Sunday, September 29, 2013

Asteroids, Comets, and Doing Our Job


(Image © Don Davis; from PAINTINGS at www.donaldedavis.com)

The last I heard, scientists were still debating what killed about three quarters of Earth's plant and animal species in what used to be called the Cretaceous–Tertiary (K–T) extinction. It's got a new name now, which won't bring the dinosaurs back: and that's another topic.

It's starting to look like the mass extinction happened after near-simultaneous impacts left craters in the Yucatán Peninsula, Ukraine, and North Sea.

Meanwhile, massive volcanic eruptions were dumping unhealthy stuff into the atmosphere. Those eruptions may have been caused by a fourth impact. 66,000,000 years ago was a really bad time to be on Earth.



The good news is that impacts like the one at Chicxulub don't happen often.

We think something the size of the Chicxulub object fall every 100,000,000 years, on average. That's an average, though. They don't come at regular intervals, so the next Chicxulub-size event might happen exactly 100,000,000 years after the last, 35,000,000 years from now; or after a longer interval.

Or something six miles across may fall out of the sky before the Summer Olympics in Tokyo: we don't know, but we're learning more every year.

Getting Ready: Or Not

What if astronomers noticed that an asteroid or comet would collide with Earth in 2019, and at least one nation had the technology necessary to push the asteroid or comet into an orbit that wouldn't cross Earth's.

Would using that technology be the right thing to do?

The question isn't as silly as it may seem.

Fate, God, and Fashions

Folks who assume that future events can't be changed might argue that trying to change our "fate" would bring even greater disasters. "Fatalism," by the way, doesn't necessarily mean "an attitude of resignation in the face of some future event or events which are thought to be inevitable:"
  • "Fatalism"
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (December 18, 2002)
It's even possible that someone would decide that God sent the asteroid or comet, and that trying to deflect it would offend the Almighty.

I didn't think 'God kills people' made sense when a high-profile Christian said that God killed Haitians as revenge for something he thought their remote ancestors did. (January 16, 2010)

I don't think it would make sense in this hypothetical case, either.

Science and Silliness


(from Non Sequitur, Wiley Miller (March 5, 2013), used w/o permission)

Science and technology aren't as popular, or fashionable, as they were a half-century back. My memory's too good to yearn for the 'good old days,' though. Human nature, good and bad, hasn't changed much:
"Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared to the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good."
Abraham Lincoln, Response to a serenade (November 10, 1864)

"For mischief comes not out of the earth, nor does trouble spring out of the ground;
"2 But man himself begets mischief, as sparks fly upward."
(Job 5:6-7)

"God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them."
(Genesis 1:27)
Science and technology aren't good or bad by themselves. Learning about this creation and developing new ways to use it are part of being human. What matters is how we use what we have. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2292-2296)

Getting back to that hypothetical incoming comet or asteroid.

Using Our Brains

Robotic explorers started visiting comets in 1985, and asteroids in 1991. NASA has another asteroid mission scheduled for launch in 2016. That mission has a catchy name: OSIRIS-Rex, short for Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security -- Regolith Explorer.

Bringing a two ounce sample back from an asteroid isn't the same as mounting engines on the rock and moving it. But I think asteroid mining is decades, not centuries, away.

With avoiding a replay of the Crectaceous-Paleogene extinction event's opening act as incentive, my guess is that at least one national government would decide that asteroid missions should be hurried along.

We might even see the sort of cooperation that's maintaining the International Space Station. Then again, maybe not.

The question isn't whether or not we have the knowledge and at least the beginnings of the technology needed to move asteroids and comets. It's a matter of having the good sense to use that knowledge.

Getting a Grip About God

"If God cares, why do bad things happen?" It's not a daft question, particularly since bad things happen to good people, and vice versa.

The problem isn't that human beings deserve punishment because we're all bad, or that God goofed and made a world that doesn't work right. Genesis is quite clear about that:
"God looked at everything he had made, and he found it very good. Evening came, and morning followed - the sixth day."
(Genesis 1:31)
Trouble started when the first of us made a monumentally bad decision: and humanity has been living with the consequences ever since.

We're still basically good creatures, living in a world that's basically good: but we have free will. God won't interfere with our power to make decisions, and hasn't fired us as stewards.

Looks like we're stuck with free will, and the responsibility of taking care of this creation. (Catechism, 299, 309-314, 2402, 2404, 2417)

Related posts:

Getting a grip about sin, God, and all that:
  • God is in control
    (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 303)
  • Sacred Scripture often doesn't mention secondary causes
    • That's not "primitive"
    • It's recognizing that God is in control
      • And that we should trust Him
    (Catechism, 304)
  • Jesus says
    • God
      • Knows our needs
      • Will give us what we need
    • We should trust God to give us what we need
      • The way a child trusts parents
    (Catechism, 305, Matthew 6:31-33)
  • The physical world is
    • Basically good
    • Not perfect
    • "In a state of journeying" towards its ultimate perfection
    (Catechism, 299, 309-310, 385)
  • Sin is
    • Real
    • A misuse of free will
    (Catechism, 386-412)
  • Humans are
    • Animals
      • A special sort of animal
        • Endowed with reason
        • Capable of
          • Understanding
          • Discernment
        (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1951)
    • People
      • Rational and therefore like God
        • Made in the image and likeness of God
        (Catechism, 1700-1706)
      • Created with free will
      • Master over our actions
        (Catechism, 1730)
    • Stewards of the physical world
      • Responsible for its
        • Use
        • Maintenance
      (Catechism, 373, 2402-2406)
There's a great deal more to know about 'all of the above,' of course: yet more topics.

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Time, Decisions, and a Sense of Scale

I don't remember what the book was about, or who wrote it, but one chapter included a simple timeline and this bit of advice --

'Before you do something bad, consider this: How long do you plan to be dead?'

I'm pretty sure the author was making the usual carpe diem argument, but I took the point differently.

Here's my version of that timeline:



Vaguely-related posts:

Friday, September 27, 2013

Chesapeake Bay Crater; the Moon's Early Years

We're learning more about a crater under Chesapeake Bay's mouth, and may have a better explanation for how our moon formed.
  1. Virginia's Changing Shore and an Eocene Impact
  2. Fine-Tuning Lunar Origins

(Joe Tucciarone, via NASA, used w/o permission.)

Living With Vastness

"Nothing endures but change."
(Heraclitus, 540 BC - 480 BC)
Quite a bit changed in the two dozen centuries since Heraclitus said that, and change still happens. It's a constant in this universe.

Some change is a familiar part of everyday life:
"4 you have brought them to their end; They disappear like sleep at dawn; they are like grass that dies.

