Carl's Climate Letters

Carl’s theory makes a number of claims that are not recognized by any scientific curriculum. Assuming they were all correct, how would the science of climate change be changed? Would it be “new,” or just updated? Updated is probably a better word, but some of the recommended changes would nevertheless be quite radical. Acceptance would require big changes in model construction and a whole new approach to communicating with policy-makers and the general public. I want to go over some of the details of the visualized changes, from a bottom-up perspective rather than top-down.  That means revisiting the foundations of this science, one by one, and the extent to which they have been held in place.  An appraisal of noteworthy omissions and oversights will also be considered.   The best concise source of foundations history that I know of, very clear and up-to-date, was published a year ago on the Skeptical Science website:  https://skepticalscience.com/history-climate-science.html.  I will be using it for reference—please give if a more complete reading as we go along. 

1. Fourier, 1820s. His ideas of two kinds of radiation and recognition of an insulating blanket in the atmosphere, the content of which is not otherwise specified, are rock solid, truly great discoveries.

2.  Foote and Tyndall, 1850s.  Both performed experiments establishing a link between the CO2 level of content in the atmosphere and surface temperatures.  Tyndall did the same for water vapor, and also did work denying such a link for oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen.  Hydrocarbons like methane were called open possibilities.  The existence of Fourier’s “insulating blanket” had been confirmed and its key ingredients identified.

3.  Arrhenius, 1890s.  The first to make calculations about how a doubling of the CO2 level would affect temperatures.  He came up with an answer of 5-6°C of warming as a globally-averaged figure. He was also the first to tie water vapor to CO2 as a regular feedback, using the Clausius-Clapeyron relation:  the amount is about 7% more per degree Celsius of warming. And that additional water vapour would in turn cause further warming – this being a positive feedback, in which carbon dioxide acts as a direct regulator of temperature, and is then joined in that role by more water vapour as temperatures increase.  Today’s climate scientists, while using more conservative numbers with respect to strength of radiation, apply this very same linkage to their calculations of CO2’s affect on global temperatures.  The effects of other greenhouse gases are then added to the final calculation without giving them any proportional link to water vapor as a feedback.  I would abandon a practice that may have made sense to Arrhenius but is now obviously misleading, and just plain wrong.  Water vapor is in fact entirely produced as a natural feedback, clearly linked to the growth in surface temperatures, but not to any single one of the many factors contributing to the change in temperatures.

4.  Angstrom, circa 1900.  Published theories concerning the radiation band effects of CO2 and water vapor, which was criticized by Arrhenius.  The latter explained…how in the dry upper atmospheric layers, the role of water vapour was of limited importance.  According to the author of this history, this remains the predominant view of today’s scientists, saying:  This was – and still is – because water vapor in the upper troposphere occurs in concentrations several orders of magnitude less than in the lower troposphere where most of our weather occurs. Carl’s theory presents a completely opposite view of what goes on in the upper troposphere, identified as the atmospheric region of each hemisphere, outside of the tropical belt, where jetstream winds are active.  Concentrated vapor streams entering these regions produce greenhouse energy effects that have a vast—and accelerating—influence on all non-tropical surface temperatures.  Recognizing the evidence submitted in these letters would put an entirely new face on the science of climate change.

5. Hulbert, 1931. Calculated a temperature increase of 4C from a doubling of the CO2 level with water vapor feedback added. Basically confirmed the relative importance of greenhouse energy in controlling temperatures, a positive step forward for science in that era.

6. Callendar, 1938. Made calculations of greenhouse warming similar to Hulbert’s but considerably lower due to a mistaken view of ocean sink processes.. From this report, I do not see any original contribution to climate science by Callendar that is still being accepted.

7.  Revelle, Plass and other scientists in the 1950s began using computers in analyzing prospects for future climate change.  Additions to the CO2 level, enhanced by a linear feedback relationship with water vapor, became entrenched as the primary cause of the greenhouse warming effect in all of their work.  Carbon dioxide and water-vapour had their own sets of absorption-lines that did not exactly coincide and it was reaffirmed that water vapour was relatively unimportant in the dryer upper levels of the atmosphere.   Many other meaningful natural factors that could affect climate change outcomes were introduced and debated.  There is nothing said in this part of the history about the contribution of other greenhouse gases. To be continued.

