CO2 vs H2O in the Atmosphere

[Wuwei]

One common argument against CO2 having any effect on the climate is that it is such a small quantity - only 400 parts per million. It is small compared to the full atmosphere, but how does it compare with the largest green house gas, water.

Water in the Atmosphere, the Water Cycle, from USGS Water-Science School

If all of the water in the atmosphere rained down at once, it would only cover the globe to
a depth of 2.5 centimeters, about 1 inch.​

If the entire atmosphere were compressed to the density of water, the level would be about 10 meters high.
The portion belonging to CO2 would be .04%, or .004 meters.
The portion of water vapor is 25 mm or .025 meters
The ratio of water vapor to CO2 is 0.25 / 0.004 = 6.25.
But since the atomic weight of CO2 is 44 and the average atomic weight of air is lower, 29, conversion of volume to weight would be:
6.25 x 29/44 = 4.1

The Molecular Greenhouse Gas Composition of the Atmosphere Taking into Account Vertical Variation

The approximate mass of all water substances in the atmosphere is 12.9×1018 grams. The amount of carbon dioxide is 3×1018 grams.
​

Another way to calculate the ratio of water vapor to CO2 is to use the ratio of those figures.

12.9/3.0 = 4.3.

The two different methods agree that the volume of CO2 is about a quarter of the volume of water vapor.
In this light an increased amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has a much larger effect than your “gut feel” that the concentration of CO2 is so small. The amount of water isn't that much bigger.

Bottom line: This analysis is not about GW or AGW. If you want to argue against AGW you have to use arguments other than your feeling that CO2 is such a small percentage of the atmosphere. Please compare it to the other green house gasses.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

The thing is, if you're telling us that CO2 is so powerful that going from 280 to 400PPM will destroy all life on Earth you should be able to point to one lab experiment showing us what happens when you control for a rounding error increase in this trace element

 

[Wuwei]

The thing is, if you're telling us that CO2 is so powerful that going from 280 to 400PPM will destroy all life on Earth you should be able to point to one lab experiment showing us what happens when you control for a rounding error increase in this trace element

Reread my bottom line:

Bottom line: This analysis is not about GW or AGW. If you want to argue against AGW you have to use arguments other than your feeling that CO2 is such a small percentage of the atmosphere.​

 

[CrusaderFrank]

The thing is, if you're telling us that CO2 is so powerful that going from 280 to 400PPM will destroy all life on Earth you should be able to point to one lab experiment showing us what happens when you control for a rounding error increase in this trace element

Reread my bottom line:

Bottom line: This analysis is not about GW or AGW. If you want to argue against AGW you have to use arguments other than your feeling that CO2 is such a small percentage of the atmosphere.​

My feeling is that the AGW Cult is totally full of shit and has been count with their thumbs on the scale so many fucking times they no longer cares who thinks they're dishonest

 

[CrusaderFrank]

The thing is, if you're telling us that CO2 is so powerful that going from 280 to 400PPM will destroy all life on Earth you should be able to point to one lab experiment showing us what happens when you control for a rounding error increase in this trace element

Reread my bottom line:

Bottom line: This analysis is not about GW or AGW. If you want to argue against AGW you have to use arguments other than your feeling that CO2 is such a small percentage of the atmosphere.​

Read my reply:

"The thing is, if you're telling us that CO2 is so powerful that going from 280 to 400PPM will destroy all life on Earth you should be able to point to one lab experiment showing us what happens when you control for a rounding error increase in this trace element"

Where's the lab work?

 

[Crick]

NO ONE has ever told you that "going from 280 to 400 ppm will destroy all life on Earth". You've been shown the lab work and you choose to simply reject it all out of hand. Responding to you is a complete waste of time as you lack the intellect or the education to understand the basics of this topic. Please, Frank, go fuck off and be a complete and total asshole somewhere else.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

NO ONE has ever told you that "going from 280 to 400 ppm will destroy all life on Earth". You've been shown the lab work and you choose to simply reject it all out of hand. Responding to you is a complete waste of time as you lack the intellect or the education to understand the basics of this topic. Please, Frank, go fuck off and be a complete and total asshole somewhere else.

Crick, charts with no temperature axis are not lab work demonstrating a casual relationship between a nominal increase in an atmospheric trace element and temperature

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Magentism can generate an electric current, we can show you this in a lab.

Particles have anti-particle companions, we can show you this in a lab.

A 120ppm increase in an atmospheric trace element will radically increase temperature and alter the very climate of a planet, just take our word on that

 

[Wuwei]

Magentism can generate an electric current, we can show you this in a lab.

Particles have anti-particle companions, we can show you this in a lab.

