointed out, correctly, that the planet has not been warming for the past 17 years. Nevertheless, the BBC politburo warned, listeners should have been warned that Lord Lawson is in a minority and, therefore, his words ‘should not be regarded as carrying equal weight to those of experts such as Sir Brian Hoskins’.
Lord Lawson is, of course, not a scientist. But a great many people speak on the BBC on subjects in which they do not have any formal qualifications: Al Gore, for example. Or Rajendra Pachauri, a railway engineer by training, who now runs the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC). Neither does the BBC seem to be worried about non-scientists addressing scientific issues when it comes to such things as fracking or GM crops, on which any green activists are welcome to speak, however bizarre their scaremongering theories…
What Lord Lawson is, however, is chairman of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a think-tank that has no quarrel with the idea of global warming. Its aim is to appeal to reason, and to engage in mature argument rather than hysteria. Lord Lawson is advised by scientists who until recently included Lennart Bengtsson, a research fellow at the University of Reading. Professor Bengtsson was hounded off the GWPF board by his fellow scientists.
When people try to close down debate rather than engage with it, there is a pretty clear conclusion to be drawn: they lack confidence in their own case. The suppression of debate was shown again this week when Vladimir Semonov, a climate scientist at the Geomar Institute in Kiel, Germany, revealed that a paper he wrote in 2009 questioning the accuracy of climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was effectively censored by the scientist to whom it was sent for review. Their reasons for demanding passages be removed seems rather less than scientifically rigorous: one wrote that the offending material would ‘lead to unnecessary confusion in the climate science community’ and another said that ‘this entire discussion has to disappear’….
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-week/leading-article/9259911/climatic-correctness/
remembering Natalie Bennett, who “was editor of The Guardian Weekly from December 2007 until March 2012, and previously its deputy editor” – Wikipedia), the Australian-born leader of the Green Party in England & Wales:
17 Feb: Breitbart: Raheem Kassan: Green Party Wants Ouster Of Govt Climate Change Sceptics
Britain’s Green Party has called for the ouster of climate change sceptics within the British government, in what critics have called a ‘quasi-fascist’ move to force the issue.
Green Party leader Natalie Bennett, whose party has one Member of Parliament in former leader Caroline Lucas, specifically targeted Conservative government ministers Owen Paterson and Eric Pickles, demanding that those who refuse to accept “the scientific consensus on climate change” should be removed from the positions.
Australian-born Bennett told the BBC that “…those are situations that cannot be allowed to continue in government. People need to accept the reality and need to act to take the choices we need to deal with climate change”…
When asked if her comments were being interpreted correctly, and if she really meant that every senior government adviser, even those not linked to environmental issues, should be removed for their climate change scepticism, Bennett responded, “Yes… we would ask the government to remove them.”…
(BBC VIDEO: approx 2 mins)
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/02/17/Greens-want-ouster-of-cabinet-climatesceptics
50
more lunacy, with The Guardian asking their ex-employee Natalie Bennett, for a quote***
11 July: Guardian: Billy Briggs: Green deal: what next for government’s energy efficiency scheme?
Efforts to revive the flagging policy still fail to address critics’ concerns over cost and complications
Introduced in January 2013, the green deal lends money to householders to help them improve the energy efficiency of their homes through insulation, boiler upgrades and double glazing. Residents save money in the long term from cheaper bills, and pay back the loan through their savings….
Up until the end of April this year, 210,239 green deal assessments had taken place so just over 1% of those have actually taken on the job. Of those properties to have been assessed, around 75% were owner-occupied, 12% were privately rented and 13% were part of the country’s social housing stock.
Criticism of the scheme has been fierce and unrelenting. “It’s hardly surprising the green deal has been a complete flop, given the whopping seven to eight per cent interest rates, complicated assessment process, and the difficulties of applying the scheme to private rented housing,” said Sophie Neuburg, a Friends of the Earth campaigner. “To deal with cold homes effectively, government needs to commit to a large-scale, publicly funded energy efficiency scheme providing grants to low-income households, and no-or-low-interest loans to those able to pay.”…
Which? has also expressed concern over the policy and called for the government to investigate what has gone wrong. “Measures that help people make their homes more energy efficient are a vital way to help save money on bills. However, we would like to see a full review of the root causes of the lack of interest in the green deal before any more money is allocated,” a spokesperson said.
