How Prehistoric Glaciers Could Have Been Formed Part 2
Abstract: In this essay we review how easy it is to make a wrong assumption (have a wrong idea) with possible serious consequences that hinders positive progress. And from time to time we consider comments to Part 1 made by Michael Clarke and JLK.
Then we point to the evidence seen in the image that the blue clouds must be beneath the white clouds instead of the opposite situation with which we concluded in Part 1. We review an old term, First Principles, which we seldom now hear or read about.
So we point to some examples of those first principles which we consider should receive greater considerations. Finally we state there is a simple theory that explains the cloud droplets have different colors simply because of their sizes. Which we challenge readers to tell us about.
Essay
Have you ever tried to do something that you haven’t done before and which it seems that no one else (to your knowledge) has tried to do either. I have just completed a building project, with the help of another, who doubted if it could be done. I began with an absolutely wrong idea; based upon the ‘accidents’ which occurred during the process of successfully completing the project. But because of my wrong idea I finally did what I could and should have done at the beginning.
Michael Clarke’s comments to Part1 (https://principia-scientific.com/how-prehistoric-glaciers-could-have-been-formed-part-1/) has corrected a wrong idea (that the black hole was the result of the centrifugal effects acting upon the cloud particles) which I had when I composed this previous essay. So, thus far there have been no significant accidents. I no longer frequently use we (as I do not want to imply that Richard was the source of any wrong idea which I might write).
I cannot ignore that the earth spins and that the resulting centrifugal factor should cause any cloud particles to ‘move’ faster toward lower latitudes as their distance from the pole increases.
However, wrong ideas can clearly hinder progress. So, you the reader now have the responsibility to correct any wrong ideas I might be considering. As Michael Clarke did.
In Part 1 I had written: “Image 1 (above) is an observation upon which our novel understanding is fundamentally based.” Fortunately, Michael Clarke, in his first comment stated: “The polar ‘Black Hole’ is caused by the fact that Polar Satelite tracks do not actually go over the pole.” And in this and following comments he educated us with further information which convinced me that is would be a serious error to try to explain that the ‘Black Hole’ was caused by the centrifugal effect upon the rotating polar atmosphere which was rotating with the rotating earth surface at the atmosphere’s base.
While it is a fact the polar atmosphere is rotating and that the centrifugal effect are facts which need to be considered, these factors are not the cause of the ‘Black Hole’.
While, in Part 1, I had questioned how Dr Joel Glass could conclude the massive areas covered by the ‘blue polar clouds’ (noctilucent clouds) was new, I never questioned if the ‘blue polar clouds’ seen in the image were actually noctilucent clouds. But I did propose that the white clouds were near the top of the polar troposphere; something which Glass did not because his attention appeared to be captured by the more unique blue clouds.
Because I have read (Louis Agassiz As a Teacher, Lane Cooper, 1917) how Agassiz taught his students and claimed that his greatest achievement was that he taught them to see, I claim to have learned to see (sometimes slowly, but eventually I get there). I now see evidence that the ‘blue polar clouds’ were even at a lower altitude than the white clouds were.
I ask: What is this evidence seen in Image 1? However, this is a rhetorical question because I am going to tell you what I see. As I study the image it seems unquestionable that the white clouds block the transmission of the blue light through them. For there appears to be no hint of blue in the white of the white clouds.
After writing this, I again looked more carefully, and I now see what I consider to be some blue clouds above the white. Which is good because if both clouds were near the top of troposphere I would expect that sometimes the blue clouds could be above the white.
Of course, if the blue polar clouds are not noctilucent clouds, what are the blue clouds?
In his last comment (as I compose this), Michael Clarke began: “This conversation has significant importance in many fields of science.
I am a generalist, small order polymath, I know a little about an awful lot. The opposite of an expert, those that know an awful lot about a specific subject.”
To which a portion of my reply was: ” Do you realize (appreciate) how critically important being a GENERALIST is? In comments I wrote: “read what James Edward Kamis (plate climatology) referred to us by Richard Cronin in his article. (https://principia-scientific.com/naturally-occurring-fission-plate-climatology-and-the-georeactor/)
I have now done this and while there was possibly useful information about volcanic activity, I did not find the word(s)–cloud or clouds–one time. And I concluded my comment to Clarke with: “I doubt if EXPERTS have ever heard (read) about FIRST PRINCIPLES.”
