Climate Letter #2050

For readers who are not familiar with the map-reading research I have been doing for over a year, as fully described in the last 400 letters, here is a quick summary of the principle conclusions: first, every bit of precipitable water (PW), regardless of elevation, has a greenhouse energy effect.  The impact on surface temperatures varies logarithmically by PW’s total molecular weight (all of it being H2O) within a vertical column of air from the surface to the top of the atmosphere.  (I see each double adding 10C.)  All PW, no matter the proportions of its material composition, has about the same greenhouse impact, weight for weight, as water vapor alone. This set of conclusions, as well as others that are more advanced, was mainly drawn as a result of extensive daily studies of imagery provided by Today’s Weather Maps (https://climatereanalyzer.org/wx/DailySummary/#t2), a veritable goldmine as a source of daily information.

A separate but closely related set of conclusions was obtained from observations of the movement of PW concentrations across the globe recorded in near-real-time animation over continuous five-day periods.  This information is available online daily at http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/mtpw2/product.php.  There are small changes in activity over the course of a year, but nothing drastic.  A few minutes spent on studying the differences in total PW measurements and the way they move about on any given day will always lead to one principal conclusion:  outside of the tropical belt, every location on the surface of either hemisphere will experience considerable variation in the total amount of PW held in the atmosphere directly overhead.  The changes that take place are practically constant, and the magnitude of change is often significant.  Doubles and redoubles of PW concentration over brief periods of time cannot fail to be observed in some locations almost every day.  The tropical belt is the most conservative of regions. It reveals a combination of high average PW values in most locations and much lower rates of change in all locations.  The middle and higher latitudes are all affected by PW movement owing to the creation of concentrated streams of vapor that originate along the borders of the tropical belt and then proceed to move rapidly in a generally eastward direction plus a poleward bias in each hemisphere. Irregular movement and rapid disintegration, leading to short lifetimes, are standard features of every stream. Some quantities of streaming PW are able to survive long enough to reach and enter each polar zone, mainly in the north, but these end up with no more than relatively light amounts of weight.

These featured streams, which are the same as those identified as “atmospheric rivers” in scientific literature, can be interpreted as composed of large and relatively fast-moving content at high altitude, probably under the influence of jetstream winds, and relatively small proportions of mostly vapor-base humidity closer to the surface. The latter has no regular movement pattern and much less significant rates of daily change, by location, in total weight.  By comparing the completely disparate nature of these upper and lower bodies of PW an observer can easily come to an understanding of how the overhead total volume of  PW can undergo large-scale changes over brief time periods.  This is certainly my own interpretation, but then things get sticky.  What does this have to do with surface temperatures?  My point of view, as expressed above, is that every bit of PW generates a greenhouse effect, without exception.  You will never find one word of agreement (or specific denial) with this view in the teachings of the science community.  It is simply ignored. Members of the community do see atmospheric rivers as massively large phenomena (for a recent example, visit https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021GL094883) and describe their effects, but without any mention of unusual temperature effects occurring on surfaces below.

If high-altitude PW really does have greenhouse energy powers, and they really do account for daily temperature anomalies of 20C or more—both above and below average—on surfaces below, depending on relative abundance for the day, as declared in my hypothesis, there should be some kind of ultimate effect on the progress of climate change.  There would be questions about what controls the amount of water vapor entering the high-altitude wind zones of each hemisphere, generally in the form of concentrated streams (can CO2 do this?), and what controls the behavior and lifespan of the vapor in each stream once it is up there.  Would the overall volume of H2O molecules that evaporate in the first place, and go on to inhabit all levels of the atmosphere, be any different?  Would our general understanding of how the greenhouse effect operates be deepened because of the extraordinary outcomes effected by one gas?  That’s only a bare minimum.  The biggest  question of all is this: if the outcome does change, would it make our expectations for climate’s future any better, or worse? We should want to know the answer.

Carl