By Jo Nova
No wonder climate models can’t predict rainfall
” Until now, isoprene’s ability to form new [cloud seeding] particles has been considered negligible.”
Broad leaf tees emit up to 600 million metric tons of isoprene each year, but no one thought it mattered much. For obvious reasons it is made near the ground, and it’s quite reactive and doesn’t last long. During daylight it’s destroyed within hours. So the experts didn’t think the isoprene could help seed clouds in the upper atmosphere. But there is still quite a lot of isoprene left in a rainforest at night, and tropical storms suck it up “like a vacuum cleaner” and pump it up and spray it out some 8 to 15 kilometers above the trees. Then powerful winds can take these molecules thousands of kilometers away.
When the sun rises, hydroxyl radicals start reacting with the isoprene again, but the reactions are quite different in the cold upper troposphere. And lightning may have left some nitrous oxides floating around too. This combination ends up making a lot of the seed particles that generate clouds in the tropics. It’s almost like the forests want to create more rain…
To put some perspective on this, isoprene is the most abundant non-methane hydrocarbon emitted into the atmosphere.
As Jasper Kirkby at CERN says — this is big:
Isoprene represents a vast source of biogenic particles in both the present-day and pre-industrial atmospheres that is currently missing in atmospheric chemistry and climate models.”
Until now, isoprene’s ability to form new particles has been considered negligible.
But climate models have also been estimating aerosols in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, and they didn’t realize trees made so much aerosol than they thought. This is so big, it may change the sacred “climate sensitivity” of the whole Earth:
“This new source of biogenic particles in the upper troposphere may impact estimates of Earth’s climate sensitivity, since it implies that more aerosol particles were produced in the pristine pre-industrial atmosphere than previously thought,” adds Kirkby. “However, until our findings have been evaluated in global climate models, it’s not possible to quantify the effect.”
Another possibility is that if forests of broadleaf trees turn out to be seriously helpful at seeding clouds, presumably that means the last few centuries of deforestation might have reduced cloud cover on Earth, which would have allowed much more sunlight in to heat the planet. If that’s true, it’s just one more climate forcing the modelers didn’t know about. It’s one more thing that warmed the planet which we blamed on carbon dioxide, but were wrong about. And it’s yet another feedback. More CO2 makes more forest grow, which may seed more clouds.
As usual, even though this study shows that climate models are missing yet another major factor, it’s always good news as they say: “The researchers, therefore, expect that their findings will contribute to improving climate models”. Hardly anyone says “The models were wrong, and the experts had no idea”.
The Amazon rainforest as a cloud machine: How thunderstorms and plant transpiration produce condensation nuclei
Who hasn’t enjoyed the aromatic scent in the air when walking through the woods on a summer’s day? Partly responsible for this typical smell are terpenes, a group of substances found in tree resins and essential oils. The primary and most abundant molecule is isoprene. Plants worldwide are estimated to release 500 to 600 million tons of isoprene into the surrounding atmosphere each year, accounting for about half the total emissions of gaseous organic compounds from plants.
Thunderstorms act like vacuum cleaners
… tropical thunderstorms … brew over the rainforest at night. They pull the isoprene up like a vacuum cleaner and transport it to an altitude of between 8 and 15 kilometers. As soon as the sun rises, hydroxyl radicals form, which react with the isoprene. But at the extremely low temperatures that prevail at these high altitudes, the rainforest molecules are transformed into compounds different from those near the ground. They bind with nitrogen oxides produced by lightning during the thunderstorm. Many of these molecules can then cluster to form aerosol particles of just a few nanometers. These particles, in turn, grow over time and then serve as condensation nuclei for water vapor—they thus play an important role in cloud formation in the tropics.
People at CERN were involved in testing the reactions at minus 30°C and minus 50°C
“High concentrations of aerosol particles have been observed high over the Amazon rainforest for the past twenty years, but their source has remained a puzzle until now,” says CLOUD spokesperson Jasper Kirkby. “Our latest study shows that the source is isoprene emitted by the rainforest and lofted in deep convective clouds to high altitudes, where it is oxidised to form highly condensable vapours.
