Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal

I have said before that Science owes a debt to some of the more widely believed junk science distributors. There is a perfect example of it today.

Those who think Climate Change is a hoax, will frequently expound on the global cooling myth. The myth runs something along these lines. The planet has stopped warming up. It was not as hot this year as last year, etc. I can give you links to a dozen sites that expound this myth. One of them is run by a non Meteorologist, who somehow retains an AMS Seal. (Not a CBM though). I do wonder how long the AMS will put up with that. Do not look for the links here, I am not about to give them any publicity.

When these myths reach a point that they are commonly repeated, someone will do some detailed research to show just how silly it is. In this case, the paper is being published in Geophysical Research Letters, a peer reviewed publication of the AGU.

I wrote about this recently. Making this kind of claim, is the same as claiming that Winter is returning, when an April cool snap arrives! It’s plain silly, and no one ,with any knowledge of Science would think any different. Unfortunately, there has been a dearth of decent Science education, over the last 25 years in America, and the Piper is wanting to be paid.

From Geophys. Res. Lett., doi:10.1029/2009GL037810, in press.

David Easterling  (NOAA National Climactic Data Center), and Michael Wehner  (Lawrence Berkely Nat. Labs.), Looked at the temperature record of the last 100 years along with the forecasts by the best Climate simulation into the future. The found that even though we have warmed .7C in the last century, and are likely to warm 4C in the next, we still have periods where the global temp. holds steady, or even drops. This is a natural variability. CO2 is not the only thing that controls this planet’s temperature! (El Nino’s make us warm, and La Nina’s tend to cool us, as just one example)

We will get an occasional cool snap, but there is little doubt, that a hot Summer is coming, if greenhouse gases are allowed to keep rising at the current staggering rate.

This will likely do little to change the minds of those who avidly follow these junk science sites. They long since quit believing in any science that tells them something they do not want to hear. Fortunately, Science doesn’t work that way.

Later,

dan

I received an email last week with a link to an article about Carbon Dioxide. The gist of the message was that all this talk of Carbon Dioxide affecting out planet’s climate is a hoax. That same day, another viewer told me that it was very difficult to tell what was Science and what wasn’t. Especially online.

That is not an accident.

So just how do you tell??

The secret is PEER REVIEW.

Peer review is how Science works. It’s not perfect, and sometimes some crazy stuff makes it into even respected journals. Peer review is the cornerstone of modern science. It’s also a good basic divider, between persuasion dressed up as Science, and the real thing.

No, I am not saying that you should buy a subscription to Nature, or Science or even Geophysical Research Letters. I am saying, that if you read something online, you should look to see if the article is about something published in a peer reviewed journal. If it’s an explanatory article in the mainstream press, you can hope they got the basic facts right.

NATURE REPORTS CLIMATE IS FREE

If it’s on a blog written by Climate Scientists ,who themselves publish frequently in peer reviewed journals, then you are likely OK. Real Climate is a good example. The people behind that blog are all well known Climate Scientists. They frequently discuss articles in peer reviewed journals. They also call attention to junk that pretends to be Science.

Web sites such as Nature Reports Climate Change and New Scientist, frequently have articles on new research written for a general audience. The American Meteorological Society’s Environmental Seminar Series pages are excellent. I have a ton of other good REAL Science links to Climate, on my Wild Wild Climate page.

NOAA HAS A TON OF CLIMATE INFO!

Be very suspicious of long retired scientists who make statements that are contrary to the overwhelming majority of opinion in the Science community. Someone once told me that when an old respected scientist says something is possible, believe them. When they say something is impossible, smile, and ask them how they like retirement!

In my example, the article on CO2 says that there is so very little that it doesn’t matter, and that the rise is not our fault anyhow. It was published by the Heritage Foundation, a well funded Libertarian think tank. The so called Science was not published in a peer reviewed journal, and it never would make it past peer review anyhow.

Heritage is funded by Exxon, and the American Petroleum Institute, among many others. The intention of this article was not Science, they have no intention of seeing it published in a real journal. It’s political persuasion dressed up as Science, with graphs and all.

Sherman and Mr. Peabody in the Way Back Machine

On a side note, lets discuss the claims they made.

