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I've never heard either this objection or anything about water vapor feedback being anything more than a minor contributor. Regardless this doesn't really matter for my point that global warming is nearly solved anyways so I won't focus on it.
As for the second, I remember quite clearly we had someone here that denied greenhouses gases existed, @dale-cloudman, wow it's been 2 years since this guy posted here. Anyways I don't really have any specific examples of popular skeptics explicitly denying greenhouse gases exist but pretty much all of them commonly make arguments that don't make any sense unless greenhouse gases don't exist. Mainly quibbling over solar irradiance or how the climate is constantly changing. Since they readily admit to two then the only other way they can argue anything else is causing global warming is by denying CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
I'm not sure is it's talked about in current climate circles, but it's significant in modeling. Models (at least in the 2000s when I learned about this) had a multiplicative factor on climate forcing that was based on a positive reinforcement mechanism from water vapor - in other words, the calculated increase in temperature from CO2 was doubled or tripled because of the assumption of positive reinforcement. Notably, the models did not really model cloud albedo effects, which make water vapor arguably a negative feedback mechanism that stabilizes temperature instead.
Of course, the actual problem was that the models kept all this secret. They were considered proprietary (including the input parameters e.g. 'CO2 forcing' = 3x), so all we the public got to see was the predictions of catastrophe and runaway warming, without any visibility on how those predictions were made. Now that we have a better understanding, it's clear why the predictions of these models were simply wrong, but the trust is quite reasonably lost.
I basically agree with all of this, except that I don't think the role of water vapor feedback in climate models was secret in the sense that it was completely unavailable and not discussed. Rather, I think it was a secret in the sense that it was not publicized or emphasized. And why would it be? It's embarrassing to admit that your catastrophic predictions are based on what is essentially a fudge factor.
But either way, there are a lot of people out there who think they know a lot about the global warming debate -- even on a scientific level -- who have literally never heard of water vapor feedback or the role it plays in climate models.
PS I agree that it's actually more likely that water vapor is a negative feedback mechanism than a positive feedback mechanism. Not because I am some kind of expert on climate science, but rather due to common sense about complicated systems. If a complicated system has been relatively stable for a while, the default assumption should be that it's dominated by negative feedback. By analogy, you are far more likely to find a large (loose) boulder on the floor of a valley than on the peak of a mountain.
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What? This is basic stuff. Water vapors are even as of now contributing over 50% toward heating. There are other heat trapping substances such as clouds (liquid atmospheric water) is another 25%, methane is 5% and CO2 maybe 20%. There are other important things in the models such as albedo effect stemming from disappearance ice replacing it with earth with different reflection rates. There is a thing of 4,000 gigatons of CO2 trapped in permafrost and microbes etc. in soil.
All these things are part of climate models, they act in nonlinear and unpredictable way, they have their own natural cycle often with different branches etc. Some of them provide some solution, for instance you can trap atmospheric carbon by growing woods, burning them via pyrolysis and producing biochar that can be used as fertilizer, replacement for some construction material such as asphalt or you can use lignin from wood to produce carbon fiber etc.
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Respectfully, water vapor feedback is the (or at least A) central issue in the global warming controversy.
Ok, then please give me examples of a few arguments made by a few prominent global warming skeptics which don't make any sense unless greenhouse gases don't exist.
I strongly disagree. They could admit that CO2 is a greenhouse gas but take the position that the effects of CO2 have been exaggerated.
No it isn't? This is legit the first time I've ever heard about water vapor feedback being a major issue. I assure you, in climate activist circles this is just not a thing we talk about. The main catastrophic feedback mechanisms climate activists worry about are clathrate gun, ice albedo feedback and permafrost gas releases. Not water vapor feedback.
Did you just not see the two I mentioned in the post you're replying to?
Sure they could but "global warming is happening and caused by humans, just a lot slower than believed" is not a track I ever see anyone take.
Well, are you saying that you have studied the global warming debate carefully for a good deal of time? (It seems like you are saying something like "If water vapor feedback were an important issue, I surely would have heard about it by now given that I've been following the global warming debate carefully for some time now.")
Maybe I missed it? Here's what I saw:
I'm just asking for a couple names of prominent skeptics and links to their arguments which "don't make any sense unless greenhouse gases don't exist."
Because I am genuinely skeptical of your claim that "Most people who dispute global warming typically deny the existence of greenhouse gases."
If you already provided the names and links elsewhere in the thread, would you mind just quoting yourself? TIA.
Again, are you saying that you have studied the global warming debate carefully for a good deal of time? It seems like that's what you are saying.
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Water vapor feedback is by far the largest feedback; its effect is comparable to CO2 itself, or probably larger.
@omw_68 is wrong in that the water vapor feedback mechanism is very well modeled and understood (unless he's folding cloud cover into water vapor, which does have a lot more uncertainty, including in sign).
I feel like I must exist in a very different bubble to you cause I rarely hear about water vapor feedback. The only catastrophic feedback mechanisms I hear about are the clathrate gun and permafrost gas releases. I'm skeptical of both, especially clathrate gun, but thats besides the point.
Well global warming is a culture war issue. So yeah, it sounds like you might be in the bubble created by mainstream sources which tend to follow the progressive/leftist/woke party line.
This is what I would call "motte" global warming. It's very defensible, but the problem (for climate activists) is that if you do the math, it results only in modest global warming, not the catastrophic scenarios described by climate activists. For that, you need "bailey" global warming: The idea that warming due to CO2 will be strongly amplified by means of water vapor feedback. Which gets you the scary scenarios, but isn't supported by the evidence.
Unsurprisingly, climate activists would like to blur the distinction between motte global warming and bailey global warming -- so that they can pivot back and forth depending on what's most convenient.
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I am very skeptical of this, and here's my challenge: Please identify a few instances where prominent climate models of water vapor feedback have made predictions which are (1) actual predictions (i.e. not backcasts or predictions after the fact); (2) interesting; and (3) accurate. TIA.
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