Letters
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Global warming
Your recent article “Millennia
of global warming” (June/July, p. 13, item 4) states
that it is an anomaly that solar radiation levels
decline while temperature rises, alleging further
a correlation of CO2 levels and temperature
over geological time periods. Both are
flatly wrong.
Changes in the carbon dioxide level over
millions of years do not correlate with temperature
increases, even though CO2 levels
in the past have been 20 times as high as
today’s. “On the time scale of hundreds of
millions of years, carbon dioxide has sharply
declined; its concentration was as much as
20 times the present value at the beginning
of the Cambrian Period, 600 million years
ago (Berner, 1997). Yet the climate has not
varied all that much, and glaciations have
occurred throughout geologic time even
when CO2 concentrations were high” [1].
Only recently has it been possible to
obtain sufficient resolution to demonstrate
that the increase in CO2 lags about 600
years behind the rapid warming that signals
deglaciation, the end of an ice age [2]. Citing
Fischer’s study [2], Science
magazine noted: “Over this immense
time span, the three most dramatic warming
events experienced on Earth were those
associated with the terminations of the last
three ice ages; and for each and every one of
these tremendous global warmings, Earth’s
air temperature rose well before there was
any increase in atmosphericCO2. In fact, the
air’s CO2 content did not begin to rise until
400 to 1,000 years after the planet began to
warm” [3]. In summary, “Major past climate changes
either were uncorrelated with changes in
CO2 or were characterized by temperature
changes that preceded changes in CO2 by
hundreds to thousands of years” [4]. You
should be looking beyond the “pop culture”
on global warming into the real science.
Randy M. Mott
Ekotechnology
Warszawa, Poland
References
- Singer, S. F., Human Contribution to
Climate Change Remains Questionable. EOS
Trans. 1999, 80, 183–187.
- Fischer et al. found that “the time
lag of the rise in CO2 concentrations with respect
to temperature change is on the order of 400
to 1,000 years during all three glacial-interglacial
transitions.” Fischer, H.; Wahlen, M.;
Smith, J.; Mastroianni, D.; and Deck, B. Ice
core records of atmospheric CO2 around the
last three glacial terminations. Science 1999,
283, 1712–1714.
- “Changes in CO2 concentration cannot
be claimed to be the cause of changes in air
temperature, for the appropriate sequence of
events (temperature change following CO2 change)
is not only never present, it is actually violated in [at
least] half of the record.” Idso, S. B. Carbon dioxide
and climate in the Vostok ice core. Atmospheric Environment 1988,
22, 2341–2342.
- Testimony of Richard S. Lindzen, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, former
chairman of the National Academy of Sciences
Climate Change Panel, before the Senate Environment
and Public Works Committee
on May 2, 2001.
I was interested to read “Millennia
of global warming” by Eric Lerner (item 4). While we
may blame humans for “global warming,”
nature itself has provided a much greater
source of greenhouse gases in the form of
“ burning ice” (methane hydrates) that have
outgassed into the atmosphere periodically
in the geological past. I have listed some
Web sites that describe the characteristics
of and issues regarding the Earth’s burning
ice and the natural abundance of methane
greenhouse gases.
The issue of “global warming” brings up
the need for good mathematics to analyze
the various data sources to determine true
causes and effects (“inputs” and “outputs”)
and to filter out those causes that either do
not affect the output, affect it in minor
ways, or create combined effects that do
not show up until certain conditions are
achieved. I have found that not many scientists
and researchers know how to use statistics
properly to be able to filter and view
data for true causes and effects. Too often,
statistical regression methods are used that
assume a direct relationship between causes
and effects that may not be real. Although
several books are on the market, one of the
best books I know, which can help
researchers, analysts, and scientists, is Statistics
for Experimenters, by G. E. P. Box,
W. G. Hunter, and J. S. Hunter.
When it comes to global warming, there
are more causes than most scientists have
considered. For example, the increase in the
number and intensity of solar eruptions has
a much higher statistical correlation than the
other causes (inputs). There are not many
Web pages that show these causes well, but
here are two: http://www.qualitydigest.com/
mar98/html/spctool.html, and http://
www.qualitydigest.com/april98/html/spc
tool.html.
Some researchers say they know all the effects that the increased solar flux
has on
the atmosphere and have included them in
their models, but other scientists with different
theories on the effects of increased
flux present different scenarios for atmospheric
reactions, such as changes in geomagnetic
fields. Scientists should be very
cautious about assuming that the global
warming “effect” is due solely to “greenhouse”
gases. Some researchers say that
their theories and models show that cooling
should occur, while others show different
effects. There is still not complete
agreement on the causes, and especially the
effects, of global warming.
In addition, the issue of temperature measurement has not been properly resolved.
Temperatures are taken in cities that demonstrate
the heat island effect. I have seen several
different approaches to handling and
correcting these heat effects, but the
approaches vary and also give different
results. Then there is the issue of thermometer
calibration. I have observed that some
thermometers for city temperatures were not
calibrated properly at the required intervals,
and sometimes not calibrated at all. How
can we trust the temperature data if there
are such variations in the instruments?
