Great article, and I love the demo video on cloud seeding. Agreed – the problem with cloud seeding is that it really only works where it was going to rain anyway since the moisture in the air was available. It would be foolish to expect that providing a nucleation site for cloud formation in arid regions (where the water is needed most) would produce rain.
Especially appreciate this: “However, before we conclude that climate change definintely contributed, detailed attribution studies are essential to determine precisely how much of an impact climate change had on any specific weather events.” It seems climate change is now a foregone conclusion in the way extreme weather events are portrayed, even if the evidence (as you mention) isn’t quite there in some (or many? Please inform) cases. Is this just the nature of the media these days, and we therefore have to accept it? Or do you think people are capable of understanding the nuance? It seems like crying “climate change” every time there is an extreme weather event, in the absence of evidence for such, could come back to bite us, like the boy crying wolf. I’d love to see a post from you assessing this phenomenon and what we might do about it, if you’re so inclined. Even in my field of wildlife disease ecology, people are eager to find climate change as a contributing factor. Sometimes it is; but sometimes it’s not. If we are too eager to blame climate change for *everything*, we may just miss other—just as important—causative factors.
It is not too big of a stretch to say that climate change affects the weather in general now.
Warmer air, warmer oceans, more moisture in the atmosphere, affects on the jet stream and the stability of the Arctic polar vortex. Even official crop growing zones have been moved in the U.S. I have two graphs on my computer of U.S. precipitation over decades, that comes in extreme downpours. There has been a large increase, particularly in the North East. Not much in the dry South West. At any rate, the Dubai storm was predicted and there were official dangerous flooding warnings.
At least the media covers climate change more than they used to 10 years or more ago. It was designed to be "balanced reporting", which meant giving equal time to the vastly smaller contrarian group of scientists. Like the mouthpieces of Heartland and CEI, etc.
Well stated Andrea! I for one have been screaming that climate change is not the responsible agent. There are very specific human impacts that have slowly forced over decades our current destabilized, extreme climate and weather events. I think that it would be worthwhile for Andrew to discuss possible culprits and weigh out all the possible scenarios that have lead up to what we're all living with.
Are there human impacts and where on earth have these impacts had the most intense and most severe effects on the climate . In the 1950s and 1960's Canadians and Russians decided to transform the Arctic and Subarctic regions. Now science knows that the most sensitive places on this planet to human manipulation of existing natural elements are located on or near the polar and equatorial regions. What did happen in the subarctic?
Mega huge hydroelectric facilities, destruction of many large rivers in order to build huge seas-size reservoirs for production of electricity. The subarctic and Arctic historically has been almost a desert, a dry and cold place. And the Subarctic is home to the largest amount of fresh water on this planet. Many of the largest rivers there held and moved this water year round toward and into the Arctic Ocean. However this natural phenomena abruptly stopped wth the commissioning of hundreds of very large dams in the subarctic.
forests and tundra as well as permafrost regions were permanently flooded. Huge quantities of water vapor and evaporation now entered these regions.
However the icing on the cake that really supercharged rapid changes up there was the particular model of hydroelectric generation. The subarctic: Ground zero for initial heat amplification caused by Excesses of water vapor emissions. By the late 1960s water vapor, now a major contributor to Arctic Amplification, and a major force producing climate feedbacks.
From Siberia and throughout Canadian subarctic “Strict Flow Regulated “mega hydroelectric generation pIants constructed from the 1950s to the 1980’s impounded many major rivers in this region. Subarctic is home to the largest amount of freshwater on the entire planet. Waters from many rivers once flowing 24 x 7 are now impounded creating sea-sized basins, reducing water flow in summer to a fraction. Historically this region has been cold and dry, but rivers, now reservoir-like, are stagnant all summer, irradiated, and causing high levels
of evaporation and humidity rates. They are also inundating and melting permafrost
Hypoliminal Dam Releases All Winter Guarantee Huge Unlimited Water Vapor Emissions
Water stored all summer is discharged well below top of dams where water temperature is around 40F. It flows down the Penstock thru the turbines and exits downstream into severe cold conditions. This very cold air and warmed water creates limitless quantities of water vapor 24x7 throughout the winter months. Occuring now and for 70 years the downstream waters no longer freeze during winter and make their way to the bays and seas into the Arctic Ocean
Water Vapor: A Key Player in Global Climate and a Super Intensifer of the Greenhouse Effect
(Not A Watered-Down Story)
Water vapor is little known and an often overlooked gas. According to NASA water vapor, a significant greenhouse gas, fuels about 90% of the Earths Greenhouse Effect We see it in the form of a cloud, a cloud of breath on a cold day or a cloud in the sky. What we often overlook are the effects of excesses of water vapor.
