CLIMATE: response to climate change

Atanu Dey has posted a few skeptical comments on Nitin Pai's blog about global warming. The choice bits is excerpted here

Almost nothing is known about the great heat engine of the upper atmosphere which sheds heat into space and which is affected by incoming cosmic radiation. All the discussion concentrates on the heat-blanketing effect of the lower atmosphere. Also, while the discussion is centred on the melting of Arctic sea-ice (and some Greenland glaciers), and also the melting sea-ice of the western Antarctic peninsula, the increasing amount of snow and ice of the eastern Antarctic is hardly ever mentioned. Equally ignored is the recent world-wide ocean survey by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory which shows that ocean remperatures have been cooling steeply in the last few years. The oceans contain far more heat than the atmosphere and it can only be a matter of time before the atmosphere starts cooling, too, if the ocean temperatures decline continues as they do now.

Ummm, here is another example of selective quotation.

True, there have been reports of cooling in Antarctica in journals. But this is logical.

Simply speaking, climate systems (a coupled atmosphere-ocean) are arranged in wide cells geographically over the world ('cells' for lack of a better word for laymen). Picture a globe and draw arbitrary cells from Arctic to Antarctic. These cells are irregular, and generally have similar climate. A cell would be an example of the Thar desert in India/Pakistan. Taklamakan in China. Deccan rain forest in India etc...

Whatever happens in one cell pushes out to another cell. So if you get something hotter in Arctic, the global climate system 'tries' to get something else cooler, so the cooling in certain cells. Why not the cooling in immediate cells right now? Adjacent cells will be affected, give it time. My guess is that cells which comprise mostly of countryside (where we grow our crops) will be affected. Why? Less daily temperature variation in rural areas. Also, temperature is not precise, because it is measured in a grid. A sample taken in a 5 km by 5 km grid is interpolated to cover all of it. When we know that a reading of 30C in a city block will change to 33C in a different city block, hardly 100 meters away. If you really want to confirm, ask farmers what changes they have had. Ask two farmers in different 'farmland' cell separated by a city cell. Seasons are changing slightly, either advancing or retarding by a few days/weeks. Best example is of our Monsoon.

Ok, why the cooling so far away in Antarctica? Why in southern hemisphere? Because the southern hemisphere is mostly water. My guess is any 'resultant natural cooling' will be compensated via water, because water can store heat better. Remember the rich get richer, the poor poorer? Western Siberia will accelerate melting, maybe Eastern Siberia will compensate. Adjacent eastern countries (to Vladivostok) like Korea, Japan may get colder. NZ, Tasmania, Southern Australia may get either hotter or cooler because of their proximity to Antarctica...

If compensatory cooling does not occur, we would be in a positive feedback loop, and completely go crazy. I hope this argument is put to rest for you guys.

Regarding NOAA PMEL's ocean cooling paper, actually by Lyman et al (2006)

It is only upper ocean cooling, less than 1000 m depth. The average depth of world's oceans is 3500-3800 m. The major volume is not upper ocean, but deep ocean. Sure the cooling occurs at 400 m and is strong at 750 m. But the deep water takes a while to cool.

There are problems of inadequate sampling intervals and sample grid size. I think that the average upper ocean would probably cool over the globe, because of the additional input of melt water. Snow which doesn't float but is sitting on a continental plate adds additional water, picture a hot cup of tea, add more water, what happens?

But if you read the paper 'Recent Cooling of the Upper Ocean' by Lyman et al. (2006) the globally averaged sea level is still rising. Logically speaking, you will have these regional anomalies.

SOLARIS: ZFS not ready for production yet

I was evaluating ZFS for possible use, just doing some testing. But I have seen too many posts on opensolaris-discuss which lead me to believe that Sun rushed ZFS far too quickly into production, with Solaris 10. IMO, Sun should have advised customers to refrain from using ZFS in production until Solaris 10 update 5. Right now, ZFS is probably in the final beta stage, as of the 11/06 release. By the middle of 2007, it would be in a RC1 stage, with update 4. I expect that by the end of 2007, with update 5 it should be in a RC3 stage. Middle of 2008 is when it will be prudent to move to production with Solaris 11 or Solaris 10 update 6. I didn't expect such Microsoft like behavior from Sun. (This release timeline reflects my opinion on ZFS only)

It is still good for many purposes, just not i-trust-zfs-with-my-life production. It is horrible to have a customer find out corner case bugs, and find out that their file system is not performing as advertised. This is costing you precious goodwill Sun!

