Substantial Southern Hemisphere cooling being observed
Strong cold anomalies are being detected in the stratosphere over Southern Hemisphere. The anomalous cooling results from the water vapor coming from the January Hunga Tonga eruption.
Cooling on this scale has not been seen in modern satellite records, so this is a significant event.
We will look at what is happening with temperatures in the southern stratosphere, how it all actually happened, and how it might impact our side of the planet in the upcoming Winter 2022/2023.
All of the clouds (and our weather) are found in the lowest layer of the atmosphere, called the troposphere. It reaches up to around 8 km (5 miles) altitude over the polar regions and up to around 14-16 km (9-10 miles) over the tropics.
Above it, there is a much deeper layer called the stratosphere. This layer is around 30 km thick and is very dry. This is where the Ozone layer is found. You can see the layers of the atmosphere in the image below, with the troposphere on the bottom and the stratosphere with the ozone layer above it.
These layers are important because while our weather is in the lowest part of the atmosphere, it can be heavily modified by the impacts from above. Especially the stratosphere is known for its effects and changes regarding the Polar Vortex.
Every year as we head into autumn, the north pole starts to cool down. But the atmosphere further south is still relatively warm as it continues to receive energy from the Sun, while the polar regions receive much less over time. You can see the winter solstice below, as the polar regions receive little to zero solar energy.
As the temperature drops over the polar regions, so does the air pressure. In the stratosphere, the process is the same. As the temperature drops over the pole and the temperature difference towards the south increases, a large low-pressure (cyclonic) circulation start to develop across the polar stratosphere.
The image below shows a typical example of the Polar Vortex at around 30km/18.5miles altitude (10mb level) in the middle stratosphere during winter.
It is basically like a very large cyclone, covering the whole north pole, down to the mid-latitudes. So it is strongly present at all levels, from the ground up, but in different shapes.
But in the next image, we have the polar vortex at a much lower altitude, around 5km/3miles. It reveals the true shape and size of the polar vortex closer to the ground. The closer to the ground we get, the more deformed the polar vortex gets because of the growing influence of the terrain and the many weather fronts and systems.
We are typically focusing more on the Stratospheric Polar Vortex during the winter, as it plays a very important role in weather development throughout the season. It is known for its strong influence down from the stratosphere.
But while we are more concerned with the stratosphere and the Polar Vortex of the Northern Hemisphere, a major cooling event is now unfolding over the Southern Hemisphere.
WATER IN THE ATMOSPHERE
We began with the Polar Vortex and the Stratosphere because that is where the main part of our story is currently unfolding.
Strong volcanic eruptions can send different gasses and materials directly into the stratosphere. Depending on the type of particles and their amount, that can result in different regional and global atmospheric effects.
The submarine Hunga Tonga volcano in the South Pacific erupted violently on 15 January 2022. Tonga produced a massive volcanic plume that briefly reached 58 km (36 miles), touching the mesosphere. Below we have infrared satellite imagery of the eruption. We can see the warmer (green-yellow) cloud in the stratosphere and the colder (black-white) cloud in the troposphere.
The eruption injected volcanic gases (sulfur) into the stratosphere and a large amount of water in the form of water vapor. The water volume in the plume was very high because the volcano is “submarine” (below the water level), erupting out of the ocean.
This eruption was strong enough to send shockwaves around the entire planet several times over.
You are probably familiar with sulfur, having a global cooling effect if ejected into the stratosphere in high amounts. One well-known example is the 1991 eruption of Pinatubo, which ejected a large amount of sulfur into the stratosphere, cooling the Earth’s temperatures for the following few years (seen below).
Like sulfur, water vapor has a cooling effect, but not at the surface. Instead, it actually cools the stratosphere because it reflects the incoming solar radiation.
So how much water was injected into the stratosphere? Based on observations and measurements, the normal amount of water in the stratosphere is around 1560 Teragrams.
Following the eruption of Hunga Tonga, the total amount of water increased to over 1700 Teragrams, which is a 10 percent increase in total stratospheric water vapor content. This is a large amount, coming from just one event.
