Timothy Birdnow

I had an astonishing interaction with a Gang Green on a climate change group on Facebook. I pointed out the decline in cloud cover was in direct opposition to the models and at odds with what they all said would happen and this guy actually argued that warming leads to fewer clouds. I was doumbfounded; how do you answer someone so dense?

Where does the extra water vapor go? There are two options; it condenses into clouds then falls as rain or it just falls as rain right away. But there is zero evidence for increased rainfall worldwide, and fewer clouds than in the past decades.

What goes up must come down; this water vapor can't just sit there in the atmosphere. At best it will fall in greater amounts at the poles and on the winter side of the planet; we would see greater precipitation during winter everywhere. We don't.

This is, in this man's view, a kind of magic trick; warming evaporates water but it magically disappears.

I accused him of moving the goalposts as the early IPCC reports said there would be more precipitation and more cloud cover and now they are ducking that assessment. I think this guy knows it too.

I would add that, if this is the case, we have absolutely nothing to fear from the extra carbon dioxide. The whole argument over climate sensitivity is over the feedbacks and the core point made by the alarmists is that the evaporation of water vapor (the Earth's primary greenhouse gas) will lead to more carbon dioxide then more water vapor and then the permafrost will melt and discharge large amounts of methane. But the key is the water vapor. If as you say there are fewer clouds and we can't find the water vapor hanging about then the whole positive feedback loop breaks down.

Claiming there would be a decrease in cloud cover from warming and no increased precipitation is just silly.

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