Warsaw COP19 report– there’s something in the water

Andy Pattullo reports, November 14, 2013, Warsaw

This week UN delegates opened the current Warsaw Climate change Conference with hopes of engineering a renewed agreement to curb human-driven global warming just as effective as the last, however a new and catastrophic issue is emerging which threatens to derail the impressive progress made to date. Having reviewed the models of CO2 driven global warming from the First Assessment Report (FAR) IPCC scientists have discovered that General Circulation Models attribute most of the warming not to CO2 but to water vapor in the atmosphere. While it was initially understood that any rise in water vapor was directly attributable to a rise in CO2 it now appears there are many other human activities driving a rise in atmospheric water vapor, by far the most important greenhouse gas. IPCC Scientists expressed significantly increased certainty that their 95% confidence intervals include the plausibility that natural processes play no role.

A Mannian statistical analysis of growth rings harvested from wooden hockey sticks in the Sports Hall of Fame confirms the role of rising water vapor as it clearly demonstrates a strong correlation between the rise of professional ice sports and the attendant increased use of artificial ice with the rise in global temperatures. The changes are described as unprecedented since the keeping of official hockey statistics began. The presumed mechanism appears related in part to the high humidity emissions of Zamboni ice conditioning equipment and an excess of spilled beer. The new information substantially changes some of the FAR conclusions such that an amended document, the First Assessment Report Two, is expected within months. (The summary for policy makers was published last May.)

Thus efforts to curb human CO2 emissions may fail to impact the worrying trend in global temperatures of the past 17 years and we can expect much of the same in coming decades unless new actions are taken. It now appears necessary to develop initiatives aimed directly at human induced atmospheric humidity and many believe there will be related announcements in the coming week.

During a recent Suzuki Foundation event raising funds for the Clooney and Hannah Antarctic Polar Bear Relocation Project, 36 out of 37 randomly selected scientists stated in the affirmative that they had no knowledge of evidence refuting unfounded speculation that the EPA would be tabling regulations in the coming months to restrict the emissions of water vapor from transportation, electrical generation, agriculture and bipedal mammals. This 97% scientific consensus confirms the likelihood of near term climate protection regulations with wide ranging impacts that may include but are not limited to:

– A ban of power plant cooling towers not equipped with yet to be designed humidity extraction equipment.

– A comprehensive framework of regulations to govern agricultural irrigation. (An exemption for bio fuel ethanol crops is expected).

– A gradual decommissioning of all outdoor swimming pools, water parks, bird baths, drinking fountains and surfing beaches.

– A tax on exhaled air directly proportional to body mass and the inverse of ambient relative humidity. (Water credits will be earnable for periods of breath holding up to 3 hours in each 24 hour period and will be combined with parallel credits for reduced personal CO2 emissions assuming breath holding can be sustained without corporal decomposition.)

– An international humidity trading market. (This will likely be protested as unfair by less developed nations due to the higher atmospheric water content of tropical zones, however the proposal has strong support from a coalition of Arab and North African states and Texas which collectively feel those other nations should be forced to pay for their disproportionate contribution to the climate crisis.)

– A ban of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

– Mandated installation of mechanical wipers and water traps on any solar panel installations subject to precipitation.

– A multinational initiative to spread liquid hydrocarbons over large bodies of water to inhibit evaporation.

More effective solutions may also be on the way. A broad coalition of energy resource companies, in a move designed to partially atone for past climate degradation, has worked for years on geo-engineering solutions to the rapidly expanding hydro pollution crisis. This reporter now has exclusive insight into the most promising near term solution. The industry partners will be seeking a multi-billion dollar federal stimulus bill in support of exploratory work on a water-as-vapor extraction and storage system (WAVES). While many aspects of the technology remain under covers the central discovery is a novel patented mechanism to convert heat-trapping water vapor to a stable liquid which can be pumped underground at high pressure for long term storage.

Analysts speculate that heavily drilled shale formations are the most likely storage locations given available technology. The stabilization of the liquefied water vapor will be assisted by the addition of sand and proprietary chemicals which will also serve to fissure the shale formations creating enhanced storage capacity. Additionally the simultaneous extraction of “blocking” liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons from these formations will further grow capacity while providing a saleable byproduct to help fund future expansion of the process thus diminishing reliance on federal subsidies. Industry insiders predict the technology may ultimately be profitable with only modest government support within 15 years.

The head of the IPCC is rumored to have endorsed the technology, stating categorically that it was every bit as safe for the environment as windmills and bio fuels. Several environmental groups including the World Wildlife fund and Friends of the Earth have campaigned at the UN to have this technology move forward sooner in order to prevent the catastrophic submersion of the South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu which climate models reliably predict will occur 10:15 AM Saturday March 11, 2017.

Finally India and China in a rare show of international cooperation announced an agreement brokered by the IPCC chair to discuss an ambitious project that would see black carbon and spent nuclear fuel spread widely across Himalayan glaciers so as to dissolve this important potential future source of atmospheric humidity and return it safely to the oceans. The IPCC chair assured this reporter that “with any luck the glaciers will be gone by 2035.”