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Leaky Integrator Discussion


Admiral_Bobski

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Posted
  • Location: Rossland BC Canada
  • Location: Rossland BC Canada

Excuse me for rambling, but I assume the points will be made, somewhat anecdotally.

Okay, I have pretty much exhausted my overview on solar activity as a possible factor in my research model. The bottom line is that atmospheric responses to solar system magnetic field positions will have their own integrity and whatever happens to solar activity (during regular strong cycle periods) will be independent of that and there won't be a cause and effect relationship on that time scale. The longer time scale, I buy into ... and who wouldn't, seeing the colder weather in the CET from its starting date to about 1710?

The Dalton min, I suppose, has a generally consistent look to the Maunder on about half the scale, and the un-named later min is certainly no counter-example but the response there is obscured by the volcanic dust veil factor that was major from late 1883 to perhaps 1888.

So, I should return to the larger question, how to model external variables into what would otherwise be a steady-state climate based on relatively constant solar heat input (with a seasonal modulation of course). That variation requires first of all a designed "meteorological grid" which slightly redefines the terrestrial grid to account for the geomagnetic field. The north pole of this met grid has always been deflected by the actual position of the NMP, and this has been converging in recent years. On a very broad scale, the geomagnetic assumption "explains" global warming -- the NMP was at 68 N in 1840 and is now at 84 N. Thus the distorted position of the north meteorological pole must have varied in sync, perhaps from 79 N to 87 N using a half-way balance. Given some assumption of wandering polar vortex locations, this would scatter southward-displaced polar vortex positions around the Atlantic and North American sectors with a trend northward over time, a gross indicator of warming. The devil is in the details -- where to position the field sectors, how these change over time in latitude, and how that change affects climate response.

We just saw in North America how a "warming climate" can feed back unexpectedly cold weather. In October, the jet stream took an unusually northward path across the continent. Pacific air masses took a route across southern Canada and brought very warm anomalies to some regions near Hudson Bay. But this warm air went so far north that the northeast US was forced into a temporary period of relative cold as air masses drained out of this warm pool, retrograded and supported an unusual Gulf stream eddy. This was probably part of some large-scale warming pattern, but it gave a week of record cold temperatures related mostly to upwelling of cold water offshore. These are difficult non-linear factors to model from any perspective, the logic of them is somewhat like saying if you hose down your frozen driveway, most of it will warm up, but some random chunk of ice will swirl across a given location and cool that down.

But on the statistical index level, the field theory gives good results. Both Fred and I take this approach from somewhat different perspectives, but the experience of the past two years is that we are converging on similar solutions, and these solutions are non-random. I wouldn't want to present them as finished solutions like astronomical tide tables, but we feel that we are narrowing uncertainty. This is where I am fascinated by this leaky integrator concept, because an ongoing question is always, will the analogues need to be adjusted in some predictable way? One thing that I caught on to after several years was that the met grid had shifted northwest (not north) and that analogues would therefore tend to run a bit earlier if retrograde activity was involved (patterns shifting northwest will arrive earlier as well as at a higher latitude). You may recall that in Feb 2007 there was a good example of retrogression shooting far to the north of analogues, and this seemed to confuse even the global models which no doubt are programmed to recognize similar analogues.

I'm sort of feeling my around here in a free-association way, since I'm groping for contact with this LI concept. If you've read David Dilley's work, you'll know that he is quite adamant that you can model all atmospheric variation from one source, lunar tidal and gravitational effects. I have that as a factor in my model, but I see it as a component, not the absolute driver. The research certainly indicates a process at work, but it also shows the same significance or even more for field sectors. So in my research model, I would be giving lunar effects about 30% of the variability, and field sector positioning about 40% ... that leaves 30% which is what I am trying to understand, because I am convinced that the 70% assigned to the two main drivers is valid. This 30% is not influenced by volcanic dust, for example -- that is more like a temporary cooling of all systems, not a forcing factor for weather patterns as such. I would make the same argument in the AGW context, sure we would expect a warming of the atmosphere in general but not a very big one, and not one that would structurally alter the atmosphere (at least not very much, obviously there would be feedback questions to consider).

