NOTE: like with the essay Saturday about isotasy/glacial rebound being a myth, I don’t think the chemtrails idea has any merit whatsoever. Dr. Tim Ball points out more bad science – chemtrails, which are really just contrails, and which has a cult-like following much like some of the worst theories of global warming zealots – Anthony
“It occurred to me….” To avoid political correctness and say what they really think people say, let me play Devil’s Advocate.
Guest essay by Dr. Tim Ball
One minute people say government does too much, the next they demand action to resolve problems. Environmentalists demand government stop global warming, but oppose remedial actions like spreading iron filings on the oceans to increase uptake of CO2 or spraying chemicals into the atmosphere to create clouds to block sunlight and reduce global temperatures. Both actions are wrong because they constitute geo-engineering – governments playing God. The real problem is neither governments nor opponents know what is happening, but think they do, so demand action. Doing nothing is better if you don’t understand, contrary to the false claim of the precautionary principle. Environmental issues are a war and as Aeschylus said “In war truth is the first casualty”.
Figure 1 shows the different atmospheric layers each defined by temperature changes that reflect different chemistry.
The critical boundary is the Tropopause between the Troposphere, where 99% of the weather occurs, and the Stratosphere. It’s a very distinct boundary marking different density of gases and a change in temperature from a decrease with altitude to an increase. There are few gases thinly spread in the Stratosphere.
Figure 1 shows the Tropopause at 17 km. Actually, this varies considerably from Equator to Poles, mostly because of temperature. Seasonal temperatures also create differences. Variation at the Equator is 17 km (winter) to 19 km (summer). At the Poles it is 7km (winter) to 10 km (summer). Seasonal range is greater at the Poles because of greater seasonal temperature range.
Naturally, it is far more complicated. Understanding of some Troposphere dynamics are very recent. The Tropopause is not continuous, being broken by wind circulation patterns as Figure 2 shows.
PFJ =Polar Front Jet; STJ = SubTropical Jet
Twenty years ago my graduate class in Applied Climatology involved a briefing as a commercial pilot flying from Winnipeg to Vancouver. I realized most flights were partly in the lower Stratosphere. Since then these flights have increased because of better aircraft pressurization and more efficient engines in colder temperatures at higher altitudes.
I learned of changing flight patterns when flying search and rescue in northern and Arctic Canada. Flights increased significantly because of the end of the Cold War. with more flights over greater distances and different routes. The amount of traffic has increased significantly, especially the number of flights to Asia, most of which fly out of North America using “great circle” routes that brings them over western North America and Alaska or over the Pole.
Great circle routes take Asian bound aircraft across the general westerly flow of the upper level winds. This means condensation trails and high level clouds, especially Cirrus and contrails in the lower stratosphere are being dispersed in the same direction. Temperatures at these altitudes mean most of the gases condense directly to ice crystals. This makes them very visible, but also slow to dissipate.
A Contrail is exhaust from an aircraft engine cooling very rapidly below the dew point temperature and condensing into a visible trail of microscopic droplets. Through binoculars you can see the gap between the jet engine and the beginning of the trail. Earlier I mentioned that the gas constituency of the lower Stratosphere, where these planes fly, is different being much thinner and colder than in the upper Troposphere. Aircraft exhaust is a much higher percentage of total gas in the Stratosphere. This creates very different contrails, rates of dissipation and other factors. I mentioned that there are clouds in the lower Stratosphere called Noctilucent clouds. Here are some pictures of these clouds from Wikipedia:
Compare those images with these of Cirrus clouds also retrieved from Wikipedia.
Many confuse noctilucent clouds with chemtrails or contrails. Many confuse lower stratosphere contrails with chemtrails. It’s probably because most they want to see chemtrails. I’ve received many photos as evidence of chemtrails that are contrails, high cirrus or noctilucent events.
Noctilucent cloud occurrences are reportedly increasing. Is it possible the increase is because noctilucent clouds “ …are most commonly observed in the summer months at latitudes between 50° and 70° north and south of the equator.” These are the latitudes at which most flight increases have occurred. It is likely the increase in reported chemtrails are actually contrails from lower stratosphere flights.
There may be issues with flights in the stratosphere but nobody is really looking, possibly because the obvious solution is politically unattractive. Fuel consumption increases at lower altitudes. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) doesn’t include the lower Stratosphere in their models. From the 2007 Science report:
“Due to the computational cost associated with the requirement of a well-resolved stratosphere, the models employed for the current assessment do not generally include the QBO.”
