Browsing twitter recently I ran across this short video of a solar flare shot a few days ago.
After asking for some clarification on frame rate I was really intrigued.
Archive for the ‘physics’ Category
Solar gravitation puzzle
Posted: May 13, 2020 by tallbloke in Astronomy, Astrophysics, Celestial Mechanics, cosmic rays, Electro-magnetism, Emissions, Gravity, hydrogen, Maths, Measurement, physics, Solar physics19
Chris Martz: No, global warming is not causing more frequent Arctic outbreaks
Posted: November 10, 2019 by oldbrew in alarmism, atmosphere, Critique, physics, weather, windTags: arctic, Global Warming
Credit: weather.com
By what known physics could a few molecules of carbon dioxide upset the jet stream? A meteorologist is not impressed by such claims.
By Chris Martz | November 9, 2019
INTRODUCTION Just when wildfires weren’t enough, we now have people blaming cold weather on a warming climate, which seems quite contradictory.
In light of the Arctic outbreak in forecast this coming week, people like Phil Plait (who has since blocked me) took to Twitter (Figure 1) to claim that man-made climate change is causing frigid, Arctic air to be displaced south into the United States, Europe, and Asia.
His argument, which is supported by some climate scientists, suggests that man-made global warming causes the polar jet stream to destabilize causing it to become wavy rather than zonal, sending Arctic air southward into the mid-latitude regions.
He also stated that without global warming, the polar air would stay near the north pole.
Both of these claims are exactly backwards from reality and are not supported by weather dynamics, the global warming theory, or statistical observations in long-term temperature data.
Record-Setting Noctilucent Clouds
Posted: June 13, 2019 by oldbrew in Clouds, physics, solar system dynamics.
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Something of a mystery developing here. Open season for theories.
June 11, 2019: On June 8th and 9th, many people who have never previously heard of “noctilucent clouds” (NLCs) found themselves eagerly taking pictures of them–from moving cars, through city lights, using cell phones and iPads. “I have never seen clouds like this before!” says Tucker Shannon, who took this picture from Corvallis, Oregon:
“I heard that they may have been seeded by meteoroids,” says Shannon.
That’s correct. NLCs are Earth’s highest clouds. Seeded by meteoroids, they float at the edge of space more than 80 km above the planet’s surface. The clouds are very cold and filled with tiny ice crystals. When sunbeams hit those crystals, they glow electric-blue.
Noctilucent clouds used to be a polar phenomenon. In recent years, however, researchers have noticed their electric-blue forms creeping south. Is it climate change? Or the solar cycle? No one knows for sure.
This past weekend…
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The physics of evaporation explained – pressure is the key factor
Posted: June 11, 2019 by oldbrew in physics, research, Temperature
Not what some might have imagined perhaps. Researchers found that temperature difference between the surface and the liquid was less important than ‘the difference in pressure between the liquid surface and the ambient vapor’.
For the first time, MIT scientists have analyzed the evaporation process in detail at a molecular level and determined the physics of evaporation, reports Tech Explorist.
Evaporation is the process by which water changes from a liquid to a gas or vapor. The process is the primary path for water to move from the liquid state back to the water cycle as atmospheric water vapor.
Evaporation commonly occurs in everyday life. When you get out of the shower, the water on your body evaporates as you dry. If you leave a glass of water out, the water level will slowly decrease as the water evaporates.
For the first time, MIT scientists have analyzed the evaporation process in detail at a molecular level. For this, they used a new technique to control and detect temperatures at the surface of an evaporating liquid. Doing this, they were able to identify a set of universal characteristics involving time, pressure and temperature changes that determine the details of the evaporation process.
Earth’s mantle is magnetic, researchers find
Posted: June 7, 2019 by oldbrew in Electro-magnetism, Geomagnetism, physics, researchTags: geomagnetism, planetary
Still plenty of work for scientists to do to gain a better understanding of our rotating Earth’s electromagnetic processes.
Scientists assumed Earth’s mantle, the layer stretching from the crust to a depth of 255 miles, was magnetically dead. New research suggests they were mistaken, reports Phys.org.
Most scientists thought Earth’s magnetism was powered by materials in the crust and core, but according to a new study published this week in the journal Nature, hematite, a common iron oxide, retains its magnetic qualities at high temperatures.
