Burping Worms May Contribute to Climate Change

Foxnews.com ^ | Wednesday, March 04, 2009 | Andrea Thompson

[Gordon Greene]

Aquatic animals that feed on lake and stream bottom sediments burp out small amounts of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas, a new study finds.

While the biological emissions from these critters pales in comparison to the nitrous oxide emitted by fossil fuel burning, their contribution could increase as more and more nitrogen-rich fertilizer runs off into lakes, streams and seas, the authors of the study said.

Nitrous oxide (N2O) is more commonly known to anyone who has sat in the dentist's chair as laughing gas.

In the atmosphere it is a powerful greenhouse gas, packing about 310 times the punch as the same weight of carbon dioxide (though carbon dioxide is still the bigger driver because there is much more of it).

Studies of soil-dwelling earthworms had showed that the creepy crawlies emitted nitrous oxide because of the nitrogen-converting microbes they gobbled up into their guts with every mouthful of soil.

[Gordon Greene]

And to think, nothing these morons finds is a tip to them they are crazy beyond imagination...

[Brad's Gramma]

Huh.

[txnativegop]

I take it the scientists doing the research were “laughing it up” LOL.

[frankiep]

So in other words, climate change is a naturally occurring thing.

Who’da thunk it?

[Fedupwithit]

Can someone please post the “AW JEEZ, NOT THIS S&^T AGAIN!!” poster on his thread? It needs it.

[max americana]

So we’re all going to die due to wormburp? Gotta get my fishing rod ready and help Mother Gaia (s/)

[Gordon Greene]

Ain’t seen it... sounds funny... someone please do!

[Gordon Greene]

“So we’re all going to die due to wormburp?”

Thing that gets me is that according to the story, it seems to be laughing gas they’re burping.

Reckon we’d all die laughing.

[Admin Moderator]

Any particular reason you placed this in the Activism sidebar?

[THX 1138]

In the atmosphere it is a powerful greenhouse gas, packing about 310 times the punch as the same weight of carbon dioxide (though carbon dioxide is still the bigger driver because there is much more of it).

But since CO2 constitutes only 0.0384% of the atmosphere, WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY WORRYING ABOUT?

Mother of God...

[spodefly]

The solution is simple — tax the burping worms.

[ETL]

Which end do they ‘burp’ from?

[Gordon Greene]

Because of the global warming activism... is that wrong?

Ooohhh... I think I made that mistake before. Is the activism supposed to be about the activism on the poster’s part instead of the subject? If so, please change it.

Thanks.

[The Spirit Of Allegiance]

Desperate times call for desperate measures of academic worth, it seems.

I’m getting to the point with these ‘publish or perish’ birdbrains that I’d almost prefer they take the latter option.

Paging Wormwood...

[ETL]

But since CO2 constitutes only 0.0384% of the atmosphere, WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY WORRYING ABOUT?

Not only that...

There is no evidence that CO2 has ever caused significant warming on Earth, at least not when the concentrations were within 10-15 times of what they are today. Water vapor is, by far, the most important greenhouse gas in the Earth system. Water vapor accounts for about 95% of the greenhouse effect on Earth. -etl

THE ACQUITTAL OF CARBON DIOXIDE
by Jeffrey A. Glassman, PhD

ABSTRACT:

"Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere [historically] is the product of oceanic respiration due to the well-known but under-appreciated solubility pump. Carbon dioxide rises out of warm ocean waters where it is added to the atmosphere. There it is mixed with residual and accidental CO2, and circulated, to be absorbed into the sink of the cold ocean waters. Next the thermohaline circulation carries the CO2-rich sea water deep into the ocean. A millennium later it appears at the surface in warm waters, saturated by lower pressure and higher temperature, to be exhausted back into the atmosphere. Throughout the past 420 millennia, comprising four interglacial periods, the Vostok record of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is imprinted with, and fully characterized by, the physics of the solubility of CO2 in water, along with the lag in the deep ocean circulation.

Notwithstanding that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, atmospheric carbon dioxide has neither caused nor amplified global temperature increases. Increased carbon dioxide has been an effect of global warming, not a cause. Technically, carbon dioxide is a lagging proxy for ocean temperatures. When global temperature, and along with it, ocean temperature rises, the physics of solubility causes atmospheric CO2 to increase.

