Sea-seasons.
Weathe...@gmail.com
If I have the gist of the story in the above link; Enric Palle and
co-authors used ISCCPs cloud data to explain Earth could be warming
despite an albedo increase since 2000. They say low-level, cooling
clouds have decreased and high-level, warming clouds have increased.
The bloggers here claim that the earthshine-derived albedo increase in
2003 may be due to faulty data. The other three years have values close
to zero. And no account has been taken of other changes such as
emissions of sulphates.
The ISCCP group produces an indpendent estimate that show some
qualitative agreement with the earthshine-trained ISCCP reconstruction
but large quantitative differences.
Satellites can only see low clouds when higher clouds are not present.
Satellites might classify mixed low and high cloud cover as mid-level
cloud -a type that produces radiative-warming. And the use of combined
middle + high clouds as a measure of the warming potential is a
substantial overestimate.***
The above of course relies on insolation as the cause of cloud
formation. Meanwhile, on the subject of cooling, buried somewhere in
here is the idea that cooling is overall, a good thing:
"Snowy winters across Europe and Asia will be followed by summers
during which the amount of fish food in the Arabian Sea will
skyrocket."
NASA funded research to map nitrate concentrations in the sea. The
technique didn't seem to work for the Arabian Sea, as from 1997 to 2004
there was a 350% increase of chlorophyll.
Growth depends on nutrients from cold ocean deeps. And sea surface
temperatures are controlled by wind direction. The Arabian Sea
-landlocked in the north.is dramatically affected by the seasonal
winds.
In Southwest Asia, June to August, the winds blow the surface waters
toward Asia. In winter, winds blowing from land to sea bring deep water
up along the west coast during this facet of the larger Asian Monsoon.
In 1884 Blandford proposed that less snow on the Himalayas meant a
warmer spring and hotter summer. A theory not supported by modern
satellite data.
It turned out the snow cover theory is true for non-El Niño/La Niña
years.
This is how the oscillation affects the planet:
There was a clear decline in snow cover in Eurasia since 1997 leading
to severe monsoons. And while increased phytoplankton feeds fish, its
decomposition uses up oxygen. The cycle can be catastrophic.
Furthermore, bacteria in oxygen-poor waters produce nitrous oxide; its
heat-trapping potential is about 300 times greater than carbon dioxide.
Oman has reported seasons of massive fish deaths, in many cases
preceded by mass strandings following poisonous algae blooms.***
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/Monsoon/printall.php
Which segues nicely into the following
The wolf-effect theory is that wolves stopped elk deforesting the Lamar
Valley and driving out other species. Without young trees, beavers
(absent since the 1950s) had little food. Without their dams and ponds,
fewer succulents (critical to bears) could survive.
After wolf reintroduction in 1995, elk numbers fell. They spent less
time near the river and more where they were safer. If the hypothesis
is correct, the vegetation should be coming back for the first time in
70 years. The first beaver dams in 50 years were documented on the
river and its tributaries. Their food caches are full of willow.
And the circle turns:
Growth stabilizes the banks, restricts erosion, shades, cools and slows
the river causing water to pool, leading to more and bigger fish.***
Since the latter half of the last century, depredations into the worlds
forest has become disasterous. It would fit nicely with what is written
in Genesis about the lack of vegetation being responsible for the fact
rain had not fallen.