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Engaging With Climate Skeptics
In the wake of the CRU "climategate" leak, reader Geoffrey.landis sends along a New York Times blog profile of Judith Curry, a climate scientist at Georgia Tech. "Curry — unlike many climate scientists — does not simply dismiss the arguments of 'climate skeptics,' but attempts to engage them in dialogue. She can, as well, be rather pointed in criticizing her colleagues, as in a post on the skeptic site climateaudit where she argues for greater transparency for climate data and calculations (mirrored here). In this post she makes a point that tribalism in science is the main culprit here —- that when scientists 'circle the wagons' to defend against what they perceive to be unfair (and unscientific) attacks, the result can be damaging to the actual science being defended. Is it still possible to conduct a dialogue, or is there no possible common ground?"
Open-sourcing the Global Warming Debate:
In short, if computer models are the primary tool in making all sorts of climate predictions, then let's have transparency in building the models and getting conclusions from them.
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Where do all the scientists who are skeptics fit in?
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
"...tribalism in science is the main culprit here..."
Funny, the old word used to be 'fraud'.
-Styopa
Both sides are entrenched and doing what is probably irreparable damage to this debate with their quaint little antics. Unless they are replaced we'll continue to have to deal with a public that is either educated by CNN or Fox News.
There very much is a common ground. Truth. Because people disagree doesn't mean that both aren't seeking to know the truth; really, both might have reasonable positions, given everything that individual has experienced and learned to date. Reality will be the ultimate arbitrator which decides who is correct.
There may be people on either side of the debate that aren't interested in the truth... in fact, there clearly are, in both camps. Those aren't scientists, though, and they aren't doing science. They're just people interfering with science. Best to publish all data, and keep discussion reasonable and non-accusatory. The amount of political and activist cruft attaching to the believers and deniers are harming the TRUE cause, which is to find out the truth.
Even the common labels, "believers" and "deniers", are ridiculous; they have more of a place in religious debate.
The claims of evolution skeptics and round-earth skeptics is not backed up by observation and evidence. On the other hand, the more extreme claims of anthropogenic global warming _proponents_ are not backed up with sufficient observation and are extrapolated from very small datasets.
Given all of this, to say the "science is settled" is a travesty, and all those who said so fully deserve what's come so far and is undoubtedly coming as there's greater public and scientific scrutiny of their methods:
a) the Yamal tree-ring data - data from 10 trees is extrpolated into a 'trend' and finds its way into a number of papers
b) CRU emails - won't say much more, too much said about this already.
c) New Zealand average temperature graphs - high-school style 'cooking the graph' to match expectations
At this point, climate scientists who don't open up their raw data, modelling code and assumptions/decision-making are going to look as sleazy as PHB managers who forecast self-serving weird shit to make themselves look good to their bosses.
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... require extraordinary evidence. The global-warmists, or climate change proponents need to pony-up some real evidence for all the wild, alarmist claims about doomsday they've been making for the past 20 years... not just anecdotal bunk like misc. ice sleets falling off Antarctica, etc.
It is the job of scientists to observe impartially, test, and provide us with facts and data.
It is up to the politicians to use (or misuse) those facts and data.
But once the scientist sees himself as a politician, it is far too easy for ego and self-interest to blind them to what they should be observing, instead of what they wish to observe.
Let's have some light shone on the temperature data and how it is collected:
From Surfacestations.org[pdf], a project to survey all 1221 of the climate-monitoring stations in the U.S.:
During the past few years I recruited a team of more than 650 volunteers to visually inspect and photographically document more than 860 of these temperature stations. We were shocked by what we found.
We found stations located next to the exhaust fans of air conditioning units, surrounded by asphalt parking lots and roads, on blistering-hot rooftops, and near sidewalks and buildings that absorb and radiate heat. We found 68 stations located at wastewater treatment plants, where the process of waste digestion causes temperatures to be higher than in surrounding areas.
In fact, we found that 89 percent of the stations – nearly 9 of every 10 – fail to meet the National Weather Service’s own siting requirements that stations must be 30 meters (about 100 feet) or more away from an artificial heating or radiating/reflecting heat source.
And let's not forget the international methods of survey.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
I have to go with the way Dawkins approaches this type of situation. Giving them a seat at the table gives them credibility.
Well, it has never been successfully tested.
