This reasearch seems to indicate another cause for global...

This reasearch seems to indicate another cause for global warming and the data appears to be more based on concrete facts rather than hypotheticals.





Atmospheric Greenhouse Gases (except water vapor)
adjusted for heat retention characteristics, relative to CO2 (ppb)

Multiplier: Pre-industrial: Natural:Manmade:Total :%Total
GWP baseline addtn Addtn

(CO2) 1 288,000 68,520 11,880 368400 72.369%
(CH4) 21 17,808 12,117 6,720 36645 7.199%
(N2O)310 88,350 3,599 4,771 96720 19.000%
(CFC)1000+ 2,500 0 4,791 7291 1.432%

total 396,658 84,236 28,162 509056 100.00%

GWP :(Global Warming Potential) is used to contrast different greenhouse gases relative to CO2.

Total carbon dioxide (CO2) contributions are reduced to 72.37% of all greenhouse gases (368,400 / 509,056)-- (ignoring water vapor).

Anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 contributions drop to (11,880 / 509,056) or 2.33% of total of all greenhouse gases, (ignoring water vapor).

Total combined anthropogenic greenhouse gases becomes (28,162 / 509,056) or 5.53% of all greenhouse gas contributions, (ignoring water vapor).

Relative to carbon dioxide the other greenhouse gases together comprise about 27.63% of the greenhouse effect (ignoring water vapor) but only about 0.56% of total greenhouse gas concentrations. Put another way, as a group methane, nitrous oxide (N2O), and CFC's and other miscellaneous gases are about 50 times more potent than CO2 as greenhouse gases.

To properly represent the total relative impacts of Earth's greenhouse gases the Table(below) factors in the effect of water vapor on the system.







Role of Atmospheric Greenhouse Gases
(man-made and natural) as a % of Relative
Contribution to the "Greenhouse Effect

Based on concentrations (ppb) adjusted for heat retention characteristics




Percent of Total Percent of Total
adjusted for water vapor

Water vapor ----- 95.000%
(CO2) 72.369% 3.618%
Methane (CH4) 7.100% 0.360%
Nitrous oxide 19.000% 0.950%
CFC's 1.432% 0.072%
Total 100.000% 100.000%

Total atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) both man-made and natural is only about 3.62% of the overall greenhouse effect a big difference from the 72.37% figure in the first Table which ignored water!


To finish with the maths, by calculating the product of the adjusted CO2 contribution to greenhouse gases (3.618%) and % of CO2 concentration from anthropogenic (man-made) sources (3.225%), we see that only (0.03618 X 0.03225) or 0.117% of the greenhouse effect is due to atmospheric CO2 from human activity. The other greenhouse gases are similarly calculated and are summarized below.



Anthropogenic (man-made) Contribution to the "Greenhouse
Effect," expressed as % of Total (water vapor INCLUDED)

Based on concentrations (ppb) adjusted for heat retention characteristics

% of Greenhouse : % Natural : % Man-made

Water 95.000% 94.999% 0.001%
vapor

(CO2) 3.618% 3.502% 0.117%

(CH4) 0.360% 0.294% 0.066%

(N2O) 0.950% 0.903% 0.047%

(CFC's etc) 0.072% 0.025% 0.047%

Total 100.000% 99.720% 0.280%
Effect

Water vapor, responsible for 95% of Earth's greenhouse effect, is 99.999% natural (some argue, 100%). Even if we wanted to we can do nothing to change this.

Anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 contributions cause only about 0.117% of Earth's greenhouse effect, (factoring in water vapor). This is insignificant!

Adding up all anthropogenic greenhouse sources, the total human contribution to the greenhouse effect is around 0.28% (factoring in water vapor).


References:



Dr. S. Fred Singer, atmospheric physicist
Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia,
and former director of the US Weather Satellite Service;
in a Sept. 10, 2001 Letter to Editor, Wall Street Journal




Scientists are increasingly recognizing the importance of water vapor in the climate system. Some, like Wallace Broecker, a geochemist at Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, suggest that it is such an important factor that much of the global warming in the last 10,000 years may be due to the increasing water vapor concentrations in Earth's atmosphere.

