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Noctilucent Clouds Likely Caused By Shuttle Launches
icebike writes "In our recent discussion of the phenomenon of noctilucent clouds, there was some suggestions that these might be the product of global warming due to moisture being lofted high into the atmosphere. It now appears that these clouds are simply the product of Shuttle launches. In a story about the Tunguska blast, Science News says: 'Each launch of a space shuttle, which burns a combination of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen as fuel, pumps about 300 metric tons of water vapor into the atmosphere at altitudes between 100 and 115 kilometers. Soon after the January 16, 2003, launch of the shuttle Columbia, a liftoff that took place just after the height of summer in the Southern Hemisphere, noctilucent clouds appeared over Antarctica. Similarly, a widespread display of the night-shining clouds showed up over Alaska two days after the shuttle Endeavour blasted off on August 8, 2007. Previous studies show that in both instances those clouds included material from the shuttle plumes.' So, man-made after all?"
first noctilucent clouds mentioned in recorded history were in 1887
1887 was when the term was coined. It is impossible to say whether the phenomenon called "noctilucent clouds" in 1887 is the same phenomenon we see today. For example, Northern lights might qualify as "noctilucent" and may look cloudy to boot. It's important to distinguish the phenomenon from the terminology.
Just callin' it like I see it.
While I suppose the summary could be read that way, the actual article is a little more clear on the distinction. That some other events also cause noctilucent clouds, while true, does not invalidate the premise of the shuttle also causing them.
So mod parent down. Bitch about inaccuracies in the summary if you want, but don't pretend they serve as meaningful parts of the discussion.
Its also quite possible that the recent appearances of these clouds was caused by the shuttle launches dumping lots of water into the upper atmosphere, regardless of what has caused them in the past
My theory, then, is that they were caused by the advent of photography, in much the same way Color was invented in the 50s.
I can't read the article due to Slashdot effect, but if shuttle launches are contributing to or causing (big difference there!) the formation of the noctilucent clouds then there should be a correlation to check for. Specifically, there should be a fall in the number of observed clouds during the two extended periods of time when the shuttle wasn't flying following the Challenger and Columbia disasters. IIRC, there was a similar fall off in percentage cloud cover over the US during the days after 9/11 when almost no aircraft were flying within US airspace.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Someone had to say it. I wish CmdrTaco would write a bot which automatically inserts the "Correlation is not causation" thing into every discussion, along with an automatically selected XKCD cartoon.
An obscure topic of meteorology, that appears to occur naturally from time to time, being correlated with space shuttle launches? And probably with a significant delay between release and formation of the clouds, one would think. I think you vastly overestimate the degree of weather observation that actually gets done, and our understanding of the weather system. Yes, there's much ground-based data of temperatures, precipitation and cloud cover but very little on the actual conditions up there - the lone weather balloons they used to send up don't amount to much. It's really only in the last few decades of satellites we've been studying it in detail.
In any case, I'm sure this will be used as another "disproof" of global warming. Like with Darwin when he gets 95% right and 5% wrong people always want to pretend that theories are either perfect or completely wrong, even though that makes no sense. Or assume some irrational assumption of uniform effects, so the results can violate them. Mess with say the Gulf stream and everything from Mexico, eastern US and Europe could get colder even during a global warming. Sometimes I wonder if they don't understand or if they just pretend not to...
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