Carl’s theory came into being for one basic reason—because of my peculiar fascination with Today’s Weather Maps and the fact that I kept seeing close relationships between imagery details of one kind on one map and those of a different kind on a different map. Every such coincidence needed an explanation and I always felt the challenge to either uncover the real explanation or come up with a theory that might do the job, if it could be verified. There were quite a number of different relationships to be looked at and thought about, each of which was assigned with an explanation that may or may prove to be true. The next realization was that some of these independent explanations appeared to themselves have a relationship of a coincidental nature that was close enough to require a whole new level of explanation. That’s where things really got complicated. and also more challenging, and more “fun” to think about even if the result was not always to one’s personal liking. It all ended up in a kind of porridge of many parts that I call Carl’s theory.
Anyway, I still keep looking for new relationships in the imagery, and am happy to announce that I just found one. It even comes with an explanation that looks quite convincing to me. The only hitch is that now I have to make an adjustment to a previous explanation. Luckily it happens to be one that I have always felt contained a good deal of truth but probably not quite the whole story. It all has to do with how the visible components of high-altitude air pressure configuration take their shape on the map. Are the details all transmitted from differences in surface air temperature, which was the only conspicuous option I was aware of, or is there something else? Well, there is something else; it goes hand in hand with temperature differences, and is probably about equal in effectiveness. The key imagery involved is found on the Sea Level Pressure map. This has been a map full of imagery that I could not relate to the imagery on any of the other maps in a meaningful way, and as a consequence have rarely reproduced it in these letters or used it as part of any explanation of the theory. (Mostly I just wondered about how sea level pressure could be measured and reported from locations where great land masses stood in the way.)
Now let me show you three maps that tell me it’s time to adopt a new understanding of how the high-altitude air pressure configuration imagery is established. The first is today’s configuration map (500hPa Geopot. Height), which is practically identical to the one in yesterday’s letter. I have always maintained that its blue zone imagery for the most part reflected regions of below freezing temperatures on the surface below, due to thermal contraction, thus reducing both spatial volume and upward push of any pressure coming from the air masses near the surface.
This map of today’s air temperatures at the surface, coded in dark blue plus a dab of magenta, should therefore be reflected on the other map as the heart of a solid nice-sized blue zone, right? We just don’t see anything of the sort on the map above.
The reason the blue zone is not there might be attributed to a feature gleaned from this next map, showing a broad stretch of higher than average air pressure covering every bit of the area where we observe the freezing temperatures. There is no way to escape this as a fact. We just need a good explanation for whatever connection may be involved.
The explanation I have in mind is still preliminary, so I will only say what I can today to get started. I think of air pressure, in absolute terms, as being determined by measuring the total weight of all the molecules within a specified column of air from the level of measurement to the top of the atmosphere. If you add more molecules to the column the pressure will be higher, etc. Next, we can imagine a floating “surface” surrounding the entire globe, several miles above sea level, where the molecular weight of the air above is always the same, and thus also its gravitational pressure. We can see this by dividing the entire high atmosphere into vertical columns that all have the same exact number of molecules above a cutoff point that establishes the imaginary surface. The zone of atmosphere below this surface will also be divided into vertical columns, always set up as extensions of the ones already established above. These lower column parts will all have different numbers of molecules, because of differences in things like density and topographical elevation. They will also contain air of greatly differing temperatures, depending on their global surface location. These two factors will both have a bearing on the elevation of the point that divides the upper part of the vertical column from the lower. Collectively, when these points of elevation create the surface we have imagined, the inevitable result will be a continuum of dips and bulges in that surface. (To be continued.)
Carl