Natural Philosophy—Meteorology—Climatology
Preface: Elzevirs, the publisher of Galileo Galilei’s book, Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences, wrote a preface to the readers of this book. In it one can read (as translated by Henry Crew and Alfonso de Salvio, 1914): For, according to the common saying, sight can teach more and with greater certainty in a single day than can precept even though repeated a thousand times; or, as another says, intuitive knowledge keeps pace with accurate definition.
Based upon what I have read, I question if these two sayings are common today. But relative what Galileo taught us, if we have learned what he taught us, we can readily understand the wisdom of the first saying. I first read Galileo’s book about 25 years ago and even I could understand this wisdom. However, for about 25 years I have been struggling to first understand, what is this ‘accurate definition’, which if I do it, I do not have to think to acquire this knowledge?
This essay is the first of several which I hope are organized so that accurately define Meteorology—Climatology so we do not have to think to acquire an accurate knowledge of Meteorology—Climatology as I use R.C. Sutcliffe’s book, Weather and Climate (1966), as guide.
Introduction: In his preface Sutcliffe (RC) began: This is not a textbook on meteorology, neither a general introduction nor a formal course, but it has a serious purpose and that is to explain to the general reader what it is that meteorologists are doing and trying to do. Which if you read this book you might find that not much has changed in the 50+ years. Except there is now a lot more controversy about the meteorologists and the climatologists knowledge of their sciences. And I begin writing this series of essays because I consider this controversy is the result of a failure to accurately define the natural systems involved.
For on the first page of RC’s introduction one can read: Throughout the history of modern science dating from that time it was significant that ‘natural philosophy’ was almost a synonym for physical science. The dual interest of the scientist in the natural world of phenomena and in the basic principles which explain them, which identify the natural with the rational, was accepted generally and did not begin to lose its validity—with the tremendous success of experimental laboratory physics of the late nineteenth century—the applications of basic physical theory were largely diverted from the natural macro-environment of man to the essentially simpler physical systems which he invented for himself and learned to construct and control. …
‘Natural science’ as the term is most naturally understood, has suffered astonishing neglect. That the neglect is extreme is illustrated by the very curious fact that a student entering the science stream will go through school and university studying physics and mathematics and have no more idea than an arts student of the significance of an earthquake, an ocean current, or a monsoon wind, to take illustrations from three of the environmental sciences. Actually we must go to schools of geology and geography to find students who have been asked to direct their minds to the natural phenomena on earth, when talent in physics and mathematics has been selectively skimmed as it rose to the top and diverted ultimately to the production of radio equipment and nuclear power-stations. To decry schools of geography has been a commonplace reaction of the physicist, presumably because they did inadequately many things which the physicist had on his conscience and should have been doing himself.
I reviewed the latter paragraph because the result of what RC wrote was that on the following page (the third of the introduction) RC wrote: Meteorology is not a fundamental physical science, that is to say it is not concerned to develop the basic laws of nature. For later, in the 5th chapter, after a review of C.T.R. Wilson’s cloud chamber experiments and an observation about the earth’s atmosphere he asks: Why is it that in the atmosphere condensation to clouds invariably happens as soon as normal saturation is reached? And answers this question: The answer is that the natural atmosphere, however clean it may appear to be, is always supplied with a sufficient number of minute particles of salts, acids or other substances which serve just as well as liquid water in capturing water molecules from the vapour. These are the ‘nuclei of condensation’ and are effective as soon as the air becomes even slightly supersaturated.
Now I, a physical chemist, know, without any doubt, that RC had just stated a physical scientific law of the earth’s atmosphere. For I have learned that a scientific law is merely a general summary statement of some phenomenon that has been observed to always occur just as RC had stated that clouds form as soon as the atmosphere becomes slightly saturated with water vapor. And he continued: As a matter of fact, there are many observations of clouds in air whose relative humidity is considerably below 100 per cent, evidence of nuclei which are hygroscopic. This observation is not a scientific law because this is not always observed. However, this observation ‘accurately defined’ these special condensation nuclei and RC intuitively concluded that these special nuclei are hygroscopic (attract water molecules even better than a pure liquid water surface attracts water molecules).
Given my review of RC’s fundamental shortcomings, you might be asking: Why are we considering what RC wrote more than 50 years ago? My answer—in the 4th chapter he wrote: It would be difficult to overstress the importance of clouds as the necessary intermediary between invisible vapour and falling precipitation in the water cycle upon which all land-life depends, but their importance by no means ends here. 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 our climate. When have you recently read a meteorologist or a climatologist writing this? RC immediately continued: This is obvious enough if we only think of the difference between a cloudy and a sunny day in summer or between an overcast and a clear frosty night in winter. RC might not be top-notch scientist but he is a good natural philosopher.