In addition, the team found that isoprene oxidation products drive rapid growth of particles to sizes at which they can seed clouds and influence the climate – a behaviour that persists in the presence of nitrogen oxides produced by lightning at upper-tropospheric concentrations. After continued growth and descent to lower altitudes, these particles may provide a globally important source for seeding shallow continental and marine clouds, which influence Earth’s radiative balance (the amount of incoming solar radiation compared to outgoing longwave radiation).
This story reminds me of the big paper ten years ago Do forests create the wind that brings the rain?
“Rather than assuming that forests grow where the rain falls, it would be more a case of rain falling where forests grow. “
Forests can create their own rain,
Which climate models did not ascertain,
As gaseous molecules of isoprene,
Feed the rainforest cloud machine,
A hydrocarbon that is non-methane.
–Ruairi
REFERENCE
Curtius, J., Heinritzi, M., Beck, L.J. et al. Isoprene nitrates drive new particle formation in Amazon’s upper troposphere. Nature 636, 124–130 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08192-4
Shen, J., Russell, D.M., DeVivo, J. et al. New particle formation from isoprene under upper-tropospheric conditions. Nature 636, 115–123 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08196-0
Photo by Tom Barrett on Unsplash
How many of these articles need to come out before Bowen, Kean and their fellow travellers finally understand that climate is far more variable than their small minds can appreciate.
No question mark as it is rhetorical. The answer is an endless wave of common sense would need to break across their heads – and they still wouldn’t get it.
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Ideology meets up with Reality and Reality wins again.
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Nature is the reality, idealists prefer the dream.
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It was always clear to see that there is some as yet unexplained factor at play, far bigger than CO2.
This may be part of it.
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In a low pressure water changes from a para structure connected by hydrogen bonds (usually a liquid) to an ortho structure forming individual water molecules. A single water molecule “weighs” less than the surrounding lower atmosphere. It floats in air (temperature dependent). This process is known as evaporation. The rate of such evaporation increases dramatically at 28C+, the temperature required for formation of a ortho water updraft.
Para to ortho water can be “created” by many known naturally occurring mechanisms, capillary action in trees being one. The process is endothermic. Para water has little ability to retain salts as a solute. It can remain in a para structure for many months. It can form long strings with other dipoles eg itself. An obvious example are water “strings” entangled as cumulus cloud.
The current climate models are utterly inadequate as there is almost no understanding of the process of evaporation.
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Interesting. Where can one read up on this?
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Start with a read from a Nobel Prize and Heisenberg.
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Para and ortho hydrogen form the basis of quantum mechanics, the first experiment being done by Michael Faraday.
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We’ve known for decades that forests do this and it is why Rain Forests are Rain Forests – generating their own rainfall patterns. If you look above a forest, particularly in the summer, you will often see a slightly brownish haze above it – the isoprene emissions.
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As per normal. Climate Models all WRONG. Who would have thought? Assumptions, assumptions, those blasted assumptions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ksV4nnXOsQ
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It has always been obvious the the models were/are WRONG because they cannot reliably hindcast using actual data (not BOM homogenised garbage)….
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Trees beget trees. Additional CO2 is also accelerating the growth.
Australia is gradually becoming the new Amazon. The atmospheric moisture is increasing as the northern oceans warm up and the demand on the oceans in the sH to transfer heat northward diminishes.
The increased atmospheric moisture is already having an impact on Australia. The moisture level today is sufficient to support convective instability across most of Australia:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=total_precipitable_water/orthographic=-229.26,-26.86,576/loc=136.857,-25.236
Same day in 2013 – the first year of null school data:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#2013/12/09/2100Z/wind/surface/level/overlay=total_precipitable_water/orthographic=-225.72,-25.19,576/loc=-68.609,-4.493
Three tropical depressions currently spinning up in the Indian Ocean/Timor Sea.
Australia still has a long way to go to catch up with the biomass of the Amazon but the conditions are increasingly favourable. Thanks to the precession cycle and China’s unrelenting contribution to adding much needed CO2 to the atmosphere.
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On your nullschool link, I note WA receiving lots of moist air from the southern oceans. Over the last 5-10 years, I have noticed that Perth receives a lot of its morning breezes from the south-east, rather than the hotter inland north-east. The result has been higher levels of humidity in Perth, to the point that I would never consider using evaporative coolers in Perth in summer.
Is this also due to a shift northwards in the SAM?
