Carbon Dioxide is a Weather Wimp and a Climate Pygmy

The Sun and Solar Cycles rule the Climate;

Wind and Water rule the Weather;
Carbon Dioxide is a Weather Wimp and a Climate Pygmy.
by Viv Forbes



Rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is blamed for every weather emergency, but as a weather maker, water is far more important.

Without water, Earth’s weather would be dramatically different. We would have no clouds, no rain or snow, no rain or hail storms, no hurricanes, no seas, rivers, lakes or ice sheets – just cold, cloudless nights and hot, clear days with dry winds and fierce dust storms; a dead planet like Mars.

Water has many weather effects. It cools Earth’s surface by evaporation, and transfers that heat to the upper atmosphere as it condenses into drops of rain, hail or snow. Water forms the wispy high cirrus and stratus clouds, the fluffy fair-weather cumulus and the ominous nimbus thunderheads that can produce rain, hail and storms as well as cyclones, hurricanes and tornados. Some high clouds help to retain surface heat while lower clouds shade and cool the surface as they intercept and reflect incoming solar radiation.

Where there is no water in the atmosphere we get hot deserts like Sahara or frigid deserts like Antarctica. And when solar energy wanes, as in ice ages, it is water, not carbon dioxide, that creates a real climate emergency with life-killing sheets of ice.

Carbon dioxide exists in the atmosphere and the oceans as a trace amount of invisible, non-toxic, non-flammable gas – quite a boring unspectacular gas really. But it gets the gold medal for feeding the biosphere – it is the gas of life and increased carbon dioxide is responsible for the recent measurable greening of the planet.

In theory, carbon dioxide can warm the climate by retaining surface heat. However, its so-called “greenhouse effect”, has never been quantified in climate records despite being given a key role in IPCC climate models. There is no evidence that carbon dioxide is creating dangerous global warming. Water vapour has a far bigger “greenhouse effect” over more radiation bands, and there is far more of it - Earth’s atmosphere has about 8,500 times more water than carbon dioxide. Earth’s water cycle also has a large moderating effect on any greenhouse warming from carbon dioxide. A climate tax on water makes as much sense as a tax on carbon.

In our great climate machine, the sun is the combustion chamber, the oceans are the stabilising flywheel and carbon dioxide is merely the temperature gauge – its concentration in the atmosphere rises as the oceans get warm and expel some of their dissolved CO₂.

The sun and cycles in the solar system rule Earth’s long term climate. Solar energy drives winds and water to create the complexities of the weather. Carbon dioxide is a climate pygmy and largely irrelevant in creating the daily weather.

We have enough real environmental problems on Earth without inventing climate crises supposedly caused by the relatively trivial quantities of carbon dioxide recycled by man’s industries and machines.

Water vapour and carbon dioxide are the gases of life – the biosphere needs more of both. We should stop all foolish attempts to capture and bury carbon dioxide and devote those resources to capture and store fresh water.

Weather vs Climate

by Viv Forbes

The weather at any spot is usually defined by max/min temperatures, humidity, precipitation and wind strength/direction. Weather varies hourly, daily, season-to-season and place-to-place. These weather measurements at any place can be averaged over various time periods.

Climate is defined as the average of thirty years of weather. Mark Twain explained the difference: “Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get”.

Weather statistics can be averaged over larger areas, such by region, state, continent or the globe. This is a mathematical abstraction, becoming less accurate and less meaningful as the time or area covered increases. A global average annual temperature which (after debatable adjustments) includes winter in the Antarctic and summer in the Sahara is irrelevant. No one lives in the global average temperature.

Weather and climate have been so politicised that most commentaries are now merely propaganda.

In the Brave New World of global warming alarmists, a long frigid winter is “just weather”, but one stinking hot summer day is “clear evidence of dangerous man-made climate change”.

And despite an un-predicted 17 years of stable global temperature trends, their prophets still chant their doleful dirge: “Unless we have a carbon tax, extreme weather disasters are coming your way soon”.

Previous related posts:
Heatwave Hype and Wind Wisdom
The Climate See-saw.
Twisting Tornados into Climate Crises
.

 

Our Sub Antarctic Islands Adventure. (And no, we weren't stuck in the ice!!)

Everyone will be aware of the current embarrassing plight of the Russian vessel hired by a group of climate academics from one of our universities, to highlight their cause. They and their supporting private and media fellow passengers sure have achieved a poultice of world - wide publicity, but hardly of the sort they would have hoped for.

As a matter of fact, my wife and I, with our elder grandchildren Alex 15 and Isobel 12, had just completed a voyage deep into the  Southern Ocean at the same time as the above fiasco was developing, of all coincidences on the Professor Kromlov, a sister ship of the ice-bound vessel. Except that 'ours' was under long term lease to Kiwi adventure and environmental group Heritage Expeditions who conduct regular, highly and expertly organised voyages to the area, and to antipodean locations around northern and eastern Siberia in the northern hemisphere, in the northern summer. Our indefatigable Soul of EG, Dale (my words, not his) having heard of this invited me to contribute an article, so here goes!