Carl

Yesterday’s letter stressed the importance of understanding the movement of precipitable water (PW) concentrations in the troposphere’s upper-level wind system. Carl’s theory of PW’s greenhouse effect is mostly built around things we can learn from close observations of all the little details that are involved. There are regular patterns that tend to limit the amount of variability. When those patterns break down for some reason the movement gets out of control, and the concentrations start going to places, meaning locations directly above Earth’s surface, where they are unexpected. The result is a warm temperature anomaly at the surface, the size of which depends on the size and durability of the concentration that is passing overhead.

If you want to know more about this process the best way to get started is by visiting the website that features a constant, real-time, 5-day animation of total PW concentrations all over the globe:  http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/mtpw2/product.php.  Allow yourself plenty of time, so you can absorb and interpret the countless details.  The tropical belt is an easy thing to isolate.  It exists today, seasonally adapted, within the bounds of its northernmost latitudes, but will soon be shifting southward.  The kinds of volumes and motions observed from PW inside the belt do not change very much from day to day, or as it shifts up and down, and that’s where about 90% of all PW is to be found.  The other 10% is much more interesting.  It’s the stuff I will be talking about.

On each border of the tropical belt you can see how large concentrations are intermittently being formed into streams that are inclined to take off on their own, moving away from the belt. They all do so with a directional bias of west to east, the first sign that jetstream winds might be involved. These streams all originate from places that are plenty warm and plenty wet to begin with, with lots of water vapor always left behind at lower levels. This lower vapor, if it moves at all, will move in many different directions. The imagery you are looking at is derived from a proportional averaging of all movement, high and low. The average is obviously heavily weighted by representation of the higher level volumes that are moving from west to east. This should tell us that the volume of vapor rising to the jetstream level must be at least two or three times greater than the volume that remains closer to the surface, which means a pretty heavy load of “beef” is constantly being relocated high in the sky, into a whole new kind of environment.

As these streams move away from the belt we can see how they express a regular tendency to keep moving and to stay concentrated.  Staying concentrated is not the sort of thing we expect to see for any kind of gas that has been turned loose in the air, but here we can only accept the situation as presented by the imagery. The streams all do break down, but even the bits and pieces that result after several days, which are still moving as they did before, are more concentrated than the PW material that is in view off to the sides. This material will contain at least all of the low-level PW, and probably a little more from random dispersal. Surface vapor, by the way, is constantly being measured by weather stations, independent of any overhead amounts, and we know that between the tropical belt and each pole there is a steady rate of decline in all such measurements.  We don’t see any of these numbers on the kilogram scale, which would require an impossible 2-part division by altitude, but by interpretation we can imagine how the low level numbers would decline from perhaps 15kg at the edge of the tropics all the way down to just 25 grams or less (in winter) at the polar extremes. One last point, the low-level numbers tend to be more stable while higher concentrations in the upper level are more intermittent.

Is it right to picture a troposphere divided into two separate compartments, one above the other, each containing its own separate content of PW, with the upper level holding more total weight, but in tighter concentrations that never stop moving? The animated website supports this view, and I believe it serves well as an explanation for temperature outcomes on the surface, keyed to a regular exposure to varying combinations of PW’s greenhouse energy effects.

Carl

Thanks to The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, this story found its way into my computer this morning.  It is one of the most alarming things I have ever read about what is happening to our planet, and utterly convincing:  “Smoke thunderclouds: Wildfires use the atmosphere to light more wildfires” https://thebulletin.org/2021/08/smoke-thunderclouds-wildfires-use-the-atmosphere-to-light-more-wildfires/.   The story was first published by Wired on July 27, under a different heading and using separate imagery, found at this link:  https://www.wired.com/story/oh-good-now-theres-an-outbreak-of-wildfire-thunderclouds/.  For some reason it was not picked up by any of the news services I use.  The first image you see in the Bulletin repost is new addition. It has an exceptionally clear way of visualizing the main message, but the full text must be read to fill in the details. This is an unexpected revelation about how nature works. Prepare for a shock.

Another story that has not been well-covered in the media concerns the scale of this summer’s wildfires in Siberia.  As bad as all the other fires are everywhere else, according to data compiled by Greenpeace the ones in Siberia may have burned off more territory than all of the others combined.  Their remote locations make it practically impossible for anyone to exercise control:  https://netherlandsnewslive.com/ignored-and-unchecked-russias-wildfires-are-bigger-than-all-the-others-combined/217091/. 

