Guest Opinion: Dr. Tim Ball
It is not surprising that Roe and Baker explained in a 2007 Science paper that, “The envelope of uncertainty in climate projections has not narrowed appreciably over the past 30 years, despite tremendous increases in computing power, in observations, and in the number of scientists studying the problem.” The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) wasn’t designed to improve the uncertainty. Rather, it was mandated, designed and operated to isolate human effects.
The IPCC let the public believe they are examining the entire climate system. From a climate mechanism perspective, they only look at one or two very minor components. It is like describing a car and how it operates by ignoring the engine, transmission, and wheels while focusing on one nut on the right rear wheel. They are only looking at one thread on the nut, human CO2.
Figure 1, from IPCC Assessment Report 5 (AR5), shows the few forcing variables they examine.
Figure 1
Their mandate is limited to determining only “human causes of climate change”. Why are “Changes in solar irradiance” included? How do humans influence it? Why not include all changes in solar activity? The top panel labeled “Well-mixed greenhouse gases” is apparently done to eliminate water vapor, which is not well mixed? It can’t be anything else, because CO2 is not “well-mixed” either as the recent satellite images show.
There are other deceptions in the chart, including the claim that the “Level of Confidence” for CO2 is very high. This claim is false because CO2 levels have risen for 18+ years while temperature hasn’t increased, in contradiction to their major assumption that a CO2 increase causes a temperature increase. It is not surprising because it doesn’t occur in any record. The “High” rating for “Total Anthropogenic RF relative to 1750” is a self-serving IPCC assessment. It must be high because we created it.
Why Sins of Commission and Omission Work
Another deception was creating the illusion that CO2 is the most important greenhouse gas. The IPCC acknowledges H2O is the most important, but that is not what the public understands. Figure 2 shows a diagram taken from the ABC news website a few years ago.
Figure 2
The IPCC was designed and managed to perpetuate this deception and cynically do it openly. Deception is possible because most know very little about climate, as the Yale Education study showed (Figure 3).
Figure 3
Graded like a school exam, they found over half failed (52%) and 77 percent received D or F.
Too many scientists don’t know because they accept without checking. They assume, or don’t want to believe, that funding or a political agenda can corrupt other scientists. Klaus-Eckert Puls’ comment explains.
“Ten years ago I simply parroted what the IPCC told us. One day I started checking the facts and data – first I started with a sense of doubt but then I became outraged when I discovered that much of what the IPCC and the media were telling us was sheer nonsense and was not even supported by any scientific facts and measurements.”
I described this as “daylight robbery” three years ago because they don’t hide what they are doing. Explaining how it is done is central to persuading the public of the falsity of IPCC proclamations, without requiring people to understand the science. Sins of omission are as damaging as those of commission.
The whole wheel comprises the so-called greenhouse gasses, of which water vapor is 95 percent by volume. The nut on the rear wheel is total CO2, but the IPCC narrow their focus to a portion of one thread, the human fraction. The IPCC ignore water vapor by assuming humans don’t change it measurably. In the 2007 Report they wrote,
“Water vapour is the most abundant and important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. However, human activities have only a small direct influence on the amount of atmospheric water vapour.”
It is essentially impossible to determine the impact of 4 percent if you have very limited knowledge about 95 percent.
The IPCC tried to downplay the role of water vapor in affecting global temperatures by amplifying the role of CO2 and CH4. The range of numbers used to determine greenhouse effectiveness or Global Warming Potential (GWP) suggested people were just creating numbers – it was not scientific. The IPCC note,
The Global Warming Potential (GWP) is defined as the time-integrated RF due to a pulse emission of a given component, relative to a pulse emission of an equal mass of CO2 (Figure 8.28a and formula). The GWP was presented in the First IPCC Assessment (Houghton et al., 1990), stating ‘It must be stressed that there is no universally accepted methodology for combining all the relevant factors into a single global warming potential for greenhouse gas emissions.
Appropriately, questions about the GWP assessments persist. It prompted Gavin Schmidt, graduate of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), part creator of the website Real Climate, and now director of NASA GISS to offer clarification.
The relative contributions of atmospheric long‐wave absorbers to the present‐day global greenhouse effect are among the most misquoted statistics in public discussions of climate change.
The source of his clarification appears to disabuse his claim.
Motivated by the need for a clear reference for this issue, we review the existing literature and use the Goddard Institute for Space Studies ModelE radiation module to provide an overview of the role of each absorber at the present‐day and under doubled CO2.
This form of affirmation is the standard circular argument of the IPCC. What I say is correct because my models say so. Schmidt further confuses the issue by saying,
With a straightforward scheme for allocating overlaps, we find that water vapor is the dominant contributor (∼50% of the effect), followed by clouds (∼25%) and then CO2 with ∼20%.
Clouds are made up of water droplets so the total effect of water, according to Schmidt, is ~75 percent. The role of water in all its phases is critical to understanding weather and climate. For example, the upper portions of most clouds are predominantly ice crystals that change the albedo factor considerably. Roger Harrabin reported Roy Spencer’s view;
“He thinks clouds are impossible to model at present.”
IPCC claim greenhouse gasses raise global temperature by 33°C. Water vapor varies between slightly more than 0 and 4 percent of the atmosphere. According to Schmidt, this means water vapor accounts for approximately 25°C of the warming. Using an average of 2 percent, this means approximately 12.5°C per 1 percent. But, we don’t know how much water vapor there is or how much it varies. Does a minor fluctuation in water vapor at least equal or exceed the warming effect claimed for the human portion of CO2?
The IPCC is also unsure about the GWP as they explain in AR5. However, it is still not enough to recognize that it alone likely puts their entire computer model output in question.
The simulation of clouds in climate models remains challenging. There is very high confidence that uncertainties in cloud processes explain much of the spread in modelled climate sensitivity. However, the simulation of clouds in climate models has shown modest improvement relative to models available at the time of the AR4, and this has been aided by new evaluation techniques and new observations for clouds. Nevertheless, biases in cloud simulation lead to regional errors on cloud radiative effect of several tens of watts per square meter.
They conclude;
Many cloud processes are unrealistic in current GCMs, and as such their cloud response to climate change remains uncertain.
Importance of Water Vapor
Water, whether gaseous or liquid, serves to modify the temperature range. It increases minimums and decreases maximums and carries out other important processes.