Given the history of natural philosophy which RC reviewed, he is correct as he concluded that the study of natural phenomena of weather and climate had become obsolete by the late nineteenth century. For Louis Agassiz, the observer of erratic boulders which forced the intuitive conclusion (without much thinking) that glaciers had covered much of northern Europe, Asia, and North America, had died in 1873. And how he taught his students at Harvard to become ‘naturalists’ (natural philosophers) seemed to die with him. For it was Lane Cooper, a professor of English languages at Cornell University, who wrote (primarily edited the writings of others) how Agassiz taught his students to be naturalists. And I finally read Cooper’s book (1917), Louis Agassiz as a Teacher, about 1990.
His initiatory steps in reaching special students of natural history were not a little discouraging. Observation and comparison being his opinion the intellectual tools most indispensable to the naturalist, this first lesson was one in looking. He gave no assistance; he simply left his student with the specimen, telling him to use his eyes diligently, and report upon what he saw. He returned from time to time to inquire after the beginner’s progress, but he never asked him a leading question, never pointed out a single feature of the structure, never prompted an inference or a conclusion. This process lasted sometimes for days, the professor requiring the pupil not only to distinguish the various parts of the animal, but to detect also the relation of these details to more general typical features. (From E.C. Agassiz, Louis Agassiz, his Life and Correspondence, pp. 564 ff. Boston Houghton Mifflin Company, 1885.)
And because of reading this book and practicing what Agassiz considered a naturalist needed to see, I claim I have learned to ‘look’ and ‘see’ and ‘compare’. So that I saw the importance that RC compared the easily observed difference between a cloudless atmospheric condition and cloudy atmospheric condition for both the summer and winter seasons as he made an intuitive case for the profound influence of clouds upon climate.
Now we go to 2nd chapter for RC’s historical review of our earliest knowledge about the atmospheric. We pick up this description at the 2nd paragraph. The steady decrease of density with height, more or less as described, is the inevitable result of hydrostatic compression by the force of gravity but the variation of temperature with height, far from being steady, is all together remarkable. When it became firmly established from observations on mountains and in manned and free balloons that the air became steadily colder as the altitude increased, scientists were very ready to generalize and to assume that the cooling went on indefinitely to the limit of the atmosphere.
That was the general belief until in 1899 the Frenchman Teisserene de Bort, announced to an astonished and even incredulous world that this sounding balloons had reached heights above which the temperature decreased no further.
At this point this is the historical fact that needed to be established. For in 1896 Svante Arrhenius had written an article describing a radiation balance calculation he had done and how he had calculated an average air temperature as conventionally measured for the entire earth’s atmosphere. And it is this 1896 article, three years before it was observed that that atmosphere’s temperature did not cool continuously to the ‘top’ of the atmosphere, the controversial, commonly known, idea of the greenhouse effect (GHE) of carbon dioxide was conceived.
The historical point is that meteorology is a very young science. And I must review that the principal factors of climatology are simply average air temperatures and average precipitations on each day of the year for at least 20 years, and preferably more, consecutive years. But the observation of other fundamental meteorological factors are even younger than a century. For routine atmospheric weather balloon soundings could not be begun until the invention (development) of radar during WWII.
An equally important historical fact of WWII was the discovery of the ‘jet stream’ which carried incendiary devices from Japan easterly to as far as the Midwest of the USA. Living in Salem OR I have personally observed the relationship between weather here and the jet stream observed by atmospheric sounding launched from the airport less than 3 miles from my home. Which data (for the entire earth) is available at (http://weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/sounding.html). And after studying this data for years and complaining that there were no plots of atmospheric temperature vs linear altitude with which to compare the actual temperature gradients with the theoretical lapse rate, I discovered there were. (GIF to 10mb)
Figure 1 Air Temperature (Right) and Dew Point Temperature (Left)
The figures (1 to 4) were never intended to be part of this essay when I began. This because I never knew they existed. However, it seems obvious that each figure accurately defines the atmospheric systems over Salem OR at the time of each sounding. It is intuitively obvious to me that the Dew Point Temperature plot (Fig 1) defines the existence of a cloud layer which prevented an Air Temperature inversion from forming during the nighttime which preceded the sounding. (GIF to 700mb)
Figure 2 Air Temperature (Right) and Dew Point Temperature (Left)
However, it is intuitively obvious that the Air Temperature plot (Fig 2) accurately defines the existence of an Air Temperature inversion formed during the nighttime which preceded this sounding.
Figure 3 Air Temperature (Right) and Dew Point Temperature (Left)
Figure 4 Air Temperature (Right) and Dew Point Temperature (Left)
Figures 3&4 are to accurately define the atmospheric systems which existed the soundings just before and after the sounding of Figure 2.
As stated, these figures were never intended to be a part of this essay. So I will close with what was intended.
It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence; it biases the judgment. And, The temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of our profession. (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
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