These 30% non-external (because when you've eliminated magnetic, solar, lunar and planetary, what else is there?) factors are tougher to model in the predictive sense, because first you need a reason to predict them. For example, you could name things like the El Nino, and assume that it had an effect on climate systems that was independent of any accidental correlation already assumed in your external drivers (and there is some, I've identified these and reported on them). If you don't know when an El Nino will occur in the period say 2020-30, then how can you model it into a LRF for that period? There are obviously many other internal system processes that need to be considered. The philosophical question is, are these processes or descriptions. You know what I mean, when the average non-research met is asked why last month was so mild, he will usually say "because the jet stream was coming from the south" but of course that tells me nothing useful for my research into making LRFs, that is just a different way of describing the warmth. It is not cause and effect in the sense of explaining process, just in the sense of explaining effect.

To sum up this rather sketchy response to LI, I would say this ... my approach is basically to assume a base-line for given locations and add warming to that base-line from whatever field, lunar or obvious feedback processes were identified in research, or what we've taken to calling signals (although we speak of cold signals, which is essentially the presence of blocking or the absence of warm signals). This is how I make a long-range forecast in general, I assume that it will be at least as warm as the coldest period of recent record, and then look for all reasons to add warmth until there are none left. This is essentially an energy-level model. I suppose in this model, a leaky integrator approach would be to consider the existence of an open window rather than a leaky barrel.

I hope people reading all this will agree that the question on the table here is not whether my research model is valid or invalid, that's for a different thread. The question on the table is, can such an approach benefit from considering the LI theorem? In other words, is the model conceptually incomplete without reference to LI, or, has it somehow incorporated the LI concept without naming it as such? That's what I need to understand. If the model is just plain wrong, that's not going to affect this discussion at all. If the model is valid and breaking new ground, then this LI concept becomes all the more significant because a developing model needs improvement factors to become more useful (and thereby credible).

I'll return perhaps tomorrow to see what the thinking is about any relevance of one paradigm to the other paradigm.

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Posted
  • Location: Rochester, Kent
  • Location: Rochester, Kent

Quite a lot there, and it may take me a few days to absorb it all.

My first response is that sunspots is simply used as a proxy for something else. The LI does introduce a new driver, hysteresis, in that the absolute quantitative effect of all drivers is easily overridden by energy already in the system and that such reasoning can account, with a strong correlation, for the modern warming.

In terms of the primary external driver, sunspot count, I can see two options:

(i) Something affects the sun and then the sunspot count affects climate

(ii) Something else affects sunspots and climate at the same time

(ii) is my favourite option - ie that sunspot count correlates well with the climate because of some effect that affects the climate and sunspots at the same time. A sort of mirror effect, if you will.

Particularly, I have tried integrating the LI using total solar insolation and it simply doesn't work. This is, of course, in line with all current solar/climate research, but, this also strongly implies, then, that there is something else of which sunspot count is indicating that correlates well with climate. I do not know what that is.

In terms of where I am ... I am conducting due-diligence (randomised testing of the data and method (which is not fully disclosed) to determine statistical certainties of the correlation) I will report in due course. I hope to finish the source-code at some point this weekend, and get going on it. If the certainty is above or beyond the 1.96sd then I will write up and attempt to publish as a curiosity (so avoiding AGW politics entirely)

It is perhaps notable that whilst there are hints as to where hysteresis might be hiding, or why sunspot count seems to have a strong correlation, the LI makes no attempt to assign a physical explanation. I must leave that for others, more talented that I.

Edited by VillagePlank
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Posted
  • Location: Rochester, Kent
  • Location: Rochester, Kent

can someone please explain what a leaky integrator is?

The essential argument is this:

(i) External drivers raise the temperature of the Earth

(ii) The Earth is not as efficient as losing temperature as it is in gaining it by a very slight margin

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Anyway ...

