Climate Emissions Shrinking the Stratosphere, Scientists Reveal 43
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Humanity's enormous emissions of greenhouse gases are shrinking the stratosphere, a new study has revealed. The thickness of the atmospheric layer has contracted by 400 meters since the 1980s, the researchers found, and will thin by about another kilometer by 2080 without major cuts in emissions. The changes have the potential to affect satellite operations, the GPS navigation system and radio communications.
The stratosphere extends from about 20km to 60km above the Earth's surface. Below is the troposphere, in which humans live, and here carbon dioxide heats and expands the air. This pushes up the lower boundary of the stratosphere. But, in addition, when CO2 enters the stratosphere it actually cools the air, causing it to contract. The shrinking stratosphere is a stark signal of the climate emergency and the planetary-scale influence that humanity now exerts, according to Juan Anel, at the University of Vigo, Ourense in Spain and part of the research team. "It is shocking," he said. "This proves we are messing with the atmosphere up to 60 kilometers."
The study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, reached its conclusions using the small set of satellite observations taken since the 1980s in combination with multiple climate models, which included the complex chemical interactions that occur in the atmosphere. "It may affect satellite trajectories, orbital life-times, and retrievals [...] the propagation of radio waves, and eventually the overall performance of the Global Positioning System and other space-based navigational systems," the researchers said.
The stratosphere extends from about 20km to 60km above the Earth's surface. Below is the troposphere, in which humans live, and here carbon dioxide heats and expands the air. This pushes up the lower boundary of the stratosphere. But, in addition, when CO2 enters the stratosphere it actually cools the air, causing it to contract. The shrinking stratosphere is a stark signal of the climate emergency and the planetary-scale influence that humanity now exerts, according to Juan Anel, at the University of Vigo, Ourense in Spain and part of the research team. "It is shocking," he said. "This proves we are messing with the atmosphere up to 60 kilometers."
The study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, reached its conclusions using the small set of satellite observations taken since the 1980s in combination with multiple climate models, which included the complex chemical interactions that occur in the atmosphere. "It may affect satellite trajectories, orbital life-times, and retrievals [...] the propagation of radio waves, and eventually the overall performance of the Global Positioning System and other space-based navigational systems," the researchers said.
alarmist nonsense (Score:2, Insightful)
So they couldn't list one bad consequence to Earth's biosphere from this tiny contraction, instead talking about possible changes to parameters for launch trajectories, GPS system, certain types of radio propagation.
There is no problem. some 400 meters change in an 60km of atmosphere means nothing.
Re:alarmist nonsense (Score:4, Interesting)
Contracting the atmosphere by a few percentage points over a few decades sounds pretty extreme to me. It's the only thing standing between all known life, and the void. Anyway, if they had named some measurable or predicted consequence (I mean, apart from the ones they did mention) you'd have called them alarmist twice as fast.
For everyone else who doesn't go through life on autopilot, this is another datapoint for the knowledge banks. The matériel that sustains life steadily disappearing is only not a concern for suicidal people, or psycopaths who are close enough to death that they know it'll be someone else's problem. Or, those who are either desperate or deficient enough to be fooled into working for them.
Re: alarmist nonsense (Score:2)
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I have not seen many people dismissing de-forestation, many environmentalists are still quite vocal about the damage the current Brazilian government is doing to the amazon since it's such an important carbon sink and oxygen generator. It may not get the attention as much as fossil fuels but the fact is there are quite a number of successful re-forestation efforts taking place right now and it's a very good thing.
De-forestation is also not as relevant as in many cases the carbon removed from forests tends
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That isn't a few percentage points, you're math challenged. Run the numbers again (and better yet realize the stratosphere starts at even lower altitude over most the earth.)
No material disappeared, cooler gases have less volume than warmer gasses. There is no effect of this tiny shrinkage on living things or the Earth itself. Zero. A slight change to radio propagation that will be far overshadowed by seasons and sun, a very slight change to launch trajectories.
There is nothing to worry about, nothing
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Contracting the atmosphere by a few percentage points over a few decades sounds pretty extreme to me.
Not the atmosphere, the stratosphere. Do you know what that does? I don't without looking it up, so maybe dial back the panic a bit until you do.
It's the only thing standing between all known life, and the void.
No it isn't.
The matériel that sustains life steadily disappearing is only not a concern for suicidal people
"It may affect satellite trajectories, orbital life-times, and retrievals" TFS says nothing about mass extinction, but I get that that is how the climate religion works...
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From there, the ideal gas law, PV=nRT, tells us that reducing the temperature will reduce the volume, thus reducing the height of the stratosphere.
