Quantum Contradictions 21: Atomic Radii?

Quantum Mechanics (QM) based on Schrödinger's equation is supposed to give a very accurate description of the atomic world, yet theoretical predictions of atomic radii presented in the literature based on solving Schrödinger's equation, agree with observations to only about 5%. This is excused by saying that the radius of an atom is not well defined, and so a precise number cannot be given.

In any case, QM is postulated to be very precise, and a precise answer will be delivered if only the question is the right one: Asking about the radius of an atom is not a good question and thus will have no good QM answer.

In contrast, the spin factor on an electron is claimed to be predicted by Quantum ElectroDynamics (QED) to one part in a trillion, which following Feynman is presented as ultimate evidence of the correctness of QED and thus also of its a little (less precise but still very precise) cousin QM.

So we have to live with the fact that asking for the radius of an atom will get no QM answer: The precision is about the precision that can be obtained from the above chart.

Whereof the Royal (Academy) Can(not) Speak

The Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf  is, according to the Swedish Constitution from 1975, not allowed to speak out on anything of importance and thus has only a ceremonial role.

However, the King being a devoted environmentalist with a sharp brain has found a canal to reach out to the Swedish people through his Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in charge of the Noble Prizes  (delivered from the hands of the King) with the 2013 prizes to be announced the coming week.

In particular, the King made a statement in support of the IPCC Assessment Report 4 from 2007 sending the world a global warming alarm in the form of The Scientific Basis for Climate Change presented under Science in Society on the web site of the Academy.

Accordingly the Academy acted as the forum for the presentation to the world of the new IPCC Assessment Report 5 with even more alarm, supported by Climate Change: the state of science and a tribute to the first chairman of IPCC: Climate Change: Bert Bolin and beyond.

The King is now working on an update of his statement The Scientific Basis for Climate Change to make it accurately represent the increased alarm (from 90% to 95%) expressed in the new IPCC Assessment Report 5.

The Republican Party, which finds no scientific evidence of alarming global warming from human CO2 emissions, claims that the support of IPCC alarm expressed by the King and his Royal Academy violates the Swedish constitution and a constitutional crisis now seems inevitable. In the worst scenario the Royal Academy will have to be shut down along with all Royal Castles, which is alarming (96%) to Swedish interests all over the globe and thus to the world.

Quantum Mechanics Contradictions 20: Addendum

The smoothed particle model of atomic physics to be explored computationally in coming posts leads to the following simple model for the ground state energy of an atom with Z + 2  electrons (at most 10 to start with) with 2 electrons in a first inner shell of radius and Z electrons in a second outer shell of radius R, the same for all Z.

We assume the ground state energy is half of the kernel potential energy (in correspondence with the virial theorem) and motivate the constant radius of the outer shell from the idea that the "width" of an electron in the second shell scales like 1/Z and thus Z electrons could fill up a shell of constant radius, in accordance with the observation that atomic radii vary surprisingly little with the number (beyond one or two) of electrons in the outer shell.

The energy contribution e_Z from the second shell will then be Z x Z / D with D = 2 x R, which gives the following contributions with R = 1 with exact values in parenthesis:

• Lithium: e_1 = - 0.5 ( - 0.2)
• Beryllium: e_2 = - 2 ( - 1)
• Boron: e_3 = - 4.5 ( - 1.9)
• Carbon: e_4 = - 8 (- 5.25) 
• Nitrogen: e_5 = - 12.5 (- 9.8)
• Oxygen: e_6 = - 18 (- 15.91)
• Fluorine: e_7 = - 24.5 ( - 24.2)
• Neon: e_8 = - 32 (- 34)

We see a fairly good agreement with respect to the simplicity of the model (complemented by the energies for the inner shell) , which gives good promise to the coming computational exploration.

PS Continuing with a third shell of radius R = 2 and D = 2 x R = 4, we get with
e_Z = (Z -10) x (Z - 10) /D:

• Sodium: e_11 = - 0.25 (- 0.18)
• Magnesium: e_12 = - 1  (- 0.80)
• Aluminium: e_13 = - 2.25 (- 1.9)
• Silicon: e_14 = - 4 (- 3.65)
• Phosphorus: e_15 = - 6.25 (- 6.2)
• Sulfur: e_16 = - 9 (- 9.82)
• Chlorine: e_17 = - 12.25 (- 14.5)
• Argon: e_18 = - 16 (- 20.5) 

Again a fairly good agreement. Taking into account that the atomic radius decreases with increasing number of electrons within the band, improves the fit between model and observation,

Thomas Stocker's Defense of IPCC Climate Models at Variance with Observations

Global temperature increased according to observations in the periods 1920 - 40 and 1978 - 1996 with about 0.35 C, while the temperature was slightly decreasing in the periods 1880 - 1920, 1940 - 1978, 1997 - 2013.

The main argument used by IPCC co-chairman Thomas Stocker when defending the climate models of IPCC AR5 predicting steady warming, was that the 17 year period 1997 - 2013 with no warming was too short to allow any conclusion that CO2 forcing was too small to be observed, while the 18 year period 1978 - 1996 with warming was long enough be able to attribute with 95% likelihood the warming to CO2 forcing.  Stocker clarified the argument by adding that a period of 30 years would be required to be able to detect a trend in global cooling.

