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whimsy
Lv 6
whimsy asked in Politics & GovernmentPolitics · 1 decade ago

How can one add Greenhouse gases to the Atmosphere and not have a Thermodynamic response?

I ask this here, because Politics seems to have an unusually high population of self-annointed Climatologists, Physicists and computational modelers...

Now, for those who seem to "know" that climate change is either a) not occurring,and/or b) not affected by human activities, please answer the following:

1) What are the two most important greenhouse gases aside from CO2? Why do we focus on CO2?

2) Explain the role of the Ocean system to climate. I keep hearing anecdotal references to air temperature in various regions as "evidence" dispelling climate change, but please discuss a) the oceanic role with climate and b) sea surface temperature trends

3) Explain what are the human-sources and human sinks of carbon along with the natural sources and natural sinks of carbon. Please pay particular attention to the fate of carbon after sequestration in these sinks.

4) Discuss the paradox of water vapor as both a positive and negative feedback with radiative forcing and the relationship of water vapor to temperature...

That should keep you kids busy for awhile. Please no plagiarism - I expect you to actually learn something from this exercise

Update:

WAter vapor IS affected by humans. The absolute volume of water (v) is temperature dependent, thus, warmer temps store more water vapor, therefore, it FOLLOWS temperature and reinforces the greenhouse effects.

however, because it is temperature dependent and because it has a very short residence time, it is a major concern, but that we don't directly control (but indirectly, very much so and it's effect are large). Now compare to the atmospheric residence time of CO2, which is on the order of 100,000s of years....

Update 2:

The fact of the matter is, the sum total of all CO2 out-gassed by active volcanoes amounts to about 1/150th of anthropogenic emissions.

http://www.grist.org/article/volcanoes-emit-more-c...

Update 3:

I have an excellent uderstanding of a potential cause of the CO2 lag with past warming events. A simple paradigm is that CO2 can lead to warming, however, warming also reases other reduced (C4-) carbon stores that become oxidized into CO2 (C4+)

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  • 1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    Hehe, "self-annointed Climatologists, Physicists and computational modelers...". I love this phrase because it's so true. Sorry, I can't answer your question because I haven't self-annointed myself in any scientific fields. I'll assume I'm killing the enviornment and do what I can to cut back. If it turns out I wasn't killing the enviornment, the worst that happened is that I bettered myself and likely saved money through "green" alternatives. If I was killing the enviornment, I helped delay the ultimate destruction.

  • 1 decade ago

    Why not ask the Climatologists.

    Water Vapor is widely regarded as the most common greenhouse gas. Climatologists have said the humans have no effect on water vapor level in the atmosphere.

    This seems to be in contradiction with the idea that humans CAN affect CO2 levels, since EVERY device that burns fuel and produces CO2 also produces water vapor, and other devices like hydrogen engines produce ONLY water vapor. So if humans cannot affect water vapor levels in the atmosphere, then why should we believe we can change CO2 levels?

    There is no debating that your car adds water vapor to the atmosphere when it runs. But the climatologists have decided that doing that causes NO thermodynamic response. So the same theory can easily be applied to the 2nd most abundant greenhouse gas, CO2

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    1. Nitrous Oxide and Helium

    2. The ocean is like a big toilet bowl. When a toilet flushes it goes clockwise... and everything is good. the poop disappears, no fuss no muss. But should a toilets rotational vortex ever be reversed, trouble may be brewing and the same is for the Ocean. have you ever SEEN a toilet that flushes backwards? No because if you did it would signal the end of the world. The same could be said for reversing the flow of the Ocean.

    3. I don't know nuthin about human sinks and carbonation and its affect on the climate other than one is to wash your hands in and the other makes bubbles. But to advance the topic of bubbles, if the Oceans were to become super carbonated the result would be a catastrophic build up of pressure and its more likely our world would explode rather than have any kind of climate change.

    4. water vapor and temperature, you go into a steam bath and its hot and steamy. Its also a petrie dish of disease and viruses. So in reality Humanity would be wiped out by disease and sickness long before a supercell storm grew large enough to threaten our existence.

    Its all about the pixie dust.

  • 1 decade ago

    H2O! Wait, water vapor? That can't be right! Gore told me we're the cause of all the ills in the universe, WATER VAPOR? it just doesn't make sense it's so...I don't know NATURAL and not man made. Crap I feel so lied to.

    In reality, water vapor is a much larger factor than the CO2. The warmer it gets, the more evaporation we get. This leads to more clouds. Clouds block/reflect sunlight and the temp goes down. Lower temp = less evaporation and fewer clouds. the system regulates itself.

    Source(s): Took Climatology in College.
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  • Anonymous
    5 years ago

    Rice cultivation. Growing rice involves making something not unlike an artificial swamp. Swamps, even artificial ones, generate methane. Natural gas leaks. Natural gas is methane. If we harvest and/or generate it, then some of it leaks, we are releasing a greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. Plowing. Some portion of plant biomass is underground, and if it stays there it will decay slowly if at all. But if you dig it up, for example by plowing, more of it will decay into CO2. Fertilizer. Nitrogen fertilizers lead, indirectly, to atmospheric N2O, a potent greenhouse gas. Basically, they increase the fixed nitrogen content of the ecosystem, and some fraction of fixed nitrogen will end up as N2O. (edit: Jim has a better explanation of this one)

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    Ice core testing has PROVED that CO2 levels in the atmosphere rise 800 years AFTER "warming".

    To accept that CO2 in the atmosphere CAUSES warming is simply silly. IF that were true, warming would be a PERPETUATING CYCLE..... more heat = more CO2... more CO2 = more heat... and the cycle would never break.

    BUT... try to educated a Liberal. If it doesn't come from a Communist college professor who couldn't hack it "in the real world"... then they can't hear you.

  • 1 decade ago

    Go to class

    It is no wonder that in light of the recent hacked emails detailing data tampering that we would see the asker choose an answer that perfectly aligns itself with his question while disregarding any and all educated answers to the contrary.

    Keep digging that hole.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    One Volcanoe eruption does more than man has ever done in his existence on this planet

  • 1 decade ago

    I have a beard, your point is irrelevant.

  • 1 decade ago

    wow ... I'm actually embarrassed on your behalf ....

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