Boris,
No gotcha intended, only that you made a disclaimer in your post at the Blackboard blog. I went to atmosphere site and it still leaves me unconvinced and here are a few of their statements:
Is the stratosphere cooling?
It’s, of course, harder to measure the temperature in the stratosphere than in the troposphere where we have a network of measurement stations. Stratospheric temperature measurements do exist. They have been made using weather balloons, microwave sounding units, rocketsondes, LIDAR and satellites. Most of these readings only go back two or three decades at most and there are large uncertainities associated with the data.
The lower stratosphere appears to be cooling by about 0.5°C per decade. This cooling trend is interrupted by large volcanic eruptions which lead to a temporary warming of the stratosphere and last for one to two years. Calculations from many research institutes generally estimate the cooling trend for the last two decades (1979-2000) to be greater than for the previous period (1958-1978).
The words ‘appears’ and ‘generally estimates’ tie in directly with ‘uncertainties’ in the previous paragraph.
We now know that stratospheric cooling and tropospheric warming are intimately connected and that carbon dioxide plays a part in both processes. At present, however, our understanding of stratospheric cooling is not complete and further research has to be done. We do, however, already know that observed and predicted cooling in the stratosphere makes the formation of an Arctic ozone hole more likely.
The clincher is this last paragraph, ‘At present, however, our understanding of stratospheric cooling is not complete and further research has to be done.’
Boris, when you make these statements, they sound as if there is no question and this is gospel. When the authors of this information admit there are uncertainties, use the terms appears and generally estimates, and incomplete understanding when referring to stratospheric cooling, doesn’t this suggest it isn’t quite gospel. At the bottom of their web page is the date the paper was published…Nov 2004. Is there any more current information?
