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.
JaneHM (11:29:47) :
John Finn:
The primary determiner of temperature in the stratosphere is ozone and oxygen absorption of solar UV so the observed stratosphere cooling is believed due to a combination of the decrease in solar UV flux in recent years (the UV decreases more than the overall TSI during solar min) and ozone depletion. The lower stratosphere is also influenced by volcanic emissions which might increase any moment now
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26528145-954,00.html
Agreed. There are a number of possible reasons why the stratosphere has not warmed over the past ~30 years which have nothing to do with the increase in ghgs. El Chichon (1982) and Pinatubo (1991) certainly mess things up a bit. But the fact remains that the troposphere has warmed while the stratosphere has not which means that the sun’s role in recent warming remains questionable.
pat (15:35:38) :
re michael crichton:
funny (not) how hollywood has seemingly never even considered doing a movie of ’state of fear’.
Movies are a little slow at picking up trends. And with the orthodoxy at the moment – they’ll shy from State of Fear. But you can be sure there are scripts cranking up that follow the climategate story. Slow, not blind.
OMG how many contradictions can you make in one article.
Lets look at how they show you the cooling “might” be linked to Solar activity, how it is part of the AGW models and theory, what they predict for the near future and how it doesn’t invalidate the models when it clearly does.
Statement one:
“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.”
Ok here they show the link between the sun and the upper atmosphere and how by watching the solar activity you can predict what the upper atmosphere is going to do. Notice so far nothing is stated about AGW and CO2.
Statement Two:
“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.”
Now here they make their prediction that the upper atmosphere is going to warm up as Solar activity increases. Now watch what happens when they start throwing out the tired old AGW line.
Statement Three:
“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.”
Now here you see the old as CO2 rises the upper atmosphere is suppose to cool line. So far no problem between the this statement and the first two….except for in statement one they linked the cooling to the Sun not CO2 and in Statement two they said it was going to WARM UP, which according to AGW theory it can’t do as long as the CO2 level keeps increasing. So of course we have to say that the warming has no implications for climate change in the troposphere to distract you from the fact that it proves the GCM’s wrong. You know how can the Upper Atmosphere warming up due to the sun fit the whole “as CO2 rises the upper atmosphere will cool” prediction of the GCM’s.
Statement Four:
“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.
I think they realize the OH S*&^ they are in from the first part of the story and are scrambling to show they are good little warmers still. Its a “forget we mentioned the Sun we are really looking at CO2 and NO honest!”
‘Radio comms’ aside, the ‘UV window’ is the best direct connection to ‘deep ocean warming’. Deep ocean surface and deep ice surface are the best atractors to warming from UV, any other albedo has a tendency to result in ionisation.
With fewer CME events etc. deep ocean temps will tend to reduce causing less energy at the ocean surface for evaporation to take place (due to lower UV absorption). Thus, increasing cloud (due to lowering atmospheric temps) and reduced activity within the hydrocycle regeneration (‘drying out’ of the atmosphere). So I would expect that we can, on average, expect fewer hurricane/cyclone events near a solar minimum.
From the above in this thread, CO2 below an altitude of ~4 kilometres only ‘insulates’ because it’s caught up with the local ‘mass’. However, as altitude increases CO2 (and other ‘radiative gasses’) is increasingly able to radiate to the cosmos, if only because the ‘statistical’ angle and ‘other mass interaction probability’ of re-emission to Earth reduces with altitude (does this follow an inverse square law? Not one you’d recognise as such!).
Let’s get over this. ‘Back-radiation alteration’ is only a changing ‘insulation factor’ for radiation per se!
Best regards, suricat.
The stratosphere does not warm or cool as a homogeneous unit. Since 1978 it has warmed in southern high latitudes and to a lesser extent at northern high latitudes. It has cooled at low latitudes. The cooling of the stratosphere at low latitudes is likely due to the effluxion of water vapour into the stratosphere due to greatly enhanced evaporation and convection in the tropics. The phenomenon of overshoot into the stratosphere is well documented. Ozone has a very short life in the presence of water vapour. The industrial production of ozone demands that the air that is to contain it is dried at temperatures of minus 80°C. Such temperatures are achieved at the tropopause over the equator but tropopause temperatures are more like minus 55°C away from the centres of major convection. The centres of convection at the equator do not form a continuous ring around the Earth. The tropical rain forests in the Congo and the Amazon are the main engine rooms for equatorial convection.
