Simple Chemistry and the Greenhouse Effect

Miltonconservative.blogspot.com ^ | 2010/03/10 | BillM

[BillM]

One gram of Carbon Dioxide heated at the surface by incident sunlight carries (2 * 539 = 1078) 1078 times less energy into the atmosphere than one gram of water.

Carbon dioxide represents 0.0387 % of the atmosphere. Water in the lower atmosphere represents 1% to 4% or 25 to 100 times the amount of carbon dioxide.

Combining the two statements above, Water is (25 * 1078 = 27,175) to (100 * 1078 = 108,700) times more responsible for greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide.

[ezfindit]

Simple and clear facts!

[eyeamok]

You are missing the point, there is no way to effectively tax and control people based on Water Vapor, precisely because it occurs naturally. Now CO2 we can regulate and tax, thereby controlling every aspect of our subjects miserable lives.

LawGivers

[Michigan Bowhunter]

So................if we can find a way to have some some of H2O vapor scrubbing device attached to our mouths when we exhale, it may actually make out emissions safe for global warming?

I recall something like that in the movie DUNE

Pure genius. Lets hook Gore up with one right now.

[ETL]

Related, hope you don't mind...

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 [historically -etl]. 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, approximately 100,000 years apart. Look carefully at the 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 this 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 uses this same data as "evidence" of a *positive* historical correlation between CO2 and temps. Furthermore, and importantly, 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 company continue warning us about. In short, there is little if any evidence that CO2 had ever led to any significant global warming 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

[steelyourfaith]

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[null and void]

Wanna bet????

Just wait and see. The tax of man-made water vapor will be 1078 times higher than the tax on see-oh-two.

That would only be fair, wouldn’t it?

[BitWielder1]

Just wait and see. The tax of man-made water vapor will be 1078 times higher than the tax on see-oh-two.

Don't give them any ideas!!!

[eyeamok]

I see your point, maybe we should just make it illegal for anyone to use anything other than federally approved and rationed water?? All food production could also be controlled this way also.

[Publius6961]

Combining the two statements above, Water is (25 * 1078 = 27,175) to (100 * 1078 = 108,700) times more responsible for greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide.

Assuming that the reflected insolation is entirely trapped.
If I remember correctly, that long standing assumption was proven false a few years ago.

As has the results of lab experiments, when applied to the real world.

Atmospheric computer models of controlled lab experiments, shoved into computer models have proven uniformly wrong.

All the available unmanipulated data in the world for 1980-1990 still will not predict the weather for 1991.

The fastest computers in the world will simply give you the wrong answer ---- faster.

[null and void]

Oops. sorry.

[aruanan]

CO2 (and probably methane) can warm through absorbing infrared energy as opposed to water vapor (and everything else atmospheric, including CO2 and methane) that warms through conduction/convection.

[ETL]

Not to mention the complexities of cloud formation and the critical role they play in climate.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

IMHO, this is a bogus argument.

According to the theory of AGW, what matters is the amount of energy, from solar radiation, that's trapped within the atmosphere — not the specific heat, nor the latent heat of vaporization.

It's tempting to just welcome any and all criticism of AGW. However, I don't think it helps the cause to use bogus arguments, which are easily demolished. That's too much like the tactics the warmists have been using.

[PeterPrinciple]

“contains the energy” needs to be thought about. Don't go over those words too fast. What does it mean?

My memory of chemistry and physics is that in a gas, the electrons become more exited and step up a level in “orbit”. It does not mean the gas molecule becomes warmer. This excited electron is unstable and the molecule seeks to be stable again. The energy may then be released again as a photon, which doesn't mean that it hits the earth, it has as much chance going up as down. The energy may also be used in combining with other molecules, but it is stored or released. There is also the factor that different gases absorb different wavelengths. I think gases release the same wavelengths that are absorbed.

Now pigments and solids are a different critters.

Wish I had taken more physics and chem classes, but I took more than most did. Need an expert here on FR to suppport or correct me................

[BruCru]

So where is the hole in the argument?

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

So-called greenhouse gases trap certain wave lengths of light. Once trapped, the heat can be, and is transfered to other molecules in the air. The specific heat of greenhouse gases, which make up a tiny percent of the total atmosphere, is nearly irrelevant.

[Go_Raiders]

“CO2 (and probably methane) can warm through absorbing infrared energy as opposed to water vapor (and everything else atmospheric, including CO2 and methane) that warms through conduction/convection.”

Water vapor absorbs IR also. It just doesn’t do it in the upper atmosphere like CO2 does. The science IS settled that CO2 in the upper atmosphere causes an increase in lower atmosphere temperature due to back radiation.

Doubling the concentration of CO2 will raise the average global temperature somewhere between 1 and 1.5 degrees Celsius. At the current rate of manmade CO2 release, this will take about one thousand years, and won’t cause TEOTWAWKI.

[PeterPrinciple]

So-called greenhouse gases

---

Words have meanings as you know and we need to stop and think about the words used. When we hear the words greenhouse, most of us have an experience we can relate to, we have been in a green house or had our arm get hot from the back window in a car.

But what helps concentrates that heat is the PHYSICAL BARRIER of the glass. A leaky green house doesn't stay warm very long and if you open the car windows it goes away too. Last time I looked, we didn't have a physical barrier around the globe

[jbp1]

what you are referring to, when an electron jumps up a level is a form of energy absorption, but that is not what the specific heat is a measure of.

The specific heat is a measure of how many units of energy a unit of mass absorbs in order to increase a unit of temperature. For instance it can be expressed as Calories per pound per degree Fahrenheit. As far as I know, water has the highest specific heat of any substance known.

The light from the sun is energy that can be (directly or indirectly) absorbed by the water molecule by way of the water molecule ‘speeding up’.

Apparently Nitrogen doesn’t like to do this. Must be afraid of Algore and the IPCC.