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Space Traffic May Be Creating More Clouds
seagirlreed writes "Rocket traffic may be adding water to the Earth's mesosphere, leading to more very high clouds in this layer of thin air on the edge of space. From the article: 'A team of researchers looking for an expected decrease in the number of clouds in this layer, as solar activity and heating have ramped up, were instead surprised to find an increase in the number and brightness of clouds in this near-outer-space region over the last two years. ... The source of the water to make the clouds is a puzzle, Siskind explained, because there is not much sign of it coming up into the mesosphere. On the other hand, rockets and, until recently, shuttles roaming in space could rain water exhaust down into the mesosphere.'"
At half a gram per cubic metre or 0.0005 kg/m^3, your 10^6 kg would make a cloud of 2 cubic kilometers, or two typical cumulus clouds.
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Funny thing about clouds... they increase reflectivity. As the temperatures go up more water vapour goes up into the sky to form clouds, which reflect incoming light and heat and provide a cooling effect. i.e.: it's self-regulating.
This is Richard Linzen's "Iris" hypothesis. One of the few plausible bits of actual science from the so-called climate skeptics. Unfortunately, it seems not to work and was thoroughly refuted about ten years ago.
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
water != cloud
white cloud reflects a lot of sun's radiation back into space. Yes water vapor is a strong greenhouse gas, but we're talking about more efficient trapping of [heat that has been greatly reduced by higher albedo before it ever hit the ground]. Net effect is reduced overall heat.
Just go out on a cloudy summer day vs. a cloudless one and feel the effect.