Satellite data proves Earth has not been warming the past 18 years - it's stable

[AlecTheGardener]

He can't do it in that original order he suggested. Order of operations bro.

 

[UncleBuck]

The way I saw it, Kynes was probably misreading an engineering notation of the tonnage.
It is normally written 1.23E+2, not 0.123x10E+2 (that's redundant since E is already a representative of 10).

I can see how that might be possible, though. When one is reading from multiple sources, but different notation is used, e.g. 1E+9 = 1x10^9, it can easily become muddled in one's mind. It happens to me at least once in any lab when I have to read different meters at different resolutions, etc. Unless one is working in ranges where there's no need to start changing scales, doing sweeps from nano to kilo (or even Mega) can involve a lot of button pushing.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/JD095iD04p03619/abstract;jsessionid=C27504760D670280181A1AF106C65C25.f03t01?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false

check how it is written. a fifth grader can solve it with pen and paper.

no "e" need enter the equation, that only complicates things unnecessarily.

"4 x 10^15"

 

[heckler73]

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/JD095iD04p03619/abstract;jsessionid=C27504760D670280181A1AF106C65C25.f03t01?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false

check how it is written. a fifth grader can solve it with pen and paper.

no "e" need enter the equation, that only complicates things unnecessarily.

"4 x 10^15"

Well, that is pretty straight forward. Was that the source in question? Regardless, that was one study of one termite species. While you two were arguing over a decimal point, I read another paper that analyzed at least 4 different species in detail.
There are some interesting notes about ground interactions with CH4 and CO2...yet, I suspect many will overlook them since they're probably more interested in the flatulence factor.
But the main takeaway is there are a variety of outputs depending on species. I doubt the 4E+15 grams of CO2 is accurate (especially if their St. Dev. goes out to 8pg/yr)

I just saw the note on that other abstract about chloroform. Apparently, termites aren't a dominant source in roofie production, either.

 

[ginjawarrior]

any evidence you call a red herring is a red herring because you call it red herring?

In a discussion about co2 your screaming about water vapour is nothing more than a red herring..

Especially as you admit in one of next posts thAt water vapour is self regulating I.e. it rains out

you showed NOTHING except a stupid video clip of a dipshit "proving" thats Co2 is a greenhouse gas, as if that were in dispute.

If you'd been paying attention rather than dribbling all over your keyboard heckler was doubting just that. And heckler was who I replied to with that vid

your video clip did nothing to prove co2 is more powerful than previously recognized, it failed utterly at proving water vapour is a weaker greenhouse gas than asserted,

was designed to do none of those things go quote me saying it showed anything of the sort

i already made clear that you were correct, and i was misspoke. (because it was only half correct)

It's entirely false unless your trying to redefine greenhouse gas

Take time to wipe the spittle from your mouth before posting might serve you better[/QUOTE]

now you wist to pretend that one error in my prose is proof that i am always wrong about everything?

Wow butt hurt is strong

Care to quote where I suggested that?

point out substantive errors, show how they are wrong, or go back to pimping your Multi-Level Marketing Scheme at "Hawaii is hot dot com".

howl

 

[ginjawarrior]

ohh my.

water vapour from combustion of fossil fuels again?

you must really love that particular distraction, or is that the only thin in your satchel full of "evidence"?

You been screaming about water vapour not me

theres water in termite farts too
termites produce more co2 than all human activity si i imagine it's a pretty good bet their fart out more water vapour than all human activity as well, but who cares?

Unless termites have started mining and releasing sequestered co2 then we don't need to worry about them

You really really need to educate yourself about the carbon cycle as well as greenhouse gas basics

water is not a pollutant
try to make the claim that water is a pollutant and AGW vanishes like a fart in the wind, since nobody is stupid enough to believe that bullshit.

Your the one screaming about water vapour

fortunately Co2 sounds like a scary "CHEMICAL"

youre pretty unoriginal and sophomoric, why dont you try stealing that idea for your next foray into bullshit?

Does this mean your done screaming about the 5000billion x infinity water vapour?

 

[Dr Kynes]

The way I saw it, Kynes was probably misreading an engineering notation of the tonnage.
It is normally written 1.23E+2, not 0.123x10E+2 (that's redundant since E is already a representative of 10).
I can see how that might be possible, though. When one is reading from multiple sources, but different notation is used, e.g. 1E+9 = 1x10^9, it can easily become muddled in one's mind. It happens to me at least once in any lab when I have to read different meters at different resolutions, etc. Unless one is working in ranges where there's no need to start changing scales, doing sweeps from nano to kilo (or even Mega) can involve a lot of button pushing.

