The Battle Against High Humidity and High Cloud Cover

The concern that people have for rising carbon dioxide levels is based on an assertion being made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that rising carbon dioxide levels would result in the atmosphere becoming more humid, which would increase cloud cover.

Humidity is supposedly responsible for 50{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} and cloud cover for 25{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of a mythical “greenhouse effect.” 

Thus, if humidity and cloud cover increase so will the “greenhouse effect,” which would, in turn, drive global surface-level air temperatures higher.

This is the falsified “positive water vapor feedback” hypothesis that is programmed into all of the climate computer models that are prophesying catastrophic anthropogenic global warming/climate change.  Keep in mind that these prophecies of human caused climate doom are not based on what carbon dioxide or any other “non-compressible greenhouse gas”1 might do on its own.

Rather they are based solely on what the IPCC says higher levels of atmospheric water in the form of humidity and cloud cover will do.  All of them. Without “positive water vapor feedback” no climate computer model would be able to generate catastrophic anthropogenic global warming scenarios.

The idea that higher levels of atmospheric water in the form of high humidity and high cloud cover would or could create an environmental catastrophe is out of sync with the common experience of everyone who lives on planet Earth. Who has not witnessed that the Earth’s water cycle, which includes atmospheric water in the form of humidity and cloud cover, brings life to the Earth’s biosphere and its various ecosystems?

Who doesn’t know that the life that is present in arid, desert regions struggles to survive while those regions that have high humidity and high cloud cover are bursting with vibrantly green plant life and teaming with all sorts of animal life?  Beyond that, even with cursory reflection people concede that the Earth’s water cycle also drops surface level air temperatures; it does not increase them as the IPCC would have you believe.

One does not have to be a “climate scientist” to witness the life-giving power of the H2O molecule especially in the form of high humidity and high cloud cover. For the Earth’s biosphere and its various ecosystems there is no such thing as too much atmospheric water. If the IPCC where correct in its assertion then the area of the world that would be the most devastated by high atmospheric water content would be Mawsynram, Meghalaya, India, (Meghalaya = “land of the clouds”) because it is drenched with 467 inches of rain per annum. Here is a photo of Mawsynram, Meghalaya, India:

Look at the photo.

Do you see manifest in this photo any of the horrible things that the IPCC says will happen to the natural environment and to humanity should the atmosphere’s water content become too high?

Is it causing a heat wave? Is it causing a decrease in precipitation?

Is it reducing the resilience of the local ecosystem?

Is it putting at risk for extinction 20-30{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of plant and animal species?

Is it n anyway negatively impacting the water supply or the food supply?

Is it decreasing crop productivity and thus exacerbating hunger?

Is it especially bad for impoverished people?

Is it causing malnutrition, increasing diarrhea diseases, increasing the frequency of cardio-respiratory failure? Does it spread infectious diseases?

Is it negatively affecting education, health care, and public health initiatives?

Is it negatively impacting infrastructure and economic development?

For the human beings living there that much rain might very well be a nuisance, but the regional ecosystem loves it and thrives on it.

Nevertheless, these are all things that the IPCC has prophesized will happen in its Fifth Assessment Report2 unless humanity works together to keep the level of atmospheric water—humidity and cloud cover—down.

Now contrast Mawsynram, Meghalaya, India with these photos of the Sahara Desert (above) that lies roughly along the same latitude where both the humidity and cloud cover are extremely low.  Most of the sparse life that does exists in the Sahara Desert is huddled around pools of water that well up from the ground.

What does the IPCC say humanity must do to limit the amount of water that there is in the atmosphere? We must severely restrict our use of hydrocarbon energy because burning hydrocarbons for energy releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and according to them that “anthropogenic” carbon dioxide is a “control knob” that determines how much deadly water vapor and how much deadly cloud cover there is in the atmosphere!

