Water Vapor Causing Climate Warming 434
karvind writes "According to BBC, new studies suggest that water vapor rather than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the main reason why Europe's climate is warming. The scientists say that rising temperatures caused by greenhouse gases are increasing humidity, which in turn amplifies the temperature rise. This is potentially a positive feedback mechanism which could increase the impact of greenhouse gases such as CO2. Even though 2005 will probably be warmest year, climatologists still differ in opinion"
Hydrogen Fuel Cell Cars (Score:1, Interesting)
IT'S BUSH'S FAULT!! (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm just curious how many scientists have looked at the possibility that the earth warms and cools in cycles, and there's really not anything we can do to affect it, or stop it.
Re:So what can we do then? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What if.. (Score:5, Interesting)
So, in order to "mine" the water vapor out of the atmosphere, you would need some way of condensing the vapor. Any sort of heat exchanger would work, but the laws of thermodynamics dictate that, in the end, you would just be heating the atmosphere up more than accomplishing anything else. This does assume that the control volume for the system is the earth itself, and you're not using space as your 'cold reservoir'--doing that gets into all sort of pesky heat transfer issues as space is rather non conductive. There is something to be said for radiation, but it would only really be effective if shielded from the sun. Anyway, since the most likely mediums for heat rejection would probably be either the atmosphere (you lose), the ocean (you lose again), or the terrestrial bits of the earth (you lose still), all you would be doing it heating the atmosphere up more and putting more water vapor into the atmosphere in the long run.
Re:Here's the Deal (Score:5, Interesting)
it's always useful to apply Fisher's deduction:
"The more issues a person attempts to shoehorn down into an artificial liberal/conservative dichotomy, the more certain you can be that the person is an American."
Debate about climate change is a debate in the US because the whole issue is deconstructed and soundbitten into a pair of simplistic politicised extremes with nary a scrap serious reasoning left. If you actually read the IPCC reports, and the peer reviewed criticisms (as opposed to the op-ed pieces) there's a lot less debate than you might think, and neither position is anywhere as extreme as the soundbites and op-eds make out. The climate is warming, we have some decent ideas as to what factors are causing it (and they are many and diverse), and it seems human actions are somewhat of a factor. Don't take my word for it though, actually do some reading on your own.
Jedidiah.
Re:So what can we do then? (Score:3, Interesting)
Honestly I don't know who to believe. I don't trust either camp, I don't know enough geology to critique the papers so I pretty much said "screw it". If we realize the problem together and find a solution - good, if not and we are ignorant enough to not do anything we deserve to have the dinosaurs come back and eat us.
Re:Here's the Deal (Score:5, Interesting)
I wouldn't dispute that, since about 1800 it has. But there is a problem, which I've never seen adequately addressed, with the IPCC Hockey Stick curves. This the controversy with Mann et al. We do know from historical evidence that there actually was a Medieval Warm period, and the evidence is that it was hotter than now. There was also a cool period in around 1700. Both of these vanish from the record with the IPCC hockey stick curves. Then, if you get into how these curves were derived, lets say just that the derivation is very remote from any observational evidence.
So two things trouble one. First, the rewriting of history without apparent reason. Second, the lack of any explanation of what caused the Medieval Warm period. Not human activity, that's for sure - or at least, not the industrial revolution. And what caused the decline after it?
Re:Here's the Deal (Score:5, Interesting)
That's a fairly strong claim. I think you'll find that Mann recognises medieval warm periods and cooler periods in the 1700s. The medieval warm period just isn't warmer than present temperatures in his reconstruction based on proxy data. In fact, that's the case for most reconstructions based on proxy data from a wide variety of sources. There are differences in the different reconstructions, but in general there's a reasonable amount of agreement. Don't take my word for it though, here's a plot with 10 different reconstructions [wikipedia.org] along with full citations of the source papers for each so you can check the methodology on each of them. Given the variety of methods used for derivation amongst those reports, from glacier records to tree rings, it's at least resonably convincing.
As to alternative views - the only evidence I've seen for a significantly warmer medieval period is derived from exactly the same data as Mann's, in roughly the same manner, so if you think one is suspect... What we do have is one report by two Canadians, one an economist the other a businessman, claiming radically different results from everyone else using different slightly techniques. I'm not writing them off, but I would be interested to see a little more work on the issue, especially when there are discussions of issues with their techniques [realclimate.org] (and nice simplified versions [realclimate.org]) that seem quite reasonable.
None of this is to say that McIntyre and McKitrick are wrong, but one has to ask why you believe them and dismiss the ten other reports by different people that generally agree quite well.