CO2 makes up only 387 parts per million of the air we breath. Not much is it. Still, that little bit keeps the planet from turning into a giant ice cube. With no CO2, the Earths average temperature would be well below freezing instead of 15C. The Heritage Foundation wants you to think that there is so little CO2, that doubling or even tripling the amount would make little difference. They also get the Carbon Cycle mixed up with new emissions. This is junk science at it’s best.

It’s also very Wrong.

If I stuck you with a needle and gave you 2 grams of morphine, you would be dead in a minute or so. Just two 1,000ths of a kilogram into a 90 kilogram person. CO2 is like Morphine. A little CO2 goes a long way.

How do we know the rise in CO2 is from fossil fuels?

Carbon Isotopes. Fossil fuels have no Carbon 14 (It has a half life of around 50K years).  It has long since decayed. Plants that produce Carbon Dioxide do have Carbon 14, and so do you in your body. The ratio of Carbon 12 to Carbon 14 is dropping in the atmosphere. Why?  Because we are burning fossil fuels that have no C14. (Carbon 14 dating is used frequently to measure the ages of artifacts.)

These are just some of the reasons why the article I mentioned, would never get through peer review. Not because, it’s some giant conspiracy, to keep the truth from the public.

If you see an ad in a newspaper that says Climate Change is a hoax, and it’s signed by 1 retired climate researcher, and 99 people who have never published anything on Climate, you are being persuaded, not given Science. (Especially if the ad was funded by a think tank).

Later,

Dan

Dr. John Anderson of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has discovered something very weird. Two other colleagues have been working on it as well. As of now, there is no explanation. Safe to say it’s likely keeping them up at night!

Not that they haven’t tried to figure it out!

Sherlock Holmes said, that once you rule out the impossible, then what remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

The truth, in this case is that the laws of gravity, might not be right.

Pioneer 10 was launched in 1972, and along with Pioneer 11, and the two Voyager spacecraft, is now speeding along well out of our solar system. We lost contact with Pioneer 11, but scientists were able to get some data back from Pioneer 10 in 2000. It was twice as far from the sun, as very distant Pluto. Well over 80 times, the distance from the Earth to the Sun.

This Earth-Sun distance is called an Astronomical Unit. Earth is therefore 1 AU from the sun. Pluto is about 40. Pioneer 10 is over 100AU. The last contact with it was in 2003. It’s now well over 24 light hours from Earth! (The sun is 8 light minutes!)

Pioneer 10 from NASA JPL

The problem here is that Pioneer 10 is not where it should be. It’s a bit behind schedule. Not a big deal, since it will not likely run into anything for awhile. The star Aldebaran (53 light years away) is expecting a visit….in about 1,700,000 years. Plenty of time to kick the cat out, and clean the rugs.

Paths of Pioneer 10/11 Ctsy: NASA JPL

Pioneer 10 is slowing down though. Something is pulling it back toward the sun. The magnitude of this acceleration is .00000008 cm/sec/sec.(8 x10 -8 cm/sec squared)  Yeah, not much, but when you have traveled over 13 billion kilometers, it adds up!

So what is causing it??

Well, they have ruled out all kind of things. Yes, they added in Einstein’s relativity. They checked the Atomic clocks, and a dozen other things.

They found that Pioneer 11 had the same problem, before radio contact was lost. They have even discovered the same affect, on a couple of other planetary space craft. (The Voyager spacecraft can’t be used, because they make too many position changes with their thrusters).

Could it be the heat given off by the nuclear power system. Nope, checked. How about the radio antenna? Every action gives an equal and opposite reaction, right. So sending those radio waves back to Earth at the speed of light will cause an acceleration, no? Yes, it certainly will!

Not that.

How about a mysterious planet X? Checked, nice try.

Dark matter! That’s it!

NO, they checked.

Gravity from the Galaxy?
No, but two points for thinking of it.

So what’s the answer?

They would really like to know. Could our understanding of the laws of Gravity be missing something? Perhaps. The affect is not seen in the orbits of planets, like Mars. It only seems to affect small space craft.

Someone is going to have to call Aldebaran, and let them know that Pioneer will be late. That’s going to be one heck of a roaming charge.

Later,
Dan

PS For the super nerds out there- go here.