Guest post by Erl Happ
The orbit of the Earth’s around the sun is slightly eccentric. The closest point is called the perihelion. On January 4th the Earth is just 147,098,291 km away from the sun. Aphelion occurs July 4th when the Earth is 152,098,233 km away from the sun, a difference of +3.3%. Naturally the power of the sun falls away with distance. Its radiation is 7% weaker in July than in January. Strangely, near surface air temperature for the Earth as a whole is 3.3°C warmer in July than in January. Yes, the surface is warmest when the Earth is furthest from the sun!
On a hemispherical basis total cloud cover increases as the surface warms but the loss of cloud in the southern hemisphere as the south cools and the north warms is much greater than the gain of cloud in the northern hemisphere. So, on a global basis cloud cover falls in mid year. Total cloud cover tells us nothing about global albedo because different types of clouds vary in their albedo and the mix of cloud types changes. Some cloud is actually supposed to trap radiation and warm the surface and this type changes a lot.
On the face of it, the warming process that occurs in mid year is only limited by the fact that the Earth moves about the sun on its tilted axis allowing cloud cover to recover between November and March.
This post explores where, why and what sort of cloud is lost as the global atmosphere warms in mid year. It turns out that there is a heavy loss of high level cloud in the southern hemisphere. The manner in which this loss occurs informs us as to the role of outgoing radiation in the climate system, the artificiality of our notions of what constitutes the troposphere and the stratosphere and the dynamics of the system that determines surface temperature and its variability from year to year and over time. It tells us about the impact of high cloud on surface temperature. The ‘natural’ dynamics described in this post are currently unrecognized in climate science as it is represented in UNIPCC reports.
All data for the graphs from http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/data/timeseries/timeseries1.pl
Figure 1 Surface air temperature (°C) and precipitable water (kg/m^2). Percentage change between minimum and maximum is indicated.
The increase in precipitable water lags the temperature increase by a couple of months. There is plainly more variability in the land rich northern hemisphere.
The maps below come from the invaluable JRA-25 Atlas at: http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/gmd/jra/atlas/eng/atlas-tope.htm
Figure 2 Total cloud cover January
Figure 3 Total cloud cover July
It is evident that all the driest parts of the land in both hemsipheres have less cloud in July than they do in January. These dry locations are sources of potent surface radiation. There is less cloud as a whole in July (more dark blue) than in January. There is more dark blue between the equator and 30° south in southern winter (July) than in summer. But what type of cloud is lost?
Cloud is classified according to elevation:
High cloud 7.6km to 12 km (300hPa to 150hPa)
Medium level cloud 2.4 to 5.5km (700 to 400hPa)
Low cloud below 2.4km. Below 700hPa.
Figure 4 Annual cycle of relative humidity at 10-30°south and 10-30°north at 925hPa (near surface) and at 300hPa (8km)
In the topmost figure we see a marked reduction in relative humidity at 300hPa at 10-30° south in mid year. The same latitudes in the northern hemisphere experience an increase in relative humidity in mid year.
In the lowest figure we see only a slight reduction in relative humidity at 925hPa affecting the last half of the year. However there is a loss of humidity in the middle of the year that increases with altitude. Notice that humidity at 300hPa generally exceeds that at 700hPa and 500hPa.
Figure 6 Relative humidity between 50°north latitude to 50° south latitude
Figure 6 aggregates data for all latitudes between 50° north and 50° south. There is a gradual but small decline in relative humidity in the low cloud zone at 850hPa towards a low point in mid year. We see a marked trough in relative humidity at 300hPa between April and November. This establishes that the main inter-seasonal dynamic occurs in the upper troposphere. But at what latitude?
Figure 7 Relative Humidity by latitude
Figure 7 reveals that the slight loss of relative humidity at 850hPa between 50°north and south latitude is a product of diverse trends.
It is plain that the mid year loss of humidity at 300hPa that characterizes the latitude 50°north to 50° south as a whole is is driven by marked change in the southern hemisphere.
Why is it so?
Figures 8 and 9 illustrate the point that the great high pressure cells of the Hadley circulation produce copious amounts of thermal (infrared) radiation colored red. This is particularly the case in the winter hemisphere. Here is a conundrum. Why do the subtropical latitudes of the winter hemisphere give off more radiation when the surface is cooler than when it is warmer?
First, what’s a Hadley cell? At the equator the air ascends. As it ascends latent heat is released, the air becomes less dense is driven upwards and in the process it cools via decompression. Hence the paucity of outgoing radiation in near equatorial latitudes. The warm waters between India and New Guinea give off little radiation but they deliver much evaporation. Air that ascends at the equator ultimately returns to the surface at 10-40° of latitude. It descends over cool surfaces that support the process of descent by cooling the surface air. The sea is cooler, and the land is much cooler in winter. Extensive high pressure cells circulate anticlockwise in the southern hemisphere and clockwise in the northern hemisphere giving rise to the trades and the westerlies. These cells are largely free of low and middle troposphere cloud. The air in these cells warms via compression, the bike pump effect. So, as these high pressure cells occupy more space in the winter hemisphere the surface must receive more direct sunlight and the winter hemisphere at these latitudes must be warmer than it otherwise would be.