Looking at the vertical analysis, we can see the injected water vapor in the image below. The water vapor was injected into the upper stratosphere, but the main concentration is between 20-30km (12-18 miles).
Below we have the NASA analysis of the water vapor anomaly at around 26mb pressure level (25km/15.5mi). Again, you can see the significant increase following the eruption, spreading across the south and north hemisphere.
We produced a zonal-mean plot from MLS-AURA data provided by NASA. It shows the water vapor content in the lower to mid-stratosphere. You can see the water vapor cloud reaching deep into the southern hemisphere and also reaching into the northern hemisphere.
So the main takeaway is that a large water vapor “cloud” circles the globe in the stratosphere. As you will find out, it has a strong cooling effect and is likely to impact the global weather in some way over the coming months and years.
STRATOSPHERIC COOLING
As mentioned, water vapor is very potent at cooling the stratosphere. It deflects the incoming solar radiation, keeping the temperatures lower. We will track these changes using the reanalysis data from the NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory.
Looking first at May 2022, we can see the mid-stratosphere temperature anomaly below. There was cooling already observed in the southern hemisphere. The strongest belt of cold anomalies was around the 30° south latitude.
By July, the cooling effect was stronger. Below we can see the cold anomalies moved further towards the south pole, now maximizing in the mid-latitudes. The anomalies in July were substantial, reaching more than 10 degrees below normal.
The NOAA mid-stratosphere temperature graph actually shows this unusual cooling. It is marked on the image below, reaching below the previous minimal temperatures in the past 40-year records.
Not only temperatures, as shown in the image below, but the pressure is also lower. You can see a belt of low-pressure anomalies in the same region as the cooling anomalies. This is an overall significant change/anomaly for the southern stratosphere.
Looking at the vertical analysis, you can see the cold anomalies reaching all the way from the lower to the middle stratosphere. The strongest anomalies are confined between the 30 to 60 degrees south latitude.
This is taken from an image-heavy document. See the rest here severe-weather.eu
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Herb Rose
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Exactly what wavelength of light coming from the sun is water vapor reelecting/deflecting? It is a transparent gas so it isn’t in the visible spectrum and as a gas reflects/deflects nothing. Since the temperature of the stratosphere increases with increasing altitude (due to some invisible source off energy at 51 km) wouldn’t it be more reasonable to believe that the cooling (which is a decrease in IR radiation) is the result of an increase in the number of molecules? With more molecules equalizing with the energy, each molecule would have less energy and radiate less energy.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Herb,
You just wrote the following after time after time declaring there are no gaseous water molecules in the air.
“Exactly what wavelength of light coming from the sun is water vapor reelecting/deflecting? It is a transparent gas so it isn’t in the visible spectrum and as a gas reflects/deflects nothing.”
Your key words to which I point are “a gas reflects/defects nothing”. Have you never seen “twilight”? Have you never seen a “blue” sky? There is a commonly observed natural phenomenon that is termed light (radiation) scattering. Which has been explained by Richard Feynman in Chapter 32 of The Feynman Lectures On Physics Volume 1.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Herb Rose
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Hi Jerry,
What I and James have stated is not “there are no gaseous water molecules in the air”. What we have said is that the water in the troposphere is in the form of liquid nano droplets not a gas. Water as a gas, at the surface of the Earth, cannot exist below the boiling point of water (phase chart). In a volcano or forest fire the temperature can be above the boiling point of water (just as it is when it comes out of a tea kettle) but when this gas cools below the boiling point it becomes a liquid. With a volcano the water gas can be propelled into the stratosphere where it remains a gas and in gases there is no rigid structure that can reflect or deflect electromagnetic waves.
In the troposphere, where water is a liquid, droplets of liquid water will reflect and refract light that is passing through it and due to their shape, this causes scattering. This is what causes rainbows and twilight.
The violet (not blue) sky is a result of O2 and N2 absorbing ultraviolet light and re-radiating it at a longer wavelength. Gases and all matter absorb radiated energy and radiate it at longer wavelengths (this is what creates neon lights) but gases, because their atoms are free to move, will not reflect or deflect electromagnetic waves.
