EoY
2012
Previous NewsLetter
CoSy.y2012.NewsLetter201212

Ask not what your Country can do for You
Ask rather what You can do for Each Other

( ( PlanetaryModel  ;
  Published on CoSy.com :
How to Calculate the Temperature of a Radiantly Heated Colored Ball .

Example : A simple calculation shows

Venus surface temperature
cannot be explained by
heating from the Sun , ie ,
a "runaway greenhouse effect" .

Since grad school , I've often felt that one difference between me and other students in some teky classes is that I believed the quantitative concepts being explained actually , inescapably applied to our reality . For many , it seemed just an academic exercise .

Groking these truths , hard won by humanity thru the lives of many messiahs , having them inform your evaluation of everyday experience is more than that . It's why I say my religion is Math & Physics older than I am .

Physics starts with algorithms on the most basic of forms like Gaussian surfaces , spheres and planes , etc .  Planets , conveniently , are spheres . 

Spheres are parameterized by direction and radius . Points are spheres with no radius . Balls are filled spheres .

From the outside , a planet is an opaque varicolored ball , its atmosphere like a thick coat of paint . Planetary diameters are measured in thousands of kilometers ; their atmospheres in tens .

During the 19th century , humans really mastered the approach and power of quantitative science . Their accomplishments understanding the relationship between temperature and energy density and the modes of energy transport , particularly radiant transport impelled the quantum age .

I've elaborated the most basic computations of this classical physics for the case of uniform and nonuniform gray ( flat spectrum ) , and now uniform colored ( non-flat spectrum ) radiantly heated opaque balls .
Stefan-Boltzmann & observed temperatures of inner planets
Venus is often held up as the boogie man of a CO2 caused runaway greenhouse effect . Unlike the other inner planets , It has a surface temperature way in excess of that calculated for a gray ball in its orbit  . Here's a graph I made when first driven to divert my time into the war against climate nonscience . It plots the gray ball temperature for each of the four inner planets' orbits , and their mean temperature as best I could estimate at the time . The most popular number for earth's temperature now days seems to be 287 ( all degrees in Kelvin ) down from a ubiquitous 288 . In any case , about 9 or 10 degrees warmer than the 278.7 of a gray ball in our orbit . The temperature of a gray ball or point is determined simply by adding up all the energy impinging on the point . Stefan ( 1879 ) and Boltzmann ( 1884 ) independently deduced that temperature is proportional to the 4th root of energy density -- as seen in the equation below .
  M I L

Most Brilliant talk I've seen in a long time :

[ 20130225 ]
Another brilliant talk :





2002 Econ Nobel laureate at Cato 30th monetary conference



Recently a blog post on The Science of Doom : Venusian Mysteries led me to apply the first and most basic equation in How to Calculate the Temperature of a Radiantly Heated Colored Ball ( CB ) to Venus . There , I defer to Martin Hertzberg's  proof that the equilibrium temperature of a radiantly heated colored ball is  |)| Tgray * ( a % e ) ^ % 4 |(| .  In particular , the temperature of a colored ball in our orbit is the temperature of a gray ball times the fourth root of the ratio of its absorptivity with respect to the sun divided by its emissivity with respect to the rest of space .  By the 1850s it was understood that the portion of radiant energy of a particular frequency a material will absorb and convert it to thermal energy is the same going the other way from thermal to radiant . That is , |)|  a = e  |(| for any particular frequency .  In the visible spectrum , we see the color an object reflects rather than turns into heat .
To turn that equation around , |)| ( a % e ) = ( Tball % Tgray ) ^ 4 |(| .  For instance , the ratio between earth's approximate 288.8 and a gray ball is about 1.03 . So , neglecting the heat we are generating ourselves , particularly around cities , and geothermal , to balance the energy density averaged over our surface against that of a point next to us at  our distance from the sun , we must be 1.14 times as absorptive with respect to the sun's spectrum than we are emissive at temperatures of the energy density of points in our orbit .  NASA gives our absorptivity ( 1 - albedo ) with respect to the sun as about 0.7 . Thus , our emissivity in the long wave lengths must be around 0.61 . Quite believable . I would hope it is confirmable by measurements made from probes we've sent out looking back at us .

In my previous newsletter , I looked forward to answering "what are the max and min possible mean temperature  of a ball in our orbit" by implementing the computation for colored balls . I shouldn't have been surprised that the mathematics offers no limitation other than the temperature of the sun itself . However , that would require a material which totally reflected thermal radiation , and such materials don't exist . Even aluminum foil has an emissivity of 0.04 according  to a link cited by Glenn Tamblyn in response to CB . And , of course it also has a very low  absorptivity in the visible , solar , spectrum . CO2 is said to "trap" heat because it  is a good absorber , and therefore good emitter of infra-red .

