Guest post by Erl Happ
Here’s a hypothetical:
Let’s imagine that we have an atmosphere of two parts. The first 10 km of the atmosphere has no greenhouse gas. The second 40 km has a greenhouse gas incorporated.
In the lower layer there is water vapor and clouds that come and go according to the temperature of the air.
Let’s consider that there is an impermeable membrane over the surface preventing the interchange of moisture with the atmosphere. No precipitation of moisture from the atmosphere falls to the surface.
Now, set this planet spinning in space around a sun in such a way that the polar sections experienced permanent night for part of the year so that the entire depth of the atmosphere (both layers) within the polar night region cool down and a gradient of ever diminishing temperature occurs all the way from the surface to the top of the atmosphere, the entire 50 kilometers.
Parts of the planet would be warm and parts would be cold. Ascent and descent of the atmosphere is forced by these thermal differences but the ascent is usually confined to just a few kilometers in elevation.
Now, let’s imagine that the greenhouse gas is water soluble. That part of the atmosphere that contains the least water is within the polar night because it is coldest, so the greenhouse gas attains a higher concentration there.
That greenhouse gas absorbs long wave radiation from the planet. This sets up a convective circulation within the polar night that spins the greenhouse gas rich air away from the pole towards the margins of the polar night. Remember that temperature descends all the way from the bottom to the top of the atmosphere within the polar night and this promotes convection throughout the entire profile. In fact the two layers act as a coupled circulation.
So, greenhouse gas descends into the near surface layer on the margins of the polar night that hitherto was entirely free of greenhouse gas. This causes the air on the margins of the polar night to warm as it descends. Surface pressure falls away in this region.
Now, if this circulation came and went, we would see clouds come and go on the margins of the polar night as the air alternatively cooled and warmed.
Now, let us imagine that there is a wind that blows from the polar night towards the equator that carries greenhouse gas towards the equator warming the air and causing cloud to disappear.
Now, let us introduce land and sea in the winter hemisphere and assume that the air on the margins of the polar night descends preferentially over the sea. We would then expect the greenhouse gas to be concentrated in the atmosphere over the sea. This would give rise to a pattern of warm and cool air, clouds in the cool zone and none in the warm zone. A cloud free path would be set up that ran from the warmer margins of the night zone towards the equator. The cloud would come and go as the coupled circulation waxed and waned.
The lower of the two layers would show zones of warmed air like the map below.
Figure 1
And under the influence of the wind that blows towards the equator we might see a pattern of sea surface temperature like this:
Figure 2
Now, let’s imagine that there is an insidious chemical generated in the rarefied atmosphere above both layers that has an affinity for the greenhouse gas and this chemical is intermittently trickled into the top of the layer containing the greenhouse gas and this occurs over the pole. This is accomplished by a thing we call the ‘night jet’. Accordingly, the greenhouse gas content of the night zone would wax and wane causing a fluctuation in cloud and the temperature of the sea.
If we wished to know what was changing the weather and the climate we would have to look at what changes the trickle rate and what causes the polar circulation to wax and wane.
We look closely and find the ‘night jet’ is active when surface pressure is high.
We discover that the pressure is high when the sun is less active.
When the sun is active pressure is low and the night jet is less active, the greenhouse gas content builds up, the temperature of the column increases and the convective circulation goes into overdrive. And the clouds disappear.
And the temperature of the polar stratosphere might look like this:
Figure 3
So, in this circumstance the planet warms. Does anyone recognize the origin of the great Pacific Climate Shift of 1976-8?
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Leif
3/10 Fail
Failure to engage with the question.
erl happ says:
August 22, 2011 at 8:27 pm
Failure to engage with the question.
You failed to show there is a valid question. Why should I waste time on something you have not demonstrated is worth spending time on? So, indeed, failure to waste time.
From the other thread:
Exposition: Teach me.
1) formulate the message; simple and sweet.
2) stick to the message; don’t pile up incidentals.
3) accept that your readers are your judge and [occasional executioner]. If you don’t get your point across [assuming there is one] it is your fault, not theirs.
erl happ says:
August 22, 2011 at 6:38 pm
3. The increase in the temperature of the polar stratosphere, higher at the highest levels.
From this analysis:
http://www.arl.noaa.gov/documents/JournalPDFs/RandelEtal.JGR2009.pdf
we learn:
Temperature changes in the lower stratosphere show cooling of 0.5 K/decade over much of the globe for 1979–2007, with some differences in detail among the different radiosonde and satellite data sets. Substantially larger cooling trends are observed in the Antarctic lower stratosphere during spring and summer, in association with development of the Antarctic ozone hole.
