My crystal ball model says Noctilucent clouds, which we have almost no data on, must be man-made!

Noctilucent Clouds
Scientists wondered whether climate change was affecting super high clouds that people rarely see and there is virtually no data on. So they used models which fail on clouds and water vapor only ten kilometers above the Earth and tried to predict what happened to both way up at 80 kilometers up and 150 years ago. They “found” (their phrase, not mine) the increase was man made. So once again, your car exhaust and dinner steak are to blame for changing these night-shining clouds.

How could it be any other way?

This is pure crystal ball science that starts with errors and ends with extrapolations. Researchers are fooling themselves using words like “results”, “indicator” and “significant” as if this was an actual experiment.

PUBLIC RELEASE: 

Climate change is making night-shining clouds more visible

AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION

WASHINGTON — Increased water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere due to human activities is making shimmering high-altitude clouds more visible, a new study finds. The results suggest these strange but increasingly common clouds seen only on summer nights are an indicator of human-caused climate change, according to the study’s authors.

Noctilucent, or night-shining, clouds are the highest clouds in Earth’s atmosphere. They form in the middle atmosphere, or mesosphere, roughly 80 kilometers (50 miles) above Earth’s surface. The clouds form when water vapor freezes around specks of dust from incoming meteors. Watch a video about noctilucent clouds here. [Or not, there is no link? – Jo]

Humans first observed noctilucent clouds in 1885, after the eruption of Krakatoa volcano in Indonesia spewed massive amounts of water vapor in the air. Sightings of the clouds became more common during the 20th century, and in the 1990s scientists began to wonder whether climate change was making them more visible.

Or was it just that there were six billion more people to notice the noctilucents? Who can tell?

In a new study, researchers used satellite observations and climate models to simulate how the effects of increased greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels have contributed to noctilucent cloud formation over the past 150 years. Extracting and burning fossil fuels delivers carbon dioxide, methane and water vapor into the atmosphere, all of which are greenhouse gases.

Why bother with satellites, we can just simulate space and history…

In the new study, Lübken and colleagues ran computer simulations to model the Northern Hemisphere’s atmosphere and noctilucent clouds from 1871 to 2008. They wanted to simulate the effects of increased greenhouse gases, including water vapor, on noctilucent cloud formation over this time period.

Who needs observations?

“We speculate that the clouds have always been there, but the chance to see one was very, very poor, in historical times,” said Franz-Josef Lübken, an atmospheric scientisNASA-NLC-4.jpgt at the Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Kühlungsborn, Germany and lead author of the new study in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

The researchers found the presence of noctilucent clouds fluctuates from year to year and even from decade to decade, depending on atmospheric conditions and the solar cycle. But over the whole study period, the clouds have become significantly more visible.

Over the whole study period? Meaning during the last ten minutes…

Read the introduction of the paper. “Little is known”, “observations are rather challenging” but there is a consensus

Noctilucent clouds (NLC), also called polar mesospheric clouds (PMC), are made of water ice particles, which are sporadically observed by the naked eye at midlatitudes when these particles are illuminated by the Sun when it is several degrees below the horizon (Gadsden & Schröder, 1989). NLC can exist around the summer mesopause at middle and high latitudes since this region is extremely cold (130–140 K), actually being the coldest place in the Earth’s atmosphere (Lübken, 1999). Some scientists claim that NLC are sensitive indicators for climate change due to a combination of cooling and/or an increase of water vapor (Hervig, Berger, & Siskind, 2016; Russell et al., 2015; Thomas, 1996, 2003; Thomas et al., 1989). This has been questioned because the database regarding long-term trends of NLC is still rather poor and too little is known about long-term trends and episodic changes of the background atmosphere at these altitudes (Thomas et al., 2003; von Zahn, 2003; von Zahn et al., 2004). Observations in the upper mesosphere/lower thermosphere region are rather challenging. Very little is known about trends of basic parameters such as temperature and water vapor mixing ratio on centennial time scales. There is general consensus that an increase of greenhouse gases causes a cooling of the mesosphere due to an enhanced escape of infrared photons to space. There is one exception, however, namely, the summer mesopause region, where this effect is compensated for by increased absorption of photons from lower altitudes. Therefore, trends in this height region are very small (negative) or even positive (Berger & Lübken, 2011; Garcia et al., 2007; Marsh et al., 2013; Roble & Dickinson, 1989). Furthermore, it was shown recently that trends are not uniform in time but show episodic modulations (Lübken et al., 2013).

REFERENCE

This paper is freely available for 30 days. Journalists and public information officers (PIOs) can download a PDF. [Today I’m a PIO — Jo]. Multimedia accompanying this press release can be downloaded.

 

Images supplied. Credit: Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics

9.3 out of 10 based on 71 ratings

119 comments to My crystal ball model says Noctilucent clouds, which we have almost no data on, must be man-made!

  • #
    TdeF

    So clouds based on dust particles in the upper atmosphere and the problem is human caused Climate Change? Obvious really. At least we do not have Global Warming. That’s a relief. Just world wide Climate Change. Where would we be without the IPCC and Al Gore? Even the pope thinks he’s a saint. So does Al.

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    • #

      We, the scientists, don’t know anything about it, but we do know that it’s due to man-made climate change.

      hhttp://dilbert.com/strip/2008-05-07

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      • #
        Curious George

        To prove that they are caused by humans, please change them from ice crystals to CO2 crystals.

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        • #
          Geoffrey Williams

          Give them time George. . give them time!
          GeoffW

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          • #
            OriginalSteve

            Ere…..this water vapour caper…it makes me clouds look big…..

            Who’d have thought….

            00

        • #
          TdeF

          You have a point, as the temperature shows a constant at 80-90 km and is very close to the freezing point of CO2 at around -78C or 195C. Maybe the concentration of CO2 is critical at this point, or the temperature has dropped and the CO2 has formed crystals.

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          • #
            TdeF

            Remember, Global Warming is about man made Global Warming. Increased CO2 is perfectly natural until someone proves otherwise and no one has.

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            • #
              Grumnut

              What do you mean? Nights are warming faster than days, winters faster than summers and the poles faster than the equator. More significantly the troposphere is warming while the stratosphere is cooling down, which goes to this research above.
              Also the total coal, oil and gas burnt annually equals the increase in ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere.

              00

          • #
            jerry krause

            Hi TdeF,

            Might the atmospheric pressure at 80-90km influence the sublimation temperature of water or carbon dioxide?

            Have a good day, Jerry

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          • #
            Ted O'Brien.

            Why didn’t I think of that?

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      • #

        Bugger! It looks like I stuffed up the link.

        It was a good reference, I think, as to how our climate ‘scientists’ think and act when it comes to data.

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    • #
      Horace Jason Oxboggle

      “We speculate…”! That’ll settle the science for sure!

      20

  • #

    They dunno. But they know. Yeah, we know.

    Once to get published you were wise to start a yarn with “It was a dark and stormy night” and end it with “and they lived happily ever after”. Now you need to start every yarn with “New studies show” and end with “increased greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels”.

    You wanna get published, right?

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    • #
      toorightmate

      The night was dark and stormy.
      Slippery was the grass.
      Down came a billygoat,
      Sliding on his ….undercoat.

      If there is almost no data on noctilucent clouds the n that is too much data. Climate models don’t run on data – they produce the data!!!

      342

      • #
        Graeme No.3

        When you want the public’s attention,
        and truth is not your intention,
        You can always bribe or twist,
        an unscrupulous journalist.
        But for really sensational reporting,
        stuff that will have the public gawking,
        introduce him to a climatologist.

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    • #
      Hivemind

      Try starting with “Once upon a time…”

      30

  • #
    el gordo

    This may have something to do with a periodic warming of the stratosphere, possibly solar related.

    111

    • #
      ROM

      el Gordo @ # 3

      Yup!
      Plus solar magnetic fields dropping to the lowest level ever measured plus a very large reduction in solar Ultra violet llight spectrum leading to all sorts of changes in the mesosphere around the planet.

      With the present solar minimum We are going where the modern scientific generation has never been nor has any real knowledge of so expect some way out theories to arise quite soon.
      And every single one of them will be wrong or even so far removed from reality they won’t even be wrong.

      David Archibald has a very good round up of the present solar state and its indicators on WUWT today including both solar magnetic field measurements and solar ultra violeet reductions plus other indicators. .

