How scientifically can CO2 be separated from water vapor as the main cause of AGW?

Interesting question, to begin to to answer it I will quote a statement by McLaughlin, "if accumulation of greenhouse gasses has any effect on Global Warming, nearly 99.9 % would be attributable to natural causes." Now this is obviously a statement of opinion, but I will continue to explain. I do not know if you are a denier, or a warmist, or if you have simply asked a question in order to stimulate discussion.

Nevertheless, AGW proponents continue to isolate and blame CO2, which comprises 4/10,000 of the atmosphere, for the increase in global temperatures, mainly because it is the only way to link man's activity of burning fossil fuels to the current warming trend. That of course is the only way to justify the government take over of the production of energy by capping CO2, and taxing energy conversion/production. No matter what the IR absorption rate is for each greenhouse gas, the amount of man made CO2 is such a small portion of the total CO2 released, it is an inconsequential amount of forcing agent, and therefore not a significant factor in global warming.

AGW proponents practice bad science, and that is a travesty and an insult to scientists everywhere, no matter how "nobel" the perceived end point may be.

together as image voltaic radiation is thru a techniques the main serious means source for the earth, image voltaic radiation cycles have been ruled out as a substantial clarification for the present international warming simply by fact the theories advertising the assumption are inconsistent with the info. The sunspot cycle does not manifest above the different noise interior the NASA's Earth temperature checklist. examine of complete image voltaic radiance exhibits that it rose ever so fairly from 1880 up until approximately 1960, and then began to say no. however, the Earth's temperature has persevered to upward push so image voltaic radiation transformations could nicely be ruled out as a substantial element. the article below has NASA's temperature checklist and a graph of the image voltaic insolation, besides another sensible graphs related to the scientific info for international warming.

CO2 and CH4 and H2O acts as heat insulation which tend to limit the Earth's

capability, to rid excess heat energy on its Night Side. The Methane seem

to have become a most severe problem.

We also release over 500 metric tons/second of superheated steam into the

atmosphere by the global 24/7 burning of the three main fossil fuels.

If we globally consume over 1471 tons of Oxygen per second, this further

imply that we release roughly 1471*4 = 5884 tons per second of very hot

Nitrogen gas, back into the atmosphere. We have millions of hot engines

of motor cars, Air Liners, Ships, etc. We have many Power Stations and

heated industrial processes. We release the Carbon Dioxide we make as

very hot as well.

We have hundreds of coal deposits on fire. We have peat fires increasing.

There are flare flames at many fossil fuel refineries and others also.

How much metals are we melting ?

We do Heat Pollution.

We do Methane accumulation in the atmosphere, which may cause "planetary

ignition later on, when they open up the North Pole's Methane Reserves.

Interesting is that water vapor absorb infra red radiation energy, whilst O2

absorb ultraviolet radiation Energy.

Personally I think our biggest problem of the most severe kind, is going to

be intensified radiation beaming through (which, unlike convection and

conduction,represent an almost instantaneous energy transfer.)

The present global dimming due to volcanic ash and peat fires, and so

forth, is temporary, and help to set the trap for "Extreme Level Suicide"

in preparation. The "World Pet Combustion Beast", is out of control.

One may ask: Why are we even bothering, if there's nothing that

we can do about the situation.

Our renewable energy projects failed to generate a negative growth rate,

of the incredible Combustion Beast. Even in Africa they are building

multiple coal fired power stations.

I have done tables that made use of chemical units of mass ratios, to

calculate (with reasonable offsets) from the world's fossil fuels mass

consumption history,the global rates of Oxygen consumption,

Carbon Dioxide production, and New Water production, as from 1980 to

2006. I am however not a qualified Scientist, but only a "hobby scientist".

You are welcome to already visit my developing website : www.weciboo.com.

Maybe you will know how to differentiate or integrate to estimate the additional

quantity of previously volume atmospheric mass that become dissolved inside

the rise in sea level and as a consequence of the rise in water pressure right

through the depth of the sea.

The answer is pretty simple, the facts partly obscured by the way you quote an effect figure (95%) for the water vapor and then switch to a volume figure for the CO2 0.4 (actually the figure is 0.38).

But then I'm pretty sure you knew that, as this an old and rather pathetic denier twist of the details. Which is of course why you leave out the detail on how much the natural greenhouse warms the planet (it is ~30c) if we take your figure of the remaining "5%" then CO2 is contributing 1.5c to that effect and CO2 has risen 40% in the last century. Of course say that water vapor cause most of the natural effect means very little as we can't increase average water vapor levels by any marked degree as it simply falls out as precipitation, CO2 on the other hand is not limited in this way and can grow as we add more, just as it actually is. Modest is correct that water vapor is a short lived atmospheric gas but as the process of it's replacement is continuous (through evaporation) there is, in effect, little change in average levels.

Again, not the case with CO2 levels which have moved between ~180-300ppm over the last 450,000 years and taken thousands of years to move withing this range as we have gone from glacial to interglacial, yet we have seen this level rise a further 100ppm (to almost 400ppm) in ~100 years just as we have started to add CO2 to the atmosphere in ever increasing quantities and at it's current rat of rise it will be closer to 600ppm by the end of this century.