As one website notes,
Over 99% of the atmospheric moisture is in the form of water vapor, and this vapor is the principal source of the atmospheric energy that drives the development of weather systems on short time scales and influences the climate on longer time scales.
Movement of water vapor, and its associated latent heat of vaporization, is also responsible for about 50% of the transport of heat from the tropics to the poles. The movement of water vapor is also important for determining the amount of precipitation a region receives.
The effect of the increased volume of atmospheric water vapor is not knowable because until recently there were only very crude estimates of atmospheric water vapor levels. Here is a 1996 quote,
“It is very hard to quantify water vapor in the atmosphere. Its concentration changes continually with time, location and altitude.” “A vertical profile is obtained with a weather balloon. To get a global overview, only satellite measurements are suitable. From a satellite, the absorption of the reflecting sunlight due to water vapor molecules is measured. The results are pictures of global water vapor distributions and their changes. The measurement error, however, is still about 30 to 40%.”
Four different measurements reflect the difficulties in determining the role of water in the atmosphere; Relative Humidity, Absolute Humidity, Specific Humidity, and Mixing Ratio. Relative Humidity is the only one the public knows, but it is also the most meaningless.
Recently satellite systems claim more accurate measures.
Total column water vapor is a measure of the total gaseous water contained in a vertical column of atmosphere. It is quite different from the more familiar relative humidity, which is the amount of water vapor in air relative to the amount of water vapor the air is capable of holding. Atmospheric water vapor is the absolute amount of water dissolved in air.
The IPCC lack of confidence about precipitation indicates they are not dealing with water vapor properly. Quotes from AR5 illustrate the problem.
Confidence in precipitation change averaged over global land areas since 1901 is low prior to 1951 and medium afterwards. Averaged over the mid-latitude land areas of the Northern Hemisphere, precipitation has increased since 1901 (medium confidence before and high confidence after 1951). For other latitudes area-averaged long-term positive or negative trends have low confidence (Figure 4).
Figure 4 (Source IPCC)
The problem with this map is it assumes the number and accuracy of precipitation measures are the same in 1901 as in 2010. But the IPCC indicate that is not the case.
At regional scales, precipitation is not simulated as well, and the assessment remains difficult owing to observational uncertainties.
The simulation of precipitation is a more stringent test for models as it depends heavily on processes that must be parameterized. Challenges are compounded by the link to surface fields (topography, coastline, vegetation) that lead to much greater spatial heterogeneity at regional scales.
These comments apply to horizontal measures of precipitation, which are assumed to be a reflection of accuracy of knowledge about water vapor in the vertical column. Here is what the IPCC say about that.
Modelling the vertical structure of water vapour is subject to greater uncertainty since the humidity profile is governed by a variety of processes. The CMIP3 models exhibited a significant dry bias of up to 25% in the boundary layer and a significant moist bias in the free troposphere of up to 100% (John and Soden, 2007). Upper tropospheric water vapour varied by a factor of three across the multi-model ensemble (Su et al., 2006). Many models have large biases in lower stratospheric water vapour (Gettelman et al., 2010), which could have implications for surface temperature change (Solomon et al., 2010).
Most climate model simulations show a larger warming in the tropical troposphere than is found in observational data sets (e.g., McKitrick et al., 2010; Santer et al., 2013).
Because of large variability and relatively short data records, confidence in stratospheric H2O vapour trends is low.
Benjamin Franklin included the nursery rhyme, “For want of a nail, the shoe was lost” in his Poor Richards Almanack. It is appears the IPCC car is lost for the want of a water wheel.
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Another great post. Thanks Dr. Ball.
We live on a water world and the IPCC claims that CO2 does it all. Someday this lunacy will end. (I hope)
Agreed, thank you, Dr. Ball.
Aside – I dislike the adjective “greenhouse”. It is a flawed and provocative analogy, IMO. I prefer “atmospheric”. The only value, to me, of “greenhouse” is to point out that CO2 is plant food.
Exactly! A greenhouse works by blocking convection, which incidently is how insulation works. No free flowing gas blocks convection. Therefore no gas acts like a greenhouse. To continue to use the term helps the alarmists. An actual greenhouse is known to be warmer because it blocks convection. Using the term “greenhouse gas” invokes this association and hence you fuel alarmism.
Stop using the term “greenhouse gas”. Just stop. Saying that it is a “generally accepted term” is a large part of the problem,.
Water has a huge effect in our climate system because of phase change and the storage and release of energy that occurs, not because of any radiative properties it may have.
Yes. and Earth atmosphere is greenhouse and the major significant of CO2 in Earth greenhouse
is the same a CO2 in smaller human constructed greenhouse- without the CO2 the plants die.
The heat trapped in a human constructed greenhouse is due to the roof of greenhouse
blocking convection losses of heat.
The roof of Earth huge greenhouse is caused gravity keeping the gases on the planet.
Since earth’s gases can’t escape into space due force of Earth gravity, it’s roof is the gravity.
So the panes of glass make the human made greenhouse, and god made earth is using a more sophisticated gravity roof. Both stop convection. Though God’s house is much bigger and better at stopping all convectional heat losses
So Earth has near perfect barrier to convection loss of heat and it’s roof is more transparent
to sunlight than any pane of glass. This roof is the boundary between Earth atmosphere and vacuum of space and though varies it’s about 800 km in elevation. Below this roof harmful solar energy is blocked- most of the UV and X-rays are absorbed.
And much closer to the surface there is what called the troposphere- where most of the convectional processes occur. And the lower part of the troposphere much of evaporational
processes are confined.
So it’s is wonderous greenhouse for spaceship Earth.
But the roof is caused by gravity, not the so called greenhouse gases.
Not a glass greenhouse but rather a gravity greenhouse.
@ur momisugly gbaikie February 8, 2015 at 11:11 pm
Shur nuff, shur nuff.
But, but, butt, …… Earth’s gravity “greenhouse” roof doesn’t do diddly at keeping your butt warm and comfy during the cold month of wintertime.
The fact that, no matter where you live, you are still highly dependent on having a “human constructed roof” over your head ….. which negates most all of your above piffle.
“””””…..Water has a huge effect in our climate system because of phase change and the storage and release of energy that occurs, not because of any radiative properties it may have……”””””
Well that is not entirely true.
Water in the atmosphere DOES have important radiative properties.
