Finding Simplicity in a Complex World: The Role of the Diurnal Temperature Cycle in Climate Energy Transfer and Climate Change

by Roy Clark, Arthur Rörsch

Climate change is the long term trend in weather patterns, often determined over 30 years. However, the focus on long term averages obscures those underlying causes of climate change that reside in the short term diurnal and seasonal variations in the surface energy transfer. With this book, we seek simplicity in the form of well-defined control mechanisms in the complexity of the energy transfer processes that determine the surface temperature. We propose that there is a strong regulatory mechanism built into the diurnal cycle that limits the change of the surface temperature over a single day. We focus on the time dependent energy transfer processes at the land-air and ocean-air interfaces and emphasize the interactive nature of the four main flux terms that determine the surface temperature. This approach is based on concepts derived from complexity (or chaos) theory to describe the dynamic equilibrium state. We demonstrate that such a control mechanism exists for both the land and ocean temperatures through the analysis of selected data sets that illustrate different aspects of the surface energy transfer. We also demonstrate the role of the ocean in climate change through the coupling of the ocean oscillations to the land surface temperatures and show that the observed increase of approximately 140 parts per million in the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration since the start of the Industrial Revolution cannot cause climate change.

250 pages, Paperback

Published March 22, 2023

About the author

Roy Clark was an American singer, musician, and an important and influential figure in country music. He is best known for having hosted Hee Haw, a nationally televised country variety show, from 1969 to 1997.

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