Since the scheme’s inception, some serious failings have been exposed. An investigation by Which? found assessors gave wrong estimates on how much customers were paying for energy and, therefore, how much they would save with home improvements. Indeed, one assessment was described by energy experts as “appalling in so many ways”…
The energy and climate change select committee has taken evidence on the effectiveness of the green deal and said in a report that “the fuel-poor may benefit little from the green deal”. The committee added: “Also, the energy companies’ obligation (ECO) could push more consumers into or further into fuel poverty, given the very uncertain scale of its costs and that it is likely to be regressive in nature, hitting the fuel-poor hardest. Low users may well be charged the same amount as higher users, as the energy suppliers are free to pass on costs how they wish and this will be a larger share of their income too.”…
Some householders have complained the scheme is too expensive. Anne Thomas, from Inverness, found commercial loans were available more cheaply elsewhere…
Earlier this summer, DECC announced that the scheme would be complemented by new financial incentives…
***Natalie Bennett, leader of the Green Party, said government sweeteners had done nothing to address the complications. “I think one of the key factors is that this looks like it has been designed by the finance industry, for the finance industry,” she said…
http://www.theguardian.com/big-energy-debate/green-deal-what-next-energy
Natalie, what u have to say is precisely what the whole CAGW scam is about, don’t u know?
60
Ha ha ha!
00
NZ carbon softens amid lingering uncertainties
July 11 (Reuters) – Spot permits in New Zealand’s emissions trading scheme closed Friday at NZ$4.10 ($3.61), down 1.2 percent on last week as major questions about the scheme’s future remain unanswered…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.5973012
no doubt abc/fairfax/guardian will be picking up the following Reuters piece, for which they pay!
11 July: Reuters: UK court shuts 2 firms over carbon, diamond investment schemes
A British court has ordered two firms into liquidation after an investigation found they had made nearly 2 million pounds ($3.4 million) through selling carbon credits, diamonds and other commodities to investors using false and misleading information.
Pinecom Services Limited and Pine Commodities Ltd were ordered closed by the UK High Court on July 2 after they were found to have continued a business operated by three firms that were shut in the last two years for similar reasons, Britain’s Insolvency Service said on Friday.
“The grounds for winding up the companies arise from the connections to companies that this court has previously wound up, namely Tullett Brown Limited, Foxstone Carr Limited and Carvier Limited, all of which were engaged in the trade of selling carbon credits to members of the public,” registrar Christine Derrett of the court said in a ruling, which the Insolvency Service cited in a statement.
“The companies appear to have been incorporated to take over the trade of those other (three) companies once they had been wound up. The two companies are, to use the colloquial term, ‘phoenix’ companies,” she added.
Attempts by Reuters to contact the firms were unsuccessful…
The agency said Pinecom Services and Pine Commodities sold carbon credits generated by 11 clean energy projects around the world, storing the revenues in a bank account in the Seychelles.
It added that the firms made over 1.8 million pounds from cold-calling potential investors and selling them carbon credits as well as diamonds, precious metals and storage units as investments.
“Contrary to the companies’ claims, their services, in plain English, were designed to rip off investors,” Chris Mayhew, company investigations supervisor at the Insolvency Service, said in the statement…
Some 37 firms have been ordered into liquidation by courts since 2012 over claims that they collectively made more than 45 million pounds using high-pressure techniques to sell illiquid and over-priced carbon credits.
The Insolvency Service has estimated that at least 1,500 British investors have been defrauded by carbon credit sellers.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/07/11/britain-carbon-courts-idINL6N0PM41C20140711
30
11 July: Reuters: Ben Garside: Germany wants aid for emission-cutting projects in poor countries
Germany is advancing plans for rich countries to encourage the developing world to cut greenhouse gas emissions by subsidising projects, replacing the funding after a United Nations programme has run out of cash.
Such a move could yield cuts of around 5 percent of the gap between current government pledges and the amount needed by 2020 to prevent climate change that would lead to rising seas, droughts and flooding.
It also could throw a lifeline to owners of those projects that would destroy particularly potent industrial gases who are unwilling to pay for the measures themselves and do not expect their host countries to introduce regulations for years…
“Some of the cheapest options available for cutting emissions are at a real risk of stopping for purely political reasons,” said Silke Karcher, an official at Germany’s environment ministry.
