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.
The thermosphere and mesosphere are way above the troposphere. See …
http://www.ucsd.tv/moleculesforthemedia/lesson_atmosphere_study.shtml
These are the parts of the atmosphere discussed in the article. My take on it (as a layman) is that these layers don’t much come into play in AGW.
It looks like the lapse rate is in effect in the troposphere. You can see the temp steadily decrease from the surface to the bottom of the stratosphere. So, to me, it looks like this article does not matter to climate science much. The upper-most layers of the atmosphere are very tenuous and can’t hold much heat energy (internal energy for you physicist types 🙂 , so unless there is some radiative mechanism, I don’t see that it matters.
If anyone can correct me if I’m wrong or just give a good explanation of the layers of the atmosphere, I would be grateful.
Jim (12:28:03) :
If anyone can correct me if I’m wrong or just give a good explanation of the layers of the atmosphere, I would be grateful.
You are quite correct in your explanation.
“A fundamental prediction of climate change theory is that upper atmosphere
will cool in response to greenhouse gases in the troposphere,” says Mlynczak
This seems like it would only be true if there is also heating of the troposphere. Greenhouse gases would provide a “blanket” between space and the surface of the earth. If that “blanket” is missing altogether (no atmosphere) , the planet becomes a black object radiating into space. The thicker that “blanket”, the greater the temperature differential, but it’s going to heat both sides of the “blanket”.
Leif Svalgaard (10:15:27): Yes there is, but take note that UPPER means from 100 km on up, where the atmosphere is so thin [millions to billions times thinner than at the surface] that the actual amount of heat is minute, and it has no significant impact on the troposphere where we live.
Indeed. Perhaps the most useful science and engineering skill I learned in my physics studies is the ability to judge what is significant and what is insignificant? In order to decide, we need to acknowledge that it’s not possible to do such approximations without any insight into the phenomenon a hand – what is large and what is small in this case? Journalists, lawyers and politicians make notoriously poor approximations in physics.
While the present study certainly is interesting, remember that the ocean has 700 times more thermal mass than the atmosphere – focusing on the 100 km on up seems quite out of focus in other to explain climate variations. ARGO ocean data seems more useful. Also the last 300 years the TSI has been constant equal 1366 ± 0.5 W/m². Possibly understanding natural ocean oscillations with varying periods from a couple of years (El Niño and La Niña) to decades (AMO and PDO) and maybe even centuries is more important?
Right. The slight change on CO2 since 2002 is responsible for the dramatic change in emitted energy shown in the plots. GMAFB.
Q) So if the sun ramps up and the upper atmosphere warms up while manmade Co2 continues its upward trend then AGW is falsified?
Or are they saying the quiet Sun has caused cooling in the upper atmosphere while at the same time AGW’s C02 also causes cooling in the upper atmosphere? If so which is the greater and by how much?
We have seen this kind of press release / paper before. Its called contradict AGW then give a nod and pay homage to AGW.
These guys are painting themselves into a corner and I love it. :o)
“”” 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?
Thanks “””
I believe if you read the story carefully you will see that as the upper atmospher cools, those gas molecules descend to lower altitudes, and that results in less material left at the higher altitudes; which si where the satellite orbits will be, so the drag will be less because there is less material in molecular form where the satellites live. Just think about it; if it wasn’t for molecular heating, all the molecules would crash onto the surface off the earth.
So they have it correct. Hams and others that foolow the diurnal behavior of the ionospheric layers, are familiar with the effect.
Leif Svalgaard (12:38:03) :
What about convection? If the lower atmosphere is warm, and the upper atmosphere cool, wouldn’t the lower convect more heat to the upper?
Leif Svalgaard (10:15:27) :
Yes there is, but take note that UPPER means from 100 km on up, where the atmosphere is so thin……….
At 100km height (known as Karman line) atmospheric pressure
is approx. 3E-7 (?). If solar wind temperature is 100,000K or 1E5 K, and assume that all air molecules at this altitude are heated to the same temperature, and all this was than radiated inwards (but in practice would be less than half) and absorbed by rest of atmosphere than contribution to the global temperatures would be:
3E-7 x 1E5 = 3E-2, or 0.03 degree C, i.e. negligible.
I hope someone can better on this?
The statement that the cooling will cause lower not higher density at the upper atmosphere is correct if you understand how it all works. At first the cooling will increase the density of th air but the air due to its higher mass per volume will fall down due to gravity. This results in the air being pulled closer to the ground. Imgine if the air suddenly turned into lead. It would quickly fall to the ground.
