Mick West replies – poorly

Mick West, of disinfo sites Metabunk and Contrailscience.com replied to my question – poorly.

I asked him how it was possible for our skies to be filled with “persistent contrails” when the relative humidity was significantly lower than other days where no trails could be seen. As expected, he employed Rule 19 from the shill handbook by ignoring presented evidence.

First he claimed I was “aware contrails can exist and spread.” Wrong – and ^{[citation needed]}. I have long maintained that the lines in the sky are artificially nucleated with hydrophilic aerosols, such as alumina. Water vapor cannot undergo condensation to liquid or deposition to solid ice without a condensation nucleus. Mick West concedes this point. Under lab conditions, water can condense without condensation nuclei in extreme supersaturation – several hundred percent relative humidity – but that isn’t seen in the atmosphere. The products of jet fuel combustion (a hydrocarbon) are hot gases of water vapor and CO2 – neither of which can act as condensation nuclei. Even if water droplets were somehow present in aircraft exhaust, they would quickly evaporate unless the surrounding air reached 100% humidity – another point he concedes. So what are these aerosol/particulate condensation nuclei being left behind planes in our sky? If it’s soot from incomplete combustion or other contaminants, why don’t they form “persistent contrails” when the air is 50% more humid? And why would airlines and turbine manufacturers tolerate inefficient combustion, wasting valuable fuel?  Does turbine efficiency vary significantly from day to day – and uniformly so with all airlines simultaneously? Or are these condensation nuclei in fact the very aerosols of nanoparticulate metals, Welsbach materials and sulfates discussed ad nauseum by the likes of geoengineers like Ken Caldeira, David Keith and Alan Robock?

Southern Oregon was covered in trails from dawn until dusk September 8th while the relative humidity at cruising altitude was recorded at 23% over Medford, OR. Three days later, the skies were totally clear all day, but the relative humidity over Medford was nearly 50% higher at 31%.

Here are two NASA Wordview images showing trails over Southern Oregon September 8th and none on September 11th. I have plenty of images from September 8th – all day and across Southern Oregon – showing “persistent contrails.” If Mick West can provide any pictures of trails from Southern Oregon September 11th, I’d be happy to see them.

Mick West goes on to argue that the Wyoming Soundings data are “terrible”, 200 miles and 12 hours apart. Only my videos were 55 miles east of the station and less than three hours after the recordings. I also have a concurrent photo of “persistent contrails” over Klamath Falls (60 miles east of Medford) soon after the balloon went up at (5pm Pacific, 00Z TTC). No doubt there are plenty of images of the sky taken in Medford at the same time.

He also challenges the accuracy of the humidity readings, claiming the Wyoming Soundings instruments “basically stop working” below -40°. I’ll check with the University of Wyoming to see if their entire program is garbage and their data useless. Stay tuned. In any case, even if the instrument used was inaccurate or miscalibrated, why would the same instrument operated by the same technicians at the same weather station report 50% greater humidity on the 8th vs the 11th when the reverse was allegedly the case? What is the margin of error? More than 400%? I highly doubt it.

So I’ll repeat my question: how can “persistent contrails” fill the sky on days with lower humidity than days where there are none? And since efficiently combusted hydrocarbons do not produce condensation nuclei, what are the condensation nuclei responsible for these “persistent trails?”

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Here’s Mick West’s reply in its entirety:-

“It’s a good question, because it shows that you are aware that contrails actually CAN persist and spread.
Contrails need a relative humidity over with respect to ice of over 100% to persist and spread. This is nothing to do with the presence r absence of nuclei, as they need nuclei to form regardless.

100% RHI is about 60% RHW (the more common RH value, and the one given in the soundings, with respect to water).
Soundings unfortunately are a terrible way of getting local humidity at high altitudes in cold air. Firstly they are spaced apart, in time by 12 hours, and in space by around 200 miles. Humidity can vary vastly in a few hundred feet, which is why we sometime get individual clouds instead of huge sheets.

An equal problem is that the reading for humidity basically stop working below -40°, and are quite inaccurate at lower altitudest. See Figure 2 here: http://radiometrics.com/data/uploads/2012/11/Refsonde-GRL.pdf“