Climate Letter #2041

Today, more thoughts related to the 2008 Dessler study, which concluded that “The water-vapor feedback implied by these observations is strongly positive, with an average magnitude of λq = 2.04 W/m2/K, similar to that simulated by climate models.”  What does 2.04 W/m2 mean if translated into additional degrees of warming?  I have been thinking we could apply the 75% rule in this situation, which would be equal to 1.5 degrees of additional warming, but I am not 100% sure that is correct,  For one thing, it’s very big number.  It means that if all the greenhouse gases other than water vapor, plus anything else involved in warming, succeed in raising Earth’s temperature by one degree all by themselves, the water vapor feedback would be strong enough to bring the total up to 2.5 degrees. That amount is frightening to think about in terms of potential catastrophes.  We are right now at plus 1.2 degrees since 1750 and are not at all happy about the consequences.  Besides that, we have been recording consistent gains just shy of 0.2 degrees per decade for the last fifty years, and these have lately shown signs of acceleration.. If this pace keeps up we’ll be passing +2.0C (from 1750) in just 40 more years.

Now think about it this way. If the water vapor feedback really is 1.5 degrees per degree of warming due to everything else, that would make it 60% of any current “end result.” As of today the “end result” is placed at +1.2 degrees. If the water vapor feedback has in fact accounted for 60% of this gain, that means the combination of “everything else,” including negatives as well as positives, added up to a total warming effect of just 0.48 degrees. CO2 alone, with no feedbacks included, can be readily calculated to have produced at least 0.1 more than that, and the remaining ordinary GHGs, headed by methane, are known to have added a total that is greater than the CO2 number by one or more tenths of a degree. The most likely way to end up with a total of only 0.48 degrees, before the water vapor feedback, is by subtracting the effects of a substantial amount of “global dimming,” by holding down the relative amount of solar energy capable of reaching the surface. There are a number of ways to make things cooler by reducing solar input, but only one comes to mind on a scale potentially large enough to accomplish an effect of such great size, and that would be via aerosol pollution. A lot of stuff is up there, and we know a good bit of it is doing the necessary reflective job, but we don’t have really good data covering its true scale of today’s solar dimming. We also have to assume that before 1750 the skies were regularly free of hazy pollution on most days.

One more thing needs to be mentioned, Earth’s energy imbalance.  An authoritative report published in 2020 (https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/12/2013/2020/) had this to say about the current number:  “Our results also show that EEI is not only continuing, but also increasing: the EEI amounts to 0.87±0.12 W m−2 during 2010–2018.”  The rate of increase lately has been unusually rapid.  The study goes on to make this statement:  “The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would need to be reduced from 410 to 353 ppm to increase heat radiation to space by 0.87 W m−2, bringing Earth back towards energy balance.”  Some day energy will be flowing out again, not necessarily at the current rate, or any other particular rate, affecting the surface temperature as it does so in a positive way. The increase should then be amplified by an additional level of water vapor feedback.  

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I have spent tome time reviewing the Dessler study just to see what kind of information the team was using in order to obtain the water vapor strength they reported. All of the data they mention was derived from the AIRS satellite instruments, collected in just three sets, temperature, water vapor density, and relative humidity. The daily numbers were first accumulated into monthly averages, all separated into small parcels covering the entire globe. Their “specific water vapor” density readings are the very same as the precipitable water readings in the Daily Weather Maps, except for the monthly averaging, likewise the temperatures. The research was focused on comparing temperature differences to corresponding water vapor differences all over the globe for five full years, looking for patterns of consistency. They especially wanted to see how much water vapor increase was actually being realized in response to surface temperature increases, and were able to come up with some very consistent numbers in the largest and most stable part of the globe, the lower latitudes, which made for a justifiable conclusion. This was all quite interesting from a personal point of view because I have been doing essentially the same thing, as reported in previous letters, helped along by temperature anomaly data, but mainly in the less stable parts of the globe. I have also employed a completely opposite perspective, focused on the effect that large variations in water vapor density were having as a cause of changes in surface temperatures, and only on a day-by-day basis. Despite these differences, the results seem to be complementary in a number of ways, and very thought-provoking.

Carl

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