Jun 30, 2021
The sky isn’t falling, but scientists have found that parts of the upper atmosphere are gradually contracting in response to rising human-made greenhouse gas emissions.
Combined data from three NASA satellites have produced a long-term record that reveals the mesosphere, the layer of the atmosphere 30 to 50 miles above the surface, is cooling and contracting. Scientists have long predicted this effect of human-driven climate change, but it has been difficult to observe the trends over time.
“You need several decades to get a handle on these trends and isolate what’s happening due to greenhouse gas emissions, solar cycle changes, and other effects,” said Scott Bailey, an atmospheric scientist at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, and lead of the study, published in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics. “We had to put together three satellites’ worth of data.”
Together, the satellites provided about 30 years of observations, indicating that the summer mesosphere over Earth’s poles is cooling four to five degrees Fahrenheit and contracting 500 to 650 feet per decade. Without changes in human carbon dioxide emissions, the researchers expect these rates to continue.
Credits: NASA/HU/VT/CU-LASP/AIM/Joy Ng
Since the mesosphere is much thinner than the part of the atmosphere we live in, the impacts of increasing greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, differ from the warming we experience at the surface. One researcher compared where we live, the troposphere, to a thick quilt.
“Down near Earth’s surface, the atmosphere is thick,” said James Russell, a study co-author and atmospheric scientist at Hampton University in Virginia. “Carbon dioxide traps heat just like a quilt traps your body heat and keeps you warm.” In the lower atmosphere, there are plenty of molecules in close proximity, and they easily trap and transfer Earth’s heat between each other, maintaining that quilt-like warmth.
That means little of Earth’s heat makes it to the higher, thinner mesosphere. There, molecules are few and far between. Since carbon dioxide also efficiently emits heat, any heat captured by carbon dioxide sooner escapes to space than it finds another molecule to absorb it. As a result, an increase in greenhouses gases like carbon dioxide means more heat is lost to space — and the upper atmosphere cools. When air cools, it contracts, the same way a balloon shrinks if you put it in the freezer.
This cooling and contracting didn’t come as a surprise. For years, “models have been showing this effect,” said Brentha Thurairajah, a Virginia Tech atmospheric scientist who contributed to the study. “It would have been weirder if our analysis of the data didn’t show this.”
While previous studies have observed this cooling, none have used a data record of this length or shown the upper atmosphere contracting. The researchers say these new results boost their confidence in our ability to model the upper atmosphere’s complicated changes.The team analyzed how temperature and pressure changed over 29 years, using all three data sets, which covered the summer skies of the North and South Poles. They examined the stretch of sky 30 to 60 miles above the surface. At most altitudes, the mesosphere cooled as carbon dioxide increased. That effect meant the height of any given atmospheric pressure fell as the air cooled. In other words, the mesosphere was contracting.
Earth’s Middle Atmosphere
Though what happens in the mesosphere does not directly impact humans, the region is an important one. The upper boundary of the mesosphere, about 50 miles above Earth, is where the coolest atmospheric temperatures are found. It’s also where the neutral atmosphere begins transitioning to the tenuous, electrically charged gases of the ionosphere.
Explore an expanded version of this infographic.
Even higher up, 150 miles above the surface, atmospheric gases cause satellite drag, the friction that tugs satellites out of orbit. Satellite drag also helps clear space junk. When the mesosphere contracts, the rest of the upper atmosphere above sinks with it. As the atmosphere contracts, satellite drag may wane — interfering less with operating satellites, but also leaving more space junk in low-Earth orbit.
The mesosphere is also known for its brilliant blue ice clouds. They’re called noctilucent or polar mesospheric clouds, so named because they live in the mesosphere and tend to huddle around the North and South Poles. The clouds form in summer, when the mesosphere has all three ingredients to produce the clouds: water vapor, very cold temperatures, and dust from meteors that burn up in this part of the atmosphere. Noctilucent clouds were spotted over northern Canada on May 20, kicking off the start of the Northern Hemisphere’s noctilucent cloud season.
Because the clouds are sensitive to temperature and water vapor, they’re a useful signal of change in the mesosphere. “We understand the physics of these clouds,” Bailey said. In recent decades, the clouds have drawn scientists’ attention because they’re behaving oddly. They’re getting brighter, drifting farther from the poles, and appearing earlier than usual. And, there seem to be more of them than in years past.
“The only way you would expect them to change this way is if the temperature is getting colder and water vapor is increasing,” Russell said. Colder temperatures and abundant water vapor are both linked with climate change in the upper atmosphere.
Currently, Russell serves as principal investigator for AIM, short for Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere, the newest satellite of the three that contributed data to the study. Russell has served as a leader on all three NASA missions: AIM, the instrument SABER on TIMED (Thermosphere, Ionosphere, Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics), and the instrument HALOE on the since-retired UARS (Upper Atmospherics Research Satellite).
