As scientists work to determine why some of the latest climate models suggest the future could be warmer than previously thought, a new study indicates the reason is likely related to challenges simulating the formation and evolution of clouds.
On June 21st, something rare and magical happened in London. The skies of the great city filled with noctilucent clouds (NLCs). Phil Halper noticed the display, grabbed a camera, and raced from one landmark to another, hurriedly recording pictures like this:
From Dr Roy Spencer’s Blog May 31st, 2020 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D. Noctilucent clouds (NLCs) are often visible in the extreme upper atmosphere (80-85 km altitude) well after sunset in the late spring and summer at high northern latitudes. They form from ice condensing on meteoric dust at extremely cold temperatures (below 150…
A container ship leaves a trail of white clouds in its wake that can linger in the air for hours. This puffy line is not just exhaust from the engine, but a change in the clouds that’s caused by small airborne particles of pollution. New research led by the University of Washington is the first…
Paul Scherrer Institute Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have developed a new method to analyse particulate matter more precisely than ever before. With its help, they disproved an established doctrine: that molecules in aerosols undergo no further chemical transformations because they are enclosed in other suspended particulate matter. In the smog chamber at…
Reposted from Dr. Roy Spencer’s Blog January 1st, 2020 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D. Polar Stratospheric Cloud display (smartphone photo posted by Reddit user Breuuan on Dec. 31, 2019.) Increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will continue to cause upper atmospheric cooling in the 2020s, which will lead to some of the most beautiful…
Paper at Geophysical Research Letters. J. M. Creamean J. N. Cross R. Pickart L. McRaven P. Lin A. Pacini R. Hanlon D. G. Schmale J. Ceniceros T. Aydell N. Colombi E. Bolger P. J. DeMott First published: 15 July 2019 https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL083039 Abstract and Introduction~ctm Abstract As Arctic temperatures rise at twice the global rate, sea…
Revealing the impact of cosmic rays on the Earth’s climate Kobe University New evidence suggests that high-energy particles from space known as galactic cosmic rays affect the Earth’s climate by increasing cloud cover, causing an “umbrella effect”. When galactic cosmic rays increased during the Earth’s last geomagnetic reversal transition 780,000 years ago, the umbrella effect…
A new study has revealed how clouds are modifying the warming created by human-caused climate change in some parts of the world Swansea University A new study has revealed how clouds are modifying the warming created by human-caused climate change in some parts of the world. Led by Swansea University’s Tree Ring Research Group, researchers…
From Dr. Roy Spencer’s blog, March 1st, 2019 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D. I’ve received many more requests about the new disappearing-clouds study than the “gold standard proof of anthropogenic warming” study I addressed here, both of which appeared in Nature journals over the last several days. The widespread interest is partly because of…
Six cameras are revolutionizing observations of shallow cumulus clouds. The Science While easily seen by people, the cotton-ball clouds (called shallow cumulus clouds) that drift overhead on partly cloudy days are hard for radars and many other instruments to observe and, therefore, hard to model and predict. Scientists situated six digital cameras in pairs at…
Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer has pointed out in his book, “The most obvious way for warming to be caused naturally is for small, natural fluctuations in the circulation patterns of the atmosphere and ocean to result in a 1% or 2% decrease in global cloud cover. Clouds are the Earth’s sunshade, and if cloud cover changes…
Prof Henrik Svensmark & Jacob Svensmark discuss the connection between cosmic rays, clouds and climate with the GWPF’s Benny Peiser and Jonny Bairstow from Energy Live News after his recent presentation in London. Video and slideshow follow. See his slideshow: Prof Henrik Svensmark & Jacob Svensmark: The Connection Between Cosmic Rays, Clouds and Climate. (pdf) Presentation in…
Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach One of the enduring questions in climate involves what is usually called “cloud feedback”. When the earth warms up a bit, the clouds change in response. The question is the direction of that response. Does the change in clouds amplify a warming, or does it reduce a warming? Here’s Dr.…
From PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: Princeton University researchers have found that the climate models scientists use to project future conditions on our planet underestimate the cooling effect that clouds have on a daily — and even hourly — basis, particularly over land. The researchers report in the journal Nature Communications Dec. 22 that models tend to factor in too much…
