Climate Letter #1970

An upcoming report from the IPCC will contain an explicit warning about the danger of climate tipping points.  A draft of the 4000-page report was leaked to the French press a week ago.  Unfortunately, it has received only a little publicity in the US.  Coverage provided by The Guardian is unusual because it focused on the fact that the normally conservative IPCC, for the first time, was expressing serious concern about the scientific understanding of tipping points that occur within different climate-related processes and how they interact in dynamic ways.  If you have not seen it, this well-written article is worthy of a close reading: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/23/climate-change-dangerous-thresholds-un-report.  It has prompted me to give more thought to possible applications of my theory about the greenhouse energy effect of precipitable water (PW) to this field of study, and I can see a good fit.

Part 2 of Carl’s theory details the mechanism that amplifies PW’s greenhouse effect as specifically derived from activities that take place in the upper atmosphere. Strangely, this activity depends on a situation that initially develops on Earth’s surface, when temperatures in either one of the polar regions grow warmer to a meaningful extent, as reviewed in recent letters. The process of amplification ends up by radiating greater amounts of greenhouse energy back down to the very same surface area that initiated the activity, making it even warmer. The system is then primed and ready to go into a repeat mode, establishing a self-reinforcing feedback loop. The same process also happens to work in reverse if initiated by a meaningful cooling of the surface. Either way, it can only last for a limited time because of the way the planet rotates, or from seasonal changes, and more things of that sort. We have little to fear from a “tipping point” at this level that would make a such feedback loop irreversible.

That said, we still might be wise to keep an eye on whatever may have caused the initial warming at the surface, presumably something of a totally unrelated nature and origin.  What are its internal limitations? Or, is there any possibility that PW could react to this warming, even if the reaction is limited in time, in a way that serves to sustain or enlarge it?  That would be a real concern if it evolved in continuity, by perhaps establishing a whole new feedback loop with both parties contributing.  Could the hypothetical joint result then become the cause of changes in processes situated beyond these two, changes that might generate yet more feedbacks that have even broader impacts?  This is the kind of thing the IPCC is talking about in this report, based on an understanding that the Earth system is loaded with climate-related components that interact and affect each other in complex ways and different time frames. 

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In today’s world we are seeing a warming trend in the Arctic region that appears to have started in the 1970s, slowly at first and then accelerating. Its reaches have expanded well beyond the polar area as more and more extreme conditions are being reported in the mid-latitudes and even deeper. How did this trend get started? Reduction of Arctic Ocean sea ice, or the ice cover of seas surrounding the ocean, replaced by more exposure of open water, is most likely the best choice. The surface would simultaneously gain the ability to release more outgoing radiation and also to absorb more incoming solar radiation instead of reflecting it. The root cause of this particular transition can be attributed to the warming effect of a slow and steady buildup of concentrations of CO2, methane and several other well-mixed greenhouse gases in the wake of two centuries of growth in human industrial activity.

Once the transition began, and was soon followed by an acceleration, what else may have been ready to contribute an even greater level of warming in the same location?  I think you know where this is heading.  PW in the upper atmosphere is an excellent candidate because of the proven overall strength of its energy production and also because of the extraordinary way that it keeps moving into positions closer and closer to the polar zone if given the chance to do so.  The animated website at http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/mtpw2/product.php is always available for viewing by anyone who wants to see evidence of this movement, and how it affects one polar zone more than the other.

Carl

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