I wrote this because I cannot remember when I last heard, or read, the term: FIRST PRINCIPLES. But in my formal education, about 5 decades ago, it was a very common term. Which meant one needed to begin any explanation with what was known that could not be questioned,
Svante Arrhenius, in 1896, knew that if one wanted to explain the ‘earth’s surface temperature’ one must begin with solar radiation (First Principle). And he knew that Lewis Agassiz had convinced the geology community, with observed evidences, that thick glaciers had covered northern portions of North America, Europe, and Asia down to 45oS and in some cases a little beyond. Hence, he knew there had been a significant climate change.
Relative to these observations, I consider the conclusion, that to form a glacier it has to snow a lot, to be a first principle.
I previously had introduced you to R.C. Sutcliffe (Part 1). Now I quote him again.
It would be difficult to overstress the importance of clouds as the necessary intermediary between invisible vapour and falling precipitation in the water cycle upon which all land-life depends, but their importance by no means ends here. Clouds which do not give rain, which never even threaten to give rain but which dissolve again into vapour before the precipitation stage is ever reached, have a profound effect on our climate. This obvious enough if we only think of the difference between a cloudy and a sunny day in summer or between an overcast and a clear frosty night in winter. Taking an overall average, about 50 per cent of the earth’s is covered with cloud at any time whereas precipitation is falling over no more than say 3 per cent. Non-precipitating clouds are thus the common variety, rain clouds are the exception.
Anyone want to question the validity of which Sutcliffe reviewed? Anyone want to question if clouds are also a first principle?
In his next chapter Sutcliffe considers clouds in more detail.
It has been necessary to labour over this image of the processes in terms of molecular movements in order to appreciate the difficulties which arise when the vapour exists in the atmosphere far removed from any liquid surface. The air might be supersaturated, in the sense that if there were liquid present the vapour would quickly be captured by it, but in the absence of any liquid there is no obvious reason why condensation should ever begin and experiment proves that the argument is a valid one.
The experiment, which Sutcliffe describes in some detail was that of C.T.R. Wilson working with his famous expansion cloud chamber.
After which Sutcliffe continued.
These results, obtained first by Wilson and broadly confirmed by many later experiments, have a very important bearing on natural meteorology, not because supersaturation occurs in the atmosphere but because it does not occur; [long rhetorical question] The answer is that the natural atmosphere, however clean it may appear to be, is always supplied with a sufficient number of minute particles of salts, acids or other substances which serve just as well as liquid water in capturing water molecules from the vapour. These are the ‘nuclei of condensation’, and are effective as soon as the air becomes even slightly supersaturated.
These ‘nuclei of condensation’ as described by Sutcliffe are a first principle. When is the last time you have read about these ‘nuclei of condensation? Only you can answer this question.
Sutcliffe compared the diameter of an air molecule (10-8cm) with that of small nuclei of condensation (10-5cm) with that of giant nuclei of condensation (10-3cm) with that of a cloud droplet (10-3cm) with a drizzle droplet (10-2cm) with a rain drop (10-1cm). Relative to these dimensions one might ask: So what? And Agassiz might tell such a student to look some more. And if you were a lucky student he might ask: Why are there blue clouds and white clouds? Or, why are there clouds (skies) of different colors?
For Sutcliffe, in 1966, could have known there was a theory (right or wrong) about the colors of condensation nuclei and cloud droplets which depended simply upon the size of the particle. But it is obvious he was unaware of such a theory.
I conclude at this point because Galileo is said to have stated (as translated by someone): “We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves.”
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Matt
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Hi Jerry.
I have been a stranger to the term “first principles”. I have heard of “first nations”.
I do, however, know the concept “fundamental” and even the term “foundation”. That which is a sound and reliable proposition from which to build or explore.
It is time for me to take another look at the Hadley Cell atmospheric process to imagine if extreme volcanism could throw an anomaly into the Hadley Cell first principle. Volcanism imposing extreme displacement of the norm.
Then to envisage “look what the cat dragged in” when you have extreme meridional waves in the jet stream which we are told are more common during low solar activity but which is also contributed to by the North South aspect of the northern hemisphere continents with the oceans interspaced. History suggests that times of low solar activity produces weather extremes.
The fact remains that the glaciers were there and, for my amusement, there could be some “first principles” that are challenged by other “first principles” or some naughty little anomalies.
I did notice about four days before Easter this year an amazingly long (mslp) airflow (fetch) from about 10 degrees North in the Atlantic Ocean taking tropical air all the way Nor’Nor’East to Norway and yep, a few days later there were news reports of Norwegian wildfires and unseasonable heat in England. A very natural anomaly.
That particular weather system was the shape of three eggs laid end to end and was definitely the result of the North South aspect of the Northern continents with interspersed ocean.
I researched it on my world atlas and even when I turned the atlas upside down it held true.
Kind Regards.
