I’m sure WUWT readers will recall this excellent guest post at WUWT just over one year ago:
Now published in E&E Volume 21, Number 4 / August 2010
The thunderstorm thermostat hypothesis: How clouds and thunderstorms control the Earth’s temperature
Authors
Willis Eschenbach
Abstract
The Thunderstorm Thermostat Hypothesis is the hypothesis that tropical clouds and thunderstorms actively regulate the temperature of the earth. This keeps the earth at an equilibrium temperature regardless of changes in the forcings. Several kinds of evidence are presented to establish and elucidate the Thermostat Hypothesis-historical temperature stability of the Earth, theoretical considerations, satellite photos, and a description of the equilibrium mechanism.
See it here, PDF is available (£18.00 worthwhile to support E&E in my opinion). Or, read the WUWT version here:
The beauty of simplicity!. Remarkable description of the thermostat functioning. Now we need a view from the thermostat back to the plug.
vukcevic says:
July 25, 2010 at 8:24 am
It´s Ok!, we need now a description how this system is powered and connected to the grid.
Enneagram says: July 25, 2010 at 8:55 am
It´s Ok!, we need now a description how this system is powered and connected to the grid.
No idea; I am electronic not electrical engineer. My late compatriot Nikola Tesla (Serbian Cyrillic: Никола Тесла) probably had an answer (The Art of Projecting Concentrated Non-dispersive Energy through the Natural Media) but they set his lab on fire.
March, 13th: 5th Ave. Lab Burns
A fire broke out in the basement of 33-35 South 5th Ave. (now West Broadway) and swept through the entire structure, including Tesla’s laboratory, which occupied the entire fourth floor of the six-story building. All of his hundreds of invention models, plans, notes, laboratory data, tools, photographs, valued at $50,000, were destroyed.
Hey Willis,
I didn’t read the paper but did you mention that the heat pump in a thunderstorm can work so well that ice can fall from the sky on a hot summer day in south central Texas?
The latent of heat of melting is less than the latent heat of vaporization but it’s still quite significant and hail on a hot day is an even more dramatic illustration and, I think, more intuitively obvious to the layman about what that thunderstorm is actually doing – hot air goes up, ice comes down.
“vukcevic says:
July 24, 2010 at 2:10 pm
Very interesting hypothesis. It requires a meticulous read.
I also think the tandem of tropics and poles are the key. One aspect which needs further consideration is that polar temperatures (at least in the Arctic have oscillated to a higher degree than the global estimate, as verified by large coal deposits in Spitsbergen, not to mention huge oil reserves notably in the Alaska’s North Slope etc.”
Have you considered plate tectonics and thus the fact that the Carboneferous coal deposits in Spitsbergen originate from a time when Spitsbergen was in a near equatorial position. Also the Paleocene coals at Spitsbergen and the oil accumulations in Alaska have nothing to do with past polar climates but everything with the paleogeographical position at the time of deposition.
The same
Last but not least: Lunar tides on the atmosphere:
http://www.scichina.com:8080/sciDe/fileup/PDF/07yd1380.pdf
Vuk etc. says:
July 25, 2010 at 9:25 am
they set his lab on fire
Regrettable!, however knowledge, gnosis, reborns.
Vuk etc. says:
That Nikola Tesla´s Projecting Concentrated Non-dispersive Energy through the Natural Media looks like a plasma torch welding machine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_cutting
Enneagram says: July 25, 2010 at 10:02 am
That Nikola Tesla´s Projecting Concentrated Non-dispersive Energy through the Natural Media looks like a plasma torch welding machine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_cutting
Precisely, but far more lethal.
http://www.teslaradio.com/pages/teleforce.htm
Copy of the manuscript is held in the Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla museum.
In Willis´ model electric thunderstorms are forgotten, and these are intrinsically associated with tropical storms/hurricanes. What is more frequently forgotten and missed is the fact that clouds, those nice and white “cotton balls” floating over our heads, contain thousands of tons of water….just flying against the law of gravity. Water droplets to fall down need to lose its electric charge….
If we are to unravel the mysteries of the atmosphere we must not satisfy ouselves, or rather to gratify ourselves by just describing how it seems to work, but to find how it really works, and if by doing so we hurt some “flintstones universe” believers´so dear and so self indulging egos, it will have to be so.
I wonderd why WUWT threads have been Willisless the past couple of weeks – now we know.
Willis Eschenbach says:
July 24, 2010 at 10:23 pm
First, my thanks to all for the kind comments.
Next, R. Gates raises an interesting question:
July 24, 2010 at 8:45 pm
Willis,
I would ask you to clarify what forcings can overpower or overwhelm the ability of thunderstorms to act as a thermostat. Certainly there must be limits to the range of control under your theory.
