(meteorobs) Fwd: "meteor smoke" is essential to the formation of noctilucent clouds.

Tue Aug 7 23:21:49 EDT 2012

15's being a bit generous.  It's more like 10-12 years, and when you
look at the entire data set, the current dip looks much like any of
the other localized spots in the overall trend of increasing
temperature.

http://www.gci.org.uk/Documents/Hansen_20120119_Temperature.pdf

All of the empirical evidence we have of past climate change
stretching back hundreds of millions of years (~60 million years with
greater detail) suggests that global atmospheric and dissolved oceanic
CO2 concentrations are tied to global warming.

How those two things are related is open to debate, and questioning
*some* of the proposed feedback mechanisms is probably wise.

However, the climate record for the past ~130 years is undoubtedly
better evidence for warming than the previous decade that you say goes
against it.

Alarmism may not be the way to go, but when you look at current CO2
concentrations and the geological record of climate change and
warming, the only remotely comparable event is the Paleocene-Eocene
Thermal Maximum.

http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/content/40/3/263.short

This event was characterized by a rapid release of organic carbon,
most likely as methane or carbon dioxide.  It resulted in a positive
climate anomaly mass extinction of benthic foraminifera...and other
life.

If the rocks aren't lying, we're doing the same thing to the
atmosphere and oceans by releasing anthropogenic CO2 as rapidly as we
are.  I don't know what will happen, but the planet's climate is
*probably* tied to the composition of the atmosphere.  Assuming
otherwise seems silly.

Solar output is not something we can control or even necessarily
predict beyond well-known cycles, but we have no reason to believe
that the sun is planning to decrease overall output to accommodate for
Earth's changing atmospheric composition.

As a studying geologist, I'm willing to say that I don't know what
will happen as we change the composition of Earth's atmosphere.  But,
I do know that a large sector of geology now focuses on how climate
change is easily tracked via observable isotopic and chemical
signatures in the geologic record.  We (people) are driving those
changes in ways that are tied only to periods of global warming in our
record of the past.

An open mind is a good thing, but so is a cautious one.  You're
talking about the Earth's climate.  We have only one, and neither you
nor I know what these changes we are making will do.  It seems silly
to assume that nothing will happen when you have no evidence to back
it up and so much is riding on the outcome.  To say nothing of the
papers supporting the idea of global warming that do hold water.  Some
of the arguments being made are silly.  Many are not.

On Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 6:40 PM, Matson, Robert D.
<ROBERT.D.MATSON at saic.com> wrote:
> To buttress what Richard Kramer posted, how many of you are aware of the
> fact
> that global temperatures have remained statistically flat (if not
> slightly
> declining) for the last *15* years -- in spite of a 9% rise in
> atmospheric
> CO2 over that same time period? It is fair to say that the climate
> models
> upon which the IPCC bases its global warming alarmism have proven to be
> not just a little bit off, but utterly, spectacularly wrong. Among other
> shortcomings, the models fail to properly address spectral and
> radiometric
> changes in solar output, while including positive feedback mechanisms
> between CO2 and water vapor that do not exist in the real world.
>
> How many more years of flat to falling temperatures will be enough to
> convince people of the folly of attributing the lion's share of mid- to
> late-20th-century warming to the burning of fossil fuels? Another five?
> Another ten?  --Rob.Long-time-AGW-Skeptic
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: meteorobs-bounces at meteorobs.org
> [mailto:meteorobs-bounces at meteorobs.org] On Behalf Of Richard Kramer
> Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2012 7:44 AM
> To: marco.langbroek at online.nl; Meteor science and meteor observing
> Subject: Re: (meteorobs) Fwd: "meteor smoke" is essential to the
> formation of noctilucent clouds.
>
> At 05:52 AM 8/7/2012, Marco Langbroek wrote:
>>Op 7-8-2012 5:47, Richard Kramer schreef:
>>>At 07:40 PM 8/6/2012, you wrote:
>>>>Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas and is estimated to be
>>>>responsible for approximately one-fifth of man-made global warming.
>>>>Per kilogram, it is 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide over a
> 100-year time horizon .
>>>
>>>OK, so how does this make climate change responsible for noctilucent
>>>clouds at lower latitudes?
>>
>>
>>Climate change and NLC are both the *result* of increased Methane
> emissions.
>
> True, if and only if climate change is primarily atmospheric in nature.
> It is important to keep in mind that, to date, not a single climate
> model on which this whole "field" of anthropogenic global warming is
> based has been successfully validated. (My area of expertise is
> empirical modelling. I apply the discipline to analytical
> instrumentation and process control rather than climate change. If I and
> others in my field practiced our discipline the way the climate change
> advocates practice theirs, chemical plants would be blowing up,
> dangerous drugs would be routinely sold, and people would have their
> medical conditions misdiagnosed because of instrumentation that would be
> producing wrong, unreliable outputs.
> Since not a single climate change model has ever been successfully
> validated, therefore none of the conclusions coming out of the models is
> reliable (c.f. previous modelling fiascos such as J. Forrester's World
> Dynamics and <Limits to Growth>). Accordingly, it is irresponsible to
> base public policy (such as ethanol subsidies which have completely
> distorted world grain markets, overtaxed geological aquifers,
> incentivized a massive increase in the rate of deforestation of tropical
> rain forests, and increased hunger, misery, and death in the developing
> world (but I digress)).)
>
> For a very competent view of this whole topic, I could recommend the
> very sound work of MIT professor Richard Lindzen. (I used to be an
> anthropogenic global warming believer until I took a careful look at the
> improper way the various models have been misused. Bad science is never
> a good thing.)
>
>>While you are right insofar as it is the methane causing the increase
>>in NLC and not climate change causing this itself (but
>>wait: see below, it does so with a twist after all!), the two
>>nevertheless are closely connected. More methane = rising greenhouse
>>effect *and* more NLC.
>
> Two independent manifestations (global warming and noctilucent
> clouds) are not connected at all if their only "connection" is that they
> are independent responses to a third phenomenon. They certainly could
> not be considered closely connected.
>
>>Moreover, with a twist climate change *is* in fact directly
>>contributing to rising atmospheric methane levels. As a result of a
>>warmer climate, permafrost disappears. As permafrost melts, methane
>>contained in the formerly frozen deposits dissipates into the
>>atmosphere. And yes: the quantities in question are large, this is not
>>some minor process. It is seen as a serious positive feedback mechanism
>
>>in post-glacial warming.
>
> This permafrost melt == more methane release is only a theory. I seem to
> recall some work which failed to confirm the expected rates of methane
> release. For models which include this unvalidated feedback it is likely
> a contributing factor to the failure of the models to validate.
>
>>So they worded it a bit convoluted, but basically they are right:
>>there is a connection between climate change and rising NLC visibility.
>
>>Both could be the result of rising atmospheric methane levels (and part
>
>>of the latter *is* the direct result of a warming climate).
>
> I do not accept that that last premise has been confirmed.
>
>>In that sense, these remarks were *not* gratuitous at all.
>>
>>What bothered me more is that they glossed over a number of earlier
>>studies connecting NLC formation to micrometeoroid particles. It is not
>
>>such a 'new' insight as it was suggested in the video. A friend of mine
>
>>(Frans Rietmeijer, an IDP specialist at UNM) has been publishing a
>>number of papers on this over the past 20 years, and in fact the idea
>>is around since the sixties already.
>
> Yet another reason the presentation is embarrassingly inadequate. I'm
> also skeptical that methane levels on the order of 1 ppm (up about 150%
> over the past century or so) could source enough additional water vapor
> to account for increased noctilucent cloudiness. I also seem to recall
> some recent work which documents a DECREASE in lower stratospheric water
> vapor over recent decades.
>
>>Also, I am cautious as to whether NLC occurrences are really on the
>>rise. You cannot exclude that the rise in sighting reports is an
>>autofeedback due to a rising awareness of the phenomena. People don't
>>see things if they don't look for it.
>
> AI didn't mention earlier that another reason I would have graded the
> presentation with a D or F is that it completely ignored the possibility
> of observation bias. I am skeptical that
>
> Cheers,
> Richard
>
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