Why am I so interested in the effects of water vapor on Earth’s present and future temperature? Most public discussion tends to focus on water vapor as a source of precipitation, or perhaps humidity, not so much on temperature. That’s true even in the climate science community, where discussions about temperature are dominated by reference to carbon dioxide and other “well-mixed” greenhouse gases. In my view their indifference to water vapor could lead to a gap in the full amount of knowledge we need to properly contend with the prospect of future climate changes.
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I would encourage you to open the IPCC link in yesterday’s letter and go to the FAQ 8.1 section on p. 666, bearing the title How Important is Water Vapour to Climate Change? It includes these sentences: “Therefore, although CO2 is the main anthropogenic control knob on climate, water vapour is a strong and fast feedback that amplifies any initial forcing by a typical factor between two and three. Water vapour is not a significant initial forcing, but is nevertheless a fundamental agent of climate change.” The stated amount of amplification is, I believe, significant, indeed very much so. Moreover, think about the phrase, between two and three. That sounds to me like a loose end. What conclusions can be drawn when there is an unresolved loose end of that extent hanging around? Any prediction that is made about Earth’s future temperature must therefore show a wide range of estimated results based on a potential doubling of the level of CO2 in the atmosphere, with low confidence that any part of the range is correct. Setting up a reliable carbon budget based on any such prediction is simply not possible. We need to know much more about the actual power of water vapor, relative to the power of CO2 and other forcings, along with the assumption that we really know how much water vapor we can always expect to be dealing with. (More on that point later.) Are you now wondering what scientists are actually doing these days, in order to tighten up the given wide range assigned to the power of water vapor, hoping to improve on any prediction that is made?
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There is a story on the web today, from Imperial College London, about a newly published study that deals with another loose end, future cloud cover, which gets exactly the same kind of treatment as water vapor with respect to climate predictions, but far more attention at the research level. Go ahead and read the story, because it is quite interesting: https://phys.org/news/2020-01-clouds-climate-simulations-predecessors.html? The study itself has open access, was conducted in a proper manner and has a Plain Language Summary:
I would love to see studies of this type, which are so common in the case of clouds, conducted much more often about water vapor, the potential impact of which happens to be on about the same scale of differences.
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In FAQ 8.1 from the IPCC (see above) there is another sentence of interest to this discussion: “With every extra degree of air temperature, the atmosphere can retain around 7% more water vapour.” This familiar bit of datum is commonly employed by climate scientists in many applications. It also has an implication that for some reason is seldom mentioned. Suppose you found yourself in a place where the atmosphere contained twice as much water vapor as it normally does. What do you think the temperature would be, with all other conditions unchanged? The only possible answer is about ten degrees (Celsius) above normal.because the 7% gain has to be compounded ten times in order to reach the assumed vapor double. As a matter of fact, every single day there are sizeable regions on the planet where the water vapor reading is two times the average for that day and the average temperature is also much higher than usual, maybe not ten degrees but pretty close. I have seen enough graphic data to figure that plus 8C is a better number, which is close enough for comparison when possible adjustments for “noise” are taken into consideration. (That figure is only for temperatures over land. Oceans are quite a bit lower because of the different way they absorb heat.) I also have seen temperature anomalies of around 16C when water vapor is measured at around four times normal, which often happens in places near either one of the poles.
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So here we are—why is my attitude toward water vapor so different from that of mainstream climate science? It goes back to what I said yesterday: The scientists say that water vapor content is completely determined by, and therefore limited by, the temperature of the air, while I believe the exact opposite is true, or that, all other things being equal, the temperature of the air is determined by the amount of water vapor it contains. That simply means, if water vapor goes up for any reason, temperature will follow, at a logarithmic rate that is somewhere around 8C or 10C per double, my preference being the former.
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From what I can see, the scientific viewpoint on this subject is for the most part established by making reference to a principle called The Clausius-Clapeyron Equation, as originally derived from the laws of thermodynamics back in the 19th century. (You can readily do a search and get complete information.) The principle is undoubtedly correct—where applicable. I just have some doubts about its applicability in this situation, where a wide open atmosphere, many variables, and large amounts of turbulence are involved.
Carl