Thailand

IS CLIMATE CHANGE MAN-MADE?

2019-02-24T21:29:00.009-08:00

The text of the seminar I presented at Mae Fah Luang University in Thailand in 2009. Some parts I have updated. The original version can be found at https://galinapop.blogspot.com/2009/12/is-global-warming-man-made.html

The Sun and us

The Earth's upper atmosphere receives an average of 174 petawatts (1.74 ×10¹⁷W) of incoming solar radiation [1]. A part of it is reflected, so the Earth's surface gets 1.2 ×10¹⁷W. The total worldwide energy, used by humans (oil, coal, gas, nuclear, and renewable) supply is 1.8 ×10¹³ W [2]. That says that the rapport is ~ 1/7000. Our participation in Earth's energy balance is very small. We are too weak for the competition with the Sun.

Experimental data on Global Warming (GW)

Fig. 1 represents the Earth's surface temperature anomaly measured by terrestrial climate stations as a function of time. [1]

Zero anomaly (blue line) represents the average temperature. The temperatures close to average temperature have been from1940 to 1980. From 1880 to 1940 the Earth temperature has been cooler and from 1980 to 2018 has been hotter than average.

Fig.1a Earth temperature measured from the space (NASA).

NASA states: “Unlike the surface-based temperatures,

global temperature measurements of the Earth's lower atmosphere obtained from satellites reveal no definitive warming trend over the past two decades. The slight trend that is in the data actually is mild cooling. The largest fluctuations in the satellite temperature data are not from any man-made activity but from the natural phenomena such as large volcanic eruptions from Mt. Pinatubo, and from El Niño. So, the programs which model global warming in a computer say the temperature of the Earth's lower atmosphere should be going up markedly, but actual measurements of the temperature of the lower atmosphere reveal no such pronounced activity."

Global warming scientists claim that the GW is due to the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the Earth atmosphere, but there is no similarity between the curve of Earth temperature anomaly (Fig 1) and the content of carbon dioxide in the Earth atmosphere (Fig 2).

Between 1940 and 1980, there is a small change in Earth temperature (Fig.1), while carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases 6 times.

Fig. 2 Global fossil carbon emissions 1800–2007.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth%27s_atmosphere#/media/File:Global_Carbon_Emissions.svg)

Terrestrial observations of temperature changes

The GW scientists claim that the Arctic ice is melting. That is true for some years and some parts of the Arctic ice. But sometimes the ice surface coverage is increasing, as it is shown on the NASA photograph. Arctic sea ice up 60 percent in 2013

NASA satellite images show the changing Arctic sea ice coverage from August 2012 (left) to August 2013 (right) -- a growth of about a million square miles. (NASA)

Ice melting may be due to other causes than GW[3]

Reliability of terrestrial measurements data on global warming

Are the data reliable? Not all of them.

Brooks investigated Historical Climate Network (USHCN) sites in Indiana and assigned 16% of the sites an ‘excellent’ rating, 59% a ‘good’ rating, 12.5% a ‘fair’ rating, and 12.5% ‘poor’ rating. (May 2007 Purdue University West Lafayette, Indiana)

The conclusion of the paper [5]: “The use of temperature data from poorly sited stations can lead to a false sense of confidence in the robustness of multi-decadal surface air temperature trend assessments”

A more serious problem is that data do not exist for all countries for all periods cited by GW scientists.

But the biggest problem with the US data is that the weather in the US is influenced by El Nino and La Nina [5].

Such an influence exists for all Northern and Southern Americas and Australia, but much less for other countries. On the other hand, other countries may have their own influences (see Golf stream).

The energy balance of the Earth

Fig 3 shows incoming and outgoing radiation

The Greenhouse effect presented in the right low corner of figure 3

Fig 4. The solar radiation spectrum shows water and CO₂ absorptions bands. Water absorption bands are much stronger than that of CO_2. The importance of water vapor is frequently not taken into consideration by environmental activists and by the media.

Climate change

Radiative forcing

In climate science, radiative forcing or climate forcing [6] is defined as the difference of insolation (sunlight) absorbed by the Earth and energy radiated back to space. Typically, radiative forcing is quantified at the tropopause in units of watts per square meter of the Earth's surface. A positive forcing (more incoming energy) warms the system, while negative forcing (more outgoing energy) cools it. Causes of radiative forcing include among other changes in insolation and the concentrations of radiatively active gases, commonly known as greenhouse gases and aerosols.

Fig 5. The "radiative forcing" (that is the additional energy sent to the ground) for all the modifications induced by the man that influence the energy exchanges in the atmosphere (in Watts per square meter).

The total radiative forcing is positive and equal to 2.3 +- 0.9 (W m-2)

The solar constant is the amount of incoming solar electromagnetic radiation per unit area that would be incident on a plane perpendicular to the rays has a value 1361 W/m². The total net anthropogenic (manmade) radiation forcing is 2.3 W/m² (Fig.5). The man-made radiation [2.3 (W.m-²) /1361 (W.m-²) = 0.0017 of solar constant] is very small compared to the Sun radiation.

Two important causes of the Earth temperature change are Greenhouse Gases increasing the Earth temperature and Earth Albedo lowering it.

Greenhouse effect (GHE)

Gas molecules absorb energy emitted by Sun or Earth and emit it. Part of emitted energy goes up to space, another part of energy goes down back to the Earth heating it. This effect presented in the right low corner of figure 3 is named the Greenhouse effect (GHE) [7]

GHE gases content in atmosphere:

water vapor (H₂O), 0.40% over full atmosphere, typically 1%-4% at surface

carbon dioxide (CO₂) 0.038%

methane (CH₂) 0.000179%

nitrous oxide (N₂O) 2x10−6%

ozone (O3) 0% to 7x10−6%

The distinction between the greenhouse effect and real greenhouses can be found at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect

Excerpt

“The term "greenhouse effect" can be a source of confusion as actual greenhouses do not function in the same way as the atmospheric greenhouse effect does. A greenhouse is usually built of glass, plastic, or plastic-type material. It heats up mainly because the sun warms the ground inside it, which then warms the air in the greenhouse. The air continues to heat because it is confined within the greenhouse, unlike the environment outside the greenhouse where warm air near the surface rises and mixes with cooler air aloft. This can be demonstrated by opening a small window near the roof of a greenhouse: the temperature will drop considerably Thus greenhouses work by a different mechanism, primarily by preventing convective cooling”.

There are papers on GHE, pro, and contra [8-9]. The discussion shows that the large temperature increases predicted by many computer models are unphysical and inconsistent with results obtained by basic measurements. Skepticism is warranted when considering computer-generated projections of global warming that cannot even predict existing observations.

Earth Albedo

Albedo is the fraction of solar energy (shortwave radiation) reflected from the Earth back into space. Earth Albedo grew after 1998 showing a cooling period. Change to the Earth's albedo is a powerful driver of climate. When the planet's reflectivity increases, more incoming sunlight is reflected back into space. This has a cooling effect on global temperatures. Conversely, a drop of albedo warms the planet.

Fig 6: Albedo anomalies reconstructed from ISCCP satellite data (black) and Earthshine-observed albedo anomalies (blue). The right-hand vertical scale shows negative radiative forcing (e.g. - cooling). One of the causes of the albedo rising is deforestation.

Albedo anomaly is changing strongly from one year to another (0 to 7W/sq m).

Historic climate change

Fig 7. Historic climate change (millions of years ago)

The historic climate change [11] shows that we are in a cool period and warming:

today Earth temp ~14 C

Fig 8. Historic climate change (thousands of years ago)

Climate Fluctuations in Our Present-Day Interglacial Period

Thousands of years ago

18,000 years ago - The climate begins to warm
15,000 years ago - Advance of glaciers halts and sea levels begin to rise
10,000 years ago - Ice Age megafauna goes extinct
8,000 years ago - Bering Strait land bridge becomes drowned, cutting of migration of men and animals.
6,000 years ago - The Holocene Maximum warm period

The basic processes that determine Earth climate

1. Astronomical Earth parameters

2. Oceans

3. Greenhouse Effect

4. Earth black body radiation

Astronomical Earth parameters

Astronomer Milutin Milankovitch (1879 – 1958) [13] studied the variations in the shape of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun and the tilt of the Earth’s axis. He theorized that these cyclical changes and the interactions among them were responsible for the long-term climate. His cycles of the climate change are roughly 100,000; 26,000 and 11,000 years.

More recent evidence of climatic variations
The eruption of the Toba supervolcano on Sumatra (Indonesia), 70,000 to 75,000 years ago reduced the average global temperature by 5 degrees Celsius for several years and may have triggered an ice age. The simulation of this event showed that the climate recovered over a few decades [14].

A much smaller but similar effect occurred after the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 [15], island between Java and Sumatra in Indonesia when global temperatures fell for about 5 years in a row. Average global temperatures fell by as much as 1.2 degrees Celsius in the year following the eruption. Weather patterns continued to be chaotic for years and temperatures did not return to normal until 1888.

Earth has recovered after these two catastrophes.

Processes stabilizing Earth’s temperature

The basic items that stabilize the Earth climate are:

1. Water (oceans, clouds, water vapors)

2. Earth blackbody radiation

An excellent paper “Global Energy Transfer, Atmosphere and Ocean Circulation, Climate “ [16] discusses the stabilizing effect of water on climate

Excerpt: “Water has a substantially higher heat capacity than rocks (by a factor of five), and therefore the oceans can store much more heat than the land surfaces of the planet. Because the oceans also cover about 70% of the Earth's surface and are on average 3.8 km deep, they are the major heatsink of the planet and serve as temperature buffers for the ocean/atmosphere system. The bulk of the thermal energy at the Earth's surface is stored in the oceans. The large thermal inertia of the oceans is a key factor in stabilizing Earth's climate.”

Earth radiation. The Stefan–Boltzmann law

This law states that the amount of thermal radiation emitted per second per unit area of the surface of a black body is directly proportional to the fourth power of its absolute temperature. That is

W = σ x T⁴

where W is the total energy radiated per unit area per unit time, T is the temperature in Kelvin, and σ = 5.67×10^-8W m^-2 K^-4is the Stefan–Boltzmann constant.

If we suppose that the Earth temp T = 14 C= 287 K increases by 1C to T=15 C = 288 K, the increase in emitted energy will be 1.4%.
(W1-Wo)/Wo=1.4% is a big energetic change.

“Scientists and skeptics”

There is a site which considers that all scientists are for global warming, but in reality, some of them are skeptics [17]

There are 75 questions of skeptics and ‘science” response to them.

I think if someone can put 75 questions to a problem, we can consider that the problem is too complex to be solved.

