Читать книгу Shaped by Snow. Defending the Future of Winter онлайн

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Water vapor is the most common feedback particle. Water molecules end up in the atmosphere by evaporation from bodies of water and plant transpiration. The warmer the temperature of the air, the more water vapor the air is able to hold. As evaporated water rises into the atmosphere, it can cool and condense from gas back into liquid. This is how clouds form in the atmosphere; excess evaporated water in the form of gas condenses to become clouds and eventually rain or snow.

Greenhouse gases that “force” climate change, like carbon dioxide, are ones that don’t react to temperature changes, like water does. When heat is radiated into the atmosphere, carbon dioxide doesn’t change form with the energy, but instead blocks it from leaving the earth’s atmosphere and radiates the heat back to the surface of the planet, causing more warming. And as planet-wide warming continues it leads to more evaporation, and more water vapor in the atmosphere, which in turn causes more warming. Water and carbon dioxide play off each other to enhance climate change, but if not for carbon emitted from humans, this effect wouldn’t be so great.