How Prehistoric Glaciers Could Have Been Formed Part 3

Abstract: This essay first formally corrects the assumption of Dr. Joel Glass and Jerry L Krause (JLK) that the blue and white images of Image 1 represent the colors of clouds as considered in Part 1

(https://principia-scientific.com/how-prehistoric-glaciers-could-have-been-formed-part-1/) and not yet corrected in Part 2 (https://principia-scientific.com/how-prehistoric-glaciers-could-have-been-formed-part-2/).

It then formally summarizes Michael Clarke’s comments to Parts 1 and 2 in which he explains the cause and purpose of the Black Hole centered on the North Pole.

The remainder of this essay reviews a very important radiation scattering theory taught by Richard Feynman to his students at Cal Tech.  The radiation balance of the natural earth-atmosphere-sun system can never be explained without the application of the observed result (a photo) of Feynman’s scattering theory of which it seems few are aware.  And without such an explanation any possible explanation of the formation of prehistoric glaciers would be deficient.

Preface

Readers of PSI have had opportunity, in Parts 1&2, to see how easy it is to not see the obvious.  And as a result to make absolutely wrong assumptions.  When I began this series of essays I did not plan to make all the mistakes that I have made.  Some people try to hide their mistakes or to pretend they haven’t been made. But what you, the reader, can read is how science has proceeded from absolutely wrong ideas that were accepted knowledge for nearly 2000 years because the men who proposed these wrong ideas were considered the most intelligent of their time.

The obvious error at the beginning of Part 1 was failing to see a most obvious fact.  The reader should ask:  How many obvious facts have we not seen?

The beginning of the idea commonly known as the Greenhouse Effect of Carbon Dioxide was an essay by Svante Arrhenius, a notable chemist.  (On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground, Svante Arrhenius, Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science Series 5, Volume 41, April 1896, pages 237-276.)

When I finally read this essay, I immediately saw there were several obviously wrong assumptions that Arrhenius had made.  One was that, in his radiation balance calculation of the effective radiating temperature of the ground, he first reduced the incidence of solar radiation upon the ground by using the value of the earth-atmosphere-sun system’s albedo.

For, an observed fact at that time had to have been that the clouds significantly reduced the incidence of solar radiation upon the ground.  And another observed fact at that time, as is seen now, is that when the nighttime skies are overcast with cloud, the decrease of measured air temperature is commonly much less than that during a cloudless night.

However, in his calculation, Arrhenius assumed that nothing hindered the transmission of the longwave infrared radiation being emitted by the ground toward space.  Instead, when he found the calculated effective radiation temperature of the ground was about 30oC less than the average measured air temperature of the earth, which he also calculated as part of his essay,  he assumed that it was the carbon dioxide of the atmosphere which must hinder the transmission of the longwave infrared radiation through the atmosphere.

But, the most glaring mistake that Arrhenius made was his calculation of ‘average’ air temperature.  For it hides the actual air temperature’s oscillations which are commonly observed when the sky is cloudless for a 24 hour period.  For there are climates where this cloudless atmospheric condition is common day after day and the observed daily temperatures oscillations routinely have a range (from maximum temperature to minimum temperature) of about 14oC (25oF) each day during the summer season.

These significant ranges of daily air temperatures atmospheric scientists must explain, but have not.  And only they can explain why they have not.  But my explanation is that they have not yet seen the range of this simply observed temperature oscillation, just I did not see the word—albedo—in Image 1.

Essay

I had not looked at the caption which appears at the bottom of Image 1.  Which caption plainly states that what was being observed by the blue and white and black colors of the image was not the colors of clouds but the measured values, scaled by these three colors, of the solar’s radiance whose source was either from cloud tops or from the earth’s surfaces or from both.

However, the caption does not state that it was this radiance which was being measured.  The caption stated it was the albedo that was being measured.  So NASA was also wrong because the albedo is a unitless value of a fraction (0 to 1) or of a percentage (1{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} to 100{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}) of the upwelling radiance from a unit area’s source of the radiance divided by the value of the measured and calculated value of the incident downwelling solar radiation upon the unit area which was the radiance’s source.

The scale of the colors of the image do not go between either of these number pairs but instead goes between 0 to 50 of something, which is very difficult to read.

