Statements regarding water

The problem

1  “Some recent models produce satisfactory simulations of current climate without the need for non-physical adjustments of heat and water fluxes at the ocean-atmosphere interface

used in earlier models.”

Ignoring heat and water flux at the surface makes the computer model much simpler, but introduces three significant errors: evaporation is a cooling process and cools the oceans, subsequent cloud formation releases IR heat in a omnidirectional way (50% space and 50% earth), and if heat is released from the oceans, and trapped by water vapor, again the heat is released in an omnidirectional manner.

2) “Based on global model simulations and for a wide range of scenarios, global average water vapour concentration and precipitation are projected to increase during the 21st

century. By the second half of the 21^st century, it is likely⁷ that precipitation will have increased over northern mid- to high latitudes and Antarctica in winter.

Precipitation washes carbon dioxide out of the air and into the ocean where uptake by phytoplankton occurs quickly thus moderating the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and its small effect on global warming.

3)”It is likely that total atmospheric water vapour has increased several per cent per decade over many regions of the Northern Hemisphere.  Changes in water vapour over approximately the past 25 years have been analysed for selected regions using in situ surface observations, as well as lower-tropospheric measurements

from satellites and weather balloons. A pattern of overall surface and lower-tropospheric water vapour increases over the past few decades is emerging from the most reliable data sets, although there are likely to be time-dependent biases in these data and regional variations in the trends. Water vapour in the lower stratosphere is also likely to have increased by about 10% per decade since the beginning of the observational record (1980).”

Data was collected in “selected regions” not randomly selected regions. This should bother a scientist.

4) Changes in total cloud amounts over Northern Hemisphere mid- and high latitude continental regions indicate a likely increase in cloud cover of about 2% since the beginning of the 20th century, which has now been shown to be positively correlated with decreases in the diurnal temperature range. Similar changes have been shown over Australia, the only Southern Hemisphere continent where such an analysis has been completed. Changes in total cloud amount are uncertain both over sub-tropical and tropical land areas, as well as over the oceans.

An increase in cloud cover increases planetary albedo which reflects sunlight from above but traps IR heat from below. The largest effect mentioned is that this increased cloud cover decreased the diurnal temperature range.

5) The increases in total tropospheric water vapour in the last 25 years are qualitatively consistent with increases in tropospheric temperatures and an enhanced hydrologic cycle, resulting in more extreme and heavier precipitation events in many areas with increasing precipitation, e.g., middle and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.

As mentioned enhancing the hydrologic cycle washes carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

6) A major feedback accounting for the large warming predicted by climate models in response to an increase in CO2 is the increase in atmospheric water vapour.

Humm, is this good or bad for global warming?

Good if clouds reflect solar radiation and precipitation washes carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Bad if traps heat reflected or emitted from the surface.

7) Since the SAR, major improvements have occurred in the treatment of water vapour in

models, although detrainment of moisture from clouds remains

quite uncertain and discrepancies exist between model water vapour distributions and those observed.

Although detrainment in the metrological sense means —‘The transfer of air from an organized air current to the surrounding atmosphere; the opposite of entrainment.’, if we apply the concept to moisture from clouds, they haven’t got a clue as to the effect one way or the other, because the model doesn’t match reality.

8) In the free troposphere above the boundary layer, where the

water vapour greenhouse effect is most important, the situation is harder to quantify.

Again, they have a difficult time quantifying the effect of water precisely where it is most important.

9) As has been the case since the first IPCC Assessment Report in 1990, probably the greatest uncertainty in future projections of climate arises from clouds and their interactions with radiation. Clouds represent a significant source of potential error in climate simulations. The possibility that models underestimate systematically solar absorption in clouds remains a controversial matter.

The greatest uncertainty is clouds, yes atmospheric water, the substance that causes over 95% of the global thermal retention effect that keeps our temperatures moderated.

10) “Ice sheets will continue to react to climatic change during the next several thousand years, even if the climate is stabilised. Together, the present Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets contain enough water to raise sea level by almost 70 m if they were to melt, so that only a small fractional change in their volume would have a significant effect.”

Although this strays from my focus on atmospheric water, my house is at 120 ft above sea level, I’m good! But if we look at trends, a  2015 analysis of NASA satellite data from 1979- showed through 2002 at areas of Antarctica where ice was increasing outnumbered areas of decreasing ice roughly 2:1.^[7]” from the website http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_ice_sheet

So I’m not too worried about having beach-front property in the near or even distant future.