Featured Pages

3.14.2013

Losing snowpack rapidly? Consider this NASA wisdom: Low altitude liquid clouds cause surface cooling. High altitude ice clouds cause surface warming. Planes create high clouds linked to surface warming. Hot outside? Look up and see why.

"The overall effect of the high thin cirrus clouds is to enhance atmospheric greenhouse warming."   -- NASA's Earth Observatory Website

March 14, 2013: Here in Jackson Hole we are rapidly losing our snowpack as daytime temperatures consistently hit the mid-50s while nighttime temps are barely dropping below freezing.  Today it almost hit 60°F in town, and was 1.2°F off the all time high of 61°F set in 1994.

I went skiing this evening to check on conditions: it's awful.  Lower mountain snowpack in the Teton Range was rotten and hollow all the way down to dirt.  

Tonight temps are forecast to remain above freezing and tomorrow looks to be 50°F and rainy.  This combination of heat and rain will rapidly melt our lower elevation snowpack.  Highs well above freezing are expected every day for the remainder of the week which should pretty much do 'er in.

Bummer.

It feels like winter has left the Tetons early this year, just as it did last year (2012) but unlike the year before when we had heavy spring snowfall and record snowpack extending well into the summer.

This spring we'll be lucky if top to bottom snowpack lasts until JHMR closes in early April.  Across the state, Wyoming's snowpack is currently below average, and the mainstream TV news in Casper claims the entire state is "enjoying comfortable temperatures above average".

Speak for yourself, buddy!  Some of us want to ski or sled and the farmers/ranchers throughout the West need a deep, lingering snowpack to provide water for the growing season.  Above average temps are a nuisance in more ways than one.

One peculiar factor of the recent warm days is that they have also been rather cloudy.  I have been keeping a close eye on the sky, and even when the forecast called for sun there was a persistent and widespread high haze.

Yesterday, March 13, 2013 was a prime example with daytime temps in town topping out at 55°F though it wasn't exceptionally sunny for most of the day:
Jackson Hole Skyscape: 3/13/2013: Mostly cloudy high ice haze with wave patterns.
55°F temperature highs in the Town of Jackson.  High, hazy clouds are ~30k feet above sea level.
Today, March 14, 2013 was considerably warmer with town temps topping out at 59.8°F and equally hazy with high clouds filling most of the sky:


Jackson Hole Skyscape: 3/14/2013: Mostly cloudy high ice haze. 59.8°F temperature highs in TOJ.
High, hazy clouds are ~30k feet above sea level and were seen growing off of lingering airplane trails.
Despite the high haze, I find myself needing to wear sunglasses because the sun is still quite bright, even when standing on blacktop.  These high hazy clouds are much different from heavy low altitude clouds because the high, thin, icy, hazy ones do not block very much sunlight: scientific consensus is that most of the suns rays pass right through cirrus clouds unimpeded.  NASA can explain why these clouds do what they do, but first we need to make sure we are asking the right questions:

Why has it been so unseasonably warm recently?

Is our widely varying weather due solely to gradually increasing atmospheric concentrations of CO2... or are there other factors at play?

What role do other greenhouse gases like water vapor, low liquid clouds, and high ice clouds play?

Direct contributions to warming of the major greenhouse gasses.
Source: Wikipedia and The National Center for Atmospheric Research 
I ask these questions because according to scientific consensus the most powerful greenhouse gas is water vapor.  This fact is best exemplified by the fact that nights are cold in the dry desert while nights are warm in the more humidtropics.  Both areas may experience exactly the same daytime high temps but the desert typically has much colder nights because there isn't as much water vapor trapping heat.

In addition to the impact of transparent water vapor, different cloud formations at different altitudes have profound impacts on weather and climate.  This is obvious to anyone who has noticed the difference between a sunny day and a cloudy day.