(iii) Such heat accumulates and the rate of heat gain or loss is directly proportional to the heat in the system - this is the leaky integrator bit.

The approach has been, where possible, to conduct this via first principles - even to the point of showing certain properties of dynamical systems to be true under most circumstances.

Edited by VillagePlank
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Posted
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and lots of it or warm and sunny, no mediocre dross
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl

VP have you considered the Earth's magnetic field? There are quite strong links between field strength/dipole movement and climate, field strength and Solar wind etc. It might be worth a look; here's an old thread I started ages ago, some of the links may be dead but there's quite a lot of info in there.

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Posted
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey

I've been giving a lot of thought to this issue of Mechanism, so I thought I'd let you in on where I've got to so far. :lol:

We've been talking about hysteresivity being an essential part of the Stefan-Boltmann law. The SB law obviously is all about black body radiation. Since SB incorporates the Planck constant, it must hold true down to the atomic scale (since the Planck constant is a quantum-mechanical constant). This means that the LI concept must also hold true down to the atomic scale.

So, every single component of the Earth's physical structure must be involved in hysteresis, down to invidual atoms.

On the scale of an atom, the amount of energy involved is obviously tiny, but when you take every single atom into account it can add up to a large amount. So here's my thinking on how the process works...

Atoms can only take on energy in discrete packets - called quanta - and the more energetic the atom is the more packets of energy are required to raise the atom to its next energy state. Left to its own devices, the atom will happily give up its extra energy - it will only retain that energy state if the energy input remains high enough to prevent it from releasing the energy (or, to be more accurate, it happily drops an energy state only to be immediately raised back up to that energy state by the next wave of quanta). Because the gaps between energy states increase the more energetic the atom gets, it becomes harder and harder to raise the energy state and easier and easier to drop an energy state.

This means that as an atom becomes more energetic its emissivity necessarily increases.

What SB tells us is that the absorptivity of a body increases at a slightly faster rate than its emissivity does. So far I can only tie this into the atomic model if there are lots of atoms around which are all undergoing similar energy bombardment. Here's how it works:

As an atom becomes more energetic it relinquishes that energy more readily. For the purposes of this explanation, we'll call our atom Fred.

Fred is at energy state 1 when he is suddenly bombarded by quanta. There are enough quanta to raise his energy state (ES) to 2. Fred is quite lazy and likes being at ES1, so he tries to give the quanta back so that he can return there, but every time he gives the quanta back more energy comes in and he ends up back at ES2.

The bombardment of quanta increases a bit, but not by enough to raise him to ES3 (Fred breathes a sigh of relief). This means that Fred can throw all that extra energy away and remain at ES2 (which he doesn't especially like, but he has to deal with). Unfortunately for Fred, his neighbours (Tom, Dick and Harry) are also all at ES2 and they think the same thing.

So Tom, Dick and Harry all throw away the extra energy they have received from this increased bombardment. Fred finds that when the extra energy from the bombardment hits him, he also gets hit with the extra energy from Tom, Dick and Harry. Sadly, the extra energy from the bombardment plus the extra energy from Tom, Dick and Harry is enough to push him up to ES3.

Now somewhat annoyed, Fred starts to throw away bigger amounts of energy, but every time he does he finds that the total energy coming at him is keeping him at ES3. However, because he's throwing away more energy, it is not long before Tom finds himself at ES3 as well. Soon, Dick and Harry are in the same situation.

With the energy bombardment remaining even, Fred, Tom, Dick and Harry remain at ES3. Crucially, though, the energy bombardment alone is not enough to get them to ES3 - only the bombardment plus the "extra" from the other atoms is enough to keep them there.

Note also that it takes some time for the knock-on effect to take place - Fred reaches ES3 first, followed some time later by Tom, then later still by Dick and Harry.

Does that make sense to anyone, or are there any objections?

