Did the Russian Meteor lead to a cold Arctic this year?

[Bobby]

Isn't this just wild speculation though without actual evidence to suggest that small meteors / comet tails have an effect on our weather/climate. I don't totally discount the idea but some evidence would be nice.

[Gray-Wolf]

When we look at the uptick in noctilucent clouds over the past 100yrs it would be nice to find such answers? The rise in atmospheric methane means that we are seeing extra moisture in the Stratosphere so is this why we see such an uptick in stratospheric weather?

 

Do we know the impacts such high level clouds have on the troposphere below and the weather that forms there?

 

Would increases in condensation nuclei lead to more noctilucents or are we already at saturation point?

 

Was the noctilucent season different this year? did it begin earlier or were there more sightings of clouds than other years?

 

The past spring saw bursts of high level methane over the northern land masses so has this lead to an earlier start to the season or an uptick in cloud amounts that coincide with these anomalous 'bursts' of atmospheric methane?

[4wd]

Does that have anything to do with the meteor?

[Polar Maritime]

Yes, meteors have been linked to high numbers of Noctilucent clouds in recent years.

[Gray-Wolf]

I think we have two main ingredients that give us these special clouds. Water vapour and something for that vapour to condense around.

 

Extreme Volcanic activity will place ejecta into the stratosphere  and incoming space debris will place dust into the Stratosphere. Storms that punch through into the stratosphere will add water vapour into the stratosphere and methane seeping up from the troposphere will degrade, via interactions with the ultra violet, leading to water vapour.

 

An increase in Noctilucent cloud activity must mean a change in the things going into forming such high level clouds. With the absence of recent major eruptions any increase in condensation nuclei is more likely to be extra terrestrial. The increase in moisture is probably a mixture of both increases in global methane outputs and the fact that more storms have the energy to punch through the tropopause and into the Strat. ( as we saw with the Boscastle storm)

[barrel1234]

Could some of the moisture be linked to contrails from a massive increase in air travel over the last 50 years

[Gray-Wolf]

Well my Nan was convinced the Moon shots messed with the weather in the late 60's!

 

I wonder if the flights over the pole come closer to the tropopause with the thinner blanket of atmosphere there?

[winterfreak]

Well my Nan was convinced the Moon shots messed with the weather in the late 60's!

 

I wonder if the flights over the pole come closer to the tropopause with the thinner blanket of atmosphere there?

Maybe our delicate blanket of atmosphere is far more delicate, and sensitive, than we can imagine...

[Interitus]

Well my Nan was convinced the Moon shots messed with the weather in the late 60's!

 

I wonder if the flights over the pole come closer to the tropopause with the thinner blanket of atmosphere there?

 

Most airliners fly above the tropopause in the lower stratosphere from the mid-latitudes polewards.

 

With regards to clouds, noctilucent are in the mesosphere, nacreous are in the stratosphere.

Edited October 30, 2013 by Interitus

[4wd]

Contrails painting the sky grey at high altitude most days seem far more likely to have an effect than a trace gas or bit of dust from a meteor breaking up a year ago.

[Gray-Wolf]

This is what I thought and just could track down the figures. Since the end of the cold war flights impacting the Arctic circle have risen massively so , to me, that's an awful lot of water vapour being pumped directly into the lower strat.

 

I've wittered about con trails and the summer blight I used to suffer in my old gaff with temps really dropping as the veil of cloud, deposited by high flying aircraft, drifted across the sun so does it make a difference across a rapidly altering Arctic?

[4wd]

OMG I agree with Gray Wolf 

[Gray-Wolf]

Esp. when it's a matter of the truth Four!

[pottyprof]

One of the things you've overlooked Ian is the ionisation that happens when these lumps of rock fly through the atmosphere.  I'm not sure how dense the ionisation was and as yet, I've not come across any data online.  I have however sent a couple of emails to people who may have an idea as to where this kind of data is kept.  Will post any detail here if I get to know anything.

[Gray-Wolf]

http://www.nature.com/news/risk-of-massive-asteroid-strike-underestimated-1.14114

 

Seems to get bigger and bigger the more we study it? Also interesting to read that it all turned into gas and dust as it exploded 27km up?

 

To me this makes more sense of the NASA plot of the debris field which quickly spread over the far norths upper atmosphere. 

Edited November 8, 2013 by Gray-Wolf

[keithlucky]

A huge meteorite explodes over Russia http://t.co/mQWWuFHR7q