Ozone in the stratosphere is responsible for the increase in temperature with ozone content above 300hpa, well inside the troposphere and well short of the tropopause. A major factor in the rate of heating of ozone (and the temperature of the stratosphere) is the absorption of long wave energy from the Earth. In areas where the ocean is cool, evaporation is consequently diminished. The major cooling process over areas with cool ocean is direct long wave radiation rather than de-compressive cooling from a convecting atmsophere. This produces a hot spot in the local stratosphere immediately above the cool ocean.
The notion that convection is confined to the troposphere is nonesense regardless of what is said at Leif Svalgaard (15:07:39) : In the mesosphere there is a circulation from the summer to the winter pole. There is a marked seasonal change in the temperature of the stratosphere at different latitudes mainly driven by change in ozone content emanating at the poles.
The circulation of the stratosphere depends in part upon convective influences emanating from the troposphere. This influences the ozone content of the upper troposphere.
Our notions of atmospheric layers where different forces drive temperature and air movement suffers from compartmentalized thinking. Transitions are never sudden. There is strong mixing between layers and the forces that drive exchange are gradually rather than suddenly attenuated.
These observations can be supported by the temperature record for different altitudes in the atmosphere.
Change in ozone content in the upper atmosphere is the key to natural climate variation as asserted at maksimovich (16:43:46) :
‘Keep it simple stupid’ is the watchword of the warmers. Unfortunately, the atmosphere is not simple. If there were a better understanding of the forces driving temperature change in the atmosphere the warmers would not get away with the simplistic concepts they put forward.
Silly simpletons still think mankind is warming the world. I can’t believe how many people simply lack common sense. It’s sad really.
“A fundamental prediction of climate change theory is that upper atmosphere will cool in response to greenhouse gases in the troposphere,” says Mlynczak.
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We are not seeing warming of the troposphere in this period, as the stratosphere continues to cool. So, what theory does that validate?
“The research team expects the atmosphere to heat up again as solar activity starts to pick up in the next year”
As solar activity was expected to “pick up” three years ago? Or as solar activity was expected to “pick up” two years ago? Or as solar activity was expected to “pick up” a year ago?
Along about 1860, Charles Dickens wrote a book about that sort of thing. He entitled the book, “Great Expectations”.
As an educated layman it is encouraging that the scent of incoherence I found in this press release wasn’t due to my ignorance. Makes a change…
Thanks to all contributors for the open and accountable discussion in this thread.
Indiana Bones (17:17:08) :
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.
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I’ll upload the videos on to my account soon to make sure there is more than one place to watch.
As for the Daily Mail article today about tracking down the climategate emails to Chinese hackers or Malaysian email servers, it is all BS. The article is full of errors and the investigators are trying to deflect attention away.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1238638/Chinese-hackers-linked-Warmergate-climate-change-leaked-emails-controversy.html
It is implied Chinese hackers stole all those emails and data, then sent all those hundreds of files via email through a Malaysian email server. The lack of technical knowledge in the article is astounding. It has been very well documented here on WUWT that it would be impossible for hackers to read the contents of dozens of computers in a high security facility and then take the time to catalogue and archive everything relevant to a FOI request.
The files were leaked from the inside and sent through a Turkish proxy server to a Russian file sharing site. I stand by that. The media is adamant to condemn those who want to grow their economies for obvious and very imperialist reasons.
Thanks for posting Svenmark’s video again. I have asked the BBC on about 60 occasions why they have not broadcast this documentary – with no rational response so far. Perhaps you might be more lucky.
Only the first 64 words of the article are worth reading (the first paragraph). Solar minimum is cooling the upper atmosphere. Surprise surprise! After this the author leaves a stream of consciousness which tries to fade out the solar influence and fade in CO2 (perhaps imagining falsely that he/she has the skill of a DJ mixing tracks). But the result lacks any coherent logical thread and is almost childish nonsense.
