Can you keep an open mind on the cause of winds? Climate science needs your help!
by Anastassia Makarieva
Many of us who have become researchers have been attracted by the dynamic and constructive debate that lies at the heart of scientific progress. Every theory is provisional waiting to be improved or replaced by a more thorough understanding. In this perspective new ideas are the life-blood of progress and are welcomed and examined eagerly by all concerned. That’s what we believed and were inspired by. Is climate science a dynamic field of research that welcomes new ideas? We hope so – though our faith is currently being tested.
Five months have not been enough to find two representatives of the climate science community who would be willing to act as referees and publicly evaluate a new theory of winds. Of the ten experts requested to act as referees only one accepted. This slow and uncertain progress has caused the Editors to become concerned: recently they “indefinitely extended” the public discussion of the submitted manuscript. The review process is perhaps becoming the story.
Here the authors share their views and request help.
Background
On August 06 2010 our paper “Where do winds come from? A new theory on how water vapor condensation influences atmospheric pressure and dynamics” was submitted to the Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions (ACPD) journal of the European Geosciences Union. There we proposed a new mechanism for wind generation based on pressure gradients produced by the condensation of water vapor. ACPD ensures transparency during the review procedure: the submitted manuscripts and subsequent reviews are published online and available for public discussion. Authors can follow their submission through the process: they see when the Editor invites referees and whether they accept or decline.
Here are the standings as of 20 January 2011:
The Editor handling our paper has invited ten referees so far. Only one, Dr. Judith Curry, accepted. After 10 November 2010, in the record there have been no further attempts to find referees.
Normally ACPD’s discussion should take eight weeks. But in early January 2011, after twelve weeks in process, the status of the discussion of our manuscript was changed to “indefinitely extended”. In a recent letter to the authors, the Editor-in-Chief admitted that handling ‘a controversial paper’ is not easy, but assured us that the Journal is doing their best.
Discussion of our propositions secured over a thousand comments in the blogosphere within four weeks of publication indicating wide interest. Among the ACPD discussion participants two are active bloggers. Does blog culture outcompete formal peer review in evaluating novel concepts? It’s an open question. But let’s take a moment to focus on science.
Why condensation-induced dynamics is important
It would be generally useful to understand why the winds blow. It is sufficient to note that understanding the physical bases of atmospheric circulation is key for determining the climate sensitivity to changes in the amounts of atmospheric greenhouse substances, which is currently a highly controversial topic. The lack of current understanding may not be widely recognized outside the climate and meteorological community. But within the community moist processes in the atmosphere are admitted to be among the least understood and associated with greatest challenges. Not only theorists, but also modelers recognize their existence. For example, in a paper titled “The real holes in climate science” Schiermeier (2010) identified the inability to adequately explain precipitation patterns as one of such holes. In particular,
“a main weakness of the[ir] models is their limited ability to simulate vertical air movement, such as convection in the tropics that lifts humid air into the atmosphere.”
Any meteorological textbook will provide a discussion of buoyancy-based convection: how a warm air parcel ascends being lighter than the surrounding air. The convective instability of moist saturated air, so far neglected by the meteorological theory, is different. Any upward displacement of a saturated air volume, even a random fluctuation, leads to cooling. This causes the water vapour to condense. Condensation diminishes the total amount of gas and thus disrupts the hydrostatic distribution of moist air (if a hydrostatic equilibrium exists it is unstable to any such minor movements). The conclusion: moist saturated atmosphere in the gravitational field cannot be static.
Our analyses show that the current understanding of air movements being dominated by temperature and buoyancy is incomplete and flawed. Rather we find that the phase changes of water (condensation and evaporation) can play a much larger role than has previously been recognized. You can find out more if you see our paper. We would hope that a dynamic and advancing science would welcome new ideas.
Can the blogosphere help?
Perhaps we can help the Journal review our paper with your help. Are you an open minded climate scientist who would be ready and competent to discuss our ideas?
