New global water vapor findings contradict second draft of IPCC Assessment Report 5 (AR5)
Guest post by Forrest M. Mims III
I was an “expert reviewer” for the first and second order drafts of the 2013 Intergovernmental Report on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report 5 (AR5). The names and reviews of all the reviewers will be posted online when the final report is released. Meanwhile, reviewers are required to not publish the draft report. However, the entire second draft report was leaked on December 13, 2012, without IPCC permission and has subsequently received wide publicity.
My review mainly concerns the role of water vapor, a key component of global climate models. A special concern is that a new paper on a major global water vapor study (NVAP-M) needs to be cited in the final draft of AR5.
This study shows no up or down trend in global water vapor, a finding of major significance that differs with studies cited in AR5. Climate modelers assume that water vapor, the principle greenhouse gas, will increase with carbon dioxide, but the NVAP-M study shows this has not occurred. Carbon dioxide has continued to increase, but global water vapor has not. Today (December 14, 2012) I asked a prominent climate scientist if I should release my review early in view of the release of the entire second draft report.
He suggested that I do so, and links to the official IPCC spreadsheet version and a Word version of my review are now posted near the top of my homepage at www.forrestmims.org.
The official IPCC spreadsheet version of my review is here. A Word version is here.
A PDF version (prepared by Anthony from the Word version) is here: Mims_IPCC_AR5_SOD_Review
A relevant passage from the AR5 review by Mimms (added by Anthony):
The obvious concern to this reviewer, who has measured total column water vapor for 22.5 years, is the absence of any mention of the 2012 NVAP-M paper. This paper concludes,
“Therefore, at this time, we can neither prove nor disprove a robust trend in the global water vapor data.”
Non-specialist readers must be made aware of this finding and that it is at odds with some earlier papers. Many cited papers in AR5 have yet to be published, but the first NVAP-M paper was published earlier this year (after the FOD reviews) and is definitely worthy of citation: Thomas H. Vonder Haar, Janice L. Bytheway and John M. Forsythe. Weather and climate analyses using improved global water vapor observations. GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 39, L15802, 6 PP., 2012. doi:10.1029/2012GL052094.
This is not surprising news to anyone who has been paying any attention at all (for example, US)….
I am afraid, however, that no amount of information like this is going to do anything to reverse the course we appear to be headed on, or the message that comes out daily from the other camp…
@Charles Ashurst
I am only going to make some observations here, as life is too short for a full scholarly dissertation.
There seems to be a very positive correlation between a progressive political philosophy and belief in AGW. I come to this conclusion by following the usual progressive websites, not only HP, but others such as Common Dreams and Mother Jones. If I were to hazard a guess (which I am doing), I would say that 90% of Warmistas are of the progressive persuasion and 99.9% of the progressive persuasion are Warmistas. Let’s consider another area of academia that progressives swear by: Economic models and their predictive powers. Models! Give me enough grant money and I will produce a model to meet your political requirements. James Hansen is nothing more, or less, than the Paul Krugman of environmental ‘science’. But neither Hansen nor Krugman are scientists, and neither climate nor economic models have any predictive capacity.
So what is their agenda? That is a rhetorical question that I will leave for you to answer.
bw says:
December 15, 2012 at 12:53 pm
Most of the current rise in CO2 is recovery from the LIA. CO2 follows temperature.
Quite difficult to be sure of that for the recent rise, as any increase of seawater temperature doesn’t give more than 16 ppmv CO2 increase in the atmosphere for 1°C increase, according to Henry’s Law. I don’t think that the “Little” Ice Age was 7°C colder than today…
The NVAP-M web site at http://nvap.stcnet.com/ is worth a look. This site summarizes the NVAP-M project and includes a set of visuals and an animation of monthly averaged global water vapor from 1988 to 2009. Also included is the time series plot of global total column water vapor described in my review of the second draft (SOD) of the IPCC’s AR-5 linked at the top of this page.