TIMED and AIM launched in 2001 and 2007, respectively, and both are still operating. The UARS mission ran from 1991 to 2005. “I always had in my mind that we would be able to put them together in a long-term change study,” Russell said. The study, he said, demonstrates the importance of long-term, space-based observations across the globe.
In the future, the researchers expect more striking displays of noctilucent clouds that stray farther from the poles. Because this analysis focused on the poles at summertime, Bailey said he plans to examine these effects over longer periods of time and — following the clouds — study a wider stretch of the atmosphere.
By Lina Tran
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, Md.
Last Updated: Jun 30, 2021
Editor: Lina Tran
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personally I think theyre full of sh*t
heat rises so clouds or not the heats going to go up especially if theres room to expand
and supercold top atmosphere also means larger Ozone holes and not just at the poles as showed over UK some yrs ago
NASA has know for years that the atmosphere is contracting and only the one explanation-fits-all pseudo scientists pretend that climate change does everything.
The ISS does not have to be pushed back to higher orbit as often as it used to because the thin upper atmosphere is moves through has been contracting and getting thinner. Duh, cooling, man.
Trying to pretend that the contraction makes for better barriers in terms of gases is just a joke. Heat is not trapped by imaginary gases that act like perfect reflectors. List the “researchers” and yank their degrees.
As Karl Popper said, anything that claims to explain everything explains nothing.
Remember we have a political “leadership” change in the US to the left, so everything becomes political. If it got colder, we would be told it’s due to global warming.
Here is a more honest report from few years ago
“Earth’s thermosphere went through its biggest contraction in 43 years.
Researchers expected to see a contraction due to a solar minimum, but not this significant.
One explanation may be an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Scientists are mulling over why part of the Earth’s atmosphere recently suffered its biggest collapse since records began, and is only now starting to rebound.
The collapse occurred in a region known as the thermosphere, a rarefied layer of the planet’s upper atmosphere between 90 and 600 kilometers (56 to 373 miles) above the surface, which shields us from the sun’s far and extreme ultra violet (EUV) radiation.
A report in Geophysical Research Letters by a team led by John Emmert from the United States Naval Research Laboratory has found that the thermosphere went through its biggest contraction in 43 years.
The thermosphere usually expands and contracts in line with the sun’s 11-year solar cycle. During solar maximum when solar activity increases, it causes the thermosphere to heat up — reaching temperatures of 1100°C — and expand like a marshmallow in a camp fire. The opposite happens during solar minimum.
Currently, the sun is experiencing its longest solar minimum on record, with little sunspot activity and few solar flares or coronal mass ejections.
To see what effect solar minimum is having on the thermosphere, Emmert and colleagues monitored the impact of atmospheric drag on satellites in low-Earth orbit (LEO). These satellites fly through the thermosphere, so the thicker the thermosphere the more drag it puts on spacecraft.
The researchers expected to see a contraction in line with solar minimum, but the level of collapse was up to three times greater than solar activity alone can explain.
They believe an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may explain the contraction. CO2 has a cooling effect in the thermosphere, which would then amplify the impact of the extended solar minimum.
But the researchers found low levels of EUV radiation only account for about 30 percent of the collapse, while the increase in CO2 levels account for another 10 percent at most.
That still leaves some 60 percent, which can’t be explained by current modelling.
Furthermore the current anomaly appears to have commenced in 2005, well before the current solar minimum began.
Emmert and colleagues think there may be an as yet unidentified climatological tipping point involving both energy and chemical feedbacks.
Phil Wilkinson of the Ionospheric Prediction Service with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology says it highlights something is going on that science doesn’t understand.”
Vuk,
It is the Sun, isn’t it?
“while the increase in CO2 levels account for another 10 percent at most”
At Most? So, they indexed their analysis at 10% intervals and tossed CO2 into the bottom decade. Effect could easily be 0.02%.
No decade talking there.
Billions of years actually.
Three reasons:
1) Water vapor isn’t a ‘global warming’ gas… it acts as a literal refrigerant (in the strict ‘refrigeration cycle’ sense) below the tropopause.
———-
You know, the refrigeration cycle (Earth) [A/C system]:
A liquid evaporates at the heat source (the surface) [in the evaporator], it is transported (convected) [via an A/C compressor], it emits radiation to the heat sink and undergoes phase change (emits radiation in the upper atmosphere, the majority of which is upwelling owing to the mean free path length / altitude / air density relation) [in the condenser], it is transported (falls as rain or snow) [via that A/C compressor], and the cycle repeats.
That’s kind of why, after all, the humid adiabatic lapse rate (~3.5 to ~6.5 K / km) is lower than the dry adiabatic lapse rate (~9.81 K / km).
The lapse rate is said to average ~6.5 K / km. 6.5 K / km * 5.105 km = 33.1825 K. That is not the ‘greenhouse effect’, it’s the tropospheric lapse rate. The climate loons have conflated the two.
