Author(s): Gerlich G (Gerlich, Gerhard)1, Tscheuschner RD (Tscheuschner, Ralf D.)
Source: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MODERN PHYSICS B Volume: 23 Issue: 3 Pages: 275-364 Published: JAN 30 2009
Abstract: The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea that many authors trace back to the traditional works of Fourier (1824), Tyndall (1861), and Arrhenius (1896), and which is still supported in global climatology, essentially describes a fictitious mechanism, in which a planetary atmosphere acts as a heat pump driven by an environment that is radiatively interacting with but radiatively equilibrated to the atmospheric system. According to the second law of thermodynamics, such a planetary machine can never exist. Nevertheless, in almost all texts of global climatology and in a widespread secondary literature, it is taken for granted that such a mechanism is real and stands on a firm scientific foundation. In this paper, the popular conjecture is analyzed and the underlying physical principles are clarified. By showing that (a) there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects, (b) there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet, (c) the frequently mentioned difference of 33 degrees is a meaningless number calculated wrongly, (d) the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately, (e) the assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical, (f) thermal conductivity and friction must not be set to zero, the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified.

Click here to read the full article.

Submitted by Kevin Lindstrom Liaison Librarian for Earth and Ocean Sciences

Sociologist Joseph Hermanowicz’ new book Lives in Science How Institutions Affect Academic Careers describes how the prestige of academic institutions often shapes the career of the individual.

“For all but a handful of the scientists he studies, the prestige of their institution pretty much determines their professional–and even their personal–destiny. Of the more than 4000 institutions of higher learning in the United States where a scientist can get a faculty post–ranging from world-renowned research universities to local community colleges–only a very limited number possess the resources, reputation, and connections needed for research careers at the highest levels of recognition.”

Click here for a full review of Hermanowicz’ book.

Submitted by Kevin Lindstrom Physical Sciences and Engineering Liaison Librarian

The newest issue of the Science has a short editorial titled “Becoming a Scientist“.

Personally, I found t his short piece to be very interested and not intuitive…take a look – http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/326/5955/916?rss=1

Interested in photography and rocketry and have a GPS enabled cell phone laying around?

Have a look at how the MIT 1337arts crew pulled it off.

Submitted by Kevin Lindstrom Liaison Librarian for ECE and EOS at the University of British Columbia

Most of us spend our university education taking the standard, required courses, there are more than just the basics out there when it comes to some science classes.

This blog post list some of the most hilarious of them – http://www.onlineuniversities.com/blog/2009/10/100-hilarious-college-courses-that-really-exist/

Personally, I would love to take some of the science classes such as :

The Science of Superheroes: While it might sound like fun and games, this course takes superheroes as a means to teach students real lessons about physics. [U of California Irvine] or Lego Robotics: Legos can help you build more than just that TIE Fighter, they can also be used to make real robots, as this course will show students. [MIT]

** Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/jocorvera/

A new article today in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science could be of interest to those of you who post their studies to arxiv.org:

A. Haque and P. Ginsparg, “Positional effects on citation and readership in arXiv,” J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci. Technol., vol. 60, pp. 2203-2218, 2009.

Abstract:

arXiv.org mediates contact with the literature for entire scholarly communities, providing both archival access and daily email and web announcements of new materials. We confirm and extend a surprising correlation between article position in these initial announcements and later citation impact, due primarily to intentional self-promotion by authors. There is, however, also a pure visibility effect: the subset of articles accidentally in early positions fared measurably better in the long-term citation record. Articles in astrophysics (astro-ph) and two large subcommunities of theoretical high energy physics (hep-th and hep-ph) announced in position 1, for example, respectively received median numbers of citations 83%, 50%, and 100% higher than those lower down, while the subsets there accidentally had 44%, 38%, and 71% visibility boosts. We also consider the positional effects on early readership. The median numbers of early full text downloads for astro-ph, hep-th, and hep-ph articles announced in position 1 were 82%, 61%, and 58% higher than for lower positions, respectively, and those there accidentally had medians visibility-boosted by 53%, 44%, and 46%. Finally, we correlate a variety of readership features with long-term citations, using machine learning methods, and conclude with some observations on impact metrics and the dangers of recommender mechanisms.

** Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/easternblot/ – “Paul Ginsparg shows that everyone submits their paper to ArXiv *just* after the submission deadline so they’ll be the first on the front page the next day”

Those of us, who teach or use Google or Google Scholar (GS)  might find the most recent Peter Jacso’s piece on Google Scholar to be of interest – http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6698580.html?&rid=1105906703&source=title

Please be very careful using this tool. We talk about the perils of GS and compare it with Compendex and Web of Science in our Google workshops.

We ourselves saw those problems almost five years ago, and they are still not corrected:

Giustini D, & Barsky E. A look at Google Scholar, PubMed and Scirus: comparisons and recommendations . J Can Health Libr Assoc 2005, 26(3): 85-89.

This week’s issue of Science focuses in CO2 capture and storage.

Articles include

Why Capture CO2 from the Atmosphere?

Round and Round: A Guide to the Carbon Cycle

Onshore Geologic Storage of CO2

Submitted by Kevin Lindstrom Liaison Librarian for Earth and Ocean Sciences

While working at UBC, I’m often amazed by some of the some spectacular sunsets I have ever seen. If you’re interested in learning more about the weather associated with these clouds have a look at the Cloud Appreciation Society website.

If you are interested in learning more about the weather in general, check out the Weather School.

For a more complete list of websites have a look at the Science and Engineering Library subject guide for Atmospheric Sciences

Today’s weather in Vancouver? Kiel?

Submitted by Kevin Lindstrom Liaison Librarian for Earth and Ocean Sciences

I have posted about climate engineering before. Here is the new article from the last issue of Science that discusses the risks of climate engineering – “Risks of Climate Engineering”

Risks of Climate Engineering
Gabriele C. Hegerl and Susan Solomon (21 August 2009)
Science 325 (5943), 955. [DOI: 10.1126/science.1178530]

This short opinion article presents the points against temperature changes potentially caused by geoengineering…

** photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/courambel/