Herb
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Herb,
Please read my 2nd paragraph and reply to my questions.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Herb Rose
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Hi Jerry,
A blue sky and twilight are phenomena of the troposphere, not the stratosphere. In the troposphere water is a liquid. In the stratosphere it is a gas. Why with a molecular weight of 18 is water not found at the higher altitude where the atmosphere consists of oxygen atoms and helium?
Herb
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Herb,
“A blue sky and twilight are phenomena of the troposphere, not the stratosphere.”
Are there no atoms or molecules in the stratosphere just as there are in the troposphere and mesosphere?
Have a good day, Jerry
Herb Rose
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There is no liquid water to refract and reflect light in the stratosphere or mesosphere.
Jerry Krause
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Hi Herb,
You ask: “Why with a molecular weight of 18 is water not found at the higher altitude where the atmosphere consists of oxygen atoms and helium?”
First, I assume you know that the stratosphere’s and mesosphere’s atmospheres are primarily composed of oxygen and NITROGEN MOLECULES. Are you a DRUGY?
Next, my answer, to the question I believe you intended to ask, is that the water molecules, which you claim do not exist in the troposphere, freeze out into denser ice crystals which begin to fall through Troposphere’s atmosphere in the upper portion of the troposphere where the temperature drops below negative 40C, so there very few water molecules to diffuse into the higher tropospheric altitudes and into the warmer Stratospheric atmosphere.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Herb,
Please read my 2nd paragraph and reply to its questions.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Joseph Olson
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Wiki/Water_Absorption_Spectrum > absorbes in 37,000 spectral lines. As droplets form in clouds, the white color has high albedo, reflecting incoming solar radiation. As cloud mass increases clouds block (absorbs) almost all visible light, as well as other frequencies, causing COOLING.
“Science Goes Over-Under, Inside-Out” at principia-scientific.org
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Herb Rose
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Hi Joseph,
What wavelengths a molecule absorbs is determined by its bonds. CO2 absorbs 4 wavelengths with the primary one being at -80C. I don’t think water as another three atom molecule can absorb 37,00 spectral lines, but water as a liquid can.
What the article asserts is that water vapor is reflecting light, not that it is absorbing and re-emitting light. Electromagnetic radiation can be absorbed, transmitted, or reflected by objects but gasses do not have a rigid structure that enables them to reflect.
Herb
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Joseph,
“As droplets form in clouds, the white color has high albedo, reflecting incoming solar radiation. As cloud mass increases clouds block (absorbs) almost all visible light, as well as other frequencies.” Because you wrote this, you seem just as confused about what fundamental natural phenomena involving radiation (energy) and clouds (matter) and atmospheric molecules (matter) are as Herb seems. For you ignore what two Noble Prize Winning PHYSICAL SCIENTISTS, Richard Feynman and Albert Einstein, agree upon.. (The Feynman Lectures On Physics, Volume 1, Chapters 42). Feynman
I simply ask. If “clouds block (absorbs) almost all visible light, as well as other frequencies”, why are not the cloud droplets warmed and evaporated (dissolve) into gaseous matter (molecules) which we wouldn’t be able to see during the daytime? You need to answer this with some other explanation than that of Einstein if he is wrong.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Brian James
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Aug 29, 2022 More Than Twice As Fake
Academics and the press have been failing at their predictions for as long as they have been making them. But instead of retraction and mea culpa, they simply double down with their misinformation and propaganda.
https(://youtu.be/jQbieBJkku8
(Corrected your e-mail address error) SUNMOD
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Jerry Krause
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HI Herb, Joseph, and PSI Readers,
I admit that I messed the continuity of comments by double posting the same comment of September 3, 2022 at 10:23 pm and September 3, 2022 at 10:24 pm.
Herb, I remind you that you have not responded to my question of September 4, 2022 at 2:56 pm and I see that I have not answered your question of September 4, 2022 at 10:26 am.
