The Role of Water Vapor in Climate Change

Craig James Blog ^ | March 31,2007 | Craig James

[Tenacious 1]

[Try to pass water vapor instead of the other stuff.]

I have on occassion done this. When it does happen, the vapor is not pure water, however. It is polluted.

[JustDoItAlways]

Global warming theory depends on this feedback from increased water vapour. In essence, the physics says that increased CO2 will provide a slight increase in temperatures. A slightly warmer atmosphere can then hold more water vapour and hence you get even more warming.

Without the increased water vapour feedback, increased CO2 would only increase temperatures by about 1.0C for every doubling of CO2 or about 1.0C of warming by the year 2,100. That is nothing really to worry about at all. Natural variability of the climate is even greater than this.

So, global warming is a dud (theory alone) without the water vapour feedback.

What does the evidence show?

- Water vapour has increased slightly in the last 50 years (nowhere near the level global warming theory predicts); and,
- the historical climate evidence shows that water vapour is probably a stablizing factor in the climate (rather than a runaway positive feedback) It gets warmer, more water vapour goes into the atmosphere, we get more rain and more clouds reducing the temperature and stabilizing the climate. The planet has been here for 4.5 Billion years and it seems the climate has usually been around today’s temperature give or take about 6.0C. All those oceans and all that water keeps Earth at a nice temp.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Global warmers hate to discuss clouds and snow because these act as giant natural mirrors bouncing sun heat back out to space. They especially don’t want to talk about man-made clouds and snow and the role of wind blown sand, dirt, and pollution which increase their formation. GWers are afraid to even research and model clouds because then the Luddite party would be over."

Got it in one. As I understand it, clouds in the troposphere increase heat retention more than they increase albedo, but clouds in the stratosphere work oppositely (they increase albedo more than heat reflection).

Sooooooo...the answer to global warming is to increase the sulfur content of jet fuel.

[CPT Clay]

Never here this from MSM

[curiosity]

I am also a devout Catholic.

I call you a GW denier because you are denying basic scientific facts and bringing up red herrings that are irrelevent to the question.

Like this business of Water Vapor. For the last time, yes, water vapor accounts for the bulk of the greenhouse effect. No one denies this. Even the most alarmist of the GW fanatics admits this.

But just because water vaper is the largest greenhouse-causing material doesn't mean it's the only one. The very same article at the top of this thread to says it only accounts for about 70% of the greenhouse effect, and that fluctuates, since the concentration of water vapor also fluctuates.

That leaves 30% of the greenhouse effect to other gasses, the bulk of which are CO2 and methane, which don't flucutate much. 30% is a significant amount, and it's enough to make a difference.

So please, stop repeating this silly and fallacious argument that CO2 doesn't matter because water vapor is a more important greenhouse-causing material. Just becasue CO2 is not the most important doesn't mean it's not important.

[DouglasKC]

water vapor bump...

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Time for dihydrogen monoxide credits?

[DouglasKC]

That leaves 30% of the greenhouse effect to other gasses, the bulk of which are CO2 and methane, which don't flucutate much. 30% is a significant amount, and it's enough to make a difference.
So please, stop repeating this silly and fallacious argument that CO2 doesn't matter because water vapor is a more important greenhouse-causing material. Just becasue CO2 is not the most important doesn't mean it's not important.

Here's the problem: This kind of information is almost never focused on in the news media or in most of the global warming information that is out there. The greenhouse effect when it's reported or taught in the context of global warming is skewed and misrepresented toward being anything other than an increase in water vapor.

For example, here is an "educational" website from the NOAA, apparently for children, that discusses the greenhouse effect. A quick glance throughout will show that they don't even mention water vapor as the major constituent of global warming.