Climate Letter #2115

Atmospheric rivers are composed of one kind of material, called precipitable water (PW). PW is entirely composed from one kind of molecule, H2O, a molecule commonly found in any of three different states of matter, liquid, vapor or solid. PW is the term used to identify H2O that is only found as a component of the atmosphere, a factor that enables precipitation. In the gaseous state the atmosphere is quite natural as a place of residence. The vapor can precipitate directly, as dew, or a number of molecules can precipitate in a different way by condensing into liquid and sold state packages in the form of aerosols. The smallest of these are able to stay afloat for extended periods of time in the atmosphere, while the larger ones must fall to the surface because of higher weights they may have grown to. Aerosols readily grow by combining with each other, or by collecting and absorbing more vapor on their surfaces.

Water vapor is well known as a greenhouse gas, in fact the most powerful of all the greenhouse gases.  Water vapor is also understood to be the one component of PW that is always present as part of the mix, if indeed there exists a real mix of more than one component.  The composition of PW is not at all uniform from place to place, and there are times when water vapor is the sole component.  Which means PW, considered as a single entity, always has a greenhouse energy effect.  As an absolute minimum its effect would depend on just how much water vapor was present as part of the mix in any particular spot.  The mix can vary greatly, and so does the proportion of total molecular parts of PW to the count of all other molecular parts that make up the atmosphere—unlike the situation common to all other GHGs, which are commonly described as “well-mixed.”

One can argue that PW has a greenhouse effect simply because water vapor is always a part of its composition, if not the total, and for no other reason. This is quite true from one point of view, but leaves open the possibility, for some purposes, that if all of the other components of PW are individually or collectively known to be lacking any kind of greenhouse effect they can simply be set aside from the vapor that surrounds them and disregarded. This is what scientists actually do, based on an understanding that none of the other components have the ability to generate a true greenhouse effect. There is a sort of compromise involved in this belief, revealed by frequent references that certain kinds of cloud cover have a way of preventing warm air from moving away from the surface as rapidly as it would without the cloud cover. This exception would be more convincing if indeed there is a mechanism involved in this kind of “blanketing” effect that is unlike the mechanism involved in the greenhouse effect, and can be clearly described in terms of how it works. Personally, I have never seen such a description, but perhaps it exists.

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What I have seen is plentiful evidence of an understanding that PW, as such, does have a greenhouse energy effect that is consistently tied to the total weight of all H2O molecules in a vertical column of air above any surface location and the top of the atmosphere.  The effect seems to hold steady no matter what the component percentages of the PW may be, although I can’t be fully sure about that because I have no way of measuring the different percentages of all the states—including no way to verify the amount of water vapor by itself.  What I do have, thanks to the weather maps, is an accurate measure of the total weight of all the PW that exists within a vertical column of air above every location on Earth’s surface, provided every day of the year.  I can match these weights with average temperatures of surface air for the same day, and any amount of deviation from normal for these temperatures.  Since I have a known measure of PW weight for the column of air, but no known measure of the water vapor weight within that column, I think it is more appropriate, within this context, to speak of the greenhouse effect of the PW, which I do know, and not of the greenhouse effect of water vapor alone, which I do not know.  Scientists act as if they can assume the total effect would be the same either way, as if they really are certain that the other PW components have no such effect.  I am in doubt about their having made a good case for such an assumption.

Carl

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