My answer to “Why with a molecular weight of 18 is water not found at the higher altitude where the atmosphere consists of oxygen atoms and helium?” Is that as water molecules diffuse upward the temperature of the Troposphere cools to below neg 40C and the troposphere’s dew point temperature becomes even lower at the top of the troposphere. So the denser ice crystals formed from whatever water molecules reach the top of the troposphere begin to settle downward due to the influence of the earth’s gravity. Hence the minute number of water molecules at the base of the Stratosphere may become unmeasurable. As I have not read that anyone has observed water molecules in the Stratosphere. However, I have read, various reliable places, that clouds have been observed at the very cold temperatures at the top (80+km altitude) of the Mesosphere. However, I have read the saga of Lewis Frank (University of Iowa) who could not dismiss his observations of “house sized dirty snowballs” entering the top of the Earth’s Thermosphere.
Finally, as a physical scientist I have learned to FIRST search the literature for what other scientists may have written about a topic in which I had an interest. This was standard scientific procedure so one wouldn’t have egg-on-one’s-face when it was proven that one had not done what should have been done at the beginning.
Have a good day, Jerry
Have a good day, Jerry
Have a good day, Jerry
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Jerry Krause
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I am old and I need help to remind me to read everything before I post a comment.
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Herb Rose
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Hi omelet face,
The entire article is about how a volcano propelled water into the stratosphere. Why does the water condense into clouds of liquid water and why doesn’t your ice formation occur when the temperature is -5C,-10C, -20C?
Herb
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Herb,
I see you have been reduced to calling people names. However the most significant thing you wrote without evidently realizing it is the question: “Why does the water condense into clouds of liquid water and why doesn’t your ice formation occur when the temperature is -5C,-10C, -20C?”
Given the RIGHT container it is very easy to supercool water in a laboratory. And you evidently have never heard, or read, about airplanes crashing because the plane was flown into a cloud of supercooled water droplets!!! But the ovserverved fact that liquid water supercooled is common knowledge.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Herb Rose
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Hi Jerry,
My reference to”omelet Face” was in jest to your comment on san article about water in the stratosphere saying that you had never read about water in the stratosphere.
It is impossible to super cool impure water (like in the clouds) where there are nuclei that innate ice formation.
Your’s and everyone else’s belief in super cooled water is a result of your belief that a thermometer is correct and records the kinetic energy of the air molecules. Take a look at the graph of temperature. Where have you ever seen a flow of energy from a source like that? It is completely ridiculous. Now look at a graph of the density of the atmosphere.That is how energy flows from the sun to the Earth, it does not zig zag or pause.
Herb
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Howdy
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“one wouldn’t have egg-on-one’s-face ”
“Hi omelet face,”
I got your jest Herb. Gave me a chuckle. It was a worthy attempt at humour.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Herb,
After I made my comment I did see it was in reference to ” This was standard scientific procedure so one wouldn’t have egg-on-one’s-face when it was proven that one had not done what should have been done at the beginning.” Which, if one carefully reads this was how SCIENTISTS try to avoid this possibility. So where is the egg now?
In my comment of 9/5/2022 at 4:24 pm I refer to the twice daily atmosphere, I will look at the sounding data after this date and after the 1991 Pinatubo eruption for evidence of the cooling of the lower stratosphere up to the limits of soundings. For a gas tries to fill all space as it diffuses and Herb you have even suggested that water molecules should end up at the top of the atmosphere because the molecular weight of a water molecule is significantly less than the MW of N2 and O2.
Have a good day, Jerry
Reply
Herb Rose
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Hi Jerry,
The “standard procedure” was reading about the subject. You can’t see the irony of you commenting that you have never read about water in the stratosphere to an article about water in the stratosphere.
The reason there is no water above the troposphere is because you can split the water molecule into atoms with 241,000 joules/gram and since in the stratosphere the ozone is created by the double bonded oxygen molecule being split with 450,000 joules/gram there is more than enough energy to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen atoms.
Herb
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Herb, PSI Commenters, PSI Readers,
(http://weather.uwyo.edu/cgi-bin/sounding?region=naconf&TYPE=TEXT%3ALIST&YEAR=2022&MONTH=09&FROM=0512&TO=0512&STNM=72694&ICE=1). Top of a cloud layer being cooled by radiation from top of a cloud layer from 12.6C to 10.4C.
