Month: April 2018

(Cont’d) My View on Global Warming vs Warming Globe

The term global warming has changed from a noun to an adjective. This is to say it no longer is used to describe a globe that is warming, but instead the term now defines a manipulated preconceived notion that anthropogenic pollution IS global warming. What has happened here is not new, it is a very effective method usually used in military conflicts. In its dressed down form it is a mechanism contrived to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of the general public, and in this case several scientists as well.

Research needs money – and as it is with most agencies and universities, it comes in the way of grants. The exception are those as myself, we struggle to maintain our ability to continue research, but we are also able to maintain our integrity without being directed by the money handlers (usually cloaked – wouldn’t want any bad press). Yes, I am saying – as it pertains to this discipline – science has been seized by politics. We have been ushered into a false choice, for example: “The debate is over. You are either a supporter of global warming, or you are a polluter.” (Al Gore)  Sound familiar? We heard this in 2003 when a similar statement was made. “You’re either with me, or you’re with the terrorist.” (George W Bush)

Does pollution contribute to a warming climate? Research does suggest yes, however, there is absolutely no consensus as to what percentage. Is it 1%, 10% or more…I have no reservation in telling you it certainly is not anthropogenic meaning 100%. My research along with others, indicate the vast majority is natural, furthermore, it is cyclical. Does this mean it is okay to pollute? Absolutely not; and it also means if by some magical scenario all pollution were to stop or disappear tomorrow – Earth would continue to have warming and cooling trends, some of which would be extreme  and most would fall into a range of medium.

To no surprise, it comes down to money. Do we chase a red herring spending billions on prevention? Or do the billions go for preparedness? If the politics over global warming were to mysteriously evaporate, then perhaps there could be some method of using resources in both directions. But the way it is now there will continue to be the issuing of ‘false choice’. Some examples of coexisting preparedness and measured prevention would be Innovation Biodegradable Engineering and Permaculture.

It looks like this article needs to have a third part.   More Coming…..

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Physics Of A Glacial ‘Slushy’ Reveal Granular Forces On A Massive Scale

The laws for how granular materials flow apply even at the giant, geophysical scale of icebergs piling up in the ocean at the outlet of a glacier, scientists have shown.

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) published the findings, describing the dynamics of the clog of icebergs — known as an ice mélange — in front of Greenland’s Jakobshavn Glacier. The fast-moving glacier is considered a bellwether for the effects of climate change.

“We’ve connected microscopic theories for the mechanics of granular flowing with the world’s largest granular material — a glacial ice mélange,” says Justin Burton, an assistant professor of physics at Emory University and lead author of the paper. “Our results could help researchers who are trying to understand the future evolution of the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets. We’ve showed that an ice mélange could potentially have a large and measurable effect on the production of large icebergs by a glacier.”

The National Science Foundation funded the research, which brought together physicists who study the fundamental mechanics of granular materials in laboratories and glaciologists who spend their summers exploring polar ice sheets.

“Glaciologists generally deal with slow, steady deformation of glacial ice, which behaves like thick molasses — a viscous material creeping towards the sea,” says co-author Jason Amundson, a glaciologist at the University of Alaska Southeast, Juneau. “Ice mélange, on the other hand, is fundamentally a granular material — essentially a giant slushy — that is governed by different physics. We wanted to understand the behavior of ice mélange and its effects on glaciers.”

For thousands of years, the massive glaciers of Earth’s polar regions have remained relatively stable, the ice locked into mountainous shapes that ebbed in warmer months but gained back their bulk in winter. In recent decades, however, warmer temperatures have started rapidly thawing these frozen giants. It’s becoming more common for sheets of ice — some one kilometer tall — to shift, crack and tumble into the sea, splitting from their mother glaciers in an explosive process known as calving.

Jakobshavn Glacier is advancing as fast as 50 meters per day until it reaches the ocean edge, a point known as the glacier terminus. About 35 billion tons of icebergs calve off of Jakobshavn Glacier each year, spilling out into Greenland’s Ilulissat fjord, a rocky channel that is about five kilometers wide. The calving process creates a tumbling mix of icebergs which are slowly pushed through the fjord by the motion of the glacier. The ice mélange can extend hundreds of meters deep into the water but on the surface it resembles a lumpy field of snow which inhibits, but cannot stop, the motion of the glacier.

“An ice mélange is kind of like purgatory for icebergs, because they’ve broken off into the water but they haven’t yet made it out to open ocean,” Burton says.