:D

CB

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Posted
  • Location: Rochester, Kent
  • Location: Rochester, Kent

So, every single component of the Earth's physical structure must be involved in hysteresis, down to invidual atoms.

Blimey CB - more reading to do! :D

Yes, and that is the consequence of the explicit first part of the PDF. If a system is dynamical (and the vast majority of natural systems are) then it must, necessarily, exhibit hysteresis to one degree or another.

This part is essential to exploiting the LI as an abstraction of the SB law. I am working on a proof that it holds for all values except one special case (which is in the PDF)

Edited by VillagePlank
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Posted
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey

Blimey CB - more reading to do! smile.gif

Yes, and that is the consequence of the explicit first part of the PDF. If a system is dynamical (and the vast majority of natural systems are) then it must, necessarily, exhibit hysteresis to one degree or another.

This part is essential to exploiting the LI as an abstraction of the SB law. I am working on a proof that it holds for all values except one special case (which is in the PDF)

You might want to avoid using words like "exploiting", VP - people might think we're using some kind of "trick" to "hide" something!!

biggrin.gif

CB

EDIT - I'm glad I've given you some more food for thought, but I'm sorry about it at the same time!

Edited by Captain_Bobski
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Posted
  • Location: Rochester, Kent
  • Location: Rochester, Kent

I'm glad I've given you some more food for thought ...

If the energy exchange at such a low-level leaves something behind in some form or another, then there will be an excess of mass/energy, and we can stop calling such an excess 'dark' ...

(Just kidding ...)

Edited by VillagePlank
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Posted
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.
  • Weather Preferences: Thunder, snow, heat, sunshine...
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.

Thanks CB...Good stuff!!! :good:

Is that the mechanism of hysteresis...if so it makes sense (to me) both in terms of QMS and SMS...And, it's bloody good revision!! :good:

Just a quickie?? When you chose the names Tom, Dick and Harry - were you alluding to Quantum Tunneling?? :oops:

Time for a Great Escape, methinks... :nonono::nonono: :blush: :blush: :fool:

Anyhoo. Good work, guys! :D

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Posted
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey

Thanks CB...Good stuff!!! good.gif

Is that the mechanism of hysteresis...if so it makes sense (to me) both in terms of QMS and SMS...And, it's bloody good revision!! good.gif

Just a quickie?? When you chose the names Tom, Dick and Harry - were you alluding to Quantum Tunneling?? oops.gif

Time for a Great Escape, methinks... blush.gifblush.gifblush.gifblush.giffool.gif

Anyhoo. Good work, guys! biggrin.gif

I don't know whether I should ROFL, PMSL, groan or kill myself...

:nonono:

CB

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Posted
  • Location: Rochester, Kent
  • Location: Rochester, Kent

As a spurious (and possibly wrong) thought, hysteresis introduces the arrow of time since anything that displays hysteresis is stuck on one way behaviour since it's state can only be measured as the complete sum of it's history ... onto Heisenberg's then ...

Edited by VillagePlank
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Posted
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.
  • Weather Preferences: Thunder, snow, heat, sunshine...
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.

Maxwell's silver hammer, come's down upon your head:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_%28arrow_of_time%29#Maxwell.27s_demon

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Posted
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey

As a spurious (and possibly wrong) thought, hysteresis introduces the arrow of time since anything that displays hysteresis is stuck on one way behaviour since it's state can only be measured as the complete sum of it's history ... onto Heisenberg's then ...

Hmmm...I'll have to have a think about that one! The arrow of time wouldn't hold up at the (sub-)atomic level because all of the processes involved are time-reversible. At that level, the only two processes involved are emission and absorption - reverse those processes and you have absorption and emission respectively.

<snip!>

smile.gif

CB

EDIT - I wrote something dumb! Oopsie!

Edited by Captain_Bobski
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Posted
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.
  • Weather Preferences: Thunder, snow, heat, sunshine...
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.