It's because water vapor has a very short residence time in the atmosphere (mere days). In other words, the atmosphere's ability to hold water is determined by temperature. Water vapor is very rapidly precipitated out of the atmosphere, so while as a whole it may account for the largest component of the greenhouse effect, it cannot act as a forcing mechanism. It is a positive feedback mechanism that increases as atmospheric temperatures do because the atmosphere can hold more water vapor the warmer it is.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005...

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/JCLI37...

CO2, on the other hand, has a much longer residence time. Any given molecule has a residence time of about 3-4 years, but the amount of time that it takes for an extra amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to be dissolved out into the oceans is on the order of several hundreds of years.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-residence-time...

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/e...

Edit:

That doesn't really change much in my argument at all. Yes the molecules will be replaced, and this is a dynamic equilibrium. Due to the fact that they precipitate so quickly though, you cannot expect any sort of measurable forcing increase from simply adding water vapor to the atmosphere. If you cannot change the water vapor amount, you cannot cause a forcing. If temperatures rise by some other mechanism, then water vapor will increase and you get a larger greenhouse effect that way. But that's not a forcing, that's a feedback.

To address your second question, perhaps. I think global combustion of fossil fuels would also be a major contributor (much more so than irrigation methinks, but I have no numbers). Likely not comparable to evaporation from oceans and other water bodies, but still. However, again, that's precipitated out. I think a fair conclusion would be that you might cause an increase in precipitation on average, but not temperatures.

Edit: No, I think you are correct. It's all about concentration. However, the short residence time governs the rate at which the concentration can change, assuming constant variables (like temperature and pressure). It would take an obscenely large and rapid increase in evaporation of water to cause a temperature increase, an increase that we nor nature is capable of.

In that case, I think we would likely have more to worry about than simple warming.

It can't. That was the first thing that jumped out at me when I first went over the IPCC reports, at a time when I actually thought there was something to AGW. You are more astute than most, so kudos to you for that. Nearly all the water vapor in our atmosphere is natural (as in not from humans or our technology), so that makes this "science" even more suspect. Additionally, if you take into account that there hasn't been any significant amount of warming since the mid '90s, you have to ask: If we've been warming our climate with our CO2 emissions, and we haven't cut down at all on those emissions (increased, actually), why has the warming stopped?

Let me try to give you an explanation. First, lets assume that earth is a closed system and energy can be neither added nor lost. Gas in this environment would behave in a manner defined by the Ideal Gas Law (pV=nrT). This means that pressure(p) times volume(V) is equal to the amount of gas in the system(n) times the temperature(T) times the universal gas constant(r). In order to increase the temperature of the system, pressure must go up and/or volume must go up and/or the amount of gas in the system must go down.

Now assume that there is more than one type of gas in the system. The gases will continue to behave in the same manner, but each will do so according to the Partial Pressure of the gas. The partial pressure of any individual gas is determined by the fraction of the number of moles of that specific gas divided by the total number of moles of gas. The sum of the partial pressures is the total pressure. This means that if you have a container half full of a solution of, say, liquid oxygen and liquid nitrogen, the partial pressures of each gas in the area of the container above the liquid depends on the ratio of the gases, but the total pressure remains the same. If the system is closed, then it will reach an equilibrium of a specific temperature, volume, pressure, and total moles of gas in the area above the liquid.

Earth, however, is not a completely closed system. The sun provides and energy input, and energy can be lost to space. However, all of these have been constant for many thousands of years. Since energy input and loss has been constant, the system is in an equilibrium of water being evaporated and condensed.

The water cycle is entirely chemical. Evaporation and precipitation of water in our atmosphere is entirely a function of water's chemical properties. The same is not true of the Earth's carbon cycle. The carbon cycle is primarily biological. Organisms consume CO2 and trap is as a solid, primarily as calcium carbonate in shells (carbon captured in sugars is readily released). The calcium carbonate is gradually compressed to make limestone, and eventually marble. The carbon then remains trapped for quite a while until it is oxidized and released back into the atmosphere.

Since the carbon cycle is biological, carbon vaporizing into the atmosphere does not require the condensing of carbon like the water cycle does. As a result, carbon dioxide levels increase, while water vapor levels remain the same. Since water was already at an equilibrium in our atmosphere, it can be ruled out for climate change.

You may be misinterpreting the meaning of what the US Department of Energy is saying. Water vapor contains 95% of the energy in the atmosphere because of its huge heat capacity and great presence in the atmosphere. But because, as I said before, the water cycle is driven entirely by chemical processes, it is already at an equilibrium in the atmosphere.

95%? .04%? No. Water vapour makes up between 25% and roughly 90% of the total greenhouse effect while CO2 makes up between 10% and 25%. The total concentration of CO2 related to all atmospheric gases, of which less than 1% are greenhouse gases, is 0.039%. Water vapour can not be responsible for an increase in warming because concentration is dependent on temperature.

We are not experiencing %95 warming.

It can't.

It's the sun. We're puny by comparison.