By WUWT regular “Just The Facts”
With the help of an array of WUWT reader comments on this thread and several others documented within, I’ve been compiling a summary of all potential climatic variables in order to build a conceptual map of Earth’s climate system. The goals of this exercise include; To gain a bigger picture understanding and perspective of Earth’s climate system. To demonstrate that Earth’s climate system is a ridiculously complex, continually evolving and sometimes chaotic beast, with the plethora of variables, many interdependencies and an array of feedbacks, both positive and negative. To highlight the challenges associated with accurately measuring the current state, as well as predicting the trajectory and likely future state of Earth’s climate system many decades into the future. To build the WUWT Potential Climatic Variables Reference Page. To lay the conceptual groundwork for the WUWT Likely Climatic Variables Reference Page.
Your help in completing this exercise would be most appreciated. Please take a look through the list below and let me know if you have any additions, suggestions or corrections. For those of you who’ve already read this list, it has grown significantly, especially the later portions. Please pay particular attention to Section 9. Albedo, as most of the content is new, thus it may need more work, and I’m also trying out a different linking/reference format. Your input on preferences between the linking/reference format in Section 9, versus the rest of the document would be most appreciated.
Note: The list below is an evolving document that continues to undergo significant revisions and improvements based upon crowdsourcing input of an array of WUWT contributors. Additionally, this list was posted in a prior article and in comments on WUWT a few times previously, receiving input from a vast number of contributors. This thread, along with these precursor threads will serve as the bibliography for the forthcoming WUWT Potential Climatic Variables Reference Page.
Wikipedia Note: The list relies heavily upon Wikipedia, due to the fact that it is the only source that offers reasonably coherent content on such broad range of subjects. However, there are know issues with Wikpedia’s content, especially biases in their climate articles. As such, please take care to view any Wikipedia articles with a critical eye and check Wikipedia’s references to evaluate the credibility of their sources. Additionally, in comments, please provide your suggestions of articles from alternate sources that can be added to this list in order to help readers to easily verify the veracity of the Wikipedia articles within.
1. Earth’s Rotational Energy;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotational_energy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_rotation
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/6h.html
results in day and night;
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_does_rotation_cause_day_and_night
causes the Coriolis Effect;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_effect
imparts Planetary Vorticity on the oceans;
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/chapter12/chapter12_01.htm
and manifests as Ocean Gyres;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_gyre
the Antarctic Circumpolar Current;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Circumpolar_Current
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Conveyor_belt.svg
Arctic Ocean Circulation;
http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=12455&tid=441&cid=47170&ct=61&article=20727
http://www.john-daly.com/polar/flows.jpg
can result in the formation of Polynya;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynya
and causes the Equatorial Bulge:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equatorial_bulge
Earth’s Rotational Energy influences Atmospheric Circulation;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_circulation
including the Jet Stream;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_stream
Westerlies;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westerlies
Tradewinds;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_wind
Geostrophic Wind;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostrophic_wind
Surface Currents;
http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Water/ocean_currents.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_current
through Ekman Transport;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekman_transport
http://oceanmotion.org/html/background/ocean-in-motion.htm
Tropical Cyclones;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_cyclone
possibly Tornadoes;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornado
however, Windows To The Universe states that, “because there are records of anticyclonic tornadoes, scientists don’t think that the Coriolis Effect causes the rotations.”;
http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Atmosphere/tornado/formation.html
and Polar Vortices;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_vortex
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/polar-vortex/
which “are caused when an area of low pressure sits at the rotation pole of a planet. This causes air to spiral down from higher in the atmosphere, like water going down a drain.”
http://www.universetoday.com/973/what-venus-and-saturn-have-in-common/
Here’s an animation of the Arctic Polar Vortex in Winter 2008 – 09:
When a Polar Vortex splits or breaks down it can cause a Sudden Stratospheric Warming:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_stratospheric_warming
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=36972
Rossby Waves;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rossby_wave
are a subset of Inertial Waves:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_waves
“Atmospheric Rossby Waves emerge due to shear in rotating fluids, so that the Coriolis force changes along the sheared coordinate. In planetary atmospheres, they are due to the variation in the Coriolis effect with latitude.1” “Atmospheric Rossby waves are giant meanders in high-altitude winds that are a major influence on weather”1 and “are principally responsible for the Brewer-Dobson circulation”;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewer-Dobson_circulation
http://www.ccpo.odu.edu/~lizsmith/SEES/ozone/class/Chap_6/6_4.htm
Atmospheric Rossby Waves “are not to be confused with Oceanic Rossby Waves, which move along the thermocline: that is, the boundary between the warm upper layer of the ocean and the cold deeper part of the ocean.” “Oceanic Rossby waves are thought to communicate climatic changes due to variability in forcing, due to both the wind and buoyancy. Both barotropic and baroclinic waves cause variations of the sea surface height, although the length of the waves made them difficult to detect until the advent of satellite altimetry. Baroclinic waves also generate significant displacements of the oceanic thermocline, often of tens of meters. Satellite observations have revealed the stately progression of Rossby waves across all the ocean basins, particularly at low- and mid-latitudes. These waves can take months or even years to cross a basin like the Pacific.”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rossby_wave
Earth’s Rotational Energy influences Plate Tectonics;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics
“By analyzing the minute changes in travel times and wave shapes for each doublet, the researchers concluded that the Earth’s inner core is rotating faster than its surface by about 0.3-0.5 degrees per year.
That may not seem like much, but it’s very fast compared to the movement of the Earth’s crust, which generally slips around only a few centimeters per year compared to the mantle below, said Xiaodong Song, a geologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an author on the study.
http://www.livescience.com/9313-earth-core-rotates-faster-surface-study-confirms.html
The surface movement is called plate tectonics. It involves the shifting of about a dozen major plates and is what causes most earthquakes”;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake
Volcanoes;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcano
and Mountain Formation;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_formation
which can influence the creation of Atmospheric Waves:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_wave
Rotational Energy is the primary driver of Earth’s Dynamo;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamo_theory
which generates Earth’s Magnetic Field;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_magnetic_field
and is primarily responsible for the Earthly behaviors of the Magnetosphere;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetosphere
with certain secular variations in Earth’s magnetic field originating from ocean flow/circulation;
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/090622-earths-core-dynamo.html
http://iopscience.iop.org/1367-2630/11/6/063015/fulltext
though Leif Svalgaard notes that these are minor variations, as the magnetic field originating from ocean flow/circulation “is 1000 times smaller than the main field generated in the core.”
Earth Core Changes:
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/42580
appear “to be generated in the Earth’s core by a dynamo process, associated with the circulation of liquid metal in the core, driven by internal heat sources”. “Molten iron flowing in the outer core generates the Earth’s geodynamo, leading to a planetary-scale magnetic field. Beyond this, though, geophysicists know very little for certain about the field, such as its strength in the core or why its orientation fluctuates regularly. Researchers do suspect, however, that field variations are strongly linked with changing conditions within the molten core.” These core changes
influence the Magnetosphere;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetosphere
including movement of the Geomagnetic Poles:
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/GeomagneticPoles.shtml
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/12/091224-north-pole-magnetic-russia-earth-core.html
Also of note, “Over millions of years, [Earth’s] rotation is significantly slowed by gravitational interactions with the Moon: see tidal acceleration.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_acceleration
“Tidal acceleration is an effect of the tidal forces between an orbiting natural satellite (e.g. the Moon), and the primary planet that it orbits (e.g. the Earth). The “acceleration” is usually negative, as it causes a gradual slowing and recession of a satellite in a prograde orbit away from the primary, and a corresponding slowdown of the primary’s rotation. The process eventually leads to tidal locking of first the smaller, and later the larger body. The Earth-Moon system is the best studied case.”
“The presence of the moon (which has about 1/81 the mass of the Earth), is slowing Earth’s rotation and lengthening the day by about 2 ms every one hundred years.”
Lastly Length of Day (LOD);
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_length
“varies when any mass on or in the Earth moves, affecting the state of its angular momentum. Take weather in the atmosphere, for instance. The seasonal changes in the trade winds and monsoons have a well-known effect on the length-of-day over the course of the year. The IERS calculates the angular momentum of the whole atmosphere every six hours, allowing the signal of large-scale weather systems to be detected.
The tides of the ocean have the long-term effect of slowing the Earth down and speeding up the Moon (which thus moves away from Earth a few centimeters per year). They also have short-term effects that are being modeled more accurately all the time. Changes in ocean currents change the length-of-day. Our computer models of ocean circulation are getting good enough, thanks to centimeter-precise measurements of the sea surface, that we can analyze this signal too. The National Earth Orientation Service has a page explaining this stuff in clear detail. (These are also the people who announce leap seconds.)
Other factors affecting the LOD data include rises and subsidences of the land surface, the buildup of glaciers, large earthquakes, large-scale pumping of groundwater and construction of reservoirs, and the shape of the ocean’s surface in response to air masses above it.”
and slightly from the accumulated mass of incoming space debris:
http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae75.cfm
“The last level of variation, a slow drift on the decade scale, seems to be related to the motion of liquid iron in the Earth’s core. This layer allows the solid inner core to rotate freely with respect to the outer mantle and crust. Thus every twist and torque exerted by the atmosphere, oceans, Moon, Sun, other planets and the rest of the universe stirs that inner iron ocean, affecting the great dynamo that drives the Earth’s magnetic field.”
http://geology.about.com/od/tectonicsdeepearth/a/lodresearch.htm
“An analysis of time variations in the earth’s length of day (LOD) for 25 years (1973–1998) versus atmospheric circulation changes and lunar phase is presented. It is found that, on the average, there is a 27.3-day and 13.6-day period oscillation in global zonal wind speed, atmospheric geopotential height, and LOD following alternating changes in lunar phase. Every 5–9 days (6.8 days on average), the fields of global atmospheric zonal wind and geopotential height and LOD undergo a sudden change in relation to a change in lunar declination. The observed atmospheric oscillation with this time period may be viewed as a type of atmospheric tide.”
http://www.springerlink.com/content/j07x681174454l02/
“The third important index is Length of Day (LOD) – a geophysical index that characterizes variation in the earth rotational velocity. Full time series of LOD cover more than 350 years, with the most reliable data obtained in the last 150 years (Stephenson and Morrison 1995). The long-term LOD dynamics is in close correlation with the dynamics of the main commercial fish stocks (Klyashtorin and Sidorenkov 1996).”
http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/y2787e/y2787e03.htm
“When detrended, the graphs of -LOD and dT are very similar in shape, and it is clear that -LOD runs several years ahead of dT, especially in its maxima. Shifting the -LOD curve by 6 years to the right (Figure 2.2b) results in almost complete coincidence of the corresponding maxima of the early 1870s, late 1930s, and middle of 1990s (Klyashtorin et al. 1998).”
“Often the movements of the moon transiting the West Coast are accompanied by a shift in the jet stream to the south as the moon passes the coast. This gives the appearance that the southward motion in latitude is accompanied by a southward motion in the jet stream. This is not always the case due to a number of other patterns but it can be thought of as a general rule of thumb.”
http://docweather.com/4/show/211/
Earth’s rotation is slowing “due to a transfer of Earth’s rotational momentum to the Moon’s orbital momentum as tidal friction slows the Earth’s rotation. That increase in the Moon’s speed is causing it to slowly recede from Earth (about 4 cm per year), increasing its orbital period and the length of a month as well.” “The slowing rotation of the Earth results in a longer day as well as a longer month. Once the length of a day equals the length of a month, the tidal friction mechanism will cease. (ie. Once your speed on the track matches the speed of the horses, you can’t gain any more speed with your lasso trick.) That’s been projected to happen once the day and month both equal about 47 (current) days, billions of years in the future. If the Earth and Moon still exist, the Moon’s distance will have increased to about 135% of its current value.”
http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae695.cfm
“However some large scale events, such as the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, have caused the rotation to speed up by around 3 microseconds.[21] Post-glacial rebound, ongoing since the last Ice age, is changing the distribution of the Earth’s mass thus affecting the Moment of Inertia of the Earth and, by the Conservation of Angular Momentum, the Earth’s rotation period.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_rotation
In this paper, “Are Changes in the Earth’s Rotation Rate Externally Driven and Do They Affect Climate?”, by Ian R. G. Wilson, the General Science Journal, 2011, “evidence is presented to show that the phases of two of the Earth’s major climate systems, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), are related to changes in the Earth’s rotation rate. We find that the winter NAO index depends upon the time rate of change of the Earth’s length of day (LOD). In addition, we find that there is a remarkable correlation between the years where the phase of the PDO is most positive and the years where the deviation of the Earth’s LOD from its long-term trend is greatest.”
http://www.wbabin.net/files/4424_wilson.pdf
In this paper, “On the correlation between air temperature and the core Earth processes: Further investigations using a continuous wavelet analysis” by Stefano Sello, Mathematical and Physical Models, 2011;
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1103.4924.pdf
The authors main results are: ”…the detection of a broadband variability centered at 78 yr (common variability ranges from 67 to 86 yr from SSA method). Oscillations in global temperatures with periods in the 65-70 yr are well known. Our work suggests that the same core processes that are known to affect Earth’s rotation and magnetic field may also contribute to the excitation of such modes, possibly through geomagnetic modulation of near-Earth charged particle fluxes that may influence cloud nucleation processes, and hence the planetary albedo, on regional as well as global scales.”
2. Orbital Energy, Orbital Period, Elliptical Orbits (Eccentricity), Tilt (Obliquity) and Wobble (Axial precession);
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_orbital_energy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synodic
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/6h.html
creates Earth’s seasons;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Season
which drives annual changes in Arctic Sea Ice;
and Antarctic Sea Ice;
the freezing and melting of which helps to drive the Thermohaline Circulation;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation
and can result in the formation of Polynyas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynya
Earth’s orbit around the Sun, Earth’s tilt, Earth’s wobble and the Moon’s orbit around Earth, Earth’s Rotation, and the gravity of the Moon, Sun and Earth, act in concert to determine the constantly evolving Tidal Force on Earth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_force
This Tidal Force is influenced by variations in Lunar Orbit;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbit_of_the_Moon
as seen in the Lunar Phases;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_phase
Lunar Precession;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_precession
Lunar Node;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_node
Saros cycles;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saros_cycle
and Inex cycles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inex
The combined cycles of the Saros and Inex Cycles can be visualized here:
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEsaros/image/SEpanoramaGvdB-big.JPG
Keeling and TWhorf propose in Geophysics, 2000 “that such abrupt millennial changes, seen in ice and sedimentary core records, were produced in part by well characterized, almost periodic variations in the strength of the global oceanic tide-raising forces caused by resonances in the periodic motions of the earth and moon. A well defined 1,800-year tidal cycle is associated with gradually shifting lunar declination from one episode of maximum tidal forcing on the centennial time-scale to the next. An amplitude modulation of this cycle occurs with an average period of about 5,000 years, associated with gradually shifting separation-intervals between perihelion and syzygy at maxima of the 1,800-year cycle. We propose that strong tidal forcing causes cooling at the sea surface by increasing vertical mixing in the oceans. On the millennial time-scale, this tidal hypothesis is supported by findings, from sedimentary records of ice-rafting debris, that ocean waters cooled close to the times predicted for strong tidal forcing.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC18099/
“When perigee, perihelion, and either the new or full moon occur at approximately the same time, considerably increased tidal ranges result. When apogee, aphelion, and the first- or third-quarter moon coincide at approximately the same time, considerably reduced tidal ranges will normally occur.”
“Lunar Declination Effects: The Diurnal Inequality. The plane of the moon’s orbit is inclined only about 5 degrees to the plane of the earth’s orbit (the ecliptic) and thus the moon monthly revolution around the earth remains very close to the ecliptic. The ecliptic is inclined 23.5 degrees to the earth’s equator, north and south of which the sun moves once each half year to produce the seasons. In similar fashion, the moon, in making a revolution around the earth once each month, passes from a position of maximum angular distance north of the equator to a position of maximum angular distance south of the equator during each half month. (Angular distance perpendicularly north and south of the celestial equator is termed declination.) twice each month, the moon crosses the equator.”
http://co-ops.nos.noaa.gov/restles4.htm
Richard Holle argues that “The solar wind inductive effects, drive the lunar declinational movement, which in turn drives the atmospheric declinational tides. The declinational movement of the Moon hangs at the culmination almost three days, as the polarity of the solar wind peaks and reverses. This produces the surges in the meridional flow, visible in the satellite photos as turbulence.”
“The Metonic cycle is a 19-year period when the lunar declination is at the culmination of movement on the same date as it was 19 years ago, as well as the same light phase. The Saros cycle is ~17 days longer than 18 years, and it is a repeating pattern of the position of the Earth / Moon and inner planets due to harmonic interactions, causing the Solar / lunar eclipses to repeat predictably at this period. The 18.6 year Mn cyclic patterns of the variation of the moon’s declinational movement result from the progression of the nodes that varies the declinational angle from the ~18.5 degrees minimum to ~28.5 maximum.”
http://research.aerology.com/aerology-analog-weather-forecasting-method/
“Moon’s influence upon the Jet stream via declination. Often the movements of the moon transiting the West Coast are accompanied by a shift in the jet stream to the south as the moon passes the coast. This gives the appearance that the southward motion in latitude is accompanied by a southward motion in the jet stream. This is not always the case due to a number of other patterns but it can be thought of as a general rule of thumb.
The phenomenon of the effects of declination on the jet stream of the eastern Pacific can be related to the work of a Chinese researcher LI Guoqing of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, in Beijing. The paper entitled, 27.3 and 13.6 day Atmospheric Tide and Lunar Forcing on Atmospheric Circulation [PDF] researches the influence of the earth’s length of day (LOD) in relation to the geopotential height of the 500mb fields in the eastern Pacific and the declination of the moon. It was found that there is an alternating increase and decrease in geopotential height in the eastern Pacific in approximately seven day cycles that are keyed not to the phases of the moon but to the declination of the moon…”
http://docweather.com/4/show/211/
Eccentricity;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_eccentricity
controls the shape of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. The orbit gradually changes from being elliptical to being nearly circular and then back to elliptical in a period of about 100,000 years. The greater the eccentricity of the orbit (i.e., the more elliptical it is), the greater the variation in solar energy received at the top of the atmosphere between the Earth’s closest (perihelion) and farthest (aphelion) approach to the Sun. Currently, the Earth is experiencing a period of low eccentricity. The difference in the Earth’s distance from the Sun between perihelion and aphelion (which is only about 3%) is responsible for approximately a 7% variation in the amount of solar energy received at the top of the atmosphere. When the difference in this distance is at its maximum (9%), the difference in solar energy received is about 20%.
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7y.html”>http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7y.html
“The inertial motion of the Sun around the Barycentre, or centre of mass, of the Solar System”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barycentric_coordinates_%28astronomy%29
http://www.orbitsimulator.com/gravity/articles/ssbarycenter.html
“has been employed as the base in searching for possible influence of the Solar System as a whole on climatic processes, especially on the changes in surface air temperature. A basic cycle of about 180–200 years and its higher harmonics up to 30 years have been found in surface air temperature of central Europe since 1753, established from 13 continuous instrumental time series. These periods correspond to the periods of solar inertial motion. In the first half of the 19th century, when the solar motion was chaotic, this temperature was about 0.75°C lower than that in the 20th (1940–50) and the 18th (1760–70) centuries. The mentioned decades of long-term temperature maxima coincide with the central decades of the ordered (trefoil) motion of the Sun. The temperatures in coastal Europe have been found to have slightly different properties, especially on a long-time scale. The periods of 35–45 years are significantly pronounced in the coastal Europe temperature spectrum. The chaotic motion of the Sun in the next decades could decrease both the solar forcing and global surface air temperature”
http://www.springerlink.com/content/xh920864613u2k57/
Over longer time frames changes to Earth’s orbit, tilt and wobble called Croll/Milankovitch cycles;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
may be responsible for the periods of Glaciation (Ice Ages);
http://www.homepage.montana.edu/~geol445/hyperglac/time1/milankov.htm
that Earth has experienced for the last several million years of its climatic record:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age
However, Don Easterbrook argues that there are major problems with the Croll/Milankovitch theory including that “(1) the theory cannot explain the synchroneity of glaciations in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere with no time lag (this fact has been called “the fly in the Milankovitch ointment”). Until this fact can be accounted for, the theory cannot be considered proven; (2) The validity of Milankovitch cycles depend on correlation with oxygen isotope variations in deep sea cores, but the cores cannot be dated accurately so the correlations rest on unproven assumptions and circular reasoning; (3) Milankovitch cycles cannot explain the Younger Dryas glacial resurgence because the onset and ending of the glaciation happened far more abruptly than can be credited to Milankovitch orbital changes (which are very slow). (4) The North Atlantic Deep Ocean Current theory cannot explain the problems with Milankovitch cycles because climatic changes occur simultaneous in both hemispheres with no lag time and this means it cannot be the cause of the climatic changes.”
Also of note, over very long time frames, “the Moon is spiraling away from Earth at an average rate of 3.8 cm per year”;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_distance_%28astronomy%29
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=124
3. Gravitation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitation
The gravity of the Moon, Sun and Earth, Earth’s rotation, Earth’s orbit around the Sun, Earth’s tilt, Earth’s wobble and the Moon’s orbit around Earth act in concert to determine the constantly evolving Tidal Force on Earth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_force
This tidal force results in Earth’s Ocean Tide;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide
http://www.themcdonalds.net/richard/astro/papers/602-tides-web.pdf
http://co-ops.nos.noaa.gov/restles4.html
Atmospheric Tide;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_tide
Earth Tide;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_tide
Magma Tide:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/h7005r0273703250/
and “Tidal effects are also observed in the” “land masses of the Earth. Relative to the centre of the Earth, the land and buildings may bulge by as much as 9 inches, depending on the latitude. This constant pulling on the land areas as well as the friction caused between the ocean’s waters and the ocean floor, has led to a slowing down in the rotation of the Earth. This in turn has led to the lengthening of the day, by 0.002 seconds. This is why scientists in observatories who keep an accurate track of time, had to add a “˜leap second’ to keep in time with the changes in the period of the rotation of the Earth. This concept is similar to that of the leap year where a day is added, approximately every four years. This constant slowing down of the rotation of the Earth, will over a few billion years lead to a situation when the Moon and Earth are “locked ” together with the same side of the Earth and Moon facing each other.
Since the Earth’s mass is several times greater than that of the Moon, the gravitational forces exerted by the Earth on the Moon is also greater. Although no oceans are present on the Moon today, the tidal forces are felt on the land causing the rotation of the Moon to slow down from its original speed, in a manner similar to the effect the Moon has on the Earth. Since the gravitational force of the Earth on the Moon is greater, than that of the Moon on the Earth, the slowing down of the Moon’s rotation was more rapid, resulting in the present situation where the same side of the Moon always faces the Earth. Laser beams, along with reflectors placed on the Moon by astronauts, have helped in measuring accurately the distance between the Earth and the Moon. Repeated measurements have confirmed that the Moon is indeed moving away from the Earth at around 3.82 cm every year.
Since the distance between the Earth and Moon is slowly but surely increasing, the tidal forces on the Earth are constantly reducing by a corresponding degree.”
http://www.essortment.com/tides-moon-61741.html
Earth’s Gravity;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convection#Gravitational_or_buoyant_convection
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=205
in concert with Tidal Forces, influence Earth’s Ocean Circulation;
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Ocean_circulation
which influences Oceanic Oscillations including El Niño/La Niña;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Ni%C3%B1o-Southern_Oscillation
the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO);
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Decadal_Oscillation
the Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation (AMO);
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Multidecadal_Oscillation
the Indian_Ocean_Dipole (IOD)/Indian Ocean Oscillation (IOO) and;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_Dipole
can result in the formation of Polynyas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynya
Gravity Waves;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_wave
which may be partially responsible for the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation (QBO);
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi-biennial_oscillation
“on an air–sea interface are called surface gravity waves or Surface Waves”;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_wave
“while internal gravity waves are called Inertial Waves”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_waves
“Rossby Waves;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rossby_waves
Geostrophic Currents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostrophic
and Geostrophic Wind
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostrophic_wind
are examples of inertial waves. Inertial waves are also likely to exist in the core of the Earth”
Earth’s gravity is the primary driver of Plate Tectonics;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics
“The Slab Pull;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slab_pull
force is a tectonic plate force due to subduction. Plate motion is partly driven by the weight of cold, dense plates sinking into the mantle at trenches. This force and the slab suction force account for most of the overall force acting on plate tectonics, and the Ridge Push;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ridge_push
force accounts for 5 to 10% of the overall force.”
Isostasy also exists whereby a “state of gravitational equilibrium between the earth’s lithosphere and asthenosphere such that the tectonic plates “float” at an elevation which depends on their thickness and density.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isostasy
Plate Tectonics drive “cycles of ocean basin growth and destruction, known as Wilson cycles;
http://csmres.jmu.edu/geollab/fichter/Wilson/Wilson.html
involving continental rifting;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rift
seafloor-spreading;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seafloor_spreading
subduction;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subduction
and collision.”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_collision
“Climate change on ultra-long time scales (tens of millions of years) are more than likely connected to plate tectonics.”
“Through the course of a Wilson cycle continents collide and split apart, mountains are uplifted and eroded, and ocean basins open and close. The re-distribution and changing size and elevation of continental land masses may have caused climate change on long time scales”;
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ice/chill.html
a process called the Supercontinent Cycle:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercontinent_cycle
which, “has shaped the geology and climate of the earth and provided a force for biological evolution.”
http://www.as.wvu.edu/biology/bio463/Nance%20et%20al%201988%20Supercontinent%20Cycle.pdf
“There are two types of global earth climates: icehouse and greenhouse. Icehouse is characterized by frequent continental glaciations and severe desert environments. Greenhouse is characterized by warm climates. Both reflect the supercontinent cycle. We are now in a little greenhouse phase of an ice house world.
Icehouse Climate:
Continents moving together
Sea level low due to lack of seafloor production
Climate cooler, arid
Associated with aragonite seas
Formation of supercontinents
Greenhouse Climate:
Continents dispersed
Sea level high
High level of sea floor spreading
Relatively large amounts of CO2 production at oceanic rifting zones
Climate warm and humid
Associated with calcite seas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercontinent_cycle#Relation_to_climate
Earth’s gravity is responsible for Katabatic Wind:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katabatic_wind
4. Solar Energy;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy
results is Solar Radiation/Sunlight;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_radiation
which varies based upon 11 and 22 year cycles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle
Total Solar Irradiance (TSI);
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/solar/solarirrad.html
appears to fluctuate “by approximately 0.1% or about 1.3 Watts per square meter (W/m2) peak-to-trough during the 11-year sunspot cycle”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation
Solar Energy also drives the Hydrological/Water Cycle;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrological_cycle
within the Hydrosphere;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrosphere
as Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) causes evaporation;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporation
that drives Cloud formation;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud
results in Precipitation;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precipitation_%28meteorology%29
that results in the Water Distribution on Earth;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_distribution_on_Earth
creates surface Runoff;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runoff_%28water%29
which result in Rivers;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River
and drives Erosion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erosion
Solar energy is also “The driving force behind atmospheric circulation is solar energy, which heats the atmosphere with different intensities at the equator, the middle latitudes, and the poles.”
http://www.scienceclarified.com/As-Bi/Atmospheric-Circulation.html
Atmospheric Circulation;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_circulation
includes Hadley Cells;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadley_cell
Ferrel Cells;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_circulation#Ferrel_cell
Polar Cells;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_cells
all of which help to create Wind;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind
that influence Surface Currents;
http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Water/ocean_currents.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_current
through Ekman Transport;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekman_transport
http://oceanmotion.org/html/background/ocean-in-motion.htm
and also cause Langmuir circulations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langmuir_circulation
Solar energy influences Atmospheric Waves;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_wave
including Atmospheric Tides;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_tide
evaporation and condensation that may help to drive changes in Atmospheric Pressure:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_pressure
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/10/24015/2010/acpd-10-24015-2010.pdf
and Atmospheric Escape;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_escape
which “is the loss of planetary atmospheric gases to outer space”. “Although Earth’s atmosphere may seem as permanent as the rocks, it gradually leaks back into space. The loss rate is currently tiny, only about three kilograms of hydrogen and 50 grams of helium (the two lightest gases) per second, but even that trickle can be significant over geologic time, and the rate was probably once much higher.”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-planets-lose-their-atmospheres
“‘On Earth the magnetosphere acts like an energy collector that interacts with the material that’s coming from the sun and can draw energy out of the solar wind,’ Russell said. But then Earth’s magnetic field funnels and guides that energy to the upper atmosphere, heating the atmosphere and allowing bits of it to escape along the very same funnels that guided the energy in. ‘The precise physics have yet to be worked out, but there’s no cause for alarm’, Russell said. ‘At the current rate, our present atmospheric inventory can last at least until the sun—midway through its life now—turns into a red giant and engulfs Earth’, Russell said. ‘At that point,’ he said, ‘the loss of atmosphere becomes moot.'”
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/05/090529-sun-stealing-atmosphere.html
Solar energy drives the Brewer Dobson Circulation;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewer-Dobson_circulation
which influences Polar Vortices:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_vortex
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/polar-vortex/
Solar variability may also influence the Polar Night Jets:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_stream#Polar_night_jet
“Early modelling work by Rind and Balachandran (1995) and Balachandran and Rind (1995), and more recently discussed by Rind et al. (2002), was able to simulate these zonal wind anomalies. They suggested that solar variability influences the structure of the polar night jet and hence the propagation of planetary-scale waves that travel vertically from the troposphere. This then affects their ability to impact the polar vortex and to produce sudden stratospheric warmings. Specifically, Rind and co-workers noted that the 11-year SC temperature anomaly in the equatorial upper stratosphere gives rise to an anomalous horizontal temperature gradient and hence to a corresponding anomaly in the vertical wind shear in the region of the polar night jet at upper levels. As a result of the consequent anomalous planetary wave propagation, this zonal wind anomaly gradually descends with time into the lower stratosphere (see also Dunkerton 2000). In addition, they noted that the QBO influences the latitudinal wind shear in the lower stratosphere (Holton and Tan 1982). Both these factors affect the structure of the polar night jet and thus there is an interaction of the solar and QBO influences through their combined influence on wave propagation. However, the details of how the solar and QBO interaction occurred were not clear, especially the precise mechanism by which the 11-year SC influence in the upper stratosphere impacts the QBO influence in the lower stratosphere.
http://www.space.dtu.dk/upload/institutter/space/forskning/06_projekter/isac/wp501b.pdf
Solar Ultraviolet (UV) radiation;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet
appears to vary by approximately 10% during the solar cycle;
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/solarcycle-sorce.html
has been hypothesized to influence Earth’s climate;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/05/courtillot-on-the-solar-uv-climate-connection/
however Leif Svalgaard argues that,
This is well-trodden ground. Nothing new to add, just the same old, tired arguments. Perhaps a note on EUV: as you can see here (slide 13)
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/news/2008ScienceMeeting/doc/Session1/S1_03_Kopp.pdf the energy in the EUV band [and other UV bands] is very tiny; many orders of magnitude less than what shines down on our heads each day. So a larger solar cycle variation of EUV does not make any significant difference in the energy budget.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/05/courtillot-on-the-solar-uv-climate-connection/#comment-636477
Additionally “the thermosphere intercepts extreme ultraviolet (EUV) photons from the sun before they can reach the ground. When solar activity is high, solar EUV warms the thermosphere, causing it to puff up like a marshmallow held over a camp fire. (This heating can raise temperatures as high as 1400 K—hence the name thermosphere.) When solar activity is low, the opposite happens.” “The thermosphere ranges in altitude from 90 km to 600+ km. It is a realm of meteors, auroras and satellites, which skim through the thermosphere as they circle Earth. It is also where solar radiation makes first contact with our planet.”
Interestingly, in 2008-2009 “A Puzzling Collapse of Earth’s Upper Atmosphere” occurred when “high above Earth’s surface where the atmosphere meets space, a rarefied layer of gas called “the thermosphere” recently collapsed and now is rebounding again.” “This is the biggest contraction of the thermosphere in at least 43 years,” says John Emmert of the Naval Research Lab, lead author of a paper announcing the finding in the June 19th issue of the Geophysical Research Letters (GRL). “It’s a Space Age record.” “The collapse happened during the deep solar minimum of 2008-2009—a fact which comes as little surprise to researchers. The thermosphere always cools and contracts when solar activity is low. In this case, however, the magnitude of the collapse was two to three times greater than low solar activity could explain.”
“‘“Something is going on that we do not understand,’” says Emmert.”
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/15jul_thermosphere/
“One component from which UV light creates methane in a photochemical process is pectin – a polysaccharide that many plants use as a structural material. It contains methoxyl groups in which there are already the rudiments of the methane chemical structure.” “Frank Keppler and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg had observed, for the first time, that plants release methane – into the air: meaning under aerobic conditions, under which bacteria produce no methane, allowing it, for example, to bubble up out of bogs and marshes. This study indicated that plants contribute a substantial proportion of the methane in the atmosphere.”
http://www.mpg.de/568294/pressRelease200805272?filter_order=TL&research_topic=UK-PF
Infrared Radiation;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared
Solar – Wind;
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/1999/ast13dec99_1/
Solar – Coronal Holes;
http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/chole.html
Solar – Solar Energetic Particles (SEP);
http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/sep.html
Solar – Coronal Mass Ejection;
http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMF75BNJTF_index_0.html
http://www.ratedesi.com/video/v/8AuCE_NNEaM/Sun-Erupts-to-Life-Unleashes-a-Huge-CME-on-13-April-2010
Solar Magnetosphere Breach;
Solar Polar Field Reversal;
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast15feb_1/
Solar Sector Boundary;
http://science.nasa.gov/heliophysics/focus-areas/magnetosphere-ionosphere/
Grand Minimum;
Leif Svalgaard says: February 6, 2011 at 8:26 pm
If L&P are correct and sunspots become effectively] invisible [not gone] it might mean another Grand Minimum lasting perhaps 50 years. During this time the solar cycle is still operating, cosmic rays are still modulated, and the solar wind is still buffeting the Earth.”
“It will lead to a cooling of a couple of tenths of a degree.”
“The Earth is dressed in layers that protect it from the sun’s fierce winds.” “The warm plasma cloak begins thinly on the nightside—or darkside—of the planet and wraps around to the dayside, where it becomes thickest until noon. In the afternoon, convective winds push the cloak out toward the edge of the magnetosphere, where it’s peeled off by solar winds.”
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/01/090107-warm-plasma-cloak.html
“Earth generates Cold Plasma—slow-moving charged particles—at the edge of space, where sunlight strips electrons from gas atoms, leaving only their positively charged cores, or nuclei.” “This influence is ‘not a minor thing in space weather,’ André said. ‘It’s an elephant in the room.'”
Solar Influences on Climate:
http://www.space.dtu.dk/upload/institutter/space/forskning/06_projekter/isac/wp501b.pdf
http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009RG000282.pdf
Statistical issues about solar–climate relations
http://www.leif.org/EOS/Yiou-565-2010.pdf
5. Geothermal Energy;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_energy
“is thermal energy generated and stored in the Earth. Thermal energy is the energy that determines the temperature of matter. Earth’s geothermal energy originates from the original formation of the planet (20%) and from radioactive decay of minerals (80%).”Heat may be generated by tidal force on the Earth as it rotates; since rock cannot flow as readily as water it compresses and distorts, generating heat.”
“The Earth’s internal thermal energy flows to the surface by conduction at a rate of 44.2 terawatts (TW), and is replenished by radioactive decay of minerals at a rate of 30 TW.” “Mean heat flow is 65 mW/m2 over continental crust and 101 mW/m2 over oceanic crust. This is approximately 1/10 watt/square meter on average, (about 1/10,000 of solar irradiation,) but is much more concentrated in areas where thermal energy is transported toward the crust by convection such as along mid-ocean ridges and mantle plumes. The Earth’s crust effectively acts as a thick insulating blanket which must be pierced by fluid conduits (of magma, water or other) in order to release the heat underneath. More of the heat in the Earth is lost through plate tectonics, by mantle upwelling associated with mid-ocean ridges. The final major mode of heat loss is by conduction through the lithosphere, the majority of which occurs in the oceans due to the crust there being much thinner and younger than under the continents”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_gradient
“Earth’s heat is released” “by two main processes, conduction and convection:
1. Conduction is the movement of heat from hotter material to colder material. A common example of conduction is when heat from a stove is transferred through the bottom of a coffee pot to the liquid inside. Conduction” “helps transfer heat from deep within Earth to shallower depths. Of the heat released from the ground at Yellowstone, about 25% is by conduction.”
2. Convection is heat transported by hot material in motion, such as hot water or magma. Convection happens inside a coffee pot when heat is carried to the top of the liquid in the pot by hot water that rises buoyantly from the heated bottom because it is less dense than overlying cooler water. As the water boils, the rise of the hotter water and the compensating fall of cooler water from the top forms what is called a convection cell. Convection of molten rock helps carry heat up through the Yellowstone caldera. Near the surface, convection of hot ground water drives geysers, hot springs, and fumaroles. Convection accounts for roughly 75% of the heat released from the ground at Yellowstone.”
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/about/faq/faqgeothermal.php
Geothermal Energy influences Earth’s climate especially when released by Volcanoes;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcano
“which are generally found where tectonic plates are diverging;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divergent_boundary
or converging”;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_boundary
however, “intraplate volcanism has also been postulated to be caused by mantle plumes”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantle_plume
“These so-called “hotspots”;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotspot_%28geology%29
for example Hawaii, are postulated to arise from upwelling diapirs;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diapir
from the core-mantle boundary, 3,000 km deep in the Earth.”
Volcanoes have been shown to influence Earth’s climate;
http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/climate_effects.html
http://www.longrangeweather.com/global_temperatures.htm
including in the infamous Year Without a Summer;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer
which was partially caused by the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1815_eruption_of_Mount_Tambora
and is called a Volcanic Winter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter
“Volcanic Ash;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_ash
particles have a maximum residence time in the troposphere of a few weeks.
The finest Tephera;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tephra
remain in the stratosphere for only a few months, they have only minor climatic effects, and they can be spread around the world by high-altitude winds. This suspended material contributes to spectacular sunsets.
“The greatest volcanic impact upon the earth’s short term weather patterns is caused by sulfur dioxide gas;”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur_dioxide
“In the cold lower atmosphere, it is converted to Sulfuric Acid;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfuric_acid
sulfuric acid by the sun’s rays reacting with stratospheric water vapor to form sulfuric acid aerosol layers. The aerosol remains in suspension long after solid ash particles have fallen to earth and forms a layer of sulfuric acid droplets between 15 to 25 kilometers up. Fine ash particles from an eruption column fall out too quickly to significantly cool the atmosphere over an extended period of time, no matter how large the eruption.
Sulfur aerosols last many years, and several historic eruptions show a good correlation of sulfur dioxide layers in the atmosphere with a decrease in average temperature decrease of subsequent years. The close correlation was first established after the 1963 eruption of Agung volcano in Indonesia when it was found that sulfur dioxide reached the stratosphere and stayed as a sulfuric acid aerosol.
Without replenishment, the sulfuric acid aerosol layer around the earth is gradually depleted, but it is renewed by each eruption rich in sulfur dioxide. This was confirmed by data collected after the eruptions of El Chichon, Mexico (1982) and Pinatubo, Philippines (1991), both of which were high-sulfur compound carriers like Agung, Indonesia.”
http://volcanology.geol.ucsb.edu/gas.htm
There is also some evidence that if “volcanic activity was high enough, then a water vapor anomaly would be introduced into the lower stratosphere before the anomaly due to the previous eruption had disappeared. The result would be threefold in the long term: stratospheric cooling, stratospheric humidification, and surface warming due to the positive radiative forcing associated with the water vapor.”
