Fourteenth International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts & Responses

Abstract

Over the last 40 years, the catastrophic storm risk has tripled, as the latent heating power of the atmosphere grew, driven by the 15% increase in the average global concentration of the primary greenhouse gas, water vapor. The annual number of catastrophic, weather-related events increased to over 750, by 2019, 525 above the 1980 baseline of 225 annual events causing additional economic losses of 130 billion dollars annually. Since 1980, these global warming weather-related catastrophic events have taken tens of thousands of lives, while wreaking 2.4 trillion dollars in cumulative worldwide weather-related destruction. The annual number of catastrophic weather-related events has increased at an average rate of 11.8 yr.-1 or 45 per tenth of degree increase in temperature. New principles of atmospheric physics are applied to determine changes in the average global concentration of water vapor in response to changes in heating and sea surface temperatures and gauge the effect of these changes on global temperature. These principles demonstrate that by reducing the global concentration of atmospheric water vapor, the rate of increase in the average global temperature can be reduced and with sufficient reduction, the temperature increases can be reversed. An increase in the average, annual, global rate of precipitation of 0.3%, 2.9 mm yr-1 can return the average global temperatures to those of the mid-seventies. While it has taken 40 years to get here, this solution might be effected within a few years. Action has to be taken, now.