Polyatomic molecules (CO2, H2O) reduce the adiabatic lapse rate (ALR), not increase it (dry ALR: ~9.81 K / km; humid ALR: ~3.5 to ~6.5 K / km) by dint of their higher specific heat capacity and/or latent heat capacity convectively transiting more energy (as compared to the monoatomics and homonuclear diatomics), thus attempting to reduce temperature differential with altitude, while at the same time radiatively cooling the upper atmosphere faster than they can convectively warm it… they increase thermodynamic coupling between heat source and sink… they are coolants.
That’s kind of why, after all, CO2 isn’t used as a filler gas in double-pane windows… if it was such a terrific ‘heat trapping’ gas, it’d be used as such. It’s not. Low DOF, low specific heat capacity monoatomics generally are.
The effective emission height is ~5.105 km.
7 – 13 µm: >280 K (near-surface).
>17 µm: ~260 – ~240 K (~5km in the troposphere).
13 – 17 µm: ~220 K (near the tropopause).
The emission profile is equivalent to a BB with a temperature of 255 K, and thus an effective emission height of 5.105 km.
9.81 K / km * 5.105 km = 50.08005 K dry adiabatic lapse rate (due to homonuclear diatomics and monoatomics), which would give a surface temperature of 255 + 50.08005 = 305.08005 K. Sans CO2, that number would be even higher.
Water vapor (primarily) reduces that to 272.8675 K – 288.1825 K, depending upon humidity. Other polyatomics (CO2) contribute to cooling, to a lesser extent. The higher the concentration of polyatomics, the more vertical the lapse rate, the cooler the surface. Also remember: the atmosphere is stable as long as actual lapse rate is less than ALR… and a greater concentration of polyatomic molecules reduces ALR… thus convection increases.
———-
2) CO2 isn’t a ‘global warming’ gas… it acts as a net atmospheric coolant at all altitudes except a negligible warming at the tropopause (see below).
———-
That’s from an atmospheric research scientist at NASA JPL.
That’s from the Clough and Iacono study.
Gee… adding more of the predominant upper-atmospheric radiative coolant causes more emitters per unit volume, which causes more emission per unit volume, which causes more emission to space, which causes a larger loss of energy from the system known as ‘Earth’, which causes cooling… who knew? LOL
It is the monoatomics and homonuclear diatomics which are the actual ‘greenhouse’ gases… remember that an actual greenhouse works by hindering convection.
Monoatomics (Ar) have no vibrational mode quantum states, and thus cannot emit (nor absorb) IR. Homonuclear diatomics (O2, N2) have no net magnetic dipole and thus cannot emit (nor absorb) IR unless that net-zero magnetic dipole is perturbed via collision.
In an atmosphere consisting of solely monoatomics and diatomics, the particles (atoms / molecules) could pick up energy via conduction by contacting the surface, just as the polyatomics do; they could convect just as the polyatomics do… but once in the upper atmosphere, they could not as effectively radiatively emit that energy, the upper atmosphere would warm, lending less buoyancy to convecting air, thus hindering convection… and that’s how an actual greenhouse works, by hindering convection.
The environmental lapse rate would necessitate that the surface also warms, given that the lapse rate is ‘anchored’ at TOA (that altitude at which the atmosphere effectively becomes transparent to any given wavelength of radiation).
The surface would also have to warm because that 76.2% of energy…
… which is currently removed from the surface via convection and evaporation would have to be removed nearly solely via radiation (there would be some collisional perturbation of N2 and O2, and thus some emission in the atmosphere)…. and a higher radiant exitance implies a higher surface temperature.
The chance of any N2 or O2 molecule colliding with water vapor is ~3% on average in the troposphere, and for CO2 it’s only ~0.0415%. Logic dictates that as atmospheric concentration of CO2 increases, the likelihood of N2 or O2 colliding with it also increases, and thus increases the chance that N2 or O2 can transfer its translational and / or vibrational mode energy to the vibrational mode energy of CO2, which can then shed that energy to space via radiative emission. (And yes, t-v and v-v collisional processes do occur from N2 to CO2… if you doubt me, I can post the maths and studies which prove it.)
Thus, common sense dictates that the thermal energy of the 99% of the atmosphere which cannot radiatively emit must be transferred to the so-called ‘greenhouse gases’ (CO2 being a lesser contributor in the lower atmosphere and the largest contributor in the upper atmosphere, water vapor being the main contributor in the lower atmosphere) which can radiatively emit and thus shed that energy to space.
So can anyone explain how increasing the concentration of the major radiative coolants in the atmosphere (and thus increasing the likelihood that N2 and O2 will transfer their energy to those coolant gases and then out to space via radiative emission) will result in more ‘heat trapping’, causing global warming? I thought not.
———-
3) The climate loons are, as usual, provably diametrically opposite to reality.
———-
The climate loons mis-use the S-B equation, using the form meant for idealized blackbody objects upon graybody objects:
q = σ T^4
… and slapping ε onto that (sometimes).
