Climatology: Finally Becoming a Science?

New research has the potential to bring climatology up from a religion to a science. First, NASA's AIM satellite was successfully launched.

NASA's Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) spacecraft, the first mission dedicated to the exploration of mysterious ice clouds that dot the edge of space in Earth's polar regions, successfully launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., at 1:26 p.m. PDT on Wednesday, April 25.

The mission will study clouds that are noctilucent, meaning they can be seen from the ground only at night, when they are illuminated by sunlight no longer visible from the Earth's surface.

Noctilucent clouds are increasing in number, becoming brighter and are occurring at lower latitudes than ever before. "Such variations suggest a connection with global change," said Russell.

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Clouds strongly affect the amount of radiant heat that is admitted to the atmosphere and allowed to leave the atmosphere. Climatologists generally have no clue about the effect of clouds, and water vapour, on the climate.

Second, better studies of ocean carbon dioxide are filling in some huge gaps in knowledge of the earth's carbon cycle.

the new study, detailed in the April 27 issue of the journal Science, finds that not all of this carbon makes it past the region of the ocean known as the mesopelagic or “the twilight zone”—roughly 300 to 3,000 feet below the surface where there isn’t enough light for photosynthesis—which acts as a gateway to the deep ocean below.

Animals and bacteria in the twilight zone often consume and further decompose the sinking marine snow, converting the carbon into dissolved organic and inorganic forms that can find their way back to the surface and then the atmosphere.

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And then there are the many excellent studies highlighted in Climate Science Blog which vastly enlarge the scope of investigation into climate change.

It is expected that accounts of studies will be spun to emphasize the likelihood of anthropogenic greenhouse gas influences on climate. But more intelligent persons will read between the lines, even when reading the original studies.

Fortunately, more objective and informed volunteers are serving as climate auditors, to point out the many excesses and deficiencies of the current climate religion-trying-to-become-a-science.

CAGW is a fad in science funding that brings in a lot of grant money. IPCC reports are polished odes to ignorance, largely influenced by political aims.

But science is not content to stop asking questions. Science is all about debate. The debate is just beginning.