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      • #
        el gordo

        Reading through the comments I got a laugh of the meaning of ‘smoot’.

        Exciting debate overall, Javier appears to have nailed it.

        30

      • #
        ЯΞ√ΩLUT↑☼N

        Oh noes! Climate Change™©® is affecting the sun!

        50

      • #
        sophocles

        Noctilucent clouds … manmade? *Cough. Yet more Witch Hunt thinking: the moment something changes, it must be caused by humans. That is just so typical of an unknowing knee jerk reaction: “Oh, it’s wrong, must be caused by humans” Sheer hubris but we are not the centre of the Universe, the centre of the Solar System nor the centre of this planet, so yet another witch-hunt is triggered.

        Not a chance. Far Too High. That’s Solar/Galactic effects territory and (possibly, perhaps, just maybe) aided and abetted by strong volcanic activity. They are the highest clouds in Earth’s atmosphere, located in the mesosphere at altitudes of around 76 to 85 km (47 to 53 mi). I don’t and can’t see tropospheric processes etc arriving that high.
        Coincidentally, we have quite a bit of that going on right now, and I’m not talking about just Hawaii. Volcanism is the only other activity powerful enough to affect those upper reaches of our atmosphere.

        But Galactic Cosmic Rays? They’re now stronger than they have been since before the start of the Space Age. And noctilucent clouds are more visible and more than before? Whoopy doo. What a coincidence but is it a coincidence given everything which is happening now? We weren’t counting cosmic rays leading into the Dalton Minimum, nor the Maunder Minimum, or any other minimum.

        Instead of pursuing the Witch Hunt and continuing to waste every one’s time, we should look to the 15% reduction in the planet’s magnetic field through the planet’s magnetic poles moving towards a pole swap. The reduction in our planet’s field means that the Solar Wind can penetrate deeper into out atmosphere than it otherwise would have.

        Add to that all that weakening of our primary magnetic shield and the weakening of our secondary shield, that of the sun as it approaches the Cycle 24 minimum, and we see more noctilucent clouds. Colour me not at all suprised. Look at the rise in our exposure to GCRs (Galactic Cosmic Rays).

        Here’s others take on this.
        A bit about the night shining clouds.

        “Some scientists” aren’t worth the name. They’re wearing blinkers and CO2 and only CO2 causes anything and nothing else can possibly be happening. Cretinous Coprocephalics the lot of them, trapped in their “It wuz humans wot dun it!” mentality.

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        • #
          sophocles

          So where does the water which forms noctilucent clouds come from?

          See Jerry Krause’s answer to that in comment #5.

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          • #
            jerry krause

            Hi Sophocles,

            Thank you very much for advertising my comment. I immediately noticed this but wanted to wait to see if anyone else would note its existence, except Kinky Keith. Who did not seem to be buying anything of it. I did attempt to check out who Sophocles might be (both in the past and now). Found the past but nothing about now. Because I am alone as I read Sophocles characters were I would like to have an email conversation with you to see how many common interests we might have. [email protected]

            Have a good day, Jerry

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            • #
              Kinky Keith

              So,

              did Jo agree to publish your article?

              Basically, the very useful piece of information obtained in looking through your posts is a standout:

              That water in the far reaches of the atmosphere, 85 km altitude, most likely comes from the intersection of Earth’s orbit with commet tails.

              That’s certainly worth being reminded of and a big thank you for that.

              Was there anything else useable in your posts?

              KK

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              • #
                Kinky Keith

                To all,

                Sorry for any apparent irritation over the recent posts accusing me of having no respect for Newton and Feynman.

                I do have great regard for both of these amazing scientists.

                Unfortunately the “recent posts” were written in a style that reminded me of another blog:

                Principia Scientifica.

                If this blog has a need of more readers that’s fine, but to come on here and ask Jo to publish an article that is cloaked in mystery is a bit rich.

                Likewise as a grumpy old man I want to choose how I spend the very few remaining years of my life.

                Reading physics textbooks that I studied over 50 years ago isn’t top of my to do list.

                KK

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              • #
                jerry krause

                Hi Kinky Keith,

                Jo has an original essay whose primary focus is quality data measured by the NOAA USCRN project (https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/uscrn/products/hourly02/) of which I doubt many of you are aware. If you want to see this information, I suggest you tell that to Jo.

                Or you could go the link and see the quality data being measured by the NOAA USCRN project.

                And I wrote: The NOAA data I refer to shows that their measured surface temperatures at Mercury NV USA to be 15-20 degrees Celsius greater than the air temperatures conventionally measured for the same five consecutive days (June 26-30) during the years 2012 and 2013.

                So you can go to the data file of these days and piece together a portion of the data considered into my essay. Which I have put into ‘more visual’ format than a mass of numbers. These graphs cannot be offered to you or others as a comment. I classify people as talkers or doers. In my world I find many more talkers than doers. I have done something which I has taken me days to first see, then to put the measured information into a form which a reader could, with some effort, comprehend. With data there can be no comprehension; only talk.

                So I have given you and other readers some information, but you are the one who must take advantage of this information. And it would be much easier for a reader to comprehend the information of the data if the essay would be posted for you to see. At this point I have done all that I can do.

                Have a good day, Jerry

                00

              • #
                jerry krause

                Hi Kinky Keith, Sophocles, and any others,

                MY essay may now be read at PSI (https://principia-scientific.org/record-temperature-result-of-cloud-revised-updated/)

                Have a good day, Jerry

                00

    • #
      Yonniestone

      The Cloud Mystery by Henrik Svensmark covers this and more, web page here and full documentary here.

      80

    • #
      toorightmate

      How could the sun have any bearing whatsoever on temperatures?

      40

      • #

        The sun, yes…Professor Weiss on the de Vries cycles and more.
        His research, scientific, mechanisms, measurement,correspondence
        with real world observations, cf yr speculations with real science,
        Lubken et al.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-E5y9piHNU

        Pity the IPCC and medja cohort like the ABC ignore and seek to prevent
        researchers like Weiss from being heard.

        40

  • #
    ROM

    When I started flying gliders in late 1963,I was reading up on everything I could on high altitude flying.
    The most advanced gliding badge in the world at that time was then Diamond C badge which entailed a succcessful flight of 300 kms around a triangle, a flight of 500 kms distance and a gain of height of 5000 metres which was the FAI’s rules to gain the Diamond C badge.

    The first of the high performance fibre glass gliders had flown in Germany in 1956 but nearly all Australian glider pilots still flew the all wood gliders in the early 1960’s .

    The high altitude leg of the Diamond C badge was very difficult to get in Australia where as it was relatively easy in NZ as their pilots flew the immense standing wave /mountain lee wave systems that their Alps created in the very fast moving high altitude winds of the higher latitudes. Conversely we could fly the long distances over our flat landscape using thermal lift to maintain height where as the NZ glider pilots had considerable difficulty in flying the 500 kms leg of the Diaomond C badge.

    I flew the second 500 km triangle flown in Australia in 1967 , done in an Adelaide built wooden framed Boomerang Glider .

    To get the 5000 metres height leg of the Diamond C badge I used to drive our guys crazy with my attempts to explore the wave system that western Victorias Grampians Mountains created very occasionally in strong westerly and NW winds usually prior to a cold front coming through.

    The Grampians wave systems when operating were often marked by mountain waves or Lee waves.
    These standing waves don’t move in high winds as the rising air on the leading edge of the Lenticular wave cloud forms cloud and then on the down wind side of the startionary lenticular cloud the descending air warms up and the cloud dissappears.
    Wind speeds through those lenticular clouds can reach over 100 knots , near 200 kms hour and temperatures can be down in to the minus 20 degrees which with the incorrect grease in the control circuits can lead to the controls freezing up until they can be barely moved even with a lot of force applied to them as happened to ne of ur guys later.
    To maintain position in the rising air just in front of these Lenticular clouds we often had maintain airspeeds of close to 150 kph just to hold postion agsainst the wind speeds at those altitudes.

    Rather than go into long explanations here just look up Mountain waves or standing wave systems and lenticular clouds.,
    Standing waves are something you can often see on a very small scale in shallow water running down a gutter where the waves in the water reamain stationary and fixed in place as the water flows through them.
    Air does this on an enormous scale over suitable triggering mountain ranges

    Anyway after a very fast learning process ; we didnt even know if this new fangled teflon tape stuff could be used on oxygen bottles, I eventually cracked 23,600 feet altitude in our wooden Boomerang Glider using a liberated Hospital oxygen system and a card on my knee with the heights at which I had to increase the flow of oxygen for the increasing height.