Their mis-use of the S-B equation inflates radiant exitance far above what it actually is for all graybody objects, necessitating that they carry that error forward through their calculations and cancel it on the back end, essentially subtracting a wholly-fictive ‘cooler to warmer’ energy flow from the real (but calculated incorrectly and thus far too high) ‘warmer to cooler’ energy flow… which leads especially scientifically-illiterate climate loons to conclude that energy actually can flow ‘cooler to warmer’ (a violation of 2LoT and Stefan’s Law).
The S-B equation for graybody objects isn’t meant to be used to subtract a fictive ‘cooler to warmer’ energy flow from the incorrectly-calculated and thus too high ‘warmer to cooler’ energy flow, it’s meant to be used to subtract cooler object energy density (temperature is a measure of energy density, the fourth root of energy density divided by Stefan’s constant) from warmer object energy density. Radiant exitance of the warmer object is predicated upon the energy density gradient.
Their problem, however, is that their take on radiative energetic exchange necessitates that at thermodynamic equilibrium, objects are furiously emitting and absorbing radiation, and they’ve forgotten about entropy… they cite Clausius, but Clausius was discussing a cyclical process by which external energy did work to return the system to its original state (for irreversible processes), or which returned to its original state because it is an idealized reversible process… except idealized reversible processes don’t exist. All real-world processes are irreversible processes, including radiative energy transfer, because radiative energy transfer is an entropic temporal process.
So the climate loons are forced to either ignore entropy completely, or to claim that radiative energetic exchange is an idealized reversible process… it’s not, and that completely disproves their blather.
Their mathematical fraudery is what led to their ‘energy can flow willy-nilly without regard to energy gradient‘ narrative (in their keeping with the long-debunked Prevost Principle), which led to their ‘backradiation‘ narrative, which led to their ‘CAGW‘ narrative, all of it definitively, mathematically, scientifically proven to be fallacious.
———-
Upside down, backwards, inside out and diametrically opposite to reality… the natural state of every single liberal. Almost as if there’s something wrong with their brains. LOL
You nailed it!
ah thats the right n proper sciency answer to it
writing theyre full of sh*t was easier;-)))
lol
upvotes to you
My FTIR loved this post.
Clyde
Great comment!
I can see how water is a refrigerant owing to its phase changes which cause enhanced convective transport to the upper atmosphere (above the emission height).
But how does the non-condensing gas CO2 refrigerate? It is evenly mixed so won’t be specifically convected. It would have to be a purely (differential) radiative effect.
The observation of increasing noctilucent cloud recently would seem to confirm increased transport of water to the upper atmosphere and thus increased water refrigeration.
It’s not exactly a refrigerant in the strict ‘refrigeration cycle’ sense, because at prevalent Earth temperatures, it doesn’t have latent heat capacity (it’s usually too warm for CO2 to undergo phase change).
But it is a radiative molecule, and the only way the planet can shed energy is via radiative emission to space. CO2 is a minor contributor to that below the tropopause, and the predominant contributor to that above the tropopause, as the NASA and Clough & Iacono studies show.
Keep in mind that the only effect of tropospheric CO2 thermalization of radiation centered around 14.98352 µm is an increase in CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy), which increases convection. Given that convection and evaporation removes ~76.2% of surface energy, that increase in CAPE increases convective transport of surface energy in the higher specific heat capacity of CO2 and H2O (as compared to the monoatomics and homonuclear diatomics), and in the latent heat capacity of H2O.
A parcel of air with a higher concentration of polyatomic molecules will have higher specific heat capacity and (in the case of water), higher latent heat capacity… it’ll convect more energy as compared to the monoatomics and homonuclear diatomics.
So the 99% of the atmosphere (N2, O2, Ar) which can’t effectively radiatively emit must transfer their translational mode kinetic energy and (for N2, O2) vibrational mode quantum state energy to the vibrational mode quantum state energy of CO2, which then radiatively emits. More CO2 molecules in a parcel of air means more radiative emitters in a parcel of air and a higher chance that N2 and O2 will collide with CO2 and transfer energy to it. More radiative emitters means a higher radiant exitance per volume, which means more radiative flux, and given the mean free path length / altitude / air density relation, the majority of that emitted radiation will be upwelling and exit to space.
So an increased atmospheric CO2 concentration represents an increased radiative loss of energy to the system known as ‘Earth’, which is a cooling process.
You’ll note that reality is diametrically opposite to what the climate loons claim happens… they claim CO2 is a ‘heat trapping’ gas. I notice they tend to do that a lot, being diametrically opposite to reality.
There are other means of disproving the climate loon ‘backradiation’ claim… such as asking:
“If ‘backradiation’ causes CAGW, and the troposphere is opaque to 14.98352 µm radiation (extinction depth of ~10.4 m at 415 ppm CO2, ~9.7 m at 830 ppm CO2), is all this ‘backradiation’ coming from that ultra-thin layer of atmosphere within ~10.4 m of the surface? And don’t you climate loons claim that energy is being thermalized? Are you double-counting that energy?“
“We believe CO2 causes everything and solar cycles too”, sang the Climate Choir as the Climate Clergy preached the Climate Gospel to the Climate Faithful.
