Water vapour: feedback or forcing?
What happens in and under the oceans and between the oceans and the atmosphere is 2/3 of the climate story but probably less than 10% of the known data. Why? The earth, through its molten core, its magnetic field, its tectonic activity (shifting plates of land sliding around the earth) is a huge heat generator and dispenser. Most of that heat, from earthquakes, to volcanoes and millions of fissures, from tiny to immense, is dispensed under the oceans, absorbed by ocean water and transported to the atmosphere (and back) in the form of water vapor.
The temperature of the global water column (from 0-3,000 meters) has been measured at numerous points around the world. A compilation of this data (by Levitus) indicated a clear warming of the water column, with most of the warming at the surface and just a little penetrating to depth, as would be expected. Heat from volcanic sources is negligible as a contribution to warming or the water vapor "budget".
And yet that explanation should also hold true for the northeastern Pacific, but it does not, because it is warmer than the eastern Pacific in the south and warmer than the western Pacific. Since the water and atmospheric flows are generally west to east (caused by the earth's rotation), what is under the middle of the northern Pacific that makes it warmer, and thus increases the northern Pacific's contribution of water vapor - the largest green house gas?
There isn't a lot of upwelling in the northeastern Pacific. There's a little on the PacNW and California coast, but not nearly as much as the Peru Upwelling.
"The temperature of the global water column (from 0-3,000 meters) has been measured at numerous points around the world. A compilation of this data (by Levitus) indicated a clear warming of the water column, with most of the warming at the surface and just a little penetrating to depth, as would be expected. Heat from volcanic sources is negligible as a contribution to warming or the water vapor "budget"."
"measured at numerous points around the world".
From what I have seen the data is too anecdotal and not consistently systematic, nor systematically collected at a sufficient number of locations and depths on a onsistent and ongoing basis for a long enough period of time.
"Heat from volcanic sources is negligible as a contribution to warming or the water vapor 'budget'"
No reliable studies have ever (1)identified all the under-the-ocean heat sources from tectonic and volcanic activity or (2)systematically measured their heat output, making your statement, and statemenst like it, a guess, because the data to make that statement is nothing other than data no one has, and thus it is dismissed as "negligible", where the failure to acknowledge the lack of relevant data on this issue is what is negligent.