A literature search disclosed that this something was the radiance—the flux of radiation emitted [in the case the incident solar radiation reflected or scattered or both] per unit solid angle [steradian,sr] in a given direction by a unit area of a source.

This definition of radiance is critical if we are to understand the measurement of radiance from a satellite.  For the publisher of Galileo’s classic book wrote (in their preface to the reader, as translated by Henry Crew and Alfonso de Salvio, 1914):  “intuitive knowledge keeps pace with accurate definition.”

You can read the comments made by Michael Clarke in Parts 1&2 about the Black Hole (BH) of the image.  Michael and I have had an extensive email conversation about this BH and the 14 orbits of the satellite that occur during each 24 hours as the earth rotates beneath it.  Hence, each of these 14 same orbits are over a different portion of the rotating earth at the same local time.  It took me some time to grasp this understanding from what Michael had plainly written.

I have learned much from Michael’s comments but unfortunately we do not see everything the same way and Michael assures me he will correct the mistakes I make in this essay and any continuing essays in which I present my understanding of the attempt to measure the earth’s albedo from a satellite.

It may seem that the issue of the measurement of the albedo is far from the stated purpose of this series of essays about How Prehistoric Glaciers Could Have Been Formed.  But to understand (explain) anything one must first begin by trying to observe everything that can be observed (measured).  For Galileo is said to have stated:  “Measure what is measurable and make measurable what is not so.”

The last thing that Michael has written to me, after he had read that which follows, is:  “Atoms and Molecules do not, cannot reflect energy!”  Which is the ‘truth’. But it seems that Michael, and many others, do not yet distinguish the difference between the words (physical phenomena) reflect and scatter.

Inspect the earth’s limb (horizon) at the top.  Do you see the ‘thin, but somewhat broad ‘whitish blue’ line’ touching the earth’s surface?  Above this line do you should see the more diffuse dark blue to violet color which merges into black at its top?  Do you ask:  What am I seeing?

Richard Feynman in The Feynman Lectures on Physics (http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/) Lecture 32, Volume I, taught:

 “That is to say, light which is of higher frequency by, say, a factor of two, is sixteen times more intensely scattered, which is a quite sizable difference. This means that blue light, which has about twice the frequency of the reddish end of the spectrum, is scattered to a far greater extent than red light. Thus when we look at the sky it looks that glorious blue that we see all the time!”

So, the theory of light scattering, which he taught, explained the blue-violet color, above the thin lighter blue colored line, seen in Image 2.

Later, in this lecture, Feynman asked the question:  “why do we ever see the clouds?”  And he proceeded to simply teach his students about a different scattering theory.  This other radiation (light) scattering theory explained how, or why, particles of liquid or solid states, which are much, much larger than atmospheric molecules, much, much more intensely scatter radiation than the individual, isolated, atmospheric molecules would.

The theory he explained was about a half a page in length.  But we do not review it for it is what he taught about the result of his theory which has great practical importance.

About this result Feynman taught:

“That is to say, the scattering of water in lumps of N molecules each is N times more intense than the scattering of the single atoms. So as the water agglomerates the scattering increases. Does it increase ad infinitum? No! When does this analysis begin to fail? How many atoms can we put together before we cannot drive this argument any further?”

Answer: If the water drop gets so big that from one end to the other is a wavelength or so, then the atoms are no longer all in phase because they are too far apart. So as we keep increasing the size of the droplets we get more and more scattering, until such a time that a drop gets about the size of a wavelength, and then the scattering does not increase anywhere nearly as rapidly as the drop gets bigger.

Furthermore, the blue disappears, because for long wavelengths the drops can be bigger, before this limit is reached, than they can be for short wavelengths. Although the short waves scatter more per atom than the long waves, there is a bigger enhancement for the red end of the spectrum than for the blue end when all the drops are bigger than the wavelength, so the color is shifted from the blue toward the red.”

Feynman then gave a demonstration of this as he taught:

“Now we can make an experiment that demonstrates this. We can make particles that are very small at first, and then gradually grow in size. We use a solution of sodium thiosulfate (hypo) with sulfuric acid, which precipitates very fine grains of sulfur. As the sulfur precipitates, the grains first start very small, and the scattering is a little bluish. As it precipitates more it gets more intense, and then it will get whitish as the particles get bigger. In addition, the light which goes straight through will have the blue taken out. That is why the sunset is red, of course, because the light that comes through a lot of air, to the eye has had a lot of blue light scattered out, so it is yellow-red.”