If increases in carbon dioxide, or any other greenhouse gas, could have in turn raised global temperatures, the positive feedback would have been catastrophic. While the conditions for such a catastrophe were present in the Vostok record from natural causes, the runaway event did not occur. Carbon dioxide does not accumulate in the atmosphere."

http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2006/10/co2_acquittal.html
_______________________________________________________________

The graph above represents temperature and CO2 levels over the past 400,000 years. It is the same exact data Al Gore and the rest of the man-made global warmers refer to. The blue line is temps, the red, CO2 levels. The deep valleys represent 4 separate glaciation/ice-age periods. Look carefully at this historical relationship between temps and CO2 levels (the present is on the right hand side of the graph) and keep in mind that Gore claims this data is the 'proof' that CO2 has warmed the earth in the past. But does the data indeed show this? Nope. In fact, rising CO2 levels all throughout this 400,000-year period actually *followed* temperature increases -lagging behind by an average of 800 years! So it couldn't have been CO2 that got Earth out of these past glaciations. Yet Gore continually and dishonestly claims otherwise. Furthermore, the subsequent CO2 level increases due to dissolved CO2 being released from warming oceans, never did lead to additional warming, the so-called "run-away greenhouse effect" that Al Gore and his friends keep warning us about. In short, there is little if any evidence that CO2 had ever led to increased warming, at least not when the levels were within 10-15 times of what they are today. -etl
_______________________________________________________________

"The above chart shows the range of global temperature through the last 500 million years. There is no statistical correlation between the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through the last 500 million years and the temperature record in this interval. In fact, one of the highest levels of carbon dioxide concentration occurred during a major ice age that occurred about 450 million years ago [Myr]. Carbon dioxide concentrations at that time were about 15 times higher than at present." [also see 180 million years ago, same thing happened]:
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=010405M
_______________________________________________________________

So, greenhouse [effect] is all about carbon dioxide, right?

Wrong. The most important players on the greenhouse stage are water vapor and clouds [clouds of course aren't gas, but high level ones do act to trap heat from escaping, while low-lying cumulus clouds tend to reflect sunlight and thereby help cool the planet -etl]. Carbon dioxide has been increased to about 0.038% of the atmosphere (possibly from about 0.028% pre-Industrial Revolution) while water in its various forms ranges from 0% to 4% of the atmosphere and its properties vary by what form it is in and even at what altitude it is found in the atmosphere.

In simple terms the bulk of Earth's greenhouse effect is due to water vapor by virtue of its abundance. Water accounts for about 90% of the Earth's greenhouse effect -- perhaps 70% is due to water vapor and about 20% due to clouds (mostly water droplets), some estimates put water as high as 95% of Earth's total tropospheric greenhouse effect (e.g., Freidenreich and Ramaswamy, 'Solar Radiation Absorption by Carbon Dioxide, Overlap with Water, and a Parameterization for General Circulation Models,' Journal of Geophysical Research 98 (1993):7255-7264).

The remaining portion comes from carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, ozone and miscellaneous other 'minor greenhouse gases.' As an example of the relative importance of water it should be noted that changes in the relative humidity on the order of 1.3-4% are equivalent to the effect of doubling CO2.

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/
_______________________________________________________________

Water Vapor Rules the Greenhouse System

Water vapor constitutes Earth's most significant greenhouse gas, accounting for about 95% of Earth's greenhouse effect (4). Interestingly, many 'facts and figures' regarding global warming completely ignore the powerful effects of water vapor in the greenhouse system, carelessly (perhaps, deliberately) overstating human impacts as much as 20-fold.

Water vapor is 99.999% of natural origin. Other atmospheric greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and miscellaneous other gases (CFC's, etc.), are also mostly of natural origin (except for the latter, which is mostly anthropogenic).

Human activities contribute slightly to greenhouse gas concentrations through farming, manufacturing, power generation, and transportation. However, these emissions are so dwarfed in comparison to emissions from natural sources we can do nothing about, that even the most costly efforts to limit human emissions would have a very small-- perhaps undetectable-- effect on global climate.

