H2O, because of it's enormous percentage of the atmosphere, is the dominant player,If CH4's 'warming power' is insignificant when compared to the warming power of CO2, what is H2O's 'warming power' when compared to CO2's? Is there a apt comparison? Does the propensity of H2O in the 'sphere compared to CO2 make a difference (I allude to the chronic nature of global warming that's decried by environmentalists) and, if so, why do environmentalists exclusively emphasize monitoring CO2?
If CH4's 'warming power' is insignificant when compared to the warming power of CO2, what is H2O's 'warming power' when compared to CO2's? Is there a apt comparison? Does the propensity of H2O in the 'sphere compared to CO2 make a difference (I allude to the chronic nature of global warming that's decried by environmentalists) and, if so, why do environmentalists exclusively emphasize monitoring CO2?
I'd like some guidance not 'snarkery'.
You from Great Britain?I'm affraid you will have to put up with the standard 3goofs line of go and read this vast tomb of drivel so I don't have to answer your question because I am too superiour to actually know it myself lines here.
That was perfect.I'm affraid you will have to put up with the standard 3goofs line of go and read this vast tomb of drivel so I don't have to answer your question because I am too superiour to actually know it myself lines here.
You from Great Britain?
I'd like some guidance not 'snarkery'.
The actual warming caused by the major three vary, primarily by latitude. Over the global average, I have not been able to pin down numbers for H2O. Maybe I need to look harder than I have. Between the vapor and clouds, it is easily over 180 W/m^2. CO2 comes in at around 30-32 W/m^2 if we believe the poor science behind these numbers are correct, and CH4, only around 2 W/m^2.If CH4's 'warming power' is insignificant when compared to the warming power of CO2, what is H2O's 'warming power' when compared to CO2's? Is there a apt comparison? Does the propensity of H2O in the 'sphere compared to CO2 make a difference (I allude to the chronic nature of global warming that's decried by environmentalists) and, if so, why do environmentalists exclusively emphasize monitoring CO2?
what is H2O's 'warming power' when compared to CO2's? Is there a apt comparison?
Maybe you could use some background reading to inform yourself of these basic issues.
IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
I'd like some guidance not 'snarkery'.
He can only link to the page because he never bothered reading it.
Well, you can educate yourself here too.
Its not snarkery - I'm just trying to point out that this topic is fairly complicated, and not one that you'll learn from a politics debate message board, especially one filled with deniers who constantly misstate facts and have an amateur's grasp of the issues but think they understand each and every scientific field because they subscribe to one (1) science journal for the last three years.
If CH4's 'warming power' is insignificant when compared to the warming power of CO2, what is H2O's 'warming power' when compared to CO2's? Is there a apt comparison? Does the propensity of H2O in the 'sphere compared to CO2 make a difference (I allude to the chronic nature of global warming that's decried by environmentalists) and, if so, why do environmentalists exclusively emphasize monitoring CO2?
Several years ago, I plotted the RE based on the IPCC AR4 numbers. Came close to their numbers:
IAW AR4 page 33, table TS.2, and table 2.14 on page 212, provided the following for ER:
Maybe in another 70 years, Longview and Lord of Planar will finally get the memos.
According to your graph, to add 3.7W/m^2 of radiative forcing you would need to add
~280ppmv of CO2 or
~30ppmv of CH4
So by that metric CH4 is over nine times more potent than CO2.
All that rationalizing and equivocation just to justify that...
It doesn't change the fact that the amount of H2O in the atmosphere changes with temperature, and a few other factors.
In other words, water vapor is a significant major feedback amplification for CO2.
You ARE starting to catch on, big guy!
A simple truth of which gas is strong, is obvious. IAW the AR4, CO2 increased from 278 ppm to 379 ppm. A 36.3% increase for a 1.66 W/m^2 forcing increase. CH4 more than doubled from 722(?) ppb to 1774 ppb. A 145.7% increase for only a 0.48 W/m^2 increase.
In any real metric that has real meaning, CO2 is far stronger than CH4.
The only purpose I see for RE and GWP is as a scare tactic. This is despicable.
LOL...
Practicing your Jester antics again?
LOL...
You say that as if H2O feedback only responds to CO2...
Why are you so limited in your thinking?
Why don't you use more integrity, and admit H2O responds to other thermal changes as well?
Did you lose your integrity and forget where you left it?
It still comes down to the mean free path of the selected photon.There are a couple of important differences between H2O and less abundant greenhouse gases like CO2, CH4 and N2O which Longview and Lord of Planar apparently either don't know, or have chosen not to mention in their would-be condescending diatribes.
