All the diagrams below present data from a same archive, that can be found here.
In short, ‘decarbonization’ is unnecessary, economically harmful and socially destructive. It will do nothing for ‘the climate’ because the modes of variation in climate have nothing to do with carbon dioxide.
At issue is the question of what determines the surface temperature on planet Earth.
Understanding the waxing and waning of the mid latitude high pressure cells that traverse the southern hemisphere at 20-40° South latitude, is key to understanding the evolution of climate. These cells dominate the ocean. The ocean dominates the Southern Hemisphere. As the cells strengthen, cloud cover falls away and the surface of the sea warms. The relationship is loose in April but improves as the year goes on, being acceptably impressive between September and December as global cloud cover moves towards its annual peak in December. By February, although the relationship still holds in the long term its a bit irregular on a monthly basis. Anyone with the slightest gift for pattern recognition will see that this correlation between surface pressure and sea surface temperature is more impressive than the relationship between CO2 and temperature. CO2 is not the control knob. Let’s talk about the real control knobs. Let’s get the required understandings into the hands of teachers and students for the good of humanity. What is currently happening in schools and in the media is deplorable, nay ‘inhumane’.
Location 20-40° South Latitude globally. Left axis Sea Level Pressure in hPa. Right axis Sea surface Temperature °C
If you are a swimmer, you will be aware that in a quiet day, the water in the shallows and near the surface is always much warmer than the water out in the deep. Deep water that experiences the full force of the suns radiation warms almost imperceptibly. That’s because the benefit of the energy from the sun is absorbed throughout the zone that is illuminated. The ocean, unlike the land, is transparent.
The solar energy acquired by the ocean is retained for many months, perhaps years, whereas the land, being opaque loses the energy that it acquires within the twenty four hour cycle. There is little or no residual when the sun rises next morning.
The atmosphere, regardless of its composition is thin, radiative, convective and incapable of storing energy. If you think otherwise drill a hole in your vacuum flask and see how long it maintains the temperature of the fluid inside. Replace the air with carbon dioxide and see if it makes any difference. No gas is any better or worse and that’s why we use a vacuum and we call the device, a ‘vacuum flask’. And when the air gets in, the device is useless. A gas is actually the worst of possible choices if you want to keep the heat in, unless its kept completely immobile, as in a blanket. And no gas is any better than any other.
The agent of change in surface pressure at 20-40° South Latitude, is in the first instance the low pressure trough that surrounds the Antarctic Continent. Secondly there is the Aleutian Low and finally the Icelandic low, all located in high latitudes and all most energetic in winter. When the lows generate lower in barometric pressure, surface pressure rises elsewhere including at the equator. Pressure rises unequally because cool parts favour settlement while warm surfaces favour ascent. This changes the wind direction and the distribution of cloud and sunlight.
It is frequently asserted that the energy that drives the planetary winds is sourced in the tropics. That’s unphysical. Palpably, it’s the energy that drives the low pressure systems in high latitudes that is responsible for every twist and turn in weather and climate. A polar low has the same central pressure as a tropical cyclone but covers an area about ten times as large, develops in the interaction zone between the troposphere and the stratosphere, propagates to the surface like a vacuum cleaner and and convects air from the surface of the planet all the way to 50km in elevation.
8/7/2021 at the 10 hPa level directly over the Arctic Ocean, Aleutian Islands to the right. Small cells of warmer air emerge in a background of colder air directly over the Arctic Ocean. The 10 hPa pressure level is found at an elevation of 30 kilometers. At 10hPa, 99% of the atmosphere is below. At 100 hPa, or 15km 90% of the atmosphere is below. At 500 hPa or 5.5km, 50% of the atmosphere is below. A good walking pace is 6km per hour. The ascent is obviously relatively subdued in summer.
In a high pressure cell, the air descends. It is warming under increasing compression, and is accordingly cloud free. The volume of air that is involved in the descent increases as the surface pressure increases, but more importantly, the area so affected increases, as the surface pressure increases. As afore mentioned, the volume of air that is descending depends on the activity of polar cyclones in the Antarctic trough, the Aleutian and the Icelandic lows. As atmospheric pressure falls in the lows, it increases in the highs.
Relating to Australia in particular, a high pressure cell that lodges in the Great Australian Bight in summer delivers dry, hot summer conditions because it prevents the inflow of cooler southerly air that occurs in the margin between high pressure cells as they move eastwards. When a large cell lodges in the Bight, or in the Tasman Sea the flow of air over the Australian continent is persistently east to west, hot and dry, with the possible exception of the north of Queensland. We must take cognizance of the everyday observation that the temperature of the air depends on where it comes from. Furthermore, because surface pressure changes over time so does the origin of the wind. The Earth is made up of warm to hot locations, generally favoured for human settlement, and inhospitably frigid locations like Antarctica and southern Chile, where, unlike Alaska and the Scandinavian countries, summer temperatures rise above freezing point for only a couple of months in the year.
But if there is a high pressure cell overhead the days will be sunny. You can rely in it.
PC, Polar Cyclone, AT Antarctic Trough, HIB High in Bight, AL Aleutian Low, IL Icelandic Low, AH Azores High, NPH North Pacific High, CH Chilean High, IOH Indian Ocean High, SH, Siberian and Tibetan High
So called greenhouse gases, and supposed back radiation, can not account for the patterns of change in climate that are observed by the month, by the region, from decade to decade and over centennial time scales. Those who assert that proposition disrespect the data. Their point of view is based on ignorance, superstition, hearsay and an unfortunate personal predilection to think the worst of their fellow man and read into every sort of change, confirmation that their dystopian diagnosis is correct. This is not a new problem. It’s just got way out of hand. Actually, it’s now being used as a means of social control, a distraction from concerns that could be embarrassing . It’s the old story, ‘give me your money’. Or, focus on the enemy without….. following up with ‘Hey, the problem is actually YOU’. Wow, your conscience cuts in. Give me your money and I’ll fix it for you.
Weather and climate have particular, distinctive modes of variation. It is these modes of variation that must be apprehended and secondly explained and understood. One can’t do that without examining the data. Theory and speculation will never suffice. A true scientist respects the data. The pretending type just run away. Most of those that I observe, including the bulk of academia, have their heads in a cloud of speculative theory. Radiative theory has been stretched to a conclusion that it is incapable of supporting. It’s part of the story but not the important part. No-where is it determinative.
See above. The relationship between surface pressure in the Antarctic trough and surface pressure in the mid latitudes is indicative of the relationship between lows and highs. We must understand the consequences of this to understand weather and climate.
When there there is a shift of atmospheric mass from high southern latitudes, about a third of the surface area of the globe, gives, yields, transfers, pushes, atmospheric mass to the other two thirds. The part that loses atmospheric mass in the Southern Hemisphere is located from about thirty five degrees of latitude to the Antarctic pole. The area affected is massive and the volume of air involved more than significant. Furthermore, because the shifting process involves convection to the upper limits of the atmosphere, the balancing settlement involves the stratosphere and troposphere, in favour of high pressure cells everywhere.
In Southern Summer, the Aleutian Low of the northern Hemisphere is a powerful shifter of atmospheric mass to the highs of the Southern Hemisphere and to the High over Siberia and Tibet, accentuating the outflow of the East and South Asian winter monsoon. Paradoxically, if the Aleutian Low is not available as a ‘sink’, a cold flow from the Arctic can bring a chill to Florida and New Orleans. But so far as the Earths energy budget is concerned, the shift that matters most is to the high pressure cells that lie over the Ocean in the Southern Hemisphere. That is the shift that is critical to cloud cover and the Earths energy budget.
Indian culture dictates that the birthday person gives presents to friends and acquaintances on his/her birthday. What a lovely way to celebrate the fortunate accident of life. This is a similar situation. The Lows give to the Highs and the benefit is an increase in sunshine at the surface. The Antarctic is dominant in setting the pattern of centennial change. The Aleutian is dominant in the Northern Hemisphere but lets the Icelandic trough run a sideshow in the Atlantic Ocean where it gives to the Azores High. These systems ‘have a go’ in winter, and work with one hand tied behind their back in summer. They shift atmospheric mass to seasonally weakened lows in the summer hemisphere, impairing their function (one hand already tied behind the back). This is all part of the rich texture that determines where the wind comes from and how much cloud there will be. Ninety percent of the mass of the atmosphere lies within 15 km of the surface. The thickness of the atmosphere should be compared to the cover that a person has were they to emerge from their bedroom wearing just a skin of paint. Just one coat please, and make it thin. That should keep me warm enough!
One needs to be aware that the Earth system is not a closed system. We know this because all these lows can lose atmospheric mass at the same time. They can improve their performance progressively over a period of one hundred years.
The change that is documented in the figure immediately above, is oscillatory in the short term, a matter of four or five years, in tune with ENSO, but oscillatory too on centennial and longer time scales. The figure documents the change over just 74.5 years. That’s all the data that we have. But, we know this process is reversible because the change directly affects the the strength of the North Westerly winds of the Southern Hemisphere.
Co-lead author, palaeo-climate scientist Dr. Krystyna Saunders from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation and the University of Bern says:
“This is an important discovery. Our new records of the Southern Hemisphere westerly winds suggest there have been large changes in wind intensity over the past 12,000 years. This is in marked contrast to climate model simulations that show only relatively small wind speed changes over the same period.”
Co-lead author, palaeo-climate scientist Dr. Steve Roberts from British Antarctic Survey says:
“We have now developed a new method for measuring winds from lake sediments on remote sub-Antarctic islands. These are the only land masses, except for South America where you can collect these data.”
‘Climate model simulations show only relatively small wind speed changes‘
There you have it. Useless, Out of touch with reality. Worthless. Disrespecting the data.
The diagram above shows climate model forecasts for the evolution of temperature in the Pacific Ocean as of June 2021. Take your pick. Back your horse. When it comes to the nitty gritty of forecasting what is to happen in the last half of this year, despite all the courses, all the training, all the seminars and correspondence, all the government funding of millions of experts in all the dedicated institutions, despite decades of effort, all over the world, and the technology at our command, there is no agreement.
Plainly, pretend as they may, these experts can’t agree. Are any of them right? Are all of them wrong?
Atmospheric albedo is due to particles that reflect visible wave lengths in the spectrum of light emitted by the Sun. This reduces the light that reaches the surface of the planet. Reflection in the atmosphere is due to cloud, and my gut feeling is that the strongest variability will be in the cloud that is in the form of multi branching crystals of ice that create a large surface area in relation to their mass. With a lapse rate of 6.5°C per kilometer, the elevation required to form ice cloud is no more than 3 km over the bulk of the planet and 5 km at the equator. Much ice cloud is seen to be stratified due to localized cooling at a high altitude. With 90% of the atmosphere below 10 km in elevation and ice cloud extending into the stratosphere, its obvious that albedo due to variation in ice cloud density might play a very important part in determining surface temperature. Orthodox climate science tells us that this cloud warms the surface by back radiation. I think differently. The higher the elevation of the cloud the more its density will vary according to the ozone and H2O content of the particular layer involved. And this type of cloud is always layered. It is estimated that about 90% of the albedo of the Earth is due to cloud. Surface features don’t get to play a big role due to the ubiquity of cloud. The question is, which sort of cloud plays what role.
Using satellite instruments that intercept light that is reflected, it has been possible, for more than twenty years, to document atmospheric albedo and chart its variation. So far as I am aware nobody has thought to juxtapose that data with surface temperature. Why? Because of the almost universal assumption that the temperature at the surface is determined by back radiation from the atmosphere, including from cloud, with ice cloud at a high altitude presumed to be partly responsible.
Albedo is measured as the proportion of solar radiation that is reflected towards space with no change in wave length. As we see above, there is a seasonal cycle.
Albedo is at its minimum in August and it peaks in December. The secondary hump in albedo between April and August is explained by the increase in cloud associated with the South and East Asian Monsoon. Eastern China receives about 60% of its rainfall between May and August. The Indian Monsoon is frequently initiated on 1st June. So there should be no doubt that albedo varies with cloud cover.
The data indicates that, between 28% and 31% of solar radiation fails to reach the surface according to the time of the year, due to reflection by atmospheric constituents.
Consider the following argument. As we see above, the temperature of the Earth peaks in July-August. This is coincident with albedo at minimum. The July-August peak in temperature is due to the evaporation of cloud as the land masses of the northern hemisphere heat the atmosphere, driving the dew point down and maintaining more water vapour in its invisible, non reflective, gaseous form. On a regional scale land returns energy to the atmosphere tending to clear the sky during the daylight hours but allowing cloud to return in the late afternoon and evening. Vegetation supplies moisture to maintain cloud so that a fence separating cleared land from native vegetation is frequently observed to be also a dividing line for cloud. So, we know that the supply of moisture and the extent of back radiation from the land surfaces play a big role in determining the presence of cloud. Globally, tropical rain forests in the Congo and the Amazon and across the ‘Maritime Continent’ are the chief sources of atmospheric moisture measured as Total Precipitable Water.
Solar irradiance is 6% weaker in July than in January due to orbital considerations. Now get this! Paradoxically, the temperature of the globe peaks when solar irradiance is weakest. A 5.7% decline in albedo between January and July compensates for the 6% deficit in solar radiation and on top of that, delivers the thumping 2.5°C benefit by comparison with the southern hemisphere. Obviously, this is a feedback driven process that relates to the distribution of land and sea.
This paradox is instructive. Take away the cloud and surface temperature increases. Put the cloud back, and the temperature plummets. Adding the cloud back negatively impacts the Southern Hemisphere in its summer giving rise to cooler temperatures at every latitude than is experienced in the same latitude in the northern hemisphere. The notion that cloud warms the surface via back radiation that is incorporated into the mathematical equations that constitute climate models is erroneous. Cloud normally comes in warm moist air from the equator. Perhaps that is the source of this error.
Over the sea, radiation goes straight into the receipts ledger of Earths energy budget because the sea is transparent. Radiation that falls on land tends to be returned to space with expedition. That is what a comparison of the temperature of the Northern versus the Southern Hemisphere demonstrates.
Its important to realise that any variation in albedo over the land starved Southern Hemisphere that occurs between July and April will be critical to the Earths energy budget.
We need to know what lies behind the variation in albedo including an answer to the ‘where and ‘why’ questions. We can begin with a study of variability by month of year.
The diagrams below are a simple method of assessing the nature of variability in albedo according to the month of the year.
Patently the variation in albedo is a cyclical phenomenon and we have to look for a mechanism to explain it. If we can not explain it and account for it properly we have no business attributing climate change to the works of man. or anything else for that matter.
The interpretation delivered below is based on the reality that the atmosphere of the Earth is in part ionized, especially so in winter and at solar minimum due to the impact of intergalactic cosmic rays. The atmosphere exists in a magnetic field that extends into Space that we call the Magnetosphere. The Earths magnetic field couples to the interplanetary magnetic field to the greatest extent in March and September when the axis of the Earths rotation is at right angles to the plane of it’s orbit.
First see diagram 3. Notice that the pattern in September is a mirror image of that in March. Its hard to make any sense of what’s happening as the Antarctic begins to dominate the evolution of the planetary winds, via its determination of the evolution of surface pressure, between April and August.
Close inspection reveals that the whole of period variation of albedo in October is greater than any other month. In figure 1 we see that the data for October is a mirror image of that in January.
September shifts the August pattern towards what it will become in October. In other words, October magnifies and exaggerates the nature of the variation in albedo that is initiated in September. In November and December, the October pattern is maintained but softened.
November is a very important month for climate. It is in November that the changeover occurs between the Antarctic and the Arctic in the phenomenon known as the final stratospheric warming. The high altitude circulation over the Antarctic changes from descent to ascent with a 180° swing in rotation from ‘west to east’, to ‘east to west’ with the summer rotation a pale version, in terms of the energy involved, of that in winter. With a cessation of descent associated with a fall in polar surface pressure, the temperature of the stratosphere warms to the point where, over Antarctica, it is commonly 20°C warmer at the stratopause than at the equator where the pressure of ionization is most severe. Patently, it is not ionization by solar energy that heats the stratosphere, it the absorption in the infrared by ozone. There is a less exaggerated variation of albedo in November. But, the pattern of variation in November is still like that in September. November albedo is a regular 9-10% increase on that in September. The Earth system is throwing up a cloud umbrella as the Earth gets closer to the sun and solar irradiance gets stronger.
The variation in January is a mirror image of that in December and the January pattern persists into February. The pattern in March is different to that in February, sometimes opposed. However, the disturbance seems to be temporary because the pattern in April reverts to the January-February type.
In September the organizing principle transitions to the form that persists between October and December.
March and September, the months where the Earths atmosphere couples most effectively with the Interplanetary magnetic field are diametrically opposed. It’s as if the atmosphere gets a jerk that temporarily disturbs its habits. The reversion from Arctic to Antarctic control of the global atmospheric circulation occurs in late March, muddying the impact of the coupling of the atmosphere with the interplanetary magnetic field at that time. The ionization of the Arctic atmosphere peaks in January rather than in March. In contrast, the September coupling occurs at a time of strong ionization, and a peak in ozone partial pressure. Ozone is not neutral, electrically speaking. The critical thing to remember is that, via this process the atmosphere is set up to rotate like an electric motor.
There has been a steep recovery in Albedo since 2019 in the months from September through to December. It’s plain that there is an organizing principle that lies behind the variability in albedo and it is very likely to be the response of the atmosphere to the interplanetary magnetic field. Just consider this. The atmosphere rotates in the same direction as the Earth, but faster. Those who are interested in this phenomenon talk about atmospheric angular momentum and a variation in ‘time of day’ that appears to correlate with changes in the planetary winds.
The connection with surface pressure
The flux of surface pressure in high latitudes. directly determines pressure in the mid latitudes in a manner described as the ‘Annular Modes’ phenomenon. Along the equator any increase in surface pressure in the south east of the Pacific Ocean is associated with a fall in temperature as cold water either upwells to the surface along the South American coast or upwells and is is transported westwards along the equator. Where waters are not affected by the mixing of cold with warm or warm with cold, surface temperature varies directly with surface pressure. Along the equator surface temperature rises as atmospheric pressure falls. Under a high pressure cell where the waters are not affected by mixing processes, as the surface pressure rises, so does the temperature of the water, due to a reduction in cloud albedo, exactly the opposite to what occurs at the equator. When this occurs over land, as in the northern hemisphere in summer the impact on surface temperature is immediate and strong. Over the sea, the impact is slight because the ocean absorbs energy to depth.
On a month by month basis surface pressure in the mid latitude high pressure cells of the southern hemisphere depends on pressure in the Aleutian Low and the Icelandic Low. When these cells are are active atmospheric mass accumulates in the high pressure cells of the mid latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere, especially that in the South East Pacific adjacent to Chile. Whereas the Antarctic trough is the background driver of surface pressure across the globe, the vigour of the Aleutian Low has a surprisingly generous impact on the high latitudes of the southern hemisphere between January and March. This directly impacts the ENSO phenomenon via a strengthening of the Trades.
Pressure is normally high in the southern high pressure cells in winter due to the pronounced heating of the northern hemisphere and enhanced polar cyclone activity in the Antarctic trough. This creates a wide zone in the mid latitudes where cloud albedo is naturally low. A strong Aleutian trough delivers strengthening trade winds in the Southern Hemisphere via a boost to the high surface pressure in the Chilean High. The loss of cloud albedo as these high pressure systems expand in surface area, creates a situation where temperature in the mid latitudes increases as it falls across the equator. The enhanced pressure differential between the Chilean High and the Maritime Continent, traditionally monitored by observing an increase in surface pressure in Tahiti against a relatively static pressure in Darwin drives the cooling along the equator. Paradoxically, La Nina is associated with almost invisible additions to the receipts ledger of the Earths energy budget, under the high pressure cells of the Southern Ocean, that is add odds with the evolution of tropical and global surface temperature.
