Oppenheim‘s Workshop for Meteorology – Dr. Wolfgang Thüne
The Sun moves the atmosphere, rules the weather and is the energy source for all life on Earth!
The Sun as an energy source
The Sun is the source for life on Earth and has a direct influence on most of the physical processes within the Earth’s atmosphere. Sunlight provides the energy for photosynthesis within plants, which in turn creates the atmospheric oxygen required for us to breathe. The solar daily cycle regulates our lives, and the solar annual cycle determines the seasons and hence the agricultural cycle. Yet the role of the Sun in determining the sate and behavior of the Earth’s climate is much greater than just a simple observation of its warmth would lead us to suppose. The Earth’ atmosphere is literally solar-powered, the Sun being the primary cause of all the atmosphere processes, including the General Circulation, the formation of clouds and the generation of both local and global wind patterns.
The Sun, at the centre of the Solar System, is a typical star 1.392.000 km in diameter, with a mass roughly 1 000 times that of the rest of the Solar System combined. Like most stars it is composed mainly of hydrogen (≈70{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}), with most of the remainder being helium. The Sun generates its heat and sustains itself from nuclear fusions in the core where the temperature reaches some 15 million °C, and in which an estimated 600 million tones of hydrogen are converted into helium every second. The total solar output into space is 2.33×1025 kJmin-1, but only a tiny fraction (1/2.000.000.000), i.e. one two thousand millionth, of this is actually intercepted by the Earth since the energy received by any planet is inversely proportional to its distance from the Sun. Owing to the eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun, the receipt of solar energy on a surface normal to the Sun is 7{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} more on 3 January at the perihelion (when the Erath is closest to the Sun) than on 4 July at the aphelion when the Earth is furthest from the Sun. The “solar constant” is therefore not a constant. The “solar constant” changes from 1416 W/m2 at the beginning of January to 1321 W/m2 at the beginning of July.
The Sun is the principal source of energy available to the Earth. The solar energy received at the Earth is converted first into internal energy, and then into potential energy, latent heat, and kinetic energy. Thus the energy of both atmospheric and oceanic motions is continuously derived from solar radiation. There is a known correlation between the diurnal and annual variation of temperature and the corresponding astronomically induced variations of solar radiation. The recurrence of rhythmic characteristic circulation patterns with the annual and diurnal variations of solar radiation is also well known.
The seasons cannot be ascribed to differences in the Earth’s distance from the Sun but are due to the Earth’s axis not being at right angles to its orbit but at 23.5° from the perpendicular to a line joining the centre of the Earth and the Sun. This causes first one hemisphere and then the other to point a little towards the Sun, such that in summer the Sun is high in the sky and in the winter it is low. This makes the proportion of daylight a greater fraction of the 24 hours in the summer, reaching an extreme in the polar summer where the ‘lands of the midnight sun’ have sunlight for nearly the entire 24 hours. Also, in summer the Sun’s rays are more vertical at the local noon concentrating the heat effect rather than spreading its effect over a slanting path across the Earth’s surface. In winter the opposite happens, the Sun rises low above the horizon and its heating effect is dissipated over a slanting pass.
The effective output of solar radiation is measured by the ‘solar constant’, defined as follows: the flux of solar radiation at the outer boundary of the Earth’s atmosphere, received on a surface held normal to the Sun’s direction at the mean distance between Sun and Earth. But the Earth describes an elliptical orbit about the Sun. The distance between the centers of both varies between the extreme values 91.0×106 miles (about Jan. 1) and 94.2×106 miles (July 2). Therefore the ‘solar constant’ is not constant and varies continuously by 7 {154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} between January and July. In January the Earth receives about 1418 W/m2 and in July about 1321 W/m2. The ‘solar constant’ as mean value is about 1368 W/m2.
The Earth, its atmosphere and the wind circulation
The Earth’s atmosphere is a gaseous envelope, retained by gravity, surrounding the planet. Most dense at the Earth’s surface, 90{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the mass is contained in the first 20 km and 99,9{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the mass within the first 50 km. The Earth’s atmosphere is, therefore, only a thin shell around the Earth. The Earth’s atmosphere can be divided into layers characterized by their stability and temperature. Each layer is called a ‘sphere’ and the boundary between layers is called a ‘pause’. The lowest layer of the atmosphere is the ‘troposphere’. Extending some 10 km above the Earth’s surface and containing 80{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the atmosphere’s mass, it is a turbulent layer in which the weather is generated. Throughout this layer the temperature generally decreases with altitude at a mean rate of 6.5°C km-1, up to a minimum of between -50 and -55°C at the tropopause. The tropopause is a temperature inversion level (where a layer of relatively warm air lies above colder air); the inversion thus acts as a ‘lid’ limiting both convection and transport from the troposphere into the higher layers of the Earth’s atmosphere.
The atmosphere receives most of its heat at the surface of the Earth. It is inequalities of heating that set the air in motion. Circulations of all sizes from the ‘thermal’ up-currents rising over a sun-baked pavement, or a ripening cornfield, to the great wind-streams conveying tropical air towards the poles can be looked upon as convection currents. They have the common characteristic of being the means of transporting heat from where it is hot (source) to where it is cold (sink). The winds that transport heat and moisture, and that drive the ocean currents are at once the operating mechanism and the working substance of weather. Whenever the moving air is deflected upwards it undergoes ‘expansion cooling’ –i. e. its temperature falls ‘adiabatically’- so that clouds and mist are commonly formed from the moisture in it: and processes going on in the clouds are liable to produce drizzle, rain, snow, etc., and, when the vertical motions are violent enough, thunder and hail.
