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Have you looked at the North Pole lately?

kickarse

Active member
Yeah the "climate/weather" is getting colder

was a global warming scare in the 20-40s a ice age scare in the 70s,
then back to a warming scare, now its time for a ice age scare again


hope I'm wrong, love the HOT weather
 
M

moose eater

Our fire season now starts earlier in the year, ends later in the year, and is mostly the result of lightning strikes.
 

St. Phatty

Active member
More about Australia.

They seem more than a little upset.

Basically the wildfire equivalent of a 100 year flood, in one way -
something most of the fire crew has not seen before.

But not in another way - there's no reason to expect next year to be better.

https://wildfiretoday.com/2019/11/1...mier-says-stay-away-from-bush-lands-tomorrow/

“We are in uncharted territory,” said NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons. “We have never seen this many fires concurrently at emergency warning level.”

+ Summer hasn't started. Nov. 12 ~ May 12, in the Southern Hemisphere.
 

igrowone

Well-known member
Veteran
and the 2019 greenland melt report from the NSIDC
lets just say it's still interesting in the arctic

Surface melting on the Greenland ice sheet ramped down at a near-normal pace in the weeks following the major melt event of early August. Only a few minor late-season melt events occurred in September and October. Overall, melting on the Greenland ice sheet for 2019 was the seventh-highest since 1978, behind 2012, 2010, 2016, 2002, 2007, and 2011. Since 2000, the ice sheet has experienced a general increase in melting, with melt-day area for 2019 totaling 28.3 million square kilometers (10.9 million square miles) for the season. Melting was observed over nearly 90 percent of the island on at least one day, reaching the Summit Station and much of the high-altitude areas. It was particularly intense along the northern edge of the ice sheet, where compared to the 1981 to 2010 average, melting occurred for an additional 35 days. The number of days with melting was slightly above average along the western flank of the ice sheet as well, with about 15 to 20 more days of melting than average. In the south and southeast, melting was slightly less than average by a few days.

Despite the less-than-record number of melt days, models show that 2019 had very large net ice loss for the year, at slightly more than 300 Gt, nearly equal to the intense melt year of 2012. Results of the University of Liege’s MAR 3.10 model (here using weather reanalysis data from NCEP-NCARv1; the ERA5 reanalysis data provides similar results) confirms that the 2018 to 2019 surface mass balance (SMB) departure from average is very close to the previous 2011 to 2012 record of surface mass loss. SMB is the net result of total snowfall and rainfall minus runoff and evaporation. This does not include the imbalance in discharge, or the extent to which glacier outflow exceeded remaining snowfall input, which is significant although smaller than earlier in the decade. The main area of mass loss was the western side of the ice sheet.
 

kickarse

Active member
Yeah yeah, its been 8-12 c here, pissing with rain

still winter, but the ("global") warming will arrive on the weekend, we got 14c both days

things will hopefully look("heat") up after that, hoping for a good summer

a nice HOT one will do, its been almost 10 fucking years since we seen one
last good one was 2009 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Saturday_bushfires

without the fires tho
 
You are kinda correct in a way...

Global Warming does eventually lead to an Ice Age.

It usually takes hundreds of years to cycle between them.

We have contributed to the climate changing faster.

CO2 and Methane first cause warming. Eventually the Oceans get so warm that the Atlantic current shuts down. This is what triggers the Ice Age, along with the CO2 in the Atmosphere.
 

trichrider

Kiss My Ring
Veteran
The amplified Arctic warming in the recent decades may have been overestimated by CMIP5 models

First published: 03 November 2019
https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL084385

This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as doi: 10.1029/2019GL084385


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Abstract

Realistically representing the Arctic amplification in global climate models (GCMs) represents a key to accurately predict the climate system's response to increasing anthropogenic forcings. We examined the amplified Arctic warming over the past century simulated by 36 state‐of‐the‐art GCMs against observation. We found a clear difference between the simulations and the observation in terms of the evolution of the secular warming rates. The observed rates of the secular Arctic warming increase from 0.14°C/10a in the early 1890s to 0.21°C/10a in the mid‐2010s, while the GCMs show a negligible trend to 0.35°C/10a at the corresponding times. The overestimation of the secular warming rate in the GCMs starts from the mid‐20th century and aggravates with time. Further analysis indicates that the overestimation mainly comes from the exaggerated heating contribution from the Arctic sea ice melting. This result implies that the future secular Arctic warming may have been over‐projected.


read full paper here: https://sci-hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL084385




