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.
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ferd berple says:
December 15, 2012 at 3:54 pm
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.
When CO2 increases, O2 decreases. So water vapor and partial pressures do not seem to relate to each other in my opinion.
Ken Gregory says largely, December 15 2012 9:37 am:
>Replying to: Donald L. Klipstein December 15, 2012 at 8:32 am
>>Also, I doubt a 10% change in water vapor concentration at the 40 mb
>>level over the tropics amounts to much anyway. The temperature there
>>is around -70 C, so water vapor concentration is going to be extremely low.
>The effect of a given amount of water vapor on OLR depends very strongly
>on altitude.
There also the effect of back radiation towards the surface, which is greater
from below the 400 mb level.
>> The Solomon 2010 paper states, Stratospheric water vapor
>> concentrations decreased by about 10% after the year 2000.
>> Here we show that this acted to slow the rate of increase in global
>>surface temperature over 2000-2009 by about 25% compared to
>>that which would have occurred due only to carbon dioxide and other
>>greenhouse gases. This is a large effect.
I consider this a natural part of the water vapor feedback being less positive
than IPCC considers it to be. I expect increase of greenhouse gases to make
the atmosphere above the 400 mb level cooler and the troposphere as a
whole to experience a decrease in relative humidity.
>>Did you fail to grasp the significance of my statement;
>>This is important because line-by-line radiative code shows that a change
>>of water vapour content in an atmospheric layer from the 300 mb to the
>>400 mb level has 30 times the effect on out-going longwave radiation
>>(OLR) as the same change near the surface. Figure 2 in the Solomon
>>2010 paper here:
>>http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FOS%20Essay/SolomonFig2.jpg
>>show the forcing of a 1 ppmv change of water vapour in each 1 km layer.
At the 300-400 mb level range (~7 to 9 km range), temperature is
averaging roughly -35 to -40 C. And with average water PPMV something
like around 4-4.5% of that at the surface. That would make a percentage
change there there just a little more important than near the surface.
>>It shows the greatest effect of a water vapour change is at the tropopause
>> at 15 km altitude. This is just where water vapour trends had the largest
>>percentage decline.
Where water vapor PPMV average is something like 1% of that at the
surface.
Camburn says:
December 15, 2012 at 11:53 am
…
T = Natural variability + (if any) AGW
I would think it is totally unsafe, wherever it comes from, to propose the extent of the AGW until the natural variability (which most likely have number of independent components) is known to a reasonable degree of confidence.
My findings point only to one possible factor.
Norm Kalmanovitch says:
December 15, 2012 at 4:27 pm
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
But “slowing down the rate of cooling” will result in warming. That’s basic thermodynamics.
Theo Goodwin says:
December 14, 2012 at 7:33 pm
You’ve missed the next bogeyman waiting in the wings: methane release from methane hydrates in permafrost and on the sea floor. See here .
Even if they have to let the water vapor feedback go, there will always be another available “tipping point”.
John Finn says:
“But ‘slowing down the rate of cooling’ will result in warming. That’s basic thermodynamics.”
Wrong. Slowing down the rate of cooling will not add heat to the system, and thus will not result in warming. That’s basic thermodynamics. CO2 does not produce heat. That is why, despite steadily rising CO2 over the past sixteen years, there has been no global warming.
Your position is untenable. The CO2=AGW conjecture fails. Honest scientists would acknowledge that increasingly obvious fact. You either want to be honest, or you want to promote the alarmist agenda. The choice is entirely up to you.
But the rest of us understand what Planet Earth is telling us: that CO2 is a very minor, 3rd order forcing agent, which can be completely disregarded for all practical purposes. It’s effect is minuscule, and 99% of the effect has already occurred in the first 200 ppmv. Any further rises in CO2 will have no measurable effect whatever.
Camburn says:
December 15, 2012 at 9:17 am
A strong solar component is shown here in regards to clouds:
Sounds like it could be connected to the changes in the composition of TSI.
