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LKL
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13 Sep 2010, 7:20 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
LKL wrote:
...ten degrees vs. ten degrees. The mathematical difference is identical...


Actually, no. There is a mathematical difference by far. A range of 10 degrees on the Celsius scale whereby the average temperature of the Earth is 15°, i.e. 10° to 20° is much larger in terms of numerical percentage of difference with respect to the numerical value of the mean temperature in Celsius as compared to the mean temperature in Kelvin (288 K). Increasing from 15 to 20 is a percentage difference of (20-15)/15 = 0.33... = 33%, whereas increasing from 288 to 293 is a percentage difference of (293-288)/288 = 0.017 = 1.7%


Your math is incorrect. The percentage difference (assuming the lowest level of change and a normal variation of 10 degrees) (2/(25-15) x 100) in celcius and (2/(298.15-288.15) x100) for centigrade. The relevant temperature reference point is the normal average temperature of the planet, not absolute zero; measuring the temperature change as a difference from absolute zero (or even as a difference from the freezing point of water) is scientifically meaningless when we are talking about effects on the planetary climate and planetary biology.

Centigrade is the scientific standard for measuring temperatures in most sciences; Kelvin is used mainly in physics and extreme chemistry.



LKL
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13 Sep 2010, 7:23 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
If you were to plot it out full-scale with absolute zero being the y-axis orgin, then you'd need a magnifier in order to not see a nearly flat line.


Exactly. By the standards you propose, the average surface temperatures of Mercury and of Mars would barely register as different from that of Earth. Climate scientists use the scale that is relevant and meaningful for the people who have to live on the planet. As they should.



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13 Sep 2010, 7:29 pm

LKL wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
LKL wrote:
...ten degrees vs. ten degrees. The mathematical difference is identical...


Actually, no. There is a mathematical difference by far. A range of 10 degrees on the Celsius scale whereby the average temperature of the Earth is 15°, i.e. 10° to 20° is much larger in terms of numerical percentage of difference with respect to the numerical value of the mean temperature in Celsius as compared to the mean temperature in Kelvin (288 K). Increasing from 15 to 20 is a percentage difference of (20-15)/15 = 0.33... = 33%, whereas increasing from 288 to 293 is a percentage difference of (293-288)/288 = 0.017 = 1.7%


Your math is incorrect. The percentage difference (assuming the lowest level of change and a normal variation of 10 degrees) (2/(25-15) x 100) in celcius and (2/(298.15-288.15) x100) for centigrade. The relevant temperature reference point is the normal average temperature of the planet, not absolute zero; measuring the temperature change as a difference from absolute zero (or even as a difference from the freezing point of water) is scientifically meaningless when we are talking about effects on the planetary climate and planetary biology.

Centigrade is the scientific standard for measuring temperatures in most sciences; Kelvin is used mainly in physics and extreme chemistry.


Absolute zero is actually a good reference in terms of it being fairly close to where this planet would be without the sun. (2.7 Kelvin, more closely). You go by a deviation from the mean, however, in respect to the overall change of temperature from absolute minimum the change is negligible at best. Even if to be looking at a graph where the mean is considered the reference, try looking at such graphs which larger increments than a tenth of a degree, say go by whole degrees? Otherwise we might as well be looking at the minute by minute fluctuations in stock market prices.



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13 Sep 2010, 7:31 pm

LKL wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
If you were to plot it out full-scale with absolute zero being the y-axis orgin, then you'd need a magnifier in order to not see a nearly flat line.


Exactly. By the standards you propose, the average surface temperatures of Mercury and of Mars would barely register as different from that of Earth. Climate scientists use the scale that is relevant and meaningful for the people who have to live on the planet. As they should.


Mercury and Mars both have the potential to be colonized as compared to Venus. Tell me, what is the average temperature of Venus in Kelvin?



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14 Sep 2010, 2:07 pm

The average temperature of venus in celcius or kelvin is meaningless wrt climate science, as is absolute zero. Climate science makes no reference to wildly speculative conditions such as 'in the absence of the sun...'; that is the realm of physics and astrophysics, not climate or earth science.



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14 Sep 2010, 2:16 pm

LKL wrote:
The average temperature of venus in celcius or kelvin is meaningless wrt climate science, as is absolute zero. Climate science makes no reference to wildly speculative conditions such as 'in the absence of the sun...'; that is the realm of physics and astrophysics, not climate or earth science.