"5 It sprouts green in the morning; by evening it is dry and withered."
(Psalms 90:5-6)
Other changes didn't become apparent until we began learning how to study evidence left in Earth's rocks and soil.

I don't mind living in a universe that's almost unimaginably ancient and constantly changing. Even if I did, there isn't much I could do about the situation. God's God, I'm not, and I'm okay with that.

I think accepting that God's preferences outvote mine comes pretty close on the heels of realizing that God is large and in charge. Putting it more conventionally, fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. (Proverbs 9:10)

It's increasingly obvious that the Almighty decided to create a universe that's constantly changing: and very, very old by human standards. Again, I'm okay with that. If anything, today's knowledge about this universe increases my awe of its Creator.

Ussher, Galileo, and Keeping Up

Up to about four centuries back, an educated person could reasonably assume that the universe was about 6,000 years old and no more than several thousand miles across.

James Ussher, an English king's Primate of All Ireland and no friend of "papists," published his opinions about when creation happened in 1650 and 1654.

From his literary and historical research, Ussher decided that creation happened at nightfall before October 23, 4004. In 1650, his work was impressive scholarship: at least in the British Isles.

Meanwhile, folks like Copernicus and Galileo were following up on speculation that had prompted Proposition 27/219: in 1277, four centuries earlier.

Galileo and Copernicus were scientists and Catholic, and that's another topic. Topics:

Using Our Brains

I still run into some folks who say Christianity is stupid, because Christians don't 'believe in' science. Surprisingly, I also run into a few Christians who insist that science is a lie because "it's not in the Bible."

I don't see a problem with believing that a rational creation and a rational Creator exist.

Using our brains is okay: but we're expected to use them wisely. Science and technology, studying this astounding creation and developing new ways of using it, are part of being human. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 35, 159, 2104, 2293)

Mesopotamian Cosmology

I suspect that part of the trouble some folks have with accepting what we've learned about this universe is its scale. It's enormous, in terms of both space and time.

Western civilization's current iteration inherited a great deal of knowledge from the ancient world: including a variation of Mesopotamian cosmology. Today it's mostly important as poetic imagery. (Genesis 1:2; Daniel 7:2; Psalms 150:1)

Back in the 'good old days,' ancient cosmological models were reasonable, even if taken literally. They're still good settings for fantasy role playing games, and that's yet another topic.


(From "The Three-Story Universe," © N. F. Gier, God, Reason, and the Evangelicals (1987), via Nick Gier, University of Idaho, used w/o permission.)

The Mesopotamian model works quite well, for folks living away from large bodies of water. Earth's curvature is hard to miss on anything wider than Minnesota's Lake Winnibigoshish. (Yes, the name sounds funny: but it's real.)

Tilting Lakes: or, North America's Massive Hangover

"Effects still felt from last ice age"
Rob Swystun, Central Plains Herald Leader, PortageDailyGraphic.com (September 4, 2009)

"Like a massive hangover after the bachelor party of the millennium, Lake Manitoba, Lake Winnipeg and the rest of the province are all still feeling the effects of the last ice age from over 10,000 years ago.

" 'People somehow assume that these lakes have been the same for thousands of years and will be the same for thousands of years, but they're not,' Delta Marsh Field Station manager Gordon Goldsborough said recently on a short break during a typically busy day at the station.

"In fact, the lakes are tilting....

"...Around 10,000-20,000 years ago, during the last ice age, Canada was underneath massive sheets of ice anywhere from three to five kilometres thick, he [University of Minnesota Department of Geology and Geophysics's Harvey Thorleifson] said.

"These massive sheets of ice pressed down on the land with great force, and once they receded, leaving an enormous lake that has since been named Glacial Lake Agassiz in their wake, they let the downward force off the land, causing it to rebound. When Glacial Lake Agassiz drained, it left behind Lakes Winnipeg and Manitoba....

"...Hudson Bay was the centre point for the glacial ice sheets.

" 'Placing the ice sheet on Hudson Bay was like placing a bowling ball on a trampoline,' he offered...."
I live near the center of Minnesota, roughly 300 miles south of Canada. The local landscape is what happens when several kilometers of glacier melts. Parts of it are changing, fast. What was a lake in my youth is now two large ponds and a marshy meadow.

Glacial Lake Agassiz is now the Red River Valley of the North: some of the best, and flattest, farmland on the planet. Where I live, the landscape is mostly sand and gravel with a little soil on top.


Unused sand pit in central Minnesota. (2009)


Sauk Lake Park, Sauk Centre, Minnesota. (2009)

My town is near the south edge of Minnesota's lake country: another leftover from those glaciers. Our lakes are filling in, too: but until they do, we've got some very picturesque scenery.

1. Virginia's Changing Shore and an Eocene Impact


(USGS, via Space.com, used w/o permission)
"The Chesapeake Bay Crater impact site was formed more than 35 million years ago by a comet or asteroid 5 to 8 miles (8 to 13 kilometers) in diameter."
"Effects of Ancient Meteor Impacts Still Visible on Earth Today"
Nola Taylor Redd, Space.com (September 23, 2013)

"More than 35 million years ago, a 15-story wall of water triggered by an asteroid strike washed over Virginia from its coast, then located at Richmond, to the foot of the inland Blue Ridge Mountains - an impact that would affect millions of people should it occur today. Yet despite its age, the effects of this ancient asteroid strike, as well as other epic space rock impact scars, can still be felt today, scientists say.

"The Virginia impact site, called the Chesapeake Bay Crater, is the largest known impact site in the United States and the sixth largest in the world, said Gerald Johnson, professor emeritus of geology at the College of William and Mary in Virginia. Despite its size, clues about the crater weren't found until 1983, when a layer of fused glass beads indicating an impact were recovered as part of a core sample. The site itself wasn't found until nearly a decade later. [When Space Attacks: The 6 Craziest Impacts]

"The comet or asteroid that caused the impact, and likely measured 5 to 8 miles (8 to 13 kilometers) in diameter, hurtled through the air toward the area that is now Washington, D.C., when it fell. The impact crated a massive wave 1,500 feet (457 meters) high, researchers said...."
Numbers in the first and third paragraphs don't seem to match: "...a 15-story wall of water..." and "...a massive wave 1,500 feet (457 meters) high...."

Looks like someone dropped a zero, since otherwise those floors would have to be an average of 100 feet apart. The 1,500 feet to 457 meters conversion is fairly accurate, by the way, and matches another article's number:
Although we call it the Chesapeake Bay Crater, Chesapeake Bay wasn't there until recently: geologically speaking. For that matter, the Atlantic Ocean wasn't around until Earth's continents started breaking up more than 100,000,000 years back:



(From scotese.com, used w/o permission.)