Mostly because it can and does absorb a significant amount of incoming solar energy at solar wavelengths, as well as scattering an additional amount of those wavelength energies back out to space.
The result of this is to reduce the amount of solar spectrum energy that can reach the ocean surface and penetrate to considerable depths where it can ultimately be absorbed and converted in part to heat, which heat won’t be seen on the surface for a long time.
g
Water in the atmosphere has a considerable radiative effect. CO2 does the same (absorb incoming) but to a much smaller extent than H2O. O3 also absorbs incoming.
So so-called GHGs have a significant effect on how much solar energy gets stored in the deep oceans at solar spectrum wavelengths.
–But, but, butt, …… Earth’s gravity “greenhouse” roof doesn’t do diddly at keeping your butt warm and comfy during the cold month of wintertime. —
One of the purpose of a greenhouse is to prevent freezing which adversely effect plants- so if not getting below say 10 C or 50 F at night, it is ok for plants.
But this is not comfy warm for humans.
Or for an idea of minimal warmth is what is advised to keep a lower heating bill, which is to keep a thermostat set at :
“”Five Action Steps to Cut Natural Gas and Propane Use
You can take some steps to reduce the amount of energy that you’re using and lower your utility bills:
Turn down your thermostat to 68 degrees. For every degree you lower your heat in the 60-degree to 70-degree range, you’ll save up to 5 percent on heating costs. “”
http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/tips/winter.html
And 68 F is 20 C.
And so unless you like it on cooler side or want to lower heating bill, I suggest setting it higher than 20 C.
But for our Earth’s gravity “greenhouse” warm it up enough for humans who lack the technology of fire one needs to live in tropics- which is normally above 25 C [unless you are in a desert or higher elevations]
So if want to live in mountains and/or live 30 degree latitude or higher up towards the frozen wastelands, you should use heater in your home whenever it’s not summer.
–But, but, butt, …… me thinks that all the avid proponents of CAGW most probably have all the walls and ceiling of their homes insulated with CO2 ….. therefore not being subject to any incurred expenses for the purchase of an oxidizing fuel for “warming” their abodes.
A demonstration to show the relative significance of water vapor/ CO2 – the rapid cooling which occurs when humidity is low – like in a desert, or during winter when the air is dry, or in the upper atmosphere( the highest clouds are ~25k feet). I’ve worked outside a lot, and I found it better to look at the sky, than a thermometer when deciding if I needed long johns – if there’s cloud cover, the temperature doesn’t decline much at night – but high humidity is the same, I think.
Most population centers are near lots of water. The insulating effect of each cities cloud of vapor prevents most people from being aware of the difference – they just seldom see the rapid temp changes that occur on really dry days. And it doesn’t seem that many are aware of this as a demo of CO2/water vapor effect.
Water is really happening?
Water you saying? 🙂
Yes ‘Water you on about?’ Well,this is an innocent and paradigmatic question (and maybe because I possess an IQ of only two), but when I’m told “Water Vapour is a potent atmospheric greenhouse gas”, where does this ‘gas’ fit in with the total breakdown of all gases by volume?
http://i.imgur.com/QzV7x8E.jpg
Does Water Vapour simply compress the existing ten gases shown in my diagram (without altering the volume of each), or is Water Vapour an inclusive part of the existing Hydrogen/Oxygen components? Irrespective of the amount of Water Vapour present during any given weather situation, is it ‘additional to’ or ‘inclusive of’ the existing breakdown of gases? Answers on the back of a postcard. Thank you.
Your illustration is for dry air. No water. As explained in the article, water varies from near 0 (particularly near the poles) to 4% or higher near the equator. Water is not considered because to do so, one needs to consider humidity, then define humidity, note the altitude, account for micro-droplets of water that are too small to see, but are not water vapour, etc., etc. That is, you can’t actually know what the composition of the atmosphere is to more than 1 % per thing measured. O2 goes from 20.9476% in dry air at STP to 21% ±0 to 4% in the real atmosphere.
The chart shows the percentages of only the gases, not including water vapor), in the air. Physical measurements of the free atmosphere have to include water vapor and free water and ice, as in clouds. Water has an extremely complex physical behavior with a high heat capacity and an even higher heat of fusion and vaporization than any of the other gases and most other molecules. I believe that makes is nearly impossible to accurately measure the behavior of a moist atmosphere, much less model it in the free atmosphere. HVAC(air conditioning) engineers can do a pretty good job designing and modelling air handling systems, but that is a much more limited set of conditions.
@ur momisugly GeeJam February 9, 2015 at 4:41 am
The “short” answer to your question is:
Atmospheric water (H2O) vapor (humidity or H2O droplets) is neither an ‘additional to’ or ‘inclusive of’ your above noted breakdown of atmospheric gases?
If and/or whenever water (H2O) vapor is included in with the aforesaid gasses …. then the aforesaid stated percentages (%) of said gasses decreases in direct proportion to the quantity of water (H2O) vapor resident in any given portion of the atmosphere.
In simpler terms, …. any increase in water (H2O) molecules will, per say, “push” the other gas molecules out of the “area” thus causing said “decrease”.
The H2O molecule weighs less than the other gas molecules and thus the reason for “low pressure systems”, to wit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure_system
Only at extreme altitudes or the extreme cold of Antarctica will the atmospheric H2O vapor even be close to being 0% (zero) ….. and thus will always be far greater than the CO2 at all other places, …. normally ranging from 15,000 to 40,000+ ppm (1.5% to 4+%) verses the current CO2 at 400 ppm (0.04%).
Geejam,
In the diagram, methane is shown as 0.002% of the atmosphere. Wrong, I think. It is about 1,900 ppb or 1.9 ppm or 0.00019 %, an order of magnitude lower than shown.
Thank you both John and Phil. I’ve modified the graphic with a sub-header header which now reads ‘dry air – excluding water vapour’. Now I understand.
Thank you (also) Samuel and Jan.
Jan, you are correct. My combined sources for atmospheric CH4 average out 1,800ppb as at 2011. I’ve simply divided this figure by 1K (a billion is a thousand millions*) which equals 1.8ppm. From this (and accounting for CH4 increases since 2011), I believe I’ve safely asserted CH4 to be 0.0002% volume. Thus, in my diagram, 0.002% is an error. I have missed off a zero. My apologies.
*or is a billion still a million millions as in the old days?
