A Further Perspective
Henny-Penny Meets Cosmic Rays
Facing the glum prospect of no warming for the next 50 years.
It was New Year’s Eve so I decided to visit Ms. Henny-Penny, founder and Recording Secretary of the Holy Order of the Sky Is Falling. I wanted to wish her a happier new year than the one just finished and to bring her the good news that the sky isn’t actually falling. I found her sitting on her nest looking glum
Us: Happy New Year, Ms. H-P
Ms. H-P: What’s so happy about it? All that talk in Copenhagen and no action. We’re all going to fry in a few years and no one is doing anything about it.
Us: It looks as if we won’t fry, after all. A new peer-reviewed study by a Canadian physicist says the warming in the 20th century was caused by the interplay of cosmic rays on chlorofluorocarbons in our atmosphere. And now that the CFCs are gone, the temperature has gone down and there is likely to be no warming for the next 50 years.
Ms. H-P: What’s the name of this scientist?
Us: Dr. Qing-Bin Lu.
Ms. H-P: Sounds Chinese
Us: It’s a Chinese name, but he’s Canadian; a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Waterloo. His study was published in the online journal, Physics Reports.
Ms. H-P: I wonder if he’s a Chinese spy. After they backed out of a carbon emissions inspection regime at Copenhagen, they may do anything to play down the danger of carbon dioxide.
Us: Come now, Ms. H-P. When Prof. Qing started he was studying the formation of the ozone hole, not global warming. The data showed him that CFCs, which were once widely used as refrigerants, conspired with cosmic rays to cause both the ozone hole and warming. He said this finding was “totally unexpected.”
He found that, while CO2 increased a great deal from 1850 to 1950, as a result of the Industrial Revolution, global temperatures stayed constant or rose only 0.1 degree Celsius. He says that CFCs, a greenhouse gas, declined around 2000 and that surface temperature has also been dropping, despite the fact CO2 is continuing to grow.
Ms. H-P: Maybe so, but he’s only one scientist. Why aren’t others supporting him?
Us: They are, when it comes to global cooling.
Last September, at a UN conference in Geneva, Mojib Latif, a leading climate modeler and a member of its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said in a speech that the Earth has been cooling and will continue to do so for the next two decades or more..
At Western Washington University, Professor Don Easterbrook has been studying the close relationship between oceans and global temperatures and says the planet experiences natural cycles of warming and cooling. He says that the most important ocean cycle is something called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation; that in the 1980s and '90s it was in a warming cycle and so was the Earth. Earlier, a global cooling cycle from 1940 to 1975 had some scientists predicting an ice age. President Obama’s science advisor, John Holdren, was one of them.
About the Author
Peter Hannaford was closely associated for a number of years with the late President Reagan, beginning in the California Governor’s office. His latest book is Presidential Retreats.
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Pingback| 1.4.10 @ 7:08AM
Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : Henny-Penny Meets Cosmic Rays [spect links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
owyheewine| 1.4.10 @ 9:06AM
The CFC theory is no more worthy than the CO2 theory. The results are coincidental not causitive. There are so many factors that affect climate that the study will keep hundreds of climate scientists busy for many decades. Most involve changes in earth orbit, solar activity, rotational "wobble", and plate tectonics and their interrelationships.
I am personally bummed out that cooling may keep my Cabernet Sauvignon from properly ripening.
Rick Z| 1.4.10 @ 10:59AM
Albert Gore did NOT invent the Internet.
But, it is true, Albert Gore DID invent Global Warming.
.
Pingback| 1.4.10 @ 4:15PM
The American Spectator : Henny-Penny Meets Cosmic Rays city university links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Richard Baker| 1.4.10 @ 6:57PM
These "scientists" are making the Ph.D look about as worthless as tits on a boar hog.
John II| 1.5.10 @ 5:04PM
Worthless Ph.D.? Well--in the humanities and the soft sciences, that's been the case for decades now; it just took a while for the hard sciences to catch up. More proof that, in matters academic, the humanities are on the cutting edge.
Happy New Year, everyone!