Over the past year I have dedicated most of these letters to continuous detailing of specific processes involved in the development of theories based on a rather bold reexamination of the current science of climate change. The theories have lead to a conclusion that the situation may be worse than what we have been told by the IPCC and other mainstream informants. The main reason can be attributed to discoveries that give us a better understanding of the greenhouse energy production of water vapor and its “alter ego” known as precipitable water (PW). Water vapor is different from the other greenhouse gases in all kinds of ways, starting with its relatively extraordinary strength and including the highly uneven way it is distributed throughout the atmosphere

.One of the key findings of this work is tied to the realization that the strength of water vapor is not expressed in a constant way. Instead, its real strength, when measured in terms of actual warming power, is dependent on how it is distributed. There are profound differences in the mode of distribution, foremost among which is the fact that a certain amount of water vapor is constantly being transported into the upper part of the troposphere, which features a separate and unique wind system. The vapor molecules that enter this system all end up being transformed into a different state, bit by bit, which is why they must collectively be given a new and different name, that of PW. Their collective greenhouse energy power has been found—with some degree of uncertainty—to not be significantly altered while the change of state is being processed. Nor does the processing have a notable affect on the way the mass moves about. There is always one major effect—pieces of the mass keep falling out and dropping back to Earth’s surface by means of precipitation.

The unusual nature of the movement of PW in the upper atmosphere produces the distributional changes that are responsible for causing meaningful temperature differences on surfaces below.  A concentration of high-altitude PW that has only a minor impact one neighborhood, as part of its total overhead column of PW by weight, may have a much greater impact if it is moved into the column of a different neighborhood by actions in the upper-level wind system.  These movements can occur in relatively brief periods of time.  The patterns of movement are subject to controls of an irregular sort, which are capable of breaking down.  Current trends in one hemisphere, the NH, suggest that a breakdown is now occurring, causing a sharp increase in the temperatures of many places. Siberia is one of the places most heavily affected by the increases.

Carl

If I ever gave the impression that the greenhouse energy generated by clouds added something to the planetary total, I’m sorry. It was a mistake. The energy is real, all right, but every bit of cloud formation involves a loss of water vapor, molecule for molecule, and all of the energy they were generating while in that state. On balance, a net loss from condensation into clouds would seem more likely than a gain, but I have not been able to detect any significant difference from the imagery comparisons I depend on, and will leave it at that until more accurate comparisons can be made.

Meanwhile, I’ve been awakened to a new understanding of the importance of clouds as an agency of cooling. Water vapor and all the other greenhouse gases do a great job of warming the planet by blocking outgoing radiation of the longwave type, which is necessary for life to exist, but are helpless when it comes to making any change, up or down, in the input of shortwave solar radiation. Too much greenhouse activity, if generated, tends to be disastrous, as we now are learning. We have also learned that cloud formation has always been the principal means of keeping the energy system in balance, expressed in two separate ways.

First, we know that water vapor is far and away the strongest of all the greenhouse gases. It also has a very special way of being created, and only that one way, by the evaporation of water. All of the other gases have a wide variety of sources. The amount of vapor that is created is highly dependent on how warm the different planetary surfaces are, which establishes the basis for a positive feedback loop. Warmer surfaces cause more evaporation, which necessarily adds more greenhouse energy generation to the atmosphere, causing still warmer surfaces to evolve, etc., etc. Clouds have saved the day, thanks to the way water vapor condenses into fine droplets and remain that way when high up in the air. Things are a little different closer to the surface. Cloud tops then proceed to reflect substantial amounts of incoming solar radiation, cutting off a major source of heat with regularity. When evaporation becomes excessive for some reason, causing more greenhouse surface warming, more clouds are also likely to form, and more solar heat will be cut off, helping to maintain a good balance.

That’s only part of the story. Clouds do something else that is probably even more important. Their existence sets the stage for an additional round of condensation, quite different from the first, while still using the same fundamental ingredients, H2O molecules. This time the end product is in the form of aerosols that are too heavy to stay afloat in the air. Once these aerosols are formed gravity can take over and they will soon fall back to the surface. This entire sequence of activity effectively makes it impossible for too much water vapor to ever accumulate in the atmosphere. All of its enormous potential for greenhouse energy production just keeps eroding away. The whole process leaves newly formed water vapor with a life cycle that averages only five to ten days in the atmosphere. Considering the copious amount of material that is involved we should appreciate the fact that the overall balance of this fast-moving process is maintained within reasonable bounds from start to finish.