Happy New Year to all of you. We returned from Queenstown NZ with Alex (15) and Isobel (12) on Christmas Eve, brim - full of excitement and memories. While we enjoyed introducing them to the glaciers, Aoraki (Mt Cook), Queenstown and all, a voyage to NZ's Sub Antarctic Islands was absolutely the centrepiece.

We embarked on 15 Dec on our doughty little Professor Kromov (72 metres of fully ice - strengthened Russian seaware) from Bluff hours late and in a somewhat disorganised appearing fashion (which we later learned was the result of an accident that very day to the young head chef, who most fortunately was able to re-join the  ship's complement after some emergency treatment at Invercargill hospital) and headed out for the open Southern Ocean, into a very brisk Sou'westerly.

We soon learned that given the weather outlook, and the fact that like all icebreakers, our vessel had no stabilisers, the Expedition Leader had decided to attack the voyage in reverse order, heading south for some 360 nautical miles (or nearly 700km, to landlubbers) to the most distant destination, Campbell Island. We arrived there 36 hours or so later, safely into aptly named Perseverance Harbour, a little battered, bruised and sleep deprived.

 

As HE's excellent brochures had adequately stressed, we were after all heading into the Roaring Forties, the Furious Fifties and toward the region of the Screaming Sixties! Of the 50 passengers on board, it seemed that at least half were / had been sea sick, and that included Alex and Isobel, notwithstanding the medication provided "in case" by their medical parents. We soon learned from the ship's excellent young on - board doctor that patches placed immediately behind the ear were the most effective way of dealing with the dreaded nausea. They are apparently readily available in NZ but not so in Oz, and many of the passengers were sporting them. (To our knowledge we were 4 of 7 Australian passengers on board, the rest being Kiwis either professionally or just for sheer enjoyment dedicated to the studies of botany, bird and animal life). So from that point on, Alex and Isobel were basically fine, ready and raring to embark on zodiac and on - shore adventures!

The islands were individually discovered late in the 18th and early in the 19th centuries, and were first exploited as bases for whaling and sealing, although serious farming / grazing enterprises were launched by eternal optimists (energised by conmen??) by mid C19. These were not finally abandoned until the 1930s on Campbell Island, with the final removal of all introduced 'domestic' animals and pests (rats, rabbits, feral cats, feral pigs, stoats) achieved in the 1990s. NZ's revered DOC (Dept of Conservation) protects the islands very stringently indeed.

We had to thoroughly wash and disinfect all footwear before and after each shore landing, and we carefully vacuumed personal gear (outer clothing, footwear, backpacks) under close supervision, before we left the Professor K. A limit is placed on the number of on shore visitors each year, and landings can only be made by professionals on official business, or small groups such as ours, led by qualified people.

We all loved the Zodiac excursions, whether they involved "wet" (Wellies On!) or "dry" (more or less) landings, or close up and personal slow and quiet investigations around spectacular shorelines. That enjoyment included the controlled "running jumps" from the gangway onto the nearside top, and then a hop down to the floor of the rubber vessels, controlled 100% of the way by young and incredibly agile / competent Russian seamen garbed in very impressive black head to toe rough weather gear (looking like something out of "James Bond") and equally confidence - inspiring young HE male and female leaders. Not one person fell overboard!!  :-)  

DOC has constructed some excellent boardwalks to limit the 'trampling' effect of visitors, but once they are left to walk into areas which are open for access but without marked paths, it was really a case "choose your own tussock" to waddle around, trip over  for a soft fall, or have a nice little lie down under. No nasties, except for some potent stinging nettles (which I, wearing long shorts,  of course found!!). With a couple of brief exceptions there were no other defined paths and even where there were, these sometimes featured deep and murky bogs, lovingly created by Sea Lions.  B****y Sea Lions (or Hooker's SLs, to give them their full name) - what terrifying creatures they can be. Or at least the bulls, intent on territorial dominance, and maintaining their harems. They were everywhere and boy, can they gallop (maybe that should be gallump), and can they roar! And are they huge!! They challenge all animal life smaller than themselves, and that included me while I was slow in standing up, when eating a picnic lunch. They cover amazing distances, climbing up to mindboggling heights, have acute hearing (and smell? Not that they exude essence of roses themselves :-)  The only way to deal with them is to stand your ground, show no fear and increase your apparent height by holding your backpack up and out towards them, or a log. But it was all 90% bluff as no one was actually 'attacked', typical testosterone - driven male stuff. While all this was going on, row after row of cows on sandy beaches were giving birth to pups, before re-engaging in new sexual adventures. What a life!

 

 

 You can see some of all this and more in the accompanying pics, including the amazing megaflora, especially on Campbell and Enderby and the 'Lord of the Rings' Rata forests on the main Auckland Island, Royal Southern Albatrosses with their 3.5m wingspans mating for life on Campbell (sea lions, take note!), the incredible  Penguin antics on their favoured slippery dips on the Snares, Mollymawks, Giant Petrels, Shearwaters, Shags, Skuas, Dotterels  ......... you name it.

The food on board was very good, the bar fairly priced, the company congenially enthusiastic and the generous lectures / presentations, enlightening. So, what about the odd thump and bump and a bit of lost sleep? 'Twas as nothing, as The Bard might have said. These were experiences never to be forgotten.

Cheers al