Global Warming Petition [18]

This petition has been signed by over 31,000 American scientists

• We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."

Conclusions

There are many natural influences on the Earth's climate. The influence of carbon dioxide only one of them and it is not the strongest one. However, Earth has temperature stabilizing factors by means of the water balance, the Earth radiation and others.

Global warming is most probably due to natural fluctuations, it is not Man-made. We have to study more thoroughly the climate change in order to understand its causes and effect.

The most urgent man-made problem is pollution. We can and must solve it.

References

1.Incoming Sunlight, https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/EnergyBalance/page2.php

2. Annual global energy consumption https://www.google.com/search?q=total+worldwide+energy%2C+used+by+humans

3. “Documentation of Uncertainties and Biases Associated with Surface Temperature Measurement Sites for Climate Change Assessment.”

http://climate.colostate.edu/pdfs/Pielke-etal_BAMS_Jun07.pdf

4. El Niño Advisory

https://www.climate.gov/enso

6. Radiative_forcing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing

7. Greenhouse_effect

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect

8. The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect

https://history.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

9. Top Pro & Con Arguments

https://climatechange.procon.org/?print=true

10. Earth Albedo
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/earth-albedo

11. Paleoclimatology - The Study of Ancient Climates

http://www.lakepowell.net/sciencecenter/paleoclimate.htm

12. Climate Fluctuations in Our Present-Day Interglacial Period

Thousands of years ago

http://www.lakepowell.net/sciencecenter/paleoclimate.htm

13. Astronomer Milutin Milankovitch (1879 – 1958)

http://www.seed.slb.com/subcontent.aspx?id=4070

14. Robock, A., C.M. Ammann, L. Oman, D. Shindell, S. Levis, and G. Stenchikov (2009)]. [ "Did the Toba volcanic eruption of ~74k BP produce widespread glaciation?". Journal of Geophysical Research 114: D10107

15. 1883 eruption of Krakatoa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1883_eruption_of_Krakatoa

16. Global Energy Transfer, Atmosphere and Ocean Circulation, Climate http://www.indiana.edu/~geol105/1425chap4.htm

17. Global Warming & ClimateChange Myths,

https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php

18. Global Warming Petition

http://www.petitionproject.org/

Posted by Galina Popovici at 9:29 PM No comments:

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Thai traditional wediing

2012-12-02T05:27:00.000-08:00

I came to Thailand for the second time on Nov 13, 2012. I work in Phys Dept of the Naresuan University in Phitsanulok.

Thai Wedding 2

One of our colleagues was getting married on November 24 in the neighboring Phetchabun Province. His bride is a Ph.D. student in environmental science. Our Dept organized a trip to the wedding for
all foreigners working in the Department: four Spanish students and me. Two Thai professors from our Dept came with us.
I described a Thai wedding when I was in Thailand the first time.
http://galinapop.blogspot.com/2010/01/thai-weddings.html

The wedding I described then was not the traditional Thai wedding. Such a Western-type wedding is popular in the upper crust society.

Now I saw a traditional wedding

We arrived at the wedding around 9 am. The groom was waiting on the road near the bride’s house.

The bride and her mom came to invite the groom to the house.

At the house entrance, the bride washed the groom's feet.

After that, they entered the house.

The two families started to count the money the groom pays for his bride.

The groom and bride did not participate in the money numbering. They were sitting in the back. There was a lot of money, maybe 1 million baht or even more, as I saw it. (30 baht =1 dollar). Probably it was his one year salary. It is my guess. I do not know the real number. Later I was told that it might be a million, ten million or even 100 million baht, a one year salary or even ten-year salary. The groom's parents usually help their son with the payment.

After the money was numbered, the groom gave gold jewelry to the bride, a lot of it.

Next, two crowns made of white string were put on their heads.

They prayed for approximately one hour together with his best man and the bride's maid.

After the prayer the groom and bride had to go to this pink room.

The feast started when the groom and bride emerged from the pink room.

The traditional Thai wedding is very similar to the Jacob and Rachel (Leah) wedding described in the Old Testament. That means the tradition survived more than three thousand years. Most probably that happened because tradition has a lot of common sense.

Such a wedding is practiced in other countries here around as well. I asked a Chinese colleague about their wedding. She told me that it is the very same. I wondered why some Chinese families preferred boys when one child was allowed by the government. Sometimes they killed the first girl hoping that the next child will be a boy. Her response was: “ You grow a girl, educate her and give her to a man. You receive money, that's all, whereas the boy transmits the family name and tradition farther. In addition, he takes care of his old parents. That is much more important than the lump sum received for the girl."

I asked another colleague if a beautiful and well-educated girl can make a fortune marrying, receiving money and divorcing many times. He laughed: “It cannot happen many times. It will be very difficult for her to be married the second time”.

Acknowledgments

2010-07-22T15:35:00.002-07:00

I am happy to recognize the people who made my life in Thailand so pleasant and fulfilling.

I am grateful to Professor Judi Davenport. She worked in Mae Fah Luang University of Thailand a year before me. I went to Thailand on her advice and thanks to her help.

I owe special thanks to Professor Siriwat Wongsiri, Dean of the School of Science, for his permanent support and help.

I greatly appreciate the collaboration of Professors Darunee and Suthee Wattanasiriwech and their students.

I would like to express many thanks to Professor Hansa Sanguannoi. My knowledge about Thailand would be much reduced without her attention and help. She took me on many trips and told me about Thai history, people and culture.

My wonderful friends and neighbors Adele and Scott MacLeod, instructors of the English language from Canada, shared with me much of their free time and made my life so joyful. I want to express my love for them. I did not feel lonely thanks to their permanent presence and interest.

I appreciated very much the permanent help and friendship of my colleagues Dr. Piyanuch Siriwat (Nuchi), Dr. Teerawit Waratrujiwong (O), Dr. Machima Chotipunvitayakul (Joy), Dr. Patchara Punyamoonwongsa (Joy), Dr. Piyanate Chuychai and Dr. Amorn Owatworakit (Amun-Ra).

Finally, I express my warmest love for Pooh.

Tourism in Thailand, Doi Tung 1

2010-03-21T17:05:00.000-07:00

--> --> --> -->Doi Tung, the Princess Mother’s residence

-->The Princess Mother was a great person. I wrote about her in my earlier posting. Our university was opened in her memory after her death.
She came from a humble family. She met the Thai prince in the USA. They married. The prince eventually became the king of Thailand, but his life was short. After the king’s death, their young son became king, and he remains the king today. The Princess Mother worked for charities after her husband’s death. Her main goal was to eradicate opium production in Northern Thailand. In the Doi Tung Museum is written a nice compliment to her: “Aristocratic by deeds, not by birth". This portrait characterizes her well. -->

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My young friends and office neighbors, O and Joy, showed me the Doi Tung royal villa, the former residence of the Princess Mother, as well as the site of her botanical garden. This place is 40 km North of Chang Rai in the mountains. I do not know words that can describe that amazing place, but I hope that you can see some of its astonishing beauty in the pictures below. Our university will build a similar botanical garden in the next five years.

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The Princess Mother’s residence

Buddhism in Thailand II

2010-03-17T02:40:00.002-07:00

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Suan Mokkh Buddhist Retreat

I returned after 12 days of living in the Buddhist meditation retreat for foreigners at Suan Mokkh monastery.

http://www.suanmokkh-idh.org/

I found this greeting on my door.

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I was very impressed. My dear friends Adele and Scott made this surprise for me. I thank them from all my heart.

Life in the retreat
The monastery and retreat were founded by the monk Buddhadasa (slave of the Buddha) who introduced a new explanation of Buddhism in

Thailand

, a “scientific” one. It states that there is no God, no soul, no reincarnation, just one life only. Nevertheless, Buddhadasa told his monks that he was the reincarnation of the Buddha in modern times. This version of Buddhism was not accepted in the country.
The life was quite difficult and tiresome, as you can see from the retreat schedule:

04.00 *** Wake up *** = Monastery bell
04.30Morning Reading
04.45 Sitting meditation
05.15 Yoga / Exercise
07.00 *** Dhamma talk & Sitting meditation
08.00 Breakfast & Chores
10.00 *** Dhamma talk
11.00 Walking or standing meditation
11.45 *** Sitting meditation
12.30 Lunch & chores
14.30 *** Meditation instruction & Sitting meditation
15.30 Walking or standing meditation
16.15 *** Sitting meditation
17.00 *** Chanting & Loving Kindness meditation
18.00 Tea & hot springs
19.30 *** Sitting meditation
20.00 Group walking meditation
20.30 *** Sitting meditation
21.00 *** Bedtime
(the gates will be closed at 21.15)
21.30 *** LIGHTS OUT

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This is my room

We slept on cement beds and had only a straw mat and a wooden pillow.

Meditation hall

Our dorm from outside

our dorm inside

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There were two vegetarian meals per day, very tasty, all you can eat, so I was never hungry.
We were not permitted to talk (absolute silence), to leave the retreat grounds, or to read anything besides the works of Buddhadasa in our free time.
Dhamma talk was mostly a brainwash about Buddhadasa’s new version of Buddhism.

People

Who comes to this retreat ? Different people from many European countries, the US, and

Canada

. The majority were young, and there were more men than women.
On the last day, when we were permitted to speak, I asked two women who came for the third time why they come. One of them told me that her work on computers necessitates a lot of concentration. Meditation helps her mind rest, and after living at the retreat she can continue her work successfully for a few months. Another one told me that she came for silence. She works with people, talks all day long, and frequently has to respond to the same stupid questions again and again. Many women came because of depression. Their sad faces told how unhappy they are. One girl came hoping to quit smoking. Not too many inmates were really interested in Buddhism. There were 126 people enrolled. Half of them left at different times, and only 62 remained to the end.

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Sorry for the bad picture. It was very early, before the dawn, and there was not enough light.

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Buddhism

I will write what I understood about the Buddha’s teachings during this retreat. I am not sure that it is correct, because only Buddhadasa's books were at the retreat, and none of the Buddha’s, though the Buddha was cited in some books and in songs, and monks told the Buddha stories.
Buddha lived in the forest, having nothing but a piece of fabric with which to wrap himself. He ate one vegetarian meal per day and meditated all the time. After 49 days of fasting, he had an Enlightenment. He proposed the Eightfold path and five commandments. I talked about them in the first blog on “Buddhism”. The idea was that there had been much suffering in the many rebirths he had had. That can be stopped and a person can go to nirvana, permanent happiness if he or she lives the right life in harmony with nature.
“Do not take any breath.” Breath in Pali, Thai and Indian (prana) means both breath and life because life starts with the first breath and ends with the last one. “Do not accumulate”; one meal a day given by others is enough to sustain your body. The Buddha called his many followers “beggars”, and the word monk in Thai means beggar.