Ergo, in order to save the planet and to save humanity from rising levels of deadly humidity and deadly cloud cover we must severely restrict our use of hydrocarbon energy even though doing so would devastate the global economy, which would in turn result in the starvation deaths of hundreds of millions of people who rely on food that is grown, processed, transported and distributed via the energy produced when hydrocarbons are burned!

Needless to say, the IPCC is not composed of food growers, food processors, food transporters or food distributors. They therefore have no clue on how to or what it takes to feed 7 billion people worldwide.

This is how modern farming is currently being done. It is being done with hydrocarbon powered machinery because there are no solar or wind powered harvesters or tractors.

This is how farming was done before the industrial revolution, a revolution that was fueled by hydrocarbon energy, and this is what the IPCC would have humanity return to should it succeed in either persuading or forcing the world to abandon the burning of hydrocarbons for energy. Why?

Because harvesters and tractors burn hydrocarbons for energy and that produces carbon dioxide as a byproduct and they insist that increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the air will increase the amount of deadly humidity and deadly cloud cover that there is in the air.

What the IPCC doesn’t address though is who is going to pick the cotton and plow the fields once they succeed in banning hydrocarbon powered farm implements in order to keep global levels of humidity and cloud cover down?

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/330/6002/356

2 https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/

PDF located at tech-know-group.com


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Comments (11)

  • Avatar

    Alan Thorpe

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    The fundamental point about high humidity is surely that it cools the surface. Compare dry desert regions with the humid tropics. The deserts have the high surface temperatures and the tropics the lowest because the latent heat of evaporations takes huge amounts of energy into the atmosphere.

    Reply

    • Avatar

      Xiaowei

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      Even if there were a feedback mechanism as high as cubic in energy influx rate, the basic night-time radiation is quartic in energy flux outwards. In other words, the more the earth warms, the faster it cools, and no mechanism except the rotation of the earth can keep up with the thermal losses. Now someone might say, “Well, it’s half-and-half (daytime and night). But the reality is that the equilibrium based off radiation flux is quadratic at best. The only reason we’re not freezing to death at night in the first place is that we have an atmosphere. This is why deserts are cooler at night than most temperate climes. They have lower humidity. These are all basic observational science supported by thermondynamic laws. Most people learn them by age 12. The fact that governments have literally millions of people in denial of basic science is truly confounding.

      Now some people will say, “But Venus has a greenhouse effect”. Granted. Earth is much farther from the sun than Venus. It also has an atmosphere which is NINETY times as thick as the Earth’s. Not to mention the main gas on Earth is N2, which has few degrees of freedom. Unless you were to literally burn everything on earth, you could not even double the thickness of the earth’s atmosphere.

      Here’s the thing. For whatever reason (I personally prefer creato ex nihilo) the Earth has a negative feedback mechanism for virtually every way it can be disturbed. Not all those feedback mechanisms are at global equilibrium, meaning that in many instances a linear response should not be expected.

      So here’s the worst part. Suppose the IPCC were right. Humans add X to Y, get X+Y. Guess what? We’re definitely not in the linear regime (if they’re correct). so doing the reverse of X to X+Y won’t undo it and give back Y.

      IF IPCC IS RIGHT, HUMANS HAVE ZERO CHANCE OF UNDOING CLIMATE CHANGE.

      And that is the crux of the whole political lie. They want us to spend money on something that, if they were right, couldn’t be fixed. And then they are going to pretend that the natural mechanisms that fix it (because their model is wrong) were actually due to us following them. The idolatry! The immense arrogance!