The ACP Chief-Executive Editor Dr. Ulrich Pöschl is aware that we are inviting your helps and asked that the following issues be noted (we quote):
1) ACPD is not a blog but a scientific discussion forum for the exchange of substantial scientific comments by scientific experts.
2) The open call for scientific experts who would be ready to act as potential referees would be a private initiative of the manuscript authors.
3) The list of potential referees compiled by the authors will be treated like the suggestions for potential referees regularly requested. The responsibility and authority for selecting and appointing referees rests exclusively with the editor.
If you have no conflict of interests and are willing to review our paper please contact the corresponding author (A. Makarieva) and we will forward your details to the Editor as a potential referee. For those who would like to remain anonymous please approach the ACP Chief-Executive Editor directly. We would be very grateful for your help – we have faith in you.
Anastassia Makarieva
on behalf of the authors:
A.M. Makarieva, V.G. Gorshkov, D. Sheil, A.D. Nobre, B.-L. Li
P.S. Thanks to Jeff for hosting our appeal on this blog. For a list of publications relevant to condensation-induced dynamics, please, see here.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
An interesting approach from both angles.
Now this is how I have always believed “scientific inquiry” was supposed to be … form a theory, test it and if it seems to hold up, ask others to try and poke holes in it.
How refreshing!
Stimulating, unbiased and refreshing science. Censured of course…
I am becoming more and more impressed by Judith Curry. She is becoming a fine, courageous scientist. If only others would adopt her principled moxie, we might actually progress climate science. Kudos. GK
Thanks to Anthony for carrying this piece. I’ve closed the Air Vent blog down and am taking what will be at least an extended vacation from it to focus on other things. It is my hope that at least one more person will agree to review the paper in question above. It would certainly be another victory for the most popular climate science blog in the world.
I think Climategate and the revelation that “global warming” has been produced mainly by eliminating the coldest weather stations suggests very strongly that the peer review process needs a change anyway.
I have also been dismayed at appalling papers appearing in my field that were 20% science and 80% some clever idea of how some critter MIGHT be negatively impacted by warmer temperatures. Truth cannot be arrived at by such a process.
A controversial idea needs a hearing. Most prove rubbish–but this is breakthrough territory. So this delay is not a trivial matter.
Interesting that the only invitee with any courage was Judith Curry. What a lady!
I guess it’s hard to find a climate scientist who is willing to discuss anything that doesn’t involve CO2 induced climate destruction.
“a main weakness of the[ir] models is their limited ability to simulate vertical air movement, such as convection in the tropics that lifts humid air into the atmosphere.”
What, fossil fuel CO2 is going to cause the “destruction of creation” but it can’t even do that?
Re: “Our analyses show that the current understanding of air movements being dominated by temperature and buoyancy is incomplete and flawed. Rather we find that the phase changes of water (condensation and evaporation) can play a much larger role than has previously been recognized.”
The same obstructionism is happening within the space sciences as well. Well-meaning experts have come to view their educations as an unassailable foundation for their reasoning, rather than a starting point for an objective, skeptical investigation.
Condensation occurs as a result of the van der waals force. At any instant in time, electrons fail to electrically shield the positive nucleus of an atom. If the random movements of particles — the temperature — is sufficiently low, then like atoms will line up in a three-dimensional lattice structure …
hole-nucleus-electron-hole-nucleus-electron … etc.
In other words …
+ – + – + –
The molecule in question need not be bipolar in order for this resonance to occur, but bipolar molecules possess a stronger resonance — as with water. This is incredibly important to realize because bipolar molecules can be suspended within an electric field. Remember the JJ Thompson oil drop experiment?
In other words, the liquid state of matter is an electromagnetic resonance of molecules. Drop the temperature further, and you have yet fewer random collisions, and the electromagnetic resonance can enter into the solid state.
