[Bored chemist]

If increased water in the air caused climate change, what caused the increased water in the air?

Consider a very simple model: a block of ice with dry air above it. Sun shines on the ice and some water evaporates. Water is a greenhouse gas so the atmosphere above the ice gets warmer, so more water evaporates.

Only a climate change denier would think otherwise.

Stop messing around and tell us what you think actually changed.
Or are you accepting that I was right when I pointed this out?

But to get back to the topic,
"Why can't water vapor be the driver of today's climate change?""
Because something that stays the same can't cause a change.
Unless the Earth's temperature rises, the water levels are pretty much fixed because any excess rains out.

If the Earth's temperature changed before the water levels in the air changed, then water concentration in air isn't a cause, it's an effect.

[alancalverd]

Stop messing around and tell us what you think actually changed.

If you look at the historic record you can see that global temperature decreases slowly over about 100,000 years. During this time the atmosphere loses water in two directions: principally by precipitation and to some extent by loss from the stratosphere to the cosmos. Thus the infrared transmission of the atmosphere increases until we have something that looks like my ice/dry air model, complicated by high altitude persistent cloud.

Cirrus clouds are ice, with a very high albedo. I haven't worked through the detail but at some point the mean temperature of the stratopause will exceed  that of the surface, and my suspicion is this is the trigger point where the cirrus clouds disappear and the surface insolation increases rapidly. Increased temperatures move the plant/animal balance in favor of animals, so the CO2 level increases.

[Bored chemist]

global temperature decreases slowly

Why?
You seem to be deliberately missing the point.
We all agree that a change in temperature will affect the amount of water in the air.
And we all agree that a change in the amount of water will affect the temperature.
But you are missing the underlying question.

Why did anything change at all?

[Petrochemicals]

The thermal and optical properties of water are extremely complex in the simplest static manifestation,

And the properties of water are likewise misunderstood. For example it is an assumption you need heat to evapourate water, where as in actual fact you just need low humidity. Water wishes to be a gas and evapourate by drawing energy from its surroundings, evaporative cooling. Antarctica may be the driest continent yet its humidity is very high when compared to the Sahara.

Another example is that moist air is hot and therefore rises. Moist air probably has sacrificed some energy to evaporation but it is less dense due to the water content than dry air at the same temperature. The air could in fact be cooler air yet still rising.

[alancalverd]

Why?

global temperature decreases slowly

Why?

A point that is not answered - or even addressed - by the current consensus.

You seem to be deliberately missing the point.
We all agree that a change in temperature will affect the amount of water in the air.
And we all agree that a change in the amount of water will affect the temperature.
But you are missing the underlying question.

Why did anything change at all?

Now you are beginning to ask the right questions. Whatever the driving cause, we need a mechanism that produces very rapid temperature increases of up to 12 degrees in  a thousand years, followed by a slow return over 100,000 years, with the carbon dioxide concentration following the temperature curve with a phase lag of 500 years or more. There don't seem to be many candidates apart from water, of which there is a truly remarkable amount on this planet, with some very remarkable properties.

Though the waveforms are very different, I too am attracted by a relaxation oscillator concept because it shows that a fairly constant input can produce an inherently oscillatory and time-asymmetric effect.

[Bored chemist]

A point that is not answered - or even addressed - by the current consensus.

Yes it is.
The current consensus is that the "prime mover" is that we added a lot of CO2 to the air.

Now you are beginning to ask the right questions.

No.
 I considered it a while ago. You were ignoring reality at the time and you still are (see above).

OK
There are "slow" drivers of climate change. Things like Milankovitch cycles.
From time to time, they drive the temperature of the earth past the tipping points and we get increased concentrations of CO2, methane and water vapour in the air.

Let me know when
 (1) you find an actual cause- rather an an effect like water vapour- and
 (2) you catch up with the rest of us in the consensus.

[Bored chemist]

For example it is an assumption you need heat to evapourate water, where as in actual fact you just need low humidity.

Bollocks.
You do need to add heat to separate the molecules.
There's no way round that.
If you blow air over water it evaporates, but it gets cold.
That's because the heat take by evaporation is taken from the remaining water.

[alancalverd]

Yes it is.
The current consensus is that the "prime mover" is that we added a lot of CO2 to the air.