So, what was your question again?
Leif Svalgaard says: August 22, 2011 at 9:45 pm
Your paper is irrelevant. And that people can write such papers without any mention of the increase in the temperature of the Antarctic stratosphere between 1948 and 1978 as seen in figure 3 above amazes me.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/temperature/02mb2525.gif
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/temperature/02mb2565.gif
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/temperature/02mb6590.gif
I am well aware I am wasting my time with you when you are in wrecking mode, but for any other more reasonable soul passing by the data above will confirm that episodic spikes in temperature are opposite in sign between the poles and the equator. That should at least start them asking why, and by the way, upper stratospheric temperature is inversely related to surface pressure.
erl happ says:
August 22, 2011 at 11:29 pm
I am well aware I am wasting my time with you when you are in wrecking mode
Science is always in wrecking mode. The things that are left standing when the dust settles represent progress.
but for any other more reasonable soul passing by the data above will confirm that episodic spikes in temperature are opposite in sign between the poles and the equator.
Explain how your ozone dissolved in water regulates this. It is not enough just to pile up unrelated and random throw-aways, like “by the way, upper stratospheric temperature is inversely related to surface pressure.”
The upward spikes [stratospheric warmings] are caused by upwards travelling planetary waves and are well modeled, e.g. http://www.leif.org/EOS/2010GL045756.pdf
erl happ says:
August 22, 2011 at 11:29 pm
but for any other more reasonable soul passing by the data above will confirm that episodic spikes in temperature are opposite in sign between the poles and the equator.
This seems to be a well-known phenomenon with a known cause, e.g.
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/11/2263/2011/acpd-11-2263-2011.html
for this event:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/temperature/archive/02mb9065_2009.gif
A ground rule is science is to be versed in current literature on one’s subject.
I want to leave a note to thank all who contributed. I have just re-read all the comments and I want to leave you with some impressions, partial as they must be, about the topic of the post, how the debate was conducted and how things might be improved.
What I set out to do was to point out the importance of the atmospheric circulation in the polar regions in determining cloud cover at all latitudes. Secondly I wanted to suggest (and the evidence is there in figure 3) that the circulation will change the climate over time as the concentration of ozone changes. For this circulation, ozone is like oxygen to a fire. Take away the oxygen and the fire dies. Deplete the ozone in the polar circulation and the circulation comes to a halt. The cloud returns and the globe cools.
This phenomenon is entirely unrecognized in climate science. Leif implied otherwise at August 22, 2011 at 7:43 pm. But, he is dead wrong. Why does he do this? Why does he derail the discussion with interjections of supposed great moment and hammer away as he does? Who knows? Perhaps he sees himself as a gatekeeper. But in acting in this fashion he makes it very difficult to extract whatever germ of value there might be in the discussion. Unfortunately there is too much point scoring and one-up-man-ship and many people live in fear of being shown up. Nobody wants to be wrong. So, this sort of behavior kills debate.
In my estimation there is no way that processes that are internal to the climate system could change ozone content in the Antarctic stratosphere to produce the temperature variation seen in figure 3. There is no parallel in the Arctic. The flux in H2O from the tropical oceans is plainly a bit player that sits at the other end of a long table. The increase in the temperature of the Antarctic stratosphere has been accompanied by an enduring but reversible decline in atmospheric pressure across half the southern hemisphere. The Antarctic circulation hammers away summer and winter despite the ozone depletion that it engineers in sending ozone into the troposphere. Is this process of ozone depletion recognized in climate science? No.
Very few people know what the coupling of the circulation of the stratosphere and the troposphere involves. The NAM and the SAM are just letters of the alphabet. No-one remarks the link with 200hPa GA heights in the troposphere or the connection with cloud cover and sea surface temperature. These were the big unknowns that could have been explored in this thread.
Why does the temperature of the polar stratosphere vary as it does? Because of the variation in the supply of an erosive chemical from the mesosphere, oxides of nitrogen usually referred to as NOx coming in via the night jet. You can see it as a core of low ozone values immediately above the pole here:http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_o3mr_30_nh_f00.gif
The source of much useful data on the stratosphere is here: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/
Is there any literature on it? Very little.