14.11.2019
IPCC’s claims on global warming are based on erroneous calculations

Introduction

Climate has always changed and changes in a way which can’t be predicted temporally,
a) because climate is influenced by many unpredictable factors,

b) because of physical inaccuracies of the climate models,

c) because of numerical inaccuracies of the climate models.However, influences of various variables of the global climate, like carbon dioxide, can be estimated with reasonable accuracy by applying thermostatics and -dynamics. Emeritus professors Pertti Sarkomaa and Seppo Ruottu, henceforward the Authors,have studied influences of carbon dioxide on global climate, got acquainted with IPCC’s climate models and made from their studies the report Climate Change and Use of Fossil Fuels (henceforward the Report). In the Report the Authors have shown in IPCC’s climate models several errors, each of which as such makes the models invalid for studying of influences of carbon dioxide on global mean temperatures. The Authors have sent the Report for review among others to IPCC’s secretariat, all Finnish universities, WMO’s Secretary General Petteri Taalas, SITRA, the Finnish Meteorological Institute and the Finnish climate panel.The Authors have received feedback from Academy professor, Professor of Meteorology in Helsinki university Timo Vesala and Scientific director of the Finnish Meteorological Institute, professor Ari Laaksonen. Vesala’s feedback was that he didn’t have readiness to review the Report. With Laaksonen, who categorically defended IPCC’s climate models, a dispute by emails took place. It is unfathomable and destructive that measures of media, scientists, politicians,leaders of economy,industry and states are conducted by IPCC’s warming predictions which vary between 2 5 °C depending on cloud feedback, which physically doesn’t exist.The Authors wish that reading this popularly understandable proof of errors of IPCC’s climate models makes readersn who believe in IPCC, to reconsider their beliefs. Summary

Major results of the Report are presented in figures 1 10 of Appendix 4 which present results of calculations by the SR climate model. The figures prove that SR climate model produces correct results and responses correctly to all changes of calculation parameters. Accordingly, the SR climate model simulates correctly the global climate and proves that the influence of carbon dioxide on global mean temperatures is insignificant. Vesala or Laaksonen couldn’t show any errors in the figures1 10 of Appendix 4. Vesala didn’t comment the figures at all and Laaksonen commented only figure 1 and even it entirely wrong. In chapters Error 1 Error 8the Authors show that

a) IPCC’s climate models are physically wrong

b) based on physically senseless assumptions

c) atmospheric radiation is calculated wrong

d) influence of carbon dioxide depends on cloud feedback, which physically doesn’t exist.Tens of years research of heuristic cloud feedback is one of the most unfathomable plunders of science.The proofs of Errors 1 8 are based on simple physical and mathematical facts which everybody understands or can easily check. Finnish Meteorological Institute and the Finnish Climate Panel haven’t answered Authors’ request to comment the Errors1 8.This means,de facto,that they admit the Errors.


http://www.vita-aeterna.fi/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Errors-of-IPCCs-climate-models-14.11.2019.pdf



New findings on nitrous oxide emissions from
northern trees surprised scientists


4.11.2019
Life science news
Sustainability news

A recently published study, completed by researchers from the University of Helsinki together with Dr Katerina Machacova, a visiting scholar, demonstrates that boreal forests of the Northern Hemisphere are sources of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O). The study provides new information on the significance of trees as sinks and sources of greenhouse gases, proving that forests have relevance not only in the absorption of carbon, but also as a source of other greenhouse gases.

The research group observed that the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide is released into the atmosphere not only by the forest soil, but also by pine, birch and spruce, the trees of the northern boreal zone. The group has previously demonstrated (Machacova et al., 2016; Scientific Reports) that the stems and canopies of pine trees in the northern boreal zone are sources of N2O. This recent study indicated that also birches and spruces release the gas into the atmosphere.
“Trees may have an impact more significant than previously thought on the nitrous oxide balance of forests, as well as on the global N2O balance,” says Associate Professor Mari Pihlatie from the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, University of Helsinki.
The most important discovery in the study was that the N2O emissions of tree stems clearly vary by season, corresponding with the physiological activity of the trees. During the growing season, trees release nitrous oxide from their stems, while during dormancy in the winter, they can become consumers of the gas. Even though the consumption of N2O over the winter reduces annual emissions, trees remain annual N2O sources. Seasonal variation in N2O emissions corresponded with the carbon dioxide emissions of tree stems. Both types of emissions peaked in the summer.
Challenges in measuring tree emissions

“Trees acting as a source of nitrous oxide emissions is a new finding in the forest environment. Generally, trees have not been assumed to have a role in the N2O balance of forests, which is why no relevant measurements of trees have been made. To a certain degree, trees have been omitted from measurements due to challenges in constructing suitable measurement chambers that would fit around stems or that could be utilised in measuring canopies, an even more difficult task,” says Elisa Vainio, a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry.
According to prevailing scientific knowledge, the primary emission source for greenhouse gases is fertilised and nitrogen-rich farmland. Already in 1998, it was originally suggested that trees may transport to the atmosphere nitrogen oxide produced by microbes in the soil. Subsequently, the phenomenon was verified in laboratory experiments (Pihlatie et al., 2005). However, the number of studies completed on the topic after that can be counted on one hand.
A range of environmental factors affect forests’ greenhouse gas emissions

