Global Warming Makes Weather In Boreal Summer More Persistent

[donsutherland1]

10 hours ago, blizzard1024 said:

Thank you for this paper.  Here is the fundamental problem with their results. They are using global precipitable water vapor(PWV). Since water vapor rapidly decreases with height, this metric of water vapor is mostly what is happening in the lower troposphere. Since the oceans have been warming GPW has increased in all datasets (even NCEP). It is the upper troposphere that matters when it comes to the greenhouse effect. More greenhouse gases in the lower troposphere actually cool the layers above them. Similar to how the stratosphere cools above the troposphere with enhanced GHGs (assuming ozone is constant which it is not).  So the upper troposphere is where it counts for both CO2 and H2O. These researchers do not seem to understand this.  Here is a quote from the paper...

"The increased greenhouse gases reduce the outgoing longwave radiation and contribute to the global warming phenomenon. Studies have shown that the global mean surface temperature has increased by 0.7–0.8°C since the beginning of the twentieth century [Hansen et al., 2001; Smith and Reynolds, 2005; Parker et al., 2007]. Atmospheric water vapor provides the single largest positive feedback on global warming [Dai, 2006; Mieruch et al., 2008; Zhang et al., 2013]. Both climate models and observations suggest that an upward trend in water vapor is expected to appear as a response to the surface temperature increase [Held and Soden, 2006; Santer et al., 2006; Zhang et al., 2013]. Monitoring the variation of atmospheric water vapor is thus significant not only for the detection of climate change but also for a better understanding of water vapor feedback on global warming."

So they understand the role of water vapor as a feedback but use the wrong measurement. They use the whole troposphere. It needs to be upper troposphere. That is why you have to be careful about peer reviewed papers. These authors probably don't understand radiative transfer that well and the reviewers also. 

 

 

 

Here is another paper:

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2010JD015065

[bdgwx]

3 hours ago, Bhs1975 said:

Looking at that chart you can see that 350ppm CO2 is that upper limit before feed backs kick in and set off runaway warming.

I'm just being pedantic here...the word "runaway" actually has special meaning in climate science. 

It is unlikely that Earth can achieve "runaway" greenhouse warming in the strictest sense. This is due primarily because the Simpson-Nakajima limit (and related Komabayashi-Ingersoll limit) on Earth is sufficiently high and because the primary feedback driver would be water vapor which is a condensing gas. The SN limit is the clamp on the outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) in a saturated atmosphere. The SN limit is thus the point at which absorbed solar radiation (ASR) must exceed OLR to bootstrap the runaway phase.  I believe the SN limit is around 290 W/m^2, but OLR is currently 240 W/m^2 so there is ~50 W/m/2 of buffer before the SN limit is even reached. The consensus seems to be that there aren't enough non-condensing GHGs to get us anywhere close to this SN limit.

However, a "moist" greenhouse has a lower limit. The moist greenhouse is characterized by a state at which the Earth's cold trap near the stratosphere can no longer stop the leaching of water vapor (which would typically condense out and drop back to the surface) into the stratosphere where it would then slowly deplete to space. Aside from the obvious fact that the atmosphere would be in a perpetual moist state this scenario would likely have other undesirable consequences like the destruction of the ozone layer and evaporation of the oceans. There is still considerable debate regarding whether Earth can support a moist greenhouse state. Assuming that it can the estimates I've seen of the CO2 required to bootstrap this process could be 10,000 ppm (give or take) given the current solar output.

I will add the caveat that there are notable scientists (namely James Hansen) that aren't quite so confident that a "runaway" phase is not achievable.

Here is a pretty good summary style publication that explains things better than I can.

Goldblatt & Waston 2012: The runaway greenhouse: implications for future climate change, geoengineering and planetary atmospheres

 

 

[LibertyBell]

1 hour ago, bdgwx said:

I'm just being pedantic here...the word "runaway" actually has special meaning in climate science. 

