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)
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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 chemtrailers. 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.
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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, erm, greatly mistaken. 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.
.
re: richardscourtney says September 3, 2013 at 11:41 am
Maybe you can shed some light on this subject after all Richard.
The topical subject at hand here is mass hysteria. Its official name may also at times be referred to or labeled: 1) mass psychogenic disorder, 2) collective hysteria, 3) mass psychosomatic reaction or 4) mass hysteria. Got any relevant experience in this area that you can share?
I am going to propose that the reaction *some* (this means not all, Richard) citizens of city of Vancouver exhibited as related by Cam_S to overhead aerial spraying was similar and resulted in mental-to-physical (i.e. “psychosomatic”) reactions similar to those in the story partially excerpted below.
the full story
Many more references to mass hysteria and psychosomatic (psychosomatic = mind (psyche) and body (soma)) reactions …
Jim:
Here’s a link to some samples taken.
http://geoengineeringwatch.org/documents/GeoEngineeringWhatWeKnow.doc
P.S. Sorry, she’s now married and expecting
Of course (caution – possible conspiracy theory follows) the whole Chemtrails nonsense may be a red herring designed to deflect attention of the possible human impact (positive/negative? I don’t have the math) on temperature by adding clouds to the sky. Wasn’t there a report that the days after 9-11, while the planes were all grounded, that global temperatures dropped slightly?
(ducking)
_Jim:
re your post addressed to me at September 3, 2013 at 12:01 pm.
No, I have no knowledge of mass hysteria which is why I have never written about it.
Perhaps your thinking I have such knowledge is another example of your lack of reading comprehension skills?
Richard
elmer says: September 3, 2013 at 11:49 am
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Wow, Elmer. Your evidence is based upon some dumb broad who knows nothing about aviation, engineering, chemistry or the military, and she can prove chem-trailing is real. And the proof is – wait for it, wait for it:
The trails switch on and off…..
Jeez, Elmer, I hope you are not paying good money to confidence tricksters and scammers like this.
Elmer, the atmosphere is dynamic. It moves, it has layers, it has knots and wrinkles (remember clear air turbulence?). In that dynamism you end up with some areas having higher humidity than other areas, and the contrails will only ‘switch on’, as you call it, when you hit a higher humidity region. Thus the contrail can flick on and off intermittently, over hundreds of miles.
.
Look at this herringbone sky, Elmer. Now this is completely natural – not an aircraft in sight. It is caused by wave formations in the atmosphere, probably caused by mountains, but also caused at high level by the interaction of a fast jetstream with surrounding slower air (interference wave).
http://www.moc.noaa.gov/mt/photos/olympic-coast-NMS/herring%20bone%20sky%203.jpg
Now imagine the same block of air as this, but a bit drier, so no clouds had formed at this level (but the wave pattern is still there). Along comes an aircraft, injects more water into the atmosphere from its engines, and PRESTO – you get a contrail ‘switching on and off’ as it passes through the different regions of air that are at different temperatures and dewpoints.
Elmer (love that name, Elmer), lets not go back to the Dark Ages, where life was ruled by fears and superstitions – and evil people in authority took advantage of the people’s ignorance to scare them into being subjugated serfs. We have had enough of the big bogey-man in the sky scaring the ignorant in antiquity, without the big chemtrail in the sky doing the same thing in the modern world.
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ralfellis says:
> Look at this herringbone sky, Elmer.
> http://www.moc.noaa.gov/mt/photos/olympic-coast-NMS/herring%20bone%20sky%203.jpg
I’m afraid they got this covered already. While riding a bus out in the country, I had a conversation with one of “them” who noticed a Bénard-like cloud pattern that persisted over the continent for much of this past June. I explained how these clouds formed and evolved, and all that, but my explanation was met with vigorous objections. “No, no, no! It is the government making its experiments. They are all the agents of the Antichrist and they are paving the way for the forces of darkness to come and destroy our world”.
There are no ‘chemtrails’. It is a figment of conspiricist imaginations.
How do I know this? Because I understand a few basics about human nature.
One of the basics is that you could not possibly keep all of the several hundred, to several thousand people from blabbling — people who would have to be employed in a chemtrails program. Someone always spills the beans.
You cannot easily keep a secret between three people. How could they possibly keep a secret like ‘chemtrails’ between several hundred, or maybe a few thousand people? Cheap, tiny cameras are available everywhere. Even phones have cameras. And plenty of people crave notoriety. So if a ‘chemtrails’ organization and program had been in existence all these years, it would be front page, above-the-fold news, with pictures in the WaPo and the NY Times. And National Geographic. And Science, and so on. Every one of them would dearly love a legitimate ‘chemtrails’ scoop.
So if someone can explain how they could keep a ‘chemtrails’ program secret among so many participants, I’ll listen up. But if the True Believers in chemtrails are claiming that this giant program has been up and running, but that everyone involved is keeping the chemtrails secret, well then, you could probably convince me that CO2 is causing global harm — but the damage is being kept secret.
Other than that, a ‘chemtrails’ belief is no more harmful than a belief in fortune tellers. If you need something to believe in, have at it. Chemtrails is as good as anything. But it makes no sense to anyone who understands basic human nature. You just cannot keep that kind of a secret. It’s no different than folks claiming that the moon landings were faked. Those folks all tend to be anti-science, evidence-deficient True Believers — just like ‘catastrophic AGW’ nutcases who need no evidence, only their Belief.