His research indicates that air reaching glaciers during the last Ice Age had less than half the water vapor content of today. Such increases in atmospheric moisture during our current interglacial period would have played a far greater role in global warming than carbon dioxide or other minor gases.



" I can only see one element of the climate system capable of generating these fast, global changes, that is, changes in the tropical atmosphere leading to changes in the inventory of the earth's most powerful greenhouse gas-- water vapor. "




Dr. Wallace Broecker, a leading world authority on climate
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University,
lecture presented at R. A. Daly Lecture at the American Geophysical Union's
spring meeting in Baltimore, Md., May 1996.

References:

Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center
(the primary global-change data and information analysis center of the U.S. Department of Energy)
Oak Ridge, Tennessee

IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme,
Stoke Orchard, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, GL52 7RZ, United Kingdom.

2) "Carbon cycle modelling and the residence time of natural and anthropogenic atmospheric CO2:on the construction of the 'Greenhouse Effect Global Warming' dogma;" Tom V. Segalstad, University of Oslo


3) Greenhouse Gases and Global Warming Potentials (updated April, 2002)
Carbon Dioxide Information and Analysis Center (CDIAC), U.S. Department of Energy
Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

4) Warming Potentials of Halocarbons and Greenhouses Gases
Chemical formulae and global warming potentials from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 1995: The Science of Climate Change (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 119 and 121. Production and sales of CFC's and other chemicals from International Trade Commission, Synthetic Organic Chemicals: United States Production and Sales, 1994 (Washington, DC, 1995). TRI emissions from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1994 Toxics Release Inventory: Public Data Release, EPA-745-R-94-001 (Washington, DC, June 1996), p. 73. Estimated 1994 U.S. emissions from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks, 1990-1994, EPA-230-R-96-006 (Washington, DC, November 1995), pp. 37-40.

) References to 95% contribution of water vapor:

a. S.M. Freidenreich and V. Ramaswamy, “Solar Radiation Absorption by Carbon Dioxide, Overlap with Water, and a Parameterization for General Circulation Models,” Journal of Geophysical Research 98 (1993):7255-7264

b. Global Deception: The Exaggeration of the Global Warming Threat
by Dr. Patrick J. Michaels, June 1998
Virginia State Climatologist and Professor of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia

c. Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Appendix D, Greenhouse Gas Spectral Overlaps and Their Significance
Energy Information Administration; Official Energy Statistics from the U.S. Government

d. Personal Communication-- Dr. Richard S. Lindzen
Alfred P. Slone Professor of Meteorology, MIT

e. The Geologic Record and Climate Change
by Dr. Tim Patterson, January 2005
Professor of Geology-- Carleton University
Ottawa, Canada
Alternate link:
f. EPA Seeks To Have Water Vapor Classified As A Pollutant
by the ecoEnquirer, 2006
Alternate link:

g. Does CO2 Really Drive Global Warming?
by Dr. Robert Essenhigh, May 2001
Alternate link:

h. Solar Cycles, Not CO2, Determine Climate
by Zbigniew Jaworowski, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc., 21st Century Science and Technology, Winter 2003-2004, pp. 52-65
Link:

5) Global Climate Change Student Guide
Department of Environmental and Geographical Sciences
Manchester Metropolitan University
Chester Street
Manchester
M1 5GD
United Kingdom

6) Global Budgets for Atmospheric Nitrous Oxide - Anthropogenic Contributions
William C. Trogler, Eric Bruner, Glenn Westwood, Barbara Sawrey, and Patrick Neill
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, California

7) Methane record and budget
Robert Grumbine


I HOLD NO FIXED OPINION AS YET BUT APPROACH THE TOPIC WITH AN OPEN MIND AND AM WILLING TO LISTEN TO ALL THE FACTS AND HYPOTHESIS PRIOR TO DRAWING A LINE IN THE SAND.
...EMPROR.