It is unlikely that Earth can achieve "runaway" greenhouse warming in the strictest sense. This is due primarily because the Simpson-Nakajima limit (and related Komabayashi-Ingersoll limit) on Earth is sufficiently high and because the primary feedback driver would be water vapor which is a condensing gas. The SN limit is the clamp on the outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) in a saturated atmosphere. The SN limit is thus the point at which absorbed solar radiation (ASR) must exceed OLR to bootstrap the runaway phase.  I believe the SN limit is around 290 W/m^2, but OLR is currently 240 W/m^2 so there is ~50 W/m/2 of buffer before the SN limit is even reached. The consensus seems to be that there aren't enough non-condensing GHGs to get us anywhere close to this SN limit.

However, a "moist" greenhouse has a lower limit. The moist greenhouse is characterized by a state at which the Earth's cold trap near the stratosphere can no longer stop the leaching of water vapor (which would typically condense out and drop back to the surface) into the stratosphere where it would then slowly deplete to space. Aside from the obvious fact that the atmosphere would be in a perpetual moist state this scenario would likely have other undesirable consequences like the destruction of the ozone layer and evaporation of the oceans. There is still considerable debate regarding whether Earth can support a moist greenhouse state. Assuming that it can the estimates I've seen of the CO2 required to bootstrap this process could be 10,000 ppm (give or take) given the current solar output.

I will add the caveat that there are notable scientists (namely James Hansen) that aren't quite so confident that a "runaway" phase is not achievable.

Here is a pretty good summary style publication that explains things better than I can.

Goldblatt & Waston 2012: The runaway greenhouse: implications for future climate change, geoengineering and planetary atmospheres

 

 

I can tell you this though, the chances of us remaining below the 2C limit set by the IPCC for "irreversible damaging consequences" is probably 10% or lower.  That isn't just because of US politics, but because of global politics.  We should have made a bigger switch to nuclear years ago and then we could have completely eliminated fossil fuel consumption by 2030.  That isn't going to happen and I have big doubts about 2050 also, because of the corrupt political influence of the cartel.  It will only happen when people have to start moving away from the coast and avoid living near forested areas and the cost of billion dollar disasters is so high that our economy becomes crippled.  That time is coming soon.  All the trends are pointed in that direction.  And if it takes for the climate to cripple our economy, then the sooner it happens the better.  Bill Gates was right in saying that the climate change problem makes the pandemic look like child's play.

 

History is going to look back at this time period as full of cowards who didn't have the guts to do what needed to be done.  If there is anyone left to look back lol.

[LibertyBell]

5 hours ago, chubbs said:

Per the discussion 20 pages ago. NCEP is an older re-analysis product. Newer products like ERA5 have corrected errors and show increasing upper troposphere moisture. What is the point of providing you with additional information? The data and theory is all very consistent. Temperature is rising, moisture is rising, just as expected. Would take a large non-linearity for moisture to not increase as temperature increases. Note that this would cascade into precipitation and clouds.

We've seen the rapid rise in total annual precip here that you mentioned, as well as rapidly rising dewpoints and a much higher frequency of big 3" rainfall events.

 

[LibertyBell]

I wanted to post more on nuclear and how much better it is than any fossil fuel.  Right now we get about 20% of our energy from nuclear, 10% from green energy and 70% from fossil fuels.  If we could get that 20% nuclear up to 50% or more by 2030, we would be well on our way to achieving our goals of a sustainable future.

Not only is nuclear less of a threat to human health and longevity than fossil fuels, burning coal actually releases more radiation than a nuclear power plant does.  Two academic sources follow below:
 

http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2016/reconsidering-risks-nuclear-power/

Fossil fuels have a host of problems themselves. Thebyproducts from burning fossil fuels are toxic pollutants that produce ozone, toxic organic aerosols, particulate matter, and heavy metals. The World Health Organization has stated the urban air pollution, which is a mixture of all of the chemicals just described, causes 7 million deaths annually or about 1 in 8 of total deaths. Furthermore, coal power plants release more radioactive material per kWh into the environment in the form of coal ash than does waste from a nuclear power plant under standard shielding protocols. This means that, under normal operations, the radioactive waste problem associated with one of the most mainstream energy sources in use actually exceeds that from nuclear energy.

