Isn't 95% of greenhouse gas just water vapor?

Question

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4340135300469846467&pr=goog-sl&hl=en

Answer 1

Yeah, but there are different severity of greenhouse gasses.

Carbon dioxide is a smaller percent than water vapour BUT its smaller percent is a bigger problem because its a greenhouse gas that is better at its job than water vapour.

Methane is several times more effective than carbon dioxide but is in much lower levels.

So percents of each type is important to note but its severity is also important to note.

Answer 2

Glad to see that Bob has just answered this question - he's a good source of reliable info when it comes to GW.

Water vapour is the main greenhouse gas by volume but it's part of the natural precipitation or water cycle. When there's too much water vapor in the air it forms into tiny droplets of water that fall as rain - this is how and why rain forms.

There's a natural balance in terms of water vapour and it's impossible for there to be too much. Water vapour has an 'atmospheric life' averaging just 4 days - meanig that 4 days after it's evapourated from the seas and oceans it is removed from the atmosphere as rain. The other main greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and dichlorodifluoromethane - these remain in the atmopshere for hundreds or thousands of years (some remain forever).

In short, there can be the maximum possible amount of water vapour in the atmosphere and it won't make any difference but the other greenhouse gases just accumulate.

By the way - I wouldn't pay any attention to The Great Global Warming Swindle. It was produced by Martin Durkin who is well known for making programs that are designed to be controversial without being based on fact. Google him.

He's openly admited 'Swindle' is 'an irresponsible bit of film making' and has admited the 'evidence' was flawed, known to be wrong or simply made up for the program. As for the scientists featured - they're taking legal action because what they said and what was edited and broadcast were two very different things. Durkin already has judgements against him for doing precisely the same thing in the past. The boradcatser has had to make a public apology, scientists have withdrawn from Durkin's programs that are in the pipeline and the more responsible media refuse to broadcast anything of Durkin's branding it hype and propoganda.

Answer 3

Yes it is. The air contains less than 0.04% CO2. Depending on the humidity, the air can contain up to 5% water vapor, over 100 times the amount of CO2. And water vapor is an even more effective greenhouse gas than CO2.

All the global warming computer models rely on the tiny effect from CO2 being either magnified or counteracted by water vapor. Some say that a slight warming caused by CO2 will increase evaporation and so increase the amount of water vapor in the air and greatly magnify the warming effect. Others say the increased humidity will result in increased cloud cover and so balance the CO2 out. They could both be right. The problem is just too complex. We really don't know what we are doing. People who say they know what will happen are just being arrogant. Our understanding of the weather and climate is just not that good.

Answer 4

Yes. But man made CO2 is still causing excessive greenhouse effect, global warming.

Did you think all those thousands of scientists were forgetting water vapor?

That "swindle" movie is wrong. Bad science, long ago refuted.

The director made a similarly silly movie in 1997, which compared environmentalists to Nazis. Channel 4 had to issue a public apology for that one.

"Against Nature argues that greens in First World countries are responsible for the deprivation and death of millions of children in the Third World. In their callous disregard for human welfare and their fetishism of nature, greens, it maintains, are not merely conservative, but fascist, drawing their inspiration from precisely the same ideologies as the Nazis. It would be laughable, had it not been given three hours of prime time TV."

http://www.videonetwork.org/stuff/againstnature.html

This one is similar in quality.

" A Channel 4 documentary claimed that climate change was a conspiratorial lie. But an analysis of the evidence it used shows the film was riddled with distortions and errors."

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2355956.ece

Here's a refutation by climate scientists:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/swindled/

Bottom line:

http://www.medialens.org/alerts/07/0313pure_propaganda_the.php

"Pure Propaganda"

Even Channel 4 doesn't believe that nonsense is correct. If you go to their website, on the page for the film are links to factual global warming sites. You can "Ask an Expert" and your question goes to a respected mainstream scientist who says man is mostly responsible for global warming.

Answer 5

no