A 120ppm increase in an atmospheric trace element will radically increase temperature and alter the very climate of a planet, just take our word on that

You got the first two right, but the third is wrong. 2 out of 3 is pretty good for you. Water vapor is only about 4 times more abundant. That is also a trace.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Magentism can generate an electric current, we can show you this in a lab.

Particles have anti-particle companions, we can show you this in a lab.

A 120ppm increase in an atmospheric trace element will radically increase temperature and alter the very climate of a planet, just take our word on that

You got the first two right, but the third is wrong. 2 out of 3 is pretty good for you. Water vapor is only about 4 times more abundant. That is also a trace.

I know you don't read your own posts, but if you followed the delusional ramblings of the other members of the AGWCult you'd know that the current "Warming" we're experiencing is both "unprecedented" and "catastrophic", all due to a nominal increase in a trace element, and not H2O either

 

[Wuwei]

I know you don't read your own posts, but if you followed the delusional ramblings of the other members of the AGWCult you'd know that the current "Warming" we're experiencing is both "unprecedented" and "catastrophic", all due to a nominal increase in a trace element, and not H2O either

I don't believe what is happening now is either totally unprecedented or totally catastrophic. A couple more decades will tell for sure if it will be. I really don't care if people disagree with AGW. If that's what they want to believe, they don't need to pervert science in doing so.

It should be obvious that water vapor is the primary trace molecule that prevents the earth from loosing it's heat quickly. However CO2 is only four times less abundant and also adds to the function of water. The effect of CO2 is not trivial and shouldn't be a strong reason for dismissing AGW.

 

[Billy_Bob]

Water Vapor has not been coupled and is not connected to CO2 by empirical evidence.

This is why Tom Karl created his pile of crap in an effort to erase the well established stop in global upward temperatures while CO2 continued to rise. This was inconvenient for the Socialists and alarmists who were using it to control carbon and thus the worlds use of energy.

Its kind of nice to see a chart that isn't hyped up beyond its ability to be accurate, which also shows why CO2 is not having the effect they are touting.

Source

 

[Billy_Bob]

One common argument against CO2 having any effect on the climate is that it is such a small quantity - only 400 parts per million. It is small compared to the full atmosphere, but how does it compare with the largest green house gas, water.

Water in the Atmosphere, the Water Cycle, from USGS Water-Science School

If all of the water in the atmosphere rained down at once, it would only cover the globe to
a depth of 2.5 centimeters, about 1 inch.​

If the entire atmosphere were compressed to the density of water, the level would be about 10 meters high.
The portion belonging to CO2 would be .04%, or .004 meters.
The portion of water vapor is 25 mm or .025 meters
The ratio of water vapor to CO2 is 0.25 / 0.004 = 6.25.
But since the atomic weight of CO2 is 44 and the average atomic weight of air is lower, 29, conversion of volume to weight would be:
6.25 x 29/44 = 4.1

The Molecular Greenhouse Gas Composition of the Atmosphere Taking into Account Vertical Variation

The approximate mass of all water substances in the atmosphere is 12.9×1018 grams. The amount of carbon dioxide is 3×1018 grams.
​

Another way to calculate the ratio of water vapor to CO2 is to use the ratio of those figures.

12.9/3.0 = 4.3.

The two different methods agree that the volume of CO2 is about a quarter of the volume of water vapor.
In this light an increased amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has a much larger effect than your “gut feel” that the concentration of CO2 is so small. The amount of water isn't that much bigger.

Bottom line: This analysis is not about GW or AGW. If you want to argue against AGW you have to use arguments other than your feeling that CO2 is such a small percentage of the atmosphere. Please compare it to the other green house gasses.

Well lets use some graphs to show just how insignificant CO2 is..

 

[Billy_Bob]

Without a causal link to water vapor CO2 cant do squat. The earth has survived upwards of 7,000ppm without catastrophic consequences and never once wandered outside of its 12 deg C range of warm/cool environmental boundaries.

 

[Wuwei]

You have a lot of pretty colored pictures to show CO2 is a trace green house gas in the atmosphere. Everyone already understands that. You are only proving my point that,

One common argument against CO2 having any effect on the climate is that it is such a small quantity - only 400 parts per million. It is small compared to the full atmosphere, but how does it compare with the largest green house gas, water. ​

None of your pictures compare CO2 with H2O. None show that H2O is also a trace gas with only four times the mass of the CO2 trace gas.

CO2 may be a trace gas but it does not have a trivial effect compared to the trace of H2O vapor.

 

[IanC]

that's more or less in line with the estimates that CO2 is 10-25% of the greenhouse effect.

my quibble is that H2O is not a well mixed gas and resides at lower levels, especially near the surface/atmosphere boundary. it also does not take into account the convection and latent heat aspects of the water cycle.