In fact, on a per kWh of energy produced basis, both the European Union and the Paul Scherrer Institute, the largest Swiss national research institute, found an interesting trend regarding the fatalities attributable to each energy source. Remarkably, nuclear power is the benchmark to beat, outranking coal, oil, gas, and even wind by a slight margin as the least deadly major energy resource in application (see Figure 3).

 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/

 

Over the past few decades, however, a series of studies has called these stereotypes into question. Among the surprising conclusions: the waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy.

 

 

[skierinvermont]

19 hours ago, blizzard1024 said:

Thank you for this paper.  Here is the fundamental problem with their results. They are using global precipitable water vapor(PWV). Since water vapor rapidly decreases with height, this metric of water vapor is mostly what is happening in the lower troposphere. Since the oceans have been warming GPW has increased in all datasets (even NCEP). It is the upper troposphere that matters when it comes to the greenhouse effect. More greenhouse gases in the lower troposphere actually cool the layers above them. Similar to how the stratosphere cools above the troposphere with enhanced GHGs (assuming ozone is constant which it is not).  So the upper troposphere is where it counts for both CO2 and H2O. These researchers do not seem to understand this.  Here is a quote from the paper...

"The increased greenhouse gases reduce the outgoing longwave radiation and contribute to the global warming phenomenon. Studies have shown that the global mean surface temperature has increased by 0.7–0.8°C since the beginning of the twentieth century [Hansen et al., 2001; Smith and Reynolds, 2005; Parker et al., 2007]. Atmospheric water vapor provides the single largest positive feedback on global warming [Dai, 2006; Mieruch et al., 2008; Zhang et al., 2013]. Both climate models and observations suggest that an upward trend in water vapor is expected to appear as a response to the surface temperature increase [Held and Soden, 2006; Santer et al., 2006; Zhang et al., 2013]. Monitoring the variation of atmospheric water vapor is thus significant not only for the detection of climate change but also for a better understanding of water vapor feedback on global warming."

So they understand the role of water vapor as a feedback but use the wrong measurement. They use the whole troposphere. It needs to be upper troposphere. That is why you have to be careful about peer reviewed papers. These authors probably don't understand radiative transfer that well and the reviewers also. 

 

 

The paper makes no claims about radiative transfer from water vapor. The paper is solely about PWV and Clausius-Clapeyron. It's not about radiative transfer or even AGW. They make no such claims. You're assuming you are smarter than the authors for absolutely no reason other than inferring things that they didn't write, which is classic behavior from the denier crowd.

You start off with the very bold statement 'Here is the fundamental problem with their results. They are using PWV.'  The result of their paper IS pwv. That's it. That's the whole point. There is no other result or conclusion that is 'a problem' because they used PWV. The whole point of the paper was to measure PWV and that's it. Your overly bold and critical statement stems from a failure to read. When I read you make such bold and incorrect claims all I can do is roll my eyes because it's just basic lack of reading. Yes they mention that water vapor in the air is generally related to radiative transfer and global warming. But they make no claims about what the actual effect is exactly. 

There are plenty of other papers about the vertical and spatial distribution of water vapor increases and the exact radiative effects which would take you know calculus and mathematical models and stuff which weren't remotely in the scope of this paper.

 

The first step to learning is being humble.

[blizzard1024]

1 hour ago, skierinvermont said:

 

The paper makes no claims about radiative transfer from water vapor. The paper is solely about PWV and Clausius-Clapeyron. It's not about radiative transfer or even AGW. They make no such claims. You're assuming you are smarter than the authors for absolutely no reason other than inferring things that they didn't write, which is classic behavior from the denier crowd.

You start off with the very bold statement 'Here is the fundamental problem with their results. They are using PWV.'  The result of their paper IS pwv. That's it. That's the whole point. There is no other result or conclusion that is 'a problem' because they used PWV. The whole point of the paper was to measure PWV and that's it. Your overly bold and critical statement stems from a failure to read. When I read you make such bold and incorrect claims all I can do is roll my eyes because it's just basic lack of reading. Yes they mention that water vapor in the air is generally related to radiative transfer and global warming. But they make no claims about what the actual effect is exactly. 

