Physics - The Very Large Carbon Cycle - Part 6

This has got to be the end!  I just write these in regurgitated lumps and send them off right away, tear them off the typewriter and throw them at the copy boy.  :)

The thing that is missing from the continent collision picture is the whole context.  This is happening when continents are lumping together, and the super-continental mass becomes a big thermal insulator.  There is a conjecture (that I like) that the inner core is a big fission reactor, and that heat has to go out.  Anyway, there's lots of heat from something.  These collisions find themselves in the middle of the super-lump, and really heat up.  It's also where they split again.

It's at the middle of these super-lumps that the Large Carbon Cycle comes back at us to some degree.  If we have a really big lump, we get the Mesozoic, when all that co2 and water vapour was injected into the air.

Did I mention how great an insulator water vapour is?  That's because it totally breaks up the atmospheric convection cells.  Remember, three ways to get rid of heat - conduction (not applicable to air), radiation, and convection.  The last is orders of magnitude more effective.  You don't leave a big lump of air in your attic to act as an insulator, it's useless because of convection.  You put in fiberglass, which has cells of air too tiny for convection.

So water vapour in the air rises until it starts to condense and fall.  This kills the convection, as you can tell when you fly over a perfectly flat cloud bank and sip your full coffee cup.  To punch through, that takes a monster thunderstorm (don't drink coffee in that).

So in the Mesozoic, water vapour made it warm, and an incredible amount of co2 made the plants go ballistic.  Dinosaurs loved it, large mammals died because of heat stroke.  We'd only visit in an air-conditioned time machine.  Giant carbon beds were laid down (coal).

But thank goodness only a teeny bit of that carbon was released.  The rest stayed down below, got super-hot and floated us until the next big collision.  What is really down there?  Like the mythical nuclear reactor, we may never know.  But I think there is an incredible amount of hot, pressurized carbon.  We're floating on a bed of diamonds!

That's all folks!

ps.  whoops, I was so proud that my sudden conclusion was better than a nuclear reactor at the core, that I forget the question of how plants existed before Man came along.  There is always some co2 leaking out along the rift valleys and such, and the volcanic subduction zones.  This causes a net plant growth which is good for sediments.

Physics - The Very Large Carbon Cycle - Part 5

It's about this far in when my interest starts to fade.  Have you even started to read a novel series, and after number 4 or 5, you say "This guy is pushing it".   That's the way I feel, but I soldier on.

So, we had an incredible amount of carbon salted away.  How do the continents get this heat under them, and how does it hold up the Rocky Mountains?  Again, Plate Tectonics has surprises.

Here's our happy picture of a subduction zone.

Only the tiniest amount puffs up in smoke.  The rest goes 'somewhere', according to convention.  Ha!  It bounces off the lower mantle, which hates carbon, and piles up in great slabs.  We all know we can't fill up a garbage dump forever, so what happens?

Here's our grade-school picture of continent-continent collision, which formed the Rockies, and all of the really big mountain ranges.

Something is wrong with this picture.  The mountains have a cold slab underneath them.  They can't be that high, they'd sink 'like a rock'.  There has to be a big wad of heat under a mountain range to float it.

---

Physics - The Very Large Carbon Cycle - Part 4

We are always so tied up with the Great Oxygen Event that we forget what happened before.  We are biased by our need for o2.  Well, the early earth was really put together by big blobs of space junk.  When it got big enough, it melted and all the heavy stuff went to the bottom, and all the light stuff into the early atmosphere.  We really have no clue what it was, but we can assume it was thick with methane and co2, somewhat like Venus.

The Galactic Seeders were very smart, and they put in some RNA, DNA, and maybe some bacteria that could live in this muck.  Or not.  Then they went away to retire in some beach-galaxy.  But we forget that these bacteria were happily munching away sulphur and methane, even though the air could have been as thick as molasses.  That's a heck of a lot of carbon, and more carbon was bombing from the sky.  But these guys were doing their work for a billion years before their 'flashy' cousins came along.

From the methane, they liberated the hydrogen, and tied up the carbon in endless types of carbonates, whatever they do.  Who cleaned up their shit?  Ah, the lowly janitor - Mr. Plate Tectonics.  Without this process, all those sulphur-carbon compounds would have just poofed up again, when the oxygen came.  Think of a burning Earth.