(From USGS, used w/o permission/)

Actually, it looks like the Atlantic began when Earth's continents started breaking up again.


(From scotese.com, used w/o permission.)

Extinctions and Coincidence

The Chesapeake Bay and Popigai impacts happened very roughly at the same time as another of Earth's extinction events. Unlike what happened 65,000,000 years ago, it doesn't look like impacts set off the Eocene–Oligocene extinction event:
Even so, the east coast of North America wasn't a good place to be when something blew a 90-kilometer-wide hole in the ocean floor where the mouth of Chesapeake Bay is now.

Earth: a Falling Rocks Zone

"Near-Earth Objects Impact Our Lives"
Langley Research Center, NASA (August 29, 2013)

"...An enormous tsunami modeled at 1,500 feet (457 meters) rushed westward, Johnson says, and engulfed the land to the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

"At the time of the impact, sea level along the East Coast was much higher and most of eastern Virginia was submerged. According to Johnson, the ancient shoreline was somewhere in the vicinity of Richmond before the impact.

"Johnson stated that the Chesapeake Bay itself did not form until after the Wisconsin glaciation ice sheet melted 18,000 years ago.

"Discovery of the giant crater revised our understanding of Atlantic Coastal Plain evolution. Studies revealed several consequences of the impact that still affect citizens around the bay today: land subsidence, river diversion, disruption of coastal aquifers, ground instability, and location of Chesapeake Bay.

"Though we have learned much from the geology of the Chesapeake Bay crater, Dan Mazanek, a near-Earth object (NEO) expert at NASA Langley, explained that there is still much left to learn...."
Among other things, we don't know exactly what made that crater. It could have been an asteroid, a comet, or part of a larger bit of debris that made the Toms Canyon structure in New Jersey and maybe the Popigai crater in Siberia.

As I've said before, between exploding mountains and debris falling out of the sky, Earth is a dangerous place

More about the Chesapeake Bay crater:
My hat's off to professor emeritus Gerald Johnson, for pointing out yet another well-known landmark that's younger than humanity. We'd been using fire for well over 982,000 years, and sewing for more than seven millennia, by the time a river valley flooded, forming today's Chesapeake Bay.

2. Fine-Tuning Lunar Origins


(NASA/JPL-Caltech, via Space.com, used w/o permission)
"This artist's conception of a planetary smashup whose debris was spotted by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope in 2009 gives an impression of the carnage that would have been wrecked when a similar impact created Earth's moon. Image released Oct. 17, 2012."
"The Moon Is 100 Million Years Younger Than Thought"
Mike Wall, Space.com (September 23, 2013)

"The moon is quite a bit younger than scientists had previously believed, new research suggests.

"The leading theory of how the moon formed holds that it was created when a mysterious planet - one the size of Mars or larger - slammed into Earth about 4.56 billion years ago, just after the solar system came together. But new analyses of lunar rocks suggest that the moon, which likely coalesced from the debris blasted into space by this monster impact, is actually between 4.4 billion and 4.45 billion years old.

"The finding, which would make the moon 100 million years younger than previously thought, could reshape scientists' understanding of the early Earth as well as its natural satellite, researchers said...."
The difference between 4,560,000,000 and 4,400,000,000 isn't much, but it makes a big difference for folks trying to sort out how Earth and our moon formed.

The Solar system's age is pretty well defined: right around 4,568,000,000 years back. Part of the problem is that planets like Earth kept changing after those early eras. Asteroids like Vesta haven't changed much in the last 4,400,000,000 years. Meanwhile, Earth's crust has been rearranged: a lot.

If the latest analysis is right, and our moon formed when something nearly as large as the pre-lunar Earth ran into our planet, it would explain why the Earth and moon have an almost identical selection of elements.

Then there's the question of what happened to Earth's atmosphere. It could have been blown off entirely, replaced with the start of our current mix later: or not. Either way, conditions near Earth's surface made a difference in how life emerged and developed.

More about Lunar origins:
Related posts:

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Spirals: Variations on a Theme

Although music like Beethoven's Fifth Symphony sounds complicated, it's built around simple themes, like the opening "tah-tah-tah-tum:"


(From "Symphony No. 5 (Beethoven)," Wikipedia, used w/o permission.)

I see the same sort of 'variations on a theme' in nature, partly because I know my culture's history. Comparing nature's regularities to musical harmony is hardly a new idea.

Pythagorean Lore: Saved by the Pirates

Pythagoras noticed the world's regularities and came up with "music of the spheres." He also saw odd numbers as masculine, even numbers as feminine; and founded an academy called Order of the Pythagoreans.

Ancient Greece flourished, then joined the Neo-Sumerian Empire in history's archives. Some Pythagorean didn't follow their order's habit of not writing stuff down: which allows us to know something about Pythagoras. I suspect that what they did was a little like the media pirating that goes on today, and that's another topic.

Music of the Spheres: Renaissance Style


(From Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)
"Engraving from Renaissance Italy showing Apollo, the Muses, the planetary spheres and musical ratios."
(Wikipedia)

This pirated Pythagorean lore reached Europe about half a millennium back, along with the works of Aristotle and the habit of copying ancient Roman architecture. Many Europeans shared the Pythagorean enthusiasms for order, harmony, and mystic numbers. Some of what they came up with was: imaginative.

More than two dozen centuries after Pythagoras lived and died, we've learned that stars don't sit on a crystal sphere, and that planets don't float in the air. Pythagoras wasn't all wrong, though.

Kepler discovered that the size and period of a planet's orbit has a sort of harmony, although it's not an exact square-cube relationship. For example, Mercury's orbit doesn't work quite the way Kepler and Newton expected, and that's almost another topic.

Order and Beauty

Observing this creation's order and beauty can help us learn about God. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 32)

Granted, some folks look at life's wonderful complexity and the awesome vastness beyond our galaxy: and apparently decide that because life is complex and the universe is big, God can't exist.

Charlton Heston as 'Moses,' The Ten Commandments (Paramount, 1956). Wax figure in Hollywood Wax Museum, later displayed in the Branson show, from LiveAuctioneers.com, used w/o permission.That notion is fairly new, but it's been fashionable for several generations now. I think it's silly, but I also think that God doesn't look like Charleton Heston's Moses. More topics. (May 2, 2012)

My faith doesn't depend on keeping up with science news, but it's not threatened by what we're learning about the universe. If anything, knowing how unimaginably vast and ancient this universe is helps me appreciate the infinite power and wisdom of God.

