From NASA News. New measurements from a NASA satellite show a dramatic cooling in the upper atmosphere that correlates with the declining phase of the current solar cycle. For the first time, researchers can show a timely link between the Sun and the climate of Earth’s thermosphere, the region above 100 km, an essential step in making accurate predictions of climate change in the high atmosphere.
Scientists from NASA’s Langley Research Center and Hampton University in Hampton, Va., and the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., presented these results at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco from Dec. 14 to 18.
Earth’s thermosphere and mesosphere have been the least explored regions of the atmosphere. The NASA Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) mission was developed to explore the Earth’s atmosphere above 60 km altitude and was launched in December 2001. One of four instruments on the TIMED mission, the Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER) instrument, was specifically designed to measure the energy budget of the mesosphere and lower thermosphere. The SABER dataset now covers eight years of data and has already provided some basic insight into the heat budget of the thermosphere on a variety of timescales.
The extent of current solar minimum conditions has created a unique situation for recent SABER datasets, explains Stan Solomon, acting director of the High Altitude Observatory, National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. The end of solar cycle 23 has offered an opportunity to study the radiative cooling in the thermosphere under exceptionally quiescent conditions.
“The Sun is in a very unusual period,” said Marty Mlynczak, SABER associate principal investigator and senior research scientist at NASA Langley. “The Earth’s thermosphere is responding remarkably — up to an order of magnitude decrease in infrared emission/radiative cooling by some molecules.”
The TIMED measurements show a decrease in the amount of ultraviolet radiation emitted by the Sun. In addition, the amount of infrared radiation emitted from the upper atmosphere by nitric oxide molecules has decreased by nearly a factor of 10 since early 2002. These observations imply that the upper atmosphere has cooled substantially since then. The research team expects the atmosphere to heat up again as solar activity starts to pick up in the next year.
While this warming has no implications for climate change in the troposphere, a fundamental prediction of climate change theory is that the upper atmosphere will cool in response to increasing carbon dioxide. As the atmosphere cools the density will decrease, which ultimately may impact satellite operations through decreased drag over time.
The SABER dataset is the first global, long-term, and continuous record of the
Nitric oxide (NO) and Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the thermosphere.
“We suggest that the dataset of radiative cooling of the thermosphere by NO and CO2 constitutes a first climate data record for the thermosphere,” says Mlynczak.
The TIMED data provide a climate record for validation of upper atmosphere climate models, which is an essential step in making accurate predictions of climate change in the high atmosphere. SABER provides the first long-term measurements of natural variability in key terms of the upper atmosphere climate.
“A fundamental prediction of climate change theory is that upper atmosphere will cool in response to greenhouse gases in the troposphere,” says Mlynczak. “Scientists need to validate that theory. This climate record of the upper atmosphere is our first chance to have the other side of the equation.”
James Russell III, SABER principal investigator and co-director of the Center for Atmospheric Sciences at Hampton University in Hampton, Va., agrees adding, “The atmosphere is a coupled system. If you pick up one end of the stick, you automatically pick up the other – they’re intrinsically linked. To be as accurate as possible, scientists have to understand global change throughout the atmosphere.”
As the TIMED mission continues, these data derived from SABER will become important in assessing long term atmospheric changes due to the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
TIMED is the first mission in the Solar Terrestrial Probes Program within the Heliophysics Division in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
TIMED is the terrestrial anchor of the Heliophysics Great Observatory. Learn more of TIMED’s Heliophysics contributions and its role as a bridge to Earth science missions. Link to lessons learned in terrestrial aeronomy.
Please forgive the lackof proper terminology, I am far from a physical science major. I see a more than tripling of the watts/m(3)x10(-8) scale in the NO band at the 140 KM altitude when the sun is active. On the CO2 data, while the magnitude is not the same, the shift toward a cooler band is unmistakeable, especially at about the 112 KM altitude.