While scientists have long studied how ice forms, breaks and flows within a glacier, no one had quantified the granular flow of an ice mélange. It was an irresistible challenge to Burton. His lab creates experimental models of glacial processes to try to quantify their physical forces. It also uses microscopic particles as a model to understand the fundamental mechanics of granular, amorphous materials, and the boundary between a free-flowing state and a rigid, jammed-up one.

“Granular material is everywhere, from the powders that make up pharmaceuticals to the sand, dirt and rocks that shape our Earth,” Burton says. And yet, he adds, the properties of these amorphous materials are not as well understood as those of liquids or crystals.

In addition to Amundson, Burton’s co-authors on the PNAS paper include glaciologist Ryan Cassotto — formerly with the University of New Hampshire and now with the University of Colorado Boulder — and physicists Chin-Chang Kuo and Michael Dennin, from the University of California, Irvine.

The researchers characterized both the flow and mechanical stress of the Jacobshavn ice mélange using field measurements, satellite data, lab experiments and numerical modeling. The results quantitatively describe the flow of the ice mélange as it jams and unjams during its journey through the fjord. The paper also showed how the ice mélange can act as a “granular ice shelf” in its jammed state, buttressing even the largest icebergs calved into the ocean.

“We’ve shown that glaciologists modeling the behavior of ice shelves with ice mélanges should factor in the forces of those mélanges,” Burton says. “We’ve provided them with the quantitative tools to do so.”

Mercury’s Thin, Dense Crust

Mercury is small, fast and close to the sun, making the rocky world challenging to visit. Only one probe has ever orbited the planet and collected enough data to tell scientists about the chemistry and landscape of Mercury’s surface. Learning about what is beneath the surface, however, requires careful estimation.

After the probe’s mission ended in 2015, planetary scientists estimated Mercury’s crust was roughly 22 miles thick. One University of Arizona scientist disagrees.

Using the most recent mathematical formulas, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory associate staff scientist Michael Sori estimates that the Mercurial crust is just 16 miles thick and is denser than aluminum. His study, “A Thin, Dense Crust for Mercury,” will be published May 1 in Earth and Planetary Science Letters and is currently available online.

Sori determined the density of Mercury’s crust using data collected by the Mercury Surface, Space Environment and Geochemistry Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft. He created his estimate using a formula developed by Isamu Matsuyama, a professor in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, and University of California Berkeley scientist Douglas Hemingway.

Sori’s estimate supports the theory that Mercury’s crust formed largely through volcanic activity. Understanding how the crust was formed may allow scientists to understand the formation of the entire oddly structured planet.

“Of the terrestrial planets, Mercury has the biggest core relative to its size,” Sori said.

Mercury’s core is believed to occupy 60 percent of the planet’s entire volume. For comparison, Earth’s core takes up roughly 15 percent of its volume. Why is Mercury’s core so large?

“Maybe it formed closer to a normal planet and maybe a lot of the crust and mantle got stripped away by giant impacts,” Sori said. “Another idea is that maybe, when you’re forming so close to the sun, the solar winds blow away a lot of the rock and you get a large core size very early on. There’s not an answer that everyone agrees to yet.”

Sori’s work may help point scientists in the right direction. Already, it has solved a problem regarding the rocks in Mercury’s crust.

Mercury’s Mysterious Rocks

When the planets and Earth’s moon formed, their crusts were born from their mantles, the layer between a planet’s core and crust that oozes and flows over the course of millions of years. The volume of a planet’s crust represents the percentage of mantle that was turned into rocks.

Before Sori’s study, estimates of the thickness of Mercury’s crust led scientists to believe 11 percent of the planet’s original mantle had been turned into rocks in the crust. For the Earth’s moon — the celestial body closest in size to Mercury — the number is lower, near 7 percent.

“The two bodies formed their crusts in very different ways, so it wasn’t necessarily alarming that they didn’t have the exact same percentage of rocks in their crust,” Sori said.

The moon’s crust formed when less dense minerals floated to the surface of an ocean of liquid rock that became the body’s mantle. At the top of the magma ocean, the moon’s buoyant minerals cooled and hardened into a “flotation crust.” Eons of volcanic eruptions coated Mercury’s surface and created its “magmatic crust.”

Explaining why Mercury created more rocks than the moon did was a scientific mystery no one had solved. Now, the case can be closed, as Sori’s study places the percentage of rocks in Mercury’s crust at 7 percent. Mercury is no better than the moon at making rocks.

Sori solved the mystery by estimating the crust’s depth and density, which meant he had to find out what kind of isostasy supported Mercury’s crust.

Determining Density and Depth

The most natural shape for a planetary body to take is a smooth sphere, where all points on the surface are an equal distance from the planet’s core. Isostasy describes how mountains, valleys and hills are supported and kept from flattening into smooth plains.