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SAM has been trending positive for more than a decade.
https://weather.plus/aao-index.html
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I have noticed that the summer Highs used to form over Central Au (1990s) but these past few damp years they are forming in The Bight. To-day it’s 2024 millibars way off the coast and the isobars are following the coast of The Bight. This tallys with sea Sea Surface Temps but what is causing the Southern Ocean warming ?
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JohnPAK – 2024 millibars maybe a bit high?
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Maybe a model estimate but was written on BoM map. Even the Lows were 1000mb.
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Southern Ocean Warming
‘But the warming of its water masses is inhomogeneous. While the upper 1,000 m of the Southern Ocean within and north of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current are warming rapidly, at a rate of 0.1°–0.2°C per decade, the surface subpolar seas south of this region are not warming or are slightly cooling.’ (The Oceanography Society)
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A classic blocking high in the Bight.
http://www.bom.gov.au/fwo/IDY65100.pdf
I don’t know why the subtropical ridge no longer moves north in the winter. It might simply be a positive Southern Annular Mode.
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Could Australia’s climate and biosphere also be finally recovering from the immense damage done by millennia of constant indigenous burning of the land which started to diminish after European migration commenced after 1788?
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You think that perhaps all the land clearing has been a climate and biosphere benefit?
See figures 9 (Vic forest coverage 1869) & 10 (coverage 1987) on pages 31 and 32. (printed page numbering 22 & 23)
https://www.crcsi.com.au/assets/Resources/9421e6cd-0b43-4623-b1e8-109c9b5058f3.pdf
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I believe European settlement had greater impact on land clearing.
Growing up, we had a holidays house in Southport on the now Gold Coast. Our occasional neighbour was a wealthy land owner from out near Roma. They described how they used D8 bulldozers with massive chains tied between them to clear parts of their property for cattle grazing. The trees were just piled up and burnt. They could take out hundreds of years of growth over many acres in a matter of a couple of days.
As a kid I remember going into rain forest near Springbrook with Dad and his friend to collect staghorn ferns. That required cutting down a massive tree that was maybe a few hundred years old. The value of that tree was never given a second thought because Mum wanted some staghorn ferns.
When I started work in Broken Hill, I gradually came to learn that all the trees and bush within a 70 mile radius of Broken Hill had been collected for the smelting furnaces and household heating. There were significant efforts to regenerate the forests dating back to the 1950s.
The smelters that later developed in Port Pirrie, Mount Isa and Queenstown =made no effort to contain the sulphur so vast regions of Australia have been denuded by the acid rain resulting from all that sulphiur – nothing different to perpetual volcanoes.
As far as fires go, I have seen kites in the Northern Territory transporting burning sticks to dry bush to start fires. They then hover overhead waiting for the animals to run from the fire. I expect the kites were doing this before the indigenous people arrived.
The increasing moisture over Australia is a little unexpected from what I forecast given the changes in solar intensity due to the precession cycle. But there are parts of the SH losing atmospheric moisture – notably the high evaporation zone off South America where the circulating current takes in heat.
https://i0.wp.com/wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/image-104.png?ssl=1
Apart from this region of the Pacific, the rest of the global ocean atmosphere has increasing moisture.
Greening in Australia is a relatively slow process and I expect it will be observed most in the tropics and then spreading southward. This link provides Google imagery over 28 years. The change is subtle for Australia and southern Sahara but when it restarts you see the instant change from 2012 back to 1984 that highlights the greening.
https://earthengine.google.org/timelapse/timelapseplayer_v2.html?timelapseclient=http
Given a few hundred years, we may see forests again in Mount Isa and Broken Hill.
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“Given a few hundred years, we may see forests again in Mount Isa and Broken Hill.”
“Conjure up no more spirits than you can conjure down”.
Have you cranked paleo floods into this?
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Then, there is the phenomenon where “wooded” areas are “cooler” than open grasslands.And the “Urban heat island” concept
Maybe, instead of building politically-motivated “models”, the experts should have been seking greater knowledge of everyday reality.
You probably can’t get a ‘grant” to do that sort of thing.
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“Then, there is the phenomenon where “wooded” areas are “cooler” than open grasslands.”
Not necessarily
I have spent a lot of repeated drives on a western Qld road that traverses open mitchell grass downs, open cleared country and mulga scrub communities.
On a 40 degree type day the vehicle engine temperature reads lower in the open country.