The QBO is linked with El Nino/La Nina. They, as well as ozone and clouds in the Stratosphere, are significant factors in Tropospheric weather. Some claim Stratospheric changes explain global temperatures better than IPCC and other models. Lu et al wrote:
All the observed, analytical and theoretical results presented lead to a convincing conclusion that both the CRE (cosmic-ray driven electron-induced-reaction) mechanism and the CFC-warming mechanism not only provide new fundamental understandings of the O3 hole and global climate change but have superior predictive capabilities, compared with the conventional models.
We need answers from science, free from politics. People need to sort out what actions and issues governments should be taking, but we can only do that if we understand the issues. Since we don’t, it is better to do nothing.
We must avoid the irresponsibility of the precautionary principle.
Related articles
- Chemtrails versus Contrails: Do Conspiracy Theories Make Sense? (cliffmass.blogspot.com)
- Weather control conspiracy theories: scientifically unjustifiable (washingtonpost.com)
A chemtrails conspriracy is a strong idea, and relatively plausible, because:
1.) Those in government and their minions do manipulate the populace. Corruption and avarice, at a minimum, are real. The motives, motivations, and “usual suspects”, are not lacking.
2.) George Lucus’ first film, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/THX_1138″>THX 1138, came out in 1971. It depicts a dystopian society, severely oppressed and forced (by Law) to take mind-control drugs. The concerns of the citizens in the 1960s (half a century ago), made this topic George’s #1 choice in his career-track. George of course patterned his tale after those of George Orwell (Nineteen Eighty-Four, from 1949), and Aldous Huxley (Brave New World, from 1932). [Yes, ‘they got to Lucas’, evidently. He never returned to his evil-government theme … though he thought about it … but thought better, again, following 9/11.]
3.) We exploded many nuclear bombs in the atmosphere, in hindsight a phenomenal abuse of literally the air that everyone must breath. If we would do something that crazy, and we did!, how farfetched is chemtrails?
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A chemtrails conspiracy is a weak idea, and relatively implausible, because:
1.) We train a lot of all-American boys to become & serve as military pilots. A large portion of all aviators are red-blooded Patriots, born, raise & trained … and remain so, for Life. Attempting a chemtrails program, means getting it by these people, who are ‘everywhere’ in aviation, and would “not be amused”. Blow the whistle? Forget whistles – there could be civil war.
2.) If it is desired to distribute a substance or chemical of some kind, in order to affect the population in some fashion, the obvious way to do it is to load it into trucks and drive around urban & suburban areas, emitting the material close to where most people actually are. Stuff emitted by high-flying airplanes is obviously not close to the subjects whom it is intended for, and is thus ‘missing the target’. Additionally, contrails/chemtrails tend to remain aloft, do not disperse well, and drift long distances.
3.) There is no information to support the premise that we actually possess the kinds of chemicals or drugs that would do the kinds of things that chemtrails are said to achieve. Not even when we have someone in a mental hospital (or say in Guantanamo Bay, or rendition-centers) do we have the means to control the mind in the manner suggested by the chemtrail proposal. If we did/could, the world would be a much different place.
re: richardscourtney says September 3, 2013 at 8:50 am
I don’t see any disagreement in regard to a psychosomatic response on behalf of the ppl who called; where is your disagreement on that point again?
Generally, this ‘response’ can be seen from a group who is a subset of the population who a) oppose the spraying and b) are aware of some level of risk in spraying c) see planes performing what are perceived to be ‘spraying sorties’ THEN imagine a series of maladies or symptoms along the lines of what they have read previously in literature somewhere. There are also the usual phone calls and meet-ups between associated individuals where this info is shared (and common maladies discussed or ‘fleshed out’) before and probably after the dry ‘spray’ runs took place (an aspect of ‘community organizing’?)
This process is applicable with chemtrails too, but there is an added complicating technical factoid; the creation of contrails in differing atmospheric conditions at altitude and their varying characteristics; atmospheric physics is seemingly beyond the comprehension of this arm of the con-spiracy ‘industry’.
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Show your lab work ….
Is the presence of Strontium or Barium verified by any of the number people who have their own Gamma Spectrometers at home now?
Gamma Spectroscopy:
https://sites.google.com/site/diygeigercounter/sa-tests
PRA – Gamma Spectroscopy Software:
http://www.gammaspectacular.com/software-downloads/pra-spectrometry-software
Remember, about these elements and compounds, you said they were ” far above normal “.