So how about the case of Venus ?  NASA  gives the values in the table below for Venus and Earth albedos , solar irradiances and and surface temperatures .

 Venus
Earth
Albedo [ wrt Sun ]
0.90
0.306
Absorptivity [ wrt Sun ]
[ calculated from albedo above ]
0.10
0.694
Solar irradiance (W/m2) 
2613.9 
1367.6
gray-body temperature (K)
[ calculated from irradiance above ]
327.6 
278.7
Surface temperature (K)
737.
288.8
"Black-body" temperature (K)
184.2
254.3

Using values from NASA’s Venus Fact Page , Venus is |)| 737 % 327.65 |>| 2.25 |(| times hotter than that of an opaque gray bal in its lorbit . That means the energy density at its surface is |)| 2.25 ^ 4 |>| 25.63 |(| times higher than outside . Given that it’s absorptivity wrt the sun is 0.1 , its emissivity in the long wavelength band must be |)| 0.1 % 25.63 |>| 0.004 |(| .

Venus mus be  10 times as reflective in the long wavelengths as aluminum foil . If such a material exists , it sure isn't CO2 .

This is an example of my taking these essential equations to heart . They are proven every time someone uses an IR thermometer . I've had skeptic physics professors comment that the application of StefanBoltzmann and Kirchhoff had not been too successful .  They are not optional . Until the surface and atmospheric temperatures are tied quantitatively to the energy from the sun , you are building castles on muck .  I defy any "climate scientist" to produce a ball which will come to an internal temperature 2.25 times its graybody temperature . Oh , what am I thinking ; they don't do experiments .

Bottom line ,
It is NOT possible for Venus's surface temperature to be
caused by a "runaway greenhouse effect" .

The climate catastrophists resist all they can the notion that Venus has significant geothermal heating like so many other planetary bodies including Earth , and that heat is held in by the planet's very insulative atmosphere .  It's hotter on the inside ; the flow of heat must be outward . I happened upon John Tyndall's 1861 lecture summarizing years of his experimental work . I'll end with his summary question which totally applies to CO2 :

Why should good conductors be, in general, bad radiators, and bad conductors good radiators ?


NASA FactSheet Bogus "Black-body" temperatures
and the retardation of Science Education

The computations above are easier than the Newtonian orbital mechanics and other curricula of the highschool PSSC physics class I took 50 years ago . That they are not prerequisite for anybody claiming a degree in "climate science" shows the damage this fraud has done to the teaching of real analytical quantitative science .

I was appalled to see in NASA "factsheets" the fraudulently named , mathematically amateurish , useless for anything other than scaring the unwashed , and demonstrably capable of confusing a generation of "climate scientists"  calculated item defined below .
Black-body temperature (K)    Equivalent black body temperature is the surface 
temperature the body would have if it were in
radiative equilibrium and had no atmosphere,
but the same albedo, in Kelvin.
NASA's definition is more nonsensical than I could imagine . Note the value computed by NASA in the table above . ( See CB for the computation . ) it is the source of the frightening  33 degree  "greenhouse effect" totally ascribed to earth's atmosphere . It doesn't come up to the standard of junk science ; it is cesspool science .  Yet it is ubiquitous on all sides of the war on CO2 . It remains , for instance on Wikipedia's "Black Body" page while it isn't even about black bodies .

Note the simplicity of the equations above in terms of the gray body or point temperature , which apply to any flat spectrum no matter how white or black . Imagine trying to express them in terms of NASA's concept . It's like trying to do temperature physics using Fahrenheit rather than Kelvin .  Imagine trying to pass off such uselessness in any other field of applied physics or engineering . It has criminally retarded the common understanding of planetary temperature physics .

I await SkeptialScience.com explaining away these basic computations



  ) ;4th.CoSy  ;

 Freeman Dyson in the talk linked above discusses the notion of pre-cellular pre-Darwinian evolution where genetic material was passed around like tweets . He points out that the evolution of knowledge has now returned to that asexual promiscuous replication .

My number of Titter followers more than doubled when I Tweeted



I ridiculously optimistically tweeted in response :


One reason why , when a path to my PhD in the psychology department at Northwestern U closed , I refocused on APL was that I felt that for people , anyway : me , to express the concepts necessary to abstract and grok the brain's information flows , would require a population fluent in an APL level executable notation . The defining feature of APLs is that the Array or lists of lists , generalized from matrix algebra , is the fundamental object . The notations are generally as or more succinct than traditional mathematical notation . I have lived my adult life in notecomputing environments I've created , first around 1984 in original "flat" APL , then , around 2000 , in Arthur Whitney's K . Upon moving to Teller County , CO in 2005 , I put in the extended intense months necessary for me to  create  a  reference counting  dynamic object  vocabulary and the essential recursive algorithms for operating on lists of lists and the essential naked lists of chars , integers , and floats in Ron Aaron's Reva Forth which was itself undergoing rapid honing by a number of brilliant programmers scattered around the globe .