According to NASA's Earth Observatory Clouds and Radiation Fact Sheet, high icy clouds (like we've seen a lot of recently over Jackson Hole) actually cause an overall heating of the Earth's surface:

The study of clouds, where they occur, and their characteristics, play a key role in the understanding of climate change. Low, thick clouds primarily reflect solar radiation and cool the surface of the Earth. High, thin clouds primarily transmit incoming solar radiation; at the same time, they trap some of the outgoing infrared radiation emitted by the Earth and radiate it back downward, thereby warming the surface of the Earth. Whether a given cloud will heat or cool the surface depends on several factors, including the cloud's altitude, its size, and the make-up of the particles that form the cloud. (source)

Dealing solely on high cirrus clouds, NASA's point becomes even more clear:

The high, thin cirrus clouds in the Earth's atmosphere act in a way similar to clear air because they are highly transparent to shortwave radiation (their cloud albedo forcing is small), but they readily absorb the outgoing longwave radiation. Like clear air, cirrus clouds absorb the Earth's radiation and then emit longwave, infrared radiation both out to space and back to the Earth's surface. Because cirrus clouds are high, and therefore cold, the energy radiated to outer space is lower than it would be without the cloud (the cloud greenhouse forcing is large). The portion of the radiation thus trapped and sent back to the Earth's surface adds to the shortwave energy from the sun and the longwave energy from the air already reaching the surface. The additional energy causes a warming of the surface and atmosphere. The overall effect of the high thin cirrus clouds then is to enhance atmospheric greenhouse warming. (source)

High cirrus clouds let sunlight through and deflect heat back to earth, having an overall warming impact.  Image: NASA

Famous science author Nigel Calder and Danish Astrophysicist Henrik Svensmark further explain how high vs. low clouds impact weather and climate in their recent book "The Chilling Stars: A Cosmic View of Climate Change":

By the early 1990s the results of NASA's Earth Radiation Budget Experiment were clear.  Take altogether, clouds are strong coolers.  The exceptions are thin clouds which have an overall warming effect.  The high feathery cirrus clouds are so cold, at around minus 40°C, that they radiate into space much less heat than they block going out from the Earth.  The most efficient coolers, on the other hand, are thick clouds at middle altitudes... Overall, the clouds of the world cut the warming effect of the incoming sunshine by 8 per cent.  If nothing else changed, removing [the lower, thicker, wetter, surface cooling clouds] would raise the planet's mean temperature by about 10 degrees Celsius   Conversely, an increase in the low clouds by only a few percent would chill the world noticeably. (source)

Therefore -- in alliance with scientific consensus -- when we see widespread high, thin, hazy, icy clouds we are going to experience warmer surface temperatures than we would otherwise.  When we see low, thick, wet clouds we are going to have cooler surface temps than we would with high clouds or no clouds at all.  Please remember this crucial point as we attempt to connect a few dots.


As is obvious from the accompanying cloudscape image from Encyclopaedia Britannica, high, thin, icy cirrus clouds occur 5 or more miles above sea level.  Do you know what else occurs regularly at 5+ miles up in the sky?

Tens of thousands of planes crisscross the sky every day at cruising altitudes of 25-40k feet which translates roughly to 5-8 miles above sea level, the height at which cirrus clouds typically form.  

Exactly how many planes?  No one knows how many flights occur globally, but there are almost 90,000 flights over the US every single day:

"On any given day, more than 87,000 flights are in the skies in the United States. Only one-third are commercial carriers, like American, United or Southwest. On an average day, air traffic controllers handle 28,537 commercial flights (major and regional airlines), 27,178 general aviation flights (private planes), 24,548 air taxi flights (planes for hire), 5,260 military flights and 2,148 air cargo flights (Federal Express, UPS, etc.). At any given moment, roughly 5,000 planes are in the skies above the United States. In one year, controllers handle an average of 64 million takeoffs and landings." -- National Air Traffic Controllers Association

Shocking, eh?  When seen visually, this reality looks equally absurd.  Every icon on this map is a plane that was airborne at 9:30am mst on 3/14/2013.  There were over 9,000 tracked planes flying simultaneously over North America at that moment in time.  This image excludes military transports, fighters, and drones.

Every icon is an airborne plane.  There are over 9,000 planes visible in this screencapture. (source)
Most of the planes spend the vast majority of their time aloft cruising at 25k-40k feet above sea level, the same height at which heat trapping cirrus clouds form.  

All of these planes are burning fuel and releasing combustion byproducts which are predominantly CO2 and H20, as shown by the generalized combustion reaction below:


CH4 + 2 O2 → CO2 + 2 H2O + energy

As we noted earlier, the two most important greenhouse gasses are H2O vapor and CO2.  H2O vapor also condenses or freezes to form clouds which have a profound impact on weather and climate as well.

How much CO2 and H2O are planes producing?

My calculations put the figure at approximately 7.425 BILLION pounds of CO2 and H2O produced daily around the globe due to jet fuel combustion.