In the recently published study, comprehensive measurements of environmental factors in the atmosphere, soil and trees were combined with nitrous oxide emissions for the first time. The SMEAR II / ICOS research station at the Hyytiälä Forestry Field Station is a unique measurement location known for its comprehensive and continuous measurement of forest functions. By combining N2O emissions measured from trees and the soil with the measurements made on the ecosystem level at the station, it was observed that the N2O dynamics of trees correspond with their physiological activity.
Furthermore, the researchers demonstrated that even in boreal forests with low nitrogen levels where the amount of nitrogen restricts tree growth, part of the nitrogen in the ecosystem is released into the atmosphere as nitrous oxide. In the earlier studies carried out by the group, it was found that the N2O emissions of the forest being measured only constituted a fraction of the nitrogen consumption and internal nitrogen cycle of the forest (Korhonen et al., 2013).
In other words, the forest is efficient in recycling by breaking up organic matter found in the soil and releasing nitrogen in a form useable by plants, which trees then use for growing. Eventually, the nitrogen is returned to the soil in the form of needle and leaf litter. A small portion of the recycled nitrogen ends up in the atmosphere as nitrous oxide, either directly from the soil or transported from the soil by trees.
The researchers suggest that most of the N2O released by tree stems is produced by microbes in the soil and transported via the transpiration stream of trees from roots to stems, from where it is released into the atmosphere.
According to the researchers, N2O emissions from spruces may be of special importance in Central Europe, where spruces are widely grown in monoculture. As there are no other studies published on the seasonal variation of the N2O exchange of trees, there is a great global demand for further research.
More information:


Original article:

Machacova, K., Vainio, E., Urban, O. and Pihlatie M. Seasonal dynamics of stem N2O exchange follow the physiological activity of boreal trees. Nat Communications10, 4989 (2019) doi:10.1038/s41467-019-12976-y
Viitteet:
Machacova, K., Bäck, J., Vanhatalo, A., Halmeenmäki, E., Kolari, P., Mammarella, I., Pumpanen, J., Acosta, M., Urban, O., and Pihlatie M. Pinus sylvestris as a missing source of nitrous oxide and methane in boreal forest. Scientific Reports 6, 23410; doi: 10.1038/srep23410 (2016).
Korhonen, J., Pihlatie, M., Pumpanen, J., Aaltonen, H., Hari, P., Levula, J., Kieloaho, A.-J., Nikinmaa E., Vesala T., Ilvesniemi H. 2013. Nitrogen balance of a boreal Scots pine forest. Biogeosciences. 10, 1083-1095. doi:10.5194/bg-10-1083-2013
Pihlatie M., Ambus P., Rinne J., Pilegaard K. and Vesala T. 2005. Plant-mediated nitrous oxide emissions from beech (Fagus sylvatica) leaves. New Phytologist 168, 93-98.doi: 10.1111/j.1469-8137.2005.01542.
See also videos related to the research group’s work:
Trees in the fight against climate change
Akatemiapalkinto 2018 Mari Pihlatie


https://www.helsinki.fi/en/news/lif...ions-from-northern-trees-surprised-scientists


Trees in the fight against climate change

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPP7-cDbK88&feature=youtu.be



Cloud Climatology

By William Rossow — March 1996
Computer Climate Models

Because there are so many possibilities for change, climatologists must know how clouds over the entire Earth will respond. Determining that response calls for computer models of the global climate that can explore changing conditions several decades into the future.
Climate models are sets of mathematical equations that describe the properties of Earth's atmosphere at descrete positions and times, along with the ways such properties can change. The challenge for climate models is to account for the most important physical processes and their complex interactions accurately enough to carry climatic predictions tens of years into the future. When contemporary models are given information about Earth's present condition - the size, shape and topography of the continents; the composition of the atmosphere; the amount of sunlight striking the globe - they create artificial climates that mathematically resemble the real one. They can forecast winds, rain, temperature, cloud cover and radiation balance to within 10 to 15 percent of the magnitude of their real-world counterparts.
Unfortunately, that margin of error is too large for making a reliable forecast about global warming. A doubling in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), predicted to take place in the next 50 to 100 years, is expected to change the radiation balance at the surface by only about 2 percent. Yet according to current climate models, even such a small change could raise global temperatures between 2-5°C (4-9°F), with potentially dramatic consequences. If a 2 percent change makes that much difference, a climate model must be accurate to within at least half a percent to be useful. Thus today's models must be improved more than tenfold in accuracy, requiring much more and much better data for developing a better understanding of clouds.


https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/rossow_01/computer.html


