Up until recently, when media weather forecasters foretold an upcoming heat wave, they used the term “high pressure dome.” Huh? What does air pressure have to do with warming?
To arrest this deviation from climate hysteria orthodoxy, the term heat dome is now the preferred phrase. Never, of course, is there ever a reference to an increased concentration of carbon dioxide in the area of concern’s upper atmosphere. After all, at 0.04% of the total, carbon dioxide accounts for just one out of every 2,500 molecules of air, and we have no reliable way of pinpointing its local accumulation.
When I was in climatology class, we were told about compression heating. As any gas is compressed, the molecules get closer and closer together, causing more friction and an elevated temperature. Hence pressure domes and heat waves.
What is seriously missing from the current dialogue is the history of global weather. Before it was taken over by a woke mob, Scientific American ran an article about weather history. The conclusion: For the last two thousand years, we’ve been blessed with unusually mild weather. It is also important to note that all weather is local — and, by implication, climate cannot be easily expressed as global.
Since barometers and thermometers have existed for only about 400 years, records go back only so far. Tree rings and geological evidence, however, can go back much farther.
As the U.S. East Coast and Midwest swelter this July (go figure), California’s S.F. Bay Area is experiencing a record cold summer. This is mostly because of an atypically persistent marine layer that blocks sunlight. Brings to mind Mark Twain’s famous quote: “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”
What is unfortunately brought to light is the general public’s palpable ignorance of most forms of Earth science. This has opened the door to exploitation of weather events by opportunistic demagogues. And this is partially because an aura of mystery still haunts even the most erudite explanations of various meteorological phenomena.
Back to pre–woke mob Scientific American: They also ran an article on lightning that said that until quite recently, Benjamin Franklin’s establishment of lightning as a form of electricity was the last new knowledge compiled on the subject. What has since been added to that knowledge is that an electro-statically charged cloud is triggered to discharge when a cosmic ray (an extraterrestrial high-speed charged particle) strikes it.
The main component of air pressure is gravity. Though obviously tenuous, the Earth’s surrounding air mass remains attached to our planet — unlike the moon, which has no atmosphere. Just FYI, atmospheric heat trapping, for us Earthlings, is why everything doesn’t freeze solid every night, as it does on the moon. High pressure versus low pressure is more complicated. Rising air causes low pressure, which often forms a counterclockwise rotating storm system (in the northern hemisphere). High pressure often indicates calm weather, which can also include warm weather. A high-pressure “dome” occurs when the situation remains static due to slack winds, and temperatures continue to increase.
California typically experiences Santa Ana winds in early autumn. Winds, blowing from east to west, are forced to rise over high mountains. As they rise, they compress and lose much of their moisture in addition to warming up and thus increasing the likelihood of wildfire on the land below. This occurs elsewhere but under different traditional names, such as southern France’s mistral.
Air rises and falls not in a steady flow, but in parcels — packages of molecules that either gain buoyancy and rise or lose it and fall as bundles of gas. Wind is more of a steady flow, much like a river. I have been told that the word typhoon is etymologically related to python, indicating a serpentine shape and flow. I have observed leaves in my neighbor’s trees rattling in the wind, which didn’t reach me until a few seconds later.
Finally, a seldom discussed form of atmosphere-generated warmth is the latent heat of condensation. When water vapor in a cloud condenses into liquid rain, heat is released. This is because a vapor turning into a liquid goes from a higher to a lower energy state. And thus cold snaps are often terminated by rainstorms.
Image via Pixabay.