Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Thunderstorms are one of my main interests, so I read up on a study by some Harvard researchers that has been receiving all kinds of attention in the blogosphere. Unfortunately, it’s another “could, might, possibly, chance of” study. The YaleGlobal Online blog of the venerable Yale University quotes the Christian Science Monitor as saying:
Summer Thunderstorms Could Be Punching New Holes in Ozone Layer
Harvard study looking at conditions in the lower stratosphere, where the ozone layer resides, suggests a link between climate change and amount of ultraviolet radiation reaching Earth’s surface
“Could be” punching new holes in the ozone layer? “Suggests a link”??
The paper is called “UV Dosage Levels in Summer: Increased Risk of Ozone Loss from Convectively Injected Water Vapor”, by James G. Anderson et al. (Paywalled here, hereinafter Anderson 2012). Here’s their money graph, showing the how high the water vapor reaches into the atmosphere over the US.
Figure 1, from Anderson2012. Original caption says: Fig. 1(B) Observations of water vapor in the summertime over the US show numerous occurrences in the range of 10 to 18 ppmv reaching pressure altitudes deep into the stratosphere.
So why is there a possibility that it might happen that there could be a chance of a risk of danger from thunderstorms injecting water into the stratosphere as they’ve been doing since forever? Or as they trumpet it in the title of their study, why are they sure that there is an “Increased Risk of Ozone Loss”?
Well, here’s their claim:
Were the intensity and frequency of convective injection to increase as a result of climate forcing by the continued addition of CO2 and CH4 to the atmosphere, increased risk of ozone loss and associated increases in UV dosage would follow.
Yes, and were I to win the lottery as a result of increasing good luck caused by the continued addition of CO2 and CH4 to the atmosphere, increased risk of money wastage and associated increases in hangovers would follow …
I can’t tell you just how much I despise this kind of fear-mongering. At one time, this kind of scientific investigation of the atmosphere would have been presented honestly, but these days, any finding is justification for alarmism.
But wait, hold it. In this case, the alarmism may be justified by the large increase in the dampness of the stratosphere due to warming. After all, their calculations say that when water hits the stratosphere, all kinds of terrible things happen And they say that the stratosphere will get wetter as the world warms. And since the world has been warming over the last century or two, there must be evidence of the increase in dangerous stratospheric water vapor due to the warming … and in fact, their paper says:
There are a number of important considerations associated with the issue of convective injection of water vapor inducing chlorine activation and catalytic removal of ozone over mid-latitudes of the NH in summer. First is the fact that a remarkably dry stratosphere characterizes the current climate state.
Wait … what?
The world has been warming for centuries, and yet the stratosphere is “remarkably dry”?
Go figure, the climate is a mysterious beast. But it’s not nearly as mysterious as the logic of AGW alarmists. Despite a couple of centuries of warming having left the stratosphere “remarkably dry”, they claim warming might could possibly suddenly reverse course and cause the stratosphere to get wetter instead, and in turn that has the opportunity of maybe increasing the chances of making ozone holes, and thus it just might/could/conceivably/chance of/possibly cause an increase in skin cancer. And the best part is that, like a Hollywood movie, their contestant for the Booker Prize is “based on a true story”!
Yeah, I’m terrified. I think I’ll go out and invest in sunscreen futures right now … can’t be too careful, you know.
w.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
And I was taught that the Ozone is created by lightning… go figure.
Warmists might eventually guess right
Repeatedly debunked by measurements, yet the climate change threat still persists: global warming is causing more frequent and more intensive extreme weather events! The frequency and intensity of hurricanes, tornadoes, etc. has actually decreased during the 1975-2005 period – but now, after global temperatures have started to decline and global warming became climate change, this is likely to happen.
The frequency and intensity of many extreme weather events roughly follows the changes in temperature gradient between the cold polar and the warm equatorial air: the lager the difference over a shorter distance, the more frequent and violent will become tornadoes, hurricanes, etc.
Polar air is relatively dry and therefore has a relatively low thermal capacity. On the other hand, equatorial air is wet and has a high thermal capacity. So, when the climate warms – for whatever reasons – the polar air warms faster than the equatorial layers, the gradient decreases and therefore the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events decreases. Which is exactly what has been happening during the 1975-2005 warming period.
However, now we may be entering a cooling period. When climate cools – for whatever reasons – polar air cools faster than equatorial air, the gradient increases and extreme weather events become more frequent and intensive.