Simulation of Surface Ozone

Ozone (O3) is a highly reactive gas that is photochemically produced in the atmosphere. In the stratosphere, it absorbs ultraviolet radiation and protects life on Earth. Close to the surface, however, ozone is a potent pollutant that is harmful to both humans and the environment. This animation shows the amount (concentration) of ozone in the atmosphere at the surface of Earth, as represented by the GEOS composition forecast system (GEOS-CF) for the time period July 22 – August 10 2019. High concentrations of ozone are depicted in white while low concentrations are shown in dark blue. As shown in the simulation, surface ozone exhibits a strong change through the day (diurnal cycle). It is formed in the daytime, under the influence of sunlight, through chemical reactions of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds. The highest concentrations are found in the afternoon in the vicinity of urban areas, a consequence of human activities releasing nitrogen oxides and other pollutants, and in other polluted regions, such as around wildfires.


https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4764


:tiphat:
 

kickarse

Active member
Solar cycle 25 is almost here

look out below, its going to be a bit chilly soon

the cold seems to have already started, sunspots have all but disappeared towards the end of Solar cycle 24

the young flogs wont know what hit them, they better rug up for their "global warming" protests
 

trichrider

Kiss My Ring
Veteran
Globalists Openly Admit To Population Control Agenda - And That's A Bad Sign...

by Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/15/2019 - 23:45
Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,


Eugenics and population control are long time hobbies of the financial elites. In the early 1900's, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie Institute were deeply involved in promoting Eugenics laws in the US. These laws led to the forced sterilization of over 60,000 American citizens in states like California and thousands of rejected marriage licenses. The Eugenics programs in the US were only a beta test though, as the Rockefellers then transferred their programs over to Germany under Hitler and the Third Reich in the 1930's, were a true widespread eugenics-based population control program was introduced.
denver-airport.jpg

The targets of population reduction were based on ethnic background, but also “mental intelligence” and economic status. The Carnegie Institute even established a “Eugenics Records Office” called Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory in 1904, which collected genetic data on millions of Americans and their families with the intent of controlling their numbers and erasing certain traits from the US population. The Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory still exists today and presents itself as a kind of philanthropic endeavor to help humanity.

Public knowledge of the globalists and their population control agenda was carefully swept under the rug in the US after the exposure of Nazi programs post-WWII. The word “eugenics” became a very ugly one and all the effort the elites put into promoting it as a legitimate science was ruined. However, they were not going to give up on their precious ideology.
In the late 1960's into the 1970's there was a resurgence of population control rhetoric coming out of globalist circles. Under the supervision of the UN and some related scientific groups, the Club Of Rome was formed. A prominent part of the Club of Rome's agenda was population reduction. In 1972 the group of “scientists” under the UN's direction published a paper called 'The Limits Of Growth', which called for greatly reduced human population in the name of “saving the environment”. This effort was directly linked to another agenda – the institution of a global government that could handle and enforce population controls on a wide scale.
The elites had found a new scientific front for their eugenics obsession: Climate science. In the early 1990's the Club Of Rome published a book called 'The First Global Revolution'. In it they state:
In searching for a common enemy against whom we can unite, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like, would fit the bill. In their totality and their interactions these phenomena do constitute a common threat which must be confronted by everyone together. But in designating these dangers as the enemy, we fall into the trap, which we have already warned readers about, namely mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention in natural processes. and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy then is humanity itself.”
The statement comes from Chapter 5 – The Vacuum, which covers their position on the need for global government. The quote is relatively clear; a common enemy must be conjured in order to trick humanity into uniting under a single banner, and the elites see environmental catastrophe, caused by mankind itself, as the best possible motivator. It also outlines the perfect rationale for population control – Mankind is the enemy, therefore, mankind as a species must be kept under strict supervision and his proliferation must be restricted.
The Club of Rome and the UN agenda have always been intimately connected. In the 1990's at the same time 'The First Global Revolution' was being published, UN assistant secretary general Robert Muller was publishing his manifesto which is now collected on a website called 'Good Morning World'. Muller argues that global governance must be achieved using the idea of “protecting the Earth” and environmentalism as the key components. Through fear of environmental Apocalypse, the public could be convinced to accept global government as a necessary nanny state to keep society from destroying itself.
In a paper titled 'Proper Earth Government: A Framework And Ways To Create It' Robert Muller outlines how climate change could be used to convince the masses of the need for global government. Integral to his plan were the introduction of a new “global religion”, and population controls.
It should come as no surprise that the UN established the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC) and that this panel and it's offshoots are now at the forefront of the argument for population reduction. As we close in on the end date for the UN's Agenda 2030, which calls for a radical shift of human production from oil and other large scale energy sources into small scale “renewable energies”, there is only 10 years left for the globalists to achieve their goals if they hope to meet their announced deadline. This would require a violent change in human society and most of all industrialized nations.
The human population would have to be reduced dramatically in order to survive on the meager energy output of renewables alone. A disaster of epic proportions would have to take place soon so that the globalists could then spend the next decade using the resulting fear to convince the surviving population that global governance is needed. Without aggressive crisis and change most people would never go along with the UN's agenda, out of simple desire for self preservation. Even many leftists, once exposed to the true nature of carbon controls and population reduction, might have second thoughts when they realize they could be affected.
The key to understanding people who cheer for population control or population reduction is that these people always assume that THEY will be the survivors and inheritors of the Earth after the culling. They never assume that they will be the one's put on the chopping block.
In 2019, the population agenda is being ramped into high gear and the public is being carefully conditioned over time to accept the idea that man-made climate change is real and population is the source of the problem. Recently, a groups of scientists partially funded by something called the “Worthy Garden Club” claimed 11,000 signatures on a statement for the need for population reduction in the name of saving the Earth from global warming.
The statement cites all the same long debunked IPCC and UN climate change propaganda as the reasons why the Earth is on the verge of annihilation. The fact of the matter is, climate scientists have been consistently caught red handed manipulating their own data to show the intended outcome of global warming. They have even been caught trying to adjust their own data from 20 years ago in order to match it more closely to the rigged data they publish today.
The Worthy Garden Club is a strangely sterile group and there doesn't seem to be any list of their patrons and who funds them. However, the mainstream media was quick to pick up on the statement from the “11,000 scientists” and tie it to statements made by the UN's IPCC.
Population control has also been brought up consistently as an issue in the 2020 Presidential Election race. Bernie Sanders argued for birth control measures in poor countries. Elizabeth Warren promoted abortion by saying it was as safe as “getting your tonsils removed”. She has consistently promoted the carbon control agenda of the UN and was, interestingly, a member of the University Of Texas Population research Center in the 1980s. And, Green New Deal politicians are throwing their support behind the statements from the Worthy Garden Club on population reduction.
This is the first time I have seen the argument for population reduction used so blatantly and widespread in the mainstream media, and it suggests to me that a trend is forming. For years I have warned my readers that they will know when the globalists are about to pull the plug on the current system when they start talking about their criminality openly. When they admit to their agenda in a free way, this means they are close to a global reset and do not care anymore who knows about it. The openness of the plan to cut world population is becoming apparent.