There are two main types isostasy: Pratt and Airy. Both focus on balancing the masses of equally sized slices of the planet. If the mass in one slice is much greater than the mass in a slice next to it, the planet’s mantle will ooze, shifting the crust on top of it until the masses of every slice are equal.

Pratt isostasy states that a planet’s crust varies in density. A slice of the planet that contains a mountain has the same mass as a slice that contains flat land, because the crust that makes the mountain is less dense than the crust that makes flat land. In all points of the planet, the bottom of the crust floats evenly on the mantle.

Until Sori completed his study, no scientist had explained why Pratt isostasy would or wouldn’t support Mercury’s landscape. To test it, Sori needed to relate the planet’s density to its topography. Scientists had already constructed a topographic map of Mercury using data from MESSENGER, but a map of density didn’t exist. So Sori made his own using MESSENGER’s data about the elements found on Mercury’s surface.

“We know what minerals usually form rocks, and we know what elements each of these minerals contain. We can intelligently divide all the chemical abundances into a list of minerals,” Sori said of the process he used to determine the location and abundance of minerals on the surface. “We know the densities of each of these minerals. We add them all up, and we get a map of density.”

Sori then compared his density map with the topographic map. If Pratt isostasy could explain Mercury’s landscape, Sori expected to find high-density minerals in craters and low-density minerals in mountains; however, he found no such relationship. On Mercury, minerals of high and low density are found in mountains and craters alike.

With Pratt isostasy disproven, Sori considered Airy isostasy, which has been used to make estimates of Mercury’s crustal thickness. Airy isostasy states that the depth of a planet’s crust varies depending on the topography.

“If you see a mountain on the surface, it can be supported by a root beneath it,” Sori said, likening it to an iceberg floating on water.

The tip of an iceberg is supported by a mass of ice that protrudes deep underwater. The iceberg contains the same mass as the water it displaces. Similarly, a mountain and its root will contain the same mass as the mantle material being displaced. In craters, the crust is thin, and the mantle is closer to the surface. A wedge of the planet containing a mountain would have the same mass as a wedge containing a crater.

“These arguments work in two dimensions, but when you account for spherical geometry, the formula doesn’t exactly work out,” Sori said.

The formula recently developed by Matsuyama and Hemingway, though, does work for spherical bodies like planets. Instead of balancing the masses of the crust and mantle, the formula balances the pressure the crust exerts on the mantle, providing a more accurate estimate of crustal thickness.

Sori used his estimates of the crust’s density and Hemingway and Matsuyama’s formula to find the crust’s thickness. Sori is confident his estimate of Mercury’s crustal thickness in its northern hemisphere will not be disproven, even if new data about Mercury is collected. He does not share this confidence about Mercury’s crustal density.

MESSENGER collected much more data on the northern hemisphere than the southern, and Sori predicts the average density of the planet’s surface will change when density data is collected over the entire planet. He already sees the need for a follow-up study in the future.

The next mission to Mercury will arrive at the planet in 2025. In the meantime, scientists will continue to use MESSENGER data and mathematical formulas to learn everything they can about the first rock from the sun.

After Receiving a Few Comments, Time for Some Clarity

I received three emails who were questioning my position on global warming, now addressed as climate change. I thought this would be a good time to glimpse my historical view as well as best define current scientific studies. First I will start with the term ‘global warming’. It is simply a made-up name created by James Hansen, who was a NASA climate scientist, and presented his hypothesis during a 1988 US Senate hearing on climate.

Hansen, along with Michael Mann, a climatologist from Penn State University, created a computer generated analysis of a global warming trend, which later became known as the infamous ‘hockey stick’. They based their assumption of warming on anthropogenic (human induced) pollution. Former vice president Al Gore, joined the duo team in 2006 and later that year released his video ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, further advocating Earth’s warming was 100% caused by manmade pollution.

As a point of reference, I published my first book “Solar Rain” in 2005 which lay out my research on the Sun-Earth connection which included my 1998 Equation. The title of Chapter 13 in the book gives you a good idea of my perspective: Global Warming … or a Warming Globe?

I highlight the many contributing factors which contribute to warming and cooling trends. Admittedly, none of the factors include manmade pollution. However, this does not mean that humans do not pollute, nor does it mean CO2 pollution does not contribute to warming trends. This first book relies heavily on scientific factors, which also allows for the low percentage of anthropogenic pollution.

It was during the writing of my second book “Global Warming a Convenient Disguise” that my research involved a significant tilt into what I described as the politicization of science. With the trio of Al Gore, James Hansen, and Michael Mann pushing hard on their agenda to have all in the related sciences adhere to the holy grail ‘hockey stick’ – while pointing a threatening finger of shame if you did not agree that the cause of warming was clearly by the hands greedy irresponsible people.