In this way, the Southern Hemisphere is set up to either receive or to reject solar radiation as cloud cover is rapidly growing after the August minimum through to the December maximum. The Southern Hemisphere is mostly ocean and is known to transport energy to the northern Hemisphere, via the diversion of tropical waters northwards due to the arrangement of the land masses.
The diagram below indicates very little change in surface temperature in the southern hemisphere in December when the northern hemisphere is at its coldest and global albedo peaks. The consistent warmth of northern summer in the highest northern latitudes, is due to the invariable surface area of the continents that are responsible for reduction in albedo in mid year. But it is the Southern Hemisphere, picking up energy as the northern hemisphere cools in the last half of the year. that provides the warmth that lengthens the growing season in the northern hemisphere by elongating Summer and Autumn and rendering northern winter warmer than it otherwise would be. The ocean currents that provide this benefit are well known but the source of their variability has long been a matter of speculation.
It’s important to realize that this is a reversible process. Its entirely possible that an increase in albedo affecting the mid latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere will cut off the flow of energy from the southern to the northern hemisphere. Unless there is warming in Southern Hemisphere winter the Northern Hemisphere will see its supply of energy from the south cut off. The gain in temperature seen above, should not be taken for granted. It will not necessarily continue.
Polar regions have lost atmospheric mass over the last seven decades, piling it up most strongly in the mid latitudes. This is assisted by increased convection at the equator. Nothing that is inherent in the Earth system, defined to exclude the influence of the Interplanetary magnetic field, can explain this. The increase in pressure in the mid latitudes affects the differential pressure that drives the South East Trade winds initiated from May through to December and either building or falling away in Arctic winter according to the activity in the Aleutian Trough.
The differential pressure driving the North Westerly winds of the Southern Hemisphere is superior to that driving the Trades and has been increasing apace, over the last seventy years. The differential pressure driving the Westerlies peaks in the middle of winter as surface pressure is enhanced in the mid latitudes against a relatively invariable Circumpolar Antarctic Trough that maintains a resounding planetary low in surface pressure all year round. The increase in surface pressure in the mid latitudes opens an atmospheric window according to the area that exhibits high surface pressure and relatively clear skies. The Trades and the Westerlies come from the same source, the share going to east is unstable a possible subject for another post.
The initiator of variation in ENSO is the high latitude troughs in surface pressure in both hemispheres especially attached to the vigour of the Aleutian trough from October onwards through Southern Hemisphere summer. ENSO is not albedo neutral but the change occurs, not at the equator, but in the mid latitudes.
The movement on the center of convection across the Pacific is a consequence of an increase in the temperature of waters in the East of the Pacific ocean and of no great significance in itself. This is a booster rather than an initiator of the ENSO event. There is little variation in albedo attached to the movement in the centre of convection. The process is started and driven from high latitudes, background condition determined by the Antarctic trough and the month to month swings by the Aleutian Low.
The obvious thing to ask is: How does the variation albedo relate to global temperature?
In the diagrams below the albedo axis on the right, is inverted. As albedo falls away, temperature increases. The relationship is watertight. No other influence needs to be invoked other than ENSO which throws a spanner in the works unrelated to the underlying change in the Earths energy budget.
The relationship between global albedo and surface temperature is less disturbed by ENSO at 20-30S Latitude, the latitudes where the variation in albedo is likely to be directly related to change in surface pressure.
The tropics distort the evolution of global surface in a manner that is unrelated to albedo. Temperature increase in the tropics is important to the global statistic because the circumference of the Earth is greatest in low latitudes. However, tropical variability relates to a mixing phenomenon of cold with warm water that has little to do with albedo and the Earths energy budget. The temperature of the Eastern Pacific that is normally about 8°C degrees cooler than the waters in the West increases in the El Nino phase. But essentially the increase in the East brings temperature to the point where the difference between the East and the West is, for a brief interval, reduced, or eliminated. The result is a leap in global temperature when the high pressure cells in the mid latitudes are contracting and albedo is increasing.
See below
It follows that average global temperature is a not a good guide to the status of the Earths energy budget.
In high latitudes temperature is dependent, not on the ENSO phenomenon or even albedo, but rather the degree of penetration of flows of cold air originating from the Arctic and the Antarctic and that of warm air travelling pole-wards from the mid latitude highs towards the Polar Lows that bring these air masses together. The chief variable here is the surface area occupied by LOW PRESSURE cells (polar cyclones, extratropical cyclones) in high latitudes and the balance of pressure between source and sink with reversals a fact of life. The cooling of high latitudes in the southern hemisphere relates to this phenomenon. Variability in the polar lows occurs on very long time scales. Surface pressure on the margins of Antarctica has been falling for seventy years and the area affected by reduced surface pressure has expanded northwards, especially in winter.
At times when the interplanetary field is less disturbed by solar activity, as we have seen in the most recent solar cycle, large swings in albedo should be expected.
Ruminations
Land and sea surface temperature is very sensitive to albedo on all time scales. Variation in albedo, accounts for the change in surface temperature over the last 20 years, to the exclusion of any other mechanism.
This is a lesson in the the desirability of observation, measuring what is observed and making an effort to understand the mechanism responsible for change. The Arctic Oscillation is well correlated with geomagnetic activity. Shifts in atmospheric mass between the high and mid latitudes change the planetary winds and this is the prime source of change in weather and climate on inter-annual, and longer and decadal time scales. What has been lacking is a close observation of the mechanics of the circulation of the atmosphere in high latitudes in winter and its evolution over time, that is primarily determined in the stratosphere.
Ozone is a greenhouse gas too. There is less ozone than carbon dioxide. But there is enough ozone in the air to impart sufficient kinetic energy to all atmospheric constituents to reverse the lapse rate at the tropopause. The partial pressure of ozone increases in winter when the sun is low in the sky and the short wave radiation that splits the ozone molecule is attenuated. The Antarctic circumpolar trough, the Aleutian Low and the Icelandic Low are made up of one or more polar cyclones. These cyclones can elevate ozone to to the 1hPa pressure level. A polar cyclone that is due to absurdly steep density gradients in the lower stratosphere/upper troposphere, can propagate to the surface because, the surface is simply not very far away. It is in the stratosphere, at Jet stream altitudes, and in the vicinity of polar cyclones, that the climate engine can be found, driving the circulation of the atmosphere. If you are looking to find the engine of climate change at the equator or via ENSO it won’t be there.
What goes up must come down. It (ozone) comes down in the mid latitude high pressure cells that pay scant respect to mans conceptual differentiation between ‘troposphere’ and ‘stratosphere’. The importance of ozone is derived from the fact that it is the only greenhouse gas that is not uniformly distributed and secondly, the virtual absence of ozone in the very cold air descending over the Antarctic, and the Arctic when polar pressure is sufficiently high. The volume of descent of this very cold air is not as important as the maintenance of a steep gradient of temperature and density where the two air masses converge. The notion of a ‘Front’ where these air masses meet, is unphysical. The air rotates in what might be deceptively described as a ‘cold core’ polar cyclone’. In fact the warm core starts at about 500 hPa. There is no ‘troposphere’ at high latitudes. Tropospheric air re-enters high latitudes to establish an ‘ozone hole at Jet stream altitudes in spring. The air that is of tropospheric origin has a high NOx content. Its not there during the winter season.
The descent of ozone into the troposphere has implications for atmospheric albedo. The climate shift of 1978, evident in the evolution of tropical surface temperature in the diagram above, was due to a breakdown of the Antarctic circulation that delivered a steep increase in the temperature of the stratosphere and upper troposphere globally, a subject for another day.
It can be observed that a map of total column ozone is also a map of surface pressure. It is the kinetic energy acquired by ozone aloft that is responsible for low surface pressure. It is difference in near surface pressure that appears to drive the winds. But in a polar cyclone, air density gradients are at their steepest between 500 and 50 hPa, not at the surface. The driver is aloft, not at the surface.
Notions couched in terms of ‘forcings’ of surface temperature based on radiation theory pay no respect to the complexity of the atmosphere and cannot explain the evolution of surface temperature. CO2 has nothing to do with it whatsoever. There is virtue in the study of geography even though its very old fashioned. A study of the geography of the atmosphere is good to combine with a knowledge of the manner in which the temperature and density of the atmosphere has evolved over time, at each pressure level in all latitudes. The temperature of air depends upon where it comes from. That changes systematically over time and with it, albedo.
The parameters that are important to the determination of surface temperature evolve, as does everything in the natural world. The Earth is not an Island unto itself. Unless we identify the correct parameters and study the linkages, the climate system can’t be modelled. When humans pursue ideological objectives its quite common the see them rewrite science to suit their purpose. But, who in their right mind could ignore the importance of cloud as a determinant of surface temperature.
The immediate future
This data above indicates that the change each months data from one year to the next is systematic and progressive, even in the space of 20 years. The ‘clumping’ of several months together all moving in the same direction occurs in the low points of solar cycles. We can see that over the last twenty years the tendency for the variation in albedo between months to be self cancelling, is diminishing. The recent tendency for more grouping in the last half of the year has produced wide swings in surface temperature that are independent of the ENSO phenomenon, affecting the mid and high latitudes rather than the tropics. This week Melbourne experienced its coldest, temperature on record. Some parts of Victoria received half their annual rainfall in two days. Swings to extremes are to be expected when the interplanetary magnetic field is least disturbed during solar minimum and during low magnitude solar cycles that are less disturbing of the interplanetary magnetic field.
The progression of change in March and September is worth examination:
The trend is for albedo to increase in October and for the swings to be wider since 2017. The situation in March is the opposite. The swing in October is more capable of changing the course of global temperatures than that in March. The trend in September-October has, in the past, been maintained through to December. These are important months for both hemispheres.
The big unknown is how the impact of a change in polarity of the Interplanetary Magnetic field, currently underway, impacts the system. Perhaps a person who knows more about electricity and magnetism than I do, can answer that question. Will the next solar cycle be stronger or weaker. If its the former, the Interplanetary magnetic field will be thrown into disarray and its impact on the atmosphere will not have a strong central tendency, to drive albedo either one way or the other.
My gut feeling is that the tendency for albedo to increase will not be turned around for a couple of solar cycles.
To what extent is the temperature of the surface of the sea simply a reflection of a variable rate of mixing of the volumes of cold water from high latitudes and the deep ocean into the warmer waters of low and mid latitudes?
To what extent is the variation in surface temperature due to a change in cloud cover?
To what extent is the variation in surface temperature due to a ‘greenhouse effect’ as the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere increases?
At the outset we can dismiss the notion that a greenhouse effect drives surface temperature. The Southern Hemisphere has not warmed in December for seven decades. In logic (science) one instance of failure is sufficient to reject a hypothesis. If one persists with a failed hypothesis one is engaged in a religious observance rather than science.
Figures 1 a,b,c and d are tendered in support of this observation
Figure 1 a, b, c and d. data source Kalnay et al reanalysis here. The arrow in 1d is horizontal.
It is plain from the data in figure 1 c that temperature evolves differently according to the month of the year, that it increases and decreases and the rate of change is highly variable.
If we are to understand climate change, it is the highly variable evolution of surface temperature from month to month that we need to explain.
EVOLUTION OF TEMPERATURE ACCORDING TO LOCATION AND TIME
To investigate the mixing of cold with warm water and temperature change due to cloud effects, it is useful to look at raw data that describes the surface temperature of the ocean at a moment in time.
The Earth can be divided into discrete zones according to latitude and longitude. Figure 2 represents one of these zones at 30-40° north latitude. Plainly, there are zones in the North Pacific Ocean where temperature has declined over the last seventy years.
Figure 2
For this analysis the globe can be divided into twelve zones according to longitude in each of four latitude bands namely 30-40° south, 0-30° south, 0-30° north and 30-40° north. In zones dominated by land data is not reported. The upshot is that there are twenty nine zones with large bodies of water to consider.
Figure 3 shows sea surface temperature on the 17th of September 2016. Superimposed are numbers indicating whole of period change for both January and July, the two months that are known to exhibit the greatest variability. Note that it is the change in the Excel calculated trend line that is reported here rather than simply the difference in the temperature between the first and last month.
Figure 3
For clarity the data is presented again in table 1.
Table 1
If we consider increases of 0.9° C and more as notably extreme, it is in the southern hemisphere in the 0-30° latitude band and the 30-40° south latitude bands that extreme warming is observed. Look for the numbers in white on the map and the cells in yellow in in table 1.. Change smaller than 0.2°C is marked in green and enclosed with a border.
Generalising we can say that temperature advance is more a southern than a northern hemisphere phenomenon. Between the equator and 30° south the increase in January is notable. At 30-40° south the increase in June is notable. The Pacific is both peaceful and more stable in its temperature than the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. Some areas of the Pacific are cooler today than they were seventy years ago.
Why does temperature change exhibit such diversity?
WIND AS DRIVER
The lowest surface atmospheric pressure occurs in the Antarctic circumpolar trough that is located over the Southern Ocean on the margins of the Antarctic continent. There is no counterpart to this extreme trough in surface pressure in the northern hemisphere where moderately low surface pressure is found over the continents in summer and the sea in winter. Accordingly, across the entire globe, including the tropics, air moves towards the south east, spiralling towards the Antarctic circumpolar trough. Locally, counter currents exist with the movement of the air in other directions but this north- west to south- east flow is the dominant pattern. Part of the counter flow is moist air that moves from the equator into mid and high latitudes, especially in the northern hemisphere, bringing moisture and warmth to cold locations far from the equator. This is a counter flow to the trade winds and without this flow high latitudes would be both colder and drier. Counter flows are in part monsoonal in nature but they also derive from the fact that on a local scale, air circulates about cells of low and high surface pressure.
The strongest winds on the planet are the westerlies of the southern hemisphere. These are also the most variable winds due to the ever changing relationship between surface atmospheric pressure in the mid latitudes and the Antarctic circumpolar trough. This westerly flow has become progressively more extreme over the last seventy years. Oscillations in the flow are consistent with change in the ‘Antarctic Oscillation index’. This change, that is globally influential, is driven by the changing intensity of cyclonic activity in the Antarctic circumpolar trough.
With the notable exception of the Indian Ocean, currents circulate in a clockwise direction in the Northern Hemisphere and anticlockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. Currents are forced by the planetary winds. Since the strongest of these winds are the westerlies of the Southern Ocean, this is where the movement of the ocean is most vigorous. The West Wind Drift of the southern ocean is interrupted by the near conjunction of the South American land mass and the Antarctic Peninsula. A certain amount of up-welling occurs in coastal waters promoting strong fisheries on the Eastern margins of the Oceans, particularly off the coast of Chile. A failure in this up-welling involves a collapse in the fishery. The intensity of up-welling changes the pattern of surface temperature and as we see in table 1 the effect is very much greater in the Pacific.
Notable is the northward extension of warm waters to provide a more equable climate to the western margins of the ocean basins in the northern hemisphere. Because these flows are anomalously warm as they reach the eastern margins of the ocean basins, so the western margins of both North America and Europe are warmer than they would be in the absence of these warm waters. The Gulf Stream is an instance but the Eastern Pacific is equally an example. There is no comparable situation in the southern hemisphere because the northward flow of cold Antarctic waters on the western margins of the southern continents is deterministic.
Limiting this tendency to equable temperatures on the eastern margins of the major oceans, cold water from high latitudes is driven towards the tropics. This is particularly the case in the Pacific (the largest basin) and more particularly in the southern hemisphere. Anomalously cold water is therefore found in the region of the Galapagos Islands and also from Cape Town to Sierra Leonie. Cold water coursing along the coast towards the equator tends to promote precipitation over the ocean rather than the land,and the desertification of adjacent land.
In complete contrast, the Western coast of Western Australia is warmed by a southerly flowing current. The Indian Ocean is atypical in that it circulates weakly in an anticlockwise direction with anomalously cool water moving northwards along the East coast of Africa penetrating to the Persian Gulf and the coast of India. Perhaps it is the strength of the monsoonal influence in this part of the world that dictates this contrary circulation. Accordingly the relative backwater that is the Indian Ocean has produced the steepest increase in sea surface temperature over the last seven decades. There is an increase of 1.3°C between Africa and Australia in the 0-30° latitude band in the month of January. The Atlantic south of the equator, also exhibits a temperature increase of about 1°C with an increase of 1.3°C on the west coast of the African continent, again in the southern hemisphere.
The pattern of warming and cooling is of interest because it comes about via the joint influence of the change in cloud cover, change in the rate of admixing of cold waters from high latitudes and the up-welling of cold water from the ocean deep. Plainly the rate of temperature increase in the Pacific has been moderated and even reversed by comparison with the Indian and Atlantic Oceans.
As already noted, the increase in the temperature of waters south of the equator is greater than the increase in the temperature of the waters of the northern hemisphere in comparable latitudes. This increase has occurred despite the obvious cooling influence due to the West Wind Drift that is so apparent in the Pacific. This exaggerated surface temperature increase is consistent with the marked increase in surface pressure, geopotential height and upper air temperature in the low and mid latitudes of the southern hemisphere. A southward expansion of the zone of high surface pressure in the mid latitudes of the southern hemisphere can be described as an expansion of the Hadley Cell. So the heavy temperature increase in these latitudes is unequivocally due to a decline in cloud cover.
But there are large areas across the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans that have experienced smaller increases in temperature and others zones where a decline in temperature has occurred due to the admixture of cold water with the intensification of the planetary winds that has occurred over time. In June there is significant cooling at 30-40° north probably due to enhanced interaction with the Arctic Ocean. The corollary is a decline in ice coverage in the Arctic. This cooling follows from the acceleration of the westerly winds in high latitudes, and especially so in the southern hemisphere.
SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE, ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE AND CLOUD
The relationship between surface pressure and sea surface temperature is documented in figure 4.
Figure 4
The root cause of the increase in surface pressure in the low and mid latitudes of the southern hemisphere is the decline in surface pressure in the region of the circumpolar trough that surrounds Antarctica. This is in turn related to the increase in the ozone content and the temperature of the stratosphere. As Gordon Dobson observed in the 1920s, following on from the work of the pioneering French meteorologist deBort in the last decade of the 19th century, surface pressure is a reflection of the ozone content of the upper portion of the atmospheric column. As surface pressure falls away the tropopause is found at ever lower elevations. Differences in air density between air masses rich and poor in their ozone content gives rise to jet streams that manifest as polar cyclones at the surface. As the vorticity of polar cyclones within the Antarctic circumpolar trough varies, so surface pressure changes across the rest of the globe via mass exchange. A fall in pressure in the Antarctic trough signals a shift in atmospheric mass to latitudes north of about 50° south. It is this shift in mass that is associated with the rising air temperature and diminishing cloud cover in the low and mid latitudes of both hemispheres. Declining cloud cover is associated with rising air temperatures in the cloud zone reflected in increasing geopotential height at 500 hPa. This particular association is frequently the subject of comment in meteorological circles. Ozone is ubiquitous; ozone gathers infrared energy from the Earth itself and heats the air, its efficiency in this respect increasing with surface pressure. It provides more energy to the troposphere than it does to the stratosphere. In this way the extent of cloud cover depends upon the changing flux of ozone in the air.
To understand the evolution of climate we must discard propositions that are devoid of value and re-learn that which was pioneered more than a century ago.
CONCLUSION
Of major importance to the evolution of surface temperature are ocean currents that depend upon the planetary winds for their motion.
The origin, temperature and humidity of moving air changes according to the flux in the ozone content of the air in centres of low surface pressure. Change is initiated in the stratosphere in high latitudes chiefly in winter. This is ultimately what drives climate change at the surface with a very different pattern of temperature change according to the month of the year. Man is a minnow of little consequence in the grand scheme of things.
In general the pattern of evolution in surface temperature in the near coastal areas of those parts of the Earth favourable to human settlement is dictated by the interception and storage of solar energy by the oceans as mediated by cloud cover. Temperature change at particular locations is mediated by the movement in the waters of the oceans that represent most of the surface of the planet. The oceans are the chief organ for energy storage by virtue of transparency to solar radiation. Energy storage occurs below the surface. Our ability to monitor the temperature of the ocean below the surface is limited. Until we can assess temperatures below the surface there is no valid way to monitor the energy relationships that determine the evolution of temperature above the surface. One should not put too much reliance on surface temperature as an indication of the state of the system over intervals shorter than a decade.