Science and technology, learning about this creation and developing new ways to use it, are part of being human. What we decide to do with our knowledge is where ethics come in. Still more topics. (Catechism, 2292-2295)

Origins, Discoveries, Wisdom



That quote is from Wisdom 7:15-18.

I don't expect science to answer questions about why we're here: but I'm about as sure as I can be that it's okay for us to use our brains in a systematic study of this wonder-filled creation:
"The question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life-forms and the appearance of man. These discoveries invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator, prompting us to give him thanks for all his works and for the understanding and wisdom he gives to scholars and researchers. With Solomon they can say: 'It is he who gave me unerring knowledge of what exists, to know the structure of the world and the activity of the elements. . . for wisdom, the fashioner of all things, taught me.'121"
(Catechism, 283)

Variations on a Theme: Spirals

Getting back to 'variations on a theme:' I see patterns repeated at a dizzying range of scales throughout the universe.

For example, we see spherical shapes in some bacteria, bubbles, and stars. That's because the most efficient shape for enclosing an area is the sphere: at least when you're working with three spatial dimensions.

Is God inordinately fond of spheres? I don't think so. I see this as another example of order and structure in the universe: a reflection of the rational and orderly Creator.

Another often-repeated visual theme in this universe is the spiral. Despite what you've probably read, nautilus shells aren't quite exactly logarithmic spiral: but they're close. So are Fibonacci spirals, and that's yet another topic.

I'm not surprised that spirals we see in nature don't all follow a logarithmic spiral's precise geometric progression: any more than I'm surprised that Beethoven didn't keep repeating the same eight notes throughout his fifth symphony.

Finally, a few spirals:


(From Newsdesk, Newsroom of the Smithsonian, used w/o permission.)


(From Shutinc, via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)


(From Brandon Weeks (August 7, 2004), via Wikimedia Commons, used w/o permission.)


(From Astronomy Picture of the Day, FORS, ESO, NASA, used w/o permission.)

Related posts:

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Beetles, Bibles, and Brains

While putting tomorrow morning's post together, I noticed that I'd started writing about Victorian gentlemen, 17th century scholarship, and Joshua.

That sort of thing happens fairly often. Sometimes I simply wrench myself back on-topic and resume writing. This time, I thought that what I'd wandered into might be worth posting:

Haldane's Beetles

J. B. S. Haldane may or may not have said "it would appear that God has an inordinate fondness for stars and beetles." He did point out that there are a great many sorts of beetles; and stars:
"...The Creator would appear as endowed with a passion for stars, on the one hand, and for beetles on the other, for the simple reason that there are nearly 300,000 species of beetle known, and perhaps more.... Beetles are actually more numerous than the species of any other insect order...."
("What is Life? The Layman's View of Nature," J. B. S. Haldane; via Wikiquote.)
More recently, someone said roughly the same thing about bats and primates. I think it's interesting that there are many more kinds of chiroptera than primates: but don't think that fact, or how many beetle species we've found, has much to do with God's existence or interest in humanity.

Reading the Bible

I think the Bible, Sacred Scripture, is important. That's literally 'Catholicism 101:' Catechism of the Catholic Church, 101-133.

I'm not just allowed to read the Bible: as a Catholic, reading the Word of God is a very high priority. (Catechism, 133)

Brains

That's not the same as believing that Earth is in the center of the universe.

I take Joshua 10:13 seriously: but I also recognize that it's a poetic description of what folks noticed during a battle. Besides, as I've said before: the Bible wasn't written by an American. I live in a culture that's remarkably devoid of poetry and metaphor: which folks writing the inspired Word of God didn't, and that's another topic.

What Haldane said about God and beetles goes back to someone named Ussher who decided that God created the universe on the nightfall before October 23, 4004 BC.

Don't laugh. In the 17th century, someone who hadn't kept up with cutting-edge natural philosophy might reasonably have sorted that date out from studying ancient history.

By the 19th century, evidence that Earth was much more than 6 millennia old had been accumulating. Some folks decided to take the universe "as is," others didn't approve of an ancient Earth. I don't think it helped that some of the ones who accepted the idea that Earth is old didn't want God to exist.

The Darwin published his famous book, and we've had crazy arguments ever since. My opinion.

My faith doesn't demand that I keep up with what we're discovering about this astounding universe. But it's not threatened by knowledge, either. I've said it before: I don't have to check my brain at the church door.

I've been over this before:
Getting a grip about the Bible:
  • "Understanding the Bible"
    Mary Elizabeth Sperry, Associate Director for Utilization of the New American Bible, USCCB

Friday, September 20, 2013

Life in the Universe: Learning Where to Look

There's a crosswind in our part of the galaxy, which matters more to astronomers than to most folks; and we still don't know if there's life anywhere except Earth, but scientists are making progress.
  1. Cosmic Winds
  2. Narrowing the Search for Life in the Universe
I don't have a problem with using my head and trying to keep up with science news. I also have the rather counter-cultural attitude that religion and science aren't mutually exclusive.

Faith and Reason

I'm a Catholic, so I don't have to check my brain at the door when I go to church. (August 31, 2011)

The notion that faith and reason don't mix isn't true, but it's deeply ingrained in American culture. I think part of its persistence is that quite a few folks here also seem to believe that faith is all about emotion. It's not.

There's nothing wrong with emotions. They're part of being human. But I'd have trouble with faith if it depended on me feeling 'uplifted' or 'religious' most of the time. (September 8, 2013; April 29, 2012)

Like I said, emotions are part of being human. They're not "right" or "wrong" by themselves. What matters is what we do about them. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1763-1770)
"Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth...."
("Fides et Ratio," Encyclical Letter, John Paul II (September 14, 1998))

"Man's faculties make him capable of coming to a knowledge of the existence of a personal God. But for man to be able to enter into real intimacy with him, God willed both to reveal himself to man and to give him the grace of being able to welcome this revelation in faith. The proofs of God's existence, however, can predispose one to faith and help one to see that faith is not opposed to reason."
(Catechism, 35) [emphasis mine]

"Human virtues are firm attitudes, stable dispositions, habitual perfections of intellect and will that govern our actions, order our passions, and guide our conduct according to reason and faith. They make possible ease, self-mastery, and joy in leading a morally good life...."
(Catechism, 1804)

Religion and Science

My faith doesn't require that I keep up with what we're learning about this creation: but it's not threatened by knowledge, either. Human beings are designed to learn about this world, and develop new ways of using it: wisely. (Catechism, 2293)

That's a far cry from the sort of 'we've evolved beyond good and evil' goofiness that's popular in vintage 'mad scientist' films like "X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes." (July 19, 2013; February 10, 2013)

'Because I can' isn't a reason, or excuse, for behaving badly. Science, like anything else humans do, involves ethics. But as long as we pay attention to ethics, moral principles, science is fine:
"...if methodical investigation within every branch of learning is carried out in a genuinely scientific manner and in accord with moral norms, it never truly conflicts with faith, for earthly matters and the concerns of faith derive from the same God...."
("Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern Word-Gaudium et Spes," 36 (December 7, 1965))

Other Worlds, 1277

A little over seven centuries back, educated Europeans had realized that the universe might be a whole lot more than just the Earth and our sky.

