How do Trees Really lift Water to their Leaves?

Lyner:
AKF
As usual, you gather a lot of evidence and most of it is sound. You may have revealed a contentious issue - which is interesting. (The reactions you have been getting from other members show that they agree with what I am saying.)
The problem is that you keep trying to impose your own explanation on the phenomenon. If your model doesn't apply elsewhere in Science, then you can't insist that it is valid in this particular case. Science doesn't work in compartments - there must be an explanation which satisfies all conditions - not just in Biological situations - and your model really does not fit the majority of evidence.

Have you never considered that your fundamental view of basic Physics could be flawed? Is it not just possible that conventional Science - which you resent so much - could have got things right about Physics? You seem to want to argue with basic Mechanics in addition to biological phenomena which may be harder to measure and model. Your explanations contain far too much much metaphor and simile and not enough numerical evidence to back them up. Just because you can't imagine why, when you're wrong, proves nothing.

That paper you referred me to says nothing about your particular theory. Did you ever wonder why?

Test the experiments for yourself before jumping to conclusions about how this fits with other systems.

I gave the ocean current "Atlantic Conveyor system as one example with density flow. Another with a domestic hot water pumpless system, another with air density changes relating to hot desert coastlines causing a thermal barrier which prevents the denser moisture laden air from crossing onto the land.

Another with density changes in the blood relating to how dialysis works and indeed how posture alters density in urine.

Far from not fitting it does indeed fit.

Your cuppa in the morning relies on leaves storing salts and sugars. Fruits rely on sugars migrating from a source to a sink.

finger nails and toe nails rely on density changes in order to grow where they grow as do elephant tusks!

Gravity is the key factor in all of this!

How could we work out a density change mathematically in say a cloud passing by, could we explain accurately by how much it's density is affected by heat from the ground, energy from the sun and a cold breeze passing through it? Or would it be more productive to observe the cloud rising or falling?

Lyner;
There is nothing at all new about the mechanism of convection, due to thermal density changes or circulation due to the addition of solutes. The forces and the energy involved all account for the values observed. You seem to be claiming that you have something new here. Why? No one has denied that it happens - the objection is that you seem to have commandeered it as as 'source' of motive energy.

Of course gravity is involved. When you drop a stone on your foot, 'gravity is involved'. Left to itself, however, gravity won't do it again. Someone has to lift the stone again - providing gravitational potential energy - before it can happen again. 'Gravity' is not the source of the energy, any more than a watch spring is the source of energy for a watch.

You have your usual list of observable processes, as if that actually constitutes proof of anything (apart from the fact that they happen).

As for calculations about clouds vs standing watching them - it depends what you want out of the exercise. If you want a chance of predicting what will happen with a cloud under a new set of circumstances then you need to get some understanding of the Physics involved. As you are posting on a Science Forum, I should have thought that would be your interest. The analysis of clouds is not difficult - it's done all the time, along with a lot of other thermodynamic calculations.
If you had no idea of what was going on in a cloud apart from the fact that it was rising or falling, how would it increase the sum total of human knowledge? You would need to study / measure the parameters of that cloud and then do some ACTUAL SUMS (Andrew!!!!) before you would get anywhere at all.
I'm afraid your maths-free approach to your theories is of even less use than alcohol-free Whiskey.

Of course it is nothing new. The cloud rises into the atmosphere because of the energy provided by the sun. No one has to lift the clouds into the air but the fact remains many tons of water are lifted into the atmosphere from the ocean and this triggers a density change in the ocean surface water and this triggers circulation. Not rocket science is it? We don't need to work out the exact amount of density change taking place, the fact that it sinks is sufficient.

Lyner:
No, not correct. The actual forces and energy involved are HIGHLY relevant to cloud and air movement if you want to know whether there will be a storm or a breeze. The actual values of the quantities are relevant throughout the real world and to our lives.
Gravity acts on a fly just as it acts on you but you can't walk on the ceiling like a fly because of the (insignificant to you, it appears) relative differences between electric and gravitational forces involved.

Yes - it is as hard as rocket Science, actually. If you don't consider yourself qualified to hold forth on the viability or otherwise of a rocket engine (will it take off or not, given some masses and power specs?) then you are not qualified to have an opinion about the viability or not of your circulation ideas. How can you KNOW that the forces involved are due to what you say and not to something else unless you have actually worked out both, in detail?
Nothing "is obvious" when you want to prove an hypothesis.

Just 'like' a creationist, you are ignoring some evidence and repeating, ad nauseam, some other (misinterpreted) evidence. Is that Science?

btw, we have now established that you acknowledge that gravity does not supply the energy for these processes so, perhaps, you will stop telling us that it is the key to the whole thing.

btw, did you know, AFK, that the water is not "lifted"into the air. It is displaced upwards by good old Archimedes' principle. Warmer or 'damper' air are both less dense so they are displaced by cooler, dryer air and 'upthrust' upwards. The old bollocks statement about warm air rising and cold air rushing in to take its place is ,,,,well,,, bollocks. You can't suck air. Some new theories may suck, though!
Work is done against gravity in' lifting' the cloud. The clouds don't just go up because of the Sun they are actually Pushed up by the surrounding atmosphere.

When they bury you will they put your qualifications on your head stone? Or have you contributed something significant we can all remember you by? Enlighten us please.

Ben V:
Andrew - I don't expect to see a comment like that from you again. If you can't defend the science, do not attack the person.

Maybe you should try to take him on on his own terms? i.e. using facts and figures to support your argument?

I should warn you, Sophie comes out of this conversation as looking a lot more reasonable than you.

B.C,
Andrew,
Perhaps you would like to answer the same question you asked of sophiecentaur.

What have you actually achieved? I mean real achievemnets rather than hypotheses that are not well supported by evidence, so nothing that isn't going to be written off as a coincidence.
(I'm not, BTW, claiming that my epitaph will be anything special, but since Andrew asked...)

Ben V:
BC, I understand the retort - it was an offensive and inflammatory thing for Andrew to have said - but I don't feel this line of conversation will benefit the forum. All it will lead to is hurt feelings and this thread being locked.