Small-scale convection and local air circulations may be started wherever air over one area is heated more than that of an area nearby. This may be due to differences of albedo, as between cornfield and forest, or to differences in thermal properties as for example between dry ground and swamp, lake or sea. When one comes to examine the heating of the Earth’s surface, one has to take note of the specific heat and the thermal conductivity of the different materials of which the surface is composed in different areas. Specific heats range from 1 for water to about 0.2 for most kinds of rock. Dry land surfaces, and the air above them, normally reach their highest temperatures of the day within about three hours after midday, and their highest of the year within a few weeks after the summer solstice. They usually reach their lowest daily temperatures about dawn and their seasonal ones within a few weeks after the winter solstice. In oceanic climates, the times vary more. Remember: the source of all the energy that heats the ground, the seas and the air, and drives the winds and ocean currents, is the Sun.
The temperature of the Earth’s surface, the radiation and remote sensing
The most common meteorological element is temperature, the most important is pressure. But it is significant to note that the thermometer measures the temperature of the instrument, not the temperature of the air. If a thermometer is exposed to the direct rays of the Sun, it shows a much higher temperature. Conversely, a thermometer exposed to the clear sky at night will radiate and cool faster than the surrounding air. For this reason thermometers are set up in well-ventilated shelters for the best estimate of the air temperature. But if one wants to calculate the radiation of a body one needs the body-temperature, the surface temperatures of the Earth.
This gap in our knowledge has now been filled. With the launch of the first satellite, the planet could be viewed in a new, beautiful and unique way. The process of ‘remote sensing’ makes it possible to derive information about an object without direct contact. It is the same thing we do continuously when our eyes or ears sense things around us. Satellites use electromagnetic fields to receive and transmit information. The particular wavelength used depends on the specific application and how strongly that wavelength is absorbed by the atmosphere. If one wishes to study the Earth’s surface, then a wavelength must be selected which is not absorbed in passing through the atmosphere to/from the satellite. In both the visible and infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum there are ‘windows’, where the Earth’s atmosphere is transparent to electromagnetic waves. Three wavelength ranges are used. The visible 0.4-1.1 µm to locate cloud patterns and weather fronts; the 5.7-7.1 µm region to monitor the water vapor in the troposphere and the infrared wavelengths 8,5-12.5 µm to monitor surface temperatures.
The knowledge of the body temperature is very important. Any body whose temperature is not absolute zero (-273 °C) radiates heat. The amount of radiation it emits depends on the fourth power of its absolute temperature. In accordance with the Stefan-Boltzmann law, the intensity of the radiation (rate of energy flow) from unit surface area of a nearly perfect radiating surface (‘black body’) is given by I=k T4. An advantage of infrared pictures over visible pictures is that infrared radiation is received both day and night. In clear areas, the infrared pictures allow the determination of surface temperatures. Carbon dioxide (CO2) absorbs and emits radiation in several narrow bands around 15 µm. Therefore CO2 cannot close the atmospheric infrared ‘window’ between 10,5 and 12,5 µm. CO2 cannot absorb the radiation of the Earth.
In the third edition of the book “The Atmosphere” Richard A. Anthes (R.A. Anthes et al. 1981, 3rd edition) states: “For the sun, and for most solids and liquids (even thick clouds), the emissivity is almost equal to one, so the black-body radiation equals the total radiation. … At some wavelengths, particularly between 8 and 11 micrometers, the emissivity is near zero. In the wavelength region, therefore, air emits (and absorbs) hardly any radiation; air is transparent to these wavelength.” The distribution of radiation emitted by a black body with wavelength, at a given temperature, is given by Planck’s law. Wien’s law (T x (λmax) = constant) describes the relationship between the wavelength at which the maximum amount of radiation is emitted and the body temperature. If the Earth has a temperature of 288 K (+15 °C) the radiation has its maximum at 10 µm, directly in the middle of the open atmospheric ‘window’. The width of the ‘window’ reaches from nearly -50 to +100 °C surface temperatures! In this wide range of temperatures there is no absorption by ‘greenhouse gases’, especially by CO2.
The Authors come to the conclusion: “It was once believed that a greenhouse stays warmer than the surrounding air because its glass roof allowed the sunlight to pass right through but was opaque to the longer wave radiation emitted by the plants and ground inside. This is the same argument just given for the atmosphere. However, the main reason that the greenhouse stays warm is because the glass prevents the warmer air inside from mixing with the cooler air outside. The term ‘greenhouse effect’ is very misleading and should be avoided.” The hothouse for plant cultivation or greenhouse cools mainly because the glass roof and glass walls are excellent conductors of heat. If it is outside cool and frosty and inside the greenhouse warm than we observe condensed water or layers of ice on the glass surface. To compare the function of the Earth’s atmosphere with a greenhouse is more than a misleading name it is a scientific fraud. It contradicts the fundamental laws of physics.
It is a very well premeditated scientific fraud financed and protected by ideological and political interests. Why all the climate experts and the IPCC pressure groups neglect the well known ‘Cooling law’ of Sir Isaac Newton? The idea of launching a satellite into an orbit around the Earth originated with Isaac Newton in his great treatise the “Principia Mathematica” (1687), though nearly three centuries were to pass before it was possible to put his ideas into practice. Why do they ignore Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) and his ‘Third Law’? Kepler’s laws of planetary motion showed for the first time that the planets move around the Sun in elliptical not circular orbits. Only by this reason the ‘solar constant’ can’t be constant. Kepler’s work provided important support for Copernicus’s Sun-centered theory of the Universe, and gave Newton the basic material for his laws of gravitation.
Oppenheim November 10, 2013, Dr. Wolfgang Thüne, Senior Meteorologist
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