Figure 8 July outgoing long wave radiation
Figure 9 January outgoing long wave radiation
It is apparent that atmospheric processes determine where thermal radiation is released by the Earth system. It is released from the atmosphere rather than directly from the surface. The area of cloud free sky tends to be enhanced in winter. This must be considered a positive. We like to be warmer in winter. If this is what the greenhouse effect is all about I am all for it. But hang on, the greenhouse effect must be quite weak because there is little chance of water vapor amplification in dry air. What a bummer.
Figure 10 Air temperature at various elevations at 20-30°south
Figure 3 shows that the temperature of the upper troposphere at 20-30° south responds to enhanced radiation in winter just like the stratosphere at 50hPa. The response depends upon the ability of ozone to trap long wave radiation at a quite specific wave length, 9.6 micrometers. Infrared spans 4-28 micrometers. We see a strong response to just a small part of the total spectrum by a mass of tiny little radiators that populate this part of the atmosphere in the parts per billion range but sufficient to invert the seasonal temperature profile. Hang on, this is not in the rule book, the troposphere is supposed to be warmed from the surface and should move with surface temperature! But here we see the upper troposphere acting like the stratosphere in that it responds to long wave radiation. Do we need to alter our ideas of what the stratosphere starts? Where is the ozone tropopause?
A winter warming response at 250hPa, involving a marked loss of relative humidity in the ice cloud zone, tells us that the moisture supply to the upper troposphere is disconnected from the temperature dynamic at this altitude. Quite possibly, the supply of moisture to the upper troposphere in the southern hemisphere depends upon the temperature of the tropical ocean that falls to its annual minimum in mid year. Quite possibly, that moisture is moving north rather than south in mid year.
Climatologists have long wondered why a 1°C increase in temperature at the sea surface relates to as much as a 3° increase in temperature of the upper troposphere. They call this phenomenon ‘amplification’ as if the temperature of the upper troposphere in some way depended on the temperature at the surface and there was a transistor circuit between the two. Hey guys, its the other way round. Turn the telescope round. The presence of a long wave absorber namely ozone, is responsible for this phenomenon. The warming of the upper troposphere results in cloud loss and then, after a little time lag, the surface temperature increases.
In the mid and high zone, cloud is present as highly reflective interlacing micro-crystals of ice that we describe as cirrus and stratus. When the air warms these crystals sublimate. Ice cloud is the dominant cloud of the subtropical region. In IPCC climate science high altitude ice cloud is supposed to warm the surface by enhancing back radiation. But when radiation from the atmosphere increases in winter relative humidity falls. This radiation it is not bounced back by the cloud, the cloud disappears and lets the sun shine through. The surface temperature response is due to the disappearance of the cloud, not back radiation. Oops.
Figure 11 Southern Hemisphere locations exhibiting high altitude ice cloud on 26th September 2011
The evolution of surface temperature is intimately related to the coming and going of clouds. The animation at http://www.intelliweather.com/imagesuite_specialty.htm
reveals that the circulation of the air in the high cloud zone is independent of and quite contrary to the low cloud zone.
Figure 12 High cloud cover in January and July Source JRA-25 Atlas at http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/gmd/jra/atlas/eng/atlas-tope.htm
Figure 12 shows the latitudes of the southern hemisphere where high cloud is evaporated in July. There is a marked expansion in the area that has less high cloud by comparison with January.
Figure 13 The advance of global temperature in January and July
Figure 13 indicates that there is more year to year variability in the minimum global temperature (January) than the maximum (July).
The minimum is experienced when the Earth is closest to the sun. The Earth is coolest at this time because the atmosphere is cloudier in January. January is characterized by a relative abundance of high ice cloud in the southern hemisphere. Relative humidity peaks in April (figure 6) when tropical waters are warmest. I suggest the variation in the minimum global temperature is due to change in high altitude cloud. The southern hemisphere experiences the largest flux in ice cloud.That flux in high cloud is likely to be due to change in ozone content of the upper troposphere.
Variation in cloud cover should be the first hypothesis to explore when the Earth warms or cools over time. You would have to be very naive to think that the inter-annual change in temperature that is most obvious between November and March could be due to something other than a change in cloud cover.
Figure 14 Temperature of the sea and the upper troposphere at 250hPa at 20-30° south in January.
Figure 15 Temperature of the sea and the upper troposphere at 250hPa at 20-30° south in July.
In January we observe a close relationship between the temperature of the upper troposphere at 20-30°south and the temperature of the sea. The so called ‘amplification factor’ is plainly there.
In July we see a decline in 200hPa temperature between 1948 and 1978 in line with the decline in the temperature of the northern hemisphere during that interval and a strong increase in 200hPa temperature after 1978 as the northern hemisphere warmed strongly. We know that the temperature of the stratosphere at 20-30°south is linked to the extent of warming in the northern hemisphere in mid year. The greater the convectional updraft that occurs north of the equator in mid year, the more voluminous is the stream of air that descends in the winter hemisphere. So, as the north warms the greater will be the outgoing radiation and the warmer will be the stratosphere and the upper troposphere in the southern hemisphere. The warmer it is, the less extensive must be the reflective ice cloud.
Figure 16 Anomalies in temperature at 200hPa, 300hPa and at the sea surface 20-30° south. Three month moving averages of monthly data.