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0442(2003)016%3C3525%3AAGSOVE%3E2.0.CO%3B2#h1
Geothermal Energy can warm the atmosphere through Hot Springs;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_springs
or when leveraged for Geothermal Heating;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_heating
“Worldwide, about 10,715 megawatts (MW) of geothermal power is online in 24 countries. An additional 28 gigawatts of direct geothermal heating capacity is installed for district heating, space heating, spas, industrial processes, desalination and agricultural applications.”
Geothermal Energy can also warm the ocean through Hydrothermal Vents;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrothermal_vent
which can be a factor in Hydrothermal Circulations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrothermal_circulation
6. Outer Space/Cosmic/Galactic Effects;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_space
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy
including Asteroids;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid
Meteorites;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteorite
and Comets;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet
can all significantly impact Earth’s climate upon impact if they are large enough.
It has also been hypothesized that small comets impact Earth “at a rate of one 20-to-40 ton comet every three seconds, this influx of small comets into the atmosphere would add about one inch of water to the Earth’s surface every 20,000 years or so. The implications of this added water for long range global climate, global warming, and pollution mitigation will need to be examined by the experts in those fields.” “The influx of small comets into Earth’s atmosphere may help explain the source of water needed to form noctilucent clouds.” The hypothesis that small comets “are depositing water in our atmosphere” “comes from trying to account for the presence in the images of the “atmospheric holes,” those dark spots where the ultraviolet dayglow has been absorbed over areas of 50 to 100 km in diameter. This is a large area and requires a lot of material. For the wavelength range viewed by the Polar and Dynamics Explorer cameras, water is the only common gaseous substance in the solar system that can efficiently absorb the dayglow along the line-of-sight of the cameras.
http://smallcomets.physics.uiowa.edu/www/faq.htmlx
“Debate over the source of the Earth’s water has been raging for decades” with some scientists arguing that “comets were responsible for Earth’s oceans;”
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/4813/comets-were-responsible-earths-oceans
and others arguing that “ice asteroids likely source of Earth’s water”:
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/3427/ice-asteroids-likely-source-earths-water
It has been hypothesized that Galactic Cosmic Rays;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_cosmic_ray
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_ray
modulated by Solar Wind, may influence cloud formation on Earth:
Also, “the density of cosmic ray sources in the galaxy is not uniform. In fact, it is concentrated in the galactic spiral arms (it arises from supernovae, which in our galaxy are predominantly the end product of massive stars, which in turn form and die primarily in spiral arms). Thus, each time we cross a galactic arm, we should expect a colder climate. Current data for the spiral arm passages gives a crossing once every 135 ± 25 Million years. (See fig. 2 on the left. Note also that the spiral arms are density waves which propagate at a different speed than the stars, that is, nothing moves at their rotation speed).”
http://www.sciencebits.com/ice-ages
http://www.phys.huji.ac.il/~shaviv/articles/PRLice.pdf
http://www.phys.huji.ac.il/~shaviv/articles/long-ice.pdf
Galactic Magnetic Fields;
http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Galactic_magnetic_fields
result in the Galactic Tide;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_tide
which may influence the hypothesized Oort cloud;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_Cloud
“Besides the galactic tide, the main trigger for sending comets into the inner Solar System is believed to be interaction between the Sun’s Oort cloud and the gravitational fields of near-by stars or giant molecular clouds.”
Also Cosmic Dust;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_dust
“is a type of dust composed of particles in space which are a few molecules to 0.1 µm in size. Cosmic dust can be further distinguished by its astronomical location; for example: intergalactic dust, interstellar dust, interplanetary dust (such as in the zodiacal cloud) and circumplanetary dust (such as in a planetary ring).”
“Depending on their size and overall number, cosmic dust and other particles in the atmosphere have the potential to change Earth’s climate. They can reflect sunlight, which cools the Earth, absorb sunlight, which warms the atmosphere, and act as a blanket for the planet by trapping any heat it gives off. They can also facilitate the formation of rain clouds.”
http://www.space.com/1484-source-cosmic-dust.html
Cosmic dust contains various minerals which could control the production of algae and bacteria in remote ocean surface waters. A high production during periods of peaking cosmic influx increases cloud formation catalyzed by dimethyl sulphide (DMS) production, following increased atmospheric albedo, decreased shortwave solar irradiation to Earth surface and subsequent cooling. The opposite situation would occur when cosmic dust influx is low.
In addition, “a study of astronomical and geological data reveals that cosmic ray electrons and electromagnetic radiation from a similar outburst of our own Galactic core, impacted our Solar System near the end of the last ice age. This cosmic ray event spanned a period of several thousand years and climaxed around 14,200 years ago. Although far less intense than the PG 0052+251 quasar outburst, it was, nevertheless, able to substantially affect the Earth’s climate and trigger a solar-terrestrial conflagration the initiated the worst animal extinction episode of the Tertiary period.
The effects on the Sun and on the Earth’s climate were not due to the Galactic cosmic rays themselves, but to the cosmic dust that these cosmic rays transported into the Solar System. Observations have shown that the Solar System is presently immersed in a dense cloud of cosmic dust, material that is normally kept at bay by the outward pressure of the solar wind. But, with the arrival of this Galactic cosmic ray volley, the solar wind was overpowered and large quantities of this material were pushed inward. The Sun was enveloped in a cocoon of dust that caused its spectrum to shift toward the infrared. In addition, the dust grains filling the Solar System scattered radiation back to the Earth, producing an “interplanetary hothouse effect” that substantially increased the influx of solar radiation to the Earth.”
http://www.etheric.com/GalacticCenter/Galactic.html
Finally Lars G. Franzén and Roger A. Cropp argue in Geografiska Annaler 2007, that “cosmic dust contains various minerals which could control the production of algae and bacteria in remote ocean surface waters. A high production during periods of peaking cosmic influx increases cloud formation catalyzed by dimethyl sulphide (DMS) production, following increased atmospheric albedo, decreased shortwave solar irradiation to Earth surface and subsequent cooling. The opposite situation would occur when cosmic dust influx is low.”
http://www.science.gu.se/english/News/News_detail/?contentId=760313
Also, “during a solar eclipse the Moon’s passage overhead blocks out the majority of the Sun’s light, casting a wide swath of the Earth into darkness. The land under the Moon’s shadow receives less incoming energy than the surrounding regions, causing it to cool. In the early 1970s, researches proposed that this temperature difference could set off slow-moving waves in the upper atmosphere. They hypothesized that the waves, moving more slowly than the travelling temperature disparity from which they spawned, would pile up along the leading edge of the Moon’s path—like slow-moving waves breaking on a ship’s bow.”
http://www.agu.org/cgi-bin/highlights/highlights.cgi?action=show&doi=10.1029/2011GL048805&jc=gl
7. Earth’s Magnetic Field;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_magnetic_field
is primarily responsible for the Earthy behaviors of the Magnetosphere;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetosphere
with certain secular variations in Earth’s magnetic field originating from ocean flow/circulation;
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/090622-earths-core-dynamo.html
http://iopscience.iop.org/1367-2630/11/6/063015/fulltext
though Leif Svalgaard notes that these are minor variations, as the magnetic field originating from ocean flow/circulation “is 1000 times smaller than the main field generated in the core.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_magnetic_field
Earth Core Changes:
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/42580
appear “to be generated in the Earth’s core by a dynamo process, associated with the circulation of liquid metal in the core, driven by internal heat sources”. “Molten iron flowing in the outer core generates the Earth’s geodynamo, leading to a planetary-scale magnetic field. Beyond this, though, geophysicists know very little for certain about the field, such as its strength in the core or why its orientation fluctuates regularly. Researchers do suspect, however, that field variations are strongly linked with changing conditions within the molten core.” These core changes
influence the Magnetosphere;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetosphere
including movement of the Geomagnetic Poles:
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/GeomagneticPoles.shtml
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/12/091224-north-pole-magnetic-russia-earth-core.html
According to a 2009 Danish study “Is there a link between Earth’s magnetic field and low-latitude precipitation?” by Knudsen and Riisager, Geology, 2009. “The earth’s climate has been significantly affected by the planet’s magnetic field”
“Our results show a strong correlation between the strength of the earth’s magnetic field and the amount of precipitation in the tropics,” one of the two Danish geophysicists behind the study, Mads Faurschou Knudsen of the geology department at Aarhus University in western Denmark, told the Videnskab journal.”
http://www.spacedaily.com/2006/090112183735.ojdq7esu.html
“Intriguingly, we observe a relatively good correlation between the high-resolution speleothem δ18O records and the dipole moment, suggesting that Earth’s magnetic field to some degree influenced low-latitude precipitation in the past. In addition to supporting the notion that variations in the geomagnetic field may have influenced Earth’s climate in the past, our study also provides some degree of support for the controversial link between GCR particles, cloud formation, and climate.”
http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/content/37/1/71.abstract
“Oxygen is constantly leaking out of Earth’s atmosphere and into space. Now, ESA’s formation-flying quartet of satellites, Cluster, has discovered the physical mechanism that is driving the escape. It turns out that the Earth’s own magnetic field is accelerating the oxygen away.
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMQ8LKRQJF_index_0.html
8. Atmospheric Composition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth
Nitrogen (N2) represents approximately 780,840 ppmv or 78.084% of Earth’s Atmosphere;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen
Oxygen (O2) represents approximately 209,460 ppmv or 20.946%;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen
Argon (Ar) represents approximately 9,340 ppmv or 0.9340%;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argon
Carbon Dioxide (CO2) represents approximately 390 ppmv or 0.039%;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide
contributes to the Greenhouse Effect;
http://www.ucar.edu/learn/1_3_1.htm
and influences the rate of Plant Growth;
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/CO2plants.htm
“Of all the carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted into the atmosphere, one quarter is taken up by land plants, another quarter by the oceans. Understanding these natural mechanisms is important in forecasting the rise of atmospheric CO2 because even though plants and bodies of water now absorb surplus greenhouse gas, they could become new trouble spots. The ocean absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere in an attempt to reach equilibrium by direct air-to-sea exchange. This process takes place at an extremely low rate, measured in hundreds to thousands of years. However, once dissolved in the ocean, a carbon atom will stay there, on average, more than 500 years, estimates Michael McElroy, Butler professor of environmental science.
Besides the slow pace of ocean turnover, two more factors determine the rate at which the seas take up carbon dioxide. One is the availability of carbonate, which comes from huge deposits of calcite (shells) in the upper levels of the ocean. These shells must dissolve in ocean water in order to be available to aid in the uptake of CO2, but the rate at which they dissolve is controlled by the ocean’s acidity. The ocean’s acidity does rise with increased CO2, but the slow pace of ocean circulation prevents this process from developing useful momentum.”
http://harvardmagazine.com/2002/11/the-ocean-carbon-cycle.html
Roy Spenser argues that “during a warm El Nino year, more CO2 is released by the ocean into the atmosphere (and less is taken up by the ocean from the atmosphere), while during cool La Nina years just the opposite happens. (A graph similar to the first graph also appeared in the IPCC report, so this is not new). Just how much of the Mauna Loa Variations in the first graph are due to the “Coke-fizz” effect is not clear because there is now strong evidence that biological activity also plays a major (possibly dominant) role (Behrenfeld et al., 2006). Cooler SST conditions during La Nina are associated with more upwelling of nutrient-rich waters, which stimulates plankton growth.”
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/05/global-warming-causing-carbon-dioxide-increases-a-simple-model/
However, Steve Fitzpatrick argues that the CO2 released by human activities, combined with slow ocean absorption/neutralization and sea surface temperature variation, is broadly consistent with the measured historical trend in atmospheric CO2, including the effect of changing average SST on short term variation in the rate of CO2 increase. Temperature changes in ocean surface waters cause shifts of a few PPM up and down in the rate of increase, but surface temperature changes do not explain 80% to 90% of the increase in atmospheric CO2 since 1958, as suggested in Dr. Spencer’s May 11 post. Because of its relatively high pH, high buffering capacity, enormous mass, and slow circulation, the ocean is, and will be for a very long time, a significant net sink for atmospheric CO2.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/22/a-look-at-human-co2-emissions-vs-ocean-absorption/
Neon (Ne) represents approximately18.18 ppmv or 0.001818%;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neon
Helium (He) represents approximately 5.24 ppmv (0.000524%);
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium
“In the Earth’s atmosphere, the concentration of Helium by volume is only 5.2 parts per million.[66][67] The concentration is low and fairly constant despite the continuous production of new helium because most helium in the Earth’s atmosphere escapes into space by several processes.[68][69][70] In the Earth’s heterosphere, a part of the upper atmosphere, helium and other lighter gases are the most abundant elements.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium
Krypton (Kr) represents approximately 1.14 ppmv (0.000114%);
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krypton
Methane (CH4) represents approximately 1.79 ppmv (0.000179%);
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane
contributes to the Greenhouse Effect;
http://www.ucar.edu/learn/1_3_1.htm
“Natural sources of CH4 include fires, geologic processes, and bacteria that produce CH4 in a variety of settings (most notably, wetlands). N2O is also produced by bacteria. Major anthropogenic sources of these gases include fossil fuel combustion and agriculture. Some sources can be related to both natural and anthropogenic processes. For example, forest and grassland fires, which produce CH4, can be either human-initiated (e.g., for land clearing) or the result of lightning ignition or other natural causes.”
http://www.epa.gov/outreach/pdfs/Methane-and-Nitrous-Oxide-Emissions-From-Natural-Sources.pdf
“One component from which UV light creates methane in a photochemical process is pectin – a polysaccharide that many plants use as a structural material. It contains methoxyl groups in which there are already the rudiments of the methane chemical structure.” “Frank Keppler and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg had observed, for the first time, that plants release methane – into the air: meaning under aerobic conditions, under which bacteria produce no methane, allowing it, for example, to bubble up out of bogs and marshes. This study indicated that plants contribute a substantial proportion of the methane in the atmosphere.”
http://www.mpg.de/568294/pressRelease200805272?filter_order=TL&research_topic=UK-PF
Hydrogen (H2) represents approximately 0.55 ppmv (0.000055%);
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen
Nitrous Oxide (N2O) represents approximately 0.3 ppmv (0.00003%);
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous_oxide
contributes to the Greenhouse Effect;
http://www.ucar.edu/learn/1_3_1.htm
Ozone (O3) represents approximately 0.0 to 0.07 ppmv (0 to 7×10−6%);
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone
Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) represents approximately 0.02 ppmv (2×10−6%) (0.000002%);
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_dioxide
Iodine (I2) represents approximately 0.01 ppmv (1×10−6%) (0.000001%) and;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodine
Ammonia (NH3) represents a trace amount of Earth’s Atmosphere:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonia
Additional atmosphere components includes Water vapor (H2O) that represents approximately 0.40% over full atmosphere, typically 1%-4% at surface.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_vapor;
“Water Vapor accounts for the largest percentage of the greenhouse effect, between 36% and 66% for clear sky conditions and between 66% and 85% when including clouds.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Role_of_water_vapor
Aerosols;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerosol
that “act as cloud condensation nuclei, they alter albedo (both directly and indirectly via clouds) and hence Earth’s radiation budget, and they serve as catalysts of or sites for atmospheric chemistry reactions.”
“Aerosols play a critical role in the formation of clouds;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clouds
Clouds form as parcels of air cool and the water vapor in them condenses, forming small liquid droplets of water. However, under normal circumstances, these droplets form only where there is some “disturbance” in the otherwise “pure” air. In general, aerosol particles provide this “disturbance”. The particles around which cloud droplets coalesce are called cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) or sometimes “cloud seeds”. Amazingly, in the absence of CCN, air containing water vapor needs to be “supersaturated” to a humidity of about 400% before droplets spontaneously form! So, in almost all circumstances, aerosols play a vital role in the formation of clouds.”
http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Atmosphere/aerosol_cloud_nucleation_dimming.html
Particulates;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particulates
including Soot/Black Carbon;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_carbon
Sand;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand
Dust;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust
“Volcanic Ash;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_ash
particles have a maximum residence time in the troposphere of a few weeks.
The finest Tephera;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tephra
remain in the stratosphere for only a few months, they have only minor climatic effects, and they can be spread around the world by high-altitude winds. This suspended material contributes to spectacular sunsets.
The major climate influence from volcanic eruptions is caused by gaseous sulfur compounds, chiefly Sulfur Dioxide;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur_dioxide
which reacts with OH and water in the stratosphere to create sulfate aerosols with a residence time of about 2–3 years.”
“Emission rates of [Sulfur Dioxide] SO2 from an active volcano range from 10 million tonnes/day according to the style of volcanic activity and type and volume of magma involved. For example, the large explosive eruption of Mount Pinatubo on 15 June 1991 expelled 3-5 km3 of dacite magma and injected about 20 million metric tons of SO2 into the stratosphere. The sulfur aerosols resulted in a 0.5-0.6°C cooling of the Earth’s surface in the Northern Hemisphere.”
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/index.php
“The 1815 eruption [of Mount Tambora] is rated 7 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index, the only such eruption since the Lake Taupo eruption in about 180 AD. With an estimated ejecta volume of 160 cubic kilometers, Tambora’s 1815 outburst was the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history.”
“The eruption created global climate anomalies that included the phenomenon known as “volcanic winter”;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter
1816 became known as the “Year Without a Summer”;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer
because of the effect on North American and European weather. Agricultural crops failed and livestock died in much of the Northern Hemisphere, resulting in the worst famine of the 19th century.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Tambora
“In the spring and summer of 1816, a persistent “dry fog” was observed in the northeastern US. The fog reddened and dimmed the sunlight, such that sunspots were visible to the naked eye. Neither wind nor rainfall dispersed the “fog”. It has been characterized as a stratospheric sulfate aerosol veil.”
“The greatest volcanic impact upon the earth’s short term weather patterns is caused by sulfur dioxide gas;”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur_dioxide
“In the cold lower atmosphere, it is converted to Sulfuric Acid;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfuric_acid
sulfuric acid by the sun’s rays reacting with stratospheric water vapor to form sulfuric acid aerosol layers. The aerosol remains in suspension long after solid ash particles have fallen to earth and forms a layer of sulfuric acid droplets between 15 to 25 kilometers up. Fine ash particles from an eruption column fall out too quickly to significantly cool the atmosphere over an extended period of time, no matter how large the eruption.
Sulfur aerosols last many years, and several historic eruptions show a good correlation of sulfur dioxide layers in the atmosphere with a decrease in average temperature decrease of subsequent years. The close correlation was first established after the 1963 eruption of Agung volcano in Indonesia when it was found that sulfur dioxide reached the stratosphere and stayed as a sulfuric acid aerosol.
Without replenishment, the sulfuric acid aerosol layer around the earth is gradually depleted, but it is renewed by each eruption rich in sulfur dioxide. This was confirmed by data collected after the eruptions of El Chichon, Mexico (1982) and Pinatubo, Philippines (1991), both of which were high-sulfur compound carriers like Agung, Indonesia.”
http://volcanology.geol.ucsb.edu/gas.htm
There is also some evidence that if “volcanic activity was high enough, then a water vapor anomaly would be introduced into the lower stratosphere before the anomaly due to the previous eruption had disappeared. The result would be threefold in the long term: stratospheric cooling, stratospheric humidification, and surface warming due to the positive radiative forcing associated with the water vapor.”
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0442(2003)016%3C3525%3AAGSOVE%3E2.0.CO%3B2#h1
9. Albedo “or reflection coefficient, is the diffuse reflectivity or reflecting power of a surface. It is defined as the ratio of reflected radiation from the surface to incident radiation upon it. Being a dimensionless fraction, it may also be expressed as a percentage, and is measured on a scale from zero for no reflecting power of a perfectly black surface, to 1 for perfect reflection of a white surface.”Wikipedia – Albedo
“The role of Clouds “in regulating weather and climate remains a leading source of uncertainty in projections of global warming.” “Different types of clouds exhibit different reflectivity, theoretically ranging in albedo from a minimum of near 0 to a maximum approaching 0.8.” Wikipedia – Albedo#Clouds
“Cloud Albedo varies from less than 10% to more than 90% and depends on drop sizes, liquid water or ice content, thickness of the cloud, and the sun’s zenith angle. The smaller the drops and the greater the liquid water content, the greater the cloud albedo, if all other factors are the same.” Wikipedia – Cloud Albedo
“On any given day, about half of Earth is covered by clouds, which reflect more sunlight than land and water. Clouds keep Earth cool by reflecting sunlight, but they can also serve as blankets to trap warmth.” Live Science
“Low, thick clouds primarily reflect solar radiation and cool the surface of the Earth. High, thin clouds primarily transmit incoming solar radiation; at the same time, they trap some of the outgoing infrared radiation emitted by the Earth and radiate it back downward, thereby warming the surface of the Earth. Whether a given cloud will heat or cool the surface depends on several factors, including the cloud’s altitude, its size, and the make-up of the particles that form the cloud. The balance between the cooling and warming actions of clouds is very close although, overall, averaging the effects of all the clouds around the globe, cooling predominates.” NASA Earth Observatory – Clouds
Snow “albedos can be as high as 0.9; this, however, is for the ideal example: fresh deep snow over a featureless landscape. Over Antarctica they average a little more than 0.8. Wikipedia – Albedo#Snow
“The albedo for different surface conditions on the sea ice range widely, from roughly 85 per cent of radiation reflected for snow-covered ice to 7 per cent for open water. These two surfaces cover the range from the largest to the smallest albedo on earth.” GRID-Arendal – United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
“Sea ice has a much higher albedo compared to other earth surfaces, such as the surrounding ocean. A typical ocean albedo is approximately 0.06, while bare sea ice varies from approximately 0.5 to 0.7. This means that the ocean reflects only 6 percent of the incoming solar radiation and absorbs the rest, while sea ice reflects 50 to 70 percent of the incoming energy. The sea ice absorbs less solar energy and keeps the surface cooler.
snow has an even higher albedo than sea ice, and so thick sea ice covered with snow reflects as much as 90 percent of the incoming solar radiation. This serves to insulate the sea ice, maintaining cold temperatures and delaying ice melt in the summer. After the snow does begin to melt, and because shallow melt ponds have an albedo of approximately 0.2 to 0.4, the surface albedo drops to about 0.75. As melt ponds grow and deepen, the surface albedo can drop to 0.15. As a result, melt ponds are associated with higher energy absorption and a more rapid ice melt.”
http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/processes/albedo.html
“It should be pointed out that these planetary albedos are averages. Taking Earth as an example, clouds vary from 0.4 to 0.8, snow varies from 0.4 to 0.85, forests vary from 0.04 to 0.1, grass is about 0.15, and water varies from 0.02 with the Sun directly overhead to 0.8 at low levels of incidence. So the Earth’s albedo varies, and depends on the extent of cloudiness, snowfall, and the Sun’s angle of incidence on the oceans. With an average albedo of 0.37, 63% of incoming solar energy contributes to the warmth of our planet.”
http://www.asterism.org/tutorials/tut26-1.htm
“The total solar radiation received at ground level consists of direct and indirect radiation (scattered, diffused, or reflected). The UVR component does not exceed 5% of the total incident radiation at sea level under cloudless atmospheric conditions. The intensity of sunlight at ground level varies with latitude, geographic location, season, cloud coverage, atmospheric pollution, elevation above sea level, and solar altitude. The 23.5° tilt of the earth’s axis affects the angle of incidence of solar radiation on the earth’s surface and causes seasonal and latitudinal variations in day length. At high altitudes, the intensity of UVR is significantly higher than at sea level. The spectral distribution of solar energy at sea level is roughly 3,44, and 53% in the UV, visible, and infrared regions, respectively. In practice, therefore, these variables need to be considered for the use of solar energy, including its UVR component.”
http://almashriq.hiof.no/lebanon/600/610/614/solar-water/idrc/01-09.html
“Ocean albedo varies not only with zenith angle, as above, but also tides, clouds, spindrift, plankton, other particulates, and temperature, Wind direction and velocity also have a major effect on waves and chop, affecting reflectance. At high zenith angles, the reflectance of still water, as in small ponds, etc., is close to 1.00. Choppy seas can have fairly high albedo.
See also: http://snowdog.larc.nasa.gov/jin/albedofind.html”
Also Particulates such as Soot/
Black_carbon warm “the Earth by absorbing heat in the atmosphere and by reducing albedo, the ability to reflect sunlight, when deposited on snow and ice. Black carbon stays in the atmosphere for only several days to weeks, whereas CO2 has an atmospheric lifetime of more than 100 years.”
“Estimates of black carbon’s globally averaged direct radiative forcing vary from the IPCC’s estimate of + 0.34 watts per square meter (W/m2) ± 0.25, to a more recent estimate by V. Ramanathan and G. Carmichael of 0.9 W/m2.” Wikipedia – Black Carbon
“Blooms of snow algea can reduce the surface albedo (light reflectance) of snow and ice, and largely affect their melting (Thomas and Duval, 1995; Hoham and Duval, 2001). For example, some glaciers in Himalayas are covered with a large amount of dark-colored biogenic material (cryoconite) derived from snow algae and bacteria (Kohshima et al., 1993; Takeuchi et al., 2001). The albedo of the intact surfaces bearing the cryoconite was substantially lower than that of the surface from which the cryoconite was artificially removed (5% versus 37%). The melting rates of the intact surfaces were reported to be 3 times larger than that of the surfaces without the cryoconite. Thus, snow algal activity possibly affects heat budget and mass balance of glaciers.” Department of Earth Sciences – Chiba University
Phytoplankton may influence Earth’s climate. A recent study used “a synergistic analysis of satellite observations (MODIS, SeaWiFS, AIRS, SSM/I and CERES)” to try to show that “dimethylsulfide (DMS) and isoprene emissions by marine phytoplankton” “into the atmosphere strongly influences cloud properties within a broad latitude belt in the Southern Hemisphere during the austral summer.” They “detected indirect aerosol effects over the Southern Ocean from 45°S to 65°S, especially in regions with plankton blooms, indicated by high chlorophyll-a concentration in seawater. The strong increase in cloud condensation nuclei column content from 2.0 × 108 to more than 5.0 × 108 CCN/cm2 for a chlorophyll increase from 0.3 to about 0.5 mg/m3 in these regions decreases cloud droplet effective radius and increases cloud optical thickness for water clouds. Consequently, the upward short-wave radiative flux at the top of the atmosphere increases.” There analysis found “reduced precipitation over the Antarctic Polar Frontal Zone during strong plankton blooms.” Krüger and Graßl, Geophysical Research Letters, 2011
“Even small shear rates can increase backscattering from blooms of large phytoplankton by more than 30 percent,” said Roman Stocker, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT and lead author on a paper about this work. “This implies that fluid flow, which is typically neglected in models of marine optics, may exert an important control on light propagation, influencing the rates of carbon fixation and how we estimate these rates via remote sensing.” Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
10. Biology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology
“Metabolism is the set of chemical reactions that happen in the cells of living organisms to sustain life.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolism
There are two primary sources of energy, Phototrophs where “Light is absorbed in photo receptors and transformed into chemical energy” and
Chemotrophs where “bond energy is released from a chemical compound.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_nutritional_groups
“Phototrophs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoautotroph
are the organisms (usually plants) that carry out photosynthesis;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesis
to acquire energy. They use the energy from sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into organic materials to be utilized in cellular functions such as biosynthesis and respiration.” “In plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, photosynthesis uses carbon dioxide and water, releasing oxygen as a waste product.”
“In biology, carbon fixation;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fixation
is the reduction of carbon dioxide to organic compounds by living organisms. The obvious example is photosynthesis. Carbon fixation requires both a source of energy such as sunlight, and an electron donor such as water. All life depends on fixed carbon organisms that grow by fixing carbon are called autotrophs—plants for example. Heterotrophs, like animals, are organisms which grow by using the fixed carbon produced by autotrophs. Some organisms can go either way. Fixed carbon, reduced carbon, and organic carbon all mean organic compounds. Carbon dioxide, in all its guises, is inorganic carbon.”
Chemoautotrophs;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotroph
are “organisms that obtain carbon through Chemosynthesis”;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemosynthesis
“are phylogenetically diverse, but groups that include conspicuous or biogeochemically-important taxa include the sulfur-oxidizing gamma and epsilon proteobacteria, the Aquificaeles, the Methanogenic archaea and the neutrophilic iron-oxidizing bacteria.”
There are three ways that an “organism obtains carbon for synthesising cell mass;
Autotrophic – where “carbon is obtained from carbon dioxide (CO2)”, Heterotrophic – where “carbon is obtained from organic compounds” and Mixotrophic – carbon is obtained from both organic compounds and by fixing carbon dioxide.
Bacteria – TBD
“Methanotrophs (sometimes called methanophiles) are bacteria that are able to metabolize methane as their only source of carbon and energy.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanotroph
“Some ferric iron-reducing bacteria (e.g. G. metallireducens) can use toxic hydrocarbons such as toluene as a carbon source, there is significant interest in using these organisms as bioremediation agents in ferric iron-rich contaminated aquifers.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_metabolism
Fungi – TBD
Protozoa – TBD
Chromista – TBD
Animal – Anthropogenic:
Carbon Dioxide;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide
contributes to the Greenhouse Effect;
http://www.ucar.edu/learn/1_3_1.htm
“The lime industry is a significant carbon dioxide emitter. The manufacture of one tonne of calcium oxide involves decomposing calcium carbonate, with the formation of 785 kg of CO2 in some applications, such as when used as mortar; this CO2 is later re-adsorbed as the mortar goes off. Additionally, if the heat supplied to form the lime (3.75 MJ/kg in an efficient kiln) is obtained by burning fossil fuel it will release CO2: in the case of coal fuel 295 kg/t; in the case of natural gas fuel 206 kg/t. The electric power consumption of an efficient plant is around 20 kWh per tonne of lime. This additional input is the equivalent of around 20 kg CO2 per ton if the electricity is coal-generated. Thus, total emission may be around 1 tonne of CO2 for every tonne of lime even in efficient industrial plants, but is typically 1.3 t/t”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lime_kiln
and
influences the rate of plant growth ;
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/CO2plants.htm
Methane
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane
Soot/
Icebreakers/Arctic Shipping/Fishing/Cruise-Line Transits
Land Use;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_use
“is the human use of land. Land use involves the management and modification of natural environment or wilderness into built environment such as fields, pastures, and settlements.”
“Land use practices vary considerably across the world. The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization Water Development Division explains that “Land use concerns the products and/or benefits obtained from use of the land as well as the land management actions (activities) carried out by humans to produce those products and benefits.” s of the early 1990s, about 13% of the Earth was considered arable land, with 26% in pasture, 32% forests and woodland, and 1.5% urban areas.”
“Land Cover/Land Use Change [LCLUC]”;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_use,_land-use_change_and_forestry
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/18/more-on-land-use-change-affecting-temperatures/
“has a profound impact on the regional‐scale surface energy and water balance and where it has been intensive.” There is “growing detectable evidence about weather and climatic feedbacks and possible teleconnections associated with LULCC.” “The LULCC impact is likely on a par with other major global forcings but unlike warming seen from GHG emissions, LULCC forcing is multi directional and can warm/ cool, cause positive/negative feedbacks depending on the region and timing.” “The fact that the impact of LULCC is small with respect to the global average radiative forcing, with the exception of emissions of CO2, is, however, not a relevant metric as the essential resources of food, water, energy, human health and ecosystem function respond to regional and local climate not to a global average.”
http://www.iclimate.org/dev/publications/Niyogi-LCLUC-MARCH2011-SHORT.pdf
A study by researchers from Purdue University and the universities of Colorado and Maryland concluded that greener land cover contributes to cooler temperatures, and almost any other change leads to warmer temperatures. The study, published on line and set to appear in the Royal Meteorological Society’s International Journal of Climatology later this year, is further evidence that land use should be better incorporated into computer models projecting future climate conditions, said Purdue doctoral student Souleymane Fall, the article’s lead author.
Among the study’s findings:
* In general, the greener the land cover, the cooler is surface temperature.
* Conversion to agriculture results in cooling, while conversion from agriculture generally results in warming.
* Deforestation generally results in warming, with the exception of a shift from forest to agriculture. No clear picture emerged from the impact of planting or seeding new forests.
* Urbanization and conversion to bare soils have the largest warming impacts.
In general, land use conversion often results in more warming than cooling.”
http://news.uns.purdue.edu/x/2009b/091102NiyogiClimate.html
“Although variations in the natural flooding regimes were likely the dominant mechanism driving changes in surface water, it is possible that human manipulations through dams and other agriculture infrastructure contributed. This study demonstrates the substantial role that land-cover and surface water change can play in continental-scale albedo trends and suggests ways to better incorporate these processes into global climate models.”
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2010EI342.1
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/18/more-on-land-use-change-affecting-temperatures/
– Deforestation
– Reforestation
– Deforestation
– Greening
– Desertification
– Cultivation/Farming
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_cultivation
Reclamation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_reclamation
Urban Heat Islands
Run Off From Asphalt
Snow plowing/clearance
Farming
Sewage/Wastewater Treatment Discharge
Fossil Fuel Energy Generation and Waste Heat
Nuclear Power Generation – Including Ships
Renewables – Wind Farms, Solar Arrays, Dams and Ethanol
“In 2008, total worldwide energy consumption was 474 exajoules (474×1018 J=132,000 TWh). This is equivalent to an average energy consumption rate of 15 terawatts (1.504×1013 W).”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_resources_and_consumption
etc.
“Metabolism is the set of chemical reactions that happen in the cells of living organisms to sustain life.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolism
“The basal metabolic rate of a human is about 1,300-1,500 kcal/day for an adult female and 1,600-1,800 kcal/day for an adult male.”
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2009/VickieWu.shtml
Animal – Non-Anthropogenic including
Plankton
Beaver (Genus Castor)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver
etc.
11. Chemical
Fossil Fuels:
Coal
Oil shale
Petrochemicals
– Petroleum
– Mineral Oil
Asphalt
Tar Pits/Sands
Methane
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane
etc.
Iron Fertilization “occurs naturally when upwellings bring nutrient-rich water to the surface, as occurs when ocean currents meet an ocean bank or a sea mount. This form of fertilization produces the world’s largest marine habitats. Fertilization can also occur when weather carries wind blown <a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust“>dust long distances over the ocean, or iron-rich minerals are carried into the ocean by glaciers,[3] rivers and icebergs. Iron Fertilization can result from Geo-engineering; http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewArticle.do?id=34167
Reactions:
Combustion
– Forest Fires
– Fossil Fuels
– Methane
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane
etc.
“Photosynthesis;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesis
is a chemical process that converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds, especially sugars, using the energy from sunlight.”
“Chemosynthesis;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemosynthesis
is the biological conversion of one or more carbon molecules (usually carbon dioxide or methane) and nutrients into organic matter using the oxidation of inorganic molecules (e.g. hydrogen gas, hydrogen sulfide) or methane as a source of energy, rather than sunlight, as in photosynthesis.”
Conversion of Methane, CO2, etc.
12. Physics
Temperature
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/01/a-big-picture-look-at-earths-temperature/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature
Variations in atmospheric and oceanic temperature can have significant impacts on Earth’s climate, including cloud cover, rainfall, Flora, Fauna, Ocean Circulation and Marine Biology. These variables can in turn affect Albedo and Transpiration.
A Biogeochemical Cycle;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogeochemical_cycling
“or substance turnover or cycling of substances is a pathway by which a chemical element or molecule moves through both biotic (biosphere) and abiotic (lithosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere) compartments of Earth. A cycle is a series of change which comes back to the starting point and which can be repeated.” “The term “biogeochemical” tells us that biological; geological and chemical factors are all involved.” “Ecological systems (ecosystems) have many biogeochemical cycles operating as a part of the system, for example the water cycle, the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, etc. All chemical elements occurring in organisms are part of biogeochemical cycles. In addition to being a part of living organisms, these chemical elements also cycle through abiotic factors of ecosystems such as water (hydrosphere), land (lithosphere), and/or the air (atmosphere).”
Lars G. Franzén and Roger A. Cropp argue in Geografiska Annaler 2007, that “Carbon sequestering in peatlands is believed to be a major climate regulating mechanisms throughout the late Phanerozoic (Franzén, 1994; Franzén et al, 1996). Since plant life first evolved on land, peatlands have been significant carbon sinks, which could explain significant parts of the large variations in the atmospheric carbon dioxide observed in various records.” They also “suggest that the ice age cycles during the Pleistocene are generated by the interglacial growth of peatlands, the sequestering of carbon into this terrestrial pool and the subsequent cooling by decreased greenhouse effect. The final initiation of ice age pulses towards the end of interglacials on the other hand is likely attributed to the cyclic influx of cosmic dust to the Earth surface, which in turn regulates cloud formation and the incoming shortwave radiation (Franzén & Cropp, 2007). These shorter cycles have a frequency of c. 1000-1250 years and might be connected to sunspot or other low frequency solar variations.
http://www.peatnet.siu.edu/Assets/F.pdf
Electricity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity
Lightning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning
is an atmospheric electrostatic discharge (spark) accompanied by thunder, which typically occurs during thunderstorms, and sometimes during volcanic eruptions or dust storms. From this discharge of atmospheric electricity, a leader of a bolt of lightning can travel at speeds of 220,000 km/h (140,000 mph), and can reach temperatures approaching 30,000 °C (54,000 °F), hot enough to fuse silica sand into glass channels known as fulgurites, which are normally hollow and can extend some distance into the ground. There are some 16 million lightning storms in the world every year. Lightning causes ionisation in the air through which it travels, leading to the formation of nitric oxide and ultimately, nitric acid, of benefit to plant life below.
Lightning can also occur within the ash clouds from volcanic eruptions, or can be caused by violent forest fires which generate sufficient dust to create a static charge.
How lightning initially forms is still a matter of debate. Scientists have studied root causes ranging from atmospheric perturbations (wind, humidity, friction, and atmospheric pressure) to the impact of solar wind and accumulation of charged solar particles. Ice inside a cloud is thought to be a key element in lightning development, and may cause a forcible separation of positive and negative charges within the cloud, thus assisting in the formation of lightning.”
Additional potential climatic influences of electricity are suggested by Brian Tinsley who argues that “there are good correlations, on the day-to-day time scale, between the three solar wind – modulated inputs to Jz mentioned above and small changes in atmospheric temperature and dynamics. Dr. Tinsley has hypothesized that the atmospheric responses are due to changes in the electrical interactions between charged aerosol particles and droplets.
One process applicable to clouds with their tops above the freezing level is the electrical enhancement of the rate of scavenging of ice-forming nuclei (IFN), that increases the rate of contact ice nucleation. This has consequences for cloud thickness and reflectivity to sunlight, and for precipitation rates and latent heat transfer, both of which are capable of affecting atmospheric temperature and dynamics. This mechanism also explains many reports of high rates of ice formation in certain types of clouds that has been a long-standing puzzle for cloud physicists.
Another process that is applicable to warm clouds appears to be caused by changes in the concentration of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) due to electrical effects on the production and rate of scavenging of ultrafine aerosol particles and the CCN that they may eventually form. Changes in CCN concentration affect drizzle production and cloud lifetime and cloud cover (the indirect aerosol effect).