      Reply

  • Avatar

    T.L. Winslow (@historyscoper)

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    Duh, CO2 and H20 are part of the cooling cycle for Earth’s surface. By the time they ascend to the atmosphere they’ve already taken heat from the surface, and nothing they can do afterwards can return it, because convection is making them ascend higher and higher into cooler and cooler regions of the atmosphere, where they give off any heat they were carrying. Since nothing can cause heat to be transferred from a cooler to a warmer surface, all the atmospheric gases can do is transfer heat to the cooler surrounding air.
    How sick the global warming scientists are to try to turn physical laws upside down and backwards, the old con game of turning black white and white black to get their hands on the green. Too bad, scientific ignorance is so widespread that the popular opinion won’t be turned around anytime soon, so don’t hold your breath. Until there’s an outright new ice age, they have the upper ground from the U.N. level on down, as long as the bottom line is steal from the rich U.S. and give to the poor countries who outvote them.
    If you want to be ahead of the herd, start a systematic study of the history of Earth’s climate and climate change science and prep your mind to win all the cocktail party arguments. There’s only one place to go, my cool, er, hot, er, new climate historyscope, free to use in your browser. http://www.historyscoper.com/climatescope.html

    Reply

  • Avatar

    jerry krause

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    Hi Carl,

    It seems you and the IPCC do not believe that actual observations (measurements) are critically important in science as you both continually refer to data averaged over a day, a week, a month, a year, a decade, or a century. Yes, when one studies a dynamic system which is continually changing it is useful, if not necessary, at some point to average the variable being studied.

    The NOAA Surface Radiation (SURFRAD) project measures and records the values of the radiations and air temperature and a few other meteorology variables each minute. This creates a huge data file of numbers for each day. One could add each measurement for an hour and divide by 60 to obtain an average for the hour and this would greatly reduce the number of numbers in the data file.

    The NOAA US Climate Reference Network (USCRN) project does something like this as they report the average for the previous hour plus the maximum and minimum values measured during the previous hour. These maximum and minimum values provide critical information which an averaged value cannot. This is the variability of the value being averaged during the hour.

    I reviewed the above because I have not found the ‘actual’ data, only averaged data, of either the SURFRAD project or the USCRN project being used by you or anyone else. I have reviewed this because you wrote: “Thus, if humidity and cloud cover increase so will the “greenhouse effect,” which would, in turn, drive global surface-level air temperatures higher.” But you never explained how cloud cover was going to “drive global surface-level air temperatures higher.” For it has been a common expectation that cloud cover decreases the daytime temperatures.

    Now a fact is I had presented actual USCRN and SURFRAD data that established the observed fact that certain cloud cover did produce significantly greater than average temperatures and even a record temperature and had offered an explanation for what was observed. (https://principia-scientific.com/record-temperature-result-of-cloud-revised-updated/) So, given your statement, you (or the editor of PSI) should have referenced this and any other article which had previously documented this commonly unexpected result with actual data.

    Have a good day, Jerry

    Reply

    • Avatar

      Xiaowei

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      Mr. Jerry,
      I”m familiar with data science, running simulations with as few as three variables to big ones costing hundreds of thousands of core-hours. What has consistently bothered me about every climate simulation I have seen or heard explained is that there is no conservation of energy. I would like to find a model of the Earth land/sea surface – atmosphere -space – sun radation & earth rotation (but haven’t yet) where every quanta of energy is tracked in a 3D spherical coordinate system with wedges approx (5km)^3 in volume. The goal of every simulation should be to start with laws and reproduce phenomena, not to force phenomena and produce laws. As you mentioned, one of the most difficult phenomena to correctly reproduce is that of convective flows. I haven’t been able to get this phenomenon to emerge spontaneously yet, but if I can (without modeling it built-in) find a way to get a mini-version of this running, I will be able to see what the day-averaged response curve is like above equilibrium. Something to keep in mind is that humidity can drive evaporation in areas with high bioactivity – a response not seen at all in regions with little vegetation.

      Reply

      • Avatar

        Xiaowei

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        I’ll add one more thing. I don’t think the author of this piece articulated clearly what he’s trying to complain about. However, I’ll make it clear what I’m complaining about. I DO NOT accept any model / simulation with phenomonologically driven inputs as physically correct. I believe that’s what the author is trying to get at as well. Some of the models used appear to be employing a certain phenomonon as a model input instead of finding a way to reproduce it from more basic principles.

