A critical and mostly overlooked issue - Condensation of water vapour

[Derek]

Hi All,
I think the subject area of the effects of water vapour condensation and A. M. Makarieva (and co authors) contribution to it deserves a thread.

In this thread I wrote,

Condensation of water vapour also is a major concern for modelling in regard of air masses going up and down mountains.
This subject is both massive and fraut with uncertainties which has been covered in some depth at Jeff Ids the Air Vent blog recently.
As a one stop link this recent post is as good a "starter" as I am aware of at present.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/03...nds-paper/
Update on Winds paper
Posted by Jeff Id on March 13, 2011
Obviously I will have to go over the whole area again and try to dissemble some of the "nuggets" that are relevant here.
The paper in question is titled,
Where do winds come from?
A new theory on how water vapor condensation influences
atmospheric pressure and dynamics.
Authors
A. M. Makarieva, V. G. Gorshkov, D. Sheil, A. D. Nobre, and B.-L. Li.
(I certainly find the Air Vent threads and comments a little easier to read...)

[Derek]

Hi All,
Great news.

http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/03...nds-paper/
Anastassia Makarieva said
April 11, 2011 at 6:31 am

#7 Derek

We have just posted our reply to the second referee.
Keeping your request in mind, we tried to both overview the preceding discussion and highlight the main findings.
Please, see here.
If you have any additional questions, please, feel free to contact me (my email is in the paper as that of the corresponding author).

[Sunsettommy]

Good for you Derek!

[Climate Realist]

So water vapour condensation, hence evaporation has been overlooked!

I think that the evaporation/condensation process together with the slowness of convection are the real "greenhouse effect" that keeps the Earth's surface/ lower atmosphere in the temperature region comfortable for life, and these process move a lot more heat energy upwards in the atmosphere than any alarmist/IPCC heat budget currently shows.

[Derek]

I think the main point is that the processes involved are not particularly well understood / modeled.

I am probably wrong, but it appears to me that,
hidden in all the maths as far as I can work out is,
condensation means the air will contract considerably ( causing sinking / cooling),
and
condensation will release heat / energy (causing further convection / heating),
but what is the balance overall?
If the sums are wrong, and they appear to be,
what should be happening?

[Sunsettommy]

(04-13-2011 03:08 AM)Climate Realist Wrote:  So water vapour condensation, hence evaporation has been overlooked!

I think that the evaporation/condensation process together with the slowness of convection are the real "greenhouse effect" that keeps the Earth's surface/ lower atmosphere in the temperature region comfortable for life, and these process move a lot more heat energy upwards in the atmosphere than any alarmist/IPCC heat budget currently shows.

I recall Dr. Spenser's comment that precipitation efficiency is a metric that determines how rapid the removal of heat upward.Something like that anyway.It has been about 5 years since I posted about it,at FreeConservatives forum.

If it gains efficiency,the atmosphere will cool down faster.Less efficient,it cools down slower.

[Questioning_Climate]

Atmospheric circulations are negative feedbacks. The hotter the surface the more circulation occurs. It doesn't matter whether it is a change in air density from heating or changes in water vapour content, or anything else, it is redistribution of energy by convention. It works by moving heat energy up from the warm surface into the cold stratosphere. There the excess heat is radiated to space. CO2 is essentially irrelevant, and even if the CO2 GHG effect exists, it will enhance the negative feedback and thus the overall result is zero effect.

[Derek]

Spot on Q C.
Namely,
" Atmospheric circulations are negative feedbacks.
The hotter the surface the more circulation occurs.
It doesn't matter whether it is a change in air density from heating or changes in water vapour content, or anything else,
it is redistribution of energy by convention.
It works by moving heat energy up from the warm surface into the cold stratosphere.
There the excess heat is radiated to space. "

I am going to develop this as a "clouds in the troposphere project",
my reasons why will hopefully become obvious, if they are not already.
Firstly I will keep some useful links below.

http://www.metric-conversions.org/length...meters.htm
1000 feet = 304.8m, or 0.3048kilometers.

http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/note...tropo.html

http://apollo.lsc.vsc.edu/classes/met130...chart.html

http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/At...types.html

http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7q.html

https://courseware.e-education.psu.edu/c...04p06.html - Excellent diagram re tropopause height / latitude.

Some of the main cloud types and altitudes / latitude.
"types" of cloud.
1) High = Cirrus, Cirrostratus, and Cirrocumulus clouds.
High clouds are made of ice crystals due to the cold air in the upper sky.
The base of a high cloud above the surface can be anywhere from
6000-18000m in the tropics (mid latitudes 5000-13000m) to 3000-8000m in the polar regions.

2) Middle = Altostratus and Altocumulus clouds.
Middle clouds are made of ice crystals and water droplets.
The base of a middle cloud above the surface can be anywhere from 2000-8000m in the tropics (mid latitudes 2000-7000m) to 2000-4000m in the polar regions.

3) Low = Stratus, Stratocumulus, and Nimbostratus clouds.
Low clouds consist of water droplets.
The base of a low cloud is from the ground surface to 2000m (all latitudes).

4) Clouds with vertical growth = cumulus and cumulonimbus clouds.
These clouds grow high up into the atmosphere rather than spreading across the sky.
They span all levels of the troposphere (surface to 13000m) and can even rise up into the stratosphere.
Thunderstorms form when very warm, moist air rises into cold air.
As this humid air rises, water vapor condenses, forming huge cumulonimbus clouds.
Over 40,000 thunderstorms occur throughout the world each day.
Ordinary thunderstorms, cumulonimbus clouds can grow up to 12000 meters high.
Severe thunderstorms can last several hours and can grow 18000 meters high.