The anthropogenic argument is not a product of observation or deduction but a form of hysteria. Its origin is in the dis-tempered gut of modern man, reeling from the pace of change and the pressures of urban living. Perhaps it is due to a feeling of helplessness in a world in which there is more regulation, more complexity, greater inter-dependence and perhaps a feeling of chronic uncertainty due to the fact that ever increasing numbers enjoy less of the fruits of their toil, governments are piling up debt and seem to be out of touch with the needs of the common man.
In a planet that is too cool for both comfort and productivity man should not worry when the surface warms slightly, a frequent and highly beneficial circumstance in the evolution of the Earth. When we start shedding clothes in winter because we need to cool down, that will be the time to worry.
Worry induces a search for remedies and mankind becomes susceptible to the wiles of multitudes of carpetbagging rent seekers, keen to exploit the situation. That, unfortunately is the situation. Too many carpetbaggers have staked a claim on the general revenue. Central banks fund ever increasing deficits creating spending power where none is earned. This is irresponsibility on a grand scale. The economic system appears to be lurching towards a catastrophic collapse.
The notion that the climate of the Earth is independent of external influences is a basic tenet of ‘climate science’ as promulgated by the UNIPCC. It is maintained that the only way in which the sun could influence surface temperature is via a variation in TSI (total solar irradiance). Since TSI is invariable it is held that the sun can not be responsible for any variation in surface temperature. In consequence it is maintained that the flux in surface temperature is internally generated and that surface temperature will increase as a function of back radiation from so called ‘greenhouse gases’, the chief of which is carbon dioxide.
But the assumption that change is internally generated is unwarranted. The most cursory examination of the climate record reveals that the Earth has natural modes of climate variation capable of increasing and decreasing surface temperature and to do so at different rates at different latitudes and also between the hemispheres. In this post I will demonstrate that the Earth’s climate system is an open system, that responds to external influences so as to increase and decrease surface temperature. Furthermore, I will demonstrate that this is the only mode of climate variation that is in operation.
The UNIPCC has a discussion of the Northern and Southern Annular modes here. Climate models are incapable of simulating these natural modes of change. Nor will models be able to simulate the change until the underlying mechanics are understood. Currently, the discussion is about ‘troposphere-stratosphere coupling processes’ jargon for the manner in which change that originates in the stratosphere ‘propagates to the troposphere’. The argument as to whether change begins in the troposphere or the stratosphere is ongoing.
If we investigate the, by now very well documented, ‘Northern and Southern Annular Modes’ of natural climate change we observe:
At all points on the Earths surface temperature is most variable in winter being driven by Arctic processes that are most influential in January and February and Antarctic processes that are most influential in June and July.
An interchange of atmospheric mass occurs in winter between high latitudes and the rest of the globe. This changes the balance in the pressure relationships that determine the strength and direction of the planetary winds. In consequence there is change in the equator to pole temperature gradient. In general, because surface pressure is lowest in the region of the circumpolar trough that surrounds the Antarctic continent air flows from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere and from equatorial regions towards Antarctica producing warmer or cooler temperatures at each point along the route according to the origin and strength of the flow of air that emanates from warm or cold places.The natural state of the climate system involves a transition between these warm and cold regimes.
As atmospheric mass shifts from high to mid and low latitudes surface pressure increases in the latter and it is observed that surface temperature increases in proportion to surface pressure, geopotential height at 500 hPa and the temperature of the air above 500 hPa. Plainly, the surface temperature response is due to change in cloud cover. However, this point is not be made in the literature due to ideological fixation on the notion that surface temperature must be a product of downward radiation from radiating gases. So, the relationship between geopotential height and surface temperature may be acknowledged but is never explained.
The agent of shifts in atmospheric mass is the relative intensity of polar cyclones that collectively constitute the Antarctic Circumpolar Trough. The vorticity of these cyclones is driven by contrast in air density between 300 hPa and 50 hPa where the stratosphere overlaps with the troposphere and marked conjunctional disparities in tropopause height can be observed. This is where warm ozone rich air from the mid latitudes meets cold, ozone deficient air that occupies the the polar cap in winter. Here, the ozone content of the air is a strong driver of air density. It is observed that air masses characterised by low surface pressure are rich in ozone aloft while air masses that exhibit high surface pressure are relatively deficient in ozone aloft emanating from either the tropics or the Antarctic continent. All air streams meet at the Antarctic circumpolar trough and the contrast in the nature of these air streams is greatest in winter.
It is observed that the ozone content of the air in high latitudes increases strongly in winter, providing the energy, via the absorption of long wave radiation from the Earth itself to drive convectional uplift to the limits of the atmosphere where ozone accumulates in localised ‘hot spots’ like the north Pacific or the western Pacific in the region of New Zealand.
The exchange of atmospheric mass that occurs between the high altitudes of the southern hemisphere and the rest of the globe has a fulcrum approximately at 45° -50° south latitude. That fulcrum moves marginally towards the equator when polar surface pressure is reduced and pole-wards when polar surface pressure increases.
Figure 1 Anomalies in surface atmospheric pressure with respect to the whole of period average. Reanalysis data Kalnay et al sourced here
Figure 1 documents the reciprocal relationship in atmospheric surface pressure either side of the 50° south parallel. Enhanced polar cyclone activity lowers surface pressure south of 50° of latitude and antithetically, relaxation of polar cyclone activity allows atmospheric mass to return to high southern latitudes.
The ozone content of mid to high latitude air is enhanced in winter. Logically the enhancement is not a product of reduced ionisation pressure due to low sun angle because enhancement is uneven and episodic in nature. The early months of the year when atmospheric mass tends to be drawn to the Arctic, depleting Antarctic surface pressure, is a period when the ozone content of the air on the equatorial side of the Antarctic circumpolar trough is seasonally low. On the other hand, the mid winter months are periods where surface pressure in the high latitudes of the southern hemisphere is high. It is in these mid and late winter months, when polar surface pressure is enhanced, that the ozone content of the air varies most dramatically, and with it polar cyclone activity. It is in these months, where the norm is high surface pressure, that the opportunity for wholesale shifts in atmospheric mass is at its greatest.
It is uncontroversial that the ozone content of the stratosphere depends upon the the ionisation of the oxygen molecule by short wave radiation from the sun. Where this actually occurs and how the ozone content of the air gets to be most elevated at the time and in the locations where short wave radiation is seasonably unavailable should be a matter of great scientific interest. It will no doubt become so when those who study climate open their minds to the possibility to external regulation of the climate system….an open rather than a closed system. Would it not be astoundingly remarkable if the earth system were to be entirely free and independent of external influences? All our experience on Earth is that interdependence and adaptation are pervasive features of natural systems. Why should the Earth be free of influences emanating from its inter-terrestrial environment?
In high latitudes, cosmic rays, emanating not from the sun but from intergalactic space ionise the atmosphere. The neutron monitor that measures the incidence of these rays at the south Poles is pictured below.
"Neutron monitors of the Bartol Research Institute are supported by the National
Science Foundation."
Neutron data from the Bartol Research institute can be accessed here
The daily Antarctic Oscillation Index (AAO) can be accessed here
Figure 2
To interpret figure 2 one mus be cognisant of the fact that the AAO index can be taken to represent the reciprocal of high latitude surface pressure. When the AAO index rises it indicates a decline in surface pressure south of the 50° parallel of latitude.
Figure 2 indicates that as the neutron count increases surface pressure falls away in high southern latitudes. The surface pressure response appears to lag the neutron count by about a week. It is inferred that ionisation by cosmic rays enables the production of ozone that in turn absorbs long wave radiation from the Earth, enhancing differences in the density of the air and driving polar cyclone activity that is responsible for shifts in atmospheric mass.
It is thought that the intensity of cosmic rays outside the Earth environment is relatively invariable. Within the environment of the Earth and its atmosphere the neutron count, a product of cosmic ray activity, is a function of solar activity. In this reversed out fashion the sun indirectly regulates the ozone content of the atmosphere in high latitudes, the distribution of atmospheric mass and surface temperature. This is, in all likelihood, just one of a many ways that the sun influences the atmosphere of the Earth and surface temperature. The gravitational effect of the moon is a prime candidate so far as the modulation in the flux of atmospheric mass is concerned. The ionising effect of short wave radiation inflates the atmosphere and will condition its response to electromagnetic influences. It should be born in mind that the atmosphere super-rotates with respect to the rotation of the Earth itself and its rate of rotation very likely responds to the electromagnetic environment that is more powerful with elevation, and more so over the poles than at the equator.
Figure 3 indicates that 2015 represents a recent low point in the incidence of cosmic rays as sunspot activity peaks in solar cycle 24. Neutron counts have increased strongly at Thule during 2016. Southern winter has seen a further steep fall in surface pressure in high southern latitudes as documented in figure 4.
Figure 4. Anomalies in sea level pressure with respect to the whole of period average since 1948 according to the Kalnay et al reanalysis. . Data source here.
Figure 4 indicates that in general sea level pressure varies in a reciprocal fashion either side of the 50° latitude band in the southern hemisphere while surface pressure at 40-50° south is relatively constant.
CONCLUSION
Surface temperature on Earth is a product of the planets dependence on the intergalactic environment in which it exists. Important aspects of that environment include emanations from the sun and also from beyond the solar system.
There is good reason to believe that the modes of natural climate change described here can account for the entire spectrum of climate change since 1848. Witness the fact that there has been no increase in surface temperature in the month of December since 1948-56 as documented in figure 5 below. If surface temperature were responding to the increased presence of CO2 one would expect to see a background level of warming in every month. Plainly this is not the case. Plainly, warming and cooling is regulated according to change that originates in high southern latitudes in winter.
Figure 5. Anomalies in sea surface temperature in the southern hemisphere from decade to decade. The anomaly is with respect to the divergence from the whole of period average between 1948 and 2016. Data from Kalnay’s reanalysis here
Fig. 1 Evolution of temperature at 1000 hPa in the Northern and Southern hemispheres of the Earth. DATA SOURCE:
According to Mark Twain, when it comes to numbers there are Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics.
Any form of manipulation to achieve simplification involves suppression of information.If one is to draw intelligent conclusions it is better to have all the original data. The less averaging the better.
Even the act of aggregating for a whole hemisphere, as is done in figure 1, is questionable. A sphere exhibits very different characteristics across its surface and so does a half sphere. But, looked at in this way, its better to look at the two hemispheres seperately rather than together. The act of dividing the globe in half at the equator is a reasonable thing to do because the two are very different and we can learn in the process.
In figure 1 we have monthly data. The peak in the cycle is the warmest month and the trough is the coolest month.Between the two are all the other months.
The two hemispheres are about as different as two planets. Temperature in the southern hemisphere (red line) exhibits a smaller annual range. Winter is marginally warmer than in the northern hemisphere. Summer is a lot cooler. In the Southern Hemisphere temperature is moderated by the extensive oceans.
In the Northern Hemisphere temperature is driven up due to the extensive areas of land. This affects high more than low latitudes. The warming of the mid and high latitudes of the northern hemisphere in summer is due to atmospheric heating and loss of cloud cover. More solar radiation gets through the clouds to warm the surface. Paradoxically the Earth is furthest from the sun in July and accordingly solar radiation is 6% weaker by comparison with January. Straight away we see that atmospheric heating and cloud cover is the dominant influence on surface temperature while the degree of variation in surface very much depends on the ratio of sea to land. Who would have thought that? We have been told that it is the ‘greenhouse effect’ that makes surface temperatures what they are. In fact surface temperature depends on whether the Earths natural sunshade is in place or not and just how far a location is from the moderating influence of the sea. There is always less cloud over land than over the sea and particularly in those places where little rain falls.
In fact the ratio of land to water determines the extent of atmospheric warming and cloud cover on all time scales from daily through to annual. This is the strongest influence on surface temperature. Its due to the fact that the temperature of the air changes quickly and to a much greater extent than the amount of water vapour in the air that is required to form cloud. Water vapour content tends to be reduced by cold overnight temperatures giving us dew and cloud in the mornings and relatively clear sky at midday. The closer to the surface of the Earth, the more moisture can enter the atmosphere via evaporation from open water and plant transpiration. The more elevated the location, the colder is the air and , the lower is its moisture content. The higher the elevation, the less the air is affected by warming and cooling at the surface. The higher the elevation the more the temperature of the air is determined by its ozone content.
When the ozone content of air increases and it warms via the interception of long wave radiation from the Earth, the response is measured as increased geopotential height. Surface temperature rises in proportion to geopotential height. That is due to the cloud cover response. Surface pressure, geopotential height and surface temperature all rise and fall together.This is the natural climate change dynamic driven by change in cloud cover.
Enough of these ramblings. Back to figure 1. The dotted lines in figure 1 are strictly horizontal. They have no slope. These lines assist the eye to detect variations. There is a relatively small variability in temperature in the southern hemisphere in summer (upper limit of red series) over the last 69 years and no obvious trend. On this basis one can rule out carbon dioxide as a driver of surface temperature because the gas is well mixed. If there is a back radiation effect it needs to show its face here. Palpably it doesn’t. If the back radiation effect depends at all on enhancement by humid air and the presence of cloud we should see a continuous increase in the temperature of the air in the southern hemisphere from November through to March because this is the time of the year when cloud cover peaks. But, we see that there is no change in surface temperature in the warmest month of the year. However, we do see a gradual increase in coolest month temperature in the southern hemisphere from about 1970. This is the warming that needs to be explained.
Now, lets look at the northern hemisphere. Coolest month temperatures rise and fall over quite short time intervals. The 1970’s are the coolest decade in the northern hemisphere in terms of both the warmest summer month and the coolest winter month. Northern Hemisphere temperature increased after 1998 in both coolest and warmest month and this too needs to be explained.
A QUESTION OF TIMING
The raw data doesn’t inform us as to whether the climate cooled or warmed in spring or autumn. Does that matter? Come to think of it, if the global average rises due to an increase in temperature in the winter months is that really a problem. Would we not actually prefer warmer winters? Can we make rational decisions on the basis of a global average? Not really! Under a regime of dramatically increased summer temperatures with thousands dying of heat stroke and and dramatically reduced winter temperatures with thousands freezing to death, the average may be unchanged. We may think the planet is warming if we see a rising global average. But that could simply represent some warming in the coldest, abominably cold month so that month is slightly less abominably cold. Quoting the global average is the sort of thing that Mark Twain was complaining about.
Having dispensed with the CO2 furphy and the global average furphy we can now concentrate our on why the temperature changes as it does!
WHY HAS SURFACE TEMPERATURE CHANGED AS IT HAS
What stands out most in figure 1 is the warming that occurs in the southern hemisphere in winter (red line) starting in the 197o’s.
Given that the temperature of the air is a chilly 11°C in mid winter, this warming, and even more so, the warming of the northern hemisphere in winter, is unequivocally beneficial. This is a matter for congratulation rather than concern. We live in fortunate times. But it would be nice to know why this is happening because winter warming inflates the average for the globe as the whole and gives rise to a lot of hysterical nonsense that is swallowed by an uncritical media that take the point of view that the science of climate is a matter for ‘scientists’ and the average global temperature is Gods Word. These people have no idea what Mark Twain was talking about.
Politicians don’t read science. They read the daily papers. We get the blind leading the blind and a cabal of irresponsible scare mongers beating the drum and clashing the cymbals while snapping at the politicians heels demanding ‘clean energy’ and an end to ‘carbon pollution’. This is the modern ‘left’ in action. Its the Democratic Party in the US, the moneyed elite in the UK and an unholy alliance of Labour, The Greens and the soft underbelly of the Liberals in Australia. Even the Chinese, who in many ways are very practical people, seem to have fallen in love with this idea. If you muzzle the press, put the intellectuals in prison and rule with an iron fist you can do whatever you bloody well like. Can we pretend that what is happening in the West is somehow preferable? Can we point to a more rational and beneficial result from our ‘democratic process’? Cast not the first stone.
A PLAUSIBLE EXPLANATION
The warming of the northern hemisphere in both winter and summer starts in about 1998. Bear in mind that the warming in southern winter occurs at a time when global cloud cover plummets as the large land surfaces of the northern hemisphere heat the atmosphere. Is that warming due to an increasing ozone content of the air and a consequent decline in cloud cover?
Figure 2 confirms a step up in temperature at the 10 hPa pressure level after 1976. This is predominantly a southern hemisphere phenomenon. The step up occurs in winter.The consequent much enhanced feed of ozone into the high pressure zones of descending air over the global oceans would reduce cloud cover. Under normal circumstances 90% of global cloud cover is to be found over the oceans and this is where high pressure cells form, especially in summer. When ozone rich air descends in a high pressure cell, the air warms (geopotential height increases) and this is always, without exception, associated with warming at the surface.So, the warming is due to loss of cloud cover.
Fig. 2. 10 hPa temperature near the poles
Now, I want you to sanction something quite unorthodox and shocking.
In figure 2 the hand drawn line that links the high points in the summer maximum in the northern hemisphere is copied and applied to the northern minimum and to both the minimum and the maximum in the southern hemisphere. This unsophisticated ‘sleight of hand’ is performed as a ‘seeing aid’ to discern the points of difference. I guess I am just a frustrated artist and the mathematical exactitude of Excel is humanised by this process.I was once told by a plant breeder that if you cannot see the difference in plant performance by eye that difference is not worth measuring. It’s somehow comforting to realise that we don’t always need mathematical manipulations in order to get to the nub of the question.
Some points to note:
Winter minimums are more variable than summer maximums and particularly so in the northern hemisphere.
Whole of period change at 10 hPa is greatest in the Antarctic. Those who make a close study of the matter have worked out that this is where natural climate change begins. Here is the documentation: Antarctica is the source of natural climate change.
At the surface, the widest range in temperature between summer and winter is seen in the northern hemisphere but that is not the case at 10 hPa. It is the southern hemisphere that exhibits the big variations.
Now in the last point we have an anachronism and a clue. See Figure 3.
The wide range in temperature at 10 hPa in the southern hemisphere is due to the variable intake of mesospheric air over Antarctica in winter. This intake of cold air cools the upper stratosphere. It does not affect the temperature of the air at elevations below 300 hPa. The deepest cooling occurs at the 30 hPa pressure level in July. Why is it so?
In winter surface pressure in the Antarctic region reaches a resounding planetary high. Nowhere else, anywhere on the globe, in any season of the year does surface pressure approach that achieved over Antarctica in winter. Air from the mesosphere has a low ozone content and it dilutes the ozone content of the atmosphere generally.The enhanced flow of mesospheric air into the southern hemisphere causes a generalised deficit in the ozone content of the air in the entire southern hemisphere. Alternatively, when the flow is choked off (surface pressure rises) there is an increase in the temperature of the air and its ozone content.
It is easy to see how the ozone content of the air can change over time via an alteration in the mesospheric flow.
TEMPERATURE VARIABILITY
See figure 4 below. The short term variability that is seen in Arctic is much enhanced after February. It is initiated by a fall in polar surface pressure signalled by a rise in the Arctic Oscillation Index (the two are inversely related). This increase in 10 hPa temperature is likely reinforced in amplitude and duration by an increase in ozone partial pressure due to enhanced penetration of ionising cosmic rays as the stratosphere warms. The build up in the temperature over the polar cap is avalanche like in its suddenness. It represents the displacement of cold mesospheric air. The heating effect, observed to last for weeks at a time, requires amplification to persist in this way. Otherwise it would be gone in ten days. Without amplification the descent of mesospheric air should re-establish in short order . Patently it does not.
Figure 4. Mean temperature at 10 hPa compared with the Arctic Oscillation Index.
