Media claims CO2 “traps heat”! A big lie or a big stupid ???

Below  is  the  transcript to the video  

Media claims CO2 “traps heat”!  A big lie or a big stupid ???

view at 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36dAG3YkqSE

Welcome everyone. This video will expose a popular climate myth pushed by the media. Although greenhouse gases warm the earth's average temperature, CO2 does not trap heat.

Click bait media thrives on fearmongering. So, ABC news for example, has published this misleading illustration of solar energy entering the earth's atmosphere, but no energy escaping back to space. To blame rising CO2 on climate change they must call CO2 a heat trapping gas, so they can then make simple minded claims that any rise in CO2 must increase extreme heating and then fearmonger a climate crisis.

But all climate scientists agree that the energy absorbed by CO2 is quickly shed in less than one thousandth of a second. Hardly enough time to argue the heat had been trapped.

Others like climate central who identify as independent scientists and communicators reporting "just the facts about climate change" published this bogus illustration suggesting just half the incoming solar energy is radiated back to space.

But satellite data and energy budgets estimated by climate scientists' have calculated that of the absorbed incoming solar heat, the earth radiates 99.6%, with several tenths of percent uncertainty, back to space as infrared heat waves. The greenhouse effect is more complex because CO2 has both warming and cooling effects.

The only thing getting trapped is the public's misunderstanding of how the greenhouse effect works and their fear of the future.

Several natural climate dynamics trap heat for much longer periods. And those natural climate dynamics are better able to explain observed warming events.

Consider that 99% of our atmosphere is composed of 3 gases, oxygen, nitrogen, and argon, and they are not greenhouse gases. Near the surface, a CO2 molecule collides a billion times every second with non-greenhouse gases, transferring the energy CO2 may have absorbed from infrared heat to those non-greenhouse gases. 

 Conversely oxygen and nitrogen cannot radiate energy away. So, to shed the energy absorbed from collisions with CO2 or the solar heated ground they must collide with greenhouse gases that can radiate that heat away.

If you ever played with newton's cradle, you understand how energy can be transferred back and forth as energy is lost from one ball and given to another.

Alarmist media only focus on the warming effects of CO2 and ignore the fact that increasing CO2 helps infrared radiation escape from the earth's atmosphere by cooling the middle to upper atmosphere

There are three distinct atmospheric layers that affect how infrared heat escapes to space. Changes in the atmosphere's density contributes to how readily infrared heat radiates back to space. At higher altitudes air density is greatly reduced causing fewer collisions and creating wider spaces for infrared to escape unimpeded.

The low-density mesosphere cools with increasing altitude because CO2 radiates more heat back to space, faster than the sun can heat the mesosphere.

The low-density stratosphere also allows more infrared to escape to space, but here the temperature rises with increasing altitude because ultraviolet sunlight interacts with the ozone layer, warming the air faster than CO2 can radiate infrared heat away. However, both observations and modeling have determined that increasing CO2 concentrations are enhancing infrared radiation back to space causing a cooling trend in the stratosphere and mesosphere.

In the dense lower atmosphere, or troposphere, the upwards and downward flow of infrared radiation is approximately balanced, and the warming effect of CO2 is nearly saturated.

Cooling of the troposphere is largely dependent on lower pressure  and rising convection currents that carry warm air towards the stratosphere where more heat can radiate away to space. In the troposphere, the transport of heat via convection is as equally important for cooling as infrared radiation.

When air collides with earth's solar heated surface, it warms, expands, and rises. As the rising air approaches the stratosphere, enough heat radiates away to cool the air and allow it to sink back towards the earth’s surface.

Extreme hot weather typically occurs whenever convection is suppressed. Simply consider the studies that have found stopping convection by rolling up a car's windows traps heat in a car. In just one-hour temperatures inside the car rise by 43 F.

Convection happens whenever a layer of less dense warm air lies below a layer of dense colder air. During the day, solar heating of the ground creates those conditions and promotes convection. But convection can still be suppressed.

The atmosphere must balance regions of rising air with regions of sinking air. So, the earth is covered by a mosaic of regions dominated by rising convection alternating with regions dominated by sinking air that suppresses convection. Regions of suppressed convection can be temporary, causing above average temperatures lasting for just a day, or extend periods of heating for millennia as experienced by the earth's great deserts.

Heat waves are common when the downward flow of air beneath a jet stream's ridge, causes air to rapidly heat as the air compresses. That creates a layer of air that's warmer than the surface air below and that layer serves as the top of a heat dome that suppresses convection. Combined with increased solar heating from clear skies, reduced convection causes heat waves that trap suffocating heat for days and sometimes weeks.

Conversely, convection is suppressed when the surface layer becomes colder than the air above. This typically happens at night and during the winter.

