Global warming-fact or fiction and how do you propose we tackle it?

[Final-Fan]

Sqrl said:
The water vapor vs C02 issue was run over by someone who sounded like they knew what they were talking about and nothing more. The fact is that water vapor is still the single largest net contributer to warming via the greenhouse effect despite its ability to regulate itself.

Final-Fan said:
Whatever its total share of contribution to the overall greenhouse effect, it sounds as if its atmospheric levels advance and retreat in lockstep with atmospheric temperature. Therefore, other greenhouse gases -- such as CO2 -- that are not completely tied to atmospheric temperature can exert upward (or, by their lack, downward) influence on the overall greenhouse effect that water vapor by its nature cannot.

Am I missing something, or is there dispute over whether atmospheric water vapor is a strict function of temperature / temperature change, or what?

[edit: Now, I do recognize that CO2 has an apparent tendency generally to rise and fall with temperature due to the oceanic phenomenon you mention over geological-scale time periods, but it still has a lot more independent movement on the level of tens or hundreds of years than water vapor does from the information that I have seen. In fact, I hear that even the most drastic change in water vapor would reassert the temperature-dictated equilibrium in 50-70 days. Higher in the atmosphere this would probably take longer to even out but the short reaction time is remarkable compared to carbon dioxide. [ http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=142 ]