So who suddenly added 100 ppm 20,000 years ago, or 120,000?
Why did they wait until the temperature had begun to rise before doing so?
Why did they start removing it when the temperature began to decrease?

There's no doubt that human activity increases atmospheric CO2, but no convincing evidence that it ever was responsible for temperature change. 

[alancalverd]

Let me know when
.......
 (2) you catch up with the rest of us in the consensus.

I am a scientist, not a sheep. If the hypothesis doesn't explain the data, it's wrong.

[Bored chemist]

If the hypothesis doesn't explain the data, it's wrong.

|The hypothesis that water vapour is the cause of global warming does not explain the data.

Yes it is.
The current consensus is that the "prime mover" is that we added a lot of CO2 to the air.

So who suddenly added 100 ppm 20,000 years ago, or 120,000?
Why did they wait until the temperature had begun to rise before doing so?
Why did they start removing it when the temperature began to decrease?

There's no doubt that human activity increases atmospheric CO2, but no convincing evidence that it ever was responsible for temperature change. 

Stop living in the past. We are trying to account for the current warming, the (possibly anthropogenic)  mechanism for which may well be different from the (certainly non anthropogenic) previous changes.

[Bored chemist]

There's no doubt that human activity increases atmospheric CO2, but no convincing evidence that it ever was responsible for temperature change. 

Apart from the laws of physics.

[alancalverd]

Using the laws of physics, please explain

(a) why global temperature increases by about 12K in 20,000 years then declines asymptotically, with a cycle time of about 100,000 years

(b) why the present increase began 20,000 years ago, at pretty much the same rate of increase as the previous three rises

(c) what determines the consistent maximum and minimum of those historic observations.

[mikewonders]

Sigh... Seems like some still think consensus makes facts.  Tough room.

@ Alan... from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwtt51gvaJQ [nofollow] we see a simple experiment to demonstrate CO2 greenhouse in a bottle.

https://youtu.be/hUFOuoD3aHw [nofollow] provides a bit more complete demonstration of how the atmosphere interacts with greenhouse.  It's a fairly good explanation of the molecular dynamics of greenhouse principles, CO2 and then even gives dialog on water vapor.  It does identify atmospheric expansion due to thermal heating and increased volume of greenhouse.  Unfortunately it's doesn't quantify the effect on par with CO2 or water vapor in that context, only that they increase and that water vapor is a substantial greenhouse gas.  Would have been nice if it focused on the amplification factor of water vapor impacting CO2 greenhouse.

CO2 provides greenhouse due to the molecule's geometric shape and harmonics relative to excitation from longer wave length light waves, essentially IR heat as it's reflected / emitted from the earth's surface and or other greenhouse emissions like water vapor causes as well, hence amplification.  Oxygen and Nitrogen do not participate in those longer wave translations.  Longer IR wave lengths causing increased excitation on CO2 then causes CO2 to emit greater contribution in all directions.

It's also apparent the forum topic here is a bit misleading...  "Water vapor" in the increased troposphere dimension (as heating increases) increases the primary and secondary warming effects of water vapor as a greenhouse cause itself and still greater increased amplification of CO2 greenhouse.  What is grossly underestimated is the volume of vapor over a century due to fossil fuel combustion having continually precipitated to increased ocean volume / surface area along with the loss of water storage of some three trillion trees having been deforested.  Trees hold an incredible volume of water, out of sight, out of mind.  Deforestation releases that volume and leaves behind mostly reflective surfaces which once provided leaf area index shading and transpiration cooling from those trees removed.  Add in the massive loss of natural water aquifer storage just below the surface having been decimated over the same century and the total water volume accumulation / redistribution becomes VERY significant, both globally but especially regionally, (weather pattern buffering).

This is NOT a tiny amount as some might think, especially given the forced amplification factor of increased evaporation cycle turnover of water vapor in a growing troposphere, compared with ocean volume a century ago.  It is almost all human cause related, (unless one fails to actually do the math).  This is why grabbing at gross relational estimates then declaring the amount as "minuscule" or worse yet "silly" shows just how huge of a mistake is made by hip-shot estimates from single context web sources.

The problems culminate to increased thermal sink and IR re-contribution reflection owing to these increased human effects of released and fossil generated water over the period of time we see the rate of change (ROC) impacting the urgency with which most are focusing ONLY on CO2.