“This new knowledge about the Earth’s mantle and the strongly magnetic region in the western Pacific could throw new light on any observations of the Earth’s magnetic field,” Ilya Kupenko, mineral physicist and researcher from the University of Munster in Germany, said in a news release.
Response to Roy Spencer Regarding His Support of Flat Earth
Posted: June 6, 2019 by oldbrew in climate, opinion, physicsTags: solar
Roy Spencer published an article today stating that I am incorrectly ranting about the fraud of flat Earth theory making its way into modern physics via climate science. I analyze his statement and expose that climate science truly is indeed flat Earth theory: it is baked into the mathematics!
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Noctilucent clouds form when molecules from summertime water vapour stick to the microscopic debris of disintegrated meteoroids.
May 21, 2019: Every summer since the late 1970s, radars probing Earth’s upper atmosphere have detected strong echoes from altitudes between 80 km and 90 km. The signals come from noctilucent clouds (NLCs). NASA’s AIM spacecraft is still waiting to spot the first NLCS of the 2019 season, but the echoes have already begun. Rob Stammes of the Polarlightcenter in Lofoten, Norway, detected them on May 19th and 20th:
“I detected these VHF signals from Eastern Europe,” he explains. “They reflected from the mesosphere back down to my receiver in Norway. The wave patterns were recognizable and very strong.”
Researchers call them “Polar Mesospheric Summer Echoes” or “PMSEs.” They occur over the Arctic during the months of May through August, and over the Antarctic during the months of November through February. These are the same months that NLCs appear.
The underlying physics of these echoes is still uncertain.
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Understanding physics could lead to big gains in shale oil recovery
Posted: January 17, 2019 by oldbrew in innovation, physics, research, shale oilTags: fracking, oil
Credit: mining.com
A longer delay in the middle of an existing process could be the key to even greater success than is currently being achieved.
Oil companies are missing out on vast sums of recoverable oil in unconventional reservoirs, according to Penn State experts, as Phys.org reports.
The researchers propose that companies are applying tried-and-true transport mechanisms for conventional oil extraction but are hitting recovery stumbling blocks because they are not accounting for the difference in physics found at unconventional reservoirs.
Nikolov & Zeller: Reply to Dr Roy Spencer’s blog article.
Posted: January 17, 2019 by tallbloke in Analysis, atmosphere, climate, Critique, physics, radiative theory, solar system dynamics, Temperature, ThermodynamicsTags: Dr Roy Spencer, Nikolov, Zeller
Confusing Diabatic and Adiabatic Processes within the Climate Theory:
A Reply to Dr. Roy Spencer’s Blog Article “Giving Credit to Willis Eschenbach”
Ned Nikolov, Ph.D.
Physical Scientist
In a recent blog post, Dr. Roy Spencer at the University of Alabama at Huntsville attempted to criticize and dismiss the importance of our recent discovery about the physical nature of the atmospheric “Greenhouse effect” (Nikolov & Zeller 2017). I normally do not reply to blog articles, but this one reflects a fundamental generic confusion in the current climate theory that is worthwhile addressing for readership clarification. In his blog, Dr. Spencer demonstrated several misconceptions about our work that could be due to either not having read/understood our papers or perhaps an incomplete grasp of thermodynamics. The fact that Dr. Spencer cites a newspaper article about our research instead of the actual published paper may indicate a lack of familiarity with the technical details of our study. These are some key misrepresentations that I spotted in his article:
1. Dr. Spencer incorrectly referred to our main finding as a “theory” when, in fact, it is a discovery based on vetted NASA data extracted from numerous published studies. This empirical pressure-temperature (P-T) function emerged from reported NASA measurements in the process of Dimensional Analysis, which is an objective technique employed in classical physics to derive/extract physically meaningful relationships from observed data.
Gavin Cawley explains the radiative greenhouse effect
Posted: November 2, 2018 by tallbloke in atmosphere, climate, physics, radiative theory, Thermodynamics
Here are 2 key issues that you must address when trying to defend the radiative “Greenhouse” hypothesis:
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Gavin, this is not sensible answer to my 1st question, but a CIRCULAR argument! Can’t you see it? The 342 W m-2 IR back radiation cannot be explained by surface LW emissions, because then the question becomes, where does the 398 W m-2 surface LW radiation come from?