If one does not study atmospheric sounding data one would never KNOW this happens. And one would never know about the generally thick layer isothermal (nearly constant temperature) atmospheric layer that was over Salem OR this morning a little after 4am (local standard time). And a fact is that before there was an atmospheric sounding project no one ever could KNOW this.
So, please don’t pretend to write about SCIENCE unless somewhere in what you write you cite an observed fact. Otherwise you are merely being a philosopher who reasons, argues,
debates.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Michael Clarke
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I think that you people are missing the poiint of this artical. The SEA-Water that was propelled high into the atmospher has NO precedent.
It is theoretical at best and cojecture at worst about even how much SEA-Water got and how high, and in what form it got there.
Does anyone KNOW how SEA-Water behaves when it is way up there?
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Herb Rose
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Hi Micheal,
I do not think that sea water made it into the stratosphere. I think the heat of the volcano vaporized the water (removing the sodium) and raised the temperature of the water vapor enough that it was able to escape the troposphere, unlike evaporating water. I consider it as more evidence that evaporating water is a liquid crystal whose second melt point is above 100C but below the boiling point.
Herb
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Kevin Doyle
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The author, Andrej Flis, correctly points out H2O in the atmosphere serves as a coolant.
Why is it ‘climatologists’ can’ t understand this?
And, if CO2 is similar to H2O, then why wouldn’t CO2 also act as a coolant?
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Michael James Clarke
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Hi Herb,
There was not enough time for the superheated sea water to seperate suficiently, perhaps JLK can elucidate.
The eruption was well below the surface of the ocean at aroiund 600m. The ancient caldera probably colapsed over a very wide area (several sq km). The pressurer cooker effect was the cause of the violence with sea water instantly boiled under high pressure before the pressure exceeded the downward force of 600m of ocean above the points of contact. There was a few seconds of this rapid build up of pressure before the actual explosion took place which became more and more violent as that super heated sea water rose from the depths taking with it ALL the cool sea water that was above the bubble of the actual super heated sea water, and the explosion was incredibly rapid and the sea water reached the stratosphere in seconds and probably as sea water not H2O. Several sq km of cool sea water was a significant part of the ejected material.
Like I stated there are no precidents for such a senario so we are all guessing.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Michael,
The article speaks of water vapor and SO2 as being propelled into the stratosphere so I thought it was about the cooling effect of the gases not the sea water. As you. know I believe the kinetic energy of the gas molecules in the stratosphere is greater than the boiling point of water so I would guess that the cooling would be the result of an increase in density and the distribution of energy to more molecules. I am sure this type of event has occurred many times before we noticed it so it will be interesting to see how persistent the water is in the stratosphere or whether it is converted into hydrogen and oxygen atoms.
Herb
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Herb and PSI Readers,
Herb, you ave a fundamental problem. It is that you co not read accurately. The author of the article never wrote “SO2 and I have made a point of this. And PSI Readers, if you haven’t learned to read accurately, you are wasting your time reading anything. Yes, we alll are human and we make mistakes, but we all should make a concerted effort to minimize these mistakes. Which as I read what have posted forces me to admit it is hard to see that I do not always make such concerted effort.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Michael Clarke
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Hi Herb and PSI readers,
Here is how I think the volcanic eruption progressed and the effects upon the Atmosphere.
It all started with a series of earthquakes. Those earthquakes weakened the dome of the caldera of the very large sub-oceanic volcano.
Time passed with those earthquakes getting more and more frequent and severe. The Magma pool below the top of the caldera rose and melted more and more of it’s under surface. Eventually the ‘Roof’ gave way and the eruption began, quite slowly at first taking around a day for that ‘Roof’ to completely colapse. This colapse bought more and more sea water in contact with very hot magma. A bubble of superheated steam began to form, just like a singing kettle as steam hovers above the bottom and sides of a pan of water when exposed to heat. In this way that bubble was self maintained at a depth of around 600 meters where the water pressude above it kept it sort of contained. As the ‘Roof’ colapsed more and more steam was produced as the sea water kept trying to fill in the water losted to steam,
The steam pressure rose and rose rather quickly as the last of the roof colapsed until the steam pressure rexceeded the downward water pressure which released that bubble and it bagan to rise.