My guess is that the breezes are at ground level in the open and going over the scrub canopy.
Another speculation of “breezes going over canopies”
I have seen denuded areas in mulga scrub country well distant from any area of stock concentration. And have wondered about boundary layer vortices
“Boundary Layer Vortices
Boundary layer vortices are a type of vortex that forms in the turbulent boundary layer of a fluid flow, typically near a solid surface. These vortices play a crucial role in the dynamics of the boundary layer and have significant implications for heat transfer, mass transfer, and skin friction.”
(Brave search)
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It’s distinctly noticeable when in a light aircraft you fly over dense forest.
The air over the plains can be hot but as soon as you pass over dense, old-growth forest, you feel it on your skin, the temperature has dropped.
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… than previously thought. Becoming a rather common phrase used by “climate scientists” these days. There is no genuine enquiry now – just predetermined outcomes based on models that hitherto failed to factor in. Politics and money.
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Then again if the proposition doesn’t suit bring about a retraction of said work. Debunk then withdraw. Paper and publication “cherry picked big oil and tobacco misinformation”. I fully expect our ABC to stand upright on this one. Ha.
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I live here in Beenleigh, now part of Logan City, a large suburb South of Brisbane.
Nearly all of the ‘weather’ in this area is generated in what is called The Scenic Rim.
This is a vast area, and it is around 100KM to the South West of Brisbane.
All of that weather, in the form of ‘heavy weather’, (heavy rain, thunderstorms, high winds etc, all the BOM ‘warning’ weather, eh!) is generated in that Scenic Rim, and it all moves to the North East towards Brisbane.
That Scenic Rim area is a humungous rain forest area including Lamington National Park.
Any of you readers who live in South East Queensland can back me up here.
Even right now, it’s coming in from that direction, indicated on this Weather radar link.
The Cross hairs on this map is the location of Mt. Stapylton weather radar, The big white ‘golf ball’ on the hill, barely 4KM as the c row flies from where I’m sitting now. (Beenleigh near the cross hairs there)
(For me, now, anyway) this article from Joanne adds further explanation as to why it always comes from that area, and has ever since we moved her to Queensland back in 1960.
Tony.
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That tallys with my memory of studying Amazon met’. Back in ’78 I recall a figure of 4/5ths of rainfall returning back to the atmosphere and only 1/5th leaving via the rivers. Of course, back then we knew nothing of isoprenes and hydroxyl radicals but the effect was being noticed and forest clearing was already being clocked as a met’ problem.
One effect of clearing for the Dunlop rubber plantations was that all the rainfall landed on the soil and washed it into the rivers. Below one metre the soil is remarkably poor and friable. Most nutrient and biomass tends towards the mulched surface layer of a rain-forest floor. Scour the surface with tropical rains and the soil rapidly degrades.
The native Amazonians knew all about it and built raised bed “gardens” which they added charcoal to and heaped up many layers of organic matter to create something that would grow good food.
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Hi Tony, I’ve been reading your comments on here for years, didn’t realise you lived in Beenleigh! I grew up in Broadbeach, and went to boarding school in Brisbane for 4 years late 60’s early 70’s. Drove through Beenleigh hundreds of times. My family holidayed at O’Reilly’s in the Lamington National Park quite often. I met Bernard a few times, he was a good friend of my dad’s. We trekked to the Stinson crash site once.
Anyway, clicked on your link to the BOM’s radar, and it went to the 64k loop, which presented as pretty much all rain. Went out to the 128k and 256k loops, which gave a “bigger picture,” of course, but couldn’t help notice that your comment was made at 8ish this morning, and at 2ish this afternoon this beautiful natural phenomenon is still occurring!
What a pity these lightbulb moments brought to us by Jo and Anthony Watts and so many others with some basic common sense and nous will be ignored by the nutjobs that a) masquerade as academics, and b) run our country.
Nice chatting with you 🙂
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Maybe like-minded skeptics in the area should catch for Christmas?
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JohnnyinOz,
hey, small World.
In the early days after we moved to the Gold Coast in 1960 as a family, from ‘Mexico’ (Victoria), on our infrequent trips in the early and mid 1960s to Brisbane from where we lived in Labrador, we would drive through Beenleigh, which was just a small town on that journey, now just a suburb of Logan, and built up all the way through that area. The Pacific Highway through Beenleigh went along the same road directly in front of where I now live, 60 plus years later.