This attitude that when it comes to climate science it is a "With us or against us," sort of thing. Either someone accepts that humans are causing climate change, that the results will be catastrophic and so on or they are the ENEMY. Skepticism, dissent, etc are not tolerated. If you don't tow the party line, you are clearly in the pocket of the industry or a moron or whatever, worthy only of being shouted down and silenced.
That sort of attitude is a large part of what leads to the polarization of the issue, and is precisely what it seems that this person is trying to work against. If you have the attitude that anyone who is skeptical of your theory at all is to be dismissed a priori, well then you aren't going to win many converts, are you?
Also I should note that attitudes like this make many people like me extremely skeptical. Whenever people act in a manner that demands unquestioning support, when they simply shout down those that disagree and attempt to silence them, when they are secretive about their methods and data, when they appeal to a consensus, when they say debate is over, well that raises my bullshit alarm. The reason is that is precisely how con artists operate. They present you with what they say as absolute truth and shout down those who would dare question it. They want to present you with only their reality, because they are indeed full of shit and they don't want that to come out. As such they attack those that question them and try to silence them, because they want to deflect from the questions.
Well, when you act like a con man, that really sets off warning bells for me. Why would you do that? Why would you simply try to shut down those that question you if you are so sure of your position? While it doesn't make you a con to do that, it sure as hell makes me suspicious you are one.
So really, shit like that doesn't help. If you are going to dismiss anyone who is skeptical of your viewpoint out of hand, you accomplish nothing. You won't convert any of them, obviously since you just dismiss them, and you'll make others wonder what it is you are so worried about.
Interestingly, ESR has gotten in on the discussion and is a little more damning in his condemnation of the entire Climategate ordeal
http://rebootcongress.blogspot.com/2009/11/eric-s-raymond-on-east-anglia-crus.html
There is only one way to cut through all of the conflicting claims and agendas about the CRU's research: open-source it all. Publish the primary data sets, publish the programs used to interpret them and create graphs like the well-known global-temperature "hockey stick", publish everything. Let the code and the data speak for itself; let the facts trump speculation and interpretation.
We know, from experience with software, that secrecy is the enemy of quality -- that software bugs, like cockroaches, shun light and flourish in darkness. So, too. with mistakes in the interpretation of scientific data; neither deliberate fraud nor inadvertent error can long survive the skeptical scrutiny of millions. The same remedy we have found in the open-source community applies - unsurprisingly, since we learned it from science in the first place. Abolish the secrecy, let in the sunlight.
Unfortunately, while we'd all feel better if science was going to determine the policy outcome, I think we're all aware here that the truth about global warming is only a secondary factor in the success or failure of enacting policy to prevent it.
This is true for both sides, and *both* sides know it. Simply put, the issue is way too important to be left to mere science.
AGW is only a secondary issue to many of the non-scientists in the game. The pro-AGW crowd has many people who would like to see Western society's materialistic, high-energy-use lifestyle forcibly curbed, and AGW provides a convenient club.
Likewise, many of the anti-AGW would be willing to sacrifice hundreds of millions of poor people in geographically challenged areas if the only alternative was strict curbs on their lifestyle, but would prefer not to have to actually say it. So they'd deny the science rather than admit the underlying sentiment.
I strongly suspect that among the voters, there's only a small minority for whom the science is the principal factor in determining the preferred policy.
Proof? For all those who hold a strong opinion on AGW in one direction or the other, ask yourself this. What proof would it take for you to accept that the opposite position was actually the correct one? Exactly.
Yeah, the imprecision of the language here always irks me. When you say climate change skeptics, that's not a single entity. Do they mean the hard core 'the earth can't change' types, the ones who think climate change is influenced by both people and natural cycles to one degree or another, the ones who just say it happens but it isn't the end of the world, or some other group who simply doesn't buy into the next scheduled apocalypse? When you say evolution skeptics (deniers), you're almost always talking about a member of a fairly homogeneous group who started with a conclusion and worked backwards, a position that rarely has much merit in its entirety. Not so with this. Yeah, there are some out there like that, but that's hardly the full range of things.
The short version of everything that's come out so far is: the leading climate scientists pushing AGW were lying left, right, and center, and there is absolutely no evidence, not even a little, to support global warming, let alone AGW. If you haven't done so already,
I've seen it, it shows nothing of the sort. It shows people having considerable difficulty in combining data sets in a consistent and reliable way. This is always a tricky problem. Your "data manipulation" could easily be correction factors for systematic errors or problems with particular data sets. But of course a private note that was never meant to be read is hardly going to be a complete, detailed and fully explained document, is it?
