NASA looks to solar eclipse to help understand Earth’s energy system

Credit: NASA

The report at Phys.org explains that “Even though the moon blocking the sun during a solar eclipse and clouds blocking sunlight to Earth’s surface are two different phenomena, both require similar mathematical calculations to accurately understand their effects.”

It was mid-afternoon, but it was dark in an area in Boulder, Colorado on Aug. 3, 1998. A thick cloud appeared overhead and dimmed the land below for more than 30 minutes. Well-calibrated radiometers showed that there were very low levels of light reaching the ground, sufficiently low that researchers decided to simulate this interesting event with computer models.

Now in 2017, inspired by the event in Boulder, NASA scientists will explore the moon’s eclipse of the sun to learn more about Earth’s energy system. On Aug. 21, 2017, scientists are looking to this year’s total solar eclipse passing across America to improve our modelling capabilities of Earth’s energy.

We really don′t know clouds at all

Despite confessing to being ‘baffled by clouds’, climate science and its media followers are still prone to assertions like ‘as the world warms’ – as though it’s bound to do so indefinitely.

Though we see them every day, clouds remain such a mystery to scientists that they are inhibiting climate change predictions. But a new atlas could be a game changer, thinks DW.COM.

Nothing beats a lazy afternoon sitting on the grass and watching the clouds roll by. These white fluffy friends can feel like a constant and comforting presence in life. And since the dawn of air travel, as folk singer Joni Mitchell once sang, we’ve looked at clouds from both sides now.

But as Mitchell cautioned, somewhow we still don’t know clouds at all. Her words were true in 1969, and they are still true today.

Radiation clouds at aviation altitudes

Credit: airbus.com

The observed radiation surges seem to occur ‘at relatively high latitudes, well above 50 degrees in both hemispheres’. They suspect certain magnetic phenomena could be at work. Korean researchers may have found something similar occurring at middle latitudes.

A new study published in the peer-reviewed journal Space Weather reports the discovery of radiation “clouds” at aviation altitudes. When airplanes fly through these clouds, dose rates of cosmic radiation normally absorbed by air travelers can double or more, reports Spaceweather.com.

“We have flown radiation sensors onboard 264 research flights at altitudes as high as 17.3 km (56,700 ft) from 2013 to 2017,” says Kent Tobiska, lead author of the paper and PI of the NASA-supported program Automated Radiation Measurements for Aerospace Safety (ARMAS). “On at least six occasions, our sensors have recorded surges in ionizing radiation that we interpret as analogous to localized clouds.”

Clouds high in Venus’ atmosphere reveal features on planet’s surface

Sci News reports scientific findings that ‘winds, the water content, and the cloud composition – are somehow connected to the properties of Venus’ surface itself’.

Using data from ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft, European planetary researchers have shown how weather patterns seen in Venus’ cloud layers are directly linked to the topography of the surface below.

Venus is famously hot. The average temperature on the Venusian surface is 864 degrees Fahrenheit (462 degrees Celsius).

James Marusek’s Little Ice Age Theory

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James Marusek’s paper says: I propose two mechanisms primarily responsible for Little Ice Age climatic conditions. These two components are Cloud Theory and Wind Theory.
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Thanks to Paul Homewood for bringing this to our attention.

[Click on ‘view original post’ below to find a link to the full paper].

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

James Marusek has sent me his latest paper, Little Ice Age Theory.

Excerpts below:

INTRODUCTION

The sun is undergoing a state change. It is possible that we may be at the cusp of the next Little Ice Age. For several centuries the relationship between periods of quiet sun and a prolonged brutal cold climate on Earth (referred to as Little Ice Ages) have been recognized. But the exact mechanisms behind this relationship have remained a mystery. We exist in an age of scientific enlightenment, equipped with modern tools to measure subtle changes with great precision. Therefore it is important to try and come to grips with these natural climatic drivers and mold the evolution of theories that describe the mechanisms behind Little Ice Ages.

The sun changes over time. There are decadal periods when the sun is very active magnetically, producing many sunspots. These periods are referred…

View original post 784 more words

NASA Study Solves Two Mysteries About Wobbling Earth

Using satellite data on how water moves around Earth, NASA scientists have solved two mysteries about wobbles in the planet’s rotation — one new and one more than a century old. The research may help improve our knowledge of past and future climate.

Although a desktop globe always spins smoothly around the axis running through its north and south poles, a real planet wobbles. Earth’s spin axis drifts slowly around the poles; the farthest away it has wobbled since observations began is 37 feet (12 meters). These wobbles don’t affect our daily life, but they must be taken into account to get accurate results from GPS, Earth-observing satellites and observatories on the ground.

