Last summer's monsoonal flooding of the Pakistani Indus River valley ranked as one of the top three most devastating in this region in the past 20 years.. Fornier graph ICTZ .The usual weeping and gnashing of teeth by mainstream media and climate activists followed as climate change was repeatedly stated to be the usual guilty culprit. After observing many opportunists’ using this most unfortunate disaster to advocate eating insects in place of meat, abstaining from having children, embracing 15-minute cities and purposefully shrinking the economy in a coordinated effort to save humanity from further harsh weather events, I've had enough and need to set the record straight..When we examine the fundamentals and history of the global tropical summer monsoon cycle, we'll understand evidence of climate change is hardly the same as evidence of anthropogenic global warming. It is my opinion few topics in atmospheric and climate science provide clearer evidence of natural climate change in the modern era, as does the study of the tropical summer monsoon cycle..The coincidence of maximum precipitation within this process is due to the intense convergence and convection of warm moist air along the latitude(s) where the distinct atmospheres from the northern and southern hemisphere collide. These colliding, counter-rotating air masses are called the Hadley Cells and the area where they converge is called the Intertropical Convergence Zone or ITCZ..When we examine the annual solar cycle, we find the latitudinal position of the zone migrates towards whichever hemisphere is experiencing summer. This is the origin of the phrase “the Indian Summer Monsoon” as the ITCZ migrates northward over India during the northern hemisphere summer season..When we examine historical records specific to the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM), we find a clear 60-year cycle emerges in the amount of measured rainfall. For example, Rajesh et al from the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany argued the ISM has been increasing since the end of the Little Ice Age, that records show a 60-year cycle and changing solar activities are causative..To gain a better understanding of the relationship between the 60-year cycle in climate change with changes in solar activity, please refer to my last Western Standard article titled Climate Change is the Heartbeat of the Solar System.. International Tropical Convergence ZoneInternational Tropical Convergence Zone .From the seasonal cycle of the monsoon or ITCZ, we see fundamentally it's the changing air temperature difference between the northern and southern hemisphere that dictates the displacement of the zone of maximum precipitation between hemispheres..To illustrate how this hemispheric air temperature difference changed over the last seven decades, I've included weather balloon, or radiosonde, data from NOAA. Note when the difference between TNH–TSH becomes more positive, it implies the Northern Hemisphere air temperatures are warming faster than the Southern Hemisphere..Unfortunately, weather balloon technology was not widespread prior to 1948 and thus the time series begins in the late 1940s. Nonetheless, this 70-year time series exhibits a multi-decadal oscillation where, from peak to peak, the span is in the order of 60 years..Refer to my Western Standard article titled Northern Hemisphere warmed twice as fast as the global average since the Little Ice Age end, which shows Christiansen's 2000-year reconstruction of the change in air temperatures across the extratropical Northern Hemisphere. Christianse's study likewise highlights the 60-year cycle, with peak warm periods in the 1940s and starting in the late 1990s..Tapio Schnieder et al's publication titled Migrations and Dynamics of the Intertropical Convergence Zone specifically addresses this well-documented relationship between the hemispheric air temperature difference with changes in summer monsoonal precipitation across Africa's Sahel region over the 20th century. The peak summer monsoonal precipitation rates in the Sahel region of North Africa of the 1940s are seen to be mirrored again in the 2000s..The minimum in Sahel precipitation rates in the 1970s and 1980s coincide with widespread famine across Northern Africa and declining air temperatures across the Northern Hemisphere during this period. This is noteworthy, as many alarmists today argue that warming brings droughts, which is not supported by empirical data..In closing, the changes observed in the ITCZ and across numerous regional monsoonal records during the 20th century clearly confirms that climate change is real..However, it most certainly does not exhibit a trend that is indicative of our rising historical use of hydrocarbons.
Last summer's monsoonal flooding of the Pakistani Indus River valley ranked as one of the top three most devastating in this region in the past 20 years.. Fornier graph ICTZ .The usual weeping and gnashing of teeth by mainstream media and climate activists followed as climate change was repeatedly stated to be the usual guilty culprit. After observing many opportunists’ using this most unfortunate disaster to advocate eating insects in place of meat, abstaining from having children, embracing 15-minute cities and purposefully shrinking the economy in a coordinated effort to save humanity from further harsh weather events, I've had enough and need to set the record straight..When we examine the fundamentals and history of the global tropical summer monsoon cycle, we'll understand evidence of climate change is hardly the same as evidence of anthropogenic global warming. It is my opinion few topics in atmospheric and climate science provide clearer evidence of natural climate change in the modern era, as does the study of the tropical summer monsoon cycle..The coincidence of maximum precipitation within this process is due to the intense convergence and convection of warm moist air along the latitude(s) where the distinct atmospheres from the northern and southern hemisphere collide. These colliding, counter-rotating air masses are called the Hadley Cells and the area where they converge is called the Intertropical Convergence Zone or ITCZ..When we examine the annual solar cycle, we find the latitudinal position of the zone migrates towards whichever hemisphere is experiencing summer. This is the origin of the phrase “the Indian Summer Monsoon” as the ITCZ migrates northward over India during the northern hemisphere summer season..When we examine historical records specific to the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM), we find a clear 60-year cycle emerges in the amount of measured rainfall. For example, Rajesh et al from the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany argued the ISM has been increasing since the end of the Little Ice Age, that records show a 60-year cycle and changing solar activities are causative..To gain a better understanding of the relationship between the 60-year cycle in climate change with changes in solar activity, please refer to my last Western Standard article titled Climate Change is the Heartbeat of the Solar System.. International Tropical Convergence ZoneInternational Tropical Convergence Zone .From the seasonal cycle of the monsoon or ITCZ, we see fundamentally it's the changing air temperature difference between the northern and southern hemisphere that dictates the displacement of the zone of maximum precipitation between hemispheres..To illustrate how this hemispheric air temperature difference changed over the last seven decades, I've included weather balloon, or radiosonde, data from NOAA. Note when the difference between TNH–TSH becomes more positive, it implies the Northern Hemisphere air temperatures are warming faster than the Southern Hemisphere..Unfortunately, weather balloon technology was not widespread prior to 1948 and thus the time series begins in the late 1940s. Nonetheless, this 70-year time series exhibits a multi-decadal oscillation where, from peak to peak, the span is in the order of 60 years..Refer to my Western Standard article titled Northern Hemisphere warmed twice as fast as the global average since the Little Ice Age end, which shows Christiansen's 2000-year reconstruction of the change in air temperatures across the extratropical Northern Hemisphere. Christianse's study likewise highlights the 60-year cycle, with peak warm periods in the 1940s and starting in the late 1990s..Tapio Schnieder et al's publication titled Migrations and Dynamics of the Intertropical Convergence Zone specifically addresses this well-documented relationship between the hemispheric air temperature difference with changes in summer monsoonal precipitation across Africa's Sahel region over the 20th century. The peak summer monsoonal precipitation rates in the Sahel region of North Africa of the 1940s are seen to be mirrored again in the 2000s..The minimum in Sahel precipitation rates in the 1970s and 1980s coincide with widespread famine across Northern Africa and declining air temperatures across the Northern Hemisphere during this period. This is noteworthy, as many alarmists today argue that warming brings droughts, which is not supported by empirical data..In closing, the changes observed in the ITCZ and across numerous regional monsoonal records during the 20th century clearly confirms that climate change is real..However, it most certainly does not exhibit a trend that is indicative of our rising historical use of hydrocarbons.
