Large dust particles missed by climate models act as 'warm blanket,' trap heat near Earth, PNAS study

12/30/10, "Climate Models Miss Effects of Wind-Shattered Dust," Wired Science, Lisa Grossman

"Clumps of dust in the desert shatter like glass on a kitchen floor. This similarity may mean the

• atmosphere carries more large dust particles than climate models assume.

Dust and other airborne particles’ effect in the atmosphere is “one of the most important problems we need to solve in order to provide better predictions of climate,” said climate scientist Jasper Kok of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. Other researchers suspect current models also neglect a large fraction of

• the climate-warming dust that
  

• clogs the skies after dust storms.

Most climate models use dust data from satellites that measure how many particles of different sizes are suspended in the atmosphere. These measurements reveal an abundance of tiny clay particles roughly 2 micrometers across (about one-third the width of a red blood cell), which can reflect sunlight back into space and cool the planet.

But satellites may be missing larger particles, called silts, which don’t hang around in the air as long. Silts up to 20 micrometers in diameter can

• act as a warm blanket to trap heat inside the Earth’s atmosphere.

To figure out how much clay and silt is actually kicked up from the Earth’s deserts, Kok turned to a well-studied problem in physics: how glass breaks.

Cracks spread through breaking glass in specific patterns, creating predictable numbers and sizes of glass shards. The final distribution of small, medium and large glass fragments follows a mathematical law called scale invariance.

• “It shows up all across nature, from asteroids to atomic nuclei,” Kok said. “It’s really just beautiful.”

In a paper published Dec. 28 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Kok showed that the physics of how dust clumps break apart

• is similar to glass breaking....

Kok’s theory suggests that dust storms produce two to eight times more silt-sized particles than climatologists previously thought. Neglecting the boost in particles suggests that climate models, and even short-term weather models for dusty regions, are somewhat off. Until climate scientists better understand how dust changes over time, however, Kok said it’s tough to gauge the effects.

“I thought it was a breakthrough, a real original idea,” said atmospheric physicist Charles Zender of the University of California at Irvine, who was not involved in the new work. Similarities to fractured glass may show up in other earth science systems,

• like earthquakes or glacier calving, he added.
  

“Whether it’s submicron and invisible to the human eye, or as large as Greenland, it doesn’t matter. It’s the same property.”

Dust expert Tom Gill of the University of Texas at El Paso thinks Kok’s theory is elegant, though it will have to be backed up by lab and field experiments. If it holds up, however, “it has the potential to make some real improvements in modeling how dust and dust-like things move around and disperse and fall out of the air. That has implications for everything

• from global climate to volcanoes to hurricanes,” he said. “I’m very encouraged by it.”"

• ####

From AlFin, 1/2/2011, "Climate Models Flying Blind, Deaf, Dumb"

"Top leaders of the US and the EU are prepared to send their respective economies into a fatal tailspin on the basis of climate pseudo-science. Obama and his fellow cargo-cultists across the pond are willing to destroy the futures of their nations on the claims and declarations of climate modelers whose models omit the most salient movers of climate.

Clouds and water vapour, for example, may be the most crucial determinants of how the climate adapts to genuine climate forcings -- yet climate modelers haven't a clue how to deal with these crucial factors.

• Another important factor -- black carbon soot --

is likely the primary determinant of melting of the Arctic ice and high latitude northern glaciers, yet climate models have not been savvy about modeling this crucial driver of melting.

Just as crucial in the overal scheme of climate is

• the changing sun, and how the oceans react to changing solar activity. Models haven't a clue what to do with it.

Certainly recent winters are much colder with more snowfall than modelers have been predicting. And to top it off, a recent paper claims that

• there is no correlation between CO2 and temperature changes.

Finally, there is dust. Climate models seem to miss larger dust particles called "silts" altogether. How can they expect to get anything right when they keep missing the most important drivers of climate, and emphasise things like CO2 which may actually be confounders, or "pseudo-drivers?"

Kok’s theory suggests that dust storms produce two to eight times more silt-sized particles than climatologists previously thought. Neglecting the boost in particles suggests that climate models, and even short-term weather models for dusty regions, are somewhat off. Until climate scientists better understand how dust changes over time, however, Kok said it’s tough to gauge the effects. _Wired

Dust, soot, clouds, ocean cycles, cyclic solar activity, water vapour, and more. Climate models even do a poor job with aerosols, as recent analyses are discovering. If climate models over-emphasise CO2 and under-emphasise the real drivers of climate, what are they good for -- other than

• providing a basis for carbon taxes, cap and trade, and the strangulation of energy supplies and industry for the US and the EU?

Remember, if energy supplies are choked off, the underlying economy gets strangled. Startups and new technologies go elsewhere. Job prospects shrivel and die.

• Ever more people are unable to make mortgage payments or get away from dependency on government.

That seems to be what Obama and leaders of the EU want for their constituencies. But what do the people want? More debilitating cargo-cult

• pseudoscience from their witch-doctors in chief,

or a fair chance to succeed in the world?"


via Tom Nelson