From COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY and the “climate models still can’t get clouds right” department comes this interesting new study.
All over the planet, every day, oceans send plumes of sea spray into the atmosphere. Beyond the poetry of crashing ocean waves, this salt- and carbon-rich spray has a dramatic effect on the formation and duration of clouds.
Yes, clouds, which cover 60 percent of the Earth’s surface at any given time. In a new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, online Dec. 21, Colorado State University’s Paul DeMott, a senior research scientist in the Department of Atmospheric Science, says sea spray is a unique, underappreciated source of what are called ice nucleating particles – microscopic bits that make their way into clouds and initiate the formation of ice, and in turn affect the composition and duration of clouds.
“The presence of these particles is critically important for precipitation and the lifetime of clouds, and consequently, for their radiative properties,” said DeMott, who works in the lab of Sonia Kreidenweis, professor of atmospheric science, associate dean for research in the College of Engineering and a University Distinguished Professor.
Clouds’ effect on climate
Clouds, with their ability to reflect solar energy and absorb terrestrial radiation, have dramatic effects on climate. Their radiative properties are greatly influenced by the number, size and type of droplets and ice particles inside the cloud. These cloud particles can initiate from any number of sources of aerosols – particles suspended in air – from land and ocean surfaces. From desert dust to burning fossil fuels, aerosols that affect clouds are everywhere.
DeMott’s study has confirmed that ice nucleating particles from oceans are distinct, both in their abundance as well as their ice-making properties, from land-sourced particles. Hence, their influence on the liquid/ice phase structure of clouds, and their subsequent radiative impacts, can differ over vast swaths of Earth.
Center for Aerosol Impacts on Climate and the Environment
The laboratory portion of the study was conducted with other researchers at the National Science Foundation-supported Center for Aerosol Impacts on Climate and the Environment (CAICE), at which DeMott is a senior scientist. Based at University of California-San Diego, CAICE boasts the world’s most cutting-edge laboratory wave flumes that simulate closely how ocean waves send sea spray aerosols into the air. In turn, the researchers can study the biological and chemical makeup and transformations of these particles, and using specialized instruments, how they influence cloud formation. DeMott and colleagues compared these data to other measurements made over oceans.
The study offers one hypothetical explanation for why global climate models have consistently underestimated reflected, short-wave solar radiation in regions dominated by oceans, particularly in the southern hemisphere.
“Our paper gives a clearer picture of the behavior of major classes of atmospheric aerosols in cold clouds – factors that need to go into global-scale climate modeling,” DeMott said.
Added Nick Anderson, program director in the National Science Foundation’s Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences, which funded the research: “The development of clouds and precipitation is a core issue for understanding weather and climate processes. By studying ice nuclei, which can be considered a building block for clouds, these researchers will help piece together the puzzle of how clouds and precipitation form, especially over remote oceanic regions.”
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What with all of these unaccounted for things now being discovered, it’s truly amazing how well the models worked. …/sarc
Considering the size of the Earth’s atmosphere, wouldn’t this be a non starter for Global Warming ???
It’s all part of what you might call climate homeostasis, folks, otherwise, we wouldn’t be here.
It’s always the unknown unknowns that bite you the worst.
And the sundry chlorines…
so, what is the lifetime of a cloud?
Judicial Watch.
Mike Mann’s data.
Gee,—-I didn’t see any mention of the massive particulate spraying from aircraft–geoengineering as it is known. I bet the author just forgot to mention that.
(Note: this site does not allow discussion of ‘chemtrails’ or related subjects. Thanks. -mod)
Judicial Watch,
General request for any and all related government e-mails with regard to Climate Change, Global Warming, EPA etal the lot.
Clog up the system so bad they can not even take out the trash of the shredded evidence.
RICO
This is, along with Schmidt’s nonsense, seems to be part of a new approach that is gaining some momentum 1) claims it’s all more complicated than we though, 2) it could all “blow up” at any time because all these moderators impact the “tipping point” in ways we might not be able to predict 3) we need more money to study this.
Fortunately a great many people have just tuned this stuff out…
http://www.stupid.com/assets/images/bs_button_2.jpg
This 2008 paper by Kump and Pollard (involving modeling) concluded that low biological productivity in the very hot Cretaceous seas served as a positive feedback, in the there were fewer CCNs, leading to fewer clouds, and hence higher temperatures. GCMs reliant on CO2 alone can’t explain the heat and equability (equator to pole) of Cretaceous climate.
