At Weatherbell’s most recent Saturday Summary, veteran meteorologist Joe Bastardi presents the main reason why he believes the globe has been warming over the past decades: more water vapor in the atmosphere due to natural ocean cycles.
Panic time for Arctic sea ice doomsayers?
The former Accuweather meteorologist explains why there’s a good chance Arctic sea ice will be rebounding over the coming years: because the North Atlantic appears to be headed into its cool phase, which means less warmth being supplied to the adjacent Arctic.
Bastardi says this is due to the natural ocean cycles, where surface temperatures oscillate on decadal scales.
Sometimes I believe that folks on the other side of the issue are getting a little panicky because they know when the Atlantic does switch into its colder phase, the Arctic sea ice going to go back to where it was 20, 30, 40 years ago when we were in a colder phase.”
Scientists and modelers neglect oceans
Bastardi also sharply criticizes climate scientists for not bothering to look at the obvious natural oceanic factors that drive seasonal weather patterns, and take the easy way out by blaming CO2 global warming.
The veteran meteorologist adds that “water vapor is by far the most important greenhouse gas because we can link it directly to temperature” and explains how most of the global warming, in fact, happened at the Earth’s poles because of higher water vapor from the warmer ocean sea surface temperature phase which ends up in the atmosphere.
The added water vapor at the poles substantially amplifies the warming there, much more than it does at the tropics.
Over the past 20 years, most of the global warming has occurred over the Arctic and Antarctic, as Figure 1 shows. This is because over the same time period atmospheric water vapor has increased – due to the warm phases of the oceanic cycles we’ve seen over the past 2 – 3 decades, see Figure 2:
And because even a small amount of added vapor to the air has a profound effect on the air temperature where it’s very cold, as is the case at the poles, tremendous “warming” occurs.
Meanwhile, substantial amounts of added water vapor to the atmosphere in warm tropical areas have only modest effects on air temperature.
Table 1 shows what happens when water vapor gets added to air at different temperatures:
When just 0.1 grams of water gets added to a kilogram of air, the temperature of that air rises by over 10°C! Of course, this phenomenon has nothing to do with the greenhouse (radiation effects), but rather because of thermodynamic reasons.
When 0.1 gram of water vapor gets added to air that is +35°C, typical in the tropics, the temperature rises by only a tiny fraction of what is observed in the cold Arctic air. For that reason, Bastardi says: “We know water vapor is the big key.”
As the sea surface temperatures get warmer due to the warm phase of the oceanic cycles, “they pump a little bit more water vapor in the air. Where’s it going to make a big difference? Temperature is not a linear measurement of energy,” Bastardi says.
The veteran meteorologist adds that if people really looked at water vapor’s effect on polar temperatures, they “would quickly understand that it’s not CO2.”
Bastardi also slams the recently released NCR government report, saying that it totally ignores all the huge benefits humanity has enjoyed because of fossil fuels:
Since the use of fossil fuels, global capita GDP and human life expectancy have exploded and are at record highs. Humans as a whole have never lived more comfortably.
Read more at No Tricks Zone
But the North Pole shows enhanced warming and the South Pole shows none, according to the satellites. So you need to look more closely at how the two poles differ in response to water vapor.
Interesting article which brings important information to the discussion.
But it’s a pity that the link provided to “The Saturday Summary” does not work. The link provided is just to the homepage..
So the evidence to support the assertions made in the article is not available for review..
Now that is regrettable.
Now, I suggest something is missing hence wrong. And ask a question. The major thermal effect of increased water vapour from warming oceans during interglacials is not GHE, but to increase the 90W/m^2 of cooling by evaporation and condensation of the oceans , and also increase the roughly 50W/m^2 of cloud albedo that produces, varying the total 140W/m^2 of cooling feedback at the surface from evaporation which is a far more powerful cooling control, by transportation of heat to space plus reduction in solar insolation. I inderstand this to be a more powerful control than any warming GHE from H2O or the much smaller CO2 GHE effect under interglacial tempratures and humidity. So more water vapour = moacoolingcorrection to r mainatin surface equilibrium, as we observe during the short interglacial plateau untilthe nterglacial enry pulse is dissipatd and the return to the longer period of glacial conditions and lower humidity begins, and perhaps GHE becomes more important – in balancing the cooling and being part of the floor temperatre controlin the ice age euqilibrium range of 12 degrees at the poles and 5 or so at the equator.. Anybody suggest where this is wrong with a solid deterministic physical control system basis, that is?? PS Also note the failure of tropospheric temperatures that would show such a greenhouse effect to rise as predicted by the presumptive models of climate “scientists”, and hence the modeller’s discussion of the “missing heat”. Just because the models predicted it doesn’t mean it is lost, in the oceans or anywhere. It was only ever their in their imaginations, never there in the real physical world. Simple enough?
Since the “GHE effect” is exactly ZERO .. I would concur with much of what you have said. A “GHE effect” is not possible in this universe. It would be a violation of fundamental physical law.
I could go along with this, if there were such a thing as a “greenhouse effect”.
North and South Poles responding differently? How ’bout looking at the land masses in the area. There are none in the southern hemisphere – the ocean is in constant motion in the “Roaring Forties” around Antarctica. In the north – we have currents in both the Pacific and the Atlantic bringing warm waters up to the Arctic area. The difference in “response” is probably due to the quantity of water vapor.