Stephen Wilde
Concerning atmospheric “layers” above the stratosphere – perhaps you can educate me a bit here. The question of whether boundaries between layers are laminar (flat) or turbulent is an interesting one that I raised on a previous thread. I’m not quite clear how the stability or otherwise of a boundary can affect radiation. Take an “air” atom somewhere in the outer mesosphere or whateversphere – its tendency to radiate must depend on its own heat energy. How can the status of atoms distant from the original atom affect the radiation behaviour of that atom (I presume we’re not talking about entanglement here). So radiation across a boundary – is this a matter of statistics, the sum of radiation from layer A to B minus that from B to A? i.e. a statistical consequence of temperature gradient. If this is the case, then indeed the topography and complexity (total surface area) becomes important. But how is this “statistical” radiation exchange different from convective exchange? I’m probably sounding like an idiot here 🙂 Do the layers above the stratosphere have real boundaries of some kind like temperature inversions – or are they just descriptive terms without physical meaning?
This article contradicts itself: At first it says the thermosphere has cooled, then it says that CO2 is an IR emitter. Surely if there is an increase in CO2 in the troposphere, and thus an increase in the emitted IR from this layer, does it not follow that there will be an increase in temperature in adjacent layers and not a decrease?
They are so desperate after this Climategate calamity that they are trying to trash the elementary logic; Sun is less active and upper atmosphere is rapidly cooling. So the Sun is cooling the upper atmosphere. But, somehow this is at the same time a great validation of AGW that predicts the cooling of the upper atmosphere as a consequence of lower atmosphere warming. Since 2002 upper part cooled. But wait a minute, in the same time frame (2002-2009) lower atmosphere up to 4,5 km hasn’t warmed at all, at the contrary it cooled rather dramatically as well http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:2002/to:2009/trend.
So, basically, all propaganda tricks notwithstanding, what NASA satellites tell us is: since 2002 solar activity declined dramatically. In the same period, the entire atmosphere, from the surface up to the 100km and more, cooled as well. The only plausible inference from there is that Sun probably has something significantly to do with Earth’s atmospheric temperature. End of story.
I mean, this is directly inconsistent with the AGW since there was not tropospheric warming.
Phlogiston (07:15:01)
The boundaries between the layers of the upper atmosphere appear to be delieated primarily by temperature discontinuities. In one layer the temperature will decrease with height, in the next layer it will increase with height.
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/earth/Atmosphere/layers.html
Furthermore they do not seem to all change temperature as one. For example during the recent spell of a less active sun the topmost layer is cooling but the stratosphere has been warming since the mid 90s.
http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/sola/5/0/53/_pdf
I suspect that as Erl Happ points out the boundaries between each layer are not sharp but nonetheless there are boundaries present and the observation of differential warming and cooling across the boundaries suggests variable rates of upward radiation of energy supplemented perhaps by a little convection or circulatory movement but for simplicity I have ignored those smaller effects.
Logically the lapse rate within each layer must be a reflection of the balance between energy coming up from below and energy released upward by, primarily, radiative transfer.
So if the oceans and the hydrological system pump energy faster up into the stratosphere than energy can be radiated from the stratosphere upwards then the stratosphere will warm. The same principle would apply to each layer.
I am not an expert in the reasons why the energy content of each layer varies as it does. Those variations are newly observed due to the sophistication of modern satellite sensors and I don’t think anyone yet has the answers.
As a first step I am proposing that the (clearly erratic) upward flow of energy through all the layers must be a combination of oceanic influences from below and solar influences from above.
I suspect that it is the erratic nature of the upward flows of energy through each layer of the entire Earth system (to include the oceans) and from one layer to another that combine to create temperature variability and thus climate variability within the troposphere.
Dave F (09:26:07) :
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?
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Partially, Long wave radiation (earth night time) is not effected by CO2 to any great extent. thus in areas where the atmosphere is compressed and thinned (Poles) the cooling convection is the greatest.
you have several little bubbles touching each other and at the poles they are flattened and thin. the circulation within will allow heat to escape. only low to mid level cloud cover will retain the heat.