I can only assume that people are reading into it what they want to see.
Your 'point' is is not factually correct. Nothing in the CRU email and data indicates scientists who subscribe to an anthropogenic cause of climate change have not been systematically lying or engaging in unethical practices to support their work. There already are *mountains* of evidence from a huge array of sciences supporting both climate change and an anthropogenic cause. And nothing on Wikileaks invalidates any of the work done at CRU or any other climate research institute.
The reality of all that hoopla is the people doing the agitating had long since decided that not only can the climate not change but even if it did man couldn't possibly have an impact.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Being a scientist but not of the climate variety, I've got to say 'No'.
In a lot of cases, if not most, dialogue on the merits of your scientific work is simply impossible with a layperson.
I work with this stuff. Every day. 40 (well more like 50-60) hours a week. It took years of study for me (and everyone else)
just to get to the level where you can properly understand what it is, exactly, that I do. That's what being an expert at something entails.
Now when I get into a dispute with someone, they typically have the same level of expertise. They know more or less everything I do. I know what they're saying, and they usually know what I'm saying.
Now you bring into that situation some layperson with their religious reasons or ideological reasons or crank personality, who wants to dispute the results of my work. So they pore over it, and they simply don't understand it. (And ignorance breeds arrogance more often than humility, as Lincoln said) But they think they do. And then they formulate their criticism. Even if that criticism makes sense (often not), it's typically wrong at the most basic level. And that will practically always be the case - because there's virtually *nothing* in the way of criticism that a beginner would be able to think of that an expert hadn't thought about already. You're just not going to find a professor of physics having made a mistake of forgetting the first law of thermodynamics.
Now I'm happy to defend my science against legitimate, good, criticism. But a scientific debate is *NOT* where anybody should be TEACHING anybody science. What kind of 'debate' is it if every answer amounts to "That's not what that word means, read a damn textbook." It's not the scientists who are being arrogant then. Hell, since when didn't scientists bend over backwards to educate the public? We write textbooks, and popular-scientific accounts. Research gets published in journals for everyone to see, etc. It's not like we're keeping it a big secret - The problem is that some people are simply unwilling to learn, yet arrogant enough to believe they should be entitled to 'debate' with me, and that I should be personally burdened with educating them in the name of 'open debate'!
(Just to pick one out of the climate bag. How often haven't you seen someone say "Yeah but climate change is cyclical!" - What? As if _climate scientists_ didn't know that?! Refuting someone's research with arguments from an introductory textbook)
The fact that these climate-skeptics were prepared to take these e-mails, pore over them for some choice quotes (which didn't even look incriminating to me out of context), blatantly misinterpret them without making any kind of good-faith effort to understand the context or the science behind it, and trumpet it all out as some kind of 'disproval' of global warming (which wouldn't have been the case even if they were right), just goes to show that they're simply not interested in either learning the science, or engaging in a real debate. And it's in itself pseudo-scientific behavior in action: Decide there's a big conspiracy of fraud behind climate change, and go look for evidence to support your theory, and ignore all other explanations.
I wish I had mod points - this needs modding up!
I don't doubt the anthropogenic basis for climate change - you can take a look at the IPCC Synthesis Report for a persuasive outline of the case. However, once you get past the most basic assertions, the scientific community is doing an absolutely terrible job. Most of the time when I read a paper on climate change I can immediately spot lots of methodological and deductive errors, and, conveniently, they always come out in favour of anthropogenic climate change. Some argue that science is just another religion. This isn't true. However, the sort of 'science' most climate scientists are doing nowadays may as well be a religion, basing conclusions on manifestly insufficient data, and inferring causation based on correlation alone. Right now the climate sceptics don't need to make straw men to argue against - the scientific community is making the straw men for them.
Scientists shouldn't be arguing against sceptics - scientists should be the sceptics. Even ignoring faulty reasoning, many published scientific results are wrong (see this article). Scientists should be constantly questioning results to try to arrive at a refined, unbiased analysis of the facts - instead we have become defensive, treating every sceptical inquiry as an attack, and as a result, the research doesn't get the sort of scrutiny necessary to advance our understanding. Something needs to change.