        Reply

        • Avatar

          jerry krause

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          Hi Xiaowei,

          “I’ll make it clear what I’m complaining about. I DO NOT accept any model / simulation with phenomonologically driven inputs as physically correct.”

          I’m not clear about what you are complaining about. First, what has been simulated? Except first by natural solar radiation, than by natural cloud, as observed by certain instruments whose values which I accept as being valid. To me the world ‘simulated’ suggests something that other people and/or I am causing by our actions.

          Maybe you can enlighten me better.

          Have a good day, Jerry

          Reply

      • Avatar

        James McGinn

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        Xiaowei:
        “As mentioned, one of the most difficult phenomena to correctly reproduce is that of convective flows. I haven’t been able to get this phenomenon to emerge spontaneously yet, but if I can (without modeling it built-in) find a way to get a mini-version of this running, I will be able to see what the day-averaged response curve is like above equilibrium.”

        Convective notions of atmospheric flow are just group delusions. This cartoonish notion was introduced by a quack named Espy way back in the 1840s. His reasoning involved nothing more than inferring an analogy between the plume of “steam” emanating from a pot of water boiling on a stove and the observed plume of thunderstorms.

        The notion that convection is operational in the atmosphere can never be refuted because it is not a concisely defined notion. It is just a vague, wishy-washy notion that appeals to the lowest common denominator of dull-witted science consumers.

        James McGinn / Solving Tornadoes
        The ‘Missing Link’ of Meteorology’s Theory of Storms
        https://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=16329

        Reply

    • Avatar

      Carl

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      I didn’t create the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis as it is being used by the IPCC, but I have been engaged in testing it. The metric that the “greenhouse effect” uses is the “global temperature”, which is arrived at by averaging all surface-level air temperatures along with sea-surface temperatures. “Averaging”, of course, is a standard statistical tool used in all fields of science.

      One can, indeed, find examples of “outliers” within all data sets that are being collected by all scientists around the globe. It is actually not uncommon to find that temperature levels positively correlate with humidity/cloud cover levels, i.e., as the temperature goes up so does humidity and cloud cover. This is because higher air temperatures increase the capacity of air to hold water vapor. The assertion being made by the IPCC is that this extra humidity and cloud cover “cause” even more atmospheric warming–an assertion that I dispute.

      In my study of the relevant scientific data I have also seen many examples of an inverse correlation between surface level air temperatures and humidity/cloud cover levels, i.e., as the level of humidity and cloud cover increase surface level air temperatures decrease. The ultimate question then is what is the “net” effect of all atmospheric water–the entire global water cycle–on the average global temperature? In order to study that question one has to do some “averaging”.

      In quoting the IPCC’s assertion that “if humidity and cloud cover increase so will the ‘greenhouse effect,’ which would, in turn, drive global surface-level air temperatures higher.” I do not claim to believe that statement to be true, rather I am simply stating the hypothesis that I am testing. In this case the IPCC claims that together all of the humidity and all of the cloud cover globally is causing the “global temperature” to be 24.75 C higher than it would be if there were no water vapor or cloud cover anywhere in the world. This is an assertion that I dispute. I the same time I don’t dispute that there are “outliers”.

      You point out that you have “presented actual USCRN and SURFRAD data that established the observed fact that certain cloud cover did produce significantly greater than average temperatures.” Again, I don’t dispute the fact that you have found examples of certain instances where certain types of clouds on certain days positively correlate with higher surface level air temperature, but you know as well as anyone that correlation does not prove causation. What you are asserting is that those very high level clouds are “causing” the greater than “average temperatures.” (See, even you use the word “average” in discussing your scientific findings.)