CO2's rapid increase in ROC correlates chronologically to human contribution, but does not stand alone.  Ignoring oceanic volume and surface increase by these additional sources testifies to the extent we want to avoid thinking about that aspect as learned helplessness over decades of debate invites us to look for a simpler answer, (head in the sand).  Until models can begin to reflect these additional contributions, the temporal projections of simply reducing CO2 emissions may lag by a considerable amount.  The suggested CO2 rates of reduction are already unattainable as long as fossil fuel and unmitigated combustion emissions continues to remain the predominate energy source.  This is especially true in that current green technologies have a hard ceiling at ~ 30% energy contribution, themselves still dependent on fossil fuel consumption to produce them. 

Currently green technology provides about 5% renewable energy from wind and solar, and some more from elevated hydro.  Again, none of these are without their own long term down side effects.

We lack historical tracking of how much global fossil fuels have been combusted in oil and natural gas so every model is an estimate absent those values already.  The more models projected with accurate assessment the more valuable the net observations can be to reflect these temporal concerns for comparison.

Just as the two examples here demonstrate real working principles, the more complete an experiment can be modeled, the more likely we are to see viable examples.  It's a lot to undertake to fabricate a reliable working example, but every computer modeling system requires a working proof to calibrate to.  The contest is to avoid garbage in, garbage out, to find reliability.

[Bored chemist]

Using the laws of physics, please explain

Why do you ask the same question over and over again, even after it has been answered more than once?
Quote from: Bored chemist on 01/12/2021 15:55:01
I already explained this to you, and provided an analogy (the neon oscillator) in a field you are familiar with,
https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=83465.msg659192;topicseen#msg659192

[mikewonders]

Using the laws of physics, please explain

(a) why global temperature increases by about 12K in 20,000 years then declines asymptotically, with a cycle time of about 100,000 years

(b) why the present increase began 20,000 years ago, at pretty much the same rate of increase as the previous three rises

(c) what determines the consistent maximum and minimum of those historic observations.

Not sure the comparison or context are comparable, since the context of concern in a) - c) is recent versus prehistoric.  There is no time in prior history where the Rate Of Change has been as extreme as what the last century of human impact and increase has been without some global event to cause it.  Ice cores may reflect other trends as natural consequence of global events, but there doesn't seem to have been any predominant event in our last century that compares, i.e. giant meteor strike, huge coronal ejection, etc.  There is one estimated sub-oceanic caldera eruption in question but ruled out relatively well for overall climate impact.

I think that speaks to a), b) and the value of c) in terms of recent / current conditions, especially in respect to human population survival versus prehistoric survival.  We risk apples to apples, especially that we know higher CO2 levels have been recorded.  What we don't know is the source, cause or relative value of solar exposures or oceanic volumes or even ocean floor methane bloom potentials  Lots to think about there.  For certain we didn't have a condition where half the trees on earth were removed as a man-made contribution.

How then can a) - c) help us determine the degree of concern for current trends or the potential for a more severe tipping point of temporal risk in the current context / domian?

[alancalverd]

The basis of my concern is that if CO2 is not the driver of global temperature, human society is doomed by the consensus. So we need to critically evaluate the hypothesis and consider alternative strategies to simply blaming each other for breathing (accounts for 10% of anthropogenic CO2) farming (20%) or attending international conferences on the subject (aviation contributes about 2.5% overall but it gets everyone excited). There is no likelihood that anthropogenic CO2 will actually reduce in the next 100 years anyway: the population is likely to increase, and each new body will need food and demand fuel and manufactured goods. Things will change a bit when the fossil fuels run out, but the world will be a very different and uncomfortable place by then.

Recent events have shown a unidirectional correlation but correlation does not prove causation. Prehistoric data includes correlations in both directions, with temperature and CO2 concentrations both rising and falling. Bidirectional correlations are very important tests of a hypothesis, so it makes sense to submit every hypothesis to the test: does it explain or even consist with what we already know? If not, we need to consider the possibility that it isn't a good one, and make alternative plans.

[alancalverd]

@ Alan... from

[nofollow] we see a simple experiment to demonstrate CO2 greenhouse in a bottle.

And completely ignores saturation. You need a path length of at least 3 meters of dry CO2 at 1 atm, and a really good  approximation to solar input and surface albedo, to show that adding more CO2 above 300 ppm to the atmosphere has negligible effect.

