“Climate Change Making Days Longer,” studies say, Part TWO

By Robert W. Endlich
Author’s Note: This is Part TWO of a multiple post topic.  Figure numbers remain consecutive across the four parts of the post.

Part ONE is here.
Part THREEis here.
Part FOUR is here.
Presentation is here.

THE “SOLAR CONSTANT” IS NOW VARIABLE? YES, IT IS TRUE!
Image by Pixabay

When I was an Undergraduate in Basic Meteorology, 1963-64 at Texas A&M, and Graduate Student, 1967-69, Penn State, we learned that the “Solar Constant” was 2 calories/cm**2/sec.  But sometimes we used 1.94 cal/cm**2/sec ….in the CGS, the Centimeter-Gram-Second system of measurements.

Sometimes we used 2 Langleys per second…after this definition, in terms of Langleys, graphic below.

In 2024’s retrospect, the 1960s were seemingly in the Dark Ages of academic endeavor.

Figures 4 and 5 below will help explain further developments.

Figure 4 is a time series of Total Solar Irradiance from the 1600s to 2015. The ordinate is in Watts/meter**2, in black, with the present estimate of the solar constant, in green, from Kopp and Lean, 2011, as 1.951 Langleys per second.

Figure 4. Modern Time Series of Total Solar Irradiance, TSI, which is the spectrally integrated energy input at the top of the Earth’s atmosphere at the mean distance of Earth from the Sun (i.e., one Astronomical Unit), in units of Wm-2. The Sun’s output is NOT constant. The Maunder Minimum of TSI coincided with the depths of the Little Ice Age, 1645-1715, which was the coldest period in the previous 10,000 years. The 2011 mean value of the “solar constant,” 1.951 Langleys per second is plotted in green and with the dotted green line.

CASF member Steve McGee kindly plotted comparisons between the 1960s definition of the solar constant, 2 Langleys per second, with a modern (2016) definition at 1.951 Langleys per second, in green, in Figure 4 above, and separately in Figure 5, below.

Look carefully at Figure 5, because there are two graphics there. While most of the plot, especially the time series in orange resembles the time series of Figure 4, there are orange and green arrows which point to another graphic on the right, with an expanded ordinate range which shows the 1600-2015 time series at the bottom, and the old 1960s version of the solar constant plotted as 2 Langleys per second on the right side.

Figure 5. Look carefully; there are two plots in this figure. Most of the TSI data in orange is a repeat of that in Figure 4. But please follow the orange arrow which starts at year 1900, and which points to an expanded ordinate range of 1360-1380 Watts/M**2 at the bottom right. In the upper right in green is the “old” Solar Constant of 2 Langleys/second, at the top.

I attribute much of the credit for the discovery that the ‘solar constant’ is not constant at all, and that there was, and is, a causal relationship between low solar output and the very cold temperatures in the depth of the Little Ice Age, publication of which came in the 1970s. Specifically, John Eddy’s paper in Science, 19 Jun 1976, “The Maunder Minimum”, is in my opinion, a detective story of sorts. This paper’s conclusion delves into the coincidence of Maunder’s “prolonged solar minimum” with the coldest excursion of temperatures, the Little Ice Age…and “possible relations between the sun and terrestrial climate”

GEOLOGIC PROCESSES AND SEA LEVEL

This topic is vast and could, and does, cover chapters in physical geology texts. Below are just a few elements to touch on here.

CALVING GLACIERS

Calving glaciers are sometimes given as evidence for human-caused CO2-fueled global warming. Figure 6 shows how this is not the case, calving glaciers can and do occur when global temperatures are cooling!

Figure 6. Especially in pole-ward regions, and notably in mountains and highlands in those regions, snow falls copiously during cold season storms. When snowfall exceeds melting and sublimation into the atmosphere, snowfields accumulate. After snowfields accumulate, snow becomes firm, and after further compression, glacial ice forms. Glaciers are rivers of glacial ice in almost solid form, “almost”, because ice becomes plastic, and especially under pressure, it deforms and flows downhill. When at their limit near sea level, the rivers of ice on land, then move into water where there is no ground to support their weight, so the ice collapses in sections, falling into the sea, “calving.” A calving glacier is the result after large amounts of snow has fallen, turned into ice, flowed downhill, and eventually breaks off into the sea, often with a huge splash. Observers of this phenomenon directly observe the end result of large snowfall accumulations which eventually return atmospheric water to the sea.

GROUNDWATER EXTRACTION FROM UNCONSOLIDATED AND SEMI-CONSOLIDATED SEDIMENTS

In the Continental US, the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains extend from Long Island, NY, generally southward to eastern NC, and thereafter, southwestward to near Del Rio, TX. These are the blue and yellow areas eastward from the Rio Grande of Texas to Long Island in Fig 7 below.

Unconsolidated and semi-consolidated sediments are formations of sand, silt, clay and minor carbonate rocks that typically are aquifers, that is, they contain water in the interstitial spaces between the particles or grains. Especially when ground water is extracted by us humans, this type of geological formation is called an aquifer.