The real AGW arguments (and the motivation of all the parties involved) seem to be about the remedies rather than the climate. The AGW believers want to use governments to force people to lead objectively poorer lives. Many of them have wanted this since before Global Warming was even theorized.
They demand the power to do this, but they refuse to release their data. They refuse to publish the code for their computer models. They refuse to rationally refute skepticism. They refuse to understand human behavior as described by the discipline of Economics. They refuse to address the question of whether warmer may be better than colder. They refuse to identify the "correct" temperature, let alone describe how they arrived at that temperature. They refuse to close the loop on their proposed remedies to objectively weigh the benefits against the cost.
If Global Warming was simply an academic question rather than a life-or-death political struggle for power (or against power and for freedom), then it could be discussed as such.
AGW is going to lose the political struggle because of Climategate. It was already reeling from the fact that it hasn't warmed in the last decade. And it faced an uphill battle due to the depression: rich people can afford to pay for environmental spirituality, poor people can't. If the political struggle ends, this can go back to being about whether carbon release causes warming, and how much, and what it really means.
"Global warming is caused by CO2 and the CO2 comes from human sources. "
Most intelligent people who have researched the issue have come to this conclusion.
"Curtailing carbon emissions is the only way to prevent further global warming."
Intelligent people should immediately recognize the fallacy in this statement. Curtailing carbon emissions is but ONE possible response, it is not the only response and it is not necessarily the best response. The debate, at this point in time, should focus on the response. "Believing" in global warming does not need to translate into "believing" politicians can fix it with more power.
What is wrong with giving the government(s) power to curtail carbon emissions?
For one, it gives the government control of every faculty of human life. Almost everything we do, from eating, to breathing, breeding, and working has a carbon footprint. Giving the government control of carbon emissions gives the government control of everything. Students of history should recognize this pattern very well. An external force will harm us all unless the government is given enough power to protect us. Governments don't protect, they repress. What happens if the government decides large dogs have too much of a carbon footprint. Or horses? Or more than one child?
Secondly, cutting emissions in the US will do nothing about China and India. In fact, cutting oil consumption in the US will make oil cheaper for third world factories. It is supply and demand. Personally, I would rather see the fossil fuels burnt in the US, under EPA standards, creating American jobs than to have it sent to China or India where it will be used in a much less efficient manner.
Third, it is unclear that cutting carbon emissions drastically in the near future will save us from tragedy. Global warming proponents admit this, but still advocate cutting emissions for lack of a better alternative.
What is the alternative?
While it isn't my preferred approach, one alternative is to do nothing. Absolutely nothing. Oceans will rise, the world will get hotter, and people will adapt. All of the carbon we are pumping out of the ground and burning once existed in the atmosphere anyways. Plants and animals consumed it, fell to the ocean floor, and were buried under ground. The world survived with extra carbon in the past and could again. The Earth is not going to turn into Venus, no matter how much oil we burn.
Of course there will be costs for doing nothing. For one, a lot of very wealthy people are going to lose their expensive beach front properties. Many bailed out bankers will see their mansions succumb to the tides. Tough shit.
A lot of poor people, mostly in third world countries will have to move. Even in the US we may have to move certain cities like New Orleans instead of spending hundreds of billions of dollars trying to wall them off from the seas. This will be expensive, but probably less expensive than curtailing global emissions enough to have an effect.
Arable farming land will lost. Some will be gained, but overall there will probably be a decrease in the amount of land available for agriculture. Farmers may have to stop selling their prime lots to housing developments. People may have to stop bitching about genetically modified food and learn to adapt. But most people will not starve to death, we will adapt.
Is there a better solution than doing nothing?
Like I said, I am not a proponent of doing nothing. I think we should do something that actually stands a chance of working. The best way (notice how I didn't use the word "only" here) to curtail carbon emissions is to give people cheaper options. I don't mean solar or wind, or osmosis generators or tide machines or biofuel or nuclear fission.
Perhaps I have read one to many sci-fi novels, but I think we should take the hundreds of billions being spent on cutting emissions and put it into nuclear fusion research. If nuclear fusion can be perfected in the next decade or two then there will be no reason to burn fossil fuels, conserve energy, or give the government a fascist grip on the economy.