I demonstrate that which Feynman taught, not with a sunset photo, but with a photo of the sun rising through a smoke bank.  (Image 3)

In this photo the partial disk of the sun was initially greatly overexposed and not the fire-engine red that my eyes saw.  So, when I printed this photo I used a couple of options offered by the printer’s software.  So the contrast has been increased to its maximum value and the brightness was decreased to its minimum value.

This allowed the sun to become at least pink.  But the most dramatic change was to the color of the smoke bank when the brightness was decreased.  Before the cloud bank was a grayish color (like that of the sky at the top of Image 3) which my eyes had initial seen and one can see that its color is no longer gray.

My explanation for this change was that at sunrise the smoke bank was being illuminated by the light of twilight.  Which has its maximum value at sunrise and this hid the blue color being scattered perpendicular to the sun’s direct transmission through the smoke bank.  I was and am amazed about the uniform intensity of the cloud bank’s blue color. Of which, I have no doubt was due to the scattering of the sun’s radiation by the smoke particles, whose sizes must have been significantly smaller than the wavelength of red light, of the smoke bank according to the theory which Feynman had taught his students.  How, much smaller?  I have no idea.

The ‘whitish blue’ line and the diffuse dark blue to violet color above this line of Image 2 are the result the scattering phenomena taught by Feynman.  Image 3 is a photo of a natural phenomenon which totally supports his radiation scattering theory of large, but still invisible to the naked eye, atmospheric particles.

One should first observe what can be commonly seen.  Next, one should try to explain what can be commonly seen.  And finally, if one does not trust an explanation of what can be commonly seen, one should offer an alternative explanation for what has been commonly seen.  This is what science is about!


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Comments (11)

  • Avatar

    Michael Clarke

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    In Giles Western Australia BoM observations this November the Min Max T range has never been below 14 C, the largest difference was 18.1 on the 11th. and that was on a windy day.
    The energy from the Sun, comes as Electro-magnetic Waves, some say Photons, which poses the rather large question as to is light a wave or a particle.
    Energy does not Reflect, it reacts with stuff, being absorbed and re-radiated at some considerable lower level.
    If protons have mass, which is currently claimed then they cannot travel at the speed of light!
    Next time you are out at night look at the moon. You see energy from the sun being absorbed and re-radiated omni-directionally, there is no apparent difference from side, to center, to side of the sun lit area, (apart from obvious differences in landscape structure). Now look at the portion of the moon just beyond the terminator, IT IS NOT INVISIBLE, it is still radiating, and the difference between waxing and waning moon is also clear to observe.
    It seems NASA is into photo shopping images! In the first image which claims to be Albedo there are some very hard to explain abrupt changes, for example Why is Greenland which last time I checked is covered in ice and snow, shown as having an Albedo, but only the Northern half!
    The Welcome NOAA-20 image is pure artists impression.
    Jerry’s rising sun demonstrates quite nicely the absorbed suns energy being re-radiated and scattered by different particles in the considerable depth of Atmosphere through which it had traveled before being recorded by his Camera. (I wonder what a real camera would have recorded compared to a digital one? I am a computer expert and never trust what a computer tells me!)
    I found the Feynman lectures informative and entertaining, and fully understood exactly what he was explaining about photons in the Atmosphere. The explanation of lenses I found most illuminating, lol.
    Back to the NASA Albedo image. Could it be that the satellite from which the data was obtained overflew Greenland half in sunlight and half in darkness so what is shown it the terminator at mid winter?
    The Instruments aboard those satellites have been ‘Calibrated’ and ‘Adjusted’ by comparison of known radiation obtained by a U2 plane flying at 8500m above the Libyan dessert and Antarctica, I wonder if the Antarctic reading was from fresh snow or old snow?
    I could go on but wont at this time.

    Reply

    • Avatar

      geran

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      Michael, energy can most certainly be reflected. That’s why you can see yourself in a mirror. That’s why a reflector oven works.

      Even mechanical energy can be reflected. Here’s a simple demo:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PsGZq5sLrw

      Reply

    • Avatar

      Joseph Olson

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      Gas atom, or individual gas molecules cannot reflect energy, however water vapor cloauds do reflect energy, as does liquid ocean surface and solid surfaces. Solar penetration at the lunar equator is just 0.4 meters. Most solar energy is reflected, the rest radiated by the fire brick like surface. Life and science are a series of new awareness for the curious.

      Reply

  • Avatar

    jerry krause

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    Hi Michael,

    You are correct when you state The Welcome NOAA-20 image is pure artists impression if you are referring to the images of the satellites superimposed on a photograph taken from space by an ‘electronic camera’. One can find photo after photo (images) of the earth taken from space in which the same features seen in image 2, to which I referred, can be seen. And most of us seem to agree that the photos we print out from these electronic cameras look surprisingly similar to photos printed out from films of the older film cameras.

    “Energy does not reflect ” So what are we seeing, when direct sunlight scatters or reflects off surfaces of a landscape and then, we see a reflection of the landscape from the smooth surface of water between us and the actual landscape we see at the same time?.

    Have a good day, Jerry

    Reply

  • Avatar

    Michael Clarke

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    Hi Jerry,
    I think you are confusing the reflected Photons as per the Feynman lectures which I totally agree with and the Absorbed energy and re-radiated energy as Photons from stuff. I recently asked a question on Quora about the moon light spectra which quite clearly shows that moon light is re-radiated solar energy. No reflection that is a property of mirrors.
    Solar Energy is scattered by the omni-directional emission of photons from the stuff that absorbed the energy. If I had been standing next to you when you took that dawn photo I would have seen almost exactly the same image, but produced by a different stream of photons.

    Reply

  • Avatar

    Michael Clarke

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    Regarding the Welcome Image, The last time I took a breath it was a mixture of N, O, and other gasses, which on earth are a few hundred km deep all over. They are Stuff that reacts to the Solar energy and scatter omni-directional PHOTONS which can be seen locally.
    The astronauts in the international space station cannot see the solar radiation! They see the PHOTONS that are emitted when that solar radiation hits stuff. They can see the source and the effects of that energy on other objects, but they cannot see the energy!

    Reply

  • Avatar

    Michael Clarke

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    Here is how a logician SEES starlight.
    Consider any star how ever far away even those in Galaxy’s billions of light years away.
    Consider a child’s balloon partially inflated. The molecules of the balloon are hardly stretched and close together, this represents the wave front of energy from the center of a star. Inflate the balloon some more and the molecules are further apart, thus the energy is diffused. Inflate almost to bursting point and the energy front is now more diffuse. put a few billion light years of inflation and that energy front is very very diffuse. The Hubble telescope had to ‘LOOK’ for a considerable time to register such diffuse energy waves when taking that Deep Field image.

    Reply

    • Avatar

      Herb Rose

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      Hi Michael,
      There is no such thing as a photon. Read Dr. Peter Ward’s article “The Fundamental Mistake in Green-House Gas Theory”from Nov. 13 in PSI Light is a disturbance (wave) traveling the electric and magnetic fields produced by objects in the universe.As a logician you should realize that the photon and all of Einsteinian physics is totally devoid of reason and supporting evidence and is a faith maintained by the physicist apostles.
      Herb

      Reply

      • Avatar

        Michael Clarke

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        Herb, I think that what Dr Ward’s clunky description of an energy field that causes something to become visible is describing Photons.
        Consider this, A boron covered Cathode in a thermionic Valve (a Vacuum) has a cloud of electrons surrounding it when it is heated. A current can be caused to flow, but in no way is the boron diminished.
        Consider a Tungsten filament in a incandescent light bulb (A Vacuum), It is emitting light, in no way is the tungsten diminished. The energy consumed by the filament is producing all those photons.

        Reply

  • Avatar

    Herb Rose

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    Hi Jerry,
    I’ve noticed another strange thing with sunsets. The sun appears to make a steady descent until it reaches the Earth’s surface. It appears to pause on the surface then descend at a faster rate behind the Earth. I can accept that diffusion can make the sun appear larger at sunrise and sunset and give it the red color but what is causing the pause? The Earth is rotating at a constant rate but something causes this illusion.
    Have a good day,
    Herb

    Reply

    • Avatar

      Michael Clarke

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      Hi Herb,
      That’s an easy one to answer. It is the lensing effect of the atmosphere. The Feynman lectures give a good description of what this is.
      Michael

      Reply

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