Some were excited by the possibility that there might be other worlds: others didn't like the idea. Some started insisting that there couldn't be any worlds except the one we're standing on: because Aristotle said so, I gather.

That's when the Catholic Church stepped in. Ever since 1277, Catholics haven't been allowed to say that there can't be other worlds.

I think it's silly, or worse, to assume that God must cater to our preferences. The Almighty seems to have made a creation that's almost unimaginably vast, and may include more than just the space-time continuum we're in. (April 2, 2013)

These days, most folks I've met seem to accept the idea that other planets exist. On the other hand, quite a few aren't comfortable with what we're learning about how life on Earth has developed in the last 3,000,000,000 years.

Some don't want to believe that there can be life anywhere except Earth. I think it'll be exciting if we learn that God decided to plant life elsewhere. In any case, how I feel about it doesn't count. God's God, I'm not: and I'm okay with that.

Life in the Universe?



Some folks might not be able to endure knowledge that human beings aren't the only flesh-and-blood people in the universe. Others, seeing space aliens, might decide that since they exist: God doesn't. That, in my considered opinion, is silly. (January 29, 2012)

I don't think that space aliens, people with physical bodies, live somewhere in the universe. I don't think that they don't. Right now, we don't know.

I think this gives a pretty good idea of what the Catholic Church thinks about the possibility of life beyond Earth:
"Welcome to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences"
Inauguration of the study week on Astrobiology
Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo (November 6, 2009)

"It is with great pleasure that I welcome all the distinguished scientists convened here, at the invitation of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, to discuss a theme that is as new as it is difficult and fascinating: Astrobiology. It is a field which requires a range of all but the most profound of scientific knowledge, as well as highly refined research techniques.

"Because it means often proceeding on the basis of scarce evidence and formulating hypothesis requiring strict verification, which in turn, can be diversely configured....

"...In research we should not fear the truth. Only the error, which lies in ambush, can cause us fear. But the scientist must also be allowed the possibility to walk paths which do not always lead to positive results, otherwise it would not be research. Nonetheless, even such types of errors are never useless, precisely because, being led by the scientific method, they help us test other paths. And it is thus that the sciences are able to progress, and just as they open humanity to new knowledge, they contribute to the fulfilment of man as man...."

People, Yes; Human, No?

Finding single-celled living creatures on another planet, and being certain that they are not related to life on Earth, would be exciting.

Judging by what Hollywood decides will sell movie tickets, the sort of extraterrestrial life that captures our imaginations most is intelligent life.

Again, I don't think we're alone. I don't think we live in a crowded universe. I think that we do not know.

If we do have neighbors, I'd be astonished if we find them by listening for radio signals. This universe is vast and ancient. The odds that people who aren't human are close to our level of development, say within 500,000 years, are - astronomical. (February 8, 2013)

If we have a half-million-year head start, they probably don't have radios yet. If they worked the bugs out of radio communication five hundred millennia back, that technology is probably about as current for them as flint knapping is for us.

As to what we should think about the possibility of people whose bodies aren't like ours, I agree with this monk:
"...Frankly, if you think about it, any creatures on other planets, subject to the same laws of chemistry and physics as us, made of the same kinds of atoms, with an awareness and a will recognizably like ours would be at the very least our cousins in the cosmos. They would be so similar to us in all the essentials that I don't think you'd even have the right to call them aliens."
(Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial? "Brother Astronomer," Brother Guy Consolmagno (2000))
More of my take on intelligent life on other planets:

1. Cosmic Winds


(NASA/GSFC/UNH, via Space.com, used w/o permission.)
"A view from the Earth and Sun from far above the North Pole. As an interstellar wind blows in from the constellation Scorpio, the sun's gravity captures it and forms a tail. The slower wind (dark blue) is bent stronger than its faster counterpart (light blue). As Earth moved into the interstellar wind in February, IBEX observed the slower wind earlier than the faster wind."
"Interstellar Wind Changes Reveal Glimpse of Milky Way's Complexity"
Nola Taylor Redd, Space.com (September 5, 2013)

"Shifting cosmic winds suggest that our solar system lives in a surprisingly complex and dynamic part of the Milky Way galaxy, a new study reports.

"Scientists examining four decades' worth of data have discovered that the interstellar gas breezing through the solar system has shifted in direction by 6 degrees, a finding that could affect how we view not only the entire galaxy but the sun itself.

" 'The shift in the wind is evidence that the sun lives in an evolving galactic environment,' study lead author Priscilla Frisch of the University of Chicago told SPACE.com via email...."
This "wind" isn't the sort of thing we could feel. The difference between interstellar gas and a perfect vacuum is slight: but measurable. And on an astronomical scale, it acts a bit like the air we're used to.

Wind and Turbulence

"...Charged particles stream off the sun to form a huge invisible shell around the solar system called the heliosphere. Outside of this shell lies the Local Interstellar Cloud (LIC), a haze of hydrogen and helium approximately 30 light-years across.

"The LIC is wispy, featuring just 0.016 atoms per cubic inch (0.264 per cubic centimeter) on average. LIC gas tends to be blocked by the heliosphere, but a thin stream makes it past the sun's magnetic field at the rate of 0.0009 atoms per cubic inch (0.015 atoms per cubic cm), researchers said.

" 'Right now, the sun is moving through an interstellar cloud at a relative velocity of 52,000 miles per hour (23 kilometers per second),' Frisch said. 'This motion allows neutral atoms from the cloud to flow through the heliosphere - the solar wind bubble - and create an interstellar "wind." '..."
(Nola Taylor Redd, Space.com)
We don't know why this interstellar "wind" changed direction over four decades. One of the less-unlikely explanations is that we're looking at turbulence on a very large scale.

Our sun moves through the galaxy in the direction of Hercules. The 'local' interstellar wind is coming in from Pegasus, almost at right angles. I gather that the turbulence is sort of like what we experience when driving with a crosswind.

Right now, knowing that there's turbulence in our sun's neighborhood is important to astronomers, and interesting to folks like me: but not particularly important in everyday life.

Decades, centuries, or millennia from now, if folks travel farther than we do now - - - that's another topic.

