Increased Number Think Global Warming Is “Exaggerated”

[theRepublic]

Kasz216 said:

You didn't sound like a dickhead... just uninformed.

These models don't leave out unknown factors.  They leave out very known factors that would screw up there theories.

Why?

2 reasons mainly.

1) It's a good motivator.

Just about everything that could "stop" global warming is something people should be doing anyway for their countries benefit.  So why do credibly research when we can freak them out and make them do this faster.

2) It costs a lot of time and money to become a scientist.  If you don't believe in global warming... it's going to be awful hard to get a job.... nobody is going to fund you, and even if you have proof your going to be labeled a liar and that you were paid off to do your study.

So between keeping your integrety and getting a big payoff... well it's a no brainer when you've spend 6-8 years of your life dedicated to doing something.

The biggest factor to global warming?  Water Vapor.

"Freidenreich and colleagues  have reported the overlap of carbon dioxide and water absorption bands in the infrared region. Given the present composition of the atmosphere, the contribution to the total heating rate in the troposphere is around 5 percent from carbon dioxide and around 95 percent from water vapor."

So... where we are... it's 95% water vapor.

So you see... this is why Global Warming is natural.

Water Vapor causes global warming, which causes more water vapor, which causes global warming, which causes more water vapor etc.

Unless something comes in and breaks the cycle.

So for every 20 degrees of tempeture increase.  Carbon Dioxide is repsonsible for 1 degree.

Ignoring the fact that most Carbon Dioxide isn't even manmade.

Furthermore of man made Carbon Dioxide the number 1 source is farming animals for meat.

I don't see any "Go vegetarian" cries from the general populus and government... why?  Because it doesn't benfit the country like energy independence and less spent on gas lowering the trade gap.

Even though it would be easier for people to cut down on meat and more helpful for the enviroment.

It would also greatly help the global food crisis.

http://skepticdebunk.blogspot.com/2007/10/global-warming-closer-look-at-numbers.html

Error: 95% attribution of Water Vapor to greenhouse effect
This one is actually more an error with the DOE site. One of the references the skeptic websites makes for the 95% figure is to this DOE page:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/alternate/page/environment/appd_d.html

Which says (emphasis mine):
"Freidenreich and colleagues [106] have reported the overlap of carbon dioxide and water absorption bands in the infrared region. Given the present composition of the atmosphere, the contribution to the total heating rate in the troposphere is around 5 percent from carbon dioxide and around 95 percent from water vapor. In the stratosphere, the contribution is about 80 percent from carbon dioxide and about 20 percent from water vapor."

The DOE site sources the paper:
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

However this is a mix up. The paper is about absorption of solar radiation, not longwave radiation emitted from the Earth (some solar radiation is actually in the IR spectrum - yea everything is more complex than it seems). The 95% water vapor figure is for absorption of incoming solar radiation (or part of it), not outgoing longwave radiation.

The mix up is made clearer by the presence of the Table D2 on that DOE page, which contradicts what they just wrote:

Table D2. Efficiency of Heat Trapping by Greenhouse Gases and Clouds
Species Removed	Percentage Heat Trapped	Percentage Heat Not Trapped
Alla	0	100
H2O, CO2, O3	50	50
H2O	64	36
Clouds	86	14
CO2	88	12
O3	97	3
None	100	0
CO2 = Carbon dioxide. H2O = Water vapor. O3 = Ozone. aIncludes clouds. Source: V. Ramanathan and J.A. Coakley, Jr., “Climate Modeling Through Radiative-Convective Models,” Review of Geophysics & Space Physics 16 (1978):465.

The table shows that if all water vapor was removed from the atmosphere the greenhouse effect would be diminished by only a third. Of course that's leaving out clouds which come as part of the package with water vapor.

The above table is extended by the previously linked realclimate article to include the effect of removing both clouds and water vapor:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=142

This indicates that removal of both clouds and water vapor would result in a loss 0f about two thirds of the greenhouse effect. Wheras removal of everything except clouds and water vapor results in a loss of about 15% of the greenhouse effect. So the contribtion of water vapor (inc clouds) to the greenhouse effect is between 66% to 85%. Which leads to a general flaw with what the skeptic website is trying to do:

Flaw: It's incorrect to express the contribution of a greenhouse gas to the greenhouse effect as a specific percentage.
Because the contributions overlap.