Although the latter may be true, I can say without hesitation, I know of ‘no one’ who pollutes simply for the sake of pollution. I certainly am a proponent of a clean environment and don’t mind if conscious polluters are punished, however, even if you were to put every one of them in jail, it would not stop warming and cooling trends here on Earth.

I did not want to get too lengthy with article, however, I do have more to say. Stay Tuned For More Coming….

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Navigating With The Sixth Sense: Desert Ants Sense Earth’s Magnetic Field

Desert ants (Cataglyphis) spend the first weeks of their life exclusively in their dark underground nest. For around four weeks, they nurse the queen and the brood, dig tunnels, build chambers or tidy up. At some point, they leave the nest to start their outdoor career, working as foragers until their death.

Pirouettes lead the way

Before an ant sets out to forage, it has to calibrate its navigational system, however. For this purpose, the insects exhibit a rather peculiar behaviour during two to three days: They perform so-called learning walks to explore the vicinity of the nest entrance and frequently turn about their vertical body axes while doing so. High-speed video recordings show that the ants stop repeatedly during these pirouetting motions. What is special about the longest of these stopping phases is that at this moment the ants always look back precisely to the nest entrance, although they are unable to see the tiny hole in the ground.

Researchers from the Biocenter of the University of Würzburg have now made the surprising discovery that the desert ant uses the Earth’s magnetic field as orientation cue during these calibration trips. This ability had been previously unknown for desert ants.

Pauline Fleischmann and Robin Grob, research assistants of Professor Wolfgang Rössler, who holds the Chair of Zoology II at the Biocentre of the University of Würzburg, conducted the tests in the summer of 2017. The scientists designed the experiment together with Professor Rüdiger Wehner from the Brain Research Institute of the University of Zurich and physicist Valentin Müller from the University of Würzburg. They present their research results in the current issue of the journal Current Biology.

“While they are foraging for food, desert ants venture several hundred metres away from their nest, pursuing a sinusoidal path that includes larger loops. Once they have found food, they return to the nest entrance in a straight line,” Wolfgang Rössler describes the ants’ astonishing navigational abilities. The researchers had known already that the ants rely on the position of the sun and landmarks as orientational cues and integrate this information with the steps travelled.

Experiments in Greece

Recent research results have shown, however, that the desert ant also looks back to the nest entrance during its learning walks in the absence of solar information or landscape cues. “This sparked the idea that the insects might navigate using the Earth’s magnetic field as a cue, as some birds do,” Pauline Fleischmann says.

To confirm their hypothesis, the researchers travelled to the south of Greece where Cataglyphis ants are native. They took a 1.5-m-high pair of Helmholtz coils with them. A defined current passed through the coils creates an almost homogeneous, precisely known magnetic field in between the coils. This enabled the researchers to study the behaviour of the desert ants during their learning walks in their natural habitat under controlled conditions.

A surprising outcome

The result was unambiguous: When the scientists changed the orientation of the magnetic field, the desert ants no longer looked towards the real nest entrance but towards a predictable new location — the fictive nest entrance. “Their path integration provides them with a new vector to the nest based on the information of the magnetic field,” Wolfgang Rössler explains. The scientists admit that they had been surprised by this finding. They say that although individual ant species are known to respond to changes in the magnetic field under certain conditions, the necessity and distinct influence on navigation in Cataglyphis ants was unexpected.

With this result the researchers have “opened a new door which raises a lot of further questions.” One of them is: “When do desert ants use their magnetic sense?” It might well be that they already rely on it during the first weeks of their life which they spend underground. After all, a navigational aid can be quite useful in total darkness. But this is only a hypothesis at this point.

Interesting for neuroscience, computer science and robotics

The second question the scientists want to tackle is how and whether the ants switch between the different navigational cues — the position of the sun, landmarks and the magnetic field. Experienced foragers are already known to perform re-learning walks when they are forced to do so, for example by changing the environment at the nest entrance. It is unclear, however, whether they rely on magnetic field cues again in this case or whether they use their solar compass as during the foraging trips.

And ultimately, there is of course the overarching question of where the magnetic field sensor is located and how it works. According to Wolfgang Rössler, this question takes you deep into the field of orientational and navigational research in insects. How does the comparably small ant brain manage to store navigational information on the position of the sun, the magnetic field and landmarks and integrate this information with distance data from their step counter? Rössler believes that this question goes far beyond the field of behavioural research and neurosciences and is of great interest for computer science and robotics, too.

