Hi Vijay,

A very interesting question indeed.

To my opinion, your question boils down to the thermodynamics of stable versus metastable systems. Indeed astronomical cycles are most of them (certainly not all, depending on the time scale considered), pretty stable. Think about the solar radiation output, it is close to constant, rotation speed of the Earth (as you mentioned). Many examples are for the taking.

However, knowing that solar radiation is the main driver of the climate on our planet, together with the main oceanic currents and ocean vertical dynamics, it is remarkable indeed that we can observe sometimes cataclysmic events in the climate and meteorological records of this planet. Some are due to the dynamics of the interior of our planet (volcanism), or extraterrestrial origin (comet impacts) , but I consider these as characteristic for the Earth's interior or exterior itself, not for its atmosphere, hydrosphere and terrestrial systems at its surface (where we actually live).

This leads us to the metastability of our atmosphere. Consider some metastable systems like typically the bubble chamber. A bubble chamber is a vessel filled with a superheated transparent liquid (most often liquid hydrogen) used to detect electrically charged particles moving through it. It was invented in 1952 by Donald A. Glaser, for which he was awarded the 1960 Nobel Prize in Physics. Supposedly, Glaser was inspired by the bubbles in a glass of beer; however, in a 2006 talk, he refuted this story, although saying that while beer was not the inspiration for the bubble chamber, he did experiments using beer to fill early prototypes.

Cloud chambers work on the same principles as bubble chambers, but are based on supersaturated vapor rather than superheated liquid. While bubble chambers were extensively used in the past, they have now mostly been supplanted by wire chambers and spark chambers. Historically, notable bubble chambers include the Big European Bubble Chamber (BEBC).

No what is the connection beween a vapor chamber and the atmosphere? They are both metastable systems. Atmospheric pressure, composition of the atmosphere, especially the level of humidity, and temperature, have a great impact on atmospheric stability. In case when the temperature T is close to the virtual critical point Ti, a small increase in the entropy of a system can bring instability. A small heat increase brings a small increase in entropy and the temperature of a system gets closer to Ti. Instability occurs when the temperature of a system approaches Ti.

Now, the increase in the average temperature of the atmosphere brings the atmosphere closer to the virtual critical point with more and more fluctuations as a consequence, when the average temperature more frequently gets close enough to the virtual critical point, then the metastable phase collapses into some more stable phase (again).

What does this mean? It can be assumed that this leads to a rather turbulent (stormy) phase. This phase possesses much more kinetic energy than the original one. According to the energy conservation law the average temperature of a new phase should be smaller than that of the original phase. Calculus shows that when some fraction of the kinetic energy of molecules of the atmosphere gives rise to the kinetic energy of aerodynamic movements, the decrease in temperature dT (in Kelvin) can be approximated as v²/20000 (here v is the speed of the aerodynamic movement in km/h). That is at v = 200 km/h at

T= 2 K, which is a rather essential quantity, the kinetic energy of the turbulent phase of the atmosphere will decay, leading to an increase in the average temperature of the atmosphere. Thus fulfilling the cycle of the atmospheric transformations under consideration.

Hence, atmospheric instability can be seen as a collapse of a local/global metastable states of the atmosphere. It is shown also that not only cooling of a cloud can bring rain, but

heating as.well. Especially when there are charged water drops in a cloud. In this case

a rain episode is accompanied by lightning. Assuming that the atmosphere of the Earth is in a metastable state now, close to the virtual critical point (the temperature of the

absolute instability), one can infer a hypothetical cycle in the thermodynamics of the atmosphere and evaluate the decrease in the temperature of the atmosphere,

resulting from the collapse of the original unstable thermodynamic phase into more stable turbulent one.

See what I mean?

Cheers,

Frank

Further reading:

1. A. Compagner, Physica , 72 , No 1, p. 115, 1974. 2. Yu. V. Kornyushin, Meta llofizika, 7 , No 6, p. 109, 1985.

3. Y. Kornyushin, J. Non - Equilib. Thermodyn, 25 , No 1, p. 15, 2000.

4. M. Ya. Amusia and Y. Kornyushin, Contemporary Physics , 41 , No 4, p. 219, 2000

Interesting indeed. I will need to reassess your quantitative ideas.

So great! @Frank, do you think this bubble chamber analogy is workable? And has someone worked out possible metastable states which can result in devastating situations from otherwise a very normal and continuous condition?

I realize that there are multiple cyclic variations resulting from well defined planetary cyclic variations. Is it the combination of the multiple cyclic variations of the oceans, surface, atmosphere coupled with vertical oceanic and earths core superimpositions that combine to result in such diverse conditions?

Possibly one could explore such situations by superimposing various periodic motions which may have different frequencies and of course amplitudes.

Hey Vijay,

You're becoming enthousiastic. Thanks.

I think there is a lot of analogy indeed between the dynamics of the Earth's systems, especially its atmosphere. The analogy is not so much with the bubble chamber, but more with the vapor chambers, though both type of chamers contain metastable states of a liquid (in the bubble chamber) or in the gas phase (in a vapor chamber).

Since the atmosphere can be more or less be considered as a gaseous mixture (with liquid, solid and electrically loaded particles in it), the analogy with the vapor chamber looks fruitfull to me as a concept to understand and predict the impact of small changes (like a small temperature increase of the atmosphere, typically due to an increased radiative forcing) on macro-scale atmospheric dynamics (like (increased) cloudiness). Actually cloudiness is quite comparable to the transition dynamics in a vapor chamber. When an (elementary) particle passes through a vapor chamber, the metastable state of the vapor degrades and the vapor phase is transformed into the liquid phase along the path of the particle traversing the vapor chamber.

Once can consider the increased loading of the atmosphere with aerosols from volcanic or anthropogenic origin in the same way. Increased aerosol loads in a water vapor saturated can quickly induce a decline in atmospheric horizontal visibility, which means that transitions from the vapor to the liquid phase have occured at the surface of the aerosols. Evidently an aerosol is not an elementary particle, but, the process of an atmosphere saturated with water vapor and aerosols inducing transitions of the water vapor to the liquid phase inducing a smog, occur on a daily basis now. Especially in densely urbanized areas, close to mountains, or during wintertime or in the tropics (in fact in each climate zone having a lot of water vapor satured conditions in the atmopshere). Intense rainfall or hail stroms can be the consequence of the vapor to liquid phase transition. These transitions from vapor to liquid (rain) or even the solid phase (hail) occur in very short time intervals (also typical for condensation in a vapor chamber along an elementary paricle track) and can be quite intense or even catastrophic (with big hail balls coming down).

I think it is worth considering to what extent the thermodynamics of a vapor chamber can be used as a model for the thermodynamics of the Earth's atmosphere. I guess it can be a fruitfull exercise, as far as this has not been done yet. Anyhow there is a large scale difference (elementary particle in the vapor chamber versus an aerosol particle in the atmosphere). If the impact of the scale difference on the systems thermodynamcis can be described, one can get close to a model explaining the thermodynamics of the Earth's atmosphere in more detail. With a bit of luck, predictions can be refined concerning the impact of increased radiation forcing on the characteristics of the Earth's atmospheric thermodynamics. Well worth investigating to what extent this has been investigated as we speak.

Cheers,

Frank