Global Warming

CO2 isn't the only thing that can raise climate temperatures. Obviously, CO2 can only be responsible for warming that occured after the CO2 was present.

checkthis graph and it may become clear why most scientists agree that the observed CO2 excess must be antropogenic.

Of course, if Essenhigh is correct, anthrogenic CO2 isn't responsible for any of it. No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~kagan/phy367/P367_articles/GlobalWarming/dispatch100700.htmlThe Columbus Dispatch

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Water vapor is feedback, not forcing (as the climate scientists say), and the models that treat it that way are very accurate and make tested predictions. The water doesn't hang around in the atmosphere long enough to be a significant climate forcing.So I don't think Essenhigh is correct, and neither does the mainstream of climate science. Of course, anybody can write a letter to the editor and say whatever they want, and the climate scientists at RealClimate: Frontpage have different rates of carbon absorbtion than Essenhigh refers to. RealClimateRealClimate: Frontpage

Sorry, I get null content on that. Explain please?

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

I'm sorry, I posted the wrong URL. The article I meant to reference is here: RealClimate: Water vapour: feedback or forcing?That should address your questions.

Still a little fuzzy on the "feedback/forcing" distinction. That piece seemed to assume familiarity with those terms rather than explaining them.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

That`s fancy for efect/cause

That doesn't make any sense to me. I would agree that particular water molecules don't hang around in the atmosphere, but those that precipitate out are simply replaced through subsequent evaporation. Either way, the water vapor is there.If you're trying to say that water vapor doesn't play a role in the greenhouse effect (and I really don't think that's what you meant), everything that I've ever read contradicts that. If you're not saying that, I'm not sure what the point is that you were making.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Hypothetical: You measure the global climate over time. You also measure the atmospheric levels of Chemical X. You find that they both increased over the same period of time.If the global climate temperatures rose because Chemical X increased in concentration, Chemical X is a climate forcing agent.If Chemical X rose because global climate temperatures increased, Chemical X is a climate feedback agent.

It's dependant on temperature, though. Hot air holds more water, cold air holds less, and the humidity corrects itself very quickly, much faster than the warming trend.So additional water would precipitate from the atmosphere long before it could contribute to global warming. It's a feedback, not a forcing. No, I'm saying that changes in the water vapor content of the atmosphere are not believed to be responsible for global warming. Rather, global warming is responsible for changes in the water vapor content, and Essenhigh's thesis appears to be contradicted by the evidence.

Well, that graph doesn't seem to say a thing about anthropogenic CO2. It does show that the planet has gone through a series of regular heating and cooling periods and, if we assume that regularity to be continuing, we should be at the peak of one right now. It also looks to me like the CO2 level changes before the temperature, at least in several places. This suggests that Essenhigh is correct, that the temperature change is driving the CO2, rather than the other way around.The graph certainly supports the notion that there's a correlation between CO2 and temperature, but as we all know, correlation does not prove causation. In any event, it's clear from the graph that CO2 and temperature have been fluctuating together for much, much longer than man has had the ability to influence either one, even assuming we do now.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

I'm very far afield from any area that I'm familiar with, so I'm trying to take things in small steps. Just thinking about this, it seems to me that as the temperature rises, there's more water vapor in the air. More water vapor equals greater greenhouse effect. It's completely counterintuitive to me that if there's more water vapor in the air, the water vapor wouldn't play a larger role in the greenhouse effect. Essenhigh's thesis has more to do with his belief that the effect of water vapor and clouds has been underestimated and the effect of CO2 has been overestimated, than any question of whether changes in the water vapor level are driving global warming. In addition, he points out that the amount of CO2 created naturally dwarfs even the largest estimates of man made CO2.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Really? It's completely intuitive to me that the water precipitates too quickly to be responsible for any climate forcing. The climate doesn't warm fast enough from the additional water to hold the additional water; it's gone before it can warm the climate.If the atmosphere is already warm enough to hold the additional vapor, then we're back to what I was saying - the water vapor isn't forcing warming, it's feedback from warming. That doesn't seem very relevant. The question is, how does the amount of CO2 created by man compare to the amount of CO2 removed from the atmosphere naturally?According to climate scientists, the manmade production of CO2 exceeds the capacity for it to be removed naturally by something like 4 billion tons per year.It's like this. Suppose that you're a guy in a boat, bailing it out with a pail as water slops over the side during a storm. As it happens, you can bail just slightly more water than the storm blows in.But the hull springs a leak. But you're still ok. Sure, the storm is blowing in a lot more water than the leak, but you can still bail out exactly as much water as the storm plus the leak. So you're still in good shape.But the hull springs another leak. And again, the amount of the leak isn't very much compared to what the storm is blowing in over the gunwales, but it doesn't matter now - compared to how much water you can bail, the boat has a net gain of water, and you're going to sink unless you plug the leaks.

Your entire post makes sense to me, except for this last point (above). I was unaware that there are oceanic cycles that substantially disturb the global water column and occur with periods of several thousand years. Probably the effects of such dynamics are quite variable on a global scale. I was under the impression that deep-trench water, for example, is so firmly locked inplace as to be regarded as "fossilized water." Once I took part in a study for USDOE to determine if high-level nuclear wastes could be disposed of in these trenches. Dixie Lee Ray, the energy secretary back then, was promoting deep-sea burial of HLW. The study concluded, affirmatively for her, that once those HLW settled into a trench they would be there for a very long time, even while decay-heating the ambient water. (This is NOT my preferred method of HLW disposal.) So I am curious about these verticle natural cycles. Do you have a reference to recommend?”Hoot Mon