Could such a religion be practiced in

Russia

or other countries with a cold climate? Absolutely not. There, people need houses and substantial meals in the winter. One has to work hard to have them and has to accumulate food and clothes for the winter. Sometimes it is wise to accumulate more because the winter may be harder than usual. That is the beginning of materialism. Some people cannot stop when they have started to accumulate. I think that may explain the difference of character between Northern and Southern people. In the North, the weather is harsh. Here, nature is friendly, and anyone can live as the Buddha lived. Try to imagine the Buddha in the Siberian winter.

“Do not take any breath.” There was a “scorpion bin” in our dorm. A nun showed us how to catch a scorpion and put it in the bin. Such an attitude could not have been widely accepted in Siberia, where people relied very much on hunting, at least historically. Successful hunting necessitates a strong, aggressive character. A Thai who has two fruits can easily give you one. He can go to a tree and take two or more pieces of fruit. The fruit trees are everywhere. I am not sure that a hunter will give a hare to someone if he has two. He may not be so sure that he can catch two more.

This behavioral difference may exist in everyday life, but this philosophy does not hold when life-threatening conditions arise. During three years of Pol Pot’s rule in Cambodia, 21% of the population (two million out of over 8 million) died from political executions, famine, and forced labor. In the USSR Stalin was responsible for the deaths of 30 to 60 million people (depending on the cited source) during his nearly 30-year rule. The results are similar. Cambodia is

Thailand

’s neighbor and has very nice weather. So the weather can explain only a part of human behavior, but probably not the most important one.

Mindfulness

One should think only about this moment and not think about the past or the future, carefully take into attention what he or she is doing now, take into attention every detail.

Meditation

There was a lot of meditation. Meditation is an unfortunate translation of the Pali word in English. Pali was the Buddha's language. The Pali word means the transformation of mind, training for better concentration. The exercise intends to obtain the state of mind with no one thought in the brain, something contrary to the English meaning of meditation.

During meditation, you can listen to birds, concentrate on listening, and not permit any wandering thought to reach your mind. You can concentrate on your breathing, on walking, on doing anything. All of these will be a meditation if you do not permit any thought to enter your head and pay attention to the present moment only.
A monk told us terrible things about breathing meditation. Breathing meditation is divided into four levels. Each level is divided further into four steps, for a total of 16 steps. The first 4 steps involve taking long, deep breaths. This is intended to calm you. The next four steps involve short shallow breathing. The result is the state of happiness-- much better than sex, the monk. told us Some monks are addicted to it, and some even die from it.

The shallow breathing does not bring enough oxygen to the brain. Maybe that has a very big effect on the brain. I searched the Internet to see if the monk was telling the truth. I found that a small amount of research has been done on breathing meditation. The serious research employing brain MRIs has just begun.

The monk told us that while doing exercise we can change our mode of breathing. He did not say if it would be better or worthwhile, and we did not have the right to ask. So I did not do any special breathing. I left my breathing the same as mother nature gave it to me.

Another monk told us that many young people come to Buddhist temples in the

. Unfortunately, many new US Buddhists have psychological problems, and some are drug addicts. I think they may come to learn how to exchange their expensive drugs for free oxygen breathing.

I did a hearing meditation instead of breathing. At 4:30 am, when we usually started our program, only roosters could be heard. At dawn, many other birds usually joined the chorus. So there was no problem.

The mind does not like to be empty. When I was listening to birds with closed eyes and breathing normally, some times I would see pictures rapidly changing one into another. Something similar to Salvador Dali. In the breathing theory, it was the third level, before the Enlightenment, which is the fourth level. I was scared, and every time opened my eyes to stop it. I think a kind of hallucination happens during the third level of breathing meditation. The meditation theory says that at this level one can see pictures even with open eyes.

Enlightenment

The Buddha has it at the fourth level of breathing.

Archimedes had it in the bath.

Newton was sitting in his garden and saw an apple falling from the tree. That was the start of the universal law of gravitation.

Mendeleev saw his periodic table in a dream.

Marina Vlady wrote that Vladimir Vysotsky waked up sometimes in the night and wrote the song he had dreamt.

The relaxed mind the common element of all of these examples. So you do not need to meditate, just relax.

Death

One day our joyful monk was very happy. He told us: “You are very lucky. Today a doctor who came to live in the monastery died. We will keep him in the monastery for three days. After that, we will put him on a bonfire. It will be on the day you leave the retreat. So you can go and see all the procedures and take many photographs to show your friends and family. The doctor will be sitting on firewood, so you will be able to see very well how his flesh explodes and burns."

After two days the monk said: “Bad news. The doctor passed away but did not die. Now he is in hospital. So you cannot take photographs.” Later a nun told us that the doctor died. Now people wanting to take photographs would have to wait two more days because the monastery keeps corpses for three days.

On the last day, we went to pay our respects to the doctor. His casket was installed in a big room and was closed. His daughter was there. She was all smiles when we entered as if we had come to a Christmas party. We all got down on our knees and bowed. Our monk said: “Now you know what death means to Buddhists.”

Buddhadasa died in 1996. His sculpture is in a glass box. He looks like he is alive.

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There was no Buddha portrait in the monastery. Someone donated the Buddha sculpture to the monastery. Buddhadasa installed it in the park. It is difficult to see it in this picture. It the white sculpture at the far left.

My Thai happy birthday

2010-02-22T02:43:00.000-08:00

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My Thai happy birthday

Our school organized my birthday party at a restaurant on the river in Chiang Rai, and I was invited. It was such a great present. The party was organized a little bit earlier because my birthday is during the exam week.

I did not tell my birth date to anyone, but they looked in my application for the job.

This is the way the Thai celebrate their birthdays. Friends organize a party as a present. The richer Thai usually invite monks for morning service. The not so rich go early in the morning to the place where monks are gathered and give them food. It is considered good to make a donation. I made a donation to our university’s scholarship fund.

Buddhist religion in Thailand

2010-02-20T20:33:00.000-08:00

Buddhist and other religions in Thailand

95% of Thai declare that they are Buddhist. 5% are pagans, mostly tribe people living in mountains in North and Northwest of Thailand.

Buddha lived in the 5th century before Christ.

“There is the Eightfold Path that is at the core of the Buddhist beliefs:

1. Right View. The right way to think about life is to see the world through the eyes of the Buddha--with wisdom and compassion.

2. Right Thought. We are what we think. Clear and kind thoughts build good, strong characters.

3. Right Speech. By speaking kind and helpful words, we are respected and trusted by everyone.

4. Right Conduct. No matter what we say, others know us from the way we behave. Before we criticize others, we should first see what we do ourselves.

5. Right Livelihood. This means choosing a job that does not hurt others. The Buddha said, "Do not earn your living by harming others. Do not seek happiness by making others unhappy."

6. Right Effort. A worthwhile life means doing our best at all times and having goodwill toward others. This also means not wasting effort on things that harm ourselves and others.

7. Right Mindfulness. This means being aware of our thoughts, words, and deeds.

8. Right Concentration. Focus on one thought or object at a time.

Finally, we have the five precepts, much like Judaism and Christianity's Ten Commandments.

The precepts are:

1. No killing Respect for life (comm 6 in the Bible)
2. No stealing Respect for others' property (8th and 10th in the Bible)
3. No sexual misconduct Respect for our pure nature (7th in the Bible)
4. No lying Respect for honesty ( 9th in the Bible)
5. No intoxicants Respect for a clear mind”

In the Bible, there are Ten commandments

In Buddhism, there are not included four first commandments from the Bible about God, because there is no God in Buddhism since Buddha is not a God.
Buddhists believe that there was not a Creator. The World has no beginning, no end.

About stealing and adultery in Buddhism are two percepts (2 and 3) but in the Bible are three commandments:

SEVEN: 'You shall not commit adultery.'

EIGHT: 'You shall not steal.'

TEN: 'You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.'

There is no Commandment about intoxication in the Bible.

Jesus Christ unified the first four commandments in one:

'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind

And he also unified the next six commandments in one: “ Love your neighbor as yourself”

Using Jesus Christ 's pattern we can unify Five Buddhist Percepts in one:

“Respect yourself and your neighbor”.

May be that this teaching about respect for yourself is helping these people to be so honest good and forgiving.

Buddha says that people living by his teaching will enter nirvana, a state with no suffering, but in the later writings nirvana was declared as a state of permanent happiness.

So there is not much philosophical difference between Christianity and Buddhism, I thought.

I told this idea to Hansa.

- That is so superficial, she responded. Buddhism is not only in percepts. Five precepts are common to all religions. Buddhism is the Eightfold Path showing to you how to achieve the state of nirvana, a state with no suffering.
Hansa advised me to go to monastery to learn about Buddhism.
A few of my colleagues were monks or nuns for two weeks or a month. Some of them went again and again for short periods of time. I also decided to try to understand Buddhism from the inside. So I will go to live like a nun for two weeks in a monastery in Southern Thailand. I will go on February 27th and will be back on March 12th.

A few days ago I was invited to the English Dept party. There are mostly Westerners from English speaking countries. One of them told me: "You know, you saved me. I told to my colleagues that I go to a Buddhist monastery in April. They said that I am Luny, Lunatic. Now when they found out that you also go, they do not say me Luny anymore."

Religion practice

There is a big difference in practicing religions.

In West, Protestant and Catholic communities meet for service, have Sunday schools for children and take care of old and ill. Nothing of that is in the Eastern, Orthodox, Church. In the Orthodox church people usually meet for prayer. Priest frequently does not know his people, since he is paid by the state, not by people. So the western church is more practical, while in the Eastern church is more mysticism.

Buddhist practice of religion is very different. There are no priests. There is no service. People do not meet at the Temple. A man who wants to be a Buddhist can become a monk for the time of his choice: for a few weeks, months or for the whole life. Monks live in a monastery, in the morning they go in a certain place in the city where people bring food for them. They eat once a day. Sometimes they do service in people's houses on different occasions. They try to apply the teaching of the eightfold path in their lives.
People going by a temple frequently enter it, go to the altar, get on their knees in front of Buddha, bow and pray.

Buddhist temples

Buddhist temples are everywhere. Only the altar with sitting Buddha has three walls. All other sides are usually open. Pillars keep the roof.

This is our University Buddhist temple. It is simple and beautiful

Here you can see that the sides of the temple are open.

600 years old temple. In front are remains of the old fortress walls

Frequently there is a monastery in the temple yard.

Some times there is a Stupa near the temple. It is a building where the priest's remains are deposited. Stupa has no doors.

