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To: MichaelP
Water vapor is the number one greenhouse gas. Its specific heat is 1.0

Thanks. I was under the impression that CO2 was a more effective greenhouse gas, and that water vapor was so critical only due to its abundance. Are you sure, pound for pound, water vapor is a more effective greenhouse gas than CO2?

11 posted on 02/15/2010 6:03:38 AM PST by ETL (ALL (most?) of the Obama-commie connections at my FR Home page: http://www.freerepublic.com/~etl/)
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To: ETL

Google “Harvard and MIT debunk global warming”


13 posted on 02/15/2010 6:06:13 AM PST by stephenjohnbanker (Support our troops, and vote out the RINOS)
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To: ETL
Are you sure, pound for pound, water vapor is a more effective greenhouse gas than CO2?

In the lab, perhaps.
In the atmosphere, under the dynamics of complex weather, sunlight, cosmic rays and other solar system nasties we may not even know about, apparently not.

One of the qualities of real scientists is the ability to make a distinction between isolated lab experiments, and the identical few substances interacting with the thousands of different elements, compounds and factors in a real-time atmosphere.

The arrogance and ignorance of those claiming to mimic the complexity of weather, climate and the atmosphere on computer models which they write themselves --- is mind boggling.

Climate models, until recently, were claimed to be predicting future weather.

Since they have all failed, 100% of the time to do so, the claim has now changed to "projections!"

... which will continue to be wrong 100% of the time!

Hello?

49 posted on 02/15/2010 9:41:19 AM PST by Publius6961 (You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do)
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To: ETL
There is no "pound for pound" about it, since it isn't a linear relationship. Water vapor contributes nearly all greenhouse power, but the sky is largely saturated with water vapor - meaning, opaque from below to the wavelengths of infrared light that are absorbed by water. There are marginal differences tied to weather from variations in humidity (e.g. in deserts the sky is not opaque to those wavelengths, unless covered by cloud cover).

CO2 can matter (though only marginally because it is so trace a gas) because the sky is largely "clear" in those wavelengths. But this changes as the CO2 level rises. The response is log rather than linear; the second doubling of the concentration does much less than the first. Close your window shades. How much would it matter if you hung 4 more sets of shades behind them?

51 posted on 02/15/2010 9:58:07 AM PST by JasonC
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