I always understood that one mole of any gas occupied 22.4 litres at STP.
That is; 22.4 litres of ANY gas at STP contains the exact same number of molecules. (Avogadro’s number, 6.023 E+23).
So why do you state your atmospheric gas abundances in volume, rather than molecular species percentage ??
We can always count the number of molecules in any sized atmospheric sample, to get their abundances, so why bother isolating each species and then adjusting its volume till you have STP, or any other condition.
PPMV is a nonsense unit; give us PPM.
Let’s be scientific and assert nothing about their motives. Just focus on facts. I became a climate sceptic by reading IPCCs AR4 report. Facts and observations do not support conclusions written to the policymakers.
Agreed, same action and result.
The IPCC AR4 should be compulsory reading for all “Climate Concerned citizens”, their task find the science claimed to to support the stated conclusions.
A truly nasty case of Find Waldo, as Waldo is not present.
That’s exactly the report that made me commit apostasy to Global Warming. That, and the AR4’s section on policy recommendations to turn to biofuel which lead to a disastrous 7 years of global starvation, the Arab Spring, and civil unrest world wide. That report alone is damning of the warmists, there’s really no need to read any other “skeptic” arguments at all when you can just read the report that the warmists take their sources from. It only gets worse when you read the AR5 report, regarding the Pause, and then notice the uptick in the reports shrilling of disasters. Reading both reports, and then tracking if their predictions actually happened is like watching a drunk gambler with the crappiest luck bet the house in Vegas, and then hearing that same drunk say he’s still going to win, after losing it all.
I think if every warmist read the AR4 and AR5 report, we wouldn’t hear such shrill screeches today about “climate change.”
But they don’t, or they can’t. Almost none of them do. And it’s put out from the same organization they take their marching orders from…
@Global cooling
I agree. Stick to the facts.
I am concerned that all too many of you would rather ignore the facts, both that we can see for ourselves and those which science has concluded (all too conservatively though) will happen. It doesn’t really matter that you feel that your “money” invested in big fossil fuels is so important, and that come hell or high water (there is definitely a pun therein) you will stand your position. The Thing is the world will go on whether you make your choice to be foolish or not. Scientists and engineers world wide are helping implement changes to circumvent climate change as best as possible; whether it is higher efficiency lighting, zero emission cars, renewable energy resource deveopment or various other methods. People everywhere are buying in because these technologies allow some financial freedoms which reliance on oil doesn’t. Oil is like Cable TV, it is very good at what it does, however there are better cheaper solutions.
Rick Chapman
Let’s look at each of your sentences by itself. There are certainly enough errors and omissions in each to confuse things by integrating them, and addressing everything at once.
There is nothing “conservative” about the exaggerated threats and projected futures common in ALL of the CAGW religious beliefs. And, quite frankly, it IS a religion because it has NO evidence of ANY of its projections and predictions of massive future harm. Rather, the exaggerations are ALL on the part of the politicians and their Big-Government-paid self-selected priests (er, scientists) shielded by anonymous pal-reviewed papers that have consistently been proved wrong, exaggerated, and cherry-picked around true statistics.
Thus, the actual global-average heatup rate the past 18 years has been 0.0. But the calculated 100 year heatup rate is only 1.1 to 1.3 degrees C IF a doubling of CO2 actually occurs AND IF the natural variations do not turn negative. BUT! The politicial scientists call for a +4 degree C rise in 85 years, THEN, their brethern in the other disciplines write as if +6, +8 or +10 degree C increase WILL ABSOLUTELY OCCUR. THEN, the politicians write speeches and policies about a +15 “disaster” that must be controlled NOW … by killing millions of real people actually alive and trying to live now. The benefits of fossil fuel ARE the world’s 7 billion people, its animals and livestock and wildlife, and its 100 trillion economy.
Your CAGW religion is driven by leaders who want to kill them.
Back to “evil oil” and “Big Oil” money, eh? Why? Big Government wants 1.3 trillion a year in new coal and carbon taxes. Big Finance wants 20 trillion a year in carbon trading futures – which will be worthless if any skeptic is right. How many “self-selected” and ultra-biased “scientists” can you buy for 1.3 trillion dollars?
High water-> Is a “potential” rise of 24 inches of seawater in 85 years a threat? To a few, yes. A very few. Now. Tell me EXACTLY how destroying the worlds’ economies for 85 years and killing millions of people a year is going to reduce that 24 inches to 12 inches rise. IF sea level rise is a threat and even that “threat’ is not a given fact, but only projections – why is the solution not dams, roads, canals, and dikes to protect people and animals and farms in a few places, rather than killing people everywhere with artificially high energy prices everywhere … THAT WILL NOT CHANGE SEA LEVEL RISE!
No. These people who you admire are being paid BY Big Government TO donors and supporters of Big Government and Big Finance and Big Science specifically BECAUSE they have convinced Big Government to PAY for these false promises and uneconomic wastes of our money. You too, can get a few 100 million in Green Energy funds tax-free for several years by donating money to your local democrat. Don’t worry about paying it back. Nobody else has. Anywhere.
In Spain, the “solar power” producers used diesel generators to run lights over their solar power panels each night to produce their “profits” … Here, the democrat donors just burn birds over the desert in great flaming smoketrails of deceit.
Higher efficiency lighting: Is more expensive and creates waste that is more harmfull to the environment
Zero emission cars: Though reduction in emission by technology is a great thing to do, even 100% electric cars, need to get energy from somehwere. So zero emission cars are a good option for reducing localised smog, not for climate change
Renewable energy: Is expensive, VERY EXPENSIVE. The lies being told about it being cheap are just that lies. I think its important to keep doing research in these fields, and society WILL switch over when they become efficient and cost effective.
What you say about financial freedom is a lie, one maybe you dont even understand yourself.
You will have to explain to me exactly how the points you mentioned above lead to financial freedom.
“better cheaper solutions”. Name one. I can, coal.
That’s quite the little fantasy world you’ve created for yourself, “Rick”. Let me throw in a few observations while we’re at it.
“Facts”. You and facts are not in any way acquainted. But that’s ok, as a concern troll I know you won’t be back anyway.
“Choice to be foolish”. Sorry little man, that choice is already taken. By you. You appear to be so delusional that you actually think there is such things as “zero emission cars”.