There are plenty of other papers about the vertical and spatial distribution of water vapor increases and the exact radiative effects which would take you know calculus and mathematical models and stuff which weren't remotely in the scope of this paper.

 

The first step to learning is being humble.

People assume more water vapor through the atmospheric column leads to enhanced greenhouse effect. That is not true. The paper should have looked at upper tropospheric water vapor where it counts. I don't know why this is a very relevant paper. Warmer Earth, more evaporation off oceans = higher PWV. Not much new here.  And please don't put me in the "denier" crowd. I don't deny that CO2 causes some warming. I just am skeptical of the extreme viewpoint called the climate "crisis".  Thank you skier.  

[skierinvermont]

1 hour ago, blizzard1024 said:

People assume more water vapor through the atmospheric column leads to enhanced greenhouse effect. That is not true. The paper should have looked at upper tropospheric water vapor where it counts. I don't know why this is a very relevant paper. Warmer Earth, more evaporation off oceans = higher PWV. Not much new here.  And please don't put me in the "denier" crowd. I don't deny that CO2 causes some warming. I just am skeptical of the extreme viewpoint called the climate "crisis".  Thank you skier.  

It’s science. They look at everything for the sake of science. It’s not a radiative forcing paper. It’s a paper about pwv. It’s new because they are attempting to measure it as accurately as possible. Your “not much new” comment is so dismissive of the research and importance of papers like this.

[blizzard1024]

The paper on increasing stratospheric water vapor is relevant to enhancing the Greenhouse effect. But what is odd, is that the stratosphere has been cooling mainly due to ozone loss and lack of volcanic eruptions,and CO2 increases as well. This increase in water vapor has to be from another mechanism and not a positive water vapor feedback. It is likely related to more tropical convection from increased El Ninos since 1977 from overshooting tops into the stratosphere. It also (I believe) is related to increased air travel through the decades. This increase in water vapor does enhance the Greenhouse effect but it likely is not related to CO2 increases directly.  

 

7 hours ago, skierinvermont said:

Your “not much new” comment is so dismissive of the research and importance of papers like this.

That is your opinion which you are entitled too.  Here are two other peer review papers. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226349531_Trends_in_middle-_and_upper-level_tropospheric_humidity_from_NCEP_reanalysis_data    Paltridge et al. (2009)  

and  https://judithcurry.com/2015/01/08/miskolczi-discussion-thread/  Miskolczi's paper

What is your opinion of these papers? They are peer reviewed too. Also spencer and christy have published a lot too. Judith Curry as well. But if these don't conform they are dismissed and indeed I agree that especially Miskolczi may have some problems.  Paltridge et al. (2009) is important in that it shows how much uncertainty there is in upper level tropospheric water vapor. You may not agree with NCEP reanalysis and NASA NVAP satellite data which show a drying upper troposphere and that is fine. I happen to think there is validity since they are independent datasets, but that is my opinion.  My main question is where can we find a time series of upper tropospheric AIRs data? That showed a positive feedback trend with higher temperatures from Dessler's research a while ago. I want to see if it is ENSO related or not.  It is difficult to find such a time series anywhere.  Global cloud fraction is very important too.  Both of these are critical to assessing the Greenhouse effect and feedbacks in real-time and it is shame that they aren't available. I want to see this data. If this data indeed shows an enhancement to the Greenhouse effect that is when a skeptic like myself will start agreeing more with you folks. Thank you. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[chubbs]

Here is 200mb data from the ERA5 re-analysis:

200mb heights have increased - the atmosphere is expanding as it warms

200mb temperatures at the higher heights have increased

200mb humidity is constant

So yes upper troposphere water vapor is increasing as expected

[blizzard1024]

7 hours ago, chubbs said:

Here is 200mb data from the ERA5 re-analysis:

200mb heights have increased - the atmosphere is expanding as it warms

200mb temperatures at the higher heights have increased

200mb humidity is constant

So yes upper troposphere water vapor is increasing as expected

Don't they have specific humidity?  Plus this is a reanalysis dataset. It is nice to see another dataset and I thank you but where did you get this from? I would like to explore it.  Thanks

[chubbs]

40 minutes ago, blizzard1024 said:

Don't they have specific humidity?  Plus this is a reanalysis dataset. It is nice to see another dataset and I thank you but where did you get this from? I would like to explore it.  Thanks

Plots were made at KNMI Climate Explorer

[LibertyBell]

Courtesy of wannabehippie from the political side.....the more and more I read about nuclear vs fossil fuels makes me wonder about the integrity and/or intelligence of people who support fossil fuels over nuclear energy.....

