For dry ascent, and hydrostatic pressure change is , so . During condensation , and offsets expansion cooling, making the saturated ascent less steep.
For a saturated parcel with , use to obtain
With dilute vapor, and , this becomes . In terrestrial conditions the denominator's latent-heating correction dominates. Warming increases saturation humidity strongly, so latent heat increasingly compensates expansion cooling and the moist lapse rate falls. This is a statement about saturated convective adjustment, not every instantaneous environmental temperature profile.
At a fixed surface warming, a smaller lapse rate makes the upper troposphere warmer than in an unchanged-lapse profile. Its emission to space therefore increases, giving a negative feedback. Water vapor has the opposite effect under the given coefficients. The net restoring coefficient is W m K, so . This calculation uses the same and linearized Planck model as the preceding part.