PS1 The temperature curves for the periods 1920 - 1950 and 1973 - 2013 are very similar with first warming and then slight cooling, only shifted with a steady rise of about 0.5 C/century after the Little Ice Age. The rise 1920 - 1940 is not attributed to CO2 by IPCC while the rise 1976 - 1996 is. The logic is missing.

PS2 The above graph produced by IPCC appears to present lower than actual temperatures before 1960 thus enhancing the warming thereafter.  

Will Skeptics Now Be Able to Unite?

As the IPCC along with its politicized scientific apparatus now sinks into the Deep Ocean, it is natural to ask if skeptics of different brands, from IPCC refugees over lukewarmers to socalled deniers, will now be able to unite instead of beating each other with secteristic fervor?

In particular, I could ask if the ban of my writings on some skeptics blogs, because of my questioning of the reality of a Holy Sky Spirit of Back Radiation or DLR (Downwelling Longwave Radiation),  can now be lifted?

In particular, can the lack of global warming since 1997 under steadily rising CO2 levels, be viewed as evidence of non-existence of radiative forcing as an effect of DLR from a Holy Sky Spirit? Is DLR fictional in the same sense as the Holy Spirit, when confronted with observed realities?

PS One of the blogs where I have been banned is Roy Spencer's because of my insistence that back radiation is non-physical and that the starting point of 1 C warming from doubled CO2 is a definition based on a simple algebraic relation (Stefan-Boltzmann's law), which does not have any real meaning for the complex system of global climate. Roy sums up the basic physics supposedly carrying climate
modeling as follows:

• It is sometimes said that climate models are built upon physical first principles, as immutable as the force of gravity or conservation of energy (which are, indeed, included in the models). But this is a half-truth, at best, spoken by people who either don’t know any better or are outright lying.
• The most physically sound portion of global warming predictions is that adding CO2 to the atmosphere causes about a 1% energy imbalance in the system (energy imbalances are what cause temperature to change), and if nothing else but the temperature changes, there would only be about a 1 deg. C warming response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 (we aren’t even 50% of the way to doubling).
• But this is where the reasonably sound, physical first principles end (if you can even call them that since the 1 deg estimate is a theoretical calculation, anyway).

Roy thus appears to question the 1 C and so we agree on this point. The red card must then result from back radiation.

Judith Curry: From Sick to Healthy Climate Science

Judith Curry has gone a long way from supporter to opponent of the CO2 global warming science of IPCC, by realizing that the science of IPCC is sick and therefore has to be eliminated to allow healthy climate science to develop:

• The IPCC needs to get out of the way so that scientists and policy makers can better do their jobs.
• We need to put down the IPCC as soon as possible – not to protect the patient who seems to be thriving in its own little cocoon, but for the sake of the rest of us whom it is trying to infect with its disease. 
•  Fortunately much of the population seems to be immune, but some governments seem highly susceptible to the disease. However, the precautionary principle demands that we not take any risks here, and hence the IPCC should be put down.

Since 97% of institutions and people of climate science reportedly have been infected by IPCC, Judith is asking for a revolution with a small group of healthy skeptics leading climate science into the future. Interesting perspectives...

PS1 Judith started her transformation from alarmist to heretic by suddenly realizing that "back radiation" as the basis of greenhouse gas alarmism, is non-physical, which was also my door to skepticism.

PS2 Judith makes the same analysis as Pointman:

• We’ve just witnessed the embarrassing and public humiliation of climate science as a field of honest scientific endeavour. It has lost all claim to be taken seriously and is now tarred with the same pathological science brush that aberrations like Lysenkoism or Eugenics were. It’s now up to the non-activist scientists in the field, who’ve stayed silent for far too long, to save it from that fate by speaking out and reclaiming their field from fanatics posing as scientists. As Elvis said, it’s now or never.

PS3 Judy's death sentence has now been printed in Financial Post.

IPCC Follows Warming into the Deep Ocean

Swedish Minister of Climate Lena Ek assisting IPCC Co-chairman Thomas Stocker when presenting the Deep Ocean explanation of the non-existence of global warming.

Here is a summary the 2 hour IPCC webcast press conference presenting the Approved Summary for Policymakers concluding the yet unpublished IPCC 5th Asssessment Report Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis:

The key role is played by Thomas Stocker, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group 1, who reports that he has only slept 6 hours the last 4 days, which is less than 2 hours per night, and thus is very tired.

What has kept him awake is to come up with a convincing explanation why climate models predicting steady warming, while observations show no warming at all over the last 17 years, still can be used for reliable predictions over periods longer than 17 years.