But Plate Tectonics shovelled it all away.  But how much of it?  We have no clue.  I've seen some estimates, but I think it is many zeroes above that.  Where is it?  It's packed in big layers under the continents, and holds us up out of the water.

I used to think that continents kept my feet dry merely because they were composed of silicates, which are less dense than the black basalt of the ocean.  If you are ever on a big lake or the ocean, pick up a black rock and a piece of quartz.  See?  But now I know that this only half of that is true, and if we didn't have excess heat, then we'd all be under water.  

It's sad to have one of my cherished 'beliefs' shattered by new science, but I just can't accept that the heat is there because it is.  Why is it there?  Doesn't anybody ask these questions?

-----blah

Physics - The Very Large Carbon Cycle - Part 3

In case you missed it, Part 2 addressed a big question:  Are we oxygen breathers important to life on Earth, with respect to life, happiness, temperature, and gas ratios?  

The answer is a resounding NO!  But we just couldn't leave all those yummy plants lying around.  :)

Obviously, when we are talking tiny percentages, we moderns can screw things up with ddt, plastic, and ozone poison (questionable).

Interlude From a Heckler:  Hey, if this is all so gosh darn obvious why hasn't anybody stood up? 

 Would you, Sir?  Would anybody?  Feynman is dead, and he is only one in all the NASA bullshit that put the o-ring into the ice water.  Nobody is into classic physics any more, they are all super-specialists sucking off the dole.  We are talking certain suicide here, since 'they' would say:  "Oh, your third cousin works for an oil company."

(It's left up to a crazy guy, who is happy that nobody listens to him)

It's amazing that when we talk of Earth processes, we think of uncertainties of a factor of ten or more, yet our gas ratios are held to with one percent.

So, we ask ourselves:  Without humans burning oil, how can plants even exist?  or grow.  How could we have had something like the Carboniferous which gave us all our oil and coal to burn anyway?

The answer my friend, is the point of all this mess - The Large Carbon Cycle.

We know from the Earth's beginning that co2 could go all the way to 100% and the plants would be happy.  They produce their own waste, which is oxygen, and is the equivalent of peeing in the pool.  At 20% they poison themselves out.  Yet, they would merrily overgraze and reduce the co2 to zero, if they could, just like sheep overgrazing the hill.  So, they are on the balance of death, like wild Bighorn sheep on the mountains.

What gives them that little puff of co2 to live?  We must go back to the beginning again, to the methane world, and the first plate tectonics.

-- blahblah

Physics - The Very Large Carbon Cycle - Part 2

Actually, I perpetrated a well-accepted myth in Part 1.  The atmosphere could not be all methane before photosynthesis, there had to be a lot of co2, otherwise no oxygen.  Whoops, I must add a footnote.

*The Galactic Seeders are something I came up with to define the jump from organic soup to DNA.  We await the coming of the quantum computer DARWIN2 to figure out the evolution of soup.

And don't go after me about the Sun being 20% dimmer.  We aren't talking percentages here, the uncertainties are greater than a factor of 10.  But not temperature, that's solid shirt-sleeves forever.

Even those giant mats of bacteria sucked up carbon, and new guys on the block sucked up all the co2 until we got 20% oxygen.  Ever wonder why we don't have more oxygen?  It's a poison.

Enzymes responsible for nitrogenase action are very susceptible to destruction by oxygen. For this reason, many bacteria cease production of the enzyme in the presence of oxygen. Many nitrogen-fixing organisms exist only in anaerobic conditions, respiring to draw down oxygen levels, or binding the oxygen with a protein such as leghemoglobin.^[1]

Obviously, photosynthesis is happy with 0% O2 because that's how it started.  But get up to that 20% and things begin to happen.  We animals love it, but we are ticks on the giant plant and bacteria elephant.

Now, the weird thing is that plants need co2 to grow, yet they are dedicated to wiping it out.  Thus co2 is the 'limiting factor' on growth if you have plenty of water.  This proven by the fact that I add co2 to my planted aquarium, and they add it to greenhouses.  Where did they get it before we animals started burning things and breathing.  Do plants really care about us?

