Written by Michael Bastasch
Ancient underground streams of heated rock, called a mantle plume, might be an explanation for the instability of the [West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS)], according to a new NASA study.
Scientists have been debating whether or not mantle plume heat contributes to West Antarctica’s instability. Some recent studies provided evidence this might be the case, but even this study’s authors were skeptical.
Written by Joseph E Postma
Written by Roy W Spencer PhD
No, Our Ability to Monitor Sea Ice Has Not Ended. Yesterday, The Guardian ran a fake news story with the headline: ‘Donald Trump accused of obstructing satellite research into climate change Republican-controlled Congress ordered destruction of vital sea-ice probe.’
Written by Pierre L. Gosselin
Expert software engineer and climate science blogger/critic Tony Heller just posted a video commenting on the just newly released National Climate Assessment (NCA) report:
Written by Pierre L. Gosselin
New scientific study from Quebec, Canada shows that deaths from heart failure during increased cold weather rose at a rate of 0.7 percent for each 1°C drop in temperature.
Written by Helen Briggs
Image copyright: MARK WITTONFossils of the oldest-known ancestors of most living mammals, including human beings, have been unearthed in southern England.
Teeth belonging to the extinct shrew-like creatures, which scampered at the feet of dinosaurs, were discovered in cliffs on the Dorset coast. Scientists who identified the specimens say they are the earliest undisputed fossils of mammals belonging to the line that led to humans. They date back 145 million years.
Written by Gerard Pinzone
In a previous post called, “The Myth of the Scientific Method,” I explored how science gets accomplished in real life by describing the knowledge filter. This doesn’t mean to imply that the filter is a perfect or even preferable method of distilling knowledge into truth. Biases may still survive even at the most refined levels.
Written by Sophie Gallagher
We may have had several billion years under our belts to figure it out, but scientists today continue to be puzzled by how early cellular life on Earth first came to be. And, more precisely, the chemical compounds which allowed it to happen.
Written by Edsel Chromie
On November. 6, 2017, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory issued an article with the subject of “Powering Saturn’s Active Ocean Moon”.
It states:
“This study, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, helps resolve a question scientists have grappled with for a decade: Where does the energy to power the extraordinary geologic activity on Enceladus come from. Where Enceladus gets the sustained power to remain active has always been a mystery, but we’ve now considered in greater detail how the structure and composition of the moon’s rocky core could play a key role in generating the necessary energy” said the study’s lead author, Gael Choblet from the University of Nantes in France. Heat from friction could power hydrothermal activity on Saturn’s moon Enceladus for billions of years if the moon has a highly porous core, according to a new modeling study by European and U. S. Researchers working on NASA’s Cassini mission.”
This is ludicrous but it conforms with their belief, so it is published as a possibility.
In 2009 I sent an email to Dr. Porco ( NASA Cassini Imaging Team Leader) explaining my concept that it is the combined energy of the magnetic field of Enceladus plus the magnetic field Saturn and radiated energy from the Sun that is stimulating the gases in the vicinity to a glowing, visible state of excitement. It read:
“I refer to the images taken by Cassini dated June 24, 2009, Dec. 15, 2009. and 3 taken Nov. 1, 2008. They all show a gray to black surface with only a small strip of cream color, not white. In an area where the warmest temperature is reported to be minus 154 degrees F., these particles would not melt or disappear.
Over a span of 4 years, certainly enough ice crystals would have fallen back to the surface to appear to be white. Even in the fissures from where the particles would be spewing, it appears black, also. In the June 24, 2009 “Plume Vent Models” illustration, models A. B. and C. were deemed unlikely while model D “may be plausible” and model E is “perhaps most likely”. After 4 years of study, your team does not even have a definitive explanation of the origin of the “icy particles”. With my concept, I not only offer a detailed explanation of how this anomaly can be assimilated by even a grade school child. I do not understand how you can be so smug and defensive of a concept that has failed to provide a complete and sensible explanation after 4 years of study by many credible scientists.”
In an email dated Friday, November 20, 2009 Dr. Porco replied:
“I have no idea what you are talking about. The tiger stripe area is completely white in visible light. In the images of the jets, you are seeing fine solid particles, not atoms or molecules. And we know that most of the material does indeed fall back to the surface.. It is possibly the cause for the smooth-looking ramparts of the cracks from which the jets issue. Also, we think the vents probably close off and open down the crack elsewhere, explaining why there is no local distinct ‘residue’. Hope this helps, Carolyn Porco, Cassini Imaging Team Leader”
It was two years after this email on April 20, 2011 that a NASA Advisory reported: “Cassini Sees Saturn Electric Link with Enceladus” It reported: “The magnetic field lines of the magnetic connection between Saturn and its moon Enceladus are not visible to the naked eye, but are detected by the ultraviolet imaging spectrograph and the fields and particle instruments on NASA’s Cassini spacecraft”.