It is especially worse in a NFS scenario (though the worst of it will be fixed in update 4). Just do your own due diligence before anything. Follow these threads for my reasoning, just in the last 2-3 months. There have been many serious bugs, which I have read in the past 3 months.

1) FAULTED ZFS volume even though it is mirrored

2) Why number of NFS threads jumps to the max value?

3) Re: ZFS performance with Oracle

4) Large ZFS-bug...

5) ZFS in a SAN environment

6) ZFS over NFS extra slow?

FOOTBALL: Things to do for New Orleans Saints

Rush more.
Gain more yards on punt returns.
Sacks, Tackles, and interceptions are more.

A would be team to the NFC playoffs needs to have a solid defense, and more rushing. We need a Deuce clone. Get Darren McFadden to be a Saint!

FOOTBALL: New Orleans Saints recruitment

Get Skyler Green!

In the upcoming draft get some LSU players!

FOOTBALL: Saints future recruitments

Things New Orleans Saints need to do in this coming 2007 NFL draft.

1) Sign somebody like Chris Jackson, as a punter or kickoff return or field goal specialist, sharing duties with John Carney and Billy Cundiff. This person justs learns for a year or two under those two guys. Carney will probably retire inside of 3 years.

2) Beef up their rush/pass defense by picking around 3-6 guys for spelling existing team members.

3) Get another Deuce McAllister for rush offense. Deuce is solid player, though I doubt he can sustain a breakout rush of more than 50 yds. His physique is well suited for rushing. He is the pivot around which the Saints build their rush offense. We need a player or two to spell him.

We need to be amongst the top 10 in rush and pass defenses.

FOOTBALL: Tony Romo, QB Dallas Cowboys

One word. Overhyped.

Sure he maybe the next Tom Brady, because he subbed Drew Bledsoe. But Tom Brady has led the Pats to three SuperBowl's... Brady is phenomenal, and I pick the Pats again to be somewhere near the top. Peyton Manning is a statistical QB.

Let's see how Romo does in the playoffs in this 2006-07 season. Eagerly anticipating the Saints vs Cowboys game on prime time.

Brees vs Romo
T.O vs Colston

Go Saints!

:)

FOOTBALL: New Orleans Saints prediction

vs 49ers, a win
vs Cowboys, a loss (this game will decide who is #2 or #3 in the playoffs)
vs Redskins, a win
vs Giants, a win
vs Panthers, a win (this game will decide if the Saints snuff out the hopes of Panthers, and go to #2)

The predictions which could go wrong? Cowboys and Panthers. Saints schedule is at their website.

Another prediction, Drew Brees passes for just under 5,000 yds for the season.

FOOTBALL: Rose bowl prediction: LSU vs USC

The Trojans were beaten by UCLA, dashing their national title hopes. I hope LSU goes into the Rose Bowl, to finally settle once and for all, who is the better team.

PHILOSOPHY: Insane wealth generation and philanthropy

Mary Smaragdis has a post where Sun's CTO Greg Papadopoulus had some positive comments on Bill Gates philanthropy, to the tune of USD $30 billion. Even after reading that Warren Buffett has decided to join in, with another hefty chunk, I still think that Andrew Carnegie with $350 million in 19th and early 20th century was the biggest ever in last two hundred years. Straight from Buffett's mouth

Certainly neither Susie nor I ever thought we should pass huge amounts of money along to our children. Our kids are great. But I would argue that when your kids have all the advantages anyway, in terms of how they grow up and the opportunities they have for education, including what they learn at home - I would say it's neither right nor rational to be flooding them with money.

In effect, they've had a gigantic headstart in a society that aspires to be a meritocracy. Dynastic mega-wealth would further tilt the playing field that we ought to be trying instead to level.

IMO, those who do hoard their wealth for their progeny, are doing them no good. Almost always, by the end of the 5th generation down, it is squandered away.

HARDWARE: Cooling computers with Jet engines

Reading Ben Rockwood, came across this one.

HP is cooling computers using Jet engines

What a sad day for the hardware industry. In the datacenter at work, my boss faces the same problem, the electricity usage has been proven to be almost 80% due to computers and HVAC. With the cost of electricity, we can probably buy a mid-range Dell/IBM-Lenovo/HP every month. I can confirm what Ben says elsewhere, when you are designing a datacenter, just talk to the person who is designing your HVAC. The techs who design your datacenter's A/C and cooling, all are unanimous that they are getting a lot of business nowadays.