To me, it makes more sense that this might be an effect of the decrease in the sun’s magnetic activity, thereby lowering the “strength” or “power” of the solar wind. And, in turn, allowing the entry of more cosmic rays, which,if Svensmark et. al. are correct, should increase low level cloud formation, thus cooling the lower atmosphere. Somewhere in all this are the negative feedback systems, such as water vapor, which according to Spencer and others, the CRUtape Letter crowd seems to have conveniently ignored. So my question is, why is it that the “upper atmosphere will cool in response to greenhouse gases in the troposphere”?
Somehow I am lost, first an order of magnitude cooling due to the sun at minimum then an expectation of CO2 cooling due to climate change theory.
Damn!
I had to read this twice to make sure I wasn’t suffering the aftereffects of too many Christmas drinks.
It starts off speaking in the language of science of lessened solar activity and its impact on the upper atmosphere. The tale then shifts into the religious mantra of AGW and how greenhouse gases cool the upper atmosphere.
perhaps the headline should be
” our quiet sun is not heating the upper….”
and by the way…did it ever??
wasn’t it a theory of co2 adsorption that there should be a cooling upper atmosphere??
NASA:”While this warming has no implications for climate change in the troposphere, a fundamental prediction of climate change theory is that the upper atmosphere will cool in response to increasing carbon dioxide.”
and then,
“The TIMED measurements show a decrease in the amount of ultraviolet radiation emitted by the Sun. In addition, the amount of infrared radiation emitted from the upper atmosphere by nitric oxide molecules has decreased by nearly a factor of 10 since early 2002. These observations imply that the upper atmosphere has cooled substantially since then. The research team expects the atmosphere to heat up again as solar activity starts to pick up in the next year.”
To conclude – climate models predict cooling of the upper atmosphere as a consequence of the warming of the lower atmosphere. Since 2002 we have both cooling in the lower and in the upper atmosphere that correlates well with the measured decrease in solar activity. And this proves – what? That models are wrong? Oh, no.
I don’t see the point in posting their announcements. Always when I see some NASA announcement suggesting some, however loose, link between the Sun’s activity and the temperature I just start counting paragraphs until the caveat appears that “this does not disprove anthropogenic global warming”. It becomes frustrating in its predictability.
A sunspot group has rapidly appeared today from a previously blank region.
Anotherford,
The article does imply the cooling could be from CO2. But it also sets the stage to destroy the AGW theory around CO2. If the cooling is CO2 driven, then when the Sun’s activity rises again there should be no warming (radiative cooling) in these upper layers of the atmosphere. For AGW to be truly the larger driver over the solar output, then we should not see the atmosphere radiating heat as the Sun’s output increases.
Which of course it will.
Actually, a careful reading of the article will show that they present no results in regards to CO2. At the point the article talks about CO2, it’s mentioning the primary reason for the mission in the first place. Which makes sense, there’s a feast of funding for alarmist research and crumbs for practically anything else.
Nowhere in the article did the researchers mention that they had further confirmed alarmist theory. However, they were quite specific in regards to the sun.
They should have just left it at the Sun’s activity correlates to the temperature and not got into trying to boost the AGW nonsense with illogical statements. It only took moments for a couple of posters to point out that the temperature has not changed since this satellite record started and hence there’s no way this supports AGW.
This only makes NASA look political and foolish.
richb313 (05:18:19) :
Is this sentence correct?
“As the atmosphere cools the density will decrease, which ultimately may impact satellite operations through decreased drag over time.”
Shouldn’t the density increase and as a result the drag increase?
It is correct. Look at it this way: A given satellite orbits at a certain height. As the atmosphere cools it contracts and the density at the height of that satellite decreases as more atmosphere is now below the satellite, and therefore the drag decreases.
pyromancer76 (06:48:53) :
And Stan Solomon of Colorado, “acting director” — is he a pseudo-scientist? How about Marty Mlynczak? Is he a brainwashed “assoc. principle investigator”?
I can vouch for Stan and Marty.
“Al Gore’s Holy Hologram (07:29:11) :
Michael Crichton vindicated.”
Thanks for the link. He say he went to Germany in 2005 – “very hostile environment”… That takes guts, going to the Greens heartland and confronting them with facts that contradict their worldview.
And he says “If global warming were a company, you couldn’t buy it – they won’t let you do due diligence.” Great quote.