As for cooling, this is not news. Upper atmospheric measurements of air temperature by satellites over the past few years have shown cooling. In fact ever since the satellites were put there, the temperature has been falling. It’s just that the cooling has accelerated of late. Will be interesting to see if this trend continues what impact it will have on the surface air temperature. There are two competing forces initially. One, the “falling” air will increase the pressure at the surface which leads to warming. However, the air is much cooler to begin with so the “falling” colder air should cool the surface air. Not sure if anyone can really work out the net effect given there are many other factors involved, such as convection, evaporation of water from the oceans, etc., etc.; in other words it’s back to the climate model issue. We simply do not have a good enough understanding of how the climate works loet alone the computing power to make the necessary calculations. The only thing we cna do is wait and see, and measure the temperature, hopefully without tampering form the usual suspects.
I’m confused. How could these upper atmospheric temperature changes have “no implications for climate change in the troposphere,” if this is a “coupled system” that’s “intrinsically linked”? Since when do CO2 molecules radiate in only one direction?
I read this as an indication that the blanket has shrunk.
With a more rarified upper atmosphere, there is less C02 and NO to intercept and slow down the escaping energy at night. During the day, there is less output in IR and UV to strike the Earth. There is at least less distance to travel for outgoing to escape.
Question is: Which factor exceeds the other?
The last 10 years of global temps (raw rural measurement) seem to imply that the amount of incoming is less than the outgoing.
Is it?
Jim (12:28:03) :
> The thermosphere and mesosphere are way above the troposphere. See …
> http://www.ucsd.tv/moleculesforthemedia/lesson_atmosphere_study.shtml
This has an image, http://www.ucsd.tv/moleculesforthemedia/images/thermosphere.gif , which is think has a mjor flaw. It shows the temperature declining through the tropopause, which is very wrong. (Well, at the very least the decline becomes less than the dry adiabatic lapse rate).
> If anyone can correct me if I’m wrong or just give a good explanation of the layers of the atmosphere, I would be grateful.
As Leif said, you have the right idea.
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/earth/Atmosphere/layers.html&edu=high has links to better images. (The Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced buttons don’t seem to do anything worthwhile.)
It also mentions the ionosphere, which near as I can tell got kicked out in favor of the term “Thermosphere” and the stack becomes oriented around temperature changes and the different sources of heating. (The stratosphere heats up thanks to ozone absorbing UV, the thermosphere heats thanks to solar wind and magnetic effects.)
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/atmos/layers.htm has better text. It has a little on the ionosphere, but very little. (Hey, it’s a NWS site, not ARRL.)
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/atmosphere/q0090.shtml shows approximate air pressures with the various layers.
But, didn’t the AGW theory predict that the cooling in the upper atmosphere was to be confined to the tropics? So, if the solar minimum induced thinning/cooling is global, then AGW has failed it’s test, and should proceed directly to trash can, do not pass GO, do not collect $200x grant funding.
That’s funny. A Warmer on another site told me that AGW theory had predicted the cooling of the upper atmosphere. So it can’t be the sun, has to be CO2.
Whilst acknowledging Leif’s correct assertion that the topmost layers of the upper atmosphere are exceedingly tenuous I cannot accept that there are no implications for the lower layers which become steadily denser as one descends.
Something I learned here is that once one gets past the tropopause the layers are stratified and very stable so all energy loss from stratosphere upwards is radiative.
What we have from the top of the stratosphere upwards is a series of layers each with a boundary layer between it and the next layer up.
My proposition is that if those boundary layers are stable then the surface area of each boundary layer is minimised and the upward radiative energy loss is reduced.
If they are unstable then the surface area of each boundary layer increases and upward radiative energy loss increases.
We see the same sort of phenomenon with wind causing waves on the surface of water which increases sea surface area and so increases energy loss from sea to air via a variety of mechanisms including upward radiation, convection and evaporation.
Evaporation and convection certainly doesn’t get involved from the stratosphere upwards but radiation most certainly does.
So I suggest that during a period of an active sun the disturbances introduced into the topmost layers of the atmosphere could well affect all the boundary layers down to the top of the stratosphere thus increasing surface area at each boundary and accelerating radiative energy loss to space.
We currently seem to have a quieter sun allowing a more stable stratification throughout the upper layers of the atmosphere so the topmost layer appears to cool as a result of a slower rate of radiative energy transfer from below.