In addition, electrical scavenging effects may explain the discrepancy between rates of aerosol scavenging by falling rain that have been observed in comparison with those calculated without adequately accounting for electrical effects.”
http://www.utdallas.edu/physics/faculty/tinsley.html
http://www.utdallas.edu/physics/faculty/tinsley/PhysTodayLttr09.pdf
http://www.utdallas.edu/physics/faculty/tinsley/ROP%20paper.pdf
Lastly, “dramatic losses from the electron radiation belts also result from interaction of energetic elections with lightning-generating waves, called whistlers. Lightening-induced electron precipitation events exemplify direct coupling of tropospheric weather systems with the radiation belts and the ionospheric regions overlying thunderstorms.”
Heat Capacity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_capacity
or thermal capacity, is the measurable physical quantity that characterizes the amount of heat required to change a substance’s temperature by a given amount.”
“Anther way of explaining a materials’ Heat Capacity is to think about it as the measurement of thermal energy storage, just like temperature is the measurement of thermal energy given off. Heat capacity is how much thermal energy a material stores up and temperature is how much thermal energy a material gives off.”
“The heat capacity of the global ocean, obtained from regression of ocean heat content vs. global mean surface temperature, GMST, is 14 ± 6 W
yr m-2 K-1, equivalent to 110 m of ocean water; other sinks raise the effective planetary heat capacity to 17 ± 7 W yr m-2 K-1 (all uncertainties are 1-sigma estimates).”
http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCapacity.pdf
Specific Heat Capacity Table: http://www2.ucdsb.on.ca/tiss/stretton/database/Specific_Heat_Capacity_Table.html
“As this planetary energy imbalance is virtually the same as the energy stored in the top 3 km of the oceans, and other energy stores in the climate system are much smaller (Levitus et al. 2001), we can examine either the global mean nonequilibrium radiative flux or the ocean storage to evaluate this quantity. Peixoto and Oort (1992, p. 351) even concluded that such a relation exists between the radiative forcing and ocean heat storage over the annual timescale. They showed that the annual variation of net radiation at the top of the atmosphere is in good agreement, both in phase and amplitude, with the ocean heat storage.”
http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/r-247.pdf
“Earth’s radiation imbalance is determined from ocean heat content data and compared with results of direct measurements. Distinct time intervals of alternating positive and negative values are found: 1960–mid-1970s (−0.15), mid-1970s–2000 (+0.15), 2001–present (−0.2 W/m2), and are consistent with prior reports. These climate shifts limit climate predictability.” “A strong connection between Earth’s radiative imbalance and the heat content of the oceans has been known for some time (see, e.g., Peixoto and Oort [1]). The heat content has played an important role in recent discussions of climate change, and Pielke [2] has revived interest in its relationship with radiation.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/08/11/ocean-heat-content-and-earth%E2%80%99s-radiation-imbalance/
The “Emissivity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissivity
of a material (usually written ε or e) is the relative ability of its surface to emit energy by radiation. It is the ratio of energy radiated by a particular material to energy radiated by a black body at the same temperature. A true black body would have an ε = 1 while any real object would have ε < 1. Emissivity is a dimensionless quantity. In general, the duller and blacker a material is, the closer its emissivity is to 1. The more reflective a material is, the lower its emissivity. Highly polished silver has an emissivity of about 0.02." "Emissivity depends on factors such as temperature, emission angle, and wavelength." "The emissivity of Earth's atmosphere varies according to cloud cover and the concentration of gases that absorb and emit energy in the thermal infrared (i.e., wavelengths around 8 to 14 micrometres). These gases are often called greenhouse gases, from their role in the greenhouse effect. The main naturally-occurring greenhouse gases are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and ozone. The major constituents of the atmosphere, N2 and O2, do not absorb or emit in the thermal infrared."
"The transfer of heat energy by radiation can occur in a vacuum , unlike conduction and convection. Heat radiation is the same form of wave energy transfer as light, radio, and x-ray wave energy. The rate of emmission of heat energy is related to the temperature difference, the distance between the surfaces, and the emissivity of the surfaces. Bright reflective surfaces have the lowest emissivity values."
http://www.roymech.co.uk/Related/Thermos/Thermos_HeatTransfer.html
http://www.infrared-thermography.com/material-1.htm
Pressure
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure
States of Matter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_matter
Heat Conduction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_conduction
Convection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convection
Thermal Radiation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_radiation
Thermodynamics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics
Entropy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy
13. Known Unknowns:
A. Non-Equilibrium Pattern Systems, aka “nonlinear pattern formation in far-from-equilibrium dissipative systems” and “pattern formation in dissipative systems” “The spontaneous formation of spatio-temporal patterns can occur when a stationary state far from thermodynamic equilibrium is maintained through the dissipation of energy that is continuously fed into the system. While for closed systems the second law of thermodynamics requires relaxation to a state of maximal entropy, open systems are able to interchange matter and energy with their environment. By taking up energy of higher value (low entropy) and delivering energy of lower value (high entropy) they are able to export entropy, and thus to spontaneously develop structures characterized by a higher degree of order than present in the environment.” PhD thesis – “Controlling turbulence and pattern formation in chemical reaction” Matthias Bertram,
Examples of this effect can be seen in the following examples of Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reactions:
Phil Salmon argues in this article;
that ENSO is a Non-Equilibrium Pattern System. “Of the class of known attractors of nonlinear oscillatory systems, the Lorenz and possibly Roessler attractors bear similarities to the attractor likely responsible for the alternating phases of La Nina and el Nino dominance that characterise the ENSO and constitute the PDO.” Here are several visualizations of Pacific Ocean Temperatures:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/etb58j1.gif?w=640
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/tlon_heat.gif
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/sub_surf_mon.gif
“The oceanic or limnological Mixed Layer;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_layer
is a layer in which active turbulence has homogenized some range of depths. The surface mixed layer is a layer where this turbulence is generated by winds, cooling, or processes such as evaporation or sea ice formation which result in an increase in salinity.” The atmospheric mixed layer is a zone having nearly constant potential temperature and specific humidity with height. The depth of the atmospheric mixed layer is known as the mixing height. Turbulence typically plays a role in the formation of fluid mixed layers.”
“The mixed layer plays an important role in the physical climate. Because the specific heat of ocean water is much larger than that of air, the top 2.5 m of the ocean holds as much heat as the entire atmosphere above it. Thus the heat required to change a mixed layer of 25 m by 1 °C would be sufficient to raise the temperature of the atmosphere by 10 °C. The depth of the mixed layer is thus very important for determining the temperature range in oceanic and coastal regions. In addition, the heat stored within the oceanic mixed layer provides a source for heat that drives global variability such as El Nino.
The mixed layer is also important as its depth determines the average level of light seen by marine organisms. In very deep mixed layers, the tiny marine plants known as phytoplankton are unable to get enough light to maintain their metabolism. The shallowing of the mixed layers in the springtime in the North Atlantic is therefore associated with a strong spring bloom of plankton.”
“There are three primary sources of energy for driving turbulent mixing within the open-ocean mixed layer. The first is breaking of surface waves, which injects a great deal of energy into the upper few meters, where most of it dissipates. The second is wind-driven currents, which create layers in which there are velocity shears. When these shears reach sufficient magnitude, they can eat into stratified fluid. This process is often described and modelled as an example of Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, though other processes may play a role as well. Finally, if cooling, addition of brine from freezing sea ice, or evaporation at the surface causes the surface density to increase, convection will occur. The deepest mixed layers (exceeding 2000 m in regions such as the Labrador Sea) are formed through this final process, which is a form of Rayleigh–Taylor instability. Early models of the mixed layer such as those of Mellor and Durbin included the final two processes. In coastal zones, large velocities due to tides may also play an important role in establishing the mixed layer.”
B. Chaotic Strange Attractors and a Limit Cycle:
Dr. Robert Brown argues in this comment/article that “IIRC this is one of the simplest systems exhibiting an attractor and limit cycle, and illustrates many of the features of more complicated dynamical systems. The attractor/fixed point in this case is the population of e.g. foxes and rabbits that remains in perfect equilibrium from year to year. Note well that this equation is deterministic, but of course a real population — even being modeled — always has random (or at least, “unpredictable”) variations — a certain amount of noise — and is actually discretized and not continuous as one cannot have half a cheetah eating \pi baboons.”
“predator-prey differential equations”, e.g. “The Lotka–Volterra equations, also known as the predator–prey equations, are a pair of first-order, non-linear, differential equations frequently used to describe the dynamics of biological systems in which two species interact, one a predator and one its prey.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotka%E2%80%93Volterra_equation#Physical_meanings_of_the_equations
“A better continuous “kind” of differential equation for describing systems like this with noise is something called a Langevin equation in physics — a system with “fast” microscopic degrees of freedom that one accounts for on average with a stochastic term, and slower degrees of freedom one integrates out like the predator prey equation.”
“In statistical physics, a Langevin equation (Paul Langevin, 1908) is a stochastic differential equation describing the time evolution of a subset of the degrees of freedom. These degrees of freedom typically are collective (macroscopic) variables changing only slowly in comparison to the other (microscopic) variables of the system. The fast (microscopic) variables are responsible for the stochastic nature of the Langevin equation.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langevin_equation
Uncertainty
Randomness
Evolution
Infinite Iterations
Chaos?
14. Unknown unknowns
A lot of other things.
General summaries of the potential climatic variables:
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7y.html
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/pd/climate/factsheets/whatfactors.pdf
http://ioc3.unesco.org/oopc/obs/ecv.php
Do you have a link to the rate at which the Earth’s rotation is slowing over geological timescales ie the past 4 billion years?
Great list!
Crikey! What a magisterial survey. Plaudits to Just the Facts!
And with all these parameters and complexities, the AGW brigade wants to focus on one equation, one relationship and draw a straight line with it. The hubris of these people knows no bounds.
Seems too simple. So how about some more?
“and Comets;”
And comet corpses in the solar wind:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/20jan_cometcorpse/
Sorry if that makes a formula to describe it all a bit more complex.
These corpses would change both the makeup of the atmosphere (add heaps of carbon) and the magnetic interactions within the solar system. The extra carbon would mean the carbon cycle calculations could be wrong.
Well, is this both global and regional? Not sure that real human influences are included ,especially the ones that the warmists seem to want to ignore.
How about Land Use
Dust also plays a role in ocean fertilization. It’s one of the main sources of iron for mid ocean regions.
Changes in temperature and rainfall affect what types of plants can grow in a region. This in turn affects albedo and transpiration.
Very interesting list, thanks.
Settled Sciene indeed !
Regarding that Helium, it escapes to space and takes some heat with it. Albeit, a very very very small amount of heat. So the belief that the Earth can only cool by radiation is about 99.9999999% correct but not completely true.
The Helium is constantly produced by radioactive decay, moves upward through the atmosphere and leaves. Thus, the Earth is both cooling and on a diet.
Cheers, Kevin
Not a problem.
I am confident The Team has all this included in their Models.
I mean, they are scientists, right? And the science is settled. So it must be included.
Also, dont forget; It was all FLAT before the industrial Revolution. So it is ONLY man that can have an influence on the climate. FLAT, I tell you! Both CO2 and temperature.
If it isnt included in the models, and if it wasnt FLAT, then someone has commited fraud.
And if anyone claims that, they are conspiracy theorists.
Agree?
JaneHM says: January 21, 2012 at 10:17 am
Do you have a link to the rate at which the Earth’s rotation is slowing over geological timescales ie the past 4 billion years?
Yes, its caused by Tidal Acceleration:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_acceleration
“Tidal acceleration is an effect of the tidal forces between an orbiting natural satellite (e.g. the Moon), and the primary planet that it orbits (e.g. the Earth). The “acceleration” is usually negative, as it causes a gradual slowing and recession of a satellite in a prograde orbit away from the primary, and a corresponding slowdown of the primary’s rotation. The process eventually leads to tidal locking of first the smaller, and later the larger body. The Earth-Moon system is the best studied case.”
“The presence of the moon (which has about 1/81 the mass of the Earth), is slowing Earth’s rotation and lengthening the day by about 2 ms every one hundred years.”
“Historical evidence
This mechanism has been working for 4.5 billion years, since oceans first formed on the Earth. There is geological and paleontological evidence that the Earth rotated faster and that the Moon was closer to the Earth in the remote past. Tidal rhythmites are alternating layers of sand and silt laid down offshore from estuaries having great tidal flows. Daily, monthly and seasonal cycles can be found in the deposits. This geological record is consistent with these conditions 620 million years ago: the day was 21.9±0.4 hours, and there were 13.1±0.1 synodic months/year and 400±7 solar days/year. The length of the year has remained virtually unchanged during this period because no evidence exists that the constant of gravitation has changed. The average recession rate of the Moon between then and now has been 2.17±0.31 cm/year, which is about half the present rate.”
Earth’s rotation is slowing “due to a transfer of Earth’s rotational momentum to the Moon’s orbital momentum as tidal friction slows the Earth’s rotation. That increase in the Moon’s speed is causing it to slowly recede from Earth (about 4 cm per year), increasing its orbital period and the length of a month as well.” “The slowing rotation of the Earth results in a longer day as well as a longer month. Once the length of a day equals the length of a month, the tidal friction mechanism will cease. (ie. Once your speed on the track matches the speed of the horses, you can’t gain any more speed with your lasso trick.) That’s been projected to happen once the day and month both equal about 47 (current) days, billions of years in the future. If the Earth and Moon still exist, the Moon’s distance will have increased to about 135% of its current value.”
http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae695.cfm
I’ve added additional details to section 1. Earth’s Rotational Energy – Tidal Acceleration, thank you for your question.
Very OT except as it relates to continuing ridiculousness,or perhaps moderating ridiculousness, the folks at New Scientist seem to have executed a serious worm turn away from Green Dogma with this piece
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21341-fracking-risk-is-exaggerated.html
Fracking risk is exaggerated
“Frack away, there’s no reason not to. Two of the main objections to “fracking” for shale gas have been blown out of proportion, according to British geologists.
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, involves pumping water, sand and chemicals into methane-rich shale deposits around 2 kilometres underground to liberate natural gas. It has been accused of contaminating drinking water with methane and chemicals, and causing minor earthquakes.
“We think the risk is pretty low,” said Mike Stephenson, head of energy science at the British Geological Survey at a press briefing in London on Tuesday.”
The conclusion has been obvious for quite a while, but it seems significant that the usually reliably green crowd at NS is embracing it at this point.
@JamesHN
In the rotational energy section:
‘Also of note, “Over millions of years, [Earth’s] rotation is significantly slowed by gravitational interactions with the Moon: see tidal acceleration.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_acceleration
“The presence of the moon (which has about 1/81 the mass of the Earth), is slowing Earth’s rotation and lengthening the day by about 2 ms every one hundred years.”’
So given a few billion years more and we will slow to the Moon’s orbital frequency.
While the variation of UV may be “very tiny”, I believe it has a major influence on the temperature of the stratosphere and possibly the energy content of the oceans (as UV is the deepest penetrating light into the oceans). It is UV that cases the stratosphere to have its reverse temperature gradient with altitude and acts as a “cap” on tropospheric convection. It is the “roof” of the greenhouse. So that tiny amount of radiation would have a major impact on surface temperature by capping the altitude (and therefore temperature) at the top of the convection column. A small change in UV might result in major changes elsewhere.
Ok. Let’s model that.
Earth Magnetic Field & Cosmic Rays
http://climateresearchnews.com/2009/01/new-paper-supports-a-cosmic-rays-clouds-climate-link/
This is the 2009, Danish research purporting to support the link between the earth magnetic field, cosmic rays and cloud formations.
Siliggy says: January 21, 2012 at 10:30 am
And comet corpses in the solar wind:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/20jan_cometcorpse/
I do not see how a “comet corpse” could influence Earth’s climate. According to the article you cited, Dean Pesnell, a co-author of the Science paper and Project Scientist for SDO at the Goddard Space Flight Center, “says it might be possible to detect such “comet corpses” as they waft past Earth.” If we can’t even detect them yet, it seems premature to include them as a potential variable.
These corpses would change both the makeup of the atmosphere (add heaps of carbon) and the magnetic interactions within the solar system. The extra carbon would mean the carbon cycle calculations could be wrong.
This seems highly speculative and not grounded in fact. According to the article you cited, “Comets are rich in ice (frozen H2O), so when they dissolve in the hot solar atmosphere, the gaseous remains contain plenty of oxygen and hydrogen. A solar wind stream containing extra oxygen could be a telltale sign of a disintegrated comet.” Can you cite any evidence that “corpses would change both the makeup of the atmosphere (add heaps of carbon) and the magnetic interactions”?
Also, UV has considerable impact on the mesosphere. For example, at 36,000 feet one is above 75% of the atmosphere but they are above more than 75% of the CO2. This is because UV breaks CO2 into CO and O in the mesosphere. Also, most of the water vapor in the mesosphere comes from ice from space. Little bits of tiny comet fragments enter the atmosphere every day. The mesosphere also contains a lot of stuff like iron vapor also from bits of stuff entering the atmosphere from space and burning up. Iron accounts for a fairly significant amount of the gas in the mesosphere. But if the UV reduces, the amount of CO2 above the stratosphere increases and might have an additional impact on global temperatures.
It isn’t a ’cause’, but Chaos Theory deserves a mention in here somewhere.
There’s a complete combinatorial explosion in predicting -weather-, the only reason there’s any thought at all of predicting anything beyond seven days out is the result of Chaos Theory.
The recent article here on WUWT on why the other extant attractor nodes involve Chicago under ice, and that deserves mention in there.
http://www.amazon.com/Chaos-Making-Science-James-Gleick/dp/0140092501/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327173243&sr=1-2
Never mind all that detail.
“The atmosphere ALWAYS reconfigures its energy distribution so that the Atmospheric Thermal Effect/Adiabatic Lapse Rate is maintained.”
Wilde’s Law.
On the WUWT threads many are doing all they can to ignore the implications of the Ideal Gas Law and N & Z’s ATE ( formerly widely accepted as the Adiabatic Lapse Rate or ALR).
Just look at Wikipedia here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapse_rate
“the concept can be extended to any gravitationally supported ball of gas.”
and:
“the atmosphere is warmed by conduction from Earth’s surface, this lapse or reduction in temperature normal with increasing distance from the conductive source.”
which together show that we are dealing here with long established science although recent shenanigans have made it necessary for N & Z to try to redefine the adiabatic lapse rate (ALR) as ATE for the current uneducated generation.
So the issue isn’t whether the phenomenon is the ATE (Atmospheric Thermal Effect) or the ALR (Adiabatic Lapse Rate)
We can see that they are one and the same.
The issue is whether increasing GHGs can make a difference to the ATE/ALR by virtue of their radiative characteristics.
Well what Ned is doing is simply refining the data and the S-B calculations to show that the effect of more GHGs is zero as against the AGW theory that more GHGs can ADD to the ATE/ALR.
Where I propose a novel idea is in showing WHY the extra GHGs have zero or near zero effect on the ATE/ALR. Ned demonstrates the fact that there is a zero effect and I say WHY there is a zero effect.
The fact is that the entire atmosphere responds to ANY forcing that attempts to disrupt ATE/ALR by altering the tropopause height and that change in height then allows the surface pressure distribution to slide poleward or equatorward beneath the tropopause to negate the thermal effect of any change in tropopause height either at equator or poles.
The same process occurs on EVERY planet that has an atmosphere which tries to disrupt ATE/ALR. The atmosphere ALWAYS reconfigures so that ATE/ALR is maintained.
There is no other possible solution. IMHO.
To my mind the jigsaw is complete.
As I pointed out in another thread recently, for me the most significant neglected element in all the energy balance calculations is the biological i.e. LIFE. Virtually all the energy necessary to drive life on this planet ultimately derives from the insolation falling down on us from the Sun. A great deal of that energy is effectively removed from the radiative balance, which to my mind, raises a significant question about whether the widely assumed notion that the incoming and out going radiation should always tend toward equilibrium. From what I’ve seen no one has an estimate of what the energy use of all of life on the planet is that is even barely credible. Assuming it is negligible when it is so far from known doesn’t seem at all justified.
The solar input that is converted into kinetic energy to drive the multitudes of various circulations on the planet, is also effectively removed from the radiative balance and is at least as weakly quantified as the biological component.
John in L du B says: January 21, 2012 at 10:34 am
Well, is this both global and regional?
Yep, I am going for consummate list. I will drill down to just the key global variables in the forthcoming WUWT Likely Climatic Variables Reference Page
Not sure that real human influences are included ,especially the ones that the warmists seem to want to ignore.
How about Land Use
Section 10. Biology – 10. Biology – Animal – Anthropogenic includes “Land Use Changes” and a number of others, but I haven’t dug too far into these yet:
Carbon Dioxide;
Methane
Nitrous Oxide
Ozone
Particulates, especially Black Carbon/Soot
Aerosols
Icebreakers/Arctic Shipping/Fishing/Cruise-Line Transits
Contrails
Nuclear Power Generation – Including Ships
Land Use Changes – Including De and Re-Forestation
Urban Heat Islands
Run Off From Asphalt/Urban Heat Islands
Fossil Fuel Energy Generation Waste Heat –
Renewables – Wind Farms, Solar Arrays, Dams and Ethanol
Sewage/Wastewater Treatment Discharge
Additional examples and proposed links are most welcome.
Wow! This is one for the bookmarks.Thanks, and hopefully I can find time to run through it all within the year!
Looks like you threw everything into the mix, including the kitchen sink!! Lest anyone laughs, the kitchen sink provides a very telling experiment about the coriolis effect. It’s an urban legend which says the way the water rotates as it goes down the pipe has an effect on the climate… 😉
Michael Bergeron, I suspect that in a few billion years we won’t have slowed to the moon’s orbital frequency, because the moon will probably have wandered of in to the big black!
Anthea
What? Are you saying that a trace gas is not the control knob we can adjust to achieve any desired temperature, falling seas, fading hurricanes, the overthrow of capitalism, and social joy throughout the world? What ever next! Perhaps you will be asking me to distrust the UN, the IPCC, the EPA, the NAS, NOAA, NCAR, the RS, and so on through many more permutations of upper case letters around the world, united in their delight at finding that control knob with which they are achieving all their political goals. Shall all that progress be lost? Say it is so!
Hoser says:
January 21, 2012 at 11:02 am
“Ok. Let’s model that.”
Ok, I’ll give it a go, It’ll take a week or two, it shouldn’t be too hard once I remove all the erroneous Post Normal Scientific formulas and rebuild the science based on known physical laws and give the science of our planets climate and it’s enormous complexity some perspective.
Actually, when I think of it, I probably could!
I’m sure a simple computer model would be adequate (sarcasm).
Awesome compilation
I had been working on Isostasy, but got side-tracked onto earth-tides (ie continental rise & fall with lunar/solar gravity etc), and finally looking at Length-Of-Day (LOD).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isostasy – basically continental “buoyancy” – and what will happen if more water enters the oceans? Will the ocean floor sink a little and push the continents higher? Look at the Great Lakes to see what happens when glacial overburden is removed!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_tide – seems to imply an inland tidal effect of around 0.5 metre at the equator – but this other recent article seems to imply only 1.5mm at Loch Ness http://www.agu.org/cgi-bin/highlights/highlights.cgi?action=show&doi=10.1029/2011JC007411&jc=jc – I definitely need to read more
Finally LOD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_length – but the LOD is not a constant, there are the gradual effects of the moon in slowing the earth’s rotation, and daily effects driven by tides, weather, continental drift (as expressed by earthquake, tsunami, landslide etc).
There are also seasonal variations of about -18/+30 seconds in measured LOD
Two questions
– on a daily/seasonal variability – if LOD increases (ie earth slows for that day/season), where does the kinetic energy go (and cause/effect)
– ongoing – if LOD is gradually increasing – again where does the energy go to?
Compare the mass of the earth to the mass of the atmosphere, if weather can slow the earth even if only briefly, what is the energy transfer model?
These are just ramblings, but where my curiosity is taking me – happy to throw into the melting pot
Regards
Andy
This strikes me as a pretty fruitful list. If you had world enough and time, you could continue with an annotated bibliography (beyond wikipedia) and a scholarly book.
If the earth’s core indeed consist of molten iron will it be magnetic as stated? I am under the impression that iron losses its magnetic properties before red heat!
That is the beauty of infinity. The more we learn, the more we learn there is to learn.
Here is a approach to to dealing with some of the complexity:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/greg-elliott-use-of-flow-diagrams-in-understanding-energy-balance/
Hi Jens
Certainly correct that heat destroyes a magnet – but here we are looking at the core as a fluid that through its movement causes it to act as a kind of dynamo – complete with magnetic field.
So this is an electro-magnetic effect as opposed to a simple iron-based magnet
Andy
Length of Day
The Earth’s Length Of Day varies with wind and ocean currents, and in turn with Earth’s equatorial and polar temperatures, and Total Solar Insolation and cosmic rays. LOD also varies with earth’s core motion.
Air temperature appears to vary with earth’s core flows. Stefano Sello 2011 On the correlation between air temperature and the core Earth processes: Further investigations using a continuous wavelet analysis
Jean O. Dickey et al. 2011 Air Temperature and Anthropogenic Forcing: Insights from the Solid Earth
Simulation of Historic and Future Atmospheric Angular Momentum Effects on Length-of-day Variations with GCMs, Timo Winkelnkemper et al. 2011
Length of Day at WUWT.
Length of Day Google Scholar
The LOD varies with the solar system’s barycenter, and thus with the Jovian planets position.
Nicola Scafetta Empirical evidence for a celestial origin of the climate oscillations and its implications etc.
Irrigation, pumping groundwater, and dams affect LOD.
Effects of upstream dams versus groundwater pumping on stream temperature under varying climate conditions John C. Risley,1 Jim Constantz,2 Hedeff Essaid,2 and Stewart Rounds1
Paul L. Vaughan, M.Sc. – October 2011 Shifting Sun-Earth-Moon Harmonies, Beats, & Biases
Fish catch varies with LOD. Climate change and long-term fluctuations of commercial catches. FAO Fisheries Technical Paper 410
i.e., the food chain magnitude and spatial location varies with LOD indicating numerous interacting factors.
OMG! How many more billions will they demand in grant money?
MarkW says: January 21, 2012 at 10:39 am
Dust also plays a role in ocean fertilization. It’s one of the main sources of iron for mid ocean regions.
Yep, in Section 11 Chemical, I’ve added, Iron Fertilization;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization
“occurs naturally when upwellings bring nutrient-rich water to the surface, as occurs when ocean currents meet an ocean bank or a sea mount. This form of fertilization produces the world’s largest marine habitats. Fertilization can also occur when weather carries wind blown dust”;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust
“long distances over the ocean, or iron-rich minerals are carried into the ocean by glaciers,[3] rivers and icebergs. Iron Fertilization can also result from Geo-engineering: http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewArticle.do?id=34167
Changes in temperature and rainfall affect what types of plants can grow in a region. This in turn affects albedo and transpiration.
Yep, in Section 12. Physics – Other – Temperature I’ve added “Variations in atmospheric and oceanic temperature can have significant impacts on Earth’s climate, including cloud cover, rainfall, Flora;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flora
Fauna;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fauna
Ocean Circulation;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation
and Marine Biology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_biology
These variables can in turn affect Albedo;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albedo
and Transpiration.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpiration
I’ll flesh that out further in the future. Thank you for your input.
Wonderful compilation of info that will be a wonderful educational tool all by itself.
Small criticism – at the top there is a typo re the revision that the site ‘is undergone’. Either ‘has been undergoing’ or ‘ is undergoing’ – since this is an ongoing process.
‘continues to undergone’ is in the first Note.
Ferenc Miskolczi develops a full calculation of the greenhouse effect using a line by line (LBL) quantitative optical absorption model. See True Infrared Flux Optical Thickness p in The stable stationary value of the Earth’s global average atmospheric infrared optical thickness Ferenc Miskolczi, Presented by Miklos Zagoni EGU2011 Vienna
I have not read all of this yet (and may not be trained enough or bright enough to understand it all If I had). I do intend to slog through it the same way I slog through Einstein and Feynman.
But there is an area (or area of areas) that has not been covered enough for my tastes.
I don’t know what to call it and I don’t see a way clear to convey it, but I will stumble on anyway.
On the one hand there is (much as I detest the word) society’s (and societies’) impact on climate. This seems to be getting some coverage although I am not sure the coverage always holds up under scrutiny. Here I am talking about deforestation (Kilimanjaro, The Amazon), cultivation (The Great Plains, the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys), “reclamation” (Florida, the Missouri River, San Francisco Bay, The San Joaquin Delta), industrialization, population coagulation, and so on.
On the other hand there is a great factual information void on climate’s impact on society. If (IF) global warming exists (I think it does) and regardless of what caused it if it exists, is it bad or good for society? What do the historical, anthropological, and geologic records say about that?
Answers to this last area are required (and we should be demanding) so we can reasonably then (and only then) take on the questions of “Should we be fighting global warming?”, “Should we be assisting or cultivating it?”, and, “How much should we be spending on it and what is its priority relative to other things we should be doing?”
A general sourcing observation. Wikipedia is often a reliable resource. Having said that, the obverse is that this is not always correct, e.g., the hijacking of “Climate Change” in Wikipedia by a widely recognized (at least to most of us) alarmist. My recommendation is that Wikipedia references be backed up by also citing the appropriate sources at the end of the particular Wikipedia reference.
Jens Bagh says:
January 21, 2012 at 12:11 pm
If the earth’s core indeed consist of molten iron will it be magnetic as stated? I am under the impression that iron losses its magnetic properties before red heat!
—-
Keep in mind that molten iron, while above the curie temperature, will still conduct electrical currents, and when they flow through the spinning core, the magnetic field is created. This has been replicated to some degree in the lab. It is not an entirely solved problem though. The circulation to drive the dynamo comes from the difference in spin between the core and the surface, and convection currents driven by heat dissipation from the core.
“In order to maintain the magnetic field against ohmic decay (which would occur for the dipole field in 20,000 years), the outer core must be convecting. The convection is likely some combination of thermal and compositional convection. The mantle controls the rate at which heat is extracted from the core. Heat sources include gravitational energy released by the compression of the core, gravitational energy released by the rejection of light elements (probably sulfur, oxygen, or silicon) at the inner core boundary as it grows, latent heat of crystallization at the inner core boundary, and radioactivity of potassium, uranium and thorium.[5]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamo_theory (from up above)
I find it interesting that there is a possible link between the magnetic field and volcanic activity, because both are influenced by the amount of heat being released by the core, although this correlation would only appear on geologic timescales, if at all.
Excepting Argon, the atmosphere is entirely a product of biology. Biologists certainly know more about how the atmosphere behaves than physicists. A billion years of photosynthesis and the bacterial nitrogen cycle has completely replaced the primordial atmosphere. There are countless studies of the carbon and nitrogen cycles relating to atmospheric characteristics. Google for atmospheric evolution, biological feedbacks. For example
http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/lectures/Perry_Samson_lectures/evolution_atm/index.html
Plant evolution of the C4 biochemistry in the last 20 million years probably caused the middle miocene climate transition, and polar ice sheet formation by starving the atmosphere of CO2.
Barry Commoner published work on this in the 1960s.
Great compendium of science.
On my brief read through I didn’t see any reference the actual heat generated as a by-product of ‘useful’ combustion. i.e. Most of the gasolene in your tank is converted to energy which is used to move your car…but a percentage of it is wasted as the heat which is shed via the radiator.
The same applies to every process where combustion is the powersource.
Given the vast amounts of fuel we burn every year, might not the ‘waste’ heat be significant?
Oh, I forgot this one when I posted before.
Human population growth, but not in the UHI sense, but in two important ways;
1) It is well known when designing cooling systems for buildings that each human occupant is roughly equivalent to a 100 Watt incandescent light bulb in terms of heat generation inside the building. This is an average of course; your personal “thermal footprint” may vary. So every 1 billion addition to the population adds ~3×10^9 Joules every year of extra energy. This is true extra energy, if the people where not here this energy would not be generated and the plant and animal food metabolized into heat by these people would still exist in some other non-farmed form. Wonder how that tracks against the temperature record. Granted it is spread out over a LOT of square meters, but every entry in the energy budget should be considered. Reptiles are exempt of course.
2) Every one of those folks at some point in the day generates some heat by burning fossil fuels, maybe indirectly back at the electrical power plant. This is true extra thermal energy added to the system. The electrical power plant discharges some ”waste” heat after it has gotten as much electricity out of the steam as it can. The heat that your furnace generates inside your house eventually seeps out to the atmosphere. Again this may be a small amount, but a proper energy budget should consider every possible term until they are properly quantified and can be safely ignored.
I’m beginning to think that the Earth’s Energy Budget may have more entries than the US Federal Budget, oh, that’s right, we don’t do THOSE anymore.
Cheers, Kevin.
Hi JTF
Excellent reference. Just to mention possible addition to the ‘polar vortex’ section: NASA considers that splitting of polar vortex has important effect on severity of the N. Hemisphere’s winters:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=36972
Soon afterwards I realised that the stratospheric vortex sections circulation (when ionised) is affected by the Earth’s magnetic field:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC.htm
“Excepting Argon, the atmosphere is entirely a product of biology.”
Really? Surely you don’t mean what you said. I’d buy that carbon dioxide and water are, but not krypton, hydrogen, helium, neon, and so on.
The video on the Arctic Ozone Hole is misleading, if not erroneous. We know now that the work that indicted CFCs as ozone destroyers was funded by DuPont. More recent work, conveniently 20 years later, has established that N2 and solar radiation are the principle culprits; it still needs very cold conditions. Unfortunately many still believe that CFCs are bad.
DuPont funded the ozone scare as their most popular CFC, used around the world and helping the poor eat better, was out of patent and getting dirt cheap. So, they managed to have their CFC condemned and, golly gee, they just happened to have another, much more expensive substitute all ready to go and under patent. The poor suffered from this criminal development.
Whoops, the number of Joules I estimated is PER PERSON. The correct estimate for a population growth of 1 Billion is ~3×10^18Joules. So if the population has grown by say 5 billion in 150 years thats ~15×10^18 EXTRA Joules.
I’ve gotta keep a closer eye on those exponents, d–nit.
Cheers, Kevin.
No way! Everyone knows its just CO2 and maybe methane that controls our climate!
On a serious note, I didn’t see anything in there about cosmic dust, or perhaps I’ve missed it. Surely, this too, would have some impact on our climate, even if it is ever so slight. I’m wondering if someone here would have some particular insight to this?
You need to add two that are commonly overlooked.
– Moon’s influence upon the Jet stream via declination, its movement is shifted based on the moon’s path and distance.
…Often the movements of the moon transiting the West Coast are accompanied by a shift in the jet stream to the south as the moon passes the coast. This gives the appearance that the southward motion in latitude is accompanied by a southward motion in the jet stream. This is not always the case due to a number of other patterns but it can be thought of as a general rule of thumb.
The phenomenon of the effects of declination on the jet stream of the eastern Pacific can be related to the work of a Chinese researcher LI Guoqing of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, in Beijing. The paper entitled, 27.3 and 13.6 day Atmospheric Tide and Lunar Forcing on Atmospheric Circulation [PDF] researches the influence of the earth’s length of day (LOD) in relation to the geopotential height of the 500mb fields in the eastern Pacific and the declination of the moon. It was found that there is an alternating increase and decrease in geopotential height in the eastern Pacific in approximately seven day cycles that are keyed not to the phases of the moon but to the declination of the moon…
http://docweather.com/4/show/211/
contrary to the chaotic nature of weather claimed, there is a periodic rhythm, a harmonic signal in weather beyond the seasons due to the moon’s influence.
– Man’s land use, i.e. converting forested areas to grassland changes albedo and more importantly evaporation rates!
Great idea!
The cycles mentioned by Nicola Scafetta should be included. Empirical, I now, but effective in real reality.
But the climate scientists of the 70s told me that a butterfly flapping its wings at the start of the Siberian Summer could cause a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico several weeks later.
I demand that you include Lepidoptera for old times sake.
KevinK says: January 21, 2012 at 10:44 am (Edit)
Regarding that Helium, it escapes to space and takes some heat with it. Albeit, a very very very small amount of heat. So the belief that the Earth can only cool by radiation is about 99.9999999% correct but not completely true.
The Helium is constantly produced by radioactive decay, moves upward through the atmosphere and leaves. Thus, the Earth is both cooling and on a diet.
Yep, I’ve added Atmospheric Escape
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_escape
to section 4. Solar Energy, in section 7. Earth’s Magnetic Field I added;
Also, according to the 2008 European Space Agency article;
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMQ8LKRQJF_index_0.html
“Oxygen is constantly leaking out of Earth’s atmosphere and into space. Now, ESA’s formation-flying quartet of satellites, Cluster, has discovered the physical mechanism that is driving the escape. It turns out that the Earth’s own magnetic field is accelerating the oxygen away.
and in section 8. Atmospheric Composition – Helium, I included additional details:
“In the Earth’s atmosphere, the concentration of helium by volume is only 5.2 parts per million.[66][67] The concentration is low and fairly constant despite the continuous production of new helium because most helium in the Earth’s atmosphere escapes into space by several processes.[68][69][70] In the Earth’s heterosphere, a part of the upper atmosphere, helium and other lighter gases are the most abundant elements.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium
Thanks for your input.
Link I missed in the above post:
http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/36000/36972/npole_gmao_200901-02.mov
Other Astronomic Cycles also influence weather beyond the Moon, i.e. Jupiter and Saturn:
…The proposed astronomical empirical climate model assumes that the climate is resonating with, or synchronized to a set of natural harmonics that, in previous works (Scafetta, 2010b, 2011b), have been associated to the solar system planetary motion, which is mostly determined by Jupiter and Saturn. We show that the GCMs fail to reproduce the major decadal and multidecadal oscillations found in the global surface temperature record from 1850 to 2011. On the contrary, the proposed harmonic model (which herein uses cycles with 9.1, 10–10.5, 20–21, 60–62 year periods) is found to well reconstruct the observed climate oscillations from 1850 to 2011, and it is shown to be able to forecast the climate oscillations from 1950 to 2011 using the data covering the period 1850–1950, and vice versa. The 9.1-year cycle is shown to be likely related to a decadal Soli/Lunar tidal oscillation, while the 10–10.5, 20–21 and 60–62 year cycles are synchronous to solar and heliospheric planetary oscillations.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/astronomical_harmonics_testing.html
crosspatch says: January 21, 2012 at 11:00 am
While the variation of UV may be “very tiny”, I believe it has a major influence on the temperature of the stratosphere and possibly the energy content of the oceans (as UV is the deepest penetrating light into the oceans). It is UV that cases the stratosphere to have its reverse temperature gradient with altitude and acts as a “cap” on tropospheric convection. It is the “roof” of the greenhouse. So that tiny amount of radiation would have a major impact on surface temperature by capping the altitude (and therefore temperature) at the top of the convection column. A small change in UV might result in major changes elsewhere.
Can you cite supporting references?
About time someone did this. Thank you! Next we need a series of Pareto charts showing the ranges of magnitude of the dominant listed parameters on air temperature, surface temperature and water temperature at different locations on the surface of the globe (simplistic). For example air temperature in the middle of a continent, the middle of an urban area, a mountain range, an ocean, an ocean coast, etc. This is very simplistic, but it gives a person with no background in earth sciences a rough idea as to the size of the alleged monsters. Things such as the day /night and seasonal temperature variations vs long term cooling/heating would be very educational. An example of a Pareto for air temperature at center of continent location, would be perhaps: a seasonal variation first, daily variation second, long term change third, with each bar showing the min/max. Let the science based arguments begin.
Look guys, it is very simple.
The mass of the planet plus the mass of the atmosphere combines with solar input to create the basic adiabatic (pressure related) lapse rate (decline of temperature with height).
