Hunga Tonga Heat
Last meeting, I talked about how Hunga Tonga has made fall through
spring wet, and the rain was early this year in mid-August. But seawater in the stratosphere doesn’t only
make clouds and rain; it also makes heat, because water vapor is the most
powerful and abundant of greenhouse gases, and in the stratosphere, it has few
molecules in the way of infra-red heat reaching the ground.
The first two years after the volcano blew 150 million tons of water
into stratosphere, we had much hotter 100-degree-plus weather in July and
August. But that heat showed up only on clear days, which one would
expect. This year, it happened on partly
cloudy days most of the summer. It
reminded me of the weather in Arizona during monsoon season, and we have been
getting more monsoon weather coming from the Southwest this year.
This makes me think that there is a bell curve to the amount of rain coming
out of the stratosphere, and we are in the middle of the curve, if scientists
are right that Hunga Tonga weather effects will last only five years.
The forecast for this winter calls for a warm winter with a lot more
rain.
9-17-2025 2-minute Speech to Grants Pass City
Council
Published at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com and shared on
Facebook and Nextdoor
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Rycke
Brown, Natural Gardener 541-955-9040 rycke@gardener.com