“Financial freedoms”. Hilarious. I’ll have to remember that one next time I’m demonstrating just how disconnected from reality the average “believer” is. Better cheaper solutions than oil? To power our civilization? No, there is not. Even though I’d like to see a massive ramp-up of nuclear, you can’t pour it into you fuel tank.
Well I’m all ears; so what are these “better cheaper solutions” ??
“”””” higher efficiency lighting, zero emission cars, renewable energy resource deveopment or various other methods. …..””””” Well I know all about higher efficiency lighting.
So what are these “zero emission cars”, including of course all overhead of their energy sources ??
What “renewable energy resource development are you talking about, and just what are “various other methods” ??
You should sell your house and invest the proceeds in these “better” options; you’ll make an absolute killing !!
Its interesting to me that some people believe energy efficiencies are the propriety of AGW advocates. In fact, here again we have innovation and the free market to thank for LEDs, high efficiency furnaces, gas heat, electric cars, solar and wind. It is the drive to become less dependent, to receive more bang for the buck, the drive to make possible a connected world that links innovation to the consumer. We all want these things. Efficiency and progress drive us all.
My wife and I drove electric scooters for years, the only reason we have a car is for work, as soon as we can get an electric with range we will, my home lighting is all energy efficient, I eat organic as much as possible, both my wife and I have planted pine, spruce and cedars, fir and balsam seedlings; I’ve planted well over a million personally. We drink non fluoridated water…and we are not at all partisan. We don’t parrot news, rather we dig in and vet.
I’d say these behaviors are indicative of our times, and proprietary of the age we live in.
Here is a cartoon explaining why the public is not allowed to know that water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas:
http://www.maxphoton.com/science-science/
When I used to comment at the Guardian I was told many times by others that co2 was the most important greenhouse gas. I was also told about runaway and all that. I was very polite and showed them they were wrong with references.
Folks and journalists at the Guardian kept telling me to listen to the science. I did but they didn’t. They continue to spread misinformation making stuff up that was the opposite of what the IPCC said was unsupported in the science literature. Go figure.
While having a debate with my 90 (now 93) year old mother I said water vapor was a green house gas and she said no it wasn’t. All I could do was walk away.
Interestingly, it was my father (at 82 years of age at the time) who first stated to me that water vapor was by far the predominant greenhouse gas.
So I started reading up on the whole AGW issue in order to set him straight.
I learnt a helluva lot pretty quickly, and I am still amazed at the certainty combined with the lack of knowledge of most alarmists.
Mark,
I commend you! If only others would do the same!
“I am still amazed at the certainty combined with the lack of knowledge of most alarmists.“
Uninformed Alarmist: One who practices a religious-like adherence to an orthodoxy, driven mostly by (1) a tribal ideology, (2) leading to in-group bias, and (3) an avoidance of cognitive dissonance.
In cruder terms, it’s called “Being a sheep, and with scientific ignorance, allows one being led to the slaughter” by ideologically-driven “academics” who surrendered their ethics for a paycheck from the political class.
There has always been snakeoil salesmen for as long as there has been gullible people who can’t recognize pseudoscience from science.
@ur momisugly Joel O’Bryan
It would seem then that there is not such thing as an “informed Alarmist”.
My son once told me it was amazing the amount I learned; between his ages of 18 and 25.
Please stop arguing with your mother.
Mothers know best.
Now, go eat your peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
No, eat your Greens.
Why are “Changes in solar irradiance” included? How do humans influence it? Why not include all changes in solar activity?
Because TSI is where the energy is. TSI is the 800-pound gorilla in the energy input to the system.
I disagree. Clouds are the 800 pound gorilla.
A small change in TSI has been observed to create more La Nina like conditions as clouds are swept from the eastern Pacific. On average the eastern tropical Pacific may experience an increase of 8 W/m2 and as much as 200 W/m2 due to less clouds. The extra-tropics are always radiating more heat back to space than absorbed. Any analysis of changes in solar irradiance and climate must look at the affects of TSI on the tropical ocean cloud patterns and how ocean oscillations redistribute absorbed tropical heat poleward. Direct changes in TSI are felt nearly 100% in the tropics but approach zero towards the poles. Any change in TSI alters the hemispheric temperature gradient that affects heat redistribution. A blanket of CO2 does not alter that gradient.
disagreeing does not make it so. Clouds are effects, more than causes.
It appears that there may be a number of 800 pound gorillas in the room,
but none of them are named “CO2”.
Well, there is a sensible middle position. BOTH!
GCMs do not and cannot have the grid/time scale resolution to even try to model tropical convection cells. Computationally infeasible. So they have to parameterize Lindzen’s adaptive IR iris hypothesis related to tropical Tstorms.
Those CMIP5 parameters are ‘tuned’ to ~1975-2005 by the official CMIP5 ‘experimental design’, which assumed GHG was all. (Taylor, BAMS 2012). The pause shows GHG is not. Thus all models were tuned ‘hot’ per Asadoku 2009 in order to best hindcast that 30 year requirement. Thus all CMIP5 are now falsified by a >18 year unprojected ‘pause’, the absence of a tropical troposphere hotspot, and underprediction of precipitation by half. The latter two diagnostics follow directly from Lindzen’s hypothesized homeostasis mechanism. The former is now a warmunist own goal based on 100% GHG attribution.
Tropical convection, troposphere humidity feedback, cloud feedback, inherent GCM limitations, and IPCC attribution are separate essays in my newish ebook with a Judith Curry foreword.
Lief OK Lets accept your word smiting. “Clouds are effects, more than causes”
Lets take an example of heatwave and no change in TSI. Record heat is caused by a high pressure system with dry air decreasing air ad soil heat capacity and no clouds increasing insolation. Temperatures to rise. What do you call the “cause” of the resulting high temperature?
HA, the energy source of a good butt paddling doesn’t decrease just because you put on a couple extra layers of clothing to lessen the hurtful effect on your rear end.
So Rud,
Just which of those “separate essays in (your) newish ebook” are the results of your own researches, rather than a rehash of what many have simply stated many times before ??
Thanks Doc,
It has long amazed me that they can claim such certainty from so little knowledge. I’m not sure how it happened, but it looks like we have now raised several of generations that believe in the infallibility of the computer… that.regardless of the program or the data, the computer cannot lie. How else could they place such confidence in the GCMs.
Why? if you are going to lie, the more complete conviction you bring to the party, the more likely you are to be believed…
Does anyone know when the next update from the CO2 sensing satellite will be released?