IIUC, the essential reason for this cooling is that the increasing CO2
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Like most effects of CO2 emissions, this one was more or less predictable after Manabe and Wetherald's groundbreaking quantitative predictions of the greenhouse effect back in 1967 [scienceofdoom.com]:
But that's modelling, which is the evil and wrong and never right in climate science, apparently. So I've been told.
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The stratosphere extends from about 20km to 60km above the Earth's surface.
60-20=40, not 60. And the issue isn't the absolute amount at the moment, it's that there's a change with a cause. Because effects aren't necessarily linear, it's useful information to have.
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Look at the first number of your little equation. See that 60? That's what I was referencing. And it doesn't even matter if we talk about a teeny tiny distance compared to 60k or 40k, it doesn't matter. There is no consequence to the planet or biosphere from that teeny tiny change, it causes nothing and means nothing. A wee little change to radio propagation that will be overshadowed by isolation and seasons, wee little changes to rocket trajectory calculations.... it's nothing.
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Look at the first number of your little equation. See that 60? That's what I was referencing.
Then don't reference the wrong number. That number will not tell you the thickness of the stratosphere.
There is no consequence to the planet or biosphere from that teeny tiny change
It probably does mean little, but it tells us about the direction of travel and it means that further study to ensure that there are not non-linear effects in play that might lead to a change that is an issue is warranted.
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This is depressing. (Score:4, Insightful)
The greenhouse warming initially traps the warmth below, and so less gets through to the stratosphere. But it stops when it reaches equilibrium again: that is when it is so warm below that the same amount of heat is getting through to the stratosphere despite the greenhouse gasses.
That hasn't even begun.
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Why is it depressing?
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Almost right.
Better start terraforming Mars
Because Earth will be Venus within a few millenia, or less...
Uh, alarmist much? (Score:3, Insightful)
So, 400 m reduction over a 40 km span? Can they prove the cause, and that it's not just normal fluctuation? 'Cause you can correlate all sorts of things, but correlation is not causation.
Dude, that's on the previous thread (Score:2)
about mammals absorbing oxygen with their intestines.
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Good question! Another one is what is the margin of error for measuring the boundaries of these atmospheric layers.
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Good question! Another one is what is the margin of error for measuring the boundaries of these atmospheric layers.
You are not supposed to ask. You are just supposed to be afraid.
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Can they prove the cause, and that it's not just normal fluctuation?
Yes, they can. All you need is the temperature measurements and the ideal gas law (PV=nRT). The troposphere has gotten warmer, which causes it to expand. The stratosphere has gotten cooler, which causes it to contract. We have lots of temperature data going back decades. The change in volume immediately follows from the change in temperature.
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Weakening of the Magentosphere (Score:3, Informative)
A recent solar flare had much more impact as well due to the cyclic weakening of the magnetosphere in anticipation of polar realignment. This is the likely major source of the thinning of the stratosphere due to its interaction with the ionosphere. The conclusion that it's caused solely by CO2 emissions is not proven. Neither is my hypothesis.
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1420798/ [nih.gov]
Good news for Blue Origin (Score:2)
They might finally be able to get people into space.
On what Earth do those journalists live? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:On what Earth do those journalists live? (Score:5, Interesting)
Near the equator, the lower edge of the stratosphere is as high as 20 km (66,000 ft; 12 mi), at midlatitudes around 10 km (33,000 ft; 6.2 mi), and at the poles about 7 km (23,000 ft; 4.3 mi)[5]
. They took the highest limit in the summary. I expect the actual research does no such thing, so it's sloppy journalism using the 20km limit. Using some sort of average figure would have been better.
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another panic story (Score:2)
Just like the acid rain.
The hole in the ozone.
The nitrous oxide.
And now the stratosphere?
A cooling atmosphere on a warming planet?
What can we believe here?
Re: another panic story (Score:3)
Literally the sky is falling..
Write up bad, paper bad (Score:3)
The write up is horrific. At first I thought perhaps the write up was the core problem, then I went and looked at the paper.
The write up is bad, the paper is atrocious.
There "may" be many impacts. That's stated and implied in the paper. But, the potential impacts are typically references to other articles with no context in the paper itself, not even highlights pulled from the referenced papers.
With that type of reference to other papers this one could have included the biological impact of mating earthworms. Doing so without parallel facts implies they are trying to create a chain of references to make their paper look good, not to create a further detailed understanding of the impact described.
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Holy Shrinking Stratopheres Batman! (Score:3)
It's like a giant cow farted and the whole world stinks!!!