Does this data make sense?

Question

This site is saying that human contributions to all greenhouse gasses is quite low, especially when you include water vapor. It looks to me like the legislation, Lieberman-Warner, would have almost no impact on greenhouse gases.

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

Answer 1

A factual analysis of empirical data.  Yes, it makes perfect sense.  Throw in a variable energy source (the Sun) and you'll find the truth:  Man has no ability to mitigate climate change.

Tuba:  "Estimates made in 1957 were able to predict this increase for the 20th Century EXACTLY."  

EXACTLY??? According to your link, the estimate was a 20-40% increase.  How is that "EXACTLY"??  That's 30% +/- 10%, or a 33% margin of error!!  That would make gravity EXACTLY 22-44ft/sec^2.

Answer 2

The numbers are probably correct, but it's talking about the greenhouse effect, not global warming.

Think of it this way - the greenhouse effect causes the planet to be 33°C warmer than it would be without greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

http://www.pewclimate.org/global-warming...

Global warming has only caused the planet to warm about 1°C over the past 100 years.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs...

While human CO2 emissions are a relatively small amount of the total greenhouse effect, they account for almost the entire increase in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=8...

It's the increase in CO2 that's causing the warming, and humans that are causing the increase in CO2.

Answer 3

True - The amount of CO2 that man is said to have added into the atmosphere is 100ppm (parts per million) over the last 100 years.  That's just 1ppm, or just ONE MOLECULE OF CO2 PER EVERY MILLION OTHER MOLECULES of air!

In the grand scheme, man is insignificant as the atmosphere is so massive in comparison.

Answer 4

these data mostly seem accurate, but they have been misapplied. the results are meaningless.

Answer 5

I have seen this or a similar site before.

It does point out some very 'Inconvenient Truths' which are constantly and conveniently ignored by the so-called scientists who wish to continue this propaganda.

It looks to me that they are actually giving even more credit to man-made contributions than I agree with, the charts do show how insignificant man's impact really is however.

What I will say is that no amount of legislation would be able to change natural events.

Answer 6

not really

Answer 7

Water vapor is a greenhouse gas, but it CANNOT force climate change. That's because it doesn't stay in the air long enough to change the climate. Only long-lived greenhouse gases can force climate change.

Here's a "thought experiment": imagine that we could wave our magic want and make the entire atmosphere 100% relative humidity. What would happen?

The world would get two weeks of rain, and then everything would be back to normal. It would change the weather, but not the climate.

CO2, by contrast, stays in the atmosphere for a period of decades to centuries. So when we put CO2 into the air, it WILL cause climate change.

Further, the author of this page makes some fundamental scientific errors. Most obviously, he claims that 95% of the greenhouse effect is due to water vapor. That is false. And if you actually take the trouble to look up his references (and I have), either they don't say that at all, or they make the bare claim without any supporting evidence.

In fact, water vapor contributes 60% of the total greenhouse effect, not 95%. This crashes his whole argument, because non-water sources contribute 40% of the total, not 5%, i.e., he understates the actual contribution of long-lived greenhouse gases by a factor of 8.

Here's the science:

http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students/cou...

Answer 8

You are correct.  It is estimated that even if all human-produced greenhouse gas emissions are eliminated the effect on global temperatures would be less than half a degree over the next 50 years.

Answer 9

yes...

Notice it doesn't claim anything political... just an actual viewpoint from a reputable source backed with scientific data.

Research like this is rarely referenced because it is boring.

A polar bear going for a ride on a block of ice, or Styrofoam floating in a Hollywood studio to recreate polar ice cap melting is much more exciting to our sensationalized media / politicians

Answer 10

Short version

CO2 is found in small amounts in the atmosphere but is the most active common gas in retaining atmospheric heat, as shown by Tyndall in 1859

Humans have raised the level of CO2 a measureable, but quantitatively small amount.  Qualitatively though, the increase is around a 40% increase over the pre-industrial value.  Estimates made in 1957 were able to predict this increase for the 20th Century EXACTLY.

Every doubling of CO2 has been considered to equate to an increase in temperature of 5-6°C  based on bench top experiments of Arrhenius in 1896.  These experiments are very reproducible.  The observed rise in temperature of the earth's has been more like 1 degree C, leading some to argue that the actual predicted rise should be more like  0-1 degree C.  However, if you use the observed change in CO2 and the observed change in temperature you get a value of 2.5 degrees for every doubling of CO2, which is around the commonly accepted value.

Rises of 4 degrees C have in the past been associated with the six known mass extinctions but not other periods (not including the era before life on land).

Answer 11

Yes and no.

Yes, man's part of greenhouse gases is small.  But, it's the part that creates global warming.

Water vapor CANNOT create warming, because any excess falls as rain.

Natural CO2 is recycled by the carbon cycle, keeping it in balance.

Look at this graph.

http://gaw.kishou.go.jp/cgi-bin/wdcgg/qu...

The little squiggles are nature doing its' thing. CO2 falls a bit during summer when plants are active, and rises during the winter. The huge increase is us, burning fossil fuels. The scientists can actually show that the increased CO2 in the air comes from burning fossil fuels by using "isotopic ratios" to identify that CO2.  The natural carbon cycle buried carbon in fossil fuels over a very long time, little bit by little bit. We dig them up and burn them, real fast.  That's a problem.

Man is upsetting the balance of nature.  We need to fix that.

More about all this:

http://environment.newscientist.com/chan...

http://environment.newscientist.com/chan...

Answer 12

Junk science!

Answer 13

At last, someone from the unwashed masses with common sense!  Good for you!