Looking now at departures from the 1948-2011 monthly average the dependance of surface temperature upon upper troposphere temperature is plain to see. In a warming cycle we see 200hPa temperature rising above 300hPa and sea surface temperature and falling below it in a cooling cycle. The shift of in 200hPa temperature between 1976-1980 had its origins in the increase in the temperature of the Antarctic stratosphere at that time and the commencement of the warming in the northern hemisphere.
The $64,000 question is what causes the change in the ozone content of the high cloud zone between November and March when the greatest variability in global surface temperature is seen.
The $164,000 question is what is causing cloud cover to rise and fall on decadal and centennial time scales.
The answer to both questions lies in the activity of the coupled circulation of the stratosphere and the troposphere at the poles that feeds ozone into the troposphere. The upper troposphere warms or cools depending upon the feed rate of ozone. The feed rate changes over time.
The ozone content and temperature of the upper stratosphere depends in the first instance upon the activity of the night jet at the poles that introduces NOx from the mesosphere. Less NOx means more ozone. The activity of the night jet depends upon surface pressure and the concentration of NOx in the jet depends upon solar activity. In Antarctica, surface pressure has been falling for sixty years indicating a continuous increase in the ozone feed into the troposphere, the second major influence upon the ozone content of the polar stratosphere.
In that the coupled circulation of the stratosphere and the troposphere over Antarctica changes surface pressure at 60-70° south it changes the strength of the westerly winds in the southern hemisphere, cloud cover and surface temperature on all time scales. Stratospheric ozone is wasted above and below the stratosphere, processes referred to as ‘unknown dynamical influences’ in the more respectable polar ozone studies.
These phenomena are the very essence of the Southern Annular Mode, arguably the fundamental mode of global climate variation on all time scales.
One thing is plain. High altitude ice cloud in the southern hemisphere is plainly a reflector of solar radiation. It does not promote warming (positive feedback). It promotes cooling (negative feedback). It’s presence depends upon the flux in ozone in the upper troposphere as governed by processes in the stratosphere. So the UNIPCC climate models are 180° out of whack.
If your brain is starting to hurt, just rest it for a moment while you consider the following.
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:—
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.
For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils…
When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow park we saw a few daffodils close to the water side, we fancied that the lake had floated the seeds ashore & that the little colony had so sprung up— But as we went along there were more & yet more & at last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road . . . [S]ome rested their heads on [mossy] stones as on a pillow for weariness & the rest tossed & reeled & danced & seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the Lake, they looked so gay ever glancing ever changing. This wind blew directly over the lake to them. There was here & there a little knot & a few stragglers a few yards higher up but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity & unity & life of that one busy highway… —Rain came on, we were wet. William Wordsworth 1815
Now that you have rested you might devise a mathematical model that mimics the behavior of the climate system as described in this post.
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erl happ says: “In this case correlation means nothing. Temperature increases in the upper troposphere, cloud goes, and temperature increases more, no further cloud response.”
If it means nothing then there is no reason for the graph and no reason for your including in your post the misleading statement “In January we observe a close relationship between the temperature of the upper troposphere at 20-30°south and the temperature of the sea.” But apparently you belived they meant something because you included both the graph and the statement.
erl happ says: “No, I am not masking for land and sea.”
Then I’ll return to the question I posed in my earlier comment (and correct my typos): Are you sure the variations in upper troposphere temperature over land are not different than the variations in upper troposphere temperature over the ocean?
erl happ says: “I have checked and discovered that SST responses at this latitude frequently precede ENSO 3.4.”
Please provide an illustration to show that the SST response at, I assume, 30S-20S often precede ENSO. Please note which longitudes and dataset you’re using as well.
erl happ says: “Google ‘amplification of surface temperature in the troposphere’.”
I Googled “amplification of surface temperature in the troposphere” in quotes as you had noted and there are zero hits. This is typically what happens when someone tells someone else to Google something. They cannot provide a direct link so they stall for time with misdirection.
erl happ says: “Its upper, not lower troposphere that is influential.”
Excuse my repeated typographical errors. It’s force of habit. I’ll rewrite my statement, “you have provided nothing to illustrate and justify your hypothesis that variations in upper troposphere temperatures are causing the variations in SST.”
And thank you for confirming that your posts are nothing more than conjecture on your part. We can see that your recent posts have little bases in data and little bases in reality. I’m sure Anthony will not be pleased that you are continuing to use his science blog to promote your unfounded and, based on many of the comments above, incorrect hypotheses.
my-oh-my! Did I really read this? Do I need glasses maybe? So when the sun is closest, and 7% more energy reaches earth, IT IS COLDEST!! (in the USA, duh) You got to be kidding, right? Have you ever been to Africa? Not strictly necessary, just ask someone, or check teh internets – it is HOTTEST there in December/January!!
Winter/summer has very little to do with perihelion/aphelion, because earth’s orbit is as round as it can get. It has to do with earth’s tilt.
Chek out Svensmark’s wikpedia page there are several references to studies that show a GCR temperature link.
The trouble with trying to assess cloud cover per se is that the presence or absence of cloud is tied in with the origin of the cloud bearing air and the atmosphere is in constant movement. In my part of the world the surface temperature warms as the cloud appears and it goes down when the cold air blows from the south, the cloud starts breaking up and people observe that it’s too cold to rain. In the build up they are led to observe that it’s getting warm with the wind coming from the north west and they can ‘smell the rain coming’.