My only agenda is that the IPCC must present objective science. It’s charter requires this. Therefore, it is essential that AR5 include the NVAP-M global water vapor time series plot together with an objective discussion of its significance. (If this is included in the SOD, I did not see it.) For discussion purposes, the NVAP-M time series chart shows that the global water vapor trend from 1988 to 1998 was slightly up, the trend was flat from 1999 to 2005, and the trend was slightly down from 2006 to 2010. (Note how this generalized trend roughly follows global temperarature.) In short, as the NVAP authors stated in their paper, presentations and on their web site above, there is as yet no robust trend. Yet there is a substantially robust upward trend in carbon dioxide over the entire NVAP study period.
What matters most is that global water vapor is not increasing with carbon dioxide. Some two decades of measurements of carbon dioxide and total water vapor clearly show that the IPCC claim that warming from rising CO2 concentrations will be significantly enhanced (amplified) by additional warming caused by an increase in the evaporation of surface water (the water vapor positive feedback effect) is not supported by the empirical data.
I have measured total column water vapor in Texas on most days since 04 Feb 1990 and my time series bears resemblances to the NVAP-M global time series, both peaking during 1998-99. The first 12 years of my study were published by GRL (F. M. Mims III, An inexpensive and stable LED Sun photometer for measuring the water vapor column over South Texas from 1990 to 2001, Geophysical Research Letters 29, 20-1 to 20-4, 2002), and I hope to publish a new paper on 22 years of data. My water vapor instruments include LED sun photometers, Microtops II and IR thermometers, all of which I either built, developed, received as in-kind royalties or bought with my own funds. These instruments are not nearly as accurate as GPS column water vapor monitors, one of which is now near my site. Details about this work are at http://www.forrestmims.org
Ken Gregory says:
December 14, 2012 at 10:55 pm
“This further confirms that CO2, to a large extent, replaces water vapour as a greenhouse gas in the upper atmosphere.”
Ken,
I believe that this is one of the points that Ferenc Miskolczi was making in his paper:- “Greenhouse effect in semi-transparent planetary atmospheres”
http://owww.met.hu/idojaras/IDOJARAS_vol111_No1_01.pdf
Ferdinand’s comment regarding Henrys law is certainly correct. I did not intend to say that all the post LIA CO2 increase is ocean. Of the 100 ppm increase since the LIA, 4/5th is natural. The remaining 1/5 is anthropogenic.
Of the natural portion, some is ocean via Henrys law. Some is unknown. Some is biological feedback. A warmer Earth has more biological activity and therefore higher Atmospheric CO2.
The carbon cycle people know this. Biology regulates most of the air/surface CO2 flux. The entire atmosphere is mostly of biological origin.
Simple accounting shows that fossil fuels can’t possibly expand the carbon cycle by more than about 4 percent. Since the atmosphere is a mobile part of the biological CO2 flux, then about 4 percent of the atmospheric CO2 is anthropogenic. .04 of 390 is about 16ppm.
If you look at the history of the AGW story, the most impressive flaw is the claim that ALL of the industrial era (post LIA) CO2 increase is anthropogenic. Recent reports on the isotope issue certainly confirm what is obvious to biologists.
Mario Lento says:
December 14, 2012 at 5:48 pm
They then say that water vapor could be a positive or negative feedback, but their models mostly use water vapor as a positive feedback.
++++++++++
Don’t ALL the IPCC model ASSUME water vapor as a positive feedback? I’ve not heard of any models reported by the IPCC that assume water vapor is a negative feedback.
Michael Tremblay says:
December 15, 2012 at 11:01 am
The concentration of H2O(g) is not dependent upon the concentration of CO2 except in the contribution of CO2′s partial pressure to the overall pressure of the atmosphere.
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An increase in CO2 will raise its partial pressure. This will reduce the water vapor in the atmosphere as a result, because it will reduce the partial pressure of water vapor.
Charles Ashurst says:
December 15, 2012 at 9:54 am
Predictions. That’s what separates the grownups from the pups, baby. Predictions.
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Lots of folks make predictions. They mean nothing unless they are correct. Even then the predictions could be accidentally correct.