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
_______________________________________________________________

Water Vapor Confirmed As Major Player In Climate Change

ScienceDaily (Nov. 18, 2008) — Water vapor is known to be Earth's most abundant greenhouse gas, but the extent of its contribution to global warming has been debated. Using recent NASA satellite data, researchers have estimated more precisely than ever the heat-trapping effect of water in the air, validating the role of the gas as a critical component of climate change.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081117193013.htm

[Califreak]

I thought it was farting fleas.

[ETL]

I thought it was farting fleas.

The world's greatest emitters of methane (another greenhouse gas) are supposedly termites.

[Califreak]

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

To all of you who think global warming is ‘real’ (i.e. - the libtard, ‘flower children from the 60’s’).......YOU’RE GONNA DIE, ANYWAY! GET OVER YOURSELVES. You can’t beat the inevitable.

[tubebender]

Pardon me?

[Gordon Greene]

‘Splain, please?

Thanks.

[Brad's Gramma]

Nuttin, Honey.

[Steamburg]

I’ve heard Gore called a lot of things, but a burping worm is pretty descriptive.

[tpanther]

Bush’s fault.

[tubebender]

Wanna walnetto...

[Brad's Gramma]

No thanks. I just got done with dinner.

[Yardstick]

Dude, don’t bogart the worm.

[kalee]

So if global warming is real we will know it because at some point we won’t be able to stop laughing?

[Robwin]

First it was flatulent cows and now it’s earthworms. We’re doomed, I tell you. Doomed.

[ETL]

Dude, don’t bogart the worm.

What about the 'roach'? (I wonder if roaches fart?)

[Benjamin Dover]

So it’s Global Worming.....

[txnativegop]

I’ll share, and we can both *sniff* the worm and laugh hysterically.

I know after the first 40 days of Obama, I desperately need to laugh.

[ETL]

So it’s Global Worming...

"We are all worms, but I do believe I am a glowworm."
—Winston Churchill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glowworm

[headsonpikes]

Nitrous ping!

[21twelve]

My son brought up “cow farts” as a source of global warming. I brought up that Obama will be having the farmers do the cap and trade buying carbon credits, etc. Siad - it is really just a tax on cow farts!

My wife was laughing too. Until I said “No. Really. They will be taxing farmers for the number of cows (that are farting) that they have.

My wife’s jaw just hung open.

My 11-year old daughter said “I know what I would do - seel all my cows. Except for maybe one”.

I said “Exactly - that is called “Atlas Shrugged”. (Huh Dad??)

[steelyourfaith]

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[Danae]

Ok, thats it. We must kill all life on earth other than non-carnivorous plants.

Damn, just outta hand.

CO2 is absolutely essential to LIFE, with out it, the WHOLE food chain collapses! Its utterly necessary for life on earth, in fact, the more CO2, the more LIFE in general.

I am so SICK of enviro weenies.

[50mm]

[Gordon Greene]

Now I feel stupid... I’ve seen you post this a couple of times before but this is the first time I noticed what the flames were for on the opposing ends.

Fu-nny...

GG

[50mm]

I posted it larger this time to clarify. The idiot is so full of gas he spews at both ends.

[Gordon Greene]

Maybe he’ll be a victim of spontaneous human (questionable) combustion... that would be a gas!

[1_Rain_Drop]

worms? WORMS??!!!!!!!
Those cute innocent squiggly sometimes slimy things? Those cute irresistible legless and armless creatures? Those things one places on hooks to catch fish? Does this include tapeworm, roundworm, squareworm, flatworm, pinworm?

Seriously these people are extremely disturbed.

Everyone is going to die sooner or later.
At this point I think the earth may just explode with all the insanity going on. oh, yes, the earth may want to die also. I'm sure it's tired of all the BS going on. Life is no fun anymore.

BTW, does this mean no more balloons at parties? gas is gas.

First meat is not good, but then beans will possibly be banned.

[reformedliberal]

How much noxious gas is produced by millions of decaying mammalian bodies? That is the logical result of all this hysteria.

[Gordon Greene]

Wormy, wormy... who’s got the wormy.