Recent content by reasonmclucus

No, Earth doesn't cool by radiation. Only the ground really produces much radiation. Water is a very poor radiator because transparent substances in general don't produce much radiation. Much of the cooling of the ground results from heat energy transfer to the air through conduction. This...

Keep in mind that much of the devastation associated with this earthquake came from the tsunami that it generated which hit the Japanese coast.

The idea of other dimensions is difficult to understand because our brains are programed at an early age to think of dimensions as something like the Euclidean dimensions of length, width and height. We need to look at dimensions in the broader sense as variables. The Euclidean dimensions...

My understanding is that it is based on the cyclic nature of weather. I don't think they look at the sun's sunspot cycles, but those cycles are a cause for some years to be warmer or cooler, etc. Up to now those cycles have been followed a regular pattern, but the new sunspot cycle has...

Right. It's proximity to the sun would mean it could have been hit by a large object coming back from the sun on a comet like trajectory. The slingshot affect of going around the sun would have meant it was traveling at an extremely high speed. If it was close enough to the sun as it went...

I believe the Biblical account specifically states that a strong wind was responsible although it probably didn't look like it did in the Ten Commandments movie.

Air molecules move at extremely high speeds which allow them to temporarily move away from the ground. As they move up some of the kinetic energy (i.e., heat) is lost causing them to slow down, but they are also farther from the center of the Earth so the gravitational attraction is lower...

Keep in mind that much of the radiation reaching Earth is not converted into heat directly because plants store it in the form of the electrical bonds that hold complex carbon molecules together. Animals or combustion may eventually convert part of this energy into heat. Cold blooded animals...

You seem to be making the common mistake of thinking that other dimensions would be like length, width and height in some way. That's because our brains are programmed beginning at an early age to think that those are the only types of things that can be dimensions. The Stephen Hawking of my...

Partly for the same reason snow remains in shaded areas of my backyard that the sun doesn't reach long after the other snow has melted and air temperatures have risen above freezing. It takes a lot of heat to melt snow and ice because water has a higher specific heat than air and most other...

Are you familiar with the experiment IR expert R.W. Wood conducted in 1909? He used two identical greenhouses with one being reflective of IR and the other transparent. XXIV. Note on the Theory of the Greenhouse By Professor R. W. Wood (Communicated by the Author) THERE appears to be a...

Hungarian scientist Ferenc Miskolczi has discovered the greenhouse gas equation Arthur Milne developed in 1922 contains a serious flaw. Milne mistakenly solved the differential equation involved by assuming an infinitely thick atmosphere. Miskolczi was working for NASA at the time and NASA...

The possibility that these bacteria could play a role in cloud formation was suggested as early as 1985. http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Climate+and+Africa:+why+the+land+goes+dry-a03762067 Snow resorts have been taking advantage of the ability to form ice crystals by using the bacteria...

At this point the cause is unknown. The terms tends to be used for the North Pacific with the El Nino Southern Oscillation being used for the South Pacific. The PDO is a longer (possibly 20 years) cycle than the ENSO (6 to 18 months) but the ENSO can have periods in which either El Nino...

Preachers and politicians make absolute statements. Real scientists tend to qualify what they say because they realize they do not have perfect knowledge. Historically "scientists" who claim certainty about whatever they are selling have been attempting to con people into giving them money...