Tropopause height.
See here, and attached pdf to this post.
The troposphere boundary with the stratosphere is called the tropopause.

Height of tropopause, 7 to 20 km (4 to 12 miles, or 23,000 to 65,000 feet) above sea level.
The height of the tropopause depends on latitude, season, and whether it is day or night.
Near the equator, the tropopause is about 20 km (12 miles or 65,000 feet) above sea level.
In winter near the poles the tropopause is much lower. It is about 7 km (4 miles or 23,000 feet) high.
The top of the troposphere is quite cold. The temperature there is around -55° C (-64° F)!

The height of the tropopause depends on the location, notably the latitude,
It also depends on the season. Thus, it is about 16 km high over Australia at year-end, and between 12 - 16 km at midyear

The tropopause height does not gradually drop from low to high latitudes.
Rather, it drops rapidly in the area of the subtropical and polar front jets
This is because thunderstorms mix the tropospheric air at a moist adiabatic lapse rate.
In the upper troposphere, this lapse rate is essentially the same as the dry adiabatic rate of 10K/km.

Therefore, in areas where (or at times when) the tropopause is exceptionally high, the tropopause temperature is also very low, sometimes below -80 C.
This explains the paradox that tropopause temperatures are lowest where the surface temperatures are highest.

Later additions -
Short Term Variations in Tropopause Height over the Winter MONEX area - Richard H Johnson 1986
Excerpts from 8. Discussion,
" Rather than rise during a period of deep convective activity, the tropopause in the region of the convection is observed to descend by 1.5 kms with an associated 5-10 degrees C warming in the lower stratosphere. "
and,
" If deep convective activity is correlated with lower-tropopause heights (by whatever mechanism) over a large scale area and a one-week time scale then the findings of this study may have broader implications. "
and,
" Finally it may also be noted that at most of the stations included in the tropical tropopause study of Reid and Gage (1981)*, the minimum tropopause height occurs during the seasonal period of maximum precipitation (or deep convection) at the stations. Thus, the modulating effects of deep convection (or dynamical processes manifested by an increase in deep convective activity) on tropopause height may be also evident on seasonal time scales. "

* = Reid, G. C. and K. S. Gage, 1981: On the annual variation in height of the tropical tropopause. J. Amos. Sci., 38, 1928-1938.
Behind a paywall...

And again...behind a pay wall
Abstract,
" The height of the tropopause at tropical Pacific stations shows a marked annual variation, together with a secular variation in the annual average values. Previous authors have commented on the positive correlation between the annual average height and the sunspot number. The existence of this correlation is confirmed for the period 1952‐73, and a mechanism to relate solar activity to tropical tropopause height is proposed. The mechanism, which is a simple extension of one that will be discussed in detail elsewhere, explains the annual variation in tropopause height as a response to the annual variation in surface insolation and hence in the intensity of tropical cumulus convection and of the ascending branch of the Hadley cell. The correlation with the sunspot cycle can be explained if the solar “constant” undergoes a fractional increase of about 0.5% from solar minimum to solar maximum. "


Polar and subtropical jet streams.
The polar jet stream (flows from west to east at average speeds, depending on the time of year, between 110 to 185 kilometers per hour, but can be as high as 300kph) is at an altitude of about 10 kilometers.
Its air flow is intensified by the strong temperature and pressure gradient that develops when cold air from the poles meets warm air from the tropics.

The subtropical jet stream (with a rarely achieved maximum of, 270kph) is located approximately 13 kilometers above the subtropical high pressure zone.
The reason for its formation is similar to the polar jet stream. However, the subtropical jet stream is weaker.
Its slower wind speeds are the result of a weaker latitudinal temperature and pressure gradient.

It turns out that the subtropical jet is stronger during winter than summer
despite the greater poleward extent of the upper branch of the summer hemisphere's Hadley circulation.
Intense solar heating over the land masses in the northern hemisphere's subtropical region upsets the apple cart of the Hadley circulation.
In a nutshell, it basically gets much hotter at latitudes near 30 degrees north (mostly over land) than over equatorial regions,
thereby reversing the typical north-south temperature gradient.

In other words the polar front jet stream is stronger and more consistent than the subtropical front jet stream because of
the greater heating of the greater land mass of the Northern hemisphere in summer months.
Whilst the polar front jet stream has a more consistent and constant temperature difference.

[Derek]

Hi All,
Just a note for reference / further and continuing research.

In this thread,
Home experiment to illustrate the cooling power of latent heat.
It occurred to me that the energy to overcome water's surface tension and the potential energy of water at altitude
was not being included by many, if any, people at present.

So, I have looked on this thread at tAV.
Where do winds come from?
Jeff Id's tAV blog.

Not a mention of potential energy that I can see.

I also followed a link provided by Nick Stokes, which lead to,
Description of the NCAR Community Atmosphere Model (CAM 3.0)

Again no mention of potential energy in the regard I mention?
Infact it seems relatively clear, as I read and understand at present, that
vapourisation and condensation of water are considered as being equal in energy required and released terms...

If I have missed such references (or terms in equations), I would be grateful to anyone for pointing them out please.
Meanwhile I will look on further threads / discussion of Anastassia Makarieva et al work, Where do winds come from?,
to see if there is any reference / mention of water's potential energy.

At present it seems vapourisation and condensation are considered to be equally endothermic and exothermic,
which given altitude differences between the oceans and lakes surfaces and clouds, they can not be.
I would of thought??????????