At the same time the stratosphere is warming a little and started doing so in the mid 90’s. That is also consistent with a slower rate of radiative energy transfer upwards to space.
In the troposphere the primary method of upward energy transfer is convective which is reflected in the speed of the hydrological cycle and that is governed not by the state of the sun but by the rate of energy release from the oceans.
In effect the stratosphere is a buffer between the two systems of energy transfer and will vary in temperature from both solar variability and oceanic variability with the temperature of the troposphere merely going along for the ride being sandwiched as it is between the rate of energy release from the oceans and the speed at which upward radiative energy transfer can occur from the stratosphere upwards.
Consequently that is why the phasing of solar and ocean cycles is so important.
They can either be timed so as to offset one another and reduce climate variability as during an interglacial or they can be timed so as to supplement one another producing the huge climate swings of glacial epochs.
Unless someone can see a fatal flaw in the above hypothesis.
Dave F (13:19:52) :
What about convection?
convection stops in the stratosphere.
Further to my above post, on reflection, it may not even be necessary to invoke disturbances caused by solar activity to increase the surface area at each boundary. The simple expansion and contraction of the entire atmosphere (which we do observe) would be sufficient to increase the surface areas sufficiently to significantly alter the rate of energy loss to space.
I think that if we are to see any type of relationship between the sun and climate we need to look at the ionosphere and tropical thunderstorm zone connection.
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/09/14_weather.shtml
Speculation;
This connection may have to do with large Earth directed flares and CMEs interacting to influence cloud cover over the tropical thunderstorm zones. CMEs and flares that are large enough (X-type and C+ ) to interact with the these zones create RF and then may cause more or less cloud cover. A small amount of energy causing a larger effect in albedo changes.
re michael crichton:
funny (not) how hollywood has seemingly never even considered doing a movie of ‘state of fear’.
also strange how a man so famous was criticised in most obituaries for his stance on ‘agw’.
funny (not) how MSM have not mentioned crichton since climategate exploded!
sad (yes) how online it’s impossible to know if he died from colon cancer or throat (lung) cancer. diagnosed in april 2008 supposedly, having chemo in LA (where, i’d like to know) and according to his brother was unnable to speak two weeks prior to his ‘unexpected’ death november 4, 2008. family were shocked at his sudden passing.
it does make u wonder!
The satellite shows a change in upper atmosphere temperatures from 2002 to 2008, but as long as the 2008 observations match the model predictions CO2 must be causing the change. . . .
NASA is placing some useful tools in space. Now they need to recruit some people who can interpret the data that’s being gathered and get rid of some of their inadequate tools.
Looking at Spencer’s AMSU satellite data for 36 km altitude you see a yearly sinusoidal trace of temp. with a max around Jan/ Feb which I guess is related to the earth being at its closest distance to the sun? There have been a couple of recent blips which I am wondering may be due to the recent increase in solar activity?
For the lower atmosphere (4.4 km) the yearly temp is also sinusoidal, only peaking around July. I speculate that this is due to the large land masses and deserts of the Nth hemisphere being aligned to the sun during the NH summer? As far as SSTs go there is a slight increase around March, and is probably related to the heating of the southern oceans in the SH summer.
If there is such a thing as AGM I will put my money with land use changes such as urbanization and deforestation causing land surface heating.
Above the tropopause one is in the stratosphere and temperature begins to rise as altitude increases. There is little water as it is condensed out at -50 C at the top of the troposphere. In the stratosphere radiation becomes the dominant form of energy transport as there is little convection or transport of latent heat in water vapor.
Ozone becomes important as it absorbs UV. When the atmosphere is still dense enough, the ozone will collide with O2, N2, and the rest before re-emitting a photon. Thus the energy is shared through this layer of the atmosphere and the uv is converted to heat. This is why the temperature goes up in the stratosphere. At much higher altitudes the decay time for re-emitting a photon becomes shorter than the mean time between collisions.
Adding CO2 to the stratosphere adds a molecule that will emit long wave infrared photos at that temperature. O2 and N2 cannot. So adding CO2 to the stratosphere creates a mechanism for the stratosphere to cool by increased IR radiation. Ozone absorbs the short wave UV, shares the energy with the O2 and N2, which share it with the CO2, that emits IR back into space.
James Hansen, being a stellar atmosphere physicist, could explain how the very first stars grew to enormous sizes because the proto-stellar atmospheres could not emit IR to cool themselves because they consisted of only H2 and He. These are known for historical reasons as population 3 stars because the had no metals in them. The enormous 50 solar mass population 3 stars emitted so much strong UV that the intergalactic H2 became re-ionized throughout the early universe.
