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RE: Nuclear Power Des NOT Need Gobal Warming Hoax!
Ruth Weiner wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From: RuthWeiner@aol.com [mailto:RuthWeiner@aol.com]
Sent: Tue 6/1/2004 9:37 PM
To: Dukelow, James S Jr; jfleck@abqjournal.com; radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu
Subject: Re: Nuclear Power Des NOT Need Gobal Warming Hoax!
In a message dated 6/1/04 6:20:06 PM Mountain Daylight Time,
jim.dukelow@pnl.gov writes:
> There are really only two sources of modeling
> assumptions: historical trends and the basic equations of physics and
> chemistry.
> For global climate change predictions, we depend heavily on the first of
> these.
>
To Jim Dukelow: could you please write the equations that predict global
warming? Sure, you can probably write a Hamiltonian operator for the IR
absorption of CO2, and you can certainly calculate changes in temperature of the air
from the specific heat of air and the heat input from IR radiation from CO2,
but using that to predict global climate change invloves a lot of assumptions.
Alternatively, could you please give me a reference that derives global
climate change from basic physics equations and not from historical temperature
records? All the papers in SCIENCE that I have seen use the latter.
By the way, the dry adiabatic lapse rate can be derived from first
principles, as can settling velocity in the Stokes region, as can boiling point
elevation and freezing point depression, and a lot of other things.
<snip>
================
Hi Ruth,
Writing the equations that predict global warming -- that is, the equations used in General Circulation Models, is a task for a fairly thick book, not an email message. Even the description of the latest version of a submodel will usually be a 20-30 page paper is a peer-reviewed journal.
That said, the fluid flow parts of the model -- atmospheric motion and ocean dynamics -- are simply the equations of conservation of mass, energy, and momentum. Added to that are equations to track the thermodynamic properties of the air and water and, at least, the salinity, of the water. Similarly, atmospheric chemistry submodels are usually first principles. Carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, sea-ice and land-ice models, areosol models, and cloud feedback models are built on the best current understanding of the relevant phenomena and all require some parameterization and could more properly be described as mixed first- and second-principles models. In some cases, the parametrization is required, not because of lack of understanding of the phemomena, but because their temporal and spatial scale is smaller than the resolution of the GCM.
If you are really interested in how the models are put together, the fastest and one of the better ways to go is to download relevant chapters from Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basic by Houghton et al. It is available for free download at the IPCC web site <www.ipcc.ch>, although you would need a broadband connection or a fair amount of patience with a dial-up connection. The Summary for Policy Makers does not have enough scientific detail to be very interesting. The Technical Summary is better, but even better would be to download Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.
A Climate Modelling Primer by K McGuffie and Anne Henderson-Sellers, 2nd Ed., John Wiley, 1997, paper, around $100, is a nice but pricey introduction to climate modeling and includes a CD-ROM with source code for the demonstration models built in the text.
Modeling Dynamic Climate Systems by Walter Robinson, Springer 2001 is another introduction to climate models, using a proprietary boxes-and-arrows modeling language, STELLA, that I don't personally find particularly appealing. It includes a CD-ROM with a run-time version of STELLA that can be used to play with the models developed in the text.
Atmospheric Science: an Introductory Survey by John Wallace and Peter Hobbs, Academic Press, 1977 is well-described by its title.
Meteorology for Scientists and Engineers, 2nd Ed., by Ronald Stull is a large format paperback ($27) and might be the best place for a scientist or engineer who didn't know much about climate science to start.
The Physics of Atmospheres, 2nd Ed. by John Houghton, Cambridge, 1986 (paper, around $30) is a higher level introduction to the physics. There is a similar monograph by Peixoto and Oort.
Radiative Transfer in the Atmosphere and Ocean by Thomas and Stamnes, Cambridge, 1999, (paper, $45) is a comprehensive treatment of its subject, central and necessary to climate modeling but only part of the story.
Best regards.
Jim Dukelow
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Richland, WA
jim.dukelow@pnl.gov
These comments are mine and have not been reviewed and/or approved by my management or by the U.S. Department of Energy.
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