Hmmm...I'll have to have a think about that one! The arrow of time wouldn't hold up at the (sub-)atomic level because all of the processes involved are time-reversible. At that level, the only two processes involved are emission and absorption - reverse those processes and you have absorption and emission respectively.

<snip!>

smile.gif

CB

EDIT - I wrote something dumb! Oopsie!

That would imply (I think?) that hysteresis cannot operate at the subatomic scale??? :help:

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Posted
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey

That would imply (I think?) that hysteresis cannot operate at the subatomic scale??? help.gif

Well, here's the thing: we really want hysteresis to exhibit the arrow of time - especially in this instance where we're talking about heat, and therefore thermodynamics (2nd Law of Thermodynamics, and all that).

Looking back on it, atoms don't exhibit hysteresis - groups of atoms exhibit hysteresis, but single atoms cannot. The reason for this (assuming my earlier post is correct) is that the hysteresivity is a symptom of the way in which atoms absorb and emit energy.

Therefore, hysteresis must operate at nothing smaller than the molecular scale. This doesn't invalidate the idea, and in fact my earlier post would reinforce the idea (thank God!).

Look at it this way: smashing an egg is an irreversible process. Of course, an egg smashes because of transference of energy. At an atomic scale, the process is completely reversible, since the reverse would just involve the absorptions and emissions going in the other direction. Does this mean that an egg can be unbroken? No, but nor does it invalidate the fact that an egg can be broken.

(If I wanted to be particularly nit-picky then I would say that, in reality, it is possible to unbreak an egg - all you have to do is wait until all of the emissions and absorptions happen in the exact opposite direction to the one that caused the egg to break. The probability of such an event occurring is absolutely microscopic - so small as to be utterly negligible - but it is still technically possible. The point about entropy is that it is much easier for something to change from an ordered state to a disordered state than it is for something to change from a disordered state into an ordered one.

An example from Dr Brian Greene shows this in action. If you take the binding off a copy of War and Peace, keeping the pages in order, then throw the loose pages into the air, virtually every possible collection of those pages will end up with them in the wrong order. The unbreaking egg is the equivalent of throwing the mixed-up pages of War and Peace into the air and having them come down in the correct order to read the book. Highly, highly improbable, but technically possible.)

:help:

CB

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Posted
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.
  • Weather Preferences: Thunder, snow, heat, sunshine...
  • Location: Beccles, Suffolk.

No, CB - I was only 'thinking out loud' and trying to clarify that thinking, is all...I cannot see how hysteresis can be anything but a true phenomenon. :help:

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Posted
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey

No, CB - I was only 'thinking out loud' and trying to clarify that thinking, is all...I cannot see how hysteresis can be anything but a true phenomenon. good.gif

Oh rightoops.gif I was kinda thinking out loud too...!

I'll go away again!

hi.gif

CB

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Posted
  • Location: Hucclecote, Gloucestershire. 50m ASL.
  • Location: Hucclecote, Gloucestershire. 50m ASL.

I'm going to dip my toe in here, very gingerly!!

I am fascinated by RJS's input here. AIUI, the LI has a significant dependancy on sunspots, and RJS's theory seems to based around gravity fields and magnetic fields. Are the two not linked in some way. Do the changes in gravitic and magnetic fields impact on the Sun to regulate the number of sunspots? Is there some way to check if there is a relationship between these factors?

Feel free to ignore this if it's not relevant!!! :whistling:

Cheers, 7&Y

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Posted
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey

I'm going to dip my toe in here, very gingerly!!

I am fascinated by RJS's input here. AIUI, the LI has a significant dependancy on sunspots, and RJS's theory seems to based around gravity fields and magnetic fields. Are the two not linked in some way. Do the changes in gravitic and magnetic fields impact on the Sun to regulate the number of sunspots? Is there some way to check if there is a relationship between these factors?

Feel free to ignore this if it's not relevant!!! pardon.gif

Cheers, 7&Y

I think you may be right, 7&Y. Sunspots seem to be the solar indicator that best matches global temperatures in the LI, and sunspots are of course areas of high magnetic activity.

