Heat waves and inversions Autosaved

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:02]Welcome back everyone.

[00:00:03]This video will explain why extreme heat waves are not related to greenhouse warming.

[00:00:12]It's all about inversion layers and latent heat.

[00:00:18]Under normal conditions, air heated by collisions with solar heated surfaces can rise to the top of the troposphere because the rising air is warmer than the layers above it.

[00:00:31]The layers above are increasingly cooler because according to the gas laws as air rises in altitude, the pressure decreases, which decreases the temperature.

[00:00:44]Also known as adiabatic cooling.

[00:00:49]This rising convection transports away over 60% of the energy absorbed by the solar heated surfaces thus cooling our surface temperatures.

[00:01:02]When that convection is suppressed surface temperatures can tremendously rise no matter how much of a greenhouse effect is in play.

[00:01:14]However, sometimes a warm layer forms above a cooler layer and prevents cooling convection trapping heat and pollution nearer to the surface.

[00:01:26]These warmer layers are called inversion layers.

[00:01:31]Inversion layers are created by different dynamics.

[00:01:35]Descending air that warms adiabatically as pressure increases has the biggest weather effect.

[00:01:43]Adiabatic warming is not due to solar heating or greenhouse warming.

[00:01:50]Now, most people have seen radiative inversions during calm winter days where people are burning wood to stay warm.

[00:02:00]The smoke rises initially, but abruptly stops rising, hitting the inversion layer's invisible ceiling that traps the smoke.

[00:02:11]The air near the ground cools almost quickly because 24% of the surface energy radiates away immediately without interference from greenhouse gases.

[00:02:24]Air that collides with the cooler surface becomes cooler than the smoke, so the smoke rises.

[00:02:33]However, 99% of the atmosphere's gas molecules, nitrogen and oxygen, cannot radiate heat away.

[00:02:43]So, the air at slightly higher altitude cools more slowly, forming an inversion that is warmer than the smoke, and thus preventing convection.

[00:02:59]Orange and grape growers protect their crops from freezing at critical times by using huge fans to pull the warm inversion layer heat down to mix with the freezing surface air temperature.

[00:03:16]Subsidence inversions are created and differently and the main cause of heat waves.

[00:03:25]When high altitude winds converge, the air is forced downwards, creating a high pressure system.

[00:03:33]The descending air heats adiabatically, forming an inversion layer that suppresses cooling convection.

[00:03:42]The subsidence inversion traps heat pollution traps heat, pollution, and dust near the surface.

[00:03:52]Subsidence inversions create heat domes that cause heat waves.

[00:03:57]The sinking air warms and suppresses cooling convection.

[00:04:02]As well as pushing clouds away to intensify solar heating.

[00:04:08]The longer a heat dome remains in place, the more heat accumulates generating above average temperatures.

[00:04:19]The jet stream typically moves weather systems eastward across the United States at rates of 500 to 700 miles per day.

[00:04:30]This no Thus, normally we experience a few days of warm clear days under high pressure systems alternating with a few stormier days under low pressure systems.

[00:04:43]The jet stream is weaker and slower in the summer.

[00:04:47]And when weather dynamics cause a wavier jet stream, the high pressure system causing a heat wave can stall for several days and sometimes weeks.

[00:04:59]Most heat wave definitions are determined by how many days a high pressure system remains in place.

[00:05:08]Regions of strong convection in the Pacific Ocean associated with natural El Niños and La Niñas are the Madden-Julian Oscillation can release enough latent heat at high altitudes that it causes the jet stream to become wavier and build a stronger and higher pressure system under more stationary ridge.

[00:05:35]Heat waves are restricted to the regions below a high pressure system.

[00:05:41]Adjacent low pressure systems enhancing cooling convection and cloudiness causing below average temperatures.

[00:05:50]Only climate alarmists with an agenda would claim Western Europe is suffering from a global warming heatwave while Western Asia is suffering from global cooling.

[00:06:08]Although some studies suggest extreme waves are made worse by a global warming trend, the global average temperature is irrelevant to the mechanics of a heatwave.

[00:06:22]Consider 34% of the US weather stations with long-term data have cooling trends, the blue circles.

[00:06:33]In the Southeast United States where the weather stations with cooling trends are concentrated, they experience what scientists call a warming hole.

[00:06:43]If global temperature trends were a significant factor, then the Southeast USA would not be experiencing record-breaking heatwaves.

[00:06:53]They should be experiencing fewer heatwaves and less extreme ones.

[00:07:00]However, cooling trends don't matter either.

[00:07:04]It is the location and duration of a high-pressure heat dome that determines the extreme heatwaves.

[00:07:14]Historical evidence further suggests that heatwaves are independent of rising CO2 and global warming.

[00:07:23]The EPA's heatwave index shows the frequency and intensity of heatwaves was far greater in the 1930s with no trend since that time.

[00:07:36]However, to create alarm, some unscrupulous uh scientists start their trends in the 1960s when the heat waves were at their minimum.

[00:07:50]By cherry-picking the start date, those alarmists can create this graph showing an increase in heat wave frequencies since the 1960s.

[00:08:02]Displaying this cherry-picked graph is a sure sign of a dishonest climate alarmism.

[00:08:12]Scientists are now finding that the release of latent heat can feed into the warm inversion layer and amplify heat domes in extreme heat waves.

[00:08:26]A storm's warm conveyor belt or an atmospheric river transport transports abundant moisture that releases abundant latent heat, which the jet stream can transport into the heat dome.

[00:08:43]This map of atmospheric moisture, the lighter blue equals more moisture, in the mid-March shows an atmospheric river on a common route crossing Hawaii and reaching into southwestern Canada.

[00:09:00]Now, this same view, but of the jet stream from the National Weather Service's model, shows the wavy jet stream.

[00:09:10]The high pressure system beneath the the jet stream ridge and centered over the western United States is circled.

[00:09:20]The arrow points to where the atmospheric river is delivering moisture and latent heat into the high pressure system and adding heat into the warm subsidence inversion that intensifies the heat dome.

[00:09:38]This atmospheric river is not unusual or affected by global warming.

[00:09:44]Atmospheric rivers have always brought heavy rainfall to the western United States.

[00:09:50]Atmospheric rivers brought more extreme rainfall to California and Oregon in 1862 when temperatures and CO2 were much lower causing California's last mega flood.

[00:10:03]Despite venting stored heat in 1862 the 1877 1878 super El Nino triggered drought around the world where our current understanding of teleconnections would accurately predict.

[00:10:25]A USA weather map shows the resulting temperatures from the jet stream's transport of air temperatures with a heat wave over western USA in cold and snow blizzards over central USA in the Midwest.

[00:10:43]Two grossly different weather patterns under the same greenhouse effect again all the data suggests CO2 global warming is not a factor.