2. Narrowing the Search for Life in the Universe

"A Super Time for SuperEarths"
Keith Cooper, Astrobiology Magazine (September 5, 2013)

"Summary: A new model could indicate whether an exoplanet has a light but extended atmosphere, or a relatively thin and heavy atmosphere. This knowledge could help refine the targets in the search for planets like Earth capable of sustaining life.

"The headlines have been coming thick and fast – a trio of SuperEarths in the habitable zone of Gliese 667C, two probably rocky planets in the Goldilocks zone around Kepler-62 and possible SuperEarths orbiting Tau Ceti and HD 40307 at just the right distance for liquid water to exist on their surfaces, albeit under certain conditions. These are all just from the past twelve months. Should those exoplanet hunters who are seeking out Earth 2, a planet where life as we know it could possibly exist, start to feel excited?

"Not yet. Our knowledge of these planets is woefully incomplete. However, the times may be changing. While we cannot yet determine whether a planet is hospitable to life, David Kipping of the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has led a team of astronomers to develop a new theoretical model that can tell us with one swift glance whether a SuperEarth - a world with two to ten times the mass of our planet and up to twice the diameter - has an atmosphere that might not be suitable for life. Consequently we could rule such worlds out of our search for analogs to Earth. It's all about whether a planet has an atmosphere and how that atmosphere is connected to the relationship between a planet's mass and diameter...."
Planets aren't all alike. Neither are their atmospheres. Of the Solar system's three 'habitable zone' planets, the atmospheres of two are mostly carbon dioxide. Only the third has enough oxygen to support critters like us.

Although I'm the sort of creature that needs oxygenated air, I see oxygen in the atmosphere as a byproduct of life: not a requirement. I think unstable chemical mixes in the atmosphere, like Earth's, might be an effective way to tell if a planet supports life: and that's almost another topic.
Another way that planets differ is what's below the surface. The Solar system's inner planets are mostly rock and metal, from Jupiter outward they're mostly hydrogen and helium, except for Pluto. Whether or not Pluto is a planet, a dwarf planet, a Kuiper Belt object, or something else is: yet another topic.


(From Lunar and Planetary Institute, via Astrobiology Magazine, used w/o permission.)
"Cutaway diagram of gas giant Jupiter’s atmosphere and core, compared to Earth's."
(Astrobiology Magazine)

Recipe for Life

I've run across some imaginative speculation about life on, or in, gas giants like Jupiter. My guess is that folks who say there's too much turbulence are right. It's not that life needs peace and quiet, quite. Something floating in Jupiter's atmosphere might be in a habitable part one hour and be pulled up or down into places where it's too hot or too cold the next.

My guess is that some sort of critter might survive in conditions like that. Fish like arctic cod have antifreeze that lets them survive being frozen. But I doubt that life could get started in a maelstrom like Jupiter's atmosphere.

Plausible models for how life began on Earth all assume that it needed an area with water and energy. That may have been hydrothermal vents, tide pools, hot springs, or something else. Wherever it was, the area had to have a fairly stable temperature, pressure, and chemical environment for quite a while. How long "quite a while" is could probably be weeks, years: or millennia. We don't know. Not yet, anyway.

Our sort of life needs liquid water, but it needs a broad range of other material too, and energy. That limits which planets could support it. "Water worlds," planets that are mostly water, could enjoy temperatures like we find in Hawaii, but they almost certainly don't have enough other elements and compounds for life.

Places like Mars may or may not have enough water to support life. It looks like Mars may have been damp enough at one time, though, a very long time ago.

That Astrobiology Magazine article includes a chart showing the relation of mass and radius for planets ranging from all-water to all-iron. The values for mass and radius are Earth = 1.

The lines are curved because gravity compresses matter, and that's yet again another topic.


(From Kipping, Sasselov, and Spiegel, via Astrobiology Magazine, used w/o permission.)
"The mass-radius diagram developed by David Kipping, Dimitar Sasselov and David Spiegel. The blue line is the boundary condition for a 100 percent water-world. The blue dashed line is a planet with 75 percent water and 25 percent silicate rock, while the brown line is 100 percent iron and the brown dashed line is 75 percent iron and 25 percent silicate rock."
(Astrobiology Magazine)

God and Reality

From what I've said about hydrothermal vents, life's origins, and fish with antifreeze, it's probably obvious that I don't think God looks like Charleton Heston in his role as Moses.

I also don't think God created the entire universe about 6,000 years ago, and resents it when we use our brains. Sure, the Almighty could have made a small, unchanging, universe. Maybe He did: but that's not how the one we're in works.

I prefer to accept the universe as it really is: a creation far greater than anything we imagined; and, to paraphrase Haldane, probably greater than we can imagine.

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Sunday, September 15, 2013

Rain, Prayer, and Bread

I spent most of today in the Twin Cities, providing transportation for my wife, son, and #3 daughter. While they were at a Soo Bahk Do clinic, I had plenty of time to watch the sky cloud over. Happily, the rain didn't start until we were driving back to Sauk Center.

Even better, it kept raining for hours. I had to pay more attention to driving than I'm comfortable with: but we need the rain.

The Lord's Prayer

I thought of writing about the Lord's Prayer for today's post. (Luke 11:1-4; Matthew 6:9-13)

Books could be written about the seven petitions: and have been.

I'll just point out that "your kingdom come, 7 your will be done, on earth as in heaven" puts the focus on what God does, not what we want. (Matthew 6:10)

We're still supposed to as for our "daily bread," though. (Matthew 6:11)

Looks like it's okay to ask for what we need. And as I said: we needed that rain.

There's more to the Lord's prayer than bread, of course. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2759-2760, 2761-2776, 2777-2802, 2803-2854)

Rain, St. Cyprian, and Feeling Fatigued

Getting back to yesterday's much-needed rain, there's probably something terribly profound to say about it raining on the just and the unjust. (Matthew 5:45)

I'll link to something St. Cyprian said, a bit about prayer from the Catechism, and leave it at that. Yesterday was a very big day, and I'm pooped.
  • "The Lord’s Prayer"
    (St. Cyprian, Treatises: The Lord’s Prayer, 14 – 17.)
  • Prayer
    • Is important
      (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2697-2699)
    • May be
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Friday, September 13, 2013

Earth's Grander Canyon, a Submerged Mountain, and an Ancient Ice Sheet

Scientists discovered Earth's biggest mountain and longest canyon this year, Part of Antarctica's ice cap is a lot older than we thought, and the Arctic ice cap is shrinking, or growing: depending on how you slice the data.
  1. Submerged Mountain in the Pacific
  2. Coming Ice Age, Global Warming, Climate Change, and Here We Go Again
  3. West Antarctica Sinking
  4. "A Lot Left to Discover"

Arctic Ice and Fashions in Fear

The Arctic ice cap didn't disappear this summer. I wasn't terribly surprised, even though last year the BBC had predicted its imminent demise. I've seen too many apocalyptic pronouncements fizzle to get excited about the latest fashions in fear.