Anything that could be capable of disrupting that lapse rate (such as more greenhouse gases from human emissions of CO2) actually fails to alter that lapse rate but instead alters the energy distribution in the troposphere.
The change in energy distribution in the troposphere alters the surface air pressure distribution and thus the positions of the permanent climate zones INSTEAD of altering the pressure induced lapse rate.
So there is a climate effect from more human emitted GHGs.
The trouble for AGW proponents then is that the change from human CO2 emissions is unmeasurably small compared to natural solar and oceanic induced variations.
From the Mediaeval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age and from the Little Ice Age to date the shift in the surface air pressure distribution (the permanent climate zones) appears to be 1000 miles or so.
My best guess is that human emissions of GHGs might shift the climate zones by a mile or so.
Can anyone demonstrate that the human effect is any greater than that ?
You could have included anthropogenic influences if you feel so inclined such as
land cover change
urbanisation
changes in atmospheric composition
etc. etc.
I saw geothermal heat mentioned in hot spots, volcanoes, sea floor plumes and the like, but geothermal energy is constantly flowing to the surface everywhere. I have a “map” of this but don’t know how to send it here – give me your email if you would like it. Interestingly, there is a large thermal flux off the west coast of the Americas that seems to coincide with the location of the ENSO phenomenon. It is possibly concentrated equatorward by the equatorward currents along the west coast.
Also when you mention tides on the sea, atmosphere, magmas etc. don’t forget that the tide operates on the whole globe – water wells go down when the earth tide passes, lifting up the overlying ground and increasing the porosity off the aquifers.
I think the “butterfly-hurricanes” thing is misquoted and misapplied by way too many people who ought to know better.
Among the many things I am not is “mathematician” so there is little assurance that I have it right, either.
But it is my understanding that the story was a poorly executed attempt to make people understand the behavior of complex, “chaotic” (wish they’d found a better term) systems.
The atmosphere is a complex, chaotic subsystem of a complex, chaotic system (a subsystem of stuff on infinitely grander scales),
The butterfly thing was an attempt to illustrate that when you attempt to model a chaotic system the initial conditions you select and set for your model can (emphasis “can”) have an enormous and surprising effect on the outputs of your model.
The point is, without changing any other initial value, a change of a butterfly’s worth of energy in the system might result in wildly different outputs.
“While the variation of UV may be “very tiny”, I believe it has a major influence on the temperature of the stratosphere and possibly the energy content of the oceans (as UV is the deepest penetrating light into the oceans). It is UV that cases the stratosphere to have its reverse temperature gradient with altitude and acts as a “cap” on tropospheric convection.”
“Can you cite supporting references?”
Well I can. There is lots but this is especially telling:
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2001/2001_Shindell_etal_1.pdf
Even Michael Mann et al accept that proposition.
Who are you to deny it ?”
Srange that they seem to have downplayed it subsequently especially since the recent solar minimum supports the proposition.
[note – please choose a different name before commenting further – Anthony]
You might as well throw in crustal and atmospheric co-evolution through time due to continental drift, since the crust is in quasi equilibrium with the atmosphere. One factor in the equilibrium is orogeny and erosion by weathering, for example the collision of the Indian continent with the Asian continent producing the carbonate rich Himalayas whose weathering soaked up a significant amount of CO2. The Himalayas also re-routed some of the atmospheric circulation.
Robert Doyle says: January 21, 2012 at 11:04 am
Earth Magnetic Field & Cosmic Rays
http://climateresearchnews.com/2009/01/new-paper-supports-a-cosmic-rays-clouds-climate-link/
This is the 2009, Danish research purporting to support the link between the earth magnetic field, cosmic rays and cloud formations.
Yep, added to section 7. Earth’s Magnetic Field;
According to a 2009 Danish study “Is there a link between Earth’s magnetic field and low-latitude precipitation?” by Knudsen and Riisager, Geology, 2009. “The earth’s climate has been significantly affected by the planet’s magnetic field”
“Our results show a strong correlation between the strength of the earth’s magnetic field and the amount of precipitation in the tropics,” one of the two Danish geophysicists behind the study, Mads Faurschou Knudsen of the geology department at Aarhus University in western Denmark, told the Videnskab journal.”
http://www.spacedaily.com/2006/090112183735.ojdq7esu.html
“Intriguingly, we observe a relatively good correlation between the high-resolution speleothem δ18O records and the dipole moment, suggesting that Earth’s magnetic field to some degree influenced low-latitude precipitation in the past. In addition to supporting the notion that variations in the geomagnetic field may have influenced Earth’s climate in the past, our study also provides some degree of support for the controversial link between GCR particles, cloud formation, and climate.”
http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/content/37/1/71.abstract
Thank you.
A link to numerous papers and writings concerning the sun.
http://leif.org/research/
Oh please !!!
That list is big and complicated.
So much easier to say “CO2 is the cause”.
/sarc
Reblogged this on RoysBlog.
Anthony,
how can I make further entries in the reference page?
1. There are substantial topics COMPLETELY missing….
that is the reason why IPCC GCMs-models are wrong, because major input variables
are excluded from the very beginning…..
2. many topics are insufficiently explained, in particularly, reference to Wikipedia is a WEAK
point, because Wikipedia was/is continuously “cleaned” (manipulated) by AGW-activists…
.. thus no good source….
(I have examples for the manipulated info, with quotations before and after….)
3. Topics and sub-topics should be weighted, according to significance…..whether it is
local,regional or global in effect plus LOWER and HIGHER ESTIMATE range in Watt/m2
or in TEMPs deg. C should be made….
This is important in order to judge whether we talk about peanuts or sizable variables….
many bloggers talk peanuts and reckon they found sizable sources….
4. A hierarchy list should be made on the energy flow /variations from Sun to Earth’s
orbit to atmosphere to the Earth’s ground and ocean and then to backfeeds etc.
The bottom of the hierarchy list are the last/least important first come the upper
hirarchy variables….
JS
there’s a poll at yahoo.com
is global warming happening etc yes and no answer so far 50% for both
[Reply: Can you post the link? ~dbs, mod.]
Um. These are just the known unknowns.
I recall a theory from the 1990s suggesting that small comets – house-sized fluffy snowballs – were hitting the top of the atmosphere every few seconds. The web site is here: http://smallcomets.physics.uiowa.edu/
This is still controversial – but if it is true adding water vapour like that would surely have an impact on energy absorption? That has not been considered. but it may need to be considered in the future. We just don’t know…
There are major problems with the Croll/Milankovitch theory that are not included in your list: (1) the theory cannot explain the synchroneity of glaciations in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere with no time lag (this fact has been called “the fly in the Milankovitch ointment”). Until this fact can be accounted for, the theory cannot be considered proven; (2) The validity of Milankovitch cycles depend on correlation with oxygen isotope variations in deep sea cores, but the cores cannot be dated accurately so the correlations rest on unproven assumptions and circular reasoning; (3) Milankovitch cycles cannot explain the Younger Dryas glacial resurgence because the onset and ending of the glaciation happened far more abruptly than can be credited to Milankovitch orbital changes (which are very slow). (4) The North Atlantic Deep Ocean Current theory cannot explain the problems with Milankovitch cycles because climatic changes occur simultaneous in both hemispheres with no lag time and this means it cannot be the cause of the climatic changes.
I also wonder about Milankovitch….. There is the 21,400 year cycle, the 41,000 year cycle and both should appear on glacial ice core dating analysis. I never found paleoliterature, which shows onset or end of these two cycles…….
Is somebody out there who knows, in which millenium these 2 cycles started and completed/ended?
JS
[SNIP: People who route their comments through anonymous proxy servers and use the name of a character from a British T.V. series should not really be touching this topic, and certainly should not be making libelous and unfounded allegations. -REP]
Alan S. Blue says: January 21, 2012 at 11:20 am
It isn’t a ’cause’, but Chaos Theory deserves a mention in here somewhere.
There’s a complete combinatorial explosion in predicting -weather-, the only reason there’s any thought at all of predicting anything beyond seven days out is the result of Chaos Theory.
The recent article here on WUWT on why the other extant attractor nodes involve Chicago under ice, and that deserves mention in there.
http://www.amazon.com/Chaos-Making-Science-James-Gleick/dp/0140092501/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327173243&sr=1-2
dscott says: January 21, 2012 at 1:34 pm
contrary to the chaotic nature of weather claimed, there is a periodic rhythm, a harmonic signal in weather beyond the seasons due to the moon’s influence.
Zac says: January 21, 2012 at 1:34 pm
But the climate scientists of the 70s told me that a butterfly flapping its wings at the start of the Siberian Summer could cause a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico several weeks later.
I demand that you include Lepidoptera for old times sake.
I am not sure what to do with Chaos Theory:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory
It has a number of adherents and there appears to be some logic to it, but I struggle with the prototypical proof put forth to support it, i.e.:
“The flapping of a single butterfly’s wing today produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere. Over a period of time, what the atmosphere actually does diverges from what it would have done. So, in a month’s time, a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn’t happen. Or maybe one that wasn’t going to happen, does.” Ian Stewart, Does God Play Dice? The Mathematics of Chaos:
http://books.google.com/books?id=2wHa2t77AAIC&pg=PA129&dq=So,+in+a+month%27s+time,+a+tornado+that+would+have+devastated+the+Indonesian+coast+doesn%27t+happen&hl=en&sa=X&ei=h0IbT6CfI4rL0QHxg5nKCw&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=So%2C%20in%20a%20month%27s%20time%2C%20a%20tornado%20that%20would%20have%20devastated%20the%20Indonesian%20coast%20doesn%27t%20happen&f=false
Firstly, in terms of “a tornado that would have devastated the coast” there are tornadoes in Indonesia;
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/wild-weather-brings-floods-and-tornados-to-indonesia/345962
however, I can find no record of a Tornado devastating a coast, in Indonesia or otherwise. A typhoon seems much more plausible.
Secondarily, whether a Tornado or Typhoon, we have a reasonable idea why they form and it has nothing to do with butterflies. “A tornado begins in a severe thunderstorm called a supercell. A supercell can last longer than a regular thunderstorm. The same property that keeps the storm going also produces most tornadoes. The wind coming into the storm starts to swirl and forms a funnel. The air in the funnel spins faster and faster and creates a very low pressure area which sucks more air (and possibly objects) into it.
The severe thunderstorms which produce tornadoes form where cold dry polar air meets warm moist tropical air. This is most common in a section of the United States called Tornado Alley. Also, the atmosphere needs to be very unstable.”
http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Atmosphere/tornado/formation.html
“Like any tropical cyclone, there are six main requirements for typhoon formation and development: sufficiently warm sea surface temperatures, atmospheric instability, high humidity in the lower to middle levels of the troposphere, enough Coriolis force to develop a low pressure center, a pre-existing low level focus or disturbance, and low vertical wind shear.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon
I don’t see where the butterflies fit into either of these processes.
Finally, the proposition that the “tiny change in the state of the atmosphere” that “the flapping of a single butterfly’s wing today produces” could change the course, strength or existence of “a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast” seems dubious.
I will continue to consider inclusion of Chaos Theory and Lepidoptera, if you think you have a compelling argument as to why either should or shouldn’t be included, please feel free to share.
This and its predecessor are definitely among my favourite articles on WUWT.
These pages demonstrate the absolute absurdity of claiming to be able to model the climate.
Great work.
Justthefacts, this is an incredible information source. Thank you very much for posting this!
Now, quick question: will it be possible at some point, to put a link to this list on WUWT’s front page?
I have not seen these links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fixation
“In biology, carbon fixation is the reduction of carbon dioxide to organic compounds by living organisms. The obvious example is photosynthesis. Carbon fixation requires both a source of energy such as sunlight, and an electron donor such as water. All life depends on fixed carbon. Organisms that grow by fixing carbon are called autotrophs—plants for example. Heterotrophs, like animals, are organisms which grow by using the fixed carbon produced by autotrophs. Some organisms can go either way. Fixed carbon, reduced carbon, and organic carbon all mean organic compounds. Carbon dioxide, in all its guises, is inorganic carbon.”
As far as I know, the source of carbon of the vast majority of life on Earth is primarily CO2, but there a small group of bacteria that can use methane as their source of carbon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanotroph
I believe that there are also some bacteria that can use hydrocarbons as their source of carbon. (although this point is not 100% clear to me ) http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0923250806000830
I don’t remember a specific paper or blog post on it, but the Earth’s orbit and perihelion + aphelion, over time, probably have some effect. The push and pull of solar and planetary gravity, in the vaccum of space, wobble us around our star enough to affect things. My understanding is that there is ~7% variation in the amount of solar energy with our current orbit.
So cattle farms didn’t make the list?
This is the type of real world thinking that will stamp out the fraudsters forever when it works its way into the mainstream. More power to you. Thanks. Will take a while to get through all the info presented.
Amazing list Just the Facts.
—–
Sudden Stratospheric Warming events were mentioned and I thought people might want to know that one of the biggest seen is happening right now. (Last year there wasn’t one and two out of three winters have one or more).
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_TEMP_ANOM_JFM_NH_2012.gif
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/temperature/02mb9065.gif
In 15 to 45 days after these events, the Arctic and parts of the mid-latitudes are warmer while at least one area in the mid-latitudes will get the big cold air instead.
I think Roger Pielke Sr has shown that any local disturbance created by a butterfly’s flapping of its wings is quickly lost in the noise of already turbulent atmospheric conditions. In other words, it’s nonsense. If there were any substance to it, then almost any other animal moving would cause an effect 1000 times greater. And something like a car or a plane, well, that’s a lot of orders of magnitude.
Unbelievable – solar UV drives atmospheric photo-chemistry, which ultimately leads to the formation of suphate and nitrate aerosols from both natural and man made sources, affects tropospheric ozone concentrations and alters the atmospheric half life of almost every chemical species. How can anybody suggest that a 10% variation has no effect – it must have!
P.S. UV also causes the photolysis of water to form O and OH radicals.
OK, thanks. Think I got it, now.
Or something.
Thanks so much for your hard work, Just The Facts!!!
[SNIP: If you don’t like the policy here, leave. This is the last word on the subject. -REP]
justthefactswuwt says:
January 21, 2012 at 2:22 pm
“…the proposition that the “tiny change in the state of the atmosphere” that “the flapping of a single butterfly’s wing today produces” could change the course, strength or existence of “a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast” seems dubious.
____________________________
My neighbor just had me over for a big pot of chili with beans.
If a butterfly can’t, do you think we might have a chance?
I’m not a big proponent of chaos theory because it’s typically presented without limit, as per the butterfly example
There’s a whole lot more order out there than we can comprehend, at present.
From justthefactswuwt on January 21, 2012 at 10:52 am:
Seconds in a year: 365.25 days/yr * 24hrs/day * 60min/hr * 60sec/min = 3.1558*10^7s
2ms/100yrs: 0.002s/100 yields 2.*10^-5 s/yr
2.*10^-5 s/yr / (3.1558*10^7s) = 6.*10^-13, amount of yearly increase in time.
Earth’s mass increases every day. Since the rotating Earth only has so much angular momentum, the increase in mass will cause the Earth to slow down.
http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae75.cfm
10^8kg/day *365.25days/yr / 10^25kg = 3.7*10^-15/yr, amount of yearly increase in mass.
With these imprecise numbers, assuming my math’s correct, the effect of the mass increase towards lengthening the year is only around 0.006 of that attributed to tidal acceleration. Might be considered insignificant, might not. Is it worth mentioning? Good question.
Earth surface roughness over a wide range of scales? This affects the detail of incoming radiation by effects such as shadowing, which can get very complex to model. As others have noted, the conversion of temperature to w/m^2 involves a 4th power per S B. The conversion on the shaded side of a lump is different to that on the lit side adjacent. Becomes a matter of when you average for a global summary, plus other factors such as the size of the lump and its rate of heat conduction and many other variables. That’s on land. Then you have to do it differently for sea. It’s not trivial since digits of w/m^2 can be involved as errors if you average too soon, I think.
higley7 says:
DuPont funded the ozone scare as their most popular CFC, used around the world and helping the poor eat better, was out of patent and getting dirt cheap.
This is not true. All the important CFCs were long out of patent by that stage.
DuPont held some process patents. That is they had ways to make CFCs a bit more cheaply that their opposition. They didn’t own the rights to the actual chemicals. When those process patents ran out all that would happen was that everyone could make CFCs a bit cheaper yet. The gravy train on CFCs was over well before the ozone scare.
If it had just been about patents DuPont’s competitors would have been quick to point that out. And why did countries where DuPont’s patents didn’t run go along for the ride?
As conspiracy theories go, this one is even easier to disprove than most.
Larry says:
January 21, 2012 at 1:24 pm
Oh come on. If you’re going to counter this claim, please provide numbers. For example, from http://www.scribd.com/doc/49534391/Atmospheric-Components-and-Ozone
argon: 9,340 ppm
krypton: 1.14 ppm
hydrogen: 0.55 ppm
helium: 5.24 ppm
neon: 18.18 ppm
and so on: your turn. Hint: you forgot xenon.
Also, please explain how atmospheric hydrogen gas is not a product of biology.
Furthermore, none of these are greenhouse gases, so they have very little impact on climate. At some point, there’s no point in considering really trace elements – I bought a box of cereal today. According to its ingredients, there are no insect fragments or mineral dust in it. I’m sure there are, but I’m happy to call the contents entirely cereal.
I would just like to expand on Stephen Wild’s contribution.
N&Z have demonstrated how (given earth’s current configuration) atmospheric pressure and distance from the sun determine the maximum practical annual average temperature of the earth.
Most if not all the topics mentioned above determine how the actual temperature fails to reach that maximum, most of the time.
Recent historic periods in which that theoretical maximum has been more or less achieved include the Roman Warm Period, the Medieval Warm Period and the present epoch.
All the rest is mere detail.
(But interesting).
Good work, JTF!
Typos and spelling mistakes as per usual.
Apologies Stephen Wilde with an E.
A masterpiece! (almost the equivalent of painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling!)
Did you include anything on SIM Solar Inertial Motion (Charvatova) ? (Sorry , I bookmarked, skimmed but not yet read… on the to do list!)
LONG TERM CHANGES OF THE SURFACE AIR TEMPERATURE IN RELATION TO SOLAR INERTIAL MOTION * IVANKA CHARVATOVA and JAROSLAV STI~EST[K
Geophysical Institute AS CR, Bo~nf ll, 141 31 Praha 4 – Spofilov, Czech Republic
http://www.springerlink.com/content/xh920864613u2k57/
AndiC says: January 21, 2012 at 11:51 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isostasy – basically continental “buoyancy” – and what will happen if more water enters the oceans? Will the ocean floor sink a little and push the continents higher? Look at the Great Lakes to see what happens when glacial overburden is removed!
Yep, I’ve added I’ve added Isostasy to section 3. Gravitation:
Isostasy also exists whereby a “state of gravitational equilibrium between the earth’s lithosphere and asthenosphere such that the tectonic plates “float” at an elevation which depends on their thickness and density.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isostasy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_tide – seems to imply an inland tidal effect of around 0.5 metre at the equator – but this other recent article seems to imply only 1.5mm at Loch Ness http://www.agu.org/cgi-bin/highlights/highlights.cgi?action=show&doi=10.1029/2011JC007411&jc=jc – I definitely need to read more
Yep, I’ve added Earth Tide to section 3. Gravitation.
Earth Tide
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_tide
Finally LOD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_length – but the LOD is not a constant, there are the gradual effects of the moon in slowing the earth’s rotation, and daily effects driven by tides, weather, continental drift (as expressed by earthquake, tsunami, landslide etc).
There are also seasonal variations of about -18/+30 seconds in measured LOD
Two questions
– on a daily/seasonal variability – if LOD increases (ie earth slows for that day/season), where does the kinetic energy go (and cause/effect)
– ongoing – if LOD is gradually increasing – again where does the energy go to?
Compare the mass of the earth to the mass of the atmosphere, if weather can slow the earth even if only briefly, what is the energy transfer model?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_length
Yep, “the length of the day varies when any mass on or in the Earth moves, affecting the state of its angular momentum. Take weather in the atmosphere, for instance. The seasonal changes in the trade winds and monsoons have a well-known effect on the length-of-day over the course of the year. The IERS calculates the angular momentum of the whole atmosphere every six hours, allowing the signal of large-scale weather systems to be detected.
The tides of the ocean have the long-term effect of slowing the Earth down and speeding up the Moon (which thus moves away from Earth a few centimeters per year). They also have short-term effects that are being modeled more accurately all the time. Changes in ocean currents change the length-of-day. Our computer models of ocean circulation are getting good enough, thanks to centimeter-precise measurements of the sea surface, that we can analyze this signal too. The National Earth Orientation Service has a page explaining this stuff in clear detail. (These are also the people who announce leap seconds.)
Other factors affecting the LOD data include rises and subsidences of the land surface, the buildup of glaciers, large earthquakes, large-scale pumping of groundwater and construction of reservoirs, and the shape of the ocean’s surface in response to air masses above it.
Each of these can be estimated and their signals extracted from the raw data, untangling the many mixed threads of information in the LOD record. One by one, the sources of variation can be determined and subtracted out, leaving another level to be analyzed.
The last level of variation, a slow drift on the decade scale, seems to be related to the motion of liquid iron in the Earth’s core. This layer allows the solid inner core to rotate freely with respect to the outer mantle and crust. Thus every twist and torque exerted by the atmosphere, oceans, Moon, Sun, other planets and the rest of the universe stirs that inner iron ocean, affecting the great dynamo that drives the Earth’s magnetic field.”
http://geology.about.com/od/tectonicsdeepearth/a/lodresearch.htm
In this paper, “Are Changes in the Earth’s Rotation Rate Externally Driven and Do They Affect Climate?”, by Ian R. G. Wilson, the General Science Journal, 2011, “evidence is presented to show that the phases of two of the Earth’s major climate systems, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), are related to changes in the Earth’s rotation rate. We find that the winter NAO index depends upon the time rate of change of the Earth’s length of day (LOD). In addition, we find that there is a remarkable correlation between the years where the phase of the PDO is most positive and the years where the deviation of the Earth’s LOD from its long-term trend is greatest.”
http://www.wbabin.net/files/4424_wilson.pdf
Thank you
justthefactswuwt says:
January 21, 2012 at 11:10 am
“Can you cite any evidence that “corpses would change both the makeup of the atmosphere (add heaps of carbon) and the magnetic interactions”?”
True to name you seem to want just the facts.
Yes it was speculative. Thankyou for taking it seriously enough to reply.
So the best I can do is supply some evidence of at least four things to justify the speculation:
a) Comets may contain large amounts of carbon and or other elements other than just H and O.
b) That the solar radiation(s) could push things toward us that are of significant volume.
c) That torn apart comet bits can and do enter the atmosphere.
d) That comet material interacts with the sun /earth magnetic fields.
I will give it a go!
a) Contents of comets
First H and O make water vapour so this on it’s own if it entered the atmosphere in volume would change things for a while. Yes the quantity is speculation (see b) but a text search finds “water vapor” ten times in your text above!
“The evidence for carbonaceous material was, in fact, one of the major results of comet
Halley’s exploration.The average carbon content of IDPs collected in the stratosphere
of the Earth has been measured as 10–12 % [38,41], which is about 2.5–3 times the carbon content of primitive meteorites.”
Organic matter in comets and cometary dust:
http://www.im.microbios.org/0801/0801005.pdf
Also have a look at:
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/3441/carbon-rich-comet-fragments-found-antarctic-snow?page=0%2C1
b) The push, assuming photons and the solar wind would work together and that comets are frequently torn apart by the sun, the volume would come from this frequency more than the sise of individual comet corpses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKAROS
c) Comet bits entering.
If the seas have been rising for a very long time,where is the water coming from?
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/4813/comets-were-responsible-earths-oceans
http://www.historylecture.org/starsfell.html
d) Magnetic interaction.
Note also the vid you have posted about the “Solar Magnetosphere Breach”. is it too much of a stretch in the imagination to think that large volumes of comet material traveling with the solar wind could ride into this breach?
Regarding volcanoes: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/11/undersea-volcanoes-might-be-more-common-than-previously-thought/
From my post on Bishop Hill, Jun 15, 2011 at 9:18 AM:
“As I’ve posted here and elsewhere, there is, as far as I know, only one volcanic seep in the world that is 100% captured: Lake Nyos, the site of the deadly CO2 release in 1986. The Lake Nyos seep emits approx. 187 million SCF (CO2) per year. [NB: Other sources say 700 million SCFY. I base my number on calculations from figures contained in Schmid, Halbwachs, & Wuest (2006)]:
http://www.fischer.eawag.ch/organisation/abteilungen/surf/publikationen/2006_simulation
There are estimated to be 3 million subsea volcanic vents:
http://iceagenow.com/Three_Million_Underwater_Volcanoes.htm
Thus from estimates of the Lake Nyos vent, the worldwide CO2 from volcanic sources could be as high as 30 GT of CO2/year, not counting land volcanoes. Compare that to the mere annual 0.13 to 0.23 GT estimated in Wankerpedia. (The NOAA Carbon cycle chart doesn’t even show volcanic CO2.) Once again, the science is NOT settled and may be significantly in error.
jorgekafkazar”
@Dave Wendt:
Further to your point: Extensive defense of fracking by Casey Research:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-dont-frack-me
There is the atmospheric cooling effect of CO2 to be considered, as extra CO2 increases the strength of convection.
Noor van Andel “CO2 and Climate Change” – http://climategate.nl/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/CO2_and_climate_v7.pdf
Also, increasing levels of CO2 increase the nighttime IR radiative loss of energy at higher altitudes.
David L. Hagen says: January 21, 2012 at 12:29 pm
Length of Day
The Earth’s Length Of Day varies with wind and ocean currents, and in turn with Earth’s equatorial and polar temperatures, and Total Solar Insolation and cosmic rays. LOD also varies with earth’s core motion.
Air temperature appears to vary with earth’s core flows. Stefano Sello 2011 On the correlation between air temperature and the core Earth processes: Further investigations using a continuous wavelet analysis
I’ve added this paper in support of section 12. Physics – Other – Length of Day:
In this paper, “On the correlation between air temperature and the core Earth processes: Further investigations using a continuous wavelet analysis” by Stefano Sello, Mathematical and Physical Models, 2011
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1103.4924.pdf
The authors main results are: ”…the detection of a broadband variability centered at 78 yr (common variability ranges from 67 to 86 yr from SSA method). Oscillations in global temperatures with periods in the 65-70 yr are well known. Our work suggests that the same core processes that are known to affect Earth’s rotation and magnetic field may also contribute to the excitation of such modes, possibly through geomagnetic modulation of near-Earth charged particle fluxes that may influence cloud nucleation processes, and hence the planetary albedo, on regional as well as global scales.”
Thank you
“”””” Jens Bagh says:
January 21, 2012 at 12:11 pm
If the earth’s core indeed consist of molten iron will it be magnetic as stated? I am under the impression that iron losses its magnetic properties before red heat! “””””
Well iron has a ferro-magnetism which does go to zero above the Curie Temperature; and it also saturates at higher flux densities, limiting how powerful an iron cored magnet you can make.
Solution is to get rid of the iron (effectively); and heating above the Curie Temperature does that. Then you can make as strong a magnretic field as you like using an electro-magnet. A current running in a wire generates a magnetic field, and it doesn’t matter what the Temperature is, so the magnetic field of the earth is likely related to circulating electric currents, and it is somewhat irrelevent that the earth has an iron core (magnetism wise).
Sunspots evidently generate their magnetic fields from rotating plasmas, so they don’t need ny iron either, and don’t cae much about the Curie Temperature or iron.
Professor Marcus Oliphant in Australia built a proton synchrotron without any magnet iron to steer the protons around in the circle. He was able to get much higher magnetic fields than you can get in iron just by running a current in a coil of copper wire. Now he used a pretty big copper wire; about one foot in diameter, actually stacked up bars of copper about one inch square crossection. But he only needed two turns on his coil to get about double the magnetic field of an iron core magnet (around 30,000 Gauss, rather thsn the 15,000 Gauss limit of ordinary magnet iron (aka “battleship plate”))
Well he did need a good bit of current to get that high a field; about six million Amps of current. He got the six million amps from a quadruple Faraday Disk generator. Two counter-rotating stacks of two disks, insulated from each other and all four connected in series with brushes running on the edge of the disks, rotating in a magnetic field, the disks generated the six million Amps when you closed the switch and connected the generator to the two turn coil. It’s not so easy to switch six million Amps on and off, nor to connect to the edge of a rotating disk with brushes.
He solved that problem by using the brushes themselves as the switch. Oh the “brushes” consisted of streams of liquid sodium pouring onto the edge of the disks.Turn the sodium stream on to connect, and turn the stream off to disconnect.
This crazy contraption (which actually worked) was known as the “White Oliphant.” It was smaller and more powerful than the Bevatron at Berkeley.
What is the source for this, in the post:
““Sea ice has a much higher albedo compared to other earth surfaces, such as the surrounding ocean. A typical ocean albedo is approximately 0.06, while bare sea ice varies from approximately 0.5 to 0.7. This means that the ocean reflects only 6 percent of the incoming solar radiation and absorbs the rest, while sea ice reflects 50 to 70 percent of the incoming energy. The sea ice absorbs less solar energy and keeps the surface cooler.”
This is in error. The albedo of seawater varies with zenith angle. See:
http://www.asterism.org/tutorials/tut26-1.htm
“…clouds vary from 0.4 to 0.8, snow varies from 0.4 to 0.85, forests vary from 0.04 to 0.1, grass is about 0.15, and water varies from 0.02 with the Sun directly overhead to 0.8 at low levels of incidence. So the Earth’s albedo varies, and depends on the extent of cloudiness, snowfall, and the Sun’s angle of incidence on the oceans….”
Ocean albedo varies not only with zenith angle, as above, but also tides, clouds, spindrift, plankton, other particulates, and temperature, Wind direction and velocity also have a major effect on waves and chop, affecting reflectance. At high zenith angles, the reflectance of still water, as in small ponds, etc., is close to 1.00. Choppy seas can have fairly high albedo.
See also: http://snowdog.larc.nasa.gov/jin/albedofind.html
I think we have an English language problem. I am quite familiar with the quantities of the several gases. I am not familiar with a photosynthesis equation that produces krypton,
Nor am I familiar with a process that liberates helium from sugar molecules.
Re: Chaos Theory questions and answers.
Poster Larry (January 21, 2012 at 1:55 pm) has the basic information correct. It is an ‘initial conditions’ question. All truly chaotic systems are are sensitive to initial conditions — change the initial conditions in the smallest way and down the line, forward in time, there can be gigantic differences in outcome. It is not to say that there must be gigantic changes, only that there can be, and often are, depending on the system. In hydraulics, such effects can blow up piping. In mixing systems, such effects can result in the absence of desired mixing. In population dynamics, species bust-and-boom effects are seen.
The ‘butterfly effect’ isn’t meant to be taken literally — it is a way of looking at the subject of hyper-sensitivity to initial conditions in chaotic systems. Anyone who has played with reiterative chaotic system simulations has seen this effect — the tiniest change in initial values produces vastly different results. That’s the ‘butterfly effect’.
If the Earth’s Climate System is truly ‘chaotic’ in the scientific/mathematical sense, then this ‘fact’ must be taken into account. It is not though, a climate variable, it is the nature of the climate system.
Many climate scientists, on all three sides of the climate wars, admit that the climate system is chaotic in this sense.
Anthony,
The basic premise of AGW by the IPCC is
“the earth is a closed system”
and
“the sun is a bit player”
Both of these have now been falsified.
The solar wind and cosmic rays exchange mass with the earth and cause, per Svensmark, significant impacts. It might be the case that the “solar system” can be considered a closed system if solar wind (i.e. mass) is a proxy for cosmic rays.
Unless and until we can predict the sun (shoot, we can’t even predict the next solar maximum/cycle length/wind strength/…..), we’re just whistling past the graveyard.
On the other hand, why let reality interfere with their good “rice bowl”?
The geocentric religion folk make big bucks,
standing at the top of Mt. Stupid waving the flag of “we can’t explain it otherwise”!
LOL in Oregon
Dear justthefactswuwt,
What you have shown is our utterly primitive understanding of the climate. It reminds me of our understanding of electricity at the end of the 1800s. People really didn’t know what was important. We hadn’t developed most of our simplified analysis. For instance, if you wanted to solve a moderately complicated electric circuit you were stuck with a system of simultaneous differential equations. It took Steinmetz to develop a method that used ‘simple’ algebra. http://zrno.fsb.hr/katedra/download/materijali/966.pdf Hertz saved us a lot of misery by re-deriving Maxwell’s equations into the simplified version we all learned to love. 😉 Yes, the original version was much harder to deal with.
We are at the stage electricity was at when people would include electric eels in an Electrical Engineering text because they didn’t know that they could safely be ignored (by engineers).
Once climate gets its Hertz and Steinmetz, 95% of the stuff you cite will disappear from the list of what we have to consider when analyzing the climate. What would such an analysis look like? I have no clue but I would bet even money that it will happen.
jorgekafkazar says:
Not only that but ice free water releases a lot more heat to the atmosphere. Communities next to large bodies of water notice a marked change in the weather when said body of water freezes over. I suspect that an ice free arctic would have exactly the opposite effect that many people think it would. The net effect would be heat loss (from the planet as a whole), not heat gain, as compared with an ice covered arctic.
I’ll aslo suggest Polar Wandering.
Some folks have suggested that the position of the magnetic poles, which constantly wander, impacts the strength of the polar vortex and thus can influence clouds and albedo.
[REPLY: Do you have a link to those “some folks”? -REP]
Nice to see the group think effort, the future is here.
Are the oceanic oscillations and/or el-Niño/la-Nina just various states of Earth and it’s oceans harmonics?
Try and visualize the earth shifting from one state, to another, in days or decades. Some examples of solid spheres:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Spherical_harmonics.png
cui bono says:
January 21, 2012 at 10:17 am
Crikey! What a magisterial survey. Plaudits to Just the Facts!
And with all these parameters and complexities, the AGW brigade wants to focus on one equation, one relationship and draw a straight line with it. The hubris of these people knows no bounds.
##############
utterly false. have you ever read the code in a GCM to see which of these processes are present?
the “focus” in not on one equation or one relationship.
Of course to simplify things for some people ( people who cant understand the physics) you will see curves of the most important factors presented.
A couple of points regarding volcanism.
The 1783 eruption of Laki in Iceland produced a dense ‘volcanic fog’ which drifted over Europe and caused both a very hot summer and very cold winter. The very hot summer is largely unexplained, but the fog was known to have reduced sunlight and produced a very cold winter. Its was thick enough for many observers to comment, including Benjamin Franklin who was in Paris at the time. The type of eruption is thought to produce this fog which is not associted with other eruptions.
Volcanoes can have many other effects. If the dust is thick and wide enough, it destroys crops and vegetation regionally, which then affects climate. Toxic flourine is also thought to be able to destroy vegetation/animal stock in large quantities,and the 1783 eruption was also known to have caused vegetation reduction in northern Europe.
Larger and longer eruptions associated with mantle plumes are strongly implacated in several mass extinction events.
Plate tectonics effect climate by rising mountain ranges, making oceans (splitting plates), and so on. The onset of the last 35 million year cooler temperatures is thought related to the uplifting of the himalaya, as well as the closing of the Tethys ocean between Aafrica and Eurasia (which makes distribution of heat to the poles less-the same occurred with the closingon the Panama canal about 5 Million years ago, which cut off the Atlanntic and Pacific oceans, and is thought to have dropped temperatures and caused the more recent glacial episodes startign about 5 million years ago).
If I scratched my brain I would probably come up with a few more specific geothermic-climate effects, volcanoes are beastly and highly variable things.
There is an ineresting book out called ‘Eruptions that shook the world’ by Oppenheimer worth a read.
Earth’s Rotational Energy;
———
For a start change this to:
The Earth’s Rotation
The elements of the following list have nothing significant to do with the earth’s rotational energy and mostly are to do with the coriolis effect.
The inclusion of the word energy just says “I have no idea what I an talking about so I added Energy just to make it sound sciencey”.
steven mosher says:
January 21, 2012 at 7:14 pm
“…. ( people who cant understand the physics)…..”
====================
Can’t ?
Crosspatch says
A small change in UV might result in major changes elsewhere.
——–
While the UV can affect the temperature of rarefied high altitude gas the heat capacity of that gas is tiny so the amount of energy contained in it is tiny. To heat the lower levels of the atmosphere you need a fair amount of energy.
Therefore your proposal is implausible.
“carbonate rich Himalayas whose weathering soaked up a significant amount of CO2”
not to mention concrete buildings, pavement, mortar in brick buildings… but then did the CaO2 manufacture produce more or less CO2 than was later absorbed to form/re-form the calcium carbonate, or maybe both should be included in the model over time.
jorgekafkazar says: January 21, 2012 at 6:37 pm
What is the source for this, in the post:
““Sea ice has a much higher albedo compared to other earth surfaces, such as the surrounding ocean. A typical ocean albedo is approximately 0.06, while bare sea ice varies from approximately 0.5 to 0.7. This means that the ocean reflects only 6 percent of the incoming solar radiation and absorbs the rest, while sea ice reflects 50 to 70 percent of the incoming energy. The sea ice absorbs less solar energy and keeps the surface cooler.”
It’s from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) Albedo page:
http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/processes/albedo.html
This is in error. The albedo of seawater varies with zenith angle. See:
http://www.asterism.org/tutorials/tut26-1.htm
The NSIDC does seem like they may be over simplifying with their statement that “A typical ocean albedo is approximately 0.06,” as the article you cite states that “water varies from 0.02 with the Sun directly overhead to 0.8 at low levels of incidence.” However, I do not see definitive grounds to say that NSIDC’s “typical ocean albedo” is in error? Do you have evidence that NSIDC’s “typical ocean albedo” of ” approximately 0.06″ is erroneous?
I’ve added to section 9. Albedo;
“t should be pointed out that these planetary albedos are averages. Taking Earth as an example, clouds vary from 0.4 to 0.8, snow varies from 0.4 to 0.85, forests vary from 0.04 to 0.1, grass is about 0.15, and water varies from 0.02 with the Sun directly overhead to 0.8 at low levels of incidence. So the Earth’s albedo varies, and depends on the extent of cloudiness, snowfall, and the Sun’s angle of incidence on the oceans.”
http://www.asterism.org/tutorials/tut26-1.htm
Ocean albedo varies not only with zenith angle, as above, but also tides, clouds, spindrift, plankton, other particulates, and temperature, Wind direction and velocity also have a major effect on waves and chop, affecting reflectance. At high zenith angles, the reflectance of still water, as in small ponds, etc., is close to 1.00. Choppy seas can have fairly high albedo.
http://snowdog.larc.nasa.gov/jin/albedofind.html
Interesting points, there is nuance everywhere. I am going to include your last paragraph in the article verbatim in section 9. Albedo as a placeholder until I or another reader has an opportunity to research, validate and detail each of these variables.
Thank you for your input, any more you have on the subject is most welcome.
I’ve got one i dont think you’ve got it in there yet:
the rate of dissolution/precipitation of carbonate on the ocean floor sediments ffects climate. The c02 that is dissolved in the ocean affects the rate of the this dissolution/precipitation, which in turn affects the amount of c02 in the atmosphere, which of course affects climate (how much we dont know). Even wiki says this process might mitigate against longer term climate warming from AGW c02.