The ground can shed 20 to 30% of its heat to space by quickly emitting infrared wavelengths to space that are not impeded by greenhouse gases. In contrast because the atmosphere’s heated oxygen and nitrogen do not radiate heat at all. The air can only shed its heat more slowly by colliding with a greenhouse gas that can radiate heat away.

This creates the so-called inversion layers with cold air near the surface and a layer of warmer air above that suppresses convection. In contrast to heat domes, this suppressed convection does not cause a heat wave, but it can trap smoke and pollution near the surface.

Asphalt and concrete absorb and store solar heat, emitting it more slowly than normal and raising nighttime temperatures This trapping of surface heat contributes to urban heat islands and explains why city dwellers suffer the most during heat waves

The oceans trap the most heat for the longest times. Massachusetts institute of technology's esteemed oceanographers, doctors Karl Wunsch and Patrick Heimbach, calculated the amount of heat trapped in today's oceans. They estimated that solar heated waters may be trapped for 100 to 10,000 years before that heat can circulated to the surface and escape back to the atmosphere.

The greatest amount of heat is trapped in the Atlantic Ocean, illustrated here by the dark red color. One reason for this concentration of trapped heat is the outflow of warm salty Mediterranean seawater into the Atlantic. The clear summer skies of all Mediterranean climates result in evaporation exceeding precipitation, which causes salty & dense, warm surface waters to sink.

The sinking of dense Mediterranean water creates the warmest waters in the world of any waters at 1000-meter depths.

As detailed in earlier videos, the greatest amount of solar flux into the ocean happens in the eastern pacific during la Nina periods where less cloud cover allows greater solar heating. The trade winds then pile up that solar heated water in the western pacific and Indian ocean, pushing heat down to 200 meters depth and trapping it there for years.

The alarmists' narratives claim the oceans are heating up because oceans absorb 90% of the so-called "excess heat from CO2's downward infrared energy.

But the science suggests it is the sun's visible light that is warming the oceans. Visible light carries far more energy than greenhouse infrared.

And it penetrates to 40 meters depth in murky coastal waters

And up to 200 meters depth in clear open ocean waters

In contrast greenhouse infrared heat penetrates only a few microns past the ocean surface. That heat, absorbed in the ocean's extremely thin skin layer is not transported to deeper layers but commonly and quickly released to the atmosphere via evaporation, suggesting infrared heat from greenhouse gases are not causing ocean warming at all.

Just as trapped solar heat warms the oceans, if outgoing infrared doesn’t balance incoming solar heating the earth's climate will warm. So, the debate becomes: are the currently observed warmer temperatures due to natural dynamics that trap heat as described in the first part of this video, or due to the trapping of heat by rising CO2. But atmospheric physics suggests CO2 can't be more than a minor contributor.

The physics describing how heated bodies emit infrared and how that infrared interacts with greenhouse gases is very well studied and can be accurately modeled as illustrated here in a 2019 paper by atmospheric physicists, Drs. Wijngaarden & Will Happer from Princeton.

The solid blue curve describes a hypothetical condition with no greenhouse gases, and it illustrates how much energy is ideally emitted from a surface with our current average temperature back to space by each infrared wavelength. But keep in mind, without greenhouse gases to re-cycle infrared heat back to the earth's surface to delay cooling, the earth's average temperature would become uninhabitable, plummeting to an average temperature just below freezing.

The jagged black curve indicates how much energy actually escapes via each wavelength under our current atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and ... With CO2 at 400 ppm. The difference between this curve and the idealized blue curve indicates how much of the energy outflow of each infrared wavelength is reduced by greenhouse gases and instead gets re-directed to the earth's surface.

And keep in mind, that re-directed infrared has delayed cooling and raised the earth's average temperature to our very livable current temperature of about 59 degrees Fahrenheit.

Unfortunately, in this and similar graphs, the large areas of reduced outgoing infrared for specific wavelengths, has falsely suggested some of the outgoing energy has been trapped. But that would be a gross misinterpretation.

The large areas of reduced outgoing infrared suggest about 20% could be trapped but that disagrees with evidence from satellite data and energy budgets, indicating at least 99.6% of incoming solar energy, still escapes as infrared. So, if not trapped where does the missing infrared go?

The misinterpretation arises because, when greenhouse gases emit downward heat via a limited number of different wavelengths, the resulting warmed surface then radiates that heat via all possible wavelengths, and that allows more infrared heat to escape via wavelengths of “atmospheric windows" where greenhouse gases do not impede the heat's escape to space.

However, the large reduction of outgoing infrared wave lengths centered around 15 microns, which are wave lengths CO2 and water vapor absorb, indicates CO2 is involved in the greatest intensity of re-directed downward infrared heat.

The area below the green curve indicates how much energy is affected by just CO2, with the remaining reduction above caused by water vapor.

