The notion that water is only in the atmosphere a short time is misleading. Water in the atmosphere is in equilibrium…local equilibrium with the oceans on a grand scale. Clausius–Clapeyron equation. Ln P is related to T via delta E. THAT is why it is the ultimate greenhouse gas. It never goes away. It can go up and down with temperature. But, as the Earth is 60% water, it will not go away in the gaseous form.
Take an ocean cruise and watch the clouds form as the warm moisture-laden air rises and condenses at some point in the sky. Sometimes at a low level, sometimes at a higher level. We are able to observe water move from the liquid phase on the surface, into the gaseous phase and the condense back into the liquid phase in the form of the tiny droplets that make up clouds. If the clouds go high enough we can observe the solid phase the we call “hail”.
Water is another of God’s great gifts to mankind. Because the solid form floats on the liquid phase, life continues under frozen waters in winter, like in the Great Lakes. If the solid form sank to the bottom, as us the case for most solids that are most dense than their liquid phase, the lake would freeze solid in winter, extinguishing most life in the lake…fish included.
I think it is very worrying. According to a recent NY Times article, The climate crisis is becoming a financial crisis.
This month, the largest homeowner insurance company in California, State Farm, announced that it would stop selling coverage to homeowners. That’s not just in wildfire zones, but everywhere in the state.
I have not seen any evidence from solar neutrino fluxes that the energy production in the sun is dropping. This might be the subject of a study of tree-ring data near the equator where the sunlight is nearly constant. Otherwise, it looks like someone has too much time on their hands. There are equatorial lowlands in Brazil, highlands in western South America, and a lot of land near the equator in the East Indies where such studies could be performed. Perhaps the ideal place for such studies would be in the central Pacific where particulate emissions from human sources have been and are minimal. Addis Ababa, Bombay, nor Singapore would not be good choices.
Read the whole article. I have taught a course called “Energy, Technology, and Risk”. Insurance is the “risk” part. If the California Insurance Commission will not permit the increased “risks” to be priced into policies, then selling such policies is a money losing business on a broad statistical basis. Alas, these policies are sold on a state-wide basis, so the risk is spread across the whole population, even though he risk is localized in certain areas. In other words, everyone has to pay for the risks associated with the homes near the mis-managed woodlands. This “situation” has absolutely NOTHING to do with 400 ppm CO2.
With respect, I think some critical thinking on the “World Climate Declaration” you linked to would be a good thing. On page 3 there were some assertions to the effect that “there is no climate emergency”. Pages 5 - 50 contain a list of signatories.
I looked at the signatories from Canada as a sample. I tried to be generous about their qualifications as authorities on climate science, including Ecologists, Geophysicists, Biochemists, Meteorologists, Environmental Scientists, etc. and found that maybe 30% of the signatories potentially had qualifications in climate science. I did not include Professional Engineer, because Engineering is a vast profession, with many sub-disciplines. Some of them had qualifications like: Retired Insurance Broker, Independent Climate Researcher, Computer Science Professor, Anaesthesiologist. These are honourable professions, and I expect worthy people, but with due respect they are not climate scientists.
I am sure there has been vigorous debate among scientists, climate and otherwise, and that will continue. But I am less than convinced that this declaration should be given the same weight as the IPCC report. Then there is the matter of climate policy by governments. That should be debated, but it seems that the science of climate change, while continuing to evolve, is pretty solid.
If the CO2 in the atmosphere would drop to 400 ppm, the situation could be tolerable. We would have the problems we are facing now (drought, wildfires, …) but most people could live a tolerable life.
If the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere continues to grow with the current rate, the consequences would make the present situation look like ‘the good old days’.
Please implement your doubt when reading the Clintel report. I have not yet had time to check all details, so I started from one of their key points: holocene climatic optimum and the hockey stick curve of past temperatures.
Holocene climatic optimum (thermal maximum) was a warm period occuring roughly 9500 to 5500 years ago. Temperatures at the low and middle latitudes did not change much (data suggests average temperatures <1 degree C) but temperatures close to the northern pole were much warmer, one estimate was +4 degrees C at the north pole, from 2-6 C (summer) or 3-9 C (winter) warmer in the northern central Siberia. Temperatures dropped rapidly towards south, so southern Europe experienced cooling rather than warming.
What are the differences between today vs. the Holocene thermal maximum (HTM)?
global average temperatures have risen close to +1.5 C today vs. the global average probably did not change much during the HTM, at least it stayed below 1 C.
southern Europe is much warmer today vs. experienced cooling rather than warming during the HTM.
northern areas have already warmed much today, average >2 C across the Arctic region. At the Taimyr Peninsula region of Arctic Siberia temperature anomaly was +6 C during the year 2020. This means that the current temperatures at the northern latitudes are at least as warm, or possibly even warmer, than what was experienced during the HTM.
So, today the globe is much warmer than during the HTM and temperatures are crudely the same at the northern latitudes that were the hot spot during the HTM. HTM was cold compared to today.
Temperatures have varied in the past. Yet, however we draw the graphics, today is warmer than the near past. Ice core data from the last 800’000 years have confirmed that the amount of carbon dioxide was lower than what it is now. Temperature data is not as good as far as I understood but nothing suggests that temperatures were higher during this period; there seems to be a correlation between the average temperatures and the CO2 in the atmosphere. Older ice core data (up to 2 million years) suggested CO2 values were within the same range as within the last 800ky, although the minimum values did not reach as low values as in the 800ky data.
This was just one of the key points lifted up by the Clintel report. Much seemed to be criticism about the possible uncertainties in the models. If they criticize, why do they not present a better model?
From the list of supporters, I looked who had signed from Finland. No persons I had heard about in the list. One name claimed to be signing on behalf of a group, the names of the others were supposed to be on a list on a net page ‘ilmastofoorumi.fi’. There is no such page, if there was it has disappeared.
A general note about those signing were that many professionals were retired. Their expertise was from the past when the methods and data were not as good as they are today. The majority of those signing had no competence at all within the climate change research.
Water has a residency time in the atmosphere of just a week or two. This means it can’t drive long term climate changes. CO2 has a residency time measured in decades. It can drive long term climate changes. That’s the difference.
The content of the NASA article is that change in solar radiation beyond error bars has not been observed. However…Jim Hanson now claims that solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth is increasing owing to the successful efforts to reduce sulphur aerosols in the atmosphere. In other words…less air pollution by particulate matter…more solar energy hitting the earth. Hence, part of the recent temperature levels come from a brighter sun. Put …Hansen Warming Pipeline in the browser to find the article.
The NASA article noted earlier reports no dimming sun in the sense that radiation from the sun has not declined. The NPR people think there is more “stuff” in the atmosphere, lowering the fraction of radiation reaching the surface. Jim Hansen thinks there is less "stuff’ in the atmosphere, increasing the fraction of radiation reaching the surface.
It is always interesting to see unpopular viewpoints challenged by the statement that they are not current climate scientists. The mechanism of the greenhouse effect is physical chemistry and much of the data come from analytical chemistry associated with isomer ratio data. I wonder how many of the “so-called climate scientists” could …“honk”…having passed a graduate course in physical chemistry?
Yes, sulfur aerosols that humans put there through the burning of fossil fuels, most notably dirtier diesel fuel and sulfur rich coal. This has allowed solar radiation to come closer to pre-industrial levels.
That is entirely possible. But that doesn’t explain why we are warmer now compared to pre-industrial periods when the sulfur aerosols were even lower than they are now. The difference is the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.