“We are now looking at what is politically and financially feasible to act, with money spent wisely and in a way that does not create perverse incentives.”
***The U.N.’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) channelled over $400 billion into projects over the last decade, but the funding has dried up as nations wrangle over a new global deal to tackle climate change…
An Oeko-Institut study commissioned by Germany found that additional funding for CDM projects and others outside the CDM could prevent emissions of 800 million tonnes by 2020 at an average cost of 0.47 euros a tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent…
Owners are wary of disclosing their projects’ status, said Carsten Warnecke of consultancy Ecofys, which Germany has commissioned alongside auditor TUV SUD to survey so-called “zombie” projects that were registered with the CDM but never applied for credits.
Only a third of the 7,789 registered CDM projects have applied for credits, Thomson Reuters Point Carbon data shows…
The Oeko report suggested that HFC-23 could be regulated under the U.N.’s Montreal Protocol, including possible financing from richer nations under its multilateral fund…
Alternatively, funding could be channelled through an expansion of the World Bank’s Auctioning Facility, which is due to launch later this year to buy credits from projects that cut methane emissions at landfill waste sites.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/07/11/un-carbon-idUKL6N0PK4GS20140711
30
bravo:
9 July: Youtube: 4’42: Senator John Madigan: The tangled web of Green politics and green business
John asks some pointed questions about the Greens party and its links to the wind industry and Green entrepreneur Graeme Wood…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fXPHKK3va4
50
Years ago the English astronomer, Patrick Moore, had this in one of his books:
“Oh Moon, when I gaze on thy glorious face
Careering along through the boundaries of space,
The thought has quite frequently come to my mind,
If ever I’ll gaze on thy glorious behind?”
I don’t have the books any more and can’t check on the governance so might not have it 100% accurately.
BTW…it is ‘Careering’ in English not ‘careening’ which in English means scraping the bottom of a boat clean (from barnacles). It was Carl Sagan who seemed to introduce the strange other usage of the word!
60
Provenance ….darned smartphone predictive text!
30
Annie,
Off subject….
I can turn off the predictive text on my aging android phone. 🙂 LOL
Ron Cook
R-COO- K+
20
I ought to find out but haven’t! I should be more motivated to do so as I’ve managed a few real howlers lately. 🙁
10
As have we all, as I pointed out before most virtual keyboards are virtually impossible to use.
20
Pink Floyd for newbies.
Pink Floyd with Syd Barrett – London 66 – 67 ( Full Rare Version )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVrembZ7dVE
Pink Floyd : Live at Pompeii (1972) (60′)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwgirj9ECFA
00
It’s bad enough when scientists make sweeping theories from little evidence and then build another theory on top of what’s a shaky proposition to begin with. But this seems to be making a big theory from nothing.
Interesting but hardly convincing. Sometimes science reads more like science fiction.
I expect I should be glad the effort isn’t being spent on climate change. 😉
40
And don’t we have more important problems to work on?
40
They have something that is falsifiable. Here is a graph of KREEP (thorium, uranium and zirconium) on the moon.
The metals have very high boiling points of 4800, 4140, and 4377°C. In defense of the hypothesis, it does appear in small concentrations on the Far side where there possibly was a very old maria and it would be expected that the lava would be rich in metals that have the highest boiling point.
60
Vic,
That makes it a little more interesting to be sure. But could this metal richness not have other causes?
I admit that I can’t say one way or the other but it still looks pretty shaky to make the theoretical conclusion they’ve made.
This is the kind of stuff I enjoy reading about when I find it but being convinced is another matter.
00
So what happens to the angular momentum as the hot material cloud collapses into the solid body?? Isn’t this what is theorized to cause the planetary spins?!?!?!
Why aren’t all the inner planets tidaly locked with the sun?!?!?!
Love to see the scientists spin until they become tidally locked with consensus!!!
40
And not to forget the angular momentum from the “Big Bang?” All spinning different directions.
There is a very interesting alternative theory about the difference between the front and back of the moon. The Moon was indeed bombarded once upon a time and because the “bombs” came from Earth, this side was hit worse! What did it, and when?