 

[Wuwei]

that's more or less in line with the estimates that CO2 is 10-25% of the greenhouse effect.

my quibble is that H2O is not a well mixed gas and resides at lower levels, especially near the surface/atmosphere boundary. it also does not take into account the convection and latent heat aspects of the water cycle.

It's more like CO2 is 25% of the GHG's by weight, but the actual percentage of CO2 as a blanketing effect depends on complicated factors.

Yes, H2O makes it too messy both physically and mathematically to understand just how much the surface temperature is controlled by the two gases. But I'm thinking more in terms of how the 400 W/m^2 earth radiation is countered by back radiation. Convection, evaporation, etc is much smaller in comparison to the IR radiation.

The main heat loss for CO2 is at the top of the atmosphere where it becomes thin enough so that the logarithmic saturation relation does not completely block it. The TOA is cold and the Stefan Boltzman law does not allow much radiation to escape because of CO2 absorption. Heat loss due to H2O becomes important at a lower warmer region where water vapor begins to vanish.

My point is that CO2 has a larger effect at higher colder altitudes than H2O and should not be dismissed as a trace GHG as is done by a lot of strident voices here. All GHG's are trace and have a complex but significant interplay.

 

[jc456]

that's more or less in line with the estimates that CO2 is 10-25% of the greenhouse effect.

my quibble is that H2O is not a well mixed gas and resides at lower levels, especially near the surface/atmosphere boundary. it also does not take into account the convection and latent heat aspects of the water cycle.

It's more like CO2 is 25% of the GHG's by weight, but the actual percentage of CO2 as a blanketing effect depends on complicated factors.

Yes, H2O makes it too messy both physically and mathematically to understand just how much the surface temperature is controlled by the two gases. But I'm thinking more in terms of how the 400 W/m^2 earth radiation is countered by back radiation. Convection, evaporation, etc is much smaller in comparison to the IR radiation.

The main heat loss for CO2 is at the top of the atmosphere where it becomes thin enough so that the logarithmic saturation relation does not completely block it. The TOA is cold and the Stefan Boltzman law does not allow much radiation to escape because of CO2 absorption. Heat loss due to H2O becomes important at a lower warmer region where water vapor begins to vanish.

My point is that CO2 has a larger effect at higher colder altitudes than H2O and should not be dismissed as a trace GHG as is done by a lot of strident voices here. All GHG's are trace and have a complex but significant interplay.

So do you believe CO2 is a well mixed gas?

 

[IanC]

that's more or less in line with the estimates that CO2 is 10-25% of the greenhouse effect.

my quibble is that H2O is not a well mixed gas and resides at lower levels, especially near the surface/atmosphere boundary. it also does not take into account the convection and latent heat aspects of the water cycle.

It's more like CO2 is 25% of the GHG's by weight, but the actual percentage of CO2 as a blanketing effect depends on complicated factors.

Yes, H2O makes it too messy both physically and mathematically to understand just how much the surface temperature is controlled by the two gases. But I'm thinking more in terms of how the 400 W/m^2 earth radiation is countered by back radiation. Convection, evaporation, etc is much smaller in comparison to the IR radiation.

The main heat loss for CO2 is at the top of the atmosphere where it becomes thin enough so that the logarithmic saturation relation does not completely block it. The TOA is cold and the Stefan Boltzman law does not allow much radiation to escape because of CO2 absorption. Heat loss due to H2O becomes important at a lower warmer region where water vapor begins to vanish.

My point is that CO2 has a larger effect at higher colder altitudes than H2O and should not be dismissed as a trace GHG as is done by a lot of strident voices here. All GHG's are trace and have a complex but significant interplay.

Convection/latent heat already takes the lion's share of surface energy to the cloudtop. 100W by the water cycle, 40W through the transparent atmospheric window not affected by GHG, 25W by other radiation.

We are talking about increased CO2 having some affect on the CO2 portion of 25W moving from the surface boundary to the cloud boundary. A small and already filled niche.

 

[Wuwei]

Convection/latent heat already takes the lion's share of surface energy to the cloudtop. 100W by the water cycle, 40W through the transparent atmospheric window not affected by GHG, 25W by other radiation.

Yes, I agree there is a surface loss to the cloud boundary.

We are talking about increased CO2 having some affect on the CO2 portion of 25W moving from the surface boundary to the cloud boundary. A small and already filled niche.

I was talking more about the radiation moving from above the cloud boundary to space. That is the region of the final heat loss and where CO2 has the larger effect because that is where it becomes the major trace GHG. Am I wrong?