They suggest monthly, but haven’t seen anything since end of December –
http://oco.jpl.nasa.gov/
Thanks Bubba.
Methinks they may be struggling to write a credible narrative to support the release that still supports the CAGW party line.
Wow! go to the news tab there to find alarmist mega-propaganda…
OCO-2 level 2 data is supposedly going to be available starting around early March 2015.
It will be available here:
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/OCO-2/data-holdings/oco-2
So if you show a pie chart graph (like in Fig. 2) and include water vapor as one of the greenhouse gases, what would the percentage of water vapor be? Would it be 95% as stated at one point in your article, by volume?
While not a pie chart, check out the chart at Table 3 of this link:
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
Hope that helps.
Thanks JohnWho, I keep trying, but I can’t seem to get to that link or even geocraft.com…
J. Philip Peterson –
Geez, works for me on multiple PCs using Windows, Android, and iOS
Maybe if you try clearing your cache or using a different browser?
Dunno.
But, FWIW, the graphic does show:
Water vapor —– 95.000%
Carbon Dioxide (CO2) 3.618%
Methane (CH4) 0.360%
Nitrous oxide (N2O) 0.950%
CFC’s (and other misc. gases) 0.072%
Total 100.000%
I believe Pielke Sr showed, from a net viewpoint, that WV was ~2/3 the greenhouse effect, and CO2 ~1/3. Looking at the IR diagrams & the extent of the radiation “notches”, this seemed reasonable.
Finally saw the 95% water chart (table 3) on Chrome. When you search Google Images for Greenhouse Gases, here is what you get, none of them show water vapor:
%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.noaanews.noaa.gov%252Fstories2011%252F20110803_nonco2.html%3B6563%3B5471
The GHG effect is a result of the climate not the cause. This is why CO2 is always following the temperature trend.
When the oceans cool the long term effects will be to diminish the GHG effect.
“Their mandate is limited to determining only “human causes of climate change”. Why are “Changes in solar irradiance” included? How do humans influence it? Why not include all changes in solar activity?
1 changes in solar irradiance are included so they can be tested for importance.
Let suppose we want to answer the question “what is the human portion of the change in temperature”
Simple. get two earths. Observe what one earth does with humans and remove humans from the second earth. Both earths in this experiment would have a sun.
But we cant do that experiment. This is what makes climate science an OBSERVATIONAL science and not an experimental science. in experimental science we do controlled experiments. In observational science
are ability to do experiments is limited. We can run two earths.
Consequently there are three options.
A) proclaim that the only true science is experimental.
B) statistically analyze the data to come up with “best explnations”
C) run simulated experiments.
In both A and B if you want to tease out the human contribution you need the natural contribution.
easy peasy.
Why not use all changes in solar?
Start with the changes you have good data on
Start with the changes known to cause a change in temperature. Every day TSI drops to zero at night for one part of the planet. temperature drops. Go figure TSI might be important.
Add other solar phenomena IF and When somebody can describe it in physics.
Mosher
If you would have been writing on blogs like this in 1940 and were a firm believer in the AGW theories, how do you think you would have held up with the Observational Science for the next 30 years until 1970 when there had been no significant warming for 30 years. Don’t you think your self confidence would have been teetering a little? For the last 75 years of Observational Science, only 33% of that time has there been significant warming.
I wonder how the IPCC would have handled it all between 1940 and 1970.
Perhaps their charter would have been more oriented toward science. That is, lets find out what is really going on rather than having decided it beforehand and then spending the next 25 years justifying their decision.
“That is, lets find out what is really going on rather than having decided it beforehand and then spending the next 25 years justifying their decision.”
If I did not know better, I would suspect someone of thinking that science is all about trying to find out how things really work; a search for truth as it were. Government funded science does not work that way. The IPCC has it right — give them the answer the masters want to hear and they will justify it to the death like all good post-modern scientists. (I almost used a name of someone here, but asked myself why. Everyone can see the alarmists trolls here for themselves)
“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” ~ H. L. Mencken … and the IPCC found it in CO2.
Yes, great men put us on the moon…now flawed models dictate science.
“changes in solar irradiance are included so they can be tested for importance.”
Then why exclude water vapor?
Mosher,
Your post addresses the question of how, or to what degree, we can discover scientific truths in an uncertain world. You declare:
“Consequently there are three options.
A) proclaim that the only true science is experimental.
B) statistically analyze the data to come up with “best explnations”
C) run simulated experiments.”
It is not a terrible list, but there is a lot of nuance missing. Consider a somewhat alternative framing of your three ideas.
Consequently there are three options.
A)Run properly controlled experiments that test otherwise unobvious predictions from a model. This is an especially convincing way to gain confidence in the truth or falsity of that model.
B)Argue that existing experimental data correlates well with the predictions of a model, or disagrees with the predictions of the model. The statistical approach can be useful but is highly susceptible to the “curve fitting” or over-fitting or post hoc ergo propter hoc error. “after this, therefore because of this”. Hence, the value of such an argument is limited when trying to achieve certainty for or against a model.
C)Argue deductively forward on the basis of theory that is already accepted as being true. 400 years into the scientific revolution we now know a lot of physics. However, the world is a complicated place, and arguing from “known” theory is therefore fraught with possible error. Global climate is fearfully complex, and even in the most sophisticated climate theories a great many assumptions and simplifications are necessary, quite apart from the excellent chance of simply doing the sums wrong at one or more points. Consequently, confidence in the truth of the model simulations is accordingly diminished.
Mosher, your overall point is that controlled experiments would be ideal but are not possible, and yet we need to try and move forward anyway. That is no doubt true, but it is still very important to bear in mind that options B) and C) are not as good as option A), generally speaking.
This means that a certain degree of humility, when B) and C) are the only options, is very much warranted.
…. but never use an ensemble of GCMs and try and convince us that has any predictive capabillity
We are the experiment, we live in it everyday.
Don’t know why the temps recorded need to be constantly adjusted though, it might make one assume that there is a correct value, being striven for.
Mosher
Where is the observational evidence of the CS formula…………..??
I really do not know. This is a serious question.
Steven Mosher
February 8, 2015 at 12:20 pm
/////////////////////////////////////////////
Steven, this comment is ridiculous –
Absolutely.