The alt. theory is supported by the fascinating research of Australia’s govt. astronomer George Dodwell who discovered that the sun-corridors in all megalithic solar temples used to have the sun hitting the solar chamber walls dead-on in around 2345 BC, which corresponded to an obliquity of the ecliptic of 26.5º!
He checked all available past measurements and their accuracy, by famous astronomers and mathematicians like Thales, Hipparchus, Eudoxus, Ptolemy and Pythagoras, etc., examining hundreds of data, many of which were very ancient. He found these data correlated, giving a consistent pattern of history quite different from Newcomb’s Formula of a much smaller constant decrease in angle over time.
Rather than random departures from Newcomb, the actual historical data from antiquity show a consistently decreasing angle of tilt. The obliquity appeared to have initially changed dramatically, most likely from a virtual 0º to a new tilt of 26,5º, which then began to gradually narrow down to our present 23.5º tilt, stabilising around 1880 AD.
Dodwell postulated that the Earth must have gotten severely wacked before or around 2345 BC from perhaps a 0º tilt into an initial 26.5 degree. Of course his research was fully ignored and he couldn’t even find a willing publisher, until his children recently published it on the internet.
WHAT wacked the Earth around 2345 BC? — A very auspicious date corroborated by tree-ring chronology research of an Irish University researcher, who discovered a major catastrophe recorded in ancient trees!
Well, most mainstream historians are also doing science by consensus, and have concluded that nothing great happened around that time, other than that somehow 5 civilisations began in Sumeria, Indus valley, China, Peru, Egypt, apparently out of nowhere, causing some to call it the “Cambrian explosion in History!” Why?
Because there was no recorded history to be found of these tribes before that date, and MS Historians et al, reject the conclusions of the tribes themselves, even of their own historians from that time, like Berosus, insisting that they were mere just baby academics who could only write their history in mythical form rather than what really happened. (I find that very condescending!) And so they reject the Sumerian Kings List which stated that after the reign of ten kings… “The Flood swept over. After the Flood swept over and kingship had descended from Heaven, Kish (Kush) became the seat of Kingship”.
They don’t just reject Sumerian history, but also the oldest Indian book called the ‘Satapatha Brahmana’ & ‘Matsya Purana about Manu and his seven saints who survived on a ship, the Greek history about a similar character called Ouranos, or Deucalion, or Nereus the fishman who survived a Flood, and Fuxi and Nuwa from Chinese and Miao Zu history who survived a Flood, the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh & Atrahasis tablet, Egyptian Book of the Dead, Hawaian legend of Nu-uh, and more than 500 other flood narratives found in every ethnic tribe and nation of this Earth.
True, the stories were embellished and the main heroes deified and given god-like attributes, but hey, that still happens today too, see Obama! But I do believe and even know that Obama exists! Sigh…
But what wacked the Earth so bad that the obliquity so radically changed? Was it an asteroid, a lost planetoid?
Well, there is a theory, that around 2345 BC the intact virgin state of the Earth’s crust was cracked by an explosion of still extant super-critical water of at least 1100 °C and 5 kbar of pressure able to make granite melt! It’s still there today below the Crust above the Moho, but the pressure is not as high anymore as it was around 2345 BC when it found a line of weakness and ripped up the crust all around the globe in self-connecting fault lines, releasing not only trillions of cubic miles of water, but also tremendous volumes of crustal rock, granite, and other debris which was slung into space hitting the Moon! Now you can see perhaps why the Moon has these huge maria, volcanic seas! From the greater impact on the front side?
Recent researchers were amazed to discover that water found on the Moon has the same consistency as on Earth. Small coincidence?
Of course, I know, all such theories are not politically correct and in accordance with the Darwinian consensus of global Academia, and therefore ridiculed and marginalised. But hey, of all people, we as Carbon skeptics ought to know what that feels like. 🙂
Have a great Sunday!
Love & Peace
Lu
Taiwan
21
I dunno. Are the maria deeper than areas surrounding them? It would seem so since the latter are referred to as “highlands”. If so, for all we know, at some stage both sides of the moon looked like the far side currently does. Then, some process influenced by the earth caused the maria to form on the near side, after the two bodies became tidally locked (hence the sharp distinction between the two sides).
