Category Archives: physics

Miscellania.

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Physicists Doing Blues

Everybody’s Got the Blues ATLAS Boogie From The Canettes Blues Band at The LHC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD0VslrILuQ And let’s not forget climate scientists in Chicago:

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Happy Newtonmas, 2020

Among other projects I support this year, post-retirement is Einstein@Home Why? Because with all the emphasis upon SARS-CoV-2, biopharmaceuticals, and mitigating climate disruption, which are all important, observational astronomy doesn’t get enough love. And this is an astronomy which isn’t … Continue reading

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In case you wondered if Carbon Dioxide increases caused climate change, here’s the latest news

In case you wondered if Carbon Dioxide (also called, carbonic acid, CO2) increases caused climate change, here’s the latest news … from 1856-1896:

Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Chemical Society, American Meteorological Association, AMETSOC, an ignorant American public, an uncaring American public, Anthropocene, atmosphere, being carbon dioxide, Blackbody radiation, Boltzmann, carbon dioxide, Carbon Worshipers, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, climate education, climate grief, climate models, ClimateAdam, Cult of Carbon, Eaarth, earth, Earth Day, ecological disruption, ecomodernism, ecopragmatism, evidence, fossil fuels, gas pipeline leaks, global warming, Green New Deal, Greta Thunberg, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, ice sheet dynamics, investments, Karl Ragabo, klaus lackner, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, local self reliance, moral leadership, new forms of scientific peer review, philosophy of science, physical materialism, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, radiative forcing, rhetorical science, science, scientific publishing, stranded assets, supply chains, support of black boxes, Talk Solar, Tony Seba | 1 Comment

Dan Fleisch says you don’t know the power of … the Dark Side Tensors

This is a fun motivating lecture: See also his A Student’s Guide to Vectors and Tensors, with related podcasts. It’s available on Kindle, by the way. (Save some trees.) eigenchris has another series of lectures on Tensors.

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No, Senator Marco Rubio and Larry Kudlow, we know how much humans contribute to climate change, at least precisely enough for Congress and an administration

14th October 2018, quoting Senator Marco Rubio and White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow, the Washington Post reported they each claimed that the recent UN report was an `overestimate`: “I think they overestimate,” Kudlow said of the U.N. report, which … Continue reading

Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, anomaly detection, anti-intellectualism, anti-science, being carbon dioxide, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, bollocks, carbon dioxide, changepoint detection, children as political casualties, climate change, climate data, evidence, global warming, Humans have a lot to answer for, Hyper Anthropocene, Juliana v United States, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, physics, radiative forcing, science, science denier, tragedy of the horizon, UNFCCC, unreason | Leave a comment

Heat has no hair (from Eli Rabett)

See Eli’s post. Excerpt: We can summarize the data in the figure above adding that ~40 W/m2 go directly from the surface to space as IR radiation of the 398 W/m2 leaving the surface. In and out in the table … Continue reading

Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, an ignorant American public, an uncaring American public, atmosphere, Blackbody radiation, carbon dioxide, chemistry, climate change, climate education, Eli Rabett, global warming, physics, science | Leave a comment

Blackbody radiation and the greenhouse effect, via plates (from Eli Rabett)

See Eli’s post. Excerpt: Eli can keep on adding plates, Ms. Rabett has gone out to buy some extras. Here is the red plate special. If somebunny works it through they will find that b’=3/4 a, go another plate and, … Continue reading

Posted in Blackbody radiation, carbon dioxide, climate change, Eli Rabett, energy, energy flux, global warming, lapse rate, physics, science | Leave a comment

forecast for 27th March 2018

Today is the 21st of March, 2018. We are supposed to get our fourth nor’easter tomorrow this late Winter, and the third nor’easter in nearly as many weeks. ECMWF hosted, in this incarnation, at the Meteocentre UQAM in Montreal created … Continue reading

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Quote from Max Planck

(Hat tip to Professor Richard Kleeman of the Courant Institute for Mathematical Sciences.) “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die.”    — Max Planck … Continue reading

Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anthropocene, climate change, global warming, physics | Leave a comment

Liang, information flows, causation, and convergent cross-mapping

Someone recommended the work of Liang recently in connection with causation and attribution studies, and their application to CO2 and climate change. Liang’s work is related to information flows and transfer entropies. As far as I know, the definitive work … Continue reading

