Monday, April 6, 2015

Climate Models are Right Again! The Stratosphere is Cooling.

One of the predictions of climate models is that the stratosphere will cool. See this post at RealClimate for a discussion with references. There details are involved, but basically what is happening is more heat is being retained in the lower atmosphere (the troposphere) and there is less energy radiating up into the stratosphere as a result. Destruction of the ozone-layer in the lower-stratosphere also results in cooling (ozone warms up as it absorbs UV light). But, this can be accounted for.

Actual data measurements are difficult to come by for this area, but recent efforts have shown the upper atmosphere has, in fact, been cooling for at least the last 30 years.
The height profiles of the observed trends are close to those predicted by recent atmospheric general circulation models.
Not really a major story. After all, the science was already settled on the issue, but it's nice to see the models are doing well.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Professor: I've seen some articles about the satellite record, thanks to Ted Cruz. Can you teach us about the adjustments made to land-based thermometers and to satellites? I find your explanations more comprehensible than anyone else's.

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