The height of the ionosphere/space transition is controlled in part by the amount of extreme ultraviolet energy emitted by the Sun and a somewhat contracted ionosphere could have been expected because C/NOFS was launched during a minimum in the 11-year cycle of solar activity. However, the size of the actual contraction caught investigators by surprise. (Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center)
ScienceDaily (Dec. 16, 2008) — Observations made by NASA instruments onboard an Air Force satellite have shown that the boundary between the Earth’s upper atmosphere and space has moved to extraordinarily low altitudes. These observations were made by the Coupled Ion Neutral Dynamics Investigation (CINDI) instrument suite, which was launched aboard the U.S. Air Force’s Communication/Navigation Outage Forecast System (C/NOFS) satellite on April 16, 2008.
The CINDI suite, which was built under the direction Principal Investigator Rod Heelis of the University of Texas at Dallas, includes both ion and neutral sensors and makes measurements of the variations in neutral and ion densities and drifts.
CINDI and C/NOFS were designed to study disturbances in Earth’s ionosphere that can result in a disruption of navigation and communication signals. The ionosphere is a gaseous envelope of electrically charged particles that surrounds our planet and it is important because Radar, radio waves, and global positioning system signals can be disrupted by ionospheric disturbances.
CINDI’s first discovery was, however, that the ionosphere was not where it had been expected to be. During the first months of CINDI operations the transition between the ionosphere and space was found to be at about 260 miles (420 km) altitude during the nighttime, barely rising above 500 miles (800 km) during the day. These altitudes were extraordinarily low compared with the more typical values of 400 miles (640 km) during the nighttime and 600 miles (960 km) during the day.
(h/t to Dan Lee)
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This cannot happen. I read a story a few years back that said because of CO2, the upper atmosphere had heated and expanded to the point where low orbit satellites were slowing sown and would crash into the earth. Of course, the scientists needed huge grants to study the problem.
I’m sure a simple adjustment will fix this.
(the story was written during the last solar max, but that couldn’t have any effect)
Sorry for this being slightly off this particular topic, but has anyone gone to the trouble of recording a daily set of images from the NSIDC “daily” updates for Arctic Ice Extent? Thing is, I have been monitoring these daily, but not saving the images, and todays appears to me to be markedly different than that displayed yesterday, with the current year’s line deviating sharply and suddenly towards that of last year, and away from the 1979-2000 average. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that this involves more retrospective editing. Does anyone have an image capture from the 15th or 16th of December? If so, a link would be great, or else just confirmation of the edit.
This has absolutely no influence on the climate or weather or the exent of the weather sphere (troposphere) which extends to only about 10 miles (16Km). The sun is the major driver of the ionosphere and it’s quite normal for depletion at solar minimum. The effect has implications for some HF radio services but more extended D layer collapse also means that AM radio transmissions can propogate further into the daytime hours. However, the MUF or maximum usable frequency is determined by F1,2 and E layers and this will be subdued and below 14 Mhz at the moment. See this site for more information..
http://www.solarcycle24.com/
2008 AMONG THE TEN WARMEST YEARS; MARKED BY WEATHER EXTREMES AND SECOND-LOWEST LEVEL OF ARCTIC ICE COVER
Geneva, 16 December 2008 (WMO)
http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_835_en.html
Ed Scott (08:27:09) :
The big melt: 2 trillion tons of ice gone since ‘03…
Two trillion tons of glacier ice translates into 2000 km3 of ice which raises the ocean level by 6 millimeter in 6 years (2003 and 2008 included) or 1 mm per year. We know that ocean level raises by 3.3 mm per year in recent years, see
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_global.jpg and recent discussions in WUWT.
This is 1/3 of the total, a well known figure. I remember seeing it in the 2007 IPCC report as attributed to glacier ice melting. In Germany, numbers such as 100 km3 for annual (excess) Greenland glacier melt have been circulated, when chancellor Merkel visited Greenland this summer (Remember, who else did so?). Total Greenland glacier volume is 2 Million km3, total annual precipitation is approx. 1000 km3.
Another 1/3 of the raise is thermal expansion of oceans, among the rest changes in land use could be responsible, or fossile water pumping. 1200 km3 per year of ground water are pumped, mainly for irrigation, but it is not clear, how much is taken out of the ground for good, how much is replenished during rain seasons.
In addition, error bars on all above numbers are pretty large.
For the increase of methane in recent years, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Methane-global-average-2006.jpg
Where is the contribution of permafrost thawing during the last 10 years of excess arctic sea ice melt during the arctic summers?
Maybe, 2 quadrillion kilogram of ice sounds even better.
Or 1 quintillion glasses of whisky/whiskey could have been put on the rocks (2 grams of ice each)
MMmmm…I was wondering why Art Bell’s show was coming in clearer…
David L. – I though exactly the same thing… the decrease in the sun’s activity and the reduction of both the Heliosheath and the Ionisphere must help in creating more clouds… they must be correlated!
Steven H. (Not Hill) check this post
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/13/something-is-rotten-in-norway-500000-sq-km-of-sea-ice-disappears-overnight/
When I look at the ice chart Anthony has to the right of his blogs, I can see that there are other times when the ice extent slopes down for a short period then rises again. What is suspect is when all the lines for all the years do it at the same time of the year. These little bumps would be categorized as noise (IE random events) and shouldn’t occur at the same time from one year to the next. There is an area on the graph that looks odd to me in that the noise occurred on at least 3 line graphs at the same time of the year. But the little downturn at the end of 2008 doesn’t concern me much. A strong less cold wind or current, or both, can melt stuff and then go away as soon as it appeared, allowing ice to grow again. Wish it were blowing my way.