What you are describing is the passage of a cold front. Cold air replaces warmer air and this is the primary reason temperatures drop. Not because clouds associated with the front clear.
I live not too far from you and can state that clouds from any direction including the north cool temperatures dramatically in the summer daytime and have a modest cooling effect in the winter daytime for the simple reason they block more solar insolation than they reradiate LWR back to the ground.
The poem was fine a favorite of mine. Sir if your facts are even 90% true the BS about the ozone being our fault is put to bed. Then another slant on heat pump Earth, or a piece of the puzzle of heat pump is also nailed. Thank you sir.
Kelvin Vaughan says: October 7, 2011 at 2:35 am
Just a thought. Would carbon dioxide that has absorbed radiation convect upwards in the atmosphere?
A very interesting question. Carbon dioxide would not ascend as a separate entity but the parcel of air containing the CO2 might ascend. Let’s think it through.
I think of a radiation absorber as acting like a mini radiator, delivering energy to the rest of the atmosphere as fast as it is received. As soon as the temperature increases the air either becomes unstable and is forced to ascend losing energy via decompression or else it radiates that energy away in the same way as the original absorber. And it radiates in all directions. If the air that is warmed in this way stays warm because it is receiving more radiation than it is emitting it will be forced to ascend.
The process of convection changes the location where the air radiates in the infrared from a part of the atmosphere that is ascending to a part of the atmosphere that is descending. Descending air is generally dry and cloud free. There is little chance of positive feedback from water vapour or cloud in this circumstance. The second thing to consider is the relative ease with which radiation is transmitted to space when the atmosphere thins. So air that has ascended reaches an altitude where radiation to space is less impeded with the result that the air cools quickly, with little impact on the temperature of the molecules lower in the atmospheric column.
In this post I point to a part of the upper troposphere in the southern hemisphere that reaches its seasonal maximum in winter as does the stratosphere above. The surface is colder at this time. If we examined the thermal profile and found a smooth transition with increasing elevation from a summer maximum at the surface to a winter maximum in the upper troposphere I would consider that excellent evidence that a greenhouse effect is effectively warming the air all the way to the surface. We don’t see that smooth transition. In my view that’s good evidence that the mooted greenhouse effect is a figment of the imagination rather than a reality.
Something’s wrong here. Some seem to be thinking/saying, “the closer we are to the Sun the cooler it gets, and the farther the warmer”. Daaaaa… I’m hearing “the Sun is bass ackwards” or “the Sun has nothing to do with it” (whatever ‘it’ is, and _of course_ whatever the meaning of ‘is’ is). It seems rather obvious that we’re looking at this upside down. Perhaps there is a significant difference between a hemisphere of saltwater and one of continents and vegetation, one with a huge continent of ice and one with a seasonal sea of ice? Maybe? If the Earth’s orbit were perfectly circular, might things be a might different? Daaaa… (maybe I read this all backwards, I am a little dislexic, I’ll go back and try again..)
PS: I’ve heard it said that it’s always a good idea to write, edit, proof, walk away, take a break, have a snack or cup of joe, re-read, edit, touch-up, and publish. I also hear good wine is more than just squashing grapes. There were a few seeds in here.
Bob Tisdale says: October 7, 2011 at 2:45 am
Let me try again. The relationship between the temperature of the upper troposphere and the surface at 20-30°south latitude is best examined as departures from the monthly averages for the entire period which I show in figure 15.
Before I get into a description of that relationship let us acknowledge the loss of high cloud at 20-30°south seen in figure 6 that is associated with the winter temperature maximum in the upper troposphere figure 10 and the reduction in relative humidity in figure 7 together with the increase in radiation shown in figure 8.
One viewpoint is that the temperature of the upper troposphere varies with and in response to surface temperature. Please click on figure 15 so as to enlarge it. The temperature at 200hPa gyrates rather more than the temperature at the surface and the movement at 200hPa does generally precede that at the surface. In figure 10 I showed the response to enhanced OLR in the upper troposphere is the same as in the stratosphere, a peak in the middle of winter. I infer that the response in the troposphere is due to ozone in which case it perfectly explicable that the upper troposphere experiences wider swings in temperature than the surface. This is so because ozone content varies and so does the amount of radiation. By inference, cloud cover changes as temperature changes but not necessarily in proportion. I suspect therefore that the surface temperature response is due to a change in cloud cover. The fact that the correlation is imperfect says to me that something else other than surface temperature is driving the temperature of the upper troposphere.
Now, other factors affect the correlation. The ocean moves and this changes surface temperature and this in turn will affect 200hPa temperature so in some instances it is entirely possible that the movement at the surface precedes that at 8-12 km in elevation. Equally, the atmosphere moves. Furthermore it may take only a small temperature change in the upper troposphere to see all the cloud disappear. Further temperature increase is possible but once the cloud is gone it is gone and we would not expect to see a further response at the surface.
If you accept or reject a hypothesis on the basis of a correlation coefficient without thinking about the forces involved you will throw the baby out with the bathwater. In my view we rely too much on ‘climate science’ produced by mathematicians who have little understanding of process and how it varies with location.
Perhaps you could venture a different explanation for the relationship shown in figure 15?
Are you sure the variations in upper troposphere temperature over land are not different than the variations in upper troposphere temperature over the ocean?