- blah blah continued blah blah

Physics - The Very Large Carbon Cycle - Part 1

I've been writing about very large Earth physics, with energies far above anything that puny Man can do.  It is the height of conceit to think we are influencing any of these things.

Today's lecture is the (very) Large Carbon Cycle.  We are all totally saturated by the small carbon cycle, which is the one supposedly dooming us.  That is:  we breathe out, our breath is the equivalent of dragon's fire, then the trees and ocean suck it up, if we are lucky.

These articles are just for those people who have bumper stickers reading:  "My Science Includes Physics".  All others can leave.  Creationists and Climate Scientists are the same, you can never argue with them because they have redefined all the terms, and never stick with anything once something new comes along.  Really, if you come up with a Universal Constant of carbon sensitivity, it should stick for any and all time, and not get fudged when things don't happen the way they should.

Back to the point.  Take a look at Venus.  Not a very nice place.  Yet we must assume that Venus and Earth started out the same with respect to carbon, but with Venus, it's all in the atmosphere, and Earth only has a smidgeon in the air.  Where is it?

So, let's look at the early Earth.  The Sun was maybe 20% weaker, which does change things too much, and the Galactic Seeders had already visited.  That is, we had blobs of bacteria enjoying themselves.  The atmosphere was all methane.  Wait!  Did somebody catch that?  Methane, which supposedly has a greenhouse effect of 10 times (or more) of co2.  The mere fact that life existed shows that we could have visited and thrown blobs of bacteria at each other.  So, throughout the whole history of Earth, we had things at around body temperature, which is where all life processes run their best.  If the temperatures had been different, we'd a silicon life form.

Can it be that our Creationist Climate people are full of it?  Of course.  The Greenhouse Effect cannot exist where there is full-cell convection.  Solid methane didn't bake us, because that whole stupid thing doesn't exist.  That's why you can't argue with such people.  Anyhow, shortly after we left, somebody threw in some cyanobacteria, and everything turned over to oxygen.  And still we have our carbon question.

-to be continued.

Physics - High Energy Part 3

El Nino - the dam busts

For recorded history, we've had a benign pattern.  That strong equatorial Pacific current goes slamming into the islands (Philippines, and such), jamming up warm water.  Then the Sun bakes this stagnant mass, and it becomes super hot.  After 7 years, it's had enough, and something triggers a water earthquake, perhaps we could call it a waterquake, but that's sounds like something else.

The El Nino is magnificent.  It rolls to the East like a freight train of warm water.  It hits the smooth wall of South America, and spreads North and South, like Manna from Heaven.  It brings water to the deserts of Chile, and soaks California.  It also does weird things to the rest of us.

California can live with this cycle, because it starts a bit early, and lingers with La Nina.  That's enough to totally soak the mountains and fill the reservoirs, and they can wait for the next one.  Like I said, the last one didn't happen.  A slight shift in the equatorial current means this cycle is disrupted.

Earthquakes ride on the other energy, heat from radioactive decay in the deep mantle.  We wouldn't be here without that, so we have to live with it.  The two subjects are somewhat related since the early settlers clung around springs created by faults.  It's only later that California became dependent on a benign El Nino cycle.

Update:  This animation shows what El Nino does.

Physics - High Energy Part 2

The highest energy thing we have going here is the rotation of the Earth, followed by the radiation heat deep in the Mantle.  I don't know how many atomic bombs they are, or how many seconds of the Sun, but it is huge.  Man isn't even the flea on these elephants.  The orbit of the Moon is somewhere there, and that controls the tides.

For the rotation, two things leech off it - ocean currents, and atmospheric flow.  When deep water warms up and rises, it comes with a lag in rotational speed, and thus flows West.  The same for air rising when warmed.  The Earth is busy rushing from West to East.  Cold air and water accelerates when it drops.

You can look at the motions in my previous post.  If we didn't have inconvenient things like continents, our ocean and air currents would just zoom around in flat stripes, and look like Jupiter.

Forget that big alien landing pad.  This our Earth without N-S trending continents.