Amplification of Cretaceous Warmth by Biological Cloud Feedbacks
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/320/5873/195.abstract
The extreme warmth of particular intervals of geologic history cannot be simulated with climate models, which are constrained by the geologic proxy record to relatively modest increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Recent recognition that biological productivity controls the abundance of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) in the unpolluted atmosphere provides a solution to this problem. Our climate simulations show that reduced biological productivity (low CCN abundance) provides a substantial amplification of CO2-induced warming by reducing cloud lifetimes and reflectivity. If the stress of elevated temperatures did indeed suppress marine and terrestrial ecosystems during these times, this long-standing climate enigma may be solved.
Here’s a discussion of it by a consensus adherent:
https://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2008/04/13/the-uncloudy-cretaceous/
Sea spray particulates have been proposed as an important factor in cloud nucleation for decades, ever since the importance of nucleation substances was first recognized. Nothing new here.
Now the fun part:
If you have huge amounts of Chlorine from sea spray lofted high into the atmosphere, what role is left for relatively trivial amounts of CFCs in the Ozone Hole fiasco.
@Anthony “Yes, clouds, which cover 60 percent of the Earth’s surface at any given time.” Not a sentence.
Ten years ago, didn’t we hear over and over that the GCM’s didn’t quantify clouds very well? Is this paper an admission that they have had it wrong all along, and all the model runs ever made are completely incorrect?
Personally, I see papers like this as showing that skeptics are having a very real input on the evolution of the climate conversation. Every one of these is an admission that skeptics were right when they said that the climate is too complex for modeling if you don’t take each element into consideration on its own merits. Each of the papers may be more funding spent, but when they come out with useful data, there is value in that money spent. Each time they are forced to find “yet another excuse for the models being off,” they are building the opportunity to make the model useful in the end. As it is, they have a “Sim City” type of model, or in reality, a “simulation,” but if they are incorporating what they discover trying to explain the pause, they will move their “simulation” towards a potential model in time. Of course, if they aren’t attempting to incorporate the new information, then the intent to destroy the world as we know it is “hard coded” into THEIR programming.
“The most soluble materials tend to be ionic salts or materials that separate into ions with positive or negative charges when they dissolve. Sodium Chloride (NaCl) is one of these. It is the same thing as table salt, but you don’t see crystals of table salt floating around in the ocean, do you? Instead, the Na + and Cl- exist as separate ions attached to water molecules.”
http://ci.coastal.edu/~sgilman/770lecwatersalt.htm
I always have to smile when I see “Colorado” and “ocean” juxtaposed in reference to research.
The simple fact is that the “consensus science” crowd does not know how the planet’s climate works. It is obvious that one of the most important things to understand is our sun’s heating of the surface of the planet and that means understanding all aspects of clouds since they have a major impact on Solar irradiance reaching said surface. (That plus how the sun itself might vary over time and how our orbit around it might vary over time.)
They don’t know clouds. They don’t really understand the oceans and how they distribute heat around the globe. Heck, They don’t even understand that putting the thermometers in the middle of payment at airports will make the things read to high and not to low. (they get the “adjustments” wrong)
It is a sad, sad state of ignorance that the 97% find themselves!
Anything that mentions clouds or Volcanoes and does not mention CO2 gets my vote these days
I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now,
From up and down and still somehow,
It’s clouds’ illusions I recall,
I really don’t know clouds at all.
~joni mitchell
Did I read this correctly? Are climate scientists just now discovering that you need condensation nuclei to form clouds?
I learned this many years ago when I was an undergrad in Chemical Engineering.
Sea spray particulates as an important factor in cloud nucleation:
OK, let’s turn this thought around.
Where are the globe’s highest rates of sea spray?
Antarctic explorers and even ships venturing around ‘the Horn’ feared the wild seas and storms around Antarctica. So Antarctica is frequently covered by clouds?
California enjoys good surf and sea spray. Why the redwoods and sequoias require some salt spray.
So California should also be cloud covered?
One wonders just where in the world, sea spray actually causes clouds? Sure there are places where sea spray and clouds occur together but there is that nagging correlation is not causation notion. Causation implies that everywhere there is significant sea spray there will be significant clouds.
I’m Sorry! But these “scientists” are dumber then a wooden fence post! This was taught in Jr High School General Science back in the 1950s. They need to go back to school and this time
PAY ATTENTION!
Winds over salty seas are the creator and cleaner of the atmosphere we enjoy. A prime part of the Air-Conditioner that moves heat energy from the surface up to the Troposphere to be radiated into space…pg