In Fig. 2 we observe little difference between the hemispheres in the evolution of 10 hPa temperature in summer. There is a slight step up in 1976. And, the step up in summer is greater in the south than the north.The change in the ozone content of the atmosphere is global, affecting the entire year and it is related to a fundamental change in the atmospheric circumstances over Antarctica, most pronounced in the winter season.
The ozone content of the air is rapidly propagated across the globe as we will see in figures 6 and 7 below. This testifies to the strength of horizontal winds in the stratosphere and most particularly in the area of overlap where stratosphere and troposphere occupy common ground.
So, the standout anomaly in figure 2 is the step change in 10 hPa temperature in southern winter after 1976. This step change in 10 hPa temperature is reflected in surface pressure data in figure 5 below.
In fact this step change in 1976 is reflected surface temperature data at every latitude across the entire globe as documented here.
THE ACTIVE INGREDIENT:OZONE
As Gordon Dobson discovered in the 1920’s surface pressure is a reflection of the ozone content of the air and vice versa. The fall in surface pressure at 75-90° south latitude documented in figure 5 is a direct consequence of the increase of the ozone content of the air. It is the ozone content of the air that affects its density, the weight of the entire column and hence surface pressure.
Wind strength in the atmosphere is intimately connected with the ozone content of the air. The air is relatively still near the surface of the planet and also at the highest elevations. Wind velocity is most enhanced in the overlap between the stratosphere and the troposphere between 300 hPa and 50 hPa where abrupt change in the height of the tropopause is associated with jet streams.
The 10 hPa level is virtually the top of the atmosphere because 99% of atmospheric mass is below that pressure level. The rapidly ascending circulation at the pole elevates ozone producing the greatest temperature response at the highest elevations as is evident in Fig 6. The strong temperature response at 10 hPa is due to convection of ozone rich air that increases ozone partial pressure at the highest elevations. That ozone mixes across the profile and affects the ozone content of the air in descending circulations in mid and low latitudes.
The pressure gradient (density differential) across the vortex in the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere where polar cyclones are initiated determines the strength of convection. The density differential is increased seasonally as the ozone hole is established below 50 hPa when NOx rich air from the upper troposphere is drawn into the circulation over the polar cap during the final warming of the stratosphere.
The incidence of very much higher temperature at the 10 hPa pressure level after 1978 represents a step change in the fundamental parameters of the climate system. There is not one climate system here but many, as many as there are days in the year. Changing the ozone content of the air in high latitudes alters surface pressure differentials and therefore it changes the planetary winds.
Fig. 6
A QUESTION OF TIMING
In figure 7 below we chart the evolution of 10 hPa temperature in selected months from the mid latitudes to the southern pole.
Figure 7 The evolution of air temperature at the 10 hPa pressure level in high latitudes
10 hPa temperature over the pole is greater at 80-90° latitude than at lower latitudes in summer. This is when mesospheric air is excluded and ozone rich air gently ascends to the top of the atmosphere. This phenomenon occurs over Antarctica between October and February.
10 hPa temperature over the southern pole is inferior to that at lower latitudes when mesospheric air is drawn into the circulation between March and October.
After 1978 we see a change in the temperature profile in all months. This is particularly so from June through to November. The transition month for the final warming prior to 1978 was November. After 1978 the transition occurs in October. Taken all-together this data indicates a fundamental change in atmospheric dynamics that inevitably produces an increase in surface pressure, geopotential height and surface temperature in mid and low latitudes.
This is the source of the warming in southern winter. It has nothing to do with the works of man.
The change in the temperature of the air at the 10 hPa pressure surface in the Arctic is a product of the combined influence of atmospheric dynamics at both poles. The Arctic is independently influential. Its calling card is extreme temperature variability in January and February. This can be seen in Figure 1 in the surface temperature in the coolest months.
Climate change is a matter of observation and common sense. There is not much of it about. When it comes to numbers there are Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics. Undoubtedly the leading offender is the global average of surface temperature as disseminated by GISS, The NOAA and the Hadley Centre, all dedicated to the dissemination of information in support of the nefarious activities of Global Green and the UNIPCC.
In this post I give an account of the data provided in two papers from a group of authors who have described the the nature of the atmosphere and its dynamics in terms of its ozone content. The work creates a framework that advances our understanding of atmospheric processes and how they relate to external influences in an open system. In introducing the papers I provide an interpretation of atmospheric dynamics that goes beyond that of the authors and it will be best if readers go direct to the originals as a preliminary activity before reading what follows.
The Total Ozone Field Separated into Meteorological Regimes. Part I: Defining the Regimes ROBERT D. HUDSON, ALEXANDER D. FROLOV, MARCOS F. ANDRADE, AND MELANIE B. FOLLETTE Published in 2003 and accessed here.
THE ABSTRACT
Traditionally, studies in the stratosphere using column ozone amount, ozone profiles, and dynamical variables at midlatitudes have centered on zonal averages of these quantities made over specific latitude bands. This is in sharp contrast to the studies made within the polar vortices where the average is made within regions defined by potential vorticity, a meteorological parameter. An analysis of the ozone field in the Northern Hemisphere outside of the polar vortex is presented in which it is shown that this field can also be separated into meteorological regimes. These regimes are defined as 1) the tropical regime, between the equator and the subtropical front; 2) the midlatitude regime, between the subtropical and polar fronts; 3) the polar regime, between the polar front and the polar vortex; and 4) the arctic regime, within the polar vortex. Within each regime the zonal daily mean total ozone value is relatively constant, with a clearly separate value for each regime. At the same time, the stratospheric ozone profiles are clearly distinguishable between regimes, each regime having a unique tropopause height. A midlatitude zonal average, whether of ozone profiles, total ozone, or dynamical variables, will depend on the relative mix of the respective values within each regime over the latitude range of the average. Because each regime has its own distinctive characteristic, these averages may not have physical significance.
Here is the introduction to the work:
Dobson et al. (1927) reported ground-based measurements of the total column ozone using a spectrometer that observed the solar ultraviolet irradiance. They noted that when an upper-tropospheric front passed over the instrument, the total ozone value either dropped or rose sharply. Shalamyanskiy and Romanshkina (1980) and later Karol et al. (1987) divided ground-based total ozone measurements into three regions, separated by the polar and subtropical jet streams. They found that total ozone and temperature profiles had small variability within each region but changed sharply at the polar and subtropical fronts. The same change in ozone across a frontal boundary can be seen in the data from the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS; McPeters et al. 1996).
Now, the authors don’t go on to say that the jet streams at the fronts are a product of a contrast in air density in part due to the heating activity of ozone. They must give due respect to the school of climate science that sees the Earth as a closed system. If they took account of their own observation that, when moving from equator to Pole, the tropopause steps down in elevation at the subtropical front and again at the polar front where, on the polar side of the front there is no tropopause at all, thereby giving rise to severe gradients in atmospheric density then perhaps they might hypothesise that ozone is THE critical factor giving rise to jet streams, determining the weather patterns in the troposphere and the evolution of climate over time. But we must bear in mind that the climate establishment would punish them if they ventured that viewpoint. It is safer to leave the question open to interpretation. Those who would maintain that the distribution of ozone is a product of atmospheric dynamics in the lower troposphere and the chlorine content of the polar atmosphere due to the escape of chlorofluorocarbons into the atmosphere from refrigerants etc etc, can then interpret matters as they prefer.
In establishment climate science there is no concept of ozone variation on an inter annual basis due to the activity of the mesospheric vortex at the pole or ozone production due to cosmic radiation. The atmosphere is not an electromagnetic medium capable of change in its rate of rotation due to change in the solar wind. In the conventional viewpoint the temperature of the stratosphere is not driven by the absorption of long wave radiation from the Earth by ozone but by the interception of short wave radiation from the sun. In other words the direct impact of short wave radiation from the sun as held to be the reason for the temperature of the stratosphere even on the night side and regardless of latitude. The planetary winds are held to be driven according to the energy absorbed in near equatorial latitudes. Adherents don’t know how the atmosphere is shifted from high latitudes to low latitudes and wont be drawn to speculate on that matter at all. The blinkers are very firmly in place. Grant money and ones livelihood is at stake. Privately, one may admit in a whisper, that the Emperor has no clothes but publicly he is beautifully arrayed in the most impressive garments that money can buy.
In spite of these niceties some very useful analytical work has been done that establishes the distribution of ozone in relation to the position of the subtropical and polar fronts and there are big surprises that have very important implications in furthering our understanding of atmospheric dynamics..
Fig 1
In terms of atmospheric dynamics in the northern hemisphere we can note that the situation is different to that in the southern hemisphere. The circumpolar trough in surface atmospheric pressure surrounding Antarctica is so deep, and persistent across all seasons as to act as a global sink, conditioning the movement of the atmosphere globally. By contrast, in the northern hemisphere a trough of sorts develops in the north Pacific in winter associated with regional ascent of ozone rich air to the top of the atmospheric column while high surface pressure that is associated with the Antarctic continent in winter is associated with the Eurasian continent during winter, in the same latitude as the North Pacific low pressure zone.
It should be emphasised at the outset that the data in this study relates to a single day, the 11th March 1990. I will explore the importance of this choice by way of a postscript. In now way is the legitimacy or the conclusions of this study adversely affected by the fact that the data represents a single day. In fact, it is only by concentrating ones effort on single day that one can discern the dynamics at work.
Of immediate interest is that the stretched Mercator’s projection of Fig 1 involves spatial distortion. The fingers of low ozone content air interlaced with fingers of high ozone content air would look different in a polar stereo-graphic view and they are strictly an artefact of the circulation on a particular day. The configuration of the northern hemisphere circulation is complex and ever changing due to the distribution of land and sea. If we were looking at the very much simpler circulation in the southern hemisphere it would be immediately apparent that air of tropical origin is drawn into a super-rotating west to east circulation with its highest rate of rotation at the polar vortex. The vortex is a feature of the stratosphere linked to an ascending circulation via a chain of polar cyclones that entrain air from the troposphere, air from the stratosphere and air from the polar cap that has descended from the mesosphere. The vorticity of these polar cyclones and the stratospheric vortex depends upon contrasts in air density between one side of the vortex and the other.Note the location of the blue area (high ozone) and the green area (low ozone) in relation to the vortex. The authors locate the vortex in this way: “The solid red line marks the position of the sharp gradient in the isentropic potential vorticity (IPV) contours on the 450- K isentropic surface, which traditionally is assumed to mark the edge of the polar vortex”.
The 450-K isentropic surface lies between 70 mb and 50 mb pressure surfaces. This is at the altitude where ozone is in greatest abundance in the vertical profile. It is unequivocally in the stratosphere. It will therefore be the location where the ozone density gradient is steeper than anywhere else in the vertical profile giving rise to very strong winds. Notice that there are two gaps in the the blue-black zone of highest ozone content These are areas of downdraught of low ozone content mesospheric air associated with the high pressure cells over land. One lies over East Asia and the other in the vicinity of Iceland. It is no accident that the vortex follows the junction of high ozone content warm air to the south and low ozone content cold air to the north. Unequivocally, elevated vorticity is linked to differences in air density linked to the origin of the air, its trace gas content, including ozone and NOx (not shown but always present in air from the troposphere), the formation of polar cyclones and therefore the flux in surface pressure between high latitudes and elsewhere that varies on all time scales. This flux in the pressure differential between high and mid latitudes is measured as the Arctic Oscillation and the Antarctic Oscillation.
What is described as the polar front in this work is likely a near surface phenomenon, the outer interface of a chain of polar cyclones that feed air into the Polar Vortex. The zone between the polar font and the polar vortex has very high ozone values. It is a zone of intense convection that is generated at the elevation of the Polar Vortex, propagating down to the surface where its troposphere manifestation is called a ‘cold core’ polar cyclone. No cyclone can develop with a cold core. The warm core is aloft where ozone captures outgoing radiation from the Earth.
TRANSITIONS AND UNEXPECTED HOMOGENEITY
Hudson et al notes in respect of the ozone data: The average for all of the data slowly increases with latitude until the polar vortex is reached. On the other hand, the average for the tropical, mid latitude, and polar regimes is relatively constant over a wide range of overlapping latitudes. There is also a clear difference between the average total ozone amounts for each of these regimes.
The transition zone between these dissimilar regions is referred to as a ‘front’. The Polar Front only exists in the winter months when mesospheric air descends to jet stream altitudes its rate of flow and integration with the wider atmosphere contributing to the flux in the ozone content of the atmosphere generally. But this is not a dynamic that is mentioned in this work. In summer there is no descent of mesospheric air and its disappearance is described as the final warming of the stratosphere after which the air over the polar cap gently ascends. In summer a high ozone values over the Arctic Ocean contribute to generalised ascent and the jet stream structures are fragmented.
Hudson et al reports that the fronts between different ozone regimes exhibit the same ozone content around the entire globe at any particular time. However the values are different according to the month of the year.See figure 3 below: In winter the fronts have higher ozone values than in summer. This emphasises the basic cell like structure and the homogeneity found within cells.
At the polar front the ozone value is highest in February. Readers of earlier chapters in this work will know that surface temperature variability between 30° south and 90° north latitude is greatest in January and February. There is a causal connection. The year to year variability in ozone partial pressure at the polar front is greatest in winter when ozone partial pressure is highest. In the transition from autumn to winter surface pressure over the Arctic rises strongly in November as the Antarctic releases atmospheric mass as the final warming in the stratosphere takes place. The increase in mass in the Arctic in November is reflected in the Arctic Oscillation Index (low values). In December, as ozone builds giving rise to active polar cyclones, surface pressure in high latitudes falls just as strongly as it has risen in the transition from autumn to winter. In this way, as Gordon Dobson observed, surface pressure is linked to the ozone content of the air. More importantly, as surface pressure falls in the Arctic a warm wind from the south finds its way further north bringing clement conditions. The zone of Ascent in the North Pacific develops strongly taking ozone to the top of the column. The return circulation brings ozone into the high pressure cells of the mid latitudes, warming the air, increasing geopotential height, reducing cloud cover and increasing surface temperature.
These points are worth repeating. Gordon Dobson pointed out that ozone maps surface pressure with high ozone values corresponding to low surface pressure. Low pressure in the Arctic brings a flood of warm air from the south. Cool air is replaced by warm air. This is the Arctic Oscillation in action. In more recent terminology the AO is called the ‘Northern Annular mode’. It is not in the interest of the authors of this study to link ozone dynamics to change in surface temperature wrought by a change in the origin of the air. The notion that surface temperature is a response to the presence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has to be maintained if ones work is to appear in academic journals like ‘Science’ although the newly appointed editor of Science is reported to be saying that ‘science’ has lost integrity in the process of suppressing competing viewpoints. See here where it is reported that: “Science editor-in-chief sounds alarm over falling public trust. Jeremy Berg warns scientists are straying into policy commentator roles.” Are the publishers of ‘Science’ reacting to falling circulation related to negative reader response? If so, this will be good for small ‘s’ science.
EVOLUTION OF OZONE PARTIAL PRESSURE AT THE FRONTS
Fig 2. Evolution of ozone partial pressure at the subtropical and polar fronts. Readers should be aware that the front referred to is in the upper air, not at the surface. The material expression of the front is a change in the height of the tropopause so that warm ozone rich air is found adjacent to cold ozone deficient air.
It is very interesting that the authors report that the ozone content of the air in the ‘Midlatitude Regime’ is invariable around the globe regardless of latitude or longitude. Apparently atmospheric mixing processes maintain this homogeneous state. This reinforces the long held view of a cellular structure in the atmosphere between the fronts. Inferentially, it supports the notion that elevated ozone in the ‘Midlatitude Regime’ is a product of in-situ ionisation of the polar atmosphere by cosmic rays during the polar night rather than transport from the tropics where the ozone content of the air is inferior. If one conceives the situation in this way it is obvious that the ozone content of the air in high and mid latitudes is driven by forces that are external to the system via polar dynamics rather than the interaction of short wave radiation with the atmosphere. The stratosphere warms in the winter hemisphere in the mid latitudes, obviously unrelated to the incidence of short wave radiation. This accentuates density differences across the fronts driving enhanced vorticity. External forces are capable of mediating the strength of the zonal wind in an electromagnetic medium such as the atmosphere, mediating the penetration of mesospheric air and the penetration of cosmic rays that very much depends on air temperature and density. Due to ionisation by cosmic rays it is possible for the synthesis of ozone to occur in the absence of short wave solar radiation.
EXTREME OZONE GRADIENTS, TROPOPAUSE STEPS, JET STREAMS ARE ALL LOCATED AT THE FRONTS
Hudson notes that using aircraft to measure ozone partial pressure both Shapiro et al. (1987), and Uccellini et al. (1985), found a strong coincidence between large gradients in the total ozone measurements from TOMS and the position of upper-level jet streams, the frontal zones and tropopause ‘foldings’ where there is a step up in the height of the tropopause.
Figure 3 Differentiation of the Polar, Midlatitude and Tropical Regimes
Figure 4 Temperature profiles in the three regimes. Note that there is a step up in the temperature of the tropopause in moving from the tropical to the polar regime. Note the very different heights of the tropopause across the three regimes Bear in mind the impact on the atmosphere of the circulation that brings mid latitude and tropical air to the poles to be mixed and elevated per medium of polar cyclones and the stratospheric vortex.
Note the difference in the height of the tropopause across the three regimes for North America.on 11th March with Tropical (250 hPa), Midlatitude (300hPa) and Polar (400 hPa) The fronts between these regimes consequently exhibit steps. At these steps marked differences in air temperature and density manifest in the horizontal plane. This is an unstable situation. From figure 4 (Hudsons Fig 9) we see that in the tropical regime, the temperature of the air at the tropopause is -70°C, in the Midlatitude zone it is-60°C and in the Polar regime -50°C. In this circumstance, at the vortex, because temperature reflects density, the vertical interval between 400 hPa and 300 hPa, a distance of some 2 kilometres will be marked by continuous upwards displacement of low density air and as a result this displaced air will circulate about the globe as an ascending jet on the margins of the tongue of cold dense mesospheric air with occasional discontinuities (as noted above in relation to east Asia and Greenland) that will be marked by extreme turbulence. As this air ascends it must be replaced from below drawing in ozone rich, low density air from lower latitudes together with NOx rich air from the troposphere and some air from the region of the polar cap that is derived from the mesosphere via subsidence.
WHERE DOES THE ENERGY COME FROM TO DRIVE THIS SYSTEM
The energy is supplied via the Earth itself in the form of infrared radiation at twenty times the wave length of the energy originally derived from the sun. The agency for its transmission to the atmosphere is ozone that imparts energy with an efficiency that varies directly with surface pressure. It is here, at the polar vortex that the system exhibits the river of energy thus acquired, not in the tropics where the air is quiescent. The ascent does not respect a ‘tropopause’ because it goes to the top of the atmosphere giving rise to localised ozone ‘hot spots’ at 1 hPa. These hot spots are likely found over the warmest part of the oceans in mid to high latitudes. When inspecting the temperature response in the upper stratosphere we see that temperature volatility increases with altitude, particularly above 30 hPa.
The system continuously elevates ozone to the top of the atmosphere from where it must return within the Midlatitude cell. If there is appreciable loss of ozone via ionisation or chemical erosion in the upper upper levels of the Midlatitude cell there must be sufficient ozone created to remedy the loss and so provide the means to energise the system on a continuous basis, day and night. The Earth obliges in terms of the energy requirement. But where does the ozone come from to replace that lost to chemical depletion and destruction by short wave energy from the sun?
A seasonal low in the incidence of short wave radiation from the sun means that the ozone necessary to sustain this system is not available from the solar source in the winter hemisphere. It’s unlikely that the requisite ozone could be sourced from the subtropical zone in the summer hemisphere that is remote, across the equator where in any case ozone partial pressure is quite low and always so. So much for the Brewer Dobson Hypothesis! There is however another source of ionisation via cosmic rays.
Fig 5 illustrating the marked warming of the stratosphere in January and February bucking the winter cooling trend that manifests strongly after November, but very unevenly from year to year.