Posted in Akaike Information Criterion, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anthropocene, attribution, carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate disruption, complex systems, convergent cross-mapping, ecology, Egbert van Nes, Ethan Deyle, Floris Takens, George Sughihara, global warming, Hao Ye, Hyper Anthropocene, information theoretic statistics, Lenny Smith, model-free forecasting, nonlinear systems, physics, statistics, Takens embedding theorem, theoretical physics, Timothy Lenton, Victor Brovkin | 1 Comment

Just because the data lies sometimes doesn’t mean it’s okay to censor it

Or, there’s no such thing as an outlier … Eli put up a post titled “The Data Lies. The Crisis in Observational Science and the Virtue of Strong Theory” at his lagomorph blog. Think of it: Data lying. Obviously this … Continue reading

Posted in Akaike Information Criterion, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, Bayes, Bayesian, climate, climate change, climate models, data science, dynamical systems, ecology, Eli Rabett, environment, Ethan Deyle, George Sughihara, Hao Ye, Hyper Anthropocene, information theoretic statistics, IPCC, Kalman filter, kriging, Lenny Smith, maximum likelihood, model comparison, model-free forecasting, physics, quantitative ecology, random walk processes, random walks, science, smart data, state-space models, statistics, Takens embedding theorem, the right to know, Timothy Lenton, Victor Brovkin | 1 Comment

`Letter to Lamar Smith’

On Ed Hawkins’ blog. The Committee on Science, Space & Technology of the US House of Representatives conducts regular evidence hearings on various science topics. On Wednesday 29th March, there is a hearing on “Climate science: assumptions, policy implications, and … Continue reading

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Papers of the day

From the Machine Learning and Computational Modeling Lab, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran: A. Ahmadian, K. Fouladi, B. N. Araabi, “Writer identification using a probabilistic model of handwritten digits and Approximate Bayesian Computation,” International … Continue reading

Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Statistical Association, approximate Bayesian computation, Bayesian, civilization, computation, denial, education, engineering, evidence, free flow of labor, physics, science, science education, statistics | Leave a comment

Yes, I will be marching for Science in Boston

Like many, including Eli Rabett, I will be marching for Science in April, on Earth Day. My march will be part of the Boston march. Why? Because Science has been and is my life, and it always has been, and … Continue reading

Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, AMETSOC, astronomy, astrophysics, Carl Sagan, climate, Climate Lab Book, ecology, Eli Rabett, engineering, fluid dynamics, geophysics, hydrology, marine biology, meteorology, physics, population biology, Principles of Planetary Climate, reason, science, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, theoretical physics, thermodynamics, WHOI, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, XKCD | Leave a comment

“Oh no, not again” (from ATTP)

Response to a paper by Hermann Harde, from Ken Rice at … And Then There’s Physics. Dr Rice cites two other responses as well: One by Gavin Schmidt at RealClimate. One from 2011 by Gavin Cawley from the University of … Continue reading

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Why scientific measurements need to be adjusted

There is an excellent piece in Ars Technica about why scientific measurements need to be adjusted, and the implications of this for climate data. It is written by Scott K Johnson and is called “Thorough, not thoroughly fabricated: The truth … Continue reading

Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, AMETSOC, Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, Canettes Blues Band, citizen data, climate data, data science, environment, evidence, geophysics, GISTEMP, HadCRUT4, mathematics education, meteorological models, obfuscating data, open data, physics, science, spatial statistics, Tamino, the right to know, the tragedy of our present civilization, Variable Variability | Leave a comment

`Moving forward on climate change and sustainability`

From WGBH, and hat tip to Environmental Justice TV, includes Dr Gavin Schmidt speaking, who I was especially interested in, and whose talk begins here: Interesting that Dr Schmidt has some gentle criticism of the PBS program NOVA. Whole talk … Continue reading

Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, bridge to nowhere, Buckminster Fuller, carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, Ecology Action, environment, Equiterre, fossil fuel divestment, Gavin Schmidt, geophysics, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, investment in wind and solar energy, Kevin Anderson, moral leadership, NASA, physics, science, Spaceship Earth, sustainability, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, zero carbon | Leave a comment

Happy Newtonmas!

When knowledge conquered fear … And, what better way to celebrate than watching the National Geographic Cosmos episode, When knowledge conquered fear, hosted by the great Dr Neil deGrasse Tyson, Director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City.