When it comes to nature’s greenhouse
generators, we soon realize that the contribution
of other gases is very small compared
with the megatons of methane
hydrates held within our oceans in a manner
similar to a bathtub ring. In addition,
the Earth has had major accumulations and
releases in its geological past, some of
which scientists now believe may have led
to great temperature increases long before
humans were around.
It is not wise to base international politics on theories that are not agreed
upon
by the scientists who have been studying
these causes and effects. Other scientists
have published works dealing with other
causes, but they have not received the same
sort of publicity as the U.S. National Center
for Atmospheric Research has received.
Catherine French
Los Alamos, New Mexico
References
General information on the chemistry
and biology of methane hydrates:
U.S. Geological Survey (U.S.G.S.):
German research:
Spin-off
In the article “Spin
and energy—free?”
(August/September 2003, p. 8), Eric J. Lerner
described the claims of A. O. Wistrom
and V. M. Khachatourian, who said that
they had theoretically proved that three
charged conducting spheres would start
spinning: Lerner reported, “Most physicists
would not expect startling new theoretical
conclusions to emerge from electrostatics,
whose basic mathematical structure was
completed 150 years ago. Yet two researchers
at the University of California, Riverside,
arrived at conclusions that, if true, would be
revolutionary.
In a forthcoming paper
( J. Physics A: Math. Gen. 2003, 36, 6495),
Anders O. Wistrom and V. M. Khachatourian
say they have proven mathematically
that electrostatic forces among three
charged, perfectly conducting spheres will
cause them to start spinning. This conclusion,
which the authors have derived from
Coulomb’s law, contradicts long-held
assumptions about how electrical fields
behave. Equally striking, it implies that, in
theory, an arrangement of three such spheres
could transfer unlimited amounts of energy
into the spinning spheres—a violation of
conservation of energy. Such remarkable
claims would be dismissed quickly as perpetual
motion if reviewers for the Journal of
Physics had not carefully checked the work.”
I believe it is in the interest of the readers
of The Industrial Physicist to know that
the Journal of Physics A: Math. Gen. recently
published my Comment (M. Horoi,
J. Physics A: Math. Gen. 2004, 37, 6407)
showing that the claims of Khachatourian
and Wistrom in J. Physics A: Math. Gen. 2003, 36, 6495 (including their errata on
page 8539 of vol. 36) are incorrect. Given
the strong emphasis in Lerner’s piece on
the role of the reviewers of the Journal of
Physics A in backing up what he calls “such
remarkable claims,” I should add that
according to my correspondence with the
Editors of the Journal of Physics A, the referees
of the original paper had the chance to
review the Comment, but they declined to
answer the critique. Mihai Horoi
Physics Department
Central Michigan University
Mount Pleasant, Michigan
Hydrogen overflow
Why does it seem that no one mentions
the hydrogen fuel cell being developed by
Blacklight Power, Inc.?
The company claims it will produce electricity for far less than
the cost
of coal and that a small unit could power a
car with onboard generation of hydrogen.
Fred Peschel
Peschel Instruments, Inc.
Cape Coral, Florida
John Tate claims in his letter
of June/July (pp. 6–8, item 2, letter 2) that when compressed
hydrogen is expanded for use in a fuel cell, it will get
very cold. Actually, hydrogen gets warmer
when it undergoes throttled expansion,
because of its negative Joule–Thompson
coefficient. The amount of warming is only
a few degrees.
Robert Erck
Argonne
National Laboratory
Argonne, Illinois
I read the various letters about the
hydrogen economy and the serious problems
that are ahead if it is to progress
(April/May,
page 4, and June/July,
p. 4).
I wonder if anyone has calculated or investigated
the old technology for producing
hydrogen—the Kipp generator, which uses
an acid–metal reaction to generate hydrogen
on demand. I have no idea of the
quantity of hydrogen required by a fuel cell
to power a practical people mover.
Carl G. Cash
Simpson, Gumpertz, & Heger, Inc.
Waltham, Massachusetts
One of the ways to store hydrogen is as
a liquid, which is very cold. When the gas
is burned, it creates heat, and there is a
large temperature differential. This makes
me think of the Carnot cycle, in which a
large temperature differential means high
efficiency. Heat engines such as the Stirling
engine can use the low temperature of the
liquid hydrogen to reject heat from the
cold side of the engine. A Stirling engine
typically has to reject twice as much heat
as an internal combustion engine of the
same size, which means a large radiator.
Producing hydrogen is still the biggest hurdle
to our future energy needs, and I think
a new generation of nuclear reactors is the
only viable solution.
Paul Overmyer
Sunnyvale, California
Correction
In the June/July
issue on page 10, “Superlenses,”
the caption should read: “Two
antennas separated by only 1/6 of a wavelength
of emitted microwave radiation (a)
do not produce images (b), but when
focused by a left-handed material that
includes an array of wires (c), they do (d).”
In the final paragraph, the first sentence
should read, “However, Lagarkov and
Kissel believe that…,” and the last sentence
should end “… Kissel says.” |