For example, if I tell 3 people in turn that temperatures/stock market/whatever will go up, go down, stay the same, then for one of those people my prediction will come true. Elaborate frauds have been conducted in just this manner.
Some basic physics is missing here. Evaporation requires heat (latent heat of evaporation is 2,270 kJ/kg) and CO2 acts as an insulator providing no heat but merely slowing down the rate of cooling; so increased CO2 cannot cause an increase in evaporation to provide the feedback mechanism claimed by the IPCC. Apparently someone missed a key class in highschool physics
@ferd berple says:
December 15, 2012 at 3:45 pm
“Mario Lento says:
December 14, 2012 at 5:48 pm
They then say that water vapor could be a positive or negative feedback, but their models mostly use water vapor as a positive feedback.”
++++++++++
I stand corrected. I did a cursory search and I was incorrect, giving the IPCC more credence than they deserve. They say clouds and water vapor only have a positive feedback. I learn more when I am wrong! Boy they are anti-science more than I thought! The convention in science was that it was unknown what the net feedback water vapor plays in weather. Satellite data certain showed through observation that the feedback ranged from slightly positive to moderately negative… suggesting that most of the satellite observed feedbacks were negative. Thank you fed berple. Another major nail in IPCC’s coffin.
Replying to Michael Tremblay: December 15, 2012 at 11:01 am
Michael said,
Michael, if this were true, a graph of specific humidity versus temperature at a given pressure level in the atmosphere would give a straight line with high correlation.
Here is a graph of specific humidity versus temperature at the 400 mbar level in the tropics, 30 N
n to 30 S for the period 1960 to 2011 from the NOAA dataset.
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FOS%20Essay/SH400TropicsVsTemp.jpg
The graph is a phase space plot of the data points connected in time sequence. Over short time periods, an increase in temperature causes an increase in specific humidity. The annual data shows linear striations increasing from bottom left to top right, confirming that higher temperatures relate to higher specific humidity over short time intervals. But the overall trend is down, proving that specific humidity is responding to factors other than temperature. The graph shows that water vapour declines with temperature at a R2 correlation of only 0.014.
Compare this to a graph of specific humidity versus CO2 at the 400 mbar level in the tropics;
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FOS%20Essay/SH400TropicsVsCO2.jpg
This graph shows water vapour declines with increasing CO2 with a remarkably high correlation R2 = 0.71.
In the long-term, factors other than temperature determine upper atmosphere humidity. We believe that the long-term specific humidity in the upper atmosphere is determined by the maximum entropy principle. The atmosphere is able to maximize the loss of heat to space subject to the constraint of the saturation limit in the lower atmosphere by decreasing the water vapour content in the upper atmosphere in response to increasing CO2 concentrations. The decline is specific humidity is not due to declining temperatures because the temperature at this pressure level increased at 0.17 C/decade. The climate models project specific humidity increasing with temperature at this pressure level, contrary to observations. This is discussed in my essay at
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FOS%20Essay/Climate_Change_Science.html#Water_vapour
TonyM says:
December 14, 2012 at 8:32 pm
I think we should address these issues more soberly….
Professor Steve Sherwood, the director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of NSW, was the lead author of the chapter in question.
He says the idea that the chapter he authored confirms a greater role for solar and other cosmic rays in global warming is “ridiculous”.
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Actually they have no idea what is going on.
A cosmic ray-climate link and cloud observations is a literature review.
In other words so far the real world satellite measurement techniques suck, so there is no evidence for or against except for the Cloud and SKY experiments and some ground based local experiments. Based on this they toss ALL the evidence.
oxyartes says:
December 15, 2012 at 12:38 am
“Water vapor amplification is an indirect mechanism, which requires warmth. So if there’s no warming (as is the case for the last 15 or so years), because other factors overwhelm the influence of increased CO2, there’s nothing to amplify.”
Fully agree. I don’t see here any disproof of feedback mechanism.
________________________________________
It is not just for fifteen years
Graph
Ken Gregory says:
December 15, 2012 at 8:34 am
Please provide a link to the AR5 model precipitable water vapour forecast digital data.