Does the core of ozone values vary over time? Yes. And it is a simple function of change in surface pressure as the atmosphere shifts to and from the pole.You must ask yourself what causes that? Others have linked GA to the ozone content in the stratosphere. I look directly at surface pressure but perhaps that is one extra step away in the chain of causation and too far removed. Still others have linked GA to the AO. Did anyone know that? Yet others have linked GA to changes in the circulation of the winds. It’s all part of the big picture.
I want to thank in particular benfromo who, though he wrestled with the notion that water/water/vapour/ice or whatever form of H2O might have been important to the system, (being unfamiliar with the role of NOx) realized and bravely stuck his neck out in stating the importance of the link between ozone and the Arctic Oscillation. He is on the track. He helped me to get the message across.
For myself, if I am to post again, I will confine the post to one or two diagrams and half a page of notes. Slowly, slowly catchee monkey!
To those who leaped to my defense over the ‘water in the stratosphere’ thing, thank you. You knew a lot more than I did. Had Leif been a bit more precise about what he was on about, things might have been different. Water and nitrogen together make Nitric acid. Perhaps he could have volunteered that.
That is the trouble with an interdisciplinary discussion. And it is precisely the reason why people should try to be helpful rather than corrosive.
So I will thank Leif too (for diligence) and for the future I will take up his suggestion:
1) formulate the message; simple and sweet.
2) stick to the message; don’t pile up incidentals.
3) accept that your readers are your judge and [occasional executioner]. If you don’t get your point across [assuming there is one] it is your fault, not theirs.
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 23, 2011 at 9:23 am
This seems to be a well-known phenomenon with a known cause
Here is that paper: http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/11/6325/2011/acp-11-6325-2011.pdf
Leif Svalgaard says: August 23, 2011 at 9:36 am
And what might “this” be?
Leif Svalgaard says: August 23, 2011 at 9:03 am
“The upward spikes [stratospheric warmings] are caused by upwards travelling planetary waves and are well modeled, e.g. http://www.leif.org/EOS/2010GL045756.pdf”
Here is the abstract:
Multi‐decadal variability of sudden stratospheric warmings
in an AOGCM
S. Schimanke,1 J. Körper,1 T. Spangehl,1 and U. Cubasch1
Received 6 October 2010; revised 10 November 2010; accepted 23 November 2010; published 4 January 2011.
[1] The variability in the number of major sudden
stratospheric warmings (SSWs) is analyzed in a multi‐century
simulation under constant forcing using a stratosphere
resolving atmosphere‐ocean general circulation model.
A wavelet‐analysis of the SSW time series identifies
significantly enhanced power at a period of 52 years. The
coherency of this signal with tropospheric and oceanic
parameters is investigated. The strongest coherence is found
with the North Atlantic ocean‐atmosphere heat‐flux from
November to January. Here, an enhanced heat‐flux from
the ocean into the atmosphere is related to an increase in
the number of SSWs. Furthermore, a correlation is found
with Eurasian snow cover in October and the number of
blockings in October/November. These results suggest that
the multi‐decadal variability is generated within the oceantroposphere‐
stratosphere system. A two‐way interaction
of the North Atlantic and the atmosphere buffers and
amplifies stratospheric anomalies, leading to a coupled
multi‐decadal mode. Citation: Schimanke, S., J. Körper,
T. Spangehl, and U. Cubasch (2011), Multi‐decadal variability of
sudden stratospheric warmings in an AOGCM, Geophys. Res. Lett.,
38, L01801, doi:10.1029/2010GL045756.
This science is corrupt. It takes no cognizance of the Arctic Oscillation, also called the Northern Annular mode which relates to the variation in polar pressure in relation to elsewhere. The AO or NAM governs night jet activity and the coupled circulation of the troposphere and the stratosphere in affect giving rise to the primary controls on ozone in the stratosphere.With ozone varies GPH, stratospheric temperature, surface pressure on the margins of the Arctic and sea surface temperature.
This is the team at work. Your team.Take this garbage elsewhere.
And, while you are at it take the UN report on ozone. It also takes no cognizance of the basic parameters that drive the ozone content of the polar stratosphere..
Leif Svalgaard says: August 23, 2011 at 9:23 am
erl happ says:
August 22, 2011 at 11:29 pm
but for any other more reasonable soul passing by the data above will confirm that episodic spikes in temperature are opposite in sign between the poles and the equator.