Maybe we should ask Roger if there is some way to graphically represent extra-solar magnetic field strength along with sunspot counts, so that the peeps at home (myself included) have a visual reference for any correlation.

Roger...?

:whistling:

CB

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Posted
  • Location: Rochester, Kent
  • Location: Rochester, Kent

I'm going to dip my toe in here, very gingerly!!

I am fascinated by RJS's input here. AIUI, the LI has a significant dependancy on sunspots, and RJS's theory seems to based around gravity fields and magnetic fields. Are the two not linked in some way. Do the changes in gravitic and magnetic fields impact on the Sun to regulate the number of sunspots? Is there some way to check if there is a relationship between these factors?

Feel free to ignore this if it's not relevant!!! :cold:

Cheers, 7&Y

As I intimated in one of my last posts, my conjecture is that climate and sunspots are the result of some other phenomena. Therefore, that sunspots are a reflection of that phenomena at the same time that climate is. Hence, there is a very high correlation.

What that phenomena is, is undefined, and not known, although RJS' stuff looks interesting.

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Posted
  • Location: Weston-S-Mare North Somerset
  • Weather Preferences: Hot sunny , cold and snowy, thunderstorms
  • Location: Weston-S-Mare North Somerset

As I intimated in one of my last posts, my conjecture is that climate and sunspots are the result of some other phenomena. Therefore, that sunspots are a reflection of that phenomena at the same time that climate is. Hence, there is a very high correlation.

What that phenomena is, is undefined, and not known, although RJS' stuff looks interesting.

I am going to chuck something into the mix, reading on another forum, somebody was posting their thoughts on inter stellar clouds, and how our solar system is passing through one at the moment.

Maybe that's having an affect on our sun?.

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Posted
  • Location: Ballater, Aberdeenshire
  • Location: Ballater, Aberdeenshire

Quick interjection as someone coming late into the topic (sorry)

Couple of physics points

1. The Stefan-Bolzmann law of radiation is that the " total emissive power of a body is defined as the total radiant energy of all wavelengths emitted per square metre per second"

but remember the emissive power is proportional to the absolute energy but to the fourth power, E = sc x T4 (sc = stefan's constant, written as gamma but I don't have the fonts!)

Thus absorptivity does not increase more than emissivity as energy in a system increases, because emissivity increases as a fourth power

2. The point you raise about the egg is (IMO) a reference to entropy (randomness or disorder), which involves the second law of thermodynamics, which as you say involves the direction of physical processes (in isolated systems)

This doesn't involve complex structures (like reforming a broken egg) but does involve distribution of energy in a system (eg heating a metal rod at one end will ultimately cause the whole rod to reach the same temperature and to emit radiation equally along its length)

3. Hysteresis does occur at the subatomic level e.g in electrical capacitors

The thing here is that the apparent delay is only a delay in observable change. In respect of energy, a change in potential energy is immediate

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Posted
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey
  • Location: A small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Guildford, Surrey

Quick interjection as someone coming late into the topic (sorry)

Couple of physics points

1. The Stefan-Bolzmann law of radiation is that the " total emissive power of a body is defined as the total radiant energy of all wavelengths emitted per square metre per second"

but remember the emissive power is proportional to the absolute energy but to the fourth power, E = sc x T4 (sc = stefan's constant, written as gamma but I don't have the fonts!)

Thus absorptivity does not increase more than emissivity as energy in a system increases, because emissivity increases as a fourth power

2. The point you raise about the egg is (IMO) a reference to entropy (randomness or disorder), which involves the second law of thermodynamics, which as you say involves the direction of physical processes (in isolated systems)

This doesn't involve complex structures (like reforming a broken egg) but does involve distribution of energy in a system (eg heating a metal rod at one end will ultimately cause the whole rod to reach the same temperature and to emit radiation equally along its length)

3. Hysteresis does occur at the subatomic level e.g in electrical capacitors

The thing here is that the apparent delay is only a delay in observable change. In respect of energy, a change in potential energy is immediate

Hi saperlo :wub:

Thank you for your points - I shall have to read up on the SB law again...I definitely recall reading somewhere that the absorptivity increases at a slightly faster rate than the emissivity. I shall have to see if I can figure out where I read it and I'll get back to you on that one.