It was a run-away condition then as with each meter it rose then the less was the weight of seawater above it was able to hold it down.
When that bubble reached the surface it was traveling extremely fast and the bubble exploded into the atmosphere taking with it a considerable amount of sea water. This bubble and attendant sea water was ejected with immense forrce over less than a second. Several square miles of ocean was displaced upwards at great velocity and that soom began to be cubic miles!
The view from those satelites that caught the action attest to the velocity of that upwards motion, it only began to spread out after reaching great height, by then the bubble of steam and attendant sea water was in the stratospher where it sits today!
The ocean rushed in behind the bubble and resealed the ‘Roof’ and the eruption essentially ceased!
This is only theory but do you have a better explination?
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Herb Rose
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Hi Michael,
I’m not sure of your bubble hypothesis. When something is less dense, be it warm water or a gas, it will rise transferring heat to the surrounding cooler water. This updraft would continue to heat the water above until the cooling was unable to keep yup with the heating causing steam then super heated steam to erupt from the surface. I don’t see how water pressure could keep the steam contained. When you boil water in a pan bubbles of steam form at the bottom then disappear as they lose heat to the surrounding water. The boiling only happens when threat of transfer of heat to the surrounding water becomes less than the heat being added.
Herb
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Michael,
Evidence of the possible relationship between earthquakes and volcanic eruptions in Oregon USA is Avert RIM and Gearhart Mountain’ eruption. About which somewhere here at PSI I have commented. But based on my experience I doubt if has been noticed and written about by any geologists of this state. But, of course, I could be wrong because I cannot claim to have read EVERYTHING.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Jerry Krause
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Hi PSI Readers,
Michael has just given an example of the simple, general, reasoning that REAL SCIENTISTS DO!!!!
Have a good day, Jerry
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Michael Clarke
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Watch a beaker of water boil.
First bubles form on the bottom of the container and dance around for a while. They do NOT rise to the surface!
They only rise to the surface when the water boils
Seawater at a depth of 600m has a boiling point well above 100 degrees C.
The caldera was a large basin with water at least 600m deep at its sides.
there is not much data on how deep it was in the middle.
The entire caldera, many square miles, would act like a container with sea water above,holding the steam in for a short while after the ‘Roof’ colapsed, then the almighty explosion occured, then the ‘Roof’ reformed from magma that was cooled by the fresh seawater that flooded in behind the bubble.
Small vents caused some steam and ash to rise but nothing like that origianl major steam bubble that rose into the stratosphere.
The eruption ceased because the magma source could not be maintained after the bubble left and the ‘Roof’ reformed.
The volcano will be silent until plate techtonics causes another set of earth quakes that cause the ‘Roof’ to colapse.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Michael,
You have been describing what in Organic Chemistry is a detailed mechanism by which the invisible atoms of the reactants are imagined to rearrange to form the atoms of the product.
You wrote: “The SEA-Water that was propelled high into the atmospher has NO precedent.” I believe you have forgotten about this when you write: “The entire caldera, many square miles, would act like a container with sea water above,holding the steam in for a short while after the ‘Roof’ colapsed, then the almighty explosion occured, then the ‘Roof’ reformed from magma that was cooled by the fresh seawater that flooded in behind the bubble.” The fundamental problem I see is “the bubble” and your bubble is only “super heated steam “.
The entire caldera could have been a bubble of superheated ‘liquid’ water with a volume of many CUBLIC miles ,which relative to the volume of water in the oceans is but a drop in a bucket of water. Then I ask myself: What happens if I fill a small carbon dioxide fire extinguisher cylinder, made of thick cast iron? with liquid water, close the valve, and begin to heat it? What will I imagine? My answer: I don’t know. So I change the question: At what temperature will the cylinder crack (burst)? My answer is: I still don’t know. So, I again change the question: Could I SAFELY test this temperature with’ a simple experiment.
when
Could I pack a 55gal barrel with briquets all around the cylinder, lite the briquets, move far away and monitor the barrel’s surface temperature with a remote IR thermometer? Or low tech wise, knock some holes in the base of the barrel, blow air into the barrel with a fan and see when the cylinder begins to leak, or burst, before the the barrel’s exterior begins to glows red as I watched at night from a distance of half a mile. Might this answer the questions?