There is a material difference between land and oceans (which are a selective surface and one which is free to evaporate with consequential change in latent energy),
We can test whether DWLWIR possesses sensible energy and is capable of performing sensible work in the environ in which it finds itself.
Willis’s article or Radiating the Oceans employs circular logic when he relies upon the assertion that the oceans would freeze but for DWLWIR being inputted into them, and fails to address at what rate the supposed energy from DWLWIR would need to be sequestered to depth, if that energy is to do something other than simply drive evaporation, and fails to address what process(es) could sequester the energy to depth at sufficient rate.
It is about time those that support the AGW meme, did some proper experiments to back up their claims rather than argue we only have one Earth, so we cannot test anything and hence the need for computer modelling.
.
I think you mean “we cannot run two Earths”
@ur momisugly Steven Mosher February 8, 2015 at 12:20 pm
It was utterly foolish for anyone to even suggest such an experiment …… and therefore such foolishness does not preclude the fact that a “simple” experiment can be performed that will “prove without any doubt” as to whether or not all the fear-mongering claims about CAGW are nothing more than funded-interest “junk science”.
OBSERVATIONAL science is …… farmer and sailor science …… but only they know how to correctly employ what they have learned from their observations.
The more you look at the underlying science, the more you see that the science of the Earth’s climate is poorly understood at this point in time.
An honest, objective person would admit as much. A naive, uneducated, foolish, or corrupt person would not. Instead they would rather shout down anyone who disagrees them with “The science is settled!” nonsense.
Reg Nelson,
Correctomundo. Objective science is on the skeptics’ side. The general public seems to be coming around, too.
There is a reader poll in ^that article.^ Currently more than 91% of readers agree that fiddling with the temperature record is a huge scandal. [Anyone can take the poll.]
dbstealey, thanks for the link. I voted on the poll earlier (once on my PC, once on my Laptop and once on my ipad). Just now, 90% of 77,940 voters (so far) say ‘Climate Scientists were telling porkies’ – or words to that effect.
However, Christopher Booker’s report on Paul Homewood’s perpetual search for the truth does not warrant the appalling amount of vitriolic remarks left in the comments section by both sides of the CAGW debate. Whilst, on the whole, comments by our WUWT community remains civilised, it becomes a full scale bloodbath in the Telegraph (to name but one MSM source). Yes, people are angry, people have been pushed too far – but venomous attitudes do nothing to help our ‘rationalist’ cause.
It also hinders progress when many ‘believers’ in the Telegraph’s comments section continually refer to ‘Grist’ – a web site which provides them with pages and pages of ‘responses’ to counter-argue with our skeptical views.
http://grist.org/series/skeptics/
Question: Despite many searches, I cannot find one web site that provides the exact opposite to ‘Grist’ – a series of rational responses to common CAGW claims. Is there such a site?
On http://www.1ocean-1climate.com I have found the followings: “There are a number of man-made contributory factors that may have had specific impacts on the atmospheric heating, e.g. local warming in the cities (due to housing, roads, and other resultant factors), smoke and dust over long distances or deforestation of huge forest areas. Each of the above examples may have had temporary or long lasting implications, but none of them is a major source for the strong warming or cooling trends during the last 150 years. However, two major contributors (shipping and naval war) have been given little or no attention at all until now. Although the surface of the oceans is gigantic, their structure can be still influenced by certain factors. ”
This, somewhat, interferes with the IPPC report. I mean, humans have a contribution on climate change, obviousely. But not so much the driver of a car, but the leader of a country that fought wars at sea. The climate is the continuation of the oceans, so I think what happend to the oceans should have been considered until now.
From 1900 to 2010 the global population grew by 5 billion,how much CO2 was added by the additional people?( this is not a common core problem)
Go to the 6700+ commenter’s at the bottom of this article. Only the media, fraud science, and politicians are beating the CAGW drum.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/globalwarming/11395516/The-fiddling-with-temperature-data-is-the-biggest-science-scandal-ever.html
now up to 44,000+
So is a 91% consensus of 44,000 stronger than a 97% consensus of 79 ????
Since 79 is fixed and 44,000+ is increasing…no contest.
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” ― Daniel Patrick Moynihan
FACT 1: Ice-core records repeatedly and consistently show that temperature changes first [up or down] before CO2 changes
FACT 2: Over the last 18+ years, satellite data show no net global warming, while atmospheric CO2 has risen more than 10 percent.
CONCLUSION: CO2 is not the “control knob” on temperature or climate. Other than as plant food, CO2 does not matter
CO2 does not matter
Time to abolish/defund the IPCC before it commits more fraud
FACT 2+: The Berkeley Earth Land + Ocean Data anomaly dataset shows no global average temperature increase since 2003.
The NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies GISS Surface Temperature Analysis monthly anomaly dataset shows no temperature increase in their Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index five-year Running Mean since 2002.
If you’re looking at US Govt temperature records. They are a fabribrication achieved through “homogonizing” the historic record. NASA or NOAA temperature “records” are a deception. A misrepresentation of the true record. A record meticulously compiled over the years .A record that should have been sacrosanct.
It’s dominant use in CAGW is photographically
It is rising H2O droplets that provide the terror images of “pollutant” gasses emerging from coal fired power station stacks – when suitably backlit by the sun.
Take note warmists looking for that Kodak moment, the Battersea Power station is long defunct, so you must find another photographic model for your Chicken Little congregation.
Many people are trying to better understand water vapor (indeed, the entire hydrologic cycle) and how it impacts the energy balance. Obviously it’s of critical importance. But please explain to me how humans can have a significant impact on the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. Do you know how much water evaporates from the oceans each day?
The point is that until you understand how changes in water vapor affect the climate, trying to determine the other, much, much smaller contributions, is a waste of time.
The point is that evil people are being deceptive for their own gain.
Good point Barry, water vapor is controlled by both natural cycles AND landscape changes. Indeed it is natural ocean oscillations that dominate changes in water vapor. Even Trenberth acknowledged global water vapor was dominated by El NIno.
Locally humans dry the land and affect convective storms. In the 1800s California’s central valley was considered swampland. Owens Lake that once allowed steamboat passage is now dry.
Please forgive the reiteration of my nursery rhyme:
On a cold winter day
that’s snowy and grey,
“Oh where is our globe ‘a warming?”
Depends on the sun,
which way oceans run,
and clouds, in complexity forming.
