Earth's Ionosphere drops to a new low

George E. Smith (18:50:49) :
I have always enjoyed reading your posts but that one was a fantastic read and made enormous sense. Thank you for taking the time to share your thinking – I very much look forward to reading the Fred Singer paper.

ey Robert Cook PE,
So modern real ionosphere observations with satellite equipment are not equal to some log ship records? All derived from 250,000-year intervals, of course based on the study of lava flows and old ship’s records. And some how this sounds rational to you?
Well, Indiana Jones would be proud of you, or maybe Jack Sparrow and the pirates of the Caribbean.
Psst… The secret….non of this data existed before April 2008,
So my bad, don’t let me disturb your witch doctor “rolling of the bones” with my/our ….of course, reality.
Is the world getting colder or warmer? Go Ask A Dinosaur.
Oh Sheit, I was just informed.
it was the farts what killed them , silent but deadly dinosaur farts….yeah riight! lol?!
Love this site, lurked for a long while. 🙂

George E. Smith (18:50:49)
Try running cold water through your car’s radiator and see how ineffective it is at cooling your engine; that’s why it is pressurized to raise the water temperature.
Cold water is VERY effective at cooling your car’s engine, which is why the thermostat remains closed limiting the amount of cold water getting to said engine until operating temperature is attained.
The reasons the cooling system is pressurised are:
1) it raises the boiling point of the coolant, allowing the engine to run hotter, (more efficiently).
2) it prevents coolant from vaporising & leaving you without coolant.
DaveE

Just another inconvenient, (inconsequential/sarc) parameter not in the climate computer (Playstation/sarc) models. George E. Smith, thank you for your elucidation.

Ric Werme,
The change in heat balance must come first. There is no other force that would change the weather patterns. Weather patterns in themselves drive nothing but they are the mechanism by which a change in energy balance from other causes is translated into a rise or fall of atmospheric temperatures.
Anything that affects the weather patterns has to operate via a change in the energy balance of the planet.
The net influenvce of the oceanic oscillations can change the energy balance and so can changes in solar input. The weather patterns then follow.
IF human CO2 could have a big enough effect on the global energy balance then it would do the same but as far as I can see the effect of such CO2 is miniscule compared to sun and oceans.

