Author Archives: gymnosperm

CERES and MODTRAN VII, Clouds

MODTRAN deals only with infrared light, and at least the version we are using includes only low level cloud types.   Above is a screen shot of the menu. It can be seen that the highest altitude is three kilometers. … Continue reading

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CERES and MODTRAN VI, Cloud Radiative Effect

CERES is the acronym for the rather chewy title Cloud Earth Radiative Effect Satellites. Displayed above is the TOA net flux in blue. The net TOA cloud radiative effect is in red. The axes are inverted to maintain the energy … Continue reading

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CERES and MODTRAN V

We must begin by confessing that we have resorted to digitizing. The first CERES data were garnered by mousing over the visualization tool, writing in a notebook, and typing into Excel. We discovered that if we right clicked the tool … Continue reading

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CERES and MODTRAN IV

The tile of this series promises a comparison of CERES and MODTRAN. The groundwork of exploring the CERES data in the first three posts is done. At the conclusion of the first post, we concluded that CERES and MODTRAN could … Continue reading

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Responses to the Questions Posed by Judge Alsup

Question 1. What caused the various ice ages (including the “little ice age” and prolonged cool periods) and what caused the ice to melt? When they melted, by how much did sea level rise? Ice ages occur on our planet … Continue reading

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CERES and MODTRAN III

In the first post in this series we began with an assertion that according to greenhouse theory, it is impossible to warm the planet when longwave radiation to space is increasing. In the second post we discovered that it is … Continue reading

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CERES and MODTRAN II

The earth does not burn at 5778 K like the sun, and therefore produces no shortwave radiation of its own. The earth radiates at about 288 K, a temperature that produces longwave radiation. When molecules absorb radiation according to their … Continue reading

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CERES and MODTRAN

You don’t radiatively warm the third rock from the sun without reducing long wave radiation from the top of the atmosphere to space. Period. [Unless shortwave absorption increases] For far too long, we have ignored CERES data here at the … Continue reading

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Differential Motions of the Continents, Mesozoic and Cenozoic Eras: The 120mya Inflection and Finale

A square kilometer of extruded ocean floor exerts force in all directions. The “squareness” is partly our own construct for convenience of measurement, but also justified by lateral offsets where the linear ruptures we call ridges accommodate the curvature of … Continue reading

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Differential Motions of the Continents, Mesozoic and Cenozoic Eras V: The 80mya Inflection

In the last post on constraints we decided that the east Pacific and Juan de Fuca ridges were useless in constraining the motions of the Americas. We decided that the Atlantic, Greenland, and Lomonosov ridges were acceptable explanations for the … Continue reading

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