Natural Philosophy—Meteorology—Climatology (2)
Preface: The subtitle of my previous essay was: History Is Critically Important!!! Observations Are Critically Important!!! Details Are Critically Important!!! Which obviously the editor of PSI, John O’Sullivan, correctly considered to be way too long. Readers of PSI should thank John for his very great efforts to make PSI what it is; as I do.Horace de Saussure (1740-1799) of Switzerland is the earliest meteorologist of whom I am aware.
Obsessed by the measurement of meteorological phenomena, Saussure invented and improved many kinds of apparatus, including the magnetometer, the cyanometer for estimating the blueness of the sky, the diaphanometer for judging the clarity of the atmosphere, the anemometer and the mountain eudiometer. Of particular importance was a hair hygrometer that he devised and used for a series of investigations on atmospheric humidity, evaporation, clouds, fogs and rain (Essais sur l’Hygrométrie, 1783). (Wikipedia)
In 1767, Saussure constructed the first known Western solar oven, trying several designs before determining that a well-insulated box with three layers of glass to trap outgoing thermal radiation produced the most heat.[12] The highest temperature he reached was 230°F (110°C), which he found did not vary significantly when the box was carried from the top of Mt. Crammont in the Swiss Alps down to the Plains of Cournier, 4,852 feet lower in altitude and 34°F (1°C) warmer in temperature, thereby establishing that the external air temperature played no significant role in this solar heating effect. (Wikipedia)
Hence, the idea known as the Greenhouse Effect (GHE) of certain ‘trace’ atmospheric gases (GHGs) was conceived in 1767.
Given the list of instruments invented by Horace (I’m on a first name basis with him) it seems obvious that Louis Agassiz, who taught students to become naturalists (previous essay), would be proud to claim Horace as one of his students. So, it is obvious that Horace was also a naturalist as a good meteorologist must be.
More details about Horace’s hot box if interested (not necessary for what follows): https://principia-scientific.com/the-horace-de-saussure-hot-box/ June 23, 2016; https://principia-scientific.com/paradox-three-apparently-different-systems-produce-one-observed-temperature/ September 10, 2016; http://principia-scientific.org/solving-global-warming-de-saussure-device-paradox/ October 16, 2016.
However, Horace had a problem which a good naturalist should not have—tunnel vision. For his sole objective in constructing and then experimenting with his ‘solar oven’ was to see what maximum temperature might be created.
What he did not try to see was the minimum temperature to which his hot box might cool during a cloudless nighttime. Nor have I done so because I consider data (observations, measurements) of a natural system, when possible, more critical than those of an artificial experiment. So, let us consider the data of Figure 1.
These temperature profiles accurately define the atmosphere over the South Pole during this atmospheric sounding. It seems intuitively obvious that the radiation being emitted by the surface is cooling the surface because this emitted longwave infrared radiation is being freely transmitted through the cloudless atmosphere to space.
For what other explanation can explain this air temperature inversion of nearly 30oC? Also, it might be intuitively obvious that the cause of the maximum air temperature of nearly – 40oC during the darkness of midwinter might be the result of the common saying—’what goes up must come down’. And if what goes up cools; what comes down might warm.
In the chapter titled The Winds of the World, Sutcliffe (RC), the meteorologist and naturalist, wrote:
All this [‘this’ does not matter] may seem a far cry from the general circulation of the world’s atmosphere but the detail serves to point the moral, that one cannot explain the broad features of world climate if one does not know the actual mechanisms involved.
In his introduction RC began:
When we begin to write about weather and climate we embark upon the story of our natural home, which has been our dwelling in one continuous stream of life these thousand million years, and for the last million or so has been explored and exploited by the conscious mind of man. It is then not unreasonable to suppose, indeed it could hardly be otherwise, that the problems presented by weather, by wind and rain and warmth, were amongst the earliest to force themselves on consciousness and that in a historical sense meteorology lay at the foundation of physical science. It was, and is, a difficult science to reduce to its basic principles.