The graph
Legend under graph
Solar Spectrum TOA, Surface, Ocean Graph
Solar Radiation Ocean depths Graph
A Puzzling Collapse of Earth’s Upper Atmosphere
NAHHHhhhhh the sun has absolutely nothing to do with climate and it never changes. /sarc
There is an even more simple explanation to all this and that is surface tension. You can by radiation heat water from above but you cannot physically “heat” water from above because of surface tension. Apply the heat from a paint stripping gun operating at 450degC to the surface of water. No steam will appear and the surface fends off the heat with ease. The surface of water does not obey the second law of thermodynamics due to the existence of surface tension. Try it for yourselves. Surface tension kills the agw scam stone dead.
I think this article may lead to confusion about the conclusions of the NVPA-M paper, which is quoted in the article. The article says
“This study shows no up or down trend in global water vapor, a finding of major significance that differs with studies cited in AR5.”
I think I have found the relevant NVPA-M paper without having to pay or sign in (at http://www.leif.org/EOS/2012GL052094-pip.pdf ); the paper says
“The results of Figs. 1 and 4 have not been subjected to detailed global or regional
trend analyses, which will be a topic for a forthcoming paper. Such analyses must
account for the changes in satellite sampling discussed in the supplement. Therefore, at this time, we can neither prove nor disprove a robust trend in the global water vapor data.”
To me, this suggests that the paper did not set out to answer the question of whether or not there is a trend in the global water vapour data. This is entirely different from the suggestion that the paper contradicts the findings from other published papers, which do suggest that such a trend exists.
“Therefore, at this time, we can neither prove nor disprove a robust trend in the global water vapor data.”
???
It’s 4 mm/C global SST
http://virakkraft.com/Ocean-temp-vapor.png
I have written this before – I am sorry to repeat myself but I am making an important point:
When I Google IPPC news i get a lot of newspaper reports about these latest developments which are very important new. Most turn out to be re-writes of press releases put out by the IPCC rubbishing sceptics arguments. And it stops there.
Our side (I am really not part of you, I am just an interested outsider) is misrepresented in the newspapers because the hacks do no do anything more than copy and paste from press releases. They think they are covering our side of the debate, when in fact all they are doing is covering the IPCC’s version of our version of the debate.
With stories of this importance there should be an official press release made by sceptics for hacks to cut an paste into their newspapers. It should be easy to do, and it should come from a respected source. (Watts Up With That is a respected source),
This very simple to do service would transform the debate, because at present you are having very polite and erudite debates amongst yourselves whilst the world outside learns about your views and conclusions through the press offices of your enemies
****
Norm Kalmanovitch says:
December 15, 2012 at 4:27 pm
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
****
Eh, no. Evaporation still occurs at night (usually reduced). If the water surface doesn’t cool off as much at night from increased CO2 (or cloudcover, etc), will it evaporate more than a water surface without increased CO2 (or cloudcover)? Of course it will — quantitatively. One can argue that the effect is very small (mixing and thermal conduction w/the immediately lower water molecules), but not that it is zero.
There is an even simpler explanation to this than all of the above. You cannot “heat” water from above due to surface tension. I know this because I tried. I fired a paint stripping heat gun which operates at 450degC at the surface of water and the water fended the heat off with ease. Science has reasonably assumed that the surface of water is just that a surface and that it obeys the second law of thermodynamics but they forgot surface tension and they did not check, they just assumed. Because of surface tension the only energy which enters the ocean is the sun’s radiation and nothing else, physical heat cannot penetrate the surface tension, hence no increased moisture due to increasing co2. Because of surface tension the AGW scam is dead. Have a nice day.
If you want to see how important increasing water vapor is to the predicted warming, check out the AR5 water vapor forecasts out to the year 2100.
http://s14.postimage.org/nnhgk7ku9/Water_Vap_IPCC_AR5_2100.png
This can also be seen in this presentation published by the American Meteorological Society authored by Brian Soden (one of the recognized experts on this). This is the about the only document I’ve seen that shows the climate model water vapor forecasts out to 2100
http://www.ametsoc.org/atmospolicy/documents/071029Soden.pdf
Julian Williams in Wales, there is a reason that his post is not covered in the media.