Polar cooling is always first and polar warming is also first. the inter-planet systems will then try to balance statically.
This new revelation basically throws CO2 theory out the window.. simply because of the cooling of both sides of the thermosphere…. those pesky little unintended consequences….
Ivan (08:27:23) :
I mean, this is directly inconsistent with the AGW since there was not tropospheric warming.
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That would be correct. Dang it the jig is up 🙂
Well if the thermosphere is emitting lower amounts of IR to space at an order of magnitude , and we know IR is emitted down as well as up, what are the implications for the middle atmosphere (stratosphere) radiation balance receiving less IR from the thermosphere. Perhaps these emissions are insignificant in relation to the total?.
If the stratosphere is cooling from above (less IR from the thermosphere and mesosphere), and not just from below, then it would seem it’s air exchanges with the troposphere (read somewhere stratosphere air is completely exchanged with the troposphere over 5 years) would have a cooling effect below, or perhaps I should say less of a warming effect since it is at a higher temperature than the troposphere. Again, the amounts may be insignificant, so maybe it’s a moot point, but then a 100 ppm of CO2 seem insignificant too.
Speaking of convection in the stratosphere:
Documented events of sudden stratospheric warmings (SSWs) that are powerful enough to blow apart the 10mb vortex that likes to sit over the north pole.
The warming events are very obvious when they happen, and they suppress the tropopause, cooling the troposphere.
Convection both ways: heating…and….cooling.
It is theorized that SSWs can lead to major cold outbreaks following.
Interestingly, this latest major warming [now], while not centered completely in the stratosphere, is a remarkable one anyways, and it may be why the main populated areas in the NH, over the next few weeks, will see some pretty good cold outbreaks.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/hgt.shtml
And this is most likely directly related to why the AO has disappeared below the floorboards:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/daily_ao_index/ao.shtml
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
stephen richards (04:16:35) :
They go from reduced solar output, cooling atmosphere to GHGs being the cause! Can’t these people do any science at all withou blaming GHGs from the word go. I see nothing in this data that proves GHGs are cooling the atmosphere but somehow they have absolute proof, Where?
Is it me? am I being obtuse? or what?
Yes you are being obtuse. The cooling effect of the important GHGs was what was measured by these satellites and was what was being reported, but you’re unable to see it! To quote Jonathan Swift: “There is none so blind as they that won’t see”.
tim (07:47:18) :
This article contradicts itself: At first it says the thermosphere has cooled, then it says that CO2 is an IR emitter. Surely if there is an increase in CO2 in the troposphere, and thus an increase in the emitted IR from this layer, does it not follow that there will be an increase in temperature in adjacent layers and not a decrease?
No, because in the lower atmosphere the energy in excited CO2 molecules is primarily lost by collisional exchange to the rest of the atmosphere, which being N2 and O2 cannot lose energy radiatively. In the thermosphere (and stratosphere) collisions are infrequent enough to allow radiational cooling of the CO2 molecules. This is a long-standing prediction (and observation) of the ‘Greenhouse gas theory’.
Phil. (07:58:17) :
You are being obtuse.
The article states, “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.”
Or, “Scientists need to validate that theory.”
DeNihilist (10:47:23) :
(quote) 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.” (end quote)
If the atmosphere is a coupled system, using a basic thermodynamic law of heat goes to cold, regardless of direction, then how is it possible that a “order of 10″ cooling at the top of the atmosphere has no effect on the lower part of the atmosphere?
It may not have a radiant effect, but surely there has to be a convective effect does there not? If climate is based on 30 year intervals, then we may see the effect of this new finding in the next 10-20 years in a cooling earth?
Convection occurs when you have a lower density fluid below a higher density fluid, under the influence of gravity they try to exchange positions to give a density gradient of high to low. This typically occurs in the troposphere where heating is from below. However, in the stratosphere and thermosphere heating is from above therefore the density gradient is stable and there is no convection. Also in the thermosphere the molecules are so far apart that they no longer act as a bulk fluid (mean free path order 10km as opposed to ~1μm at sea level).