According to the International Energy Agency, world jet fuel consumption was 5.2 million barrels per day in 2010, or 6 percent of total oil consumption.  According to the Air Transporation Association, there are 42 gallons per barrel of jet fuel.  Each gallon weighs an average of 6.8 lbs depending on temperature (and thus density) of the fuel.  5,200,000 barrels per day X 42 gallons per barrel X 6.8 pounds per gallon = 1,485,120,000 pounds of jet fuel burned per day, or 1.485 billion pounds per day.

Of course only a percentage of the combustion byproducts come from the jet fuel itself.  Jet fuel does not contain Oxygen, so all of the O2 consumed in combustion must come from Earth's atmosphere.

CH4 has an atomic weight of ~16 and O2 has an atomic weight of ~32.  In a typical combustion reaction (CH4 + 2 O2CO2 + 2 H2O + energy) 2 molecules of O2 are used for every molecule of CH4, meaning 16 amu of CH4 interacts with 64 amu of O2.  Therefore 1.485 billion pounds of jet fuel consumed actually creates 5x that much byproduct for a total of approximately 7.425 BILLION pounds of CO2 and H2O produced daily due to jet fuel combustion.

Multiplying by 365.25, this works out to an estimated 2.711 TRILLION pounds of H2O and CO2 annually.  Of course not all of the fuel is burned completely so we'll find small amounts of other compounds like methane and longer chain carbon molecules as well.

Most of this byproduct is released at cruising altitudes 5-8 miles above sea level where water vapor is naturally very scarce.  This infusion of H2O certainly increases the prevalence of cirrus clouds which have a proven warming affect on surface temperatures.
Commercial planes fly in the upper Troposphere and lower Stratosphere.  This is where heat-trapping cirrus clouds form.
There is very little naturally occurring H2O in that part of the atmosphere. Planes release massive quantities of H2O.
H2O vapor is a powerful greenhouse gas, and it also forms clouds.  Could planes be heating our planet?  (source)
What other byproducts from plane emissions could prompt cirrus cloud formation?

Jet fuel is not 100% pure meaning that burning it emits other chemical compounds.  

According to the Federal Aviation Administration:
FAA/EPA admits that airplanes induce cirrus cloud formation. (source)

Aircraft engines emit water vapor, carbon dioxide (CO2), small amounts of nitrogen oxides
(NOx), hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, sulfur gases, and soot and metal particles formed by the high-temperature combustion of jet fuel during flight. Of these emittants,
only water vapor is necessary for contrail formation. Sulfur gases are also of potential interest 

because they lead to the formation of small particles... 
All jet fuel is a hydrocarbon mixture containing small amounts of impurities and additives... The hydrocarbon content of jet fuel produces water vapor as a by-product of combustion....  A common impurity in jet fuel is sulfur (~0.05% by weight), which contributes to the formation of small particles containing various sulfur species. These particles can serve as sites for water droplet growth in the exhaust and, if water droplets form, they might freeze to form ice particles that compose a contrail....Contrail cloudiness might contribute to human-induced climate change. Climate change may have important impacts on public health and environmental protection. (source)

 Atmospheric sulphur compounds turn into sulphuric acid, the most
common cloud condensation nuclei for cirrus clouds.  (source)
Here we have the FAA admitting that jet emissions contains sulfur, soot, and metallic particles and that artificially induced cirrus clouds "might contribute to human-induced climate change".  We don't read about that too much in the mainstream media, do we?!

One thing the FAA fails to mention is that the sun's rays naturally turn sulfur particles into sulfuric acid (H2SO4) which is our atmosphere's primary cloud condensation nuclei.  As the accompanying image clearly shows, this H2SO4 provides many of the nuclei essential for cirrus cloud formation.

As we learned earlier, according to NASA and the scientific consensus, cirrus clouds result in heating at Earth's surface.  Jet traffic not only adds large quantities of water vapor to the altitudes where cirrus clouds form but also contributes additional cloud condensation nuclei necessary for cirrus cloud formation.

In addition to unintentional jet fuel impurities like 0.05% sulphur, other chemicals have long been proposed (and experimented with) as intentional additions to jet fuel for the purposes of geoengineering.  "Geoengineering" literally means engineering the earth's climate.  Geoengineers have openly admitted attempting to do just that.  A simple Google news search for "geoengineering" yields over 1,200 recent news articles discussing these proposals.