    And that gave me my 3 diamond badge, the fourth one in Australia and only the second one earned entirely in Australia with the international FAI Diamond C number 994.

    The point here is that the then world altitude record stood at 47,000 feet over the Sierra Valley in California in the the USA but Norwegian and Finnish glider pilots in the rare occassions we got gliding news out of Europe in those pre internet days, were often talking about the Noctilucent clouds they often saw up north towards the pole.
    And some research I did revealed that using surveying techniques those Noctilucent clouds were at least 100,000 feet altitude .

    So back even in the 1960’s and earlier there was almost no knowledge on how those northern noctilucent clouds actually formed but the knowledge that they existed and could be seen quite regularly was quite well known amongst the world’s glider pilots of those times.
    And it was the case for considerable discussion as to whether there would ever be anybody in the gliding world who would one day perhaps operate up near those altitudes.

    Which today you can find the the Perlan project which is waiting in Patagonia in southern South America for the right conditions to climb from about 10,000 feet in the immense Andes Wave systems and break through to a mid winter polar vortex wave system to achieve they hope a sustained altitude of 90,000 feet all in a specially built and pressurised glider .

    And if you want to see some further examples of not only Noctilucent clouds as Jo has as a heading to this headline post but Clouds of every type and often of glorious beauty including Noctilucent Clouds then the site ; The Cloud Gallery of The Cloud Appreciation Society is the place to go to.

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    • #
      Peter C

      Great stuff ROM,

      Nocticlucent clouds, well known for many decades, 60 years or more. Our Climate Scientists don’t seem to do literature searches anymore. It used to be a necessary part of any scientific project,

      I also aspire to gaining the Diamond bage. I have done one part of it in my wooden glider a Foka 5, I hope I can get the others before I am too old.

      There are still not many Diamond badge holders in Australia and far fewer scored in wooden gliders!

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      • #
        jerry krause

        Hi Peter C,

        You are certainly right about the lack any evidence of literature search. The greater problem is the lack of knowledge on the part of the peer-reviewers and the journal editor. Maybe you did intend there was a greater community involved beyond the authors of the article?

        But right now Jo has an original essay whose primary focus is quality data measured by the NOAA USCRN project (https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/uscrn/products/hourly02/) of which I doubt many of you are aware. If you want to see this information, I suggest you tell that to Jo.

        Have a good day, Jerry

        20

        • #
          Kinky Keith

          Why do I have in mind the idea that NOAH is an neuveau scientific organisation which is able to produce data bent to any shape by it’s political paymasters.

          KK

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          • #
            Kinky Keith

            That should read:

            “Required” by it’s….

            20

          • #
            jerry krause

            Hi Kinky Keith,

            You seem to ask why should you trust any NOAA measurements. If you would study the data you would find that it refutes their conventional wisdom. For more than a century no project has tried to actually measure the ground (surface) temperature as they have. Arrhenius titled his essay, which was the quantitative beginning of the GHE, as the theory being dependent upon the ground temperature. Then in the same essay he immediately calculated the average air temperatures available as a proxy for the ground temperature.

            The NOAA data I refer to shows that their measured surface temperatures at Mercury NV USA to be 15-20 degrees Celsius greater than the air temperatures conventionally measured for the same five consecutive days (June 26-30) during the years 2012 and 2013. To me this is very convincing evidence that no one falsifying any data. Did I say that the title of the essay submitted to Jo for her consideration is: ‘Record Temperature Result of Cloud’? Does this fit with any theory of GHGs with which are you are familiar?

            Have a good day, Jerry

            10

            • #
              Kinky Keith

              Hi Jerry

              I’m still not sure where you are heading.

              In addition to the comment about Arrhenius we could add that the theory of GHGs in the atmosphere is quaint but I have a vague memory that Arr later retracted his support for the idea.

              We now,of course, are more familiar with the theory of universal gas laws and know that even if the GHG effect was true, the amount of CO2 from humans in the atmosphere is irrelevant to the fact that energy will move from ground to space regardless.

              I must admit that I don’t know much about the physics of clouds but do know that clouds are way up in the sky. What’s more, as you go up, it gets colder so that at say 1 km altitude, the clouds would be about 7C° colder than the surface.

              Any, so called GHGs at that height cannot send energy back to Earth. It is an unchangeable fact of thermodynamics that energy cannot move against the thermal gradient.

              This means, that once energy starts to move away from the surface it keeps going to space. I suspect that it may get held up for a while in clouds but cannot produce the witchcraft effect known as Back_Radiation.

              KK

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              • #
                PeterPetrum

                Hi KK, and thanks for that “unchangeable fact of thermodynamics that energy cannot move against a thermal gradient”. I have often been at a loss to be able to explain to the “groupthinkers” how a slightly warmer molecule of CO2 3,000m up in the sky cannot send its heat back down. Now all I have to do is mention “a law of thermodynamics” and watch thier eyes glaze over as they realise that they cannot respond. A big green tick for you.

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              • #
                ROM

                One of the problems with analysing items such as gases, noctilucent clouds and etc in the earth’s mesosphere , the mesosphere being above the stratosphere and which runs between the heights of roughly 50 to 85 kilometres above the earths surface, is the inability to place any measuring systems other than sounding rockets in this region of our atmosphere.

                A Low Earth satellite Orbit which entails a very rapid decay in an orbiting satellite comes into play at approximately 160 kms abovce the earth’s surface. So there exists a huge gap in consistent long term data collection from ballooon flights to about 80.,000 feet [ 24 kms ] on up tthrough the Stratosphere which extends to the Stratopause at around 50 kms and then into the Mesosphere which itself extends to around 85 kms above the surface and ends at the Mesopause where the very cold temperatures of Mesosphere begin to rise again.

                Troposphere, Stratosphere, stratopause, Mesosphere, mesopause are all simply explained in a series of panels in this UCAR education site

                UCAR has this to say about Noctilucent clouds in the Mesosphere;

                Most meteors vaporize in the mesosphere. Some material from meteors lingers in the mesosphere, causing this layer to have a relatively high concentration of iron and other metal atoms.

                Very strange, high altitude clouds called “noctilucent clouds” or “polar mesospheric clouds” sometime form in the mesosphere near the poles.
                These peculiar clouds form much, much higher up than other types of clouds.

                The mesosphere, like the stratosphere below it, is much drier than the moist troposphere we live in; making the formation of clouds in this layer a bit of a surprise
                Odd electrical discharges akin to lightning, called “sprites” and “ELVES”, occasionally appear in the mesosphere dozens of kilometers (miles) above thunderclouds in the troposphere below.

                The “Perlan” high altitude polar vortex wave flying glider I refer to above is being dwelt on by a large group of theoretical meteorologists for if the Perlan group achieves its goal of sustained glider flight at 90,000 feet in the mid winter, nighttime polar vortex wave systems it will be the first time an uncontaminated [ fuel residues and etc ] and sustained collection of data running for more than a couple of minutes from sounding rockets and one or two X -15 flights has been collected from those high altitude upper stratosphere regions.

                20

              • #
                Kinky Keith

                To Peter,

                Thanks.

                As previously mentioned, I don’t know much about clouds because they are a bit of an aberration: a subsystem within a well mixed gaseous medium.

                Even there, the clouds might only delay the removal of the days solar input to Earth’s surface by UV for a little while.

                The thing about gases outside the clouds is that they are so predictable.

                There is a lot of very basic science that refutes the idea of CO2 being a heating has.

                Just why scientists won’t say this is a tribute to the bullying so typical of left wing unions from the 1930s and 1940s.

                This is a political issue and has nothing to do with science.

                The science is quite clear.

                KK

                30

            • #
              jerry krause

              Hi Kinky Keith,

              “I must admit that I don’t know much about the physics of clouds but do know that clouds are way up in the sky.” Doesn’t this bother you? Here is an excerpt from the essay I would like Jo to post. This because I cannot show you the data which it is about. And the data is more important than you or me or anyone could write.