Compare this with what I read in Morrison and Boyd’s extremely popular textbook—Organic Chemistry—page 3, The structural theory.
Organic chemistry nowadays almost drives me mad. To me it appears like a primeval tropical forest full of the most remarkable things, a dreadful endless jungle into which one does not dare enter for there seems to be no way out. Friedrich Wöhler, 1835.
How can we even begin to study a subject of such enormous complexity? Is organic chemistry today as Wöhler saw it a century and a half ago? The jungle is still there—largely unexplored—and in it are more remarkable things than Wöhler ever dreamed of. But, as long as we do not wander too far too fast, we can enter without fear of losing our way, for we have a chart: the structural theory.
The structural theory is the basis upon which millions of facts about hundreds of thousands of individual compounds have been brought together and arranged in a systematic way.
There are now maybe hundreds of thousands facts (data) about meteorology from maybe more than a thousand locations which did not exist 25 years ago, which need to be brought together and arranged in a systematic way.
The fact of the air temperature inversions, Figure 1and Figure 2 of the previous essay (https://principia-scientific.com/natural-philosophy-meteorology-climatology/), is irrefutable evidence that longwave infrared radiation is being freely transmitted through the atmosphere to space.
I have reviewed this information about organic chemistry because RC used the word—mechanism. I question: How many scientists, other than chemists, are familiar with this word as it might apply to the atmosphere’s circulation?
RC described, toward the end of the 2nd chapter, how the ozone molecule is considered to be the cause of the atmosphere’s second and third temperature storeys.
The occurrence of ozone gas depends upon photochemical reactions of some complexity. There are three forms of oxygen: the ordinary oxygen we breathe has molecules each of two atoms, O2; ozone has molecules of three atoms, O3; and the single atomic form may also exist, O. Now O2 will absorb ultraviolet light of sufficiently short wavelength and split into two separate atoms, O + O. Then O2 and O being present together very readily combine to form O3, itself is also dissociated by ultraviolet radiation to reform O and O2. There are other possible reactions, for two oxygen atoms may meet and combine once more to O2, or O and O3 may meet to form two molecules of O2 – and all these reactions go on continuously depending upon the abundance of the participants and upon the availability of the ultraviolet radiation. The basic theory of chemical and photochemical reactions of this kind is reasonably well known and it is therefore possible to calculate with some confidence how much O3 and O should be present in photochemical equilibrium in different circumstances and at different heights; but the calculations do not give answers which accord with the observation from the atmosphere. They account very well for the fact that ozone does occur at the upper level where it is found and in much the right concentrations but they do not account for the ozone which is found also in parts of the atmosphere where it could not be produced photochemically. At first sight the result is paradoxical but the explanation came rather readily. There was little reason to doubt the photochemical theory and therefore one looked for the effects of the motions of the air in conveying ozone-rich air into other regions.
I have a monograph, Chemistry of the Natural Atmosphere (1988), by Peter Warneck. Which, as I read, suggests that RC’s last conclusion might be a bit hasty. But we will soon consider that both RC and Warneck have a much more serious problem. But next I skip over RC’s next relatively long paragraph to complete what he began; which is important.
The immediate practical importance of ozone lies in its effectiveness in filtering ultraviolet from the sunshine. Without this protective screen life on earth would presumably have evolved differently to provide self-protection from the rays which are damaging to many tissues. The absorbed ultraviolet represents a significant part of the energy of sunshine, perhaps 6 per cent, and accounts for the high temperatures of the ozone layer. To the meteorologist the importance of ozone also lines in its value as a tracer of air motions and our ideas about the circulation of the air in the stratosphere from one part of the world to another owe a good deal to the need to explain how the ozone finds its way into the polar regions in the winter and spring and how the amount of ozone overhead varies with the synoptic weather conditions.