The egg issue was, indeed, a reference to entropy (as the subject of entropy had been raised). Entropy does involve complex structures - entropy involves everything in the universe - though it may be more difficult to describe in such structures. The second law of thermodynamics itself is generally used to describe smaller structures, but the concept of entropy extends to the largest structures too.

Hysteresis is a concept that is relatively new to me, having only been introduced to it by VP a few months ago. I still clearly have much to learn about it. The thing is that the delay in observable change is precisely what we're looking for. Changes in potential energy are neither here nor there with regards to the temperature of the Earth, since it is the observable change in temperatures that we are looking at.

I shall get back to you with some more stuff tomorrow...

:)

CB

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Posted
  • Location: Rossland BC Canada
  • Location: Rossland BC Canada

I've been searching for a plausible explanation of weak solar activity periods within the framework of the solar system magnetic field paradigm, and about all I can say is that I have no final theory established for it (whether that theory would be acceptable or not).

I've noted above that the periods of regular, strong cycles always seem to be driven by Jupiter-Saturn (J-S) interactions. If there were no weak intervals and an unbroken record of strong regular cycles, I am sure this would have been noted by science even as far back as the 19th century. I will link to that material in the next post (it's somewhere here on NW, about 2 yrs old now).

The weak periods have not always been equally "weak" or equally long, but they have been almost equally spaced since the Sporer. The period involved seems to be 160-200 years. This relates more to the outer solar system and while the strong activity being a J-S function seems plausible, the idea of events in the outer solar system cancelling the strong activity is not that plausible.

Of course, we may just be stuck with a random process here, a strong "regular" modality that sometimes weakens. This is not satisfying, but until this new hypothesis can be improved with a plausible "weakening" cause factor, the random aspect is all I have to offer, and that means, among other things, that we cannot use this new research to say with any confidence if regular, strong activity is now really at an end for a significant length of time.

It has nothing (obvious) to do with the geometry of J and S orbits, because the 20-year cycle is actually more accurately arranged in 59.5 year groupings where the alignments return to almost the same locations every third time. This would not explain an irregular 160-200 year weakening phenomenon.

So that's where that stands. I keep looking for a reason for this weakening, which seems to be fairly constant going back into the less reliable records of Schove. The conventional explanation is not really much more than a description, the Sun stays regular for long intervals, then the magnetic fields weaken and its cycles weaken. But there is quite a difference between the weakness of the Maunder and the Dalton. The un-named later weak period is a half-cycle removed and may represent a secondary feature pointing to a 90-year long cycle.

I'm going off to look for the thread on solar variation that I posted.

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  • UK Storm and Severe Convective Forecast

    UK Severe Convective & Storm Forecast - Issued 2024-03-29 07:13:16 Valid: 29/03/2024 0600 - 30/03/2024 0600 THUNDERSTORM WATCH - FRI 29 MARCH 2024 Click here for the full forecast

    Nick F
    Nick F
    Latest weather updates from Netweather

    Difficult travel conditions as the Easter break begins

    Low Nelson is throwing wind and rain at the UK before it impacts mainland Spain at Easter. Wild condtions in the English Channel, and more rain and lightning here on Thursday. Read the full update here

    Netweather forecasts
    Netweather forecasts
    Latest weather updates from Netweather

    UK Storm and Severe Convective Forecast

    UK Severe Convective & Storm Forecast - Issued 2024-03-28 09:16:06 Valid: 28/03/2024 0800 - 29/03/2024 0600 SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH - THURS 28 MARCH 2024 Click here for the full forecast

    Nick F
    Nick F
    Latest weather updates from Netweather
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