I remember when the coming ice age was supposed to doom future generations.

Later, the population explosion promised famine, war, pestilence, and finally death to all but a suffering remnant of humanity.

Instead we got disco, and dire pronouncements of the perils of global warming.

Global warming is called climate change today: and we're still presumably doomed.

Doomed, we're told, unless everybody goes back to a preindustrial way of life, joins some group, or punishes business owners. Which dubiously-effective solution is (presumably) our only hope depends on who's talking.

Some proposed actions make more sense: like developing more efficient, cleaner, technologies and wasting fewer resources.

Commies, Global Warming, and the Establishment

I remember the 'good old days,' when America's self-proclaimed best and brightest blamed communist aggression and campus radicals for whatever they didn't like. I very sincerely do not miss the 'good old days.'

Today's 'establishment,' those with influence and power in America, has a different vocabulary, and they've got different ideas about what the rest of us should think. But in other ways not much has changed:
  • Then
    • Looking for commies
    • Pursuing 'the American dream'
    • Maintaining conformity
  • Now
    • Looking for racists
    • Being afraid of
      • Global warming
      • Climate change
    • Maintaining conformity
    (January 2010)
I'm confident that most ardent commie-hunters were sincere, just as I'm sure that folks who act as if 1967 isn't history are convinced that America is still run by WASPs.

But sincerity doesn't guarantee accuracy. Unhappily, folks can passionately cling to ideas that make no sense. We've recently discovered physiological expanations for why emotion and reason don't play well together, and that's another topic. Topics.

Cycles

Most folks are familiar with nature's cycles: the short ones, at least.

Maybe there's someone who fears that each sunset is the last we'll ever see of the sun. Most have seen the sun rise, cross the sky, set, and return the next morning so often that its return seems inevitable.

I've never heard of a 'save the moon' committee, dedicated to stopping a waning moon from disappearing. That cycle is so predictable that we've set up calendars around it.

We've been recording daily temperature changes for generations. Although each year is unique, meteorologists noticed patterns: like the average high and low for each day.

Straight Lines and Minnesota's Weather

Maybe it's this familiarity that keep someone from sounding the alarm when a nearby town's temperatures rose dramatically this March.

This chart shows temperature fluctuations in Glenwood, Minnesota, in March of 2013. After a long stable period from March 6 to the 23rd, the town experienced a dramatic warming trend. By month's end it was about 15 degrees Fahrenheit warmer.

Let's forget that that I live in the northern hemisphere's temperate zone, and that Minnesota's weather is notoriously mercurial.

Drawing a straight line through the month's high temperatures, and assuming that the trend observed in March would continue, I could conclude that by the end of April we'd have highs in the 90s.

If that kept up, the thermometer would register 105 F at the end of May, 120 on June 30, and pass the boiling point in January of 2014.


(From KGHW, via Wunderground.com, used w/o permission)

That's silly. That's also one reason I don't panic when I see a straight line drawn across some bit of climate data.

1. Submerged Mountain in the Pacific


(From BBC News, used w/o permission)
"The Tamu massif is comparable in size to Olympus Mons on Mars"
" 'World's largest volcano discovered beneath Pacific"
BBC News (September 8, 2013)

"Scientists say that they have discovered the single largest volcano in the world, a dead colossus deep beneath the Pacific waves.

"A team writing in the journal Nature Geoscience says the 310,000 sq km (119,000 sq mi) Tamu Massif is comparable in size to Mars' vast Olympus Mons volcano - the largest in the Solar System.

"The structure topples the previous largest on Earth, Mauna Loa in Hawaii.

"The massif lies some 2km below the sea.

"It is located on an underwater plateau known as the Shatsky Rise, about 1,600km east of Japan.

"It was formed about 145 million years ago when massive lava flows erupted from the centre of the volcano to form a broad, shield-like feature...."
If the Tamu Massif had taken its time forming, it would probably have been a string of mountains like the Hawaiian archipelago.

Earth's crust moves, but hot spots feeding volcanoes don't. Not as much, anyway. Large volcanic features, like the Hawaiian Islands or the Yellowstone Calderas, tend to form dotted lines.


(From "Windows into the Earth;"  Robert B. Smith, Lee J. Siegel; used w/o permission.)

Apparently the Tamu Massif formed fast, geologically speaking, so we got one huge mountain instead of a chain.

Why Hawaii Doesn't Sink

"Largest Volcano on Earth Lurks Beneath Pacific Ocean"
Becky Oskin, LiveScience (September 5, 2013)

"...Tamu Massif's new status as a single volcano could help constrain models of how oceanic plateaus form, Sager said. 'For anyone who wants to explain oceanic plateaus, we have new constraints,' he told LiveScience. 'They have to be able to explain this volcano forming in one spot and deliver this kind of magma supply in a short time.'...

"...Despite Tamu's huge size, the ship surveys showed little evidence the volcano's top ever poked above the sea. The world's biggest volcano has been hidden because it sits on thin oceanic crust (or lithosphere), which can't support its weight. Its top is about 6,500 feet (1,980 meters) below the ocean surface today.

" 'In the case of Shatsky Rise, it formed on virtually zero thickness lithosphere, so it's in isostatic balance,' Sager said. 'It's basically floating all the time, so the bulk of Tamu Massif is down in the mantle. The Hawaiian volcanoes erupted onto thick lithosphere, so it's like they have a raft to hold on to. They get up on top and push it down. And with Olympus Mons, it's like it formed on a two-by-four.'..."
"Lithosphere" is a fancy word for the rocky outer part of planet like ours. It's solid, but flexes. Generally you'd have to wait thousands of years to see it act elastically.

If we think of the Hawaiian Island being on lithosphere that's like a raft, Tamu Massif is on an under-inflated air mattress.

Tamu Massif may have company. University of Houston's William Sager says that places like the Onton Java plateau, east of the Solomon Islands, might have sunken mountains, too. We don't have enough data to tell: yet.

Finally, "Tamu" sounds like it might be a name from the southwestern Pacific languages: but it's not. Dr. Sager made it up, from "Texas A & M University," where he'd taught before going to the University of Houston.

2. Coming Ice Age, Global Warming, Climate Change, and Here We Go Again


(NASA, via FoxNews.com, used w/o permission)
"Contraction: This NASA satellite image shows the ice at the smallest extent of record, with much of the Arctic Ocean uncovered.