Very old stupa

All temples are heavily ornamented. Everywhere is carved wood.

Chinese architectural influence is very strong. The dragons and other mystic animals are in all temples and nearby.

A very important Buddhist idea is Enlightment, Illumination. It is something as the Newton apple. The idea of Eightfold Path came to Buddha after his 49 day lenten. The word Buddha means Enlightened. Therefore, there is a sculptured torch on the Buddha head representing the Enlightment. But some times on the Buddha head is lotus, representing purity.

torch

lotus bud

Lotus bud on the head and flames around

The influence of earlier religions is frequent.

I visited a temple near Chang Mai. It has two altars. One with Buddha and another one with a Thai king who lived appr 1000 years ago and succeeded to unify Northern provinces. He was a great warrior. He liked rooster battles and battles on the elephants. There are many roosters and elephants sculptures around the temple. People pray to Buddha and after that go to pray to the king. There was possible to buy some kind of indulgences, just pieces of paper. I was told if I buy them my wishes become true.

Buddha's altar

Emperor's altar

Emperor's portrait on the wall of temple

Roosters

The elephants are also revered. Their sculptures are in many temples or around the temples.

There are big drums in many Buddhist temples. If you hit the drum your Saint will hear you and you can tell him your wishes. In some temples you can put a coin in order to hit the drum, but in the majority it is free. These pagan practices have nothing in common with the Buddha teaching.

Pagans in Thailand

Pagans believe in spirits: spirits of water, forest, trees, houses and so on.

There are two trees on my way to the office where people put food and drinks on the table every day.

One morning I saw two students putting food and drinks on the table. I asked them what is the name of their religion. Girls told me that they bring food to spirits who live in the trees. The third student who was going by stopped and told to me: "You should not ask people about their religion. Religion is a very private matter."

Thai people

2010-02-20T01:51:00.000-08:00

Thai people

Time is not money. Money is not the most important thing in one's life.
For Thai people, time is not money. You can be late, can not finish your work on time and so on, and nothing happens to you. You will be forgiven. Because of that, there is no stress and competition in the workplace. However, I see people working all the time. In our canteen, owners of food shops come at 6 am and leave after 5 pm. They charge 60 cents for a meal consisting of rice, meat, and vegetables. I don't know how much remains for them after they pay for the meat, produce and rent for their place.

They are hard-working, but never in a hurry.

For a Westerner, it has drawbacks sometimes. When my home internet connection did not work, I called and was told that the reparation would be done the next week. I said that it is too much to wait until the next week. I went with one of my colleagues to the IT service. He talked there and the IT people promised that someone would go to the guest buildings after work and do the reparation. When I came home I had an internet connection. Later I understood that is not correct Thai behavior. Thai people would wait until the next week and would not push, as I did.

Honesty
I have never seen such honest people. They do not try to deceive you or steal.

Once a week in the morning we leave empty bottles for the water with money on the top of the bottle. When we come back, we find bottles with water. No one has ever stolen money.

I left my laundry basket near my door with payment for the last time. The next day I found everything clean and ironed when I came home. I pay the bill the next time. I had never seen the woman doing this work until one event. I owed her 94 baht. I put 100b in the basket. When I came home she was waiting for me at the door, showing me the bill in her hand. I didn't understand what she wanted. I gave her 6 b more and what? She insisted. I looked at the bill and saw that it was a 500b bill. The 500b and 100b bills are very similar, with the same portrait of the king, only slightly different in color. In the morning, in a hurry, I had left 500 instead of 100. She gave me the 500 back, took 100, and left.

One day. one of my colleagues asked me why I always keep my balcony door open? Do I use the air conditioner? I did not know that my door was open. I opened the door some time ago, drew the curtain over, and forgot. My apartment is on the ground level, so anyone could have entered. The university is in a park. All the time in the park there were people gathering leaves or cutting branches on the trees. They certainly saw that the door was open, but no one entered.

In a shop, I wanted to buy a jacket. I asked for the price. It was 750b. I tried, liked it, and paid 750b. The shop woman gave me back 50b. I asked my colleague why she did it. The response was that the jacked cost 700b. She had told me 750b in case I wanted to bargain. Then the price would be reduced to 700b. It was a private shop. I think in many countries no one would worry, bargaining or not, and would just take the 750b.

Tips

Tips are not expected but accepted.
Not all times, however. There is a bus here that goes through the university and outside to the market and food store. One day I did my shopping and had a big heavy bag. The driver did not leave me at the stop but brought me directly to the guest house. I tried to pay him two tickets (20b) instead of one, but he did not accept it.

Only once was I asked for a tip, but not directly. We went rafting on a mountain river. There live tribes that speak their own languages. Many of them know Thai and some of them English. The villages make a living by selling handicrafts to tourists. We rafted with two boys, both from the Lisu tribe. One of them knew English well. He talked all the time, telling stories about how poor and hungry he is and how small his salary is. Not all of his stories were true. If he came from such a poor family, where did he learn English? Nevertheless, we gave him a tip. Anyway, it was much milder than my experience in Egypt. In Egypt, our guide told us that we should not give tips to our drivers because she had already tipped all of them. When we got on the carriage, the driver told us: “The tip is 1 euro”. At the end of the trip, I gave the driver $1. He got very angry and shouted at me: “You did not listen to me! I said one euro! I will not take it. Give me one euro!” I borrowed 1 euro from another tourist and gave it to the driver. It was the price to leave the carriage.

No racism

Here in the North live many tribes and people from neighboring countries. They came here when there were hard times in their countries. Many Chinese came at different times. Here refugee camps were organized for Vietnamese during the war and for Cambodians during the time of Pol Pot. Many refugees remained here even when they could return to their countries.

Politeness

One Westerner told me the following right when I arrived:

- Never ask Thai people for anything. They are so polite! They never will tell you “NO” even if it is inconvenient for them.

I thought about it after that. Can they forgive anything? I doubt that. In my life, sometimes I have told myself that I will forgive everything, no matter what. But I could not. At some point, I could not bear anymore and left. How can the Thai solve such a problem?
I asked the Westerner about the secret the Thai know and I don't.
“There is no secret,” said the Westerner, “They just avoid you after that. That why I told you: Do not ask for anything!”

I think he is wrong. They are just normal people like all of us. They forgive you for the small mistakes and may avoid you for the bigger ones. Any person coming to another country makes mistakes due to cultural differences. I think I have made mistakes, but I have not seen that people are avoiding me. Though some may be.

Semiconductors. Thailand and Russia

2010-02-18T03:07:00.000-08:00

Semiconductors (s/c) Thailand and Russia

Grows of s/c production in Thailand

I needed these data for my lecture. I googled “Thai semiconductor production” and tens of semiconductor companies popped up. Many Japanese and American companies have s/c fabs in Thailand. That means jobs for production, research, and development, i. e. interesting high tech jobs, well paid. Thailand is the second, after Japan, country in the world producing hard disk drives for computers.

Of curiosity, I made the same research for Russia. I felt ill after that.

Russia has 4 s/c fabs: Zelenograd, Fryazino, Voronej, Novosibirsk. The most advanced is Mikron ( Zelenograd)

“Impressive progress is being made in Russia's semiconductor segment, and within three to five years Russia could be only one or two generations behind the ITRS, boldly predicted Alexander Kalinin, deputy chairman, Russian Federal Fund for Electronics Development on Europe's Industry Strategy Symposium
“This has occurred despite the fact that semiconductor manufacturing has been less fundamental to the Russian economy (representing just 0.01% of the Russian economy) than to the world economy, since most of the Soviet industry has been government-oriented with hardly any commercial chip design, and has been using 15-20-year-old equipment, he explained. A new $1 billion government strategy for 2007-2011 aims to improve design infrastructure and product development and upgrade existing facilities to 200mm/0.18µm, plus construct a new 300mm/90nm-65nm, 10,000 WPM fab (location TBD) that will require at least another $1 billion in purely private investment.”
“Eventually the Russian government plans to invest $30 million in ten centers like the Elves Design Centre in Zelenograd (near Moscow), which is mass-producing multichip 0.25µm cores with some 25 million transistors on 12.5x12.4mm silicon, Kalinin said. A national mask facility now using 365nm lithography expects to adopt 248nm and 193nm lithography, utilizing phase shift mask and optical proximity correction. Investments of $30 million (government) and $200 million (private) in Russia's Mikron Corp. are for 0.18µm small-scale manufacturing and joint partnerships, including two million SIM cards/month.”

Russians work now on 4 inch Si wafers, while in America 12-inch wafers are used for a few years and Intel is developing now 15-inch technology. Americans work on 0.095 and develop 0.065 µm technology, while Russia uses 0.365 µm.

Now compare Russia and Thailand. The first University in Russia was opened in St Petersburg by Peter the great in 1720th. The first University in Thailand was opened 100 years ago. A great Russian scientist A. F. Ioffe was among the beginners of the semiconductor research in the word. His students Goriunova, Kolomiets, Tuchkevich were the world renowned scientists. How Russia lost all this glory and now is years behind not only of America, but even behind of Thailand? Some time later I will write the response to this question.

Opium Museum

2010-02-17T07:31:00.000-08:00

Opium Museum

Hansa, her son Albert and me went to Golden Triangle to visit Hall of Opium.

In this photograph you see three countries ( Golden Triangle) having a common border on the river Mekong. I am taking the photograph from Thailand. On the left is Burma, on the right is Laos. Two big buildings you see in Burma and Laos are casinos. Gambling is not allowed in Thailand. So people go to gamble to these two countries.

A short distance from here is the Opium Museum. It is a huge building. I did not find a good place to photograph the whole building, so I photographed only parts of it.

The trees in the picture below cover the central part of the building.

Opium history starts with human history. Opium was found in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Europe. In the museum, the fall of China Empire was explained by the opium addiction of Chinese people. In the 17th and 18th centuries, opium was brought by English ships in big quantities from India to China. China had two opium wars ( in 1839-42 and 1856-60 )
http://www.wsu.edu:8001/~dee/CHING/OPIUM.HTM
Both were lost to the English Empire. An agreement was signed permitting England to bring opium in unlimited quantities with no duty. As a result, at the beginning of the 20th century, in China were 14 million opium addicts from a total of 400 million. One of 30 people was an opium addict.

Communist rule after WWII eradicated opium addiction. There was no word about methods used by Mao for this action.

Opium was used very much during wars. It was given to wounded soldiers as a pain reliever. It was usually smoked. At the beginning of the 20th-century German company, Bayer purified opium and made it injectable and named the new drug “morphine”. Injected morphine works much faster than smoked opium but it is very addictive. Bayer purified it even better hoping to do less addictive drugs. A new drug was named “Heroine” ( for soldiers – heroes) but the drug was even more addictive.