Russell Seitz| 1.4.10 @ 7:09PM
Lu's no Chu:
I know Peter Hannaford doesn't cotton to reading the science for himself, but if he doesn't want to go down as a dumb bunny, he'd better take a look at what the adults are saying about this wheeze over at
http://rabett.blogspot.com/201.....dence.html
Eli Rabett | 1.4.10 @ 7:55PM
It's a bit more complicated.
Lu's mechanism differs from the understood one in only one way
----------------------------
CFCs are ONLY broken up in the polar winter by electrons from cosmic rays attaching to ice particles rather than being blasted apart by energetic UV light the year round.
-----------------------------
Otherwise you have the same ozone destruction at the poles in the spring and in the entire stratosphere by the chlorine and bromine atoms that are released. Since a lot of good and intense science shows that stratospheric ozone destruction has little to nothing to do with climate change his argument on climate change fails.
Second, there is a lot of stuff on the distribution and destruction of the CFCs in the stratosphere that flat out does not match Lu's predictions.
Third, his methods of averaging cosmic rays, ozone and temperature are inappropriate. For example, both Lu's ideas and the accepted ones, have an 11 year cycle, both Lu's idea and the accepted one says that polar ozone destruction will be strongest at 18 km so his arguments are not discriminating betweeen mechanisms
It gets more technical too, and when it does, it is not any better for Lu
Unfortunately, Cassandra was occasionally right.
FTM| 1.4.10 @ 10:17PM
Well,
Just being a knuckle dragger, R-12, dichloroddifluromethane is something like twenty-two times heavier than air and is infinitely soluable in water so how does this stuff end up in the stratosphere? Dichlorodifluromethane is a CFC (Chlorofflurocarbon). So is R-22, monochlorodifluromethane. Both of these refrigerant CFCs are commonly used in domestic and commercial refrigeration systems although R-12 is being phased out in the US, Canada and the EU.
The funny thing about both of these compounds is that they only became an enviro-mental problem about the time that the manufacturer's patents ran out. Go figure.
Also, in regards to R-12 and R-22 both molecules degrade rapidly in the presence of ultra-violent radiation. Ultra-violent is one of my favorite colors. The break-down reaction is kinda like when a que ball hits a rack of billiard balls, the que ball being the charged particle and the rack being the CFC molecule.
What the long-hair folks are worried about is molecular chlorine. Chlorine is catlytic in regards to ozone. A chlorine atom bonds to an ozone molecule, O3. When along comes the second ozone molecule the catalytic reaction occurrs and you get three o2 molecules and a free chlorine atom.
Now, in regards to free chlorine, more free chlorine comes off of the planet's oceans in a year than mankind has vented in all of human history. The idea that CFCs are somehow or another connected to ozone depletion is a bit shaky.
Something else to consider in regards to CFCs and ozone depletion, most of the world's CFC "pollution" originates in the northeren hemisphere, right? The US and Canada, The EU and Russia. How come the "hole" is over the south pole?
Another funny thing in regards to refrigerants is that some of the replacement refrigerants, in specific HC-123a are dangerous. Beware HC-123a.
debateright| 1.4.10 @ 10:43PM
Well, here in SW MO, we are looking forward to sub-zero temps during the night for most of the week. This after a near record setting cool summer, doesn't support the Global Warming alarmist paradigm.
What really gets me is the willingness to rely on computer modeling for long range weather predictions. We get frequent reminders that computer models can be wildly inaccurate even for very short term forecasts of local weather.
Margie| 1.4.10 @ 11:28PM
Mr. Hannaford,
I hope you are able to find a new parka with real fur on the hood. It is nearly impossible to find now because of the animal rights wackos getting their way with their anti-fur garbage.
Also~ try and get one that's down-filled, because as Ms. Henny-Penny knows, down is the warmest.
Happy New Year!
Eli Rabett | 1.5.10 @ 12:10AM
FTM, winds mix the R-12 and R-whatever. The atmospheric percentage composition does not change up to about 100km (60 miles) at which point things do start to separate by mass. The only gas that varies by percentage is water because it condenses and then rains out. Been measured, quite well understood.