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-09-17/abandoned-gas-wells-are-left-to-spew-methane-for-eternity

 

 

[blizzard1024]

53 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

Courtesy of wannabehippie from the political side.....the more and more I read about nuclear vs fossil fuels makes me wonder about the integrity and/or intelligence of people who support fossil fuels over nuclear energy.....

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-09-17/abandoned-gas-wells-are-left-to-spew-methane-for-eternity

 

 

I totally agree that nuclear energy would be the way to go assuming it is safe and there is where the fear is. But yes ultimately it's too bad there was Three Mile island, Chernobyl and Fukushima.  These accidents/disasters I think really hurt nuclear energy proliferation. 

 

[blizzard1024]

3 hours ago, chubbs said:

Plots were made at KNMI Climate Explorer

Ok. I will look again.

[LibertyBell]

2 minutes ago, blizzard1024 said:

I totally agree that nuclear energy would be the way to go assuming it is safe and there is where the fear is. But yes ultimately it's too bad there was Three Mile island, Chernobyl and Fukushima.  These accidents/disasters I think really hurt nuclear energy proliferation. 

 

Yes, and especially Fukushima since it was the most recent one, they shouldn't be putting reactors in tsunami prone areas.

 

[donsutherland1]

2 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

Courtesy of wannabehippie from the political side.....the more and more I read about nuclear vs fossil fuels makes me wonder about the integrity and/or intelligence of people who support fossil fuels over nuclear energy.....

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-09-17/abandoned-gas-wells-are-left-to-spew-methane-for-eternity

 

 

I suspect that the issue is a function of the reality that people, in general, are very poor at risk perception. Biases skew perceptions. What happened at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island looms large in perceptions of risk. In reality, when carbon pollution from fossil fuels is considered, there’s little debate. Fossil fuels are the more hazardous energy source.

[blizzard1024]

ERA5 reanalysis data specific humidities, q, at 500, and 300 mb show almost a 1:1 correlation with temperature.  200 mb q looks like 500 and 300 mb but the temperature trends are contaminated by the fact that 200 mb is in the stratosphere farther north and south on the globe and especially in the winter months (both hemispheres). So the cooling of the lower stratosphere offsets some of the warming in the upper troposphere and there is no temperature trend at all. But 500 and 300 mb are pretty much wholy in  the troposphere. 

 

 

500 mb looks similar. Look at 850 mb...

 

 

But for some strange reason, the 850 mb temperature and specific humidities decline from the late 1970s to around 2000 and then increase. If anywhere in the atmosphere there should be a nearly 1:1 correlation it IS at 850 mb because warmer(colder) temperatures leads to more(less) evaporation off the oceans and land since 850 mb is well within the diurnal convective mixed layer. Once you get above 700 mb, you are well above the mixed layer for most of the planet. So at 500, and 300 mb a 1:1 correlation looks fishy. There is no mechanism that would describe this very short term strong correlation that I could think of except global convection. If the temperature increases at 300 mb for instance, yes it CAN support more water vapor but some mechanism has to get the water vapor up there. Conversely at 850 mb, there IS a mechanism that explains why more warmth = more water vapor,  it is insolation and convective mixing. So this ERA5 data is either suspect IMO in the lower troposphere and is more likely is showing increased global convection causing more water vapor at high levels. This would not be proof that there is a long term positive feedback as has been described by many authors. In many respects NCEPs reanalysis data does show increasing water vapor at the lower levels up to 600 mb and then decreasing water vapor above. This actually makes more sense in the low-levels because of the warming planet and more evaporation. Precipitation processes and enhanced convection would eventually lead to drying in the upper troposphere and a negative feedback. Radiosondes also show this too of which I believe NCEP uses in their reanalysis data. The fact that the NASA NVAP satellite retrieval data showed drying upper troposphere too until 2001 (data never released to 2009) which agreed with the radiosondes also suggests NCEPs data could be more accurate. In any event, I wish I could see the AIRs datasets which supposedly support the positive feedback but I wonder if they would show the same thing as ERA5. A while back, I read from Spencer and Christy a criticism of AIRS (I can't find it yet, I believe it was a blog post) that there is a lot of difficulty in retrievals of water vapor due to clouds and even radiances from temperatures at high levels. I wonder if that also is why this ERA5 data looks suspect. In any event, it is far from certain that there is a significantly positive water vapor feedback. That is a reasonable statement IMO based on the data so far.