Having said that, I am left wondering about how confident we should be that this balance will continue to be maintained at a level to our liking.  Evaporation rates are governed by one set of rules and circumstances, cloud formation by another, and precipitation processing by yet one more, each set having some unique features. In all cases the various circumstances are subject to outside forces that are not necessarily consistent. Many of these forces, both natural and unnatural, are known to be undergoing accelerated changes in the modern era. I have a particular interest in changes that are taking effect in higher altitude portions of the atmosphere.

Carl

Why is it important for scientists to fully understand the greenhouse energy effect of precipitable water (PW)?  It all boils down to one major consideration:  because we have the ability to measure the effects of this energy on surface temperatures with great accuracy.  We actually obtain readings of the total amount of PW (meaning molecular H2O) in the atmosphere, expressed as total weight, over every location on the surface of the planet, in amazingly fine detail.  This has been done a number of times each day for several decades and records are saved. Daily averages are reproduced at the University of Maine by use of color coding laid out on global maps, which are published online (see https://climatereanalyzer.org/), mostly for meteorological purposes and also for general public information.  

This same institution, using the same set of maps, provides a large amount of other weather-related information in similar scope and detail.  Of specific interest, we get daily maps of both the average temperature for the day and the anomaly for that day respective to an average for each of these days as created from a baseline period of 1979-2000.  The magnitude of this anomaly is ready for comparison with the magnitude of any similar type of anomaly, if known, for any other weather-related factor that may have helped to produce the temperature anomaly observed at any particular location for the day.  No such information about potential factors is currently available, but there are sources ready to be tapped if a need is recognized.  Historical records of PW readings are in place that could be applied to meet these requirements.

The idea of matching PW anomalies with temperature anomalies on a single-day basis is what inspired the development of Carl’s theory.  PW anomalies could be estimated in a number of ways that seemed close enough to have reason for viability. Whenever the magnitude of change was obviously large, which was quite often the case, the need for precision in the baseline average could be reduced..The whole point in matching different anomalies is simply to see how often a large outcome for one is matched by a large outcome in the other—in the same direction of course.  Statistically speaking, there should be no close correlation unless there is a close underlying physical relationship.  In this case, after testing hundreds of examples, I was getting results that had startling predictability.  They ended up with formation of the claim that any doubling of total PW content in the column of air over any location—outside of the tropical belt—produced enough greenhouse energy to raise surface temperatures at that location by about 10C.  It could even be seen that way from one day to the next as well as over decades of time, and all outcomes were fully reversible in cooling situations.  This was all done by only using estimates for PW’s history.  The hard numbers held in storage would provide much more accuracy, if extracted.  Similar relationships might also be discovered by matching temperature anomalies from past averages regarding amounts of cloud cover and rainfall, which have visible effects on the cool side that in some situations look quite competitive in scale with those of PW.

When doing this work I also learned that the energy effect of PW, as reflected in surface temperatures, is not greatly affected by different states of H2O in the physical structure of PW.  What this implies, if correct, is that the actual greenhouse energy effect of water vapor alone is about equal to that of PW in any configuration. The latter just happens to be easier to measure. Once measured the data can be usefully applied to water vapor for various purposes. Now let’s suppose this calculation, 10C per double, is in fact an accurate way to describe the power of water vapor’s greenhouse effect, outside of the tropical belt.  Relative to all other greenhouse gases, including CO2, that seems to be a pretty high number.  Thankfully, doubles are always localized and relatively infrequent, and are regularly offset by halvings and other reductions from average.  Also, what about vapor’s strength inside the tropical belt?  Is it still the same?  I have no idea, but there is one observation I can make by looking at the weather maps and also the 5-day animation.  That is, I would estimate that the total amount of PW (which, remember, has about the same greenhouse effect as vapor alone) within the tropical belt is around ten times higher than the combined total within the two hemispheres on the outside.  Local variations are small, and doubles are practically unheard of, thanks to an abundance of quick precipitation in saturated atmospheres. 