Posted in abstraction, astronomy, astrophysics, atheism, Bill Maher, Bill Nye, Boston Ethical Society, Buckminster Fuller, Carl Sagan, Cosmos, geophysics, Isaac Newton, mathematics, Neill deGrasse Tyson, physics, science, science education, the show | Leave a comment

Getting back to 350 ppm CO2: You can’t go home again

(Update of this piece, included below.) (Major update of this piece included below.) You can’t. It’ll cost much more than 23 times 40 times the Gross World Product to do it. And, in any case, you need to go to … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anthropocene, atmosphere, bollocks, bridge to nowhere, Carbon Cycle, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide capture, carbon dioxide sequestration, Carbon Worshipers, chemistry, clear air capture of carbon dioxide, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, David Archer, diffusion, diffusion processes, ecological services, ecology, economics, engineering, environment, environmental law, fossil fuels, geoengineering, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, methane, Our Children's Trust, physics, rationality, reason, reasonableness, science, Spaceship Earth, the right to be and act stupid, Wally Broecker, zero carbon | 9 Comments

On the rise of the Trumpistas …

Just a couple of things to write about The Obvious. I have written a couple of longer thoughts as Comments, here and here, at … And Then There’s Physics. I reiterate that I don’t believe any voter was hoodwinked, that … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, American Solar Energy Society, American Statistical Association, AMETSOC, Anthropocene, atheism, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, BNEF, bridge to nowhere, Buckminster Fuller, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Carbon Worshipers, citizenship, civilization, climate, climate change, climate disruption, climate zombies, coastal communities, consumption, corporate supply chains, cynicism, Daniel Kahneman, denial, disingenuity, Donald Trump, dynamical systems, Equiterre, exponential growth, extended supply chains, Exxon, fear uncertainty and doubt, forecasting, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, ice sheet dynamics, ignorance, Joseph Schumpeter, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Interfaith Coalition for Climate Action, meteorology, Minsky moment, moral leadership, oceanography, organizational failures, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, rationality, reason, reasonableness, risk, science, science denier, science education, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, solar democracy, solar domination, solar energy, solar power, Spaceship Earth, temporal myopia, the energy of the people, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, Tony Seba, wind energy, wind power, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, ``The tide is risin'/And so are we'' | 2 Comments

What’s going on in the ocean off the Northeast United States

Hint: Climate change has somethin’ to do with it. Schematic diagram illustrating the component parts of the AMOC and the 26◦ N observing system. Black arrows represent the Ekman transport (predominantly northward). Red arrows illustrate the circulation of warm waters … Continue reading

Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, AMETSOC, anomaly detection, Anthropocene, bifurcations, climate, climate change, climate disruption, coastal communities, critical slowing down, dynamical systems, ecology, environment, fluid dynamics, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, John Marshall, meteorology, oceanic eddies, oceanography, physics, regime shifts, science, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, sea level rise, the right to be and act stupid, the right to know, thermohaline circulation, WHOI, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution | Leave a comment

On failing to learn important lessons

As previously posted here, people along coasts and their governments, are failing to learn the lessons of both climate-induced sea level rise, and storms like Extratropical Sandy. Now, it’s startlingly clear how ignorant people are of these necessary lessons. The … Continue reading

Posted in adaptation, American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, bollocks, case law, citizenship, civilization, climate change, climate disruption, climate economics, coastal communities, coasts, corporate litigation on damage from fossil fuel emissions, ecological services, economics, environment, environmental law, evidence, flooding, forecasting, global warming, greenhouse gases, hydrology, Hyper Anthropocene, John Englander, liberal climate deniers, living shorelines, meteorological models, meteorology, nor'easters, oceanography, physics, planning, politics, rationality, reason, reasonableness, Robert Young, science, science denier, sea level rise, seawalls, shorelines, sustainability, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, water, zero carbon | 1 Comment

“All models are wrong. Some models are useful.” — George Box

(Image courtesy of the Damien Garcia.) As a statistician and quant, I’ve thought hard about that oft-cited Boxism. I’m not sure I agree. It’s not that there is such a thing as a perfect model, or correct model, whatever in … Continue reading

Posted in abstraction, American Association for the Advancement of Science, astronomy, astrophysics, mathematics, model-free forecasting, numerics, perceptions, physical materialism, physics, rationality, reason, reasonableness, science, spatial statistics, splines, statistics, the right to know, theoretical physics, time series | Leave a comment

Our uncontrolled experiment with Earth as an Astrophysics problem set

Hat tip to And then there’s Physics …: On climate change and Astrobiology , by Adam Frank.

