Re: [asa] NASA global warming satellite crashes on takeoff

>No comment. :)
>
>NASA global warming satellite has troubled launch
><http://jackmyers.daylife.com/article/08PMbV53Ceary?q=NASA>http://jackmyers.daylife.com/article/08PMbV53Ceary?q=NASA
>
>
>Lynn

I don't read much of what is written on this topic on this list, but
what little I do, and not just by Lynn, seems to be all "He said, she
said, they said..."

Does no one here know anything about the complicated system of flows
of energy and matter
through the atmosphere, the oceans, the land? What are the relative
flows of energy and matter at different points in the system? What
sinks are there for both? What is known? What isn't? Does the heat
from volcanic eruptions contribute anything significant? What would
happen if you spread a reflective white substance over a few hundred
square miles of desert somewhere? Can an estimate be made?

Last weekend I spent several hours with my male relatives and a
chainsaw, cutting down a dead tree. I have a Ph.D. in biochemistry
and the experience of 57 years. I spent 2 years as a Physics major in
college before doing a lot of biology. My brother is a smart guy and
has done lots of work in the yard.

Nonetheless, we couldn't predict how the limbs of a tree would behave
when cut with a chainsaw. Despite being quite deliberate about it,
unexpected things kept happening. Limbs fell where we didn't think
they would. The saw got pinned a number of times. (My prayers were
answered and we got the job done without cutting off any limbs that
weren't made of wood.)

If it's that difficult to predict a simple system like a medium sized
tree under the influence of gravity, why do people think they can
tell what the global climate system will do just by consulting their
political biases?

Wouldn't it be a service to those of us who don't know anything about
the problem for some of you to try to read up on the actual science,
the ways people are trying to estimate the energy flows, the CO2
sinks and such, as distinct from the politics, and explain it to us?

Just a thought,

Preston

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Received on Wed Feb 25 04:13:02 2009