How would you be skeptical of these results?

Question

Open access paper from PNAS (which means anyone can download it for free):

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/104/39/15248

The paper details using SSM/I data to show atmospheric moisture content has increased and that increase is anthropogenically driven. It makes the specific point that the effects of anthropogenic modification of radiative transfer through the atmosphere are being observed in systems other than global mean temperature.

This is an extremely important result and quite damning for all current contrarian arguments.

You skeptics slay, really.

Campbell: Provide a reference to a verified problem in the physics of the climate models used in this study that would nullify the accuracy of the conclusions. I doubt you can, but hey, you made the statement. Prove it.

Tomcat: You're clutching at straws. Here's a link to global (not tropic) water trends showing the global distribution of the trend. The tropics are decreasing, but globally the average water vapor is increasing. The reason is because of the amplification of the warming at high latitudes. Google "polar amplification global warming" for more information on this effect.

(open access, from ACPD):
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/7/11761/2007/acpd-7-11761-2007.pdf
(check figures 5 and 6).

Answer 1

SSMI vapor has been falling for the last four years, has the radiative transfer mechanism under went a drastic anthropogenic modification? I would say I am more skeptical than ever now.

http://www.ssmi.com/rss_research/climate_change_in_the_tropics.html

Unless I am mistaken the troposphere should warm 1.6 times the rate of the surface at the equator as indicated by climate simulations. The warmer the atmosphere the more water vapor it holds. But since this has never been demonstrated in the equatorial tropospheric regions, I guess the climate modelers decided to look elsewhere to force the theory to work. So who is grasping at straws?

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Answer 2

OK, I understand that they say, we don't know what else it is, so it must be heat. I don't find a proof that the heat is necessarily anthropogenic.

Where is the part that proves (not claims) that the heat is anthropogenic? Can you point it out in the text and figures? Such a proof will lay to rest many of the skeptics arguments.

Answer 3

Interesting study. Just more evidence to pile onto the heap supporting anthropogenic global warming and rejecting "solar global warming".

Of course, scientific evidence does not deter the global warming denier, as evidenced by Mr Jello's answer.

Answer 4

I am skeptical of anything that relies on 'current climate models' and 'the simulated "fingerprint" pattern of anthropogenically caused changes'. Models and simulations are only as accurate as the ideas of the people who write them. To me it is more plausible that increasing humidity over the ocean is the result of higher temperatures which cause more evaporation form the ocean.

Answer 5

Thanks for the link. The National Academy of Sciences is the USA's oldest and most prestigious scientific body, and their journal (PNAS) is one of the world's most prestigious.

campbelp2002's response is just priceless:

"To me it is more plausible that increasing humidity over the ocean is the result of higher temperatures which cause more evaporation form the ocean."

Well, duh. And what causes the higher temperatures? Anthropogenic global warming, that's what.

Answer 6

Neat article, but I fail to see how a pack of poltroons like that require any additional damning beyond that of their own statements. :-)

Answer 7

Same stuff. We see something we didn't expect, so man must be the cause.

Computers don't make models smarter. Just because results are got that weren't expected can mean that you didn't have the proper data/assumptions in the first place.