Jedidiah.
It was so warm in London yesterday... (Score:3, Interesting)
There's some proof of this from 911 (Score:1, Interesting)
One of my buddies suggests that the contrails from high flying airplanes has a much greater effect than CO2 and are a more potent source of global warming.
www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020511/fob1.asp
I have been telling ppl this for years (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of this is probably due to a lot of land at high elevation. This causes a cooling because water vapour falls out at high elevation and cannot trap the incomming solar radiation. Furthermore we get a high reflection off the snow and ice as well.
In all likelihood the cooling from the Miocene was caused by mountain building with the himalyan plateau being the latest addition. The Rockys and Andies, Pyrannies, Alps and 2 Hellenic ranges appeared before the Himalain plateau was pushed up. In North America we have the Colorado Plateau.
As part of this cooling Antarctica froze over and that locked the planet into the current snowball earth. Prior to this freeze over Antactrica was cold - but still had significant amounts of water vapour which trapped solar energy falling during the Antarctic summers. After the freeze over, Antarctica became the dryest continent on the planet - with a huge increase in the loss of solar energy falling on Antarctica. So this is a powerful positive feedback mechanizm that locked us into the current snowball earth phase.
Since then a lot of erosion has taken place which my have moved us past the equilibrium point. Still - the ice on antarctica and the glaciers at high elevation have kept us locked into the snowball earth phase.
I suspect that irrigation is causing a warming. It makes a great deal of sense. But offsetting this is the distruction of the rain forests.
CO2 is negligable. During the ordovician levels of CO2 were 13x to 19x higher than now and the earth cooled.
Some have pointed out correctly that the sun was not as strong back then. While that is true - there was a fair amount of mountain building during the ordovician (taconic orogany) and this may have been what tipped the planet from the hot house into the snowball phase. The sun was also weaker when the planet came out of the snowball phase a few million years later.
For over 80% of the last 540 million years the earth has been about 22 degrees warmer on average than now. So it makes sense that the earth will warm up - we just do not know when.
Another thing is that we have had about 22 ice cycles in the last 2+ million years and typically with a frequency of about every 100,000 years or so. 5 million years ago there were trees north of the Arctic circle in Canada. This is probably true of Russia as well.
Since we have had a number of ice cycles (the last was at peak about 50,000 years ago) it would make sense that we will have another. If so then we may be within a few 1000 years of another ice age developing.
It really will depend on where the equilibrium points are and I don't think anyone has any real idea.
One thing that is really instructive is to look at a globe of the earth that has actual mountains on it. There is one at the Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller Alberta. When you look at this globe and see just how thin the atmosphere really is - 2/3 of it lies below 30,000 feet for instance (Mount Everest) - it becomes very clear that a lot of solar incident energy is simply reflected off into space.
Get rid of the mountains and you gain a very effective H2O blanket.
In the tropics at sea level and 35C the absolute H2O vapour in the atmosphere is over 8% (80,000 ppm). This is in contrast to CO2 levels of 365 PPM.
H2O is a stronger absorber than CO2 by far - in all wavelengths.
So I frankly do not think CO2 is even a factor to be honest. The models used by the IPCC do not take into consideration that water vapour levels may be changing. When your most significant variable is not handled properly then your model isn't very believable.
From a paleoclimate standpoint - CO2 can change climate. It did several times in the Precambrian. The thing is that in order to do this the CO2 levels had to climb to many 1000 PPM. This occurred back then because so much of the earth froze over that even the oceans may have frozen r
Re:So what can we do then? (Score:3, Interesting)
millions upon millions more people are suffering and dying from not enough money
Aaah yes. And how many will die due to global warming? I somehow think it'll be a bit more then the amount of people dying due to not enough money. Global warming will not only cause the oceans to rise, but it will cause hurricanes and tornadoes to become even MORE common, droughts and floods will also become more common, which will hit hard for farming communities which will cause a reduction in the amount of food available. Oh, and once all the fossil fuel is gone, we'll still be in the same boat as we would be if we stopped using it tomorrow, unless we create viable alternatives.
Improving the economy will do far more good for the foreseeable future
If you define forseeable future "for the next 50 years."
than any of the hippy crap you're spewing.
Oh, pray tell, please tell me what crap (hippie or otherwise) spewed forth from me in my original post (I've got a fair bit more of it in this post)? All I said was that:
1> Even if we did stop emitting greenhouse gases, global warming would continue to occur.