No wonder that Stocker is tired, because his task has not been easy and lack of sleep is not the best precondition for good scientific work. Accordingly his explanation that the warming, which should have been observed on the Earth surface but was not observed, has been transferrred into the Deep Ocean where it cannot be observed, because it is so deep, was not convincing to media allowed to pose questions at the press conference. Nor the alternative of putting the blame on volcanic eruptions. In the Summary this was phrased as follows:

• The observed reduction in surface warming trend over the period 1998–2012 as compared to the period 1951–2012, is due in roughly equal measure to a reduced trend in radiative forcing and a cooling contribution from internal variability, which includes a possible redistribution of heat within the ocean (medium confidence). 
• The reduced trend in radiative forcing is primarily due to volcanic eruptions...

But Stocker did not mention during the press conference the third alternative presented in the Summary:

• There may also be a contribution from forcing inadequacies and, in some models, an overestimate of the response to increasing greenhouse gas forcing.

This was the reason he could not sleep, and why IPCC now will sink into the Deep Ocean.

PS The consensus message from IPCC to world policymakers is that any connection between the Deep Ocean of IPCC and the Deep Throat of Watergate, very likely (96%) is unprecedented, unequivocal and therefore very alarming.

The Funeral of IPCC: Too Strong Response to Greenhouse-Gas Forcing

The leaked IPCC AR5 Summary for Policymakers tells the world and its leaders that climate models tuned to the observed warming 1970 - 1998, do not fit with the observed lack of warming 1998 - 2013: 

• There is very high confidence that models reproduce the more rapid warming in the second half of the 20th century.
• Models do not generally reproduce the observed reduction in surface warming trend over the last 10–15 years. 
• There is medium confidence that this difference between models and observations is to a substantial degree caused by unpredictable climate variability, with possible contributions from inadequacies in the solar, volcanic, and aerosol forcings used by the models and, in some models, from too strong a response to increasing greenhouse-gas forcing. 

IPCC thus admits that climate models are constructed to have

• too strong a response to increasing greenhouse-gas forcing,

and are unable to capture

• unpredictable climate variability. 

This must be the end of IPCC since IPCC was formed on the sole doctrine of strong a response of green-house gas (CO2) forcing in climate model predictions. 

Since IPCC was born in Stockholm from the mind of the Swedish meteorologist Bert Bolin, it is fully logical that the funeral of IPCC now takes place in Stockholm along with the Bert Bolin Center for Climate Research.

PS Concerning climate predictions recall the prediction I made in 2009. 

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Platform for IPCC

IPCC announces to release its 5th Assessment Report on September 27 on a platform offered by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences under the title Climate Change: the state of the science:

• On 27 September 2013, IPCC’s Working Group I releases the Summary for Policymakers of the first part of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, Climate Change 2013: the Physical Science Basis. This is the first event at which the Working Group I Co-Chairs present the findings of the newly approved report to the general public.

This historic event expresses the historically strong bond between IPCC and the Royal Swedish Academy and Swedish climate science, with IPCC determining the state of science and the Academy acting as platform for the political CO2 alarmism of IPCC. If IPCC falls so will the Academy.

PS A key finding to be reported is:

It's come to this: "The heat is still coming in, but it appears to have gone into the deep ocean and, frustratingly, we do not have the instruments to measure there"

Climate change: IPCC cites global temperature rise over last century | Environment | The Observer

"The heat is still coming in, but it appears to have gone into the deep ocean and, frustratingly, we do not have the instruments to measure there," said Professor Ted Shepherd of Reading University. "Global warming has certainly not gone away."  [ViaGWPF]

Staggering Consequences of One IPCC Graph

Ross McKitrick comments on the reality facing the 5th Assessment Report of IPCC to be presented September 23 - 26 in Stockholm in IPCC Models Getting Mushy (Financial Post):

• Everything you need to know about the dilemma the IPCC faces is summed up in one remarkable graph.
• Models predict one thing and the data show another.
• There is a high probability we will witness the crackup of one of the most influential scientific paradigms of the 20th century, and the implications for policy and global politics could be staggering.

The above graphic is Figure 1.4 from Chapter 1 of a draft of the Fifth Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The initials at the top represent the First Assessment Report (FAR) in 1990, the Second (SAR) in 1995. Shaded banks show range of predictions from each of the four climate models used for all four reports since 1990. That last report, AR4, was issued in 2007. Model runs after 1992 were tuned to track temporary cooling due to the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption in The Philippines. The black squares, show with uncertainty bars, measure the observed average surface temperatures over the same interval. The range of model runs is syndicated by the vertical bars. The light grey area above and below is not part of the model prediction range. The final version of the new IPCC report, AR5, will be issued later this month.

The message is the same as that Richard Feynman sent to his physics colleagues:

• It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong.

Even if the climate theory of IPCC is ugly and IPCC lead authors have limited smartness, if it does not agree with observation, it is wrong. 

The graph shows that IPCC climate theory does not agree with observation. The implications for policy and global politics will be staggering.

PS Roy Spencer draws the same conclusion in Turning Point for IPCC and Humanity:

• We are now at the point in the age of global warming hysteria where the IPCC global warming theory has crashed into the hard reality of observations. 
• A few of us are not that surprised, as we always distrusted the level of faith that climate modelers had in their understanding of the causes of climate change.