If we imagine a much cooler earth, and then mentally turn the sun up, what we will see is more and more clouds. At some point, the clouds will form thunderstorms, which will prevent the temperature from rising further. This makes for a very stable system.
Now, I would put changes to that system into two groups. First would be forcings that would “overpower or overwhelm” the system. I don’t know what those might be. The earth has seen giant meteor strikes, huge millennium long volcanic eruptions, and a host of other destabilizing events. None of these have caused more than short-term (geologically speaking) changes in the temperature. So I don’t know what it would take to make a long-term change in the temperature.
The second group would be things that might change the equilibrium temperature without overpowering or overwhelming the system. First among these would include anything that would affect cloud formation, type, or color. The obvious candidates would be changes in cosmic rays, and changing levels of various aerosols (both natural and man-made) that modify clouds.
Also in the second group would be anything affecting the average wind speed. I’m not sure what might do that, but I can see the possibility. It appears, for example, that winds were stronger during the ice ages.
Next would be anything affecting evaporation. The most obvious candidate there would be monomolecular surface films from things like ship sinkings, oil leaks, and hydrocarbon smog.
So in answer to your question, R. Gates, I don’t know the answer…
_______
Willis, thanks for your well thought out answer. Every control mechanism has a limit beyond which it can’t keep up with the extremes one way or another. Obviously, for example, the Milankovitch cycles overwhelm the ability of system to keep up, for we do have ice ages, as other posters have pointed out. True, thunderstorm and the general hydrological cycles are reduced during these ice ages, so the thermostat is attempting to keep up (by turning down, so to speak), but it simply can’t do the full job…it can’t turn down far enough..it has hit its range of control.
But your speculations and your general theory have given me much to think about. One thing, only perhaps tangentially related to thunderstorms is the whole issue of “sprites” or this only recently discovered form of lighting that goes from the tops of thunderstorms into space itself. This has to be a tremendous amount of energy, and I’m wondering if anyone thought of looking at exactly how much energy this is that is being vented into space via sprites. Lighting in general is simply another form of converted sunlight, so in essence, the sprites have to be considered in the net outflow of energy form earth to space, in addition to the LW radiation that leaves.
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
July 24, 2010 at 11:46 pm
R. Gates,
Are there any questions about what global warming says about glaciers? The polar bear population? North Pole ice? South Pole ice? Hurricanes? Heat waves? Snow in the Sierra Nevada? Snow extent in Northern Hemisphere winters? Missing heat? Rotted ice? Tropospheric warming? Integrity of data handling among global warming scientists? Political involvement in global warming science? Co2 controling climate?
Do you have questions or doubts about any of these things?
_________
All of these things are great interest to me and many others who actively study climate change every day. I’m not sure what you mean by “doubt” though. Do I doubt that AGW is affecting these things? Of course…I reserve some skepticism on all things. My watershed year won’t come for a few more though, as the most obvious and first canary in the coal mine is the Arctic Sea Ice. It is in general behaving pretty much as GCM’s would suggest is will (albeit a bit faster than predicted). It is in a general state of decline and has been for a long period of time. However, it could begin a slow recovery. I hold out that remote possibility. If it were, for example, not to hit a new low by 2015 at the latest, I would begin to have doubts about AGW. This, however, seems a remote possibility to me, as the next solar max in 2013 combined with another El Nino in 2012-2013 could be just the added warmth we would need to kick the Arctic Sea ice to a new low around 2.5 million sq. km.
Heat waves and cold spells and hurricanes are pretty much weather events, but I’m interested in their trends over longer periods, but not in specific storms or snowy periods. As far as the rest of it, the polar bears, glaciers, hurricanes, etc. I’ve only studied them a bit. To me, mainly because I happen to be Norwegian in background perhaps, the Arctic is the most fascinating area of study, and it also happens to be on the front line for AGW.
Pete says:
July 25, 2010 at 2:35 am
On average, the earth at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) receives around 340 watts of solar energy for every square metre of the planet (W/m2).
In round numbers, about 75 W/m2 are reflected back to space by clouds. Now, global cloud cover is on the order of about 70%. This gives us about 1 W/m2 for each 1% change in cloud cover, which is conveniently simple.
However, that’s global cloud cover on average, which means little. In the tropics, mid-day surface insolation averages about a kilowatt per square metre, and the amount reflected by clouds is on the order of 340 W/m2.
This gives us a cloud effect about five times as strong as the global average. In the tropics there is a change of 5 W/m2 in reflected energy for each 1% change in cloud cover. This allows for large swings, as I showed in my paper.