For Steven Wilde,
I am not dismissive of the global circulations, which evidently link to all these various “oscillations”, as in ENSO, PDO, AMO etc; and I plead total ignorance of those processes since I am not a climatologist, and I would rather leave that science to those who are schooled in those crafts.
so I realize that there are powerful influences, that determine how much total rainfall Australia is going to get, or whether Europe is going to freeze or have a heat wave. To me that is local climate, and is clearly a very complex subject.
My interest ( and Physics background) are focussed on the general question of the total energy balance of the planet, and how that relates to the various solar linkages, and also the thermal processes that go on on earth.
To me, the whole concept of a “global mean temperature”, as represented by GISStemp et al, is completely without any scientific validity whatsoever.
Ultimately, energy loss from earth is a radiative process; well a whole gamut of radiation processes from various parts of the system, and that generally must follow something like a 4th power of temperature law as in BB radiation, so already an average temperature is meaningless, since the fourth power of an average temperature is always less than the average of the fourth power of temperatures; so a global mean temperature, underestimates the total radiative cooling.
When it comes to the interception effects of GHGs such as CO2, then it is more important to consider, not the total Stefan-Boltzmann radiation; but the Wien displaced peak spectral radiance; which goes as the fifth power of the temperature; not the fourth, and the peak wavelength shifts to shorter wavelengths at higher temperatures, while the wavelength of the CO2 absorption band does not (to any great extent).
So the hottest places on earth; the tropical deserts in the noonday sun, are not only radiating at the highest rate (fastest cooling) but the peak of that radiation is further removed from the CO2 absorption band so those locations are less affected by CO2; whereas in the very coldest places, where the total radiant emittance is down by over an order of magnitude, the wien shift put the spectral peak of the IR right on the CO2 band; which is part of the reason why GHG warming is more effective in the polar regions.
But finally, the thermal processes that go on over different terrains are totally different so there is NO simple relationship between local temperature and local energy flows. The interractions of radiation, conduction, convection, and evaporation, lead to totally differnt thermal behavior in different locations.
So “mean global temperature” has absolutley no more scientific validity (or meaning) than say an enumeration of the average number of “animals” per hectare over the earth; taking animal as meaning any critter of ant size or larger.
You might as well average all the telephone numbers in your local phone book to get a mean telephone number for your city. Unless it is YOUR phone numbert it is of no value or interest to anybody.
Which is why I claim, that Dr James Hansen’s GISStemp anomaly graph, monitors GISStemp anomaly; (whatever that is), and nothing else of any scientific importance.
And it most certainly is NOT the average temperature of this planet by any means or even of the surface of this planet; because his entire sampling regimen violates the basic laws of sampled data systems so badly, that even a true average of the function he thinks he is measuring; is theoretically not recoverable from his data.
And as Anthony has been demonstrating to us; much of that data is garbage anyway.
I have very little concern about how accurate any of these GCM climate models are; because I already know that the very data that goes into them is complete rubbish.
In January 2001 , Geophysical Letters or somesuch journal, there was a report on about 20 years of ocean bouy studies that simultaneously monitored air temperatures 3 metres above the ocean, and water temperatures one metre below the surface. the result showed that temperature increase ove rthat 20 years had been exaggerated by about 40% based on the fact that tempertaures of ocean water had been used up to that point.
That doesn’t mean that a simple 60% warming factor needed to be applied to the previous 100 years of temperature data over the oceans. The important discovery was that the water and air temperatures were not correlated; why would you expect them to be with wind speeds much different from ocean currents. Nothing like equilibrium could ever be established.
The lack of correlation means that 100 years of faulty ocean data obtained from measuring water temperature cannot be resurrected to exchange for lower troposphere temperatures, and that means that 73% of the earth’s surface has no believeable temperature history data.
So garbage in , garbage out, and that’s about what GISStemp is.

Eureka.. I have my primer!!!
I have been looking for a way to correlate siesmonic/ volcanic behaviors, solar minimums.. this is it.. for those who will look.. you will see.. historical trends for midplate quakes/ volcanic events, solar dead phases / global cooling. this magnetic bubble effects individual plates. it is part of a cycle.

George E Smith, while you make a number of errors, for example it’s cooler under a thunderstorm because of evaporative cooling caused by the rain, you are on the right track.
A couple of other things to consider.
It’s a common misconception that increased evaporation results in increased cloud. While this is true in high humidity areas, it’s often not true in low humidity areas.
Where I live in Perth, Australia, we often have clear air humidity. The air near to the ground is humid and there is a potent greenhouse effect and consequently much hotter, but no cloud, because the air further up isn’t humid and convection doesn’t produce clouds.
This matters because because over the last 50 years there has been a huge increase in irrigation and this has made clear air, near ground humidity more common. It also occurs naturally after rain in summer.
I also think you are under-estimating the impact of snow/ice albedo. In many areas, particularly mountainous areas, you get quite high levels of solar insolation on snow/ice. Anything that effects snow/ice albedo, eg dust/soot will impact temperatures, and more importantly produce a longer term feedback (less snow = less albedo = warmer temps = less snow).
Otherwise, I agree with you that the water vapour to liquid – clouds and then rain – phase change dominates the earth’s climate, and only things that effect the phase change will significantly impact climate, ie Svenmark’s galactic radiation, dust and some gases/ions.
And to answer your question,
And why that is so blessed hard for climate scientists to grasp is quite beyond my ken.
Most scientists are not theoreticians. In particular, for a number of reasons, including social/professional pressure, they do not question the main paradigms (theories) underlying their disciplines. The Forcings Model underlies almost all of climate science. Few climate scientists publically question it. Read Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

