Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: neolib who wrote (18475)	12/16/2007 12:59:12 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 36921

High Clouds Show Effects of Climate Change - Study -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- US: December 12, 2007 SAN FRANCISCO - Clouds at the edge of space are showing the effects of climate change, scientists said on Monday. These so-called polar mesospheric clouds are occurring more often and appearing at lower latitudes than they used to, researchers reported at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. "It won't affect people, but we're causing the outer part of the atmosphere to change, which means we are changing the entire atmosphere, which is important to know," said James Russell III, a scientist from Hampton University in Virginia. The build-up of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane in the upper atmosphere may be responsible for the cloud changes, scientists said at a news conference. Increased carbon dioxide cools the upper atmosphere and makes it easier for ice crystals to form. Methane reacts with oxygen to form water vapor. The clouds, made of ice crystals formed around dust particles more than 50 miles (80 km) above Earth's surface, form in conditions 100,000 times drier than the air in the Sahara and 100,000 times lower pressure than the surface of the planet. This means that temperatures need to be extremely cold -- at least minus 210 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 134 Celsius) -- for the clouds to form. As increased carbon dioxide causes the temperature to drop and increased methane produces more water vapor, more clouds form. "The clouds are an exquisite thermometer," said Scott Bailey, a scientist from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Carbon dioxide and methane are responsible for trapping solar radiation and heating the planet when they build up in the lower atmosphere. The carbon dioxide and methane building up in the mesosphere is above where the greenhouse effect is taking place. The polar mesospheric clouds don't contribute to climate change, but are indicators that humans are affecting even the farthest parts of the Earth's atmosphere. (Editing by Eric Beech) Story by Clare Baldwin planetark.com

To: neolib who wrote (18475)	12/16/2007 12:12:09 PM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36921

Natural selection is just a term for a class of feedback systems. The selection process is analogous to a delayed feedback system, but there are some significant differences. In a classic feedback design stability is achieved by subtracting mistakes in the fidelity. This only really works if the mistake in fidelity is still occurring .. that is .. too much delay and the correction is applied to a new input that is not exhibiting the same mistake. In natural selection corrections are not applied. "Mistakes" are eliminated, they are not applied to existing "signals". The original signal (or some continuation of it) is never corrected. Complexity in evolution arises from this distinction. The copies of organisms contain a lot of variation, some mistakes and some which are just differences. The mistakes are on average eliminated, and the differences must compete for limited resources. Some of these differences are more complex. There is a greater chance that an organism which has everything that competing organisms have plus more will out-compete those that have almost everything except are missing some element that was successful in the past. On the average the trend will favor the more complex. TP

To: neolib who wrote (18475)	12/16/2007 2:25:00 PM
From: Thomas A Watson	Respond to of 36921

"While certain aspects like CO2 trapping heat" That is basis of CO2 stupidity. CO2 does not trap heat. CO2 absorbs certain light frequencies becomes warmer for an instant then gives heat energy to surrounding molecules and CO2 and all molecules radiate a spectrum of blackbody energy of which most frequencies end up directly as part of the background radiation of the universe. For CO2 to have sufficient delay effects on heat transfer that would cause convection transfer of heat from equatorial to polar, obviously it would have to delay heat and would result in .... LOL... the IPCC fingerprint. bulk.ath.cx