In a paper published today in Science Advances, Surendra Adhikari and Erik Ivins of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, researched how the movement of water around the world contributes to Earth’s rotational wobbles. Earlier studies have pinpointed many connections between processes on Earth’s surface or interior and our planet’s wandering ways. For example, Earth’s mantle is still readjusting to the loss of ice on North America after the last ice age, and the reduced mass beneath that continent pulls the spin axis toward Canada at the rate of a few inches each year. But some motions are still puzzling.

Researchers find new mechanism to explain the birth of cloud droplets

Cumuliform cloudscape over Swifts Creek, Australia
[image credit: Wikipedia]

Climate modellers know less about cloud formation than they thought they did, according to new research.

There is enough known about cloud formation that replicating its mechanism has become a staple of the school science project scene. But a new study by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) reveals that much more is going on at the microscopic level of cloud formation than previously thought.

Why the science of clouds is still cloudy

Cloud formation [image credit:NASA]

This extract from a Phys.org article looks at some of the difficulties climate models have with clouds, a subject the Talkshop featured recently. One scientist says: ‘A key problem is that we generally do not have data on clouds from the pre-industrial era, before there was pollution, for comparison with the clouds of today.’ Another good reason to use more caution over possible future climate trends, perhaps?

Cloudy complexity

Currently, when scientists use models to calculate the extent to which aerosols—through clouds—affect the earth’s climate, they get a much, much wider range and greater uncertainty than for greenhouse gases. Why?

Modellers of El Niño events get cloud data surprise

Send in the clouds [credit:NASA]

Adding cloud data to climate models must be long overdue if it’s considered to be a new technique. Scientists were surprised to find that doing so accounted for over half the strength of El Niños, as Phys.org reports:

A small team of researchers from the U.S., Australia and Germany has found evidence that suggests cloud formation may have a much bigger impact on weather patterns associated with El Niño events than has been thought.

In their paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience, the team describes they differences they found when they input cloud data into computer models that simulated weather patterns associated with El Niño events and why they now believe that all such models should include such data going forward.

NASA’s flying observatory watches Earth’s clouds

DSCOVR observatory [image credit: NASA]

Solid data on global cloud cover seems hard to come by, but NASA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) could be changing that. SpaceRef reports.

From a dusty atmosphere stretching across the Atlantic Ocean to daily views of clouds at sunrise, a new NASA camera keeping a steady eye on the sunlit side of Earth is yielding new insights about our changing planet.

With NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), affixed to NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) about one million miles from Earth, scientists are getting a new view of our planet’s clouds, land surfaces, aerosols and more.

Using holography to better understand clouds

Cumulus thunderheads near Sao Paulo, Brazil [image credit: Lunar and Planetary Institute]

Another shortcoming of computer models used in climate science is exposed here, as SpaceDaily explains.

As clouds change shape, mixing occurs, as drier air mingles with water-saturated air. New research led by Michigan Technological University analyzes this mixing with a holographic imaging instrument called HOLODEC and an airborne laboratory.

The work was done in collaboration with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and Mainz University. This new way of seeing clouds – and the way wet and dry air form sharp boundaries – is the focus of the team’s study, published in Science this week.

What the team found with these naturally created boundaries, formed by completely evaporating some water drops and leaving others unscathed, is called inhomogenous mixing. And it goes against base assumptions used in most computer models for cloud formations. [bold added]

Massive global cooling process discovered as Paris climate deal looms

This may sound like a joke but it seems not – it’s all over the usual blogs and sceptic media. Does it put a spanner in the works? This from The Register’s report:

As world leaders get ready to head to Paris for the latest pact on cutting CO2 emissions, it has emerged that there isn’t as much urgency about the matter as had been thought.

A team of top-level atmospheric chemistry boffins from France and Germany say they have identified a new process by which vast amounts of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are emitted into the atmosphere from the sea – a process which was unknown until now, meaning that existing climate models do not take account of it.

Cloud cuckoo land in Silicon Valley

[image credit: latinoamericarenovable.com]

Are these people just mind-bogglingly naive, downright dangerous – or something else? You decide. And for the record we don’t support the ‘scientific consensus’ claim in this Mercury News report:

A team of elder Silicon Valley scientists is building an audacious device that might solve one of humanity’s most profound dilemmas — a “cloud whitener” designed to cool a warming planet.

The men — retired physicists, engineers, chemists and computer experts from some of Silicon Valley’s top tech companies — have been meeting four days a week for seven years in the Sunnyvale lab of the Marine Cloud Brightening Project to design a tool that creates perfectly suspended droplets of water resembling fog.

Atmospheric convection – what does it mean?