EDIT: functionally, you are both correct, but style-wise, this is not a time to wear a fedora.
Now...how about this 15 micron thing?

ruh roh raggy

you and alec the gardener say im wrong huh.

well fuck

pada says im right, so playing off his percentages, that means im fucking wrong.

cheddar biscuits.

well lets try again:

i say termites make more co2 than humans
bucky says "NUH UH!! Prove it!"
i cite a paper from The Journal of Geophysical Studies: Atmospheres which states 4x10 to the 15th grams of co2/anum,
i run that through my calculator (apparently wrongly) as 40 gigatonnes per anum
Bucky says "No Evidence to Support That Claim" (in his own special way)
i say "yes, it's right there" <re-post link>
Bucky says "Right Wing Think Tank"
i say "Youre cracked" and run the math again (apparently wrongly)
Bucky says "you cited no evidence for that claim" (in his own special way)
i say "yes, i did, and i even did the math" <post screenshots of the math>
Bucky says "fedoras" "wal mart employee" "fat" "liar" "That's Racist!!"
by this time i dont even doubt i got the math right, cuz thats bucky's signature move when he is up against the ropes
then. like 4 pages AFTER my math display, he says i got the math wrong...
naturally i dismiss him. who wouldnt dismiss an ASU dropout's boasts of math prowess after that?
then pada chimes in and says im wrong, which only increases my confidence that im right (naturally)
then pada says im right. well that cant be good...
pada starts slinging homophobic slurs, so clearly he is right on Pada-par which means i need to re-think my math.
by now, im getting nervous cuz TWO guys (who arent bucky) say im wrong, and pada says im right.
shit, maybe i got the math wrong after all.

MEANWHILE, ~53 posts ago, in this very thread...

and yet, the calculations are exactly as i entered them, i showed you the steps and you still insist that i am off by a factor ten.

i say YOU are off by a factor of ten, so lets check another source:


http://www.sciencemag.org/content/218/4572/563.abstract

this study says 5x10 to the sixteenth grams per year which would be even more.

so even if, as you claim, my math is wrong, and i dont know how to use a fucking calculator, this guy says its even MORE

and it's from Nature, which is probably also a right wing think tank.

ZOMG!! another source which says that termites produce 5 times ten to the SIXTEENTH grams per anum co2?

even if i did the math wrong, that one is EVEN HIGHER than the otherand it's from Science Magazine which is, and i could be wrong here, NOT a right wing think tank.

lets try that math using Buckulus:





aww shit. Science Magazine says FIFTY Gigatonnes using Buckulus!
human Co2 levels are still 33.4 gigatonnes by the wildest most inflated estimate i could find.
( http://co2now.org/Current-CO2/CO2-Now/global-carbon-emissions.html )

now i can admit i may have done the math wrong, cuz im an athelete not a mathelete, but damn!!

apparently, even when i fuck up on the math, and to my horror, bucky may actually be right, he is still WRONG on the primary question "Do Termites Make More Co2 Than Humans?"


life is beautiful

Edit: yeah im high, That was Science Mag, not Nature.
Nature was some other shit

 

[Dr Kynes]

You been screaming about water vapour not me

Unless termites have started mining and releasing sequestered co2 then we don't need to worry about them

You really really need to educate yourself about the carbon cycle as well as greenhouse gas basics

Your the one screaming about water vapour


Does this mean your done screaming about the 5000billion x infinity water vapour?

seriously, i aint even interested in your bullshit.

youre clownshoes.

 

[UncleBuck]

seriously, i aint even interested in your bullshit.

youre clownshoes.

that's entirely too priceless considering the display you just made of yourself.

but wait! you've got another "study" that says termites produce nearly twice what humans do! 12.5x as much as previously claimed!

and those scientists shouldn't measure CO2 on mauna loa!

and forest fires cause global cooling!

and red1966's water vapor!

clearly, all this means that 34 national academies of science are wrong, and the idiot who doesn't know exponentials or PEMDAS is once again correct, as always.

it's just embarrassing for you at this point, kynes. just stop even trying.