Recovery: Contrary to predictions that the ice would have vanished by this summer, it has actually increased by 60 percent from last year.
"
"And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% in a year"
David Rose, Mail Online (September 7, 2013)
  • Almost a million more square miles of ocean covered with ice than in 2012
  • BBC reported in 2007 global warming would leave Arctic ice-free in summer by 2013
  • Publication of UN climate change report suggesting global warming caused by humans pushed back to later this month
"A chilly Arctic summer has left nearly a million more square miles of ocean covered with ice than at the same time last year – an increase of 60 per cent.

"The rebound from 2012's record low comes six years after the BBC reported that global warming would leave the Arctic ice-free in summer by 2013.

"Instead, days before the annual autumn re-freeze is due to begin, an unbroken ice sheet more than half the size of Europe already stretches from the Canadian islands to Russia's northern shores...."
I've learned to get more information when folks give two data points, then draw conclusions from them. NASA seemed like a good place to start, since that's where Mail Online's reporter got his information.

"Downward Trend"

"Arctic Sea Ice Update: Unlikely To Break Records, But Continuing Downward Trend"
NASA press release (August 23, 2013)

"...'Even if this year ends up being the sixth- or seventh-lowest extent, what matters is that the 10 lowest extents recorded have happened during the last 10 years,' said Walt Meier, a glaciologist with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. 'The long-term trend is strongly downward.'

"The icy cover of the Arctic Ocean was measured at 2.25 million square miles (5.83 million square kilometers) on Aug. 21. For comparison, the smallest Arctic sea ice extent on record for this date, recorded in 2012, was 1.67 million square miles (4.34 million square kilometers), and the largest recorded for this date was in 1996, when ice covered 3.16 millions square miles (8.2 million square kilometers) of the Arctic Ocean...."
The NASA press release gave one more data point. That's a bit more information to go on, but still not enough to back up the assertion that Arctic Sea Ice was going away. Not for me, anyway.

A few minutes later I was looking through National Snow & Ice Data Center's "Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis" page, and found - - -

35 Years of August Ice Sheet Size


"Figure 3. Monthly August ice extent for 1979 to 2013 shows a decline of 10.6% per decade."
(National Snow & Ice Data Center, used w/o permission.)

Here, finally, I found that "downward trend" mentioned in the NASA press release. The wiggly black line showing how much ice the Arctic Ocean has had each August, is going down: on average.

My guess is that how much ice covers the Arctic Ocean in August will continue to change.

Climate Changes: So do Fashions

It's quite possible that the next third of a century will see more shrinking ice cap. Or maybe we're seeing a small part of a long cycle, and it'll start growing again.

Climate cycles, other than the obvious yearly ones, seem to be out of fashion at the moment. Part of the problem seems to be that although climate has obviously changed over time, nobody's found clear-cut cyclic variations. None with the geometric beauty of a sine wave, anyway.

On the other hand, Europe's climate warmed for several centuries, cooled, and is warming again. Maybe other parts of the world, too.

Starting a thousand years ago, Europe experienced the Medieval Climatic Optimum, followed by the Little Ice Age.

It's easy to assume that when one event follows another, it was caused by the first. Sometimes that's true. Often it's not. "Post hoc ergo propter hoc" reasoning - isn't reasonable. Even though the phrase is Latin.


(From xkcd, used w/o permission.)

We're Still Learning

The end of the Little Ice Age came at roughly the same time that the industrial revolution started. Maybe coal furnaces kept Europe from freezing over. Then again, maybe not.

I don't think we know enough to say exactly how Earth's climate changes on a scale of centuries, millennia, tens of thousands of years, and longer. We've only been keeping detailed records of temperature and precipitation for the last few centuries.

Our knowledge of climate before folks had thermometers, barometers, and weather satellites, comes largely from history, archeology, and paleontology.

My guess is that Earth's climate does go through long-term cycles, vaguely analogous to the short-term cycles we're more familiar with. Some of them seem to be really long, on a scale of geologic ages:

3. West Antarctica Sinking


(NASA, via LiveScience, used w/o permission)
"The West Antarctic Ice Sheet sits below sea level today, but 34 million years ago, it sat on a much higher mountain range."
"West Antarctic Ice Sheet's Age Gains 20 Million Years"
Laura Poppick, LiveScience (September 6, 2013)

" The West Antarctic Ice Sheet could have formed 20 million years earlier than previously thought, researchers propose, after updating a detail in global climate models, placing more confidence in those models' ability to predict future changes in global climate.

"The West Antarctic Ice Sheet accounts for only about 10 percent of the ice on the continent today. It sits below sea level and is subject to melting from warm air and seawater infiltration, more so than the larger East Antarctic Ice Sheet, which sits at a higher elevation.

"Researchers have long assumed that West Antarctica has always sat at this low elevation and has thus always been less amenable to holding ice sheets as large as those in East Antarctica...."
Before discovering that West Antarctica might have been hundreds of meters higher in the past, researchers figured that the ice sheet there was about 14,000,000 years old. Now it looks like it may go back 34,000,000 years.

That won't help anybody get better mileage, whiter teeth, or lower grocery bills: but it makes a difference to folks who study Earth's climate.

4. "A Lot Left to Discover"


(From NASA IceBridge, via Yale, used w/o permission)
"NASA Data Reveals Mega-Canyon under Greenland Ice Sheet"
NASA press release (August 29, 2013)

"Data from a NASA airborne science mission reveals evidence of a large and previously unknown canyon hidden under a mile of Greenland ice.

"The canyon has the characteristics of a winding river channel and is at least 460 miles (750 kilometers) long, making it longer than the Grand Canyon. In some places, it is as deep as 2,600 feet (800 meters), on scale with segments of the Grand Canyon. This immense feature is thought to predate the ice sheet that has covered Greenland for the last few million years.

" 'One might assume that the landscape of the Earth has been fully explored and mapped,' said Jonathan Bamber, professor of physical geography at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, and lead author of the study. 'Our research shows there's still a lot left to discover.'..."
I've said it before: the more we learn about this wonder-filled creation, the more we find that we have yet to learn. (May 3, 2013)

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Marian Apparition: Champion, Wisconsin

Background:Posts in this blog: In the news:

What's That Doing in a Nice Catholic Blog?

From time to time, a service that I use will display links to - odd - services and retailers.

I block a few of the more obvious dubious advertisers.

For example: psychic anything, numerology, mediums, and related practices are on the no-no list for Catholics. It has to do with the Church's stand on divination. I try to block those ads.

Sometime regrettable advertisements get through, anyway.

Bottom line? What that service displays reflects the local culture's norms, - not Catholic teaching.