Strangely, there has been little mention of the fact that the world population, in the west most of all, is actually in decline. Far from exploding beyond the Earth's capacity, people are barely having enough children to keep the current population stable. It would appear that the globalist agenda is already in motion. Through engineered economic disintegration, the population is being slowly reduced. However, this slow decline may not be enough to satisfy the globalists.
How many people would the globalists like to kill off to achieve their utopian aspirations? Well, globalist Ted Turner in a moment of honesty said when confronted by We Are Change that the population should be reduced to 2 billion down from 7 billion.
The primary issue here beyond the moral horror show of eugenics is, who gets cut? And furthermore, who gets to decide who gets cut? Who gets to decide if you can have children or not? Who gets to decide if you are allowed to access resources to produce and make a living or not? Who gets to decide if the global economy will sustain the population or not? Who pulls the trigger on the culling of the population?
As history has shown us, it is always the elites that end up in the position of deciding the fates of millions or billions. From the Rockefeller Foundation sterilization programs in the US in the early 1900's to the UN today, the globalists, a veritable death cult, are desperate to conjure a rationalization as to why they should be the ones to allow or deny human life based on lies like man-made climate change. They don't believe in the climate change threat, THEY were the people that fabricated it. So, what is the core reason behind all of this?
A reduced population completely dependent on limited energy sources might be easier to dominate. But I have another theory – they are psychopaths looking for a socially justifiable way to kill as many people as possible. Why? because they enjoy it.
:noway:
 

kickarse

Active member
The Fabian Socialists do the dirty work for them ^^, and they fund the socialist in return
called progressives in your ****ry ?, its all there in history

together they are behind all the global institutions

Socialists in bed with the $$$$ printers lol
all the while claiming to be looking after the worker and the needy, what a fucking joke

ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT will solve all our problems, they hope "climate change" will do it, it will be the only way left to save the future, from the nasty weather

we could(will) be completely enslaved, and no more allowed to own property

EQUALITY hey, it will be fucking great, we can all be equal, swimming in the shit
 

trichrider

Kiss My Ring
Veteran
Nov. 22, 2019
NASA Rockets Study Why Tech Goes Haywire Near Poles

Animated illustration showing the the solar wind streaming around Earth's magnetosphere. Near the North and South Poles, Earth's magnetic field forms funnels that allow the solar wind access to the upper atmosphere.
Credits: NASA/CILab/Josh Masters

Each second, 1.5 million tons of solar material shoot off of the Sun and out into space, traveling at hundreds of miles per second. Known as the solar wind, this incessant stream of plasma, or electrified gas, has pelted Earth for more than 4 billion years. Thanks to our planet’s magnetic field, it’s mostly deflected away. But head far enough north, and you’ll find the exception.
“Most of Earth is shielded from the solar wind,” said Mark Conde, space physicist as the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. “But right near the poles, in the midday sector, our magnetic field becomes a funnel where the solar wind can get all the way down to the atmosphere.”
These funnels, known as the polar cusps, can cause some trouble. The influx of solar wind disturbs the atmosphere, disrupting satellites and radio and GPS signals. Beginning Nov. 25, 2019, three new NASA-supported missions will launch into the northern polar cusp, aiming to improve the technology affected by it.