The red curve shows that despite a doubling of CO2 concentrations to 800 ppm, the downward flow of infrared at these wavelengths is only increased by 1%

Water vapor is the major greenhouse gas and absorbs and re-directs infrared heat from a much larger range of wave lengths.

But again, for every wavelength of re-directed downward heat, that heat is not trapped, a significant portion of that heat always escapes unimpeded through the infrared "atmospheric windows". And the longer the nights, the greater the escape of greenhouse heat.

Wijngaarden and Happer also modeled how changes in solar heating due to latitude, affected escaping infrared. Surface temperatures common to the Mediterranean would ideally emit infrared with a maximum intensity of about 140 units And.... Freely escaping infrared through atmospheric windows would range between 110 and 50 units

Over much hotter surface temperatures as observed in the Sahara, ideally emitted infrared increases to a maximum intensity of about 190 units Accordingly in the Sahara, the more freely escaping infrared via the atmospheric windows also increases to a range between 160 and 100 units

Thus, atmospheric windows enable negative feedback that reduces overheating. whether the surface temperatures are raised by increased solar energy or by recycled greenhouse infrared, higher temperatures cause more infrared to freely escape unimpeded through those atmospheric windows.

Wijngaarden and Happer also confirmed what other researchers had found. There is no greenhouse warming over Antarctica in the winter.

The wavelengths dominated by CO2 emit more infrared back to space than Antarctica’s cold surface could ideally emit. This surprising result happens because the heat trapped by non-greenhouse molecules comprising the warm air that is constantly transported southward to the Antarctic, continues to collide with CO2 which can then radiate heat out to space.

Unusual warm events in Antarctica that the media ignorantly proclaims to be caused by CO2 warming, are caused when warm winds originating from elsewhere descend to Antarctica’s surface, as observed during its many fohn storm events

So, beware of anyone telling you that increasing CO2 is increasingly trapping heat and causing a climate crisis. They are either ignorant of the science, or dishonestly manipulating your thinking to advance their political agendas.

Truly .... there is no climate crisis

Our democracy depends on a diverse array of good critical thinkers. So, please shun mindless group think. Instead embrace renowned scientist, Thomas Huxley’s advice

Skepticism is the highest of duties and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.

Big 5 Natural Causes of Climate Change part 5: Clouds the Moderators of Warming and Extreme Heat

 

Below is  the transcript from the video 

 Big 5 Natural Causes of Climate Change part 5: Clouds the Moderators of Warming and Extreme Heat

https://youtu.be/tiQ6bLiWNmw

Welcome everyone to the final part of the Big 5 Natural Causes of Climate Change - here I examine the impacts of changing cloud cover.

On balance, clouds cool our climate

Conversely, fewer clouds will produce global warming, as well as extreme local heat waves.

As climate scientist Kevin Trenberth explained in 2009, “Global warming is mainly caused from increases in absorbed solar radiation due to decreasing cloud cover.”

Most climate scientists admit, the great difficulties in estimating cloud effects have caused significant uncertainty regards global warming calculations.

Because the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere rapidly declines with altitude, High clouds are usually thin and reflect a minimum of sunlight, but still have a greenhouse effect. Whereas low clouds are denser and will significantly reduce the solar radiation absorbed at the earth's surface

According to calculations in wild 2019, on average clouds reduce about 54 watts per meter squared of the sun's energy

One quick side note here: Non-scientists are often put-off by the unfamiliar measurement used by all climate scientists of watts per meter squared. But it is just a measure of energy flowing each second into and out of the earth. For our purposes, all one needs to understand is the greater the number of watts, the greater the energy flow.

To determine if humans are disrupting the earth's energy balance, scientists construct energy budgets as illustrated here. But the amount of information is so dense, it readily confuses the general public. To help clarify, I’ll guide you through the important points.

It is also important to pay attention to the plus or minus numbers that reflect how uncertain each calculation is.

For example, here they calculate that the earth's surface absorbs just 6 tenths of a watt more than it emits back to space with that imbalance causing the earth to warm. But being good scientists, Stephens (2012) also published that their calculations could be 17 watts too high or 17 watts too low, reflecting just how unsettled the science is. So, beware of the scientists' illustrations that do not accurately publish their uncertainty.

Some estimates are very accurate. Satellite measurements of solar radiation have very little uncertainty. After averaging for day and night, and differences between the equator and the poles, energy budgets begin with an average solar input of 340 watts per meter squared at the top of our atmosphere.

After subtracting estimates of the energy absorbed by the atmosphere and reflected by clouds or the earth's surface, they estimate each square meter of the earth's surface absorbs on average between 159 and 165 watts.

What confuses most people is why isn't the earth cooling if the surface absorbs about 160 watts of solar energy, but then releases more than twice that energy away as infrared?