Now in all countries opium poppy is grown legally under the state supervision for medicine. But in many countries, it is also grown illegally. Afghanistan produces more illegal opium than all other countries together. Illegal production of opium in Afghanistan increased many folds after 2003. Mexico looks almost innocent comparing to Afghanistan.

No beggars in Thailand

2010-02-05T03:40:00.000-08:00

No beggars in Thailand

What I am writing here is valid only for Northern Thailand. In all my stay here I have visited only Northern provinces, Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai.

Last weekend I went with my colleagues to visit Myanmar (Burma) for one day. The Burma border is 60 km from Chiang Rai. Thai people have free entry for one day. Foreigners have to pay $20. When we entered Burma, we were surrounded by beggars. They were very aggressive and not leaving us to go without pay.

I tried to remember if I have seen a beggar in Thailand. I have not seen them. There are no beggars, homeless, alcoholics or drug addicts on the streets. I started to ask people why it happened.

Responses were different.

- Begging is not legal in Thailand. Police may arrest. (But I think that begging is illegal in many countries, but beggars bribe police).

- Here extended families are big, and someone from the family may take care of less fortunate ones.

- Go to Bangkok, there are plenty of beggars. The majority of them are illegal Cambodians. Police arrest them and send home, but they sneak back.

- In Thailand health care is free. In every province, there are free rehabilitation centers, mental hospitals, and shelters.

-Not because we are good and they are bad. They are not bad, they are poor. Our three neighbors (Burma, Laos, and Cambodia) are poor. They come here to build our roads and homes. Cheap labor. Some come to beg. Burma is a military dictatorship, very corrupt. They do not take care of people at all. Even cell phones are interdicted. But, on the other hand, not many people in Burma can afford a cell phone.

Tourism in Thailand - Elephant show

2010-02-02T07:23:00.000-08:00

Elephant show

After riding elephants, we attended the Elephant show. Elephants participating in the show were children. Their age was 3 to 8 years. An elephant lives 80 years.

Ready for show

Helping boys to climb

Sitting

turning hoolahoop

Two elephants painted. Suda (on the left) is a realist painter, another one is an abstract painter.

Suda started and drew his first line

Suda went back from time to time to see his painting from the distance.

I have not seen well what Suda paints, so I changed the place in order to see better

Suda was satisfied with his painting

and signed it.

Exhibition

Tourism in Thailand

2010-01-31T07:25:00.000-08:00

Elephants
Adele and I visited Elephant Safari Park near Chiang Mai.
Scott and Adele, husband and wife, are two Canadian English teachers. They retired and came here for one year to teach English. We live in the same building and have a lot of activities together. Scott did not come with us to safari. He loves golf.

Until now I thought that safari does mean hunting in Africa. But here safari means to look in the park at wild animals. Elephants were not wild. They were trained. But anyhow the adventure had the name of safari, probably it sounds more romantic.

Adele and me (left) riding an elephant

We went to the river

We crossed the river and went along another bank of the river

Entered back in the river

Out of the river to elephant compound

Elephants go to bath

Elephant bathing

Elephant eating

Thai weddings

2010-01-30T20:51:00.000-08:00

The Thai wedding is officiated at home by monks in the presence of a close family, usually in the morning. Guests are invited to the wedding party in the evening.

The wedding party of a young and handsome associate professor was planned in a French 5-star hotel in Chiang Rai. I asked one of my colleagues what present I have to give. He told:

-Money, only money

-How Much?

-500 to 1000 b ($1=33 baht)

Thinking that the hotel is 5 stars I put in envelope 2000 b.

When I arrived I saw a lot of flowers and exquisite arrangements everywhere. It was a big, beautiful dining hall, music, and great food. The bride, a beautiful girl, has a great wedding gown. Over 200 guests. I was only once at such a rich wedding in my life. That were not my friends, but my children's friends, multimillionaire family in California.

I felt terrible for my small gift, only 2000 b.

The groom and bride made a picture with every guest, as guests arrived. The groom and bride did not come to the dining room until the guests finished their dinner. After our dinner the bride and groom vent on the stage together with the family members. Speeches continue appr half an hour. After that, the wedding tort was cut. There was music but not dance or singing.

The next day I asked one of my colleagues if a family with the wedding is very rich. She told: “not rich, but wealthy, both families, of the bride and of the groom.” I wondered how they could afford such a great wedding.

My colleagues told me, that it is a very typical Thai wedding. She told me about her wedding. At her wedding, over 300 persons were invited, because Thai families are big. Her and her husband's family were over 100 people each. The remainders were friends and coworkers. The food was around 100 b/person. The hotel did not charge any rent, because the hotel restaurant sold food and had a good profit. The bride's gown was rented. A guest family of two gave 500-1000 b as a present. It covered all the expenses.

Come to Thailand for your wedding if you want to have it rich and inexpensive.

Village museum

2010-01-30T19:25:00.000-08:00

Village museum

During the flower festival, a village museum was organized in the park near the flower exhibition.
It was something similar to the Bucharest village museum. There were houses from different places of Chiang Rai province with their characteristic decorations, adornments, and utensils.

The houses are built on the pillars. The house, strictly speaking, is built on the second floor. On the first floor, on the ground, is the place to cook food and to do handicraft. It is a shady, well ventilated place.
In the cities, houses are built in the same fashion. At the ground may be a restaurant or a shop.

Guess, who is the Thai woman on the left in this picture.

It is me.

Flower country - Orchids

2010-01-30T07:16:00.000-08:00

Orchids
Orchids are growing everywhere in Northern Thailand. There are many orchids farms, parks, and botanical gardens. I made hundreds of photographs with orchids.

A Danish biologist visiting Thailand at the beginning of the 20th century described over 400 species of the orchard family.

In the majority of cases, orchids do not grow in soil. They grow on the branches of trees but do not parasite trees. They use the tree as support. Their roots are hanging free from the trees. The roots have a white color. You can see roots in the first seven photographs.

Pure Beauty

Northern Thailand - Flower Country. Flower festival

2010-01-30T05:26:00.000-08:00

Jan 6, 2010

Flower festival

In the Northern part of Thailand, Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai provinces, the average year temperature (25 C) is lover by 7 C, than in Bangkok (32 C). Hence this part of the country is more suitable for agriculture. Flowers grown here are sent to Bangkok. Both, Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai, have International airports. Cargo airplanes transport flowers over the world. Both cities have Flower Festivals. It is a big touristic event. I made some photographs at our Chiang Rai festival. Hope you enjoy them.

Generosity

2010-01-05T06:25:00.000-08:00

Generosity

On Dec 31st, I went with my colleague Nuchi and her 8 years old son Pooh in the children amusement park in Chiang Rai. The Boy shot down three toys by pneumatic gun. He gave all of them to me for Happy New Year. I and his mother told him to give me only one. But he insisted until I accepted all three. These lovely creatures are supposed to do year 2010 happy for me. I hope, they do. The first one looks like Einstein :})

Parties, Christmas

2010-01-05T06:16:00.000-08:00

December 27, 2009

Parties

Thai people love parties. Me too.
On Christmas Eve, the president of the university invited everyone to a big party with a lot of great food and drinks. There were a concert and dancing. Today I am going to a wedding in Chiang Rai, and tomorrow one of our professors will have a barbecue party at a restaurant in Chiang Rai.

I was also invited to a Christmas party in Chiang Mai, a city of 300 thousand people at a 3-hour drive from Chiang Rai. The party was at the Christian Village, which happens to be in the central part of the city.

A street in the village at Christmas time.
I was frequently asked by Thai people and children how is the snow and how people feel it.

At the Christian Village live Christians, the majority of them Westerners or women married to Westerner Buddhists. They have two Christian churches. The professor who invited me is a Buddhist, but he graduated from a Catholic School. There are many Catholic Schools in Thailand. The schools are organized by the US missionaries and teaching is in English.

All the Village came to the party. The Christmas and New Year celebrations are organized by many families living in the village, one after another. So people keep partying for a few weeks.
Many villagers came to help to decorate and to organize the party.

The Christmas tree.

Here is written Happy New 2553 Year. The Thai calendar is calculating time from the Year of Buddha Birth.
But at the University, both calendars Thai and Christian (Gregorian) are used.

There was very tasty food as usual and karaoke. Everyone was singing. So the party ended late. I like karaoke very much. It is one of the greatest Thai traditions.

The next day in the morning all the villagers came to continue the party. At the beginning was Buddhist monks' service for the New Year.

Monks before starting the service.

In the left corner of this picture is food prepared for the monks to take with them to the monastery..
After the monks' service, we continued our party.

At Christmas, I invited instructors, professors, and students that I work with to my apartment.
For my party, I invited people to come at 5 pm. Around 8 pm, the majority left. Four instructors remained, all of them my neighbors. Three of them, all women, got their PhDs on our university’s money, two here in Thailand and one in the UK, while the man got his PhD on government money in the US, in Texas and Kansas. The law is that after graduation they have to work for their sponsors for twice as long as they spent studying. So the women have to work at our university for 7-8 years, and the man can work anywhere in Thailand since his money was from the government. All of them were in their middle twenties when they applied for the grants. It was a great opportunity, and in the first place, it meant job security and work at the Royal University, which is pretty selective. Now they are thirty-two or thirty-three. They have worked for the university for two years and have six years left. All three women had long-distance boyfriends. One’s is in Europe. She has visited him twice at his home, and he has come twice to Thailand. The rest is phone love. He does not want to come to Thailand, she cannot go to Europe for six more years. Will he wait for six years? The other two women’s boyfriends are here in Thailand, but also at a big distance and in the same situation. The boyfriends also got their PhDs on their universities’ money and have to work there. Phone love and big phone bills.

These three women, beautiful and smart, have a slim chance of getting married. Thailand is a male-dominated society, and a man will not marry a woman with a PhD, unless he also has a PhD. But the number of women with PhDs is larger than that of men. Here at the university, the number of female students is much larger than the number of male students, maybe because English is the language of the university. But I was told that at other universities the situation is the same. Another problem is that men in their thirties look for younger women in their twenties. So the train was lost.

After I remained with my neighbors, one of them brought a guitar, and all three young women sang Thai modern love songs. Maybe some of the songs were translated from English. The songs were beautiful. I remembered once again about the Russian custom of singing at parties and the Russian lack of fear of opening the soul. This I have seen only in Russia and Thailand.