 

[UncleBuck]

ruh roh raggy

you and alec the gardener say im wrong huh.

well fuck

pada says im right, so playing off his percentages, that means im fucking wrong.

cheddar biscuits.

well lets try again:

i say termites make more co2 than humans
bucky says "NUH UH!! Prove it!"
i cite a paper from The Journal of Geophysical Studies: Atmospheres which states 4x10 to the 15th grams of co2/anum,
i run that through my calculator (apparently wrongly) as 40 gigatonnes per anum
Bucky says "No Evidence to Support That Claim" (in his own special way)
i say "yes, it's right there" <re-post link>
Bucky says "Right Wing Think Tank"
i say "Youre cracked" and run the math again (apparently wrongly)
Bucky says "you cited no evidence for that claim" (in his own special way)
i say "yes, i did, and i even did the math" <post screenshots of the math>
Bucky says "fedoras" "wal mart employee" "fat" "liar" "That's Racist!!"
by this time i dont even doubt i got the math right, cuz thats bucky's signature move when he is up against the ropes
then. like 4 pages AFTER my math display, he says i got the math wrong...
naturally i dismiss him. who wouldnt dismiss an ASU dropout's boasts of math prowess after that?
then pada chimes in and says im wrong, which only increases my confidence that im right (naturally)
then pada says im right. well that cant be good...
pada starts slinging homophobic slurs, so clearly he is right on Pada-par which means i need to re-think my math.
by now, im getting nervous cuz TWO guys (who arent bucky) say im wrong, and pada says im right.
shit, maybe i got the math wrong after all.

MEANWHILE, ~53 posts ago, in this very thread...



ZOMG!! another source which says that termites produce 5 times ten to the SIXTEENTH grams per anum co2?

even if i did the math wrong, that one is EVEN HIGHER than the otherand it's from Science Magazine which is, and i could be wrong here, NOT a right wing think tank.

lets try that math using Buckulus:

View attachment 3176767

View attachment 3176768

aww shit. Science Magazine says FIFTY Gigatonnes using Buckulus!
human Co2 levels are still 33.4 gigatonnes by the wildest most inflated estimate i could find.
( http://co2now.org/Current-CO2/CO2-Now/global-carbon-emissions.html )

now i can admit i may have done the math wrong, cuz im an athelete not a mathelete, but damn!!

apparently, even when i fuck up on the math, and to my horror, bucky may actually be right, he is still WRONG on the primary question "Do Termites Make More Co2 Than Humans?"


life is beautiful

Edit: yeah im high, That was Science Mag, not Nature.
Nature was some other shit

let me see if i have this right.

you claimed for over a year that termites produce 4̶0̶ ̶b̶i̶l̶l̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶o̶n̶n̶e̶s̶ 4 billion tonnes of CO2 a year.

now you claim that termites produce 5̶0̶0̶ ̶b̶i̶l̶l̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶o̶n̶n̶e̶s̶ 5 billion tonnes of CO2 a year, nearly doubling the output of all human activities in every nation across the globe.

yeah, you totally owned us.

declare some more victory, you denizen of science and higher learning.

i'll honk next time i see a termite driving down I-5 in a 64 foot long truck.

 

[Dr Kynes]

700 written in scientific notation or exponents: 7x10^2

10(10)100
7x100

http://www.mathsisfun.com/numbers/scientific-notation.html

i submit to your expertise, i got the math fucking wrong.

 

[Dr Kynes]

let me see if i have this right.

you claimed for over a year that termites produce 4̶0̶ ̶b̶i̶l̶l̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶o̶n̶n̶e̶s̶ 4 billion tonnes of CO2 a year.

now you claim that termites produce 5̶0̶0̶ ̶b̶i̶l̶l̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶o̶n̶n̶e̶s̶ 5 billion tonnes of CO2 a year, nearly doubling the output of all human activities in every nation across the globe.

yeah, you totally owned us.

declare some more victory, you denizen of science and higher learning.

i'll honk next time i see a termite driving down I-5 in a 64 foot long truck.

the only reason i didnt cite the Science study (which has been cited more than 120 times BTW) is cuz it was OLDER, and it's number seemed too high.

i used the LOWEST numbers i could find for my termite claim, and the HIGHEST numbers for human Co2, just to give you a chance.

shit, both these studies i cited were Peer Reviewed and published in reputable journals.

but you first tried to claim i cited no source, then you denied i had any source again, then tried to claim that i cited a "Right Wing Think Tank" and then you started name calling, and THEN, after all those attempts failed, i assume you got your wife to do the math for you.

it took you FIVE swings to land a hit on my assertion, which was, as is clearly displayed, a MATH ERROR so now your just making shit up and tossing out absurd claims, and pretending THIS source is non-existent too.

how many swats you gonna take at this citation?

meanwhile, you still havent been able to dispute my water calculations, you just pretend they dont exist.
so hilarious.

yep, i stand by my assertions, termites DO make more co2 than humans, and yes, water IS 500 times more powerful in the greenhouse effect than co2 (~5 times more powerful mole for mole AFTER "baselining" for albedo and evaporative cooling, and 100X more abundant on average. both claims well documented, and well cited)

even a retarded football player like me can multiply 100x5 without fucking up.