The confusion arises due to the greenhouse effect. Primarily water vapor and clouds, plus carbon dioxide and other minor greenhouse gases readily absorb most infrared energy. But in less than a microsecond, greenhouse gases immediately lose that energy either via a collision with O2 and N2, or emit that energy, with half that energy being directed back towards the surface and recycled. The recycling of infrared energy is called greenhouse warming, but it would be more accurately called delayed cooling. The more energy that is recycled the slower the surface cools.

Click-bait mainstream media and politicians greatly mislead the public when suggesting CO2 traps heat energy. Each time heat energy is recycled back towards the surface, the earth quickly emits 10% to 30% of that energy as infrared energy in wavelengths that greenhouse gases cannot absorb. So, with every recycling of downward infrared energy, 10 to 30% leaks back to space uninhibited and it exits at nearly the speed of light.

Clouds increase the amount of greenhouse heat that gets recycled, and according to wild 2019, on average clouds re-direct 28 watts per meter squared back to the surface.

However, because clouds reflect away twice as much solar energy as they recycle, on balance, clouds cool the earth by 26 watts per meter squared.

Eventually it is estimated that 239.7 watts per squared, and an uncertain plus or minus 3.3 watts, escape to space. The claim that CO2 is causing a warming crisis by creating a heating energy imbalance of 0.6 watts per meter squared is questionable simply due a level of uncertainty that is 5 times greater than their claim

Furthermore, when compared to the IPCC’s estimated 2.5 watts of added greenhouse gas warming, reduced cloud cover can also amplify solar heating. A cloudless sky can have 10 times the heating effect of CO2.

The earth’s atmospheric circulation causes both moist regions with dense cooling clouds and hotter drier regions with clear skies. The primary driver of atmospheric circulation is the Hadley Circulation. The intertropical convergence zone or ITCZ is a region near the equator where the north and south trade winds converge, driving moist air upwards and generating towering cumulonimbus rain clouds.

Thus, the ITCZ covers a region of heavy precipitation which sustains the earth's equatorial rainforests.

What goes up must come down. After the moisture rains out, the air is dry and sinks to the north and south of the ITCZ. The sinking dry air prevents cloud formation, minimizes rainfall, and increases extreme solar heating, characteristic of the world's deserts.

When incoming solar energy is averaged across the globe, it obscures critical local dynamics caused by clouds. Whereas the global average of surface solar heating is about 160 watts per meter squared, at midday under clear tropical skies, the surface can receive 1000 watts. Under the clearer skies at the edge of the Sahara Desert, Aswan, Egypt constantly receives 160% of the averaged solar heating (or 263 watts per meter squared)

Cloudless desert skies also cause extreme weather swings. According to NASA, deserts experience the most extreme annual maximum temperatures, averaging 38 Celsius or over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. With fewer clouds, surface heat more rapidly cools at night as less infrared heat is recycled. And temperatures can drop by 75 degrees Fahrenheit falling below freezing.

In 1913, Death Valley reported the world's record high daily temperature of 56.7 Celsius or 134 Fahrenheit. Just 6 months earlier, similar dry cloud free conditions produced Death Valley’s coldest minimum temperature of minus 9 degrees Celsius or 15 Fahrenheit.

On smaller scales, heat domes form wherever descending air currents prevent convection and reduce cloud cover, causing extreme solar heating,

Jet stream troughs promote rising convection, more clouds, and cooler temperatures. Jet stream ridges cause dry descending air, less cloudy skies, and high temperatures

The cloudless skies beneath a stalled jet stream ridge caused the stifling heat dome over northwestern north America in 2021. As detailed in part 2, that heat dome generated Canada’s record high temperatures of 49.6 Celsius or 121.3 Fahrenheit.

On a global scale several studies have reported cloud cover has been decreasing since at least 1980, with the advent of satellite coverage. A 2014 study determined there was a 6.8% decrease in cloud cover over the northern hemisphere which increased solar heating by 5.4 watts. That declining cloud effect adds twice as much solar energy than what the IPCC attributes to rising greenhouse gases, and over 3 times the heating attributed to rising CO2.

A 2022 paper reported a similar decrease in cloud cover, noticing the rise in global temperatures correlated with decreasing cloud cover. Thus, researchers also argued cloud cover has a greater radiative effect on global warming than rising CO2.

However, different types of clouds have different causes and very different heating and cooling effects, so more detailed analyses beyond total cloud cover are needed to correctly assess the effects of changing cloud cover. Low level clouds below 2000 meters, significantly reduce solar heating and minimally add to any greenhouse warming.

Stratus clouds form in flat layers when moist air sits over cooler surfaces causing, water vapor to condense into liquid drops. Moist air traveling over regions of cold ocean upwelling produces low stratus clouds, also known as fog. Also, when a warm air mass gradually moves over a cold air mass stratus clouds form.

In contrast, the lumpier tops of cumulus clouds form when heated surfaces cause several currents of rising moist air that condense at higher altitudes.

