Occasional Thoughts on Climate Change

[WolfStock1]

10 hours ago, TheClimateChanger said:

 

50 states x 12 months = 600 records for "highest temperature for state X during month Y".

To be honest - breaking one of those every now and then seems like not so much of a big deal, and would be expected regardless of whether the planet is warming or not.

Point being - perhaps showing trendlines of more broad data would be a lot more meaningful and poignant that touting a given broken single-state record for a given month.   As it is these posts with their desert graphics, and the obvious troll phrasing, seem very... tabloidish (or perhaps clickbait-ish being the modern equivalent), especially on a forum that thrives on deep data analysis.

 

[GaWx]

2 minutes ago, WolfStock1 said:

50 states x 12 months = 600 records for "highest temperature for state X during month Y".

To be honest - breaking one of those every now and then seems like not so much of a big deal, and would be expected regardless of whether the planet is warming or not.

Point being - perhaps showing trendlines of more broad data would be a lot more meaningful and poignant that touting a given broken single-state record for a given month.   As it is these posts with their desert graphics, and the obvious troll phrasing, seem very... tabloidish (or perhaps clickbait-ish being the modern equivalent), especially on a forum that thrives on deep data analysis.

 

Good point although the good possibility of Phoenix approaching if not reaching 105, the hottest on record in April, during some point within the next 3 days is amazing. But Don, myself, and others realize that their rapid growth’s caused increasing UHI has also been a notable factor.

 Speaking of UHI though, isn’t that more of a factor for warm lows than hot highs? 

[GaWx]

I read this today from a pro-met. @donsutherland1and others, I’m curious about your thoughts about this:

“Many of the radiation absorption bands for CO2 OVERLAP with H2O. H2O is 95% of the planet's greenhouse gas effect(we would be a frozen wasteland without the BENEFICIAL greenhouse effect).  Turns out that in areas with higher dew points, those overlapping absorption bands ARE ALREADY SATURATED by H2O!! In those cases and in those bands, it doesn't matter how much CO2 that you add. When they are already absorbing 100% of the long wave, heat radiation of what they are capable of because of water vapor/H2O, adding CO2 in those bands will have near 0 impact.

Now the kicker. Cold places lack water vapor in the dry air so CO2 will be impacting bands that are NOT saturated from H2O absorbing. We can see that on the graph above. However, DESERTS also lack water vapor, so they too are seeing a greater impact from CO2 than the rest of the planet at the same latitude. Even DESERTS located in already hot places, like Phoenix.

Turns out that DESERTS are warming at a similar, elevated rated to the Arctic.”

Opinions?

[donsutherland1]

3 hours ago, GaWx said:

I read this today from a pro-met. @donsutherland1and others, I’m curious about your thoughts about this:

 

“Many of the radiation absorption bands for CO2 OVERLAP with H2O. H2O is 95% of the planet's greenhouse gas effect(we would be a frozen wasteland without the BENEFICIAL greenhouse effect).  Turns out that in areas with higher dew points, those overlapping absorption bands ARE ALREADY SATURATED by H2O!! In those cases and in those bands, it doesn't matter how much CO2 that you add. When they are already absorbing 100% of the long wave, heat radiation of what they are capable of because of water vapor/H2O, adding CO2 in those bands will have near 0 impact.

Now the kicker. Cold places lack water vapor in the dry air so CO2 will be impacting bands that are NOT saturated from H2O absorbing. We can see that on the graph above. However, DESERTS also lack water vapor, so they too are seeing a greater impact from CO2 than the rest of the planet at the same latitude. Even DESERTS located in already hot places, like Phoenix.

Turns out that DESERTS are warming at a similar, elevated rated to the Arctic.”

Opinions?

That statement about a near zero impact is wrong. The impact is smaller but not near zero. Water vapor saturation does not mean that additional CO2 won't have an impact. Water vapor has a maximum impact in the lower atmosphere. The upper atmosphere is drier. Increased CO2 reduces outgoing longwave radiation, leading to additional warming.

[chubbs]

15 hours ago, GaWx said:

I read this today from a pro-met. @donsutherland1and others, I’m curious about your thoughts about this:

 

“Many of the radiation absorption bands for CO2 OVERLAP with H2O. H2O is 95% of the planet's greenhouse gas effect(we would be a frozen wasteland without the BENEFICIAL greenhouse effect).  Turns out that in areas with higher dew points, those overlapping absorption bands ARE ALREADY SATURATED by H2O!! In those cases and in those bands, it doesn't matter how much CO2 that you add. When they are already absorbing 100% of the long wave, heat radiation of what they are capable of because of water vapor/H2O, adding CO2 in those bands will have near 0 impact.