I urge all climate scientists to not just understand the effects of such processes, but also to understand how the electromagnetic resonance — the van der waals force — works on the microscopic scale. Were it not for this resonance, there would be no such thing as “capillary water” — a principle which serves as the foundation for the entire soil food web, and things like osmotic pressure — which plants require for feeding. Water’s inherent resonance is why it can be siphoned — in other words, why it appears to possess an apparent “tension”.
This is also the principle force which creates the sometimes-elaborate structures we see solids form into — like crystals and snowflakes.
Now, with regards to wind, I would urge people to consider another aspect of electricity: Look at the function of the ionic bladeless fan. When charged particles are acted upon with an electromagnetic field, this movement exerts a drag upon molecules as well. This is the same principle for why electromagnetic lifters can levitate. The movement of ions can induce a wind.
I would caution that so long as researchers barricade themselves into their own disciplines, and fail to consider outside theories for weather, that we will settle into long-term confusion and fail to make accurate predictions. The most complex questions out there — like weather and the Sun — require an interdisciplinary approach where theorists are eager to hear out all of the theories available to them. If you see evidence that the lines of communication have been broken, then don’t imagine that the underlying mechanisms for weather must be complex. The very act of silo’ing the disciplines, and then creating barriers to communications, creates the complexity which we struggle with.
And this gets to the very problem which you guys are facing: How can we force people like particle physicists, quantum physicists, cosmologists and climate scientists to listen to the objections and research of outsiders? Currently, there exists no check-and-balances to the current top-down approach. Our scientific institutions have become authoritarian. The research exists to protect the ideology, instead of serving mankind. We’ve made a real good mess of things!
But these are no accidents. These are all natural ramifications of what it means to be human. This is just human psychology. Left unrestrained by philosophy of science, science starts to take on the imprint of our personal preferences and prejudices — and our scientists come to imagine that their purpose is to prove that which they were taught in college.
Oops … That should read “dipolar” … Not “bipolar” …
And this …
“At any instant in time, electrons fail to electrically shield the positive nucleus of an atom.”
Should read …
“At any instant in time, electrons fail to electrically shield the positive nucleus of an atom ON ALL SIDES.”
Not enough coffee this morning … !
I don’t think it is true at all that this is ignored in meteorology. Here in Rochester, we get lots of lake effect snow and they are constantly talking about the instability produced by the cold air blowing over the warm lake waters. I used to think the role of the lake was just to make the air more unstable because it heated it and that another independent role of the lake was to provide the moisture that leads to the precipitation. However, I recently went through the module on lake effect snow available here http://www.meted.ucar.edu/ and understood for the first time that the addition of moisture to the air itself also increases instability because of the fact that a saturated air parcel cools less as it ascends (because the condensation of the vapor vapor releases latent heat). While this was a new understanding to me, I found no evidence that it is new to those who are actually formally trained in meteorology, atmospheric, or climate science (which I am not)…In fact, it seemed to be such old-hat to them that they basically took it as a given.
There seems to be much confusion between temperature change and quantity of heat change. When relevant to H2O vapor, cooling in temperature does not necessarily equate to loss of heat. Adiabatic cooling does not result in condensation of H2O vapor as there is no change in heat content. Heat has to be removed before H2O changes from its vapor state to its liquid state, i.e., condenses.
Well, golly gee, that leaves me out . . .
In a vapor steam heating plant, which functions at near atmospheric pressure, water expands 1,700 times into steam, which large expansion delivers the latent heat to radiators, where the saturated steam returns to the original vastly smaller volume of water. Moist air is not steam, but the great expansion and contraction of the water vapor portion of that air as it moves up from, say, ocean surface to condensing elevation, suggests that something might be learned from publication of the above paper.
Good to see Dr. Judith Curry willing to weigh in. But not surprising – she’s still a scientist.
Similar to heat transfer classes in University. Heat transfer is a hard enough class, once you change the topicto heat and mass transfer, all the nice dimensionless analysis and Fourier equations become less important and you’re slogging through steam tables.
anyone that knows anything knows it’s a hard problem and we probably can’t solve it for anything bigger than a teakettle.