For many decades scientists, governments, and corporations have proposed adding assorted materials to jet fuel with the stated intent of changing earth's weather/climate.  Dozens of patents have been issued relating to geoengineering, aka climate manipulation.  A fine example of this is US Patent #5,003,186 granted to researchers at the Hughes Aircraft Company on March 26, 1991: Stratospheric Welsbach Seeding for reduction of global warming.  

While the Stratospheric Welsbach Seeding patent claims that adding metallic aluminum oxide particles to the atmosphere at an elevation of ~30k feet would have a cooling effect, the exact opposite is true.

Aluminum oxide (Al2O3), also known as "alumina" is a well known and widely used dessicant (drying agent), meaning that it is very effective at targeting and bonding to water molecules.  According to Penn State University, each alumina particle binds to 7x its own weight in water.  If it's drying the air, that means its taking on water, hence, alumina (Al2O3) is a very effective cloud condensation nuclei.

This is not news.  Alcoa corporation has been promoting alumina as the most effective and affordable air drying agent since at least 1957.  Again, remember that drying the air means it is taking on water, hence serving as a cloud condensation nuclei.  Note that sulfuric acid -- the most important naturally occuring cloud condensation nuclei -- is one of the chemicals alumina was tested against because both have exceptional water binding properties.


American Chemical Association, 1957 (source)
Shortly after Alcoa advertised the drying properties of alumina the US military experimented with adding aluminum to jet fuel,  according to a declassified 1958 document.  Trimethylyaluminum is clear and colorless, and it spontaneously oxidizes into aluminum oxide (aka, alumina, the most effective cloud condensation nuclei) as soon as it touches oxygen.

Trimethylaluminum is the chemical compound with the formula Al2(CH3)6, abbreviated as Al2Me6, (AlMe3)2 or the abbreviation TMA. This pyrophoric, colorless liquid is an industrially important organoaluminum compound. It evolves white smoke (aluminum oxides) when the vapor is released into the air. (source)


In short, over 50 years ago the US Military began experimenting with adding aluminum to jet fuel.  Aluminum turns into alumina in the atmosphere where it can serve as a very effective cloud condensation nuclei.  Planes fly at 25-40k feet above sea level so any nuclei or water vapor they emit will promote cirrus cloud formation, and NASA has proven that cirrus clouds heat the surface of the Earth.

Independent researchers around the globe are documenting unprecedented and toxic levels of aluminum and other metals while skywatchers are noticing strange lingering, spreading aircraft trails and strange repeating wave patterns.  Millions of activists around the globe have studied the issue, made up their own minds, and decided to do something about geoengineering/chemtrail programs which seem to be dramatically altering our climate and having an overall heating effect, which is the exact opposite of what they are supposedly intended to do (as conveyed by the talking heads of the mainstream media).


Meanwhile, the mainstream media claims that geoengineering is only in the limited test phase.  That said, according to 2012 Gallup Poll 60% of American's do not trust the mainstream media, and for good reason because the mainstream media lies all the time!

One of the most prominent mainstream spokesmen for the Geo-Engineers is a Harvard Professor named David Keith. On November 22th, 2012 he did an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and his statements about Geo-Engineering are quite revealing:


Harvard Geo-Engineer David Keith interviewed by Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC.au) 11.22.2012
In this interview Keith openly admits that Geo-Engineering technology has existed since the 1960s, but expects us to believe that these capabilities are only in small-scale preliminary development. If this were the case it would be an extreme exception to the historical record of technological development. For example, the first atomic bomb tests took place in 1945, and just a few months later the US bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. All kids like to play with their new toys, especially well-funded military scientists.

Could these programs have been covertly implemented?  Could climate manipulation be one of the major factors in climate change?  I think so, and I've been paying close attention to this issue for several years.  Have you? 


If you give a shit about the snowpack, about the planet, and about your own personal health and freedom, you'll kindly stop regurgitating the climate change narratives promoted by the mainstream misleadia and start trying to overstand and help convey to others what is actually going on with our weather and climate.  Wake up.

Want more info?  Here's a video I made today while monitoring the sky...




Watch this (the best documentary on the topic.  All facts check out in my opinion):




Read this (I wrote it because I care and have been paying attention):


Save The Planet: Expose Geo-Engineering, Weather Warfare, and Covert Climate Changing Programs


http://www.oilfreefun.com/2012/12/save-planet-expose-geo-engineering.html

Have a great day!  Please help spread the word on this crucial topic!

If you liked this post, you might like my other site...