I am so envious that you have actually met Bernard O’Reilly. Bernard’s knowledge of the weather in that huge rainforest area was instrumental in his finding of the downed aircraft, and that was way back in 1937.
We spent our 10 day honeymoon at O’Reilly’s, and went back there twice for three and four day visits, and three other day visits, and even though my wonderful Barbara has now passed, I’m going back there on our Anniversary in January for four days, now 44 years from the start of that wonderful honeymoon.
The most wonderful ten days to start a married life.
The trekking might now be beyond me, but the fond memories aren’t. We took numerous walks, but the Stinson trek was beyond Barbara, and I wasn’t going to do it on my own.
The Stinson story was what what lured me there for three times prior to our marriage.
I have even blogged about it at my home site.
Link to my five O’Reilly’s Posts, including the amazing story of how Bernard found the wrecked plane, and the incredible rescue.
I’m spending Christmas with our daughter in Rockhampton for three and a half weeks.
Tony.
A replica of that Stinson is now ‘parked’ out the front on the lawn at the Guest House there at O’Reilly’s.
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Hi again Tony, thank you for your reply, and the links to the blog posts, well researched and written.
It all took me back to my childhood on the Gold Coast, and in particular the visits to O’Reilly’s. If you were envious that I had met Bernard, I probably shouldn’t tell you that we actually stayed in the house that he lived in, as his house guests, such was the relationship between himself and my father. We stayed there many times until his death in 1975,and I remember sitting on the floor of his living room listening to the adults talking, after dinner of an evening. I remember him as a quiet man with a great sense of humour if my father’s obvious delight in his company was any indication. He always smelled of horses, and always had time for us kids. The glow worms, paddy melons, and scrub turkeys are some vivid memories as
well. Thank you for taking me back there with your writing.
I’m going to be in Brisbane in late April for my youngest brother’s 60th birthday in late April, I’d love to have a coffee or a pub meal with you if you’re up to it. (I live in the Whitsundays on a 50 year old ex line fishing boat, and don’t socialise very much.. but Jo’s suggestion has some merit, I’d be honoured to meet you.)
Enjoy Christmas with your family 🙂
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Hi Tony. I have lived in the inner southern suburbs of Brisbane for most of my 76 years and the summer afternoon storms out of the south-west are very typical of the area. Also done a lot of sailing on Moreton Bay so keeping a keen eye to the south-west is something you learn very early. There is variability, but overall nothing has changed. Haven’t noticed any change in water level in the Bay either. Cheers.
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Just another Queenslander here…we also have Dr John Nicol , used to be a lecturer at James Cook Uni in Townsville, who explained how CO2 is not a climate driver (nor is CH4) a decade and a half ago. However Bowen/Dutton and our media would rather listen/submit to Gore/Thunberg/ICCC and drag our economy into a deep hole.
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The list of phenomena which are not considered in Climate Models is endless.
In general water controls our climates. There would be no weather without water. Mostly the oceans which cover 72% of he planet. Climate models leave them out despite the fact that they contain 99.9% of the surface heat of the planet like a gigantic heat sink, 1400x more than the thin air which cools down every night.
Evaporation as humidity alone is 1% to 4% of the atmosphere, the third biggest gas. Gas, not water as in clouds. Up to 100x the volume of CO2 and a vastly wider absorption band, gaseous water is critical. And cloud cover dominates, sometimes blocking the sun completely even in the middle of the day. Try that with largely transparent CO2. Combined, water as gas and clouds vary dramatically and you can feel them instantly. It’s a big stretch to make slowly moving CO2 (0.4% a year) a villain which will destroy us suddenly with a ‘tipping point’.
The vilification of CO2 has a simple path as laid down by Al Gore.
A tiny amount of CO2 is produced by evil internal combustion engines, but historically less than 1% per year of what is already in the atmosphere. To make this significant we are told it stays there forever, despite obviously disappearing into the ocean.
So we are then told there is a ‘surface ocean’ which stops the CO2 from disappearing into the vast oceans as it bounces out again. No one actually proves this. It is one of the self evident facts apparently.