They ought to be detectable then.
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What is a chemtrail?
Oxforddictionary: a visible trail left in the sky by an aircraft and believed by some to consist of chemical or biological agents released as part of a covert operation.
By this definition, a normal everyday contrail IS a chemtrail because someone somewhere is going to believe it is from a covert operation seeding the sky with who-knows-what. So It is a rather pointless definition, without objectivity. This definition will not do.
Are chemtrails objectively real? Yes! You don’t even need a plane. Walk down a sidewalk, park, of field. Chances are a bloodhound will be able to follow your chemical and biological leavings, your chemtrail, and track you down.
A contrail is a chemtrail in a sense. A plane burns JP4, trailing the combustion chemicals CO2, H2O, and minor amounts of SO2, soot (carbon based particulates), and other trace elements like vanadium that are in the JP4 as it exits the refinery. It is a chemical trail left behind the plane. But it isn’t, and shouldn’t be called, a Chemtrail, even if you are in the minority who think burning JP4 is a crime against humanity.
What is a workable definition of a chemtrail that does not include contrails and bloodhounds?
Well, it must be chemical or biological trails from planes that do not include combustion products of hydrocarbons. I would argue that whether the operations are covert or not, has no bearing on the definition. If a Chemtrail operation is covert, and we find out about it, does it cease to be a Chemtrail? No. Covertness is irrelevant.
Is the aerial spraying of malathion a real chemtrail? Hard to argue it isn’t even though we knew about it. Cloud seeding, crop seeding, and crop dusting would all count as Chemtrails that are not covert and arguably beneficial, though not all agree.
But sometimes the crop dusters ARE out to get you! 😉
Sequencing the North by NorthWest Crop Dusting Scene
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/05/north-by-northwest-crop-duster/
A peek behind some classic movie magic I stumbled upon today.
Stephen Rasey says:
September 3, 2013 at 8:28 am
@Stephen Fisher Skinner 6:52am and 6:53am.
“My money is on The Cathay-Pacific photo as a very poor photoshop job.”
Photo looks pretty genuine to me and I’ve also seen this affect myself with jets overflying at altitude. Od course not every time. How about this one of B17s during WWII with contrails generated by the prop tips?
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:B-17_Flying_Fortress.jpg
Is this a photoshop job also?
Hey, I am just looking up and observing. Yesterday and today for instance in Minnesota, same low temps and dew point both days, no trails yesterday everywhere you look today.
@Stephen Fisher Skinner 10:00am
Wow! THAT’s a PICTURE!
Odd, the caption says: Two B-17 Flying Fortresses’ vapor trails light up the night sky over Eastern Europe
This image or file is a work of a U.S. Air Force Airman or employee, taken or made as part of that person’s official duties
Ah! Betcha it’s shot from another plane in formation. But not at night. Shutter speed is real fast to stop the props. Contrails are backlit by the sun against a dark sky at altitude.
Hmmm. Plane Length is 75 feet and probably 400 feet/sec at cruise. I make about three turns of the prop for a length of the plane. So plane length in .2 sec. Prop turn in 0.07 sec. Stopped the prop in 1/40 of a turn. 1/500 of a second shutter speed. Quite possible. Engine speed 14 rps, or about 850 rpm. Propeller 11′ 7″ Call it 12. Circumference is pi*D, 38ft. Times 14 rps is all most 550 fps tip speed, which about 55% the speed of sound. A little slow but Close enough. Yep, it’s real.
_Jim says:
At September 3, 2013 at 9:37 am you ask me
Our disagreement is clear.
In my post at September 3, 2013 at 8:50 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/02/chemtrails-or-contrails-another-alarmist-issue-without-scientific-context/#comment-1406737
I said
You say, people “imagine a series of maladies or symptoms “.
But I say, “people who had temporary breathing ailments assumed their problem was caused by the (non-existent) spray from the observed planes.”
There is a great difference between
(a) imagining something because it is expected
and
(b) ascribing a wrong cause to a real effect.
Please note that my post explained why mistaken popular scares are common. But your claim of a psychosomatic cause is specific to scares of the ‘moth myth’ type.
Richard
What was the dew point at 30,000 feet?
re: richardscourtney says September 3, 2013 at 10:59 am
I think you’re attempting to draw distinctions based on additional supposition; feel free to suppose as you will. Have a good day, Richard.
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Can anyone link to some actual results from any analysis as to what would be sprayed?
