Electric Clouds This Summer(nautil.us) |
Electric Clouds This Summer(nautil.us) |
So about three orders of magnitude less than the one eruption.
[1] https://spaceimpulse.com/2023/06/13/how-much-does-rocket-fue...
Beyond that, I don't think the direct comparison of mass is definitive. Much of the rocket's fuel is expended at lower altitudes, and much of a volcano's ejecta return quickly to earth as ash or rain. It would be important to understand what percentage of a volcano's ejecta reaches the height of these clouds as well as what percentage of a rocket's exhaust is produced at that height.
Just to throw in some round figures:
noctilucent clouds are formed between 80 and 85 km altitude [2]
large volcanic eruption plumes top out somewhere between 31 and 45 km [3]
Falcon 9 launches stage at 80 km [4], meaning 23% of their propellant mass [5] is converted to exhaust at that altitude or higher.
So while I'm no expert on noctilucent cloud formation and happy to be given more info, the prima facia case seems to favor rocket launches seeding noctilucent clouds much more readily than volcanic eruptions.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RP-1#Comparison_with_other_fue... [2] https://www.albany.edu/faculty/rgk/atm101/nlc.htm , though other sources give a wider range of 76-85 km. [3] https://volcano.oregonstate.edu/faq/how-high-can-explosive-e... [4] https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/spacex_nasa_... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9#Design
"They’re lit by a twilight sun catching on ice crystals and seeded by rocket exhaust and space dust." and
"Exhaust from rockets, which have been launching in growing numbers lately, can also seed the clouds, as the AIM satellite research showed."
...are a pretty startling notion.
Should we expect, then, that this phenomena will be constant / worsening moving forward as the proliferation of rocket launches increases thereby pumping more water / alumina / particulates into the very upper atmosphere?
I'm not an alarmist normally, but taken further, then is it too hyperbolic to say that SpaceX and its high-frequency launch competitors are already changing the global weather within just a few years of ramping up operations?
Can we say with certainty that the occurrence of these clouds is not an harbinger / indicator of future weather changes? Like, does having more ultra-high altitude clouds increase or decrease greenhouse effects, for example?
If there is a constant cloud cover that only becomes thicker / more constant over time at very high altitude I wonder if there will be detrimental effects. That was my question. What does it mean if these clouds are constant?