At one of the parties, I met a retired American diplomat. He and his Thai wife live after retirement in Chiang Rai. The wife is a Chula University graduate. That means she is smart or rich or both. He worked for more than 20 years for the United Nations in a number of countries, typically for 5 years in each country. He told me: “In diplomacy and in politics, in general, it is not important what you do or what you do not do. What is important is how you dance, who your wife is, and how your wife dances. You know what dance I am talking about?” I think I understood. While he ate and talked, his wife “danced”. She went from one table to another to greet her friends, tell them sweet things and make new friends.

The diplomat's remark about dancing shed light for me on Obama's personality. Obama is a great dancer. He danced with us until he was elected. He promised to end war and restrict the power of lobbyists. He did nothing of that because he does not need us for his dance now. He employed a number of lobbyists for his office, because behind them are power and money. He started to dance with the American military establishment (the Pentagon and the military industry).

The American military establishment lived happily and spent up to 20% of taxpayers’ money during the Cold War. After the fall of the Communist world, there was no permanent enemy anymore, so the power and money of the American military started to decrease. Clinton reduced military spending by 5% per year. It permitted him to reduce the deficit. So the military needed a new permanent enemy to start to be sponsored again as in the time of the Cold War. Big dancers knew it. So W Bush declared before his election that he would be a war president. He was elected with the help of big money and great dancers. There was no communism anymore, but there are other religions. So Bush's rhetoric was religious at the beginning. Now America has a permanent enemy for many years ahead. The military establishment is strong and rich on taxpayers’ money and the growing deficit. And we have a great dancing president. I was ashamed of his dance at the Nobel Prize speech, ugly and cynical. I did not expect such a speech from him. My opinion about Obama was way to high before this speech. I predict that Obama will reduce troop levels before the 2010 elections, increase them after that, and reduce them once more before his re-election. He will not stop the war. Such a shame!

If you think that I am not right please write me your point of view. I would be happy to not be right.

My everyday life

2010-01-04T04:30:00.000-08:00

Dec 20, 2009
My everyday life

Weather in Chiang Rai

Annual Low Temperature 20 C ( approximately 68 F)
Annual High Temperature 31 C ( approximately 86 F)

Precipitations (mm)/months

J F M A M J J A S O N D

12 8 19 90 204 211 308 385 268 142 61 25

We are in the valley, approx 450 m above sea level.

Around are mountains. So it looks like we are in a cup. There was no drop of rain from Nov 1st. There is no wind. No wind is literally. Sometimes I look at the trees and wonder if they are trees or statues, no leaf is moving. There is a problem because of that. All polluted air remains here for a long time, probably until rain will start. And the air is really polluted because of motorcycles which are the worst polluters. Sometimes I feel that I have no enough air to breathe.

My apartment

My apartment has an air conditioner.
I have a furnished apartment with a living room approximately equal to my living room in Columbia. It has two chairs, sofa, coffee table, table with TV, dining table with 6 chairs, and a refrigerator. I also have 1 bedroom, 1 bath with shower and a kitchen. The house has 12 apartments. There are 6 such houses in which live guests and young professors. Some professors live in Chiang Rai. They have cars. All instructors and professors in the School are young, in their 30th with the exception of the Dean and me.

Transportation

I live 10 min walk distance from my office. We have open electric cars with 12 sits, which go over all campus from 6 am to 8 pm. We have only one store (7/11 - seven-eleven), selling cosmetics, junk food, and first necessity goods. For anything else, people go to Chang Rai. (10 mi). Chiang Rai is the capital of the province with the same name.

Students and young professors have motorcycles. Foreigners usually buy or rent motorcycles too. The inexpensive ones cost between $100 1nd $300. I was afraid of motorcycles all my life. Plus, here cars go on the wrong side of the road and Thai law requires driver licenses for driving motorcycles. Foreigners do not usually have a driver's license because police officers do not stop foreigners. But I don't like to drive motorcycle anyway, with or without a driver's license. There is no taxi here. I can order the University van (no charge) for shopping but I do not use this opportunity. So I am waiting until some sweet souls remember me when they go shopping and take me with them. There is plenty of sweet souls here. So there is no problem with shopping.

Prices

1 US$ = 33 baht.

A dish at the University canteen costs 20 baht. At the restaurants, food starts at 30 baht. I was at a very chic Japanese restaurant in Chiang Rai. We, three persons, spent 600 baht, ordering many different dishes and sharing them. It was a great dinner. A big plate of sushi at this restaurant cost $3-4. But American food at the supermarket cost as much as in America. I invited two professors from our University at the pizza restaurant in Chiang Rai. I paid for three small pizzas and three cokes 900 baht. 250 g of Kellagg's Corn Flakes cost 100 b at a supermarket. There are restaurants with American food. A dish with barbequed beef cost from 60 b to 110 b (file mignon), because meet is local. There is a barbeque buffet in Chiang Rai. At every table is a coal barbeque in the center. You can take different kinds of meat, fish, see food and vegetables, all you can eat, and barbeque it yourself. Plus there are many kinds of ice cream. All this cost 80b, $2.5.

A minimal month salary is 4000 or 5000 baht. A young University instructor 's monthly salary is 15,000 baht. You can not say that 15,000b =$500, because food and everything else produced in Thailand costs 5 to 7 times less than in America, so the buying power of 15000 b in Thailand may be equal to $2500 -3500 in America. But all Western goods cost more than in America. Therefore a car costs more than a house. The gasoline costs more than in America, 26 b/liter. At these prices, a car is a luxury. In Chiang Rai one can buy a modern four-bedroom home for $32,000, in Bangkok, it costs much more. Foreigners are not permitted to buy land in Thailand.

Thai Food

All of us know the phrase “We are what we eat” but I never took it literally. Until now. Here was a conference on apiculture. I went to a Japanese professor's presentation about the bee queen jelly. Japan produces large quantities of the bee queen jelly using it for cosmetics and medicines. How they do that? Bee larvas are only of one kind. If you feed a larva with honey a working bee will grow. If you feed a larva with bee queen jelly, a queen will grow, approximately 4-6 times larger than a working bee. The queen produces more than a million eggs for the new larvas. So one can quickly increase production. I saw it clearly that “We are what we eat” when I was at the birthday party of Thai rich people. I wrote about this party earlier. The host and all his family, about 30 people, were tall and slim. The farmer workers, about 50 people, who came to say “Happy Birthday” to their master were small, and some of them tiny.

Thai food is very tasty. It is based on sauces. The standard dish consists of rice, meat with vegetables and sauce. All kinds of meat, see food, fish, and vegetables are used. All that is prepared in a great tasting sauce. For each dish is a different sauce. All are tasty and some are very spicy. I hope to buy in Bangkok a cook book for sauces in English. Here such books exist only in the Thai language.
There are many fruits I have never seen before, some of them are very good, others acceptable. The fruits I knew like citric, pine-apple, bananas are tastier here. Apples, pears, grapes, and cherries do not grow here, so they are expensive. Thai fruits cost 20-30 b/kg, while imported fruits cost 80-90 b/kg.

There are tree places with food canteens at the University. They look like food markets in the US. Many kinds of food from different regions of Thailand. Thai eat the same food at breakfast, lunch, and dinner: a dish with rice, different meats or fish and vegetables or noodle soup with meat and vegetables. There is very little meat in a dish, typically a few cubic centimeters tiny chopped. In the restaurant (we have only one at campus) you can buy a dish with a piece of meat. One day I ordered rice with salmon. I haven't seen any salmon at the beginning. When I started to look more closely, I saw some pink points in the rice. It was salmon. Nanotechnology research. I told this story to one of my colleagues. She told me that all salmon is imported, i. e. very expensive.
A westerner told to me: “Thai eat a lot of insects.” I told to him: “I will never eat insects.” His response was: “You eat them all the time. Insects are added to main dishes and salads, but you don't know that”. May be he is right. I do not know. I hope he was joking. I do not prepare any food home. I did not buy any pots. I bought only a small electrical pot for boiling water. So I can prepare coffee or tee.

Coffee

Thai do not usually drink coffee or tea, only water. Coffee was not cultivated in Thai before. Now two companies started to grow coffee on Chang Rai province hills. It is a great coffee, but expensive. 250 g of such coffee cost 450 b. Fair Arabic coffee costs 150 b for 250 g. At supermarkets and restaurants, only instant coffee is sold. It is usually sold as one in three: coffee + sugar + coffee mate. Something terrible. It is not possible to buy coffee beans or ground coffee at supermarkets. Coffee is sold at special cafes. Coffee sold under the name “cafe Americano” is great, costs 25 to 60 b and is expresso, very strong and tasty, and served in big cups. After drinking a cap of such coffee one may not sleep for 3 days and three nights :}).

Alcohol

Buddhist religion prohibits alcohol. But many people drink. They drink very little. Russians would die of a laugh seeing as Thai drink alcohol. Thailand produces whiskey only. All other drinks are imported and consequently are very expensive. Here alcohol is sold twice a day, from 11 to 2 and from 6 to 8 o'clock.

Whiskey is served in a huge glass filled with ice. At one of the parties, I was asked if I like to drink a whiskey. I agreed. I received a big glass filled with ice and something colored smelling whiskey. I remembered a scary story. It was in Romania, a short time after I came there. My husband and I went to a New Year party. I was served a big glass of cola containing some alcohol. Only later I found out that cola was half and half with vodka. I drank all the glass. After a short while, I felt drunk, sick and duped. I decided that I am a very unhappy person. I locked in the bathroom and started to weep. I continued until I wept out all liquids, alcohol included, of my body. When I came back in the room with a swelled face and red eyes, the New Year was a couple of hours old. I would not like to repeat such an experience once again. So I asked the host how much whiskey is in my big glass. I was assured that my glass contains only one or two spoons of whiskey. The remainder was a fruit juice. It was true. I have seen a number of times how “whiskey” was prepared and it really has a minute amount of whiskey.

Beer is the most popular drink. Beer is poured in a glass filled with ice. So one 0.5 liter bottle of beer is enough for four people.

Vine is very expensive and of poor quality. The grapes do not grow in Thailand. The vine is brought from Australia, California or France. The duty is very high. Many go to Burma (60 km from Chiang Rai) to buy alcohol. There it is much better and at least twice less expensive because the duty is small.

All alcohol that 15 Thai drink at a party would not be enough for one Russian average guy, not speaking of a real Russian drunkard.

Thai rich people

2010-01-03T15:02:00.000-08:00

Dec 8, 2009

Thai rich people
Saturday was the King’s Birthday. We have three-day vacation, Sat, Sun, and Mon.
My friend Hansa took me to her friends. It was a 3 h drive from our University. We were invited to come Friday by lunch, but cannot. I had to present a seminar and Hansa had a meeting. We left at 4pm and came too late. We lost a part of the program: visiting the family farm.