From wiki:
“Leaving aside direct biological effects, it is expected that ocean acidification in the future will lead to a significant decrease in the burial of carbonate sediments for several centuries, and even the dissolution of existing carbonate sediments.[53] This will cause an elevation of ocean alkalinity, leading to the enhancement of the ocean as a reservoir for CO2 with moderate (and potentially beneficial) implications for climate change as more CO2 leaves the atmosphere for the ocean.[54]”
Andrew, you should formally publish this list in some form. Other people will use this in enducational and scientific institutions without giving you credit. This list is on it own, a major piece of scientific work and should be recognised as such.
Earth’s gravity is not constant but differ between the equator and the poles and any earthly chaotic system had it’s initial variables set a few billion years ago. :p
Bill Illis says: January 21, 2012 at 4:18 pm
Sudden Stratospheric Warming events were mentioned and I thought people might want to know that one of the biggest seen is happening right now. (Last year there wasn’t one and two out of three winters have one or more).
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_TEMP_ANOM_JFM_NH_2012.gif
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/temperature/02mb9065.gif
In 15 to 45 days after these events, the Arctic and parts of the mid-latitudes are warmer while at least one area in the mid-latitudes will get the big cold air instead.
Good point Bill. The Sudden Stratospheric Warming can be seen forming in this 500-hPa/mb Height Anomalies Animation – Atmospheric Pressure Anomalies at Approximately 5500 meters (18,000 feet)
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/z500_nh_30d_anim.gif
it jumps out on the AO Index:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/hgt.ao.cdas.gif
and is readily apparent in this Global – 10-hPa/mb Height Temperature Anomalies Animation – Atmospheric Temperature Anomalies At Approximately 31,000 meters (101,700 feet):
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/temp10anim.gif
and this Mean Temperature above 80°N chart:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
Also growth of Sea Ice decreased in both Extent;
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
and Area;
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
Edit note:
is somewhat un-understandable. 😉
And
Is it also lascivious? 😉
jorge;
“Wankerpedia” — new one on me! Thx. 😀
Kip;
don’t you mean “both three sides”??
;p
LOL
gary murphy
Even presuming all the science is presented, it has to be ultimately expressed in analytical form that includes all the pertinent variables. After-all, we want to predict behavior. Some analytical forms will be non-linear and time dependent. Solution techniques of partial differential equations are many, and there are necessary simplifications of the scientific phenomena. Grid size has an enormous impact on magnitude of the solution. Typically, the smaller the grid size the more accurate the result.
At this time it’s just not feasible to include all. One might first try using non-dimensional analysis or some methodology to determine the pertinent or predominant variables in order to simplify the problem. Next, there is the pesky cell size, but this can be selected by testing variations until little change in solution. Don’t forget the time varying boundary conditions. In other words, start simple and go complex.
The whole idea of science and predicting natural behavior is to improve our living conditions and maybe society. To help others, one publishes the scientific treatments, generating openness, and enhancing discussions. Take a look at engineering journals (my familiarity) and see how each study is improved upon with time by other authors. I believe engineering problems are comparatively simple relative to modeling climate. I just don’t understand the resistance of climatologist to transparency. Anything can be improved upon. Just let it happen.
(Ihaven’t read everything so the following may have already been mentioned:)
Include the cooling caused by the moon casting its shadow on the earth’s surface during solar eclipses.
Include the increase in the earth’s mass as it accretes spacial detritus.
A meteorologist once told me that, assuming that we have a ‘100%’ accurate snapshot of the state of the earth’s weather running on a ‘perfect’ computer model of the earth’s weather system, one would have to input readings at the level of individual dust devils in a plowed field to correctly forecast more than two weeks into the future to avoid chaotic departures.
LazyTeenager says: January 21, 2012 at 7:21 pm
Earth’s Rotational Energy;
———
For a start change this to:
The Earth’s Rotation
Not sure, when I thought this out I thought of it in terms of Energy, Force and Effect i.e. those variables that could exert significant influence on the climate system. Solar Energy, Orbital Energy, Geothermal Energy, Rotational Energy, etc. “The rotational energy or angular kinetic energy is the kinetic energy due to the rotation of an object and is part of its total kinetic energy.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotational_energy
I know that the name isn’t conventional, but it is factual and I like it. Unless several other readers think that it should change, than I am inclined to leave it as is.
The elements of the following list have nothing significant to do with the earth’s rotational energy and mostly are to do with the coriolis effect.
This doesn’t make any sense, “The Coriolis effect is caused by the rotation of the Earth and the inertia of the mass experiencing the effect.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_effect
How can they have “nothing significant to do with the earth’s rotational energy” but “mostly” “to do with the coriolis effect.”?
The inclusion of the word energy just says “I have no idea what I an talking about so I added Energy just to make it sound sciencey”.
It helped me to conceptualize and begin to comprehend an incredibly complex system, I don’t care if you think is sounds “sciencey”.
You have a whole section under #9 under albedo. Just because the albedo may be 90% does not mean it is 90% for all wavelength of visible light. As well, the sun does not give off equal amounts of energy for each color. It is also my understanding that albedo refers to how things interact with visible light. Besides emitting visible light, the sun also emits UV and infrared. Is there an analogous word for ‘albedo’ for these other wavelengths? “Emissivity” perhaps?
ggm says: January 21, 2012 at 7:46 pm
Andrew
Not sure who that is.
you should formally publish this list in some form.
I did. I published it on blog that is well respected, ruthlessly blunt, highly critical, and averaging 3 million views a month.
Other people will use this in enducational and scientific institutions
Yep, that’s the point. Permission granted to all parties to print, copy, reproduce and distribute this document.
Old woman of the north says: January 21, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Small criticism – at the top there is a typo re the revision that the site ‘is undergone’. Either ‘has been undergoing’ or ‘ is undergoing’ – since this is an ongoing process.
Fixed, thank you.
I think a mention should be made of the upwelling of radiation from the molten core (mentioned in a sort of sideways fashion) and the possibility that tidal effects on the core affects the core temperature. Its a small effect, but to be complete one theoretically should consider it.
Also of interest is whether the radioactive decay that represents 50% of the Earths cores energy input is in-fact a constant, since the core is molen and rotating one might expect that these factors could vary ramdomly.
Finally, some aspects of the hydrological cycle extracts heat energy, first water absorbs the latent heat of vaporisation, then is elevated to the height of the clouds gaining potential energy, it cools, and releases some heat energy, but then falls, converting the potential energy component, not back into heat but into kinetic energy in the falling rain, which then nudges the planet on impact. These small effects are never considered. The discussions I see seem to assume that heat energy in=heat energy out. But clearly that doesn’t happen as some is expended as kinetic energy on the bulk of the earth. Rain clearly can cool the earth.
Larry says: January 21, 2012 at 1:01 pm
On the one hand there is (much as I detest the word) society’s (and societies’) impact on climate. This seems to be getting some coverage although I am not sure the coverage always holds up under scrutiny. Here I am talking about deforestation (Kilimanjaro, The Amazon), cultivation (The Great Plains, the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys), “reclamation” (Florida, the Missouri River, San Francisco Bay, The San Joaquin Delta), industrialization, population coagulation, and so on.
In section 10. Biology – Animal – Anthropogenic, I’ve added Cultivation;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_cultivation
and Reclamation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_reclamation
Thank you
An increasingly comprehensive list of potential climate variables, Just The Facts!
I suggest coupled biological and geologic effects should be considered. We know huge amounts of carbon and hydrogen were and are sequestered over geologic time through buildups of decomposed plant and animal matter that become the long chain hydrocarbons that make up coal, crude oil, natural gas, tar sands, shale oils, clathrates, peat bogs, etc.
Similarly, huge quantities of carbon and oxygen were and are sequestered over geologic time through buildups of biologic formed carbonates that created the massive limestone layers underlying much of the US of A, oceanic reef systems, and chalk layers such as the White Cliffs of Dover.
If we are going to consider our use of these materials as having effect on climate today, we should also consider how their sequestration over geologic time changed our global climate.
steven mosher says:
January 21, 2012 at 7:14 pm
Can you verify the curve for water vapor is there? And is the curve for clouds there also?
RayG says: January 21, 2012 at 1:07 pm
A general sourcing observation. Wikipedia is often a reliable resource. Having said that, the obverse is that this is not always correct, e.g., the hijacking of “Climate Change” in Wikipedia by a widely recognized (at least to most of us) alarmist. My recommendation is that Wikipedia references be backed up by also citing the appropriate sources at the end of the particular Wikipedia reference.
I struggle with Wikipedia. On one hand, they have, by far, the widest coverage of subjects, and quality information on many of them. On the other hand, as you point out, we know some Wikipedia entries are biased and untrustworthy, e.g.:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/14/willia-connolley-now-climate-topic-banned-at-wikipedia/
In a few cases my Wikipedia references are “backed up by also citing the appropriate sources at the end of the particular Wikipedia reference.” however, in general, this is an extra step, that I’d prefer not to have to do, Too bad Wikipedia can figure out how to objectively manage their content, especially on controversial matters.
From George E. Smith; on January 21, 2012 at 6:29 pm:
Sorry, but the mention of liquid sodium is setting off my BS detector due to its corrosive nature and the elevated temperatures needed to keep it liquid.
From his obit:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1349058/Professor-Sir-Mark-Oliphant.html
Biographical piece in “Radiation Journal” online, sourced from “New Scientist, 14 november 1992”:
http://www.radjournal.com/archives/people/hydrogen.html
A book review, of another biography, from New Scientist, Mar 4, 1982. Viewable as image thanks to Google Books:
http://books.google.com/books?id=HVJyHCXAOtsC&lpg=PA585&pg=PA585#v=onepage&q&f=false
Transcription:
…and lastly the 10 000 million volt machine at Canberra – a homo-polar generator to feed a synchrotron – which became a sad “white Oliphant.”
Didn’t sound very successful. Also sounds like what you’re describing as a proton synchrotron was actually a particle generator that would inject the particles into a synchrotron.
I found a book chapter that gives a rather thorough description of the device and the challenges faced:
http://physics.anu.edu.au/fire_in_the_belly/Fire_in_the_Belly03.pdf
Very informative. It also says, as the design evolved, they went from liquid sodium to a NaK alloy (liquid at room temperature, also very chemically reactive)… and ended up with copper graphite brushes after a NaK-related explosion. There was also a model homo-polar generator using mercury instead of liquid sodium.
So the synchrotron, using an air-cored magnet instead of iron-cored, never got done. The large homo-polar particle generator, designed with liquid sodium jets as “brushes” which didn’t survive in the final version, did get done and did work.
For the chapter on Geothermal energy (Ch 5), you can add something on the “Earth heat engine”:
see for example: http://oceansjsu.com/105d/exped_commotion/7.html
Also add something on Mud Volcanoes, that all have in common that they produce the GHG methane, fresh-, and sometime salt water and mud to the surface of the earth (also in the ocean, under water), see http://www.martinhovland.com/mud_volcanoes.htm. The most dramatic modern mud volcano erupted at Sidoarjo on Java, Indonesia, in 2006, . Numerous posts about this “Lusi mud volcano” event can be found on the web. Just like any volcanic geyser it produces boiling water to the surface and vapor into the atmosphere. This, of course, has the effect of adding humidity and heat to the surface, which comes from within the planet. A contribution of this kind is not part of the IPCC AR4 or AR5 scenarios.
Just The Facts,
A lot of work is being done on the planet by wind, ice, and water erosion, as mountains are slowly converted to boulders, rocks, pebbles, sand, and sediments. Work is performed and entropy increases. That fracturing and grinding of rock consumes energy.. a lot of energy that was provided from solar and planet rotational sources and subsequently expressed through the water cycle, wind, glaciation, and freeze/thaw rock fracturing.
Similar effects are encountered with wind driven waves and currents they create. Energy is consumed as work is performed.
I skimmed threw and am going to look again at all of it and the comments but was there any mention of lightning in all of this …tks
Should we have an open ended chapter headed Known unknowns? and a further chapter headed Unknown unknowns?. I suspect these two will be the largest of the lot.
tonyb
I would add depth modulation of the oceanic well-mixed layer. The seasonal and longitudinal variation suggests that the diurnal changes in heating and associated mixing by thermal instability has a significant effect on the mean depth of this layer and thereby on ocean surface temperatures.
In the Galactic Effects section you could add Shaviv’s research into the effects of the solar system’s crossing of galactic spiral arms during the sun’s orbit of the galactic centre.
The URL:
http://www.sciencebits.com/ice-ages
is to a version of his paper published on his blog. However, it does give the
references to his versions published in the learned journals, and to other
discussions on his blog.
In a nutshell, he spots “a 144MY {Mega-Year] cycle in iceage” frequency.
LOL in Oregon says:
Anthony,
The basic premise of AGW by the IPCC is
“the earth is a closed system”
and
“the sun is a bit player”
Both of these have now been falsified.
==========================================================================
… maybe the galaxy is a closed system
BTW: Some of Svenmark’s papers are available from:
http://www.dsri.dk/~hsv/
and are interesting reading.
How about changes in ocean albedo through pollution, f.ex oil spills, sewer, etc?
And changes in land albedo due to greening/desertification?
Apparently, or so they say…
“…the LOD observations can be used as a predictor of the future climatic trends”
Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, United Nations
http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/y2787e/y2787e03.htm
It is as if the LOD writes a waveform, and the temperature copies it — but 6 years later — according to the study.
There are two types of Rossby Waves. Atmospheric and oceanic.Both affect climate.
@lazy teenager
Whilst the primary thermal contribution of UV changes may be minor, you might also consider how changes in UV affects the rate of photochemical reactions in the Troposphere and thereby might (might) also affect a range of thermally active atmospheric chemicals.
@commieBob says:
“…
We are at the stage electricity was at when people would include electric eels in an Electrical Engineering text because they didn’t know that they could safely be ignored (by engineers).
…”
Of course, a Grid powered by electric eels would be loved by the Greens. It’s natural and renewable. And it gives lots of opportunities for ‘Prevention of Cruelty to Eels’ societies…
Justthefacts,
Many thanks for an excellent article.
Interesting to compare the list above to the propaganda our UK Met Office puts out –
“Are computer models reliable?
Yes. Computer models are an essential tool in understanding how the climate will respond to changes in greenhouse gas concentrations, and other external effects, such as solar output and volcanoes.
Computer models are the only reliable way to predict changes in climate. Their reliability is tested by seeing if they are able to reproduce the past climate, which gives scientists confidence that they can also predict the future.”
“It’s now clear that man-made greenhouse gases are causing climate change. The rate of change began as significant, has become alarming and is simply unsustainable in the long-term.”
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/p/a/quick_guide.pdf
This was a leaflet provided ‘free’ from the Met Office and pushed out just before Copenhagen in 2009.
For completion the cosmic dust connection shouldn’t be forgotten. It has some support in peer-reviewed science. It has support from at least one enthusiastic professor, (i.e cosmic dust fertilizes the ground/sea water) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0459.2007.00328.x/abstract;jsessionid=9E5A686CF075EFBEADAA1C8621A06B40.d02t04
You haven’t taken into account the average annual consumption of Frijoles in Mexico, and whether it is increasing or decreasing. That has a great impact on the amount of methane released into the atmosphere, which of course is a greenhouse gas.
I mean if you’re going to take everything into account, then take everything into account!
I don’t think you’ll have a complete climate model without including flying insects. They’re much larger than CO2 molecules and therefore must trap more radiative heat in the atmosphere. This warming allows even more flying insects to flourish, enhancing the heating effect. This must surely continue until such time as these insects exhaust their food supply. At that point, the flying insects will all die out and the planet will plunge into an ice age.
One awesome list.
Knowledge is power.
“To demonstrate that Earth’s climate system is a ridiculously complex, continually evolving and sometimes chaotic beast, with the plethora of variables, many interdependencies and an array of feedbacks, both positive and negative.”
Yes, I’ve noticed that this is the new “skeptic” theme de jour. “Its all so complicated, we can’t possibly understand it”.
To give an example, the annual transition from winter to summer is complicated. There is so very much to take into account. Some summers are hot and dry, while others are warm and wet. Some have cyclones and hurricanes, while others don’t. But ignoring the interesting differences, summer everywhere has one thing in common – its warmer than winter. All the possible complications make a difference in the detail, but not to the big picture.
Anyway, I guess the folks at Skeptical Science will have to add many more items to their list:
“Its not the greater Magellanic cloud”
“Its not caused by water skiing”
etc etc
Just a thought: If temperature or climate generally can be determined for times past by analyzing the isotopic concentration of carbon, oxygen, or other elements in ice cores or rock strata — isotopic consequences of climate variation — it seems reasonable to ask if the correlation might not run the other way. Does a variation in the isotopic distribution of an element in the system cause corresponding changes in the temperature or other behavior of that system?
“JaneHM says:
January 21, 2012 at 10:17 am
Do you have a link to the rate at which the Earth’s rotation is slowing over geological timescales ie the past 4 billion years?”
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1968QJRAS…9..352M/0000367.000.html
In this paper, Walter Munk has a graph of the length of day change over geological time from around 21 hours during the Cambrian until the present.
This old-school review paper is well worth a read, humorous in places, and self-critical, as well as being thorough and thought provoking. It’s a great pity that scientists of Walter Munk’s calibre and writing ability are not in greater supply today.
Lunar tidal friction, which slows the day length, heats the ocean directly, as water driven by tides moves over shallow coastal waters, and certain coastal stretches get an excess of tidal energy over others due to geographical location. The visible effects are coastal erosion and longshore drift among others, with the movement and comminution of eroded solids. The actual heat generated is minuscule compared to that caused by solar insolation, and is effectively contained within the ocean.
justthefactswuwt:
Great package! Thanks, but you seem to have left out the most important cause of perceived climate. They are:
– The Mann turbulence
– The Hansen acceleration
– The Gore wave
Without these… How can climate be perceived, let alone be analyzed. GK
Then there is geothermal conduction, which varies depending on which material emerges at the Earth’s crust.
“The heat continuously flowing from the Earth’s interior, which travels primarily by conduction, is estimated to be equivalent to 42 million megawatts (MW) of power, and is expected to remain so for billions of years to come, ensuring an inexhaustible supply of energy.”
Charles Gerard Nelson says: January 21, 2012 at 1:16 pm (Edit)
On my brief read through I didn’t see any reference the actual heat generated as a by-product of ‘useful’ combustion. i.e. Most of the gasolene in your tank is converted to energy which is used to move your car…but a percentage of it is wasted as the heat which is shed via the radiator.
The same applies to every process where combustion is the powersource.
Given the vast amounts of fuel we burn every year, might not the ‘waste’ heat be significant?
It is loosely covered in Section 10. Biology – Animal – Anthropogenic by Fossil Fuel Energy Generation and Waste Heat and in section 11. Chemical – Reactions:
Combustion
– Forest Fires
– Fossil Fuels
– Methane
but this area definitely needs work. I’ve added “In 2008, total worldwide energy consumption was 474 exajoules (474×1018 J=132,000 TWh). This is equivalent to an average energy consumption rate of 15 terawatts (1.504×1013 W).”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_resources_and_consumption
I imagine that the production and consumption of 474 exajoules has some influences on Earth’s climate, but I need to research these further.
Thank you
This is great!
Congratulations to “Just the Facts” and WUWT for this! It will well become the most comprehensive encyclopedia of information ever compiled in the arena covering topics discussed here at WUWT.
When complete, it should be a required subject of study in academia for anyone with the technical knowledge to understand / comprehend the variable factors and interacting relationships of those with regards to the Earth’s environment, both internally and externally.
With knowledge, the current CAGW scare will be ridiculed in the future.
I want a hard copy, or should I say a set. Now i will read the previous comments on this to see if anyone else shares my views.
I have read some very old texts on physics and on engineering and I don’t remember any mention of eels (or rubbing cats).
But just for a diversion, would somebody with the necessary skills and way tto much time on their hands work up a CBA on connecting eels to the grid?
Don’t forget that they need to be supplied with clean, fresh, oxygenated water, food, temperature management, and food.
Luther Wu says: January 21, 2012 at 4:52 pm
My neighbor just had me over for a big pot of chili with beans.
If a butterfly can’t, do you think we might have a chance?
I get your point, but I still struggle with the mechanism by which individual flatulence could influence climate. Possibly the result of trying to boil down complex concepts like uncertainty, randomness, evolution and infinity into a simple to understand maxim involving beans or butterflies.
I’m not a big proponent of chaos theory because it’s typically presented without limit, as per the butterfly example
There’s a whole lot more order out there than we can comprehend, at present.
I agree, there is a tremendous amount we don’t know and understand, but assigning influence to arbitrary and disassociated variables does not seem to help to enhance our understanding.
Larry says: January 21, 2012 at 1:55 pm
The butterfly thing was an attempt to illustrate that when you attempt to model a chaotic system the initial conditions you select and set for your model can (emphasis “can”) have an enormous and surprising effect on the outputs of your model.
The point is, without changing any other initial value, a change of a butterfly’s worth of energy in the system might result in wildly different outputs.
I agree that this is likely the genesis and intent, however in practice things like hurricanes form due to known factors. While one of these factors may be right on the tipping point of hurricane formation or break up, trying to assign causation of the joule of energy or influence that causes it to tip, to an arbitrary and disassociated variable, does not seem to help us to understand the overall conditions of formation, see the big picture or increase our predicative capacity.
Jeff Alberts says: January 21, 2012 at 4:20 pm
I think Roger Pielke Sr has shown that any local disturbance created by a butterfly’s flapping of its wings is quickly lost in the noise of already turbulent atmospheric conditions. In other words, it’s nonsense. If there were any substance to it, then almost any other animal moving would cause an effect 1000 times greater. And something like a car or a plane, well, that’s a lot of orders of magnitude.
That’s what I am thinking, it’s like a speck of white paint mixed into a million gallons of black, i.e. the paint is still going to be black.
Kip Hansen says: January 21, 2012 at 6:41 pm
The ‘butterfly effect’ isn’t meant to be taken literally — it is a way of looking at the subject of hyper-sensitivity to initial conditions in chaotic systems. Anyone who has played with reiterative chaotic system simulations has seen this effect — the tiniest change in initial values produces vastly different results. That’s the ‘butterfly effect’.
I agree with this concept, the name is just unfortunate.
If the Earth’s Climate System is truly ‘chaotic’ in the scientific/mathematical sense, then this ‘fact’ must be taken into account. It is not though, a climate variable, it is the nature of the climate system.
I don’t know that “Earth’s Climate System is truly ‘chaotic’ in the scientific/mathematical sense”. Earth’s Climate System, while ridiculously complex and highly variable, does have much order and reason to it.
Many climate scientists, on all three sides of the climate wars, admit that the climate system is chaotic in this sense.
I think this is more a matter of semantics, I prefer uncertainty, randomness, evolution and infinity, but whatever we call it, Earth’s Climate System definitely has a bunch of it.
climatereason says: January 22, 2012 at 12:08 am
Should we have an open ended chapter headed Known unknowns? and a further chapter headed Unknown unknowns?. I suspect these two will be the largest of the lot.
tonyb
Good suggestions. I’ve added, section 13. Known Unknowns:
Uncertainty
Randomness
Evolution
Infinite Iterations
Chaos?
and section 14. Unknown Unknowns:
A lot of other things.
Is this a reasonable and acceptable way for us address chaos, etc.?
Thank you all for your input.
‘Yes, I’ve noticed that this is the new “skeptic” theme de jour. “Its all so complicated, we can’t possibly understand it”.’
That is an insulting reach.
Show me who said the quotation “Its all so complicated, we can’t possibly understand it”.
I don’t think it happened.
There have been several of us (ranging from near voids like myself to very very knowledgeable, skilled, and erudite people) who don’t think the system can be modeled with two variables, one dependent on the other,
What I see here is an attempt to identify the variables. Period.
I suspect that the system may in fact be too complex to be successfully modeled for more than very short periods (like into this afternoon), but that does not say anything about our ability to understand the system.
In my ignorance, I believe that “understanding” and “prediction” are relatively unconnected processes, History is rife with examples of people who understood things, but could not predict their behavior (roulette wheels), and people who could predict behavior, but do not understand them (my wife–although the prediction margin for error is pretty large).
Wow! Anthony, this is a great compilation! I must keep this for future reference and reading. By the way, out of curiosity, for David L. Hagen, a question: do the folks at the Bureau of Standards adjust their atomic clocks daily to account for these factors? How do they do it? I would expect them to, given that GPS and other things would depend on it, wouldn’t they?
I’m surprised and annoyed by the harping on the non-influence or beer farts and butterflies.
One car can no possibly have a (significant) effect on traffic on the James Rolf Bridge at 8 o’clock in the morning, right?
What if the magnitude of its velocity is mis-stated? Or the polarity of it?
John Brookes says: January 22, 2012 at 6:35 am
Yes, I’ve noticed that this is the new “skeptic” theme de jour. “Its all so complicated, we can’t possibly understand it”.
That’s funny, because I’ve never seen a skeptic say that. Seems more like the CAGW narrative straw man de jour…
“Its all so complicated, we can’t possibly understand it”.
Perhaps you should take some time to review the WUWT Reference Pages:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/
If we thought that “we can’t possibly understand it” we wouldn’t be spending so much time and energy trying to understand it. My argument is not that “we can’t possibly understand it”, but rather that “we don’t yet understand it.”
Anyway, I guess the folks at Skeptical Science will have to add many more items to their list:
“Its not the greater Magellanic cloud”
“Its not caused by water skiing”
etc etc
Funny stuff. The folks over at Skeptical Science used my last article;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/01/a-big-picture-look-at-earths-temperature/
as inspiration for their own:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/big-picture-global-warming.html
Perhaps they will try to build their own list, though repeating Anthropogenic CO2 a thousand times would have to get boring after a while…
Larry says: January 22, 2012 at 9:42 am
I’m surprised and annoyed by the harping on the non-influence or beer farts and butterflies.
People keep raising Chaos Theory on these threads and I am trying to address it in a reasonable and generally acceptable manner. I thought tonyb’s proposal was a reasonable accommodation.
One car can no possibly have a (significant) effect on traffic on the James Rolf Bridge at 8 o’clock in the morning, right?
It could have an impact on traffic on the James Rolf Bridge, but it almost certainly doesn’t have a measurable impact on weather patterns in Southeast Asia.
On a rotating uneven sphere under a single sun with a non GHG atmosphere there would be huge dayside and nightside temperature differentials producing very strong winds.All the energy exchanges between surface and atmosphere would be via conduction and convection involving ALL the molecules of the atmosphere whatever their radiative characteristics.
There would be enough mixing to bring warmed upper air down to the cold ground on the night side which would smooth out both heating and cooling around the planet.
The pressure at the surface would still combine with solar input to give the bog standard adiabatic lapse rate (or Atmospheric Thermal Effect) for a planet of that mass and atmospheric pressure. The air circulation of the planet would simply restructure itself around the ATE.
Just as every planet with an atmosphere of any composition always has done and always will do.
You see, an atmosphere structured around ATE is the only possible stable structure. Unless it achieves ATE then the situation is unstable and the atmosphere either boils off or congeals on the ground eventually.
The Ideal Gas Laws have never been falsified.
GHGs wholly unnecessary.
::lists all three thousand biochemical pathways in the human body::
Given all this complexity, how can we really know that cyanide killed this man?
“Given all this complexity, how can we really know that cyanide killed this man?”
We look at what stopped working and figure out why.
m8, u have far too much plenty of time on your hands. Phew!! that took long to sift through!
Appropriate, although i’ve always wanted to know why ppo rebuild their houses on the same spot, after a tornado, even when last year, it obliterated exactly that same spot?
Heat and Energy storage systems on the earth:
Heat Capacity of water and air in the ocean and atmosphere.
Heat Capacity and Thermal Conductivity of Rock and soil
Heat of Fusion as water turns to ice.
Heat of Vaporization as water vapor condenses into water.
Adiabatic physics of the atmosphere.
Thermal conductivity of the air and water in the ocean.
Thermal conductivity (insulation) of ice over water.
Photosynthesis, turning radiant energy into chemical energy.
An albedo layer that varies in time. Can it reflect heat?
Not back-radiate, but reflect light and heat? Sure. We can SEE the bottom of the clouds, so they must reflect something.
‘…although i’ve always wanted to know why ppo rebuild their houses on the same spot, after a tornado, even when last year, it obliterated exactly that same spot?’
I’m told that our knowledge of geometry dates back at least as far as the Egyptian habit of doing the same thing after the flood each year.
Some people remodel their kitchen every year.
KevinK says: January 21, 2012 at 1:20 pm
Human population growth, but not in the UHI sense, but in two important ways;
1) It is well known when designing cooling systems for buildings that each human occupant is roughly equivalent to a 100 Watt incandescent light bulb in terms of heat generation inside the building. This is an average of course; your personal “thermal footprint” may vary. So every 1 billion addition to the population adds ~3×10^9 Joules every year of extra energy. This is true extra energy, if the people where not here this energy would not be generated and the plant and animal food metabolized into heat by these people would still exist in some other non-farmed form. Wonder how that tracks against the temperature record. Granted it is spread out over a LOT of square meters, but every entry in the energy budget should be considered. Reptiles are exempt of course.
I’ve added Metabolism as a general category under 10. Biology and as a specific category under 10. Biology – Animal – Anthropogenic:
“Metabolism is the set of chemical reactions that happen in the cells of living organisms to sustain life.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolism
“The basal metabolic rate of a human is about 1,300-1,500 kcal/day for an adult female and 1,600-1,800 kcal/day for an adult male.”
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2009/VickieWu.shtml
2) Every one of those folks at some point in the day generates some heat by burning fossil fuels, maybe indirectly back at the electrical power plant. This is true extra thermal energy added to the system. The electrical power plant discharges some ”waste” heat after it has gotten as much electricity out of the steam as it can. The heat that your furnace generates inside your house eventually seeps out to the atmosphere. Again this may be a small amount, but a proper energy budget should consider every possible term until they are properly quantified and can be safely ignored.
Added earlier in this thread, i.e. “In 2008, total worldwide energy consumption was 474 exajoules (474×1018 J=132,000 TWh). This is equivalent to an average energy consumption rate of 15 terawatts (1.504×1013 W).”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_resources_and_consumption
I’m beginning to think that the Earth’s Energy Budget may have more entries than the US Federal Budget, oh, that’s right, we don’t do THOSE anymore.
There aren’t many systems that share the complexity of Earth’s climate system, e.g. the global economy, the human body, the US tax code, etc… 🙂
Thanks for your thoughts
Bryce says: January 22, 2012 at 10:56 am (Edit)
::lists all three thousand biochemical pathways in the human body:
What’s your point? Do you think it is not a worthwhile endeavor to document all of the “biochemical pathways in the human body”?
Given all this complexity, how can we really know that cyanide killed this man?
That seems to be the CAGW narrative strawman of the day. Shouldn’t documenting and detailing the complexity of the system help us to isolate the significant variables? If CAGW is true, this exercise should make it clear that CO2 is the predominate variable. In your example, if the cause of death is cyanide, then the post mortem should show toxic levels of cyanide. However, if the levels are trace, perhaps the victim ate some apple seeds and then died of natural causes?
Amazing list, justthefacts. If you need any help putting it in a treeview type interface, please get in touch. Thank you also for all the other reference pages. I visit them at least once a week.
Reblogged this on hceppich and commented:
Climate Complexity
This is a very interesting exploration of the complexity of the Earth climate system.
There are, however, some simple ‘take-home’ items. Primary among them is that energy in must equal energy out, or energy in the climate (temperature) must change (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_model#Zero-dimensional_models). I’m not seeing that kind of overview here.
Impressive list of references but is wikipedia really the primary source for scientific truths?
johnny brooks~ your inanities aside, how goes your god’s persecution of a 79-year-old man, Dr. Ball? Got your michael mann cheering squad together yet?
This is the most important post ever in WUWT.
“but is wikipedia really the primary source for scientific truths?”
I don’t personally accept any single-source sources but generally I find out-in-the-open sources far more believable that any “peer reviewed” sources.
Stephen Wilde says:
January 22, 2012 at 10:39 am
Or may I offer a complimentary interpretation after digesting what you’ve said:
Your Atmospheric Thermal Effect (ATE) is a function of the components that comprise that particular system, so the eventual end result is a (nearly) stabe one. Whether all components combine into a configuration where the atmosphere boils off, congeals on the ground, or (in Earth’s case) maintains a dynamic life-giving situation, the end result is a climate system always attempting to stabilize. Adding a relatively very small amount of a large number of components, as justthefactswuwt has pointed out in his marvelous anthology here, will contribute to a new equilibrium which, in my humble opinion, won’t have much of an impact on our current climate. It CERTAINLY won’t force the atmosphere into a catastrophic condition, as many components are offsetting or so small they can safely be ignored compared to the predominant drivers. I see NO evidence there’s an avalanch building up to destroy us all, say, some morning at 9:20.
George Carlin had to work pretty hard to work his short inventory of “reasons the earth isn’t particularly concerned about humans” into his “saving the planet” screed. He finishes breathlessly in just under 8 minutes. This… impressive compendium would take more like thirty minutes, but what a half-hour it would be!
In the face of such complexity, it makes me wonder how effective any long-term “weather forecasting” can be (let alone climate). Outside of a week or two, it would seem that forecasters just are plugging in data from past records and making predictions based on statistical probabilites.
“The Ideal Gas Laws have never been falsified”
Well, I guess you are right, because these laws apply to an ideal gas, and none of the actual gasses are “ideal”. The real gasses are approximated by the ideal gas laws in certain temperature and pressure regimes, which differ for each gas.
Anyway, back to the basic premise of this post, that we need to find all the things that possibly influence climate. Unless I’m missing something important, that is precisely what climate scientists have attempted to do. They take the sun, because it is clearly the most important. They include the atmosphere, and the oceans, and the dry land, and many mechanisms which could reasonably expected to influence climate – including the greenhouse effect.
What the post seems to suggest is that we compile a list of all the things which, while they might influence climate, almost certainly don’t.
To use an analogy, if we were looking for the cause of each generation in recent times being slightly taller than the preceding one, there are many things we can look at. Nutrition is probably the single biggest factor. Should we look at the type of shoes kids wear, because that might have an effect? What about sun exposure? How about the reduction in the number of urban trees? Computer games, surely they are having an effect? The world has been getting warmer at the same time ask kids have been getting taller, maybe there is a causal link there? If you look in shops to see what clothes they stock, they nowadays have sizes for taller kids – maybe this increase in clothes sizes is causing kids to grow more?
Summary: Looking at factors which don’t influence climate and pretending that they might is just an attempt to confuse and distract.
John Brookes says:
January 22, 2012 at 6:05 pm
So please enlighten us, John, and supply us YOUR list of facts that DO influence climate.
You’ve disparaged the list provided here and used a silly analogy as a reason, but rather than obfuscate the issue, provide a list. Don’t worry about the length.
Or are you unwilling to be specific or to spend the time and effort?
Referring to ocean or lake albedo:
Hmmm, on one hand can we trust the wiki and NSIDC and on the other, can we apply some common sense? As one who has been badly sunburnt (after precautions were taken) from a day on the water I am curious about such a low albedo for water surfaces. I also wear polarizing sunglasses that allow me to see into the water without being blinded. Why would anyone need additional sun protection or polarizing sunglasses if the albedo is so low?
Common sense makes that low albedo only possible for sunlight when the sun is at it’s highest position relative to the water surface and that the water surface is flat calm. Otherwise it should be easy to see into the water of any lake or ocean.
Water, especially that clear blue deep water, has two physical functions relative to albedo. The first is reflectance and the second is refraction.
The percentage of light that is is reflected from water varies with the angle to which light hits the water. Try it! You can use a flashlight on a water’s surface and see that beam bounce off, or perhaps you’ve experienced it directly on a dark rainy night while driving where very little light bounces back from the road, instead it is reflected away.
There is also a precentage of light refracted. Normally, one might scoff about refraction until one considers that ocean/lake surfaces are broken by waves which makes it possible to a small percentage of light to be refracted back out of the water.
Unfortunately, I do not have (or found) definitive information on real world measurements of open water. I can post this link; http://www.polarization.com/water/water.html as further demonstration.
Great list of facts!
I did not see, but I certainly may have missed due to sheer volume of facts:
CO2 equilibrium with open water; both rate of absorption/outgassing and the enthalpy of reaction (CO2 + H2O carbonic). Water warming is a huge source of outgassed CO2 (which has always bothered me about the measurements at Mauna Loa) and in a cooling environment is a substantial CO2 sink.
The manufacture of quicklime as a source of CO2; to use the dreaded wiki… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lime_(material) (not that I think CO2 has any more effect than it’s ppm of the atmosphere deserves.)
Seasonal land use changes; for example, large acreages are plowed regularly turning up large swaths of darker damper earth, especially during late spring/ early summer. (though I find it difficult to trust their conclusion http://www.cara.psu.edu/land/lu-primer/luprimer13.asp), (far more trustworthy source, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/18/more-on-land-use-change-affecting-temperatures/)
I find it interesting that the temperature appears to be falling at a rate of .3C per thousand years. Could the weakening of the earth’s magnetic field strength over this time explain this. James Masurek at breadandbutterscience.com has some articles on this but I was curious what others thought. A weakening magnetic field would have a similar effect of allowing more GCR hit the upper troposphere, theoretically causing more cloud cover. A weakening magnetic field at the time of a grand solar minimum maybe the kick start for an ice age. Mr Masurek’s theory is a weakening magnetic field in tandem with a nearby supernovae event would do the trick.
M.A.Vukcevic says: January 21, 2012 at 1:22 pm
Just to mention possible addition to the ‘polar vortex’ section: NASA considers that splitting of polar vortex has important effect on severity of the N. Hemisphere’s winters:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=36972
Hello
I’ve added the first link you’ve provided to Section 1 – Earth’s Rotational Energy – Polar Vortex, along with including “splitting” as a cause of sudden stratospheric warmings, i.e.:
When a Polar Vortex splits or breaks down it can cause a Sudden Stratospheric Warming:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_stratospheric_warming
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=36972
Soon afterwards I realised that the stratospheric vortex sections circulation (when ionised) is affected by the Earth’s magnetic field:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC.htm
I’ve wondered if Earth’s magnetic field could influence atmospheric vorticity or vice versa, however I’ve never seen evidence to support this. Can you cite any specific evidence to support the hypothesis that “stratospheric vortex sections circulation (when ionised) is affected by the Earth’s magnetic field”? In your linked article you note that, “Geomagnetic field may be only an indicator but necessarily not the originator of the Arctic temperature change.” Couldn’t this also be the case with the stratospheric vortex?
Thank you for your thoughts.
John Brookes says: January 22, 2012 at 6:05 pm
Anyway, back to the basic premise of this post, that we need to find all the things that possibly influence climate.
Try reading it again, as I stated, “The goals of this exercise include; To gain a bigger picture understanding and perspective of Earth’s climate system. To demonstrate that Earth’s climate system is a ridiculously complex, continually evolving and sometimes chaotic beast, with the plethora of variables, many interdependencies and an array of feedbacks, both positive and negative. To highlight the challenges associated with accurately measuring the current state, as well as predicting the trajectory and likely future state of Earth’s climate system many decades into the future. To build the WUWT Potential Climatic Variables Reference Page. To lay the conceptual groundwork for the WUWT Likely Climatic Variables Reference Page.”
Unless I’m missing something important, that is precisely what climate scientists have attempted to do.
I’ve searched far and wide, and never found a consummate list of variables. The ones I’ve found are listed at the bottom of my article. Please post links to any others that you are aware of.
What the post seems to suggest is that we compile a list of all the things which, while they might influence climate, almost certainly don’t.