Really? So, astrophysics has nothing to do with climate? The two are merely unrelated subjects that just happen to deal with planets and the effects of radiation and atmospheric composition and such the like, but are otherwise skew from each other because one is studied by physicists and the other by climate scientists?



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14 Sep 2010, 3:29 pm

Honey, don't put words on my field that I didn't type. Astrophysics and planetary science are related in the same way that oceanography and marine biology are related, but they are still different fields with different practices.



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14 Sep 2010, 3:45 pm

LKL wrote:
Honey, don't put words on my field that I didn't type. Astrophysics and planetary science are related in the same way that oceanography and marine biology are related, but they are still different fields with different practices.


Without the astrophysical properties of this planet, such as the axial tilt for seasons, distance from the sun within the habitable zone, mass of planet enabling the existence of an atmosphere, the magnetic field preventing death-by-solar-"wind", the high percentage of nitrogen blocking gamma rays, oxygen blocking x-rays, ozone blocking ultraviolet rays, carbon dioxide allowing for the existence of plants and the process of photosynthesis in general, water allowing for life in general and for thermal feedback in that with more heat more cloud production occurs and this, in turn, reflects more light out into space, ... etc... without such properties of the planet, climatologists might as well be studying climate change on the planet Jupiter.



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14 Sep 2010, 3:52 pm

Nnno.
Climatologists study climate on Earth.
If you don't get that, I don't think that there's much I can say to you to educate you otherwise. :)



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14 Sep 2010, 3:57 pm

LKL wrote:
Nnno.
Climatologists study climate on Earth.
If you don't get that, I don't think that there's much I can say to you to educate you otherwise. :)


Educating me? It's the other way around. :P



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14 Sep 2010, 6:54 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Without the astrophysical properties of this planet,

Defining these things to be astrophysical properties does not make them incapable of being climatological properties as well. The boundaries between many different fields are not well-defined. Even where the boundary between fields of study is well-defined, that doesn't stop anyone from field 1 from borrowing from field 2.


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14 Sep 2010, 7:09 pm

Ancalagon wrote:
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Without the astrophysical properties of this planet,

Defining these things to be astrophysical properties does not make them incapable of being climatological properties as well. The boundaries between many different fields are not well-defined. Even where the boundary between fields of study is well-defined, that doesn't stop anyone from field 1 from borrowing from field 2.


Yes, for both of these fields the subject matter has a lot of intersection. However, I think that the comparison of astrophysics to climate scientology is not so similar to the comparison between oceanography and marine biology, but more along the lines of astronomy in comparison to astrology or chemistry in comparison to alchemy.



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15 Sep 2010, 7:13 pm

you can't even tell the difference between a planetary scientist studying atmosperic dynamics on Venus (hint: no data but a few space probes and some long-distance telescopes) and a climate scientist making predictions about our own planet (hundreds of thousands of direct measurements from multiple sources, replicated by thousands of scientists and peer-reviewed in the highest journals on the planet) and you have the chutzpa to dis climate scientists as astrologers?

You blather on about using Kelvin for measuring normal global temperatrues, and think that climate scientists are alchemists?

You come off like a third grader pointing to postdoc, yelling, 'you're doing it wrong!'



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15 Sep 2010, 7:24 pm

LKL wrote:
you can't even tell the difference between a planetary scientist studying atmosperic dynamics on Venus (hint: no data but a few space probes and some long-distance telescopes) and a climate scientist making predictions about our own planet (hundreds of thousands of direct measurements from multiple sources, replicated by thousands of scientists and peer-reviewed in the highest journals on the planet) and you have the chutzpa to dis climate scientists as astrologers?

You blather on about using Kelvin for measuring normal global temperatrues, and think that climate scientists are alchemists?

You come off like a third grader pointing to postdoc, yelling, 'you're doing it wrong!'


Ad hominem, always good on a resume.



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15 Sep 2010, 7:44 pm

yes, there was an ad hominem consististing of a single line: you conveniently ignore the paragraph of critique before that. What a surprise.



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15 Sep 2010, 7:48 pm

LKL wrote:
yes, there was an ad hominem consististing of a single line: you conveniently ignore the paragraph of critique before that. What a surprise.


Really? You think I ignored it just because I didn't respond to it but instead to your attack against me?