If there is an abundant supply of moisture, such as over tropical oceans, the latent heat released from condensing moisture powers the rising momentum that grows a low-level cumulus cloud into a towering cumulonimbus that rises to the stratosphere. Because the stratosphere is warmer than the rising air, these cumulonimbus clouds flatten out at the stratosphere boundary causing the characteristic flat anvil top.

High altitude cirrus clouds are thinner and don't reflect much solar heat but do have a small greenhouse effect causing net warming. Cirrus clouds are often produced by the outflow from the anvil top of cumulonimbus clouds. Because cirrus clouds are composed of ice crystals and slow to evaporate, cirrus are often transported far from their point of origin.

Observing the narrowing of the ITCZ during the decades of recent warming and the resulting reduction of cirrus cloud production, MIT’s Dr. Lindzen postulated the "iris effect", a negative feedback mechanism promoting climate balance by reducing cirrus caused greenhouse warming.

Adding to the complexities of cloud science is the diversity of cloud life cycles, with most individual clouds growing and dissipating in less than one hour. Their varied lifetimes are being better determined by geo-stationary satellites. The Madden Julian Oscillation, first discovered in 1971, is a natural climate dynamic causing growing and dying clouds to move across the tropical ocean at speeds between 14 to 19 kilometers an hour, creating alternating regions of heavy rains and marine heat waves.

Heated waters of the Indian ocean warm pool initiate rising convection that gives birth to a cumulonimbus cloud. As the cloud grows, it reduces the amount of infrared heat that escapes to space. However, it also increasingly blocks solar heating, and on balance causes the ocean surface to cool which initiates the clouds decay.

After the moisture rained out of the rising air in the growing cloud, the remaining dry air descends further to the east suppressing convection The cloudless skies beneath the descending air causes intense solar heating of the ocean surface. According to Wirasatriya (2017) 60% of the equatorial hot events with sea surface temperatures exceeding 30 degrees Celsius for 6 to 30 days, are associated with this phase of the MJO Eventually surface heating initiates a new region of convection and new cumulus cloud formation

The intense convection of the Madden Julian oscillation also initiates other wave trains of rising and sinking air that stretches across the hemisphere. The wave train's high-pressure areas can create heatwaves as far away as the Atlantic.

The greatest amount of solar heat flux into the ocean happens along the equatorial Pacific, and that heat then gets transported across the globe and to warms the earth. The cloudless areas of intense solar heating during the Madden Julian Oscillation's hot events contribute to the increased heat flux into the western and central Pacific. But due to upwelling of colder waters in the eastern Pacific, the Madden Julian oscillation doesn’t reach that region.

As detailed in part 3 of this series, it is the clearer skies in the eastern Pacific associated with La Nina like ocean conditions that enables the greatest amount of heat flux into the eastern Pacific.

Not only do La Nina like conditions in the Pacific increase ocean heating, La Ninas and the related negative Pacific Decadal Oscillation, expand the Hadley circulation’s region of reduced clouds and increased solar heating

And same as the Madden Julian Oscillation, La Nina's center of intense convection in the western Pacific, initiates hemispheric wave trains and alternating regions of high and low pressure. The descending air under one high pressure region resulted in clear skies, increased solar heating and calm winds that reduce evaporative cooling, and produced a notorious long-lived heat wave in the north-eastern Pacific dubbed "The Blob"

Every 3 to 7 years an El Nino causes an eastward flow of warm water, that increases cloudiness and reduces heat flux into the eastern Pacific. The first extreme El Nino of the 21st century happened in 2015 and 2016

That El Nino shifted the center of intense convection eastward, which also produces different wave train pathways. Accordingly, the 2016 El Nino's new wave train ended the hot Blob's existence.

Coral reefs of Fiji, Tonga & Rarotonga have recorded 150 years of ocean warming and are sensitive to temperature changes caused by the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.

La Nina-like conditions during each negative Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) phase reduce clouds in the eastern Pacific. Accordingly, during each negative Pacific Decadal Oscillation phase, ocean heat content has increased

El Nino-like conditions dominate during each positive PDO phase, generating a cloudier eastern Pacific & reduced ocean heating

Several studies have reported that the Hadley circulation is widening, Especially during La Ninas and negative Pacific Decadal Oscillations As the regions of descending air currents and reduced-cloud cover expand poleward, heat flux into the Pacific increases.

Both observational and modeling studies find That as the world warmed the Hadley circulation intensified and the ITCZ narrowed. As illustrated by Su (2017) the narrowing of the ITCZ causes the region of cumulonimbus clouds to narrow but extend further upwards (the darker blue cloud), while reducing the cirrus clouds that before had extended away from the anvil tops (the gray cloud outlines). That dynamic is similar to Lindzen's “Iris Effect” that would reduce cirrus greenhouse warming.