[credit: NASA]

A few weeks ago we put up a post to discuss the role of convection in the Earth’s atmosphere:
Beginner’s guide to convection cells

The introduction, linked to a short video, said:
‘When you warm air, it rises. Cool air will sink. This process of convection can lead to flows in the atmosphere, in a manner that we can illustrate [see video] on a small scale. Warm and cool air in a fish tank rise and fall; this motion is made visible by adding fog. Ultimately, the motion leads to a convection cell, with air rising, moving to the side, falling, and moving back. This heat-driven motion of air moves heat around in the atmosphere. It is also responsible for making the wind blow.’

That may have seemed straightforward to some, but a few hundred comments later controversy continues, so we’re starting a new post using this website for reference : Lapse Rate, Moisture, Clouds and Thunderstorms

Water World

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Let’s put this up for discussion as the dominant role of WV often gets buried in all the focus on man-made carbon dioxide emissions.

Musings from the Chiefio

This posting just points to a very well done page that calculates the relative contributions to the greenhouse effect as used by the AGW thesis, by various gasses. In particular, it includes water vapor. The result is a conclusion that human caused CO2 is not relevant to global temperature. Something I have said before, but without the nice graphs and calculations.

It really is all about the water on our water world.

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

Water Vapor Rules the Greenhouse System

Just how much of the “Greenhouse Effect” is caused by human activity?

It is about 0.28%, if water vapor is taken into account– about 5.53%, if not.

This point is so crucial to the debate over global warming that how water vapor is or isn’t factored into an analysis of Earth’s greenhouse gases makes the difference between describing a significant human contribution to the greenhouse effect, or a negligible one.

Subscribe…

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Making beer from fog in Chile

Made at The Fog Catcher Brewery [image credit: BBC]

BBC News reports:
The dry, red earth could almost be mistaken for a Martian landscape. It is in fact the Atacama desert in Chile, one of the driest places on Earth.

Average rainfall here is less than 0.1mm (0.004 in) per year and there are many regions which have not seen any precipitation for decades.

But while there is little rain, the clouds here do carry humidity. Coastal fog forms on Chile’s shore and then moves inland in the form of cloud banks. The locals call it “camanchaca”.

Read the rest here.

Also from the report: ‘The largest expanse of fog catchers is located in Tojquia in Guatemala, where 60 fog catchers trap 4,000 litres of water a day.’

Beginner’s guide to convection cells

Global circulation of Earth’s atmosphere displaying Hadley cell, Ferrell cell and polar cell [credit: NASA]

Introducing by popular demand (?) [click to view]:
‘Convection Cells Move Air Around’ (short video) – Windows to the Universe.

When you warm air, it rises. Cool air will sink. This process of convection can lead to flows in the atmosphere, in a manner that we can illustrate [see video] on a small scale. Warm and cool air in a fish tank rise and fall; this motion is made visible by adding fog. Ultimately, the motion leads to a convection cell, with air rising, moving to the side, falling, and moving back. This heat-driven motion of air moves heat around in the atmosphere. It is also responsible for making the wind blow.

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Cue discussion by Talkshop commenters 🙂

This post arose from a discussion on another thread that seems to have started somewhere around here.

Larger version of the NASA graphic here.
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Update – a newer post (2015/06/11) can now be viewed here:
Atmospheric convection – what does it mean?
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[comments are now closed on this thread – see ‘Update’ above]

The Albedo of Earth

“An important new paper finds that the albedo of Earth is highly regulated, mostly by clouds, with some surprising consequences”.

Celestial light and earthshine

This paper is about adding a further layer of correction to earthshine measurements and therefore albedo determination by terrestrial based observations.

Influence of celestial light on lunar surface brightness determinations: Application to earthshine studies
P. Thejll, H. Gleisner, C. Flynn
A&A 573 A131 (2015)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201424824
(open access with registration)

ABSTRACT

Aims. We consider the influence of celestial-sphere brightness on determinations of terrestrial albedo from earthshine intensity
measurements. In particular, the contributions from zodiacal light and starlight are considered.

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Results. We find that celestial-sphere surface brightness can be so large that a considerable and unacceptable error level would have
an impact on half of typical earthshine-based albedo-determinations if left unaccounted for. Considering the empirical uncertainty on
ZL, we show that almost all our earthshine data can be used if a sky correction is made. In real observations we find up to a 1% effect
on albedo results of correcting for the celestial brightness.
…

Ferenc Miskolczi: The Greenhouse Effect and the Infrared Radiative Structure of the Earth’s Atmosphere

Ferenc Miskolczi

Well here’s a nice surprise. Out of the blue, Dr Ferenc Miskolczi has dropped a link onto Tim Channon’s thread, which goes to his major new paper, published by the SEI. So we are privileged to be among the first to read it and start a discussion. It challenges the entire basis of the IPCC AGW theory by deriving a theoretical atmosphere which fits observations and demonstrates stability of the Earth’s radiative balance. Thanks Ferenc!

Ferenc Mikolczi 2014 Abstract