Figure 7 below, from the presentation graphics, is a map from the US Geological Survey showing the areal extent of the unconsolidated (in blue) and semi-consolidated (in yellow) sand, mud and gravel sedimentary formations. Many of these areas have high population densities. When uncontrolled groundwater pumping occurs, mass is removed from the interstitial spaces between the sediment’s grains. With water removed from these spaces, the formations permanently collapse. When this process is not controlled, but continues unabated, significant and harmful ground subsidence results.

Figure 7. Map of unconsolidated sand and gravel aquifers (in blue) and semi-consolidated sand and gravel aquifers (in yellow) in the Continental US, as shown by the US Geological Survey.
TIDE GAGES RECORD WATER LEVELS, BUT THEY CAN’T THINK FOR US

We will get deeper into the subject of Tide Gages later. But, to introduce this, we need to say that tide gages use a float similar in principle to that of the toilet tank float. When the toilet is flushed, the water in the tank falls and the float mechanism sends a mechanical signal to open the water valve. When water again fills the tank, the rising float sends a signal that the tank is full, and it turns the water valve off.

When sea levels rise, tide gages indicate how much the sea level rises because the rising water lifts the float in the tide gage, signaling a higher water level. But there are many areas where ground water pumping has led to significant land subsidence where the tide gage is located. By itself, the tide gage cannot tell the difference between ground water pumping and sea level rise.

This has led to cries of accelerated sea level rise by global warming Alarmists. This video, “Subsidence, a Growing Problem,” shows a graphic displaying sea level rise since 1900, and the change in ground level, the subsidence, of these cities of the world: Bangkok, Saigon aka Ho Chi Minh City, Jakarta, Manila, the west Netherlands, and Tokyo. Note well, the displayed rates of subsidence are many times the rate of sea level rise!

Figure 8. This graphic from the video, “Subsidence, a Growing Problem,” shows in red at the top the rate of sea level rise from measurements. For the cities mentioned, the graphic shows the subsidence over time since 1900. The rate of subsidence, principally from unchecked ground water pumping, is in these city areas, many times the rate of sea level rise, with subsidence in the range of 1-4 meters since 1900.

Evidence neither Earth’s surface nor the levels of the seas are static:

From Figure 9 below: on the left shows the West Coast of the USA, Del Mar, CA, near San Diego, where the coastline is emerging from the Pacific Ocean at a significant rate. There is almost no sandy beach, and almost vertical cliffs emerge directly from the Pacific. The Pacific Coast Ranges of mountains are very close to the Pacific.

On the right is a satellite image of the East Coast, where New York’s Hudson River meets the Atlantic Ocean, and all of Long Island, NY. At the last glacial maximum, when sea levels were some 400 ft lower than today, the Hudson carved the Hudson Canyon, eroding a huge gash in what we now call the Continental Shelf.

Today, rather than the Hudson emptying directly into the Atlantic as it did during the Wisconsin Ice Age, this entire area has been flooded or “drowned” by the rising sea level from the melting of the continental glaciers of the last ice age, the Wisconsin Ice Age as it is known in North America. As a consequence, high tides now extend upriver to Troy, NY, 157 miles from the Atlantic.

Figure 9. A study in contrast between shorelines. Left, the Pacific Ocean laps up against the shore in Del Mar, CA, near San Diego. This shoreline has rocky shores, and seaside cliffs of solid rock, an indication that the land is rising. Right, satellite view of New York City, Long Island, Connecticut’s ocean shore, and adjacent New Jersey. Wide sandy beaches are dominant along the ocean coastlines on the barrier bars of Long Island. Much of Connecticut also has sandy beach shorelines. The difference is that the Pacific Coast is an emergent shoreline, while the Atlantic Coast is a drowned coast, characterized by wide coastal plains and wide sandy beaches.

In summary, the solar constant is not actually a constant and varies with time.  Also, sea level is complicated by the fact that it not only rises and falls, but the sea shores frequently subside and the tide gages combine the effects of subsidence along with the rise or fall of sea level.

In Part THREE, I will disprove claims made by NPR, PNAS, and other mainstream outlets that the ice at the poles is “rapidly melting.”

Related posts:

In Search of the Perfect Dozen Graphics to show the Climate Alarmists are Wrong
Explaining Mauna Loa CO2 Increases with Anthropogenic and Natural Influences
The 2019 Heat Wave in Europe and Beyond—What the Media Didn’t Tell You

Author: Robert Endlich

Robert W. Endlich served as Weather Officer in the USAF for 21 Years. From 1984-1993, he provided toxic corridor and laser propagation support to the High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility at White Sands Missile Range. He has published in the technical literature and worked as software test engineer. He was elected to Chi Epsilon Pi, the national Meteorology Honor Society, while a Basic Meteorology student at Texas A&M University. He has a BA degree in Geology from Rutgers University and an MS in Meteorology from the Pennsylvania State University.