It's Not the Heat. It's the Humidity

Climatologists pay too little attention to the role water plays in earth's energy system, including the way water vapor affects air temperature. Water's potential to affect air temperature is well established in science.  As I have noted in previous posts the ability of CO2 to affect temperature is highly questionable.
 Those who spend much time in greenhouses know that they are often very humid places because water evaporates from plants and from surfaces that get wet when the plants are watered. Meteorologists typically refer to the water vapor content of the air as relative humidity which is how close the air is to holding as much water vapor as it can hold at its current temperature.

Unfortunately many climatologists waste so much time on the nonexistent impact of radiation on air temperature that they don't provide sufficient emphasis to the significant impact of water vapor on air temperature. Those who want to blame climate changes on humans ignore the fact that the combustion of hydrogen containing fossil fuels increases the amount of water vapor in the air. Other human actitivies such as watering yards, washing cars and operating public fountains also add water to the atmosphere.

Water has some special thermal characteristics that can significantly affect atmospheric temperatures. Water heats and cools signicantly slower than other components of the atmosphere. Water vapor needs to absorb over four times more heat energy than the same mass of other air molecules to raise its temperature the same amount.

Thus as the water vapor content of the air increases the atmosphere will heat and cool slower than when the air is drier. This process tends to keep the temperature from rising as high during the day or cooling as much at night, although the increase in the overnight low may lead to an increase in the daytime temperature because the air doesn't have to heat as much to reach a higher temperature. In equatorial areas deserts have higher maximum temperatures and lower minimum temperatures than jungle areas where the humidity is higher.

Water vapor possesses what physicists have traditionally called "latent" heat. Latent heat refers to the heat energy water molecules must absorb to go from a solid to a liquid (heat of fusion 80 calories/gram) or a liquid to a gas(heat of vaporization 540 calories/gram). This energy isn't reflected in the temperature of the water vapor. However, when water vapor condenses back to a liquid, or freezes, the release of this latent heat can raise the temperature of the air. A gram of water vapor releases enough heat energy when it condenses to raise the temperature of 2 kg of air by 1 C.  

At approximately 65 F water vapor in the atmosphere holds as much heat energy as the rest of the atmosphere.   This condition explains why dew points above 65 F are associated with the strongest thunderstorms.

Physicists define a "calorie" as the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of a gram of water 1 C. 27 C (82 F) is the same temperature as 300 Kelvin [the absolute temperature scale]. At 300 K water vapor has 300 calories of heat from its temperature and 620 calories of latent heat.

The dew point is the temperature at which water vapor will condense on objects or aerosals. The dew point normally is the lowest temperature the air will fall to. As the water vapor content of the air increases the dew point rises and the air doesn't get as cool at night.

The situation is more complex than I am presenting it in this post. I . The important facts to consider are that increases in humidity can raise the low, or minimum temperature, and limit the high, or maximum temperature, each day.  In areas where significant snowfall  occurs,  the increase in low  temperature can increase the melting of snow and ice by keeping the temperature  above freezing for longer periods of time.

I recently came across a 10 year old study done by David R. Easterling of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., indicating that humidy had increased and, as should have been expected, the minimum temperature had been increasing and the difference between the minimum and maximum daily temperatures, diurnal temperature range (DTR), had been declining.

The potential impact of changes in atmospheric water vapor are real science. Water vapor holds a substantial amount of heat energy. The only potential impact climatologists can find for carbon dioxide is the highly questionable claim about absorbing and re-radiating low energy IR. But then, if would be difficult for the politicians behind the global warming scare to make a case for getting rid of water.

Enron's Global Warming Scam Survived It's Bankruptcy

Remember Enron, the corrupt firm whose failure should have disproved the myth "too big to fail", but didn't?  At the time it was the seventh largest corporation.  It's bankruptcy was the largest in history  until Lehman Brothers failed.  Incidentally, Lehman Brothers was also involved  in carbon trading.

Enron owed part of its early success to emissions trading.       Basically emissions trading was established as a way for some companies to profit from pollution while allowing some companies to continue to produce the chemicals that can cause acid rain.

Lawrence Solomon, executive director of  Energy Probe and Urban Renaissance Institute, is reporting that Enron played a major role in pushing  the global warming scam, including establishing the Kyoto Protocals. [Solomon's article in the National Post is apparently no longer posted on the web.]

Enron had already profited from trading sulfur dioxide credits and saw the  potential for even greater profits from trading what would become known as "carbon credits".

The article is the first in a series of articles about those who seek to profit from what Weather  Channel founder John Coleman calls "the greatest scam in history." 

Solomon states,  " The climate-change industry — the scientists, lawyers, consultants, lobbyists and, most importantly, the multinationals that work behind the scenes to cash in on the riches at stake — has emerged as the world’s largest industry. Virtually every resident in the developed world feels the bite of this industry..."  which increases the costs of various goods and services.

Enron was an early player  beginning early in the  administration of Bill Clinton to push for a carbon dioxide trading system.   Enron also sought support from environmental groups.
"Between 1994 and 1996, the Enron Foundation donated $1-million to the Nature Conservancy and its Climate Change Project, a leading force for global warming reform, while [Chairman Kenneth] Lay and other individuals associated with Enron donated $1.5-million to environmental groups seeking international controls on carbon dioxide."

According to Solomon, "Political contributions and Enron-funded analyses flowed freely, all geared to demonstrating a looming global catastrophe if carbon dioxide emissions weren’t curbed. An Enron-funded study that dismissed the notion that calamity could come of global warming, meanwhile, was quietly buried."

 Enron advised  the Clinton administration what to do at the Kyoto Japan Conference in 1997. 