I expect they would be because land is an immediate emitter of OLR.
I have checked and discovered that SST responses at this latitude frequently precede ENSO 3.4.”
http://climatechange1.wordpress.com/2009/08/22/wherefor-art-thou-nino/
I Googled “amplification of surface temperature in the troposphere” in quotes
Please try without the quotes.
you have provided nothing to illustrate and justify your hypothesis that variations in upper troposphere temperatures are causing the variations in SST
I try again above. If that makes no sense to you please tell me why the upper troposphere peaks in temperature in the middle of winter.
If there are typos you can take your pick as to whether its due to several glasses of very nice Cabernet Franc, two finger typing or senility.
Philip Bradley says: October 7, 2011 at 3:23 am
What you are describing is the passage of a cold front. Cold air replaces warmer air and this is the primary reason temperatures drop. Not because clouds associated with the front clear.
I agree and I hope we meet one day to explore ideas.
erl happ wrote (October 7, 2011 at 12:08 am)
“Trouble is that there is little evidence that surface temperature varies in line with cosmic rays so as to produce an unambiguous rise and fall in temperature over the course of a solar cycle.”
This is a fundamentally misdirected argument.
Take the time to understand:
1) Le Mouël, J.-L.; Blanter, E.; Shnirman, M.; & Courtillot, V. (2010). Solar forcing of the semi-annual variation of length-of-day. Geophysical Research Letters 37, L15307. doi:10.1029/2010GL043185.
Here’s some help:
Semi-Annual Solar-Terrestrial Power
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/23/confirmation-of-solar-forcing-of-the-semi-annual-variation-of-length-of-day/
2) The implications of differential (since Earth does not have an 11 year clock) solar-pulse position modulation:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/scl_northpacificsst.png
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/vaughn_lod_amo_sc.png
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/scl_0-90n.png
same pattern for whole Pacific (no graph up on net yet)
SCL’ = rate of change of solar cycle length = solar cycle deceleration
charles nelson (October 6, 2011 at 11:43 am) & RR Kampen (October 7, 2011 at 1:18 am) get it. It’s about north-south ocean-continent contrast. Thermal wind patterns are neither symmetric across basins nor hemispheres.
AnimPolarWind200hPa
http://i52.tinypic.com/cuqyt.png
AnimWind200hPa
http://i52.tinypic.com/zoamog.png
AnimWindZonal
http://i51.tinypic.com/34xouhx.png
For those who want to understand:
STOP THINKING IN ANOMALIES and look at the fractal geometry of ABSOLUTE temperature gradients:
Anim2mT
http://i55.tinypic.com/dr75s7.png
Supplementary:
AnimWind850hPa_
http://i52.tinypic.com/nlo3dw.png
AnimPolarWind850hPa
http://i54.tinypic.com/29vlc0x.png
AnimMSLP
http://i54.tinypic.com/swg11c.png
Regards.
Erl –
Yes, ‘edited’. (But wouldn’t that make the “i” long?)
Re: the piece:
– it’s too long
– I couldn’t find a succinct conclusion
– the poetry at the end is unnecessary and just makes a long piece longer
By allowing this piece in as is, Anthony is facilitating the positioning of WUWT as an “amateur” or “unprofessional” site by its opponents. The most important attribute of this site is its credibility and its balance. It has to earn that every day. It’s OK to be either a skeptic or a believer–but document it thoroughly and present it professionally. If you need to make a smaller point and document it better, do so.
As Don Coreleone says in The Godfather: “I spent my whole life trying not to be careless. Women and children can afford to be careless, but not men.” He meant, if you are in a business where others are gunning for you, don’t be careless.
With an as yet undetermined appendage Earl Happ writes:
“This post explores where, why and what sort of cloud is lost as the global atmosphere warms in mid year. It turns out that there is a heavy loss of high level cloud in the southern hemisphere.”
Give me a friggin’ break Earl. Even Anthony had to point out you used the wrong map for high level cloud cover and instead used an infrared view. I generally don’t read much past the first glaring error and that first glaring error was you saying it was strange that the earth is warmer at aphelion. This is NOT strange and the reason is glaringly obvious to anyone with a smattering of knowledge in earth science. The northern hemisphere has twice the landmass of the southern and land is colder in winter and warmer in summer than ocean at same latitude. This easily explains why the northern hemisphere summer, even though it currently occurs at aphelion, imparts the highest global average temperature.
You are too ignorant in the sciences to be writing articles for this website, Earl. Give it up. You make a fool of yourself and detract from the credibility of the website. Your ego is writing checks that your knowledge of science can’t cash. Stop it. Go post somewhere about grape growing which one would hope you actually are qualified to write about as an expert.
Suggestion for everyone:
Take a look at the first few google hits for “thermal wind“:
e.g.:
–
Thermal Wind
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_wind
“Jet Stream
A horizontal temperature gradient exists while moving North-South along a meridian because the curvature of the Earth allows for more solar heating at the equator than at the poles. This creates a westerly geostrophic wind pattern to form in the mid-latitudes. Because thermal wind causes an increase in wind velocity with height, the westerly pattern increases in intensity up until the tropopause, creating a strong wind current known as the jet stream. The Northern and Southern Hemispheres exhibit similar jet stream patterns in the mid-latitudes.