How I figure out if I’m on the right or wrong side of an argument is, I always go against whatever the official government position is.
elmer says:
> How I figure out if I’m on the right or wrong side of an argument is, I always go against whatever the official government position is.
Stupid is this heuristic is (what if the government is correct by accident?) I believe it can safely guide you through the rest of Obama’s second term. His government hasn’t allowed any such accidents so far.
elmer,
That is a pretty good litmus test. Not 100% reliable, as we see. But at least 97%.
You know how I spot a crank?
Tesla. The speed with which someone cites Tesla is directly proportional to their degree of being a crank.
Which is sad, because Tesla did some great work.
“Hey Timmy I’ve got some pictures and would you like to eat a dozen or 2 apples off of my trees. They have a soft highly refined particulate glazing the skin which tracks when you run your finger on it. ”
Yeast.
The “powder” seen on fruits of all sort is naturally occurring yeast that grows on the skins of fruit.
” Whose jets are they? Who owns them? It’s just a scientific mathematical analysis to figure that out.”
No, it’s binoculars to get the tail numbers and then either a web search or a call to the FAA.
[Snip. Snip. Snip. Labeling those you don’t agree with as “deniers” goes against site Policy. You did it 3 times. Try again, but no more calling others “deniers”. ~ mod.]
[Another commenter snipped for calling those who disagree with him “deniers”. ~ mod.]
“Whatever is happening, I think it more than a tad naive to put up the straw man that people cannot tell the difference between contrails and something that is not anything like them..”
Except the thing you say is “not anything like” contrails are exactly like contrails.
“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?”
Find a dictionary and look up the word “weather”.
“Ppl living an existence SOLELY on the internet (and in Mom’s basement) don’t have the practical world experience to come to those conclusions, however.”
It’s not just that. There’s the allure of being on the inside of “secret knowledge”, and the “freedom” that comes from being able to blame your lot on life on some inscrutable conspiracy.
“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.”
Bunk. Look at some of the laughable names in the idiotic prequels. He just decided that Republicans were evil. Probably easier to get by in Hollywood that way.
“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.”
After you’ve looked up “weather”, look at the diagram of the atmospheric layers, above. Do you assume the conditions are constant from one altitude to another? Why? Do a little study on fluid dynamics — maybe order a black and tan at a good bar — and ponder.
“I still find it interesting that there has been “test” with spraying biological compounds in Britain.”
Why?
“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.”
Then get to it.
@dbstealy
mmm, I know human’s can’t keep a secret so chemtrails are not real mmm
that’s not quite evidence. You have not done any reading/looking aboiut on this have you?
If you had you would be saying how you know human greed, need for more and more and power and control and that, therefor chemtrails are real.
You really should look at a couple, or just one of the video documentaries out there – go on I dare you.
Now I know a bit about human nature too, guess what I think you’ll do….
“Without any doubt, governments do use clandestine aerial spraying for a variety of purposes.”
No, not “without any doubt”. I doubt it completely, because it would be impossible to keep secret at the scale asserted.
Provide evidence of your assertion.
Rob Crawford says (responding to Tenuc):
> “Without any doubt, governments do use clandestine aerial spraying for a variety of purposes.”
>
> No, not “without any doubt”. I doubt it completely, because it would be impossible to keep secret at the scale asserted.
Another argument, just for yucks, is that of utility. The only useful types of aerial spraying are crop dusting (elevation: 2 metres, the lower, the better), firefighting (50 .. 200 m), and bombing (50 .. 20,000 m). The bombs are, you know, designed to fall as steeply down as possible, or to be driven at an oblique path towards a fixed target. In the absence of major thunderstorms, whatever those clandestine government operators are “spraying” 10,000 metres above your head can land no closer than Japan.
The only clandestine spraying operations I know about but can give you no evidence of (they were clandestine, you know) were nuclear waste dispersal experiments, where a fine aerosol was blown in the wind from a tower 300 metres tall. While in college, I was mentored by people who ran the math for those operations. The idea at the time was that it was the safest form of waste disposal because the resulting concentrations fell to background levels within a relatively short range from the source (they could only detect such events on the ground up to about 800 km away, and only when they knew what isotopes to look for). I lived in a town only 90 km downwind from the tower, where we could not detect anything, even during or immediately after the event has occurred (and we knew when, because a bright orange colorant was added at the source, for everybody to see). So when you spray in a steady wind at 300 metres, the plume gets carried away for thousands of kilometres, and you have no idea where. And by the times it gets there, it is diluted to naught.
You would’t be able to tell any better if the spraying took place at 10,000 metres. It’d be all over the globe, at the concentration precisely equal to zero.
“You really should look at a couple, or just one of the video documentaries out there – go on I dare you.”
I have. I see horribly misguided people more intent on excusing their failures and blaming people they hate than in finding the facts. I see fanatics with their eyes alight over their Absolute Knowledge Of The Truth.
What I don’t see is much science.
Rob Crawford says: Find a dictionary and look up the word “weather”.
I already commented on this but anyway.
I do pay attention to the “weather” for instance the past 2 days in Minnesota, same temp same dew point, no contrails yesterday tons of contrails today.
Then Jim said what is the dew point at 30,000 feet or 40,000 feet? I said that was a good question.
If someone had data showing the weather conditions at the altitudes where jet traffic was and compared it to whether there were any contrails that day that would solve the issue once and for all for me.
Does anyone know of such a site? I would just need the data for the weather conditions at those altitudes I can look out the window and determine the rest.