"My experience is that a good number of 'those questions' -- at least as they filter out into popular discussion -- are either ridiculous or end up having credible responses in support of anthropocentric climate change."
The first and largest was "what did your simulations actually DO when calculating this predicted climate change?"
And yes, the answer was, basically, "shut up - we know what we're doing, you don't need to see the computer code."
Whereas the truth was "the computer code sucks, it doesn't give the 'correct' answers, so we filled it full of hard-coded routines that gave us the answer we wanted."
Another question was "have you adjusted the raw data?" They said "no," the truth was "oh, hell yeah, and we're going to delete it before you can get an honest look at it."
The straw man questions you post were, oddly enough, not that straw-mannish, especially since the guy who is the godfather of the global warming computer models apparently did the computer model that predicted global cooling back in the day. I guess you didn't know that, though. It's another of those "dumb" questions you didn't even know was asked, much less the answer to...
1. They did no such thing. This stems from a personal out of context note.
2. There were concerns about a journal starting to have an agenda and they should consider not publishing in it. ONE journal. Hardly preventing peer review.
3. One comment about one set of data we know very little about. again and out of context accusation. For all we know that data may have been bad.
4. this is a case of a smear compaign. EVERYTHING is based on out of context notes and innuendo
Quite frankly I am getting really sick and tired of ignorant people getting time spouting off crap they know nothing about.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
How do you know any of what you say is true if can't see or trust the raw data?
This is a false argument. How can you ever be sure about the integrity of anything unless you are the one doing it? How can you trust the raw data if you are not collecting it? How can you trust the analysis if you are not the one analyzing it? How can you trust the satellite data if you didn't build the satellite?
How can you trust the food from the store if you're not the one making it? How can you trust your prescription if you're not the one giving it? How can you trust your car if you didn't build it?
Or in other words, you are arguing from the standpoint of paranoia/conspiracy. Everyday you rely on total strangers to make sure your life keeps humming along. You are surrounded by black boxes that you don't have access to yet you seem perfectly content in assuming that people are doing their jobs. Why are climate scientist suddenly the target?
For example, how do you know if your local transportation authority is really doing the best job to keep traffic moving? They could have incentive not to, such as increased tax flow to the coffers by making motorists spend just that much more on gasoline. Or perhaps their even getting kickbacks from a couple oil boys for making sure consumers spend their quota.
Conspiracy? Well, how do you know it's not happening? Can we get access to the raw data of the traffic grid? Can we get the source code for the programs running the traffic network? It's publicly funded, so WE should be able to get access and review ourselves, right?
No one is denying climate change.
I take it you haven't visited any mad dog skeptic sites lately. There are plenty of people denying exactly that with a passion and dedication that most religions would kill for
The climate is and always has changed for billions of years. What is up for debate is WHY the climate is changing.
The mountains of research done on this is pretty clear about why it's happening. But I don't expect facts to get in the way of beliefs anytime soon. Be that as it may, why is not the important. The important questions, and the ones the climate scientists spend a lot of time working out, are how it's going to affect us and what we can do to prepare for it.
~X~
~X~
Rubbish, the scientists aren't "pushing for" anything, they're just presenting results.
Rubbish yourself, the "scientists" at CRU were clearly "pushing for" a pro-AGW outcome. Why else the attempt to banish anti-AGW papers from the IPCC reports regardless of their merit, or to blackball a scientific journal based on its editorial practices?
Good science stands on its own merits. It doesn't require backroom deals or underhanded methods.
The end result of Climategate should be academic discreditation for several of those involved, and jail for a few - most likely to include Phil Jones. He very blatantly disregarded valid Freedom of Information requests. That's a felony in Great Britain.
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Here are just a few reasons:
1) Further their own careers. Big (positive) claims about AGW are important if you want to get published in the high impact journals.
2) To get grant Money to stay publish and stay employed.
3) Face time with the media
4) Genuine-belief in AGW--even if not well supported by the actual evidence.
5) Insider politics -- why criticize a peer's research that largely agrees with your own? The incentives are reversed.
6) Other environmental motives, e.g., "even if AGW is wrong, reducing pollution, sprawl, cars, oil dependency, etc is good" (I have heard this argument a lot)
7) (Mistaken) belief in the precautionary principle, i.e., AGW is a risk and refusal to see it in cost vs benefit terms.
