All that said, we can draw the conclusion that the theoretical effects of CO2 do in fact exist, they have been measured over a 10 cm path length, and from this we can extrapolate that a still higher sensitivity would be arrived at once the entire atmospheric scale and the change in
water vapour concentration from bottom to top of that scale is taken into account.
Observational evidence indicates that the frequency of the heaviest rainfall events has likely increased within many land regions in general agreement with model simulations that indicate that rainfall in the heaviest events is likely to increase in line with
atmospheric water vapour concentration.
Additionally, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2001 report notes that «global
average water vapour concentration and precipitation are projected to increase during the 21st century.»
Schumann says at these altitudes, a tiny increase in
water vapour concentration that nudges the atmosphere into saturation»cause s changes in local heating rate about 100 times larger than the effect of doubling carbon dioxide».
So,
the water vapour concentrations associated with a given satellite reading also need to be estimated, and accounted for.