Climate Letter #2055

One thing I’ve been saying, as a minimum, is that all precipitable water (PW) has a greenhouse effect. This should be readily agreed to by every climate scientist for one simple reason: all PW is at least partially composed of plain, everyday water vapor, and every scientist knows that plain water vapor has a greenhouse effect. PW may, or may not, also contain water droplets, some very fine and others more coarse, and/or icy particles of numerous shapes and sizes. All of these are formed by condensation activities that originate with the condensing of fine droplets out of one primary source, water vapor. PW composition consists of three different states of matter made from one kind of molecule, H2O. I have insisted, again at minimum, that all three states of matter generate a regular kind of greenhouse effect. I am not sure about what climate scientists (of all types) think bout that idea because not much is said about it—the greenhouse effect is usually spoken of with reference only to gases. Clouds are widely recognized as having a warming effect on the air below them, which may vary according to the type of cloud and its altitude. This warming effect is not necessarily identified as a greenhouse effect. Doing so would require recognition of a firm link between the total molecular weight of a particular cloud and the amount of warming that it produced. This is not being done, which leaves the basic question unanswered. All other PW contents, mainly raindrops, snow and so on, are not even noted as warming producers, thereby eliminating any open consideration of their having a greenhouse effect.

The work I have done by simply comparing images on different weather maps barely qualifies as research, by professional standards, so let’s just call it work. I do have good tools to work with. Their assortment is somewhat limited, but their quality is indisputably first-rate. One key tool shows the total amount of PW in the atmosphere, broken down according to its total overhead molecular weight in the atmosphere above every locality on the surface of the globe. There is never any breakdown by component, just the total, which might seem like a handicap but turns out to be of great interest with respect to the final outcome. Because new maps are published every day I can easily see how total PW changes from one day to the next over any location of my choice and what it means. Another tool that is readily available, and also updated each day, reveals each day’s temperature anomaly for every locality compared with the “normal” average temperature of that locality on the same day of the year as derived from an extended baseline period. The latter has been determined with the help of computers and a well-managed historical database.

There is no similar tool available showing what the average PW value was for that same day of year throughout the same baseline period, as either a raw number or as a factored part of the current day’s anomaly. Such a tool would allow us to see at a glance whether there was any tendency for temperature and PW anomalies, when compared side by side for any location, to be moving up and down together in a consistent way, or precisely how much influence one—meaning PW—might be having over the other. I found ways to sidestep this missing piece of data with estimates that had to be a little less accurate but always managed to end up wih a consistent final result: it makes little difference how the composition of PW differs from day to day. Thus, whatever impact is expressed by water vapor alone results in an impact highly comparable to that of all alternative combinations of H2O molecular states. Weight for weight, PW of any make-up and plain water vapor appear to have the same greenhouse effect, and we even have a good way to express the strength of this mutual effect: any double in the total weight of overhead PW molecules, all else being equal, will cause surface temperatures to increase by about 10C. That’s my result. Scientists have even sharper tools in hand, which would enable them to either verify or discredit my claim, indeed fairly quickly, if they chose to make such an effort.

Let’s suppose now that my claims ring true and are backed up by science. What are the implications? My claims really depend on observations that are made while taking into account the presence of all the PW that has found its way into the upper altitude regions of each hemisphere, where jet streams are active. This is the region of atmosphere where PW forms into rivers or streams composed of molecules that are surprisingly concentrated. These streams habitually flow continuously, away from their sources, much as streams of water do except that in this case the direction of flow is reversed—flow volume starts highly concentrated and then steadily diminishes as it moves along, shedding raindrops instead of collecting rainwater, and finally disappears. The streambeds themselves keep moving around, more and more so in their outer extensions, which means that all of the surfaces below on some days have high concentrations of PW cruising overhead and some days low. The differences between high and low keep changing, and may be highly variable. They can always be compiled into an average amount for any day at each location. Each new day will then be either above or below the historical average, which we think of as “the norm.” What I keep observing, here and there, is that on some days the PW flow can be as great as four and even six or (rarely) more times normal, and on other days as low as one quarter or one sixth, etc. Four times normal always seems to be associated with measured temperature anomalies in the +20C neighborhood, etc. This kind of information, if treated as real, would surely have a profound effect on the science of climate change.

Carl