“” Philip_B (14:02:25) :
“George E Smith, while you make a number of errors, for example it’s cooler under a thunderstorm because of evaporative cooling caused by the rain, you are on the right track.”
Phillip, I was referring to the very simple fact, that under a thunderstorm, whether it is raining or not, it is VERY dark; ergo there is very little sunshine reaching the ground; and that can be observed even inside a house where the cold air associated with storms doesn’t reach but normal sunlight surely does. Evidently my command of the English language is somewhat lacking. No cloud; sun hits ground. cloud passes in front of sun; LESS sunlight reaches ground.
“A couple of other things to consider.”
“It’s a common misconception that increased evaporation results in increased cloud. While this is true in high humidity areas, it’s often not true in low humidity areas.”
I refer you to Wentz et al, SCIENCE July 2007 “How much More Rain will global Warming Bring”
They show from satellite measurments that a one degree C increase in GLOBAL SURFACE MEAN TEMPERATURE results in a 7% increase in GLOBAL TOTAL EVAPORATION, and a 7% increase in TOTAL GLOBAL ATMOSPHERIC WATER, and a 7% increase in TOTAL GLOBAL PRECIPITATION. That is measured real observation satellite data. The GCM models agree with the 7% evaporation and total atmospheric water, but claim the TOTAL GLOBAL PRECIPITATION is only 1-3%, not 7% which is actually observed.
If total global precipitation does not equal total global precipitation, then we end up with the oceans over our heads; they have to be equal (over the long haul), and the measured data says they are. I agree that the Monsoon rains of India do not originate over dry areas of India; the water comes from somewhere else; like the Indian Ocean.
I apologise for forgetting that Kosciusco hill sometimes gets snow.
The total amount of snow/ice outside of the polar circles is rather negligible (other than Greenland) Some people think that the reason there is so much ice and snow in the polar regions is that very little sunshine ever reaches there to stop it from snowing, or to melt the snow that is there.
So I stand by my statement that snow/ice reflection doesn’t contribute much to albedo. The record (since the dawn of history in 1979) arctic sea ice meltback of 2007 summer, evidently caused the mother of all lake effect snow storms that has now blanketed all that land in the north with record snow levels. There is actually more land north of +60 degrees latitude (the Arctic), than there is south of -60 degrees latitude (the Antarctic).
“Where I live in Perth, Australia, we often have clear air humidity. The air near to the ground is humid and there is a potent greenhouse effect and consequently much hotter, but no cloud, because the air further up isn’t humid and convection doesn’t produce clouds.”
I don’t doubt the humid conditions of Perth (don’t get a lot of snow there); but my comments are related to the global totality, not to localised climate effects; which as I explained I have no expertise in; so I leave that to those who do. My interest is very simply the question of whether the total solar input of energy to earth is greater than or less than the total outgoing long wavelength IR radiation that is the ONLY means of planet earth cooling (maybe we lose a few molecules occasionally).
To me the question of local climate is somewhat irrelevent; the temperature will be somewhere between -90C and +60 C, measured on the ground, no matter where you go on earth (surface), and somehow humans have adapted to deal with that whole range, and I don’t see any sudden flooding of New York because it changes 0.5 deg F somewhere; or even everywhere.
“This matters because because over the last 50 years there has been a huge increase in irrigation and this has made clear air, near ground humidity more common. It also occurs naturally after rain in summer.”
“I also think you are under-estimating the impact of snow/ice albedo. In many areas, particularly mountainous areas, you get quite high levels of solar insolation on snow/ice. Anything that effects snow/ice albedo, eg dust/soot will impact temperatures, and more importantly produce a longer term feedback (less snow = less albedo = warmer temps = less snow). ”
Well I already dealt with that; most of the ice and snow is in places where there isn’t much sunlight. Dust of course can nucleate rain drops and cause more clouds to cool things; happens every time there is a major volcano
Otherwise, I agree with you that the water vapour to liquid – clouds and then rain – phase change dominates the earth’s climate, and only things that effect the phase change will significantly impact climate, ie Svenmark’s galactic radiation, dust and some gases/ions.
And to answer your question,
And why that is so blessed hard for climate scientists to grasp is quite beyond my ken.