The waxing and waning of the polar jet stream will reflect atmospheric dynamics due to the changing ozone content of the air, inducing changes in density gradients across the polar front that in turn affects the rate of intake of mesospheric air. Ionisation by cosmic rays depends upon air temperature almost certainly generating an ozone production dynamic that will amplify change according to the activity of the sun. These interactions affect vortex and polar cyclone activity that vary from week to week, year to year and across the decades according to the incidence of solar activity. Note the incidence of stratospheric ‘warmings’ in figure 5 from January through to April during which the muon count from cosmic ray activity, as measured at the surface and in ice cores is known to respond directly to the changing temperature of the stratosphere. The muon count is a direct proxy for the incidence of cosmic rays and indirectly a proxy for solar activity. See here for background or here for a lecture presentation.
INCIDENCE OF CHANGE IN THE CHARACTER OF THE AIR BETWEEN 400 HPA AND 40 HPA.
Fig 6 Ozone profiles. Note the variation in ozone content and the elevations at which these variations occur, an excellent indication of the extent of ‘wandering’ across the latitude bands that is characteristic of the fronts between regimes. When this ‘wandering’ is viewed from the perspective of a person on the ground, the passage of a front is perceived as a change in the origin of the upper winds that are either cold and ozone poor, coming from low latitudes or ozone rich and warm when the upper air arrives from high latitudes. The change in the upper air is accompanied by a change in surface air pressure
From figure 6 (Hudson 10) we can infer that the degree of variability in the source and ozone content of the air in the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere increases from the equator to the pole and is most marked in the polar regime that only manifests in winter. We see that the largest variations in ozone partial pressure in the North American polar regime manifest between 400 hPa and 40 hPa. This interval carries 36% of the mass of the atmospheric column. Because ozone maps surface pressure and it produces the lowest surface pressures in high latitudes this guarantees that the atmosphere must move from the equator towards the poles. Om the southern hemisphere this movement occurs in a gentle spiral with the air coming from west north west to east south east. Such is the strength of the Antarctic circumpolar vortex that the direction of movement is the same in the northern hemisphere. The vertical intervals where this movement is strongest can be inferred from fig 6. The region between 400 hPa and 40 hPa encompasses the upper troposphere and the lower stratosphere. That this region sees the greatest mobility has implications for the ozone content of the air over the polar cap when the final warming of the stratosphere occurs and mesospheric air is replaced by troposphere air rich in NOx giving rise to an ‘ozone hole’ and so ending the period where the Polar Front is in existence. This circumstance was not appreciated at the time when environmental activists succeeded in having many nations subscribe to the Montreal Protocol to limit emissions of certain halogens supposedly responsible for the ozone deficit. The dynamics behind the creation of the celebrated Ozone Hole are a mystery to climate science to this day.
ORIGIN OF THE DRIVER OF THE GLOBAL CIRCULATION
The surface pressure differential between low and high latitudes directly governs the circulation of the air near the surface and to first order determines the equator to pole temperature gradient. In addition, minor change in the ozone content of the air in the tropical and mid latitudes will drive change in geopotential height at all elevations and with it cloud cover and surface temperature. It should be born in mind that the circulation of the air at the 10 hPa level is equator-wards rather than pole-wards. Accordingly, ozone descends from the top of the atmosphere in mid and low latitudes within high pressure cells.Apart from the surface temperature effect due to change in the origin of the surface winds, the variability in the ozone content of the air in mid and low latitudes drives a change in cloud cover to further amplify the temperature effect due to the change in the origin of the wind. These are the central dynamics behind climate change on week to week through to inter-centennial time scales. Surface temperature varies directly with surface pressure and geopotential height. This is the nature of climate change.
The natural variation in sea surface temperature in the southern hemisphere is seen in Figure 7. In terms of causation that figure is instructive.
Figure 7 Sea surface temperature in the southern hemisphere according to the Kalnay reconstruction.
Climate change in the southern hemisphere, considered as an entity, measured in terms of sea surface temperature, is largely a matter of temperature change in the winter months. The hemisphere is no warmer in December in the latest decade than it was seven decades ago. An inference as to the origins of climate change is not hard to draw. There is no room here to infer an anthropogenic effect via back radiation.
Fig 8 Ozone and the temperature of the air. Note the higher tropopause is in low latitudes where convection and NOx sculpts the ozone content of the air giving rise to a marked deficiency in ozone below 50 hPa by comparison withe mid and low latitudes. That is why the tropopause in low latitudes is as cold as the mesosphere over the poles and distinctly colder than the tropopause in the mid or high latitudes.
The relationship between the ozone content of the air and its temperature is provided in figure 8 ( Hudson 11). The lack of a 1/1 correspondence between the ozone content of the air and its temperature, given that ozone is an absorber of long wave radiation from the Earth and that this activity is the primarily cause for the unexpected warmth of the stratosphere, is due to the marked flux in the direction of the movement of the air in the stratosphere with warmer air of polar origin that has a lower temperature but a higher ozone content tending to move towards the equator above the 50 hPa pressure level while cold ozone deficient air from the mid latitudes and the tropics moves pole-wards between the 400 hPa and 40 hPa pressure levels. The latter produces tongues of cold, relatively ozone deficient air showing up in daily and weekly data but obliterated in averaged data over longer time intervals. This phenomenon is reflected in figure 10 as a higher standard deviation in the partial pressure of ozone between 400 hPa and 40 hPa in the mid latitude and polar regimes. This marked variability due to the origin of the air finds its ultimate expression in the Antarctic ozone hole that manifests below 50 hPa at the time of the final warming of the upper air in spring. Its absence in the northern hemisphere is due to the configuration of land and sea.
The acute reader will realise that there is no room in this circulatory regime for the Brewer Dobson hypothesis generated in the 1950’s as a possible explanation for the elevated ozone content of the air in high latitudes. The air below 40 hPa moves in the direction of Antarctica or to the Arctic and is generally ozone deficient. The air above 40 hPa comprising just 4% of the atmospheric mass, moves equator-wards and as it does so is increasingly subject to ionisation of ozone by ultraviolet B from the sun.
THE FLUX IN OZONE ACROSS THE SEASONS
Fig 9
Mean total ozone in Dobson units exhibits a different pattern of seasonality in each regime as seen in Fig 9, (Hudson’s figure 13).
Variability in total ozone in the tropics peaks in January and February with a subsidiary volatility emanating from the Antarctic from August through to December that is associated with final warming dynamics.
Mid latitude and tropical regimes in both hemispheres exhibit strong variability in northern winter driven from the Arctic. This translates directly to variability in surface temperature. This is natural climate change in action driven by the ozone content of the air in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. As noted above it operates by changing the origin of the wind and the extent of the Earths natural umbrella, cloud cover that on average shields 70% of the surface of the earth, less in northern summer and more in northern winter. Accordingly the greater amount of cloud is present when the Earth is closest to the sun in January and the greatest variability in surface temperature across the most of the surface of the earth including the all important southern oceans also occurs in that month. It is no accident that the Pacific Ocean tends to exhibit its largest swings in temperature in January and that marked variability in surface temperature in January can be discerned in temperature data even in high southern latitudes.
The Arctic Polar regime shows a strong maximum and peak standard deviation in the middle of winter but also a marked amount of variability driven from Antarctica in northern autumn / southern spring at the time when surface pressure falls to its annual minimum at 60-70° south latitude. This is where polar cyclones are generated on the margins of Antarctica and is the location of the absolutely dominant southern vortex..
CHANGE OVER TIME AND THE MANNER OF CHANGE
There is a second paper from these authors to be found here.:
The total ozone field separated into meteorological regimes – Part II: Northern Hemisphere mid-latitude total ozone trends R. D. Hudson1 , M. F. Andrade2 , M. B. Follette1 , and A. D. Frolov3 Published 2006.
ABSTRACT
Previous studies have presented clear evidence that the Northern Hemisphere total ozone field can be separated into distinct regimes (tropical, midlatitude, polar, and arctic) the boundaries of which are associated with the subtropical and polar upper troposphere fronts, and in the winter, the polar vortex. This paper presents a study of total ozone variability within these regimes, from 1979–2003, using data from the TOMS instruments. The change in ozone within each regime for the period January 1979–May 1991, a period of rapid total ozone change, was studied in detail. Previous studies had observed a zonal linear trend of −3.15% per decade for the latitude band 25°–60° N. When the ozone field is separated by regime, linear trends of −1.4%, 2.3%, and 3.0%, per decade for the tropical, midlatitude, and polar regimes, respectively, are observed. The changes in the relative areas of the regimes were also derived from the ozone data. The relative area of the polar regime decreased by about 20%; the tropical regime increased by about 10% over this period. No significant change was detected for the midlatitude regime. From the trends in the relative area and total ozone it is deduced that 35% of the trend between 25◦ and 60◦ N, from January 1979–May 1991 is due to movement of the upper troposphere fronts. The changes in the relative areas can be associated with a change in the mean latitude of the subtropical and polar fronts within the latitude interval 25◦ to 60◦ N. Over the period from January 1979 to May 1991, both fronts moved northward by 1.1±0.2 degrees per decade. Over the entire period of the study, 1979–2003, the subtropical front moved northward at a rate of 1.1±0.1 degrees per decade, while the polar front moved by 0.5±0.1 degrees per decade.
The subtropical and polar fronts are associated with the subtropical and polar jet streams, and have mean latitudes of about 30° and 60° N, respectively
The positions of the subtropical and polar fronts defined in Hudson et al. (2003) vary on a daily basis as the Rossby waves meander about their mean latitudes. These fronts are not be confused with the cold and warm fronts associated with cyclonic flow close to the surface.
Note that: When the ozone field is separated by regime, linear trends of −1.4%, 2.3%, and 3.0%, per decade for the tropical, midlatitude, and polar regimes, respectively, are observed. It is not possible that a linear trend of 3% per decade could be driven from the tropical regime where the trend is -1.4% per decade. To achieve this disparity the ozone trend has to be independently created in high latitudes, and likely more from one pole than the other. It is in fact the Antarctic that drives the multi-decadal and inter-centennial trend.
The authors note that: Between January 1979 and May 1991, the relative area of the Polar regime decreased by about 20%, while that of the Tropical regime increased by about 10%. There was no significant change in the relative area of the Midlatitude regime over this time period. These changes imply a net poleward movement of the subtropical and polar upper-troposphere fronts. That in itself warms the surface.
The fronts define the extent of the hemisphere occupied by masses of air of different temperature. If the northern hemsiphere fronts move north the hemisphere warms. The northward migration of the subtropical front implies an expansion of the relatively cloud free area and an increase in the energy absorbed by the oceans.
In this way, change in the ozone content of the air brings about a change in the surface temperature and the energy circulating within the Earth system. When one looks at the data as seen here, this mode of change is entirely consistent with the pattern of temperature change observed between 1948 and the present time.
CONCLUSION
The manner in which the top down generation of surface weather occurs, from stratosphere to troposphere, has been a matter of debate for almost twenty years in connection with what has been described as the ‘annular mode phenomenon’. The papers reviewed in this post are amongst the more significant works published in the field of climate science since the work of Gordon Dobson who devoted his life to the measurement of total column ozone. If we are to be critical, the shortcoming lies in failing to look at the historical record over a longer time interval, to examine the situation in the southern hemisphere and to speculate about mechanisms responsible for change. Simple questions like ‘Why is it so? and ‘What does this mean for the evolution of surface temperature?’ are of the greatest importance but it is precisely in this area that the politics of climate change get in the way. Accordingly, the link between ozone and the formation of polar cyclones that relates to the evolution of surface pressure in high latitudes is not made. Nevertheless these papers ably support the most cogent explanation of the manner in which natural variations in weather and climate can occur on week to week through to centennial time scales.
Unfortunately, climate scientists are off with the fairies with their CO2 forcing hypothesis and show no sign of a desire to research the manner in which the climate of the Earth responds to external influences. Work that suggests that the climate system is subject to external forcing is simply ignored… much to the detriment of humanity.
Postscript.
Variability in the distribution of ozone is a feature of the northern hemisphere as the following diagrams reveal.
Centres of polar cyclone development associated with elevated ozone content in the air.
The circulation is moving west to east entraining ozone from centres of accumulation .
N2O in trace quantities is associated descending air from the mesosphere that is largely devoid of ozone.
Surface pressure and circulation of the air at 500 hPa
Accumulation of ozone over the north American continent at 1 hPa as a result of convection.
On 11th March 2015 the ozone concentrations are more dispersed.
At 50 hPa the core of the circulation over the Arctic is relatively deficient in ozone
At 50 hPa trace quantities of N2O are associated with air from the mesosphere and an ozone deficit. A wide band over the Eurasian continent also shows evidence of descent.
On 11th March 2016 total column ozone is much enhanced over the Arctic Ocean and to a lesser extent over the north Pacific.
At 50 hPa there is an ozone deficiency over the Eurasian continent.
At 50 hPa the distribution of ozone is similar with some contraction over the north Pacific and a clearer definition of the ozone deficient zone over the Eurasian continent.
The ozone deficiency over the Antarctic continent is associated with low N2O content mesospheric air.
The circulation of the air in the stratosphere is about an elongated core of high surface pressure located over the Eurasian continent stretching from Scotland to Mongolia. Within this cell very cold air that has little ozone but tracers of N2O descends from the mesosphere. N2O is primarily derived from soils due to organic decomposition. It is abundant in low latitudes where it scalps ozone to produce an elevated tropopause.
An elongated band of high surface pressure is associated with the descent of mesospheric air entering the circulation tangentially.
Mesospheric air enters the elongated core of a fast moving descending circulation at 10 hPa. At left is an ascending circulation that is rich in ozone.
The ascending circulation produces an ozone hot spot at 1 hPa. The descending circulation is associated with low ozone values at 1 hPa. In fact ozone rich air is spilling into this descending circulation changing its character as it descends. Pressure from short wave ionising radiation from the sun in high northern latitudes in March, at which time the sun is over the equator will deplete ozone at 1 hPa. The question arises: Where does the ozone come from that is required to energise this circulation?
My impression is that winter of 2016 has been unusually cold. But rather than trust my senses I went looking for data.
Cape Leeuwin is the closest station in the Australian ACORN network. The stated purpose of the network is to maximise the length of record and the breadth of the coverage across the country.
The Cape Leeuwin lighthouse sits on a granite rock where the Southern Ocean meets the Indian Ocean at 34° 34′ south latitude. When the wind blows from the west it is the Indian Ocean temperature that is being sampled and when it blows from the north east its the air coming off the Australian continent. Three lighthouse keepers cottages made of local limestone sit in the lee of the lighthouse and the wind blows day and night. At the rear of each house stands an external wash house with an old fashioned twin basin concrete trough and a wood fire heated ‘copper’ for boiling water. Its a lonely spot but the fishing is good. The nearest centre of population to the west is Cape Town.
Fig 1 South West of Western Australia, weather data stations on the Acorn network.
Fig. 2 Temperature at Cape Leeuwin lighthouse.
Black lines record the linear trend as calculated by Excel and indicate cooling. Red dotted lines track the highest summer maximums and the lowest winter minimums and they have a very similar slope to the black trend lines. Horizontal lines enable us to see that the minimum has declined by 0.7°C and the maximum by about 1°C. We know that over the last five years there has been warming in the tropics that compares in its intensity to that seen prior to 1998. The trend at Cape Leeuwin is directly opposed to that.
Notice the deformation of the curves in mid summer and the skinny little peak in 2014-15, not a good year to be trying to ripen a crop of grapes.
When the air blows off the continent in a warm year the temperature can reach 40°C but that is rare. By contrast there is very little variation in the minimum temperature but it does vary more in winter than summer.
The deformation of the winter minimums looks like ‘shark attack’. This is driven from the Antarctic. It works this way: A change in the intensity of polar cyclone activity in high latitudes modifies the differential pressure between the mid latitudes and the poles and also cloud cover. But for this influence we would see something like a smooth sine wave at the turning points in summer and winter. The beauty of having data for the minimum and the maximum temperatures is that you see the patterns of variability. When you average you lose information. The bits you lose are vital.When you average the temperature for the whole globe you are either a fool or a knave and I would immediately expect that you have an agenda to push.
I will describe the warming cycle that applies to the mid latitudes in the southern hemisphere but before I do let me suggest that these latitudes are very important to the global heat budget because water absorbs energy and acts like a battery and these latitudes are almost an uninterrupted sweep of water: When surface pressure falls at the pole it is accompanied by a warming of the stratosphere due to a build up in ozone. The falling pressure at the pole induces an enhanced flow of warm air from the equator. Cape Leeuwin then warms in the middle of winter because the air comes from a warm place. At the same time more ozone descends in the mid latitude high pressure cells. Ozone warms by absorbing infrared. The warming of the air reduces cloud cover allowing extra solar radiation to reach the surface. In meteorological terms there is an increase in geopotential height as the atmospheric column warms, a reduction in cloud cover, that you could never directly measure, but you can infer the fact due to the fact that the surface warms. The cooling cycle is the reverse. It starts with a reduction in the ozone content of the air in high latitudes and rising surface pressure in the mid latitudes as polar cyclone activity falls away. Increased cloud cover cools the mid latitudes and cold air from the south finds its way more frequently into the mid altitudes.
The last seventy years has brought a secular decline in surface pressure in high latitudes and an increase in surface pressure in the mid and low latitudes as is apparent in figure 3. Nowhere is surface pressure higher than in the 30-40° south latitude. The latitude of Cape Leeuwin is 34° 34′ south. This latitude is home territory for a travelling band of enormous high pressure cells of relatively cloud free air. When pressure increases cloud cover falls away.
Fig. 3 Evolution of sea level atmospheric pressure in the southern hemisphere since 1948.
The seventy year increase in surface pressure and the parallel increase in sea surface temperature in the low and mid latitudes of the southern hemisphere is documented in figure 4
Fig. 4
Figure 5 reveals that surface pressure at 40-50° south has risen very little while surface pressure at 50-60° and 60-70° south latitude has declined strongly. That is a function of relative area. Not shown is surface pressure over the polar cap that closely follows the trends at 60-70° south.
Fig. 5
Notice that sea surface temperature rises and falls with surface pressure throughout. This relationship is good for change in both directions in both the short and the long term. Notice the marked discontinuity in surface temperature at 60-70° south after 1976.
Naturally, the temperature increase across the latitude bands is uneven. The largest whole of period variation of 2°C is seen at 60-70° of latitude due to the increased incidence of warm north westerly winds with an abrupt shift between 1976 and 1978. The more or less parallel behaviour in the curves since that time is what we observe in mid and high altitudes, a classic cloud cover/wind direction response that occurs on short term like daily and monthly time scales, and also long term, annual, decadal and longer time scales. This response to the ozone content of the atmosphere drives short term change like that observed in figure 2 and long term change that I will document in the next post that will be devoted to one hundred and six years of data from Cape Leeuwin a treasure trove of temperature information due to the diligence of lighthouse keepers in patiently recording the minimum and the maximum temperature every day, except on those few days where, unaccountably, they didn’t.
The next largest variation in temperature is seen in the tropics where variation in the intake of cold waters from high altitudes gives rise to big variations in sea surface temperature that are unrelated to cloud (very little anytime) or winds (very light). The next largest variation is in the latitude of Cape Leeuwin at 30-40° south where the variation is 0.97°C. This core region for travelling anticyclones of descending air. These HIGHS are greatly susceptible to variations in geopotential height that proceed in concert with surface temperature. This is documented in figures 6 and 7. Increased geopotential height always brings warming. The contrast in temperature according to wind direction is less here than in high latitudes adjacent to the Antarctic ice cap. It is safe to conclude that the response of surface temperature to increased geopotential height in low and mid latitudes is chiefly due to a change in cloud cover.