              ‘At the time of Newton the phenomenon of light (radiation) scattering by tiny particles, like atoms, small molecules, and cloud droplets had not yet been discovered. Because I claim cloud is the cause of the higher temperatures of 2013, I fast forward to what Richard Feynman taught his students about scattering by cloud droplets. It seems no physics professor, except Feynman, has asked his students: “Why do we ever see clouds?” (The Feynman Lecture On Physics, pp 32-8) If some professor other than Feynman has asked this, I have not read it. He continued: “We have just explained that every atom scatters light, and of course the water vapor will scatter light, too. The mystery is why, when the water is condensed into clouds, does it scatter such a tremendously greater amount of light?” ‘

              ‘This scattering by cloud explained by Feynman has been observed for more than a century as the Tyndall Effect (colloidal scattering). The critically important result of Feynman’s explanation of this scattering phenomenon was that the intensity of the scattering increased tremendously as the size of the scattering particle increased. This was (is); as long as the scattering particle had a diameter the same as, or greater, than the wavelength of the radiation being scattered. Since I read that a common cloud droplet had a diameter of about 20µ, it seems that a cloud of droplets must scatter the long-wave infrared radiation being emitted by the earth surface much, much more strongly (intensely) than it does the light of the visible spectrum.’

              Scattering has nothing to do with temperature. This is why 2nd Law arguments are mute. When Arrhenius reduced the solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface with the assumed albedo (of that time) he was not at all concerned about the temperatures of the clouds which were a good portion of that assumed albedo.

              I well allow you to digest this new information. I really appreciate the opportunity share what I have read that it seems you have not.

              Have a good day, Jerry

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              • #
                Kinky Keith

                Jerry,

                What exactly is the point of your post here.

                You seem to be trying to cover it up with detail.

                This detail, to me, doesn’t seem to have any implications for global warming.

                A cloud cannot send energy back to Earth.

                All energy from the Sun degrades in intensity.

                UV which makes it to Earth’s surface is degraded on interaction with the surface.

                This degraded energy in the form of IR may leave the surface and head out to space.

                It cannot return to Earth. The virtue of this outgoing IR is so low that any thought that it might turn around and heat the earth is laughable.

                What is your point?

                KK

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              • #
                jerry krause

                Hi Kinky Keith,

                “A cloud cannot send energy back to Earth.” Is this because you say it cannot?

                I trust Newton’s wisdom more than yours. At the beginning of Book III he listed four rules of reasoning in philosophy. Rule II was: “Therefore to the same natural effects we must, as far as possible assign the same causes.” And his comments to illustrate this rule were: “As to respiration in a man and in a beast; the descent of stones in Europe and in America; the light of our culinary fire and of the sun; the reflection of light in the earth, and in the planets.”

                Arrhenius took into account the observed fact that clouds could send back solar energy to space as he considered that this influence of clouds reduced the quantity of solar radiation which was transmitted to the earth’s surface. Feynman explained his understanding of how clouds did this to his students. And I trust Feynman’s wisdom more than yours.

                It seems you consider (for whatever reason) that UV is the only important portion of solar radiation. If you are light skinned, stand naked in the snow on a mountain side in the spring for several hours. I doubt if your skin will feel hot (at least I know mine would not) but I know if I did this, I would have a terrific sunburn. So I conclude from this experience, that UV does not make one’s skin feel ‘hot’. Instead I consider it is the IR portion of solar radiation. I conclude this because I can feel the radiation (which I cannot see) from hot stove surface or campfire. So I know it is not the visible portion of the solar radiation. Yes, this is a detail that it seems you consider unimportant. But my experiences teach me that details are important.

                Have a good day, Jerry

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                Kinky Keith

                When you cease quoting people like Isaac Newtown and Mr. Arrhenius, who have both been dead for a very long time, and clearly, in your own words, state the message you have for us, then people might take you seriously.

                At this stage, all I see is confusion of thought.

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              Mary E

              measured surface temperatures at Mercury NV USA to be 15-20 degrees Celsius greater than the air temperatures conventionally measured for the same five consecutive days (June 26-30) during the years 2012 and 2013.

              Station 400: 2012 June Average of Daily Maximum Air Temperature (Deg C) was 29.10 with -highest- average 33.24; Monthly Average Soil Temperature at 4 Inches (Deg C) was 26.64. If the measured surface temperature was that much higher it should show in the report (start at page 111 for data I just referenced) https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1182262

              I want to see the data you are quoting – at least a link to it.

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    jerry krause

    Hi Jo and reader

    If you read Book III of Newton’s The Principia you will you will find that more than half of this Book is about his considerations of comets and comet tails.

    “The vapours which arise from the sun, the fixed stars, and the tails of the comets, may meet at last with, and fall into, the atmospheres of the planets by their gravity, and there be condensed and turned into water …”

    If you Google ‘small comets’ you will find that Lewis Frank (University of Iowa) claimed to observe house sized ‘snowballs’ falling into the earth’s atmosphere. And he, for a time, lost his credibility as a scientist.

    It would seem that these physicists and most meteorologists (noctilucent clouds are mentioned in most introductory meteorology textbooks) have ignored what Newton wrote so long ago as they are familiar with the meteor showers of the dust particles.

    So Jo, I believe my essay would be an appropriate posting to demonstrate the influence of cloud upon ‘surface temperature). I find it amazing how people can make so many critical comments while they remain ignorant of observed (known) facts.

    Have a good day, Jerry

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    Leonard Lane

    So now it is noctilucent clouds clouds. Maybe the studies are done this way. First climate scientist.” What has not been linked to global warming?: Ensuing discussion and lots of internet searches. Second climate scientists. “There is not a lot on noctilucent clouds.” “That’s it.”
    “Now we have a new climate change paper and six grant applications. Not a bad afternoon’s work!”

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    Lionell Griffith

    The theory behind the theory:

    Reality is created by the words of people who call themselves “scientists”. The problem with the theory is it that it takes massive amounts of public funds (taxes) to make it so. However, when conditions are just right, it happens.

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      Greg Cavanagh

      It looks to me like some “scientists” are out to destroy the reputation of every other scientist.

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    Andrew Kerber

    These guys call themselves scientists? But dont realize when you write a computer program that assumes that increased humidity will cause some event, when the output of the program shows that the event was caused, all that they proved is they know how to write programs? How can any scientist possibly think that a computer model could prove anything more than programming skill?

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      Greg Cavanagh

      Everybody who learns programming through a college of any sort, learns about GIGO.

      Garbage In = Garbage Out. There is no getting around this fundamental principle.

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        ЯΞ√ΩLUT↑☼N

        I learned about GIGO early in my programming hobby from 1989 onwards without a college of any sort. If I programmed pure garbage, the output was pure garbage, usually a complete crash. Easy to do in assembler I s’pose.. 🙂

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          Annie

          I learned about GIGO back in the early 60s with Elliot 803 Autocode and machine code, with perforated tape of course!!!

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          • #
            Annie

            That was when we discovered a mistake in the Smithsonian met tables, when we just could not get sense out of a programme, until our resident expert statistician had a very thorough look at it. That was at Reading University.

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            • #
              ЯΞ√ΩLUT↑☼N

              I remember reading about the old punch cards. Did you use liquid paper to fix the moth hole?

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  • #
    graham dunton

    Hi Jo, you are so very brave,
    This is a homogenised moment, where the truth is distorted slightly, to suit a good cause…
    (Very SIC) My crystal ball model says, but isn’t that a sexist male only province? (That’s is likely re portable)
    Noctilucent says, Shining or glowing by night. (Please explain, said the Red Head),is that in the moon light,or with the lights on? And almost no data,it must be man-made,(like that climate scare!) and how, so very true blue! But don’t forget,we are talking about being up on cloud 9 here!

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    Betapug

    “Will speculate for money” said Franz-Josef Lübken, an atmospheric scientisNASA-NLC-4.jpgt at the Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Kühlungsborn.

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      AZ1971

      Real scientists don’t speculate. They theorize using conjecture and experimentation. That these people (definitely NOT scientists!) would resort to such semantics in a published paper gives absolutely no credibility to their claims.

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    Graham Richards

    I’ll tell you exactly what causes these clouds. Must have nocturnal emissions in the mix somewhere.. just a minute I seem to have mislaid my box of chicken bones!!