2> Greenhouse gases will need to be scrubbed from the atmosphere to a lower level then it began with, at least for a while, in order to cool the planet down
3> Australian and American government aren't doing anything serious to combat global warming.
I guess it's point 3 that is the hippy crap you mentioned. I fail to see how saying "global warming is a problem that needs to be solved" is hippy crap (I'm not offering a solution in my post, a solution to global warming COULD occur that would allow more lives to be saved).
Again, sorry for feeding the troll. But this post was fun.
Very interesting but (Score:3, Interesting)
You have negleted to mention one thing: greenhouse gasses only act as such at certain wavelengths depending on their absorption spectra. Therefore, there is a point at which adding more of any greenhouse to the atmosphere does not change the absorption spectra of the atmosphere since the absorbable light from the sun is already being fully absorbed.
I was unable to find a website explaining this or giving examples, but I remember being told at one point by a professor (2 years ago) and shown the data/graph showing it that the water vapor in the atmosphere already absorbs 100% of its absorption spectra but that since this is not the case for all this man-made junk (CFCs etc.) or CO2 that those things resulting in global warming.
Anyway, here is a link I found remotely interesting: http://www.spaceguarduk.com/cd/dict/dictionary/inf rared.htm/A. [spaceguarduk.com]
Re:Very interesting but (Score:3, Interesting)
Water vapour above about 15,000 feet is practially non-existant. I'm not sure of the boundry and of course this is a continous function.
If your prof said this then he was thinking of some specific areas. I would expect that is subtropical to tropical SE asia that H2O absorption is 100% effective. THere is probably a surplus.
This will explain why global warming will affect higher latitudes. IE - near the equator we already have all the solar energy captured. The leaks are at high latitude. If you boost H2O in high latitudes then they will become sub tropical and this just pushes the climate zones towards the poles.
If your comment is correct then there may not be much warming near the equator.
You should contrast these ideas to the permian warming. That knocked out about 90% of species. It was a single warm blip that lifted the average global temperature to about 27 degrees warmer than now.
Check www.scotese.com
Repent! Global warming is nigh (Score:2, Interesting)
Any reputable scientist of any discipline will have no problem in telling you that when you are talking about a complex system, that has been in operation for billions of years, a sampling of measurements over the past couple hundred years is nowhere near enough to KNOW how the system behaves to a particular factor over any meaningful span.
Yet, that doesn't stop people from coming right out and saying that all scientists agree, that people are causing a catastrophic climactic change with environmental pollution.
Why?
Because global warming is the modern, secular, version of original sin. People just know that there has to be some horrible price to pay for eating from the tree of knowledge, and destroying all life on the planet sounds just about right to them as the price we have to pay. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that we surely must be killing the very planet in order to live our comfy lives.
The problem with this theory, is that it is pure conjecture, mixed with no small amount of hubris. Sure, everyone has heard that one major volcanic eruption vents more carbon dioxide than all the cars ever constructed by man combined, but that can't really be right, because we are more important than some stupid volcano. Surely we the tax of our vices must be higher than some random venting of gas. Besides, if the temperature of the entire planet is rising due to factors that have nothing to do with us, that means we can't stop it, which can't be right. We are the most important thing on the planet, and obviously there isn't anything that we can't do. If we are destroying the planet, then all we need to do is renounce our evil ways, and we can save the planet. That makes much more sense. That is how the universe really works. If we want to destroy a planet, then we can, and likewise if we want to save a planet, then we can do that too. We aren't just a bunch of insignificant specs crawling around the surface of some giant system totally beyond our control. We are the center of everything, and all that matters is what we choose to do. Yeah, that sounds much better.
The simple fact is that there has been a very slight rise in temperatures globally over the past blink of a global eye that we call a century. If anyone knew why, they could probably also reliably tell you if it was going to rain tomorrow, where the next tsunami will hit, and what day the next big earthquake would hit California. They can't tell you any of those things because there are actually some things that are so complex that the human brain can't properly model them, even with the help of all the fancy supercomputers in the world.
I know, I know, this has to be just a load of crap. Obviously it is the Republicans, and Americans with SUVs causing all of this, because we can change that with a vote and some laws, and there is nothing more important to the world than politics. If Mother Nature is so powerful, why have I never seen her name on a ballot, right?
By the way, just to head off any political partisan attacks, let me say that as far as being a good green citizen, I probably have more "street cred'" than you, seeing as how I spent 10 years going everywhere on a bicycle, haven't driven (or even owned) a car in over 7 years, and now go everywhere either by walking, or riding on the largest fleet of clean air busses in America. I am hardly the gas-guzzling, big-business loving, neo-conservative republican you might like to think is the mold of every person on earth who disagrees with you.