I still find it interesting that there has been “test” with spraying biological compounds in Britain. You cannot sweepingly discount all indications of aerosol dispersion from planes, just because you know what the regular contrails are.
Jim says: What was the dew point at 30,000 feet?
That is the question isn’t it? It seems like this whole controversy could be very easily solved, if there were way to find out what the weather conditions are at 30,000 ft on any given day and compare that with whether or not there was jet exhaust trails that day.
_Jim:
Your post at September 3, 2013 at 11:09 am says in full
I made no “suppositions”: but you did.
Read my post which you commented. It is at September 3, 2013 at 8:50 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/02/chemtrails-or-contrails-another-alarmist-issue-without-scientific-context/#comment-1406737
I think you are being deliberately foolish because you know you are wrong.
Feel as offended as you like.
Richard
The ways politically powerful dingbats exercise control through propaganda are manifold:
Carlisle student takes national science honor
http://cumberlink.com/news/local/education/carlisle-student-takes-national-science-honor/article_5b2945b6-144f-11e3-bae2-0019bb2963f4.html
“Short for Math, Applied Science, Technology and Engineering as Rising Stars, MASTERS is a national middle school competition for students in those subject areas.”
It’s usually STEM in the USA and MINT in Germany.
From http://weather.rap.ucar.edu/upper/ the conditions (Temperature over dewpoint) as reported by the twice-daily balloon launches at the US weather bureau balloon launch sites:
300mb (approx 30k ft) level – http://weather.rap.ucar.edu/upper/upaRAOB_300.gif
200mb (approx 38k ft) level – http://weather.rap.ucar.edu/upper/upaRAOB_200.gif
Table for rough height estimate based on pressure (in mb or millibars):
300 MB 30065 ft 9166 m
250 MB 33999 ft 10366 m
200 MB 38662 ft 11787 m
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re:richardscourtney says September 3, 2013 at 11:17 am
Perhaps if you wrote more clearly your points would come across, vs your present style. Thank you.
Without any doubt, governments do use clandestine aerial spraying for a variety of purposes. Some of which are for weather control, tests to find out dispersion patterns for chemical/biological weapons (both for offence and defence) and how air currents disperse nuclear fallout from commercial and military sources.
However, the current fear of chemtrails is much over-hyped and most of what are observed to be chemtrails are in fact simply contrails. A balanced approach to these sorts of topics is essential as nothing is ever black and white.
No one has any ‘data’. No actual amounts of material that ‘precipitated’ overnight from the sky collected and what subsequent ‘lab analysis’ determined the material to be.
You would see pdf’s of the lab analysis posted were those ‘reports’ existent, because these ppl *so* want to prove their case …
.
“Dr. Tim Ball points out more bad science – chemtrails, which are really just contrails, and which has a cult-like following much like some of the worst theories of global warming zealots – Anthony”
Sorry Anthony but even Al Gore is speaking of chemtrails, not contrails (water vapor). I just happened on one of Al Gore;s interviews yesterday and he is speaking of many climate “scientists” speaking of chemtrail injection of sulfur dioxide and other substances into the atmosphere. (however, even Al thinks they are absolutely out of their minds, me too). Didn’t think I would agree with Al on anything, but, well, there is one finally.
Jim says:
No one has any ‘data’. No actual amounts of material that ‘precipitated’ overnight from the sky collected and what subsequent ‘lab analysis’ determined the material to be.
for Theresa
_Jim:
Thankyou for your post at September 3, 2013 at 11:28 am.
I enjoyed the laugh.
Richard
re: elmer says September 3, 2013 at 11:38 am
Do they show any data Elmer – or just ‘conjecture’? I want to see a report. Post a link to it.
BTW, what’s the blond’s name in that one vid? Just the first …
michaelwiseguy says: September 2, 2013 at 6:38 pm
Commercial jet aircraft numbers in the skies cannot account for the tick tack toe patters and all day long trail patterns being laid in the skies.
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This is a common misunderstanding among the chemtrail nutters. The criss-coss pattern of contrails is created by two airways intersecting at 90 degrees. The upper wind has to be perpendicular to these two airways. Aircraft fly these two airways all day, but their trails are blown downwind. The two trails-tracks, at 90 degrees, eventually build up a great criss-cross of contrails that drifts downwind, forming a lattice.