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  • #

    “Humans first observed noctilucent clouds in 1885,”
    Rubbish. Here they are in 1871.
    “They are usually of a very palo-bluish luminosity, not unlike the Milky Way. although scarely so bright, resembling more the palo homogenous glow of the diffused auroral light very frequently seen in the north western horizon, and their transparency is often such as not in the least to interfere with the brilliancy of the stars. These pale streamers are often permanent for a consid- erable time, very different from the sudden and evan- escent brilliancy of the true auroral streamer. They are nevertheless often slowly drifted along by what appears to be high upper currents ofthe atmosphere ; however tho streamers of thc true aurora sometimes drift along in this manner, an instance of which I par- ticularly noted on September 7th, 1871, at 8h., the auroral phenomena consisting simply of pale perpendi- cular streamers from the N.N. W. horizon drifting along from west to east. The following is an instance of luminous streamers almost permanent, as indicating”
    https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/70472483

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      “Lübken and colleagues ran computer simulations to model the Northern Hemisphere’s atmosphere and noctilucent clouds from 1871 to 2008.” Wonder if they got these old sightings in that. There are more dates and years mentioned in that 1874 paper.

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    TedL

    Another theory of origin of noctilucent clouds

    Please see this exchange of comments from Homewood’s blog post: https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/10/01/rise-in-atlantic-ssts-linked-to-reduced-air-pollution/

    TedL permalink
    October 2, 2017 2:37 am

    There might be another industrial effect on climate, somewhat similar to the effect of aerosols.

    On a couple of blogs I have posted unfavorable comments on the idea of a “hydrogen economy” because large amounts of atmospheric hydrogen would in fact be dangerous to the climate. Hydrogen gas leaks easily from pipes and valves. If we were to generate enough hydrogen to actually power a significant part of the economy, so much would leak from containment that it could change the climate and endanger life on earth. Because it is the lightest of gases, hydrogen rises through the atmosphere until it reaches the stratosphere, where it encounters the ozone layer. Ozone is extremely reactive, so it will immediately oxidize the hydrogen, creating water molecules while simultaneously eliminating the ozone. In large amounts one would expect the formation of a layer of ice crystals in the stratosphere, altering planetary albedo, while damaging the ozone layer, which intercepts much of the sun’s UV light.

    I have always thought of this scenario as hypothetical, but I realized a short time ago that maybe we have already experienced this effect. Beginning in the 1850s there was a worldwide adoption of new technology to produce illuminating gas or town gas from coal. Every town of any magnitude in the US had a town gas plant. The composition of town gas was H2, CO and CH4. The pipes and valves used for the gas plants and distribution systems were flanged or threaded, not welded, so H2 gas would have easily escaped. Town gas was gradually replaced by natural gas (CH4) starting in the 1950s. So, for about a century, industrial economies around the world were bleeding large amounts of hydrogen to the atmosphere, presumably with the stratospheric effects mentioned above.

    Reply
    accordionsrule permalink
    October 2, 2017 3:07 pm

    That would coincide with the first observance of noctilucent clouds, wouldn’t it?

    Reply
    TedL permalink
    October 2, 2017 3:54 pm

    According to the Wikipedia and some other sources on the internet, noctilucent clouds were first reported in 1885. The Wikipedia entry “History of manufactured gas” has the following passage:

    “the rise of the “smoke nuisance” in the 1850s, brought about by the domestic and commercial use of coal, in many cities and metropolises; direct combustion of coal being a particularly notorious source of pollution; which the widespread use of gas could abate, especially with the commencement of using gas for purposes other than illuminating during the 1870s; for cooking, for the heating of dwelling-houses, for making domestic hot water, for raising steam, for industrial and chemical purposes, and for stationary internal combustion engine-driving purposes – which were previously met by employing coal;”

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    Rod Stuart

    It is difficult to converse without first defining the terms.
    What does the term “climate change” mean?
    Apparently it has nothing to do with “climate”, which according to the Oxford dictionary is “The weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period.”
    If change is “to make the form, nature, content, future course, etc., of (something) different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone”,how is it measured?
    Because it is a vague, meaningless term, it can be one of the six impossible things before breakfast. It can be anything you want it to be.
    Hence, anything is possible so long as it can be attributed to “climate change”.

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      ЯΞ√ΩLUT↑☼N

      Climate Change™©® is causing me to wear fewer clothes in summer. Maybe I should buy more? That’s what they might mean by “offsets”.

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    • #

      Rod @ 10.00 am re ‘climate change.’…’Because it is a vague,
      meaningless term, it can be one of the six impossible things before
      breakfast. It can be anything you want it to be.’

      Popper’s demarcation between empirical science and pseudo science,
      the former a testable conjecture worded such that it may not be
      immunized against refutation. (Popper. ‘Objective Knowledge. An
      Evolutionary Approach.’ Oxford Press 1972. Ch 1.)

      Popper argues as refutable and hence scientific theories Newton’s
      movement of planets and Einstein’s red shift observation. The above
      speculations seem rather, well, cloudy.

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    Greg in NZ

    Little Fluffy Clouds: Made in Aotearoa / New Zealand (4 min.)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfFWSC8exl8

    As a student of nephology from childhood – one who studies or contemplates clouds – I made this time-lapse cloud video a few years ago after completing a Digital Media film degree (as a ‘mature’, ie. older, student). Filmed all around NZ on surfing & snowboarding road trips, it highlights the endless variety of water vapour ‘shapes’ the landscape forms as wind roars across the islands. Like some of the above quoted ‘scientists’, I hadn’t heard of noctilucent clouds back then neither.

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    • #
      sophocles

      Thank you for that Greg.

      I thoroughly enjoyed it

      (and recognised much of your scenery ) 🙂

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    • #

      It appears, Greg, by the high percentage of shots in your excellent video, that you are based in Queenstown, where I was born.

      In fact a little old lady with the same surname as yours taught me at Sunday School in the early 50s.

      We used to own the station at 3:38 in your video and so am familiar with every rock and tussock (and matagouri bush) in that 3-second scene.

      🙂

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        Greg in NZ

        Cheers, FijiDave and Sophocles. Yeah, I was in the Wakatipu in the 90s and Noughties after returning from overseas. However, I’m a ‘climate refugee’ these days in the upper North Island – after decades of living amongst cold snowy mountains I needed some warm sea-level beach life again.

        There’s a Mt Salmond out the back of The Remarks – via Coal Pit Saddle / Gibbston – named after a fire-and-brimstone preacher from the late 1800s in Queenstown: I’ve hiked up there in the summer with buddies and it’s the most barren, shattered, windswept, spectacular place. I also heard of an elderly woman living in Kelvin Heights with the same surname, but she died before I could meet her. Neither of them were relatives of my dad but I guess way, way, way back there could be some Scottish family connection.

        As for the scene at 3:38, that was above Lake Pukaki looking north towards Aoraki Mt Cook – even though it resembles up towards Glenorchy or The Remarkables – and yeah, damn that Spaniard speargrass and matagouri! Rocks and tussock and alpine grasshoppers are my friends…

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    Roy Hogue

    If not one thing then another. When you shoot down one fraud they invent another. The solution is to stop government and university from funding climate research. Then a lot of smart people will have to get a real job and the parade of new theories, problems and the attendant hangers on will stop…maybe.

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    RickWill

    I have extraction the following from the paper:

    We conclude that NLC are indeed a long-term indicator for climate change due to the increase of H2O caused by the oxidation of methane, whereas the growth of carbon dioxide mixing ratio is of secondary importance. Episodic changes of H2O and O3 as well as other factors may impact the morphology of NLC on decadal time scales.

    This conclusion is back to front. Even taking the modelling as correct, the only possible conclusion is that increasing atmospheric methane has resulted in an increase in high level cloud formation. They have in NO WAY determined that it has any impact on the weather or climate. In fact, if the modelling is correct, it has caused cooling in the upper atmosphere; not warming. They have made no determination on the impact on climate – does it cause any detectable change on surface temperature? They are talking about a a change of 1ppmv in water content at 85km above the surface. In total it amounts to an increase of 100t of water!

    In fact you could take direct extracts from this paper that could be interpreted as the earth has cooled as a result of the release of methane!

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      sophocles

      As Jerry Krause has pointed out above, there are a lot of micro-comets and ‘snow balls’ entering the atmosphere from above. All the time. Back in 1970’s such extra-planetary gains of water were once hypothesised as the source of Earth’s oceans.

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    Ian of Brisbane

    Why not just unplug Parliament House I stream of getting rid of cows. This has the bonus of cutting hot air as well.