Arthur Whitney's work has been the template and caliper for much of mine . However , I came to decide that his 3 list dictionary or namespace structure ( symbols ; values ; attributes ) had the difficulty of referencing attributes from values or vice versa .  Motivated by MinnowBrook 2011 , I added a cell to the headers of all CoSy dynamic objects to allow a link to an object's attributes or metadata . This would itself generally be a dictionary .

While I use 4th.CoSy every day as my log , my Shopping/ToDo list and my Reference ( passwords , account #s , etc ) list , I've not been able to steal the devoted weeks of time necessary to convert the overall dictionary structure . All the family accounting is done in K.CoSy and will be for quite some time .
4th.CoSy Screen Shot 20121232 click for full sizeI was hoping to get the transformation done and a new "release" for this NewsLetter . But that was terribly optimistic . Simply getting back into the code is daunting . I have done some useful work tho , both conceptually and in detail .  I've started keeping a programming log separate from my personal log to better organize the chaotic jumble of experiments and mini-scripts which fill the first 1100 lines of my log window .

A defining characteristic of CoSy environments since their earliest days around 1980 has been the mixing of lines intended to be executed by the computer with ones just intended for human consumption . In current 4th.CoSy tapping F6 will execute a line in Forth displaying any output generated ; tapping F7 will execute the line expecting a CoSy object or nothing to be  generated , and  displays it as CoSy output . For instance , the last line executed in the screen shot , highlighted in blue transposes the result of the previous lines which catinates a list of indices for the 3191 lines in the text window to the lines of text to produce a crude list so I can scroll down and see my daily log for 2012 began at line 1127 .  That was executed with F7 .  Some lines above , you'll see nil DMPDMP is a pure Forth word which outputs the first 8 cells of a definition . That line was executed with F6 , then F5 was used to insert it in the text .

Note that the great Slava Pestov's early project , jEdit , fills most of the screen with , it happens , 7 windows open on various of the Reva Forth code files making up 4th.CoSy . It would be great to eventually have such an interface to CoSy , but I really want to interface it to HTML . 4th.CoSy won't really be CoSy until normal definitions are saved within the dynamic root dictionary , R .

It's obvious there is a tremendous amount , ie , several dedicated me-months ,  left to do . That's why I posted the current status as a collection of useful APLish  algorithms in  Forth .  Reva by itself is an open modern Forth with significant libraries for a number common tasks . If some youngsters get interested , there's a lot to be learned and contributed . I only worry that I won't be able to keep up , that is , some paths will become dominate which I think are IbM , not optimal .

I plan to tweet relevant announcements  with the tag #4th.CoSy .  I am adding Disqus threads to new windows I create or revisit as I have here . I think Yahoo could have done a much better job of upgrading their mail groups into contemporary social networks , but they haven't . I have also started a Google+ Community which may have its uses .  If anybody knows of better options , let me know .
) )

Cicero : To live long , it is necessary to live slowly
 a Forbes Thought Of The Day

Well , I've definitely followed Cicero's advice in my life . Five years in high school ,  six years in  college ,  ten years in grad school with a masters after about eight . Now with my 50th reunion at Culver Military Academy coming up , it's about time I start seriously making a living for myself for what it is I uniquely can do .

So ,  I am officially joining the beggar elite . I'm formally becoming an intellectual busker like so many of those whose web presence consumes so much of my days . As  Anthony Watts noted :
Within his [ Michael Mann's ] multi-million dollar funded cocoon of academia, it must be impossible for Dr. Mann to understand that many climate skeptics are motivated by individual patriotism and concern for their country and the future of science, rather than the almighty dollar. In my conversations at AGU with Steve McIntyre, we both compared notes about how much better off we’d be financially if we didn’t have this climate issue diverting us.

Of course it would be nice to have a steady relationship with an esteemed institution bundling the necessary begging into grants and fellowships , etc .  And I would more than welcom
e a academic position anywhere in the world or internet based which would not only provide income , but colleagues and students to both learn from and assign tasks to . The last course I taught at NU 33 years ago might better have been called Intro to the Geometry of Statistics using APL than Intro to Psych Stats . I also lectured on the mathematics of associative ( neural ) memory .

I'm exploring Disqus generated ads , but I'd rather have selected unique ads specific to the topics of particular pages . These may be simple tombstones as is common in the financial industry .

Of course , I see the project of greatest value , the extension of the vocabulary of planetary temperature physics in open
4th.CoSy motivating its maturation in the process .

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-- Bob Armstrong -- CoSy.com --
 ( 719-337-2733 ; SKYPE : cosybob ;
TURNING THOUGHTS INTO COMPUTATIONS    twitter@BobArmstrongFacebook )
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