It is left as an exercise for the reader to identify the flaws in the video experiment.

[Bored chemist]

The basis of my concern is that if CO2 is not the driver of global temperature, human society is doomed by the consensus.

The basis of my relative lack of concern is this

Better place for no reason.JPG (66.15 kB . 619x419 - viewed 1641 times)

[Petrochemicals]

@ Alan... from

[nofollow] we see a simple experiment to demonstrate CO2 greenhouse in a bottle.

Even more impressive when things like Andrews liver salts are an endothermic reaction, the water will be noticeably cooler.

Just a query as to why the one bottle is so much brighter, given they are both curved surfaces, they are not pressured are they?

[mikewonders]

The basis of my concern is that if CO2 is not the driver of global temperature, human society is doomed by the consensus. So we need to critically evaluate the hypothesis and consider alternative strategies to simply blaming each other  [...]

The first of the two videos is just a simple demonstration to show that CO2 has a thermally reflective characteristic (can CO2 be a cause under physics of climate warming).  I doubt anyone here questions this and so its purpose was only to establish the dynamic and affirm why that dynamic is real and "may" be central to the question of one of the potentials to contribute to warming.

The second video did a somewhat better job of identifying the same but in closer relationship with atmospheric dynamics in which water vapor was also identified to play a role.  Unfortunately, the author didn't go on to extrapolate how adding new volume of vapor or liquid accumulation might have a long term impact to trending.

There is no likelihood that anthropogenic CO2 will actually reduce in the next 100 years anyway: the population is likely to increase, and each new body will need food and demand fuel and manufactured goods. Things will change a bit when the fossil fuels run out, but the world will be a very different and uncomfortable place by then.

That may be true if we don't effect change based on an assessment we CAN effect sufficient change in order to sustain a viable balance with nature to sustain the change.  This may be near the glass half empty versus half full philosophy hoping the glass is not half broken and can be reasonably repaired.

At the risk of ridicule for creating a forum thesis...

If there is no means to compensate our human contribution to each economic value involved, that "uncomfortable" assessment grows as a potential threat.  Nature operates on a basis of economic balance.  We thought the loss of the rain forests would wipe out oxygen.  Turns out mold does more to sustain this balance than the rain forest ever could, but only in the question of oxygen / CO2 exchange.  Rain forests provide regional dynamics in weather models which also matter but in a much different model of cause / effect / concern.

During the recent pandemic, CO2 levels made a momentary drop in production that was impressive.  Unfortunately the overall temperature didn't really move which lead some to surmise that CO2 isn't the primary cause, while neglecting the long term consequence of related oceanic thermal mass as a critical buffer sustaining rate of change as part of CO2 and many other contributing causes over time.  i.e. the oceanic mass and relative increases is the largest contributing factor sustaining rate of change unless the thermal input AND thermal mass and relative emissions can be reduced.

Simply looking at CO2 PPM alone cannot answer the question of anthropogenic cause without including a much wider observation of not just more variables, but the interplay and complexity of relative outcomes between those variables.  Chances are most here know this as well which means we either do the work to build better real-world examples to prove / disprove the predictive models or we're back to square one dealing with mostly assumptions.

Assumptions and consensus both have value in forming decisions when the complexity exceeds a practical means to be completely accurate.  In fact, the human brain itself works mostly on assumptions from successive approximation from our senses in making decisions which has permitted increased survival (and population as a cause).  The more urgent the need, the more coarse the approximation.  There is no shortage of complexity in this situation.  The threshold to Occum's razor becomes a part of this which dovetails to area under the curve pointing toward "If it walks like a duck".  In other words, probability grows among the obvious, even absent absolute empirical proof.  This pushes both skew and kurtosis in our rush to judgement and compensation.

This is the point where politicians smell blood in the water, take advantage of learned helplessness and start to invent schemes like carbon credits, new Green Deals and other solutions increasingly likely to fail, tantamount to a medication that cures the illness but kills the patient along the way.

Without a working model to reflect the actual interplay of the many variables involved, predictive computer models cannot accurately provide accurate trending probability forecasts.  Every computer model has to be correlated and adjusted for inaccuracies by real world comparison which proves the model to become accurate and reliable, hopefully not that the model is curve fitted to errant examples. 