Then we are told that even while everyone agrees increased CO2 cannot explain a significant temperature increase, there is a ‘hot spot’ so increased humidity above the equator produces global warming. So CO2 produces humidity which produces warming. None of this is proven.
And now we have a new forest with a closed system previously unknown to scientists. But who cares? It’s all about ending the industrial revolution and factories and farming and farm animals and profits and going back to universal slavery without cash or goods or running water or sanitation. Where everyone was so happy. Kumbaya science where feelings, not facts, are all important.
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I first heard about the effect of cosmic particles on cloud formation, probably 20 years ago. It was then that I realised that we (mankind) have very little idea what affects the world’s climate, particularly on a greater than decade scale. That it was all just estimated guessing, which at the end of the day , is just guessing.
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As the solar system and earth wonders through the galaxy in a complex motion which includes galactic plane crossings over periods of tens of millions of years, it encounters different background cosmic ray intensities which contribute to natural variations in the climate.
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Climatology has been ignoring feed-back loops from the start . In the rush to blame carbon dioxide , research has been scarce for this (and often scoffed at). The effects of H2O are the elephant in the room . I am often dismayed at how many people with science backgrounds cannot get their heads around the truth .
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It’s worse than than that. A lot of scientists have their own take on this. The CO2 coalition takes the approach of singing the well earned praises of increased CO2 and so avoiding confrontation.
While their story is excellent and true, it deliberately cedes grounds on the CO2 increase being man made and so self evident ‘pollution’ in the minds of many.
They reject any idea that the increase is not man made, although calling this a ‘private opinion’.
Clearly that does not work, as governments around the world push more punitive costs onto their electors, as with the Wuhan Flu. Man made CO2 needs to be called out as a lie. There is zero effect of windmills and solar panels or any man made events on CO2.
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‘The effects of H2O are the elephant in the room.’
True and global cooling causes mega droughts.
https://notrickszone.com/2024/12/09/new-study-over-the-last-8000-years-centennial-scale-megadrought-periods-were-driven-by-cooling/
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Yes – and I have yet to see anyone looking hard at the impact of the HTHH volcano increasing the water vapour in the atmosphere by 10% a couple of years ago – the impact of increased temperatures is only just beginning to fall according to the UAH satellites – and will continue to do so as that massive amount of water slowly washes out of the atmosphere. An article published in the Times by a certain Adam Vaughn – re-published in the Weekend Australian – was about German researchers suggesting that the recent “clear skies” might have been to blame for the recent rise in world temperatures – specifically few low-altitude clouds in the tropics and northern mid-latitudes – including the Atlantic. He then states that – Some higher clouds have a cooling effect, reflecting the sun’s energy into space, and a warming one – trapping heat , whilst the lower altitude clouds tend to have only a cooling effect. So with fewer lower clouds, the reflection of solar energy back into space has dropped. No-one seems to have thought about what an extra 10% of water vapour might have done to trap more heat! Jo’s article adds a whole new aspect to water and clouds that no-one has previously thought of to add to the mix. There is so little that we really know.
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“Whoda Thunk, The models were Junk”????
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Models are simply a mathematical representation of the prejudices and biases of those who commission them, and who provide the assumptions that drive them.
Prove me wrong.
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So, which bias is the best bias to be biased with?
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The “Gimmegrants” one?
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The real science as opposed to “The Science”(TM) no longer matters since the whole anthropogenic global warming fraud is now self-sustaining and self-propagating. It’s unstoppable (except by TRUMP in his country).
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“The models were wrong, and the experts had no idea”. There, I said it, to get the numbers up.
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Oh, damn, they’re going to make us cut down all of our trees, aren’t they?
(“Humanity dead in twelve years unless all trees are gone!”, screamed Greta . . . )
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” they’re going to make us cut down all of our trees, aren’t they?”
No no, just stop them emitting isoprene. Like cows and methane, we will spray the forests with something like fosmidomycin to block its formation, then have a warpspeed development of genetically modified plants that don’t make it.
If all the plants die it doesn’t matter, we’ve still save the planet from over-heating! Of course we simultaneously solve another problem, the over-population of humans..