The atmospheric limits of water vapour is probably most relevant to your question: Most H2O is in the form of liquid water at atmospheric temperature and pressure (if not solid ice!), every schoolkid knows that. The global average surface air temperature is about 15 degrees Celsius, and at that temperature the dew point of water vapour (100% humidity) is only about 11 grams per kilogram of air (1.1% by mass, which I believe is around 1.66% by volume). The global average concentration of atmospheric water vapour is around 2% by volume if memory serves, as L and L's figures also suggest, presumably because temperature and pressure vary around the world and with altitude. But in most places there's likely to be little if any room for increase in atmospheric water vapour. Increases in global temperatures could raise that threshold a little, but water vapour alone can't accomplish that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_humidity#Other_important_facts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_vapor#In_Earth.27s_atmosphere
Secondly, the uneven distribution of water vapour throughout the atmosphere - both vertically and horizontally. Total column water vapour content is in the order of 6-20 times greater around the tropics than at the Arctic or Antarctic circles. Over 99% of water vapour is contained in the troposphere. By contrast, concentration changes of gases which are not so dramatically affected by small temperature and pressure changes (like CO2, CH4 and N2O) last longer so that they have time to become distributed more evenly throughout the troposphere; hence they're called well-mixed greenhouse gases. CO2 also has a uniform distribution ratio vertically, at least up to 80km or so, well above the stratosphere. The CH4 and N2O ratios decrease somewhat in the stratosphere, but not nearly as much as water vapour does: There's nearly 10,000 times as much H2O at the surface as there is CH4, but in the lower stratosphere there's less than twice as much!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_vapor#Radar_and_satellite_imaging
http://ruc.noaa.gov/AMB_Publication...osition and Vertical Structure_eae319MS-1.pdf
It's worth noting that this is extremely old information: The first was the reason why, back in the 19th century, Svante Arrhenius concluded that CO2 was more likely as a candidate for helping to regulate the Pleistocene climate's glacial/interglacial cycles than water vapour; because it's got a much better chance to maintain persistent change over time. The "saturated absorption bands" argument which L and L are making was a legitimate objection to anthropogenic global warming... about 70 years ago. In fact the necessarily dry conditions in the cold upper atmosphere were also known to Arrhenius and noted in response to his critics, but it wasn't until computerized radiative transfer calculations could be performed (by Gilbert Plass in the 1950s) that the definite potential for surface warming from upper-atmosphere gases - even in the bands which H2O utterly saturates at the surface - could be established.
https://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
Maybe in another 70 years, Longview and Lord of Planar will finally get the memos.
The atmospheric limits of water vapour is probably most relevant to your question: Most H2O is in the form of liquid water at atmospheric temperature and pressure (if not solid ice!), every schoolkid knows that. The global average surface air temperature is about 15 degrees Celsius, and at that temperature the dew point of water vapour (100% humidity) is only about 11 grams per kilogram of air (1.1% by mass, which I believe is around 1.66% by volume). The global average concentration of atmospheric water vapour is around 2% by volume if memory serves,
If we emit a thousand tonnes of CH4, it will produce a lot more warming than a thousand tonnes of CO2.
If we emitted as much CH4 as we do of CO2, it would produce a lot more warming.
How much more may well be a variable figure depending on quantities and timeframes, but that it is more by a very substantial margin in both cases is abundantly clear.
By looking at a percentage increase, you are in effect declaring in the face of all evidence that it must be considered a weaker greenhouse gas purely because CH4's original levels were far lower than CO2's. I wouldn't call that despicable, and I don't even think you're being dishonest: But you clearly are not correct, and using such utterly flawed reasoning to insult and slander the scientific community is rather disappointing, to say the least.
I think you completely missed my point, or are you intentionally skirting around it?
Since 1750, we have only added a little over 1 ppm of CH4 to the atmospheric concentration, but over 120 ppm of CO2.
Try to keep it real please. There is about a 100:1 factor here.
It still comes down to the mean free path of the selected photon.
The wavelengths that CH4 absorbs, stand like a 10,000 times greater chance of striking an H2O molecule as an CH4 molecule.
So while the potential may exists, the probability is quite low.
I used the 2% figure for water vapor, which it is likely higher in most places, but compared to the 2 ppm of CH4
even your 1.66% is 8300 times more abundant than CH4.
At these level the mean free path is likely just a few microns before a photon encounters an H2O molecule.
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