Fig 6
Fig 7
In examining this data one must remember that geopotential height is simply the height of a pressure surface. For example the 500 hPa pressure level is found on the average at 5500 metres above sea level. When the air below that pressure level is warmer, geopotential heights will exceed 5500 metres and the warmer the atmospheric column the higher one has to go to get to the pressure surface. Heights change on daily and weekly time scales and are clearly associated with change in surface temperature and cloud cover. High heights are associated with high pressure anticyclones that bring fine sunny weather. At Cape Leeuwin low heights are associated with polar cyclones, high winds, cloud streaming in from the north west and frontal rainfall. The latter is the winter pattern and the former is the summer pattern.
There is also a close relationship between air temperature and the geopotential height at particular pressure levels as we see in Fig 9 and 10. In these figures we are looking at heights at the 200 hPa level where the presence of ozone is associated with Jet stream activity. When heights vary at 200 hPa they vary in the same direction at 500 hPa and 700 hPa because in these high pressure cells the air constantly descends. Cloud can be found at all levels, especially in the early part of the day. Clouds that exist as multi branching crystals of ice have a relatively large surface area are highly reflective.
Fig 9
Fig 10
Notice the overt expression of the 1976 climate shift between 15° south and 40° south where anticyclones circulate. This change is expressed as the jump in sea surface temperatures in the tropics as seen across the latitude bands in figure 6 and even more so at 60-70° of latitude in figure 7 where change in the wind direction is associated with a large change in surface temperature.
Notice also the strong drop in surface pressure at 50-60° south in the 1990’s that is associated with a fall in geopotential heights and also sea surface temperature.
What is described here is not new to ‘climate science’ as it existed fifty years ago. But most of the cohort of scientists that learned their trade in the satellite age will be unfamiliar with this train of thought.
Edward N Lorenz of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology back in 1950 published an article entitled ‘The Northern Hemisphere Sea-level Pressure Profile’ and the abstract reads as follows:
The variations of five-day mean sea-level pressure, averaged about selected latitude circles in the northern hemisphere, and the variations of differences between five-day mean pressures at selected pairs of latitudes are examined statistically. The northern hemisphere is found to contain two homogeneous zones, one in the polar regions and one in the subtropics, such that pressures in one zone tend to be correlated positively with other pressures in the same zone and negatively with pressures in the other zone. Considerable difference is found between the seasonal and the irregular pressure-variations which result from mass transport across the equator, but the seasonal and the irregular variations of pressure differences resemble each other closely, as do the seasonal and the irregular pressure-variations which result from rearrangements of mass within the northern hemisphere. The most important rearrangements appear to consist of shifts of mass from one homogeneous zone to the other. These shifts seem to be essentially the same as fluctuations between high-index and low-index patterns. The study thus supports previous conclusions that such fluctuations form the principal variations of the general circulation, and also shows that, except at low latitudes, the seasonal pressure-variations are essentially fluctuations of this sort. The possibility that the seasonal and the irregular variations have similar ultimate or immediate causes is considered.
Prior to 1979 when satellites were used to obtain data for the entire globe very little was known about the Southern Hemisphere where the most powerful driver of the atmospheric circulation is to be found. Although the Arctic Oscillation had been well documented the Antarctic Oscillation had not. Lorenz did not have the data at his disposal. Today we do. But, nobody is looking!
At one time people were aware that the surface pressure relationship between the mid and the high latitudes changed over time. Nobody knew why. Some canny researchers documented a correlation with geomagnetic activity implicating the solar wind but the actual mechanism eluded them.
Gordon Dobson’s students explored this issue as soon as they had a single years data for total column ozone as he recalled in 1968 in his lecture ‘Forty Years Research on Atmospheric Ozone at Oxford: a History’, in these words:
Chree, using the first year’s results at Oxford had shown that there appeared to be a connection between magnetic activity and the amount of ozone, the amount of ozone being greater on magnetically disturbed days. Lawrence used the Oxford ozone values for 1926 and 1927 and in each year found the same relation as Chree had done.
Early observers of ‘sudden stratospheric warmings’ had a suspicion that the phenomena were somehow connected with the sun. Researchers like Van Loon and Labiske pointed out that the solar cycle was clearly associated with aspects of the behaviour of the stratosphere.
But these lines of investigation became matters for the fringe dwellers in the atmsopheric sciences, the sort of people who don’t get invited to dinner parties, when Houghton took over from Dobson at Oxford , a mathematician and a physicist and a devotee of the notion that the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere governed near surface temperature. At that point climate science fell into a hole of superstition and conviction based not on observation but ‘belief’. Climate science morphed into a religion. Houghton went on to chair the IPCCC body responsible for linking the activities of man with climbing surface temperature. Naturally at that point climate science then began to attract a lot of interest and funding, particularly in the United States where NASA under James Hansen saw the opportunity to create a role for itself in keeping an eye on what was happening. The time of the self funded gentleman scholar, like Dobson was over the time for proselytisers had arrived and the gravy train was immense. Even Australia’s CSIRO had a cohort of more than a hundred scientists working on the problem.
To this day there is no appreciation of the origin of the circumpolar trough of very low surface pressure that surrounds Antarctica. There is no appreciation of the role of ozone in creating that trough or its role in driving high wind speeds in that part of the upper troposphere that overlaps with the lower stratosphere, the origin of upper air troughs, no appreciation of how these troughs propagate to to surface to initiate a ‘cold core’ polar cyclone. Where ignorance and superstition rule the day there can be no appreciation of the role of the polar atmosphere in driving the entire circulation, the atmosphere super-rotating about the planet in the same direction as the planet spins but faster at higher latitudes and altitudes, fastest at the point where the atmosphere begins to conduct electricity (although it does so all the way to the surface) where it dances to the tune of the solar wind. The notion that the Earth exists in an interplanetary environment held in ordered embrace by electromagnetic fields where the atmosphere is the outer mobile skin that is first affected by those forces and so driven to rotate and thereby to some extent dragging the Earth with it, the whole apparatus working like clockwork that is forever wound up by the thermonuclear furnace at its very core….all thoughts of this nature are now anathema.
One could give most of the climate scientists trained since the start of the satellite age free membership of the Flat Earth Society. They would fit in very nicely.
IF CAPE LEEUWIN HAS BEEN COOLING WHILE AN EL NINO EVENT HAS BEEN BUILDING IN THE TROPICS WHAT HAS BEEN HAPPENING ON THE EAST COAST OF AUSTRALIA?
Fig 11 Coffs Harbour 20 years minimum daily temperature
Coffs Harbour is 3° of latitude closer to the equator than Cape Leeuwin. This coastal town is subtropical and is the home of the Big Banana. It experiences a 12°C range in its minimum as against 8°C at Cape Leeuwin. Cold air flows off the continent in winter driving the minimum lower. The other main driver of local temperature is the temperature of the ocean waters flowing southwards down the coast. Warm water is present in winter in El Nino years due to the build up of warmth across the tropics and the anticlockwise rotation of the Pacific Ocean. It is in winter that the differential pressure driving the westerlies of the southern hemisphere is at its maximum speeding the flow of the Antarctic circumpolar current that flows northwards towards the equator on the eastern sides of the Ocean basins and southwards on the western sides of the ocean basin. In this circumstance one would expect change in the winter minimum at Coffs simply because the winds that drive the currents blow harder in winter. I refer of course to the roaring forties the furious fifties and the screaming sixties.
The dotted lines at the limits of the range are horizontal. Judged by eye, they indicate no warming or cooling. The trend calculated by XL descends.
Nowhere in the course of this analysis have I referred to carbon dioxide in the air, a matter that is irrelevant to atmospheric dynamics and the course of change in surface temperature. In the next chapter I look at 106 years of data from Cape Leeuwin that is as representative of conditions in the Southern Indian Ocean, as you are likely to find in the data from a single weather station..
Fig. 1 Sea surface atmospheric pressure in January Source here
Even in the height of summer we see a marked trough in surface pressure on the margins of Antarctica, a product of polar cyclone activity driven by differences in the ozone content of the air and resulting differences in air density. Of course, the contrast between the coldness of the ice bound continent and air from the mid latitudes also helps but at 200 hPa where these cyclones are generated the contrasts seen at the surface are less apparent. Surface contrasts probably assist in allowing the upper air troughs to propagate to the surface but where these contrasts don’t exist as in Arctic summer the propagation from upper air troughs to the surface to create a polar cyclone still occurs.
Fig 2
In winter atmospheric pressure increases in the mid latitudes of the southern hemisphere increasing the differential pressure between the mid latitudes and 60-70° south. Surface pressure over Antarctica hits a planetary maximum.
Figures 2 and 3 show the swings in pressure that are part of the annual cycle and the evolution of pressure over time. Mainstream climate science (is there any other) has yet to realise the importance, let alone account for the cause of that massive deficit in surface pressure in the ocean about the margins of Antarctica. ‘Climate science’ is yet to become aware of the cumulative effect of the decadal slips in surface pressure and is incapable of making the connection with the ‘annular modes phenomenon’ or working out that the atmosphere is driven from the poles rather than the equator, let alone working out the mechanisms involved.in change. Perhaps this is because the bulk of the land mass and the population of the globe together with most of the money is in the northern hemisphere and perhaps because the Earth is round the incumbents can not see over the equatorial horizon?
WHATS HAPPENING WITH SURFACE PRESSURE IN ANTARCTICA?
In FIG 4 the year to year variability is perhaps due to change in the rate of intake of mesospheric air into the stratosphere as it modulates the partial pressure of ozone above the 300 hPa pressure level. The change in surface pressure is greatest in Antarctica but it impacts the global atmosphere from pole to pole. The southern hemisphere vortex is most influential in determining the ozone content of the air between June and November and the northern vortex between November and April.
The Arctic Oscillation and the Antarctic Oscillation indices are proxies for surface pressure over the pole. As they fall, we know that surface pressure rises over the pole. We see in fig. 5 above that a rise in the AAO, signalling a fall in surface pressure in the Antarctic forces an increase in surface pressure in the Arctic between June and November whereas the weaker, poorly structured and migratory northern vortex seems to be incapable of the same performance when it is active in northern winter. Perhaps our measurement settings are not capturing it adequately.
The replacement of low ozone content air with high ozone content air consequent on a stalling of the intake of mesospheric air brings an increase in the temperature of the stratosphere. The greater the elevation the greater is the increase in temperature, a natural product of the fact that ozone is the agent of convection and it is ozone rich air that is lifted to the limits of the atmosphere. This amplified response is documented at 80-90° south latitude in figure 6 below.
Plainly, the largest response to an increasing presence of ozone is at the highest elevations. There has been a fundamental change in the temperature profile over the polar cap with a massive shift from 1976 to 1978. Note that prior to this date the temperature at 10 hPa was little different to that at 200 hPa. The 200 hPa level is Jet stream altitude.What happens at 200 hPa determines the synoptic situation and is reflected at lower altitudes albeit, softened and smoothed due to the fact that not all activity at 250 hPa propagates all the way to the surface. Upper level troughs are cyclones that are insufficiently strong to propagate all the way to the surface.But the point to be aware of is that the temperature profile between 200 hPa and 10 hPa is fundamental to the dynamics determining the movement of the atmosphere over the pole that relates to the timing of the final warming.
VARIABILITY AT DIFFERENT TIMES OF THE YEAR
Another way to assess the impact on the Antarctic stratosphere is via a whole of period assessment of temperature variability at 10 hPa according to the month of the year. To examine this each months temperature is ordered from highest to lowest regardless of the year attached to the data and the difference between the highest and lowest is derived. That difference is graphed In Fig. 7
It is plain from Fig 7 that in the period between 1948 and 2015 temperature variability in high southern latitudes is greatest between July and October. At lower latitudes variability is strongest in June or at the start of the year. The skew towards October reflects the impact of a developing ozone hole below 50 hPa that is forced by the intake of troposphere air containing the ozone destroyer, NOx that is drawn in laterally between 100 hPa and 50 hPa like a gradually tightening hangman’s noose that by September occupies the entire polar cap. Very cold air drawn in from the equatorial upper stratosphere is as cold as air from the mesosphere but it has more NOx, a catalyst for the destruction of ozone. This produces a severe contrast in ozone partial pressure and air density across the vortex, generates intense polar cyclone activity and drives surface pressure at 60-70° south to its annual minimum when the hole is fully established.
Fig. 8 shows NOx at 50 hPa . By 15th October 2015 NOx has destroyed all ozone between 100 hPa and 50 hPa as we see at left in Fig 9 below in terms of the distribution of ozone. The light blue line defines the position of the vortex at 50 hPa.
In Fig 9, above at right, the dotted black line represents ozone prior to the establishment of the hole while the purple line shows the temperature profile at that time. The red line shows that temperature increases as the hole establishes in stark contrast with the narrative of those who promote the story that man is responsible for the hole, a natural feature of the polar atmosphere in spring. Big Green prefers ‘unnatural’ and it would muddy the narrative if they had to admit that the hole is a natural consequence of atmospheric dynamics.
The contrast between cold air devoid of ozone and warm air from the mid latitudes that is rich in ozone at 60° south seen in figure 9 at left drives intense polar cyclone activity giving rise to a springtime minimum in surface atmospheric pressure as seen in figure 10. It was there in 1948 but more so in November. As surface pressure has fallen and ozone partial pressure has increased the minimum is a month earlier.
The winter maximum in surface pressure seen in Fig 10 now occurs earlier than it did in 1948.
Below we see that the climate shift of 1976-8 shows up in the comparison between sea surface temperature and the temperature of the air 200 hPa (where ozone warms the air) at 25-35° south latitude. This represents enhanced ozone propagating across the latitude bands at the time of the 1976-8 climate shift, a shift that simultaneously intensified the Aleutian low in the North Pacific, the dominant low pressure, ozone rich area in the northern hemisphere with knock on effects across the Pacific and North America.
The increase in the temperature at 200 hPa produces an increase in geopotential height. There is a well established relationship between GPH and surface temperature as acknowledged and demonstrated in the paragraph below from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under the heading ‘Temperatures’. What a title!
In this way the ozone content of the atmosphere is linked to the synoptic situation, the generation of the jet stream, upper level troughs and polar cyclones. Polar cyclones are the most vigorous and influential elements in the circulation of the atmosphere and the prime determinant of the rate of energy transfer from torrid equatorial to frigid high latitudes because they determine the pressure gradient between the equator and the pole. The warm moist westerly winds emanating from tropical rain forests pass by the high pressure systems of the mid altitudes and drive pole-wards warming the surface and giving rise to precipitation in ‘fronts’.
If the jet stream loops towards the equator cold dry polar winds sweeps equator-wards bringing near freezing conditions to mid and even low latitudes. Orange Orchards in subtropical Florida can be frosted. Cold Antarctic Air has been known to sweep northwards into Brazil. If polar atmospheric pressure increases the mid latitudes cool due to this influence and also due to increased cloud cover under high pressure systems as geopotential heights fall away with the ozone content of the air.
The progressive loss of atmospheric mass in high southern latitudes over the last seventy years has added mass to the mid altitudes and enhanced the westerly wind flow while opening up the sky to admit more solar radiation thereby warming the oceans. The result has been a marked warming of the air in high southern latitudes centred on those months where this natural variability occurs, primarily between Jun and the ozone hole months of the Antarctic springtime. See Fig 11 below.
A peculiarity in the Antarctic record is the cooling experienced in summer over the last seventy years. The Arctic forces atmospheric mass into high southern latitudes as it becomes ozone-active in the months November through to February keeping the westerlies at bay in the summer season giving rise to cooling in high southern latitudes.
Sunspot numbers: Source: WDC-SILSO, Royal Observatory of Belgium, Brussels
The decline of surface pressure at 80-90° south latitude is punctuated with oscillations between regimes of relatively high surface pressure that are on average about 3.5 years apart with twenty such occurrences in the last sixty nine years and an equivalent number of periods of low surface pressure. The amplitude of the swings varies little within a solar cycle but secular change seems to occur between solar cycles. Change points seem to be associated with solar minimum.
If we now superimpose the data for surface pressure in the high Arctic we have Fig. 13:
Fig 13
Remarks:
Over time we see a shift of atmospheric mass from the poles and a gain of mass in the region of the East Asian High pressure zone. In fact atmospheric mass is likely to accrue everywhere except in high latitudes above 50° where polar cyclones, energised by increase in the partial pressure of ozone force pressure reductions. This process has fundamentally changed the parameters of the climate system. Changed, not ‘warped’ because warping suggests something unnatural and change is a natural and ongoing process. The change in 1976-8 involved a marked drop in Antarctic surface pressure that forced an increase in Arctic surface pressure regardless of the increase in global ozone at that time. The change in surface pressure has been continuous and frequently abrupt and in particular either side of the relatively spotless cycle 20. There is a change of slope between 21 and 22 that is common to both hemispheres.
The evolution of surface pressure is characteristically different in different solar cycles
In solar cycle 18 Antarctic atmospheric pressure is superior to that in the Arctic. This superiority disappears in solar cycle 19, the strongest of recent times.
The very strong solar cycle 19 saw a steep fall in atmospheric pressure over Antarctica and also over East Asia but a compensating increase in pressure in the Arctic.
The weak solar cycle 20 that nevertheless exhibited strong solar wind activity, saw a fall in atmospheric pressure at the poles that proceeded ‘hand in hand’ and a strong compensatory increase in surface pressure over the Eurasian continent.
The climate shift of 1976-8 involved a departure from the norm of the previous solar cycle 19 in that extreme falls in atmospheric pressure over Antarctica produced short term mirror image increases in Arctic surface pressure. Antarctic pressure still declined at much the same rate as it had over cycle 20 prior to the climate shift of 1976-8 .
Cycle 22 sees a recovery in Antarctic pressure and a compensatory collapse in Arctic pressure now establishing at the lowest level seen in the entire 69 year period bringing on the period of strong advance in Arctic temperature and loss of sea ice.
The onset of further declines in Antarctic pressure in cycle 23 allowed a recovery in Arctic pressure that, despite stepping to a higher level at the start of the cycle, declined over the period. Mirror image effects are again apparent.
Cycle 24 brings a brief recovery in Antarctic pressure at the expense of the Arctic where the peaks decline quickly as successive minimums in Antarctic pressure (except the last) are higher than the previous minimum.
After solar maximum in cycle 24 the decline in surface pressure in Antarctica is spectacular involving greatly enhanced polar cyclone activity perhaps due to enhanced ozone production due to increased cosmic ray activity as solar cycle 24 enters the decline phase. Reduced sunspot and flare activity is responsible for a very compact atmosphere that may react more vigorously to the solar wind.
The peak in Eurasian surface pressure occurred about 1998 and a slow decline appears to have set in.
Generalising we can say that surface pressure and surface temperature appears to be linked to solar activity but in a fashion that is completely different to the narrative that insists that ‘total solar irradiance’ is the the only factor of importance. Rather, the driver of natural change in climate works by changing the planetary winds and cloud cover via polar atmospheric dynamics that are closely linked to the flux in the ozone content of the air. Since 1978 the swings in surface pressure in Antarctica have been vigorous suggesting that a more compact atmosphere reacts more strongly to change in the solar wind and that cosmic rays that are enhanced in a regime of low solar activity may be more influential in ionising the polar atmosphere allowing the generation of ozone and especially so during periods where the intake of mesospheric air is disrupted and the polar stratosphere warms. It is apparent that the ozone content of the air in high latitudes peaks in late winter/spring even though the lifetime of ozone in the atmosphere is progressively shortened due to the increase in the incidence of destructive UVB radiation as the sun rises higher in the sky and the earths orbit takes it closer to the sun. Something has to account for that extra ozone. Climate science does not even pose the question, let alone answer it.
The ‘canary in the coalmine’ that indicates the change in the forces at work can be seen in extreme surface temperature variability in February and July. These months exhibit the greatest differences in terms of the whole of period minimum and whole of period maximum in surface pressure as seen below. It is the months of January and July that exhibit the greatest variability in surface temperature. We see that in the sphere of natural climate change, surface pressure and surface temperature are inextricably linked. But, then again we always knew that by looking at the weather from week to week.