Next point, yeah, UV breaks the freons apart, but you need very short wavelength UV, like below 240 nm. The ozone layer (18-22 km in the stratosphere) absorbs all the UV btw 300 and 200 nm so the R-whatever has to get above the ozone layer to dissociate. Otherwise it is pretty much inert.
There would be no problem if the freons dissociated before they rose (they are emitted at ground level) into the upper stratosphere where they can dump their Cl product into the ozone layer. Which is the answer to your next question. Almost all of the Cl emitted from the oceans is water soluble and rains out, or can react in the lower atmosphere and be destroyed. (Some methyl chloride from the oceans makes it to the stratosphere). Explosive volcanoes can push HCl into the lower stratosphere, where they do dissociate and the Cl destroys the ozone. Explosive volcanoes that can do this are rare (Pinatubo, El Chichon).
The ozone hole is strongest at the south pole because the stratosphere there is the coldest place that exists on earth. That means that polar stratospheric clouds form with ice crystals that lead to the ozone hole. The arctic is warmer so the clouds do not form as much and there is less depletion.
There is a pretty good ozone FAQ that has more detailed answers to your questions
Simple
FTM| 1.5.10 @ 1:20AM
Sorry Eli,
I don't buy most of what is being pushed as conventional wisddom in regards to CFCs. For example, the last I read on the subject, R-12 or R-22 has never been recovered from a stratospheric air sample. On the other hand R-12 and R-22 are frequently recovered from deep ocean water samples. On top of that microbes have been discovered that metabolize R-12 and R-22 in these deep- ocean water samples. The same kinds of bugs that show up on the thermal vents at the rift areas.
R-12 and R-22 both are infinitely soluable in water. In the atmosphere a molecule that is several times heavier than air almost instantly bonds to an H2O molecule. The stuff rains out quickly.
Again, last I read on the subject, nobody has of yet produced a demonstrable mechanism by which CFCs emitted into the atmosphere in the northern hemisphere ended up in the southern hemisphere. Chemistry and conditions exist to produce the reactions as you say, true enough. However the link has not been proven. Tag a ton or so of R-12 and dump the stuff in the northern hemisphere and see if it turns up at the south pole. I'd say that it probably wwouldn't based on the fact that, like I said before, last I read on the subject, nobody has ever recovered an R-12 or R-22 molecule from a stratospheric air sample.
In my most humble opinion, not to be a jerk or anything, not to be abrasive, but once again we have less than forty years of data on the existance of this "hole." What we know for sure about ozone depletion in regards to this hole amounts to squat. Forty or so years of data out of four and a half billion amount to right next to nothing in terms of geologic time. In the absence of credible performance based data on a molecule emitted in one hemisphere, turning up in another hemisphere and causing a problem I really, really think that we need to exercize an extreme amount of caution. The global warming alarmists have pretty much embarassed themselves out of a lifelong scientific career. I wouldn't want to be next with ozone depletion hysteria.
SpiralArchitect| 1.5.10 @ 12:51AM
The Sun cycles in 11 year increments with 22 year cycles as I recall. Sunspots, now were talking!
Earth, destroyed by heat? One good solar flare could ruin your day!
Conversely, for you on the colder side of the fence... one comet and we would all chill out. =)
Russell Seitz| 1.5.10 @ 4:50AM
FTM, this is OTL
CFC's are notably insoluble in water , have been detected in the stratosphere ,and being chemically inert ,do not react with H2O.
FTM| 1.5.10 @ 5:35AM
According to the datasheet that ships with a can of R-12 or R-22 from the manufacturer, the manufacturer states specifically that R-12 and R-22 are infinitely soluable in water (just like alcohol). Are you perhaps confusing the propane based replacement refrigerant?
Seems as I recall that R-12 and R-22 are infinitely soluable in water and displace breathable atmosphere in low places due to it's weight in comparison to air.
I dunno, I've slept since I read one of those datasheets.
Russell Seitz| 1.5.10 @ 2:47PM
FTM
best get a copy of the as yet unpoliticized Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, so we can be on the same page.
please recall that the CFC's are chemically closely related to to carbon tetrachloride , the grandfather of all non -polar solvents. They are likewise immiscible with water .