Shaky Satellites

The three missions are all part of the Grand Challenge Initiative – Cusp, a series of nine sounding rocket missions exploring the polar cusp. Sounding rockets are a type of space vehicle that makes 15-minute flights into space before falling back to Earth. Standing up to 65 feet tall and flying anywhere from 20 to 800 miles high, sounding rockets can be aimed and fired at moving targets with only a few minutes notice. This flexibility and precision make them ideal for capturing the strange phenomena inside the cusp.
Two of the three upcoming missions will study the same anomaly: a patch of atmosphere inside the cusp notably denser than its surroundings. It was discovered in 2004, when scientists noticed that part of the atmosphere inside the cusp was about 1.5 times heavier than expected.

Video from CREX's last flight, showing vapor tracers following high-altitude polar winds. Both CREX-2 and CHI missions will use a similar methodology to track winds thought to support the density enhancement inside the cusp.
Credits: NASA/CREX/Mark Conde


“A little extra mass 200 miles up might seem like no big deal,” said Conde, the principal investigator for the Cusp Region Experiment-2, or CREX-2, mission. "But the pressure change associated with this increased mass density, if it occurred at ground level, would cause a continuous hurricane stronger than anything seen in meteorological records.”
This additional mass creates problems for spacecraft flying through it, like the many satellites that follow a polar orbit. Passing through the dense patch can shake up their trajectories, making close encounters with other spacecraft or orbital debris riskier than they would otherwise be.
“A small change of a few hundred meters can make the difference between having to do an evasive maneuver, or not,” Conde said.
Both CREX-2 and Cusp Heating Investigation, or CHI mission, led by Miguel Larsen of Clemson University in South Carolina, will study this heavy patch of atmosphere to better predict its effects on satellites passing through. “Each mission has its own strengths, but ideally, they’ll be launched together,” Larsen said.


Corrupted Communication

It’s not just spacecraft that behave unpredictably near the cusp – so do the GPS and communications signals they transmit. The culprit, in many cases, is atmospheric turbulence.
“Turbulence is one of the really hard remaining questions in classical physics,” said Jøran Moen, space physicist at the University of Oslo. “We don’t really know what it is because we have no direct measurements yet.”
Moen, who is leading the Investigation of Cusp Irregularities-5 or ICI-5 mission, likens turbulence to the swirling eddies that form when rivers rush around rocks. When the atmosphere grows turbulent, GPS and communication signals passing through it can become garbled, sending unreliable signals to the planes and ships that depend on them.

Illustration of the ICI-5 rocket deploying its 12 daughter payloads. Once in space, these additional sensors will help scientists distinguish turbulence from waves, both of which could be the cause of corrupted communication signals.
Credits: Andøya Space Center/Trond Abrahamsen


Moen hopes to make the first measurements to distinguish true turbulence from electric waves that can also disrupt communication signals. Though both processes have similar effects on GPS, figuring out which phenomenon drives these disturbances is critical to predicting them.
“The motivation is to increase the integrity of the GPS signals,” Moen said. “But we need to know the driver to forecast when and where these disturbances will occur.”


Waiting on Weather

The extreme North provides a pristine locale for examining physics much harder to study elsewhere. The tiny arctic town on Svalbard, the Norwegian archipelago from which the ICI-5 and CHI rockets will launch, has a small population and strict restrictions on the use of radio or Wi-Fi, creating an ideal laboratory environment for science.
“Turbulence occurs in many places, but it’s better to go to this laboratory that is not contaminated by other processes,” Moen said. “The ‘cusp laboratory’ — that’s Svalbard.”
Ideally, the CHI rocket would launch from Svalbard at nearly the same time that CREX-2 launches from Andenes, Norway. The ICI-5 rocket, on a second launcher in Svalbard, would fly soon after. But the timing can be tricky: Andenes is 650 miles south of Svalbard, and can experience different weather. “It’s not a requirement, but launching together would certainly multiply the scientific returns of the missions,” Conde said.
Keeping a constant eye on the weather, waiting for the right moment to launch, is a key part of launching rockets — even part of the draw.
“It really is an all-consuming thing,” Conde said. “All you do when you’re out there is watch conditions and talk about the rocket and decide what you would do.”


https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/nasa-rockets-study-why-tech-goes-haywire-near-poles
 

trichrider

Kiss My Ring
Veteran
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273117719307896
Temperature and pressure variability in mid-latitude low atmosphere and stratosphere-ionosphere coupling