Matt
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jerry krause
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Hi Matt,
About First Principles you have just made my point. For you wrote: “I have been a stranger to the term “first principles”. ” And then you went on as if First Principles made no difference relative to your ‘thinking’ (pondering?).
In the recent article (https://principia-scientific.com/u-s-general-qanon-is-army-intel-calls-for-better-science-education/) the general concluded that one of the five “the five biggest threats facing our country [USA] today” was “Education of youth (who lack basic History & Science education).” And you can go there and read my comment.
Lewis Agassiz claimed his greatest achievement was that he had taught some of his students to ‘see’. I only know how he taught these students to see because an English language professor at Cornell University wrote (edited) a book (Louis Agassiz As A Teacher, 1917) in which some of these students had written short essays about their first assignments. What is important to me is the fact that this English professor wrote the book several decades after Agassiz had died.
One of these students discovered during the first day of his assignments that sometimes the most obvious is the most difficult to see.
You just wrote that the word ‘principles’, with regards to science, was unfamiliar to you. The title of this website is Principlia-Scientific which I consider to be a takeoff of the title of Newton’s book (as translated by Andrew Motte) which was “The Principia”.
History–What was the first documented scientific principle discovered by historical man? The historical answer: The principle of buoyancy discovered by Archimedes sometime before 212BC. Galileo invented a thermometer based on the principle of buoyancy much more than a 1000 years later. Galileo knew history.
Have a good day, Jerry
Reply
jerry krause
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Hi Readers of this,
I have copied two recent comments from Part 1 so it would become more likely that you read what Michael Clarke has done during his sleepless nights.
“Michael Clarke
October 22, 2019 at 9:48 am | #
Jerry, two things of import.
1/. IT IS VERY GOOD TO DISCUSS OUR THOUGHTS AND FINDINGS IN PUBLIC!!!!
This enables other people to verify or disprove ‘evidence’ to support theories.
2/. Here is how I established what I believe to be the truth about that composite image!
I copied it to a one.jpg file. I printed it on A3 paper. I then looked at that one.jpg using standard off the shelf software, (several varieties).
The best seemed to be paint shop pro. I then zoomed in as far as it would go focusing on the south western edge of your black hole. I then printed that new image two.jpg on A3 paper. I then aligned a ruler on the now obvious joins and having identified them I placed the ruler on the un-expanded image and drew lines across the image from extreme left through the pole to the other side.
It did not take long to see a pattern emerge.
Ok with me so far?
I then used some very old software to look at the data that constituted the one.jpg
In other words I looked at the data as a Byte stream. This requires a lot of hard work looking for repeating data items. What I found were individual pixels that went from bottom left to top right, in a dead straight line! IE a construction processes revealed. Relatively simple math gave the start point. Jpg size (a x b) gave me how many bytes into the data to start looking, then rather more complicated math to work out where to look for the next byte of the obvious line that I was following. up and to the right. The individual pixels were there to see, plain as if standing out like standing stones in Stonehenge!
I have re-visited that expanded image and there are 14 lines crossing the pole. The inevitable conclusion is that the image consists of fly-over views of what is beneath the satellite at 14 different times! At least 100 minutes apart!!!!!!!
I suspect that for your purposes it is useless!”
“Hi Michael,
You are right. The image is not a composite of observations made during the twilight period as I have been assuming. For I and Dr Joel Glass have ignored (not seen) the obvious. Which is the image of the ‘scale’ of the polar region’s solar albedo as seen from the satellite. Obviously, to observe this albedo, there must be the presence of solar radiation. Which at the northern Summer Solstice is occurring 24hrs per day withing the Arctic Circle.
You wrote: “The inevitable conclusion is that the image consists of fly-over views of what is beneath the satellite at 14 different times! At least 100 minutes apart!!!!!!!” This information which helps me see what is actually being seen in the Image certainly is not useless. What I and Dr. Glass were assuming is worse than useless. So, thank your for correcting us and the readers of your comments.”
When we get old we have lots of valuable experiences which give us knowledge. But when we get old our fingers do not connect will with our minds so what we write is not what we intended too frequently. So, you younger folk need to edit for yourself what we intended to write.
Have a good day, Jerry
Have a
Reply
jerry krause
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Hi Folks,
I again copy (paste) here a comment which I have just made to Part 1 so it would become more likely that you read it.
Hi Michael,
When I copied your comment, I did not copy your last statement: “NASA needs to explain how they produced that composite image!” I did not copy it because NASA did tell us what the image was about and I knew I had not seen that which NASA had clearly told us. I did not copy your last statement because I believed you had just told me what NASA had done.
