Can anyone tell me about water vapour in respect of climate change?

A

Andy

New member
So far the scientists in the field have blatantly ignored water vapor even though it makes up 95% of all green house gases and is 94% natural. This tells me that the scientists are not looking into real cause and effect, just the gases that man contributes to more of.
 
I understand that it is an important greenhouse gas...

But what regulates the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere? Is it temperature? ...and by what relationship? ...directly proportional?

And if it is temperature, wouldn't an increase in temperature increase the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere, leading to further warming as a feedback?

This is my understanding of 'water vapour feedback' but beyond this I know almost nothing about the science of how water vapour affects climate.

So, what can anyone tell me about this, particularly in respect of man made global warming which I believe is happening.

Thanks in advance...
 
I think there are many people on this forum that can answer this question much better, but the key point is that evaporating water *costs* energy. Water evaporation indeed is correlated with temperature, but when no energy is added to a closed system, the evaporation of water will lead to a *decrease* of temperature in that system. this is how for instance refrigerators work. Also, the higher the concentration of water vapour in the atmosphere, the more difficult water will evaporate (just like you will sweat a lot in a humid environment: the humidity (=water vapor concentration) prevents the sweat from evaporating, forming beads of sweat on your skin).

So in the end there will be an equilibrium: the watervapour concentration will rise until enough energy has been absorbed to prevent further evaporation.

When more energy is added to the system, through C02 in the case of AGW, the balance will shift towards a higher concentration of water vapor, and a higher amount of energy absorbed in the atmosphere.
Water vapor magnifies the effect of greenhouse gases, but in itself does not cause a runaway greenhouse effect.
 
You are correct about the feedback. Additional increases in temperature lead to more evaporation and the ability of the air to hold more water. In terms of the relationship, I do not know and I doubt it is a very simple relationship when considering the climate as a whole.

Andy is completely wrong. There is not one climatologist or model that ignores water. That is just more nonsense from the denialist camp trying to confuse the issue and is just plain false.
 
Yes. Temperature regulates the amount of Water vapour in the atmosphere. As the temperature rises,the rate of evaporation also increases. This results in the increase amount of water vapour in the atmosphere.
 
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