NASA’s AIM spacecraft is monitoring a vast ring of electric-blue clouds circling high above Antarctica. These are noctilucent clouds (NLCs), made of ice crystals frosting specks of “meteor smoke” in the mesosphere 83 km above the frozen continent. Here is an animation from the past week: This is the season for southern noctilucent clouds. Every year…
Guest essay by David Archibald News comes that the light reflected back from Uranus is affected by the solar cycle. “The atmosphere around Uranus is one of the coldest in the solar system, but still contains clouds and ice, like our own atmosphere here on Earth. “The changing brightness of the planet shows that something is happening…
Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach For more than a decade now I’ve been saying something without getting much agreement, which was: “When you cut down the trees, you cut down the clouds”. I based my saying on my own experience, first growing up in a ponderosa pine and fir forest, and later living in a…
.Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach As usual, Dr. Judith Curry’s Week In Review – Science Edition contains interesting studies. I took a look at one entitled “Cloud feedback mechanisms and their representation in global climate models“, by Ceppi et al., hereinafter Ceppi2017. The paper looks at the changes in the radiative effects of clouds. From…
Guest essay by Mike Jonas I have been looking at some cloud data (from ISCCP: isccp.giss.nasa.gov all available monthly “EQ” data (equal-area grid)) and an interesting question arises. I haven’t seen the answer on WUWT or anywhere else. Was there a near-global sea-change (no pun intended) in cloud cover around the turn of the millenium,…
From STOCKHOLM UNIVERSITY: Thin clouds at about 5 km altitude are more ubiquitous in the tropics than previously thought and they have a substantial cooling effect on climate. This is shown in a recent study by researchers from Stockholm University and the University of Miami published in Nature Communications. The cooling effect of mid-level clouds is…
I read yesterday that someone had supposedly provided evidence in support of Svensmark’s hypothesis that cosmic rays affect the weather. So I went to look it up. The study is called Cloud cover anomalies at middle latitudes: links to troposphere dynamics and solar variability, by S. Veretenenkoa and M. Ogurtsova, paywalled here. Let’s look at this…
Study helps narrow down one reason why clouds are hard to model From the DOE/PACIFIC NORTHWEST NATIONAL LABORATORY RICHLAND, Wash. – Airborne particles known as “aerosols” strongly impact the way clouds form and change, but accurately capturing this effect in computer climate models has proved to be notoriously difficult. A new study in the Proceedings…
From COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY and the “climate models still can’t get clouds right” department comes this interesting new study. All over the planet, every day, oceans send plumes of sea spray into the atmosphere. Beyond the poetry of crashing ocean waves, this salt- and carbon-rich spray has a dramatic effect on the formation and duration of…
Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach I stumbled across a lovely article about the Saharan silver ant over at phys.org. These ants have special hairs that reflect strongly in the visual and radiate strongly in the infrared. They show a photo of the ant hairs under a couple different amounts of magnification: Figure 1. Photograph from the phys.org…
Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach I’ve been considering the nature of the relationship between the albedo and temperature. I have hypothesized elsewhere that variations in tropical cloud albedo are one of the main mechanisms that maintain the global surface temperature within a fairly narrow range (e.g. within ± 0.3°C during the entire 20th Century). To…
Unique clouds like you’ve never seen them before! I just thought I’d pass these along due to the unique “catch the wave” appearance of these. Time lapse video follows. This video was taken with an iPhone 6 by Dr. Alan Walters from the University Hospital window in Augusta, GA. Walters, an anesthesiologist at the hospital,…
From the paper in PNAS:(h/t to Dr. Leif Svalgaard) Our results suggest weak to moderate coupling between CR and year-to-year changes of GT,” they write. “However, we find that the realized effect is modest at best, and only recoverable when the secular trend in GT is removed.” This “secular trend” is the warming widely believed…
Guest essay by Stan Robertson In a recent post entitled “Changes in Total Solar Irradiance” (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/25/changes-in-total-solar-irradiance/ ), Willis Eschenbach showed a plot of the solar irradiance that impinges at the top of the earth’s atmosphere. I have borrowed that from his post and repeat it here for convenience: Fig. 1 Variations of TSI Willis asked…