BREAKING NEWS: Study Released by Institute of Physics Journal Confirms Battros 1998 and 2012 Equation

This new research may be the most hard-hitting conformation of my 15 years of research – initially providing evidence of the Sun-Earth connection and Earth’s weather, then later in my studies adding evidence of a Galaxy-Sun-Earth connection. This research has been well documented in my books “Solar Rain” 2005 and “Global Warming Disguise” 2007. Further research is currently documented in my third book (in progress) providing evidence of long-term cyclical events highlighting the reduction of Earth’s magnetic field and the pathway to a full magnetic reversal.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

New Equation: (2012)
Increase Charged Particles Decreased Magnetic Field → Increase Outer Core Convection → Increase of Mantle Plumes → Increase in Earthquake and Volcanoes → Cools Mantle and Outer Core → Return of Outer Core Convection (Mitch Battros – July 2012)

I wish to present a brief thank you to all those who have supported my work over the years; and perhaps more importantly, the support of my cause. Forward looking research comes with a challenging task to stay focused – provide substantial evidence which can survive peer review –  and the support of people like you who continuously encouraged me to “stay with it”. Without you, I would have been just another person with great ideas.

Equation: (1998)
Sunspots → Solar Flares (charged particles) → Magnetic Field Shift → Shifting Ocean and Jet Stream Currents → Extreme Weather and Human Disruption (mitch battros 1998).

Scientists have discovered new evidence showing high-speed solar wind streams can increase extreme weather down on Earth. Researchers from Reading University Department of Meteorology – have discovered evidence that extreme weather events are triggered by charged particles from the Sun in addition to galactic cosmic rays from our galaxy “Milky Way”.

“Cosmic rays, tiny particles from across the Universe accelerated close to the speed of light, have been thought to play a role in weather down on Earth” says Lead author of the study, Dr Chris Scott.  This new finding goes beyond the well acknowledged interplay of GCR’s (galactic cosmic rays) influence on Earth’s atmosphere. “We have provided new evidence that charged particles emitted from our Sun also has a major role in Earth’s weather.”

The results of these new findings, which were published in the scientific journal Institute of Physics Environmental Research, could prove crucial for weather forecasters since solar wind streams rotate with the Sun at regular intervals which accelerate charged particles into Earth’s atmosphere. These streams can be tracked by spacecraft offering the potential for predicting the severity of hazardous weather events on Earth many weeks in advance.

Professor Giles Harrison, head of Reading’s Department of Meteorology and co-author of the ERL article, said: “In increasing our understanding of weather on Earth we are learning more about its important links with space weather. Bringing the topics of Earth Weather and Space Weather ever closer requires more collaborations between atmospheric and space scientists, in which the University of Reading is already leading the way.”

“As the Sun rotates every 27 days these high-speed streams of particles wash past our planet with predictable regularity. Such information could prove useful when producing long-range weather forecasts.”

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Science Of Cycles Research Fund

Your assistance has always been at the core of this model, without you we fail. Science Of Cycles keeps you tuned-in and knowledgeable of what we are discovering, and how some of these changes will affect our communities and ways of living. We are maintaining an an open-ended donation of any amount you choose.  **Click on the banner below to begin this simple process.      Cheers, Mitch

 

Following Deadly January Eruption, Alert Level For Nearby Mount Shirane Raised To Level 2

The Meteorological Agency said Sunday it has raised the volcanic alert level for Mount Shirane near Gunma and Nagano prefectures from Level 1 to Level 2 to ban entry to areas near the crater.

Since Saturday evening, volcanic earthquakes at the Yugama crater have been on the rise, accompanied by slight crustal movement signaling higher eruption risk, the agency said.

Large ash deposits might also emerge within 1 km of the crater, it warned.
Mount Shirane is part a cluster of volcanoes in the two prefectures that is collectively called Mount Kusatsu-Shirane.

After the announcement, the Gunma Prefectural Government closed an 8.5-km stretch of Route 292, a scenic national road connecting the two prefectures.
The so-called Shiga-Kusatsu road is used by many people traveling to the nearby Kusatsu hot springs resort. Local tourism officials are concerned its closure could discourage tourists from visiting the popular resort, particularly during Golden Week, the string of public holidays lasting from the end of April to early May.

“It’s regrettable right ahead of Golden Week . . . but we need to keep monitoring the situation for a certain period of time,” Kusatsu Mayor Nobutada Kuroiwa said.

In January, Mount Motoshirane, another volcano in the Kusatsu-Shirane chain to the south of Mount Shirane, erupted, killing one person and injuring 11 others.

The Level 2 warning for Mount Motoshirane remains unchanged, the agency said.