 

[Dr Kynes]

that's entirely too priceless considering the display you just made of yourself.

but wait! you've got another "study" that says termites produce nearly twice what humans do! 12.5x as much as previously claimed!

and those scientists shouldn't measure CO2 on mauna loa!

and forest fires cause global cooling!

and red1966's water vapor!

clearly, all this means that 34 national academies of science are wrong, and the idiot who doesn't know exponentials or PEMDAS is once again correct, as always.

it's just embarrassing for you at this point, kynes. just stop even trying.

distraction distraction distraction.

run the math on the Science Magazine study.

ill even take your math at face value.

i lowball my own supporting citations, and find the highest opposition studies for my comparisons, while you cite wikipedia (lulz) and try to pretend studies published in reputable journals dont exist.

hell i even cited the LOWEST water greenhouse effect i could find (5x that of co2, mole for mole) and rounded the well accepted 4% water vapour concetrations down to 3.5% just to make the comparison easier to Co2's well established 0.035% concetrations from mother fucking mona loa

and YOU asked me to check that one for ya...

as for "those scientists shouldn't measure CO2 on mauna loa!" i accepted cannabineer's well explained well cited math on mona loa last fucking year, and have long since accepted that it is a valid source despite being on a volcano in the tropics. they do a great job of eliminating the noise, and getting good measurements

but any distraction is good enough if it makes your case seem less shakey.

see i can admit when i'm wrong, i can accept that my math aint as good as it could be, and i never claimed to be infallible, you on the other hand pretend to omniscience, and when challenged with facts, citations and math, you retreat to name calling, red herrings and reductio ad retardum. .

just like youre doing now

yeah, that was probably too complicated for you to follow, so heres a Meme.

 

[Harrekin]

B==========D ~~~~~~ (.)(.)

 

[ginjawarrior]

seriously, i aint even interested in your bullshit.

youre clownshoes.

No surprise from you there

You don't understand the basics of the carbon cycle so you scream about termite CO2

You don't understand the basics of greenhouse so you claim nitrogen is 50% greenhouse gas (you couldn't make this shit up)

You scream about how bad water vapour is as a greenhouse gas then scream about how it is ok because water vapour regulates itself thru rain

Scream more about these termites releasing CO2 as part of the natural cycle of CO2 it's fucking hillarious

 

[Dr Kynes]

No surprise from you there

You don't understand the basics of the carbon cycle so you scream about termite CO2

You don't understand the basics of greenhouse so you claim nitrogen is 50% greenhouse gas (you couldn't make this shit up)

You scream about how bad water vapour is as a greenhouse gas then scream about how it is ok because water vapour regulates itself thru rain

Scream more about these termites releasing CO2 as part of the natural cycle of CO2 it's fucking hillarious

and your derping continues unabated.

i asserted that N is a greehouse gas (which it aint) because i was/am high.
i corrected that, but here you go again
the second part of the statement was that nitrogen is MATTER, and as such it can and does store heat (which is 100% true) making my statement only HALF WRONG
and then you derp derp derp a new assertion fabricated from your own idiocy.

as to the rest of your squawking:

heres what was going on in this thread before you injected yourself into it:
AGW is fake!
AGW is real!
NO it's fake and heres why!
nuhh uhh!
heres another example of the failure of the AGW hypothesis!
what example?
this one right here
where?
right there! i'm pointing at it!
no youre not!
yes i am pointing right at it
well i dont want to see that so i wont look, and now ill say why it's all wrong, despite having not even looked at it!
youre retarded.
nu uhh! my mom says im special
...
like 600 posts later:

Redd: Positive Assertion about water vapour's greenhouse power (100x that of co2)
Bucky: Nuh Uh!!!
Redd: Yuh Huh!
Bucky: kynes check his claim:
Kynes: citation that water is between 5x and 20x more greenhousey than Co2 depending on if, and how you "Baseline" for albedo and evaporative cooling
Kynes: citations from multiple sources that water vapour is ~4% of the atmosphere by volume
Kynes citations from many sources that Co2 is 0.035% of the atmosphere by volume:
Kynes: using the LOWEST water vapour baselined number (5x co2's greenhouseiness) and rounding down the 4% water vapour by volume to 3.5% just to make the math easier
Kynes: thats 500x more greenhousing from water vapour than co2
Bucky: "nuh uh!! no evidence!" nu uhh! "what citations?" "Nuh Uhh! U R GAY" "Nuh Uhh! right wing think tank!" "Nuh Uhh!! you said termites make more co2 than humans in an unrelated thread last year!!"
You: chiming in with a dopey video that proves nothing, save that co2 is in fact a gteenhouse gas (which was not in dispute)
Kynes: teh fux is that supposed to prove? nobody says co2 isnt a greenhouse gas, it's just a weak one!
you: who are you arguing with?
Kynes: you dumbass.

...
like 200 posts later:

You: how dare you answer my question???? see how i proved you wrong with this statement! <points at nothing>
Kynes: when? how? where?
You:< waving hands in air and pointing at nothing that substantiates your claim> SEE!! PWNED!! I R King Of Interweb!
Kynes: Clownshoes.

yep. youre clownshoes.

 

[ginjawarrior]

and your derping continues unabated.

heres what was going on in this thread before you injected yourself into it:
AGW is fake!
AGW is real!
NO it's fake and heres why!
nuhh uhh!
heres another example of the failure of the AGW hypothesis!
what example?
this one right here
where?
right there! i'm pointing at it!
no youre not!
yes i am pointing right at it
well i dont want to see that so i wont look, and now ill say why it's all wrong, despite having not even looked at it!
youre retarded.
nu uhh! my mom says im special
...
like 600 posts later:

Redd: Positive Assertion about water vapour's greenhouse power (100x that of co2)
Bucky: Nuh Uh!!!
Redd: Yuh Huh!
Bucky: kynes check his claim:
Kynes: citation that water is between 5x and 20x more greenhousey than Co2 depending on if, and how you "Baseline" for albedo and evaporative cooling
Kynes: citations from multiple sources that water vapour is ~4% of the atmosphere by volume
Kynes citations from many sources that Co2 is 0.035% of the atmosphere by volume:
Kynes: using the LOWEST water vapour baselined number (5x co2's greenhouseiness) and rounding down the 4% water vapour by volume to 3.5% just to make the math easier
Kynes: thats 500x more greenhousing from water vapour than co2
Bucky: "nuh uh!! no evidence!" nu uhh! "what citations?" "Nuh Uhh! U R GAY" "Nuh Uhh! right wing think tank!" "Nuh Uhh!! you said termites make more co2 than humans in an unrelated thread last year!!"
You: chiming in with a dopey video that proves nothing, save that co2 is in fact a gteenhouse gas (which was not in dispute)
Kynes: teh fux is that supposed to prove? nobody says co2 isnt a greenhouse gas, it's just a weak one!
you: who are you arguing with?
Kynes: you dumbass.

...
like 200 posts later:

You: how dare you answer my question???? see how i proved you wrong with this statement! <points at nothing>
Kynes: when? how? where?
You:< waving hands in air and pointing at nothing that substantiates your claim> SEE!! PWNED!! I R King Of Interweb!
Kynes: Clownshoes.

yep. youre clownshoes.

oh oh timelines can i do one?

http://rollitup.org/t/satellite-data-proves-earth-has-not-been-warming-the-past-18-years-its-stable.828377/page-70#post-10580503

^^ my first post on this thread ( to heckler (no mention from me of anything to do with water vapour or termites)

http://rollitup.org/t/satellite-data-proves-earth-has-not-been-warming-the-past-18-years-its-stable.828377/page-71#post-10581213

you replied to me "gah water vapour"

i never claimed the video did anything you keep saying i claimed

your butt hurt from buck and pada is none of my concern

that they have wound you up so much you appear to shit yourself with every key stroke is not anything i give a fuck about

i really really suggest you educate yourself on reading and going back and checking the forum for when your hissy fit started

aside from that you clearly still do not understand the carbon cycles (or you understand cycle yet willingly use termites as red herring)

and you clearly do not understand greenhouse gasses (or you do understand but willingly use water vapour as a red herring)

neither of those two snippets is bucks or pada fault

oh yeah you wanna try to save face by saying nitrogen is 50% right as greenhouse gas i will continue calling you the fool you appear

 

[Dr Kynes]

oh oh timelines can i do one?

http://rollitup.org/t/satellite-data-proves-earth-has-not-been-warming-the-past-18-years-its-stable.828377/page-70#post-10580503