Dihydrogen monoxide must now be banned
The mere thought of its use must forever be canned
The delegates spoke
in Cancun, what a joke.
It wasn’t exactly what Watt once had planned.
http://lenbilen.com/2012/01/30/dihydrogen-monoxide-the-main-source-of-greenhouse-gases-a-limerick/
The new Hydrogen pollution narrative
Every scientist acknowledges that H20 has greater opacity in the Infrared than CO2, and is thus the stronger component to holding in the Earth’s heat. The point is the H20 precipitates out as rain and snow, CO2 does not.
Because warm air holds much more water vapor than cool air, there is a strong positive feedback effect that amplifies the blanketing of the atmosphere in the infrared when CO2 increases. If we had a water-free planet, the effect of CO2 would be much less.
But we live on a watery planet. Which means it’s worth taking care of it.
I love taking care of my planet! That’s why I rant at global warming alarmism and poor reasoning skill of those who believe it! See my comment below on water vapour and CO2 ratios
Chris, if that happened…it would have already happened
We would have had run away global humidity before….
Actually, if that were possible, we wouldn’t be here right now
Of course it has happened before! For most of Earth’s 4.6 Billion years the Earth has been quite significantly warmer than it is today. The planet has been there before; it will survive. Humans haven’t been in this climate regime before; their survivability is the question.
Chris, warm air indeeds holds more water vapour, so you acknowledge that temperatures rise first, then water vapour increases through evaporation. Right? But now be aware that oceans are drawing most of the extra heat from CO2 warming out of the atmosphere through radiative transfer, and apparently mixing more than previously expected (see England et al). And this is moderating the rate of warming and evaporation. So how does that result in a “strong positive feedback”?
Well, it depends on which dollops of air you’re comparing and contrasting. The air in the Sahara is hot but holds very little water vapour. The air here on the BC coast is 20 degrees cooler but has 3 or 4 times as much water in it.
Everybody’s familiar with the (perhaps tiresome) insistence that air doesn’t “hold” water, but the imprecise language might lead to laxity in visualization.
In the AGW melodrama, we are repeatedly reminded that it’s not the (puny) rise in temperature that will knot our knickers but the Weirding of Weather, where everything becomes all topsy-turvy.
Yes, we have “wet will become wetter, dry will become drier” for when “warm will become colder” doesn’t seem to be selling, but, generally we can’t count on a concomitant rise in evaporated but not yet precipitated water vapour with a rise in temperature.
The wet becoming wetter thing intrigues me because I don’t know if the “Wet Coast” counts as wet.
Sure, the cold season is wet but we have 3 months of very dry, so, if our dry becomes drier, it can only become drier by encroaching on the wet. Thereby, the wet also becomes drier …etc.
We’re quit a bit drier than Atlanta, anyways.
Yes indeed, mebbe, when asking a simple question of logic (“So how does that result in a “strong positive feedback”?”), we are reminded that we should change the subject to discussing the “Wierding of Weather”. And if we take the bait, and remind that the IPCC AR5 and SREX reports advise that we are not observing an increase in floods, droughts, hurricanes, then… well I suppose it usually descends at this point to accusations of anti-science and climate denial and Gish Gallop, and such.
So many circular loops in Chris’ logic, so little time…
More CO2–>greater infrared opacity–>more convective atmosphere–>more extreme weather events (drought, flood, temperature extremes).
That’s it in a nutshell.
Chris, you forgot water vapour feedback, which is the subject of the article above.
Actually there is solid data to show that human society first flourished in a period somewhat warmer than today – the Holocene optimum.
Where did humans evolve?
It is clear that for humans as a specie, the globe is way too cold.
If it was not for our ability to adapt ourselves (with clothing) or to adapt our environs (with buildings and fire), very little of this globe would be habitable for humans.
The reason why we all wear clothes (and not a loin cloth/bikini etc) is not for modesty, but because it is simply too damn cold on planet Earth.
You only have to look where humans live with little clothes (Rainforests/Australian Outback etc) to realise how little of the globe is environmentally suitable for humans as a pure specie, and why if one were only considering humans, one would wish to see a globe that was vastly warmer.
But wea ll know that bio diversity is grweater in warm/wet environs and at its least in cold/arid environs. Science tells us that a warmer globe would greatly benefit life in general, and bio diversity would be increased if the globe were to warm.
The effect of the CO2 can’t be any less than what it already is.
A 0.0 (zero) measurable effect is still ZERO.
“like describing a car and how it operates by ignoring the engine, transmission, and wheels while focusing on one nut on the right rear wheel. They are only looking at one thread on the nut, human CO2.”
Or … like trying to understand how a car works by measuring only ozone from the exhaust.
Gary in Erko
While ignoring ALL of the economic benefits of EVERY car and truck and railroad worldwide while counting the bugs killed on an average windshield in Florida..
Are you including Love Bug season? That could make a huge difference;-)
But Gary, science proves that the thread on the nut is positve, and you are saying it is negative, so you are anti-science and a science denier. And you obviously don’t care about the bugs dying on the windshield, you are an enemy of the planet.
We need to replace all the cars and trucks urgently with sustainable bicycles. Vote Green.
Or the nut behind the steering wheel.
The IPCC states that water vapour should produce around half of the warming shown in the global climate models, and this should result in the upper troposphere warming faster than the surface:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-6-3-1.html
‘In GCMs [global climate models], water vapour provides the largest positive radiative feedback (see Section 8.6.2.3): alone, it roughly doubles the warming in response to forcing (such as from greenhouse gas increases).’
And:
‘In addition, GCMs find enhanced warming in the tropical upper troposphere, due to changes in the lapse rate (see Section 9.4.4).’
If we fast forward to the AR5 they have the results to see if this is really occurring (table 2.8, page 197, chapter 2, working group I, IPCC AR5 report):
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter02_FINAL.pdf
ALL temperature records show the lower troposphere (LT) warming faster than the mid/upper troposphere (MT) – i.e. no tropospheric hotspot & the opposite of what was predicted. It’s true the hotspot can be caused by any type of forcing, not just CO2, but the fact that it doesn’t exist shows that there is no evidence of positive feedback from water vapour regardless of what should be causing it.
And in discussing water vapor, you didn’t mention irrigation of much of the west, including the San Joaquin Valley here in California. Putting additional water- and water vapor- in a desert can also affect temperature significantly.