Carl

The new IPCC report covering the physical science of climate change has been published   If  you have not seen a good review of its content here is one that is reasonably thorough and makes it easy to understand the real meaning of how deep the problems have become:  https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/09/ipcc-report-un-climate-report-delivers-starkest-warning-yet.html.  The IPCC is no longer as cautious about delivering warning signals as it was in the past, and might have gone even further in that respect if the written content had not been finalized before the recent cascade of extreme events that go well beyond anything being predicted in the models.  Something has actually changed in a most abrupt way that the physical sciences have not predicted and are still unable to explain.

I have been working on a theory that focuses on the greenhouse energy effect of precipitable water (PW), perceived holistically as a single unified material, which could help to explain what is going on. PW behaves in a manner that is profoundly different from the behavior of all the “regular” greenhouse gases that are evenly distributed in the atmosphere and have much, much longer lifetimes in the atmosphere, per particle, than any of the contents making up PW. What makes the content of PW so interesting is the fact that, relative to a location of any size, it often undergoes changes of state, by processes of condensation and to a lesser extent its reversal.  The total amount of molecular substance involved in these changes, being made up of only one kind of molecule that can be measured by weight, is not affected one way or the other.  Moreover, based on all the observations I have been able to make, based on information provided by Today’s Weather Maps, the amount of energy produced is not conspicuously affected by varying the proportions between gas and liquid droplets.  The even larger condensation products, which tend to quickly precipitate back to the surface, do cause losses of molecular volume but otherwise seem to have no ultimate effect on the amount of energy production, as adjusted with respect for whatever molecular weight remains in the air.

If my observations are correct, one implication is that cloud droplets and water vapor have about the same power of energy generation per unit of weight. We can measure the total weight of PW in a given location at any one time, and apparently it doesn’t matter whether the content is 100% vapor or 50% or whatever. The outcome for surface temperatures, by total weight, will always be about the same. This would seem to give us a pretty good handle on the power of water vapor, from a practical point of view, once it has been lifted up to a level of the atmosphere where it can condense into droplets that do not disappear like dew on the ground. They just stay in the air and keep on producing greenhouse energy, per unit of weight, as if there had been no condensation. The total weight does not grow except for whatever is added to the upper atmosphere from new evaporation occurring at the surface. When total weight is lost by precipitation the measurements at that location quickly record the decline. I am going to stop writing now because there are some things here I want to think about, that may be of interest.

Carl

When sea surface temperatures get warmer the mount of evaporation increases.  No one has any doubts about this.  But what about the rate of evaporation?  Does it also change?  I have not seen any relevant data, or other kind of evidence, but have a gut feeling that it probably does.increase a bit, per square meter of surface area, with each degree of warming.  If this is true, and vapor growth is actually exponential relative to surface warming, we have a cause for concern, because it can lead to unwanted consequences more quickly than expected.  That’s because the warmer the water is the warmer the air above the water will be, providing the energy needed to lift more quantities of vapor higher and higher into the atmosphere.  When the water reaches 25C or more we start to see some quantities being lofted all the way up to where the jetstreams and a whole new wind system are found.

Vapor that does not reach that high level can still spread out, extending the effect of its greenhouse energy trapping powers. It can also start condensing into clouds, which have their own greenhouse powers, separate but roughly equal to that of the vapors they replace. All of this material will add its energy effect to the surface below, regardless of altitude.The material that reaches the jetstream wind level will mainly differ by having a greater prospect of being transported over great distances, adding energy to a greater variety of surfaces below. Some of these would normally receive much less greenhouse energy, especially those situated in the higher latitudes. No matter where they are located, all surfaces on the receiving end, near and far, are likely to become warmer than otherwise.

We need to pay close attention to all surface waters that are growing warmer, especially those that are getting warmer at a faster than usual rate, and even more especially those that have the highest temperatures to begin with. Once a surface has passed 25C its evaporation effects will be maximized in all of these ways, generating ever-greater amounts of additional energy over a widespread area. Let’s look at some particularly interesting data where all of these considerations have come into play in just the past three to four decades, which takes us to the whole set of inland waters in the Mediterranean region:

You should be able to see plentiful signs of averages increasing more than 3C, and up to as high as 5C in places. Thankfully, they are all seasonal, and the effects are only temporary, but these numbers are astounding. Next, we’ll see how these increases translate into actual temperatures at this time, reaching levels above 25C in one place after another. Recent letters have described the effects, causing air temperature increases way out of proportion to most of those found elsewhere. Imagine what the increases will be like if similar rates of warming of these sea surfaces continue for another 30 to 40 years. Could we possibly end up with more of them resembling today’s Persian Gulf?