Now the kicker. Cold places lack water vapor in the dry air so CO2 will be impacting bands that are NOT saturated from H2O absorbing. We can see that on the graph above. However, DESERTS also lack water vapor, so they too are seeing a greater impact from CO2 than the rest of the planet at the same latitude. Even DESERTS located in already hot places, like Phoenix.

Turns out that DESERTS are warming at a similar, elevated rated to the Arctic.”

Opinions?

A couple of points to add to Don's. The absorption bands of CO2 and H2O are different. There's overlap in some regions, but CO2 also absorbs in regions where H2O doesn't. More importantly H20 has a much higher boiling point than CO2 and is a liquid at atmospheric temperatures while CO2 is a gas. Because of the higher boiling point, the amount of H2O in the atmosphere is controlled by temperature. As Don points out, CO2 is more important relative to H2O  in the upper atmosphere where heat is radiated to space and it is too cold to hold much water vapor.

Per paper below, CO2 is the earth's thermostat. CO2 controls the amount of H2O in the atmosphere.  If there was less CO2 there would be less water vapor and vice versa. As the paper states: Without the radiative forcing supplied by CO₂ and the other noncondensing greenhouse gases, the terrestrial greenhouse would collapse, plunging the global climate into an icebound Earth state.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1190653

[Typhoon Tip]

C02 (and other green house gases) warms initially.  This improves water evaporation ...

Once in water vapor (H2O gas), it absorbs 8+ magnitudes more outgoing LWR than does C02.  This secondarily triggers the system into a thermal state acceleration.  Not sure what the C02 vs WV discussion y'all engagin' in, but that is the critical relationship. 

It's interesting as it has been calculated/shown that the oceans have absorbed ~ 90% of the d(T)/attributable heat of the total GW...   Generate excerpt from Climate.gov and United Nations, "The oceans have absorbed about 90% of the excess heat generated by global warming, which is equivalent to approximately 23 zettajoules of heat energy in 2025 alone" (there are numerous other sources for the ocean absorption quotient in the GW total) 

It's a crucial machinery that frankly has saved ours, and countless other species, from an acceleration toward tipping points ( to put it nicely...).  The ocean is the great climate regulator in the sense that because the atmosphere's in a perpetual quasi coupled state to the ocean, en masse it is held in check. Thus, the atmosphere can't really modulate too far way from the background thermal state of the oceans.

This relationship may have been exemplified in 2023  https://phys.org/news/2025-09-ocean-carbon-ailing-absorption-marine.html. 

While the article doesn't directly discuss a plausible factor in the atmospheric temperature bounce phenomenon that happened at global scales that spring, but prudent scientific awareness begs the question.  Apparently, there occurred a 10% reduction in carbon sink --> the oceanic temperature rises that year, with furthering physical concepts discussing why. 

Later in the article, this paraphrased article ( actual study here:  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-025-02380-4   ), cite, "This sudden warming of the ocean to new record temperatures is challenging for climate research—because to date it was unclear how the marine carbon sink would respond," says Nicolas Gruber, Professor of Environmental Physics at ETH Zurich." 

I bring this citation to attention because my biggest peeve in the ongoing observation of climate change, is that there is either lacking, or too hidden, a sense of urgency that relates to the fact that the whole planet's atmospheric thermal state surged, completely and utterly unpredictably, the way it did.  

Are we connecting the dots here? 

So to bring it home.  The question/suspicions stems from fairly rudimentary logic;  if the oceans absorb the lion's share of the GW total ( over time...), I don't like coincidences. Dynamics processes failed to absorb carbon into the oceans, hence a thermal sphere response: the atmosphere heat burst in the spring of 2023 should be explored/connectable to that. 

If carbon absorption isn't monitored, it should be, because oh by the way ... the oceans are critically approaching the 2024 curve...  It makes one wonder if an atmospheric heat surge is mere month(s) away.    

Interestingly, the article also describes El Ninos as being 'carbon capture' periods, because the warm water caps the rising CO2, which defaults the system to negative for the atmosphere.   It's basically as thought the Earth has built in regulators in all dimensions of consideration- probably what makes life abound on this world... digression.