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a variation on Piers

3 January 2015
Climate change

At http://joannenova.com.au/2015/01/is-the-sun-driving-ozone-and-changing-t… … which is a look at the Sun, the big orb in the sky that is largely ignored by climate science. Is it a key factor in climate change? Surprisingly, the Sun has a fairly minor role in climate models, assumed to be a near constant and therefore exerting very little extra heat to planet Earth. Something more drastic was required – co2.

Previously, Joanne has looked at the ideas of David Evens – and his notch delay theory. After TSI peaks the temperature on Earth follows with a peak roughly 11 years later (one solar cycle) which appears to be a device to get round the fact that active solar cycles do not necessarily equate with instant heat. Delaying the onset of the heat is one way to counter climate scientist objections to a link with solar. To a layman it would appear likely that the Sun had something to do with higher temperatures on Earth – or could it just be that clouds cause cooling, or might it be the orbit of the Earth travelling through an extensive dusty region of space that causes an opaque atmosphere where the Sun is inhibited to a small degree. As you can see, climate is not an easy thing to pin down – as far as the Sun is concerned. However, Piers Corbyn manages to use the Sun to make long range weather forecasts of the type the Met Office is unable, or unwilling to do in public.

In this post Joanne has a look at the hypothesis of Stephen Wilde – which is interesting but is not received with too much enthusiasm going by the tone of some of the comments. Wilde, in turn, is not persuaded by Piers, even though there are some obvious similarities. Here, the focus is on ozone – and how it inter-acts with solar CMEs. Basically, Wilde is saying the Sun affects the ozone content of the atmosphere through changes in UV or charged particles. Wne the Sun is active there is more ozone above the equator and less over the poles – and when it is less active vice versa. An increase in in ozone warms the stratosphere or mesosphere which has the effect of pushing the tropopause lower. Hence, thee is a solar induced see saw effect on the height of the tropopause, which causes the climate zones to shift towards and then away from the equator, moving the jet streams and changing them from zonal jet streams to meridonal jet streams. When meridonal the jet streams bend in loops further to the north and further to the south which means long lines of air mass mix at climate zone boundaries. This in turn creates more clouds. Clouds reflect sunlight back out to space which determines how much the climae system is heated. Hence, it is the Sun's UV and charged particles responsible for modulating the climate.

There are large numbers of climate scientists beavering away in modern developed nations, all earning nice salaries and occupying prime office space. However, it they are all looking at co2 as the driver of climate can their models ever get to best fit reality – the state of the climate outside their computer screens. None of them appear to want to look at ozone as environmentalists made all that fuss a few years ago about CFCs and holes in the ozone layer (before anyone got to research and understand what happens with ozone in the atmosphere and it shifts from the poles on a regular basis and always returns when the Sun allows). It would be too embarrassing for them to bring attention to the howler committed by their pals.

In October 2014 a paper by Anderson et al provided a different driver in the Sun – Earth connection, energetic electron precipitation (raining electrons) which decreases ozone above the poles and in the mesosphere. This is all beginning to sound something like the Electric Universe theory – without the electricity. When the north and south poles field lines converge the Earth drags the atmosphere around a single point, the tropopause is lower and temperature inversion can happen. Polar vortices occur when an area of lower pressure sits at the rotation pole of the planet. This causes air to spiral down from higher in the atmosphere like water pouring down a drain pipe. This means, as an aide, that above the poles even the high mesosphere affects the height of the tropopause – and so on (4 pages to read). The inference of his hypothesis (that is what it is) the decline in solar activity from solar cycle 23 to 24 is the cause of more frequent and intense increases of polar air across middle latitudes as we have witnessed in recent years (although during the last year we have been at the peak of cycle 24 so activity has been higher than in the few years leading up to the peak – and will be followed by less activity as we move towards the end of cycle 24). We don't know how active 25 might be.

The world is divided into permanent cycle zones which align with latitude as a result of the rotation of the Earth. These zones can move polar wards – or towards the equator, in response to changes in Earth's energy budget. Polar ward shift was a feature of the late 20th century – exactly when the global warming frenzy took off. It is well known that the climate zone shifted equator ward during the Little Ice Age (one has only to read HH Lamb to get a handle on this). This happened on various other occasions throughout history – it is nothing new. For example, the Roman Warm Period would have coincided with polar ward movement of the climate zone – but there was a blip where an equator ward movement occurred in the 3rd century AD, and again in the Late Roman period the weather returned to the usual British rain and cool summers we are all familiar with. In the Roman period British farms produced a lot of grain – and there was high grain production in North Africa and other parts of the empire as well, proof of a different climate regime.

In the Medieval Warm Period Greenland was colonised by farmers (along the coast) and the Western Isles of Scotland were prosperous and productive – with a large population. The jet stream was obvious way to the north – unlike in the modern world (and totally unlike the situation in the Little Ice Age when the Scottish population of the island and highlands fell into rapid decline). Landowners opted for sheep as crofts became unproductive – and a similar situation of peasants being driven from the land in place of livestock as occurred in parts of England in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Joanne says Wilde's hypothesis is a possible mechanism for the notch delay theory of David Evans – see http://sciencespeak.com/climate-nd-solar.html

 

 

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