To use an analogy, if we were looking for the cause of each generation in recent times being slightly taller than the preceding one, there are many things we can look at. Nutrition is probably the single biggest factor. Should we look at the type of shoes kids wear, because that might have an effect? What about sun exposure? How about the reduction in the number of urban trees? Computer games, surely they are having an effect? The world has been getting warmer at the same time ask kids have been getting taller, maybe there is a causal link there? If you look in shops to see what clothes they stock, they nowadays have sizes for taller kids – maybe this increase in clothes sizes is causing kids to grow more?
You can confuse yourself with you own strawmen, craft inane analogies and infer whatever this post suggests to you, or you can just wait until I build the Likely Climatic Variables Reference Page. The best way I’ve found to build an accurate short list is to start with a consummate list and work down from there.
Summary: Looking at factors which don’t influence climate and pretending that they might is just an attempt to confuse and distract.
Infer as you wish, but it seems that it only you and your ilk who are confused and distracted…
Bill Parsons says: January 22, 2012 at 5:46 pm
George Carlin had to work pretty hard to work his short inventory of “reasons the earth isn’t particularly concerned about humans” into his “saving the planet” screed. He finishes breathlessly in just under 8 minutes.
Yep. A funny and insightful video:
In the face of such complexity, it makes me wonder how effective any long-term “weather forecasting” can be (let alone climate). Outside of a week or two, it would seem that forecasters just are plugging in data from past records and making predictions based on statistical probabilites.
Yep, I wrote about this last year, “Why are we so bad at long range weather forecasting?”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/09/why-are-we-so-bad-at-long-range-weather-forecasting/
Actually, listing out various possible factors, including some that may be insignificant on a global scale, proves very useful. Think of volatility and ways of measuring it. Now suppose you have captured all the sources of volatility that you can think of and incorporate them into a model. The model, if designed correctly, should be able to produce a number of runs with initial conditions modified by butterfly affect level differences. We see the amount of volatility in the model, compare it to the measured volatility in the real world and compare the difference using valid statistical methods.
Real world example: Black-Scholes is the standard starting point for financial models. It is well-known that the simplest version of Black-Scholes does not correctly predict the frequency of unusual events – the real life outliers are much more common than the equations indicate. It is possible to modify the equations to get a much better model, but the imperfect models showed where to begin work on an improved model.
With weather, models lose accuracy after 3-6 days and are of minimal value for more than 14 days. All the factors listed would not help the weather models predict the weather out to 21 days, even if we had them to 7-8 decimal points because of the chaotic nature of weather. But they could help refine measure of volatility and especially help us know if we have considered all major factors for the timescale we are considering.
Now compare this to climate. The existing models do not backcast with any skill, and what apparent skill exists is due to adjusting prior period actuals (see older data that gave 1934 as the hottest year in the 20th century as one example; the Medieval Warm Period as another), the use of aerosols as a fudge factor, and recursively overfitting polynomial equations as another. Measures of long tails and volatility should be helpful in understanding what the real range of weather/climate is on a multidecadal time scale. Of course, we are likely to get “last n years data within statistical parameters/null hypothesis” type answers unless temperatures vary by 2-3K or more in a predicted way,
http://research.aerology.com/aerology-analog-weather-forecasting-method/
Link to a compendium links, articles and personal view points by myself and many others in regards to the declinational component of the lunar tidal effects, some material has not yet been listed in this thread.
For an over view of the effects of the lunar declinational tides in driving the global circulation, creating and maintaining the Rossby waves and jet streams, a perusal of the 102 postings might give additional insights into the inner workings of the cusp between climate and weather.
I think part of the point of this list is that man-made changes CO2 concentrations are comparably sized to other changes in the system. Not that either this, that or the other is THE factor, but that stipulating a small “forcing” change has sensitivity feedbacks (still in question by the way) it is a oversimplification to say THIS small change is critical and THAT small change is negligible.
It also addresses the rhetorical but unscientific argument — “What else could it be?”
For methane loss rate affected by UV (source TBD):
Main loss path of CH4 in the troposphere (if you aren’t combusting it 🙂 is the OH radical. The main source of OH is from UV photolysis of ozone and subsequent reaction with water vapour. I’m sure googling papers by R G Prinn will put you on the right track for original literature. Or try Chemistry of Atmosphere’s by RP Wayne. I seem to recall the methane + OH reaction is an important element of carbon cycle and residence time calculations. The chemical reactions occurring are similar to normal combustion, but it’s a bit slower and runs at a lower temperature! No apologies if things have ‘moved on’ since I last did any atmospheric chemistry.
To be added, still missing:
AIR/Atmosphere losses into SPACE!
============================
There exist space measurements that Earth drags a trail of air and vapour behind,
which gets lost in space……This occurs due to Moon forces, which, along pulling the
ocean water (tides), also pulls up the atmosphere (thicker at the equator) than at poles
and a percentage then, too far out, cannot fall back onto Earth again.
This should be clear to the slowest in mind: The Atmosphere stays constant in volume
and does NOT increase…..because the Moon will shave off the excess…
………………This feature, seeming little important, is for CO2/GHG/heat balance
calculations very important: For each volume (and heat containing) unit of CO2 and
GHG, the same amount of air/vapours get shaved off/lost on the atmosphere top
and has to be SUBTRACTED from the heating balance…..As it is done today, only
the CO2/GHG-effect is added and sneakily the air+especially hot vapour losses into
space NOT BEING SUBTRACTED…..[we know vapours contain the most heat in volume]
……..in order to forecast global AGW ……
JS
Why not give an estimate range for each effect on the list (can be continuously
improved…..)?
A Watt/m2 radiative forcing range and a Deg. C. range would be very helpful,
even the IPCC does it,
see www. radiative forcing 1750 – 2000 with possible ranges for the unknown given…
JS
Second or third order effect from plate tectonics, the continents can interfere with global ocean currents, blocking circulation between the equatorial and polar regions is believed to be one of the necessary conditions for an Ice Age.
Just The Facts:
Wonderful effort, I hope you will find this comment important enough to edit your top-line article.
I am concerned about the reliability of anything from Wikipedia due to the proven way that can be corrupted by one or several activists. There are quite a few factors that have links only to Wikipedia articles. I ask that you suggest that readers help you by suggesting alternating and confirming links for any such single source article so the current credibility of the Wiki article can be checked at any time in the future.
I love going to Wiki myself, since they often do a good job of synopsis, but trusting them solely is not wise at all.
The section 2 Earth’s orbit is very weak, the orbit is not accurately as described
in Wikipedia, demonstrating “Keplerian Elements for the Approximate Positions of the Major Planets” with “low accuracy formulae for planetary positions…..” Quote from Literature:
<E. Myles Standish, James G. Williams or second link:
There must be included: EARTH’S ORBIT PERTURBATION, EARTH’S LIBRATION,
EARTH’S ORBIT OSCULATION, as well as ORBIT ECLIPTIC PLANE PRECESSION and
ORBIT APSIDAL PRECESSION, see their significance and resulting climatic effects in
book literature:
“Joachim Seifert, Das Ende der globalen Erwaermung, (2010), 108 p. (In German),
http://www.book-on-demand.de, ISBN 978-3-86805-604-4″
JS
higley7 says: January 21, 2012 at 1:28 pm
The video on the Arctic Ozone Hole is misleading, if not erroneous.
I am not sure what you’re referring to, i.e. do you mean this video?:
If so, the video shows a sudden stratospheric warming, associated with the break down of the Arctic Stratospheric Polar Vortex. No CFCs referenced, inferred or needed for this phenomenon to occur.
We know now that the work that indicted CFCs as ozone destroyers was funded by DuPont. More recent work, conveniently 20 years later, has established that N2 and solar radiation are the principle culprits; it still needs very cold conditions. Unfortunately many still believe that CFCs are bad.
DuPont funded the ozone scare as their most popular CFC, used around the world and helping the poor eat better, was out of patent and getting dirt cheap. So, they managed to have their CFC condemned and, golly gee, they just happened to have another, much more expensive substitute all ready to go and under patent. The poor suffered from this criminal development.
This article;
http://www.imcool.com/articles/aircondition/refrigerant_history.php
appears to refute your assertions in reference to Dupont i.e.:
1. Patent Number 1,833,847 was issued November 24, 1931 (reissued August 7, 1934) to Thomas Midgley, Jr., Albert L. Henne and Robert R. McNary, all of Ohio, for “Heat Transfer.” The original application was filed February 8, 1930.
I believe that Alexander and Fairbridge erred. Number 1,833,847 appears to be not only the patent for “Freon,” but also for the refrigeration process and essentially “air conditioning.” It describes exactly what the invention covers (production of refrigeration, changing the physical state by condensing or evaporating, latent heat and a halo-fluoro derivative of an aliphatic hydrocarbon, etc.), and it does so in laymen’s terms.
2. June 18, 1935: Herbert Wilkins Daudt and Mortimer Alexander Youker were issued Patent Number 2,005,706 for “Organic Fluorine Compound.” It was assigned to Kinetic Chemical Inc., of Wilmington, Delaware, the forerunner of DuPont. It’s opening paragraph: “This invention relates to organic fluorine compounds, more particularly fluorinated derivatives of acyclic hydrocarbons and a process of the production thereof.”
3. July 9, 1935: Patent Number 2,007,706, filed January 30, 1931 was issued to Albert L. Henne and General Motors Corporation. Titled “Manufacture of Fluorated Aliphatic Compounds,” Henne states “this invention relates to chemical processes for the manufacturer of fluoro and/or halo-fluoro derivatives of aliphatic hydrocarbons, and more particularly, of halogen derivatives of the methane homologs having relatively high melting points.”
4. Patent Number 1,953,216, issued April 3, 1934 to Howard M. Elsey and assigned to Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company appears to accidentally cover CFC refrigerants. While it’s titled “Insulating Liquid” and is targeted to electrical apparatus with liquid insulators, one of Elsey’s claims is “… As a new composition of matter a fluorinated mixture of hydrocarbons that is liquid at ordinary temperatures and solidifies below approximately -1° C.”
Patents don’t last forever, those for “CFC Refrigerants’” ran out in the ‘50s
Assuming their term is a maximum of twenty years, all of these patents ran out in the early 1950s. That means GM’s, Frigidaire’s, Kinetic’s, Westinghouse’s and yes, even DuPont’s patent on “Freon,” had run out long before the ozone layer was discovered to be suffering.”
With this said, I am skeptical of the Anthropogenic CFC “Ozone Hole” narrative. My reason for skepticism is that one would expect to see a decrease in ozone within the Polar Vortex, as a result of the dynamical effects of the vortex, i.e.
“The walls of the polar vortex act as the boundaries for the extraordinary changes in chemical concentrations. Now the polar vortex can be considered a sealed chemical reactor bowl, containing a water vapor hole, a nitrogen oxide hole and an ozone hole, all occurring simultaneously (Labitzke and Kunze 2005)”
http://books.google.com/books?id=B93SSQrcAh4C&lpg=PA283&ots=d0-uBRjmyI&dq=%22water%20vapor%20hole%22%20polar%20vortex&pg=PA283#v=onepage&q=%22water%20vapor%20hole%22%20polar%20vortex&f=false
There are also “measurements of low methane concentrations in the vortex made by the HALOE instrument on board the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite.”
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1993/93GL01104.shtml
AFPhys says: January 23, 2012 at 10:38 am
I hope you will find this comment important enough to edit your top-line article.
I am concerned about the reliability of anything from Wikipedia due to the proven way that can be corrupted by one or several activists. There are quite a few factors that have links only to Wikipedia articles. I ask that you suggest that readers help you by suggesting alternating and confirming links for any such single source article so the current credibility of the Wiki article can be checked at any time in the future.
I love going to Wiki myself, since they often do a good job of synopsis, but trusting them solely is not wise at all.
That’s a great suggestion. I’ve added a note towards the top of the article, i.e.
“Wikipedia Note: The list relies heavily upon Wikipedia, due to the fact that it is the only source that offers reasonably coherent content on such broad range of subjects. However, there are know issues with Wikpedia’s content, especially biases in their climate articles: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/14/willia-connolley-now-climate-topic-banned-at-wikipedia/
As such, please take care to view any Wikipedia articles with a critical eye and check Wikipedia’s references to evaluate the credibility of their sources. Additionally, in comments, please provide your suggestions of articles from alternate sources that can be added to this list in order to help readers to easily verify the veracity of the Wikipedia articles within.”
Thank you for your thoughts, and please let me know if this addition helps to address your concern.
James Sexton says: January 21, 2012 at 1:28 pm (Edit)
On a serious note, I didn’t see anything in there about cosmic dust, or perhaps I’ve missed it. Surely, this too, would have some impact on our climate, even if it is ever so slight. I’m wondering if someone here would have some particular insight to this?
Yep, added to section 6. Outer Space/Cosmic/Galactic Influences:
Also Cosmic Dust;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_dust
“is a type of dust composed of particles in space which are a few molecules to 0.1 µm in size. Cosmic dust can be further distinguished by its astronomical location; for example: intergalactic dust, interstellar dust, interplanetary dust (such as in the zodiacal cloud) and circumplanetary dust (such as in a planetary ring).”
“Depending on their size and overall number, cosmic dust and other particles in the atmosphere have the potential to change Earth’s climate. They can reflect sunlight, which cools the Earth, absorb sunlight, which warms the atmosphere, and act as a blanket for the planet by trapping any heat it gives off. They can also facilitate the formation of rain clouds.”
http://www.space.com/1484-source-cosmic-dust.html
In addition, “a study of astronomical and geological data reveals that cosmic ray electrons and electromagnetic radiation from a similar outburst of our own Galactic core, impacted our Solar System near the end of the last ice age. This cosmic ray event spanned a period of several thousand years and climaxed around 14,200 years ago. Although far less intense than the PG 0052+251 quasar outburst, it was, nevertheless, able to substantially affect the Earth’s climate and trigger a solar-terrestrial conflagration the initiated the worst animal extinction episode of the Tertiary period.
The effects on the Sun and on the Earth’s climate were not due to the Galactic cosmic rays themselves, but to the cosmic dust that these cosmic rays transported into the Solar System. Observations have shown that the Solar System is presently immersed in a dense cloud of cosmic dust, material that is normally kept at bay by the outward pressure of the solar wind. But, with the arrival of this Galactic cosmic ray volley, the solar wind was overpowered and large quantities of this material were pushed inward. The Sun was enveloped in a cocoon of dust that caused its spectrum to shift toward the infrared. In addition, the dust grains filling the Solar System scattered radiation back to the Earth, producing an “interplanetary hothouse effect” that substantially increased the influx of solar radiation to the Earth.”
http://www.etheric.com/GalacticCenter/Galactic.html
I think you will also want to look at this article that finds an 1800 year lunar / tidal period causing overturning tides in the oceans, leading to periodic cooling events (and the other side of the coin being the warming in between them). If finds the Little Ice Age was one such, and the present warming is the result of different tidal / ocean resonance state.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC18099/
Does a very nice job of matching the lunar / solar tides to the climate history of the past (including Bond Events and both the Med. Warm Period and the Little Ice Age) along with the proposed mechanism being sea surface mixing (thus cooling) enhancement during periods of higher tidal forces. The sea surface temps then causing changes in land surface temperatures as the AMO / PDO / AO / etc. flop from warm to cold phases.
IMHO, it’s the most likely method by which climate variation happens.
They even note that the 179.x solar cycle is only slightly different from one of the 179.y lunar tide cycles thanks to orbital resonance effects…
I just had an idea that surely must have occurred to others which doesn’t add anything here but I don’t know where else to put (be nice!) it.
If this modeling process is simple, settled and easy, how come nobody has applied the methods to what must mathematically speaking be the same sort of problem?
What will be the DJIA be 30 years from now? Porkbellies?
I still consider all reference to the “greenhouse effect” in this summary should be dismissed as it is now proven that such is a fiction. Not only do we have Claes Johnson showing this computationally, but we now have this Dec, 2011 paper http://www.tech-know.eu/uploads/IR-absorption.pdf proving likewise. There are also experiments showing that gases only start to absorb when the source of (spontaneous) emission starts to get hotter than the gas – in support of Claes Johnson. (DeWitt Payne quoted this – but I would appreciate the reference / link.)
This blog post is yet another chapter in the ongoing effort to turn actual climate science into the goddamned cola wars.
What gets me is that as a “television meterologist”, you really should know better than this. You should know that if a string theorist goes on TV like Michio Kaku did during the Cassini Mission and makes sensationalist book-selling claims about how it could crash into the earth and cause a nuclear winter, like he did, that his expertise in string theory did not, in fact, grant him authority to trump the ENTIRE scientific establishment of NASA, JPL, JSC, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and everyone else involved in that project, by saying that Cassini was too complicated to do. You should know that it cost taxpayers millions of dollars in delays because the average person could not tell the difference in authority between him, and say, an astrophysicist, and they reacted to Kaku’s claims with outrage and fear while he raked in the cash and became a media go-to person for all things physics.
With your experience in television, you surely know how difficult it is for the media to make useful distinctions between qualified scientific experts in each discipline of science for the public, and how often sensationalism and self-aggrandizement clouds the issue. You should know that what you are doing here is not science, it is not peer-reviewed under the standards that any post-doc’s paper would be judged by, and it is subject to your (obvious) bias. You know that just because you’re a meteorologist does not mean that you are an authority who can trump all other climate scientists by deciding it’s too [SNIP: Language. REP] complicated.
You should know that you are contributing to the problem by using your authority as a television meteorologist to convince people that because an individual can theoretically understand anything, that means individuals can understand EVERYTHING well enough to have an informed opinion about it. You know science does not work by having a bunch of individual amateurs with day jobs try to understand the whole [SNIP: Language. -REP] cosmos by reading Wikipedia and then individually solving for X by themselves. When they can’t — because that’s [SNOP: Language. -REP] impossible — it is not then decided that it is too complicated. That isn’t how we got to the moon, how we figured out atomic energy, how we invented computers, the Internet, or for that matter, how the Egyptians built the pyramids.
You ought to know that most of the useful knowledge we have as a result of science relies upon the trust of collectivism and the “elitism” inherent in the scientific community, and that yes, sometimes that means that you, as a non-expert-in-everything, are going to have just read Science or Nature or Discover magazine and take their [SNIP: Language. -REP] word for it because you can’t go out as an individual and build the experiment to test. You know that’s why we invest public dollars collectively so that we can all share the peer-reviewed results of the experiments that are too hard for one person to individually understand and build, but it seems you object to that kind of collectivist investment philosophically. So you appeal to the egos of your readers by promoting the idea that climate science is something that every Joe Q. Public can read about in Wikipedia in their spare time and test for themselves in their backyards with Mr. Wizard. And if they can’t, then you invite them to call into question the integrity of the people whose collective expertise and contributions make it possible for you to even be on the Internet saying things like this.
You know damned well that isn’t a valid foundation for this pseudo-skepticism of climate science. You know how the real scientific community works: that a PhD and peer-reviewed publication of theory and experimental results isn’t something that is interchangeable with a hobbyist’s level of education derived from Wikipedia.
I find this whole “project” you’re doing here entirely irresponsible, particularly because of who you are and what you claim as your authority to write on this subject. I find it astonishing that you, knowing how much collective effort it took to even make your meteorological career possible, would honestly promote the notion that climate science is too complicated for there to be any useful conclusions about climate change derived from the work. I should think you know better, and if you do, then what you are doing here is a despicable manipulation of the public for your own self-aggrandizement and political objectives. And if you don’t, then that certainly calls into question your claimed experience in the scientific establishment.
“You know damned well that isn’t a valid foundation for this pseudo-skepticism of climate science. You know how the real scientific community works: that a PhD and peer-reviewed publication of theory and experimental results isn’t something that is interchangeable with a hobbyist’s level of education derived from Wikipedia.”
As a general statement (with some significant exceptions), I would say that “a PhD and peer-reviewed publication of theory and experimental results” Is a pretty clear warning that what you have at hand will, when mixed with a little water, and if it gets warm enough, grow a danged fine crop of tomatoes.
Read up on Alan Sokal and come back and explain how important “publication” is.
A charming spittle-spraying defense of Argument From Authority! Thanks, it’s nice to have a horrible example on hand to refer people to.
Xsibon says: January 24, 2012 at 1:50 pm
This blog post is yet another chapter in the ongoing effort to turn actual climate science into the goddamned cola wars.
Sorry you feel that way, try reading it, you might actually learn something…
What gets me is that as a “television meterologist”, you really should know better than this.
I am not a “television meteorologist”, try reading the “By” at the top of the article.
You should know that what you are doing here is not science, it is not peer-reviewed under the standards that any post-doc’s paper would be judged by, and it is subject to your (obvious) bias. …
You know science does not work by having a bunch of individual amateurs with day jobs try to understand the whole [SNIP: Language. -REP] cosmos by reading Wikipedia and then individually solving for X by themselves. …
You know how the real scientific community works: that a PhD and peer-reviewed publication of theory and experimental results isn’t something that is interchangeable with a hobbyist’s level of education derived from Wikipedia.
“Science (from Latin scientia, meaning “knowledge”) is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science
“A scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the scientific method. The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science. This article focuses on the more restricted use of the word. Scientists perform research toward a more comprehensive understanding of nature, including physical, mathematical and social realms.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientist
I’ll leave it to the readers to decide what is and isn’t science…
You ought to know that most of the useful knowledge we have as a result of science relies upon the trust of collectivism and the “elitism” inherent in the scientific community
Funny, you’d think Einstein was a Patent Clerk when he wrote the Annus Mirabilis papers:
“The Annus Mirabilis papers (from Latin annus mīrābilis, “extraordinary year”) are the papers of Albert Einstein published in the Annalen der Physik scientific journal in 1905. These four articles contributed substantially to the foundation of modern physics and changed views on space, time, and matter. The Annus Mirabilis is often called the “Miracle Year” in English or Wunderjahr in German.”
“At the time the papers were written, Einstein did not have easy access to a complete set of scientific reference materials, although he did regularly read and contribute reviews to Annalen der Physik. Additionally, scientific colleagues available to discuss his theories were few. He worked as an examiner at the Patent Office in Bern, Switzerland, and he later said of a co-worker there, Michele Besso, that he “could not have found a better sounding board for his ideas in all of Europe”.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_Mirabilis_papers
So you appeal to the egos of your readers by promoting the idea that climate science is something that every Joe Q. Public can read about in Wikipedia in their spare time and test for themselves in their backyards with Mr. Wizard.
I have significantly more confidence in the comprehensive capabilities of WUWT’s readership, than I do in the entirety of climate science establishment. Furthermore, I challenge any climate scientist in the world to read this article and not learn something.
I find this whole “project” you’re doing here entirely irresponsible, particularly because of who you are and what you claim as your authority to write on this subject.
Funny, I am nobody, and I claim no authority to write on this subject. The facts in this list should either stand or fall based solely on their accuracy, relevance and merit.
would honestly promote the notion that climate science is too complicated for there to be any useful conclusions about climate change derived from the work.
That’s the third time that this CAGW narrative strawman de jour has come up in this thread. I think there are certainly useful conclusions that can be drawn, i.e: We don’t understand the sun’s influence, we don’t understand the cloud’s influence, we don’t understand the influence of polar vorticity, we barely understand the ocean’s influence and volcanic activity is a complete wild card. Our understanding of Earth’s climate system is rudimentary at best. We have 133 years of suspect surface temperature data and 32 years of reasonably accurate satellite temperature data, on an approximately 4,500,000,000 year old planet. We are still learning how to accurately measure Earth’s temperature, much less accurately predict it 50 – 100 years into the future. Based on our limited understanding of Earth’s climate system, any predictions about Earth’s climate system and the long term trajectory of its average temperature are, at best, educated guesses. Those who claim to be able to accurately predict the long term trajectory and likely future state of Earth’s Climate System, are either deluding themselves, or lying.
JustTheFacts,
Having old ideas outlawed helps make your new intellectual property “rights” more valuable.
Pharmaceutical companies have a long history of the same practice. This is what wikipedia has to say about DuPont and regulation of CFCs:
==========
In 1978 the United States banned the use of CFCs such as Freon in aerosol cans, the beginning of a long series of regulatory actions against their use. The critical DuPont manufacturing patent for Freon (“Process for Fluorinating Halohydrocarbons”, U.S. Patent #3258500) was set to expire in 1979. In conjunction with other industrial peers DuPont sponsored efforts such as the “Alliance for Responsible CFC Policy” to question anti-CFC science, but in a turnabout in 1986 DuPont, with new patents in hand, publicly condemned CFCs.[9] DuPont representatives appeared before the Montreal Protocol urging that CFCs be banned worldwide and stated that their new HCFCs would meet the worldwide demand for refrigerants.[9]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorofluorocarbon#Regulation_and_DuPont
===========
The patent was granted in 1966, so it seems about right.
Khwarizmi says: January 24, 2012 at 8:00 pm
Having old ideas outlawed helps make your new intellectual property “rights” more valuable.
Pharmaceutical companies have a long history of the same practice. This is what wikipedia has to say about DuPont and regulation of CFCs:
==========
In 1978 the United States banned the use of CFCs such as Freon in aerosol cans, the beginning of a long series of regulatory actions against their use. The critical DuPont manufacturing patent for Freon (“Process for Fluorinating Halohydrocarbons”, U.S. Patent #3258500) was set to expire in 1979. In conjunction with other industrial peers DuPont sponsored efforts such as the “Alliance for Responsible CFC Policy” to question anti-CFC science, but in a turnabout in 1986 DuPont, with new patents in hand, publicly condemned CFCs.[9] DuPont representatives appeared before the Montreal Protocol urging that CFCs be banned worldwide and stated that their new HCFCs would meet the worldwide demand for refrigerants.[9]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorofluorocarbon#Regulation_and_DuPont
===========
The patent was granted in 1966, so it seems about right.
But this is much more plausible than what higley7 proposed above;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/21/the-ridiculousness-continues-climate-complexity-compiled/#comment-871881
i.e. the Wikipedia you posted states that, “In conjunction with other industrial peers DuPont sponsored efforts such as the “Alliance for Responsible CFC Policy” to question anti-CFC science, but in a turnabout in 1986 DuPont, with new patents in hand, publicly condemned CFCs.” whereas higley7 stated that, “We know now that the work that indicted CFCs as ozone destroyers was funded by DuPont.” The Wikipedia for Chlorofluorocarbon states that,”Since the late 1970s, the use of CFCs has been heavily regulated because of their destructive effects on the ozone layer. After the development of his electron capture detector, James Lovelock was the first to detect the widespread presence of CFCs in the air, finding a mole fraction of 60 ppt of CFC-11 over Ireland. In a self-funded research expedition ending in 1973, Lovelock went on to measure CFC-11 in both the Arctic and Antarctic, finding the presence of the gas in each of 50 air samples collected, and concluding that CFCs are not hazardous to the environment. The experiment did however provide the first useful data on the presence of CFCs in the atmosphere. The damage caused by CFCs was discovered by Sherry Rowland and Mario Molina who, after hearing a lecture on the subject of Lovelock’s work, embarked on research resulting in the first publication suggesting the connection in 1974.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorofluorocarbon
As such, the evidence seem to show that the “the work that indicted CFCs as ozone destroyers was funded by” Lovelock and other environmentalists, without funding from Dupont. Dupont in fact DuPont sponsored efforts such as the “Alliance for Responsible CFC Policy” to question anti-CFC science” until a “turnabout in 1986”, by which time Dupont’s patents were expired and sensing the proverbial wind blowing, they “publicly condemned CFCs.” This is very similar to what many of the fossil fuel companies have done in getting into bed with the CAGW advocates:
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/11/30/uea-sleeping-with-the-enemy/
In summary, I don’t doubt that Dupont might have acquiesced to CFC regulation when it suited them financially, but I don’t see any evidence “the work that indicted CFCs as ozone destroyers was funded by DuPont.” or of a broader conspiracy whereby “DuPont funded the ozone scare as their most popular CFC, used around the world and helping the poor eat better, was out of patent and getting dirt cheap. So, they managed to have their CFC condemned and, golly gee, they just happened to have another, much more expensive substitute all ready to go and under patent. The poor suffered from this criminal development.”
Just The Facts,
I would suggest that chaotic and nonlinear dynamics deserve more mention than just “chaos?” in this otherwise impressive list. Here are some possible factors:
1. Nonlinear oscillation. For example a post last year proposed that the ENSO is a nonlinear oscillator:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/25/is-the-enso-a-nonlinear-oscillator-of-the-belousov-zhabotinsky-reaction-type/
Nonlinear oscillators can be:
(a) unforced, generating spontaneously their own frequency
(b) strongly forced, where they follow the frequency of the forcing agent
(c) weakly forced, where their responsive / emergent freqency is a complex function of the forcing frequency.
2. Chaotic strange attractors and a limit cycle.
This recent post by Robert Brown nicely explains how climate is drawn to discreet attractors, such as glacial / interglacial:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/09/strange-new-attractors-strong-evidence-against-both-positive-feedback-and-catastrophe/
Thus the switching between ice age and interglacial, the most important long term climate oscillation of the current period, probably represents a chaotic/nonlinear process, the flipping between attractors.
Likewise the demonstration by Bob Tisdale that global sea temperatures rise and fall only by step changes at certain ENSO events, suggests the possibility that the ocean climate heat system might exhibit another characteristic of some chaotic dynamic systems, i.e. being a “limit cycle” with a limited number of discreet states, or attractors, rather than an infinite range of states.
Stephen Wilde says:
January 21, 2012 at 11:22 am
Never mind all that detail.
“The atmosphere ALWAYS reconfigures its energy distribution so that the Atmospheric Thermal Effect/Adiabatic Lapse Rate is maintained.”
Wilde’s Law.
I dipped into the wikipedia article on the adiabatic lapse rate which I just about remember from my undergratuate oceanography modules. It turns out there are 2 ALRs, the dry ALR and the moist (saturated) ALR. They are sigificantly different. Does the difference between these two ALRs affect the equilibrium model?
Also I guess what is important is the temperature in the first few hundred meters from the surface, rather than the atmospheric average? If we return to a full-on ice age it will be cold comfort to be told “but its nice and warm up in the stratosphere”.
I like your model system, just playing devil’s advocate as usual!
phlogiston says: January 26, 2012 at 4:56 am
1. Nonlinear oscillation. For example a post last year proposed that the ENSO is a nonlinear oscillator:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/25/is-the-enso-a-nonlinear-oscillator-of-the-belousov-zhabotinsky-reaction-type/
Nonlinear oscillators can be:
(a) unforced, generating spontaneously their own frequency
(b) strongly forced, where they follow the frequency of the forcing agent
(c) weakly forced, where their responsive / emergent freqency is a complex function of the forcing frequency.
I agree that, “Non-Equilibrium Pattern Systems” / “nonlinear pattern formation in far-from-equilibrium dissipative systems” / “pattern formation in dissipative systems” should be on the list and have added it it section 13. Known Unknowns, i.e.:
A. Non-Equilibrium Pattern Systems, aka “nonlinear pattern formation in far-from-equilibrium dissipative systems” and “pattern formation in dissipative systems” “The spontaneous formation of spatio-temporal patterns can occur when a stationary state far from thermodynamic equilibrium is maintained through the dissipation of energy that is continuously fed into the system. While for closed systems the second law of thermodynamics requires relaxation to a state of maximal entropy, open systems are able to interchange matter and energy with their environment. By taking up energy of higher value (low entropy) and delivering energy of lower value (high entropy) they are able to export entropy, and thus to spontaneously develop structures characterized by a higher degree of order than present in the environment.” PhD thesis – “Controlling turbulence and pattern formation in chemical reaction” Matthias Bertram,
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B9p_cojT-pflY2Y2MmZmMWQtOWQ0Mi00MzJkLTkyYmQtMWQ5Y2ExOTQ3ZDdm&hl=en_GB
Examples of this effect can be seen in the following examples of Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reactions:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch93AKJm9os?feature=player_embedded%5D
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwDRzf3TAWo?feature=player_embedded&w=640&h=360%5D
Phil Salmon argues in this article;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/25/is-the-enso-a-nonlinear-oscillator-of-the-belousov-zhabotinsky-reaction-type/
that ENSO is a Non-Equilibrium Pattern System. “Of the class of known attractors of nonlinear oscillatory systems, the Lorenz and possibly Roessler attractors bear similarities to the attractor likely responsible for the alternating phases of La Nina and el Nino dominance that characterise the ENSO and constitute the PDO.” Here are several visualizations of Pacific Ocean Temperatures:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/etb58j1.gif?w=640
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/tlon_heat.gif
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/sub_surf_mon.gif
2. Chaotic strange attractors and a limit cycle.
This recent post by Robert Brown nicely explains how climate is drawn to discreet attractors, such as glacial / interglacial:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/09/strange-new-attractors-strong-evidence-against-both-positive-feedback-and-catastrophe/
Thus the switching between ice age and interglacial, the most important long term climate oscillation of the current period, probably represents a chaotic/nonlinear process, the flipping between attractors.
Likewise the demonstration by Bob Tisdale that global sea temperatures rise and fall only by step changes at certain ENSO events, suggests the possibility that the ocean climate heat system might exhibit another characteristic of some chaotic dynamic systems, i.e. being a “limit cycle” with a limited number of discreet states, or attractors, rather than an infinite range of states.
I have added this to section 13. Known Unknowns, i.e.:
B. Chaotic Strange Attractors and a Limit Cycle:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/21/the-ridiculousness-continues-climate-complexity-compiled/#comment-876100
Dr. Robert Brown argues in this comment/article that “IIRC this is one of the simplest systems exhibiting an attractor and limit cycle, and illustrates many of the features of more complicated dynamical systems. The attractor/fixed point in this case is the population of e.g. foxes and rabbits that remains in perfect equilibrium from year to year. Note well that this equation is deterministic, but of course a real population — even being modeled — always has random (or at least, “unpredictable”) variations — a certain amount of noise — and is actually discretized and not continuous as one cannot have half a cheetah eating \pi baboons.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/09/strange-new-attractors-strong-evidence-against-both-positive-feedback-and-catastrophe/
“predator-prey differential equations”, e.g. “The Lotka–Volterra equations, also known as the predator–prey equations, are a pair of first-order, non-linear, differential equations frequently used to describe the dynamics of biological systems in which two species interact, one a predator and one its prey.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotka%E2%80%93Volterra_equation#Physical_meanings_of_the_equations
“A better continuous “kind” of differential equation for describing systems like this with noise is something called a Langevin equation in physics — a system with “fast” microscopic degrees of freedom that one accounts for on average with a stochastic term, and slower degrees of freedom one integrates out like the predator prey equation.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/09/strange-new-attractors-strong-evidence-against-both-positive-feedback-and-catastrophe/
“In statistical physics, a Langevin equation (Paul Langevin, 1908) is a stochastic differential equation describing the time evolution of a subset of the degrees of freedom. These degrees of freedom typically are collective (macroscopic) variables changing only slowly in comparison to the other (microscopic) variables of the system. The fast (microscopic) variables are responsible for the stochastic nature of the Langevin equation.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langevin_equation
“I would suggest that chaotic and nonlinear dynamics deserve more mention than just ‘chaos?'”
I definitely agree that nonlinear dynamics are an important variable in Earth’s climate system, however, I am still not convinced that “chaos”, as it is generally defined, is itself a variable.
Thank you for your contribution.
Added to section 4. Solar Energy:
“The Earth is dressed in layers that protect it from the sun’s fierce winds.” “The warm plasma cloak begins thinly on the nightside—or darkside—of the planet and wraps around to the dayside, where it becomes thickest until noon. In the afternoon, convective winds push the cloak out toward the edge of the magnetosphere, where it’s peeled off by solar winds.”
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/01/090107-warm-plasma-cloak.html
“Earth generates Cold Plasma—slow-moving charged particles—at the edge of space, where sunlight strips electrons from gas atoms, leaving only their positively charged cores, or nuclei.” “This influence is ‘not a minor thing in space weather,’ André said. ‘It’s an elephant in the room.'”
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/01/120126-solar-storm-cold-plasma-earth-space-science/?source=link_fb0120127news-coldplasmac
dscott says: January 21, 2012 at 1:34 pm
You need to add two that are commonly overlooked.
– Moon’s influence upon the Jet stream via declination, its movement is shifted based on the moon’s path and distance.
…Often the movements of the moon transiting the West Coast are accompanied by a shift in the jet stream to the south as the moon passes the coast. This gives the appearance that the southward motion in latitude is accompanied by a southward motion in the jet stream. This is not always the case due to a number of other patterns but it can be thought of as a general rule of thumb.
The phenomenon of the effects of declination on the jet stream of the eastern Pacific can be related to the work of a Chinese researcher LI Guoqing of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, in Beijing. The paper entitled, 27.3 and 13.6 day Atmospheric Tide and Lunar Forcing on Atmospheric Circulation [PDF] researches the influence of the earth’s length of day (LOD) in relation to the geopotential height of the 500mb fields in the eastern Pacific and the declination of the moon. It was found that there is an alternating increase and decrease in geopotential height in the eastern Pacific in approximately seven day cycles that are keyed not to the phases of the moon but to the declination of the moon…
http://docweather.com/4/show/211/
contrary to the chaotic nature of weather claimed, there is a periodic rhythm, a harmonic signal in weather beyond the seasons due to the moon’s influence.
In section 1 Rotational Energy I’ve added additional detail to Length of Day:
Lastly the Length of Day;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_length
“varies when any mass on or in the Earth moves, affecting the state of its angular momentum. Take weather in the atmosphere, for instance. The seasonal changes in the trade winds and monsoons have a well-known effect on the length-of-day over the course of the year. The IERS calculates the angular momentum of the whole atmosphere every six hours, allowing the signal of large-scale weather systems to be detected.
The tides of the ocean have the long-term effect of slowing the Earth down and speeding up the Moon (which thus moves away from Earth a few centimeters per year). They also have short-term effects that are being modeled more accurately all the time. Changes in ocean currents change the length-of-day. Our computer models of ocean circulation are getting good enough, thanks to centimeter-precise measurements of the sea surface, that we can analyze this signal too. The National Earth Orientation Service has a page explaining this stuff in clear detail. (These are also the people who announce leap seconds.)
Other factors affecting the LOD data include rises and subsidences of the land surface, the buildup of glaciers, large earthquakes, large-scale pumping of groundwater and construction of reservoirs, and the shape of the ocean’s surface in response to air masses above it.”
http://geology.about.com/od/tectonicsdeepearth/a/lodresearch.htm
“An analysis of time variations in the earth’s length of day (LOD) for 25 years (1973–1998) versus atmospheric circulation changes and lunar phase is presented. It is found that, on the average, there is a 27.3-day and 13.6-day period oscillation in global zonal wind speed, atmospheric geopotential height, and LOD following alternating changes in lunar phase. Every 5–9 days (6.8 days on average), the fields of global atmospheric zonal wind and geopotential height and LOD undergo a sudden change in relation to a change in lunar declination. The observed atmospheric oscillation with this time period may be viewed as a type of atmospheric tide.”
http://www.springerlink.com/content/j07x681174454l02/
“Often the movements of the moon transiting the West Coast are accompanied by a shift in the jet stream to the south as the moon passes the coast. This gives the appearance that the southward motion in latitude is accompanied by a southward motion in the jet stream. This is not always the case due to a number of other patterns but it can be thought of as a general rule of thumb.”
http://docweather.com/4/show/211/
Thank you.
otsar says: January 21, 2012 at 1:50 pm
Next we need a series of Pareto charts showing the ranges of magnitude of the dominant listed parameters on air temperature, surface temperature and water temperature at different locations on the surface of the globe (simplistic). For example air temperature in the middle of a continent, the middle of an urban area, a mountain range, an ocean, an ocean coast, etc. This is very simplistic, but it gives a person with no background in earth sciences a rough idea as to the size of the alleged monsters.