Actually I am shocked, shocked I tell you, that a study mentioned solar activity!
This account of the paper is quite questionable. Take the sentence “That means little of Earth’s heat makes it to the higher, thinner mesosphere”. All heat generated on Earth eventually leaves the atmosphere, passing through the mesosphere.. I have no idea what they mean by that sentence.
Next, the blanket analogy. If the lower atmosphere acts like a blanket, keeping it warmer lower down, it does so by making it cooler higher up. Otherwise, we would have the atmosphere generating excess heat, rather than merely distributing it between lower parts and higher parts of the atmosphere.
Finally, while noting that ” what’s happening due to greenhouse gas emissions, solar cycle changes, and other effects” they limit the effect to greenhouse gases, failing to note that there is still no fundamental proof of the magnitude of any link between greenhouses gases and temperature changes. That is, they still have no idea about the foundation of their speculation, because they cannot calculate a climate sensitivity like ECS or even show is not zero. Or even show whether sensitivity .to CO2 is a positive or negative number, like the social cost of carbon and other fairy tales..
Science faces future tasks to correct guesswork and favourite stories replacing traditional standards of observation, data, uncertainty and logical inference. Geoff S
“Science faces future tasks to correct guesswork and favourite stories replacing traditional standards of observation, data, uncertainty and logical inference.”
Very well stated. Congratulations.
I also think that the highest priority task of science, now, is not making new discoveries or enlarging knowledge, but make a thorough cleanup of the “house” and reject and eliminate all the superstition that has been poisoning it in the recent decades. Science and (what is more important!) society can live with the present level of knowledge for some, not very short, time; but it will not survive the confusion and the misleading tendencies that have been increasingly contaminating its practice (and practicioners) and the minds of lay people.
Yes, I was expecting to see some discussion of the effect of solar changes and how they had eliminated that from the record. Oddly, after acknowledging it , they never mention it again.
I knew it was fossil heat after all. Blame it on a dinosaur workout.
I was always taught that hot stuff would rise – I cannot figure out how hot air will remain down below (like a blanket!!!???!!!).
The blanket arguments include a lot of sheet.
I have yet to find a blanket that cools me down when I get too warm. !
Well, if you look at clouds from both sides now, from up and down and still somehow, it’s CLOUDs’ illusions you may find. They really don’t know CLOUDS at all.
Thanks for that little reminder, Joni!
This is really funny!
Indeed
😝
“Carbon dioxide traps heat just like a quilt traps your body heat and keeps you warm.”
No it doesn’t. What is this baby talk?
“said James Russell, a study co-author and atmospheric scientist at Hampton University in Virginia.”
Hampton U should be embarrassed to have his name associated with theirs.
Goes along with the balloon in the freezer crap, as though that is something everyone does and is intimately familiar with.
There’s nothing worse than scientists trying to talk down to “ordinary” people.
But didn’t an earlier IPCC report – once given in an article by WUWT that I cannot find anymore – say that human CO2 contributions are like 1-2% of the 415 ppm of the total CO2? Papers like this article make it sound like all the CO2 in the atmosphere is man-made when the vast majority is made by nature/natural occurrences.
3.63% of total CO2 flux, per IPCC AR4.
Quote:”Since carbon dioxide also efficiently emits heat”
Complete bollox. What planet are these people on?
At atmospheric temps and pressures, CO2 has virtually (to 3 decimal places) emissivity.
Bizarrely for such a heavy molecule, it also has very low thermal conductivity
The Stratosphere is Earth’s Global Thermometer, an extremely sensitive Gas Thermometer as all the best ones are.
If it is shrinking (getting colder), so is Earth
It gets even worse when they assert that a steepening Thermal Gradient between Troposphere and Stratosphere cause less heat loss.
It breaks Every Rule in The Book
https://postimg.cc/bdn7xW5N
Summer? Where?
Simple-speak for us simpletons, meaning “period of most sunshine wherever I am.” Sort of like saying “The sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening.” does not imply geocentrism.
“Together, the satellites provided about 30 years of observations, indicating that the summer mesosphere over Earth’s poles is cooling four to five degrees Fahrenheit “.
This is curious. Why is the mesosphere cooling so much more at the poles? CO2 is well-mixed in the atmosphere, but not completely. CO2 concentration at the South Pole is lower than the global average. Also, the amount of outgoing IR from Earth’s surface is lower at the poles than it is where the surface is warmer. The ‘blanket’ effect of CO2 is therefore a bit lower at the poles than over warmer parts. It would seem to follow that the greatest cooling of the mesosphere should be at lower latitudes, not at the poles.
But there’s another curious thing about this report: If my memory is correct then the IPCC reports predicted that the stratosphere would cool. Chapter 9 Understanding and Attributing Climate Change in the IPCC report makes plenty of mention of stratospheric cooling, but no mention at all of the mesosphere.