I seem to remember I have already explained this to you at least once. Here is the thought experiment. Imaging a black body in a vacuum containing a 1W constant power heat source. Eventually it will reach an equilibrium temperature at which it radiates 1W out into the (1/n)
vacuum. Now put a thin shell surrounding, but not touching the sphere, of the same blackbody material. The outgoing sphere will heat the shell, and it too will begin to radiate heat until it too reaches thermal equilibrium. Now the shell will radiate equally out into the (2/n)
India Rumbles Wind Power as Fake Electricity: Output Collapses During Dead-Calm Monsoon
Posted: October 24, 2018 by oldbrew in Energy, ideology, physics, windTags: energy policy, renewables
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STT highlights the ‘tension between economic energy and politically correct energy’.No amount of money or technology can force the wind to blow on demand.
The spinning wheel was meant to signify Indian independence, too.
It never takes them long to work out that wind power is the greatest economic and environmental fraud of all time. Eco-zealots have attempted to ram wind and solar power down the throats of Third World governments under the auspices of saving the planet and purportedly with the purpose of dragging millions out of poverty. As the initiated well-know, wind power rates zero on both scores. Pointless and expensive, wind power is a kind of first world disease being spread by UN endorsed lunatics, across the developing world.
In India, solar power is seen as ‘fake electricity’, by those being forced to use it: The Cruel Hypocrisy: West Drops Wind Power as it Forces ‘Fake Electricity’ on the World’s Poor
Now, Indians have branded wind power an outright fraud, too. The calm, and very wet weather that comes with the monsoon…
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A conversation with Ken Rice on the causes of the ‘Greenhouse effect’
Posted: October 4, 2018 by tallbloke in Analysis, Critique, Education, modelling, physics, solar system dynamics, Temperature, Thermodynamics
Yes, adiabatic compression heating is an ongoing process, due to the convection cycle. I’ve tried to illustrate it by modifying NASA’s energy budget diagram. Calcs on right show PV/nR=T gives correct values regardless of radiative transfer.
This has probably been explained before, but if adiabatic heating is to be an ongoing process then that would suggest the atmosphere is contracting. Since it clearly isn’t, this can’t be the source of the enhanced surface temperature.
Ken. Air convecting upwards every day displaces cold high altitude air downwards through the pressure gradient which compresses and heats it. If it didn’t, that air would be colder at the surface, and would allow much more rapid conduction of heat from surface to the air. Agree?
Roger, if you want to enhance the temperature on the surface via compression then the atmosphere would need to continually contract.
Scientists receive $1.3 million to study new propulsion idea for spacecraft
Posted: September 17, 2018 by oldbrew in innovation, physics, research, Travel
Image credit: Spaceflight now
Light as a power source is only a theory so far, but could have interesting implications if it can be shown to work. Or it could go nowhere…
Spacecraft and satellites could in future be launched into space without the need for fuel, thanks to a revolutionary new theory, says EurekAlert.
Dr Mike McCulloch, from the University of Plymouth, first put forward the idea of quantised inertia (QI) – through which he believes light can be converted into thrust – in 2007.
He has now received $1.3million from the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for a four-year study which aims to make the concept a reality.
Thermodynamics 101: Compression increases temperature.
Posted: July 16, 2018 by tallbloke in climate, Clouds, Cycles, general circulation, Gravity, Ocean dynamics, physics, radiative theory, Temperature, Thermodynamics
Question: If I had a container, full with air, and I suddenly decreased the volume of the container, forcing the air into a smaller volume, will it be considered as compression, will it result in an increase in temperature, and why?
Answer on Stack Exchange by Luboš Motl: Yes, it is compression and yes, it will heat up the gas.
If there’s no heat exchange between the gas and the container (or the environment), we call it an adiabatic process. For an adiabatic process involving an ideal gas (which is a very good approximation for most common gases), pVγ is constant where γ is an exponent such as 5/3. Because the temperature is equal to T=pV/nR and pV/pVγ=V1−γ is a decreasing function of V, the temperature will increase when the volume decreases.
Macroscopically, the heating is inevitable because one needs to perform work p|dV| to do the compression, the energy has to be preserved, and the only place where it can go is the interior of the gas given by a formula similar to (3/2)nRT.
