Newsgroups: lter.ced Path: LTERnet!news From: Bruce Hayden Subject: CED 4,5 & 6 Message-ID: <1995Jun30.190755.20780@lternet.washington.edu> Sender: news@lternet.washington.edu Organization: Long Term Ecological Research Date: Fri, 30 Jun 1995 19:02:37 GMT ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** *** *** *** *********** *********** ********** *** *** * * * * *** *** * * * * *** *** * * * * *** *** * ********* * * *** *** * * * * *** *** * * * * *** *** * * * * *** *** * * * * *** *** *********** *********** ********** *** *** *** ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** Vol.4 No.4, 5 & 6 ::: April/May/June Issue ::: March 1, 1994 ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** CED METADATA ---- CED is the Climate/Ecosystem Dynamics bulletin board of the LTER network. In CED, you will find exchanges of ideas, information, data, bibliographies, literature discussions, and a place to find experts within the LTER community. We are interested in both climate controls on ecosystems and ecosystem controls on climate. As this is an inter-disciplin- ary activity, we hope to provide things that you might not come across in your work at your LTER site. CED is a product of the LTER climate committee and contributions to CED for general e-mail release may be sent to either David Greenland of Andrews LTER [Greenlan@oregon.uoregon.edu] or to Bruce Hayden of the Virginia Coast Reserve LTER [bph@Virginia.edu]. We expect that the scope of CED will evolve and reflect the interests of the contributors and users of this service. CED will be issued as the preparation work gets done (usually monthly). Back-issues of CED may be requested from Ray Bero [helper@LTERnet.edu] by the file name given in the masthead.Daniel can also add people to the CED mailing list. =46eedback on CED from LTER scientists is welcome (non-$$$$ contributions also welcome.) For example, please forward citations of climate & ecosystem publications on your site. We are keeping a LTER wide bibliography on Climate/Ecosystem Dynamics that we pass on via E-mail. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** *** *** *** *** *** CED was on R & R *** *** *** *** *** ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** Late spring and early summer was a &%$!!#$*! at the offices of CED. Two promised book chapters (delivered on time), hosting the CC meeting at the VCR, student thesis and dissertation defenses, begging at corporate office doors, and other normal and expected chores forced CED publication to take a back seat for a while. I am caught up Here we go again. Readers: My first reader, David Greenland (AND), in his first homeland and on leave for a month. This issue of CED does not benefit from keen eye. The errors he would have eyed are mine. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** *** *** *** *** *** A VERY WAVY SUMMER *** *** *** *** *** ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** Weather map watchers are in hog heaven these days with WWW weather services. Right now the Ohio State group delivers the mostest. (//httm). You should add this URL to your NETSCAPE bookmarks. All the products of the National Weather Service are now on-your-desk, in color and free over our Internet. Watching the 500 mb surface is especially rewarding. It has been a very wavy summer. You can find your 500 mb surface at this URL within the Ohio State server (//httm). The map of the 500 mb surface is given in decameters. 540 decameters is 5400 meters or 5.4 kilometers up. When we look at the 500 mb surface we are looking at the topographic its surface in units of height above sea level. The higher the heights the warmer it is at the surface below and the lower it is the colder it is at the surface. Thinking globally not locally, we find the 500 mb surface is, generally, at high altitude in the low latitudes and at low altitudes in the high latitudes. Somewhere in the middle latitudes we find that the north-south slope of the 500 mb surface is real steep. The isolines of 500 mb height contours packed close together. This is where you tend find our fastest winds, the jet stream. The jet stream "rides" this steep surface in height contours. (Actually the jet is more likely to be at about 300 mb pressure elevation rather than 500 but the principal is right on!). North and south of this steep gradient in the height of the 500 mb surface you will find a steep gradient in temperatures at the surface with cold air under the low 500 mb heights and warm air under the high 500 mb heights, i.e. there is one of those fronts you see on the evening news weather map. Our jet stream rule of thumb is -- the westerly winds increase as you go up in proportion to how cold it is in the