Notice that RC did not once use the word—mechanism. However, the chemistry he described was all about mechanisms; some of which have been found to be wrong. But at this point these mechanisms, wrong or right, are not most important.
The information (facts, observed data) of Figure 2 is critically important and neither RC, nor Warneck, brought it to a reader’s attention. For, a reader must know that as the wavelengths of the ultraviolet photons decrease so do their numbers also drastically decrease.
This simple observed fact forced some classical physicists to become quantum mechanical physicists.
In his description of the ozone system, RC did not state the critical fact that the wavelength of the solar ultraviolet radiation which splits the ordinary oxygen molecule into two oxygen atoms is shorter than the ultraviolet radiation which splits an oxygen atom away from an ozone molecule.
Hence, these shorter wavelength photons which split oxygen molecules apart is in very limited supply and what needs to be seen is the obvious fact that there are many more oxygen molecules than ozone molecules anywhere in the earth’s atmosphere, which compounds this supply problem.
For, as the solar radiation is transmitted down through the atmosphere, at some altitude, the supply of these higher energy photons must become absolutely depleted. Now, we must consider the fact, which RC does describe, that oxygen atoms can react with other oxygen atoms or with ozone molecules to form ordinary diatomic oxygen molecules.
Hence, at some altitude there will be no ozone molecules to absorb these less energetic ultraviolet photons still remaining in the solar radiation being transmitted downward toward the surface.
But, we must ponder (imagine) what we do know about the earth and its atmosphere and what is mechanistically occurring from sunrise to sunset at the varying latitudes, especially during midwinter and midsummer.
Can you see (imagine) that the path length of the solar radiation through the atmosphere to the surface is greater at sunrise and sunset than at midday?
So at these early and later times the shorter wavelength ultraviolet photons will become deleted at higher altitudes. Then as, the incident angle of the direct solar radiation to the earth surface increases, the path length toward the surface will decrease so the shorter wavelength photons can penetrate deep into the atmosphere And this continues until midday.
I ponder this because I have not yet understood why (how) the tropopause is highest in the tropics as it is observed to be. Which suggests there must be some other mechanism, or mechanisms, involved
What follows is what a really good natural philosopher (naturalist) should see, but it does not necessarily apply to this previous problem.
Horace invented the cyanometer for estimating the blueness of the sky. I only drew attention to this to establish that the daytime sky is blue.
Tyndall Effect. The first steps towards correctly explaining the colour of the sky were taken by John Tyndall in 1859. He discovered that when light passes through a clear fluid holding small particles in suspension, the shorter blue wavelengths are scattered more strongly than the red. (math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/BlueSky/blue_sky.html)
For many years I had been aware that Richard Feynman had taught his students at Caltech about Radiation Damping. Light Scattering. (Chapter 32, Vol. 1, The Feynman Lectures on Physics 1962) And based upon some experience, I knew that the scattering of light by atmospheric molecules had never been termed Tyndall scattering; it had long been termed Rayleigh Scattering.
And until now, I did not recognize that neither Tyndall nor Rayleigh actually explained how it was that molecules or particles scattered radiation, they only observed that this has to be the case. So what both had observed about two different phenomena were scientific laws and not explanations.
I did understand, when I read Chapter 32, that Feynman was providing for his student his mathematical explanations for these different, but somewhat related, scattering phenomena. Of course, I, a chemist without the greatest mathematical skills, understood none of his mathematical explanations. But I did understand the results which he described.
I close this essay with one conclusion: One can never understand RC’s statement (Clouds which do not give rain, which never even threaten to give rain but which dissolve again into vapour before the precipitation stage is ever reached, have a profound effect on out climate) unless one reads and comes to a understanding of the result of Tyndall Scattering taught by Feynman.
And that one cannot accurately define the ozone system unless one uses the fundamental observations of Figure 2 and the observed scientific laws of Rayleigh and Tyndall Scattering.