This study presents the continuation of our previous analysis of variations of atmospheric and space weather parameters above Iberian Peninsula along two years near the 24th solar cycle maximum. In the previous paper (Morozova et al., 2017) we mainly discussed the first mode of principal component analysis of tropospheric and lower stratospheric temperature and pressure fields, which was shown to be correlated with lower stratospheric ozone and anti-correlated with cosmic ray flux. Now we extend the investigation to the second mode, which suggests a coupling between the stratosphere and the ionosphere.
This second mode, located in the low and middle stratosphere (and explaining ~7% of temperature and ~3% of geopotential height variations), showed to be statistically significantly correlated with variations of the middle stratosphere ozone content and anti-correlated with variations of ionospheric total electron content. Similar co-variability of these stratospheric and ionospheric parameters was also obtained with the wavelet cross-coherence analysis.
To investigate the role of atmospheric circulation dynamics and the causal nature of the found correlations, we applied the convergent cross mapping (CCM) analysis to our series. Strong evidence for the stratosphere-ionosphere coupling were obtained for the winter 2012–2013 that is characterized by the easterly QBO phase (quasi-biennial oscillations of the direction of the stratospheric zonal winds) and a strong SSW (sudden stratospheric warming event). Further analysis (for the three-year time interval 2012–2015) hint that SSWs events play main role in emphasizing the stratosphere-ionosphere coupling.
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https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019GL082442

Underestimating Internal Variability Leads to Narrow Estimates of Climate System Properties

Alex G. Libardoni
Chris E. Forest
Andrei P. Sokolov
Erwan Monier



First published: 19 August 2019
https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL082442
Citations: 1

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Abstract

Probabilistic estimates of climate system properties often rely on the comparison of model simulations to observed temperature records and an estimate of the internal climate variability. In this study, we investigate the sensitivity of probability distributions for climate system properties in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Earth System Model to the internal variability estimate. In particular, we derive probability distributions using the internal variability extracted from 25 different Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 models. We further test the sensitivity by pooling variability estimates from models with similar characteristics. We find the distributions to be highly sensitive when estimating the internal variability from a single model. When merging the variability estimates across multiple models, the distributions tend to converge to a wider distribution for all properties. This suggests that using a single model to approximate the internal climate variability produces distributions that are too narrow and do not fully represent the uncertainty in the climate system property estimates.



1 Introduction

Despite improvements to climate models, observational systems, and methodologies, the estimated likely range of equilibrium climate sensitivity has remained relatively unchanged from the Charney Report (Charney, 1979) to the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report (Collins et al., 2013). In both reports, the central estimate for climate sensitivity is 3 °C with a likely range of 1.5 to 4.5 °C. A recent review suggests that although a climate sensitivity below 2 °C may be inconsistent with the current physical understanding of climate system feedbacks, the 1.5 to 4.5 °C range remains relatively unchanged (Knutti et al., 2017). The lack of convergence toward a single value does not imply a lack of knowledge, however, but rather the inherent difficulty of the problem. Estimates of climate sensitivity remain uncertain for a number of reasons, some of which are outlined in Hegerl et al. (2000) and remain relevant today. The first reason is uncertainty in observations. Many studies estimate climate sensitivity using historical observations of climate change. Due to instrumental errors, coverage gaps, and inhomogeneity in measurement practices, there is irreducible error in the time series of climate variables. The second reason is systematic/structural errors in models. Many studies derive estimates of climate sensitivity by comparing model output to observations (e.g., Forest et al., 2008; Knutti et al., 2003; Libardoni & Forest, 2013; Olson et al., 2013). All models are approximations of reality and thus do not exactly match the climate system. The last reason is chaotic or internal variability in the climate system. In the absence of external forcing, fluctuations in the atmosphere and ocean still occur due to processes and feedbacks active in the climate system. This unforced internal variability is embedded in any climate signal, and due to its chaotic nature, represents an irreducible uncertainty.
Here, we show how estimates of climate sensitivity are affected by different estimates of internal variability. In previous work to evaluate model performance (Libardoni et al., 2018a, 2018b), a goodness‐of‐fit statistic is used that weighs model‐to‐observation residuals in temperature diagnostics by the internal variability of the climate system (see equation 1). In many methods (Aldrin et al., 2012; Olson et al., 2013; Sansó & Forest, 2009), internal variability is estimated from preindustrial control runs of atmosphere‐ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs). In these runs, forcing patterns are fixed over long simulations and the coupled atmosphere and ocean system interacts in the absence of changes in external forcings. Thus far, we have only used one model to estimate the internal variability. Over 20 AOGCMs submitted preindustrial controls runs to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5; Taylor et al., 2012). Due to structural differences, the internal variability is not the same across all models and a single model does not span the full range of variability. We show here that this has a significant impact on the calculation of probability distributions for climate sensitivity and other climate system properties. At best, the uncertainty in the resulting estimates are similar when variability is estimated from a single model compared to when multiple models are used, but the uncertainty is generally underestimated when just a single model is used to estimate the variability.