I wonder whether they are making up the story, or cherry-picking a little bit of the atmosphere, in order to make it sound like the models are working. Comments on this would be appreciated.
CO2 is NOT well mixed … as the sattelites have shown …
The satellites have shown that the CO2 concentrations vary by a few ppm from one place to another. That does not mean that CO2 is not well mixed.
You really need to look at the legends before you try to interpret those charts.
Just stirred – not well mixed.
Needs to be shaken, not stirred.
Are the CO2 isotopes associated with human activity well mixed?
Mike,
The problem with the “blanket” effect is that even as a very simplified “model”, it actually does not mean either CO2 effect or GHE.
It actually “works” as an example for Radiative effect in overall, where main one is sunshine, not GHE.
The “fact”, of the observed and detected cooling and contraction of atmosphere,
especially in the polar regions, means that there is no more warming in the “pipeline”, and soon the modern global warming period will come to an end.
It is expected that;
if earth’s system had to shed extra energy accumulated, aka the energy radiative in “origin”,
it is bound to decrease the footprint of it, during that “process”,
by the means of the thermal and physical state of the atmosphere…
as this happens to be a natural coupling condition.
CO2 has not much to do with it,
unless addressed as a tracer helping with better understanding and unraveling of the system,
as it happens to be the most tightly and clearly component in atmosphere following the thermal atmospheric behaviour over long time periods.
Where GHE potential has no any saying over the atmosphere’s thermal variation,
and when in the same time,
CO2 or any other minor GHGs have no much saying or potential over the GHE… as that barely at 10%… at the most stretched.
cheers
This actually is proof of time wasting.
Fare and square,
And am bound to accept it.
I think I understand now,
the clause, the painful one,
like that of Mosher and Stokes…
It is very stupid, of and from the stupids.
No, fixing there… ever forevah…
Mike,
Now that you mention it (because I don’t refer regularly to IPCC) that was my recollection also, that they predicted stratospheric cooling and I don’t recall any reference to mesospheric cooling (but too lazy to go back and research). Wonder why they went from a tropospheric blanket to the mesosphere, completely skipping the stratosphere.
These, guys are referring to models, GCMs.
GCMs do thermal expansion of atmosphere without any physical expansion of it.
Do you get their point made now,
when spinned around CO2?
cheers
“The ‘blanket’ effect of CO2 is therefore a bit lower at the poles than over warmer parts”
Hi Mike,
That is not correct with my understanding. It’s the exact opposite based on the often measured and documented physics of CO2.
There are a number of radiation frequency band widths in the long wave radiation spectrum for greenhouse gases to absorb. Water vapor/H2O is 95% or so of the greenhouse gas on the planet. This is massive enough to saturate some of the bands which absorb LW energy.
CO2 also absorbs LW radiation at some of the same frequency band widths as H2O. Where there is a high amount of water vapor/H2O in the air……… band widths where H2O and CO2 share absorption abilities are more saturated already by the abundant H2O….so CO2 is less efficient at absorbing additional LW radiation.
In the areas of the planet with lower amounts of water vapor/H2O, the same frequency wave bands are NOT saturated and it allows CO2 to absorb MORE radiation.
Cold air cannot hold us much water vapor so very cold air(even at 100% RELATIVE humidity) is dry air. This is why the highest latitudes have seen the warming amplified by something like 3 times compared to the humid, mid/lower latitudes.
This is no theory…………its a proven law of physics and meteorology!
https://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/GWnonlinear.htm
This is not making a case on whether its good or bad(I believe that warming the coldest places, during the coldest times of year the most is a GOOD thing and that the current climate is that of a climate optimum, not a crisis).
It’s just stating an irrefutable law of physics.
There are plenty of scientists with their own theories about why the poles are warming much faster(we know with 100% certainty the higher latitudes are warming faster in the northern hemisphere, which is less affected by oceans as the southern hemisphere) but this explanation above is the one that I came to on my own as a meteorologist. I might be wrong on that part but my confidence is pretty high.
https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warmingpoles.html
Mike Maguire – Thanks. No climate pronouncement ever seems to add up properly when one looks into it a bit further. It’s all very well them saying that the CO2 effect is greater at the poles because the air there is dry, but surface temperatures in East Antarctica (the large cold desert (very dry) area that surrounds the S Pole) have not increased. So – nice theory but no bikkies for them.
The upper atmosphere is cooling and contracting because the rest of the atmosphere is warming.
Ok. Let’s go with that.
Sort of like saying, “You turned on the heater at one end of the room, so the other end of the room got colder.” Climate Loon phantasy fyziks make no sense. LOL
For years, “models have been showing this effect”
Largely because they’ve been programmed to.
This comes across as another one of those ‘global warming causes cold’ type yarns
fretslider,
careful with the ‘double speak”, of this ‘smarties’.
They in the core of that claim, are not even wrong.
cheers
Do models ‘show’ us anything?