In the Atlantic we have the equatorial plume smashing into North and South America.  It does what plumes do when hitting a wall, it splits and the momentum goes up North and down South.  Like this.

But the Pacific plume has a tough time.  It goes into an island mess, like this.

This is an absorbing boundary.  The heat accumulates, and the energy also builds as a mound of water.  Sort of like water behind a dam.

-next - The Dam Busters

Physics - High Energy Part 1

I'm going to visit my son in California and I have two things on my mind - earthquakes and drought.  Both are the result of high-energy processes in our good old Earth.

The first is drought.  California has had a very long drought so far.  However, looking at tree rings and such, 100 year droughts are common, and very long droughts have wiped out ancient civilizations.  It is the natural state of California to be a dusty desert, exactly like the southern deserts of Chile, which are lucky to see rain every 7 years.

So what could have fooled Mankind so much as to want to settle there?  Nobody lives in the deserts of Chile.  It's just that during our short historical period, we have had the benefit of a regular El Nino event every 7 years.  The last train didn't come in, and California's lawns have to be painted green.

-to be continued, I have to make some illustrations.

Physics Lecture - The Basic Rules of Physics - Tail and Dog Part 3

So now we know the mass ratios of the dog and tail, it's time to look at the noise.  We are also working with heat energy, specific heat, and atmospheric infrared reflectance.  Is the dog active?

Hear a fantastic Nasa simulation.

At same time, we see the clouds following the same lines.

In terms of heat effect, the ratio of ocean to cloud is the same as that of cloud to carbon - many factors of 10.

In fact, the only thing to ever disturb the satellite-determined temperature was a big El Nino. (and a volcano)

The dog is active, and any carbon signal (if it even exists) gets buried in the noise.

In summary, we now live in a world that doesn't believe in physics, but physics believes in the world, and sometimes comes back at ya!

End of series.

Physics Lecture - The Basic Rules of Physics - Tail and Dog Part 2

To continue, in the Earth, with regard to available heat energy, the oceans are the dog, and the atmosphere is the fluff on the end of the tail.  In the atmosphere, water vapour is the dog, and carbon is maybe one hair on the tail. (In terms of heat reflection).

It not enough to merely state the energy ratios, one must also make a statement on stability and sensitivity.  If Roxie stood super still, and on high alert, then it is possible that blowing on the tail fluff might her jump.  How likely is that?  In chaotic, super-sensitive system, the flap of a butterfly wing may initiate a Class 5 typhoon, but really?  In physics, we have to determine the stability of a system, the noise and the signal.  Unfortunately, in Canada, the term 'stability' has been redefined to exclude sensitivity, and random forcing functions.  For nuclear waste, they would say that a stone teahouse in Nepal is 'stable' because nothing has happened to it for hundreds of years.

But we can't do that in Physics World.  We have to take the whole enchilada.  For my dog we have to look at the random forcing functions, the magnitude and frequency (how often).

Okay, that means that any little input from the tail would be swamped by all the other things.  When the noise to signal ratio exceeds a factor of 10, we say the signal is drowned by the noise, and dead men tell no tales.  You say, what about Oklahoma?  That's because the rock is super-sensitive, at high stress, and nothing has happened for thousands of years.  You change the saturation of the fluid, and suddenly there are earthquakes.  Keep going and the mechanism builds up.  It's like if you played with a tiger's tail long enough, sooner or later he'll rip your head off.  That is what is happening in Oklahoma.

-to be continued.

Physics Lecture - The Basic Rules of Physics - Tail and Dog Part 1

Inspiration

As I've said, all pithy comments now go in my g+ collections.  I can't help it if I'm the only one on this.  I've followed every Google Titanic to the bottom, and the same goes for this.  That's what happens when anti-social super-nerds try to take over the world.

You can't do full articles on social media, so the blog has to stay for a while.  I throw these over the wall, not expecting any comment.  As one commenter hinted at, maybe powerful people read this.  If they do, I don't want to hear about it.  :)

Today's Rule of Physics:

Rule 1: The Tail Cannot Wag the Dog

The inspiration for this came from the above article, when the warmers are trying to bring in selective physics.  My only objection to this whole thing was the lack of physics.  Now they are bringing a little physics, they have opened the floodgates, to put this whole thing in the Physics World.