Thanks for the thorough comment, Cliff. My comment wasn't to dismiss the role of climate change when it's warranted; rather, that it sometimes can get pointed to as the culprit in extreme weather events when not all the evidence is there for it. As Andrew points out, there are times when enough evidence is available to show that it is a significant contributing factor. I'm not trying to dismiss this information. What I'm hoping for, and would like Andrew to comment on, is a balanced approach: to be able to look at the evidence without jumping to conclusions. Climate change is clearly pulling many strings in the global forcing of extreme events on the planet. Also, as you note, there are other things contributing as well. Both things can be true at once. I would really like to read more posts from Andrew and others with climate-specific expertise about this.
yes of course water vapor and what has gone on in our subarctic/arctic regions certainly is not the only factors. as you too have mentioned the other attributing factors like water vapor are not given the exposure they deserve and we might find out that these less publicly aware impacts may be more significant than more common ones we hear about. Numerous scientific studies have shown, although never mentioning hydro reservoir dams in the north, that positive feedback loops (first recognized in the early 1970s) coincided with the commissioning of numerous large hydro dams located from Siberia to Labrador in the 1960's. If this interests you I can mail you an extensive research book our senior member of our small team has written: arcticbluedeserts.com
" we might find out that these less publicly aware impacts may be more significant than more common ones we hear about."
Highly unlikely
Nothing has changed as much or as fast as the greenhouse gases increase, especially CO2. It's even possible that it has Never increased this fast before.
Humans increased CO2 by 25ppm in the last 10 years
Humans increased CO2 by 45ppm in the last 20 years.
Humans increased CO2 by over 80ppm in the last 60 years
Humans increased CO2 by 100ppm in the last 70 years
Humans increased CO2 by 140ppm in the last 142 years
---------------------------------
Nature caused CO2 increases over the last 450,000 years, from ice core data
And pretty much the same for the last 800,000 years, during which 11 glacial/interglacial cycles happened. The range was 170-300ppm.
Now 40% higher than the highest level in 8,000 centuries at 424ppm
Oh, and plants did fine.
------------------
"now a major contributor to Arctic Amplification, and a major force producing climate feedbacks."
Climate models include water vapor. Water vapor by itself cannot cause global warming. It fluctuates too much to have any long term impact. It's atmospheric resident time is 2-10 days, because it is a condensing greenhouse gas. CO2 and methane are non-condensing greenhouse gases, with resident times of 12 years for methane and centuries for CO2 - even thousands of years for a portion of the increase. And methane in the atmosphere oxidizes into CO2 and H2O.
----------------
"The maximum rate of change in CO2 concentrations from the ice core records is around 100 ppm in 10,000 years, or around 1 ppm per century.
The current rate of change in CO2 concentrations is 1 ppm every 21 weeks."
Unfortunately the total amount of water vapor emissions throughout the winter months in the subarctic has been greatly underestimated. EIectricity generation onIy occurs in the winter and has been for the past 70 years consistentIy. Localized weather effects are common as it is well known that our Great Lakes have what is know as Iake effect snow. With such sensitivities found at the poles and equatorial regions AND MUCH MORE SO than elsewhere on the planet pumping continuous water vapor into the atmosphere all winter long from the many mega reservoir hydroplants could lead to changes unforseen by science. I'm not discounting you points. I'm just suggesting that there is more to water vapor issue in this area than previosly believed. There are also ocean currets and salenity issues that are involved as the quantities of fresh water entering the Arctic ocean have increased from these dams as the permafrost under their waters continue to add more water to the entire system
Here is what is understood: According to the National Wildfire Coordinating Group/Fire Weather Publication, “Clouds and Precipitation”
“Over an area the size of Oregon, 1 inch of rain is equivalent to nearly 8 billion tons of water. All of this water comes from condensation of vapor in the atmosphere. For each ton of water that condenses, almost 2 million B.T.U.’s of latent heat is released to the atmosphere. It becomes obvious that tremendous quantities of water and energy are involved in the formation of clouds and precipitation.
It's a joke. a twisting of WUWT "What's Up With That" global warming denier disinformation dispensary. The blog of Anthony Watts, who pretends to be a meteorologist, even though he never graduated from the college that he "attended".
Great article, and I love the demo video on cloud seeding. Agreed – the problem with cloud seeding is that it really only works where it was going to rain anyway since the moisture in the air was available. It would be foolish to expect that providing a nucleation site for cloud formation in arid regions (where the water is needed most) would produce rain.
