water vapour, and it took me some time to get my head around this, is the consequence of warmer oceanic temperatures. more heat in the water = more evaporation = more rain along the coast and, if winds are blowing SE, further inland. plus the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) has been pushing more humid air from the north into the southern inland desert regions causing a lot of rain.
Yes, but the Tongan volcano provided a massive boost to atmospheric H2O and its effects will continue to do so for up to 8 years, according to the ABC. This is all part of the noise.
if you can't see how the climate is changing you would have to be hiding from the weather reports.
Yes, climate does change. But the natural variability of the climate is immeasurable. There are too many modes and they are superimposed. We haven't even studied the modes long enough to know what they're doing. Again, the Tongan volcano is a significant catalyst for climate change due to the massive influx of water into the system.
water vapour increases heat retention in the atmosphere
Here's where the uncertainty comes in. A decent cloud can reflect ~50 W/m/m of energy and can radiate ~30 W/m/m back to the ground. There are so many variables to this. If you read the reports, Working Group 1 of the IPCC is openly uncertain about clouds. The other working groups of the IPCC dismiss this uncertainty and recommend policy changes as if the uncertainty doesn't exist. The full-blown alarmists and media either don't know or don't care about the uncertainty. Water vapour is an insulator. Yes, it increases heat retention but it also keeps us cool. It plays the role of heating and cooling at different times of day/night, different altitude, different latitude, different proximity to the ocean and other large bodies of water, different humidity, different season, etc. The uncertainty is massive. The 20W/m/m difference (20 W/m/m of cooling) between the reflection and radiation of energy due to clouds is 5-fold the effect of doubling [CO2].
