Climate Letter #2014

The question now in hand:  Are atmospheric gases the sole source of greenhouse energy effects?  This is what the sciences keep telling us (see my recent letters).  Their conclusion rules out anything made of liquid or solid material that is suspended in the air, including a number of significant components of precipitable water (PW).  The water vapor component cannot be ruled out, just the water drops or droplets and icy aerosols that are formed by the condensation of water vapor once it has entered the atmosphere.  Science is effectively informing us that none of these things are able to generate any of the special kind of radiation, all infrared, that delivers extra heat to the surface with the same effect that gases have.  One point of clarity is needed here—gases do in fact have their own unique way of generating this radiation in the initial step. Each kind of gas is only able to capture outgoing radiation made of photons of certain specific wavelengths.  The actual spectrum happens to be divided into photons of many different wavelengths, from which the individual selection by each gas is determined by nature.  Molecules that have condensed into tightly-knit bodies are not recognized as having this kind of selectivity.  They are apparently considered capable of capturing photons of all wavelengths, although I don’t remember learning about this having become established as a fact in all cases. 

Carl’s theory has never emphasized the importance of making this distinction.  It was built around an interpretation of greenhouse energy’s final effects, in terms of actual temperature changes observed at the surface. In the case of PW, as well as water vapor, and in contrast with all other greenhouse gases, these effects are most vividly expressed on a short-term basis, meaning as little as one or two days rather than many years or centuries. The creation of Carl’s theory was put together based on information gathered from extensive observation of the Climate Weather Maps website.  The full set of maps reveal a diversity of relationships in a manner that is highly amenable to outside interpretation.  Early on, I began to wonder about what could be the cause of all the temperature anomalies, both warm and cold, a few of them quite extreme, that keep showing up all over the globe on a short-term basis.  It didn’t take long to realize that PW was involved, by making visual relationships between daily temperature anomalies of a given location and current readings of total PW values on the same day for the same location.  Warm anomalies revealed a strong tendency to correspond with higher PW values, cold anomalies with lower, with extreme cases being the most prominent in both respects.  This could not be due to mere coincidence when the relationship was so extraordinarily common. The one thing missing was always an accurate number for average, or “normal,” PW values, but these could at least be estimated with a reasonable margin of error.

The short-term effects causing temperature anomalies were clearly established by direct linkage to the relative total weight of all the PW molecules in a vertical column of atmosphere directly overhead at the location.  We get these weight numbers from measurements taken several times a day, with unquestionably high accuracy.  The values have nothing to say about the composition of materials making up the total PW value or their relative altitudes, just the total weight of all the H2O molecules in the column.  Again born of curiosity, the next step was to learn all I could find out about the various differences in the way these H2O molecules were distributed, by altitude and with or without condensation.  There was plenty of information available from observations of other maps.  Cloud cover and precipitation signals from all locations came from one great source.  Another, even more fascinating, revealed the courses of streaming concentrations of PW moving through the atmosphere in the mid to upper latitudes of each hemisphere from sources of evaporation on the borders of the tropical belt.  Static and animated imagery were both available, from separate sources that were perfectly consistent with each other. 

The streams tell a story that is perfectly consistent with the constantly changing pace of reported PW values, as measured instrumentally, and their effect on surface temperature anomalies. Their implied altitude and habits of movement suggested a kind of behavior for these quantities of PW unlike the behavior of quantities closer to the surface. The separate effects of these quantities, relative to their respective contribution by weight, can simply be added together to determine the final outcome. Variations in the cloud cover and precipitation associated with each stream have another story to tell, equally surprising. Whatever the status of condensation, ranging from none at all to observed maximums, and if everything else is known to be normal, the effect on temperatures seldom seems to be altered because of any likely difference in greenhouse effects. The only conclusion I can draw from this observation is that, weight for weight, the greenhouse energy effect of PW in any state is nearly the same as that of pure water vapor. This finding can easily be tested in a more accurate way using the same methodology but with the aid of resources having fewer limitations than my own. That kind of knowledge, once obtained, is surely worth having.

Carl