The Original Gore-ist Hypothesis:  Carbon is the major influence on global temperatures, by an order of magnitude, at least.  Although no physical measurements support this, it works through a 'magical' link with water vapour, and various mysteries in the stratosphere.  If the insulating factor rises linearly, as in the graphs, then temperature must rise exponentially, which is basic physics.  Our children will bake in a New Venus.

For Rule 1, we figure out what is the dog, and what is the tail.  A dog must be orders of magnitude (10 to 1000) more than the tail.  Lets look at heat energy.  Heat energy is defined as the potential to do work, in this case, to fry us.  Temperature alone is not enough, the spark from a fireworks sparkler is super hot, but cannot turn you to ash.

-that's all I can write right now.  More to come, with pictures even.

Ending the Blog

Who does a blog any more?  I'm going to try to end this.  I'll leave things up for people to search.

A blog was great for my long diatribes, but I get no feedback.  I'll continue to leave little comments on g+ but I can't see any more huge things on the ice ages, or fault mechanics.  I hope they have inspired some people, but I'll never know.  I was always content writing for some distant future when they would understand me.  :)

Google Plus Collections

I'm using that more than my blog.  It basically sub-divides my public postings.  I have 'earthquakes', Linux, and Grouchy.  People can turn a collection off.  I've been criticized that my blog wanders all over the map, so maybe we need sub-headings for this as well.

For instance, I put a comment on the recent Nepal M7.3 on collections.  It's not really an aftershock, but a quake that is marching down the line.  I might give up on the blog, who knows?

Darlington gets ready for new nuclear

I was amazed when I drove by the old place.  When I worked there I called it 'Lobotomy Central' only because everybody was so peaceful and happy.  It doesn't mean anything else, really.

So they're taking down Fred's Pile, which is the huge mound of dirt.  I suppose all that dirt can go to feed the 407.  And they are replacing the our original dinky bridge with a new super monster bridge.  We got away with a dinky bridge because they shipped in all the heavy parts by barge.  Can't really do that any more.

Taking away the dirt gives them a lot more room for a lay-down area for the new plant.  I sure hope they've gone for the Westinghouse.  There's some hope for getting them to work, albeit at twice the price (if we're lucky).

They better order the new stuff right away before we all find out what a horrible disaster the refurb will be.  Oh well, it's just money.  :)

Cottage Report

Despite the horribly cold winter the ice went out of the lake on time, and we even were able to open up a week before long weekend.  So we haven't quite gone back to the 70's.  We were totally dying with heat, trying to sleep on Saturday night, and the water was so icy it didn't even cool you off if you dangled your feet in it.  That's because all the blood in the feet instantly stopped, and so numb there was no pain.  :)  Half an hour later when you felt your feet again, you were hot.

Nothing is worse than blackflies and super-heat.  You try to do some work totally covered with a net jacket and soon the sweat pours like a waterfall into your eyes.  I gave up soon, but the ladies were troopers.  :)  Those Off Lamps were great on the deck.

It's so nice when everything works and there are no big disasters.

The oak leaves are just itty-bitty things.

Big M4 earthquake in Texas

Well south of the previous activity.  Looks like there was a little injection activity before.  That's what I love about Texans -- they never learn.  Somebody slipped the good stuff into the drink!

Full steam ahead for Bruce Black Hole

Article

TORONTO -- A Canadian environmental assessment concludes burying hazardous nuclear material near the shore of Lake Huron in a deep underground bunker is the best way to deal with the waste.


Yeah, safe as houses!  I'm happy for the authors, they are maybe now down in Cuba, drinking all that cheap rum.  :)  Did I say this was a foregone conclusion?  No?   We await the sinking of the Titanic Shaft.

Linux - Fun with Wacom

I decided to get my wacom working again.  It's a really nice big tablet, usb, and I have used it for many drawings.  It doesn't help to have no artistic talent, but I want to draw a nice symbol for airbnb.  We are going to California, and that web site is great.  Too bad Quebec is at war with it.  They can join Kansas with its state bill banning uber.  They're all hicks anyway.  :)

So, I always use the latest kernels, and I couldn't find it!  This is just like trying to find something at costco, they always move it.  I went through at least 10 reboots, and a ton of useless things.  Finally, the stupid driver is under HID drivers, and again under special usb drivers.  Think I could find that anywhere?  Anyway, once you click that then everything is golden.  I hate Linux.  I love Linux .......