Why should climate skeptics be asked to make a good faith effort when the climate scientists have been so clearly and obviously shown to be acting in bad faith?
Can you cite a source for that?
:)
I'm dead serious. Show me a solid, scientific study that shows a concerted effort by climate scientists to be acting in bad faith.
The fact that you got moderated interesting is ridiculous. There's this big uproar about climate science in ONE place. Where? In the media. Why? Because nothing sells like scandal or death.
I'm working on a PhD directly related to climate modeling. I've got access to four climate models, from four competing organizations, ranging from middle-school simple to research grade. And they all give about the same results. In my office, I have a poster from a paper presentation where my research group compared seven different climate models, and looked at how well they agreed. There were differences, for sure. But they all were similar. Why are they all similar?
IT'S ALL A BIG CONSPIRACY BY THE CLIMATE SCIENTISTS!!!!!
Well, except for the fact that we would love to rip the shit out of another organizations research. In that seven-model comparison, we were looking to rip apart some of the models. Where they were different, we did. Had we found one that was totally different from the rest, we would have figured out why, and published that. The fact of the matter is that the science is well settled.
While I think you're an asshat, I do agree with your last statement. It is a big pseudo-scientific world out there, provided you define "out there" as "in the media". Those of us actually involved in science know that it's not. You get ahead in science by taking heads. We know Darwin's name because he wiped out hundreds of scientists' work on biological diversity. We know Einstein's name because he wiped out hundreds of theories on atomic interaction and the nature of space-time. We know Maxwell's name because he invented coffee.
As a scientist, surrounded with scientists, and friends with a lot of scientists, I can tell you, there's nothing any of us would like to do than destroy the establishment. If I could disprove evolution, I'd do it in a heartbeat. If I could prove General Relativity wrong, I wouldn't hesitate. It would put me in the text books. It would make me famous. If I could prove climate change wrong, I'd do the same.
But I'm in the middle of that science. And I can't. It's solid, despite what the media makes it out to be. If it wasn't, I'd be famous. You have to realize that most scientists want to know the truth. And as humans, we like nothing better than to be able to yell, DUMBASS in a very loud voice, while pointing at the dumbass so everyone notices. I believe in science because if I screw up, that will happen to me. So I try really hard not to screw up. As do all scientists. The ridicule of your peers is a very good tool to keep you honest. While there are some bad scientists, we all know who they are. They're the ones that we watched get called a dumbass at the last conference. They're the ones who published an article last year, which was utterly demolished by one this year. I've been to those conferences. I've read those articles. Scientists are blood-thirsty, brutal individuals. If you do poor science, you'll be ripped to shreds. That's how scientists advance in levels.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
I've collected dozens of independent, peer-reviewed articles in my article devoted to engaging with climate skeptics. I even described my own personal research which independently confirms Greenland and Alaskan glacier melt through their effects on time-variable gravity. Just last month at the most recent GRACE Science Team Meeting, my advisor displayed the most recent GRACE results over Greenland, showing that the mass loss is accelerating and spreading from the southeast coast to the entire western coast.
There most certainly is a mountain of evidence showing that abrupt climate change is happening, and that it's due to anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
As I keep repeating, 2007 was the steepest drop in ice cover on record. It scared a lot of us when the extent of the drop was shown at the 2007 AGU conference because the climate models weren't predicting such a huge drop. The subsequent increases actually confirm that this decrease was due to weather, not climate, which tends to validate the models.
Completely wrong. Global circulation models allow for short-term variability due to weather. That's the whole point of taking an ensemble with varying initial conditions and parameterizations. Please remember that weather is different than climate, which is an average over at least several years.
When studying any science, it's best to ignore politicians and only focus on peer-reviewed scientific articles. In this case, you should be paying attention to the fact that scientists are saying CO2 is causing abrupt climate change.
Again, I've discussed this in detail many times. You're neglecting to consider pressure broadening, which forces any realistic climate model to treat each layer of the atmosphere differently. CO2 isn't saturated in the highest layer of the atmosphere, which is what really matters.
Yet again, I need to repeat that water vapor is a feedback in the climate, not a forcing. We can't change the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere because it establishes equilibrium with the oceans in a matter of weeks. However, because we're increasing the temperature of the planet by increasing CO2 concentrations, water vapor will tend to provide positive feedback which will make the problem worse.
Also, water vapor isn't well-mixed to t