To improve its chances for success Enron hired former Environmental Protection Agency regulator John Palmisano to become the company's lead lobbyist as senior director for Environmental Policy and Compliance.  Palismano wrote a memo describing the historic corporate achievement that was Kyoto.

“If implemented this agreement will do more to promote Enron’s business than will almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring of the energy and natural-gas industries in Europe and the United States,” Polisano began. “The potential to add incremental gas sales, and additional demand for renewable technology is enormous.”

The memo, entitled “Implications of the Climate Change Agreement in Kyoto & What Transpired,” summarized the achievements that Enron had accomplished. “I do not think it is possible to overestimate the importance of this year in shaping every aspect of this agreement,” he wrote.  He cited  three issues of specific importance to Enron in the climate-change debate:  the rules governing emissions trading, the rules governing transfers of emission reduction rights between countries, and the rules governing a gargantuan clean energy fund.

Polisano’s memo expressed satisfaction bordering on amazement at Enron’s successes. The rules governing transfers of emission rights “is exactly what I have been lobbying for and it seems like we won. The clean development fund will be a mechanism for funding renewable projects. Again we won .... The endorsement of emissions trading was another victory for us.”

“Enron now has excellent credentials with many ‘green’ interests including Greenpeace, WWF [World Wildlife Fund], NRDC [Natural Resources Defense Council], German Watch, the U.S. Climate Action Network, the European Climate Action Network, Ozone Action, WRI [World Resources Institute] and Worldwatch. This position should be increasingly cultivated and capitalized on (monetized),” Polisano explained.

Those who believe in Global Warming like to claim that they are opposed by corporate interests in the form of the energy companies.  They neglect to mention that the battle isn't against corporations, it is between different groups of corporations.  The energy companies are attempting to continue providing energy to consumers.  Companies on the other side are merely attempting to create a financial opportunity for themselves as financial parasites who provide nothing to anyone and get rich in return.

Democrats often criticize Republicans for being too close to business.  Democrats are just as close to business. They simply favor different businesses. 

As  William O'Keefe, chief executive officer of the Marshall Institute, puts it:  "The American people have had enough of convoluted, indecipherable financial schemes and the opportunists who exploit them. The public is understandably angry about Wall Street's exploitation of Main Street, and yet our political leaders are setting the stage for another complex trading market, ripe for corruption. The future Enrons and Bernie Madoffs of the world would like nothing better than to see the U.S. impose a new market for carbon emission trading."
 

Global Average Temperature Debate - Much Ado About Nothing

The global warming priests have presented no evidence that the process they claim causes "global warming" exists.   They just illogically claim that any increase in what they call the "global average temperature"  can only result from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.   
     
Paul  Homewood has recently reported on questionable manipulation of temperature data used to calculate this global average temperature.   Anthony Watts has documented problems with temperature data for several years on his blog.   

The controversy over the accuracy of the data can be viewed as much ado about nothing because the so-called global average temperature  "is thermodynamically as well as mathematically an impossibility, says Bjarne Andresen, a professor at The Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, who has analyzed this topic in collaboration with professors Christopher Essex from University of Western Ontario and Ross McKitrick from University of Guelph, Canada." 

"It is impossible to talk about a single temperature for something as complicated as the climate of Earth", Bjarne Andresen says,  an expert of thermodynamics. "A temperature can be defined only for a homogeneous system. Furthermore, the climate is not governed by a single temperature. Rather, differences of temperatures drive the processes and create the storms, sea currents, thunder, etc. which make up the climate".

"While it is possible to treat temperature statistically locally, it is meaningless to talk about a a global temperature for Earth. The Globe consists of a huge number of components which one cannot just add up and average."

Even if the concept of a global average temperature was meaningful, the method of determining it is too primitive to produce a valid average.  Instead of using hourly temperatures, they just use the high and low temperature which may not be representative of temperatures during the day.   For example, the arrival of a strong  cold front late in the day can make the low temperature significantly lower than temperatures during the rest of the day.  

Even social scientists have moved away from using broad averages because such averages cover up too much information.   For example, social scientists look at the number of people in various age groups instead of the average age.   The number of homes with children or with one adult or two adults is used rather than the average household size which always ends up with a fraction of a person.   In the last presidential election people talked about the 3% in one income group and the percentage that didn't pay any income tax instead of the per capita income. 

 A third problem with the climate shaman's obsession with temperatures is that although a temperature decrease would disprove the claim of global warming, a temperature increase would not prove that CO2 was responsible.   The global warming preachers routinely commit the logical fallacy   "post hoc ergo proper hoc".    I learned that basic logic concept in high school English class. The global warming fanatics either didn't learn about the fallacy or don't understand that the fact that A follows B doesn't necessarily mean A causes B.

With their simple minded view of the situation they blithely assume that any temperature increase could only be a result of an increase in CO2.   They seemingly cannot understand that they must provide evidence that an increase in CO2 would cause any temperature increase.  They ignore the fact that other factors are known to be able to increase air temperature.

The teracalories of heat human activity generates each day would be the most likely cause of any temperature increase that wasn't caused by an increase in the sun's output.    Each teracalorie is capable of  raising the temperature of a trillion grams of water by 1 Celsius.   A teracalorie would raise the temperature of about 4-5 trillion grams of air 1 C.

Except in desert and tropical areas, most of the time the human body has a higher temperature than the air.   Automobile engines and other human technology generate sufficient heat to boil water.   Many types of air conditioning systems remove heat from the interior of buildings and transfer it outside where it heats the outside air.   Some of the heat used to warm the interiors of buildings in cold weather leaks out and heats the outside air.