But there would also be a greater warming effect caused by the reduction in low level subtropical clouds that allows greater solar heating. As Shin 2012 and others have reported, the Hadley Circulation's intensification widens the regions of descending air currents, reducing cloud cover and expanding the dry lands as illustrated by the change from larger low level clouds areas before (colored gray) evolving into smaller low level cloud cover (illustrated in darker blue).

The regions with the greatest reduction in global cloud cover occur where heat flux into the oceans is greatest.

So, to whatever degree the cause of global warming, whether the Big 5 Natural Causes or added CO2, the resulting reduction in low level tropical cloud cover would serve as positive feedback amplifying any warming.

The Big 5 Natural Causes of climate change together, do explain most of the 150 years of global warming.

When the causes of natural climate change are fully accounted for, as good rigorous science traditionally demands, it constrains to what degree warming effects can be attributed to rising CO2.. Constrained by natural climate change, CO2 can only contribute much smaller amounts of heat than what's repeated by the narratives of alarmists seeking to control energy policies. Clearly when you follow all the science, there is no climate crisis

Up next: Well, I’m taking a 2-week vacation will determine the topic of my next video when I return. But I encourage you to send me suggestions for topics that you feel are needed to further clarify climate science

Until then, heed renowned scientist Thomas Huxley’s advice, skepticism is the highest of duties and blind faith the one unpardonable sin.

And if you appreciate the science clearly presented here, and rarely presented in mainstream media then please, give it a like, give it a share or copy the URL and email it to friends, subscribe to my channel to find all my videos or read my book Landscapes and Cycles: an Environmentalist's Journey to Climate Skepticism.

Thank you

The Big 5 Causes of Natural Climate Change: part 4 Landscape Changes

 

Below is the transcript to the video 

 The Big 5 Causes of Natural Climate Change part 4 Landscape Changes 

available at  https://youtu.be/ja6ZRgntPsg

Welcome everyone

This is part 4 of the big 5 natural causes of climate change. In parts one thru 3 we detailed how ocean currents warmed the Arctic, how more La Ninas were warming the oceans and affecting jet streams. Here I examine the dynamics that warm the land.

Although most landscape changes are caused by humans, the intent here is show how landscape changes largely account for the land's temperature trends that have been incorrectly blamed on rising CO2.

Despite the cooler global average temperature, the earth's highest recorded temperature, 56.7 Celsius or 134 Fahrenheit was set in California’s Death Valley in 1913, due to landscape features present in most desert ecosystems.

Less vegetation and bare desert soils heat surfaces to greater extremes. You have likely experienced a similar effect when walking barefoot in the summer on a cool grassy surface and then, stepped onto burning asphalt pavement.

Dry regions also produce fewer clouds allowing greater solar heating than elsewhere.

The same amount of energy can raise the temperatures of dry surfaces much more than moist surfaces. And dark soils, reflect less and so absorb more solar energy than other surfaces

Similarly, urban heat islands form in part because urban development has created desert-like conditions.

Because urban heat islands amplify every heat wave and set new records, people living in urban centers are more easily seduced into accepting climate crisis narratives than people living in cooler rural regions.

The temperature of the air is determined by the temperature of the earth's surfaces.

1. The sun primarily heats the earth's surface, not the air

2. The air then gets heated by contact with the earth's heated surface.

       And that warmed air rises and warms the atmosphere above

3. At higher altitudes, the rising air radiates heat back to space and cools and sinks back to the surface

Any large- or small-scale conversions of ecosystems from forests to grasslands or grasslands to deserts increases the earth's skin surface temperatures.

With the advent of the satellite era, we now have global coverage of the earth's skin surface. But skin surface temperatures can be as much as 30 degrees Celsius hotter than conventional air temperatures measured 5 feet above the surface. This map of the earth's land surface maximum temperatures illustrates how solar heating and landscapes combine to determine skin temperatures

As expected, the coldest regions are at the poles represented in dark blue. But surprisingly for most people, the hottest maximum temperatures are not recorded at the equator, but elsewhere due to landscape effects.

This graph correlates the earth's ecosystems with surface temperatures.

Forest ecosystems cover the greatest area. The northern forest across Canada and Eurasia experience maximum temperatures centered around 20 degrees Celsius or 68 degrees Fahrenheit and the equatorial forests reach maximums centered around 30 Celsius or about 86 Fahrenheit.

Grasslands typically experience higher maximum temperatures, spanning 30 to 50 degrees Celsius. The prairies of north America illustrated in yellow are warmer than north Americas eastern forests but cooler than the western deserts

The hottest maximum temperatures are recorded in the deserts spanning 45 to 70 degrees Celsius. Death Valley's 56.7 Celsius record air temperature was observed in 1913. In 1922, 57.8 degrees Celsius was recorded in the desert of Libya breaking the Death Valley record.

