James McGinn
2016-01-18 20:45:19 UTC
Why Meteorologists Won't Talk About "Cold Steam"
When confronted with mystery the public turns to experts and pays them
to resolve it. When confronted with irresolvable contradictions an
expert can either conceal and obscure the contradiction, pretending to
have resolved the mystery or they can reveal the contradiction and
notify the public that the mystery remains. If they do the latter
there is a good chance the public will fire them and look to hire a
new expert. But if they sweep the contradiction under the rug then the
public remains ignorant and the experts can keep their jobs.
This is why meteorology won't discuss the fact that moist air doesn't
contain gaseous H2O. (Earth's atmosphere doesn't contain H2O[g]. It is
far too cool for that. It contains H2O[l], small clusters/droplets of
H2O.) There models of storms are built around the notion that moist air
is lighter than dry air. And the math on this only works if gaseous H2O
is assumed. Accordingly, this allows them to pretend that this explains
why moist air rises, causing storms. And this pretense saves them from
having to worry about losing their jobs when the public figures out that
they really don't understand what causes storms.
A big part of how they have been able to conceal and obscure this
contradiction has to do with terminology. They use the terms for
gaseous H2O9(g) and vaporous H2O(l) interchangeably. There are any
number of words that they can use to obscure the issue: steam, vapor, evaporate, moist air, condensate etc. So there are any number of
different methods with which they can leave their audience confused.
They realize that when it comes to job security it is better to keep
the public confused thinking the subject is so complex that only an
expert can understand it than it is to educate them and risk revealing
that they really don't understand the mechanics of storms.
When confronted with mystery the public turns to experts and pays them
to resolve it. When confronted with irresolvable contradictions an
expert can either conceal and obscure the contradiction, pretending to
have resolved the mystery or they can reveal the contradiction and
notify the public that the mystery remains. If they do the latter
there is a good chance the public will fire them and look to hire a
new expert. But if they sweep the contradiction under the rug then the
public remains ignorant and the experts can keep their jobs.
This is why meteorology won't discuss the fact that moist air doesn't
contain gaseous H2O. (Earth's atmosphere doesn't contain H2O[g]. It is
far too cool for that. It contains H2O[l], small clusters/droplets of
H2O.) There models of storms are built around the notion that moist air
is lighter than dry air. And the math on this only works if gaseous H2O
is assumed. Accordingly, this allows them to pretend that this explains
why moist air rises, causing storms. And this pretense saves them from
having to worry about losing their jobs when the public figures out that
they really don't understand what causes storms.
A big part of how they have been able to conceal and obscure this
contradiction has to do with terminology. They use the terms for
gaseous H2O9(g) and vaporous H2O(l) interchangeably. There are any
number of words that they can use to obscure the issue: steam, vapor, evaporate, moist air, condensate etc. So there are any number of
different methods with which they can leave their audience confused.
They realize that when it comes to job security it is better to keep
the public confused thinking the subject is so complex that only an
expert can understand it than it is to educate them and risk revealing
that they really don't understand the mechanics of storms.