I am planning to go scuba diving this weekend across the bay from Yeppoon, to see how the corals are faring at Great Keppel Island – after the very significant coral bleaching this last summer. I shall be wearing a thicker wetsuit than I was in April, because daily mean temperatures have dropped by about 5C since April and about 10C since January. (Remember my series of posts from back then, CLICK HERE.)
Winter days tends to be sunny here, yet still they are relatively cold. (In Yeppoon, most of the rain falls in summer, and the days tend to be cloudier, yet warmer.)
I write this with a smile because of late many sceptics have been promoting the idea that ‘clouds control the climate’ – as explained in the new movie ‘Climate, the Movie’ produced by Martin Durkin starring John Clauser. That clouds ‘control’ the climate is as much nonsense as carbon dioxide controls the climate – or that Greta Thunberg is responsible for the IPCC, that was actually the brainchild of Margaret Thatcher. (For so many of my colleagues to continue to promote this silly movie that begins with Greta Thunberg repeating what she was taught at school, is just plain lazy.)
Clouds are important negative feedback, but they do not create the seasons or even past Ice Ages. Clouds do not control the climate. (And just because a Nobel Laureate says otherwise does not make it true. I could cry, but I am choosing to smile.)
It is getting significantly colder here in Yeppoon, where I am across the bay from Great Keppel Island, that is just about on the Tropic of Capricorn. It is getting cold because the Southern Hemisphere is facing away from the Sun at this time of year, and this inclination way from the Sun has almost reached a maximum – well it will at the end of the week here in Yeppoon, on winter solstice.
To be sure, the seasons result from the inclination of the Earth’s axis to the plane of its orbit and the corresponding variation in the amount of solar radiation received will depend on latitude and varies over the year.
The Earth’s atmosphere causes this effect of the seasons to lag somewhat, so it is going to get colder here even as we move back towards the Sun next week, after winter solstice.
The great re-distributor of the ever-changing amount of solar radiation received at particular locations on the surface of the Earth is not the clouds, but rather the wind. The winds transport heat and moisture and drive the ocean currents and are at once the operating mechanism and the working substance of climate.
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I am planning to write more about the wind, and so I have included atmospheric pressure in the chart (top of this blog post) that shows how the air and water temperatures vary with the seasons and also the wind; the bigger the difference between the pressures at particular locations, the faster the air will move from the high to the low pressure and the stronger the wind. This chart was created at, and downloaded from, the AIMS (Australian Institute of Marine Science) website, and is copied here with much thanks.
The feature image shows me in the water at Secret Cove, Great Keppel Island in April.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Are you celebrating the Gregorian Calendar Solstice, or the Earth/Solar Orbital Calendar Solstice?
Are you saying that clouds(Water Vapour/Precipitation Albedo,) does not prevent Sunlight from reaching the Earth’s surface?
I look forward to your treatise on wind.
A reminder of the impending Regional Dry Cycle, (lack of Water Vapour Albedo,) that will start over 50 degrees East Longitude ( circa Madagascar,) on or about the 1st of August, 2024 – and move Eastward via Solar Orbit, at 15 degrees Longitude per 30 Day/Night Interval Month for the next Two Earth/Solar Orbital Years.
This will mean severe drought conditions for Africa and Europe for the next two years . The continuing Dry Cycle will affect North America from March 2025.
Green Lake Seattle, (and the ducks,) will start to be affected circa 11.5 Months – (mid-July, 2025,) after the Cycle begins from 50 degrees East, in early August 2024.
Australia will be affected from January to mid-May, 2026.
The question of what controls climate is a vexed one. There is no single feature that can be claimed to be the controlling one, but several play a dominant role apart from the sun itself, and orbital changes, without which there would be no climate to worry about. I agree that winds, along with ocean currents, are very important in transporting energy/heat away from the tropics to the polar regions from where it is vented into space. However, clouds are critical in determining how much sunlight gets to the tropics in the first place or is reflected back into space immediately. So their negative feedback is a key factor. I would not go as far as Clauser in saying that they control climate, but they are certainly amongst the most critical features. The IPCC resort to assuming a positive feedback for clouds in order to exaggerate warming. CO2 is a minor player in all this once it has played its part at lower concentrations. Net zero is of course a political ideology, not an environmental one.
Nature has been kind to the sceptics.
The best guide to future climate is post climate
Jennifer you say that “The Earth’s atmosphere causes this effect of the seasons to lag somewhat” and my observations over many years confirm the same applies with daily temperature minimums. In winter it is always colder just after sunrise due to the same lag effect.
An natural phenomenon that climate science seems to have neglected is refraction. It must surely be a factor in how much heating from the sun is absorbed by the planet. The heating would be greater where suns radiation is perpendicular to the earth and less at the periphery where a good deal of the radiation is refracted away as it passes through the atmosphere. This is why it’s hotter at the equator no?
As far as I can determine, greenhouse theorists calculate future temps based on greenhouses which have membranes to separate absorbed warmth from the atmosphere. Some greenhouses even have double glazing in the form of bubble wrap which is very effective.
I first noted the impacts of refraction in greenhouses that had been incorrectly aligned east west. In winter, bench temperatures on the south side were way lower than on the north side and I believed refraction played a major role. These were greenhouses had radiant heating in the floors and we first noticed a problem with poor germination and growth rates on the south side of the greenhouses. Despite uniform heating from the floor the seedlings on the south side benches did not get the same benefit during the day from the sun.
The reality is that planet earth has no membrane and heat gains are offset by losses at night and seasonally in the winter. Furthermore, gains are way less at the periphery by virtue of refraction.
My understanding is that radiation absorbed from the sun is calculated by alarmist science as if the surface of the earth were flat which it isn’t and no one has been able to convince me otherwise.
Science is science. “Alarmist science” is a term invented by luddites and conspiracy theorists to detract from their lack of education and scientific illiteracy.
Thank you Bill Woodward for not taking time to refute my points. The use of ad hominem merely diminishes the standing of those who resort to it.
If you cannot question it, it’s not science…it’s propaganda.
There are macro and micro climate determinators: the Earth’s orbital variations and TSI are obvious macro factors; cloud variation is a micro factor. And by micro I don’t mean unimportant or insubstantial.
Svensmark and Shaviv have done great work uniting the impact of Cosmic Rays and Clouds on climate, for instance:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-99033-1
Ramanathan has been doing great work about the impact of clouds for a long time:
https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.243.4887.57
But clouds are just part of the water cycle and every form of water plays a vital role in climate.