[chubbs]

1 hour ago, blizzard1024 said:

ERA5 reanalysis data specific humidities, q, at 500, and 300 mb show almost a 1:1 correlation with temperature.  200 mb q looks like 500 and 300 mb but the temperature trends are contaminated by the fact that 200 mb is in the stratosphere farther north and south on the globe and especially in the winter months (both hemispheres). So the cooling of the lower stratosphere offsets some of the warming in the upper troposphere and there is no temperature trend at all. But 500 and 300 mb are pretty much wholy in  the troposphere. 500 mb looks similar. Look at 850 mb...

 

But for some strange reason, the 850 mb temperature and specific humidities decline from the late 1970s to around 2000 and then increase. If anywhere in the atmosphere there should be a nearly 1:1 correlation it IS at 850 mb because warmer(colder) temperatures leads to more(less) evaporation off the oceans and land since 850 mb is well within the diurnal convective mixed layer. Once you get above 700 mb, you are well above the mixed layer for most of the planet. So at 500, and 300 mb a 1:1 correlation looks fishy. There is no mechanism that would describe this very short term strong correlation that I could think of except global convection. If the temperature increases at 300 mb for instance, yes it CAN support more water vapor but some mechanism has to get the water vapor up there. Conversely at 850 mb, there IS a mechanism that explains why more warmth = more water vapor,  it is insolation and convective mixing. So this ERA5 data is either suspect IMO in the lower troposphere and is more likely is showing increased global convection causing more water vapor at high levels. This would not be proof that there is a long term positive feedback as has been described by many authors. In many respects NCEPs reanalysis data does show increasing water vapor at the lower levels up to 600 mb and then decreasing water vapor above. This actually makes more sense in the low-levels because of the warming planet and more evaporation. Precipitation processes and enhanced convection would eventually lead to drying in the upper troposphere and a negative feedback. Radiosondes also show this too of which I believe NCEP uses in their reanalysis data. The fact that the NASA NVAP satellite retrieval data showed drying upper troposphere too until 2001 (data never released to 2009) which agreed with the radiosondes also suggests NCEPs data could be more accurate. In any event, I wish I could see the AIRs datasets which supposedly support the positive feedback but I wonder if they would show the same thing as ERA5. A while back, I read from Spencer and Christy a criticism of AIRS (I can't find it yet, I believe it was a blog post) that there is a lot of difficulty in retrievals of water vapor due to clouds and even radiances from temperatures at high levels. I wonder if that also is why this ERA5 data looks suspect. In any event, it is far from certain that there is a significantly positive water vapor feedback. That is a reasonable statement IMO based on the data so far.

You are twisting yourself up into a pretzel. Water vapor feedback is almost like gravity. Well supported by theory and observations. The satellite obs show moistening in the upper troposphere, if anything upper troposphere moistening is faster than predicted by climate models due to moisture increases in the dry subtropics. Per paper below ERA5 is better than other re-analysis products at matching satellite upper troposphere moisture obs.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2015JD024496

[blizzard1024]

37 minutes ago, chubbs said:

You are twisting yourself up into a pretzel. Water vapor feedback is almost like gravity. Well supported by theory and observations. The satellite obs show moistening in the upper troposphere, if anything upper troposphere moistening is faster than predicted by climate models due to moisture increases in the dry subtropics. Per paper below ERA5 is better than other re-analysis products at matching satellite upper troposphere moisture obs.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2015JD024496

Seriously?  You have got to be kidding me. You have a highly non-linear dynamical climate system with clouds, and convection and a one to one relationship between temperature and specific humidity at high levels in the troposphere and you compare this to something simple like gravity?  Shows a deep lack of understanding of atmospheric science.... 

