“The global warming effect of high-flying airborne water.”
This is a subject I may stay focused on for quite some time, as I become more aware of what it means and how to properly define it. The definition of “high-flying airborne water” is now in a place where I think it should stay, with no further modification. The following Weather Map provides an exact description of what I am talking about, displayed in images of real, individual beings, almost like living beings, all having their own individual characteristics. And yet, I think these individual “organisms” have enough in common to consider them as members of a single species. The relevant images that show up on this Precipitable Water map, as clear as can be, are the spiky or burr-like eruptions of color-coded features emerging away from the north and south edges of the inner tropical zone, which is bordered mostly by green and centered on the equator. The spikes are mostly blue to begin with, evolving into dark brown, light brown and shades of gray further on. They proceed outward on generally eastern and poleward pathways, each having a distinctive pattern, often expanding at the same time as withering away.
I am still looking for the right common name for these objects, so for now it will just be “spikes.” I can count eight or ten of them in each hemisphere including some little ones. Each one of them has a lifetime, which can be measured in days, weeks and perhaps months. Of course all you can see on the map is one day in the lifetime of each spike, most likely neither the very first or very last, just somewhere in the middle. Whatever came about on previous days would have been in pretty much the same location, a little more abbreviated, probably showing a few signs of rerouting. (An animated version of their time cycles is published by the University of Wisconsin and can be seen at this site: http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/mtpw2/product.php?)
The water content of these spikes is always greater, per square meter, than the content within the spaces between them. This generally means that considerable content has been added that would normally not be there because of ordinary evaporation or transpiration, implying some sort of unusual mechanism as a reason. Moreover, practically all of the added content almost certainly, and very quickly, ends up being positioned well up in the atmosphere, with a large part settling in at altitudes as high as those where jetstream winds are found—a truly “high-flying” place to be, also opening up the possibility of catching a fast ride on any jet that is heading the right way. How does such a large amount of water find itself in such an extraordinary position? Certainly not because of anything special about its substance, which is much like all other airborne water, so what about the possibility of special conditions surrounding the place of birth of the vapor from which it was formed? From observations that are still limited, I can make an argument that the effectiveness of these “spawning grounds” may depend on two specific requirements. In the case of oceans (rainforests may differ), one is that surface water temperatures from which the vapors evaporate needs to exist within a range of 25C and up. The other is that the sky above must be either fully clear or no more than partly cloudy, allowing newly transmitted vapor to be quickly swept upward a great distance by normal updrafts without being stalled along the way. Such conditions can be seen today by visiting two separate maps, displayed in patches of considerable size that coincide with the birthplaces of each spike. The Arabian Sea has been and still is a classic case of extensive hot water and clear sky setting up an enormous spike, as noted in yesterday’s letter.
These high-altitude spikes, once they get rolling, all seem to soon come under the influence of fast-moving jetstream winds in some instances and high mountain ranges in others, or both. They also tend to lose matter through precipitation along the route, but no matter what they manage to perpetuate and roll on. The important thing is that while these spikes are up there they add considerable amounts of extra greenhouse-type warming power to air temperatures down below. The more water content they can hang on to the greater that warming power will be, and the farther they can carry it toward a pole the more leverage it will have on air temperatures below. This is a reality. It is happening today, having effects that are realized in current weather reports. The potential effect on future climates is not visible in these observations, and would not be easy to flesh out in the best of models, which must be discouraging for scientists. My sense is that this specific type of activity has no apparent limitations and could thus have increasing repercussions as the planet and its ocean waters grow warmer.
Carl