Not in Pareto format, but these global temperature maps offers some perspective;
http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/metoc/nogaps/gif_files/global_sfc_sst_0.gif
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/ANIM/sfctmpmer_01a.fnl.11.gif
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/wksst/5.gif
which are available along with a number of others on the WUWT Atmosphere Reference Page:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/atmosphere/
Gary Pearse says: January 21, 2012 at 1:54 pm
I saw geothermal heat mentioned in hot spots, volcanoes, sea floor plumes and the like, but geothermal energy is constantly flowing to the surface everywhere.
I’ve added additional details to section 5. Geothermal Energy:
“5. Geothermal Energy;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_energy
“is thermal energy generated and stored in the Earth. Thermal energy is the energy that determines the temperature of matter. Earth’s geothermal energy originates from the original formation of the planet (20%) and from radioactive decay of minerals (80%).”
“The Earth’s internal thermal energy flows to the surface by conduction at a rate of 44.2 terawatts (TW), and is replenished by radioactive decay of minerals at a rate of 30 TW. These power rates are more than double humanity’s current energy consumption from all primary sources, but most of this energy flow is not recoverable.” ”
“Geothermal Energy can warm the atmosphere through Hot Springs;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_springs
or when leveraged for Geothermal Heating;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_heating
“Worldwide, about 10,715 megawatts (MW) of geothermal power is online in 24 countries. An additional 28 gigawatts of direct geothermal heating capacity is installed for district heating, space heating, spas, industrial processes, desalination and agricultural applications.””
I have a “map” of this but don’t know how to send it here – give me your email if you would like it. Interestingly, there is a large thermal flux off the west coast of the Americas that seems to coincide with the location of the ENSO phenomenon. It is possibly concentrated equatorward by the equatorward currents along the west coast.
Pages 10 and 11 of this document offer good maps:
http://www.iea.org/papers/2011/Geothermal_Roadmap.pdf
Also when you mention tides on the sea, atmosphere, magmas etc. don’t forget that the tide operates on the whole globe – water wells go down when the earth tide passes, lifting up the overlying ground and increasing the porosity off the aquifers.
I’ve added additional detail to section 3. Gravitation:
“Atmospheric Tide;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_tide
Earth Tide;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_tide
Magma Tide:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/h7005r0273703250/
and “Tidal effects are also observed in the” “land masses of the Earth. Relative to the centre of the Earth, the land and buildings may bulge by as much as 9 inches, depending on the latitude. This constant pulling on the land areas as well as the friction caused between the ocean’s waters and the ocean floor, has led to a slowing down in the rotation of the Earth. This in turn has led to the lengthening of the day, by 0.002 seconds. This is why scientists in observatories who keep an accurate track of time, had to add a “˜leap second’ to keep in time with the changes in the period of the rotation of the Earth. This concept is similar to that of the leap year where a day is added, approximately every four years. This constant slowing down of the rotation of the Earth, will over a few billion years lead to a situation when the Moon and Earth are “locked ” together with the same side of the Earth and Moon facing each other.
Since the Earth’s mass is several times greater than that of the Moon, the gravitational forces exerted by the Earth on the Moon is also greater. Although no oceans are present on the Moon today, the tidal forces are felt on the land causing the rotation of the Moon to slow down from its original speed, in a manner similar to the effect the Moon has on the Earth. Since the gravitational force of the Earth on the Moon is greater, than that of the Moon on the Earth, the slowing down of the Moon’s rotation was more rapid, resulting in the present situation where the same side of the Moon always faces the Earth. Laser beams, along with reflectors placed on the Moon by astronauts, have helped in measuring accurately the distance between the Earth and the Moon. Repeated measurements have confirmed that the Moon is indeed moving away from the Earth at around 3.82 cm every year.
Since the distance between the Earth and Moon is slowly but surely increasing, the tidal forces on the Earth are constantly reducing by a corresponding degree.”
http://www.essortment.com/tides-moon-61741.html
Thank you
Joachim Seifert says: January 21, 2012 at 2:31 pm
1. There are substantial topics COMPLETELY missing….
Hence the crowsourcing exercise to add them.
2. many topics are insufficiently explained, in particularly, reference to Wikipedia is a WEAK
point, because Wikipedia was/is continuously “cleaned” (manipulated) by AGW-activists…
.. thus no good source….
We are working on an alternative, but it will take a while to implement. In the interim Wikipedia, with all its flaws, remains the most comprehensive information source on an array of subjects
3. Topics and sub-topics should be weighted, according to significance…..whether it is
local,regional or global in effect plus LOWER and HIGHER ESTIMATE range in Watt/m2
or in TEMPs deg. C should be made….
This is important in order to judge whether we talk about peanuts or sizable variables….
many bloggers talk peanuts and reckon they found sizable sources….
This page is not intended for that purpose. The forthcoming Likely Significant Temperature Variables Page will distill this list down to a smaller list of the key variables and their estimated influence.
4. A hierarchy list should be made on the energy flow /variations from Sun to Earth’s
orbit to atmosphere to the Earth’s ground and ocean and then to backfeeds etc.
The bottom of the hierarchy list are the last/least important first come the upper
hirarchy variables….
The list order in place now is intended to help a casual reader get the gist while providing a coherent format for more advanced readers. The order for the Likely Significant Temperature Variables Page will probably be in descending order of influence.
Thank you
Justthefacts:
The literature, where you can see that the orbit SHAPE is only partially determined
by the eccentricity, as is given by the 2 NASA specialists:
E. Myles Standish and James G. Williams Email Williams: <James.G.Williams (at)jpl.nasa.gov)
the Internet page is <Chapter 8: Orbital Ephemerides of the Sun, Moon and Planets.pdf)
This is a better reference and in point 8.3 you get the equations for the creation
of the DEA 405 (the JPL program for all planetary orbits…..)
enumerated are points (a) to (h) which all influence the Earth's orbit ….
Throw out the only eccentricity nonsense…..
Always watch out to filter the CAGW-nonsense out of Wikipedia entries (I read in WUWT last
year that one of those meanest AGW-activists was even dismissed from Wikipedia, becaused
he AWG-forged over 5,000 entries too obviously to see, the entries they do more discreetly
nowadays…….
…..Cheers mate….
JS
Dodgy Geezer says: January 21, 2012 at 3:25 pm
I recall a theory from the 1990s suggesting that small comets – house-sized fluffy snowballs – were hitting the top of the atmosphere every few seconds. The web site is here: http://smallcomets.physics.uiowa.edu/
This is still controversial – but if it is true adding water vapour like that would surely have an impact on energy absorption? That has not been considered. but it may need to be considered in the future. We just don’t know…
I’ve updated 6. Outer Space/Cosmic/Galactic Influences to read:
“and Comets;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet
can all significantly impact Earth’s climate upon impact if they are large enough. It has been hypothesized that small comets impact Earth “at a rate of one 20-to-40 ton comet every three seconds, this influx of small comets into the atmosphere would add about one inch of water to the Earth’s surface every 20,000 years or so. The implications of this added water for long range global climate, global warming, and pollution mitigation will need to be examined by the experts in those fields.” “The influx of small comets into Earth’s atmosphere may help explain the source of water needed to form noctilucent clouds.” The hypothesis that small comets “are depositing water in our atmosphere” “comes from trying to account for the presence in the images of the “atmospheric holes,” those dark spots where the ultraviolet dayglow has been absorbed over areas of 50 to 100 km in diameter. This is a large area and requires a lot of material. For the wavelength range viewed by the Polar and Dynamics Explorer cameras, water is the only common gaseous substance in the solar system that can efficiently absorb the dayglow along the line-of-sight of the cameras.
http://smallcomets.physics.uiowa.edu/www/faq.htmlx”
Thank you
Don Easterbrook says: January 21, 2012 at 3:30 pm
There are major problems with the Croll/Milankovitch theory that are not included in your list: (1) the theory cannot explain the synchroneity of glaciations in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere with no time lag (this fact has been called “the fly in the Milankovitch ointment”). Until this fact can be accounted for, the theory cannot be considered proven; (2) The validity of Milankovitch cycles depend on correlation with oxygen isotope variations in deep sea cores, but the cores cannot be dated accurately so the correlations rest on unproven assumptions and circular reasoning; (3) Milankovitch cycles cannot explain the Younger Dryas glacial resurgence because the onset and ending of the glaciation happened far more abruptly than can be credited to Milankovitch orbital changes (which are very slow). (4) The North Atlantic Deep Ocean Current theory cannot explain the problems with Milankovitch cycles because climatic changes occur simultaneous in both hemispheres with no lag time and this means it cannot be the cause of the climatic changes.
I’ve added additional detail to section 2. Orbital Energy, Orbital Period, Elliptical Orbits (Eccentricity), Tilt (Obliquity) and Wobble (Axial precession):
“Over longer time frames changes to Earth’s orbit, tilt and wobble called Croll/Milankovitch cycles;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
may be responsible for the periods of Glaciation (Ice Ages);
http://www.homepage.montana.edu/~geol445/hyperglac/time1/milankov.htm
that Earth has experienced for the last several million years of its climatic record:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age
However, Don Easterbrook argues that “there are major problems with the Croll/Milankovitch theory” including that “(1) the theory cannot explain the synchroneity of glaciations in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere with no time lag (this fact has been called “the fly in the Milankovitch ointment”). Until this fact can be accounted for, the theory cannot be considered proven; (2) The validity of Milankovitch cycles depend on correlation with oxygen isotope variations in deep sea cores, but the cores cannot be dated accurately so the correlations rest on unproven assumptions and circular reasoning; (3) Milankovitch cycles cannot explain the Younger Dryas glacial resurgence because the onset and ending of the glaciation happened far more abruptly than can be credited to Milankovitch orbital changes (which are very slow). (4) The North Atlantic Deep Ocean Current theory cannot explain the problems with Milankovitch cycles because climatic changes occur simultaneous in both hemispheres with no lag time and this means it cannot be the cause of the climatic changes.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/21/the-ridiculousness-continues-climate-complexity-compiled/#comment-871986
Thank you
Justthefacts: Don Easterbrook is right in pointing out that wobbling and swaying (precession)
of the Earth does not produce ice ages ….. The swaying See-Saw Theory (alternating Ice age
in NH (northern hemisphere) while hot in the SH, followed by Ice age in the south and heat in
the NH is nonsense – described by Broecker and Dalton with ocean circulation (Gulf
stream etc) flowing first in north direction and after the seesaw sway down into southern direction….
…… Furthermore, also important: Paleostudies integrating Milankovitch cycles are kept
confused on purpose, NEVER showing a factual, detailed comparison where M-cycles start or end,
with details for at least in millenium steps….you only get tiny graphs with general sine waves avoiding detailed fit or match……
You can cancel: “Orbital Energy” not relevant , also “Orbital Period” – (once around Sun) –
this is a constant (only looses 3 secs/year), for climate uninteresting…. but add:
The major Milankovitch cycle is those of 21,185 years : i.e. one complete round of
the perihelion and aphelion around Earth know as ECLIPTIC PRECESSION or also
called APSIDAL PRECESSION which means that the perihelion moves from the present position
on the Southern Hemisphere with a velocity of 1.9 km/year North toward the Northern Hemisphere….and further around the globe until it reached its starting position after 21,185
years… and, since the perihelion is 5 Mio km closer to Earth, showing 92 W/m2 additional
solar irradiance than the aphelion… thus a point with only 7% more solar output is moving
towards North from the South…. but below the bottom line NOT increasing solar irradiation
received on Earth, just position shifted….
The annual Ecliptic precession of the Earth’s orbit is 44,300 km/Year.
JTF: when you come to my proposed terms on orbit Libration etc. I will give more
details…..
One major point to Milankovitch to add: Most important:(AAA) His calculations of the Earth’s
orbit are purely geometrical 2-D (as on paper) eccentricity calculations according
to and using the 5 geometrical Kepler elements and only in a 2-BODY-GRAVITATION system
….. which does NOT include the Third-Body (see recent paper of Nicola Scafetta)-Gravitation,
impacting the orbital trajectory (Third Body: Mass of Jupiter+Saturn combined) as well, ….
see Scafetta….further missing in Milankovitch are (BBB):
real trajectory observations which include all existing Orbit Libration/Osculation/Perturbation/
Liigation/ or true Spiral Flight motions around the mean progressive orbit path….
Do not despair, we will set it all right…..just ask,
Best Regards
JS
Urederra says: January 21, 2012 at 4:02 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fixation
“In biology, carbon fixation is the reduction of carbon dioxide to organic compounds by living organisms. The obvious example is photosynthesis. Carbon fixation requires both a source of energy such as sunlight, and an electron donor such as water. All life depends on fixed carbon. Organisms that grow by fixing carbon are called autotrophs—plants for example. Heterotrophs, like animals, are organisms which grow by using the fixed carbon produced by autotrophs. Some organisms can go either way. Fixed carbon, reduced carbon, and organic carbon all mean organic compounds. Carbon dioxide, in all its guises, is inorganic carbon.”
As far as I know, the source of carbon of the vast majority of life on Earth is primarily CO2, but there a small group of bacteria that can use methane as their source of carbon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanotroph
I believe that there are also some bacteria that can use hydrocarbons as their source of carbon. (although this point is not 100% clear to me ) http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0923250806000830
I’ve added an array of details to section 10. Biology:
“There are two primary sources of energy, Phototrophs where “Light is absorbed in photo receptors and transformed into chemical energy” and
Chemotrophs where “bond energy is released from a chemical compound.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_nutritional_groups
“Phototrophs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoautotroph
are the organisms (usually plants) that carry out photosynthesis;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesis
to acquire energy. They use the energy from sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into organic materials to be utilized in cellular functions such as biosynthesis and respiration.” “In plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, photosynthesis uses carbon dioxide and water, releasing oxygen as a waste product.”
“In biology, carbon fixation;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fixation
is the reduction of carbon dioxide to organic compounds by living organisms. The obvious example is photosynthesis. Carbon fixation requires both a source of energy such as sunlight, and an electron donor such as water. All life depends on fixed carbon. Organisms that grow by fixing carbon are called autotrophs—plants for example. Heterotrophs, like animals, are organisms which grow by using the fixed carbon produced by autotrophs. Some organisms can go either way. Fixed carbon, reduced carbon, and organic carbon all mean organic compounds. Carbon dioxide, in all its guises, is inorganic carbon.”
Chemoautotrophs;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotroph
are “organisms that obtain carbon through Chemosynthesis”;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemosynthesis
“are phylogenetically diverse, but groups that include conspicuous or biogeochemically-important taxa include the sulfur-oxidizing gamma and epsilon proteobacteria, the Aquificaeles, the Methanogenic archaea and the neutrophilic iron-oxidizing bacteria.”
There are three ways that an “organism obtains carbon for synthesising cell mass;
Autotrophic – where “carbon is obtained from carbon dioxide (CO2)”, Heterotrophic – where “carbon is obtained from organic compounds” and Mixotrophic – carbon is obtained from both organic compounds and by fixing carbon dioxide.
Bacteria – TBD
“Methanotrophs (sometimes called methanophiles) are bacteria that are able to metabolize methane as their only source of carbon and energy.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanotroph
“Some ferric iron-reducing bacteria (e.g. G. metallireducens) can use toxic hydrocarbons such as toluene as a carbon source, there is significant interest in using these organisms as bioremediation agents in ferric iron-rich contaminated aquifers.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_metabolism”
Thank you
Incorrect Youtube links in “13. Known Unknowns” after the text “Examples of this effect can be seen in the following examples of Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reactions:”. The links are to Solar sails and Comets videos respectively.
Chuckarama says: January 21, 2012 at 4:05 pm
I don’t remember a specific paper or blog post on it, but the Earth’s orbit and perihelion + aphelion, over time, probably have some effect. The push and pull of solar and planetary gravity, in the vaccum of space, wobble us around our star enough to affect things. My understanding is that there is ~7% variation in the amount of solar energy with our current orbit.
Yes, I’ve added it to section 2. Orbital Energy, Orbital Period, Elliptical Orbits (Eccentricity), Tilt (Obliquity) and Wobble (Axial precession):
“Eccentricity;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_eccentricity
controls the shape of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. The orbit gradually changes from being elliptical to being nearly circular and then back to elliptical in a period of about 100,000 years. The greater the eccentricity of the orbit (i.e., the more elliptical it is), the greater the variation in solar energy received at the top of the atmosphere between the Earth’s closest (perihelion) and farthest (aphelion) approach to the Sun. Currently, the Earth is experiencing a period of low eccentricity. The difference in the Earth’s distance from the Sun between perihelion and aphelion (which is only about 3%) is responsible for approximately a 7% variation in the amount of solar energy received at the top of the atmosphere. When the difference in this distance is at its maximum (9%), the difference in solar energy received is about 20%.
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7y.html“>http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7y.html”
Thank you.
Jtf: you did put :
“””””http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_eccentricity controls the shape of the
Earth’s orbit around the Sun.”””””
as it is put: it means to be the ONLY control of the SHAPE of the orbit (nothing else)……
this is wrong, because it is only ONE cause…please put:
“the eccentricity controls only the general shape of the orbit … The detailed orbit trajectory,
however, contains perturbations, oscillations, librations and a 3-D-motion, labelled J_2 – motion,
all of them are controlled by 3-body-gravitation (Sun-Earth-Jupiter/Saturn combined) and
the SIM-movement (solar inertial movement)…..all of them need to be further quantified….
Attention:
(1) Wikipedia concerning the Earth orbit was “manipulated clean” in August 2011 on all
aspects of libration and perturbation by CAGW-followers, in order to prevent studies
on the subject by Skeptics…
Also consult “Nicola Scafetta with its new harmonic model vs. IPCC GCMs….you
can see the orbit is not “only Eccentricity”….. this is typical AGW-vexed interest….
JS
Randy says: January 21, 2012 at 4:15 pm
So cattle farms didn’t make the list?
In section 10. Biology – Animal – Anthropogenic I added:
“Farming”
I am avoiding researching Anthropogenic influences for now, I want to try to get the natural process down before studying how we may be influencing them.
Thx
Dan Forth says: February 8, 2012 at 1:10 pm
Incorrect Youtube links in “13. Known Unknowns” after the text “Examples of this effect can be seen in the following examples of Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reactions:”. The links are to Solar sails and Comets videos respectively
Fixed, thx
Added to section 4. Solar Energy”
“Solar variability may also influence the Polar Night Jets:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_stream#Polar_night_jet
“Early modelling work by Rind and Balachandran (1995) and Balachandran and Rind (1995), and more recently discussed by Rind et al. (2002), was able to simulate these zonal wind anomalies. They suggested that solar variability influences the structure of the polar night jet and hence the propagation of planetary-scale waves that travel vertically from the troposphere. This then affects their ability to impact the polar vortex and to produce sudden stratospheric warmings. Specifically, Rind and co-workers noted that the 11-year SC temperature anomaly in the equatorial upper stratosphere gives rise to an anomalous horizontal temperature gradient and hence to a corresponding anomaly in the vertical wind shear in the region of the polar night jet at upper levels. As a result of the consequent anomalous planetary wave propagation, this zonal wind anomaly gradually descends with time into the lower stratosphere (see also Dunkerton 2000). In addition, they noted that the QBO influences the latitudinal wind shear in the lower stratosphere (Holton and Tan 1982). Both these factors affect the structure of the polar night jet and thus there is an interaction of the solar and QBO influences through their combined influence on wave propagation. However, the details of how the solar and QBO interaction occurred were not clear, especially the precise mechanism by which the 11-year SC influence in the upper stratosphere impacts the QBO influence in the lower stratosphere.
http://www.space.dtu.dk/upload/institutter/space/forskning/06_projekter/isac/wp501b.pdf“
Goldie says: January 21, 2012 at 4:21 pm
Goldie says: January 21, 2012 at 4:25 pm
Unbelievable – solar UV drives atmospheric photo-chemistry, which ultimately leads to the formation of suphate and nitrate aerosols from both natural and man made sources, affects tropospheric ozone concentrations and alters the atmospheric half life of almost every chemical species. How can anybody suggest that a 10% variation has no effect – it must have!
P.S. UV also causes the photolysis of water to form O and OH radicals.
I looked around and can’t fine any support for this aside from what Dr. Vincent Courtillot says between 26:30 – 27.30 in this video:
Can any one provide links supporting the climatic influence and impact of UV variations?
“Can any one provide links supporting the climatic influence and impact of UV variations?”
Yes, here:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=6645
“How The Sun Could Control Earth’s Temperature”
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says: January 21, 2012 at 5:02 pm
Earth’s mass increases every day. Since the rotating Earth only has so much angular momentum, the increase in mass will cause the Earth to slow down.
http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae75.cfm
While the actual amount of added material depends on which study you look at, an estimated 10 to the 8th power kilograms of in-falling matter accumulates every day. That seemingly large amount, however, IS insignificant compared to the Earth’s total mass of almost 10 to the 25th power kilograms.
10^8kg/day *365.25days/yr / 10^25kg = 3.7*10^-15/yr, amount of yearly increase in mass.
With these imprecise numbers, assuming my math’s correct, the effect of the mass increase towards lengthening the year is only around 0.006 of that attributed to tidal acceleration. Might be considered insignificant, might not. Is it worth mentioning? Good question.
Interesting, it is insignificant i.e. “Earth adds an estimated one quadrillionth of one percent to its weight each day.”
http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae75.cfm
but it is helpful in understanding Length of Day. I’ve added it as a note to section 1. Earth’s Rotational Energy, i.e.:
Other factors affecting the LOD data include rises and subsidences of the land surface, the buildup of glaciers, large earthquakes, large-scale pumping of groundwater and construction of reservoirs, and the shape of the ocean’s surface in response to air masses above it.”
and very slightly from the accumulated mass of incoming space debris:
http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae75.cfm
Thx
Stephen Wilde says: February 11, 2012 at 12:03 pm
“Can any one provide links supporting the climatic influence and impact of UV variations?”
Yes, here:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=6645
“How The Sun Could Control Earth’s Temperature”
In the attachment of your article;
http://climaterealists.com/attachments/ftp/How%20The%20Sun%20Could%20Control%20Earths%20Temperature.pdf
you “suggest that within the polar vortex (poleward of the mid latitude jets) the solar proton effect becomes dominant and affects the height of the polar tropopause more than does the solar UV effect but due to the reversed sign of the solar proton effect (cooling) as compared to the UV effect (warming) both processes act on the jets the same way.”
Can you provide any data or literature that supports your suggestion?
Geoff Sherrington says: January 21, 2012 at 5:04 pm
Earth surface roughness over a wide range of scales? This affects the detail of incoming radiation by effects such as shadowing, which can get very complex to model. As others have noted, the conversion of temperature to w/m^2 involves a 4th power per S B. The conversion on the shaded side of a lump is different to that on the lit side adjacent. Becomes a matter of when you average for a global summary, plus other factors such as the size of the lump and its rate of heat conduction and many other variables. That’s on land. Then you have to do it differently for sea. It’s not trivial since digits of w/m^2 can be involved as errors if you average too soon, I think.
Yes, I added to Section 9. Albedo:
“The total solar radiation received at ground level consists of direct and indirect radiation (scattered, diffused, or reflected). The UVR component does not exceed 5% of the total incident radiation at sea level under cloudless atmospheric conditions. The intensity of sunlight at ground level varies with latitude, geographic location, season, cloud coverage, atmospheric pollution, elevation above sea level, and solar altitude. The 23.5° tilt of the earth’s axis affects the angle of incidence of solar radiation on the earth’s surface and causes seasonal and latitudinal variations in day length. At high altitudes, the intensity of UVR is significantly higher than at sea level. The spectral distribution of solar energy at sea level is roughly 3,44, and 53% in the UV, visible, and infrared regions, respectively. In practice, therefore, these variables need to be considered for the use of solar energy, including its UVR component.”
http://almashriq.hiof.no/lebanon/600/610/614/solar-water/idrc/01-09.html
markx says: January 21, 2012 at 5:40 pm
Did you include anything on SIM Solar Inertial Motion (Charvatova) ? (Sorry , I bookmarked, skimmed but not yet read… on the to do list!)
LONG TERM CHANGES OF THE SURFACE AIR TEMPERATURE IN RELATION TO SOLAR INERTIAL MOTION * IVANKA CHARVATOVA and JAROSLAV STI~EST[K
Geophysical Institute AS CR, Bo~nf ll, 141 31 Praha 4 – Spofilov, Czech Republic
http://www.springerlink.com/content/xh920864613u2k57/
I’ve added this to section 2. Orbital Energy, Orbital Period, Elliptical Orbits (Eccentricity), Tilt (Obliquity) and Wobble (Axial precession):
“The inertial motion of the Sun around the Barycentre, or centre of mass, of the Solar System”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barycentric_coordinates_%28astronomy%29
http://www.orbitsimulator.com/gravity/articles/ssbarycenter.html
“has been employed as the base in searching for possible influence of the Solar System as a whole on climatic processes, especially on the changes in surface air temperature. A basic cycle of about 180–200 years and its higher harmonics up to 30 years have been found in surface air temperature of central Europe since 1753, established from 13 continuous instrumental time series. These periods correspond to the periods of solar inertial motion. In the first half of the 19th century, when the solar motion was chaotic, this temperature was about 0.75°C lower than that in the 20th (1940–50) and the 18th (1760–70) centuries. The mentioned decades of long-term temperature maxima coincide with the central decades of the ordered (trefoil) motion of the Sun. The temperatures in coastal Europe have been found to have slightly different properties, especially on a long-time scale. The periods of 35–45 years are significantly pronounced in the coastal Europe temperature spectrum. The chaotic motion of the Sun in the next decades could decrease both the solar forcing and global surface air temperature”
http://www.springerlink.com/content/xh920864613u2k57/
Thx
Siliggy says: January 21, 2012 at 5:59 pm
c) Comet bits entering.
If the seas have been rising for a very long time,where is the water coming from?
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/4813/comets-were-responsible-earths-oceans
Interesting, added to section 6. Outer Space/Cosmic/Galactic Influences – Comets:
Also “debate over the source of the Earth’s water has been raging for decades” with some scientists arguing that “comets were responsible for Earth’s oceans;”
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/4813/comets-were-responsible-earths-oceans
and others arguing that “ice asteroids likely source of Earth’s water”:
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/3427/ice-asteroids-likely-source-earths-water
Thank you
jorgekafkazar says: January 21, 2012 at 6:01 pm
Regarding volcanoes: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/11/undersea-volcanoes-might-be-more-common-than-previously-thought/
From my post on Bishop Hill, Jun 15, 2011 at 9:18 AM:
“As I’ve posted here and elsewhere, there is, as far as I know, only one volcanic seep in the world that is 100% captured: Lake Nyos, the site of the deadly CO2 release in 1986. The Lake Nyos seep emits approx. 187 million SCF (CO2) per year. [NB: Other sources say 700 million SCFY. I base my number on calculations from figures contained in Schmid, Halbwachs, & Wuest (2006)]:
http://www.fischer.eawag.ch/organisation/abteilungen/surf/publikationen/2006_simulation
There are estimated to be 3 million subsea volcanic vents:
http://iceagenow.com/Three_Million_Underwater_Volcanoes.htm
Thus from estimates of the Lake Nyos vent, the worldwide CO2 from volcanic sources could be as high as 30 GT of CO2/year, not counting land volcanoes. Compare that to the mere annual 0.13 to 0.23 GT estimated in Wankerpedia. (The NOAA Carbon cycle chart doesn’t even show volcanic CO2.) Once again, the science is NOT settled and may be significantly in error.
jorgekafkazar”
I am not convinced that any of this, i.e. the CO2 resulting from volcanic sources or the sudden release of it through limnic gas eruption, have a measurable impact on Earth’s climate. Further evidence to either of these ends is most welcome.
Brian H says: January 21, 2012 at 8:19 pm
Edit note:
This tidal force results in that result in Earth’s Ocean Tide;
is somewhat un-understandable. 😉
And
is primarily responsible for the Earthy behaviors of the Magnetosphere;
Is it also lascivious? 😉
Fixed, thank you.
noaaprogrammer says January 21, 2012 at 8:52 pm
Include the cooling caused by the moon casting its shadow on the earth’s surface during solar eclipses.
Yep, added to section 6. Outer Space/Cosmic/Galactic Influences:
“Also, “during a solar eclipse the Moon’s passage overhead blocks out the majority of the Sun’s light, casting a wide swath of the Earth into darkness. The land under the Moon’s shadow receives less incoming energy than the surrounding regions, causing it to cool. In the early 1970s, researches proposed that this temperature difference could set off slow-moving waves in the upper atmosphere. They hypothesized that the waves, moving more slowly than the travelling temperature disparity from which they spawned, would pile up along the leading edge of the Moon’s path—like slow-moving waves breaking on a ship’s bow.”
http://www.agu.org/cgi-bin/highlights/highlights.cgi?action=show&doi=10.1029/2011GL048805&jc=gl”
Thank you
Joachim Seifert says: January 21, 2012 at 9:13 pm
I also wonder about Milankovitch….. There is the 21,400 year cycle, the 41,000 year cycle and both should appear on glacial ice core dating analysis. I never found paleoliterature, which shows onset or end of these two cycles…….
Is somebody out there who knows, in which millenium these 2 cycles started and completed/ended?
JS
I am also skeptical of the attribution of long term climate changes primarily to Milankovitch cycles, as there are obviously a few other variables involved… However, Lisiecki and Raymo PALEOCEANOGRAPHY 2004 did find that “the relative phases of the stack’s 41- and 23-kyr components suggest that the precession component of d18O from 2.7–1.6 Ma is primarily a deep-water temperature signal and that the phase of d18O precession response changed suddenly at 1.6 Ma.
http://lorraine-lisiecki.com/LisieckiRaymo2005.pdf
The 41,000 year cycle seems reasonably apparent on the 5 Million Year reconstruction here;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Five_Myr_Climate_Change.png
However it is important to not that, “Lisiecki and Raymo constructed this record by first applying a computer aided process of adjusting individual “wiggles” in each sediment core to have the same alignment (i.e. wiggle matching). Then the resulting stacked record is orbitally tuned by adjusting the positions of peaks and valleys to fall at times consistent with an orbitally driven ice model (see Milankovitch cycles). Both sets of these adjustments are constrained to be within known uncertainties on sedimentation rates and consistent with independently dated tie points (if any). Constructions of this kind are common. However, they assume that ice volume is driven by changes in insolation, and such data therefore cannot be used to establish the existence of such a relationship.”
“Many studies have produced evidence that the two strongest orbital cycles (obliquity, 41 kyr and precession, 26 kyr) probably do drive changes in ice volume. The data in the figure have been fitted to these periods and also to the longer, much weaker 100 kyr eccentricity cycle. Over the past ~1 million years there have been a number of very strong glacial maxima and minima, spaced by 80,000 – 120,000 years, but the evidence for orbital forcing of these events is less secure. It is likely that this ~100 kyr cycle is controlled by some other as yet unknown mechanism.”
Werner Brozek says January 21, 2012 at 9:18 pm
You have a whole section under #9 under albedo. Just because the albedo may be 90% does not mean it is 90% for all wavelength of visible light. As well, the sun does not give off equal amounts of energy for each color. It is also my understanding that albedo refers to how things interact with visible light. Besides emitting visible light, the sun also emits UV and infrared. Is there an analogous word for ‘albedo’ for these other wavelengths? “Emissivity” perhaps?
According to NSIDC “Albedo generally applies to visible light, although it may involve some of the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum.”
http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/processes/albedo.html
Also this paper, “Ultraviolet Albedo of the Moon with the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope” in THE ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL, states “That the albedo of the Moon, and particularly the albedo of the Moon in the ultraviolet, is a subject of some importance has been emphasized by Wagner, Hapke, & Wells (1987)”
http://iopscience.iop.org/1538-4357/454/1/L69/fulltext/5480.text.html
A bit of semantics, but it appears that “Albedo” can also be used refer to the reflectivity to Ultraviolet and Infrared frequencies.
Bobl says: January 21, 2012 at 9:42 pm
I think a mention should be made of the upwelling of radiation from the molten core (mentioned in a sort of sideways fashion) and the possibility that tidal effects on the core affects the core temperature. Its a small effect, but to be complete one theoretically should consider it.
Yep, I’ve updated section 5. Geothermal Energy to read:
Geothermal Energy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_energy
“is thermal energy generated and stored in the Earth. Thermal energy is the energy that determines the temperature of matter. Earth’s geothermal energy originates from the original formation of the planet (20%) and from radioactive decay of minerals (80%).”Heat may be generated by tidal force on the Earth as it rotates; since rock cannot flow as readily as water it compresses and distorts, generating heat.”
“The Earth’s internal thermal energy flows to the surface by conduction at a rate of 44.2 terawatts (TW), and is replenished by radioactive decay of minerals at a rate of 30 TW.” “Mean heat flow is 65 mW/m2 over continental crust and 101 mW/m2 over oceanic crust.[12] This is approximately 1/10 watt/square meter on average, (about 1/10,000 of solar irradiation,) but is much more concentrated in areas where thermal energy is transported toward the crust by convection such as along mid-ocean ridges and mantle plumes.[13] The Earth’s crust effectively acts as a thick insulating blanket which must be pierced by fluid conduits (of magma, water or other) in order to release the heat underneath. More of the heat in the Earth is lost through plate tectonics, by mantle upwelling associated with mid-ocean ridges. The final major mode of heat loss is by conduction through the lithosphere, the majority of which occurs in the oceans due to the crust there being much thinner and younger than under the continents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_gradient”
Thanks
Could also induction created from the magnetic core of the earth and solar particles heat up the earth?
Mac the Knife says: January 21, 2012 at 9:50 pm
I suggest coupled biological and geologic effects should be considered. We know huge amounts of carbon and hydrogen were and are sequestered over geologic time through buildups of decomposed plant and animal matter that become the long chain hydrocarbons that make up coal, crude oil, natural gas, tar sands, shale oils, clathrates, peat bogs, etc.
Similarly, huge quantities of carbon and oxygen were and are sequestered over geologic time through buildups of biologic formed carbonates that created the massive limestone layers underlying much of the US of A, oceanic reef systems, and chalk layers such as the White Cliffs of Dover.
If we are going to consider our use of these materials as having effect on climate today, we should also consider how their sequestration over geologic time changed our global climate.
That’s a good one, I am not even sure where to put it. Under section 12. Physics I added:
A Biogeochemical Cycle;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogeochemical_cycling
“or substance turnover or cycling of substances is a pathway by which a chemical element or molecule moves through both biotic (biosphere) and abiotic (lithosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere) compartments of Earth. A cycle is a series of change which comes back to the starting point and which can be repeated.” “The term “biogeochemical” tells us that biological; geological and chemical factors are all involved.” “Ecological systems (ecosystems) have many biogeochemical cycles operating as a part of the system, for example the water cycle, the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, etc. All chemical elements occurring in organisms are part of biogeochemical cycles. In addition to being a part of living organisms, these chemical elements also cycle through abiotic factors of ecosystems such as water (hydrosphere), land (lithosphere), and/or the air (atmosphere).”
Thank you
terry says: January 21, 2012 at 11:50 pm
I skimmed threw and am going to look again at all of it and the comments but was there any mention of lightning in all of this …tks
Yep, I added it to section 12. Physics:
“Electricity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity
Lightning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning
is an atmospheric electrostatic discharge (spark) accompanied by thunder, which typically occurs during thunderstorms, and sometimes during volcanic eruptions or dust storms. From this discharge of atmospheric electricity, a leader of a bolt of lightning can travel at speeds of 220,000 km/h (140,000 mph), and can reach temperatures approaching 30,000 °C (54,000 °F), hot enough to fuse silica sand into glass channels known as fulgurites, which are normally hollow and can extend some distance into the ground.There are some 16 million lightning storms in the world every year. Lightning causes ionisation in the air through which it travels, leading to the formation of nitric oxide and ultimately, nitric acid, of benefit to plant life below.
Lightning can also occur within the ash clouds from volcanic eruptions, or can be caused by violent forest fires which generate sufficient dust to create a static charge.
How lightning initially forms is still a matter of debate. Scientists have studied root causes ranging from atmospheric perturbations (wind, humidity, friction, and atmospheric pressure) to the impact of solar wind and accumulation of charged solar particles. Ice inside a cloud is thought to be a key element in lightning development, and may cause a forcible separation of positive and negative charges within the cloud, thus assisting in the formation of lightning.”
Thank you
Tom R. Haugland says: February 16, 2012 at 6:00 pm
Could also induction created from the magnetic core of the earth and solar particles heat up the earth?
“The impact of solar wind shock structures on Earth’s magnetosphere has been shown to generate induction-electrical-field pulses that rapidly accelerate electrons and protons, generating an entire new radiation belt in a matter of minutes. An interesting coupling between the ring current and radiation belts results wherein magnetic fields generated by the ring current cause scattering and loss of radiation belt particles. In addition, waves near ion gyrofrequency generated by ring-current ions are believed to contribute to electron precipitation losses in the dusk sector.”;
http://books.google.com/books?id=fao6c1z_NesC&pg=PA135&lpg=PA135&dq=induction+solar+ionisphere+earth&source=bl&ots=W7jSj2EfwC&sig=kH0ZEMH8aA7v7jBTfdlA5XMx_L8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=U9A9T6bnJ6S30QH0jqG7Bw&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=induction%20solar%20ionisphere%20earth&f=false
However, I found no indication that that induction causes warming. It did however remind me to add, the following to section 4 Solar Energy – Ultraviolet (UV) radiation:
Additionally “the thermosphere intercepts extreme ultraviolet (EUV) photons from the sun before they can reach the ground. When solar activity is high, solar EUV warms the thermosphere, causing it to puff up like a marshmallow held over a camp fire. (This heating can raise temperatures as high as 1400 K—hence the name thermosphere.) When solar activity is low, the opposite happens.” “The thermosphere ranges in altitude from 90 km to 600+ km. It is a realm of meteors, auroras and satellites, which skim through the thermosphere as they circle Earth. It is also where solar radiation makes first contact with our planet.”
Interestingly, in 2008-2009 “A Puzzling Collapse of Earth’s Upper Atmosphere” occurred when “high above Earth’s surface where the atmosphere meets space, a rarefied layer of gas called “the thermosphere” recently collapsed and now is rebounding again.” “This is the biggest contraction of the thermosphere in at least 43 years,” says John Emmert of the Naval Research Lab, lead author of a paper announcing the finding in the June 19th issue of the Geophysical Research Letters (GRL). “It’s a Space Age record.” “The collapse happened during the deep solar minimum of 2008-2009—a fact which comes as little surprise to researchers. The thermosphere always cools and contracts when solar activity is low. In this case, however, the magnitude of the collapse was two to three times greater than low solar activity could explain.”
“‘“Something is going on that we do not understand,’” says Emmert.”
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/15jul_thermosphere/
Furthermore, looking into the influence of electricity on climate led me to add the following to Section 12. Physics – Electricity
“Additional potential climatic influences of electricity are suggested by Brian Tinsley who argues that “there are good correlations, on the day-to-day time scale, between the three solar wind – modulated inputs to Jz mentioned above and small changes in atmospheric temperature and dynamics. Dr. Tinsley has hypothesized that the atmospheric responses are due to changes in the electrical interactions between charged aerosol particles and droplets.
One process applicable to clouds with their tops above the freezing level is the electrical enhancement of the rate of scavenging of ice-forming nuclei (IFN), that increases the rate of contact ice nucleation. This has consequences for cloud thickness and reflectivity to sunlight, and for precipitation rates and latent heat transfer, both of which are capable of affecting atmospheric temperature and dynamics. This mechanism also explains many reports of high rates of ice formation in certain types of clouds that has been a long-standing puzzle for cloud physicists.