      Having used the “correlation proves causation,” logical fallacy are you now suggesting that we use the “exception proves the rule,” logical fallacy? Are you suggesting that because on certain days, certain types of clouds correlate positively with surface level air temperatures that proves the IPCC is correct when it says that water vapor feedback on a global scale is “positive” and therefore all cloud cover globally is responsible for 25% of the “greenhouse effect”, i.e., without clouds in the sky the average surface level air temperature globally would be 8.25 lower than it is now? That is the hypothesis that I am questioning.

      None of this was the point of the article though. The point of the article was to draw people’s attention to the universal observation that high levels of humidity and cloud cover have a phenomenally positive effect on the Earth’s biosphere and its various ecosystems and that it is counter intuitive to believe that even higher levels of both will somehow devastate the natural environment, which is what the IPCC is prophesying.

      Rather debating the effect that high humidity and high cloud cover have on surface level air temperatures, why not simply study the effect that high humidity and high cloud cover have on the Earth’s biosphere and its various ecosystems–not by creating computer simulations but by just going and taking a look?

      Reply

  • Avatar

    jerry krause

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    Hi Carl,

    Thank you responding so we can have a discussion. For this is as good a forum as any to explore differences.

    First you wrote: ““Averaging”, of course, is a standard statistical tool used in all fields of science.”

    Tycho Brahe make naked-eye measurements of the positions of planets, as they moved relative to the positions of the fixed stars in the background. Johannes Kepler analyzed these actual measurements relative to an earth which orbited the sun as the other planets orbited the sun to discover the paths of the planets’ orbits about the sun. I have read that Kepler first assumed the orbits of the earth and the other planets whose paths he analyzed were circles. But when he encountered the Tycho’s observations of Mars, they did not fit a circular path as closely as the other planets had. So, he considered that Mar’s orbital path might be elliptical, instead of circular, and found a more precise fit. Then, he went back to Tycho’s observations of the other planets and discovered they fit elliptical paths more precisely than they had fit circular paths. In the process Kepler discovered 3 mathematical laws which described the motions of the planets as they orbited the sun. I cannot believe that Kepler averaged any of Tycho’s observations.

    Analytical Chemistry was primarily a laboratory course when I took it. We were taught to begin our analysis with three samples. This was to first see the uncertainty involved in our analysis. We did 3 instead of only two because if there was a significant difference, we would have no clue which is closest to the ‘correct’ result. We did 3 sample because if 2 results were near each other and the 3rd was more different we would have the question, can we ignore the 3rd and average the two values for our result or do we still need to average all three results. So, we did a statistical analysis of the three results to see if we could justify ignoring the 3rd or if we needed to accept the average of all three. Or, if we needed to do the analysis of more samples to further check our procedure upon which our grade determined.

    I can assure you that the only averaged data that Lavoisier used to discover the Law of the Conservation of Matter was of the type I learned in the Analytical Chemistry course. And I can assure you that the only averaged data that Proust used to discover the Law of Definite Proportions was of the type I learned in the Analytic Chemistry course. And these two Laws were the basis upon which John Dalton propose his theory that matter was atomistic and not endless divisible as proposed by Aristotle and the philosophers of that time; who chose to rationally reason and argue instead of actually considering what could have been simply observed without the need of averaging a lot of observations, such as air temperature, well known to vary during a single day. So first we must observe how air temperatures might vary from day to day, or might not vary from day to day. And if it is found that they do vary from day to day we need to consider what it is that causes them to vary from day to day before we average the temperatures observed during many days which does not allow the fact that the air temperatures can vary from day to day to be seen and therefore no one actually tries to observe what this cause might be.

    If we cannot agree that we need to observe the cause which causes the air temperatures to vary from day to day, I see no need to consider anything else that you wrote. For if we cannot agree on this issue, which I consider to be absolutely fundamental to the physical science with which I am quite familiar, I do not have time to read further.

    Have a good day, Jerry

    Reply

  • Avatar

    jerry krause

    |

    Hi Carl,

    Hi Carl,

    In my previous comment I referenced the link to the specific data which I had shared with you and other readers of PSI. You uncritically wrote: “The metric that the “greenhouse effect” uses is the “global temperature”, which is arrived at by averaging all surface-level air temperatures along with sea-surface temperatures.” I accept that is correct. But I am critical of state of the science which you seem to defend.

