tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31599980470417648182011-10-17T04:34:40.093-07:00warmcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07565080032835834724noreply@blogger.comBlogger121100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3159998047041764818.post-50241726034682366722011-01-13T07:08:00.000-08:002011-01-13T07:15:09.752-08:00

Raymond Pierrehumbert (Louis Block Professor in Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago) has an article published in this months 'Physics Today' magazine called 'Infrared Radiation and Planetary Temperature'.  The magazine is published by the American Institute of Physics and is one of the most popular physics magazines worldwide. The article can be downloaded from the University of

warmcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07565080032835834724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3159998047041764818.post-47577792224831742022011-01-06T03:31:00.000-08:002011-01-06T03:42:09.363-08:00

Some time last year I came across a film published between 1957 and 1958 for the International Geophysical Year. The film was called 'The Inconstant Air' and was designed to be shown in classrooms and on television (16mm film and later video tapes). The company behind the production was McGraw-Hill, a major publisher of educational books. I think we have all probably used a McGraw-Hill book at

warmcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07565080032835834724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3159998047041764818.post-67596243744338528652010-12-18T04:47:00.000-08:002010-12-18T04:50:56.706-08:00

Well hopefully this is second time lucky. An annoying bug was apparent in the energy flow meter to the right in the simulator. It was annoying because it only occurred once uploaded to the server (it was fine locally on my computer) and the problem was intermittent in nature. There seemed like a 50/50 chance of the meter not working, although using the browser refresh button gave you a 50/50

warmcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07565080032835834724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3159998047041764818.post-6532195757461056862010-12-06T11:14:00.000-08:002010-12-14T03:11:52.187-08:00

The simulator has been updated to version 1.24 This new version has a simple convection algorithm added. This results in the simulator lapse rate being steeper than would be the case without convection (on a graph where temperature is plotted as X and height plotted as Y). Air warmed near the surface rises, reducing in pressure as it rises, cold air falls and increases in pressure. This mixing

warmcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07565080032835834724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3159998047041764818.post-4154035424448208042010-10-09T01:51:00.000-07:002010-10-09T01:56:41.589-07:00

Having had a break from developing the simulator for some time. I have had time to think about ideas for the project that would add more realism to the way it works. One idea is convection, at least at a basic level. This is partly due to thinking how convection works and how it could be incorporated into the simulator. The book 'A Climate Modelling Primer' has also given me some ideas, although

warmcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07565080032835834724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3159998047041764818.post-21089524729908178512010-10-01T10:43:00.000-07:002010-10-01T10:43:56.801-07:00

Fixed one minor bug that was mentioned in my last post, the shaky text. Also altered some of the 'How it works' text. Version number incremented to 1.23

warmcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07565080032835834724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3159998047041764818.post-87872731033203584432010-09-03T03:02:00.000-07:002010-09-07T02:38:29.128-07:00

Now that the energy flow/budget meter is in place and the greenhouse effect simulator is generally stable, I'm taking a break from developing it further. I still have a 'to do list' although I think it needs some changes... 1. A more sophisticated simulation of the atmosphere. Not sure how this is going to work, certainly some sort of sophisticated layering of the atmosphere would be useful.

warmcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07565080032835834724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3159998047041764818.post-74231353260462983012010-08-29T13:18:00.000-07:002010-08-29T13:22:17.929-07:00

The infrared photons emitted to space now have improved animations. The main thing is multiple photons can be animated at the same time. It doesn't affect the functionality of the simulator, the number crunching hasn't changed, but it does fix an obvious visual error in previous versions. The version number has been updated to 1.22

warmcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07565080032835834724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3159998047041764818.post-16478491631760065072010-08-24T03:24:00.000-07:002010-08-24T06:49:41.169-07:00

The energy meter has been added to the simulator now and the simulator version number has been updated to 1.20. I have called it an Energy Flow Meter since it gives an indication of the net flow of energy in or out of the Sim planet. When the net flow of energy is incoming, then the meter indicator will go towards the right into the red zone, This shows the planet is warming up. When the net

warmcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07565080032835834724noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3159998047041764818.post-84546038287637408092010-08-22T08:38:00.000-07:002010-08-23T01:49:20.350-07:00

The energy budget meter for the simulator is coming along fine and I now have the data being produced that can be used to move the graphic meter indicator. The code took a while to get correct and it works on the basis of buffering a count of the incoming and outgoing photons from a fixed number of cycles of simulator activity, then calculating a rolling average on each cycle of the simulator.

warmcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07565080032835834724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3159998047041764818.post-69864710267642734842010-08-21T04:15:00.000-07:002010-08-23T01:49:38.232-07:00

I have started working on ideas for a meter in the simulator to show the incoming (sunlight) and outgoing energy (thermal and reflected light). So far, the hardest part of the project has been to develop the atmosphere data array and making sure it is updated correctly as the simulator cycles over time. The problem with such a meter is that any indication will be transitory and time based. The

warmcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07565080032835834724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3159998047041764818.post-24623680989265691682010-08-07T07:15:00.000-07:002010-08-23T01:49:49.796-07:00

Hope you enjoy this site and the simulator project. Both the simulator and the site will be updated over time, to include new features and improvements. The layout and design of the site/blog is likely to change over time, so the 'blog' part may move. New versions of the simulator will hopefully appear from time to time. Details of new versions will appear in this blog. Simulator to do list: 1

warmcasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07565080032835834724noreply@blogger.com0