In all the hype about global warming and climate change hysteria, lost is information about how weather actually works. Environmental alarmists would have us believe that temperatures and weather are almost solely affected by CO2 and carbon fuel use. But such is simply not the case. So how does weather work, and how does the planet warm and cool? If we understand this, even a novice can make sense of the current climate change debate.
The atmosphere is a marvel of a self-regulating phenomenon. Almost all familiar weather phenomena occur in the troposphere (the lower part of the atmosphere). If the earth gets too cool, there are fewer clouds, and more radiation from the sun reaches the earth, and the surface of the earth warms. If the earth gets too warm, more clouds occur, and less radiation from the sun reaches the earth, and the surface of the earth cools. Additionally, if an area of the earth warms, the warm air rises, creating an atmospheric vacuum, and it pulls cool air from the arctic (or antarctic) into that vacuum and cools the surface of the earth, and the atmosphere. Even beyond the troposphere, stratospheric winds, and radiation, all affect the weather and subsequent surface temperatures of the earth.
The jet stream operates at between 20,000 and 40,000 feet altitude, and is about two miles thick. The strong temperature contrast between polar and tropical air gives rise to the jet stream. The jet stream is two to four thousand miles in length, and affects weather in a variety of ways. There are actually several jet streams that function similarly around the globe. For example, if it moves south, it allows colder arctic air to move south also, if it moves north, it creates a high pressure area to its south and keeps colder air from moving south. Like the Gulf Stream, it is a huge mass of moving air that affects weather globally, and to date, no one has been able to predict the actions of the jet stream beyond a day or two.
Radiation from the sun is the biggest factor that effects weather. In it’s 100,000 year cycle through the Milky Way, the sun moves from a closer position to the sun, to a more distant position. At the earth’s more distant location, the earth experiences an ice age, and yes, those occur about every 100,000 years. Guess which end of the cycle the earth is at currently? That’s right, at it’s closest point, so temperatures are a bit higher. Over thousands to hundreds of thousands of years, changes in Earth's orbital parameters affect the amount and distribution of solar energy received by the Earth and influence long-term climate. And sunspots, which are also cyclical, dramatically affect earth’s weather, and temperatures. As sunspots increase, temperatures on the earth increase, when they decrease, earth’s temperatures also drop. Radiation from the sun is the single greatest, and by far most significant contributor to the earth’s weather, and global temperatures.
Volcanoes affect weather when they erupt by spewing millions of tons of ash and dust into the atmosphere. Winds aloft, including the jet stream, circulate these volcanic particles around the globe in a matter of days. These particles reflect and/or block the suns rays, causing the earth to cool. Large eruptions can affect global weather for several years, most last two to three years before the particles succumb to the pull of gravity, the effects of rain and barometric pressure changes, and fall back to earth. Temperatures then return to normal.
The oceans also affect the weather in a multitude of ways. If the water heats up sufficiently, it can cause such things as the El Nino effect. El Nino affects weather, not only in the eastern Pacific and the western U.S., but to a lesser degree, world wide. Warm, moist air moving over cooled land in coastal areas will cause fog to form, which reflects the suns radiation and cools the earth further. Clouds that form over the oceans and move over land will cause night time temperatures to be warmer than if the skies are clear. To a large degree, the oceans create the majority of the earth’s weather.
The Gulf Stream is a large mass of warm water originating in the Gulf of Mexico, that moves up the Atlantic coast of North America, across the North Atlantic, and past Iceland, England and Europe. The Gulf Stream influences the climate of the east coast of North America from Florida to Newfoundland, and the west coast of Europe. The climate of Western Europe and Northern Europe is warmer than it would otherwise be; and that this is due to the North Atlantic drift, one of the branches from the tail of the Gulf Stream. It’s likely that portions of Northern Europe would be uninhabitable were it not for the Gulf Stream, it simply tempers the natural coldness of Northern Europe. Iceland, England, Scandinavia, possibly Germany, Denmark and other areas of Europe would be unattractive to live in, and unproductive agriculturally without the effect of the Gulf Stream.
Inspite of what some global alarmists claim, CO2 does not affect weather, or even local or regional temperatures to any appreciable degree, and its affect cannot be separated from all the other gases in the atmosphere, including water vapor. All the atmospheric gases (including water vapor) act in concert, all have similar properties, but water vapor is by far the largest contributor to atmospheric temperature fluctuations, dwarfing the effect of all the other gases, including CO2. The only reason CO2 is “picked on” is because it is a by product of burning carbon fuels. And carbon fuels are the bad boy of environmentalists, and the primary target of environmental policy. But at .003 percent of the atmosphere it’s almost comical to see environmentalists attempt to make intellectually sustainable arguments concerning CO2 and its affect on global temperatures.
It is theoretically impossible to make useful day-to-day weather predictions more than about two weeks ahead, imposing an upper limit to potential for improved prediction skill. And if you follow weather forecasts closely, it is rare for a two week forecast to go unchanged. “Updated” forecasts will usually occur more than once during that two week forecast period. Often, the two week forecast is completely wrong, inspite of all we know about the weather, satellites, monitoring stations, and highly educated weather scientists working to predict the weather. Thus pretending to predict weather years, decades, or centuries into the future is intellectually dishonest, it simply cannot be done. And anyone who claims to know what the weather will be in the future, beyond a couple of weeks, is being deceitful.
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