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  • #
    ЯΞ√ΩLUT↑☼N

    Over the whole study period? Meaning during the last ten minutes…

    Just think.. Plag in a couple more Crays and they’ll have the same errors in half the time!

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    TdeF

    Off specific topic,

    RickWill. Rick you were attacked for posting elsewhere

    “The top 2000m of the oceans have warmed a whopping 0.114C since 1955.”
    “The bottom 3000m have not changed in temperature.”

    Where did you get this data?

    I would love to show using Henry’s law that growth of CO2 is entirely and accurately predictable from the warming ocean surface where 98% of all CO2 resides with a 14 year half life. I can even replicate the seasonal bumps. That is another way of demonstrating that the growth in CO2 is fully explicable without mankind and the industrial revolution. There is no ‘man made’ anything without man made CO2. Without man made CO2, the Paris Accord is meaningless.

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    • #
      sophocles

      to TdeF at #18.

      I’m not answering on behalf of Rickwill but you could try NOAA’s website and see if you could find the Argo project data. That might afford a good starting point … The Argo project, though, doesn’t have a long data tail.

      It’s an interesting idea (and project you’ve set yourself). All the very best with it.

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      • #
        TdeF

        What I would love is a graph of this global figure vs time. Not that I believe in global figures but they make more sense for the vast and homogenous ocean surface than the land where there are microclimates in every valley, on every mountain and around every mountain range at every latitude. Creating a global temperature for the planet is interesting and probably almost meaningless.

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    • #
      RickWill

      This is the source for the temperature:
      https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/basin_avt_data.html
      I just selected global oceans for Jan-Mar to 2000m. You will find there is a long response time heating to 2000m. There are some good analysis of rate of vertical heat transport in the oceans but it is not a fast process. Try boiling water using and exposed flame on the surface.

      There is another site with a good deal of data as well as output from various climate models:
      http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectfield_obs2.cgi?id=someone@somewhere
      This makes it easy to compare measured with modelled. It highlights how poor models are when compared on the detail.

      Probably the best source of global data is this one:
      https://neo.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/view.php?datasetId=CERES_INSOL_M
      It has high resolution data. That can take time to download and analyse but it gives much better understanding than just taking averages. If the relationship you are considering is not linear then averages are not much good at working out what is actually happening.

      Most of what you can think about with climate has been analysed and it is worth looking at what others have already done e.g:
      https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2016GB005400

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      • #
        TdeF

        Many thanks. I just want to check order of magnitude first. Then time. Then the perturbation. If I am right, the seasonal variations are not due to the biosphere as generally suggested, but to the primary source of CO2, a warming ocean.

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      • #
        TdeF

        Rick, really, soft tissue, biological drivers, depth differentials? Div? What happened to simple? These models are so complex they represent an attempt to include the entire biosphere and at depth. You would think this was nuclear physics, not simple gas exchange. No wonder no one understands the simple process. I was only intending to do a calculation at the surface which is the only place CO2 exchanges with the atmosphere. Now I understand why no one understands anything. The key to real understanding is a simple explanation, not another multivariate differential world wide climate model with depth in the ocean. These authors need to understand the principle of Occams’s razor.

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    TdeF

    By the way, for those interested, the just replaced Spectator editorial was as far as I can remember, precisely Tony Abbott’s speech this week. The last third was omitted, being basically an attack on Malcolm’s Liberals.

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    • #
      TdeF

      I mean where did Rowan Dean get the text? Even precisely the startling $12Billion Malcolm is spending on his Snowy II scheme, without any cost benefit analysis or even geological survey or feasibility report?
      This is 5x the Pink Batts scheme and the Pink Batts probably saved more power and don’t need servicing.

      As for servicing, this is a man who cannot find any money to renovate to buy back and renovate the ‘old’ power stations of Hazelwood or Liddell. He says new ones are too expensive and take too long to build. You could build three of them for what he is spending! Like the NEG, it is all no smoke and plenty of mirrors, all showing reflections of Malcolm’s biggest fan, Malcolm smirking. A genius in his own lunchtime. Makes Rudd seem a cautious spendthrift.

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      • #
        Rod Stuart

        That’s reminiscent of the old Arthur Godfrey hit “Heap Big Smoke, but no Fire”.
        “Him talk lot but him not so hot, heap big smoke but no fire.”
        Malcolm Trumble to a tee.

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        Kinky Keith

        Got my opinion of our President, exactly.

        Playing with mirrors, and smirking, and that’s only when he can get his mind off the money he has channeled.

        KK

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      • #
        Kinky Keith

        Got my opinion of our President, exactly.

        Playing with mirrors, and smirking, and that’s only when he can get his mind off the money he has channeled.

        KK

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      • #

        Uphill Snowy could well be greatest horror of Malcolm’s time in government, since the oiler subs will likely just incinerate money but never exist.

        The elevation to power of Malcolm Turnbull and his continuance in power are a testimony to just how powerful and awful our media have become. Always centralised and corporatised to an unacceptable degree, they are now one big, ugly whole, starting from the sources at Reuters, AP and AFP. Journalism used to be dying, now it’s long dead.

        Of course, we’re allowed a bit of barracking for either the blue team or red team at election time or over a pub counter, and Rupert knows how to string us along with the odd contrarian or climate skep. But look at what our “blue” vote bought us: Malcolm Bligh Turnbull.

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          Kinky Keith

          He doesn’t care a hoot for anybody or anything but channeling.

          KK

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            TdeF

            Malcolm shows all the characteristics of a spoilt only child. He craves attention. So he plays to the sycophants, the Greens.

            He also is Labor royalty through his mother’s uncle, George Lansbury but really hates the Labor party as they would not accept him. His great uncle split the UK labor party and most lost their seats, except George. As leader of Turnbull’s Liberals(tm) Malcolm is showing similar form, showing Labor how to be a really progressive PM, getting adulation from the Greens and damaging the Liberals he hates so much and the Nationals he hates even more. There is nothing wrong with being a rich inheritor. You get what you want. Only Malcolm could afford to pay $1.75Million for his own position but he hates the Tories and Labor and the Nationals. Green like an asparagus. Similar effect.

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      Dennis

      Political interference, how modern politics operates media management.

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Jo, what does your crystal ball say about it being 11:07 PM PDT and still 81 degrees outside? Can clouds do that?

    Methinks Jerry and company in Sacramento will be hollering, “Climate change is upon us.” Hide your internal combustions engines before they move up the date after which you can no longer buy one in Califusian, excuse me, California.

    They will go nuts. But we’re snug and comfortable thanks to that modern miracle, freon — oops, not supposed to have that anymore, sorry Jerry.

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  • #
    Richard111

    Any thoughts about the quiet sun and cosmic rays?

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    David Maddison

    Oh great, they can be added to this list of things attributed to “climate change”.

    “A (Not Quite) Complete List Of Things Supposedly
    Caused By Global Warming”

    http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/globalwarming2.html

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    • #
      ЯΞ√ΩLUT↑☼N

      There only needs to be one thing on it:

      “Everything Leftards can list”

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    pat

    the deceptive reporting continues.

    behind paywall:

    Coalition MP Craig Kelly backs Tony Abbott’s call to quit Paris …
    The Australian-38 minutes ago
    Coalition MP Craig Kelly echoed the latest rationale given by Mr Abbott for leaving the agreement that he signed up to as prime minister …

    7 Jul: news.com.au: Coalition MP backs Abbott on Paris pact
    Conservative coalition MP Craig Kelly says the Paris Agreement on climate change no longer applies to Australia following the US decision to depart.
    by Pat Griffiths
    An influential, conservative backbencher is championing former prime minister Tony Abbott’s call for Australia to quit the Paris Agreement on climate change.
    Coalition MP Craig Kelly echoed the latest rationale given by Mr Abbott for leaving the agreement that he signed up to as prime minister, namely that it no longer applied to Australia following the US decision to withdraw in 2017.
    “The Paris Agreement is no longer applicable to all. The USA is no longer in the agreement,” Mr Kelly told the ABC on Saturday.
    “China, (the) world’s largest emissions polluter, is not doing it till later.”

