Quote from bigdavediode:
You can't raise water vapor too much as it (roughly) varies with temperature and rains out when high humidity occurs, therefore it's not a forcing effect. However it can be a powerful amplifier of CO2 warming.
The central point is that the major absorbing gas in the atmosphere is water, not CO2, and although CO2 is the only other significant atmospheric absorbing gas, it is still only a minor contributor because of its relatively low concentration. The radiative absorption âcross sectionsâ for water and CO2 are so similar that their relative influence depends primarily on their relative concentrations. Indeed, although water actually absorbs more strongly, for many engineering calculations the concentrations of the two gases are added, and the mixture is treated as a single gas.
In the atmosphere, the molar concentration of CO2 is in the range of 350â400 ppm. Water, on the other hand, has a very large variation but, using the â60/60â (60% relative humidity [RH] at 60 °F) value as an average, then from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers standard psychrometric chart, the weight ratio of water to (dry) air is ~0.0065, or roughly 10,500 ppm. Compared with CO2, this puts water, on average, at 25â30 times the (molar) concentration of the CO2, but it can range from a 1:1 ratio to >100:1.
Even closer focus on water is given by solution of the SchusterâSchwarzschild equation applied to the U.S. Standard Atmosphere profiles for the variation of temperature, pressure, and air density with elevation (8). The results show that the average absorption coefficient obtained for the atmosphere closely corresponds to that for the 5.6â7.6-µm water radiation band, when water is in the concentration range 60â80% RHâon target for atmospheric conditions. The absorption coefficient is 1â2 orders of magnitude higher than the coefficient values for the CO2 bands at a concentration of 400 ppm. This would seem to eliminate CO2 and thus provide closure to that argument.
This overall position can be summarized by saying that water accounts, on average, for >95% of the radiative absorption. And, because of the variation in the absorption due to water variation, anything future increases in CO2 might do, water will already have done. The common objection to this argument is that the wide fluctuations in water concentration make an averaging (for some reason) impermissible. Yet such averaging is applied without objection to global temperatures, when the actual temperature variation across the Earth from poles to equator is roughly â100 to +100 °F, and a change on the average of ±1 °F is considered major and significant. If this averaging procedure can be applied to the atmospheric temperature, it can be applied to the atmospheric water content; and if it is denied for water, it must, likewise, be denied for temperatureâin that case we donât have an identified problem!
http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/ci/31/special/may01_viewpoint.html
Quote from bigdavediode:
therefore we should not believe global temperature observations
No one questions global temperature fluctuations, temperature fluctuations have been occurring on earth since the beginning of time. The question is rather they are anthropogenic in nature or not. If water vapor is ignored as it often is the conclusion becomes humans are causing global warming. However when water vapor is factor into the calculations C02 accounts for less that 4% of the total green house effect.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
