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Water vapour a major cause of climate change

Posted on Sunday, 31 January, 2010 | 40 comments

A new study has revealed that water vapour high in the atmosphere plays a crucial role in influencing world temperatures.

Up until now climate scientists had overlooked the significance of water vapour in global warming and climate change. The study has found that a 10 percent drop in humidity in the upper atmosphere could account for the lack of warming over the last ten years despite the higher amount of carbon dioxide present.

Climate scientists have overlooked a major cause of global warming and cooling, a new study reveals today. American researchers have discovered that the amount of water high in the atmosphere is far more influential on world temperatures than previously thought.

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Source: Daily Mail

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Recent comments on this story

#36 Posted by Br Cornelius on 5 February, 2010, 20:06
Here is a discussion of that idea. It is worth following the link to the actual paper. http://www.physorg.com/news148751093.html BR Cornelius

#37 Posted by J.B. on 5 February, 2010, 20:19
I read the article and am reading the paper. It seems to back up your claims, but I'm a bit hesitant to agree 100% when they only hit one region of the world.

#38 Posted by Florida Ed on 13 February, 2010, 0:56
Portable sensors (i.e. radiosonde) capable of accurately measuring upper atmosphere water vapor didn't even exist until the late 1920s. So there is absolutely no possible way to justify saying that there "has been no major shift in atmospheric water vapour in the past 150 years." htt...

#39 Posted by Br Cornelius on 13 February, 2010, 8:37
There was the original experiment on CO2 effects over 120yrs ago. It used spectroscopy of incoming moonlight as a proxy for outgoing earth light and measured the absorbtion by both CO2 and H2O. So they had an accurate dataset for water vs co2 absorbtion over 120yrs ago and this would be the basis ...

#40 Posted by Florida Ed on 13 February, 2010, 14:34
I'll read up on that experiment. I would think however that to categorize it as creating an accurate dataset that could be used against modern observations, they would've needed many such experiments performed over many geographical locations and they would have needed to do them each year ...

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