However, because these extreme air temperatures happened 100 years ago and conflict with CO2 climate narratives, some researchers speculated that Libya’s temperature must have been incorrectly recorded, so successfully lobbied to remove it from the record books. There have been ongoing similar attempts to erase Death Valley's record temperature. Clearly those who control the present narratives, control the past.

Now with satellites measuring skin surfaces, the record hottest skin surface temperature of 70.7 Celsius (about 160 Fahrenheit) was recorded in 2005 in Iran’s Lut Desert, but it's not clear what the air temperature would have been.

The reason different ecosystems experience such different temperatures, even at the same latitude, is because of moisture.

The same amount of energy required to raise one gram of water one degree Celsius, measured here in joules, can also raise dry air by 4 degrees.

The same amount of energy that increases wet soil by one degree raises dry soil by 2 degrees

Likewise, that same amount of energy would raise asphalt by 2 degrees. In addition, asphalt and other dark surfaces absorb more energy.

Finally, 2200 times more energy is required to evaporate one gram of water without changing the temperature. Without moisture to evaporate, that energy instead causes surface temperatures to rise.

Any loss of vegetation, such as converting a forest ecosystem to an urban setting, will reduce evaporation and moisture, and thus generate heat islands.

Wetlands around the world have been increasingly drained and dried since global warming began in the 1800s.

In the 1800s California’s central valley was considered a marsh land represented by the yellows and greens. By the 1990s, over 90% of California’s wetlands were drained and dried. Irrigation has only partially offset the resulting warming effects

The most severe loss of wetlands in the United States are colored red. And the percentage of lost wetlands in each state is listed here.

California’s 91% loss was the greatest, but similar losses were observed in the Midwest from Iowa to Arkansas to Ohio. Florida only lost 46% of its wetlands but nearly 90% of the everglades.

Such losses were not confined to the USA. Globally 87% of surveyed wetlands have been lost since the 1700s. And that loss continues today.

Based on reconstruction of tree rings, there has been no change in the natural variations in rainfall, so increasing dryness has not been driven by human climate change. Griffin, in 2014, reconstructed rainfall patterns for the past 700 years from blue oak tree rings. The blue star and dashed line represent California’s extreme 2014 drought. The reconstruction revealed similar droughts happened about 3 times every century and some have been far worse than 2014, even during the colder Little Ice Age.

In addition to lost wetlands, degraded landscapes have reduced natural cooling that happens via transpiration. Over 60 to 80% of the globe's dry lands have been degraded by deforestation and overgrazing.

As human populations expanded by 7-fold since 1800, the demand for wood for heating and buildings grew, causing the area of deforestation to double.

In 2021, researchers from the US Forest Service compared the effects of the 2021 heat wave on undisturbed forests versus deforested and degraded forests.

In west Oregon undisturbed forests were 5.5 degrees Celsius (or 10 degrees Fahrenheit) cooler. Likewise in Washington state, the degraded forest plantations were 4.5 degrees warmer.

Thus, researchers concluded, "the loss and degradation of primary forests was driving regional climate change and amplifying the severity of heat waves and droughts.

This graphic illustrates the regions where deforestation and forest fragmentation have taken the greatest toll. (rust colored). Between 2002 and 2020 as populations grew, China lost over 6% of its forests

Southeast Asia, largely in Malaysia and Indonesia, have lost huge swaths of forest because misguided politics are subsidizing biofuels and promoting deforestation to plant palm oil.

In contrast, Scandinavia exhibits no fragmentation and a growing forest, and it has not experienced global warming

By reconstructing temperatures using Scandinavian tree rings, Esper 2012 concluded temperatures have been declining for the past 2000 years. The 3 warmest 30-year periods happened during the Roman Warm Period 2000 years ago, and the Medieval Warm Period 1000 years ago. Both were warmer than the recent 30-year warm period between 1920 and 1940.

Overgrazing has likewise warmed the land's surface skin temperatures. A 1994 study found overgrazed grasslands were 2 to 4 degrees Celsius warmer than well managed grasslands. and overgrazed north American grasslands were warming 63% faster than well managed grasslands.

The loss of grasslands in the 1930s contributed to the deadly Dust Bowl.

In contrast to the false narrative that global warming is causing more fires, more fires are, however, changing the landscapes, reducing transpiration, and warming the land. Southern California’s Malibu Canyon suffers 2 fires each decade as result of human ignitions.That has resulted in the loss of shrub lands, converting them into invasive grasslands that are both more easily ignited and increase skin surface warming

While studies show humans start over 84% of all wildfires, along California’s central and southern coasts, the growing human population has started 100% of the fires

To what degree these landscape changes bias the global average temperature upwards, depends on the proximity to any landscape changes, of the weather stations that contribute to that average,

As of 2011, the World Meteorological Organization oversees 11,119 weather stations, and to easily operate them these stations are associated with human habitat, not wilderness. The United States has the densest coverage and the most stations operating for 75 years or more (represented by red dots), the minimum time span needed to assess natural vs human climate changes.

