3/15/2023 0 Comments Doc holliday emote hattipWhat it means is that the Earth System is at least as sensitive as climate models suggest. We are able to find a water vapor signal that is clearly a positive feedback.Ĭlimate Sensitivity Needle May Tilt Toward Upper Range of Estimates What we do find is that if one looks at tropospheric average temperature rather than surface temperature, then there is a much stronger relationship with energy flow at the top of the Earth’s atmosphere. Trenberth notes in an interview published today in The Guardian: Dressler’s work and raises a rather unpleasant question - if we have an added heat feedback from clouds under a regime of Earth Systems warming, then how strong is it? In other words, the way human heat alters clouds and the related hydrological cycle results in yet more heat being trapped by the Earth System. Kevin Trenberth, found that net changes to clouds and related additions of water vapor to the upper atmosphere is a positive or amplifying feedback to human caused warming. New Study Finds Changes to Clouds are an Amplifying Feedbackīut now, a new study has found that the picture is not quite so rosy as some claimed. And his observational findings were consistent with an equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS), or a one century rate of warming, in the range of 2.0 to 4.5 degrees Celsius for each doubling of CO2 (consistent with a multi-century warming in the range of 4 to 9 C for each doubling of CO2 - or about a 6 C average). Dressler, like mainstream climate science, assumed at least a small degree of positive feedback from changes to clouds and atmospheric water vapor loading. Andrew Dressler who in this paper and this paper recently defended consensus climate science from the cloudy claims of confusionists. The shady clouds, in other words, would save us from ourselves. They often argued, through this scientific dim spot, that climate sensitivity was, indeed, quite low and that we had very little to be concerned about regarding an immense dumping of heat trapping gasses into the atmosphere that is now at least 6 times faster than at any time in the deep history of life on Earth. An uncertainty many climate confusionists used to sow doubt over a broad range of issues involving how sensitive the Earth is to the human heat forcing. It was an uncertainty hanging in the very air above us. Image source: NASA.)Ĭonfusionists Take Advantage of Cloud Uncertainty A pyrocumulonimbus cloud or, colloquially, a fire thunderstorm. The above image shows a thunderstorm set off by massive wildfires blazing through the permafrost zone near Great Slave Lake on August 5 of 2014. (From the global climate change perspective, some clouds are worse than others. A kind of backwards checking that excluded values from clouds due to a lack of needed information. ![]() The mainstream climate models thus assumed a zero to slightly positive heat feedback from clouds and relied on decadal verification runs to help test for accuracy. ![]() But how would those physical alterations impact climate? Would an added darkening of the Earth through increased cloud cover provide a cooling effect and slow down the rate of human-caused warming (also called a negative feedback)? Or would the added water vapor aloft, itself a powerful greenhouse gas, provide an extra boost to the human heating engine (also called an amplifying feedback)? Sure, we knew that added water vapor through a heating-increased amplification of the rate of evaporation and precipitation would likely impact cloud formation. Is nickel-and-diming the few passengers airlines have the wisest way to proceed in business? Or is there a better, or at least more honest way, to price a ticket? (Also, Kayak needs to add these holiday surcharge fees on its airline fees schedule.For decades, science has been unable to nail down how clouds might change with human warming of the climate. Paying more for holiday travel as it gets closer to the day of departure isn't unusual, in fact, some may says it's expected, but the idea of hiding the $40 round-trip surcharge seems to be the most troubling factor. In reality, it's not because carriers need to match anything - airlines simply want the revenue any way they can get it. Previously I had written about airlines adding around a $10 fee each way for travel during the holidays (mainly from Thanksgiving to Memorial Day,) but today airlines confirmed that they will double that surcharge on travel around Thanksgiving and Christmas.Īmerican, Delta, Northwest, United and US Airways airlines all said they raised the fee because of peak demand and because they needed "to match moves by our competitors," US Airways spokesman Morgan Durrant told the Associated Press.
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