Fig 14
The evolution of Antarctic surface pressure by the month is explored in the third diagram in this chapter. It appears that the system is at a turning point. Eight of the twelve months of the year, including the critical months under the control of the Antarctic and later the Arctic, from August through to February show signs of a rise in surface atmospheric pressure. If this continues and the ozone content of the global atmosphere continues to fall, and with it the temperature of the upper stratosphere we might sometime witness a reversal of the climate shift of 1976-8.
TEST QUESTIONS related to Fig.15: Have you understood this chapter?
Why is it that the Antarctic stratosphere above 150 hPa warms faster than the atmosphere below 150 hPa in spring?
Why do we see the abrupt change in slope in the temperature of the air above 70 hPa in November?
Why does temperature between the surface and 400 hPa decline at an invariable rate between April and August while the atmosphere above becomes increasingly colder?
What is the temperature at the tropopause in August and at what elevation is it located?
Fig. 15
POSTSCRIPT: For the convenience of the reader I list the chapters in this treatise in order to provide an idea of the scope of the work and the manner of its development. At the end is a list of chapters currently in preparation.
Reality
How the Earth warms and cools in the short term….200 years or so…the De Vries cycle
Links to chapters 1-38
HOW DO WE KNOW THINGS Surface temperature is intimately tied to the global circulation of the air and the distribution of cloud.Ozone is inextricably linked to surface pressure and cloud. The key to unlocking the cause of climate change lies in observation.
ASSESSING CLIMATE CHANGE IN YOUR OWN HABITAT On accessing and manipulating data to trace the way climate changes regionally. It is essential to understand the manner in which the globe warms and cools if one is to correctly diagnose the cause.
HOW THE EARTH WARMS AND COOLS NATURALLY It is observed that the surface warms when geopotential height increases. This chapter answers the question why geopotential height increases.
THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE STRATOSPHERE Answers the question ‘at what elevation does the incidence of ozone cut in as a means for heating the atmosphere thereby creating what has been erroneously described the ‘stratosphere’. In winter its anything but stratified. It should be renamed ‘The Startosphere’.
THE ENIGMA OF THE COLD CORE POLAR CYCLONE High latitude cyclones are the most vigorous circulations on the planet. At the surface they have a cold core. Their warm core is in the upper troposphere where the ozone impinges. No cyclone can form without a warm core.
THE POVERTY OF CLIMATOLOGY Geopotential height at 200 and 500 hPa vary together in the extra-tropical latitudes. Furthermore, the increase in geopotential height that accompanies the surface pressure change is accompanied by a loss of cloud cover. All ultimately relate to the changing flux of ozone in the upper half of the atmospheric column in high latitudes.
VARIATION IN ENERGY INPUT DUE TO CLOUD COVER. The atmosphere mediates the flow of solar energy to the surface of the planet via change in cloud cover. How could this be overlooked?
THE PROCESSES BEHIND FLUX IN CLOUD COVER. A discussion of some of the intricacies involved in the relationship between surface pressure, cloud cover and the uptake of energy by the Earth system.
ORGANIC CLIMATE CHANGE A discussion of the big picture that focuses on the natural sources of climate change.
SCIENCE VERSUS PROPAGANDA The scare campaign about ‘global warming’ or ‘climate change’ is not based on science. Science demands observation and logic. There is a ‘disconnect’ between observed change and the hypothesis put forward to explain it. One cannot ‘do science’ in the absence of accurate observation. What is being promoted as ‘Climate Science’ by the UNIPCC fails at the most basic level.
ON BEING RELEVANT AND LOGICAL Climate scientists freely admit they do not know what lies behind surface temperature change that is natural in origin that expresses itself regionally and with large differences according to latitude i.e. the annular modes (Arctic and Antarctic Oscillations). In that circumstance it is nonsense to attribute change to the influence of man. There is an error in logic. But, its wilful.
WHY IS THE STRATOSPHERE WARM Is the warmth of the stratosphere due to the interception of ultraviolet radiation or heating due to the interception of long wave radiation from the Earth? This issue is fundamental. Observation provides the answer.
THE OZONE PULSE, SURFACE PRESSURE AND WIND The direction and intensity of the wind and the distribution of ozone is closely related. This chapter gives an introduction to the nature and origin of the annular modes phenomenon.
THE WEATHER SPHERE-POWERING THE WINDS. The strongest winds can be found at the overlapping interface of the troposphere and the stratosphere and we haven’t yet worked out why or what it means when change occurs at that interface.
WHERE IS OZONE? PART 1 IONISATION. The structure of the upper atmosphere is dictated by process. Hand waving is no substitute for observation.
WHERE IS OZONE PART 2 EROSION More on the processes responsible for the structure of the atmosphere in high latitudes and in particular the manner in which tongues of air of tropical origin are drawn into the polar circulation.
COSMIC RAYS, OZONE AND THE GEOPOTENTIAL HEIGHT RESPONSE Observation and logic suggest that both the solar wind and cosmic rays are independently influential in determining the partial pressure of ozone in high latitudes. No other possibility is remotely plausible.
THE PURPOSE OF SCIENTISTS History is re-interpreted continuously to suit the purposes of elites. Science is moulded in that same way by virtue of the fact that the elites hold the purse strings. All is ‘spin’.
THE CLIMATE SHIFT OF 1976-1980. The nitty gritty of how climate changes together with the basics of a theory that can explain the natural modes of variation. Observation and theory brought together in a manner that stands the test of common sense.
THE CLIMATE ENGINE THAT IS THE OZONOSPHERE . The atmosphere re-defined to take account of the critical processes that determine its movements and thereby the equator to pole temperature gradient. Takes a close look at processes inside and outside the winter time polar vortex. The system is the product of the distribution of ozone.
SURFACE PRESSURE AND SUNSPOT CYCLES . This chapter looks at the evolution of surface pressure and how it relates to solar activity. It explores the nature of the interaction between the atmosphere at the northern and southern poles.
WEATHER ORIGINATES IN THE OZONOSPHERE Takes the focus to a regional and local perspective to answer the question as to why the mid latitudes of the southern hemisphere have been colder in winter of 2016.
JET STREAMS Compares and contrasts two quite different explanations for the strong winds that manifest where the troposphere and the stratosphere overlap.
JET STREAMS AND CLIMATE CHANGE Looks at some great work that measures the ozone content of the air across the northern hemisphere and sets up a classification in a novel fashion, by zone of commonality rather than latitude. Relates the distribution of ozone to the occurrence of the subtropical and polar jet streams. Zones of surprisingly uniform ozone content lie between the jets, and both pole-wards and equator-wards of the jets. Tropopause height steps down at the latitude of the jets creating marked contrasts in atmospheric density. This is a very useful and rock solid survey of great importance given the relationship between ozone and surface pressure.
THE HISTORY OF THE ATMOSPHERE IN TERMS OF UPPER AIR TEMPERATURE An examination of temperature dynamics at the 10 hPa pressure surface over the poles.Critical to understanding the evolution of climate over the period of record.
E.N.S.O. RE-INTERPRETED. The origin of the El Nino Southern Oscillation phenomenon and why the matter is of little consequence.
Here is how would I explain the Earth’s natural modes of climate change to a child!
Let us consider the Earth as a car. We are at some latitude (like being in the back or the front seat of a car). Let’s imagine we have the heater in the front of the car and a vent over the back seat. You can open and close the vent and turn it to the front to scoop in air or to the back and suck air out of the car. So, the cold air from the vent can blow straight down the back of your neck or you can turn the vent around so that it sucks air out of the car so that the warm air from the engine travels to the back of the car.
Ozone heats the air in winter creating polar cyclones that lower surface pressure at the pole attracting a flow of air from the equator. More ozone = lower surface pressure in high latitudes = wind blows more often from the equator. Less ozone= higher surface pressure at the pole= wind from equator does not come. Instead, a cold wind comes from the pole similar to what would happen if you turned the vent in the car roof so it faced forwards.
The second way in which ozone changes surface temperature is by changing cloud cover. Because ozone is mainly present in the upper air and it ascends strongly at the poles in winter it has to come down somewhere else. Where it descends it warms the air and evaporates cloud letting the sun shine through to be absorbed by the ocean that acts like a battery because it stores energy. Full dense cloud curtails solar radiation by as much as 90%.
The climate varies by warming and cooling in winter. It is in winter that we see the big changes in 1. Polar surface pressure, 2. The ozone content of the air 3. The direction of the wind and hence the temperature at the surface.
Change can be two way, both warming and cooling.
Ozone is inextricably linked to surface pressure. The key to unlocking the cause of climate change lies in working out what can change the ozone content of the air near the poles in winter.
It is an article of faith in climate science that the temperature of the stratosphere is due to the impact of short wave radiation. This is incorrect. In fact the temperature of the stratosphere is due to the interception of long wave radiation from the Earth by ozone. It is another article of faith that the circulation of the air is driven from the tropics. This is also incorrect.
The temperature of the atmosphere reflects many forces at work but the most important of these so far as the circulation of the air is concerned is ozone. The ozonosphere can be considered to extend from the surface of the planet through to the mesopause. The shape of the ozonosphere is a product of a number of forces:
The interaction of short wave solar radiation with the atmosphere that supplies oxygen in atomic form to combine with O2 to form O3. This occurs in the mesosphere down to about 60 km in elevation and also it seems at the poles where cosmic rays ionise the atmosphere allowing the formation of ozone.
The tropical atmosphere below about 40 kilometres in elevation exhibits an increase in its ozone content in daylight hours and may be considered a relatively safe zone where ozone can accumulate in trace amounts.
Relief from the pressure of ionisation at low sun angles. Ozone is ionised by UVB and shorter wave lengths that are used up in the process. Because the atmospheric path is long very little ultraviolet B reaches the polar regions to destroy ozone and none at all during the period of the polar night.
The lower profile of the stratosphere is sculpted by the erosive activity of NOx that is influential in establishing the height of the tropopause and in the process determines the elevation where the maximum in ozone partial pressure occurs.
At the poles the intake of mesospheric air varies on all time scales and regulates ozone partial pressure accordingly.
The ozone content of the air and the height of the troposphere so established are influential in determining surface pressure and therefore the flow of the air, in fact the location and intensity of the planetary winds that regulate the equator to pole temperature gradient and the extent and location of cloud cover that limits the incidence of solar radiation at the surface.
To examine the profile of the stratosphere at all latitudes would be a worthy but onerous task that I will leave to others. But it is instructive to study the temperature of the atmosphere in a particular latitude band to try and discern the forces at work because they are different according to hemisphere and latitude. I look in particular at the temperature of the air in the latitude band 30-40° south at selected levels starting at the planets skin, then 2 metres above the surface, at 700 hPa, at 500 hPa where half the atmosphere is below and half above, 300 hPa where something quite strange begins to happen, at 200 hPa and 100 hPa where paradoxically the air is warmer in winter than in summer. Then we look at the temperature of the air at 30 Mb and at 10 Mb therefore spanning 99% of the depth of the atmosphere. This site is the starting point: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/time_plot/
A SURVEY OF THE ATMOSPHERIC PROFILE AT 30-40° SOUTH LATITUDE.
The map above shows the latitude band under investigation. It is mostly sea.
The hovmoller diagram below shows the average temperature at the surface across the 30-40° south latitude band as it evolves in the interval of the single year 2014. There is nothing special about this year. Any year would do.
The skin temperature exhibits a pattern of summer warming influenced by the location of the land masses of South Africa, Australia-New Zealand and South America. There is marked warming of the Pacific Ocean from November through to June. There are southward moving warm currents on the west of the ocean basins and up welling of cold waters on the east of the basins particularly to the west of South America. Also seen is the remarkably episodic pattern in the cooling of the Australian continent in winter that relates to an intermittent flow of cold air that traverses the continent from north west to south east. The Pacific maintains a zone of relative warmth to the east of the Australian continent perhaps by virtue of the relative width of the ocean and the strength of the southerly trending circulation of warm waters from the tropics.The land masses warm strongly in summer.Notice the strong cooling of the Indian Ocean to the west of Australia in winter-spring that tends to promote the formation of a sticky zone of high atmospheric pressure. In contrast the warmth of the Pacific in the vicinity of New Zealand creates s sticky zone of low surface pressure.
The proposition advanced in climate science is that the temperature of the air predominantly reflects the temperature of the skin. Above we see that even at 2 metres of elevation this is not the case. Already warming and cooling is intermittent within a season by comparison with skin temperature. The scale necessary to span the variation in the temperature of the skin spans 48°C. The scale required at 2 metres is only 4o° C. The land masses cool the air in winter while air over the sea remains warmer. Texture in the temperature data is produced by moving air bodies that originate in the north west (called the westerlies) that locate towards the south east at a later date reflecting the fact that the atmosphere rotates faster than the Earth itself and propagates towards the south east carrying tropical warmth to higher latitudes but in an intermittent fashion.The warm air is also wet and arrives with cloud. The presence of cloud can be erroneously considered to be the source of the warmth via back radiation whereas the air is actually warm because of its origin. In fact any particular location on the Earths surface will be warm or cool according to the origin of the air. If the air changes in either its speed or direction this alters the equator to pole temperature gradient.
The ultimate fate of the air in these latitudes is to be drawn into a low pressure cyclone located at 50-70° south latitude. We see that the pattern made by the north westerlies is more defined in winter and spring than in summer and autumn. Autumn is a pleasant time of the year in some of the windiest latitudes on the planet. By latitude as we move southwards from the thirties we have the Roaring Forties, the Furious Fifties and the Screaming Sixties. In winter the Thirties assume some of the character of the Forties.
Warmer air manifests in shorter strings with less persistence probably because it is rising and leaving the cold air at the surface in long remnant streamers. Cold air, locally chilled as it travels over cold water pools into the valleys of Andes mountains in winter. There is a clearer definition of summer and winter in the temperature at 2 metres than in skin temperature. We see that the atmosphere heavily influences near surface air temperature regardless of the status of skin temperature. Temperature is not simply a function of the angle of the sun. Cloud cover plays a part in determining local air temperature. Not shown is precipitation rates and relative humidity that exhibit the same north west to south east streaming. The Pacific sector to the East of 150° east longitude is wetter than the Indian ocean sector. The temperature pattern indicates a slowing or a blocking of the the atmospheric flow in the Western Pacific when compared to the other oceans. We have blobs rather than streaks and reduced contrast.
At 700 Mb (above) there is a a thicker, broader structure in the pattern of temperature variability in summer and thinner more linear elements in winter. This indicates a faster air flow in winter. In summer and autumn the air is relatively still. There is more seasonal definition at 700 mb than at 2 metre elevation emphasising that the movement of the atmosphere is influential in creating seasonal contrasts. It is the movement of the atmosphere that defines the equator to pole temperature gradient. If the wind blows alternately from a warm place and then a cold place we call it an oscillation, such as the Arctic Oscillation or the Antarctic Oscillation.
There is a much stronger graininess in temperature at 700 Mb than at the surface emphasising the dependence of surface conditions on the state of the atmosphere as it varies on short time scales. The degree of graininess is different according to longitude with the appearance of persistent linear elements in winter that propagate south eastwards more strongly in some parts than others.
At 500 Mb (above) there is a similar pattern to that at 700 Mb but the winter season is shorter. In the vicinity of Africa the air is warmer across the year . This likely represents a consistent flow of warm tropical air southwards in that vicinity.
At 300 Mb there appears to be a marked extension of the winter season and reduced contrast between the seasons.
At 200 Mb (above) we see that the months June to October are warmer than the summer months. In particular this is the case between longitudes 60° East and 120° West. This relates to the pattern of the increase in atmospheric ozone in winter. We have entered a realm in the upper troposphere where the temperature of the air is markedly influenced by the presence of ozone. There can be no active photolysis of any atmospheric gas at the 200 mb to drive the warming of the air. Rather, heating is due to energy gain from infrared radiation that is emanating from the Earth itself. The ozone molecule absorbs at 9-10 um. This is a phenomenon unrecognised and unremarked in climate science even though ozone is recognised as a ‘greenhouse gas? The 200 mb pressure level is the altitude where jet streams manifest. Each small yellow-orange streak in the diagram above represents a stream of ozone warmed air that is rapidly ascending. There is a strong linearity and persistence in the patterns in this diagram. The pattern is quite different to that seen at lower altitudes. The difference relates to the marked change in density differentials between different air masses. Notice the concentration of warming between longitudes 120-180° East. due to the tendency of ozone to accumulate in low pressure cells in the southern ocean to the south of Australia and New Zealand. This is verified in the diagrams below that represent ozone at 1 hPa on the 16th day of the month, each diagram a month apart.
Above we have a polar stereographic view of Antarctica at the 1 hPa pressure level. These diagrams show the manner of the descent of ozone deficient mesospheric air over the pole and also the episodic tendency for ozone to accumulate over the Southern Ocean south of Australia and New Zealand at longitude 120 to 180° east of the Greenwich meridian. This tendency is reflected in the hovmoller diagrams both above and below. The heating process due to the increase in ozone partial pressure in winter delivers an even stronger contrast at the 100 Mb pressure level. In fact the 100 Mb pressure level is where the movement of the bulk of the atmosphere is determined. The temperature of the air and its movement has little to do with surface conditions and a lot to do with the ozone content of the atmosphere that increases strongly in winter.
The diagram above shows air temperature at 100 mb. Winter is warmer than summer at 100 hPa due to ozone heating of the air. The air is warmest in the Australia New Zealand sector due to the tendency for ozone to proliferate over the warm waters of the western Pacific Ocean that tend to promote the formation of zones of low surface pressure.
Above we see the distribution of ozone at 100 hPa over the southern hemisphere in winter. At this elevation the atmosphere shows the texture that would might expect at the interface of two different fluids moving at a slightly different rate but in the same anticlockwise direction. Tracers of ozone rich air emanate from nodes rich in ozone and are left behind in air that moves less rapidly. The nodes of ozone rich air tend to form in the lee of the continents where the waters are warmer and in particular in the Australian, New Zealand western Pacific sector.
The anticlockwise circulation of the air moves faster than the Earth itself and faster in the polar regions than at the equator. This gives rise to some very interesting questions: Is the force that causes the Earth to rotate on its axis also responsible for the faster rotating atmosphere, a disengaged fluid element that is free to reflect the forces of the interplanetary environment acting on the atmosphere? Are these forces responsible for the minute variations that are observed in the Length of the Day that are seen to be related to changes in climate as we measure it at the surface of the Earth? Is this rotation of the Earth and its atmosphere driven by the same sort of force that drives an electric motor. Does the atmosphere simply exhibit an amplified variation of the length of day type that could be measured in terms of the speed and direction of the high altitude winds. Does the rotation of the air speed up and slow down as the electromagnetic field changes under the influence of the sun and the solar wind?
Notice the generalised depletion of ozone that starts in August. This is due to the activity of NOx reaching the pole as surface pressure rises, the flow of mesospheric air is cut off and the final warming begins. In springtime as atmospheric pressure falls over Antarctica the stratosphere over the pole warms, the circulation of the air slows and by December it actually reverses its rotation at the 10 Mb level.
In particular we should be interested in whether the zonal wind slows as the stratosphere heats, not only on the annual scale, but also on the synoptic scale of days and weeks. If it does, perhaps the atmosphere is responding to the electromagnetic environment of which it is part.
At 50 hPa (above) the pattern of ozone accumulation in the Australian New Zealand sector is more clearly defined. The pattern is less episodic, more linear and persistent. In fact the movement of the air even at 30° -40° south begins to reflect the linearity and the stop-go nature of the high altitude zonal wind that reaches its apogee in the structure of the polar vortex.Notice the difference in linearity between summer and winter. Notice the extension of winter warming until November that is the transition month between winter and summer conditions at this latitude. We are here looking at part of the driver for surface conditions in the southern hemisphere and indeed globally on all time scales.In a later chapter we will see that November is the ‘snap to attention’ month when the dominant role of driving the ozone content of the air is passed over short time intervals is passed, baton like, to the Arctic.