north and warm it is to the south and it flows perpendicular to the surface temperature gradient. Geeks know this as the thermal wind. Back to the INTERNET, WWW weather map services. If you search around you will find predictions for the 500 mb surface 12, 24, 36, 48, 60 and 72 hours out into the future. Using these maps you will be able to say it will be warmer or colder with some confidence! Willard Scott step aside a new prognosticator is at the consol! The isolines of the 500 mb surface don't follow the lines of latitude. They are often wavy like a meandering river. When the 500 mb surface is wavy in the middle latitudes we usually have an active surface weather map. =46ronts (cold, warm and stationary) are everywhere. Fall, winter and spring 500 mb height contours are often wavy and summer less wavy, i.e. latitude parallel. Well, this summer has been a wavy summer with lots of fronts, lots of dynamic support for the growth of thunderstorms, and a crash bang summer results. KNZ was soggy in May and early June. CWT and VCR people suffered a soggy June. A town near Charlottesville called Gordonsville got 9 inches in 4 hours this morning (June 27) and on the 28th Madison, Virginia got 13 inches. The local joke is -- Hey, have you seen the Bridges of Madison County. The smart answer is -- NO. They are all gone! If it is wavy over your site don't expect the mercury to crash the 90s! Anyway consider your Internet Weather Server. Harvest its URL and put in your Netscape Bookmark file and all those weather maps will be at your fingertips. You will soon become weather geek! ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** *** *** *** *** *** IT'S GETTING WETTER UP THERE *** *** THE BLAME GAME GOES ON *** *** *** ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** Nature Magazine -- NOAA Scientists have observed in the rarefied air over Boulder, Colorado "a significant increase in water vapor concentration in the lower stratosphere." The trend covers the years 1981 to 1994. The NOAA people said it is more evidence of global warming. I was glad to hear that. More evidence was getting scarce. "Our limited knowledge of water vapor in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere is one of the great uncertainties in climate modeling. It adds to the concern about the build up of greenhouse gases, climate change and effects on atmospheric chemistry." NOAA scientists commented on their data that "they are expected to be representative of the stratosphere over the highly populated northern mid-latitudes." So goes Boulder so goes the highly populated northern mid-latitudes. They say this because the atmosphere at this altitude is well mixed. This is a Yogi Berra "d=E9j=E0 vu all over again" thing. In the early 1970s= , we worried a lot about a high-flying, big bunch of Boeing SSTs, the prototype for the Concord and Concordski. We were concerned for our stratosphere. The water vapor in the jet exhaust would wet the stratosphere and the photochemical models (theoretical metaphysical constructions) said that this water would destroy the ozone layer. At the time it didn't matter that total column Ozone had increased 6% while water vapor in the air over Washington, DC. (1964-1969) had montonically gone from about 2 g of water per kg of air to about 3 g of water per kg (see H. J. Mastenbrook (1971) J. of Atm. Sci. 28:1495-1501). So what if the data say the opposite of the models! So we knew at least one place and time where the stratosphere got wetter pronto. Saying it in percentages, like they do on TV, we get: the air got 50% wetter from the 1964 benchmark to 1969. 50% in 6 years =3D 8% per year. Now over Boulder during the 1980s, there was a 1% per year increase in stratospheric wetting. Maybe the air is just getting more wet slower than in the good old days. The interesting thing from Mastenbrook's 1971 paper is that the montonic wetting from 2 g of water vapor per kg of air to about 3 g of water vapor per kg was present from the bottom of the stratosphere (about the 140 mb pressure elevation) up to 50 mb pressure elevation. So, we might ask the global warming question in the usual way. Does a change at one station indicate a global climate change, after all it makes Nature magazine these days. Well, during the 1960s there was a global cooling if anything, not a warming. During the 1980s the regression line through the Hansen global temperature data set has a slope of zero. The regression line through the Spencer and Christie satellite record of tropospheric temperatures has a zero slope as well. So even if you like to spatially extrapolate from point data to the globe, it doesn't do the dance in this case. Mastenbrook, after his 1971 paper, followed water