Using the same Thermal Wind argument, the strongest part of the jet stream should be in proximity where temperature gradients are the largest. Due to the setup of the continents in the North America, largest temperature contrasts are observed on the east coast of North America (boundary between Canadian cold air mass and the Gulf Stream/warmer Atlantic) and Eurasia (boundary between the boreal winter monsoon/Siberian cold air mass and the warm Pacific). Indeed, the strongest part of the boreal winter Northern Hemisphere jet is observed over east coast of North America and Eurasia as well. Since stronger vertical shear promotes baroclinic instability, so the most rapid development of extratropical cyclones (so called bombs) is also observed along the east coast of North America and Eurasia.
A similar argument can be applied to the Southern Hemisphere. The lack of continents in the Southern Hemisphere should lead to a more constant jet with longitude (i.e. a more zonally symmetric jet), and that is indeed the case in observations.”
–
What is the thermal wind?
http://www.theweatherprediction.com/habyhints2/407/
“The first word in the term is thermal. Thermal as you may have guessed deals with temperature. The thermal wind is set up by a change in temperature over a change in distance. When thinking of how the thermal wind sets up think of the polar jet stream. To the north of the polar jet stream the air is cold. Since the air is cold the thickness values (and heights) are lower since cold air is more dense. To the south of the polar jet stream the air is warm. Since air is warm the thickness values are higher since warm air is less dense. A north to south temperature gradient is set up and the height values slope over this distance. When height values slope (think of height contours close together on upper level charts) the pressure gradient force is put into action. It is the Pressure Gradient Force that causes the wind to blow. Whether it is the jet stream, a mid-latitude cyclone or a sea breeze it is the change in temperature over distance that sets the wind in motion. The thermal wind occurs above the boundary layer since friction is not an influence on altering the wind direction aloft.
The wind direction in association with the jet stream generally travels from west to east. This is because the Pressure Gradient Force moves air from higher heights toward lower heights and the Coriolis deflection deflects the air to the right of the path of motion in the Northern Hemisphere. Thus, air moving from south toward north is deflected to the east due to Earth’s rotation. […]
The thermal wind flow parallel to thickness lines. Remember that thickness is a function of temperature. […]
The magnitude of the wind will be a function of how strong the temperature gradient is. When the height contours or thickness values of packed close together then the wind will be strong.
[…] The thermal wind can be thought of as a steering influence for the direction and magnitude that storms move.
[…] the thermal wind is a wind that flow parallel to the temperature gradient in the troposphere. The thermal wind explains the magnitude and direction the wind will take when a temperature change occurs over a horizontal distance.”
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Thickness and Thermal Wind
http://www.aos.wisc.edu/~aalopez/aos101/wk12.html
“Summary of the Thickness and Wind presentation [ http://www.aos.wisc.edu/~aalopez/aos101/wk12/ThermalWind.ppt ]:
• Cold air is more dense, therefore thinner
• Warm air is less dense, therefore thicker
• Temperature is the only factor that changes the thickness of a layer
• When you have a temperature contrast, you create height variations for a layer
• Height variation create a pressure gradient
• Pressure gradient creates a PGF [pressure gradient force]
• The change in the Geostrophic Wind is directly proportional to the horizontal temperature gradient
This is the Thermal (temperature) Wind relationship”
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Fronts and the Thermal Wind Equation
Narrowing the Jet Stream
http://www.mit.edu/~predawn/jetstream/thermalwind.html
“One can combine the equations for the geostrophic wind and the hydrostatic balance as discussed in previous sections to obtain the Thermal Wind Equation as shown below. The thermal wind equation states that the change in wind speed with height (here expressed in pressure coordinates) is equal to the (-R/f) times the change in temperature across the front on a constant pressure surface, divided by the pressure. The most important concept from these relations, is that the the steep temperature gradients created by the fronts generate winds to satisfy this thermal wind equation, proportional to the strength of the front. The winds are geostrophic and flow along the constant pressure isobars around both poles [2].”
“The effects of these polar fronts are two fold: they concentrate the west to east geostrophic flow at the frontal boundaries where the large temperature gradients induce large thermal winds. Secondly, they also increase the flow with altitude, creating the very fast Jet Stream at high levels around 250mb. […] The strong, high altitude wind centers indicate the location of the Jet Stream!”
=
Digesting the preceding is prep for understanding Le Mouël, J.-L.; Blanter, E.; Shnirman, M.; & Courtillot, V. (2010) and the simple implications (asymmetric multidecadal aliasing).
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One more supplementary animation:
AnimVerticalVelocity
http://i54.tinypic.com/2ch4x28.png
Credit: Climatology animations have been assembled using JRA-25 Atlas [ http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/gmd/jra/atlas/eng/atlas-tope.htm ] images. JRA-25 long-term reanalysis is a collaboration of Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) & Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI).
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Best Regards.
I live close to the Arctic circle where the temperature differs by 60°C or so during a year. In my experience, in summer clear days are warm and cloudy days are cold, but in winter cloudy days are warm and clear days are cold. The sun is hardly visible during winter so the solar energy input is very low. It seems that in winter the clouds are trapping/”backradiating” heat from the surface and in summer they are blocking the sun’s energy input by reflecting the solar energy back to outer space. Or maybe it’s the other way around, the temperature change causes changes in cloud cover, I don’t know, but I think it is interesting.
erl happ: Please correct your reply. You have italicized portions of your reply, indicating you’ve quoted me, when in fact you are quoting yourself. In other words, you are attributing to me things that I did not write. AND I DO NOT APPRECIATE THAT.
Also, in glancing at your reply, I did not find answers to many of my very basic questions.
With respect to your using your consumption of alchohol as an excuse for errors in your replies, can we also attribute the lack of clarity and reality in your posts to that as well?
Good bye, Erl. You are wasting my time and the time of others who blog here,
“If there are typos you can take your pick as to whether its due to several glasses of very nice Cabernet Franc, two finger typing or senility.”
Sheesh, Erl. Drinking while writing posts here? Publication privileges revoked.
I apologize to my readers that this happened.
“”””” Dave Springer says:
October 6, 2011 at 4:24 pm
Sensor operator says:
October 6, 2011 at 2:37 pm
“And this is the reason people are concerned about melting ice caps/glaciers. It takes a lot of energy (nearly two orders of magnitude) to melt ice to water than it does to warm the water. So, once the ice has melted, it is much easier to warm the water.” “””””
Well the latent heat of freezing(melting) is 80 calories per gram so two orders of magnitude less than that would be 0.8 calories per gram. Well would “nearly” two be say 1 1/2 orders or 31.62 times (less). Well maybe not; 1.5 is exactly halfway between one and two , so not nearly two.
Maybe we should adopt the IPCC approved fudge factor of 3:1 for climatism results, so how about 1 3/4 orders of magnitude, which is 56.2 leading to about 1.42 calories per gram. So this could warm that one gram of water by 1.42 deg C. Well a problem with that is that once the gram of ice becomes a gram of water it will diffuse into the surrounding masses of liquid water, and that 1.42 extra calories would be widely dispersed. While the 80 calorie (shortage) of energy in the ice was locked up there, it was under control; once the hole is filled from external sources, there are millions of gallons of water to supply the 1.42 calories..
Incidentally, the one gram of ice, will melt at zero+ degrees C since ice is fresh water, but it is floating on salt water which is at a lower temperature than zero, so it will rapidly cool the new gram of fresh water.
anna wrote (October 7, 2011 at 9:59 am)
“In my experience, in summer clear days are warm and cloudy days are cold, but in winter cloudy days are warm and clear days are cold.”
Same for Norway, Pacific Northwest of North America, & Patagonia, as can be seen in this animation:
AnimWaterVaporFlux_
(column integrated water vapor flux with their convergence)
http://i51.tinypic.com/126fc77.png
Indeed, there’s nothing critical riding on the CERN CLOUD experiment. We already have the info we need from Atmospheric Angular Momentum & Earth Orientation Parameter records.
Regards.
Bob Tisdale: Thanks for your articles on GS, IPWP, KOE, & SPCZ.
( Has everyone noticed locations of strongest semi-annual amplitude?
AnimPolarWind200hPa: http://i52.tinypic.com/cuqyt.png
AnimWind200hPa: http://i52.tinypic.com/zoamog.png )
Bob Tisdale says: October 7, 2011 at 10:23 am
You have italicized portions of your reply, indicating you’ve quoted me
Not at all. Those portions are italicized to indicate the nature of the query that I am addressing.
I used inverted commas to enclose the words that I was suggesting that you Google. Google informs me that the query ‘amplification of surface temperature in the troposphere’ yields about 50,400 hits. Why enclose the words in commas when you query? I gave you the title of one paper and a list of authors attached in reply to your query ‘Who are they’? Does this impress you. Not at all.
It seems to me that you attempt to destroy by whatever means, fair or foul. Your typos indicate to me that you are having trouble with accuracy. I act in good faith in addressing the questions that you raise. Would that you could do the same for me.
If I do answer your question in a manner that is ‘half adequate’ in your view why not acknowledge it instead of simply launching into another attack?
A sense of equity and balance is a good thing to cultivate.
Erl; Taking a bit of a beating here. I have to admire your courage, albeit fortified with wine.
In response to Steven Kopits notion that the value of this site is “its credibility and its balance.”, I have to respectfully disagree.
This site is great because of it’s (largely) un-censored comments. Disagree? Fine. Anything other than Ad-Hominem is acceptable in the discourse.
We can have discussions about whether the clouds of ice prevent the warming, etc. We can talk about why Milankovitch cycles are important. The Cloud project at CERN. We can discuss the latest antics of the hockey team. And we can do it without name calling or censorship.
When somebody makes an earnest effort to further the understanding, many here are more than happy to point out there errors. Erl may be wrong, but he’s put more effort into thinking about it this week than I have, wine not withstanding. (Erl, you may have a problem.)
And with the gracious efforts of everyone else; his understanding is improved. I would be willing to bet he’s not the only person who has learned something, either from his article, or from the comments.
I myself couldn’t quite follow his article, my BS meter was blinking a bit here and there, and the comments confirmed some things tugging at my brain while I read it.
Either way; do you want the site to be about understanding climate change, or just about skepticism of the AGW dogma? Because we’ve got plenty of sites available for that. This site prospers exactly because Anthony has chosen to allow discordant views and ideas to be expressed. There are a lot of articles here about science and astronomy and so forth that have little to do with climate.