This seems to be a well-known phenomenon with a known cause, e.g.
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/11/2263/2011/acpd-11-2263-2011.html
for this event:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/temperature/archive/02mb9065_2009.gif
A ground rule is science is to be versed in current literature on one’s subject.
===========================================================
This paper bears no resemblance to the phenomena at all.
The temperature response increases with elevation in the polar atmosphere and at the equator. It varies in each case strictly with atmospheric pressure. It is described quite adequately in terms of the NAM or the Arctic Oscillation.
The paper represents either an attempt at deliberate obfuscation or else a poverty in observation and analysis. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt but you should know better.
A ground rule in the science that I observe is that one starts with observation of phenomena and you try not to miss the fundamentals.
Leif Svalgaard says: August 23, 2011 at 9:03 am
erl happ says:
August 22, 2011 at 11:29 pm
I am well aware I am wasting my time with you when you are in wrecking mode
Science is always in wrecking mode. The things that are left standing when the dust settles represent progress.
but for any other more reasonable soul passing by the data above will confirm that episodic spikes in temperature are opposite in sign between the poles and the equator.
You ask:
Explain how your ozone dissolved in water regulates this. It is not enough just to pile up unrelated and random throw-aways, like “by the way, upper stratospheric temperature is inversely related to surface pressure.”
Hey, for the zillionth time, H2O in whatever form is a bit player in the control of stratospheric ozone. The primary control is the activity of the night jet, NOx from the mesosphere and the coupled circulation that wastes ozone into the troposphere.
This debating tactic is very worn. It is fundamentally dishonest.
erl happ says:
August 23, 2011 at 4:19 pm
Hey, for the zillionth time, H2O in whatever form is a bit player in the control of stratospheric ozone. The primary control is the activity of the night jet, NOx from the mesosphere and the coupled circulation that wastes ozone into the troposphere.
H2O is not a player at all in this, but was the corner stone of your argument. I notice that you did not comment on the paper I directed you to.
This debating tactic is very worn. It is fundamentally dishonest.
This is not a debate, but an attempt to educate. And insults are not welcome [although eventually expected – probably escalating from this point on]
erl happ says:
August 23, 2011 at 4:03 pm
And, while you are at it take the UN report on ozone. It also takes no cognizance of the basic parameters that drive the ozone content of the polar stratosphere.
Perhaps you should consider that you could be very wrong and all the scientists that produce what you call ‘garbage’ and ‘corrupt science’ know what they are talking about.
Leif:
“H2O is not a player at all in this, but was the corner stone of your argument. ”
Just according to you. The fact that one paragraph follows another can never be taken to infer that the latter is always a consequence of the former. All paragraphs prior to the first graph were intended as a description of a hypothetical scenario. You chose to represent them as my description of reality. Your inferences are unsupportable.
“I notice that you did not comment on the paper I directed you to.”
Be happy to. Which one? The UN report? Was it on the other thread?
erl happ says:
August 23, 2011 at 6:30 pm
Just according to you.
So, you retract it as not being essential.
You did, however, connect the sentences to indicate that they were consequences of the first. Now, you may also retract that and state that your statements are just a random collection of verbiage:
“Now, let’s imagine that the greenhouse gas is water soluble. That part of the atmosphere that contains the least water is within the polar night because it is coldest, so the greenhouse gas attains a higher concentration there. That greenhouse gas absorbs long wave radiation from the planet. This sets up a convective circulation… etc.
“I notice that you did not comment on the paper I directed you to.”
Be happy to. Which one? The UN report? Was it on the other thread?
You did, finally, calling it ‘corrupt’ or ‘garbage’. Does not sound as a rational response.
Leif
From http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/shindell_05/
Upper atmospheric temperature and water changes have been observed for several decades, but at only a very few locations. High up in the stratosphere, from 30 to 50 km above the ground, the measurements show increasing water vapor and a very large, global cooling trend of 3° to 6°C (5° to 11°F) over recent decades.
The climate model reproduces the temperature trends only when stratospheric water vapor also increases. The satellite observations of temperature and water vapor are reasonably consistent with the model results (Figure 1), making us more confident that we can calculate their trends correctly. Water vapor breaks down in the stratosphere, releasing reactive hydrogen oxide molecules that destroy ozone. These molecules also react with chlorine containing gases, converting them into forms that destroy ozone as well. So a wetter stratosphere will have less ozone.