A Topic Related Contest

Ok, here it is, all you scientist want-ta-be’s. Here is your chance to do a bit of your very own peer review and win some ATS points as well. I will give 100 of my own ATS points to the first person who can spot the flaw(s) in the following paragraph was posted in a “paper” on the website of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC).

Most recently, work by Teller et al. (1997) has re-examined the possibility of optical scattering, either in space or in the stratosphere, to alter the earth’s albedo and thus to modulate climate. The latter work captures the essence of the concept and is summarized briefly here to provide an example of what is envisioned. In agreement with the 1992 NAS study, Teller et al. (1997) found that ~107 t of dielectric aerosols of ~100 nm diameter would be sufficient to increase the albedo of the earth by ~1%. They showed that the required mass of a system based on alumina particles would be similar to that of a system based on sulphuric acid aerosol, but the alumina particles offer different environmental impact. In addition, Teller et al. (1997) demonstrate that use of metallic or optically resonant scatterers can, in principle, greatly reduce the required total mass of scattering particles required. Two configurations of metal scatterers that were analyzed in detail are mesh microstructures and micro-balloons. Conductive metal mesh is the most mass-efficient configuration. The thickness of the mesh wires is determined by the skin-depth of optical radiation in the metal, about 20 nm, and the spacing of wires is determined by the wavelength of scattered light, about 300nm. In principle, only ~105t of such mesh structures are required to achieve the benchmark 1% increase in albedo. The proposed metal balloons have diameters of ~4 mm and a skin thickness of ~20nm. They are hydrogen filled and are designed to float at altitudes of ~25km. The total mass of the balloon system would be ~106t. Because of the much longer stratospheric residence time of the balloon system, the required mass flux (e.g., tonnes replaced per year) to sustain the two systems would be comparable. Finally, Teller et al. (1997) show that either system, if fabricated in aluminium, can be designed to have long stratospheric lifetimes yet oxidize rapidly in the troposphere, ensuring that few particles are deposited on the surface.

www.grida.no...

It is nessessary to go back to the source, so:
here is a link to a PDF copy of the original Teller paper where they “get” their numbers from.

So, who can tell me what the obvious and rather funny flaw in the IPCC paper is?

Edit: if you find it as amusing as I did, U2U me rather than posting it so that others can enjoy discovering it also.



[edit on 5-12-2005 by HowardRoark]

Your link appeasrs to lead to papers which have been removed. I went to a higher-level site, www.llnl.gov... , yet both the PDF papers did not appear. I will try again when I get home, since i have reader 7 on my home computer; perhaps that's the problem.

Here is another copy of the Teller paper on Rense's site
www.rense.com...


I copied the pertinent part from the first source.


BTW, I can't take credit for spotting this, that has to go to Jay Reynolds.


[edit on 5-12-2005 by HowardRoark]

hint:
























[color=gray](105, 106, 107. find those numbers in the Teller report)

OK, since no one has figured it out.

Most recently, work by Teller et al. (1997) has re-examined the possibility of optical scattering, either in space or in the stratosphere, to alter the earth’s albedo and thus to modulate climate. The latter work captures the essence of the concept and is summarized briefly here to provide an example of what is envisioned. In agreement with the 1992 NAS study, Teller et al. (1997) found that ~107 t of dielectric aerosols of ~100 nm diameter would be sufficient to increase the albedo of the earth by ~1%. They showed that the required mass of a system based on alumina particles would be similar to that of a system based on sulphuric acid aerosol, but the alumina particles offer different environmental impact. In addition, Teller et al. (1997) demonstrate that use of metallic or optically resonant scatterers can, in principle, greatly reduce the required total mass of scattering particles required. Two configurations of metal scatterers that were analyzed in detail are mesh microstructures and micro-balloons. Conductive metal mesh is the most mass-efficient configuration. The thickness of the mesh wires is determined by the skin-depth of optical radiation in the metal, about 20 nm, and the spacing of wires is determined by the wavelength of scattered light, about 300nm. In principle, only ~105t of such mesh structures are required to achieve the benchmark 1% increase in albedo. The proposed metal balloons have diameters of ~4 mm and a skin thickness of ~20nm. They are hydrogen filled and are designed to float at altitudes of ~25km. The total mass of the balloon system would be ~106t. Because of the much longer stratospheric residence time of the balloon system, the required mass flux (e.g., tonnes replaced per year) to sustain the two systems would be comparable. Finally, Teller et al. (1997) show that either system, if fabricated in aluminium, can be designed to have long stratospheric lifetimes yet oxidize rapidly in the troposphere, ensuring that few particles are deposited on the surface.

Note the numbers ~105, ~106, ~107.

Does anyone else think that it is odd to have an approximate sign in front of a rather exact number like 105, 106, or 107?

Don’t those numbers seem a little small to you?

Well they are small, because in Teller’s original report, they are not 105, 106, or 107.

They are 10 to the 5th power (i.e. 10^5, or 100,000) 10 to the 6th power (i.e. 10^6, or 1,000,000) and 10 to the 7th power (i.e. 10^7, or 10,000,000)

It seems that someone copied and pasted the information without checking it too carefully. If they had they would have seen that they reformatted the superscript of the exponent in the original document to plain text, thus changing 10 million tons to 107 tons.

Some might think that this is trivial, but it changes the whole implications of the article.