I read an article that said the greenhouse effect and global warming is due to water vapor?

If only everything were so simple that we didn't need scientists at all to research these subjects and could decide everything from trivial logic. Unfortunately, reality is a little more complicated.

•       H₂O is not a well-mixed gas in the atmosphere. It's mostly in the lower troposphere and even then distributed geographically with large differences around the globe. CO₂ on the other hand is reasonably well-mixed and occurs everywhere and at every altitude.

•       H₂O stays in the atmosphere for a very short time -- I think the "average" value is about 8 days or so for a "residence time." In any case, on the order of a week, roughly speaking.  It rains. It snows. Etc. (And water evaporates, too.) It's all called the hydrologic cycle. CO₂ on the other hand has a number of different mechanisms for removal, but it's residence time has at least three pronounced and different residence times. The longest one involves making carbonate rocks and is very long. CO₂ released by human activities combines with CO₂ released and absorbed by plants and the oceans (and eventually by rocks.) But it stays in the atmosphere for a long time -- on the order of thousands of years by comparison with H₂O. Observations are pretty clear that despite plants and despite oceans and despite all other mechanisms that may reduce CO₂, CO₂ is rising continually and on an increasing rate, as well.

•        The level of gaseous H₂O, in the parts of the atmosphere it is found at all, is limited. Beyond that limit and in conjunction with particulates, it simply precipitates out. On the other hand, there is no limit to gaseous CO₂ in the atmosphere. CO₂ is not forced to precipitate out spontaneously, like H₂O can be.

Because of the very wide difference in residence times between H₂O and CO₂, H₂O is considered to be a function of temperature, not a driver of temperature. But higher average temperatures do yield a higher specific humidity which does add to global warming. But there are negative feedbacks which come in quickly to moderate this effect (like precipitation.)

Read the first link below and pay particular attention to the one subtitled "Role of water vapor."

There is an interesting graphic that was produced to show the difference between the total amount of water on the Earth and the total amount of atmosphere on the Earth. See 2nd link below.

Water vapor is indeed a greenhouse gas, and more water vapor in the atmosphere causes the atmosphere retain more heat. But what is causing water vapor to increase in the atmosphere?

Water vapor increases due to warmth. Warming causes more evaporation, more water in the atmosphere. It is a feedback to whatever causes the initial warming. While water vapor is a stronger greenhouse gas than CO2 it only stays in the atmosphere for a few days whereas CO2 stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. If the atmsophere were to cool a little, the amount of water vapor will decrease in just a few days and amplify the cooling. Likely, warming from CO2 causes more water vapor which amplifies the warming.

The water vapor feedback increase the effect of CO2 by at least 2x and as much as 4x when the interaction with other feedbacks is considered.

If global warming is a hoax, you should be very very alarmed because it means that all of the greatest scientists in the world are in a big conspiracy against all of the people of the world. It means there is no science that we can trust because all of academia and all the publishers of science journals are in on the conspiracy. It means that all technological development is crashing to a stop because the whole scientific method is a fake.

The link below is to a paper that discusses the climate feedbacks to CO2 from the Journal of the American Meteorological Society.

Don't put too much store on the consensus. They don't have a very good track record. The CO2 myth is used because there is nothing else that could do it. How unscientific is that. The problem with scientists is they don't like admitting that they don't know. It was the consensus that said the sun goes round the earth and deniers should be burnt at the stake.

Nice one Sagey, why do YA hide you? At least we know where to find some truth on the forum.

Regarding the idea that putting water vapor in the atmosphere caused global warming, what do you think put the water vapor in the atmosphere. When Earth warms, water evaporates, putting water vapor in the atmosphere. When Earth cools, water vapor condenses. If Earth had no carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it's temperature would be below freezing and the water vapor would be in the form of ice.

So, the truth is that it is carbon dioxide which causes warming and water vapor is a feedback. Water vapor does do most of the work, like a bulldozer, but carbon dioxide is like the operator of the bulldozer. We need both, but carbon dioxide is the cause and water vapor is a feedback.

<The article said manmade global warming is a hoax>

And the article is wrong.

The article is right but it only tells you the part of the story it wants you to hear. Water vapor and clouds are responsible for about 75% of the greenhouse effect and carbon dioxide about 25%.The amount of water the air can hold is limited by the humidity - when humidity gets to hundred percent precipitation forms so water cannot itself be the cause of the rising temperature. The the concentration of the CO2 has gone up about 40% causing the temperature of the earth to rise and allowing the air to hold about 7% more water, which further amplifies the effect of CO2.

The problem is simple.

If water vapour is increasing then there has to be a reason for that. One reason would be increasing temperatures, which shifts the reason. What is causing the temperature increase?

In forty years, we have only one answer to those issues. Humans are pumping CO2 into the atmosphere. CO2 is a greenhouse gas that stops heat escaping from our planet. That heat warms the atmosphere which causes an increase in water vapour.

No one has been able to produce an alternative. No one has managed to explain a 'natural' cause for the warming that then causes this CO2 and water vapour increase. And remember, suggestions aren't enough in science. You must make the suggestion, show that it exists on the basis of data you have collected, use that data to develop a physical model of the phenomenon, and use that physical model to show that it predicts the temperature, CO2, and/or water vapour increases that have been observed.

This is the difference between real science and the denialist 'science'. Denialists have been suggesting things for years, from the sun to orbital shifts to cosmic rays. And yet there isn't yet a mathematical model of those phenomena that predicts the data we've obtained. They try to hide this 'inconvienient truth' by trying to attack the AGW theory rather than actually provide an alternative.

In response to Sagebrush: We already have cities in which pollution levels are so high that people are dying, particularly in India and China. A massive effort in China was made to clean up smog before they held the Olympic Games. An estimated 500,000 Americans die each year from illnesses caused by airborne pollution in cities. So, actually, the scientists in 1970 were right on that issue.

good for you to question, that is what real skeptics do.

water vapor is dependent on temperature, it is a feedback to warming caused by CO2

The problem is simple, as Elizabeth says. It would be unreasonable to tax water, since everyone is familiar with water. But you can tax CO2 which not many people are familiar with. So the scam artists went with CO2 as the bad guy.

Life magazine of January 3, 1970, stated: “Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support . . . predictions” such as: “In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution,” and “increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will affect earth’s temperature, leading to mass flooding or a new ice age.”

This shows that back in 1970 some of these same con artists were pushing an imminent Ice Age upon us with the culprit being CO2.

And as to your belief in the consensus crap read this.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/18/about-that-o...

If you can believe that 75 highly selected 'scientists' comprise the world's consensus than you are too gullible to believe.

Positive (reinforcing) feedback, not independent cause.