Can anyone comment of NASA's aqua sattelite that shows reduced water vapour?

Question

The satellite was only launched in 2002 and it enabled the collection of data, not just on temperature but also on cloud formation and water vapour. What all the climate models suggest is that, when you've got warming from additional carbon dioxide, this will result in increased water vapour, so you're going to get a positive feedback. That's what the models have been indicating. What this great data from the NASA Aqua satellite ... (is) actually showing is just the opposite, that with a little bit of warming, weather processes are compensating, so they're actually limiting the greenhouse effect and you're getting a negative rather than a positive feedback."

Answer 1

So, in other words, man-made global warming is a hoax....  Just to let everyone know that I told you so all along.  I want an apology from every brainwashed cult member after the official reports are released....

Thank you very much!

Answer 2

Simply amazing. The neurotransmitters that must have burned off composing this page, is staggering. Polite, controlled, respectful, articulate and to the point.

However................I might be missing the point.

The "hows" make for exciting give and take, but there are a few of us, who struggle to make reason out of the blatantly obvious anomalies that are occurring world wide and that fall well outside the spectrum of the naysayers claim of some massive fraud or hoax being perpetrated.

Does it really matter the "how" when common sense tells you that whatever the "cause", its irreversible. Whether CO2, whether hotter/colder in Arkansas or Beirut, whether man made or a cycle of nature...................Wouldn't all this brain power be put to a better use to analyze the "what if" it happens and how our future generations can cope with it.

Answer 3

this is a newspaper repeating something said on the radio. and what she is saying is wrong. NASA is saying that climate models may be overestimating the amount of water in the atmosphere not that water content is decreasing.

"Our study confirms the existence of a positive water vapor feedback in the atmosphere, but it may be weaker than we expected," Minschwaner said.

edit

less water means less warming but there will still be warming. humidity may just fall and there will be lesss feedback.

so there will still be positive feedback bust less then expected.

Answer 4

Global warming is a bit tax generating con

Answer 5

Come on!   Are we suddenly going to believe what nasa says?   How many sattellites did they lose just before getting to Mars?   If you can't believe them once, why would you believe them now?

Answer 6

Look up Dr Roy Spencer,and he has based his findings on this exact idea,(he also was a former NASA employee and climatoligist) He proves that the GW models cannot predict or compensate for the natural scrubbing process of water vapor,the amount of it in any year<but it is speculated,even in forecasts etc.

Answer 7

All it showed was that some models might be over estimating temperature increase.

"Our study confirms the existence of a positive water vapor feedback in the atmosphere, but it may be weaker than we expected,"

it didn't debunk anything

Also getting scientific fact from a newspaper web site is a BAD idea.

Answer 8

It is not  GW  that has had an affect on this ,it is plants. Plants need us to produce CO2 as they need CO2 as u do oxygen. Animal life lives exactly opposite plant life. The more CO2 we produce the more plants grow.If the plants do well we will do good.

Answer 9

The Science of global warming is still in its infancy. The current popular fascination for the doomsday scenario of global warming is not supported by scientific and mathematical analysis using the known properties of the gases in the atmosphere and the suns output.

The greenhouse effect is primarily due to water vapour in the atmosphere, not CO2. As the sea warms, more water vapour is produced which one might expect to lead to an increase in warming of the atmosphere - but - more water vapour means, on average, more clouds which reflect more energy from the sun. This may be a possible reason for the data coming from the satellite.

There is an interesting article for all serious inquirers into the causes of global warming at:

http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-w...

Although it is quite long and in some parts slightly technical, I recommend all to read it.

Answer 10

How do the record floods from record rainfall in the US, enter into the discussion?  Where did all that rain come from? The ever widening parameters of weather records are the direct result of global warming! How deep of a flood is too deep?  How hot is too hot?  How many more will lose their lives in severe freak weather?

Answer 11

The NASA link didn't really quantify anything, so it is yet to be seen the extent of difference between models and observed data. This is really interesting. It basically means that models, while their may only be a small difference (though it is probably quite large for it to be reported on NASA), are wrong because the water vapor feedback is a huge component to the IPCC's climate sensitivity projections. There needs to be some serious tweaking, or perhaps an overhaul as the news article suggests.

Answer 12

I haven't seen much of a splash in the lefty media regarding these recent findings........ BUT......I'm certain that extensive coverage will be coming soon........ Riiiiiiiiight!!!!

Answer 13

You consider an interview in the Australian (another Rupert Murdoch holding) with a biologist working for a conservative (some say far-right) think-tank  funded by mining, oil, and tobacco a reputable unbiased source of analysis for data from a NASA satellite project that she has no involvement with?  I would think the actual scientists working on the project for NASA might be a much better source of information.