This article and a NASA artists drawing of this magnetic field connection with Saturn was published on Oct. 15, 2011 by Salem News at http://salem-news.com/
The drawing shows the magnetic field current flowing from Saturn right through the south pole of Enceladus where the “geysers” are believed to flow from the surface. This is exactly the magnetic field that I wrote in the email to Dr. Porco about the magnetic field stimulating atoms of gases in the vicinity to a glowing, visible state of excitement.
If you look at the glow of the purported “geysers” it looks more like the glow of a fluorescent tube than particles reflecting sunlight. Since Dr. Porco was aware of my suggestion only two years earlier, you would think that she would have seriously considered this as a possibility. Now it is 8 years later and they are still trying to concoct a way for their water ice geyser folly to be created.
They claim:
“The study is the first to explain several key characteristics of Enceladus observed by Cassini: the global ocean, internal heating, thinner ice at the south pole. And hydrothermal activity It doesn’t explain why the north and south poles are so different though”.
Today the scientists report:
“Multiple lines of evidence from Cassini indicate that hydrothermal activity – hot water interacting chemically with rock – is taking place on the seafloor. Choblet and co-authors found that a loose, rocky core with 20 to 30 percent empty space would do the trick. Their simulations show that as Enceladus orbits Saturn, rocks in the porous core flex and rub together, generating heat. The loose interior also allows water from the ocean to percolate deep down, where it heats up, then rises, interacting chemically with the rocks. The models show this activity should be at a maximum at the moon’s poles. Plumes of the warm, mineral laden water gush from the seafloor and travel upward, thinning the moon’s ice shell from beneath to only half a mile to 3 miles at the south pole. And this same water is then expelled into space through fractures in the ice.”
It is unfortunate that the news media will not publish items of interest as alternative possibilities to explain what the science community publicly concedes have defied explanation under current knowledge of physics because of the fear of being vilified by the science community.
I am certain that if my explanations were discussed by many young scientists who are not brainwashed by their predecessors some of them will have an open mind and evaluate it in the proper context of true science methodology.
Unfortunately, the consensus science community is more interested in stifling alternative ideas that contradict their beliefs than they are in the advancement of science. Thirty one years have been wasted by the NASA scientists. I wrote a letter to the editor in 1980 explaining how the rings of Saturn were created.
For that I was vilified by a member of the Planetary Society because my explanation did not conform with known information in any science textbooks. Certainly any mystery or explanation of any mystery would not appear in any textbook or it would not be a mystery in the first place.
So much consensus in science is a curse not a blessing.
Written by Hannah Osborne
Scientists have discovered that a subsurface ocean on Enceladus could have existed for billions of years, providing plenty of time for microbial alien life to emerge and evolve.
Written by Dr Susan J Crockford
Just in time for Polar Bears International’s self-proclaimed fall Polar Bear Week (5-11 November 2017), here’s a new resource for cooling the polar bear spin.
I’ve updated my 2015 summary of reasons not to worry about polar bears, which is now more than two years old. In this new version, you will find links to supporting information, including published papers and fully referenced blog posts of mine that provide background, maps and bibliographies, although some of the most important graphs and maps have been reproduced here.
I hope you find it a useful resource for refuting the pessimism and prophecies of catastrophe about the future of polar bears. Please feel free to share it.
Written by Richard F Cronin
Going all the way back to Carl Sagan’s original essay on the runaway warming greenhouse gas effects from CO2 making Earth into another Venus turned out the following:
Written by Edsel Chromie
For more than thirty years NASA has maintained a policy of not accepting any scientific evidence pointing to an electro-magnetic explanation in planetary theory. With consensus science swamped with so much “unexplained” phenomena, Edsel Chromie shows why such scientists should re-think their anti-electric dogma.
Chromie writes:
Written by sciencegrrl.co.uk
New research finds that introverted students suffer disproportionately when it comes to practical science lessons in schools. Almost half of teachers consulted confirmed that introverted students were more likely to hold themselves back from taking part, rather than engage with hands-on experimentation, due to lack of equipment.
Written by BBC
Image copyright: GETTY IMAGESMore than half of people in the UK can’t name a famous woman in science, a survey suggests. This week, BBC 100 Women aims to change that number.
A 2014 YouGov survey of almost 3,000 people, conducted on behalf of UK grassroots group ScienceGrrl, found that only 47% of those asked could name a famous woman scientist. Many identified Marie Curie. Others simply named a male scientist. Tuesday 7 November marks the 150th anniversary of Curie’s birth.
Written by Dr Judith Curry
Mannian litigation gone wild. — Steve McIntyre. Details given by Michael Schellenberger in Environmental Progress:
Stanford University professor Mark Z. Jacobson has filed a lawsuit, demanding $10 million in damages, against the peer-reviewed scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) [link to published paper] and a group of eminent scientists (Clack et al.) for their study showing that Jacobson made improper assumptions in order to claim that he had demonstrated U.S. energy could be provided exclusively by renewable energy, primarily wind, water, and solar.