“Isoprene is the most abundant hydrocarbon measurable in the breath of humans.” So we’d have to kill all the humans too, or genetically modify them… oh wait…
..but the Christmas Ham and the dolphins don’t mind. “animals such as pigs and bottle-nose dolphins do not exhale isoprene. “
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While they’re at it, they need to spray the world’s termite mounds with insecticide to stop their substantial CH4 production. Some say just as substantial as the production from the world’s ruminants. Hence, why bother with burping cows when there’s some other big sources. I really shouldn’t suggest such things, because some idiot somewhere will think it’s a good idea. Bovaer anyone??
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Good luck with that –
Based on the “successful fire ant elimination program”
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Good old Agent Orange should solve the problem nicely.
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Around 18% of Vietnam’s land is still contaminated with the stuff compromising Agriculture. The clean up work is ongoing.
Nice work you Neocons.
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Which “That problem”?
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Isoprene is produced and emitted by many species of trees (major producers are oaks, poplars, eucalyptus, and some legumes).
Not many of these in a Rain Forrest. There are huge plantations of Pinus Radiata in NZ that is attributed to the high rain fall around Taupo and Rotorua
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Lots of rain on our oak forests.
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Is that what makes the Blue Mountains blue or is it just oil vapour.
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I always love the smell of newly cultivated soil which is due to geosmins. Like isoprenes, a very unique odour. The farmers (or cockies as they were nicknamed by the graziers) in the 1800’s had a theory that rainfall followed the plough. In South Australia they tried settling and cropping too far northward based on this false belief. They had extended beyond the Goyder Line, but came to grief in the first major drought. These days some knuckleheads would say it was because of climate change.
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Why? WHY??
Geosmin has a distinct earthy or musty odor, which most people can easily smell. The geosmin odor detection threshold in humans is very low, ranging from 0.006 to 0.01 micrograms per liter in water. Geosmin is also responsible for the earthy taste of beetroots and a contributor to the strong scent, known as petrichor, that occurs in the air when rain falls after a spell of dry weather or when soil is disturbed.”
Its not that the smell warns us of anything likely to kill us, yet we can smell soil bacteria and fungi at extremely low concentrations. Were we evolving to be even better at finding truffles than pigs? Did we evolve to find Streptomyces for its antibiotic properties?
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When I go into an apple orchard with significant mite infestation, I can smell it. There’s also nothing beats the smell of flowering Faba beans and Grapes. If someone could just bottle that perfume, they’d make a fortune. (sorry Jo, off topic, Iknow)
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How wonderful that we (probably) don’t know the answer to your question KP!
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Evapotranspiration and aerosols have always been in the GCMs. What this implies is that the climate may be even more sensitive to deforestation than previously assumed. The recent surge in warming is currently being blamed on less clouds. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-rapid-surge-global-due-planetary.html
Deforestation continues in the Amazon, although the rate has decreased now that Bolsonaro is gone.
https://news.mongabay.com/2024/11/amazon-deforestation-in-brazil-plunges-31-to-lowest-level-in-9-years/
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try the HTHH volcano and an extra 10% water vapour in the atmosphere – then you dont need the Germans explaining it with clouds! See my comment above.
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If the Klimate is more sensitive to deforestation than the “models” show, should we really be cutting down millions of trees to build intermittent wind generators?
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Yes we should.
We must do whatever it takes to get the climate to follow the models, nothing should be off the table.
It’s for the greater good
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So the deforestation of virgin forests along the top of the Great Divide to put up wind turbines and access roads might not be as great an idea as it sounds? I think Australia has been chipping in where they left off in the Amazon…. https://www.wilderness.org.au/protecting-nature/deforestation/the-stats-that-expose-australias-hidden-deforestation-crisis
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“The models were wrong and the experts had no idea”
Now where have we heard that before.
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Keep them coming.
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Forests can create their own rain,
Which climate models did not ascertain,
As gaseous molecules of isoprene,
Feed the rainforest cloud machine,
A hydrocarbon that is non-methane.
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Wish I’d listened more intently to my Chemistry & Physics teachers at school – instead of staring out the window at ever-changing cloud formations whizzing floating morphing by and wondering… how? Why?
Years later I discovered there was a ‘science’ for that: Nephology, the study of clouds. If only my teachers had told me about this, instead of throwing chalk and blackboard dusters at my head.
Surely these recent discoveries (isoprenes etc) are like pieces of BIGLY chalk hitting pointy headed preachers of the ™️Settled Science™️ religion? Or am I still daydreaming…
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Clouds matter. The rest not so much.