    Svante Arrhenius, On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground, Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science (Series 5, Volume 41, April 1896, pages 273-276. This is where the quantitative aspects of the “greenhouse effect” (GHE) began. Arrhenius, in this article, reported he had done two things. First, he had done a radiation balance calculation in which he calculated the effective radiation temperature (ERT) of the earth’s surface. Second, he had taken the measured air surface temperatures that had been measured and reported at that time. From this data he calculated the average air temperature of the earth which is amazingly near that calculated (using far more data) today.

    What he, you, or anyone else, beside myself, seems unconcerned about was that he compared the earth’s surface temperature (ERT) with the earth’s average air temperature. Which the data I reviewed (https://principia-scientific.com/record-temperature-result-of-cloud-revised-updated/) demonstrated that the air temperature and the surface temperature can be far different (apples and oranges). Yet, you still seem okay with comparing apples with oranges.

    You are correct I used temperature data averaged over an hour in the referenced PSI essay. Which I have previously address in a previous comment.

    But better is to use the measured value of a single measurement. And the USCRN data does include such actual single measurements. These actual measurements are the maximum and minimum values measured during the previous hour.

    Because I was not aware of the USCRN data until about 8 months ago (because I had never been referred to it even though it has measured and reported for 8 years), I take this opportunity to advertise how it could be used to better understand the actual earth-atmosphere-solar radiation system.

    A fundamental problem is to first determine the value of the solar radiation incident upon the earth’s surface when there nothing (like cloud) to interfere with its transmission through the atmosphere. Here I ignore possible absorption of solar radiation by water molecules (whose concentration can vary). But it can be considered, if needed, since the relative humidity is measured on the hour each hour.

    To use the actual maximum-minimum measurements in general, it would seem we need to find two consecutive days when the maximum-minimum values for each hour do not vary significantly from each other. However in the case of solar radiation, it would seem a single daytime would do. For it seems what we could expect to see, given the desired condition, is the value of the solar to smoothly increase after sunrise until midday and then begin to decrease until sunset. Now, if the value of the solar is smoothly increasing from one hour to the next we would expect the maximum value of the previous hour to be the minimum of the next hour. And this can sometimes be seen. Then, when the value is smoothly decreasing we would expect the minimum temperature of the previous hour to become the maximum temperature of the next hour. And this can sometimes be seen. Except this cannot be observed for the hours 1200 and 1300. For midday usually does not occur exactly on the1200hr. However,it seems the maximum value for one or the other hour should be the maximum value at midday. I have not yet tried to apply this criteria because I have just defined it in my mind. But anyone, even you Carl, can try to use it to see what can be discovered from actual, unaveraged, USCRN data.

    But as I read further I find you use a very common, but offensive, trick used in debating. You imply by writing ” What you are asserting is that those very high level clouds are “causing” the greater than “average temperatures.” (See, even you use the word “average” in discussing your scientific findings.)” If you go back to the posting to which my comment clearly refers you will see my conclusion as to cause was based on a comparison of the same 5 days in 2012 and in 2013. And you would find that soil moisture content was lower in 2013 than in 2012 as was the relative humidity measured at sunrise when the temperatures during both years were more comparable to each other. The soil moisture definitely is a factor but I could not conclude it could be related to cloud in the high atmosphere. And if cloud is present it seems a rational expectation that the relative humidity of that atmosphere at altitude in 2013 would be greater than that in 2012 when there was no evidence of cloud.

    Carl, if you want to propose a different explanation for the fact of the temperatures differences observed for 2012 and 2013, please post it. But I know, because I have now studied many days of USCRN data at many locations, there is much evidence that cloud does produce a greater magnitudes of maximum solar values.

    Have a good day, Jerry

    Reply

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