And I call attention to the fact that just because we cannot understand everything, it does not mean we cannot use the results which we do see. For Newton admitted he did not know the cause of gravity but he knew (understood) what gravity could and did do.
With the ‘facts’ directly reviewed in the previous essay and this essay, one can run a long way. Which will be the beginning of the next essay if some reader (readers) does (do) not pick up the ball and run with it via comments.
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geran
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Jerry, you keep producing these “essays”, without getting much response. Maybe you woud appreciate some constructive criticism?
1) Have an introduction (“Executive Summary”, “Abstract”, “Purpose”, or some such). The introduction should not be over 100 words. It should describe what point you are attempting to make.
2) The main body of your text should flow logically, as you work toward proving your point. Avoid rambling, and anything that distracts from your main point. Describe all graphs clearly.
3) Provide a final conclusion, limited to only 100 words. Make certain your Introduction in 1) aligns with your conclusion.
See if that helps.
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jerry krause
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Hi Geran,
I write my essays to inform others of that which I have commonly read. Be it what others have stated or actual data that did not exist 25 years ago. This fact, data which did not exist 25 years ago, which it seems you can read and ignore, for you made no comment about it. But since you cannot disagree with it (the data) and you propose how I could write (compose) better.
You recently made this comment (https://principia-scientific.com/heat-flow-science-discredits-greenhouse-gas-theory/) as you offered your wisdom (knowledge or whatever). “For example, consider the isolated room, completely sealed. There is some minor furniture, just to add mass. Now, heat the room to 25 ºC. Since no energy can leave the room, it will remain at 25 ºC forever.” I do not waste my time on considering that which does not exist. You might even ask: What does not exist because you do not know what does not exist. I know there is no real matter which does thermally conduct energy. Hence, the temperature of the room you propose will not ‘remain at 25 ºC forever.’
I write my essays in hope that someone might possibly learn about something of which they were unaware; So maybe you were not aware that there is no matter which thermally conducts absolutely no energy. If so, you have the chance to learn something.
But I have observed that it is some human’s nature to reject facts because it conflicted with something they believe. I read that Galileo refused to accept the planetary orbits about the sun were elliptical instead of perfectly circular.
Tycho Brahe had made his careful naked-eye observations of the moving planets relative to the fixed stars. And Johannes Kepler had labored long to analyze Brahe’s data to discover three mathematical laws governing the planetary motions observed by Brahe. But for whatever reason, Galileo did not accept the results of both these men’s labor. Human nature is human nature and I can only do what I consider is right and only you are responsible for what you do.
Have a good day, Jerry
.
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geran
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Jerry, you have no obligations to accept my recommendations, or to change in any way. Feel free to continue as you are.
But just so you don’t confuse anyone, your statement is wrong: “Hence, the idea known as the Greenhouse Effect (GHE) of certain ‘trace’ atmospheric gases (GHGs) was conceived in 1767.”
A solar oven is NOT the GHE.
Also, if you believe you are informing readers of “…data which did not exist 25 years ago…”, maybe you have plans to do that in the future. But it didn’t happen in this latest “essay”:
Saussure, 1767
Friedrich Wöhler, 1835
Peter Warneck, 1988
John Tyndall,1859
Feynman, 1962
Rayleigh, late 1800s
Newton, early 1700s
Have an spactactularly super day.
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jerry krause
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Hi Geran,
“maybe you have plans to do that in the future. But it didn’t happen in this latest “essay”:”
Geran, you did it again. You wrote something which is not an observed fact. What do you consider Figure 1 is????
Have a good day, Jerry
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geran
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Jerry, I was hoping you would mention Figure 1. Maybe you could explain, in 50 words or less, what it has to do with your “conclusion”: “One can never understand RC’s statement unless one reads and comes to a understanding of the result of Tyndall Scattering taught by Feynman.”
Or were you just rambling aimlessly, again?
jerry krause
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Hi Geran,
If you cannot even try to answer the question I asked, I see no reason to have a further conversation with you.
