Accumulation of Carbon Dioxide and Methane in the Earth’s Atmosphere is not responsible for the Recent Worldwide Heat Wave

Accumulation of Carbon Dioxide and Methane in the Earth’s Atmosphere is not responsible for the Recent Worldwide Heat Wave

L.F. Khilyuk, and G.V. Chilingar

Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, US Sections, Los Angeles, USA
Email: gchilin@usc.edu

ABSTRACT
Evolution of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere does not contribute to global warming.

INTRODUCTION
It is hot (very hot) in the most of Europe and North America and also in Australia, India, and Pakistan. This year the atmospheric heat broke all the records. There are some recent samples of the record high temperatures (Yahoo News, July 26, 2019): 42.6 C (108.7 F) in Paris, 39.9 C (103.8 F) in Belgium, 40.5 C (104.9 F) in Germany, and 38.8 C (101 F) in Netherlands. Even in Alaska the heat wave drove temperature to the astonishing record 90 F (with the historic average high temperature of 75 F). Such scorching life temperatures caused multiple deaths and health complications, interrupted transportation, facilitated multiple wildfires, and resulted in huge economic losses in the affected regions. Suffering and panicking people are appealing to governments to do something with the current unprecedented experienced global heat wave. Although current warming trends are alarming, climatic activists inaccurately attribute the currently observed global temperatures to the presence of anthropogenic carbon dioxide and methane releases. What is more alarming are the unscientific quixotic legislation, driven by fear, to fight naturally-occurring atmospheric trends and fluctuations (whether warming or cooling) will not impact climate but will negatively impact the modern economy of developed countries.

DISCUSSION
Significant releases of anthropogenic carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere do not change average parameters of the Earth’s thermal regime and have no effect on the Earth’s global warming. Moreover, based on the adiabatic model of heat transfer in the atmosphere, the writers showed that additional releases of CO2 and CH4 lead to cooling of the Earth’s atmosphere (accelerating the air mass convection process) and not warming [1]. Our model was proved to be correct by testing on empirical data [2].

The persistent trend of global warming has been observed for the last 150 years (when people actually have regular records of atmospheric temperature data) and resulted in about 1 K increase in the global average terrestrial temperature. This increased temperature caused various environmental and economic problems in the lower and middle latitude countries of the Northern hemisphere.

To understand causes of currently observed global warming, one needs to analyze the evolution of global forces of nature driving the Earth’s Climate. Solar irradiation is a dominant energy supplier to the atmosphere and hydrosphere. Outgassing is a dominant gaseous matter supplier to the atmosphere and hydrosphere. The microbial activities at the interface of lithosphere and atmosphere influence considerably the atmospheric composition [2, 3, 4]. In explaining the persistent global warming (during the last 150 years), one should analyze and evaluate the historic solar activity and the quantities of solar irradiation reaching the Earth’s surface, i.e., terrestrial solar irradiance (TSI).

Physical explanation of current heat wave came just in time with the brilliant, recently published (June 2019) paper: “Oscillations of the baseline of solar magnetic field and solar irradiance on a millennial time scale” by Valentina Zharkova and associates [5]. They discovered the Terrestrial Solar Irradiance (TSI) super cycle with a period of about 2000 years. The last minimum of super cycle occurred about 1620 coinciding with the beginning of the Maunder Minimum of Solar Activity (MMSA). The MMSA happened in the middle of medieval Little Ice Age, during which all water bodies of contemporary Europe were mostly frozen, agriculture was unsustainable due to crop failures, and populations suffered significant declines because people were either dying from disease, starvation and hypothermia or displaced as they migrated south.

The maximum of TSI super cycle should fall in around 2600. On the preceding 1000-year interval, the TSI is gradually increasing. Professor Zharkova and associates attributed these “2000-year periodic TSI oscillations to the long-term solar inertial motion about the barycenter of solar system” and noted that they are “closely linked to an increase of solar irradiance and terrestrial temperature in the past two centuries” [5].

This TSI cycle explains global warming trend observed during the last 150 years (1 K increase in the global average Earth’s temperature) and predicates continuous perilous ascent of the global average temperature to an increase of solar irradiance and atmospheric temperature until the year of 2600 (with about 3% increase in TSI). The latter implies long-lasting extremely hot summers and slushy winters in the Northern hemisphere of the Earth until the year 2600. “By very conservative extrapolation we expect an increase of the terrestrial temperature in the Northern hemisphere by 2.5 C or slightly higher” [5].

The expected 3% increase in TSI translates into 2.3 K increase in global average atmospheric temperature by the year of 2600 (year of the TSI cycle maximum). This global average temperature increase is well correlated with the rate of linear approximation of a 0.5 K/100 years of global average atmospheric temperature curve in the Northern hemisphere from the Maunder minimum to the beginning of the 21th Century (Akasofu rate, [6]). The ongoing global atmospheric warming is a result of increasing TSI on the rising half a period of the 2000-year super TSI cycle at the current rate of approximately 0.5 K/100 years. This increase is expected to be compensated by the reduction of 0.3 K – 0.5 K in the period between the years 2020 and 2055 (about three of 11-year cycles) due to the coming grand minimum of solar activity. After this period the global atmospheric warming will probably continue unmitigated on the upswing of the 2000-year cycle of TSI until 2600 (estimated time of the maximum of the TSI super cycle).

CONCLUSION
The proponents of any anthropogenic theory of the currently observed global atmospheric warming need to acknowledge that people are not responsible for and are not able to prevent natural solar irradiance increase. “Any attempts to mitigate undesirable climatic changes using restrictive regulations are condemned to failure, because the global natural forces are at least 4 – 5 orders of magnitude greater than the available human controls” [3].

Climate will continue changing on various time scales with or without human interference. In the long run, it is more promising to expect some natural atmospheric cooling due to nitrogen consuming bacteria activities or natural relief in the form of strong volcano eruptions releasing large volumes of volcanic dust and forming sulfuric acid aerosol screen in the upper layers of atmosphere. It is rather unrealistic to assume that any climatic engineering group could successfully design and execute some futuristic technologies to combat natures cycles.

References
[1] Chilingar, G.V., Sorokhtin, O.G., Khilyuk L.F., and Lui, M. (2014) Do Increasing Contents of Carbon Dioxide and Methane in the Atmosphere Cause Global Warming? Atmospheric and Climate Science, 4, 819-827.
[2] Sorokhtin, O.G., Chilingar, G.V., and Sorokhtin, N.O. (2010) Theory of Earth Evolution, Moscow, Nauka, 751
p. (in Russian).
[3] Khilyuk, L.F. and Chilingar, G.V. (2006) On Global Forces of Nature Driving the Earth’s Climate. Are humans involved? Environmental Geology, 50, 899-910.
[4] Robertson, J.O., Chilingar, G.V., Sorokhtin, O.G., Sorokhtin, N.O, and Long, W. (2018) The Evolution of Earth’s Climate, Scrivener-Wiley, 282 p.
[5] Zharkova, V.V., Shepherd, S.J., Zharkov, S.I., and Popova, S. (2019) Oscillations of the Baseline of Solar Magnetic Field and Solar Irradiance on a Millennial Timescale. Scientific Reports, 9, Article 9197.
[6] Akasofu, P. (2010) On the Recovery from the Little Ice Age. Natural Science, 2, 1211-1224.