I also want to take a quick look at the other side of the world, where the Gulf of Mexico is perfectly positioned as a source of extraordinary quantities of precipitable water over much of North America.  To date, its surface has not warmed as rapidly as it might have, considering its tropical location, perhaps because of the “gulf stream” (or AMOC) ocean currents that have traditionally entered into and circulated around a good part of its area.  The AMOC is thought to be slowing down and changing course in several ways.  If it completed stopped, what would be the effect on the Gulf of Mexico?  Here is how its anomaly looks today:

And here is the Gulf’s current surface temperature, which ranks among the very warmest for any large tropical body of water. For now at least, streams of PW arising from the Gulf are best-known for torrential rains produced over the southeastern US and Atlantic seaboard, more so than for heating the continental air.

Carl

These are heady days for climate watchers. The NH is supposed to be past the peak of summer heating for the year, usually in mid-July, but that is not stopping some dramatic new developments from happening. I have lots of images to show, partly with an intent of having them in hand for making comparisons with the same set later this month. I’ll start off with a special close-up from the Aegean Sea area, recorded by satellite on August 2. The scale at the bottom indicates widespread incidents of high temperatures running as high as 50C (122F), and these were probably not always their maximums for the day. This is not Death Valley, it’s just a piece of Europe:

Now we’ll switch to a global map of current maximums, which has all of the usual suspects (from recent letters) plus one feature I wasn’t expecting.  It’s an area to the east of the Caspian Sea, about the same in size as the US Midwestern states, and at the same latitude, where highs for today are revealed in the low 40s and up to 45C (113F):

On the anomaly map those figures convert to a full 10C (18F) in some spots on the north end. What is even more special on this map is the even larger area of greater anomalies in northern Russia, which run as high as 15-16C in places. While not so terribly hot, that kind of anomaly can do a great deal of damage, as wildfires for example, if it continues for long, which we will want to watch for in the weeks ahead:

Be sure to look at the numbers immediately above these words. They have been extraordinarily consistent at similarly low levels for quite some time.  Bear in mind that the NH as a whole is being cooled over large areas by major assemblies of rain clouds, for which the presence of heavy doses of precipitable water (PW) is a necessity in supplying of materials.  We can see rain clouds all over this map, but not in those places in the NH where we find the big warm temperature anomalies:

The PW map always needs to be studied for guidance. When concentrations are well above normal we may get rain clouds—or we may not. I wish I knew the reason. It makes a huge difference for surface temperatures, owing to the strength of albedo and certain other effects, especially during the warmest months. Also, on this image you may be able to pick out the movement of PW concentrations that are apparently originating from sources that inhabit central Europe and eastern Asia. These concentrations seem to be fortifying other movements of PW that originate from more distant and regular sources we know of, located in waters along the borders of the tropical belt:

I find these new and unexpected sources fascinating because they must be coming from inland seas or landlocked gulf waters where evaporation rates turn on and off on a seasonal basis. Right now they are decidedly “on” because surface water temperatures at or above 25C are warm enough to deliver concentrated vapor streams high into the upper atmosphere. We can see on this map how such temperatures are now in place, and could possibly still be trending higher, The Mediterranean Sea is a real giant, and the one we most want to be watching:

Carl

North America has its own version of the Persian Gulf, creating exactly the same kind of effects on land temperatures directly to the north. The Gulf of California is positioned at almost the same latitude as the Persian Gulf, is about as long but not as wide, probably deeper on average, and a few degrees cooler on the surface. It is just now reaching peak seasonal temperatures following the customary summer warmup, and that means a peak rate of evaporation. In common with the Persian, the skies above are clear and there is apparently nothing that can stop freshly evaporated vapors from rising up and moving about over surrounding land areas, which are normally desert-like in terms of dryness. We are just now seeing the first major signs of absolute overheating in an area composed of pieces of northern Mexico, southeastern California and southwestern Arizona, where maximum temperatures are all in the 45C area, or 113F:

Surface water temperature in the northern part of the gulf looks like it is reaching up to 33C, or about a degree warmer than anything in the Gulf of Mexico.  On this map the latter appears to have no rivals among the same or larger bodies of open water anywhere in the world at this time of year:

Here is how the cloud map looks around the Gulf of Calofornia. The Gulf of Mexico is also of interest because of the way it is split between clear sky and heavy rainfall, with nothing much in between—which is not at all unusual, but does make you wonder about how so large a division sets up in the first place and what makes the breaking point so very sharp in the places where it occurs that way:

Now for a look at precipitable water (PW) readings. We know exactly where the high concentrations that are seen over land are coming from, their patterns of distribution, and how distribution becomes limited as concentrations gradually erode. When the sky is unclouded the highest concentrations are typically seen squarely superimposed over areas of highest surface temperatures.  This cannot be a coincidence that occurs over and over by mere accident, so we need to look for a cause-and-effect relationship.  This is no problem for anyone who has mastered an understanding of the greenhouse effect of PW, as described by Carl’s theory. The power of this effect is most vividly expressed in the absence of rain clouds, which have powers just as great—but in this case as coolants. Ironically, high concentrations of PW favor high levels of both of these powers, but with remarkable inconsistency in the case of just one of them, the coolants. The current Gulf of California example, like that we just visited in the Persian Gulf, is a vivid expression of what happens when incoming sunlight is unblocked.

Carl

Yesterday’s letter didn’t go as far as I had hoped but it did contain a highlight that is truly extraordinary, something every climate scientist should be acutely aware of and prepared to explain—the peculiar relationship between the hottest surface water temperature in the world today and the hottest land temperature. These two locations exist in the closest possible proximity: Southern Iraq sits directly on the upper end of the Persian Gulf. I can well remember how the two of them had this exact same temperature relationship a year ago. I also know that a little corner of Iran, right next to southern Iraq, has made unverified claims in the past of setting a world record for hottest day ever, which is not necessarily false. Iraq’s beastly summer heat has been well-known for decades, but moisture arising from the Persian Gulf is seldom mentioned as the main reason.

The Persian Gulf, by some standards, is a “large” body of open water, perhaps twice as large as all of the Great Lakes combined. Otherwise, on global water maps, it is just a speck. It is most distinguished by having a location on the very edge of the tropics combined with having a major portion that is almost fully landlocked, with a minimum of throughput currents. This is enough to explain why its surface gets so hot, about three to four degrees higher than any other large body of water. What is implied is a tremendously high rate and volume of evaporation, maybe small in area of coverage but exceptionally high in concentration. When vapors leave the surface we might assume that warm air currents will quickly carry them to higher levels of the atmosphere and spread them out, bearing concentrations that stay well above average. Some will make it up to jetstream levels and be carried to far-off places. Most will stay lower, probably condensing into light clouds over much of the area of spreading. At least that is how it looks to me in this image, where the cloud cover that appears around the Gulf is indeed very light in most places but still detectable:

Now we can get into the real meat of this whole story, because water vapor, with or without cloud condensation, and regardless of altitude, will always enter into the signal of total precipitable water (PW) density recorded over all of Earth’s locations. Here is a current map for the region:

What you can look for is an image of two strong bands of PW, one on each side of the Gulf, with strong concentrations on the north end of each band. That strong concentration at the top or the west-side band sits precisely over the nation of Iraq. I believe the greenhouse energy impact generated by this vapor and its associated light clouds fully account for the high temperatures down below, which are the same today as they were on the map in yesterday’s letter. (On the east side of the gulf there is a comparable stream of PW in the air, but the situation on the ground is entirely different due to the presence of a range of high mountains.)

The most important takeaway from these two letters is that all of the seas to the north, as listed yesterday, have something in common with the Persian Gulf.  Their surfaces are rapidly growing warmer, as yesterday’s map shows, and they are already warm enough, seasonally, to be generating extraordinary volumes of evaporation and water vapor.  The trend that is now in place has almost surely reached a level of energy production—of the greenhouse type—having the kind of strength needed to create the extreme weather impacts we are reading about.  There is a frightening story just today about the wildfires in Turkey:  https://www.npr.org/2021/08/02/1024010396/wildfires-turkish-vacation-towns-evacuations-resorts.  Intense heatwaves and flooding are also common to many parts of Europe.  Their intensity is difficult to explain without taking into account the high volumes of PW emerging from the many local seas, which are only now reaching peak surface temperatures for the season. What happens in the next few weeks will be a thing of interest.

I am more and more convinced that evaporation rates accelerate when water temperatures have risen to these current levels, and I have doubts about claims that set limitations on how much concentrated PW the upper atmosphere can hold in situations like this.

Carl