Too often people seem to believe that the output from models is some sort of “data” that provides us with insight.
Combined data from three NASA satellites have produced a long-term record that reveals the mesosphere, the layer of the atmosphere 30 to 50 miles above the surface, is cooling and contracting.
regarding the blue clouds:
“when the mesosphere has all three ingredients to produce the clouds: water vapor, very cold temperatures, and dust from meteors that burn up in this part of the atmosphere”.
And:
”“The only way you would expect them to change this way is if the temperature is getting colder and water vapor is increasing,” Russell said. Colder temperatures and abundant water vapor are both linked with climate change in the upper atmosphere”
they conveniently miss the third ingredient in the second quote.
Maybe we should stop junking up the sky and send up less satellites?
Best,
willem
” ‘The only way you would expect them to change this way is if the temperature is getting colder and water vapor is increasing,’ Russell said. Colder temperatures and abundant water vapor are both linked with climate change in the upper atmosphere.”
Apparently, James Russell has never used a psychrometric chart or table . . . if he had he would know that the colder the atmosphere is the less absolute humidity it can have.
With such a statement I find it hard to believe Russel is currently serving as principal investigator on the AIM satellite, but there you have it.
Moreover, if anyone needs further evidence that the above NASA press release is just an assembly of garbage, look at these two back-to-back contradictory statements taken verbatim from that PR:
” ‘We understand the physics of these clouds,’ Bailey said. In recent decades, the clouds have drawn scientists’ attention because they’re behaving oddly.”
(my underlining emphasis added)
Pitiful.
Translated: We think we understand the physics of these clouds; however, in recent decades, they are not behaving as we think they should.
A reasonable person would conclude that they don’t understand the clouds as well as they think they do.
that was a real head scratcher for me too. So many contradictions and just silly speculation offered as ‘science’ For Gods Sake, the atmosphere is NOT like a blanket. This article reads more like something from the Onion than from NASA
Confirmation bias, in a nutshell. Of course their analysis shows what they expected.
They can’t really explain how warming causes cooling, without getting into a lot of doubletalk.
For years, “models have been showing this effect,” said Brentha Thurairajah, a Virginia Tech atmospheric scientist who contributed to the study. “It would have been weirder if our analysis of the data didn’t show this”
That sounds weirder than the weirdest weird weird.
Maybe even worser than the worsest worst worse! It’s weirder than we thought. It must be really bad, badder than we can imagine!
If so it’s the only thing the models predicted the has come true.
I’ve been following SpaceWeather.com thru the most recent solar cycle. They report that the thermosphere is ‘cold’ today due to solar minimum conditions. Their explanation is here: https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2018/09/27/the-chill-of-solar-minimum/
And here is the respective graph
BINGO. Thanks.
Thank you.
Assuming their measurements are correct, they have no idea what is causing this contraction. So attributing it to human emitted greenhouse gases, just takes away from their accomplishment and reduces their credibility.
This might actually be a valuable contribution to atmospheric science, if they would just leave out the politics.
They are the investigator who “knows” who the perpetrator is and then sets about finding evidence to “prove” it.
Well, no. It all gets out. The only difference would be the speed.
Colour me confused, but doesn’t this refute CAGW hypothesis?
And this?
I think the message is getting confused and not helping ‘the cause’.
You caught this too! Good job.
If more heat is escaping then that is a negative feedback from CO2 as far as the atmosphere is concerned. Betcha the models don’t include that feedback!
So is it worse than we thought?
Every single time
I can feel it…the upper atmosphere is contracting and increasing atmospheric pressure….I feel so….so trapped….atmospheric pressure must be 15.0 psi now?
No kidding, the models have been showing this. Who would have expected this?
I’ve always read that water vapor and clouds penetrate only slightly into the stratosphere because the temps are so cold water vapor precipitates before going higher. Who knew water vapor could actually rise to this height?
The last I knew hot air rises. This seems to indicate that warmer air just kinda hangs around raising temperature permanently. How does water vapor reach the mesosphere if it stays near the earth.
So what are the error bars on these calculations? When you tell me that you can detect a difference of 650 ft. 30 to 50 miles up in the atmosphere, I have to wonder what the error is.
There are no such thing as error bars in climate science.
The reason is, there are no errors…. /sarc
r,
Are you questioning the “find”, the claimed evidence in fact as offered, as far as the information concerned, concerning the given case here…
or you just happen to question the explanation offered with it?
and therefore cancelling all merit there?
On top of it all do you know what nihilism does mean ?
🙄
Nihilism, any way addressed still simple,
a radical, extreme too, positioning to take, nihilistic, an extreme position to take and stand by, completely void of empathy or compassion,
the very clause of defileing:
“Agreeing to disagree.”
Kinda of weird!!!
650 feet in 30-50 miles is approx. 2-4 parts per 1,000, if I did my math correctly. Can they measure with that precision?
The answer to your question regarding error bars is in the publication linked to in the article.