This begs the question if the rapid rate of change in warming is a problem at all?  If we assume increased likelihood the out of band condition could be life threatening owing to no VALID past reference to go by, we tend to rank the risk higher in probability.

If we agree for the moment there may be a correlation and increased risk, can we accurately extrapolate the working model accurately with real world proof to correlate predictive models to help guide decisions?

If we're agreeing 1) there is an uncertainty which increases the weight of probability to concern, 2) we might err on the side of caution and 3) we cannot confirm the accuracy of models due to extremes in complexity, then we begin to extrapolate the most we can against Brownian walks and other means to 4) try to flush out SOME measure of confirmation on the more heavily weighted contributions to the consideration of cause to focus timely and economically on viability of solutions.

That said... (now I'm really feeding the trolls)... What if you take a region of typical population and convert their energy production to 100% sustainable means using "refined" cultivated biomass fuels including thousands of jobs in cultivation and harvest for energy along side of increased food and grazing re-contribution and allow more reasonable applications of some solar and wind, (re-designed as truly sustainable).  If that translation is done via the cultivation of biomass fuels which permits the energy companies to participate and sustain survival of their business models... What happens to that trial?  We may find it's possible to displace as much as 70% of fossil fuel consumption to a truly sustainable emissions negative method, CO2, NO(x), Water Vapor, etc, including CHP methods which manage the emissions of thermal emissions... all without inducing economic downfall from loss of fossil fuel economic sustain.  You don't have to sacrifice combustion as 24x7 real-time available horsepower.  You don't end up relying solely on limited provisions of wind and solar.  You don't over-expose dependency on batteries still maturing.  You don't face regional logistics defeating the potential.  You're not increasing new waste streams, but rather consuming some of current waste in refinement.  We still make use of EV technology but we don't burn fossil any longer for heating, powering or recharging vehicles.  If population is in keeping with food production then the basis of emissions NEGATIVE potential allows to compensate increased human impact on par with growth.

Before the nay-sayers jump my bones, don't discount the potential that most of this has already been proven viable and practical with working models that prove it's viability through combustion to complete equalibrium.  A good attorney never asks a question without knowing the answer first.  This in fact may create a better world for no reason but you haven't destroyed the economic base nor lost view of balance in nature in making the trial expose it's proofs.  More over you end up with a working tool set that is mostly up side with corrective potentials to the down side.

This model actually creates a working balanced mix between evolving technology with historically stable energy conversions to minimize as many undesirable traits while maximizing the benefits of combined technology with nature, a model of synergistic change where all likely negatives are reduced and the most positive of beneficial outcomes increased.  Better yet, the process works to restructure toward a distributed energy model reducing the exposure of grid centrality to back feed power production distributed.  Of course it flies in the face that Elon Musk wants to be the single individual to hold control over most of humanity and is making gains in that area rapidly.  This even plays nice with the ill prospect of lithium as a central power store based on energy density.  What is lacking today is the refinement of biomass to cleanly produce sufficient energy and consume other waste streams to increase it's energy density to an economic viability.  By "lacking" I don't mean it hasn't already been proved.  I mean the proof needs to be commercialized on a practical scale for economic efficiency.

Ridiculous right?  We're on our way to Mars.  We've unpacked the human Genome.  We're gaining in potentials of applying quantum entanglement.  Would we suggest it's not feasible to accomplish restructuring energy conversion harmonious with nature to be a more practical means of long term success?  I'm not holding my breath that we'll see sustainable fission inside a magnatron any time soon but even micro-reactors using salts may have a role to play in the balancing act.  If you invent a neutron engine that magically generates unlimited power, don't expect the governments of the world to permit it out of the box, they're already limiting the distribution of hydrogen micro stores on cassettes for power from laser activation.

Some times we end up at "Do SOMETHING even if it's wrong."  By that premise we learn from our mistakes if they're not so outrageous it shatters the half full glass.  If we can't make reliable models, is there a reason not to make viable, attainable inroads to the greater risk of higher probability assumptions?

So there's some food for the creatures under the bridge.  It may not be a sexy solution all wrapped up in the recent tech (and yet is is), but we're already finding we've hit a glass ceiling in micro size devices, driving us back toward analog computers to overcome the limitation.  What's old is new again which points toward a continual circle of evolving adaptation, not so unlike DNA itself. 

Happy Holidays!!