Rob Nicholls explained why.
Forrest Mims and others,
At the NASA site you link they have a frequently asked question here that clearly states that their data has not been analyzed for long term trends. The expected change in water vapor to date is small. Eyeballing raw data, as you are doing, is not sufficient to determine such small differences. NASA says they are in the process of analyzing this new data set. When they get their results they will publish a paper. Until then eyeballing the data is not a reliable way of determining small changes in water vapor.
Your claim that this paper shows the IPCC is incorrectly leaving this data out is contradicted by your links to NASA. This data has not yet been analyzed to determine long term trends.
” robert barclay says:
December 16, 2012 at 5:13 am
You cannot “heat” water from above due to surface tension. ”
Then how do hand dryers work?
Steven Mosher wrote:
In your dreams Steven!
Dirk H wrote:
“The Jesus paper comes to mind.”:
In AR4 the originally published WGI deadline for papers to in press was set at 16 December 2005. The deadline for final preprints to be held by the TSU was set at 28 February 2006. Wahl and Amman 2007 missed both. No final preprint, that I know of, was available to any one before September 2007 long after the IPCC released AR4 WGI. See Climatgate 11897722851.txt
In it Jones wrote:
WA2007 had changed a lot and its methodology was not published until August 2008. The 2006 July close-off date was decided by Jones, Overpeck, Solomon and Manning a month after the end of the SOD government and expert review stage. They sent a memorandum inviting all Expert Reviewers to make suggestions. See page 26 of Briffa and Osborn’s evidence.
Any reviewer could suggest papers in press by 24 July 2006 to add balance to the SOD. Stephen McIntyre suggested NRC 2006 and Wegman et al. 2006. On 28 July 2006 Overpeck told Briffa that they had received McIntyre’s response but they were going to ignore it. See Climategate2 1758.txt.
Needless to say WA2007 remained cited in AR4 having missed every deadline, Wegman is not mentioned, and NRC 2006 is not cited for its comments on Bristlecones or the verification statistics of the hockey stick.
On 27 May 2008 I asked the UEA for the responses they received on 28 July 2006.
On 28 May 2008 Jones told UEA’s FOIA team that they should say Briffa did not get any responses.
On 29 May 2008 Jones asked Mann to delete all his AR4 emails and said Briffa would do likewise.
On 4 June 2008 Jones told his chum Palutikof at the Met Office that Briffa and Osborn copied their emails onto a memory stick before they deleted them from their UEA PCs.
On 20 June 2008 the UEA committed an offence by saying it did not hold any responses to the July 2006 close-off instruction memorandum. UEA did it again on 26 January 2010 and yet again on 8 March 2011.
Stocker decided he was not going to put up with this sort of nonsense so if you look at his AR5 timetable you will see that papers only needed to be submitted to be cited in AR5 WGI and only have to be accepted by 15 March 2013 to remain cited.
And to try to keep the lid on AR5 Stocker slipped into the InterAcademy Council recommendations that drafts and comments should be considered confidential until after AR5 is published. Check out the documents on the IPCC website. Not a single country asked for or wanted Stockers confidentiality clause, but it was slipped into the final text by Stocker and friends and nodded through without a vote.
Any takers on the lawyer request?
@Michael sweet says:
December 16, 2012 at 9:16 am
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The NVAP link you posted is from 2010, which is 2 years before the NVAP-M paper I cited. It specifically states: “At this time, we cannot prove or disprove a robust trend due to atmospheric changes with NVAP, as we stated in our 2005 paper “Water Vapor Trends and Variability from the Global NVAP Dataset” at the 16th AMS Symposium on Global Change and Climate Variations.” Neither can a robust trend be cited in 2012. The NVAP team has been often asked about the trend, if any, in global water vapor. From the 2005 symposium to the recent 2012 paper, the NVAP team has been unable to find a “robust trend” in global water vapor. This contradicts IPCC assertions that increasing CO2 will be accompanied by rising H2O vapor and must be included in the IPCC’s AR5.