"Step back non-believers or the rain will never come"
- Tanya Tucker ; Lizzie and the Rainman
https://genius.com/Tanya-tucker-lizzie-and-the-rainman-lyrics
Especially appreciate this: “However, before we conclude that climate change definintely contributed, detailed attribution studies are essential to determine precisely how much of an impact climate change had on any specific weather events.” It seems climate change is now a foregone conclusion in the way extreme weather events are portrayed, even if the evidence (as you mention) isn’t quite there in some (or many? Please inform) cases. Is this just the nature of the media these days, and we therefore have to accept it? Or do you think people are capable of understanding the nuance? It seems like crying “climate change” every time there is an extreme weather event, in the absence of evidence for such, could come back to bite us, like the boy crying wolf. I’d love to see a post from you assessing this phenomenon and what we might do about it, if you’re so inclined. Even in my field of wildlife disease ecology, people are eager to find climate change as a contributing factor. Sometimes it is; but sometimes it’s not. If we are too eager to blame climate change for *everything*, we may just miss other—just as important—causative factors.
It is not too big of a stretch to say that climate change affects the weather in general now.
Warmer air, warmer oceans, more moisture in the atmosphere, affects on the jet stream and the stability of the Arctic polar vortex. Even official crop growing zones have been moved in the U.S. I have two graphs on my computer of U.S. precipitation over decades, that comes in extreme downpours. There has been a large increase, particularly in the North East. Not much in the dry South West. At any rate, the Dubai storm was predicted and there were official dangerous flooding warnings.
At least the media covers climate change more than they used to 10 years or more ago. It was designed to be "balanced reporting", which meant giving equal time to the vastly smaller contrarian group of scientists. Like the mouthpieces of Heartland and CEI, etc.
I agree that overhyping can be counterproductive.
Well stated Andrea! I for one have been screaming that climate change is not the responsible agent. There are very specific human impacts that have slowly forced over decades our current destabilized, extreme climate and weather events. I think that it would be worthwhile for Andrew to discuss possible culprits and weigh out all the possible scenarios that have lead up to what we're all living with.
Are there human impacts and where on earth have these impacts had the most intense and most severe effects on the climate . In the 1950s and 1960's Canadians and Russians decided to transform the Arctic and Subarctic regions. Now science knows that the most sensitive places on this planet to human manipulation of existing natural elements are located on or near the polar and equatorial regions. What did happen in the subarctic?
Mega huge hydroelectric facilities, destruction of many large rivers in order to build huge seas-size reservoirs for production of electricity. The subarctic and Arctic historically has been almost a desert, a dry and cold place. And the Subarctic is home to the largest amount of fresh water on this planet. Many of the largest rivers there held and moved this water year round toward and into the Arctic Ocean. However this natural phenomena abruptly stopped wth the commissioning of hundreds of very large dams in the subarctic.
forests and tundra as well as permafrost regions were permanently flooded. Huge quantities of water vapor and evaporation now entered these regions.
However the icing on the cake that really supercharged rapid changes up there was the particular model of hydroelectric generation. The subarctic: Ground zero for initial heat amplification caused by Excesses of water vapor emissions. By the late 1960s water vapor, now a major contributor to Arctic Amplification, and a major force producing climate feedbacks.
From Siberia and throughout Canadian subarctic “Strict Flow Regulated “mega hydroelectric generation pIants constructed from the 1950s to the 1980’s impounded many major rivers in this region. Subarctic is home to the largest amount of freshwater on the entire planet. Waters from many rivers once flowing 24 x 7 are now impounded creating sea-sized basins, reducing water flow in summer to a fraction. Historically this region has been cold and dry, but rivers, now reservoir-like, are stagnant all summer, irradiated, and causing high levels
of evaporation and humidity rates. They are also inundating and melting permafrost
Hypoliminal Dam Releases All Winter Guarantee Huge Unlimited Water Vapor Emissions
Water stored all summer is discharged well below top of dams where water temperature is around 40F. It flows down the Penstock thru the turbines and exits downstream into severe cold conditions. This very cold air and warmed water creates limitless quantities of water vapor 24x7 throughout the winter months. Occuring now and for 70 years the downstream waters no longer freeze during winter and make their way to the bays and seas into the Arctic Ocean
Water Vapor: A Key Player in Global Climate and a Super Intensifer of the Greenhouse Effect
(Not A Watered-Down Story)
Water vapor is little known and an often overlooked gas. According to NASA water vapor, a significant greenhouse gas, fuels about 90% of the Earths Greenhouse Effect We see it in the form of a cloud, a cloud of breath on a cold day or a cloud in the sky. What we often overlook are the effects of excesses of water vapor.