I wrote about Hansa in my first letter. Then I went with her to the Chula University alumni party. As I wrote before, Chula University is similar to American Harvard. Harvard admits star students as well as children from the rich and famous families (example W. Bush). So do Chula.

Now I know much more about Chula.

The Chula graduates receive jobs at the highest levels of the Thai Establishment. They help and promote each other. Now you guessed that our host was a Chula graduate.

He is a doctor. After graduation from Chula, he continued his studies at Pennsylvania State and his residency at Yale. Now at 63, he occupies an important government position. His wife is also a doctor.
Now it was his birthday. All family, around 30 persons, and a few guests gathered at the host’s mountain residence. The residence consists of a big house and very modern bungalows. I numbered about 13 of them. All this is in a huge park with a mountain river running through. There are bridges, waterfalls, music and flowers, flowers, flowers as you go through the park.

There is also a farm with 50 employees. We did not see the farm, because we came late. The fruits, vegetables and flowers are grown there. All are organic.

In the evening we had dinner in a special building with a huge hall and a kitchen nearby. The next day we had breakfast at another hall by the river, and later a Buddhist service was performed by 9 Buddhist monks. It would take me too long to describe the service. Maybe I do it sometime later. Anyway, it was very impressive. In the evening we had a Birthday party, for the King and for the Doctor. King’s Birthday was shown on tv.

Chairs prepared for the monk service

Monk service

Before the party, the family gathered and sang. They know a lot of beautiful English and Thai songs. All this reminded me of our Belarusian and student parties (pirushki) at Leningrad with singing all night to the morning. After the dinner, the family sang and danced. Young people participated in karaoke. Later it was Birthday cake and fireworks.

The family lives in Bangkok and comes to the farm three times a year at the family's important days. Anyone of family and friends can come anytime during the year.
I asked Hansa why they do not do a resort here and rent the bungalows during the year when no one of the family is there. Hansa told me: “Why would they do that, they are rich”. That means that a person or a family may be rich enough. I think such an idea is not admitted in America. In America everyone should try to be richer and richer.
There were two generations: the Doctor, his brother, two sisters with their spouses and all their children. All family lives in Bangkok in a gated community which is a huge park. They call it compound. Everyone has his/her own house. All of them studied in the US and all speak English. No one of the family remained in the US.
I understood what good have the poor and the rich in common, and what I and maybe some of you did lose being not rich and not poor. The poor people have big families and live together, at least in one village as I lived as a child. There is a lot of love and attention for children, a lot of family gatherings with songs, dance and some time gossip. I and my siblings went to the Universities and were scattered over the word. No one of us was rich enough to build a compound.
Hansa and I left the farm after breakfast on Sunday and went to another party at the bank of the Mekong river on the border with Laos. There was a Hansa’s school mate A.
H and A know each other from the first grade of primary school. They went to an expensive girl school in Bangkok. They studied there to the 10th grade. After that, the girls moved to the Shula Preparatory school for two years. Hansa was admitted to Shula. A was not. So A went to study in a US college. Hansa studied in the US after graduation from Shula.
There was all the family, about 30 persons, three generations. All of them live in their compound in Bangkok, exactly like the first family. The whole family studied in the US and all speak English. They had not Thai, but European food. They come to the Mekong river residence quite frequently. At the residence in the Mekong, 20 women mates of Hansa and A from the girl’s school gather frequently at birthdays and other occasions.

Mekong River

A's Mekong residence

Banana flower

Mae Fah Luang university, Thai names

2010-01-03T14:04:00.000-08:00

Nov 22, 2009

Mae Fah Luang university
http://www.mfu.ac.th/en/royal/index.php
This University was open in memory of the Princess Mother (PM) after her death.

The PM was a great person, very loved. If you ask people about her, they say the same story.

She succeeded to eradicate drugs in Northern Thailand. Here in North lived tribes cultivating and selling drugs in all neighboring countries for centuries. They were buying fruits and vegetables from the neighbors. Many of them did not know the Thai language. They spoke their own languages. PM opened schools to teach these people the ordinary agriculture. She created a net for transporting and selling their crops in the mainland. The fruits and vegetables are organic and have a big market. Incredible but true. The drugs are not cultivated here anymore. Or maybe there are some, but much less than before.

The Thai monarchy is constitutional. Thailand has a Parliament. The royal family is doing mostly charities. The institution of monarchy is very respected.

The University is very well guarded, everywhere are policemen and they give you a card when you enter the University territory. You should give the card to the policeman when you leave. The University is totally safe.

Students come on motorcycles. Hundreds and hundreds of motorcycles are in the parking lots. All students put their helmets on the motorcycle handles. No one steals them.

The Names
If you looked at the web site of the University, you probably observed that the names are very long and for me it is impossible to learn. Fortunately, only the first name is used, Dr Galina, Prof Darunee and so on. It makes life easier. Some professors who studied abroad have also western names, Apple, Joy and so on.

The family goes to an astrologist when a child is born. Astrologist selects good and bad sounds for the child’s time of birth. Parents should not take bad sounds. Usually, they take good sounds and create a long name without any meaning. But now some people add neutral sounds to create meaningful words. The name of the Professor I work with can be translated as Philosopher.

2010-01-02T23:43:00.000-08:00

Thailand 1

I came to Thailand Thursday, Oct 22, 2009. I came to work in the School of Science of Mae Fah Luang University as a visiting professor.
The University is in the North of Thailand, 10 miles North of the city Chiang Rai.

Time.
Thailand is GMT+ 7 h. Missouri is GMT – 6 h. So Thailand time is 13 h earlier than Missouri time and 15 h earlier CA time.
Wai
Wai is the Thai greeting. One put his/her hands together as in the prayer and bow. The older people and people higher in their status are waied. The response is a smile and slight head nodding. The greeting is a covenant between the strong and week. The wai is a gesture of obedience. In exchange for obedience, the strongest one should take care of the weakest one. That what I read on the Internet before the trip.
When I entered in Bangkok the plane of Thai Airlines, all passengers were waied by the flight attendants. I felt very uncomfortable, imagining how I will wai my superiors at the University.

In Chang Rai airport I was met by the Dean of our School. He took me to the University and introduced me to my future colleagues. After that, he drove me to the University Guesthouse. I will live here for one week, before moving to my permanent apartment. The Dean was leaving for an International Conference the next day. He introduced me to his friend Hansa who will take care of me in his absence and will take me to the Chula University Alumni party in Chiang Rai.
I was very happy about such good treatment and waied the Dean. He waied me in response. I thought that to do a wai may be really enjoyable.

S korablya na bal.

Fr Oct 24 is a National holiday. The University is closed.
In the morning Dean's friend Hansa took me to Chiang Rai. Hansa is a professor of biochemistry. She is younger than me.

We visited three Buddhist Temples, more than beautiful. I took many photographs, some are attached.

Hansa

Chula university

In the evening we went to the Alumni party in Chiang Rai. It is organized once a year for all graduates of one of the Bangkok Universities which is Thailand Harvard. They have a strong Old Boys organization. I was told that at this party were all important people of the Chiang Rai Province. The President of our University waied me and other guests. Here every one waied every one. So all my fear disappeared. I started to think about how nice is this greeting. At the party was a lot of fun, good food, a lot of dance and music and it was a karaoke concert. The President of our University performed a few English soul lyrics. He has a rich and strong voice and probably has some formal musical training. I could not imagine any of American University presidents singing at the karaoke concert.

Is Global Warming Man-Made?

2009-12-15T07:36:00.000-08:00

Introduction

The Earth receives 174 petawatts (1.74 ×10¹⁷ W) of incoming solar radiation.

The total worldwide energy (oil, coal, gas, nuclear, and renewable) consumption is 1.504×10¹³ W

That says that the rapport is 1/10 000. Our participation in Earth energy balance is very small. We are too weak for the competition with Sun.
How have we succeeded to do global warming? And have we done?

In order to respond the question “Is Global Warming (GW) Man-Made?” I will discuss the following problems:

Experimental data on global warming

Reliability of data on global warming

Solar energy balance

Greenhouse effect

Historical climate change

Processes stabilizing the Earth’s temperature

Experimental data on global warming

(Fig. 1) represents the Earth surface temperature anomaly measured by terrestrial climate stations as a function of time. [1]

Congratulations, You Just Survived The 5 Hottest Years on Record

https://www.sciencealert.com/the-planet-s-hottest-five-years-on-record-are-the-last-five-years

Zero anomaly (blue line ) represents the average temperature. The temperatures close to average temperature has been from1940 to 1980. From 1880 to 1940 the Earth temperature has been cooler and from 1980 to 2010 has been hotter than average.

These results are used by GW scientists to show that GW exists.

Fig.1a Earth temperature measured from the space (NASA).

NASA states : “Unlike the surface-based temperatures,

global temperature measurements of the Earth's lower atmosphere obtained from satellites reveal no definitive warming trend over the past two decades. The slight trend that is in the data actually is mild cooling. The largest fluctuations in the satellite temperature data are not from any man-made activity but from the natural phenomena such as large volcanic eruptions from Mt. Pinatubo, and from El Niño. So the programs which model global warming in a computer say the temperature of the Earth's lower atmosphere should be going up markedly, but actual measurements of the temperature of the lower atmosphere reveal no such pronounced activity."

Global warming scientists claim that the GW is due to accumulation of carbon dioxide in Earth atmosphere, but there is no similarity between the curve of Earth temperature anomaly (Fig 1) and the content of carbon dioxide in Earth atmosphere (Fig 2).
Between 1940 and 1980, there is a small change in Earth temperature, while carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases 6 times.

Fig. 2 Global fossil carbon emissions 1800–2007.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth%27s_atmosphere#/media/File:Global_Carbon_Emissions.svg)

Terestrial observations of temperature changes

The GW scientists claim that the Arctic ice is melting. That is true for some years and some parts of the Arctic ice. But some times the ice surface coverage is increasing, as it is shown on the NASA photograph. Arctic sea ice up 60 percent in 2013

NASA satelite images show the changing Artic sea ice coverage from August 2012 (left) to August 2013 (right) -- a growth of about a million square miles. (NASA)
Ice melting may be due to other causes than GW.

Researchers discovered volcanic heat source under major Antarctic glacier

https://phys.org/news/2018-06-volcanic-source-major-antarctic-glacier.html

Reliability of terrestrial measurements data on global warming

Are the data reliable? Not all of them.