For the rest of the globe, that coverage averages out to just one station for each area the size of the state of Connecticut. And that one weather station is assumed to represent all temperatures in the surrounding 5,000 square miles.

Urban areas represent less than 1% of the entire land surface of earth. However, 27% of the weather stations used to calculate climate change are in urban areas.

Urban heat islands are typically 2 to 3 degrees Celsius, or 5 to 6 degrees Fahrenheit, warmer than surrounding, well-vegetated suburban and rural regions. Urban heat islands are typically created by reducing vegetation and removing rainfall into storm drains while paving over moist soils and wetlands with asphalt and concrete.

Oddly, some studies, simply based on population size, argue rural and urban areas are equally warming and so blame rising temperatures on CO2. But those studies ignore the fact that even with smaller populations, rural areas are warming due to lost wetlands, deforestation, and overgrazing.

To robustly evaluate the warming effects of CO2, new studies must be done that account for the effects of those landscape changes,

These NASA photographs show the effect of urban centers versus more vegetated suburbs seen in green. The infrared photo shows the well vegetated suburbs are 10 degrees Celsius or 18 degrees Fahrenheit cooler

Again, it is no coincidence that it is typically urban dwellers suffering from urban heat islands who mistakenly support political parties that push a global warming climate crisis.

In addition to adding more vegetation, one solution to reduce urban heat islands, requires converting dark rooftops to white roof tops

Dark roofs absorb 16 times more heat than white surfaces. And hotter roofs generate hotter buildings

Dark roofs heat the atmosphere 4 times more than white surfaces Additionally hotter buildings emit more heat through the night increasing the nighttime minimum temperatures.

In 1988, Thomas Karl, who later became director of the National Climatic Data Center, published research showing that as an urban center's population increased, so did the early morning minimum temperatures, but not maximum temperatures

In a town of 10,000 people, the minimum temperature increased twice as much as a small-town of 2000 people. In a city of one million people, the minimum temperature increased 15 times more than the small town.

And although maximum temperatures decreased, the city's average temperature still increased 15 times more than the small town. As cities grow the altered landscape, added buildings, and streets of asphalt will store more daytime heat, which is then slowly released at night, and that best explains the asymmetric temperature trends.

Trying to evaluate how temperatures were affecting Sierra Nevada wildlife, I examined the temperature data from the nearest us historical climate network station in Tahoe City. Unexpectedly, but like Karl’s study, I found the maximum temperatures were highest in the 1930s and have been cooling since But minimum temperatures had been rising.

The Sierra Nevada was not getting hotter. Surfaces were just cooling less by early morning

Unfortunately, the commonly paraded temperature trends only present the average of the maximum and minimum and that misleading statistic hides the grossly different temperature dynamics.

Minimum temperatures are more sensitive than maximums to surface changes due to differences in daytime and nighttime convection. Solar heating during the day generates robust convection that carries heat away from the surface and upwards, to mix with cooler air above.

During the night, convection is greatly reduced so that air warmed at the surface is not diluted by mixing with cooler air above. Inversion layers often form that can trap heat, even preventing smoke from rising.

In 2013 I published this graph in my book of temperatures in Death Valley, from data supplied by the us historical climate network. The climate trends were very similar to that observed in the Tahoe City data and elsewhere in California, with the maximum temperatures peaking in the 1930s.

Death Valley's weather station shows it was sited in a more natural landscape in 1913 when its record maximum temperature was recorded, even though minimum temperatures were much lower.

As meteorologist Anthony Watts and his Surface Station surveys have revealed, even Death Valley has been affected by landscape changes. As Death Valley became a National Park and popular tourist spot, a visitor's center and several RV parks were added around the weather station. The observed rise in minimum temperature is again consistent with those land surface changes.

Death Valley is also a symbol of how fragile our temperature data has become as politics can outweigh science. The data I published had been previously adjusted for any known errors.

It was consistent with California’s regional climate trends observed in Tahoe city and Yosemite national park as well as other stations around the country.

Peak maximum temperatures were consistent with the EPA’s heat wave index that also peaked in the 1930s.

But in 2014, I got an email accusing me of misrepresenting the Death Valley data. When I checked, I found Death Valley’s data had been adjusted once again, and this time the 1930s warm peak was squashed

And Death Valley's temperature trend was now structured to align with the current CO2 global warming narratives.

Clearly those who control the present, control the past.

Up next: part 5 of the big 5 natural causes of climate change: clouds . Until then.... Embrace renowned scientist Thomas Huxley’s advice....

Skepticism is our highest of duties and blind faith the one unpardonable sin!