    But Labor MP Pat Conroy said Mr Kelly had the facts wrong – the US couldn’t fully quit the deal until after its next presidential election.
    “As the highest emissions country in the world, we need to make those commitments,” Mr Conroy said.
    “We are seeing Tony Abbott and Craig crab-walking away from a commitment willingly and knowing what it would result in.”…

    Mr Kelly said discontent within the coalition regarding its own signature energy policy, the National Energy Guarantee, shouldn’t be seen as disunity…
    “It is open debate and throwing ideas on the table,” Mr Kelly said, who wants greater emphasis given to coal power, denying that would constitute a subsidy.
    “Having a structure where you make sure you direct the investment into a coal-fired power station is not subsidising it,” he said.
    “It is a completely different kettle of fish.”
    Mr Conroy claimed such measures were a recipe for high power prices
    “We have to replace coal-fired power stations that are about to close down because they’re very old,” he said.
    “But the cheapest new form of power is renewable energy backed up by gas and power hydro – That’s what industry is saying.”
    https://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/coalition-mp-backs-abbott-on-paris-pact/news-story/9ae721243a41adb6aa62cdc4304e3ba3

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      pat

      have just tried every possible search to ABC document re Craig Kelly, and can find nothing. ABC not wanting the idea to take hold!

      it’s shocking that MSM doesn’t mention Paris is not binding, specifically because Obama’s Paris team ensured it wouldn’t be, and that any country can opt out.

      Conroy thinks he’s cute by adding “new” in “cheapest NEW form of power is renewable energy”.

      the dishonesty of the MSM and politicians is breath-taking.

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      • #
        Annie

        There is also some awful stuff coming out of the General Synod in England, according to my OH. I haven’t seen it yet. It seems Rowan Williams is on about disinvesting in ‘fossil’ fuels and the mining of them. I despair of the church.

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        • #
          Kinky Keith

          Hi Annie,

          A short cut to sainthood for many these days.

          The small, down to earth denomination that I found so appealing as a child, the congos, is now mainly agglomerated in the Uniting church. They have billboards proclaiming their support for the new causes like climate change. So cool.

          But not showing any relationship with reality.

          KK

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          • #
            Annie

            I’m not sure the General Synod has actually started but can’t check now…need to cook!
            I’m disgusted by the way the church, in its various forms, has taken on this agw/cc nonsense when most don’t know, or want to know, a first thing about real science.

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            • #
              shannon

              “The small, down to earth denomination that I found so appealing as a child, the congos, is now mainly agglomerated in the Uniting church”…….

              Totally agree with you as someone also associated years ago with the Uniting Church….
              They are embarrassingly naive at best…..and severely infiltrated at worst….sad !

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          Graeme No.3

          Annie:

          The investment history of the Church of England would deserve a whole chapter in Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.

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    Dennisa

    “We speculate that the clouds have always been there”

    The same ones?

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    pat

    the half million Euros speech!

    7 Jul: Xinhua: Paris Accord can still unite countries against climate change: former U.S. president
    Former U.S. President Barack Obama said it is still possible to bring countries together to address climate change under the Paris Accord and solve a problem that transcends borders.
    “What we see is that with the Paris Accord … we can still have countries on a common agenda,” said Obama, who gave a keynote speech at the Climate Change Leadership Summit in Porto, northern Portugal, on Friday.

    Asked about the future of the Paris Accord, he said his successor had a different position on climate change, adding that the United States will once again align with science in the future.
    “The bad news is that my successor did not agree with me. The good news is that other efforts were emerging in the economy and companies were realizing the advantages of investing in clean energy,” he said.

    Obama said that he is sure that the United States will return to the Paris Accord and that “more and more countries will take bold goals in the future” in combat climate change.
    “To continue this program, we would have to join hands with other countries,” he added.

    Joao Pedro Matos Fernandes, Environment Minister of Portugal, said at the summit that his country is preparing to launch a plan to tackle climate change.
    http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-07/07/c_137307929.htm

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    pat

    did this cost another half a million Euros? who knows:

    7 Jul: New Indian Express: AFP: Former US President Barack Obama warns of ‘rise in nationalism’
    Obama has criticised his successor President Donald Trump for failing to consider scientific research on the subject of climate change.
    Former US President Barack Obama warned in Madrid Friday of “a rise in nationalism” and the potential of new media to accelerate social divisions.

    “We’re in a difficult time, politically, socially, people feel very anxious,” said Obama, who left office last year.
    “Change is happening very quickly. People are wondering can I adapt to these changes? People are fearful,” the former president told an audience of 2,000 people at a conference in Madrid on technological innovation and the circular economy, which minimises waste.
    “We see a rise in nationalism,” Obama told his audience…

    The former Democrat President highlighted, in particular, on the US Fox News network, “If you watch Fox News you see a different reality than if you read the New York Times.”
    He added, “Climate change is not happening at all in media like Fox. This phenomenon has been exploited by some forces internationally, which feed their biases”.
    The solution, according to Obama, is to train young people “to think differently”.

    Obama, who was to travel on to Porto in Portugal on Friday to attend a climate change conference, has criticised his successor President Donald Trump for failing to consider scientific research on the subject.
    http://www.newindianexpress.com/world/2018/jul/07/former-us-president-barack-obama-warns-of-rise-in-nationalism-1839428.html

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    pat

    google translation. the writer claims on her Twitter page that she also writes for NYT – no surprise:

    6 Jul: Observerdor Portugal: Obama’s appearance did not bring selfies nor Trump, but it filled the Harbor Coliseum
    by Cátia Bruno
    He arrived and left without anyone seeing him, almost like a ghost, and his coming turned the Street Steps Manuel inside out. But Obama left the Coliseum in turmoil with an hour of frank talk…

    It is that the more than two thousand guests who did not miss the call of the Climate Change Leadership Summit are there, mostly, not because of Bokova or Monasinghe. They are there thanks to a much grander name, which also filled (and filled) pages of newspapers and also received a Nobel Peace Prize, but who is much better known for the job he left two years ago – Barack Obama, U.S.

    He is the star of this conference and it is for him that the two thousand people endure without grunting the tight security control that left them waiting, standing, to enter for hours. Three identification controls, passage through metal detector and … piii, piiii. In case of a whistle, there is a magazine made by a security agent, as in the airports.

    At this time of day, nothing of Obama yet. Their presence is only felt and commented by the corridors in anticipation. Rua Passos Manuel is closed to traffic and, even on foot, access is limited. In the central corridor created in the middle of the street, marked with metal grilles, are police cars, fire trucks, Civil Protection vehicles. Everywhere there are men and women in uniform, with different types of dress. In a glance you can see the light blue of the PSP, the dark blue of intervention teams, red marks from the firefighters and even the gray of the high ranking military.
    The post-crisis is “the right time” to intervene in the Iberian Peninsula, says Obama’s adviser…

    Inside the Coliseum, there is no door that is not guarded by anyone and wherever you go without showing the event’s wristband or badge. It does not hurt, comments the guests, all for Obama. The former president is in Madrid, to attend another conference, and will only arrive after lunch. Holdings in the Iberian Peninsula are two of only six scheduled in international events for this year, which makes the visit more special for many.

    The Porto-Madrid connection comes thanks to the Advanced Leadership Foundation, with an office in the Spanish capital, and to its Iberian strategy. It is thanks to her, the President of the Foundation, Juan Verde, will later explain to the Observer that it was possible to bring Obama to Portugal: “Our Foundation organizes many leadership summits and tries to create ‘ambassadors’ on different topics that can influence policies . But we still had not done anything in Europe and we felt that the Iberian Peninsula was a good place to start, “he explains. “Portugal and Spain are recovering from economic crises and now is the right time to intervene here.”
    Juan Verde, a former Obama aide, told the Observer that if he was in the former president’s shoes “he would be more aggressive with the Trump administration.” “But President Obama is not like that,” he adds.
    Green (Verde) is Spanish, but he prefers to speak in English rather than in “portunhol,” he says, since there are many years to live in Washington – after all, it is someone who was an aide to Bill and Hillary Clinton and, more recently, from Obama himself. Juan Verde was also Deputy Undersecretary for Europe and Eurasia of the Obama Administration’s Commerce Department. No wonder he was able to help bring the former President to this summit then. And it will be him conducting the conversation with Obama on the stage in the afternoon…

    Barack Obama, on stage arrival
    The guests jostle where they can to go and crack a sandwich, sometimes scattered about their places, now leaning against walls in the corridors, in a pleasant cavaqueira. The expectation for the afternoon is great – and Obama will not disappoint. It is not until 3:00 PM that Juan Verde, after his presentation, calls the ex-President to the stage. Before that, a warning appears on the screen, asking not to take pictures or videos, not even with the mobile phones. Then there is Obama, the long-awaited figure, waving to the crowd and received with loud applause from an audience of almost three thousand people – including political faces like Paulo Rangel, Marques Mendes and also ministers like Manuel Caldeira Cabral, of Economics. Another minister, the Environment (João Matos Fernandes), will close the event.

