As far as the importance of the various “greenhouse gases” goes, carbon dioxide has a MINISCULE effect in comparison to water vapor, which is at any given time, some thirty to a hundred times as much concentration in the atmosphere than CO2, magnified by the fact that H2O has a couple other characteristics that carbon dioxide, under normal atmospheric and temperature conditions on earth, does not have.
Water, H2O, has a “triple point” at which it may exist simultaneously as a solid (ice), liquid (the water we all know and love) and gas (water vapor, which when very hot, is steam, and at the “triple point” is “relative humidity”)
Carbon dioxide, under normal Earth temperatures and pressures, is always a gas, MUCH denser than water vapor, and it tends to remain in the lowest part of the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide normally exists as a solid when at or below MINUS 109.3 degrees F or MINUS 78.5 gradients C. Even Wisconsin does not get that cold. As carbon dioxide is warmed, it sublimates directly from the solid to the gaseous form, with NO intermediate liquid state. Thus there is no “triple point” for CO2.
Under Earth conditions, carbon dioxide absorbs about the same amount of heat per unit weight, as liquid water, and about twice as much heat per unit weight, as water vapor.
But water vapor, being LIGHTER than the composite molecular weight of the atmosphere (about 20% O2 and 80% N2) RISES into the stratosphere, where it forms water droplets, freezes (the temperature at 40,000 feet is MINUS 70 degrees F), and forms the cirrus clouds. The ice crystals, being denser than the other atmosphere components, sinks in the atmosphere, warming and becoming water droplets, and forming the cumulonimbus clouds (”rainclouds”). From there it falls to earth as rain, if above freezing temperature, otherwise the ice crystals form into snow, and fall that way. If, however, the water droplets as fine rain, go through atmosphere that is BELOW the freezing point, it falls as sleet or hail, freezing or frozen rain.
Now, each of these changes in the states of matter, from solid to liquid to vapor, involves the transfer of a VAST amount of heat. For water to become ice, it has to give up something called latent heat of fusion, some 80 calories per gram. For water to become water vapor, something called latent heat of vaporization, some 550 calories per gram has to be added to the water to get a gram of steam (or water vapor). Water need not be at the boiling point to become water vapor, but you can see, it takes a prodigious amount of energy to make water vapor, as a small amount of water raised to superheated status then evaporates. When water vapor gives up that heat (at -70 degrees F at 40,000 feet), the heat is radiated off into space from the dark side of earth as it rotates.
The homeostasis that has been established on Earth through the eons actually has a very narrow range in which it always remains, well above the freezing point of carbon dioxide, but well below the boiling point of water. Minor variations of the range are regulated by the release of heat from cooling water vapor and the formation of ice, or absorption of heat from solar radiation, internal heat from the core of the earth being released, or by (largely self-canceling) biological activity. A “runaway heat trap” of the atmosphere is highly imporbable, and carbon dioxide for sure is not capable of being the engine that could make it happen.
Very good post. What the pseudo science behind AGW claims is that a very minor warming effect from CO2, causes more water vapor and the extra water vapor is what actually causes the AG warming. A positive feed back loop. Which of course is actually 180 degrees backwards from reality. Increased water vapor warming causes more CO2.
Sure, but you people obviously don't understand the basic core of AGW science, so I'll explain it: the Sun doesn't like your SUVs and coal power plants, they make the Sun angry, and when the Sun gets mad, it heats up, so you have to sacrifice anything that makes the Sun angry, including, if necessary, your own children (i.e., via abortions).
Now do you understand?
:-(
</sarc>