Recent content by Ken Fabian

Ah, good catch. I got that very wrong - thinking 1200 metres per second when it is 1,200 (approx) km per hour. Post has been edited. Thanks.

A lightning bolt can be many kilometres long as well as reach high altitudes. There is sound transmitted through the ground as well as air - faster through ground than air but more usually felt as ground vibration than heard - and lightning hitting the ground can be (but not always) the first...

The largest part of the long tail of methane warming is going to be from the CO2 produced - persisting long after the methane itself has decomposed. The water vapor produced likely does add some small amount to enhanced greenhouse but it doesn't persist the way the CO2 does. I think it is...

Surely average residence time is not the same as how long before it has all decayed to CH4 and H2O from contact with OH radicals - some will decompose sooner than the average and some will decompose later. Because some will still be present in the atmosphere after the average time has passed it...

@sophiecentaur - I suspect my government will differ from yours and future governments will differ from present ones. Decarbonising looks vitally important to enduring prosperity as well as to remnant natural ecosystems to me and given the abundance of consistent top level science based expert...

@sophiecentaur The principle commercial opportunity - once we look beyond communications and Earth observation satellites, that service a large pool of paying customers - appears to be taxpayer funded contracts. I don't think that can ever be sufficient; the gap between costs of investment and...

Well, the Rift Valley (not the Nile) is where most of the fossil evidence of earliest humans (hominids) is found. That is not the same as the range where hominids lived - fossils aren't made everywhere.

I think that level of integration may have it's place in larger systems - the larger multi story residential and commercial buildings and businesses that provide central heating and cooling or do lots of refrigeration. It seems like refrigeration is just one element, possibly not the easiest...

Yes, these are representative/consequences of sea surface temperatures and differences in them, which are major drivers of weather patterns; wind strength, direction, likely humidity and therefore potential rainfall are largely determined by sea surface temperatures. For Eastern Australia where...

I see big differences between migration to areas unoccupied by other humans - those earliest of migrations - and migrations later, into regions where humans were already present. And differences again where humans were present and there were large relative technology differences and where there...

So... like a composite image but not?

@PeterDonis - Colour me surprised; I was thinking it might be a composite image - the thin crescent and some glow further out indicating light from behind. I didn't realise night time pictures could be enhanced like that.

You sure the sun is behind the Earth in this pic? Remarkable colour photography of night-side if that is the case. More usually we would be seeing city lights.

Not sure, but it does seem like Lang's lay is used primarily in wire ropes rather than fibre ropes. I think fibre ropes would be inclined to unravel that way, without the opposing winding to sustain it, whereas metal ropes will retain their winding.

The planet is VERY large and over very long periods of time - hundreds of millions of years - meteors will hit in all kinds of places with all kinds of uniquely local conditions. Yes, such materials would mostly land in oceans or on land but when a carbonaceous meteor hits a shallow sea the...