Climate Letter #1847

“The holistic greenhouse effect of precipitable water (PW) in the atmosphere”

A quick summary:  This is a subject that I believe currently has no place in the teachings of the world’s universities.  The professors know that the two principal components of PW, water vapor and clouds, both have powerful greenhouse effects, and that the effects are not produced in exactly the same way.  So, for purposes of study, these components have been separated.  In this state of separation there is in both cases a scarcity of the kind of detailed information that would permit strong conclusions to be drawn.   As a consequence, water vapor’s estimated greenhouse effect, as perceived in isolation, ends up being defined by association with that of another gas, carbon dioxide, in a strictly linear manner, and only as a junior partner.  The greenhouse effect of clouds, also in isolation, ends up as little more than an offset to the opposing cloud albedo effect. No actual measurements of cloud-generated greenhouse effects–in a physical sense—have been reported.

What would change if the professors took a more holistic view of PW? Right away, they would find that an extraordinary amount of high-quality information is already available and set to be studied, holding a number of useful answers, right in front of their eyes. Little or no guesswork will be required from that point forward. The distributional spread of PW is almost perfectly measured, every day, in every corner of the globe, and the results of these measurements are being imparted visually as well as numerically. We can even see the immensely fascinating movement in time of varying subsets of PW in the atmosphere. As for a true measure of the total greenhouse effect itself, which in fact combines the effects of both water vapor and clouds, we are given another great set of numbers from which all the information we may really need can readily be determined.

For starters, what is more useful, for many purposes, than knowing the surface air temperatures of every spot on the planet every day–highs, lows and averages? And then, what could be more useful than having the ability to compare an average for any one day with a broad compilation of many averages for that same location in the past, on the same day of the year? We already have this information available on the daily anomaly map. Thus, every PW measurement on the planet can effectively be seen on one map and compared with the corresponding daily temperature anomaly on another map. Yes, there is still some more work be done. That’s what science is for, and thankfully science has plenty of good tools to work with, once the decision is made to proceed with doing the work.

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Toward that end, two more considerations need to be taken into account.  First, what else, apart from any differences in PW, could be a factor in creating the anomaly as it stands?  The range of possibilities is well-known, and many of these are stable and already well-measured.  The adjustments will not all be perfect, but they are seldom very large individually, and will seldom represent more than a few degrees of heating value, normally much less. On the other hand, it is not unusual for anomalies to be found that are in double digits, leaving a gap of considerable size that somehow needs to be explained.  Second, what were the actual average PW values on or about the same days used as the baseline for temperature anomalies?  Those numbers could in fact be calculated from actual information now kept in storage, not unlike the way anomalies are calculated, and the effort needs doing.  Otherwise, estimates can still be made that are of reasonable value, however imperfect.

Whenever I have tried to make these comparisons, usually in places where the reported anomalies are extra-large to begin with, and knowing my limitations with respect to accuracy, I have consistently found that whenever a PW value has doubled, from any level, I can expect to see a corresponding increase of about 10C in surface air temperatures. Is it right to use that figure as a true explanation of how nature itself provides the energy needed to fill out the “gap challenge” questions posed by those very large anomalies? I”d like to know for sure. Moreover, I’ve noticed that the 10C number seems to hold up quite well even though I am never sure about how the different components of PW relate to each other at any one time, with any number of combinations generally possible. If trained scientists were to conduct this type of effort by their own methods, and got similar results, would such information be of use when making fundamental studies of climate change? Would it change any of their thinking?

Carl

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