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https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/latest/2019/12/volcanic-rocks-create-global-warming.aspx
Carbon emissions from volcanic rocks can create global warming - study

Posted on 05 Dec 2019


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Greenhouse gas emissions released directly from the movement of volcanic rocks can create massive global warming effects.



Greenhouse gas emissions released directly from the movement of volcanic rocks are capable of creating massive global warming effects – a discovery which could transform the way scientists predict climate change, a new study reveals.
 

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Stratospheric Sulfate Aerosol Geoengineering Could Alter the High‐Latitude Seasonal Cycle

Jiu Jiang
Long Cao
Douglas G. MacMartin
Isla R. Simpson
Ben Kravitz
Wei Cheng
Daniele Visioni
Simone Tilmes
Jadwiga H. Richter
Michael J. Mills



First published: 03 December 2019
https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL085758

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Abstract

Stratospheric aerosol geoengineering (SAG) has been proposed to reduce some impacts of anthropogenic climate change. Previous studies examined annual mean climate responses to SAG. Here we use the Stratospheric Aerosol Geoengineering Large Ensemble simulations to explore the effects of SAG on the seasonal cycle of climate change. Simulations show that relative to the present‐day climate, SAG diminishes the amplitude of the seasonal cycle of temperature at many high‐latitude locations, with warmer winters and cooler summers. The seasonal temperature shift significantly influences the seasonal cycle of snow depth and sea ice, with Arctic sea ice recovery overcompensated in summer by 52% and undercompensated in winter by 8%. We identify that both the dynamic effects of aerosol‐induced stratospheric heating and seasonal variations of sunlight contribute to the shifts in seasonal cycle. Shifts in the seasonal cycle have important ecological and environmental implications, which should be considered in geoengineering impact analysis.

Plain Language Summary

Stratospheric aerosol geoengineering, by releasing sulfate aerosol particles or their precursors (SO2) into the stratosphere to scatter more sunlight back to space, is a potential climate intervention option to counteract anthropogenic global warming. Previous studies focused on the effect of aerosol injection on annual mean climate change. Here we assess seasonal climate shifts in response to aerosol injection using a large ensemble of sophisticated climate model simulations. Relative to the high‐CO2 scenario, stratospheric aerosol injection can stabilize many aspects of climate change on the annual mean basis including global mean temperature, interhemispheric temperature gradient, and equator‐to‐pole temperature gradient. However, we find that injection of SO2 into the stratosphere would substantially alter the high‐latitude seasonal cycle. Relative to the present‐day climate, in a high‐CO2 world with additional aerosols in the stratosphere, many high‐latitude locations are warmer in winter and cooler in summer. Meanwhile, stratospheric aerosol geoengineering overcompensated Arctic sea ice extent recovery in summer and undercompensated it in winter. These seasonal climate shifts have important ecological, economic, and aesthetic implications for a full assessment of benefits and risks of stratospheric aerosol geoengineering.


https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2019GL085758


A global survey of apparent aerosol‐cloud interaction signals

Lazaros Oreopoulos
Nayeong Cho
Dongmin Lee



First published: 03 December 2019
https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JD031287

This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as doi: 10.1029/2019JD031287


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We update and expand analysis of the apparent responses to aerosol variations of the planet's cloud regimes seen by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). We distinguish between morning aerosol loadings and afternoon clouds, and consider local scales explicitly. Aerosol loading is represented by gridded aerosol optical depth (AOD) from either MODIS or a re‐analysis dataset, while cloud information comes exclusively from MODIS. The afternoon cloud affected quantities (CAQs) examined in conjunction with morning AOD include precipitation and cloud radiative effect, in addition to cloud properties. One analysis thrust focuses on calculating global means distinguished by morning cloud regime, of afternoon CAQs, for distinct percentiles of grid cell seasonal morning AOD distributions. When the dependence of these global means on AOD is examined, we find persistent increases in cloud radiative fluxes with AOD as predicted by classic aerosol‐cloud interaction paradigms, but also deviations from expected cloud responses, especially for precipitation. The other analysis thrust involves calculations at one‐degree scales of logarithmic CAQ sensitivities to AOD perturbations, approximated by linear regression slopes for distinct morning cloud regime groups. While the calculations are fundamentally local, we concentrate on the prevailing sensitivity signs in statistics of the slopes at global scales. Results from this second analysis approach indicate CAQ directions of change with AOD that are largely consistent with the first approach. When using a rather simple methodology where meteorological variables are treated as if they were CAQs, no conclusive results on the potential influence of meteorology on our findings are inferred.

Plain Language Summary

We use a variety of satellite data and satellite observations processed through a model to investigate whether we can see at global scales evidence of aerosols affecting clouds and quantities associated with them such as precipitation and the amount of radiation they reflect or emit. The (in)consistencies of what our analysis reveals compared to what is expected based on well‐established theoretical and empirical expectations is discussed.


https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019JD031287
 
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