[REPLY – I feel your pain. But, to be fair, lower stratosphere cooling is part of AGW theory. If Lindzen’s observations turn out to be correct, however, that would not appear to be demonstrably linked with AGW. What confuses me is that a.) they are not talking about the stratosphere, and b.) they link the cooling to solar flux — so what’s with the AGW routine? ~ Evan]
They supplied two hints,a) That the stick suggests a coupled system,b) comparative analysis of the equations LHS=RHS (the inverse relationship) and how does it compare with theory.
eg Solomon, S., Crutzen, P. J., and Roble, R. G., Photochemical coupling between the
thermosphere and the lower atmosphere (1982)
In away from equilibrium ( in chemical systems) small changes in properties of the composition (microscopic values) can produce macroscopic values eg Prigogine 1977 Kondepudi 2001,and as such gross ” flux” values such as TSI may be less important then species with symmetry breaking properties eg such as the N oxides where the “emergent’ theory (with its dynamic response) that cause heating (cooling) in different geographical locations,or disruption to the dissipative systems ( equatorial polar transport etc) or phase mode locking synchronization (enso ao etc)
offer some reasonable explanations of phenomena.
Unfortunately “polarization” of issues,has invoked pythonesque responses from each side of the question (where each phenomena is a ‘sign “) of “biblical catastrophe” from a heating (cooling) POV for weather type events.
Returning to the theory (tirade off) there are a number of lines of evidence that changes in the composition of middle and upper atmosphere gases,induce dynamic (mechanical) responses in the lower atmosphere ie weather.
The underlying theory has been around for some time eg
Sensitivity of Surface Temperature and Atmospheric Temperature to Perturbations in the Stratospheric Concentration of Ozone and Nitrogen Dioxide
V. Ramanathan, L.B. Callis, and R.E. Boughner
Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences
Article: pp. 1092–1112
ABSTRACT
The present paper examines, with the aid of a radiative-convective model, the sensitivity of the globally-averaged surface temperature and atmospheric temperature to perturbations in the concentration of O3 and NO2 within the stratosphere. The analysis considers reductions in stratospheric O3 with and without a simultaneous increase in the stratospheric concentration of NO2. Ozone is reduced uniformly in a region between 12 and 40 km within the stratosphere. The ratio of the percentage change in NO2 to the percentage change in O3 is denoted by δ; three values of δ (0, −6 and −10) are considered..
For all the cases considered, it is shown that reducing stratosphere O3 cools the atmosphere and the surface. If the reduction in O3 is accompanied by a simultaneous increase in NO2, the increase in solar absorption by NO2 partially compensates for the reduction in solar absorption due to a decrease in stratospheric O3. Consequently, the decrease in atmospheric and surface temperatures is smaller for larger values of −δ. The results for the surface temperature changes depend on the adopted cloud model. The change in the surface temperature for the constant cloud-top temperature model is 1.6 times larger than that for the constant cloud-top altitude model.
The model also indicates that the surface temperature is sensitive to the vertical distribution of O3 within the atmosphere. Increasing (or decreasing) the altitude at which O3 density is maximum has a cooling (or warming) effect an the surface temperature. The consequences of O3 reduction to the latitudinal energy distribution are also discussed.
The results should be considered as reflecting the sensitivity of the present model rather than the sensitivity of the actual earth-atmosphere system. However, the present results should be indicative of the potential environmental consequences due to perturbations in the stratospheric concentrations of O3 and NO2
A number of papers have identified solar signals in O3 and N2O eg
Gruzdev A.N. Latitudinal structure of trends and effect of solar activity in
stratospheric NO2. Doklady Earth Sciences 2007.
Gruzdev A.N. and G.P. Brasseur. Effect of the 11-year cycle of solar
activity on characteristics of the total ozone annual variation.
Izvestiya, Atmos. Oceanic Phys2007
The signals are latitude dependent,and response regional so extrapolation (generalizations) for a global signal are not tenable.however they provide some good answers to the polar amplification (attenuation) problem.
It is only through accurately quantifying and partitioning the natural variability and agw can we get a handle on the pco2 exponent,the alternative argument irreducibility is still an equal possibility .
Al Gore’s Holy Hologram (07:29:11) :
Michael Crichton vindicated. Listen at 24:00 minutes in
For some reason both YouTube and Google Video are blocking access to this video. PBS may be having a hissy fit.