Yet another revision for the heading of my principal topic of discussion. I want the wording to give the clearest possible summation of the most essential factors that come into focus, which calls for some bits of improvement. The latest:
“The greenhouse warming effect provided by coherent, high-altitude streams of precipitable water.”
By comparison, the previous version (as of April 30) that I now want to discard read this way: “The global warming effect of high-flying airborne water.”
As for reasons, first, greenhouse warming instead of global avoids any possible confusion having reference to climate change. This is all about warming that is going on today, in many separate places, with no attempt made to predict what the globe-wide future will be like. Also, the word greenhouse adds proper information about the the exact type of warming source being referred to, distinct from solar, albedo change and the like. I have replaced airborne water with precipitable in part because the latter is already in standard usage and also because I want to bring more attention to the probability that the “more precipitable” portions of precipitable water, starting with just clouds, are likely to have a greenhouse effect of their own which could be measured or estimated in some way like that done with respect to the purely vapor portion. The words coherent and streams both add precision to the structural definition of the prominent natural phenomena being featured in this study.
The phenomena I am writing about show up on a Weather Map as those kind of spiky things that were described in the last letter. Beyond the map images these things have real existence. They are part of nature, having a kind of life cycle, and performing certain unique activities on a fairly large scale. On that basis alone they deserve a healthy amount of ordinary scientific study. When one takes a close close look at their activity the need for thorough scientific study should be greatly reinforced. In my mind these streams are not only totally fascinating but perhaps far more significant than anyone in the science community has so far realized. It seems odd that there is practically nothing written about their greenhouse properties, as opposed to precipitation effects, in the scientific literature. By implication, no one to date has made a serious effort to perform a complete examination covering every aspect of what they are, and what they are about as part of the natural world. This, I think, would inevitably lead to a better understanding of their possible effects on the temperature side of the weather system. I can’t help but think that those effects are profound, simply as a result of putting together pieces of information that are in plain sight on the Weather Maps. I am going to keep talking about this every day, right here, in hopes of creating more interest, in recognition of its potential importance.
Take a good look at this map, paying special attention to the red and blue areas representing temperature anomalies of varying degree. I believe almost every bit of anomalous warming that shows up in the red area is the result of greenhouse radiation provided by the passing over of a fragment of one or another of those high-altitude streams of precipitable water, which can be observed every day on a separate map. The deepest blue regions, where the greatest chilling has set in, show the effect of having maybe no such fragment at all passing over on that day. Every square mile of the planet is likely to have some measurable amount of water brought to bear by one of these streams passing over every day, radiating energy as it does so, in an amount that adds on to the greenhouse radiation being supplied in a more regular way by the gases and such that normally hang out in all of the lower levels of the atmosphere. These include the precipitable waters that are generated by whatever evaporation and transpiration activity exists locally. The closer you get to the poles, the less robust those water-based supplies are likely to be. Over time, every square mile will accumulate a daily average amount of overhead supply added on to the regular low-level supply, and how the overhead supply on any given day compares with its historical average for that same day will serve as a major determinant of the temperature anomaly experienced on that day. I think the overhead supply can be substantial enough to have considerable leverage at times in many places, especially over land or icy surfaces, and in mid to upper latitudes. That is the essence of my observations and theory in a nutshell.
Carl