Another process that is applicable to warm clouds appears to be caused by changes in the concentration of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) due to electrical effects on the production and rate of scavenging of ultrafine aerosol particles and the CCN that they may eventually form. Changes in CCN concentration affect drizzle production and cloud lifetime and cloud cover (the indirect aerosol effect).
In addition, electrical scavenging effects may explain the discrepancy between rates of aerosol scavenging by falling rain that have been observed in comparison with those calculated without adequately accounting for electrical effects.”
http://www.utdallas.edu/physics/faculty/tinsley.html
http://www.utdallas.edu/physics/faculty/tinsley/PhysTodayLttr09.pdf
http://www.utdallas.edu/physics/faculty/tinsley/ROP%20paper.pdf
Lastly, “dramatic losses from the electron radiation belts also result from interaction of energetic elections with lightning-generating waves, called whistlers. Lightening-induced electron precipitation events exemplify direct coupling of tropospheric weather systems with the radiation belts and the ionospheric regions overlying thunderstorms.”
http://books.google.com/books?id=fao6c1z_NesC&pg=PA135&lpg=PA135&dq=induction+solar+ionisphere+earth&source=bl&ots=W7jSj2EfwC&sig=kH0ZEMH8aA7v7jBTfdlA5XMx_L8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=U9A9T6bnJ6S30QH0jqG7Bw&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=induction%20solar%20ionisphere%20earth&f=false
Thank you
Cliff Maurer says: January 22, 2012 at 12:16 am
I would add depth modulation of the oceanic well-mixed layer. The seasonal and longitudinal variation suggests that the diurnal changes in heating and associated mixing by thermal instability has a significant effect on the mean depth of this layer and thereby on ocean surface temperatures.
Yep, added to section 14, Known Unknowns:
“The oceanic or limnological mixed layer;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_layer
is a layer in which active turbulence has homogenized some range of depths. The surface mixed layer is a layer where this turbulence is generated by winds, cooling, or processes such as evaporation or sea ice formation which result in an increase in salinity.” The atmospheric mixed layer is a zone having nearly constant potential temperature and specific humidity with height. The depth of the atmospheric mixed layer is known as the mixing height. Turbulence typically plays a role in the formation of fluid mixed layers.”
“The mixed layer plays an important role in the physical climate. Because the specific heat of ocean water is much larger than that of air, the top 2.5 m of the ocean holds as much heat as the entire atmosphere above it. Thus the heat required to change a mixed layer of 25 m by 1 °C would be sufficient to raise the temperature of the atmosphere by 10 °C. The depth of the mixed layer is thus very important for determining the temperature range in oceanic and coastal regions. In addition, the heat stored within the oceanic mixed layer provides a source for heat that drives global variability such as El Nino.
The mixed layer is also important as its depth determines the average level of light seen by marine organisms. In very deep mixed layers, the tiny marine plants known as phytoplankton are unable to get enough light to maintain their metabolism. The shallowing of the mixed layers in the springtime in the North Atlantic is therefore associated with a strong spring bloom of plankton.”
“There are three primary sources of energy for driving turbulent mixing within the open-ocean mixed layer. The first is breaking of surface waves, which injects a great deal of energy into the upper few meters, where most of it dissipates. The second is wind-driven currents, which create layers in which there are velocity shears. When these shears reach sufficient magnitude, they can eat into stratified fluid. This process is often described and modelled as an example of Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, though other processes may play a role as well. Finally, if cooling, addition of brine from freezing sea ice, or evaporation at the surface causes the surface density to increase, convection will occur. The deepest mixed layers (exceeding 2000 m in regions such as the Labrador Sea) are formed through this final process, which is a form of Rayleigh–Taylor instability. Early models of the mixed layer such as those of Mellor and Durbin included the final two processes. In coastal zones, large velocities due to tides may also play an important role in establishing the mixed layer.”
Thank you
sophocles says: January 22, 2012 at 1:00 am
In the Galactic Effects section you could add Shaviv’s research into the effects of the solar system’s crossing of galactic spiral arms during the sun’s orbit of the galactic centre.
The URL:
http://www.sciencebits.com/ice-ages
is to a version of his paper published on his blog. However, it does give the
references to his versions published in the learned journals, and to other
discussions on his blog.
In a nutshell, he spots “a 144MY {Mega-Year] cycle in iceage” frequency.
Yep, I added detail to “6. Outer Space/Cosmic/Galactic Influences”, and also renamed it to “6. Outer Space/Cosmic/Galactic Effects”:
“It has been hypothesized that Galactic Cosmic Rays;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_cosmic_ray
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_ray
modulated by Solar Wind, may influence cloud formation on Earth:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/08/04/a-link-between-the-sun-cosmic-rays-aerosols-and-liquid-water-clouds-appears-to-exist-on-a-global-scale/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/24/breaking-news-cern-experiment-confirms-cosmic-rays-influence-climate-change/
Also, “the density of cosmic ray sources in the galaxy is not uniform. In fact, it is concentrated in the galactic spiral arms (it arises from supernovae, which in our galaxy are predominantly the end product of massive stars, which in turn form and die primarily in spiral arms). Thus, each time we cross a galactic arm, we should expect a colder climate. Current data for the spiral arm passages gives a crossing once every 135 ± 25 Million years. (See fig. 2 on the left. Note also that the spiral arms are density waves which propagate at a different speed than the stars, that is, nothing moves at their rotation speed).”
http://www.sciencebits.com/ice-ages
http://www.phys.huji.ac.il/~shaviv/articles/PRLice.pdf
http://www.phys.huji.ac.il/~shaviv/articles/long-ice.pdf
Thank you
batheswithwhales says: January 22, 2012 at 1:47 am
How about changes in ocean albedo through pollution, f.ex oil spills, sewer, etc?
And changes in land albedo due to greening/desertification?
Added to section 10. Biology – Animal – Anthropogenic: – Land Use Changes:
“- Deforestation
– Greening”
Thank you
Khwarizmi says: January 22, 2012 at 2:10 am
“…the LOD observations can be used as a predictor of the future climatic trends”
Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, United Nations
http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/y2787e/y2787e03.htm
It is as if the LOD writes a waveform, and the temperature copies it — but 6 years later — according to the study.
Yep, added to section 1. Earth’s Rotational Energy – Length of Day (LOD)
“The third important index is Length of Day (LOD) – a geophysical index that characterizes variation in the earth rotational velocity. Full time series of LOD cover more than 350 years, with the most reliable data obtained in the last 150 years (Stephenson and Morrison 1995). The long-term LOD dynamics is in close correlation with the dynamics of the main commercial fish stocks (Klyashtorin and Sidorenkov 1996).”
http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/y2787e/y2787e03.htm
“When detrended, the graphs of -LOD and dT are very similar in shape, and it is clear that -LOD runs several years ahead of dT, especially in its maxima. Shifting the -LOD curve by 6 years to the right (Figure 2.2b) results in almost complete coincidence of the corresponding maxima of the early 1870s, late 1930s, and middle of 1990s (Klyashtorin et al. 1998).”
Thanks
John Marshall says: January 22, 2012 at 2:35 am
There are two types of Rossby Waves. Atmospheric and oceanic.Both affect climate.
Yep, I added more detail to section 1. Earth’s Rotational Energy:
“Rossby Waves;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rossby_wave
are a subset of Inertial Waves:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_waves
“Atmospheric Rossby Waves emerge due to shear in rotating fluids, so that the Coriolis force changes along the sheared coordinate. In planetary atmospheres, they are due to the variation in the Coriolis effect with latitude.” “Atmospheric Rossby waves are giant meanders in high-altitude winds that are a major influence on weather” and “are principally responsible for the Brewer-Dobson circulation”;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewer-Dobson_circulation
http://www.ccpo.odu.edu/~lizsmith/SEES/ozone/class/Chap_6/6_4.htm
Atmospheric Rossby Waves “are not to be confused with Oceanic Rossby Waves, which move along the thermocline: that is, the boundary between the warm upper layer of the ocean and the cold deeper part of the ocean.” “Oceanic Rossby waves are thought to communicate climatic changes due to variability in forcing, due to both the wind and buoyancy. Both barotropic and baroclinic waves cause variations of the sea surface height, although the length of the waves made them difficult to detect until the advent of satellite altimetry. Baroclinic waves also generate significant displacements of the oceanic thermocline, often of tens of meters. Satellite observations have revealed the stately progression of Rossby waves across all the ocean basins, particularly at low- and mid-latitudes. These waves can take months or even years to cross a basin like the Pacific.”
Thanks
I am not convinced that any of this, i.e. the CO2 resulting from volcanic sources or the sudden release of it through limnic gas eruption, have a measurable impact on Earth’s climate. Further evidence to either of these ends is most welcome.
Oh good, at last – what has been the measurable effect of CO2 on climate from volcanic eruptions?
Adolf (ze Denier) says: January 22, 2012 at 5:53 am (Edit)
For completion the cosmic dust connection shouldn’t be forgotten. It has some support in peer-reviewed science. It has support from at least one enthusiastic professor, (i.e cosmic dust fertilizes the ground/sea water) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0459.2007.00328.x/abstract;jsessionid=9E5A686CF075EFBEADAA1C8621A06B40.d02t04
Yep I added it under section 6. Outer Space/Cosmic/Galactic Effects – Cosmic Dust:
Finally Lars G. Franzén and Roger A. Cropp argue in Geografiska Annaler 2007, that “cosmic dust contains various minerals which could control the production of algae and bacteria in remote ocean surface waters. A high production during periods of peaking cosmic influx increases cloud formation catalyzed by dimethyl sulphide (DMS) production, following increased atmospheric albedo, decreased shortwave solar irradiation to Earth surface and subsequent cooling. The opposite situation would occur when cosmic dust influx is low.”
http://www.science.gu.se/english/News/News_detail/?contentId=760313
Also, I added another of Franzén and Cropp’s hypotheses under section 12. Physics Biogeochemical Cycle i.e.;
Lars G. Franzén and Roger A. Cropp argue in Geografiska Annaler 2007, that “Carbon sequestering in peatlands is believed to be a major climate regulating mechanisms throughout the late Phanerozoic (Franzén, 1994; Franzén et al, 1996). Since plant life first evolved on land, peatlands have been significant carbon sinks, which could explain significant parts of the large variations in the atmospheric carbon dioxide observed in various records.” They also “suggest that the ice age cycles during the Pleistocene are generated by the interglacial growth of peatlands, the sequestering of carbon into this terrestrial pool and the subsequent cooling by decreased greenhouse effect. The final initiation of ice age pulses towards the end of interglacials on the other hand is likely attributed to the cyclic influx of cosmic dust to the Earth surface, which in turn regulates cloud formation and the incoming shortwave radiation (Franzén & Cropp, 2007). These shorter cycles have a frequency of c. 1000-1250 years and might be connected to sunspot or other low frequency solar variations.
http://www.mendeley.com/research/peatlandice-age-hypothesis-revised-adding-possible-glacial-pulse-trigger/
http://www.peatnet.siu.edu/Assets/F.pdf
Thank you
Neo says: January 22, 2012 at 8:17 am
Then there is geothermal conduction, which varies depending on which material emerges at the Earth’s crust.
“The heat continuously flowing from the Earth’s interior, which travels primarily by conduction, is estimated to be equivalent to 42 million megawatts (MW) of power, and is expected to remain so for billions of years to come, ensuring an inexhaustible supply of energy.”
Yep, added to section 5. Geothermal Energy;
“Earth’s heat is released” “by two main processes, conduction and convection:
1. Conduction is the movement of heat from hotter material to colder material. A common example of conduction is when heat from a stove is transferred through the bottom of a coffee pot to the liquid inside. Conduction” “helps transfer heat from deep within Earth to shallower depths. Of the heat released from the ground at Yellowstone, about 25% is by conduction.”
2. Convection is heat transported by hot material in motion, such as hot water or magma. Convection happens inside a coffee pot when heat is carried to the top of the liquid in the pot by hot water that rises buoyantly from the heated bottom because it is less dense than overlying cooler water. As the water boils, the rise of the hotter water and the compensating fall of cooler water from the top forms what is called a convection cell. Convection of molten rock helps carry heat up through the Yellowstone caldera. Near the surface, convection of hot ground water drives geysers, hot springs, and fumaroles. Convection accounts for roughly 75% of the heat released from the ground at Yellowstone.”
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/about/faq/faqgeothermal.php
Thank you
Stephen Rasey says: January 22, 2012 at 11:54 am
Heat and Energy storage systems on the earth:
Heat Capacity of water and air in the ocean and atmosphere.
Heat Capacity and Thermal Conductivity of Rock and soil
Heat of Fusion as water turns to ice.
Heat of Vaporization as water vapor condenses into water.
Adiabatic physics of the atmosphere.
Thermal conductivity of the air and water in the ocean.
Thermal conductivity (insulation) of ice over water.
Photosynthesis, turning radiant energy into chemical energy.
Yep, added to section 12. Physics:
“Heat Capacity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_capacity
or thermal capacity, is the measurable physical quantity that characterizes the amount of heat required to change a substance’s temperature by a given amount.”
“Anther way of explaining a materials’ Heat Capacity is to think about it as the measurement of thermal energy storage, just like temperature is the measurement of thermal energy given off. Heat capacity is how much thermal energy a material stores up and temperature is how much thermal energy a material gives off.”
http://www.teachengineering.org/view_activity.php?url=http://www.teachengineering.org/collection/cub_/activities/cub_energy2/cub_energy2_lesson06_activity2.xml
“The heat capacity of the global ocean, obtained from regression of ocean heat content vs. global mean surface temperature, GMST, is 14 ± 6 W
yr m-2 K-1, equivalent to 110 m of ocean water; other sinks raise the effective planetary heat capacity to 17 ± 7 W yr m-2 K-1 (all uncertainties are 1-sigma estimates).”
http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCapacity.pdf
Specific Heat Capacity Table: http://www2.ucdsb.on.ca/tiss/stretton/database/Specific_Heat_Capacity_Table.html
“As this planetary energy imbalance is virtually the same as the energy stored in the top 3 km of the oceans, and other energy stores in the climate system are much smaller (Levitus et al. 2001), we can examine either the global mean nonequilibrium radiative flux or the ocean storage to evaluate this quantity. Peixoto and Oort (1992, p. 351) even concluded that such a relation exists between the radiative forcing and ocean heat storage over the annual timescale. They showed that the annual variation of net radiation at the top of the atmosphere is in good agreement, both in phase and amplitude, with the ocean heat storage.”
http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/r-247.pdf
“Earth’s radiation imbalance is determined from ocean heat content data and compared with results of direct measurements. Distinct time intervals of alternating positive and negative values are found: 1960–mid-1970s (−0.15), mid-1970s–2000 (+0.15), 2001–present (−0.2 W/m2), and are consistent with prior reports. These climate shifts limit climate predictability.” “A strong connection between Earth’s radiative imbalance and the heat content of the oceans has been known for some time (see, e.g., Peixoto and Oort [1]). The heat content has played an important role in recent discussions of climate change, and Pielke [2] has revived interest in its relationship with radiation.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/08/11/ocean-heat-content-and-earth%E2%80%99s-radiation-imbalance/
The “Emissivity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissivity
of a material (usually written ε or e) is the relative ability of its surface to emit energy by radiation. It is the ratio of energy radiated by a particular material to energy radiated by a black body at the same temperature. A true black body would have an ε = 1 while any real object would have ε < 1. Emissivity is a dimensionless quantity. In general, the duller and blacker a material is, the closer its emissivity is to 1. The more reflective a material is, the lower its emissivity. Highly polished silver has an emissivity of about 0.02." "Emissivity depends on factors such as temperature, emission angle, and wavelength." "The emissivity of Earth's atmosphere varies according to cloud cover and the concentration of gases that absorb and emit energy in the thermal infrared (i.e., wavelengths around 8 to 14 micrometres). These gases are often called greenhouse gases, from their role in the greenhouse effect. The main naturally-occurring greenhouse gases are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and ozone. The major constituents of the atmosphere, N2 and O2, do not absorb or emit in the thermal infrared."
"The transfer of heat energy by radiation can occur in a vacuum , unlike conduction and convection. Heat radiation is the same form of wave energy transfer as light, radio, and x-ray wave energy. The rate of emmission of heat energy is related to the temperature difference, the distance between the surfaces, and the emissivity of the surfaces. Bright reflective surfaces have the lowest emissivity values."
http://www.roymech.co.uk/Related/Thermos/Thermos_HeatTransfer.html
http://www.infrared-thermography.com/material-1.htm
As this planetary energy imbalance is virtually the same as the energy stored in the top 3 km of
the oceans, and other energy stores in the climate system are much smaller (Levitus et al. 2001), we can examine either the global mean nonequilibrium radiative flux or the ocean storage to evaluate this quantity. Peixoto and Oort (1992, p. 351) even concluded that such a relation exists between the radiative forcing and ocean heat storage over the annual timescale. They showed that the annual variation of net radiation at the top of the atmosphere is in good agreement, both in phase and amplitude, with the ocean heat storage.”
Thank you
TedK says: January 22, 2012 at 7:06 pm
I did not see, but I certainly may have missed due to sheer volume of facts:
CO2 equilibrium with open water; both rate of absorption/outgassing and the enthalpy of reaction (CO2 + H2O carbonic). Water warming is a huge source of outgassed CO2 (which has always bothered me about the measurements at Mauna Loa) and in a cooling environment is a substantial CO2 sink.
Added detail under section 8. Atmospheric Composition – Carbon Dioxide:
“Of all the carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted into the atmosphere, one quarter is taken up by land plants, another quarter by the oceans. Understanding these natural mechanisms is important in forecasting the rise of atmospheric CO2 because even though plants and bodies of water now absorb surplus greenhouse gas, they could become new trouble spots. The ocean absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere in an attempt to reach equilibrium by direct air-to-sea exchange. This process takes place at an extremely low rate, measured in hundreds to thousands of years. However, once dissolved in the ocean, a carbon atom will stay there, on average, more than 500 years, estimates Michael McElroy, Butler professor of environmental science.
Besides the slow pace of ocean turnover, two more factors determine the rate at which the seas take up carbon dioxide. One is the availability of carbonate, which comes from huge deposits of calcite (shells) in the upper levels of the ocean. These shells must dissolve in ocean water in order to be available to aid in the uptake of CO2, but the rate at which they dissolve is controlled by the ocean’s acidity. The ocean’s acidity does rise with increased CO2, but the slow pace of ocean circulation prevents this process from developing useful momentum.”
http://harvardmagazine.com/2002/11/the-ocean-carbon-cycle.html
Roy Spenser argues that “during a warm El Nino year, more CO2 is released by the ocean into the atmosphere (and less is taken up by the ocean from the atmosphere), while during cool La Nina years just the opposite happens. (A graph similar to the first graph also appeared in the IPCC report, so this is not new). Just how much of the Mauna Loa Variations in the first graph are due to the “Coke-fizz” effect is not clear because there is now strong evidence that biological activity also plays a major (possibly dominant) role (Behrenfeld et al., 2006). Cooler SST conditions during La Nina are associated with more upwelling of nutrient-rich waters, which stimulates plankton growth.”
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/05/global-warming-causing-carbon-dioxide-increases-a-simple-model/
However, Steve Fitzpatrick argues that the CO2 released by human activities, combined with slow ocean absorption/neutralization and sea surface temperature variation, is broadly consistent with the measured historical trend in atmospheric CO2, including the effect of changing average SST on short term variation in the rate of CO2 increase. Temperature changes in ocean surface waters cause shifts of a few PPM up and down in the rate of increase, but surface temperature changes do not explain 80% to 90% of the increase in atmospheric CO2 since 1958, as suggested in Dr. Spencer’s May 11 post. Because of its relatively high pH, high buffering capacity, enormous mass, and slow circulation, the ocean is, and will be for a very long time, a significant net sink for atmospheric CO2.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/22/a-look-at-human-co2-emissions-vs-ocean-absorption/
The manufacture of quicklime as a source of CO2; to use the dreaded wiki… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lime_(material) (not that I think CO2 has any more effect than it’s ppm of the atmosphere deserves.)
Added under section 10. Biology – Animal – Anthropogenic – Carbon Dioxide:
“The lime industry is a significant carbon dioxide emitter. The manufacture of one tonne of calcium oxide involves decomposing calcium carbonate, with the formation of 785 kg of CO2 in some applications, such as when used as mortar; this CO2 is later re-adsorbed as the mortar goes off. Additionally, if the heat supplied to form the lime (3.75 MJ/kg in an efficient kiln) is obtained by burning fossil fuel it will release CO2: in the case of coal fuel 295 kg/t; in the case of natural gas fuel 206 kg/t. The electric power consumption of an efficient plant is around 20 kWh per tonne of lime. This additional input is the equivalent of around 20 kg CO2 per ton if the electricity is coal-generated. Thus, total emission may be around 1 tonne of CO2 for every tonne of lime even in efficient industrial plants, but is typically 1.3 t/t”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lime_kiln
Seasonal land use changes; for example, large acreages are plowed regularly turning up large swaths of darker damper earth, especially during late spring/ early summer. (though I find it difficult to trust their conclusion http://www.cara.psu.edu/land/lu-primer/luprimer13.asp), (far more trustworthy source, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/18/more-on-land-use-change-affecting-temperatures/)
I made significant additions to section 10. Biology – Animal – Anthropogenic – Land Use:
“Land Use;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_use
“is the human use of land. Land use involves the management and modification of natural environment or wilderness into built environment such as fields, pastures, and settlements.”
“Land use practices vary considerably across the world. The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization Water Development Division explains that “Land use concerns the products and/or benefits obtained from use of the land as well as the land management actions (activities) carried out by humans to produce those products and benefits.” s of the early 1990s, about 13% of the Earth was considered arable land, with 26% in pasture, 32% forests and woodland, and 1.5% urban areas.”
“Land Cover/Land Use Change [LCLUC]”;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_use,_land-use_change_and_forestry
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/18/more-on-land-use-change-affecting-temperatures/
“has a profound impact on the regional‐scale surface energy and water balance and where it has been intensive.” There is “growing detectable evidence about weather and climatic feedbacks and possible teleconnections associated with LULCC.” “The LULCC impact is likely on a par with other major global forcings but unlike warming seen from GHG emissions, LULCC forcing is multi directional and can warm/ cool, cause positive/negative feedbacks depending on the region and timing.” “The fact that the impact of LULCC is small with respect to the global average radiative forcing, with the exception of emissions of CO2, is, however, not a relevant metric as the essential resources of food, water, energy, human health and ecosystem function respond to regional and local climate not to a global average.”
http://www.iclimate.org/dev/publications/Niyogi-LCLUC-MARCH2011-SHORT.pdf
A study by researchers from Purdue University and the universities of Colorado and Maryland concluded that greener land cover contributes to cooler temperatures, and almost any other change leads to warmer temperatures. The study, published on line and set to appear in the Royal Meteorological Society’s International Journal of Climatology later this year, is further evidence that land use should be better incorporated into computer models projecting future climate conditions, said Purdue doctoral student Souleymane Fall, the article’s lead author.
Among the study’s findings:
* In general, the greener the land cover, the cooler is surface temperature.
* Conversion to agriculture results in cooling, while conversion from agriculture generally results in warming.
* Deforestation generally results in warming, with the exception of a shift from forest to agriculture. No clear picture emerged from the impact of planting or seeding new forests.
* Urbanization and conversion to bare soils have the largest warming impacts.
In general, land use conversion often results in more warming than cooling.”
http://news.uns.purdue.edu/x/2009b/091102NiyogiClimate.html
“Although variations in the natural flooding regimes were likely the dominant mechanism driving changes in surface water, it is possible that human manipulations through dams and other agriculture infrastructure contributed. This study demonstrates the substantial role that land-cover and surface water change can play in continental-scale albedo trends and suggests ways to better incorporate these processes into global climate models.”
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2010EI342.1
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/18/more-on-land-use-change-affecting-temperatures/
Thank you
Richard Holle says: January 22, 2012 at 11:59 pm
http://research.aerology.com/aerology-analog-weather-forecasting-method/
Link to a compendium links, articles and personal view points by myself and many others in regards to the declinational component of the lunar tidal effects, some material has not yet been listed in this thread.
For an over view of the effects of the lunar declinational tides in driving the global circulation, creating and maintaining the Rossby waves and jet streams, a perusal of the 102 postings might give additional insights into the inner workings of the cusp between climate and weather.
I added additional detail to section 2. Orbital Energy, Orbital Period, Elliptical Orbits (Eccentricity), Tilt (Obliquity) and Wobble (Axial precession);
“When perigee, perihelion, and either the new or full moon occur at approximately the same time, considerably increased tidal ranges result. When apogee, aphelion, and the first- or third-quarter moon coincide at approximately the same time, considerably reduced tidal ranges will normally occur.”
“Lunar Declination Effects: The Diurnal Inequality. The plane of the moon’s orbit is inclined only about 5 degrees to the plane of the earth’s orbit (the ecliptic) and thus the moon monthly revolution around the earth remains very close to the ecliptic. The ecliptic is inclined 23.5 degrees to the earth’s equator, north and south of which the sun moves once each half year to produce the seasons. In similar fashion, the moon, in making a revolution around the earth once each month, passes from a position of maximum angular distance north of the equator to a position of maximum angular distance south of the equator during each half month. (Angular distance perpendicularly north and south of the celestial equator is termed declination.) twice each month, the moon crosses the equator.”
http://co-ops.nos.noaa.gov/restles4.htm
Richard Holle argues that “The solar wind inductive effects, drive the lunar declinational movement, which in turn drives the atmospheric declinational tides. The declinational movement of the Moon hangs at the culmination almost three days, as the polarity of the solar wind peaks and reverses. This produces the surges in the meridional flow, visible in the satellite photos as turbulence.”
“The Metonic cycle is a 19-year period when the lunar declination is at the culmination of movement on the same date as it was 19 years ago, as well as the same light phase. The Saros cycle is ~17 days longer than 18 years, and it is a repeating pattern of the position of the Earth / Moon and inner planets due to harmonic interactions, causing the Solar / lunar eclipses to repeat predictably at this period. The 18.6 year Mn cyclic patterns of the variation of the moon’s declinational movement result from the progression of the nodes that varies the declinational angle from the ~18.5 degrees minimum to ~28.5 maximum.”
http://research.aerology.com/aerology-analog-weather-forecasting-method/
Thanks for your thoughts
Dixon says: January 23, 2012 at 5:12 am
For methane loss rate affected by UV (source TBD):
Main loss path of CH4 in the troposphere (if you aren’t combusting it 🙂 is the OH radical. The main source of OH is from UV photolysis of ozone and subsequent reaction with water vapour. I’m sure googling papers by R G Prinn will put you on the right track for original literature. Or try Chemistry of Atmosphere’s by RP Wayne. I seem to recall the methane + OH reaction is an important element of carbon cycle and residence time calculations. The chemical reactions occurring are similar to normal combustion, but it’s a bit slower and runs at a lower temperature! No apologies if things have ‘moved on’ since I last did any atmospheric chemistry.
Additional detail added to sections 4. Solar Energy – Ultraviolet (UV) and 8. Atmospheric Composition – Methane”
“Natural sources of CH4 include fires, geologic processes, and bacteria that produce CH4 in a variety of settings (most notably, wetlands). N2O is also produced by bacteria. Major anthropogenic sources of these gases include fossil fuel combustion and agriculture. Some sources can be related to both natural and anthropogenic processes. For example, forest and grassland fires, which produce CH4, can be either human-initiated (e.g., for land clearing) or the result of lightning ignition or other natural causes.”
http://www.epa.gov/outreach/pdfs/Methane-and-Nitrous-Oxide-Emissions-From-Natural-Sources.pdf
“One component from which UV light creates methane in a photochemical process is pectin – a polysaccharide that many plants use as a structural material. It contains methoxyl groups in which there are already the rudiments of the methane chemical structure.” “Frank Keppler and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg had observed, for the first time, that plants release methane – into the air: meaning under aerobic conditions, under which bacteria produce no methane, allowing it, for example, to bubble up out of bogs and marshes. This study indicated that plants contribute a substantial proportion of the methane in the atmosphere.”
http://www.mpg.de/568294/pressRelease200805272?filter_order=TL&research_topic=UK-PF
Thank you
Joachim Seifert says: January 23, 2012 at 9:50 am
To be added, still missing:
AIR/Atmosphere losses into SPACE!
============================
There exist space measurements that Earth drags a trail of air and vapour behind,
which gets lost in space……This occurs due to Moon forces, which, along pulling the
ocean water (tides), also pulls up the atmosphere (thicker at the equator) than at poles
and a percentage then, too far out, cannot fall back onto Earth again.
This should be clear to the slowest in mind: The Atmosphere stays constant in volume
and does NOT increase…..because the Moon will shave off the excess…
………………This feature, seeming little important, is for CO2/GHG/heat balance
calculations very important: For each volume (and heat containing) unit of CO2 and
GHG, the same amount of air/vapours get shaved off/lost on the atmosphere top
and has to be SUBTRACTED from the heating balance…..As it is done today, only
the CO2/GHG-effect is added and sneakily the air+especially hot vapour losses into
space NOT BEING SUBTRACTED…..[we know vapours contain the most heat in volume]
……..in order to forecast global AGW ……
I added additional detail to section 4. Solar Energy – Atmospheric Escape;
Atmospheric Escape;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_escape
which “is the loss of planetary atmospheric gases to outer space”. “Although Earth’s atmosphere may seem as permanent as the rocks, it gradually leaks back into space. The loss rate is currently tiny, only about three kilograms of hydrogen and 50 grams of helium (the two lightest gases) per second, but even that trickle can be significant over geologic time, and the rate was probably once much higher.”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-planets-lose-their-atmospheres
“‘On Earth the magnetosphere acts like an energy collector that interacts with the material that’s coming from the sun and can draw energy out of the solar wind,’ Russell said. But then Earth’s magnetic field funnels and guides that energy to the upper atmosphere, heating the atmosphere and allowing bits of it to escape along the very same funnels that guided the energy in. ‘The precise physics have yet to be worked out, but there’s no cause for alarm’, Russell said. ‘At the current rate, our present atmospheric inventory can last at least until the sun—midway through its life now—turns into a red giant and engulfs Earth’, Russell said. “At that point,” he said, “the loss of atmosphere becomes moot.”
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/05/090529-sun-stealing-atmosphere.html
For reference, Atmospheric Escape is also covered in section 7. Earth’s Magnetic Field;
“Also, according to the 2008 European Space Agency article;
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMQ8LKRQJF_index_0.html
“Oxygen is constantly leaking out of Earth’s atmosphere and into space. Now, ESA’s formation-flying quartet of satellites, Cluster, has discovered the physical mechanism that is driving the escape. It turns out that the Earth’s own magnetic field is accelerating the oxygen away.”
Thanks
Thanks
Justthe facts:
Atmospheric losses into space must be substantial, not only 50 kg or any other miniscule amount.
Also see WUWTpost: “GIANT veil of cold plasma discovered high above Earth” stretching
until 1/4 distance to the Moon….. these are molecules stripped of their electrons by Sun
radiation descomposition…. this GIANT amount of stripped molecules CANNOT be achieved
with meagre 50 kg…..only…..
Since the atmosphere does not grow (if it grew, then the atmospheric weight -atmospheric air
pressure would be today higher than 100 years ago), the total excess man made EMISSION
VOLUME must be shaved off at the atmospheric top as LOSS INTO SPACE…..
……I read the Wikipedia entries you referred to….. obvious: They belittle the air losses
(your references do not even mention the vortexes over both poles, which suck up the atmosphere volume into space…..) …a mentioning of only 50 kg is straight out of the joke book….
…… one reference of yours talks about H-hydrogen, the other about O oxygen…..suspicious
is: Both do not talk about water vapor although H_2O (1+1+8 = 10 mol.weight) is only half
the weight of oxygen and prone to be sucked up into space than oxygen O_2 (8+8 =16 mol.weight)……there is substantial vapour losses due to its little molecular weight of 10…..
……..Furthermore, two years I read in a popular daily newspaper, that “Aliens, who follow Earth would notice the carbon and barbecue smell in space..this is the tail or trail of atmospheric losses into space.. which mean that even Carbon is being sucked up into space…..
……further as the Moon draws/lifting the oceans various meters into the air and even is
responsible for flattening the solid Earth volume on both poles, it simply must
draw the atmosphere up into space toward the Moon to those heights, were the losses
will set in……..
To sum up: AGW calculations are eager to midgetize atmospheric losses, because
these would have to be discounted in GCMs and would lower the claimed AGW effect…..
Cheers
JS
LarryD says: January 23, 2012 at 10:18 am
Second or third order effect from plate tectonics, the continents can interfere with global ocean currents, blocking circulation between the equatorial and polar regions is believed to be one of the necessary conditions for an Ice Age.
I added additional detail to section 3. Gravitation”
“the Supercontinent Cycle:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercontinent_cycle
which, “has shaped the geology and climate of the earth and provided a force for biological evolution.”
http://www.as.wvu.edu/biology/bio463/Nance%20et%20al%201988%20Supercontinent%20Cycle.pdf
“There are two types of global earth climates: icehouse and greenhouse. Icehouse is characterized by frequent continental glaciations and severe desert environments. Greenhouse is characterized by warm climates. Both reflect the supercontinent cycle. We are now in a little greenhouse phase of an ice house world.
Icehouse Climate:
Continents moving together
Sea level low due to lack of seafloor production
Climate cooler, arid
Associated with aragonite seas
Formation of supercontinents
Greenhouse Climate:
Continents dispersed
Sea level high
High level of sea floor spreading
Relatively large amounts of CO2 production at oceanic rifting zones
Climate warm and humid
Associated with calcite seas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercontinent_cycle#Relation_to_climate”
Thanks
Joachim Seifert says: January 23, 2012 at 10:49 am
There must be included: EARTH’S ORBIT PERTURBATION, EARTH’S LIBRATION,
EARTH’S ORBIT OSCULATION, as well as ORBIT ECLIPTIC PLANE PRECESSION and
ORBIT APSIDAL PRECESSION, see their significance and resulting climatic effects in
book literature:
“Joachim Seifert, Das Ende der globalen Erwaermung, (2010), 108 p. (In German),
http://www.book-on-demand.de, ISBN 978-3-86805-604-4″
Can you provide any additional sources to support your assertion that “EARTH’S ORBIT PERTURBATION, EARTH’S LIBRATION, EARTH’S ORBIT OSCULATION, as well as ORBIT ECLIPTIC PLANE PRECESSION and ORBIT APSIDAL PRECESSION,” “must be included” due to “their significance and resulting climatic effects”, preferably sources in English?
E.M.Smith says: January 23, 2012 at 9:16 pm
I think you will also want to look at this article that finds an 1800 year lunar / tidal period causing overturning tides in the oceans, leading to periodic cooling events (and the other side of the coin being the warming in between them). If finds the Little Ice Age was one such, and the present warming is the result of different tidal / ocean resonance state.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC18099/
Does a very nice job of matching the lunar / solar tides to the climate history of the past (including Bond Events and both the Med. Warm Period and the Little Ice Age) along with the proposed mechanism being sea surface mixing (thus cooling) enhancement during periods of higher tidal forces. The sea surface temps then causing changes in land surface temperatures as the AMO / PDO / AO / etc. flop from warm to cold phases.
IMHO, it’s the most likely method by which climate variation happens.
They even note that the 179.x solar cycle is only slightly different from one of the 179.y lunar tide cycles thanks to orbital resonance effects…
Added to section 2. Orbital Energy, Orbital Period, Elliptical Orbits (Eccentricity), Tilt (Obliquity) and Wobble (Axial precession):
“Keeling and TWhorf propose in Geophysics, 2000 “that such abrupt millennial changes, seen in ice and sedimentary core records, were produced in part by well characterized, almost periodic variations in the strength of the global oceanic tide-raising forces caused by resonances in the periodic motions of the earth and moon. A well defined 1,800-year tidal cycle is associated with gradually shifting lunar declination from one episode of maximum tidal forcing on the centennial time-scale to the next. An amplitude modulation of this cycle occurs with an average period of about 5,000 years, associated with gradually shifting separation-intervals between perihelion and syzygy at maxima of the 1,800-year cycle. We propose that strong tidal forcing causes cooling at the sea surface by increasing vertical mixing in the oceans. On the millennial time-scale, this tidal hypothesis is supported by findings, from sedimentary records of ice-rafting debris, that ocean waters cooled close to the times predicted for strong tidal forcing.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC18099/”
Thanks
Joachim Seifert says: February 5, 2012 at 3:51 pm
You can cancel: “Orbital Energy” not relevant , also “Orbital Period” – (once around Sun) –
this is a constant (only looses 3 secs/year), for climate uninteresting…. but add:
The major Milankovitch cycle is those of 21,185 years : i.e. one complete round of
the perihelion and aphelion around Earth know as ECLIPTIC PRECESSION or also
called APSIDAL PRECESSION which means that the perihelion moves from the present position
on the Southern Hemisphere with a velocity of 1.9 km/year North toward the Northern Hemisphere….and further around the globe until it reached its starting position after 21,185
years… and, since the perihelion is 5 Mio km closer to Earth, showing 92 W/m2 additional
solar irradiance than the aphelion… thus a point with only 7% more solar output is moving
towards North from the South…. but below the bottom line NOT increasing solar irradiation
received on Earth, just position shifted….
The annual Ecliptic precession of the Earth’s orbit is 44,300 km/Year.
JTF: when you come to my proposed terms on orbit Libration etc. I will give more
details…..
One major point to Milankovitch to add: Most important:(AAA) His calculations of the Earth’s
orbit are purely geometrical 2-D (as on paper) eccentricity calculations according
to and using the 5 geometrical Kepler elements and only in a 2-BODY-GRAVITATION system
….. which does NOT include the Third-Body (see recent paper of Nicola Scafetta)-Gravitation,
impacting the orbital trajectory (Third Body: Mass of Jupiter+Saturn combined) as well, ….
see Scafetta….further missing in Milankovitch are (BBB):
real trajectory observations which include all existing Orbit Libration/Osculation/Perturbation/
Liigation/ or true Spiral Flight motions around the mean progressive orbit path….
I need to work on this section, but prefer to work through Milankovitch/Scafetta on an active thread. I will start a new thread, and you can present this over there. JTF
Myrrh says: February 18, 2012 at 1:41 pm
Oh good, at last – what has been the measurable effect of CO2 on climate from volcanic eruptions?
According to the U.S. Geological Survey – Hawaiian Volcano Observatory; “Our studies show that globally, volcanoes on land and under the sea release a total of about 200 million tonnes of CO2 annually. This seems like a huge amount of CO2, but a visit to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) website (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/) helps anyone armed with a handheld calculator and a high school chemistry text put the volcanic CO2 tally into perspective. Because while 200 million tonnes of CO2 is large, the global fossil fuel CO2 emissions for 2003 tipped the scales at 26.8 billion tonnes. Thus, not only does volcanic CO2 not dwarf that of human activity, it actually comprises less than 1 percent of that value.”
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/2007/07_02_15.html
You said ‘measurable effect on climate’, that’s not the same as ‘measurable amounts’ – I thought you had what we, some of us, have been asking for, actual measurable effects of CO2 on climate, by way of volcanic erruptions. We’ll keep asking… 🙂
Carbon Dioxide and Health: http://theroadtoemmaus.org/RdLb/11Phl/Sci/CO2&Health.html
Myrrh;
A fine, informative and useful article! Thanks.