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I got it from the CMIP5 data site early this summer
http://cmip-pcmdi.llnl.gov/cmip5/
… and now they have changed it and put everything into other data portals that are impossible to navigate (I did have to register through a secure website without a safe certificate but I gave it a shot anyway – obviously there is some type of tracking built in). I’ve tried these other newer sites as well with no success. I’ll try to email if I find it again.
http://cmip-pcmdi.llnl.gov/cmip5/
Gene Selkov says:
December 15, 2012 at 7:16 am
…It is possible that a strong CO2 gradient exists within the first few metres above the surface, where it is produced and consumed, but the data on that are not as massive.
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Actually if the CO2 is well mixed at the surface all the Beck data on historical chemical measurement of CO2 would have to be considered and that would blow CAGW completely out of the water.
graph
From: link
So according to the CAGW theory CO2 is well mixed except when it isn’t. [snicker]
Bill Yarber says:
December 15, 2012 at 7:55 am
This debate brought to mind Willis Eschenbach’s excellent analysis of the diurnal reponse of the tropical Pacific….
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Willis publishes his thermostat hypothesis paper
Published in E&E: Volume 21, Number 4 / August 2010
Reply to Gail Combs December 15, 2012 at 5:06 pm
That graph of radiosonde relative humidity is old. I update it annually. Please use the original link
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FOS%20Essay/GlobalRelativeHumidity300_700mb.jpg
which is from;
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FOS%20Essay/Climate_Change_Science.html#Water_vapour
Who is Richard Windsor? says:
December 15, 2012 at 8:21 am
….For whatever reason, we’re not seeing the vapor pressure over the oceans increase. There are a number of things that could be limiting this. We don’t know.
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Well at least for the SST of the North Atlantic it has overall COOLED
Graphs
Graph 1
Graph 2
This paper confirms earlier findings using sea shells, which provide high levels of resolution. The same from another paper on Europe and the North Atlantic. See: Persistent influence of the North Atlantic hydrography on central European winter temperature during the last 9000 years
For the last 20 years
Global SST graph
Reply to Bill Illis December 15, 2012 at 5:19 pm
I asked, “Please provide a link to the AR5 model precipitable water vapour forecast digital data.”
Bill, thanks for your reply and for trying to find a link to this AR5 data. If you or anyone else can locate it please let me know. Click on my name to see my email address.
Erin Shanahan DMD says:
December 15, 2012 at 9:05 am
This morning I opened my paper to find this story from the AP Washington DC, “Growing majority says world is warming.” Relaying the latest AP GfK. It stated 4 out of 5 Americans said climate change will be a serious problem for the US if nothing is done about it. This number is up 73%from 2009….
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Their numbers seem a wee bit off but what else is new.
Rasmussen Friday, November 09, 2012
I had a quick look a Forrest’s review. It’s very thorough and of high quality.
What’s missing I think is some evaluation of this new paper relative to previous papers to justify why he gives so much weight to this new paper. Otherwise it gives the impression that he prefers this new paper simply because he prefers it’s conclusions.
Reply to Philip Mulholland December 15, 2012 at 2:33 pm
Yes, Ferenc Miskolczi’s paper implies declining upper atmosphere water vapour with increasing CO2 concentrations. He predicted it from theoretical considerations before ever seeing time series data of declining upper atmosphere specific humidity.
I think there are some problems with his theory, and I don’t think that “optical depth” is long-run constant, but it does appear that CO2 replaces water vapour to a large extent in the upper atmosphere, so climate sensitivity may be less that the no-feedback case.
pochas said in part, December 15, 2012 at 9:06 am”
” Donald L. Klipstein says December 15, 2012 at 8:42 am
“To keepbalance between upward and downward heat flow, I expect a smaller
percentage of the atmosphere to have updrafts, and a larger percentage
to have downdrafts.”
Does not conservation of mass require updrafts to equal downdrafts plus
precipitation”?”
I see the updrafts getting faster because more heat is being released in
them, so they need to shrink their coverage to be balanced by the slower
downward moving air in clear areas.