[blizzard1024]

41 minutes ago, chubbs said:

You are twisting yourself up into a pretzel. Water vapor feedback is almost like gravity. Well supported by theory and observations. The satellite obs show moistening in the upper troposphere, if anything upper troposphere moistening is faster than predicted by climate models due to moisture increases in the dry subtropics. Per paper below ERA5 is better than other re-analysis products at matching satellite upper troposphere moisture obs.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2015JD024496

Plus this ERA5 dataset doesn't even make sense showing drying at 850 mb when the Earth was warming from the late 1970s to 2000?  This dataset is obviously flawed. Plus the correlation with temperature and specific humidity at 500 and 300 mb is striking. Something isn't correct with this dataset. BUT it fits the narrative of the climate crisis so IMO climate scientists are being disingenuous.  They overlook such things because they are inconvenient. If a dataset goes against their preconceived notions, of course it HAS to be wrong.  NASA's cloud fraction from 1983-2009 is a great example. This dataset shows an inverse relationship to global average temperature and global cloud fraction. Hmmm. So of course this can't be accurate too. It goes on and on. NCEP water vapor shows moistening down low where there is convective mixing and slight drying above suggesting precipitation processes are leading to a negative water vapor feedback. Nope. Can't be.  You see where I am going? There is no objectivity anymore. I want to see data and I thank you for sharing this KNMI explorer site. And no I don't trust the peer review process it is very flawed. 

[chubbs]

1 hour ago, blizzard1024 said:

Seriously?  You have got to be kidding me. You have a highly non-linear dynamical climate system with clouds, and convection and a one to one relationship between temperature and specific humidity at high levels in the troposphere and you compare this to something simple like gravity?  Shows a deep lack of understanding of atmospheric science.... 

The evidence is overwhelming. Scientists predicted water vapor feedback before models existed. All models with non-linear dynamics have it, and now it is measured by satellites and present in re-analysis. What more do you want? 

[bdgwx]

Even Arrhenius understood the water vapor feedback and considered it in his primitive 1896 model.

The ERA5 850mb data is intriguing indeed. I'd like to learn more about this decline.

I'm not as ready and willing to chalk up things I don't understand to the inadequacies of the data. ERA5 is considered to be the best of the best.

I'll see if I can do some digging on that 850 mb specific humidity decline from 1980-2000. 

 

[LibertyBell]

15 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

I suspect that the issue is a function of the reality that people, in general, are very poor at risk perception. Biases skew perceptions. What happened at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island looms large in perceptions of risk. In reality, when carbon pollution from fossil fuels is considered, there’s little debate. Fossil fuels are the more hazardous energy source.

And something I recently learned- coal outputs more radiation into the air than nuclear does!

 

[LibertyBell]

Maybe I can offer up an explanation for the 1970s-2000 issue he mentioned, check  SST data.  Post 2000 the sea surface temps have risen much more quickly.  That would be a major factor in increasing RH and DP.   Since 2000 we've also seen more stuck patterns (more drought and wildfires out west and much wetter years in the east.)  Not a coincidence.....

 

[donsutherland1]

4 hours ago, blizzard1024 said:

Plus this ERA5 dataset doesn't even make sense showing drying at 850 mb when the Earth was warming from the late 1970s to 2000?  This dataset is obviously flawed. Plus the correlation with temperature and specific humidity at 500 and 300 mb is striking. Something isn't correct with this dataset. BUT it fits the narrative of the climate crisis so IMO climate scientists are being disingenuous.  They overlook such things because they are inconvenient. If a dataset goes against their preconceived notions, of course it HAS to be wrong.  NASA's cloud fraction from 1983-2009 is a great example. This dataset shows an inverse relationship to global average temperature and global cloud fraction. Hmmm. So of course this can't be accurate too. It goes on and on. NCEP water vapor shows moistening down low where there is convective mixing and slight drying above suggesting precipitation processes are leading to a negative water vapor feedback. Nope. Can't be.  You see where I am going? There is no objectivity anymore. I want to see data and I thank you for sharing this KNMI explorer site. And no I don't trust the peer review process it is very flawed. 