By the way, R-12 & R -22 are no longer manufactured, thanks to the Montreal Protocol, wisely signed by Ronald Wilson Reagan
FTM| 1.5.10 @ 10:09PM
Sorry again, R-12 is no longer manufactured. Due to the poor performance of proposed replacement refrigerants R-22 has been given a stay of execution. I was surprised too. In order to achieve the refrigeration system performance of an R-22 system with a replacement system you have to run the system longer. This means that your power bill goes up.
By the bye, Mexico does a booming R-12 business. Folks even smuggle R-12 into the US from Mexico just like they do coke.
Also there are a lot of CFCs on the loose, carbon tet as you pointed out. R-12 and R-22 are based on methane. There are other refrigerants that are based on propane and ethane if memory serves.
here's a WIKI article on 22: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.....romethane.
As a matter of fact one problem in R-22 systems is that 22 will not go into suspension in paraffinic oils. Just like oil and water not liking to mix, R-22 and oil don't like to mix either. Water and R-22 on the other hand will mix.
It's early in the shift that I work and for now I'm sharp. (Not the case in six or so hours.) Let's continue the discussion, I don't dismiss what you are saying. With that said however I do recall getting datasheets on R-12 and R-22 from the manufacturer back in the day and environmental impacts of these two refrigerants were routinely discussed. I recall 12 and 22 both being infinitely soluable in water. I recall R-12 being twenty some odd times heavier than air. I don't recall how much heavier than air that R-22 is. I do recall reading research in regards to ozone depletion via CFCs and the author stating that neither R-12 or R-22 had been found in stratospheric air samples and that both compounds were found in deep ocean water samples. Finding the stuff in water and not air is consistant with weight in comparison with air and soluability.
Pingback| 1.5.10 @ 2:48PM
The American Spectator : Henny-Penny Meets Cosmic Rays | billiardballs links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 1.5.10 @ 2:48PM
The American Spectator : Henny-Penny Meets Cosmic Rays | billiardballs links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 1.5.10 @ 3:05PM
The American Spectator : Henny-Penny Meets Cosmic Rays | H2O Report links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
FeralCat| 1.6.10 @ 3:41AM
Al started a hoax. Which started the whole world thinking they were going to be a frying.
But what Al didn’t see was that the joke would be on he.
Oh, no, Al started to cry. Which started the whole world laughing.
Oh, if he’d only seen that the joke would be on he.
Al looked at the skies. Running his hands over his snowed up eyes.
And he fell from his throne. Cracking his head on the ice and choking on things that he'd said.
Till Al’s power finally died. Which started the whole world living drilling.
Oh, if he’d only seen that the joke would be on he.
Oh, no, that the joke would be on he.
Margie| 1.6.10 @ 1:53PM
Ha! Very goood.
led mining light | 11.25.10 @ 1:39AM
In short, just as we still rely on nation-states for international security, we must still rely on national governments to protect individual rights. Your freedom still depends on where you live.
Pingback| 1.6.10 @ 4:47AM
The American Spectator : Henny-Penny Meets Cosmic Rays Type links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Calendar| 1.6.10 @ 2:53PM
There is no need to reinvent the calendar to predict changes of season.
The calendar cycle of the Great Year of the Constellations ends in December of 2012. It is not so different from the monthly calendar used daily now by all people that it should appear so impossible to understand for so many.
Perhaps it is because of fear and denial that this cycle cannot be controlled or stopped that the average people are refusing to see what is right in front of their eyes as the clearly marked astronomical event used as the end and beginning point for the Great Year approaches. It is not magic, it is astronomy.
This calendar was meant to be used so that people could prepare for the Great Winter, ice age, of the Great Year just as they use the monthly calendar to prepare in advance for the yearly season of winter.
It is a travesty that in this age of world wide technological communication the simple, silent calendar of the Great Year is either totally being ignored or totally being dismissed as something that was created out of no real importance.
Pingback| 1.18.10 @ 2:45PM
Three Free Anti-Aging Skin Care Tips | Healthy Tips | Skin Care Beauty Wisdom links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
www.us-bapeoutlet.com | 4.2.10 @ 10:46PM
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Converse | 8.11.11 @ 9:41PM
is good