I figured out Steve Mosher’s M.O.: It does not matter the value of the science, it matter first, what camp you are in and what you hope to accomplish, then and only then, should you want your message listened to.
Steve: Is there any doubt in your mind that the IPCC is a pure and evenly fair institution looking for the best solutions through science?
“Steve: Is there any doubt in your mind that the IPCC is a pure and evenly fair institution looking for the best solutions through science?”
1. An institution cannot be pure and fair, people maybe. Institutions dont have human characteristics
2. I do not think the IPCC has instituted the best practices for compiling a summary of the science and have said so many times.
bw says:
December 15, 2012 at 3:41 pm
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.
That is certainly not the case: a warmer world means more vegetation (both in area and growth) and thus more CO2 sequestration. That is visible over at least the past 800 kyears: a change of about 8 ppmv/°C, while the oceans should give 16 ppmv/°C if they were the only or main driver. Thus the difference is by more uptake from vegetation. That was confirmed by oxygen and 13C/12C ratio measurements in the atmosphere: at least since 1990, the biosphere is a net sink for CO2. See:
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf
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.
You forget that the biological cycle is a cycle: what comes out largely goes back in again at the end of the (mainly seasonal) cycle. The same for the oceans. If both are in equilibrium, there is no gain or loss and even an additional 1% one-way supply by humans would be the only cause of an increase.
From the inventory of fossil fuel use we know that humans emit about 9 GtC as CO2 per year. The measured increase is some 3-6 GtC per year. Thus nature as a whole is a net sink for CO2. Thus 100% of the increase is human made, even if only a few % of the original human induced CO2 molecules still reside in the atmosphere. The rest is exchanged with CO2 from other reservoirs.
Recent reports on the isotope issue certainly confirm what is obvious to biologists.
What do you think of this graph, comparing seawater (measured in coralline sponges with a resolution of 2-4 years) and atmospheric d13C over the past 600 years:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/sponges.gif
The pre-industrial variation in d13C wasn’t more than +/- 0.2 per mil…
Gail Combs says:
December 15, 2012 at 5:25 pm
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.
Come on Gail, we were there many times in the past: CO2 is not well mixed at the surface over land near huge sources and sinks (5% of the atmosphere). That is near plants in general or cars, forests, agriculture, factories, towns. That is where many of the Beck data had their origin. Where was measured over the oceans or coastal with wind from the oceans or over 200 meter high over land or in deserts, no problem at all: a maximum variation of 2% of the scale in 95% of the atmosphere. As well in the past data (which were around the ice core averages) as today. I call that well mixed.
David Holland says:
December 16, 2012 at 10:42 am (Edit)
Steven Mosher wrote:
“If a sceptic paper was submitted and accepted you’d want them writing about it”
In your dreams Steven!
###########################
David I think you quite miss the point. The rules allow for the authors to write about work that has been submitted but not published. This is a draft. Of course they need to include work that hasnt been published yet. The deadline for publication is in 2013. If there was a sceptic paper , say for example Nic Lewis’ paper that has been submitted but not published yet, you all would want the authors to discuss it. In fact they do. See chapter 10, page 10.
In short, they are discussing a skeptical paper ( lewis 2012) that has been submitted to Journal of the climate but not published yet. It is a excellent paper ( Nic shared it with me some time ago for comments ) It makes sense to discuss this paper in the SOD because in likelihood it will be published before the publishing deadline cutoff.
Now, I expect people here will NOT be demanding that the authors should ignore Nic Lewis’ skeptical paper. That paper met the guidelines for submission ( Nic shared it with me a few days before that deadline ) That paper has not yet been published, but the publishing deadline isnt until much later.
If you think that Nic Lewis’s sceptical paper should NOT be discussed in the draft, then please
go to climate audit where we discussing some of the issues and bang on the drum and demand that the IPCC should not discuss his paper because it hasnt been published yet.