I second the thanks to Anthony.
To R.Gates:
I have seen one estimate of energy in a red, or high-altitude sprite:
http://www.athena-spu.gr/~upperatmosphere/index.php/Sprites
of up to 5 kJ of optical energy per discharge. Otherwise, we can probably just estimate
from electric field strength (the well-known formula (1/2)*permittivity*E**2 times the estimated volume for the sprite.
Hi Willis.
I was impressed with your hypothesis a year ago.
And since then I hoped you would published it.
Congratulations.
vukcevic says:
July 24, 2010 at 2:10 pm
As far as I know, Spitsbergen was much further south when the coal formed.
Chris R. says:
July 25, 2010 at 12:13 pm
To R.Gates:
I have seen one estimate of energy in a red, or high-altitude sprite:
http://www.athena-spu.gr/~upperatmosphere/index.php/Sprites
of up to 5 kJ of optical energy per discharge. Otherwise, we can probably just estimate
from electric field strength (the well-known formula (1/2)*permittivity*E**2 times the estimated volume for the sprite.
__________
Thanks for that Chris. There is no doubt that a lot of energy is being released by sprites and I don’t think that has been accounted for in GCM’s. I suppose on the scale of the total energy balance of the earth, it could be a small amount, but since sprites are fairly new in terms of being studied, and we don’t really know that much about their frequency etc. I would think it would be at least worth a look.
Also, my physics here may be wrong, but wouldn’t sprites going from the tops of thunderstorms into space be energy lost from earth, or do they really go that high? Certainly since sprites can be seen from space, we know at least some of the energy is going into space. In general, when a normal lighting bolt releases its light, heat, and electricity, that energy is simply converted but stays in the earth’s system.
Willis Eschenbach says: July 25, 2010 at 12:50 pm
As far as I know, Spitsbergen was much further south when the coal formed.
Yes, that probably was the case and a wrong examples. Let’s say we know that in its recent past Greenland was much warmer than today.
Essence of my posts was:
Efficiency of the ocean currents heat transfer is crucial to the temperature oscillations in the polar regions, consequently to the ice coverage and albedo; resulting in a feedback.
Faster currents more heath to the poles, less ice, less reflection, more energy absorption, even warmer poles.
Of course, the reverse also holds true: slow current, less heath to the poles, more ice, more reflection, even colder poles.
Either of above would lead to a completely ice free poles or in reverse permanently fixed ice cap. However neither appear to be the case, and reason could be that the ocean currents as the principal transporters of heat to the poles, have variability factor in the certain critical areas by factor of 2.
Since there is a high correlation between the arctic temperatures and the strength of the arctic magnetic field, it can be speculated that the efficiency of the energy transfer is a function of the Earth’s magnetic field strength.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC1.htm
There is a similar correlation in the North Pacific
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PDO.htm
Question was:
I wonder what is your view of this particular feedback effect ?
R. Gates
You did not address this:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Your bitterness toward those who think the AGW hypothesis is likely correct is overpowering.
I ask that you publicly retract this lie.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Please address this so I don’t have to ask again.
R. Gates,
I really did want you to answer this so I could know your view of the PIOMAS graph:
are there limits to the accuracy of the PIOMAS graph?
If you don’t want to that is fine. But I will note that you do answer.
R. Gates
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/24/willis-publishes-his-thermostat-hypothesis-paper/#comment-438915
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Since you didn’t say anything about this should I assume that I was correct in what I said?
Willis,
Congratulations!
Did you enjoy the peer review process?
John
Willis,
Congratulations! But I wouldn’t call that as the thermostat hypothesis. I’d rather call that as the buffer hypothesis. The system undergoes the reactions as a answer for circumstances coming from the sun and space. So it isn’t independently. But it acts as a buffer, keeping itself parameters constantly for a input range. If the input range is to wide, the system must be changed. This behavior is well known for the chemists, if they are working with the buffer solutions.
BTW. I hope you had corrected the molecular weight for water vapor. It is 18 g/mol, not 16 g/mol.
To R. Gates,
No, your physics is largely correct. Sprite discharges reach essentially to the threshold of space, so that energy is in fact carried out into an extremely low-density regime of the atmosphere. At that altitude, the physical processes that dominate are far different than low-altitude ones. As you note, the electromagnetic energy at optical wavelengths does propagate into space. The electrical discharge energy is another story. It MAY, repeat MAY, couple significantly to ionospheric layers. It has been quite a while since I looked at sprites, but I recall during the 1990s there was some excitement over sprites in the space physics community as a means of looking at ionospheric and magnetospheric processes. I’m sorry that I don’t recall more detail off the top.