Re:what are you saying? (Score:4, Interesting)
No, that's where you are mistaken. The historical record is irrelevant to determining whether action is necessary. CO2 emissions must inevitably lead to a change in the absorption and emission of radiation from earth. Furthermore, CO2 that we emit today will be around for centuries, so whatever we do today, we are going to be stuck with for a long time.
The only uncertainty is whether the consequences of those changes will be serious or not. That depends on complex feedback mechanisms (water vapor, oceans, plants, ice cover, etc.) that nobody understands yet. Those can kick in at any time, and very quickly. If we wait until we understand them, it can be too late.
People with vested interests have been trying to reframe the debate as if we needed empirical data demonstrating anthropogenic warming in order to justify action. That approach is potentially suicidal. Whether we can demonstrate anthroprogenic warming is largely an academic question.
Say someone claims an asteroid is about to hit the earth, and we should all get together and establish world government to deal with it. Well, you might feel that world government and getting together would be fine, but still look askance at the trajectory calculations. That's where I am coming from.
That's a bad analogy. Whether an asteroid is going to hit earth is an all-or-nothing proposition, our options are limited, and mentioning "world government" is a scare tactic,
For global climate change, it's a question of degree (barely detectable to devastating) that we can expect in the future. And the options for preventing it are simple: increase energy efficiency, something that is technologically trivial and economically beneficial to everybody except current energy producers. Dealing with global warming does not require "world government". Quite to the contrary, fighting global warming effectively amounts to ridding ourselves of "world government" and dominance of the political process by fossil fuel producers, and instead focuses on efficiency, technology, self-sufficiency, and local generation. True Conservatives should be all for it.
Re:So what can we do then? (Score:3, Interesting)
> warming. People are still arguing about whether or not it exists
Okay, let's suppose, hypothetically, for the sake of argument, that it does exist, and then we can get on to arguing about whether we *should* do anything about it. We'll have to settle that before there's much point in discussing *specific* actions...
I mean, *why* should we try to stop global warming? We know from paleontology that the earth was, at one time, rather more of a greenhouse than it is now. Maybe the current state of affairs is the problem, and letting things get back closer to the way they were is part of a solution. Sure, people who live below sea level will have to move, but isn't it pretty selfish to think only in terms of our man-made dwelling places, when we're talking about global climate? What if the biosphere would be overall better off with a greenhouse effect? What if that climate would be more conducive, on average, to the survivability of the genomes of various kinds of organisms? You speak of "valid" suggestions, but what if any suggestion that we "do something about" global warming is inherently invalid?
The ethics of undertaking organized action to attempt to reverse the current global trend in climate change are seriously problematic. Maybe we should just leave it alone and, instead of trying to *change* it, start thinking about how we can *adapt* to it.
(No, I'm not _entirely_ serious about this. But it's something to think about.)
It's your fault (Score:1, Interesting)
People can complain about one thing or another but the end result is that big companies & big governments are not to blame. We (the consumer) are the ones responsible.
Let me ask you this:
- How many computers do you have running right now?
- Do you shut off your computer when it isn't in use?
- Do you run an air conditioner in the summer? If so, low do you set it? Do you turn it off in the evenings when it is cool (that really makes it work harder durring the day). How hot does it get before you turn it on?
- How high do you set the furnace in the winter?
- How cold does it need to get before you turn your furnace on?
- How regularly do you change your furnace filter?
- How many lights do you leave on when you are not in the room?
- How many extra car trips (to movies, stores, etc...) do you make?
- Do you have your car checked regularly to be sure it is running properly?
- Do you take extra long showers?
- Have you added extra insulation in your attic this winter?
- Have you put plastic coverings over the windows to help reduce heat loss in the winter?
- Have you looked at replacing old windows?
- Have you looked at installing a new, more efficient furnace?
- Have you looked at your major appliances (like refrigerator) to see if they is working properly?
- Is your refrigerator empty? A full refrigerator uses less energy than an empty one. I've seen people put bottles of water in their refrigerator as they take food out just to keep it from running so much.
- Do you carpool or take mass transit to work?
Don't get me wrong, I'm as big of an energy hog as anybody and I don't do a lot of the things listed above because they are hard or expensive. I probably waste more energy than most people but the polution problem is caused by me. I'm the one demanding the product at a cheap price.