There’s Ken Rice’s nonsense, and then there’s thermodynamics
Posted: March 12, 2018 by tallbloke in atmosphere, Ocean dynamics, physics, Temperature, Thermodynamics, waves, windKen Rice, an Edinburgh University academic who selectively censors dissenting comments at his pro-AGW “and Then There’s Physics” propaganda blog, has another of mine in moderation:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
OK, I’ll drop that subject and deal directly with the subject of your blog post.
You state that:
“If the Earth’s atmospheric pressure is to contribute to the enhanced surface temperature, then that would mean that the atmosphere would need to continually provide energy to the surface. It could only do this through the conversion of gravitational potential energy to thermal energy. This would then require the continual contraction of the Earth’s atmosphere.”
This quote demonstrates that you’ve fundamentally misunderstood Ned Nikolov’s hypothesis. He’s not positing a raised surface T due to an ongoing gravitational collapse producing a compression, generating heat which is then lost to space.
Atmospheric pressure produces a density gradient; i.e. it forces there to be more air molecules per unit volume at lower altitude than at higher altitude. Denser air intercepts and absorbs more of the sunlight passing through it than less dense air, producing more molecular collisions and excitation. It therefore holds more kinetic energy.The more kinetic energy it holds the higher its temperature will be.
Earth’s mysterious hum recorded underwater for first time
Posted: February 14, 2018 by oldbrew in physics, researchTags: planetary
Image credit: strangesounds.org
But amplitude variations in the hum did not correlate with the seasons as once thought.
Scientists finally capture hum coming from the centre of the Earth, reports GeologyIn.
Although we like to think we know everything – and technology has advanced so much we practically have the answer to everything we don’t know at our fingertips – there are still plenty of mysteries left to solve.
For the past few decades, something has been becoming increasingly clear: Earth constantly hums, even though we can’t hear it.
NASA’s GOLD mission continues despite launch anomaly
Posted: January 26, 2018 by oldbrew in atmosphere, physics, research, satellites, solar system dynamicsTags: planetary
The GOLD mission to learn more about the Earth’s ionosphere ran into comms problems after launch yesterday and may take longer than expected to reach its required orbit height. NASA’s own publicity says: “Just like an infrared camera allows you to see how temperatures change with different colors, GOLD images ultraviolet light to provide a map of the Earth that reveals how temperature and atmospheric composition change by location”.
NASA has reported that despite a glitch within minutes of its GOLD mission launch, the satellite is communicating with control systems, reports the Indian Express.
The aim of the Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk, or GOLD, mission is to study the dynamic region where space and Earth’s uppermost atmosphere meet.
APOD: Fibonacci relations appear in IR at Jupiter’s poles – Why Phi?
Posted: January 9, 2018 by tallbloke in Astronomy, Astrophysics, atmosphere, Phi, physics, solar system dynamicsWhy the wiggle in a crowd’s walk can put a wobble in a bridge
Posted: November 12, 2017 by oldbrew in modelling, physics, researchTags: resonance
London’s Millennium Bridge [image credit: Alison Wheeler / Wikipedia]
Researchers now believe ‘that the synchrony of the crowd might not be a root cause but instead acts as a feedback effect that amplifies pre-existing small-scale wobbles’, but leave open the question of how or why the swaying starts. So to date any such resonance seems to be largely a matter of luck – or bad luck, which ideally is where testing comes in.
Some bridges could really put a swing in your step, says Science News.
Crowds walking on a bridge can cause it to sway — sometimes dangerously. Using improved simulations to represent how people walk, scientists have now devised a better way to calculate under what conditions this swaying may arise, researchers report November 10 online in Science Advances.
When a bridge — typically a suspension bridge — is loaded with strolling pedestrians, their gaits can sync, causing the structure to shimmy from side to side.
Study may explain counterintuitive effect of why hotter systems can cool more quickly
Posted: October 23, 2017 by oldbrew in physics, Uncertainty
Good luck grappling with this longstanding physics conundrum. Even the meaning of ‘faster’ in this context could be open to question. For example there’s rate of heat loss, then there’s total time taken.
Ever since the days of Aristotle, people have made the counterintuitive observation that hot water sometimes freezes faster than cold water, says Phys.org.
In modern times, the observation has been named the Mpemba effect after Erasto Mpemba, an elementary school student living in what is now Tanzania in the early ’60s. When making ice cream, Mpemba observed that using warmer milk causes the ice cream to freeze faster than when using colder milk.