NASA can do nothing. Individuals (authorities) write what we credit ‘NASA’ as writing. And ‘authorities’ have great difficulties with admitting that they were wrong because it should erode their standing (power) as an ‘authority’. Hence, it is entirely possible that these ‘authorities’ hide their mistakes by manufacturing data (evidence) which supports their wrong ideas. We readily understand that in the present climate, relative to the GHE, AGW, and Climate Change issues, that peons, whose ‘futures’ depend upon the goodwill of the authorities, go along with the wrong ideas of the authorities. Even Galileo had to lie—the Earth stands still—to save his life to fight another day. But he (Galileo) began to write a forbidden book about his simple knowledge (understanding) that he had gained by the mathematics which he applied to his simple observations (experiments). Which I doubt anyone can know about unless they read his entire book, including the preface which the preface that the publisher of the book wrote to the readers of the book.
Any physical scientist, capable of reading the English language, who has not read Henry Crew and Alfonso de Salvio translation of Galileo’s Italian and disregards the data of NOAA’s two research projects (https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/surfrad/dataplot.html) and (https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/surfrad/dataplot.html) is just as guilty as any authorities who have manufactured data to hide their mistakes.
It is not enough to point to the bad behavior of some and not use this available data (including the information seen in the NASA’s Image 1) to correct mistakes and thereby to better understand weather and climate.
Have a good day, Jerry
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jerry krause
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Hi Folks,
This comment is to make it absolutely clear that anything I previously wrote in Part 1 and now wrote in Part 2 should be totally ignored. For the colored images seen in Image 1 have nothing to due with any color produced by the cloud’s particles. For the colors represent the measured magnitude of the upwelling diffuse solar radiation that has been scattered by the atmosphere, the cloud particles, and perhaps even by the earth’s surface, if there actually were no atmospheric particles to significantly hinder the transmission of solar radiation through the atmosphere in either the downward direction or the upward direction.
Maybe one might conclude that these two wrong essays should be removed, but Michael Clarke wrote (Part 1): “Jerry, two things of import.
1/. IT IS VERY GOOD TO DISCUSS OUR THOUGHTS AND FINDINGS IN PUBLIC!!!!
This enables other people to verify or disprove ‘evidence’ to support theories.”
It would be very wrong to hide the mistakes I have made. Buckminister Fuller has stated that we can only learn from our mistakes because just because something seems to work, does not prove our reasoning was correct. For what appears consistent with our ideas might be found to not work in what seems a similar situation. But it something doesn’t work in a given situation cannot be made to work in the same situation.
Richard Feynman in a commencement address stated: “Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them.” And I certainly have learned that there are such detail about what I wrote in Parts 1 and 2.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Horace
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Jerry,
Shouldn’t your first sentence read: This comment is to make it absolutely clear that anything I write should be totally ignored?
My observations are that most of the time you are wrong or confused, although I do find some of your ramblings strangely entertaining. You remind me of the Boring Prophet from Monty Python’s Life Of Brian.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqaQ_Bhgmrc
Bonne Journée
Horace
Reply
Michael Clarke
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Hi Jerry,
I submitted my theory about those ice sheets and how they formed. I tried to cover all the bases and explain my thinking.
I offered my theory, I did not draw any conclusions, that I feel is best left to the experts in the vasious scientific fields to prove or disprove.
I hope my essay gets published. I will watch for your name in PSI, can we get PSI to send us our email addresses so we can continue to convers.
PS I am 81 next month.
Reply
jerry krause
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Hi Michael,
First, I will ask John to send you my email address and I know he will, because he had done in the past.
Second, to whom did you submit your theory? Answer in a email if you wish for I am just curious.
Third, does this mean you will not continue to comment about my continuing effort to explain How Prehistoric Glaciers Could Have Been Formed? Which is actually an attend to demonstrated what must done to actually understand all the critical little factors which need to be considered to begin to understand what simply might occur.
You are really someone special as someone you studied calculus at 9 had to have been at the beginning. For I just checked that Richard Feynman only began to study calculus at about 13. I could solve practical math problems but I cannot claim to understand the underlying theories of ‘higher’ mathematics.
Hopefully you will continue to make comments.
Have a good day, Jerry
Reply
Michael Clarke
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Hi Jerry,
I submitted to PSI via a ‘contact us’ form. It is a bit early to worry about where it currently is regarding being published.
I will continue to post here meantime.
Regarding Calculus at age nine.
Yes I was a gifted child who had a gifted if un-orthodox teacher, one Mrs. Jordan, the mother of Colin Jordan the UK Nazi who was jailed for the duration of WWII. I was in a tiny village school just 60 pupils aged 5 to 11. I was in a class of one seated right beside Mrs. Jordan’s desk, after my first term at that school aged 5, that was January 1943 having had the ‘littlies’ teacher declare that as I already knew how to count and my times tables I was beyond their ability to teach.