Bailey et al. 2021
From the study.
“Due to the lack of long-term observations of the mesosphere (other than HALOE prior to 2002), the only source of validation for this period is from models.”
I suppose the data validates the models, and then the models validate the data.
Also, from the study, altitude resolutions:
HALOE ~ 2.3 km
SABER ~ 2 km
SOFIE ~ 1.6 km
Hard to tell exactly how they ended up with a resolution of +/- 0.2 km. (650 ft) I see the sampling takes place at much lower intervals, but sampling doesn’t translate into resolution.
If this is the way modern so called scientists think; heaven help us all. I surmise that this article was written by the Ministry of truth; as instructed by Big Brother.
They examined the stretch of sky 30 to 60 miles above the surface. At most altitudes, the mesosphere cooled as carbon dioxide increased. That effect meant the height of any given atmospheric pressure fell as the air cooled. In other words, the mesosphere was contracting. – article
OK, but that is only ONE spot and not the entire atmosphere. I would have more confidence in this if they had taken measurements at high altitudes in the Himalayas, for instance, and in the African and Saudi deserts and various jungle areas. One small spot is just one small spot. If they widen their area of research to include a larger variety of ground influences, that would be better.
War air rises and cold air sinks? I learned that in grade school, a long, long time ago.
Oh, what a typo!!!! “War” air? Hey, did anyone ever take measurements of the air over war zones? Just askin’?
Yeah, that’s supposed to be WARM air. My bad, sorry.
The beauty of the English language is its redundancy. I got it from the context. Now, if you had said “cod air,” I might have been a little puzzled. 🙂
The mesosphere must naturally adjust to perturbations in any part of the atmosphere to maintain hydrostatic equilibrium. These are mainly density effects on the total column lapse rate from surface to mesopause.
most directly these perturbations are changes to stratospheric ozone/UV affecting stratospheric temperature gradient and changes to thermosphere. The mesosphere is sandwiched between these two layers.
Meanwhile, back at the global warming fraud:
RECORD COLD STRIKES BRAZIL: HEAVY FROSTS RAVAGE SUGARCANE, COFFEE AND CORN CROPS
JULY 1, 2021 CAP ALLON
Record cold is engulfing large swathes of the South American continent this week, ravaging the region’s crops, lowering yields and spiking prices.
SANTA CATARINA, BRAZIL LOGS ITS THIRD CONSECUTIVE DAY OF RARE SNOW AND SUB-ZERO COLD
JULY 2, 2021 CAP ALLON
According to the local weather service, this is the first time that such a meteorological event has been recorded for more than two decades.
RARE SUMMER COLD FRONT MEANS A CHILLY FOURTH OF JULY FOR TEXAS, AS LATEST USDA CROP FIGURES SOUND THE ALARM BELLS AND SEE PRICES “EXPLODE HIGHER”
JULY 2, 2021 CAP ALLON
Corn stocks, for example, are down a whopping 18% when compared to the same time of last year — this is despite a 2% increase in planting acreage on 2020.
WESTERN AUSTRALIA SHIVERS THROUGH ONE OF ITS COLDEST STARTS TO WINTER ON RECORD
JULY 2, 2021 CAP ALLON
Many towns and cities have suffered their coldest months of June on record, with WA’s capital Perth logging its second-coldest June in recorded history.
LATEST USDA CROP FIGURES SOUND THE ALARM BELLSConsistent cold isn’t good for crops. According to latest USDA figures, the situation in 2021 is looking far worse than their original projections foresaw, and the commodity markets are climbing as a result.
Grains have “exploded higher” after the initial release of the USDA Stocks and Acreage Reports this week.
There were some big surprises in the report.
Arlan Suderman, Chief Commodities Economist at of StoneX gives us the rundown:
“The prices literally exploded higher after the reports’ release,” said Suderman — this was in response to a “smaller acreage than expected for corn and soybeans … The corn acreage came in at 92.7 million acres … that was about 1.1 million acres below what the trade expected (which was already low).”
Soybean acres were an even bigger surprise, continued Suderman, which came in at 87.55 million acres with the trade expecting 88.95 million acres.
“Stocks being less than expected for corn, soybeans and wheat (have sent) the markets off to the races,” he said.
Corn stocks are currently estimated to be at 4.11 billion bushels, which is down a whopping 18% when compared to the same time of last year — this is despite a 2% increase in planting acreage on 2020.
Looking forward, Suderman sees roll-on implications for July’s crop reports.
Expect higher prices moving ahead.
So, it’s a quilt – not a blanket – got it. It is also a one way quilt? Going with the quilt…..if it becomes very very cold, the quilt will not keep you warm….need another quilt? Also, unlike the human body which generates heat for the quilt to block….the earth does not generate much heat – the heat comes from the sun. Also, more water vapor at the high elevations means more greenhouse gas….to block more radiation from the sun? So, the atmosphere high above the poles is important…more important than the other 2/3 of the amosphere above the equator?