I actually know someone who can possibly help. Anastasia, drop me a line. The person I know did atmospheric chemistry with NASA for several years.
To Jeff Id: Thanks for everything you did on the Air Vent, not least breaking Climategate! Many best wishes in what you do next.
Moisture-saturated warm air rises as water runs downhill, inducing a pronounced condensation/cooling effect which –ostensibly for reasons of interactive complexity– climate hysterics’ atrophied atmospheric models have purposefully ignored.
Anyone expecting the Green Gang of Briffa, Hansen, Jones, Mann, Trenberth et al. to entertain a serious research endeavor has been in hibernation since c. 1988. Death-eaters, Thanatists such as Paul “Population Bomb” Ehrlich, John “Seething Maggots” Holdren, latterly Keith “Down with Civilization” Farnish, will no more commit to objective or even rational inquiry than abjure homicidal “No Pressure” incitement to child-murder.
“Hot air rises, moisture condenses, rain doth fall”– what are you, some kinda kook?
“Heat has to be removed before H2O changes from its vapor state to its liquid state, i.e., condenses.”
Let me get this straight.. take a cubic meter of air(N, H2O vapour, CO2, O2) etc.. at some critical height where the lapse rate of T with Pressure causes condensation(rain).. thus water(rain)falls down out of the cube, warm air goes out the top.. that motion upwards of warm (dryer) air removes the incoming heat in the cube..
Well I haven’t read the paper yet (I will); but some immediate trivial questions come to mind.
#1 Some of the strongest winds on earth occur over the Antarctic plateau; which also is among the driest places on earth; so I don’t imagine a lot of water condensation going on there to start up winds ?
#2 How does the pressure created by molecular collisions required to keep water droplets buoyant, compare with the actual vapor pressure of the same amount of water before it condensed ?
Does this paper explain those things ?
But as to the approach (to review), seems like an interesting way to consider things.
Laurence M. Sheehan, PE says:
January 21, 2011 at 9:12 am
“When relevant to H2O vapor, cooling in temperature does not necessarily equate to loss of heat.”
Any vapor, actually. One cubic meter of gas that expands to three cubic meters of gas from a loss in pressure will have the same total energy content, but spread out over triple the volume. Temperature is average energy content per unit volume, so the temperature drops without any loss of energy by the mass as a whole.
“Adiabatic cooling does not result in condensation of H2O vapor as there is no change in heat content. Heat has to be removed before H2O changes from its vapor state to its liquid state, i.e., condenses.”
Meterologists disagree. Condensation will occur as soon as the dewpoint of the entire mass is reached. So although the total energy content of the mass remains the same, the drop in average energy content (temperature) determines the dewpoint.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapse_rate#Significance_in_meteorology
Martian wind speeds may average around 20-30 mph while bursting much higher during storms. Mars’ atmosphere is 0.03 % water vapor.
I’d say the phase change of water plays little role, if any, in the Martian winds, why should it play a significant role here on Earth?
I don’t believe temperature gradients explain winds on Earth either. I expect if the planet didn’t rotate, then there would be no wind, and only small mixing of atmospheric gases at the tropics.
My belief is that the mountain ranges and canyons stir up the atmosphere as the planet spins.
The average wind speed on Earth is about half of that on Mars (quick Internet search, not definitive). Mars has the largest mountains and canyons in the solar system, and a higher wind speed than Earth.
To me, this lends credence to the physical movement of air creating winds, not a temperature difference or water phase changing.
I would expect an easy experiment would be to spin a perfect sphere in a test chamber with several colored gases injected at different temperatures. I don’t think the gases would mix that fast. And once mixed, I don’t expect much wind would be observed.
Compare that to a spinning sphere with ridges and indentations to simulate mountains and canyons. I expect the gases would mix much faster and there would be a sustained wind observed.
In my vast scientific experience, I’ve come to the conclusion that the primary cause of wind has often been attributable to an overconsumption of beans.