Update:  This was going to be my symbol, of our crazy dog, but they have their own symbol-bot.  :)

I traced another picture, with the calligraphy tool on a very heavy gravity (smoothing), using Inkscape.

Bruce Black Hole to be given green light this week

Article

I can give this prediction with certainty.  Their contract is up.  There is no provision for follow-up.  They will give the usual thumbs-up with questions, with no interest to see the answers.

I won't even read the report, since they rejected anything of interest for me.  So, now to the shaft!  Things to look for will be the amount of grout, and how they handle the pumped-out rock water.

Waiting for the big one

Today is my birthday.  As with all the other countless birthdays, I don't feel any older.  I took early retirement from the psychological torture chamber, known as the old company, and I've been feeling wonderful ever since.

My shrink always asks me how I'm doing in retirement, and I tell him that as long as I have Oklahoma everything is golden.  On my birthday I'm waiting for the OK big one.  I feel totally vindicated now, but this would be icing on the cake, as it would bring my latest Dilation Hypothesis into the world.

We had our storm with M4's, and now are in the stationary phase.  All earthquakes have stopped, except they are popping off all over the place.

Michigan, for goodness sake, who saw that coming?  After OK blows, this injection site will be my new thing.  Have to wait for a few more, though, and they actually have to find the injection point.  :)  If it exists.

I feel in my bones that OK will have it's quake today.  If it's very deep, then it won't do anything.  We'll just wait for the next, and the one after that.  That's what I want for my birthday, a nice deep quake along one of the main fault, strike-slip, and it doesn't do any worse than what's already been done.  They can save the big Nepalish thrust for another day.  :)

Further birthday thought:  If they aren't injection, then far earthquakes may be caused by the OK strain field.  With the entire crust being at the limit state, there is no distance limit on disturbance.  When the dilation for the M7 starts we'll see earthquakes popping off all over Eastern North America.

Nah, it's injection:  

Earthquakes always happen when they decide to put the corrosive fracking waste in.  The price keeps going up and new people try.  Can't wait to see what will happen in Texas - always someone trying it there.

Irving, Texas M3.2, but Intensity 5.  Yeah for Texas!  I knew they'd come through for my birthday.  :)

Still waiting for my Okie 5

Final:  small activity has started up again - prediction failed.  :(

Michigan M4.2 earthquake - felt forever

I didn't feel it.  I was outside, enjoying the warmth and vino, with a tang of eau du manure, since I had just dumped some compost.  Highrises should have noticed some sloshing in fish tank.

It just blew away the Polaris seismic network.  Fortunately we have real dynamic range, unlike the people in the States.

Thousands of responses, and the intensity was fairly flat.  This is a classic Eastern earthquake in all its glory.

Oblique normal, so it was a weeny for local effects even though it got up to Intensity 6.  Lots of people must be on swamps.  I can't think it was that shallow.

Nice farmland.

This is on the edge of the Michigan Basin and is the best spot in the world for some happy people to start injecting right into the Precambrian.  We didn't see the smaller events leading up to this since they don't believe in seismometers.  Add Michigan to the list.

Any closer into the basin and you'd never be able to inject.  I'm not saying nothing, mind you, just look around.  :)

New Home Battery - Cloudy with chance of meatballs

Article

Now, I'm not mentioning any names because this guy is certified.  Nor am I being obvious about anything.  Let's call this company 'coil' and their new battery which was first developed for the coil car.  To be worthwhile this needs tremendous energy density, eventually on the order of gasoline.  These things blow up when hit, and the coil car needed a titanium bottom.

So what happens in an earthquake?  All of these things are slated to go into the soft-garages of the Bay area houses.  Do they have titanium?  Can they survive a brick hitting them?  Or a rebar going through?  I think not.  All these houses have automatic gas shut-offs, there is no way to shut down the battery automatically or discharge it safely.

Think of a whole California city filled with these things.  :(