Thanks for the thorough comment, Cliff. My comment wasn't to dismiss the role of climate change when it's warranted; rather, that it sometimes can get pointed to as the culprit in extreme weather events when not all the evidence is there for it. As Andrew points out, there are times when enough evidence is available to show that it is a significant contributing factor. I'm not trying to dismiss this information. What I'm hoping for, and would like Andrew to comment on, is a balanced approach: to be able to look at the evidence without jumping to conclusions. Climate change is clearly pulling many strings in the global forcing of extreme events on the planet. Also, as you note, there are other things contributing as well. Both things can be true at once. I would really like to read more posts from Andrew and others with climate-specific expertise about this.
yes of course water vapor and what has gone on in our subarctic/arctic regions certainly is not the only factors. as you too have mentioned the other attributing factors like water vapor are not given the exposure they deserve and we might find out that these less publicly aware impacts may be more significant than more common ones we hear about. Numerous scientific studies have shown, although never mentioning hydro reservoir dams in the north, that positive feedback loops (first recognized in the early 1970s) coincided with the commissioning of numerous large hydro dams located from Siberia to Labrador in the 1960's. If this interests you I can mail you an extensive research book our senior member of our small team has written: arcticbluedeserts.com
" we might find out that these less publicly aware impacts may be more significant than more common ones we hear about."
Highly unlikely
Nothing has changed as much or as fast as the greenhouse gases increase, especially CO2. It's even possible that it has Never increased this fast before.
Humans increased CO2 by 25ppm in the last 10 years
Humans increased CO2 by 45ppm in the last 20 years.
Humans increased CO2 by over 80ppm in the last 60 years
Humans increased CO2 by 100ppm in the last 70 years
Humans increased CO2 by 140ppm in the last 142 years
---------------------------------
Nature caused CO2 increases over the last 450,000 years, from ice core data
80ppm increase -- took 50,000 years
110ppm increase -- 25,000 years
120ppm increase --- 20,000 years
60ppm increase --- 20,000 years
90ppm increase --- 15,000 years
100ppm increase --- 24,800 years
And pretty much the same for the last 800,000 years, during which 11 glacial/interglacial cycles happened. The range was 170-300ppm.
Now 40% higher than the highest level in 8,000 centuries at 424ppm
Oh, and plants did fine.
------------------
"now a major contributor to Arctic Amplification, and a major force producing climate feedbacks."
Climate models include water vapor. Water vapor by itself cannot cause global warming. It fluctuates too much to have any long term impact. It's atmospheric resident time is 2-10 days, because it is a condensing greenhouse gas. CO2 and methane are non-condensing greenhouse gases, with resident times of 12 years for methane and centuries for CO2 - even thousands of years for a portion of the increase. And methane in the atmosphere oxidizes into CO2 and H2O.
----------------
"The maximum rate of change in CO2 concentrations from the ice core records is around 100 ppm in 10,000 years, or around 1 ppm per century.
The current rate of change in CO2 concentrations is 1 ppm every 21 weeks."
NASA Climate
-----------------------------
That comes to 247 times faster now.
heads up thank you, just our opinion and we cannot afford to discount anything if we want to find significant cuprits
Unfortunately the total amount of water vapor emissions throughout the winter months in the subarctic has been greatly underestimated. EIectricity generation onIy occurs in the winter and has been for the past 70 years consistentIy. Localized weather effects are common as it is well known that our Great Lakes have what is know as Iake effect snow. With such sensitivities found at the poles and equatorial regions AND MUCH MORE SO than elsewhere on the planet pumping continuous water vapor into the atmosphere all winter long from the many mega reservoir hydroplants could lead to changes unforseen by science. I'm not discounting you points. I'm just suggesting that there is more to water vapor issue in this area than previosly believed. There are also ocean currets and salenity issues that are involved as the quantities of fresh water entering the Arctic ocean have increased from these dams as the permafrost under their waters continue to add more water to the entire system
Here is what is understood: According to the National Wildfire Coordinating Group/Fire Weather Publication, “Clouds and Precipitation”
“Over an area the size of Oregon, 1 inch of rain is equivalent to nearly 8 billion tons of water. All of this water comes from condensation of vapor in the atmosphere. For each ton of water that condenses, almost 2 million B.T.U.’s of latent heat is released to the atmosphere. It becomes obvious that tremendous quantities of water and energy are involved in the formation of clouds and precipitation.
Dubai is unique among nations in not requiring aircraft for cloud seeding- many citizens can do so from the comfort of their own homes :
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2024/04/travels-in-arabia-deserta-volume-thre.html
WTFUWW is not a credible source at all.
WTFUWW is WTFUWW ?
Please clarify if possible.
It's a joke. a twisting of WUWT "What's Up With That" global warming denier disinformation dispensary. The blog of Anthony Watts, who pretends to be a meteorologist, even though he never graduated from the college that he "attended".
Sorry, Richard, but you seem slightly hoist on your own petard-
the URL of The Climate Wars blog , which begins with a double V , not a W which twists the URL of Watts daft compendium of contrarian hogwash.
All is explained on The Climate Wars header ,:
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com