If you have a link to an actual news release from NASA, or an actual scientific report from someone using the Aqua data, then you might have something to discuss.  But from what I know, NASA analysis of the Aqua data is an on-going process and there's nothing available yet that justifies jumping to any conclusions.

Answer 14

Actually, what the Aqua satellite data is showing is that the widely-quoted models are wrong.  Instead of positive feedback, we're seeing a limit stop where negative feedback begins.  In other words, the models predict that increasing water vapor will continuously follow increasing temperatures.  The Aqua data shows the opposite kicks in at the appropriate time, that the atmosphere tends to be self-regulating.  Increased water vapor is produced when it is needed, and decreased water vapor occurs when the proper point is reached and no more is needed.  It's almost as if our "greenhouse" is set up to provide us with a comfortable climate which automatically compensates for changing atmospheric variables.

And what the data clearly says is the old models are dead wrong, and reality shows the opposite of what the models predict.  Clearly, we need to overhaul the models, but sadly, to many (poor) modelers have their professional reputations on the line, so they continue to lie in order to save their jobs, so to speak.  This is human nature.

Incidentally, I'm an Atmospheric Physicist - and we're generally very amused at all the the AGW hysteria.  Man is not the cause, and thus cannot be the cure.

Answer 15

Skeptic argument:

Climate scientists never talk about water vapor -- the strongest greenhouse gas -- because it undermines their CO2 theory.

Answer:

Not a single climate model or climate textbook fails to discuss the role water vapor plays in the greenhouse effect. It is the strongest greenhouse gas, contributing 36% to 66% to the overall effect for vapor alone, 66% to 85% when you include clouds. It is however, not considered a climate "forcing," because the amount of H2O in the air basically varies as a function of temperature."

"If you artificially increase the level of H2O in the air, it rains out immediately (in terms of climate response times). Similarly, due to the abundance of ocean on the earth's surface, if you somehow removed all the water from the air, it would quickly be replaced through evaporation. "

"This has the interesting consequence that if you could somehow instantly remove all CO2 from the atmosphere, the temperature would begin to drop, causing precipitation to remove H2O from the air, causing even further drops, in a feedback effect that would not end until no liquid water was left, only ice sheets and frozen oceans."

"CO2 put into the air by burning fossil fuels, on the other hand, stays in the atmosphere for centuries before natural sinks finish absorbing the excess. This is plenty of time to have substantial and long-lasting effects on the climate system. As the climate warms in response to CO2, humidity rises and increased H2O concentration acts as a significant amplifier of CO2-driven warming, basically doubling or tripling its effect."

An article from RealClimate -- "Water vapor: feedback or forcing?" -- has a good discussion of this subject.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/12...

Skeptic argument:

"H2O accounts for 95% of the greenhouse effect; CO2 is insignificant."

Answer:

"According to the scientific literature and climate experts, CO2 contributes anywhere from 9% to 30% to the overall greenhouse effect. The 95% number does not appear to come from any scientific source, though it gets tossed around a lot."

"Please see this paper (PDF), the textbook referenced here, and this article at RealClimate.

"There is a very important distinction to be made, as you will read if you follow the link to Real Climate, between water vapour's role in the Earth's Greenhouse effect and it's role in climate change. If you were to read through the table of climate forcings in the IPCC report or at NASA's page about forcings in its GCM, you won't find water vapour there at all. This is not because climate scientists are trying to hide the role of water vapour, rather it is because H2O in the troposphere is a feedback effect, it is not a forcing agent. Simply put, any artificial perturbation in water vapour concentrations is too short lived to change the climate. Too much in the air will quickly rain out, not enough and the abundant ocean surface will provide the difference via evaporation. But once the air is warmed by other means, H2O concentrations will rise and stay high, thus providing the feedback. "

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/12...

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=2...

"And please don't forget that anthropogenic global warming has been for a centruy the underdog theory, it is only very recently that the mountains of research have dragged a generally conservative scientific community inexorably to a very unpleasant conclusion"

from  http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/10...

Answer 16

Eric:

That data would be from AIRS on Aqua.  I'm not really up on AIRS (sort of ironic actually, but let's just ignore that for a second) but bouncing around the AIRS JPL site doesn't suggest there is any huge problem with the water vapor profiles.  There  is nothing in the news section or press releases about the issue mentioned in the newspaper article (which looks to me like a typical right-wing agit-prop publication rather than a hard news outfit).  

Before I believe there is a huge problem with water vapor, which last time I looked in the peer-reviewed literature had been shown to be increasing for the first time (it was a paper in Nature, I think, (might have been Atmos. Chem. and Physics) that came out last year in late summer or early fall), you would have to give a more credible reference than the one you have.  The Nature (ACP?) paper (nope, misremembered, see link below) clearly shows moisture is increasing.  

I know you want to believe it's all malarkey, but people way smarter than us know it's not.  Why don't you think there is even a slight chance they might be correct?