^^ my first post on this thread ( to heckler (no mention from me of anything to do with water vapour or termites)

http://rollitup.org/t/satellite-data-proves-earth-has-not-been-warming-the-past-18-years-its-stable.828377/page-71#post-10581213

you replied to me "gah water vapour"

i never claimed the video did anything you keep saying i claimed

your butt hurt from buck and pada is none of my concern

that they have wound you up so much you appear to shit yourself with every key stroke is not anything i give a fuck about

i really really suggest you educate yourself on reading and going back and checking the forum for when your hissy fit started

aside from that you clearly still do not understand the carbon cycles (or you understand cycle yet willingly use termites as red herring)

and you clearly do not understand greenhouse gasses (or you do understand but willingly use water vapour as a red herring)

neither of those two snippets is bucks or pada fault

oh yeah you wanna try to save face by saying nitrogen is 50% right as greenhouse gas i will continue calling you the fool you appear

you really are an idiot.

you jumped in with your dopey little video which STILL does nothing but demonstrate that co2 is a grenhouse gas, and makes no attempt to prove it is a particularly strong one
IN THE MIDDLE OF AN ARGUMENT ABOUT Co2 Vs WATER VAPOUR
thus you deliberately implied that
1) co2's status as a greenhouse gas was in dispute, and thus
2) everyone arguing about the power of water is wrong.

the termite thing had NOTHING to do with you, and was a direct result of BUCKY's red herring, not mine.
the water thing ALSO had nothing to do with you, and was a result of BUCKY disputing red's claim

and still you maintain that i am claiming nitrogen is 50% a greenhouse gas.

you poor tortured moron.

i stated nitrogen was a greenhouse gas, in error, and corrected myself after you said "nuh UH!" (and as typical, provided no citation to back up your dispute)
i double checked MYSELF and found that i was lookin at a graph of NO2 not N.
the statement was a TWO-PARTER, and the second part is true, that nitrogen, due to being matter, can hold heat energy
the statement was half right and half wrong, which does NOT equate to "N is 50% greenhousey"
that is a Strawman you are attempting to construct, but as you are Clownshoes, youre having trouble getting your strawman to stand up.

 

[Ceepea]

Water is a major greenhouse gas too, but its level in the atmosphere depends on temperature. Excess water vapour rains out in days. Excess CO2 accumulates, warming the atmosphere, which raises water vapour levels and causes further warming.

Is water a far more important a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, as some claim? It is not surprising that there is a lot of confusion about this - the answer is far from simple.

Firstly, there is the greenhouse effect, and then there is global warming. The greenhouse effect is caused by certain gases (and clouds) absorbing and re-emitting the infrared radiating from Earth's surface. It currently keeps our planet 20°C to 30°C warmer than it would be otherwise. Global warming is the rise in temperatures caused by an increase in the levels of greenhouse gases due to human activity.

Water vapour is by far the most important contributor to the greenhouse effect. Pinning down its precise contribution is tricky, not least because the absorption spectra of different greenhouse gases overlap.



At some of these overlaps, the atmosphere already absorbs 100% of radiation, meaning that adding more greenhouse gases cannot increase absorption at these specific frequencies. For other frequencies, only a small proportion is currently absorbed, so higher levels of greenhouse gases do make a difference.

This means that when it comes to the greenhouse effect, two plus two does not equal four. If it were possible to leave the clouds but remove all other water vapour from the atmosphere, only about 40% less infrared of all frequencies would be absorbed. Take away the clouds and all other greenhouses gases, however, and the water vapour alone would still absorb about 60% of the infrared now absorbed.

By contrast, if CO2 alone was removed from the atmosphere, only 15% less infrared would be absorbed. If CO2 was the only greenhouse gas, it would absorb 26% of the infrared currently absorbed by the atmosphere.

A simplified summary is that about 50% of the greenhouse effect is due to water vapour, 25% due to clouds, 20% to CO2, with other gases accounting for the remainder.

Water cycle
So why aren't climate scientists a lot more worried about water vapour than about CO2? The answer has to do with how long greenhouse gases persist in the atmosphere. For water, the average is just a few days.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11652-climate-myths-co2-isnt-the-most-important-greenhouse-gas.html#.U5ixXChGP8I

 

[Ceepea]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11638-climate-myths-human-co2-emissions-are-too-tiny-to-matter.html#.U5ix3yhGP8I

 

[Pinworm]

B==========D ~~~~~~ (.)(.)

I've been drinking a lot. Comparé and soda. I'm pretty sure that's why this post was the funniest.