From the Cliff Mass Weather Blog
There is a lot of concern about cloudiness obscuring the sun during next Monday’s total eclipse.
Interestingly it turns out that such eclipse-viewing problems are increasing as the earth warms up due to increasing levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
A recent study in the Journal of Climate Statistics by Professor Wade Rocston of the University of Western East New Brunswick documents a significant (23%) increasing trend in cloud-obscured solar eclipses.
The origin of the increasing cloud cover is clear according the Professor Rocston. Increasing CO2 leads to global warming. Such warming results in more evaporation and the moisture content of the air increases with temperature (see below). This leads to more clouds and thus greater obscuration of solar eclipses.
The moisture content of air increases with temperature, which leads to more clouds
To give you some perspective on this issue, the first study documenting the increased clouds in a warming world is found in a 1986 paper by A. Henderson-Sellers:
This ground-breaking study found increased springtime clouds over Texas and the rest of the eclipse path (see below, cross-hatched shading indicates increasing clouds):
According to the ICCC, the International Committee on Climate Change, which includes leading climate scientists from around the world, solar eclipses have become 24% less visible due to climate change-related cloudiness increases. Their analysis suggests that if CO2 concentrations remain at their current level, the associated warming and increased cloudiness will result in nearly 46% of total eclipse events being obscured by clouds by the end of the century.
The inability to see total eclipses is one of the lesser-known impacts of global warming, but it is areal loss for astronomers and the rest of us. I look forward to a detailed discussion of this unfortunate situation in a future article by the Seattle Times ClimateLab reporters.
Finally, happy April 1.
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Has any measurement actually found an increase in “cloud” since the
discoveryinvention of global warming?How do climate models account for “cloud?” More, cloud more warming, or less? Me, I see if it’s cloudy during the day, there is less warming. If it’s cloudy at night, the warm air radiating from the surface may be reflected back by cloud, resulting is less cooling.
Three quick answers based on essay ‘Cloudy Clouds’ in ebook Blowing Smoke.
Dr. Istvan, Dr. Humlum’s climate4you site shows data for global cloud cover for the past several decades. Global cloud cover has been decreasing slightly – about 2% overall.
its generally a warmer night when it’s cloudy, yes. Clear nights are when we get frost
The high priest says that if you don’t sacrifice a virgin to the CO2 god, then you will never again see the sun!
You had me several years ago when I was still quite naive
I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee, clouds in my coffee and
Well I hear you went up to Saratoga
And your horse naturally won
Then you flew your lear jet up to Nova Scotia
To see the total eclipse of the sun
You’re so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You’re so vain
Probably think this song about you
You’re so vain
Good recall!
Do you think John Kerry and his daughter are going to fly on their private jet to watch the eclipse?
That song could also certainly be about HIM.
They no longer own a private jet, so no.
Of course they do lease private jets now, so maybe.
John Kerry NEVER owned a private jet. His wife did. So there.
Is Dr. Vanessa Kerry a virgin? Just asking for a friend.
If the song wasn’t about “him” who then?
There are two problems plus a third scientific detail.
April fools day.
Ha Ha. You had me going there! Sadly i thought the report was true in that some idiots who wrote it thought it was true.
I fully expect that the NYT and Guardian will pick up Cliff Mass’s piece and include in their next editions.
Tis is likely a good thing since fewer people will experience retinal damage from trying to view these eclipses for too long without proper optical protection. The only ones likely to be complaining about fewer eclipse-viewing opportunities are optometrists, ophthalmologists and opticians since their businesses might be adversely affected.
I was all ready to suggest that they couldn’t see the eclipse was because they had their head stuck where the sun don’t shine, and this time I don’t mean Canada…then the April 1 disclaimer, oops, so…..never mind.
The clue is April 1 aka April fools day.
In fact, both direct ground based observational cloudiness metrics have shown almost no change in either ‘octal cloudiness’ or in ‘cloud composition’ since inception. Essay Cloudy Clouds in ebook Blowing Smoke has the metrics.