If everyone cuts their energy usage, the amount of polution will decrease too. It is really that simple. Yes, it takes a bunch of people to make a difference, yes it requires altering your behavior, yes it may cost you money, but if enough people do a few simple things than it will make a big difference. The only other alternative I can see is to spend serious money on newer technology to produce cleaner energy, but people don't like to spend money on that either.
In other words, quit complaining because it is your fault. You are asking for the energy. The products you want are being created with energy and you want to buy them at the lowest cost. If you want to fix the problem the best thing you can do is fix your end. It is the only part of the equation you can control and if enough people do it the problem will be reduced.
It will be hard. That is just life.
Sorry to be bitchy but I'm tired & feel like venting.
Global warming caused by warming (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What if.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Funny, I could have sworn not too long ago I was reading sites that attacked the anti-global-warming pposition because these people (those that dispute global warming) were saying that water vapor was a much more significant greenhouse gas than CO2 and there's much more H2O than CO2 in the atmosphere than CO2; the logical conclusion being, "Why try to make massive cuts in CO2 output if the greenhouse effects of H2O completely dwarf the effects of CO2?"
So the global warming advocates put up a bunch of graphs showing how, yes, H2O was a more effective greenhouse gas, but that energy absorption was already maxed out at the H2O wavelength(s)... or something like that. Therefore, they claimed, it didn't matter that climate models couldn't properly model the effects of cloud cover nor was it valid to observe that since H2O was a much more important greenhouse that draconian efforts to reduce CO2 were misguided since, they said, the energy absorption of H2O was at a different wavelength than CO2.
Now they're saying that increased water vapor is causing a positive feedback loop that's causing the temperature change??? I thought they had said that the impact of H2O's greenhouse effect was already maxed out? If it isn't, then once again I must ask: Why do we place such efforts on reducing CO2 if water vapor seems to have a much bigger impact?
Re:Repent! Global warming is nigh (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, of course. The system has been going on for billions of years. And what we know of it gives us a timescale for natural changes that also happen to be millions of years. This makes an unprecedented change in a timescale of a hundred years hugely significant. Obviously, in a few millions years time, GW effects might calm down. But our models aren't dealing with geological spans of time, but the sort of timescales that human civilisations operate on. In which case, our data is certainly sufficient to give at least some conclusions.
Sure, everyone has heard that one major volcanic eruption vents more carbon dioxide than all the cars ever constructed by man combined, but that can't really be right, because we are more important than some stupid volcano.
The IPCC models incorporate the effects of volcanic eruptions. Scientists aren't stupid. You can see some of the code they used at http://climatechange.unep.net/jcm/doc/jcm/mod/rad
In any case, your 'everyone' is wrong, dead wrong.
http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/cl
Volcanic eruptions can enhance global warming by adding CO2 to the atmosphere. However, a far greater amount of CO2 is contributed to the atmosphere by human activities each year than by volcanic eruptions. Volcanoes contribute about 110 million tons/year, whereas other sources contribute about 10 billion tons/year.
Re:Here's the Deal (Score:3, Interesting)
Jedidiah.
Anthropogenic Warming == Hubris (Score:3, Interesting)
Second, as far as CO2 levels are concerned, correlation != causation. For example, it is not out of reason to speculate that naturally warming temperatures might disrupt the ability of phytoplankton in the oceans to sequester carbon thereby causing increased oceanic and atmospheric CO2. Because the oceans are the world's largest single carbon sink and phytoplankton are probably the largest sequesterors of carbon in the world, that would cause a release of carbon that would dwarf human industrial activity. This would also provide a correlation between warming and CO2, but the causation would be reversed.
Another scenario is that the reported "solar dimming" [bbc.co.uk], could also disrupt the ability of phytoplankton in the oceans to sequester carbon. In this scenario, the extra release of CO2, may well be causing the warming, but the CO2 is largely released by diminished phytoplankton activity, with human releases being a drop in the bucket. The dimming itself may be caused by natural fluctuations of solar activity, natural atmospheric changes, or even to human activity creating particulate matter. (However, there is at least some evidence that human generated particulate matter in the atmosphere is actually decreasing since coal and wood are no longer burned in large quantities in modern industrial societies, outside of power plants.)
Recorded human history is merely a blink of an eye in geologic terms. Recorded *climatic* history has only started in the modern times (last 500 years). Our frame of reference is short. Our idea of "normal" climate is very limited. What we consider "normal" might actually be cold. We only consider our current climate to be "normal" because of our own hubris. Since we are also naturally anthropocentric, we look for human cause and human solutions everywhere, even where they do not belong.
Re:What if.. (Score:2, Interesting)