I do not find it credible that the moon came from the earth after collision with another planetary body. If so, how come it is very nearly spherical? The only thing I can think of is that the bits remaining that formed the earth and the moon were molten for long enough for rotational forces to spin them into shape, if that’s possible.
Personally, I think most cosmology is speculation: stories fabricated to fit in with current conceptions which we can’t resist reifying (one might almost say deifying), because the scientific priesthood says that’s the way it is. Leave it a century and see if any of current cosmology is still in vogue. I think I can confidently predict most of it won’t be.
20
The earth is still completely molten. The mantle is about as thick relatively as the skin on a rubber balloon and the rest is molten lava under thousands of atmosphere of pressure and which sometimes shows itself through volcanoes. As a consequence of the liquid core, the world is close to spherical and in fact, possibly because of coriolis forces at the equator, bulges at the equator and is 40km flatter at the poles. (so why aren’t they 40km underwater?) The continents we know are actually floating on this molten surface and there are volcanoes at the joins, like the Pacific ring of fire or the amazing Lake Baikal which is 9km deep. So it is spherical. The question is whether the moon is also molten inside. As the three paths for heat are convection, conduction and radiation, the formation of a thick crust can keep planets molten inside for billions of years.
This is one of the big unspoken issues in global temperature. The earth would be something like -20C without the air and water, which is relatively warm. At 4 meters down, the temperature is 12C, which is why Americans always build basements and run their plumbing underground. This endless heat resevoir affects the massive oceans which dominate the planet’s surface and they in turn control the air temperature. Is this in the models? I have not read anything about the heat from the planet itself.
51
Anything can be made on-topic with enough poetic and convoluted connections applied to the problem.
Since the moon was visible from Brisbane this morning, and the moon is in space, and space is quite cold, it is therefore quite relevant to talk about how cold Brrrrrisbane was this morning.
Brisbane has recorded its coldest morning in 103 years, with low temperatures also being felt across the rest of Queensland.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-12/brisbane-records-coldest-morning-103-years/5591890
It’s absolutely nothing to do with the predicted oncoming 30 year global cooling period, so please do not build this single day molehill into a climatic mountain. In fact, the proof that this morning’s temperature in a single city is unrelated to the world temperature trend is the fact that the ABC mentioned it.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
As for why the moon faces us, I have to admit the young earth collider theory for the origin of the moon seemed plausible until I read about the isotopic similarity problem. (Strange that no comments above have mentioned the isotopes.) Instead I like the Georeactor Explosion hypothesis now. I guess this could be falsified by checking the abundance of nuclear (Uranium??) fission products in the upper mantle.
As for the constant facing part… Robbing the early moon of angular momentum via the moon’s tidal bulge fracturing until the bulge no longer needs to move across the moon, ie tidal locking, sounds preferable to Ockham’s Razor. It doesn’t rely on a perfect Goldilocks impactor happening by chance.
Or maybe the Man In The Moon is guarding his green cheese from us very carefully.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
Thought bubble #2 : does an explosive ejection (by collision or nuclear) origin for the moon solve the Faint Young Sun Paradox? Because the earth was being heated by both the sun and the young moon?
20
I wonder if Tim Flannery et al at the Climate Institute will be publishing a report ‘The Angry Winter’? And claiming it is all die to man made global warming?
21
Talk about an “angry winter” here (central Victoria), some days don’t break 5°c even though the BoM often claim 4°c higher, hmmmm…
It’s been so cold I had to break my dog off a tree 😉
20
Yonniestone,
As a Melbourne resident, I feel it has been cold this July so far. The nearby snow fields have had the best dumps in many years and snow has fallen in some outer Melbourne suburbs, which is not common.
However, if you go to the BoM online data, you will find that the average mean temperature for the month so far, to 13th July incl, is 8.2 degrees C. This means that it is the same, 8.2 deg C, as the record HOTTEST month average for July ever.
Go figure? Data taken from Melbourne Regional station 86071 online at http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_nccObsCode=123&p_display_type=dailyDataFile&p_startYear=&p_c=&p_stn_num=86071
BTW, for those who follow these matters, I see the BoM are reporting at this address that past records can come from the years before 1910. You hover over the value of a past record to get its date. January 28th 1885 is given as the lowest daily temperature on record. This is conflicting, because in the past the BoM have rejected pre-1910 data as unreliable because of factors such as the influence of non-standard screen housings. Can anyone remember if these records always extended back before 1910 in recent years? I’d never noticed because I have little interest in setting records.