Have a good day, Jerry
geran
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And that would be your admission that you can’t explain Figure 1.
Thanks!
And have a super superior day.
K. Kaiser
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Solely to comment on low height-level atmospheric “ozone”:
Most unfortunately, the US-EPA has applied the term “ozone” to what would better be called “haze,” as often found over large cities. That type of “ozone” (in contrast to high-level, stratospheric [true] ozone) is a combination of a variety of gases and particulates. In fact, that low-level-ozone almost never contains any (chemically O3) “ozone. Even worse, the EPA gave it the abbreviation “O3.”
In addition, the naturally occurring “haze” over large mid-latitude forests does rarely contain any true ozone either but is the result of vapors emanating from trees in the spring time.
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Brett Keane
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Keep it up. Some of us have come to notice the immense power of the diurnal evaporation/condensation cycles of water in all its phases. Uplift has been observed at great speeds, and the breaking of wings as well as the loss of glider pilots by freezing is an observed fact, sadly. It is calculated that the water cycle alone has five times the needed capacity to deliver energy to where it can ‘see’ Space and escape. Equipartition seems ignored nowadays…… Brett
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jerry krause
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Hi Brett,
Thanks for the encouragement. Nice to know someone can comprehend data. Are you reporting that gliders get caught up in an updraft and cannot get out, hence freeze before they can get down to a warmer atmosphere?
Have a good day, Jerry
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Joseph Olson
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“Science Goes Over-under, Inside-out” at FauxScienceSlayer
My solo Cessna 150 flight through 5,000 feet of broken cumulus clouds with only 15 hours of dual/solo experience. Water absorbs in over 37,000 spectral bands and therefore also EMITS in those bands, at thousands of temperature points. Humans at 98.6°F emit in the 10 micron Infrared spectrum. This is why the Chinese landed on the dark side of the Moon !
“Herouni Antenna, Death of the Big Bang” by Dr Pierre Robitaille
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jerry krause
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Hi Joseph,
I have read about your account of your experience and have not forgotten it. For the turbulence you experienced inside an innocent appearing cumulus cloud I had never imagined. So it has been an observed fact which I do not yet pretend to understand. All this motion yet the surface of the cumulus cloud is very ‘sharp’ (not fuzzy like its upper portion becomes once the supercooled cloud droplets suddenly freeze and suddenly release the latent heat of crystalization to atmospheric molecules of their environment. Of course, the sudden release of energy is commonly termed an explosion.
Suddenly, as I write this, I see the cause of the turbulence you experienced. R.C. Sutcliffe wrote about the problem that meteorologists have had to explain how the cloud droplets grow to a much greater size so they will (can) rapidly fall through the atmosphere as precipitation. And they recognize a problem is that the cloud droplets supercool.. Now I see that the surface of your plane became a nucleating agent and because your plane likely did not have a rearview mirror, you did not see how drastically the appearance of the cumulus cloud had changed while you flew through it.
Be interesting to learn what you think of this idea.
Have a good day, Jerry
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jerry krause
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Hi Joseph,
I have reread your story because I questioned if you experienced any icing on your plane. While you were concerned about possible icing in the carburetor you described that it was certainly raining. And I finally noted that is what is expected after the supercooled droplets freeze and as the latent heat of freezing is released. The temperature of the atmosphere is suddenly increased (the cause of the turbulence). So my idea that your plane caused the some supercooled droplets to begin to freeze is not valid because you observed liquid rain droplets. But the turbulence is certainly evidence that this phase change had recently occurred and your observation, after you got below the clouds base you cloud observed the precipitating droplets being lifted upward as the warm updrafts evaporated and the updrafts carried the water vapor back into the cloud where we must acknowledge that it condensed releasing the latent heat of condensation. So you had an upclose view of the actual mechanisms of the common thunderstorm. “You are surrounded by glowing
white light and cannot see further than ten feet in any direction.”
I ask: Do you consider this white light could have been the result of lightning?