My father was away in the military. I was the man of the house, Mother ran the local fruit and veg shop. I took the cash and dispensed the change. I knew all the village ladies and what food was available and the cost before I went to school just before my fifth birthday.
I had two wonderful grandmothers who visited on alternate Sundays. Maternal Grandmother was a ‘Card Sharp’ who played competitive ‘Whist’ and taught me card games as soon as I was able to hold the cards! Paternal grandmother was a single mum who had had seven children, Dad was the eldest. She taught me all about money, how to county it, add and subtract it, and that led to learning my times tables and hence my position beside the till in the shop.
At age 9 I took an entrance exam to a prestigious school set up by Henry VIII and passed much to every ones surprise. This gave me a scholarship, all my parents had to do was provide school uniform and dinner money. The scholarship even provided transportation costs to and from school.
Going to that school was a disaster from day one.
It was a city school, so the school children had a very different accent to my soft country speech. I was a year younger than every one else so was smaller, and was bullied mercilessly.
Early on in the Geometry math class I explained to the class on the blackboard the Pythagoras theory with diagrams and numbers. That made things worse and I never did anything to attract attention again.
I spent seven years at that school, learnt physics, chemistry, geography, music and woodwork. I failed English three times! I have a smattering of French and Latin.
I was in the last batch of Conscripts into the UK armed forces, took to electronics like a duck to water and was taught to think logically. There is a very simple reason to be able to do this as the equipment I was trained to repair had lethal voltages inside and therefore could not be operated with-out the covers on. One had to work out which component was broken or bent before replacing it , making the wrong selection could be very time consuming and expensive so getting it right and re-testing was important.
One major component of the military electronics training, (This was before there were degree courses in electronics) was aerial, from long wave to centimeter wave length theory, hence my knowledge of the foot print of satellites.
Ok enough of my history.
Here are a few clues about my theory.
There is just ONE cause.
It is quite slow acting, but totally overwhelming in effect.
There are other VERY minor contributing factors.
Michael
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jerry krause
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Hi Michael.
Here’s a question for you. How many people in the world, do you reason, there are today who know what ‘Whist’ is? The only Grandmother (maternal) I knew played whist and another card game which I cannot not spell-peeknockle-and my father and my uncles played ‘Whist’ each major holiday when the family got together.
As to your question about the energy needed to evaporate a certain volume of water, my comment would be best attempted in a private email.
I am very glad you will continue making comments here at PSI.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Michael Clarke
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I seem to have missed out a few years with Mrs. Jordan. Geometry, Trigonometry, Algebra, Quadratic equations and the beginnings of calculus. Mrs. Jordan even had a logarithmic tables book so I learnt about real number math as well, then I went to that Grammar School. Never leant a single thing of math the whole time I was there.
Michael
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Michael Clarke
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Hi Jerry.
A quick question:- How many watts would it take to get one cubic meter of sea water to evaporate. Supplementary:- What sort of temperature and how long with just a few meters/sec of wind speed.
Michael
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Herb Rose
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Hi Micheal,
A watt is a flow rate of energy (joules/sec) while the evaporation of water is from a quantity of energy. The energy absorption of water varies with its temperature so a calorie (4.2 joules) varies depending on the initial temperature of the water. Water does not evaporate into steam but smaller water droplets. It takes 420 joules/gm to raise the temperature of water from 0 C to 100 C but it take 2206 joules/gram to convert 100 C water to 100 C steam.
Since it is fresh water evaporating I don’t know if it takes more energy to evaporate it from salt water than fresh, and I would think humidity is more important than wind speed.
Herb
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Michael Clarke
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Thanks for that Herb, the answer to my understated question, is rather a lot of Joules/gm!
The actual amount of salt water I was enquiring about is 0.4 times 10 to the 20 Cubic meters!!!! this is therefore rather a large number!
Michael
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Zoe Phin
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Herb,
Just a note:
It takes 2206 joules/gram to convert 100% of 100°C water to 100°C steam. You can put in less to get SOME steam.
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Herb Rose
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Yes Zoe. And if you want to make more than a gram of steam you have to add more energy. Another dumb comment.
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Zoe Phin
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Why is it dumb?
If you 1103 J PER gram then you will convert 50% of your water to steam. All I’m saying is that you don’t need all 2206 J/gm to begin the water-to-steam process, but to finish it, completely.
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Herb Rose
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Zoe Its like saying if you get 20mpg with your car if you travel less than a mile you will use less than a gallon of gas.
Reply