Physicist Brian Catt mentions the role of clouds in the temperature of the Earth. It is time to talk about the greenhouse gas that is the real cause of climate change, water vapor.
The science of climate change featuring the actual greenhouse gas that directly affects our climate, is solid. The science of climate change that features the Sun, sunspot cycles, solar flares, etc. as they interact with cloud and cloud cover, is pleasing to the mind.
The false claim that carbon dioxide is the cause of climate change is nonsense as it has been for at least 30 or more years. Carbon dioxide theories seem to be on the same level as the phlogiston theory. It is time to update the nonsensical CO2 phlogiston theory and focus on the role of water vapor and real science.
Physicist Brian Catt mentions the role of clouds in the temperature of the Earth. It is time to talk about the greenhouse gas that is the real cause of climate change, water vapor.
____
The CMIP6 climate model assumes a threefold amplification from an increase in water vapor (3 degrees C rise in temperature after a doubling of CO2). But the best measurements to date show no increase in specific/absolute humidity. Given that measuring the absolute humidity of the atmosphere is difficult, derived measurements from satellite products have captured a trend that is not significantly different from zero.
The debate about whether water vapor brings a net positive feedback (Dessler) or a net negative feedback (Spencer) to the climate system continues. Water vapor is at least twice as strong as a greenhouse gas than CO2 but recent estimates of climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 (<1.5 degrees C, not 3 degrees C) suggests that clouds provide a net negative feedback and the water vapor amplification assumption is incorrect.
Then there is the contribution to cooling caused by aerosols in the atmosphere. The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo caused the atmosphere to cool by -0.4 degrees C over two years which represents 67% of the observed warming (satellite derived)* since 1980. The uncertainty in these measurements are large because our climate system is nonlinear and dynamic, or in other words, very noisy and uncooperative.
*Satellite derived global temperature is more accurate than the global network of surface observing sites because those sites are contaminated by urbanization effects. Using the maximum daily temperature (TMAX) at observing sites would be more accurate than using the current (TMAX+TMIN)/2 because most urbanization effects are manifested during the night as a false warming trend. Even a slight change in land use, say undeveloped land to agriculture, is enough to disrupt the natural decoupling of the nocturnal boundary layer.