Monthly Archives: December 2020

Precipitable water (PW)—is it a greenhouse “gas”? This complex material is in large part a true gas, but the remainder, condensed from pure vapor, is not. Still, the remainder has certain features that have much in common with water vapor. … Continue reading →

For purposes of evaluating global air temperatures, should ‘precipitable water’ (PW), a complex substance, be treated as if it were a single greenhouse gas, one having the same power as water vapor, thereby encouraging applications of the substance as a … Continue reading →

The images in today’s letter are all one day old. I saved them yesterday because the story they tell is so strangely interesting, knowing that by today it will have changed in some ways. The primary focus is on the … Continue reading →

Continental Asia has a great assortment of anomalies to work with today. We’re going to investigate the value of the more interesting ones by focusing on just three variables, each of which can create large differences at this time of … Continue reading →

There is a major warm anomaly in the center of northern Africa that has been there for a number of days. We should take a close look at it and see what we can learn from the maps. These same … Continue reading →

I want to revisit the big North American anomaly today because it offers such a great illustration of the connection between Total Precipitable Water (TPW) and surface air temperature. This time I won’t even bother to do an analysis of … Continue reading →

The longstanding anomaly in the Arctic Ocean is finally shutting down, following a steady streak of high daily numbers that began on September 24.  My take is that the streak was created by constant inputs of relatively high volumes of … Continue reading →

I am opening three maps today with two purposes in mind. Two of the maps provide a countless number of illustrations about the close relationship between (Total) Precipitable Water (TPW) and air temperature anomalies on this one day. I have … Continue reading →

You may remember the bitter cold snap that struck North America just a short time ago.  Here is a quote from my letter on Oct. 27 (CL#1796):  “I can see anomalies of minus 20C (-36F) in six different states, from … Continue reading →

North America has a potent warm temperature anomaly of its own today, not unlike the one we saw yesterday in Siberia.  This one, as usual, involves a big increase in the amount of total precipitable water (TPW) above the surface … Continue reading →