Progress

If one appreciates the way in which the planet has warmed in some places and not in others, the way it warms in winter rather than in summer, the way it warms in fits and starts then, the thesis that the warming relates to the steadily increasing proportion of so called ‘greenhouse gases’ in the atmosphere must be seen to be implausible. If one appreciates that the high latitudes of the southern hemisphere are cooler today than seven decades ago, then it is obvious that there are more influential factors at work. If one appreciates that the entire southern hemisphere is no warmer today in the month of December than it was in the nineteen fifties then a sensible person would have to conclude that something other than the ‘enhanced greenhouse effect’ is at work. The  change in surface temperature is plainly not due to enhanced back radiation alone, if at all.

Indeed there are natural factors at work that have nothing to do with the activities of man. THE FUNDAMENTAL modes of natural climate change have been termed the Northern Annular Mode and the Southern Annular Mode. These modes involve shifts in atmospheric mass from high to mid and low latitudes and across the hemispheres accompanied by change in surface pressure, the winds and surface temperature.

Surface pressure simply reflects the total ozone content of the atmospheric column, an identity that was discovered more than 100 years ago. Ozone is material to the presence of what we call the stratosphere. It is change in the ozone content of the stratosphere that is responsible for change in surface pressure, surface winds, sea surface and air temperature.

I abandoned this blog for months while engaged in a project that demanded my full attention. During this period the election of Trump to the presidency of the USA and the appointment of men who understand that cheap and reliable energy is a requirement for economic growth and sustained living standards has led climate realists to think that the tide of manipulation designed to promote the idea of  ‘renewables’ will been turned back and we can at last relax.

The last few days have been spent on the flat of my back. With little else to do I went to Google to discover whether any progress has been made in explaining the role of the annular modes …and indeed there has, but in Beijing, not in Washington or Colorado.

I direct the reader to this page: http://ljp.gcess.cn/dct/page/65558

It is a treasure trove of useful observation and deduction.

A paper published in December 2016 is of the first importance

Xie, F., J. Li*, W. S. Tian, Q. Fu, F. F. Jin, Y. Y. Hu, J. K. Zhang, W. K. Wang, C. Sun, J. Feng, Y. Yang and R. Q. Ding, 2016:A connection from Arctic stratospheric ozone to El Niño-Southern oscillation. Environ. Res. Lett., 11, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/11/12/124026.

The paper can be accessed here: http://ljp.gcess.cn/thesis/files/Xie_2016_Environ._Res._Lett._11_124026.pdf

What is known as the El Nino Southern Oscillation represents the most spectacular manifestation of surface temperature change. This phenomenon has been described as an ‘oscillation’ that is said to be internal to the climate system. Not so. It has its origin in change in the stratosphere in high latitudes that is the subject of previous chapters in this blog. The most dramatic swings in the ozone content of the stratosphere occur in the northern hemisphere in winter.The poles are where climate change is initiated.

The authors conclude that: ‘understanding this kind of connection and potential feedback between the stratospheric tracer gases (such as ozone) and the climate system deserves more attention.’

I concur.

It’s one thing to identify the chain of causation and another to understand and explain the physical processes behind it. It’s yet another to explain how and why ozone varies in the polar stratosphere and to explain the drivers that operate in the upper atmosphere where the Earth system is a part of the interplanetary environment. This is the real frontier in climate science.

There is no great urgency to discover and describe the mechanisms involved, no pressing need for massive funding unless humanity is led astray by false prophets. We can expect that those who have a vested interest in continued funding of their ‘global warming’enterprise will put up vociferous arguments to try and justify their claims. End of the day, the voters decide how their taxes are spent and it appears that, when offered a clear alternative, voters can work out when they are being ‘had’ and adjust accordingly. It’s possible to fool some of the people some of the time but not all of the people all of the time.

Let’s hope the tide has turned.

Its a worry that ‘global warming’ hysteria got as far as it did and did as much damage as it did before people woke up to what has been happening.