Steven H
I saw the same thing….suddenly it appears that we are losing ice with record cold going on.
Richard deSousa (09:46:49) :
“I’m still hoping Santa brings us a return of the Dalton Minimum…”
Noooooo… I’m too old for that!
DaveE.
I don’t think it was edited. I’ve seen that trend over the past couple of days. I did think it strange that the curve looks different than this one:
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic
Anecdotal evidence of global warming:
Here in Kansas, yesterday, it was 20F below normal, It was so cold that today at 5F below normal it feels positively warm.
Not so surprising from plasma physics POV. The bottom of the ionosphere is one part of a double layer, the other being the earth’s surface (?). The earth’s electric field is constrained within this DL (100 volts/meter vertical under quiescent conditions).
This double layer is powered by incoming electric currents, and if these decrease in power, the DL becomes smaller, and moves closer to the earth.
The sun’s heliopause has also decreased in diameter some 25% which, together with the lack of sunspot activity, suggests that the electric currents powering the solar system, have decreased in power.
So, lack of sunspots, smaller heliopause and earth’s ionosphere lower together suggests a decrease in electrical power.
It’s this input of electrical energy via the FTE’s which establishes the thermal state of the earth, and hence its surface.
Now if Anthony could figure a way to power his electric car from this enormous energy source……….
Ed Scott, the interesting part of this thoroughly alarmist piece from MSNBC is,
In the 1990s, Greenland didn’t add to world sea level rise;
So in the supposedly warmest decade on record when the “unprecedented” warming reached its peak, there was no net ice melt in Greenland.
Yet, post 2002, when we know temperatures have stopped rising and may well have fallen we suddenly get massive ice melt.
Something is seriously wrong with someone’s dataset. Or there is no relationship between ice melt and temperatures over decadal timescales (as unituitive as it sounds, it’s probably the latter).
Tom:
How about glollyjust. As in, gollyjust when you think Hansen has the answer….
Ed Scott–global sea ice is about “normal” right now.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
Move along nothing to see here.
Stephen H:
You are absolutely right. I saw the same thing much to my great surprise this morning.
What’s a little revisionist history?
“Study-Climate change may force skiers uphill”
I tried skiing uphill, but always ended up getting the lift instead. It’s jolly hard work, though safer.
Possibly related….a giant breech in the magnetosphere…
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/16dec_giantbreach.htm?list91627
“” Leif Svalgaard (11:03:03) :
pkatt (10:26:47) :
Warm things expand, Cool things contract.. hmmm dont suppose it could be explained that easily?
Yes, this is close to the correct explanation, at solar maximum the upper [way upper?] atmosphere heats up and expands. “”
Leif, I don’t have any recollection as to what extent the ionosphere is “ionised” but I would guess that it is still mostly neutral gaseous, and I imagine encounters with energetic particles or photons within the capture crossection, are rare rather than frequent.
So that would suggest that any electric or magnetic field confinement, that might apply to the ions, would have little effect on the bulk of the neutral gas.
So why wouldn’t that gas behave pretty much like an ideal gas under those circumstances. There’s enough interraction with the incoming solar radiation; at least by the oxygen, that ordinary heating would seem to require the expansion you describe.
Electric and magnetic fields may move the ions around, but you don’t need those effects (if any) to get the gas molecules to disperse under more heating from the sun.
George
Ok, bear with me, its been a long time since I had any thermodynamics education. Do most climate computer models have a component that deals with the dissipation of heat from the earth’s surface through the atmosphere and out into space? I am assuming they do. If so, then the thickness of the atmosphere should be a key variable in how fast that heat radiates from the surface to the top of the atmosphere and out into space. If science has been underestimating how much the atmosphere contracts in response to decreases in solar activity, then wouldn’t it make sense that the models would also underestimate how big of a factor that component is in the natural variability in the planet’s thermal balance?
I think it is simple lack of enough ions in the ionosphere. Radio communications which rely on an active ionosphere are in the pits. Now anyone want to put forth why there are fewer ions in the ionosphere? Big yellow ball on vacation?
“Yes, this is close to the correct explanation, at solar maximum the upper [way upper?] atmosphere heats up and expands.”
This is the way I understand it too. I seem to remember (it has been a while so bear with me) some time back when a spacecraft was using atmospheric braking to obtain the proper orbit around one of the planets (either Mars of Venus, I can’t remember which, it has been used at both) that the first couple of passes had to be very carefully planned. This was because, as it was explained, the upper reaches of the atmosphere vary in altitude with solar activity and they weren’t exactly sure where the edge was of the density profile as you got deeper in. If they accidentally got too deep into the atmosphere initially, the spacecraft would overheat or be damaged by excessive drag on the components. So they had to start with an orbit that they were sure was outside of the atmosphere and use small bursts of the chemical thrusters until they made contact and could measure the density and altitude. Then they could begin their process of using the upper atmosphere to brake the speed of the spacecraft and get it into the proper orbit.
I also recall it said concerning space station or space shuttle operations that during periods of solar maximum, the orbits needed to be adjusted higher to compensate for an atmosphere that expands due to greater solar excitation.
Ahh here we go:
So with the current minimum we are seeing, I can’t understand why they should be surprised that it has shrunk. I mean, if they knew it expanded during high solar activity and why it did so, why are they surprised that the opposite happens under the opposite conditions?