And there is the further slight problem that increasing clouds would on average decrease insolation by increasing SWR reflectance, so would cool—except we know from CERES upwelling SWR that is not the case.
Finally, we have Dessler 2010 who pretended to show a positive cloud feedback when in fact his paper’s data showed none. Proving only that Dessler was and remains a very poor statistician. He took an r^2 of 0.02 and treated it as significant! At my college, that would have gotten you flunked out of Stats 101.
I used to think I had a fairly well-calibrated BS detector.
However, I now find it increasingly difficult to differentiate between parody, April Fools pranks, and the breathless pronouncements of imminent doom from the CAGW machine.
If it had turned out to be oppressively sunny across the entire total / partial path of the eclipse, however, would any on our side have bet against the enviros declaring this to be the result of Clima-Change™?
Me too. Because there isn’t much any anymore. For Parody, see Babylon Bee. For April Fools pranks, see this post. And for breathless pronouncements of climate doom, see MSM reporting on ‘climate science’. Just this past week we learned that California and French wine grapes will soon be impaired, and that the Arctic Ocean will (yet again) soon be summer ice free.
The best ‘prank’ of the past week was Biden’s EPA mandating a significant future increase in BEV class 8 long haul trucks, when none effectively exist or ever can. Sadly, the new reg was announced before April 1 so was not meant to be a prank—even tho it actually will be. EPA innumeracy problem.
For Parody, see Babylon Bee.
Getting much harder to do – how many times lately have they published something only to have it actually happen a couple months later?
“Proving only that Dessler was and remains a very poor statistician.”
You’re being way too magnanimous. Do you think Mann made errors? Or did exactly what he meant to?
Make a CLAIM, any Lame, (If Man can be claimed as the cause, then it promotes “The Cause”.)
So let me get this straight. CO2 increase clouds that decrease solar input and this is double plus bad.
Reminds me of how you can fight a wedgie by pulling up sharply on your underwear.
Why don’t they cut to the chase and claim that everything you can possibly think of will be worse due to climate Change?
“They” do. Some recent examples:
Cliff, your April Fool’s joke will end up as fact in the global press! I heard viewing of eclipses would decline if people don’t wear recommended protective eyewear. Borrow some welder’s glasdes everyone.
As a kid, I made a pinhole camera to view an eclipse. As I recall, all I needed was a shoe box and some wax paper. I don’t think it worked all that well, but I still have intact retinas. 😉
Aluminum foil, not wax paper. Just a pin prick in it over the covered viewing hole,
any leafy tree
A pinhole camera shoe box works—we used that for the near total eclipse here in FLL a few years ago). Although more fun was to watch the double images of palm fronds on the ocean park sidewalk grow then disappear, by looking down rather than up. Interesting optics.
An arc welder’s mask works (got two at the Wisconsin dairy farm, so I could teach my son after taught myself).
Or you can shell out for the expensive fancy cool looking eclipse stuff. Basically an arc welder eye filter set into eyeglass frames.
We picked up a few of them – very cheap. Just make absolute certain the filter used meets the ISO standard. You put one of these pairs of glasses on inside, you can’t see anything.
If you have old ones from the last eclipse, don’t use them. Apparently, the plastic filters (can’t say the same for welder’s masks – but I don’t know for certain) degrade over time. The ISO notice should be timestamped with the date the glasses were made.
I live on the fringe of the full eclipse path. In the Midwest. If clouds obscure it, it won’t be due to my Dad’s old gas cars. It will be the weather.
I absolutely hate serious websites posting April Fools crap.
I love it. Teaches how to sort fly shit from pepper.
After all, there are many ‘serious’ climate web sites that post nothing but the equivalent of April Fools jokes. Except not only on April 1.
Unfortunately, it’s just about impossible to parody the climate alarmunists. I saw the headline, read the first few lines, and dismissed as yet another “No more polar bears / ice cap / snow / dry land” debunking, and frankly, those just don’t interest me any more. They lie so much so bizarrely that I put nothing past them.