There is permanent ice in the tropics above 5000m. That begs the question, why aren’t the clouds permanent above 5000m? Answer that and you come a long way in understanding how ice regulates Earth’s energy balance whether the ice is on water, on land or in the atmosphere.
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Hang on a mo, there. Are they saying that we don’t know everything about how the climate works?
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Surely not… we all thought the ‘science was settled’.
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If it’s already settled then why the need to keep throwing money at the ‘Climate Alarmists’ and the UN. etc.?
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How can this be? The science is settled, I tells ya!
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That’s a rote phrase from politicians to make it clear they are not going to listen regardless of the facts.
UN invented Climate Change is raw political power and a lot of cash. A politician’s dream. Nothing to do with carbon dioxide aka carbon.
It’s a bit like Australia’s appalling Foreign Minister Penny Wong saying Israel should obey ‘international law’. Created by the same UN of which 75% are military dictatorships. And no one is elected. You are a member of the Security Council if you can launch lots of nuclear missiles. Nothing to do with Laws.
‘The Science’ doesn’t exist. It’s all made up and no politician questions it. Except Donald Trump who says it is a hoax. A 37 year old Hoax.
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Science is settled until it changes.
It remains settled until it changes again.
The science of changing is critical to settling science.
Otherwise science would change and never settle.
Scientists are there to inform us when changes are settled.
If science changes and then does not settle, it is not science.
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That’s settled it then.
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>Science is settled until it changes.
It remains settled until it changes again.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn
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How many tropical forests have been converted to sugar cane plantations or palm oil plantations? Do these monoculture farms produce the same amount of isoprene as broadleaf forests? If the isoprene aerosol formation for clouds is confirmed, how do these bio-fuel crops influence the isoprene production vs. native forests and the overall cooling effect of clouds?
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Cutting down all those trees to make space for wind generators might be causing gerbil worming?
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Is it me, or is everyone writing extra-esoterically today?
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You know it: but hush, don’t tell anyone outside – Albo‘s sneaky spooks may be listening.
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The point in this information is how much ‘Climate Scientists’ do not know. And how the vaunted computer models cannot possibly be right, as is now quite obvious.
Man made CO2 levels is a lie. CO2 driven Climate is a lie. Computer models approach reality is a lie.
When have the predictions of rapid tipping point fossil fuel CO2 driven Global Warming ever been right.
And for that matter, the BOM who predicted last summer as the hottest, driest on record. Except it was the exact reverse and cost the country tens of billions of dollars.
The ABC/SBS/CSIRO/BOM have to go. We are being told not to farm or manufacture or generate our own power from our own coal or gas or wood. Why should these near useless anti Australian jobs be protected? Al Grassby has been gone 20 years. And we still have ethnic media in the age of the internet? Why?
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Definitely not esoteric. The $3-$4Bn a year saving could be used to build real power stations which work 24/7/365 on command. Not fairy windmills.
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They are now cutting down the tropical forests to plant “bio crops” to supposedly reduce the level of plant food.
It would make absolutely no sense to any sane person … unless a government numpty was giving out grants with no concern for the effect.
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Typo on 1st line: Broad leaf tees
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I thought Isoprene was flammable?
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This article is discussed on American Thinker blog here
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/12/climate_scientists_discover_they_ve_been_underestimating_a_major_factor_and_all_their_climate_models_are_in_fact_wrong.html
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The planet needs more humans.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1515173/
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Without a doubt…I’m voting this thread THE POSTING OF THE CENTURY! I’ve studied a goodly amount of meteorology as per my pilot licence over and above what I needed but have never considered the quantity of isoprene as a vector for nucleation of rain. Does Eucalypt oil serve a similar vector?
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According to the CSIRO.
link
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The good news comes from these Harvard people.
A new model mechanism for atmospheric oxidation of isoprene:
global effects on oxidants, nitrogen oxides, organic products,
and secondary organic aerosol
Kelvin H. Bates1 and Daniel J. Jacob2
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Similar theory to
https://www.science.org/content/article/controversial-russian-theory-claims-forests-don-t-just-make-rain-they-make-wind
where the evapotranspiration water above forests acts as a source of rain.
Maybe both theories apply.
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Cross posted in the thread – The Hilarious Demise of The Climate Cult
A great article thank you Joanne.
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