Have a good day, Jerry
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Herb Rose
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Hi Michael.
I put a beaker of water on a hot plate and turned on the heat. bubbles formed on the bottom but did not dance around but remained on the bottom until breaking free.and rising to the surface. There they paused before penetrating the surface tension and escaping into the air.
A caldera is a depression produced when a volcano ejects magma, then the sides of the volcano collapses back into the cavity. After relieving the internal pressure in the Earth the volcano goes dormant until the internal pressure again forces magma towards the surface. This movement of magma causes earthquakes so the earthquakes are a result of the volcano not a cause (triggering mechanism) for its eruption. As the 2000C magma rises it is increasing the temperature of the material above it so there would be a gradual increase in heat until the magma was exposed to the water causing super heated steam. I do not see that the debris from the collapsed sides would have enough cohesion to produce a steam bubble. Whatever the mechanism we have more matter in the stratosphere absorb heat coming from the sun which means a cooler Earth surface.
Herb
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Michael Clarke
| #
Hi Jerrry and PSI readers,
What is the water pressure at a depth of 600meters?
Sea water formed superheated steam. At what temperature?
What does a pillow lava being formed look like as Magma at 1500 degrees C in contact with Seawater at depths look like, why does it not form steam?
very small beer compared to a colapsed caldera ‘Roof’.
Follow this thread and accept that the explosion was unique in human history!
The acceleration when that bubble eventually reached a pressure greater than the pressure at 600m depth was phenominal!
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Michael,
You ask good questions. Yesterday, I focused on the apparent face that the Pacific Ocean is shallow where the irruption occurred. You mentioned “pillow lava” and while I cannot remember reading that term I believe at my 20 acre natural laboratory in southern OR I have observed “pillow lava”. And I observe extruded vertical lava that forms a vertical rimrock that is 30ft or more high and is maybe a mile or two long and within a mile I observe a sequence of pillow lava which got more viscous as it flowed down slope.
However, eruptions do not move much lava. Eruptions occur because of a great build up of gas pressure in a great volume of space. Can you accept this simple conclusion?
Have a good day, Jerry
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Michael,
When I wrote about fillings a cast-iron container with liquid water, sealing it, and heating it and writing that I did not KNOW what would happen, I was telling you the TRUTH. However, I had a theory about what would happen which was based upon what Richard Feynman taught Caltech students in the first lecture of The Feynman Lectures On Physics.
“All things are made of atoms—little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another.”
In liquid water there is very little empty space. Hence, liquids and solids are not very compressible. And we can heat the solid cast iron to quite high temperatures and it will not even “melt” to say nothing about it will “explode”. Hence, because liquid water has very little empty space, I reason that it will not explode when confined by a solid which will not explode when heated to very high temperatures. But based upon mercury in a thermometer we know the mercury will “expand” a little when heated if the volume of mercury is large enough. Hence, I expect if a big enough volume of ‘superheated’ water would crack, or burst, its solid container, or very viscus liquid (molten lava) container which leaks out forming a viscous lava flow.
However, if the solid container of significant volume of water at 800C were to “burst’, there would be an explosion (rapid expansion) of this significant volume of very hot liquid.
So, I generally agree with “The acceleration when that bubble eventually reached a pressure greater than the pressure at 600m depth was phenominal!” And I consider my proposed experiment is unnecessary.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Michael Clarke
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Thank you Jerry, steam engines have been known to fail with spectacular explosions. Consider that explosion as cubic miles of superheated steamleft the depth and accelerated upwards taking with it ash, lava and a considerable amount of Seawater. That mixture rose into the stratosphere where it has remained to thios day, though attenuated slightly.
How long will it effect the weather is the question?
The cloud is rather large, a few percent of the atmosphere. It is circulating slowly. It affects the weather as it passes beneath the sun every few days.
What does it do when it is on the night side of the atmosphere?
Unprecendated to put it mildly!
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