    The conversation between Green and Obama pops up most of the current points one might expect. Migrations? They are “clearly” linked to climate issues and help is needed in the countries of origin. “If we do not solve this, there are not walls high enough to stop these migratory currents,” he warned. It is one of the veiled references to Donald Trump’s policy, but it is not the only one. In environmental matters, Obama bluntly asserts that “my successor does not agree with me,” giving as an example the departure of the United States from the Paris Agreement.

    But the answers go beyond purely climate and sustainability issues, with the former President speaking, for example, of the media crisis. “Democracy works if we all agree more or less on the same facts,” he says, explaining that he can not have a discussion about the environment with someone who says, “I do not believe the world is hotter, this is all a conspiracy.” “If that person says ‘these data are invented, I do not believe them,’ I do not know how to argue with them,” he says, before reflecting on the polarization in his country and what he considers to be “the alternative realities” of those who consume news through of Fox News and those who read the New York Times.

    Trump, the name that can not be pronounced
    It was like that, speaking openly and sharing little moments of humor – “Michelle hates politics and politicians,” she would comment at some point between laughter – that Obama was relaxed in the short time the Portuguese could see him. Only the current President, Donald Trump, did not have his name pronounced (opting Obama for the formula “my successor”), an attitude that Green (Verde) framed the Observer in a later conversation: “There is this unwritten rule in the USA that ex – Presidents should not intervene in the current mandate, especially when they are no longer in politics, “he explains. “I would be more aggressive with the Trump administration,” he confesses, “but President Obama is not like that.”

    The image of the cool, relaxed man of the ex-President who can make jokes and who does not forget his wife and his daughters stayed in Portugal. “When I come to Portugal I’m always busy, but at least this time I tasted a Port,” he begins by saying to the crowd, who reacts with clapping and laughing. “He found the city very beautiful, even to land on the plane, I think,” Green said. “And he promised to return on vacation,” adds the former aide.

    Before the farewell, Obama still leaves words to the new generations. “If you talk to people the age of my daughter, in their 20s, they are more environmentally aware, more tolerant and more sophisticated than my generation,” he said, explaining that “the problem” is that it is not millennials that they send “If there are young people here, throw yourself into it, take the step,” he shoots, before reinforcing his faith in humanity and the world and saying goodbye.
    “When I come to Portugal I’m always busy, but at least this time I tasted a Port.”

    Barack Obama
    From then on, no one else sees it. It disappears as if by magic, like a ghost that crosses the wall and vanishes, hidden from the eyes of the guests at the Colosseum and from the curious who waited at the top of Rua Passos Manuel. “He did not leave here, no. It was from the rear, for sure, I still saw a limousine at the top of the street,” says the Observer Amélia Pereira, retired and resident in Batalha since birth…

    Around her, no one seems to notice that one of the speakers at the conference is there – there are no conversations, no solicitations to take selfies, no photos taken with her smartphone . Up there, at the top of the street, Amelia and Zulmiro also have no idea who the woman is standing below. Now if it was Obama …
    https://observador.pt/especiais/a-aparicao-de-obama-nao-trouxe-selfies-nem-trump-mas-encheu-o-coliseu-do-porto/

    Wikipedia: Juan Verde
    Juan Verde Suárez is a business and social entrepreneur who worked on the political campaigns of Senator Ted Kennedy, President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, Senator John Kerry, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, besides serving as International Co-Chair for the reelection campaign of President Barack Obama in 2012…

    Mr. Verde serves, or has served, among others, on the board of directors of Abengoa Bioenergy S.A., a global biotech ethanol company; Santander Bank, N.A., a U.S. subsidiary of the Spanish financial institution Grupo Santander; and Andina Energy Corp., a global diversified energy corporation.
    Companies
    Advanced Leadership Foundation: President
    The Climate Project Spain: Founder and CEO
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Verde

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    Roy Hogue

    WASHINGTON — Increased water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere due to human activities is making shimmering high-altitude clouds more visible, a new study finds. The results suggest these strange but increasingly common clouds seen only on summer nights are an indicator of human-caused climate change, according to the study’s authors.

    It strikes me a plain old stupid of these “authors” to believe that I will swallow the idea that on a planet covered 3/4 with water, any human activity could increase water vapor in the atmosphere above normal levels. Normal is very loosely defined at best since humidity measurements can go all over the full range from blistering desert to coastal fog and clouds, 10% or less to saturated at 100%.

    Who is fooling whom? I think they’re fooling themselves.

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      Kinky Keith

      Hi Roy,

      I am in complete agreement although we have been drawn to our conclusions along two different lines of thought.

      Your idea about the relative inputs of water to the atmosphere is the most scientific.

      Now that I’ve been prompted to think about it, it does seem very unlikely that humans have the capacity through our use of water and creation of water vapour through industrial processes, to significantly compete with Nature.

      Just one or two things that tend to suggest this are rain and the nearby ocean.

      We recently had a lot of rain over one week.

      A lot of that water went to the ocean through our city’s drainage sytem and the Sun evaporated the rest.

      The amount of water turned over by nature was huge.

      Over near the ocean at particular times of day it’s possible to see onshore breezes pushing heavy mists of salt spray inland. Again a huge natural process.

      My own take on the issue was prompted by a recent experience flying in a commercial jet at 10,000 metres altitude.

      It was minus 58°C outside and at the airports at both ends of the flight it was about the same, plus 13°C.

      It was bumpy at times and we were above the clouds and presumably in a part of the atmosphere where water vapour was scarce.

      I just have a strong feeling that if this is what it’s like at 10 km what’s the chance that we humans can project water out a further 75 km? Unlikely.

      My instincts tell me we are right. No science this time.

      KK

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        ЯΞ√ΩLUT↑☼N

        Naa.. The cause is this rooly smart lady:

        https://youtu.be/_c6HsiixFS8

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        Roy Hogue

        I am in complete agreement…

        Considering that your credentials are probably greater than mine, that’s high praise. I do only one thing, I observe and remember so I can learn from the next bit of information I get. When you have information from different sources that agree with each other, that tends to be powerful evidence.

        Flying above an overcast should be very smooth, no turbulence. On one flight on a very windy day that was very rough, once I was high enough to go over the top of the overcast it settled down to a velvety smooth ride. I only had the necessity to go over the top once. But it confirmed the theory. So I think your bumpy ride was unusual. The real turbulence risk is in the clouds or under them and always, if there’s a storm in the vicinity you can expect a bumpy ride. I just relaxed and enjoyed it, pretending I was on my favorite roller coaster. Weather is its own boss.

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          Annie

          I quite enjoy a bit of turbulence when I am dozing. It reminds me of being in a planing sailing dinghy. Too much isn’t pleasant though. I have thought that there should be more grab handles incorporated around the aircraft for when one is caught short out of one’s seat by a sudden bit of turbulence.

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            Annie

            After all, on an ultra-long haul there are times when a visit to the facilities becomes necessary. We are admonished to keep hydrated!
            There is also a need to move around to try to prevent DVT.

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    Power Grab

    Here is a page that tells when noctilucent clouds were first(?) documented:

    https://www.planet-today.com/2018/06/the-phenomenon-of-noctilucent-clouds-is.html

    While we haven’t actually had another Krakatoa eruption, the Hawaiian one is still ongoing.

    Here is my favorite video about noctilucent clouds:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xF2vSKINK0

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    observa

    Them noctilucents can’t get me cos I go to bed and pull the blanket over my head before they come out.

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    I sense Montreal Protocol 2.0 coming.

    Perhaps we need to ban LCD’s. /sarc

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    Phoenix44

    They “simulated” the effect – in other words, they built a model that assumed something. Nothing wrong with that, interesting to see what things might look like IF YOUR ASSUMPTION IS CORRECT.

    But having your model do what your assumptions tell it to do does not prove your assumption was right.

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