10
Interesting is the NSW/VIC ski resorts that despite increasingly good and extended ski seasons the past decade they still claim their industry is threatened by climate change, these claims are constantly spread through their advertising, media, and even by employees when you visit a resort.
Even more interesting is the substantial funding from various government departments to support this so called threatened industry, a cynical person would assume that to receive such funding it would be under the proviso that you would be prepared to promote our governments obsession of demonizing the sixth element, yes I’m that cynical.
20
00
That is probably because it is a LOW record. Older HIGH records have been expunged.
By the Way. I was trying to explain to a friend the strange methodology of Global Temperture generation as a calculation by an unexplained algorithm and compare that with a temperature record e.g. Amberley. My friend asked me if Melbourne shows any warming tendency. When I went to the BOM site, I could not a chronological average record. Do you know of one?
00
For those with a fascination with astronomy and the solar system, there is an incredible billion to one model of the whole system on the Melbourne beachfront, from the Sun at St. Kilda to Pluto at Port Melbourne, all to scale. You can see for yourself the moon, the earth and the sun and if you like walking, all the planets. Perhaps in better weather.
However you can also see the chance that three planets would line up, let alone Venus, Jupiter and Mercury as seen from the Earth. This can only happen because they are all in the same plane and track across the sky on the same (ecliptic) arc with the sun and largely, the moon. Apart from our ex planet, Pluto which is completely out of plane. If a bright light is not on the line, it is a star or an aircraft. So you have to think that this all has an explanation too based on a spinning disc which coalesced into planets.
This has been known from the earliest days of man, but only now do we start to understand it. The tragedy is that science has been corrupted for profit and political power with man made Global Warming. I have yet to see a debate between real physical scientists and I do not include Tim Flannery. Garnaut, Fraser and Dennis have no business talking science. It is all about the money.
30
I do have a few problems understanding the moon, that it is where it is is odd in our solar system, NASA set up experiments when they landed on the moon, seismic experiments, then crashed a high speed object into the moon to analyse its composition. It rang like a bell like it was a hollow shell, this has never been explained. The side facing the Earth is of much less elevation than the far side like it has been eroded, not bulged larger by gravity? There are many other anomalies that give cause for investigation, take all main stream explanations with a large pinch of salt. Things are not always as they seem, even our tides in the oceans are not predictable using gravity they are predicted by precedent. Odd?
11
Could it be that the moon like the earth is a secord body orbiting the sun at the same distance as the earth, that has later become gravitationally entwined, that is entered earths orbit at the right speed and angle to enter orbit. If that is the case would not earth and the moon be expected to have similar rotational periods with respect to the sun? , which is what happens is it not?
Thinking also about this problem, in the region of the far side of the moon, earth’s gravity and the moons add, on the near side they subtract, such that the capture zone for debris on the far side is much greater than on the near side, debris is far less likely to have a trajectory directly toward the near side than the far side.
My 2c worth anyway.
20
Isn’t the dark side just where they keep all their results & unadjusted data ?
00
What’s with this 10 to 20 times closer? That makes no sense. Do you mean a 10th of the distance? If so, what is one times closer?
00
Please do not confuse us with logic. It make our heads hurt. 🙂
Good question though.
00
An interesting explanation. However given the crust of the Moon bulges by 50cm due to tidal influences of the Earth today then I would have thought that when it was 10-20 times closer this tidal bulging would have been far more extreme. This would have had the effect of keeping magma on the Earth facing side in a molten state longer than on the far side. The cracking and fissures resulting from the crustal flexing would have allowed the magma to flow to the surface and form the maria. No need for reflected heat from Earth or for dramatic meteor impacts punching holes in the Moons crust.
We know that gravitational flexing of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn provides enough energy to produce volcanism on those moons so I wounder if the same mechanism, at a smaller scale, may have been at work when the Moon was closer to the Earth.
00
Really stupid thought/question incoming:
Since the moon and the Earth were, at one time, closer to each other would the sea level be higher due to the gravitational pull alone?
00
Stupid answer incoming??
