Barnaby Drake
If this is true, then we can look forward to a drier and drier planet as these CO2 levels increase, although this will not necessary affect the temperature dramatically. Deserts will spread and forests will die, and with the death of the trees etc, the water vapour entering the atmosphere will increasingly diminish, compounding the problem, and as the carbon dioxide increases, oxygen levels will decrease.
Recently the term ‘Global Warming’ is slowly being supplanted by the term ‘Climate Change’. The critics of this warming are quick to point out that although the temperature over the last eight years remains higher than previously recorded over the last hundred years or so, that the Earth’s mean temperature now appears to have levelled out. This leads them to conclude that the assumption that this warming was caused by increasing amounts of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere is erroneous, and therefore the human race, and especially heavy industry, is exonerated. They are now suggesting that this warming is nothing more than a natural cyclic event and is not related to the carbon dioxide content.
I beg to differ.
Accompanying this change is the undeniable fact that the world in general is getting drier. There are more droughts in huge areas of the world and in both hemispheres than has been recorded in human history. Australia is not alone in this. Africa, both Americas, Northern China, India, the Middle East and parts of Europe are suffering from prolonged drought, and water is now one of the prime problems for the world.
One would have thought that with increased atmospheric temperatures, that evaporation rates would also have increased, leading to higher rainfall, rather than less. But the opposite is true.
I have seen no scientific explanation for this phenomena, nor any modelling. In fact, nobody seems to have made a connection.
Hypothesis
Here are couple of facts. Water does not need a high temperature to evaporate. In fact, lower temperatures can increase water vapour loss, and this phenomenon is used to freeze-dry vegetables, etc. Food dries out quickly inside a refrigerator if it is not protected, and the water vapour condenses as ice on the inside walls, which requires the fridge to be defrosted on regular intervals. Similar food left outside a refrigerator does not dry out at the same rate.
During the ice ages, ice build-up was quick and dramatic, and it rained, or snowed heavily over many of the areas which are now suffering from drought in this warming period. More water evaporated from the oceans despite the temperature being lower.
Water vapour itself is a greenhouse gas, and a major one at that. Even more so than carbon dioxide. However, water vapour is on the decrease in the atmosphere, and with it, the warming effect of this gas must also be in decline. However, as the critics point out, the atmospheric temperature seems to remain on a plateau.
To me this would suggest that one is compensating for the other. As the atmospheric temperature rises due to increased carbon dioxide, it is compensated by a commensurate decrease caused by the lessening water vapour!
The next question is, could there be another cause for this decrease in water absorption by the atmosphere apart from temperature?
Possibly the atmosphere has a finite capacity for absorption, and this capacity is being saturated with man-made gases and is now less able to absorb the amount of water vapour that it normally would when the CO2 levels were lower? Carbon dioxide has supplanted water vapour. (This could be tested.)
If this is true, then we can look forward to a drier and drier planet as these CO2 levels increase, although this will not necessary affect the temperature dramatically. Deserts will spread and forests will die, and with the death of the trees etc, the water vapour entering the atmosphere will increasingly diminish, compounding the problem, and as the carbon dioxide increases, oxygen levels will decrease.
Already our rivers are running dry and our farmers are suffering. Dams are at their lowest levels, hydro-electric power is lessening and clean drinking water is becoming a sought-after commodity. The economics of this are disastrous, far worse than the world running out of oil. Food shortages, famine and water wars will become the norm. Those that will suffer most are those that have probably played the least part in the cause.
It is not a pleasant scenario, and it WILL have been created by us!
Barnaby Drake