Posted in adaptation, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Anthropocene, astrophysics, bacteria, bollocks, Carl Sagan, civilization, climate, climate disruption, conservation, consumption, cynicism, Daniel Kahneman, David Archer, David Suzuki, denial, destructive economic development, Eaarth, ecology, environment, environmental law, Equiterre, fossil fuels, games of chance, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, James Hansen, leaving fossil fuels in the ground, mass extinctions, meteorology, NASA, Neill deGrasse Tyson, oceanography, Our Children's Trust, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, quantitative ecology, random walks, Ray Pierrehumbert, risk, Robert Young, science, sustainability | Leave a comment

“Predicting annual temperatures a year ahead” (Dr Gavin Schmidt at REALCLIMATE)

Dr Schmidt is essentially betting that the trend, seen as a random variable, will regress towards the smooth mean. I have a post at Nate Silver’s 538 site on how we can predict annual surface temperature anomalies based on El … Continue reading

Posted in American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, AMETSOC, anomaly detection, Anthropocene, changepoint detection, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, climate education, climate models, ecology, environment, forecasting, geophysics, global warming, Hyper Anthropocene, meteorology, oceanography, physics, regression toward the mean, science, statistics, time series | Leave a comment

`Hermine Unique among Storms’

Originally posted on Climate Denial Crock of the Week:
Hermine still developing. Predictions are for it to hold in place off the East Coast for several days, due to a blocking pattern known as a “Rex Block”.  This and many…

Posted in American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Meteorological Association, anomaly detection, Anthropocene, bifurcations, changepoint detection, climate disruption, coastal communities, Dan Satterfield, ecology, environment, global warming, hurricanes, Hyper Anthropocene, meteorological models, meteorology, nor'easters, oceanic eddies, oceanography, physics, Principles of Planetary Climate, science, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, the value of financial assets, thermodynamics | Leave a comment

Carbon Sinks in Crisis — It Looks Like the World’s Largest Rainforest is Starting to Bleed Greenhouse Gasses

Originally posted on robertscribbler:
Back in 2005, and again in 2010, the vast Amazon rainforest, which has been aptly described as the world’s lungs, briefly lost its ability to take in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Its drought-stressed trees were not growing…

Posted in bifurcations, carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide sequestration, changepoint detection, climate, climate change, climate disruption, disruption, dynamical systems, environment, exponential growth, fossil fuels, geophysics, global warming, IPCC, Lévy flights, Lorenz, Minsky moment, model-free forecasting, physics, population biology, population dynamics, Principles of Planetary Climate, quantitative biology, quantitative ecology, random walk processes, Ray Pierrehumbert, reason, reasonableness, regime shifts, risk, Stefan Rahmstorf, the right to be and act stupid, the tragedy of our present civilization, UU Humanists | 2 Comments

Repaired R code for Markov spatial simulation of hurricane tracks from historical trajectories

(Slight update, 28th June 2020.) I’m currently studying random walk and diffusion processes and their connections with random fields. I’m interested in this because at the core of dynamic linear models, Kalman filters, and state-space methods there is a random … Continue reading

Posted in American Meteorological Association, American Statistical Association, AMETSOC, Arthur Charpentier, atmosphere, diffusion, diffusion processes, dynamic linear models, dynamical systems, environment, geophysics, hurricanes, Kalman filter, Kerry Emanuel, Lévy flights, Lorenz, Markov chain random fields, mathematics, mathematics education, maths, MCMC, mesh models, meteorological models, meteorology, model-free forecasting, Monte Carlo Statistical Methods, numerical analysis, numerical software, oceanography, open data, open source scientific software, physics, random walk processes, random walks, science, spatial statistics, state-space models, statistical dependence, statistics, stochastic algorithms, stochastics, time series | 1 Comment

“Full-depth Ocean Heat Content” reblog

This is a re-blog of an excellent post at And Then There’s Physics, titled Full-depth OHC or, expanded, “full-depth ocean heat content”. Since my holiday is now over, I thought I might briefly comment on a recent paper by Cheng … Continue reading

Posted in Anthropocene, climate, climate change, climate data, climate disruption, climate models, computation, differential equations, ensembles, environment, fluid dynamics, forecasting, geophysics, global warming, greenhouse gases, Hyper Anthropocene, Lorenz, Mathematics and Climate Research Network, model comparison, NOAA, oceanography, physics, science, statistics, theoretical physics, thermodynamics, time series | Leave a comment