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cotwome says: September 2, 2013 at 6:51 pm
Wingtip Contrail:
http://hypeitng.com/2013/06/turkish-airlines-777-fc-barcelona-livery-contrails
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That is not a wingtip trail, that is an engine trail. The gasses are too hot to condensate at the back of the engine, and take a few fractions of a second to mix and cool. Thus the contrail often forms at the back of the aircraft, by the tailplane (where they form depends on the dew-point of the air).
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AndyG55 says: September 2, 2013 at 5:49 pm
I should point out that the contrails are not just from engine exhaust.
There are also very large pressure changes around the wings and particularly at the tip of the wings, enough to cause any moisture to condense then form into ice.
If look closely you will see that contrails often develop right at the tip of the wings.
_________
Not at high level you will not. And these smaller wingtip vortices only produce transient vapour trails that re-evaporate very quickly. To get a sustained contrail in the atmosphere you need to inject water into the atmosphere, which is what the engine does when it burns fuel.
You can get wingtip vortices, of course, but only at low level. But you don’t get this at high level, because the air is too dry. Here is a classic low-level wing-tip vortex creating a vapour trail.
http://images3.jetphotos.net/img/2/0/1/3/44037_1148142310.jpg
Here is another trail that people confuse with a wingtip vortex trail. But it is not. With big 4-engine aircraft, the outer engine’s contrail gets sucked into the wing vortex (as opposed to the wing-tip vortex) and creates a great swirl of condensation. So a 4-engine jet will only ever have two trails, which again confuses some people:
http://www.imagegossips.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/118.jpg
Here is the wing vortex, as opposed to the tiny wingtip vortex. I’m not sure if this image has been digitally enhanced to produce the heart shape, but this is exactly what the aircraft does to clouds. The image is wrongly labeled as a wingtip vortex – it is not, it is a wing vortex:
http://flyingindian.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/wingtip_vortices_lg.jpg
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Nicholas says: September 2, 2013 at 4:52 pm
I have seen contrails and chemtrails.
Thirty five years in the airline industry.
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Then you are a fool. Who do you think is adding chemicals to the fuel? Please do tell us.
And as to ‘spraying’, sorry but I have spent a lifetime in the air and the only people flying at contrail levels are the well-known airlines. We see them, we hear them, and they are producing water contrails the same as we do. The amount of high altitude military traffic is negligible, because most military aircraft are very expensive, have a short endurance, and do not fly on airways. Unlike airliners, most military aircraft sit on the ground all day.
Here is a truism for you. It COSTS the military to fly their aircraft; but it COSTS an airline to have an aircraft on the ground. So the logic is inescapable – airliners fly all day, while military aircraft sit idle all day.
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ralfellis says:
> Here is the wing vortex, as opposed to the tiny wingtip vortex…
>
> http://www.imagegossips.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/118.jpg
> http://flyingindian.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/wingtip_vortices_lg.jpg
Ralph, many aviation theorists, starting with Zhukovsky and including many today, would correct you here. They would say it is the same vortex. Circulation theory has it as a distorted toroidal vortex, one side of which disappears into infinity. The part of it that circulates around the wind they call “bound vortex”, and the part that bends around the tip and trails into infinity is called “slip vortex”.
They will also object to your qualification of the slip vortex as tiny. The energy in the slip vortex is comparable to that of the bound vortex; it is in fact so high that it can make smaller craft caught in it capsize and it can damage larger aircraft. The wonderful visualisations of the aircraft-induced vorticity that you have found make it easy to believe.
One other useful role that such visualisations play, besides illustrating the geometry of circulation, is that they kill another stupid myth of “how airplanes fly” that people like more than actual knowledge. What they demonstrate is that the airplanes fly by displacing large quantities of air downward. They are just air pumps.
Of note is the fact that if you took those airplanes shown in these images, and replaced them with helicopters — the more obvious air pumps — you would see the same impression made on the clouds.
elmer says: September 3, 2013 at 6:35 am
if this article is true and “chemtrails” are just contrails from commercial jets, why is that one day will be perfectly clear and there will have no contrails at all and the next the sky is covered with them? Is there no commercial airlines flying on those days?
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Which just goes to show that opinion is being driven by ignor@nce. And this in this ignor@nce, there is always some malign government or organisation doing sinister things.
If its agriculture, its Monsanto. If it energy, its oil companies. If its money, its the Jews. etc: etc:
No, Elmer (great name that, Elmer). The problem is not a vast conspiracy, the problem is that on some days the atmosphere is drier, and the contrails will not form. And you cannot see the aircraft, because they are up at 40,000 ft, and merely a pinprick of a diamond in the sky.
,