Scientists have acknowledged where uncertainties exist. While there are differences in water vapor measurements and both dry and wet biases depending on which measures are used, not to mention a noted lack of understanding concerning water vapor transport and dehydration, the consensus is that atmospheric water vapor has been increasing.

For example, below are excerpts from a World Meteorological Organization bulletin:

Trends in observed atmospheric water vapour are hampered by inhomogeneities in data records, which occur when measurement programmes are discontinued because of, for example, the limited lifespans of satellite missions or insufficiently documented or understood changes in instrumentation. Combining records from different instruments that do not agree with one another is also a problem. One example is the offset between records from the HALOE and MLS satellite instruments. Nevertheless, observations show a steady increase of the total water vapour column as well as a 30-year net increase in stratospheric water vapour...

These large discrepancies between different types of observational data, and between observations and reanalysis results, demonstrate significant uncertainties in the measurements as well as our lack of understanding of the transport and dehydration processes in the UTLS region.

https://public.wmo.int/en/resources/bulletin/observing-water-vapour

In sum, water vapor uncertainties and limited understanding tied to key water vapor processes do not provide a sound basis for rejecting the scientific consensus concerning AGW for which the overall body of evidence is overwhelming. Even with uncertainties, water vapor observations seem to lend additional support to AGW. 

[skierinvermont]

5 hours ago, blizzard1024 said:

Plus this ERA5 dataset doesn't even make sense showing drying at 850 mb when the Earth was warming from the late 1970s to 2000?  This dataset is obviously flawed. Plus the correlation with temperature and specific humidity at 500 and 300 mb is striking. Something isn't correct with this dataset. BUT it fits the narrative of the climate crisis so IMO climate scientists are being disingenuous.  They overlook such things because they are inconvenient. If a dataset goes against their preconceived notions, of course it HAS to be wrong.  NASA's cloud fraction from 1983-2009 is a great example. This dataset shows an inverse relationship to global average temperature and global cloud fraction. Hmmm. So of course this can't be accurate too. It goes on and on. NCEP water vapor shows moistening down low where there is convective mixing and slight drying above suggesting precipitation processes are leading to a negative water vapor feedback. Nope. Can't be.  You see where I am going? There is no objectivity anymore. I want to see data and I thank you for sharing this KNMI explorer site. And no I don't trust the peer review process it is very flawed. 

The cloud fraction data was never intended as a long-term consistent measure of cloud cover. Yet again you are using data against the express intention of the authors that created the data!

[skierinvermont]

18 hours ago, blizzard1024 said:

I totally agree that nuclear energy would be the way to go assuming it is safe and there is where the fear is. But yes ultimately it's too bad there was Three Mile island, Chernobyl and Fukushima.  These accidents/disasters I think really hurt nuclear energy proliferation. 

 

Wind is the way to go as I've explained several times now.

It is substantially cheaper than coal or nuclear, and much safer and better for human and environmental health.

Solar is also similar in price to coal and nuclear, but more expensive than wind and should be used to complement wind energy for when the wind isn't blowing. Together they can easy comprise 70% of energy production.

[blizzard1024]

Wind is terrible for the environment. It destroys natural habitats, fragments forests, and yes it does kill birds, especially raptors which include eagles. The eagles finally make a comeback due to the environmental movements of the 1970s. Now ironically it is the same groups that will cause their demise.  Solar farms take up so much land that destroys habitats. So we wreck the planet to save the planet?  This is lunacy. 

[blizzard1024]

1 hour ago, skierinvermont said:

The cloud fraction data was never intended as a long-term consistent measure of cloud cover. Yet again you are using data against the express intention of the authors that created the data!

Nevertheless the data shows an inverse relationship between temperature and cloud fraction. But they ignore this because it explains the recent temperature trends quite nicely.  More lunacy.