So do I. What a waste of bandwidth.
Good article. Reminds me of the one few years ago highlighting new solar panels that could work at night. They absorbed neutrinos and photons.
Thank you Mr. Mass for fooling me on April 1st. You had me going there for a minute.
Today is International CO2 Day….don’t forget to fly your green CO2 Flag…..Joke Biden issued an official Presidential Proclamation….Remember and Celebrate CO2.
Remeber that Joe issued a Trans Visibility Day proclamation Friday for Sunday (Easter).The when called on it today by Speaker Johnson, said John’s was confused and the that he hadn’t. Well, the Internet had a field day showcasing his proclamation. What happens when you have a cognitively impaired President.
My CO2 flag….
Greta Thunberg has proclaimed today is “CO2 Visibility Day”.
I can see that.
Maybe Greta has infrared vision.
Climate change is causing solar and wind power to become more expensive as well. Kind of a reverse perpetual motion machine.
Every press release the mainstream media rubber-stamps sounds like an April Fool’s joke.
A separate comment for those here seemingly ‘offended’ by Cliff’s well done A1 climate joke.
You do not have to read to his last post line to get his joke. His ‘authoritative’ reference in ‘The Journal of Climate Statistics’ was to a Prof Rocston paper from the ‘’University of Western Eastern New Brunswick.” … umm, 3 for 3.
Jeez, I am reminded of the three brilliant PDQ Bach recordings, the transcribed music of the ‘last and least’ son of JS Bach, done by Prof Peter Schickilele of the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople. Concerto for Horn and Hardart (Philly vending machines) was particularly memorable. So was Pervertimento for Bagpipes (about bicycle pedals). Then there is the Unbegun Symphony (simply missing the first 2 of 4 classical movements). Then there is PDQ’s fairly late piece Cantata #53162, Iphigenia in Brooklyn. Get the musical jokes by now?
Prof. Schickilele carefully sorted his ‘over 50 years of research’ into 3 PDQ Bach periods (album records) as the ‘last and least’ Bach musician: ‘Initial, Soused, and Plunged’. All still available. The sophisticated musical jokes are all are simply perverted renderings of classical real orchestral /operatic stuff from the various musical orchestral periods.
My ex wife is a Wellesley trained musicologist who worked at BSO for years after graduation, so we thought it all brilliant.
Maybe for some here a bit musically obscure. But Schickilele explains all to his live recorded audiences in a very professorial manner (part of the jokes). Enjoy the sophisticated orchestral musical jokes. All are still available on line. I am re-enjoying some now on Google Voice via “hey Google, play PDQ Bach”. Fond memories. Happy A1 everyone.
“Increasing CO2 leads to global warming.”
LOL
What is really happening is that people are catching what is known as “Greta” disease, whereby they can see the CO2 in the atmosphere.
The increase of CO2 from 0.028% to 0.042% has caused a sort of CO2 haze over the sun, meaning that images are fuzzy, rather than clear.
Great April 1st post Cliff!!!
I admit getting taken. I was thinking Cliff had been co-opted to keep his job.
In other news, global warming causes an increase in solar eclipses. I read it yesterday somewhere.
😀😀😀
when the normal CC claims sound just like this…I really did think it was yet another of them.
scary huh
Ah, an April Fool’s prank? Because there are numerous papers showing low cloud cover has been decreasing since the 1970’s and this accounts for 90% of the observed warming in the period.
https://notrickszone.com/2023/05/08/new-study-90-of-recent-warming-is-from-shortwave-cloud-forcing-humans-contributed-0-03c/
And this article lists a bunch of papers that put clouds at orders of magnitude higher effect at controlling earth’s temperature than does CO2:
https://notrickszone.com/2021/10/25/in-a-few-days-clouds-affect-earths-radiation-budget-by-more-than-co2-does-in-270-years/