Brooks investigated Historical Climate Network (USHCN) sites in Indiana, and assigned 16% of the sites an ‘excellent’ rating, 59% a ‘good’ rating, 12.5% a ‘fair’ rating, and 12.5% ‘poor’ rating.
(May 2007 Purdue University West Lafayette, Indiana)

On the site http://climate.colostate.edu/pdfs/Pielke-etal_BAMS_Jun07.pdf

there is a paper of American researchers “Documentation of Uncertainties and Biases Associated with Surface Temperature Measurement Sites for Climate Change Assessment.”
Authors: PIELKE—CIRES and ATOC, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado; NIELSEN-GAMMON—Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas; DAVEY— Desert Research Institute, Reno, Nevada; ANGEL— Illinois State Water Survey, Department of Natural Resources, Champaign, Illinois; BLISS AND DOESKEN— Atmospheric Science, Colorado State
University, Fort Collins, Colorado; CAI—Department of Meteorology,The Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida; FALL AND NIYOGI—Departments of Agronomy and Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana; GALLO—Center for Satellite Applications and Research, NOAA/NESDIS, Camp Springs, Maryland; HALE—CIRA, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado; HUBBARD AND LIN—School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska; LI—Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, Maryland; RAMAN—Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

The conclusion of the paper: “The use of temperature data from poorly sited stations can lead to a false sense of confidence in the robustness of multi-decadal surface air temperature trend assessments”

More serious problem is that data do not exist for all countries for all periods cited by GW scientists.

But the biggest problem with the US data is that the weather in US is influenced by El Nino and La Nina.

Such an influence exists for all Northern and Southern Americas and Australia, but much less for other countries. On the other hand, other countries may have their own influences (see Golf stream).

Energy balance of the Earth

Fig 3 shows incoming and outgoing radiation

Fig 4, Solar radiation spectrum shows water and CO₂ absorptions bands. Water absorption bands are much stronger than that of CO₂

Climat change
Radiative forcing

In climate science, radiative forcing or climate forcing is defined as the difference of insolation (sunlight) absorbed by the Earth and energy radiated back to space.^[1] Typically, radiative forcing is quantified at the tropopause in units ofwatts per square meter of the Earth's surface. A positive forcing (more incoming energy) warms the system, while negative forcing (more outgoing energy) cools it. Causes of radiative forcing include changes in insolation and the concentrations of radiatively active gases, commonly known as greenhouse gases and aerosols.

Fig 5. The "radiative forcing" (that is the additional energy sent to the ground) for all the modifications induced by man that influence the energy exchanges in the atmosphere (in Watts per square meter). From IPCC, 2007

Two important causes of the Earth temperature change are Greenhouse Gases increasing the Earth temperature and Earth Albedo lowering it.

Greenhouse effect (GHE)

GHE gases content in atmosphere:

water vapor (H₂O), 0.40% over full atmosphere, typically 1%-4% at surface
carbon dioxide ( CO₂) 0.038%
methane CH₂) 0.000179%
nitrous oxide ( N₂O) 2x10−6%
ozone ( O3) 0% to 7x10−6%

The distinction between the greenhouse effect and real greenhouses can be found at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect
Excerpt
“The term "greenhouse effect" can be a source of confusion as actual greenhouses do not function in the same way as the atmospheric greenhouse effect does. A greenhouse is usually built of glass, plastic, or a plastic-type material. It heats up mainly because the sun warms the ground inside it, which then warms the air in the greenhouse. The air continues to heat because it is confined within the greenhouse, unlike the environment outside the greenhouse where warm air near the surface rises and mixes with cooler air aloft. This can be demonstrated by opening a small window near the roof of a greenhouse: the temperature will drop considerably Thus greenhouses work by a different mechanism, primarily by preventing convective cooling”.

There are many papers on GHE, pro and contra.
Pro paper: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
I found the following paper more reliable because it is written by a physicist and shows where physics laws were not respected in GHE discussions.
http://brneurosci.org/co2.html, its conclusion
• “Although carbon dioxide is capable of raising the Earth's overall temperature, the IPCC's (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) predictions of catastrophic temperature increases produced by carbon dioxide have been challenged by many scientists. In particular, the importance of water vapor (see Fig.4) is frequently overlooked by environmental activists and by the media. The above discussion shows that the large temperature increases predicted by many computer models are unphysical and inconsistent with results obtained by basic measurements. Skepticism is warranted when considering computer-generated projections of global warming that cannot even predict existing observations.”

Earth Albedo

Albedo is the fraction of solar energy (shortwave radiation) reflected from the Earth back into space. Earth Albedo grew after 1998 showing cooling period. Change to the Earth's albedo is a powerful driver of climate. When the planet's reflectivity increases, more incoming sunlight is reflected back into space. This has a cooling effect on global temperatures. Conversely, a drop in albedo warms the planet.

Fig 6: Albedo anomalies reconstructed from ISCCP satellite data (black) and Earthshine-observed albedo anomalies (blue). The right hand vertical scale shows negative radiative forcing (eg - cooling). One of causes of the albedo rising is deforestation.
Albedo anomaly is changing strongly from one year to another (0 to 7W/sq m).

The solar constant - the amount of incoming solar electromagnetic radiation per unit area that would be incident on a plane perpendicular to the rays has a value 1361 W/m². The total net anthropogenic (man made) radiation forcing is 1,5 W/m² (Fig.5). The man-made radiation [1,5 (W.m-²) /1361 (W.m-²) = 0.11% of solar constant] is very small compared to the Sun radiation.

Historic climate change

Fig 7. Historic climate change (millions of years ago)

The historic climate change shows that we are in a cool period and warming:

today Earth temp ~14 oC

Climate Fluctuations in Our Present-Day Interglacial Period
Thausands years ago
http://www.lakepowell.net/sciencecenter/paleoclimate.htm

18,000 years ago - The climate begins to warm
15,000 years ago - Advance of glaciers halts and sea levels begin to rise
10,000 years ago - Ice Age mega fauna goes extinct
8,000 years ago - Bering Strait land bridge becomes drowned, cutting of migration of men and animals.
6,000 years ago - The Holocene Maximum warm period

The basic processes that determine Earth climate

1. Astronomical Earth parameters
2. Oceans
3. Greenhouse Effect
4. Earth black body radiation

Astronomical Earth parameters

Astronomer Milutin Milankovitch (1879 – 1958) http://www.seed.slb.com/subcontent.aspx?id=4070studied the variations in the shape of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun and the tilt of the Earth’s axis. He theorized that these cyclical changes and the interactions among them were responsible for long-term climate. His cycles of the climate change are roughly 100,000;
26,000 and 11,000 years.

More recent evidence of climatic variations

The eruption of the Toba supervolcano on Sumatra (Indonesia), 70,000 to 75,000 years ago reduced the average global temperature by 5 degrees Celsius for several years and may have triggered an ice age. Simulation of this event showed that the climate recovered over a few decades.
[ Robock, A., C.M. Ammann, L. Oman, D. Shindell, S. Levis, and G. Stenchikov (2009)]. [ "Did the Toba volcanic eruption of ~74k BP produce widespread glaciation?". Journal of Geophysical Research 114: D10107]

A much smaller but similar effect occurred after the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883, island between Java and Sumatra in Indonesia when global temperatures fell for about 5 years in a row. Average global temperatures fell by as much as 1.2 degrees Celsius in the year following the eruption. Weather patterns continued to be chaotic for years and temperatures did not return to normal until 1888.
Earth has recovered after these two catastrophes.

Processes stabilizing Earth’s temperature

The basic items that stabilize the Earth climate are:
1. Water (oceans, clouds, water vapors)
2. Earth blackbody radiation

An excellent paper “Global Energy Transfer, Atmosphere and Ocean Circulation, Climate “
http://www.indiana.edu/~geol105/1425chap4.htm
discusses the stabilizing effect of water on climate

Excerpt:“Water has a substantially higher heat capacity than rocks (by a factor of five), and therefore the oceans can store much more heat than the land surfaces of the planet. Because the oceans also cover about 70% of the Earth surface and are on average 3.8 km deep, they are the major heatsink of the planet and serve as temperature buffers for the ocean/atmosphere system. The bulk of the thermal energy at the Earth surface is stored in the oceans. The large thermal inertia of the oceans is a key factor in stabilizing Earth's climate.”

Earth radiation. The Stefan–Boltzmann law

This law states that amount of thermal radiation emitted per second per unit area of the surface of a black body is directly proportional to the fourth power of its absolute temperature. That is

W = σ x T4

where W is the total energy radiated per unit area per unit time, T is the temperature in Kelvin, and σ = 5.67×10^-8W m^-2 K^-4is the Stefan–Boltzmann constant.

If we suppose that the Earth temp T = 14 ^oC = 287 K increases by 1^oC to T=15 ^oC = 288 K, the increase in emitted energy will be 1.4%.

(W1-Wo)/Wo=1.4% is a big energetic change.

“Scientists and skeptics”

There is a site which considers that all scientists are for global warming, but in reality some of them are skeptics.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
There are 75 questions of skeptics and ‘science” response to them.
I think if someone can put 75 questions to a problem, we can consider that the problem is too complex to be solved.

Some of these questions:

#5 "Models are unreliable"

Answer: While there are uncertainties with climate models, they successfully reproduce the past and have successfully predicted future climate change.

#12"Al Gore got it wrong“

Answer: While there are minor errors in An Inconvenient Truth, the main truths presented - evidence to show mankind is causing global warming and its various impacts is consistent with peer reviewed science

#74 "Global temperatures dropped sharply in 2007's “

Answer: 2007's dramatic cooling is driven by strong La Nina conditions which historically has caused similar drops in global temperature. It is also exacerbated by unusually low solar activity.

31,000 American scientists signed the following petition:

http://www.petitionproject.org/

Global Warming Petition

This petition has been signed by over 31,000 American scientists

• We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."

Conclusions

The surface temperature measurements showing rising of the Earth temperature may not be totally reliable. The satellite measurements of the Earth temperature and reflectivity shows a mild cooling. There are many natural influences on the Earth climate. However, Earth has temperature stabilizing factors by means of the water balance, the Earth radiation and others.
If the global warming exists, it is most probably due to natural fluctuations, it is not Man-made. We have to study more thoroughly the climate change in order to understand its causes and effects.

Addendum

The most productive expedition of the ship "Academician Mstislav Keldysh" in recent years was that, despite the global warming, which scientists talk about, since 2011 in the North Atlantic there has been steady cooling of surface waters, and intermittent water warming has ceased.
Translation from Russan text:

"Одним из главных выводов стало то, что, несмотря на глобальное потепление, про которое говорят ученые всего мира, в северной Атлантике с 2011 года наблюдается устойчивое охлаждение поверхностных вод, прекратилось потепление промежуточных вод".

http://www.gazeta.ru/science/2015/11/30_a_7921283.shtml