“Most scientists are not theoreticians. In particular, for a number of reasons, including social/professional pressure, they do not question the main paradigms (theories) underlying their disciplines. The Forcings Model underlies almost all of climate science. Few climate scientists publically question it. Read Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.”
Well I always thought the aim of science theory was to define the properties of a model which accurately mimics the real universe. We are very intolerant of models which behave differently from the real universe. Einstein’s gravity replaced Newton’s gravity (for serious work) all because of a lousy 34 seconds of arc per century error in the precession of the perihelion of Mercury from Newton, which Einsten completely removed.
Conside r the official NOAA energy budget graph which models standard climate forcing theory.
The sun illuminates a spot on earth with 342 W/m^2, which the atmosphere reduces to a ground level of 168 W/m^2. That tends to raise the temperature of that spot. The spot is connected to the rest of the ground through some thermal resistance, and also to the atmosphere by some higher thermal resistance; those being reasonably linear parameters so the 168 watts bleeds off to the rest of the environment according to a linear sort of Ohm’s law thermal calculation which determines the temperature elevation of the spot.
Unfortunately, as a result of that spot temperature, it also radiates at roughly a T^4 rate, so less of the incoming energy is available to conduct to the ground/atmosphere, so the temperature rise is actually less than the Ohm’s law calculation. So we have a certain fraction of the energy re-radiated as IR and the rest transported to the rest of the planet (stored).
That’s the official NOAA budget model. So now to the real world.
The REAL sun illuminates the spot at 1368 W/m^2; four times what NOAA claims, and the atmosphere reduces that down to 672 W/m^2 at the ground also 4 times what NOAA claims.
Sans radiation that spot would reach four times the temperature elevation claimed by NOAA model; but the raidation from that higher temperature increases as T^4, so the radiation grows very much larger in the real case, than the NOAA case, and as a result the energy transported linear with temperature differential to the rest of the planet, is MUCH LESS than what the NOAA fictional model predicts.
The result is the real world cools very much faster than the NOAA budget model suggests; so the NOAA model underestimates the global cooling rate, and hence overestimates the global surface temperature necessary to maintain energy balance.
The earth does most of its cooling in the glare of the noonday sun when ground temperatures are at their highest. The cooling rate for the coolest spots on earth is more than 12 times less that for the hottest spots, and over six times less than what is predicted from the isothermal global mean temperature forcing model.
I don’t really care what motivates most climatologists to not question what they evidently are taught; but at least it should bother them, that the models don’t behave even vaguely like the real world does. the whole idea of science theory is to describe the exactly predictable behaviour of a fictional model, whose properties have been defined so that the model mimics the real oveserved system, that we can measure the real bahaviour of.
If the measured data says the real world does “this”, and the fictional model analysis says the model does “that”; which is significantly different from “this”, then the model is no good and must be discarded (or rebuilt so it mimics reality more closely.)
In any case, my pictographs are just skin and bone images; they clearly need real flesh added to them by people who know what the real world data is; and certainly I welcome argument as to why my images are untenable. That is how I learn too.

George E. Smith (17:58:19) said:
The REAL sun illuminates the spot at 1368 W/m^2; four times what NOAA claims, and the atmosphere reduces that down to 672 W/m^2 at the ground also 4 times what NOAA claims.
The number you cite for the REAL sun illumination (1368 W/m^2) is what hits the equator, at noon. It decreases towards the poles (because of the lower relative angle of the suns rays) and is zero on the night side of the earth. The total illumination hitting the earth is 1368 multiplied by the surface area of a circle with the radius of the earth.
The number NOAA gives is that total illumination, divided by the the entire surface area of the earth.
The surface area of a sphere is 4 pi r^2. The area of a circle is pi r^2. That is why the “real” numbers you cite are 4 times the NOAA numbers.

It is a very interesting blog! I guess this matter could have some interest if we look to the Global Electric Circuit and the Tisley’s work. What climate consequences do we have with a less charged ionosphere on GEC and on cloud formation? It could be a not so obvious answer…