There is one other thing worth noticing. Its actually extremely important because it confounds what we read in Climate Science texts. The 50 hPa pressure level is in the lower stratosphere at an elevation of 20 km. The stratosphere is supposedly stratified, non convective and irrelevant so far as surface weather is concerned. In fact the stratosphere in winter is a very active part of the atmosphere in terms of air temperature, density and wind. Inspect the scale on this diagram. The range required to represent the data at 50 Mb is 22°C. At 100 hPa the range is 30°C. At 500 hPa the range required is 28°C, at 700 hPa 26°C and at 2 metres 40° C. What does that tell us about the forces responsible for the movement of the atmosphere? The atmosphere is a medium that tends to minimise temperature differences in the horizontal plane. The range at 100 Mb, though flattened by winter warming, indicates that the forces that are involved in generating air temperature and density contrasts aloft are more influential in driving the movement of the air than the forces that are active at the surface. The range required at 100 Mb is diminished by the reversal of the temperature relationship between summer and winter, a range reducing phenomenon that acts to conceal rather than reveal the forces at work . Perhaps a superior proxy for the strength of the disparities in density at 100 Mb is wind strength. Wind strength is least at the surface and increases with elevation peaking at Jet Stream altitudes. The inevitable conclusion is that the movement of the bulk of the atmosphere at 30-40° south latitude is driven at the 100 hPa pressure level or thereabouts by differences in the partial pressure of ozone as it effects atmospheric temperature and density.
Above we see air temperature at the 30 Mb pressure level.The difference between summer and winter is greatly reduced. The range of variation is still greater in winter than summer. Only in winter do we see the characteristic north west to south east flow of the winter stratosphere. The patterns that are generated indicate strong variations in the temperature and density of the air related to the changing composition of the air itself. However, it appears that this is a zone where air tends to either descend or ascend (blobs rather than streaks) rather than travel laterally except in the winter where the circulation is more typical of that which prevails all the way to the surface.
At the 10 hPa pressure level (above) the air is comparatively still. Only the strongest elements of the ozone driven winter circulation show up. Notice the south west to north east drift in summer as ozone rich air travels towards the zone of high surface pressure in the mid latitudes. The flow is north west to south east in winter. Here the temperature of the air relates to surface temperature in a manner that is not evident between 700 mb and 30 mb. The winter is cold and the summer warm as we would expect it to be. The land masses are especially warm. So, most surprisingly we see the signature of surface temperature at 10 hPa, an elevation where 99% of the mass of the atmosphere lies beneath.The warmth of the air plainly relates to the interception of infrared radiation by ozone. Because the air is relatively still at this altitude the pattern of long wave emission from the surface shows up. If short wave radiation from the sun were a big influence on the ozone content and the temperature of the air at this altitude this pattern would be obliterated in daylight hours. We cant tell from this diagram whether this happens or not.
There could be no better demonstration of the response of the stratosphere to the infrared radiation emitted by the Earth than this phenomenon. We see it because the air is relatively still. The temperature of the ozonosphere that stretches from the surface through to the mesopause is set, not by ionising radiation from the sun but radiation from the Earth itself. There is little variation in the ozone content of the air or its temperature at 10 mb that we can link to the tenfold variation in EUV across the solar cycle. Plainly, it is incorrect to maintain that the temperature of the stratosphere is a function of ionisation by short wave radiation from the sun. This statement, to be found universally in climate texts and the works of the UNIPCC and in Wikipedia does not square with observation.
We must look for other modes of causation for the potent variations in the ozone content of the air in winter than variations in the quantum of short wave energy from the sun. Indeed, only one percent of the air above 80 km in elevation, the zone called the ‘ionosphere’, is actually ionised. This zone contains less than 1% of the mass of the atmosphere. There is no problem in supply and no problem in persistence of ozone below the 10 Mb pressure level. The ozone content of the atmosphere is relatively invariable and seems to be assured, but not so at the poles in winter where we see big variations in ozone partial pressure from year to year.
If we look for zones where atmospheric dynamics involve a dilution of the ozone content of the air that can account for the paucity of ozone over the polar caps, the marked variations in the ozone content of the air from week to week and year to year and the relative paucity of ozone in the southern hemisphere in general we need look no further than the polar vortex in the winter season.
THE ZONAL WIND
The zonal wind is that which is measured as rate of travel a along a line of latitude and is called the ‘u’ wind while the meridional wind is that measured along a line of longitude and is designated as the ‘v’ wind. At a point on the Earths surface a wind can be described in terms of both u and v. It is weak in both u and v it is probably descending or ascending.
If we inspect the last several diagrams they all indicate a strong stream of warm air travelling around the globe in a south easterly direction after 2014-09-17. The timing of this warming air flow is associated with a collapse of the ‘u’ component, a symptom of warming over the polar cap associated with an increase in the ozone content of the air that is further associated with a collapse of surface pressure over the pole. This is a taste of that which happens in the transition between winter and summer. It is also closely associated with the appearance of the ozone hole over Antarctica when NOx rich air of tropical origin circles in to occupy the entirety of the polar cap between 100 hPa and 50 hPa.
As we see above the ‘v’ component of the wind at 10 Mb is seasonally the mirror image of the ‘u’ wind. The meridional component falls away as the zonal wind component increases and vice versa.This is true on a seasonal as well as an episodic short term basis.
It is apparent that the movements of the atmosphere are tied to the partial pressure of ozone in the stratosphere. This is readily apparent when we study the movement of the air over the polar cap at 200 Mb as represented below. The first diagram shows the distribution of ozone over the Arctic on the 18th June 2016 as shown here. The second diagram shows the temperature of the air and its circulation over the Arctic on the 18th June 2016 as shown here. The third diagram simply shows the speed of the wind and locates the jet streams in relation to the distribution of ozone.
There is a core of cold air over the Antarctic within which pockets of ozone rich air are almost 20° C warmer. The conjunction of the two gives rise to the jet streams as we see below.
CONCLUSION
The movement of the air is intimately associated with contrasts in ozone density. Speed of movement is greatest at jet stream altitudes where contrasts in air temperature and density are most extreme.
Change in the intensity of the zonal wind that is associated with warming and cooling at the surface occur in response to the impact of ozone on atmospheric motions. In the northern hemisphere this phenomenon can be expressed in terms of the Arctic Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation or the Northern Annular mode.In the southern hemisphere we talk of the Southern Annular mode. These are all recognised as prime modes of climate variation on annual and inter-decadal time scales. Climate science has no rationale for any of them and is unable to differentiate between climate change due to these entirely natural phenomena and that supposedly due to the activities of man.
Climate change is associated with change in the ozone content of the air that drives the intensity of polar cyclone activity, shifts in atmospheric mass, change in the zonal wind and the equator to pole temperature gradient.
Winter is the season where weather variability is greatest and this is clearly associated with change in the ozone content of the air. This is backed up by the observation that across all latitudes the month of greatest variability in surface temperature is either January or July as described here.
The circulation of the atmosphere is not driven from the equator but from the winter pole. There is evidence that the ozone content of the air at the poles depends upon solar activity via several different modes.
Unless we can separate out and properly account for the change in climate that is due to the fluctuating ozone content of the air we are in no position to quantify the change that many attribute to the works of man. Green activists are clearly ‘jumping the gun’. When we come to look at the manner in which the climate changes according to latitude it will be plain that all change, I repeat ALL change, is very likely attributable to natural modes of causation rather than the works of man and we will be able to say, ‘hand on heart’, or on a ‘stack of bibles’ and ‘with a very high level of confidence’ that we are speaking the truth.
Recent research suggests that there is a pathway for the generation of ozone at the poles via ionisation of the atmosphere by cosmic rays.
From the conclusion: recent modelling shows that the O3 distribution in the extra-tropics is formed mainly from the local production, while the impact of the tropical ozone, transported by stratospheric dynamics, is substantially smaller. During winter conditions, when the amount of solar UV radiation at middle and high latitudes is strongly reduced, the only alternative source of O3 at these latitudes are highly energetic galactic cosmic rays (GCR) capable of penetrating into the lower stratosphere and troposphere. However, the influence of GCR on the lower stratosphere has been ignored for a long time, thought to be negligible at these levels. Through reassessment of the efficiency of main atmospheric constituents’ ion-ization by GCR and the ion-molecular reactions between the most abundant ions and neutrals, we have shown an existence of an autocatalytic cycle for continuous O3 production in the lower stratosphere and upper troposphere (near the level of maximal absorption of GCR, known as Pfotzer maximum). The quantity of O3, produced by the positive ion chemistry, has the same order of magnitude as the mid-latitude steady-state ozone profile. This is an indication that the lowermost ozone profile could be substantially distorted by the highly energetic particles.
If Cosmic Rays can result in ozone production at the poles it links solar activity and climate in a direct and powerful fashion. Ozone drives of the evolution of planetary winds and cloud cover from the winter hemisphere. The signature of its activity is written into the surface temperature record.
Don’t hold your breath while you wait for climate scientists to adopt these ideas. The current generation of climate scientists have no interest in discovering the origins of natural modes of climate variation even though these modes have been in operation since the dawn of time. Some proponents of the anthropocentric global warming argument now maintain that all climate change (of whatever description) is due to the impact of man on the planet. For others the origin of natural modes of climate variation must remain mysterious and unknowable. If it seems that something out of the ordinary happens it must be ‘an internal oscillation’ or the result of ‘an exchange of energy between the ocean and the atmosphere’, neither of long term consequence unless it can be suggested that these internal modes are getting out of whack due to the influence of man.
This seems to be the current point of view. Mans responsibility, for the good of succeeding generations, is to avoid warming, cooling, drought, flood, damaging radiation, big tides, big waves and typhoons by reducing carbon emissions. Carbon dioxide, the raw material for plant photosynthesis, the original building block for life on the planet, is nasty. The imperative is to stop emitting carbon dioxide wherever we can in order to stop ‘climate change’. The words ‘climate change’ now equates to ‘the addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere due to the activities of man in burning fossil fuels’. If its not scarce, we must nevertheless avoid burning it. We must reduce our energy use to that which is sustainable, not in terms of the amount of the resource available but in terms of the desired state of the atmosphere. If we have this resource we must keep it in the ground even though others are crying out for electric light and the means to do things other than by the sweat of their brow. We will deny them the use of coal for their own good.
Originally, the notion was that the planet warmed when CO2 levels increased. Now, in the absence of warming, carbon dioxide is responsible for change in the status quo. Where have we heard this sort of argument before?
It is in the nature of those who hold strong ideas that they will seek to reward and give preferment to those who agree with them.
It is those who can capture our imaginations who will be paid from the public purse to do so again and again. Adolph Hitler and Tim Flannery. ‘Mein Kampf’ and ‘The Weather Makers’. The free lunch. Give the man a Beer. Let’s recommend him for a Nobel. Al Gore, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. Do something for the planet. Stop breathing.
WHAT ARE COSMIC RAYS?
Wikipedia: Cosmic rays are immensely high-energy radiation, mainly originating outside the Solar System.They may produce showers of secondary particles that penetrate and impact the Earth’s atmosphere and sometimes even reach the surface. Composed primarily of high-energy protons and atomic nuclei, they are of mysterious origin. Data from the Fermi space telescope (2013) have been interpreted as evidence that a significant fraction of primary cosmic rays originate from the supernovae of massive stars. However, this is not thought to be their only source. Active galactic nuclei probably also produce cosmic rays.
The kinetic mass-energy of massive particles can increase drastically due to relativistic effects. Through this process, the particles can acquire tremendously high energies, significantly higher than those of even the highest-energy photons detected to date (whose energy depends solely on frequency and not on speed, as photons always travel at the same speed). The Oh-My-God particle, the highest-energy fermionic cosmic ray detected to date, had an energy of about 3×1020 eV, while the highest-energy gamma rays to be observed, very-high-energy gamma rays, are photons with energies of up to 1014 eV. Hence, the highest-energy detected fermionic cosmic ray was around 3×106 times more energetic than the highest-energy detected cosmic photons.
Of primary cosmic rays, which originate outside of Earth’s atmosphere, about 99% are the nuclei (stripped of their electron shells) of well-known atoms, and about 1% are solitary electrons (similar to beta particles). Of the nuclei, about 90% are simple protons, i. e. hydrogen nuclei; 9% are alpha particles, identical to helium nuclei, and 1% are the nuclei of heavier elements, called HZE ions. A very small fraction are stable particles of antimatter, such as positrons or antiprotons. The precise nature of this remaining fraction is an area of active research. An active search from Earth orbit for anti-alpha particles has failed to detect them.
Ultra-high-energy cosmic rays have energies comparable to the kinetic energy of a 90-kilometre-per-hour (56 mph) baseball.
When cosmic rays enter the Earth’s atmosphere they collide with atoms and molecules, mainly oxygen and nitrogen. The interaction produces a cascade of lighter particles, a so-called air shower secondary radiation that rains down, including x-rays, muons, protons, alpha particles, pions, electrons, and neutrons.
Typical particles produced in such collisions are neutrons and charged mesons such as positive or negative pions and kaons. Some of these subsequently decay into muons, which are able to reach the surface of the Earth, and even penetrate for some distance into shallow mines. The muons can be easily detected by many types of particle detectors, such as cloud chambers, bubble chambers or scintillation detectors.
MEASUREMENT OF THE INCIDENCE OF COSMIC RAYS
Wikipedia: In 1912, Victor Hess carried three enhanced-accuracy Wulf electrometers to an altitude of 5300 meters in a free balloon flight. He found the ionization rate increased approximately fourfold over the rate at ground level. Hess ruled out the Sun as the radiation’s source by making a balloon ascent during a near-total eclipse. With the moon blocking much of the Sun’s visible radiation, Hess still measured rising radiation at rising altitudes. He concluded “The results of my observation are best explained by the assumption that a radiation of very great penetrating power enters our atmosphere from above.” In 1913–1914, Werner Kolhörster confirmed Victor Hess’ earlier results by measuring the increased ionization rate at an altitude of 9 km.
Hess received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1936 for his discovery.
Flying 12 kilometres (39,000 ft) high, passengers and crews of jet airliners are exposed to at least 10 times the cosmic ray dose that people at sea level receive. Aircraft flying polar routes near the geomagnetic poles are at particular risk.
DEPENDENCY OF COSMIC RAYS ON THE ACTIVITY OF THE SUN
The flux of incoming cosmic rays at the upper atmosphere is dependent on the solar wind, the Earth’s magnetic field, and the energy of the cosmic rays. At distances of ~94 AU from the Sun, the solar wind undergoes a transition, called the termination shock, from supersonic to subsonic speeds. The region between the termination shock and the heliopause acts as a barrier to cosmic rays, decreasing the flux at lower energies (≤ 1 GeV) by about 90%. However, the strength of the solar wind is not constant, and hence it has been observed that cosmic ray flux is correlated with solar activity.
In addition, the Earth’s magnetic field acts to deflect cosmic rays from its surface, giving rise to the observation that the flux is apparently dependent on latitude, longitude, and azimuth angle. The magnetic field lines deflect the cosmic rays towards the poles, giving rise to the aurorae.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COSMIC RAYS AND SUDDEN STRATOSPHERIC WARMINGS
Citation: Osprey, S., et al. (2009), Sudden stratospheric warmings seen in MINOS deep underground muon data as reported here: http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/148293/1/2008GL036359.pdf
The rate of high energy cosmic ray muons as measured underground is shown to be strongly correlated with upper air temperatures during short-term atmospheric (10-day) events. The effects are seen by correlating data from the MINOS underground detector and temperatures from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts during the winter periods from 2003– 2007. This effect provides an independent technique for the measurement of meteorological conditions and presents a unique opportunity to measure both short and long-term changes in this important part of the atmosphere.
Do you think you could explain all that to your grandmother while its still fresh in your mind?
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE INCIDENCE OF COSMIC RAYS AND GEOPOTENTIAL HEIGHT ANOMALIES IN THE ARCTIC IN 2016
In winter the upper atmosphere is colder due to the descent of very cold ozone deficient air from the mesosphere.
The displacement of this core of cold air by a mushrooming ascent of ozone rich air results in much higher temperatures over the polar cap. The mushrooming effect centres on about 50° of latitude as ozone is gathered in zones of low surface pressure associated with warm ocean surfaces initiating wholesale ascent. When the ascending air reaches 30 hPa, 10 hPa and 1 hPa it spreads laterally to occupy the region of the polar cap. This has been a ‘mystery’ for climate science for a generation of more. It appears that warming air is not connected with the presence of ozone in the minds of many observers. Are they turning a blind eye? Are they incapable of rigorous inquiry? Do they simply assume that the temperature of the air is the result of the absorption of short wave radiation from the sun? Is this commonly seen assertion a required article of faith? Who knows?
The warming of the stratosphere is tracked via the increase in geopotential height between 50 and 80 degrees of latitude as seen in the diagram below. For the purposes of comparison I have lined up data for cosmic rays and geopotential height anomalies across a common time interval.The question is this: are these two data streams related?
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE INCIDENCE OF COSMIC RAYS AND GEOPOTENTIAL HEIGHT ANOMALIES
The period extends from January to mid June in 2016. On the face of it, galactic cosmic rays could be making a contribution to the periodic proliferation of ozone resulting in episodic increases in geopotential height.There are enough coincidences to suggest that this might be the case. The fact that these increases are much greater in winter is consistent with the ease of disturbance of the polar atmosphere at a time of the year when temperature is at a low base, the connection to the mesosphere is tenuous and dependent on atmospheric pressure. Winter is the time of the year where ozone proliferates. But, we must note that there are warming events that are not associated with the incidence of galactic cosmic rays and that peaks in GCR activity do occur without an obvious atmospheric response. Plainly there is another factor involved that may compete with or perhaps complement the activity of GCR.
The loss of surface pressure over Antarctica over the last seventy years represents a one way transfer of atmospheric mass from high southern latitudes that requires an external driver capable of retaining atmospheric mass against the force of gravity. The only force capable of retaining new states of this sort is electromagnetic. If there is indeed a response to electromagnetic effects it should be seen at times when geomagnetic activity is high.
In the diagram below that relates to the southern pole we can see that peaks in the solar wind, as indicated by the Kp Index (lowest series) are not necessarily conjunctional with peaks in neutron counts. In fact in many instances, neutron counts are in a trough as the kP index peaks.
The green lines in the diagram locate instances where there is an atmospheric response that is conjunctional with geomagnetic activity in the absence of cosmic ray activity. If we combine the incidences where cosmic ray indices peak in conjunction with increased GPH with the instances where the kP index peaks in conjunction with increases in GPH we can account for each and every heating episode.
CONCLUSION
This analysis is consistent with the notion that both the solar wind and cosmic rays can be independently influential in determining the partial pressure of ozone engendering an increase in geopotential height. If geomagnetic activity slows the zonal wind that acts to reduce the influx of mesospheric air, then ozone partial pressure will increase and the geopotential height response will appear. If cosmic rays enhance ionisation and ozone is produced this will have the same effect.If the atmosphere warms due to the slowing of the zonal wind then the the galactic cosmic ray enhancement of ozone cuts in in every instance regardless of whether there is a conjunctional peak in galactic cosmic ray activity. So, these conditioning influences do tend to work hand in hand in a complementary fashion and equally, they can conflict.
The limit to the shifts in atmospheric mass, however engineered, is set by gravity. The extent to which this process is capable of establishing different states,so far as surface pressure is concerned, depends upon the pressure of the solar wind, known to vary on 100 and 200 year time scales. The existence of the phenomenon whereby atmospheric mass shifts over long time scales tells us that external influences are involved.
All fluctuations in climate on all time scales from the very short to the very long, whether we see them as internal fluctuations or externally imposed, can be described in terms of surface atmospheric pressure, wind and cloud cover. It is the circulation at the poles in winter that drives these changes, not the relatively invariable rate of heating in near equatorial latitudes. Climate science is turned on its head.
reality 