I have recently seen some AGW propagandist on CNN regurgitating the “climate change – extreme weather” con. And we might actually experience more intensive extreme weather events in the near future. You can bet that IPCC et al. will use every opportunity to point out how right they were.
miso
Surely this is good news. Ozone is a greenhouse gas a thousand times stronger than CO2.
Climate scientists are like ostriches, they believe that if they report something for first time it is because it never happened before.
Eyal Porat says:
August 2, 2012 at 10:37 pm
And I was taught that the Ozone is created by lightning… go figure.
That’s the Bad Ozone — Good Ozone is formed above the tropopause.
When the flying rainbow unicorn ponies fart gold dust into the stratosphere, the Ozone Fairy waves her magic wand and turns all the dust into ozone. She misses some, though, and that errant gold dust why noctilucent clouds sparkle.
This article suggests that there increase in UV stabilized in the mid 90’s and increase occurred in mid to high latitudes, so doesn’t track CO2 increase (and AGW by its definition) and seems impervious to tropical thunderstorm activity.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/uv-exposure.html
It also says southern hemisphere has been getting cloudier, why is that?
Peeved: Here is something that may allay your fears. In the Ivar Giaever video he says that 800 million autos on the planet increase the CO2 concentration by the same amount as burning, in a large hermetically sealed room, wait for it…ONE match. If you calculate the volume of a sphere (4/3 pi r3) with a diameter of 12,750 km, and subtract that from the volume of a sphere about 40 km more in diameter, then adjust for the change in density at altitude, you will find that the 5 Gt of CO2 supposedly produced has the same result as one match in a year in a room of 10,000 m3. So I suspect that with you in the same situation only a partial exhale would result in the same magnitude of water vapour. (in a year). INSIGNIFICANT, don’t ya reckon?
Peeved says:
August 2, 2012 at 9:41 pm
This is a little off topic, but speaking of storms and water vapor… Does anyone know of a paper that addresses the effects of all the H2O that is spewed into the atmosphere from fossil fuel combustion? …..
_____________________________
Yeah the Relative Humidity has fallen at all levels measured http://i38.tinypic.com/30bedtg.jpg
Oh and do not forget the paper showing cloud levels are FALLING goes along with the cool is warm and wet is dry.
So there you have it folks, Scientists have just proved Chicken Little is correct, the sky is falling….
This might be the next money spinning project after climate change wears out. After all that boat is already getting a bit leaky.
Ally E. says:
August 2, 2012 at 9:26 pm
“I think this is part of their scheme to demonize water vapour. Hydrogen cars work. They’re a million times better than electric “toy” cars and the Universe will never run out of fuel. But we weren’t supposed to find an answer that looks good, works well and isn’t going to collapse from underneath us – you know, like wind power and solar power are already collapsing – so now they have to stop us from succeeding. Hydrogen cars emit air and water and that’s it, so one of those has to be banned. They’re prepping for the future.”
A few years back BMW lent some of their hydrogen ignition engine prototypes to Hollywood celebrities, with a sticker saying “Don’t park in enclosed parking spaces if you don’t want an explosion” as the tanks, like all H2 tanks, leaked a few molecules all the time.
They have since given up on H2 ignition engines. Fuel cells are as usual, very fickle, just around the corner, and as usual, just a tiny bit too expensive. And you have the problem of not being able to ramp up power quickly, so no fun drive… maybe if you install a heavy ultracap bank as a buffer.
If you want to use hydrogen, throw a few carbon atoms into the mix and synthesize Methane a.k.a. NatGas. No leakage, and all your cars exhaust contains is healthy H20 and healthy CO2.
My thanks for all the comments. I note the following:
Recovering. Not falling prey to thunderstorm-caused holes. Recovering.
Eyal Porat says:
August 2, 2012 at 10:37 pm
You were taught correctly, which is why there is excess ozone in the tropics.
w.
Eyal Porat says:
August 2, 2012 at 10:37 pm
And I was taught that the Ozone is created by lightning… go figure.
That’s the Bad Ozone — Good Ozone is formed above the tropopause
Yes, Ozone is an unstable O3 molecule which when it encounters an elemental atom (C, Z, Na etc) splits to form CO² etc, leaving one radical O. In the stratophere there tends not to be a lot of elemental atoms but in the troposphere there are. O radicals can be very dangerous for us useless humans and so the UN may later choose to inject lots of radicals into the troposphere to reduce this pollution/contamination. /sarc off
Willis
wish I could get to Anthony’s BBQ to meet you. The nostalga would flow along with the beer.