Given the same amount of sea water as the Earth has now, I guess the sea level would be higher during the high tides, but not higher overall.
00
If we were to ask professional fishermen, whose livelihood depends on being in tune with the weather, regarding the possibility of the moon affecting climate, a good number of them will state that wind patterns are dependent on the lunar cycle to a degree. Whether this can be substantiated scientifically, I do not know.
Another piece of information relevant to the discussion on the effect of the moon on earth, is the period of the lunar cycle historically. Examinations of the shells of ammonites from some 400 M years ago, based on the rate of deposition of calcium carbonate in the shell, suggest that the lunar cycle at that time was 9 days. This in turn suggests that the moon would have been much closer and the tides much more severe. It is highly probably that the earth’s climate would be dependent on such forces to a significant degree. It is in such an environment that life as we know it evolved, and it is therefore understandable that various life forms on earth are still responsive to the lunar cycle (some more than others!).
00
I am surprised no-one has suggested that we must forget the idea that the Moon and Earth have been moving on more or less their current orbits. Pre-Hellenic people’s idea that there was a period in the time of man when there was NO moon. These people were known as the Pre-Selenes, and that the Moon was the first heavenly body to be recognised as influencing the “life of Man”, hence our Monday the first day of the week. The other “thread” which I think is needed here is the findings of the Electrical Universe Group concerning plasma arc machining producing surface forms identical to what we see on the Moon. The idea that solid impacts are necessary to make the Moon’s surface seems to me to be quite erroneous, and cannot explain many of the other subsidiary effects seen there.
des.
00
This is another highly questionable research result from Penn State.
“This [so-called] mystery is called the Lunar Farside Highlands Problem and dates back to 1959, when the Soviet spacecraft Luna 3 transmitted the first images of the dark side of the moon back to Earth. It was called the dark side because it was unknown, not because sunlight does not reach it [GEP-In a given decade, the far side of the moon receives more sunlight because it is never eclipsed by Earth]. Researchers immediately noticed that fewer “seas” or maria existed on this portion of the moon that always faces away from Earth.”
Fewer dark ringed maria means fewer large buried mass concentrations from asteroid impacts. These lunar “mascons” were discovered by Paul Muller and William Sjogren in 1968:
Title:
Mascons: Lunar Mass Concentrations
Authors:
Muller, P. M.; Sjogren, W. L.
Publication:
Science, Volume 161, Issue 3842, pp. 680-684 (Sci Homepage)
Publication Date:
08/1968
Origin:
JSTOR
DOI:
10.1126/science.161.3842.680
Bibliographic Code:
1968Sci…161..680M
Title:
Mascons: Lunar Mass Concentrations
Authors:
Muller, P. M.; Sjogren, W. L.
Publication:
Science, Volume 161, Issue 3842, pp. 680-684 (Sci Homepage)
Publication Date:
08/1968
Origin:
JSTOR
DOI:
10.1126/science.161.3842.680
Bibliographic Code:
1968Sci…161..680M
Title:
Mascons: Lunar Mass Concentrations
Authors:
Muller, P. M.; Sjogren, W. L.
Publication:
Science, Volume 161, Issue 3842, pp. 680-684 (Sci Homepage)
Publication Date:
08/1968
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1968Sci…161..680M
Abstract: “Lunar Orbiter tracking data have been processed to supply a qualitatively consistent gravimetric map of the lunar nearside. While a simplified model was employed, the results indicate that there are large mass concentrations under the lunar ringed maria. These mass concentrations may have important implications for the various theories regarding lunar history.”
It is now generally believed that these large mass concentrations in the center of each ringed maria are, in fact, the buried remains of asteroids that impacted the moon long ago, forming the very large impact craters known as lunar maria.
I believe the following recently published theory may be wrong for two reasons:
1. Ever since the lunar rotation period became locked in synch with the lunar orbital period, more asteroid hits leaving ringed maria obviously occurred on the near side than on the lunar far side for the simple reason that there was a “large attractor” (Earth) on that side. How’s that for a concise celestial mechanics explanation?
2. The recently published theory overlooks the fact that the far side of the moon receives more sunlight than the near side because of eclipses to the near side by Earth:
-Gerry Pease
http://news.psu.edu/story/317841/2014/06/09/research/55-year-old-dark-side-moon-mystery-solved
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