First they say one thing, then another (contradictory) thing. Which is it?
Galen Haugh (07:41:31)
Generally, as things get colder they contract (density INCREASES); as they warm up they expand==it’s called a positive coefficient of thermal expansion
That is absolutely true!. PV=nRT. Then they are simply LYING. It´s once again the same business! and it is not that they don´t know what density is, it´s that they have to lie to live (which seems to be the current status of scientific research now).
“As the atmosphere cools the density will decrease” – I don’t understand this anomalous expansion of the atmosphere….
Now that other comments have appeared, it is reassuring that others are having problems with this.
I just watched a video on “Tips and Notes to WUWT”, “Cosmic Rays and Climate. Part V: Cosmoclimatology” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9zjYCjdjbg&feature=player_embedded). At the end is this quote from Henrik Svensmark:
I’ll take that over NASA’s politically driven press releases anyday.
I get it, CO2 blocks radiation from re-radiating to space, so the atmospheric layers further away are presumed to cool. But the thermosphere is cooling because of reduced solar output, according to NASA’s own article. What exactly are they trying to say here? It is very muddled.
Also, if the thermosphere cools, why would more heat not leave through convection? If the system is looking to stay in equilibrium, would it not force heat out through convection?
Dr Svalgaard – I for one, am happy to see you posting here. Inane comments will always crop up, but people with your standing and credentials are too few and far between. Please say you’ll be coming back?
Leif Svalgaard (08:51:34) : (in response to richb313 (05:18:19) : “Is this sentence correct? – As the atmosphere cools the density will decrease, which ultimately may impact satellite operations through decreased drag over time. – Shouldn’t the density increase and as a result the drag increase?”
(Leif): “It is correct. Look at it this way: A given satellite orbits at a certain height. As the atmosphere cools it contracts and the density at the height of that satellite decreases as more atmosphere is now below the satellite, and therefore the drag decreases.”
Thanks Dr for clearing that up, why couldn’t they have just said it that way in the first place?
To me it looks as the variation on UV radiation and variation in the solar wind excite the molecules in the upper atmosphere.
Question?
Is there enough energy in the solar wind so that this can cause the observed variation in temperature of the upper atmosphere?
Has anyone made calculation on this?
It is remarkable that this short record would lead to such generalizations: what is the frequency of the phenomenon? In 30 y time this data will likely have something to tell…
I still don’t get it. I read every comment hoping someone would explain it better.
So maybe the upper atmosphere cools in response to a few extra ppm in GHG grabbing heat, staying low and heavy and not letting go of it when it would otherwise spread upward?
Seems to me there’s an infinite amount of cold out there. But then again, my furnace is broken this week.
Is the paradoxymoron in the article or is it just me?
AJStrata (08:36:40) : ” But it also sets the stage to destroy the AGW theory around CO2. If the cooling is CO2 driven, then when the Sun’s activity rises again there should be no warming (radiative cooling) in these upper layers of the atmosphere. For AGW to be truly the larger driver over the solar output, then we should not see the atmosphere radiating heat as the Sun’s output increases.”
So, as LW is radiated away from the surface of the Earth and makes it’s way out of the atmosphere some of it gets absorbed and reradiated in all directions by the CO2 and other trace “greenhouse gases” (excluding water vapor for now), the actual amount of LW reaching the upper atmosphere will be less as CO2 absorbtion increases and the upper atmosphere will be cooler without any regard to solar activiity. Is that correct? If so, then your statement could truly be a real life test for that expectation.
Free the data! NASA, release all data, adjustments and code within 20 days in response to any and all FOIA requests. Stop the propaganda. Let the people have the information they have been paying so dearly for…
Thanks for that clarification on the density question Leif. So if I’m now understanding the big picture of the AGW model correctly, it is heavily focused on the CO2 molecule quantity, vertical distribution in the atmosphere, energy absorption and radiation characteristics, etc. This seems like a reasonable thing to study but shouldn’t our intuition lead us to a first assumption that CO2 is a minor player in the climate system? With the availability of all this new satellite data I would expect all legitimate climate scientists to now say the science is NOT settled and more research is needed.