It is a testament to the web-site and to Anthony that such unfounded ideas can be discussed and either forwarded for consideration or placed in file 13, as appropriate.
If only the climate science establishment could be so open minded, they wouldn’t have to worry about being assailed by people who honestly want to understand. That is what science is supposed to be about. Not shouting down people who’s ideas you don’t agree with or fully understand.
Oh, and I’m not recommending we allow any comments or articles about con-trails. Those people ARE crazy.
Bob Kutz says: October 7, 2011 at 3:07 pm
Erl; Taking a bit of a beating here. I have to admire your courage, albeit fortified with wine.
Bob, the comment about wine was in jest. I mentioned also the possibility of inaccurate typing and approaching senility. I could see that other people were having trouble getting their point across accurately and posing a query. Too subtle perhaps?
I see frequent references to my occupation by people keen to do damage and the suggestion is frequently made that I should get on with my grape-growing and leave the ‘science’ to others better qualified. I ignore the insults. The resort to insulting comments identifies a person who has trouble addressing the argument. I have a tough hide.
In point of fact I rarely imbibe. I am particular about what I drink and it has to be special. I like to keep my wits about me, particularly in the evenings when I have some free time.
I don’t have any regrets about my foray into climate science. There is work to be done and I intend to get on with it.
I like the idea of a forum that is available to all in a thoroughly democratic fashion. The topic I am discussion here is not why the Earth is warmer when the sun is furthest away as some are keen to assert. Its the vexed question as to the role of clouds in relation to surface temperature. Its a pity that the data in figures 7-10 and 12 and 13 has not excited a bit more curiosity and interest. Plainly my assertion in relation to the nature of the cloud in figure 11 is incorrect and that I accept. That figure could be removed without damage to the argument which is adequately supported by figure 12 that clearly establishes the loss of high cloud in the middle of the year when increased radiation from the atmosphere produces warming in the high cloud zone.
Does anyone want to dispute the idea that radiation from the atmosphere excites ozone in the high cloud zone within the troposphere. This is the truly radical observation/inference in the post.
Does anyone want to dispute the idea that radiation primarily emanates from descending columns of dry air? That has big implications for greenhouse theory.
Apparently not. Progress is slow. I am a patient man.
Many people here including the very assertive Dave Springer tell us that ‘continentality ‘ , the observed increase in the range of temperature experienced with distance from the sea can be cited as the reason why the Earth is warmer when the sun shines on the northern hemisphere.
Let’s think about this.
There is no doubt that land in general returns energy very quickly to the atmosphere raising the temperature of the air. This, in the absence of increased evaporation should reduce relative humidity and cloud cover. But in the northern hemisphere ‘cloud cover’ as defined by the ISCCP actually increases in mid year. Figure 7 shows some differences in relative humidity according to latitude. We don’t know whether ‘cloud cover’ as a statistic is related to surface temperature at all. On the face of it this increase in cloud cover should reduce insolation at the surface. But cloud cover includes lots of cloud types at different levels and porosities so we cannot assume that this is the case.
It would be of interest to look at the lag in the build up of cloud cover. If it always lags surface temperature then it’s not going to be that influential. Cloud cover will peak a month or two after the solstice as the energy input from the sun begins to decline and perhaps accelerate the decline in temperature.
We know that inland locations warm quickly during the day and cool quickly at night. That’s the reason for the greater ‘range’ and the greater daily range is another measure of ‘continentality’. The greater daily range is due to the inability of land to store energy, unlike the sea that is very efficient at absorbing and storing energy. Low overnight minima are evidence that the energy is lost overnight. But the ramping of temperature in the northern hemisphere is evidence that, at least in the first half of summer less is lost overnight than is gained during the day. And that is the reason for the steep increase in temperature in northern summer. Do clouds play a role in this by trapping long wave energy? If they do, then add that to the reasons why the northern hemisphere warms so strongly in summer.
‘Continentality’ is just a label we use for a statistic. In itself it doesn’t explain anything.
Now, it so happens that there is a second hemisphere that adds its own weight to the global statistic. And in the southern hemisphere there is a very strong loss of humidity in the high cloud zone at low and middle latitudes likely to result in an increase in the energy available to the oceans. And the ocean is very extensive. It so happens that in the Pacific a lot of that energy is moved north by ocean currents affecting surface temperature, particularly in winter when the land gets very cold. This is likely to reduce the ‘continentality’.
‘Continentality’ is just a useful statistic. By itself it tells us nothing about the underlying physics and any paper that suggested that the temperature of the globe in June is due to ‘continentality’ would get a C minus from me. And I am talking school kids, not adults who take an interest in the subject and should know better.
I would be more inclined to give higher marks to a person who tried to explain the physics behind the statistic, even though he might say at the end of the essay: too hard, I just don’t know.
Kudos to Erl who makes interesting assertions that (to a lowly unwashed non climate scientist) are wroth pondering. IMO, a few people need to lighten up.
George E. Smith says
The result for LWIR emissions from the water surface, may be different. The water absorptance is certainly very high; so it is a near black body absorber and emitter; But the emissivity is a function of reflectance; not absorptance.
————
It’s not clear to me that a simple reflectance argument is sufficient to account for the emissitivity. And the different angular dependence of emission and refraction would appear to the kill the idea dead.
Also on a slightly different point the refractive index at IR wavelengths is certainly not going to be 1.33.