“The only source of knowledge is experience.” And you survived the experience.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Brett Keane
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Jerry, yes, from a skilled pilot friend who rode many a thermal and knew of the dangers. Brett
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James McGinn
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Thermal’s are misunderstood as being the result of warm, moist air. Actually the upward movement in the atmosphere has to do with vortices, not thermals.
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jerry krause
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Hi James,
“Thermal’s are misunderstood as being the result of warm, moist air. Actually the upward movement in the atmosphere has to do with vortices, not thermals.”
I agree that the moisture of the atmosphere plays no role in the upwelling parcel of atmosphere which ultimately cools as it rises and the water vapor in the rising parcel begins to condense to form the commonly observed cloud. I agree that ‘dust devils’ are observed evidence of the vortices to which you refer.
Can we agree that the density of the parcel, which is rising as a vortex through the environmental atmosphere, which has little vertical motion, is less than the environmental atmosphere which surrounds the vortex? In other words, the parcel is rising because of the principle of buoyancy.
I will close here and wait to see if we have this agreement before I begin to consider the role of temperature which makes this rising, rotating, parcel of atmosphere a thermal. I agree that ‘warm, moist air’, as we generally understand these three words, is not a necessary condition. For most might agree that ‘cold air’ is not moist even if the cold air does contain water vapor (molecules). And yes, if you must continue to insist that the atmosphere does not contain ‘water molecules’, do not bother to respond because I will immediately not respond to anything you write.
Have a good day, Jerry
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James McGinn
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Jerry:
Can we agree that the density of the parcel, which is rising as a vortex through the environmental atmosphere, which has little vertical motion, is less than the environmental atmosphere which surrounds the vortex? In other words, the parcel is rising because of the principle of buoyancy.
James:
Sorry, but no. We cannot agree. Your model starts with the assumption of buoyancy and then becomes convoluted very quickly (which you stubbornly refuse to admit). My model assumes a kind of siphon effect as a result of naturally occurring tubes in the atmosphere that themselves are a result of a water based plasma that spins up on wind shear boundaries.
My model requires a sophisticated understanding of H2O to understand how and why it is capable of a plasma phase under wind shear conditions. Your model starts from the assumption that water is simple and well understood. This requires you to feign ignorance of over 70 observations (sometimes referred to as the anomalies of H2O) that your model fails to explain.
Jerry:
. . . if you must continue to insist that the atmosphere does not contain ‘water molecules’,
James:
Quote me directly you strawbaiting nitwit. I never stated there is no water in the atmosphere. I stated that it cannot possibly be gaseous but is liquid nanodroplets (vapor). Thus it makes any parcel containing it heavier, not lighter.
This notion that storms are caused by convection of upwelling lighter moist air is a silly notion based on nothing more than an analogy to a pot boiling on a stove. Meteorology’s notion of storms is blatant pseudoscience. Storms and atmospheric flow in general have nothing whatsover to do with convection or buoyancy.
Vortices are the Pressure Relief Valves of the Atmosphere
http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=17125
James McGinn / Solving Tornadoes
jerry krause
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Hi Brett,
Previously, Peter C, a curious person from Australia who has a hobby of gliding, have had brief conversations. And because of these conversation I have learned more about gliding and consider that glider pilots have greater experience with atmospheric circulation and knowledge of atmospheric circulation than any scholar who has never glided. For their lives depend upon this knowledge.
Have a good day, Jerry
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James McGinn
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Jerry,
You are barking up the right tree. But you are just barking.
It is not possible to understand storms (weather) until after you have a comprehensive understanding of H2O. And, unfortunately, our current understanding of H2O is ensconced in layer upon layer of superstition and myth:
Recently two chemists have tried to dispute my theory on H2O. Look how quickly they resorted to name calling and invalid arguments when it became obvious that I understand the subject better than them:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mcginn+hydrogen+bonding
James McGinn / Solving Tornadoes
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