content of the stratosphere over Washington DC and was ready to report again on his findings in 1983. From 1964 to 1972/1973 the rise in water content continued as in his 1971 paper. From 1972/1973 to 1982 water content fell back to 2 g of water vapor per kg of air! Hey, it looks like the it-must-be-due-to-global-warming water vapor in the stratosphere exhibits very large, decade scale variations: up and down. The recent report from Boulder by S. J. Oltmans indicates that from 1983 to the present, the water vapor content again was on the increase. Hooking this to global warming at this early date is a real reach but it sells copy. Back in 1983 when greenhouse warming was not the cause of everything, here is how it was reported: the variation in water vapor in the stratosphere was "similar" to the long-term trend in ozone concentration and suggested that "these changes arise from long-term changes in the intensity of the circulation." Since Oltmans wrote the 1983 paper with Mastenbrook, he has apparently changed his mind on the cause of the water vapor variations. Now, one should not get me wrong. Water vapor is the Earth's premo greenhouse gas. It is important stuff. CO2 is a piker by comparisons. Put more water into the stratosphere, top to bottom, and it should retard the progress of earth-light on its way out to space and perhaps warm (limit cooling due to outgoing earthlight) the stratosphere more than otherwise. Well, the Stratosphere, if anything, has cooled a bit in the 1980s. Global warming is indeed a gold mine and claim jumping is great fun at half-the-work but that is how the blame game works. Hugh Ellsaesser wrote a very nice summary paper titled Strato-spheric Water Vapor in J.G.R 88(C6)3897-3906. Hugh indicates that the rise in 1960s water vapor may have begun as far back as 1954 with a very low value of 1.8 g of water vapor per kg of air. Values this low were also reported in the early 1940s by the Royal Air force as it carried frost-point hygrometers with them into the lower stratosphere. The early 1970s values were around 3 g of water vapor per kg of air are then really a big negative change just happened. Hugh's little paper also reveals the mechanism for getting water vapor into the stratosphere and getting it out again. This is the "fountain theory." The great atmospheric convection over the Indonesian maritime continent (part of the El Nino action) "injects" water vapor into the tropical stratosphere. At -80 C and assuming the injection air is saturated, then the air should be injected with about 3 g of water vapor per kg of air. The loss area is in the polar regions where the stratospheric air is "downwelled" toward the surface. It is possible that the stratospheric water vapor rise in the post 1982 period may be associated with the great El Nino of 1983 and the very great Indonesian convection the accompanied it. That is the Hayden Theory and the kind of hypothesis for which we have only an N=3D1 basis. I think it is one of the first times I have even hinte= d at much less blamed anything on the El Nino. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** *** *** *** *** *** FROST POINT -- A SUBLIME STORY *** *** *** *** *** ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** Water vapor in the stratosphere, never, never at a level you would call humid, is difficult to measure. It is usually done by an instrument-carrying balloon on its decent back to earth. A surface on which frost can form is cooled until frost forms just like on he windshield of your just-avoided-pre-Clinton-100x-tariff Lexus on a clear night. The temperature at which this happens is the frost point temperature, a cool and icy cousin of the dew point temperature. As the balloon sinks in the atmosphere adiabatic warming causes the surface where the frost forms to warm and the frost sublimes. Ice becomes gas. Now the plate can be cooled again until frost forms again and the frost point temperature can be determined at the new, lower altitude. This process is repeated at half-minute intervals and a profile of frost point temperatures is the product. Now you can't do that on the way up because it gets colder as you go up and once the frost forms it is there for the rest of the ride. The device that does this measurement is called the frost-point hygrometer. Knowing the frost point temperature and the pressure altitude, the grams of water in the air per kilogram of air can be calculated. That is how the water content of the stratosphere is measured. It is a tricky business and it just is not done in a lot of places around the world. Our article of faith is that the air in the stratosphere is well mixed in each hemisphere and a measurement in one place is likely to be the same in the next palace at the same altitude. You need a bit of faith and a lot of trust in your understanding of the physical laws you love and hold dear. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** *** *** *** *** *** $5.95 per POUND *** *** *** *** *** ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** Water vapor in the stratosphere, never, never at a level you would call humid, is difficult to measure. It is usually done by an instrument-carrying balloon on its decent back to earth. A surface on which frost can form is cooled until frost forms just like on he windshield of your just-avoided-pre-Clinton-100x-tariff Lexus on a clear night. The temperature at which this happens is the frost point temperature, a cool and icy cousin of the dew point temperature. As the balloon sinks in the atmosphere adiabatic warming causes the surface where the frost forms to warm and the frost sublimes. Ice becomes gas. Now the plate can be cooled again until frost forms again and the frost point temperature can be determined at the new, lower altitude. This process is repeated at half-minute intervals and a profile of frost point temperatures is the product. Now you can't do that on the way up because it gets colder as you go up and once the frost forms it is there for the rest of the ride. The device that does this measurement is called the frost-point hygrometer. Knowing the frost point temperature and the pressure altitude, the grams of water in the air per kilogram of air can be calculated. That is how the water content of the stratosphere is measured. It is a tricky business and it just is not done in a lot of places around the world. Our article of faith is that the air in the stratosphere is well mixed in each hemisphere and a measurement in one place is likely to be the same in the next palace at the same altitude. You need a bit of faith and a lot of trust in your understanding of the physical laws you love and hold dear. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** *** *** *** *** *** CHINOOK SENSITIVE WOMEN *** *** *** *** *** ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** It is not often you bump into two papers on Chinooks and women's health. Normally I would just put such articles in storage bins for weather and health stuff, however, two of our LTER sites (CPR & NWT) are afflicted with Chinooks (aka snoweaters in Colorado). Since most clinical studies have used male subjects up to this point and because I remembered Rosen's 1979 quote on Chinooks by what he called a mountain poet: "like a scented virgin come to seduce the gods of winter" I know these gender things are tricky and treading on such slippery slopes is dangerous. For example, my wife won't even tell me which is preferred when you just can't use the term woman (girl, gal, lady, #@*^%$!! , and in the south my favorite mam). When the IJB, International Journal of Biometeorology, (Volume 38) takes on the issue of Chinooks and women, we can be at gender-ease for as long as it takes to put this little piece together. The studies reported on here come our of Calgary where they know a Chinook when they see one. In the study by Verhoef et al., they focus on the physical, psychological and behaviors. Now previous literature on the subject impugns Chinooks and Chinook look-a-likes with inducing tiredness, headache, insomnia, nausea, anxiety, decreased self-control, reduced reaction speed, lowered efficiency and apathy. I get the same responses just be announcing a test in class. The studies at hand focus on women in the 20-49 year. The researchers used the hey-I-don't-make-this-stuff-up "Moos menstrual distress questionnaire" (MDQ) on pre-Chinook, Chinook, post Chinook and non-Chinook days. First, it should be noted that healthy women show no negative scores on their MDQ, Chinook or no Chinook! However, women with emotional problems win large negative MDQ scores on the day of and the day before a Chinook hits. The have insomnia on Chinook days and have fatigue on the day before the Chinook. On the bright side, Verhoef reported improvement of skin disorders with the onset of the Chinook. The second study, Rose et al., focused not on women with emotional problems but those with chronic health problems. In this group, the Chinook effects were not so negative. The effects were mostly on the day of the Chinook. These chronically ill women upped their visits to the doctors office. Significant (p < .05) 'bursts of energy" and "excitement" [these terms were not defined in the article but were found in the MDQ arousal scale derived from the survey] were reported on Chinook days. Care was taken to note that the women with the bursts of energy were not the same as those who recorded excitement! Relief comes in kind ways. Migraines were infrequent on Chinook days. Also reported was that there was no tendency to take naps, stay in bed, stay at home or avoid social activities on Chinook days. CPR and NWT PI faculty attention. Schedule your exams with care. To get off the gender hook a bit, I should note that the authors of the studies were all women interested in the study of the modern woman and were motivated by a lets-not-study-men-again positiion. Also from this school of study is the following. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** *** *** *** *** *** WHO WEARS THE PANTS IN YOUR FAMILY *** *** *** *** *** ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** X. Li of the Nara Women's University, Japan offers a gender controlled study in acclimatization in two IJB papers (38:40-43 and 38: 111-115). Acclimatization means that the physiology of the corpus of an organism changes from winter to summer and summer to winter. The two most often used measures of acclimatization are heart rate and rectal temperature. In earlier studies on men the following general rule-of-thumb can be extracted: the acclimatized person has higher core body temperatures and faster heart rates in summer and lower core body temperatures and faster heart rates in winter. The advantages are 1) heat conservation in winter and 2) water conservation in summer when body cooling requires sweating. So Li asks, what role do sartorial choices play in acclimatization? For a summer to winter transition (SON) and a winter to summer transition (MMJ) young girls (X.Li choice of gender description. Here in Virginia they might be young mams) were outfitted with either trousers or knee-length skirts. For skirt-wearers rectal temperatures rose from 37.3 C to 37.6 C from March to July. Trouser wearing subjects showed an acclimatization of only 0.1 C (37.1 C to 37.2 C). For the passage to winter rectal temperatures of skirted subjects changed from 37.1 C to 36.5 C while trousered girls rectal temperatures fell only from 37.1 C to 36.9 C. So wearing skirts fosters acclimatization. You conserve heat better in winter and water in summer. Now you can appreciated the fine Scot Mel Gibson in Braveheart! Studies of short-term or quick acclimatization also point to the importance of the extremities in becoming tolerant of cold in winter and heat in summer. When you leave your appendages free to swing in the breezes your body prepares either for the summer or winter to come. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** *** *** *** *** *** DEL RECTAL TEMPERATURE =3D 0.5 C -- SO WHAT? *** *** *** *** *** ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** This is indeed a useful question. First lets assume that the 0.5 C change in temperature is reflected in a skin temperature change of like amount (a conservative thing to do). How much body light is lost for such a change and how do I have to change my life style to account for the difference. So lets take two body temperatures 0.5 C apart, say 37 C and 36.5 C. 37.0 C 36.5 C Black Body Radiation produced cal cm^-2 min^-1 .7510 .8007 or in cal cm^-2 day^-1 1081 1152 for a 1.8 m^2 body surface area 19458000 20740000 in terms of big or Diet Calories 19,458 20,740 The difference in the measure diet calories is 1290 diet calories. That is about 10 average sized potatoes without butter and not made into french fries. It is our good luck that we don't have to eat on the order of 20,000 diet calories of food each day (about 200 potatoes) much less make-up for small changes in body temperature with frequent trips to the grocery store. We do indeed loose some 20,000 diet calories worth radiation from our body each day, assuming we go around nude, but we get nearly as much back from radiation from our surroundings! If our surroundings are cold we wear clothes limit or radiative losses to our surroundings. We strip down and bundle up as needed. Now if we acclimatize, we make our thermoregulation just that much easier. We need to strip down less in summer and bundle up less in winter. Or we could fight sartorial urges and focus on food and food burning rates. Eat less in summer and more in winter and make up the difference. Dressing up or down is easier! VIRGINIA COAST RESERVE LONG-TERM ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH PROGRAM SEE: http://atlantic.evsc.virginia.edu :----------------+--------------------------------+---------------------: |Bruce P. Hayden | Dept. Environmental Sciences | bphvirginia.edu | |(804) 924-0545 | Clark Hall, Univ. of Virginia | bph@lternet.edu | |(804) 924-7761 | Charlottesville, VA 22903 | (804) 982-2137(fax)| :----------------+--------------------------------+---------------------: