We treat sea level as if it were fixed and absolute. Places on land are described as being a certain number of meters above sea level. The nickname of Denver as "The Mile-High City", refers to it's altitude above sea level. There are articles online about the seasonal variation in certain places, but I could not find anything about how, I believe, the average sea level across the world must vary by season.
Here is my reasoning:
The northern and southern hemispheres of the earth are far from equal. The northern hemisphere is nearly half land, while the southern hemisphere is only about ten percent land. This means that, during the northern winter, much more water is effectively locked up as ice and snow on land than during the southern winter. While this is not really a vast amount of water in comparison with the volume in the oceans, it does mean that the average sea level across the world can in no way be considered as absolute.
Water that falls on land as rain also contributes to the lowering of overall sea level, since it is water that is not in the oceans. But this rain water returns to the sea much more quickly than water that ends up as ice or snow on land. Even with rain, it must be considered that the average distance that rain falls from the sea, and thus the amount of time that it takes to flow back there through the watershed, is much greater in the northern hemisphere due to the larger land masses.
Furthermore, it appears to me that there must be less rain falling on a given unit of land in the southern hemisphere. Australia is dry, except for it's east coast. The southern part of Africa is also dry. The southern portion of South America is mostly high and narrow. This means that the only large areas of land in the southern hemispheres that do get a lot of rain is the equatorial areas of Africa and South America.
So, I conclude that sea level cannot be considered as absolute but must vary seasonally. Although, this fact is no doubt camoflaged by both tides and the generally rising sea levels due to melting arctic ice during global warming.
This is about new insights and discoveries that I would like to add to our understanding of meteorology and biology. The first part of the blog is about meteorology and the second part about biology.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Tropical Soil Depletion
Tropical soils across the world have a problem with nutrient depletion. Nutrients are removed from the soil without being replenished. There does not seem to be the same trouble in temperate zones.
There is a Wikipedia article concerning this, just enter in "fertility (soil)" on http://www.wikipedia.org/ . The article has a section entitled "Soil Depletion". Articles on tropical soil depletion will also come up in a Google search.
I would just like to add my observation to this phenomenon. One of the major differences between temperate and tropical zones is that leaves fall from the trees in the temperate zones, but not in the tropical zones. It is very true that population density in the tropics is part of the problem, but falling leaves carried by the wind redistribute nutrients each autumn in temperate zones, but not in the tropics. This annual nutrient redistribution may be vital to preventing the soil depletion which occurs in the tropics.
I cannot say for certain if anyone else has thought of this, but I did not see it mentioned in any of the online articles that I read about tropical soil depletion.
The falling of leaves serves another purpose in that is saves the branches of the tree from supporting the weight of heavy snow. In the autumn of 2006, heavy snow fell in Buffalo, NY before the leaves had fallen from the trees and the result was the destruction of countless trees. I came out of work that evening and could hear the sound of snapping tree branches coming from all directions.
Leaves are light enough to be easily carried by the wind and the thin leaves do not take long to degrade back into nutrients. Most leaves do not travel far from the tree on which they grew, but the process is repeated every year and the result is a very effective process for redistribution of nutrients. Flowing water carries leaves that fall into it from higher to lower ground, but this process serves to reverse this and return nutrients to the higher areas.
Nutrients in the soil are gradually depleted by growing plants, but this continuous redistribution returns nutrients to those areas of ground where they have been depleted. Most of the structure of plants comes from carbon taken from carbon dioxide in the air, but nutrients from the soil are also essential for plant growth.
There is a Wikipedia article concerning this, just enter in "fertility (soil)" on http://www.wikipedia.org/ . The article has a section entitled "Soil Depletion". Articles on tropical soil depletion will also come up in a Google search.
I would just like to add my observation to this phenomenon. One of the major differences between temperate and tropical zones is that leaves fall from the trees in the temperate zones, but not in the tropical zones. It is very true that population density in the tropics is part of the problem, but falling leaves carried by the wind redistribute nutrients each autumn in temperate zones, but not in the tropics. This annual nutrient redistribution may be vital to preventing the soil depletion which occurs in the tropics.
I cannot say for certain if anyone else has thought of this, but I did not see it mentioned in any of the online articles that I read about tropical soil depletion.
The falling of leaves serves another purpose in that is saves the branches of the tree from supporting the weight of heavy snow. In the autumn of 2006, heavy snow fell in Buffalo, NY before the leaves had fallen from the trees and the result was the destruction of countless trees. I came out of work that evening and could hear the sound of snapping tree branches coming from all directions.
Leaves are light enough to be easily carried by the wind and the thin leaves do not take long to degrade back into nutrients. Most leaves do not travel far from the tree on which they grew, but the process is repeated every year and the result is a very effective process for redistribution of nutrients. Flowing water carries leaves that fall into it from higher to lower ground, but this process serves to reverse this and return nutrients to the higher areas.
Nutrients in the soil are gradually depleted by growing plants, but this continuous redistribution returns nutrients to those areas of ground where they have been depleted. Most of the structure of plants comes from carbon taken from carbon dioxide in the air, but nutrients from the soil are also essential for plant growth.
The Precipitation Duration Ratio
We all know that water evaporates from the earth's surface and then condenses into tiny droplets around particles such as dust, which serve as condensation nuclei, when the vapor (vapour) reaches a certain altitude. This is because the air gets colder as we move higher and the colder air cannot hold as much water as the warmer air near the surface.
Many millions of these tiny condensed droplets of water form clouds. When the cloud gets full of water droplets, they are in close proximity to one another so that they collide and join together into larger drops by hydrogen bonding. This happens because water molecules are assymetrical, one side is more negatively-charged and the opposite side more positively-charged, and the molecules line up negative-to-positive.
These larger drops of water are too heavy to be held aloft by the air and begin to fall as rain. This applies to sleet, as well as rain, and also to snow, although the snow formation process is somewhat more complicated. There is rain in places where little or no water evaporates because clouds move with the wind, and in doing so bring water from sea to land.
Have you ever wondered why water evaporates all of the time, but precipitation occurs only a fraction of the time? This ratio, the precipitation duration ratio, can only be explained by the fact that process of water falling must be more efficient than that of water rising. I would like to give my explanation of this and it provides insight into the processes of weather and what goes on inside clouds.
Both the upward movement of water during evaporation and the downward movement during precipitation is driven by gravity. Water evaporates, when it breaks free of the hydrogen bonding with other water molecules, because water is actually lighter than air by molecule. Water falls as precipitation because when water molecules do bond by hydrogen bonding, after coming close enough to one another, water is 800 times as heavy as air at sea level.
Water molecules rise one by one after evaporation. But when they fall, snowballing takes place and this makes the process of falling more rapid than that of rising.
When a drop forms high up in the cloud that is heavy enough to fall, it collides with and incorporates molecules below it, including droplets that were not yet heavy enough to fall. Eventually, these lower droplets would most likely combine with other molecules and droplets until they became heavy enough to fall, but the snowballing greatly accelerates the process.
The result is the precipitation duration ratio, the fact that water evaporates all of the time but there is precipitation only a fraction of the time. The rising of the water is addititive, while the falling of the water is multiplicative.
It is not possible for water to fall at the same rate it rises because it rises by molecule, which are lighter than air. If clouds were thin in the vertical plane so that this snowballing could not take place, it would have to be raining virtually all of the time, albeit very lightly. There can be no such snowballing process for rising water vapour (vapor) because it would produce droplets that would be large enough to fall, rather than rise.
This is why there tends to be only light rain from those horizontal stratus clouds. Rain clouds are the towering cumulus and cumulonimbus clouds. There is a tremendous snowball effect due to the great vertical height of cumulonimbus clouds. Vertical currents of air in the cloud produce the static electricity which results in lightning.
I find it logical to presume that small droplets high up in the cloud are most likely to begin falling first because the air is cooler and thinner the higher we go, meaning that it has less capacity to support water. But this is not strictly true and some drops lower in the cloud do fall first.
We cannot use the precipitation duration ratio to actually measure the snowball effect that does take place because it does not always occur from the top of the clouds. But the ratio does tell us the overall effect that it has on the evaporation-precipitation process.
Many millions of these tiny condensed droplets of water form clouds. When the cloud gets full of water droplets, they are in close proximity to one another so that they collide and join together into larger drops by hydrogen bonding. This happens because water molecules are assymetrical, one side is more negatively-charged and the opposite side more positively-charged, and the molecules line up negative-to-positive.
These larger drops of water are too heavy to be held aloft by the air and begin to fall as rain. This applies to sleet, as well as rain, and also to snow, although the snow formation process is somewhat more complicated. There is rain in places where little or no water evaporates because clouds move with the wind, and in doing so bring water from sea to land.
Have you ever wondered why water evaporates all of the time, but precipitation occurs only a fraction of the time? This ratio, the precipitation duration ratio, can only be explained by the fact that process of water falling must be more efficient than that of water rising. I would like to give my explanation of this and it provides insight into the processes of weather and what goes on inside clouds.
Both the upward movement of water during evaporation and the downward movement during precipitation is driven by gravity. Water evaporates, when it breaks free of the hydrogen bonding with other water molecules, because water is actually lighter than air by molecule. Water falls as precipitation because when water molecules do bond by hydrogen bonding, after coming close enough to one another, water is 800 times as heavy as air at sea level.
Water molecules rise one by one after evaporation. But when they fall, snowballing takes place and this makes the process of falling more rapid than that of rising.
When a drop forms high up in the cloud that is heavy enough to fall, it collides with and incorporates molecules below it, including droplets that were not yet heavy enough to fall. Eventually, these lower droplets would most likely combine with other molecules and droplets until they became heavy enough to fall, but the snowballing greatly accelerates the process.
The result is the precipitation duration ratio, the fact that water evaporates all of the time but there is precipitation only a fraction of the time. The rising of the water is addititive, while the falling of the water is multiplicative.
It is not possible for water to fall at the same rate it rises because it rises by molecule, which are lighter than air. If clouds were thin in the vertical plane so that this snowballing could not take place, it would have to be raining virtually all of the time, albeit very lightly. There can be no such snowballing process for rising water vapour (vapor) because it would produce droplets that would be large enough to fall, rather than rise.
This is why there tends to be only light rain from those horizontal stratus clouds. Rain clouds are the towering cumulus and cumulonimbus clouds. There is a tremendous snowball effect due to the great vertical height of cumulonimbus clouds. Vertical currents of air in the cloud produce the static electricity which results in lightning.
I find it logical to presume that small droplets high up in the cloud are most likely to begin falling first because the air is cooler and thinner the higher we go, meaning that it has less capacity to support water. But this is not strictly true and some drops lower in the cloud do fall first.
We cannot use the precipitation duration ratio to actually measure the snowball effect that does take place because it does not always occur from the top of the clouds. But the ratio does tell us the overall effect that it has on the evaporation-precipitation process.
The Weather Cycle
I have come up with a concept regarding the weather and have become more and more convinced that it must be correct.
Suppose we set up a system of interconnected gears. One of the gears will have a handle attached so that when someone turns it, all of the gears will turn. We could draw lines across each point where gears are joined and if all of the gears was the same size, with the same number of teeth, the lines would match up each time the system of gears went through one cycle.
But things would get complicated if the gears were of different sizes, with different numbers of teeth. The fewer the teeth on a gear, the faster it will turn. A gear with 12 teeth will turn twice as fast as one with 24 teeth.
If we had several interconnected gears, of different sizes, the starting lines would eventually line up again, but it might require an extended period of turning. However, we can safely say that any finite system of interconnected gears will return to it's starting line-up if the system is turned for long enough.
So, you may be wondering what on earth this has to do with the weather. The answer is everything.
The factors which create the weather are all cyclical in nature, just like a rotating gear. The rotation of the earth causes the temperature fluctuations associated with day and night, as well as driving the prevailing winds on a large scale. The revolution of the earth, which drives the seasons, is also cyclical in nature.
The evaporation and precipitation, which is the main component of weather, is cyclical as well. Water evaporates, but air gets thinner and cooler as we go higher in altitude until we reach a point where water vapor (vapour) condenses as tiny droplets on various particles of dust, smoke and, salt that act as condensation nuclei, forming clouds.
Eventually, these droplets become crowded close together so that they merge by hydrogen bonding into drops too heavy for the air to support and fall as precipitation, especially if sudden cooling takes place which lowers the ability of the air to hold water vapour (vapor).
This is a fairly simple process. The reason that weather is so complex is because the surface of the earth is messy. The distribution of land, sea, dust and, mountains is far from regular. It is further complicated by ocean currents moving warm and cold water around. Global warming is also having an increasing effect on the weather.
The result is that it is very difficult to forecast the weather much in advance.
Now, back to our gear system. No matter how complex we make the system of gears it must, as long as it is not infinte, eventually return to it's starting line-up. We can calculate just how many turns of the main gear, the one with the handle, will be required to bring this about.
All of the factors driving the weather are cyclic in nature, just like our gears. The messiness of the earth's surface complicates the weather greatly, but this messiness remains relatively constant over thousands of years and is not one of the cycles.
Weather is very much the product of the earth's rotation and revolution. Without this movement, the evaporation of the water and the movement of the air would reach a condition of equilibrium and remain there. But the movments of the earth continuously upsets any such equilibrium, and the result is the weather.
Today, I would like to introduce the idea that all weather on earth is a part of a long cycle which repeats itself over and over. Alternating storms and nice days are literally teeth in the gears. this does not only apply to large-scale effects like a warmer than usual winter, but to every local storm and nice day and also to warm and cold fronts. however, this does not apply all the way down to the molecular level so that repetitions of the weather cycle involve the same water molecules.
Warm and cold ocean currents, like the messiness of the earth's surface, complicate the weather cycle, and thus increase it's duration, but are not a part of the cycle. Just as the gear system would be simpler, and it's cycle much shorter, if all of the gears were the same size, the weather cycle would be much simpler if the earth's northern and southern hemispheres handled heat in the same way. But the southern hemisphere has a far higher proportion of water.
I do not have the length of the weather cycle, it may well be longer than a human lifetime, but this has got to be the way it is. The factors driving the weather are all cyclical. The other factors affecting the weather are complex, but constant. Global warming is an exception to this, but it is increasing at what is probably a constant rate. The weather must repeat itself, at some level.
The weather in every place, and on the earth as a whole, must follow a long-term cycle that we have not yet noticed. An understanding of this cycle would greatly assist in forecasting well in advance and also understanding how it is being affected by global warming. It may become apparent with the keeping of detailed weather records and the development of computer technology to search out patterns in data. Weather is another one of those things that seem random to us, but actually follows and orderly pattern we do not yet understand.
Suppose we set up a system of interconnected gears. One of the gears will have a handle attached so that when someone turns it, all of the gears will turn. We could draw lines across each point where gears are joined and if all of the gears was the same size, with the same number of teeth, the lines would match up each time the system of gears went through one cycle.
But things would get complicated if the gears were of different sizes, with different numbers of teeth. The fewer the teeth on a gear, the faster it will turn. A gear with 12 teeth will turn twice as fast as one with 24 teeth.
If we had several interconnected gears, of different sizes, the starting lines would eventually line up again, but it might require an extended period of turning. However, we can safely say that any finite system of interconnected gears will return to it's starting line-up if the system is turned for long enough.
So, you may be wondering what on earth this has to do with the weather. The answer is everything.
The factors which create the weather are all cyclical in nature, just like a rotating gear. The rotation of the earth causes the temperature fluctuations associated with day and night, as well as driving the prevailing winds on a large scale. The revolution of the earth, which drives the seasons, is also cyclical in nature.
The evaporation and precipitation, which is the main component of weather, is cyclical as well. Water evaporates, but air gets thinner and cooler as we go higher in altitude until we reach a point where water vapor (vapour) condenses as tiny droplets on various particles of dust, smoke and, salt that act as condensation nuclei, forming clouds.
Eventually, these droplets become crowded close together so that they merge by hydrogen bonding into drops too heavy for the air to support and fall as precipitation, especially if sudden cooling takes place which lowers the ability of the air to hold water vapour (vapor).
This is a fairly simple process. The reason that weather is so complex is because the surface of the earth is messy. The distribution of land, sea, dust and, mountains is far from regular. It is further complicated by ocean currents moving warm and cold water around. Global warming is also having an increasing effect on the weather.
The result is that it is very difficult to forecast the weather much in advance.
Now, back to our gear system. No matter how complex we make the system of gears it must, as long as it is not infinte, eventually return to it's starting line-up. We can calculate just how many turns of the main gear, the one with the handle, will be required to bring this about.
All of the factors driving the weather are cyclic in nature, just like our gears. The messiness of the earth's surface complicates the weather greatly, but this messiness remains relatively constant over thousands of years and is not one of the cycles.
Weather is very much the product of the earth's rotation and revolution. Without this movement, the evaporation of the water and the movement of the air would reach a condition of equilibrium and remain there. But the movments of the earth continuously upsets any such equilibrium, and the result is the weather.
Today, I would like to introduce the idea that all weather on earth is a part of a long cycle which repeats itself over and over. Alternating storms and nice days are literally teeth in the gears. this does not only apply to large-scale effects like a warmer than usual winter, but to every local storm and nice day and also to warm and cold fronts. however, this does not apply all the way down to the molecular level so that repetitions of the weather cycle involve the same water molecules.
Warm and cold ocean currents, like the messiness of the earth's surface, complicate the weather cycle, and thus increase it's duration, but are not a part of the cycle. Just as the gear system would be simpler, and it's cycle much shorter, if all of the gears were the same size, the weather cycle would be much simpler if the earth's northern and southern hemispheres handled heat in the same way. But the southern hemisphere has a far higher proportion of water.
I do not have the length of the weather cycle, it may well be longer than a human lifetime, but this has got to be the way it is. The factors driving the weather are all cyclical. The other factors affecting the weather are complex, but constant. Global warming is an exception to this, but it is increasing at what is probably a constant rate. The weather must repeat itself, at some level.
The weather in every place, and on the earth as a whole, must follow a long-term cycle that we have not yet noticed. An understanding of this cycle would greatly assist in forecasting well in advance and also understanding how it is being affected by global warming. It may become apparent with the keeping of detailed weather records and the development of computer technology to search out patterns in data. Weather is another one of those things that seem random to us, but actually follows and orderly pattern we do not yet understand.