Thursday, December 05, 2013
My immature reaction to the allegedly-controversial use of the Hiroshima heat widget
Eli's post below refers.
I'll just add one response to this statement by Tom: "if you consider yourself a skeptic of climate change science, think the risks have been overblown, and oppose intervention in the economy to mitigate climate change, you probably find the comparison outrageous, and maybe even offensive." My response is to ask Tom or anyone to point to a statement by denialists about the science that is both true and outrageous. If they can find something, then maybe they have a point. Otherwise, not so much.
20 comments:
Dear Anonymous,
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The management.
I'll play.
ReplyDeleteHuman mortality peaks in the cold season and troughs in the warm season.
By advocating for more cold and less heat, hyterics should go on trial for murder.
Something like that?
Some other very approximate energetic equivalents of hundedth of a million gigajoule atomic bombs:
ReplyDeleteSolar energy taken in by Lake Erie during the delivery of the Gettysburg Address.
Energy content of the coal briquettes used in China to cook lunch each month.
Annual reduction in Canadian hydropower production due to beaver dams.
Total electrical lighting energy employed to by readers of Harper's Index ....
Evidently all those bombs aren't enough to take the edge off this weekend's Arctic blast.
ReplyDeleteStay safe and bundle up.
And don't hesitate to burn some fossil fuel to stay warm.
Oh, gosh, the unwashed snark patrol has arrived.
ReplyDeleteProbably in a 767 being towed by a cushman because it would break apart if it reached highway speeds...
"hyterics should go on trial for murder."
ReplyDelete"Hysterics" is an untrue description, and the statement that climate hawks should go on trial for murder is untrue. Maybe someone somewhere would be outraged at how incorrect it is, but that's not the same.
A little heat for that anomthing, please?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ciesin.columbia.edu/docs/001-337/fig2.gif
If you don't like Arctic blasts or what's left of them move to the Filippines please. There are some newly deforestated patches for your new home (about four times the yearly Amazone rainforest destruction really).
If it's pissing people off on both sides, then its obviously working.
ReplyDeleteThough this could also apply to some people we know.
I think it could be improved by adding a moving image of a blast, so long as its in good taste.
1) About the Hiroshima comparison - it is the accumulation of that energy.
ReplyDelete1a)which gives an indication of how much energy is involved. In other terms, how big the earth is
2)The energy absorbed by lake erie doesn't accumulate, or else it would be warm enough to swim in after a few millenia. :)
3) about thermal energy /= kinetic energy, and Eli's point about after a few collisions it become thermal energy, someone blows some smoke (which Rib Smokin' bunny is an expert in) about thermal wind equation. It would be relevant if the wind from Hiroshima was still blowing around, but I think it died down after a few years.
4) one can't have (nearly) isothermal planets without winds, somebody is looking at their weather vane backwards.
Rib Smokin' Bunny
RSB:
ReplyDeleteI threw in the lake in homage to the thermal mass of all that sea water, but you're right- Erie isn't as deep as the marine mixed layer
Enough heat to boil Sydney Harbor dry every 12 hours?
ReplyDeleteKR
3) about thermal energy /= kinetic energy, and Eli's point about after a few collisions it become thermal energy, someone blows some smoke (which Rib Smokin' bunny is an expert in) about thermal wind equation. It would be relevant if the wind from Hiroshima was still blowing around, but I think it died down after a few years.
ReplyDeleteSorry hysterics - thermal energy != kinetic energy
Yes heat makes the little molecules bounce around - that's what makes the liquid in your thermometer rise. Frightening amount of energy that!
But that tiny amount of energy is (obviously) NOT what drives atmospheric motion.
Aside from conservation of the angular momentum imparted by earth's rotation and the friction imposed by the surface ( and a few other odds and ends ), motion of the atmosphere is largely governed by thermal gradients. The horizontal gradient is expressed by the thermal wind equation.
Buoyancy is largely a matter of a vertical gradient beyond the equation of state. It was not the temperature that created the mushroom cloud, but the temperature gradient with the pre-blast atmosphere that was suddenly release which caused the mushroom.
The global warming meme that a warmer world would bring 'more intense storms' is and always was a gross error.
Windy anonymous still seems to be struggling with the "gaining energy continuously" point being discussed in the Hiroshima comparison. (S)He is talking about "moving it around", and tops it off with an assertion with no actual basis. Stating factually correct things alongside does not add credibility to that assertion.
ReplyDeleteRib Smokin' bunny
> Solar energy taken in by Lake Erie during the delivery of the Gettysburg Address.
ReplyDeleteToo long. It should take five syllables: "Hi-ro-shi-ma-bomb"
How many Joules does it take to boil a baby?
ReplyDeleteWould this be an appropriate metaphor?
The great Creationist brewer's access to wort tubs suggests James Joule could handle the task alone.
ReplyDelete"Yes heat makes the little molecules bounce around - that's what makes the liquid in your thermometer rise. Frightening amount of energy that!"
ReplyDeleteNope, its the little molecules bouncing around that is heat. It's the difference between thermo and stat mech
As a kid (c. 1960) I swam in Lake Erie. It was plenty warm to swim in.
ReplyDeleteWe just needed typhoid shots and *hey presto* we were ready to go.
Yes, Lake Erie gets warm enough to swim in. In the Summer. In the winter not so much. The accumulation of heat only warms t so far before it once again radiates more heat than it absorbs and cools off.
ReplyDeleteI swim in Lake Erie every summer, when it's warm. Amazing how a few billion zebra mussels have managed to render the lake nearly crystal clear.
Lake Erie was a lot warmer when they would light off the Cleveland waterfront in the summer.
ReplyDeleteWell, at least the hydrocarbon-rich surface layer was.
ReplyDelete