Great review, criminally crude and useless piece of ‘science’ by these Yale cretins.
Probably more than you want to know about UV, ozone, aerosols and clouds at the link below,
This caught my attention.
The
impact of aerosols on midlatitude ozone was
greatest in the early 1990s after the eruption
of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 (Figure 3.3). The
observed decrease in Northern Hemisphere
column ozone in 1993 agrees with chemical
dynamical models that include these effects
(WMO, 2003, 2007). The same models predict
that the aerosols from Mt. Pinatubo should
have produced a significant decrease in ozone
over midlatitudes of the Southern Hemisphere,
but no effect has been seen in either satellite
measurements or ground measurements at
stations such as Lauder, New Zealand.
Like sea ice, when I see a difference between northern and southern hemispheres in some effect that is supposed to be global. It makes me think the real cause is some regional anthropogenic (or perhaps natural) effect.
http://downloads.climatescience.gov/sap/sap2-4/sap2-4-final-ch3.pdf
A little off comment but the ozone hole scare related to CFCs has always confused me. Usually just a south pole phenom., this last year we saw a hole open up over the Arctic which if I remember correctly can be explained by unusually low temps causing ozone to interact with chlorine and destroy the ozone. The chlorine, per the reports that I read, was left over CFCs which are still present in the atmosphere. My questions: 1) Were the ozone holes ever observed prior to the introduction of CFCs in the atmosphere? 2) Can we determine the source of the chlorine that causes ozone destruction and holes? (man made or naturally occurring)
From where I sit, the ozone hole scare of the 70’s and 80’s and the resulting ban of CFCs was the catalyst for the current call to regulate CO2.
There was a thread on this paper here a week ago at:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/26/climate-change-off-in-the-ozone/
This is the article in the Harvard Gazette-
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/07/concerns-about-climate-change-health/
“In my mind, this is not just a broad public health issue,” Anderson said. “This is about actually being able to step out into the sunlight………”
Mann better start wearing a hat like Hansen. Can’t be too careful :o)
Instead of possible, potential, mayhap future danger why do they not consider the present reality. Is the level of ultra-violet light reaching the Earth’s surface increasing?
Nice piece Willis. You sure you’re not British as your sarcasm is wonderful!!! 🙂
There is still that old chessnut about how they don’t know that the hole in the ozone layer, which isn’t a hole, wasn’t there all the time? As said many moons ago, as a structural engineer, people see cracks in their houses that they’ve only just observed or noticed, when the cracks have often been there for donkey’s years!
Any risk of skin cancer, (well at least in the UK) increasing stems less from more UV penetrating the atmosphere due to wicked man’s CFCs destroying the ozone layer, & more to do with fashion! Everytime the Sun comes out here the yoof take their clothes off & expose themselves to the Sun without adequate protection, coupled with the fact that foreign holidays have increased exponentially since the 1960s when the ordinary man & or woman in the street discovered Spain & got access to travel & cheaper flights, & the medical profession became more knowledgeable at the same time!!!! First rule of Toxicology, the poison is in the dosage, the very essence of modern medicine & innoculation! 🙂
Lightning + oxygen = ozone.
Red sprites and blue jets are lightning – in the stratosphere – above thunderstorms.
Whether or not (and it def. appears not) summer thunderstorms are injecting water into the stratosphere, to whatever end, Willis does an admirable job of punching holes in this latest bit of sloppy, speculative, warmer pseudo-science. That and JJ’s
hilarious summation of warmer confusion & contradictions makes this one one for the scrapbook.
I do have one semi-technical question: Their “money graph” seems to show no change in stratospheric hole-punching from 2001-2007 (although some colors obscure others and it’s hard to be sure). If that is indeed the case, how would they know those conditions are/are not normal?
This again confirms that global weirding is mostly caused by global weirdos and happens largely on paper.
But increased UV means more output from solar energy panels – a negative feedback!
As a pilot I have never seen a thunderstorm higher than the tropopause so I doubt there is any significant effect on the Stratosphere.
“warming for centuries”… compared to the warming we would have in the next century? Think about the relative amounts before dismissing that.