Water Vapor Can "Trap", Heat -- CO2 Cannot

Those who talk about carbon dioxide affecting temperature ignore the fact that water's potential to affect air temperature is well established in science. Water vapor is the only atmospheric gas that can hold or "trap" heat. 

 Those who spend much time in greenhouses know that they are often very humid places because water evaporates from plants and from surfaces that get wet when the plants are watered. Meteorologists typically refer to the water vapor content of the air as relative humidity which is how close the air is to holding as much water vapor as it can hold at its current temperature.

Unfortunately many climatologists waste so much time on the nonexistent impact of radiation on air temperature that they don't provide sufficient emphasis to the significant impact of water vapor on air temperature. Those who want to blame climate changes on humans ignore the fact that the combustion of hydrogen containing fossil fuels increases the amount of water vapor in the air. Other human actitivies such as watering yards, washing cars and operating public fountains also add water to the atmosphere.

Water has some special thermal characteristics that can significantly affect atmospheric temperatures. Water heats and cools significantly slower than other components of the atmosphere. Water vapor needs to absorb over four times more heat energy than the same mass of other air molecules to raise its temperature the same amount. When it cools it releases four times more heat than other gases.

Thus as the water vapor content of the air increases the atmosphere will heat and cool slower than when the air is drier. This process tends to keep the temperature from rising as high during the day or cooling as much at night, although the increase in the overnight low may lead to an increase in the daytime temperature because the air doesn't have to heat as much to reach a higher temperature. In equatorial areas deserts have higher maximum temperatures and lower minimum temperatures than jungle areas where the humidity is higher.

Water vapor possesses what physicists have traditionally called "latent" heat. Latent heat refers to the heat energy water molecules must absorb to go from a solid to a liquid (heat of fusion 80 calories/gram) or a liquid to a gas(heat of vaporization 540 calories/gram). This energy isn't reflected in the temperature of the water vapor. However, when water vapor condenses back to a liquid, or freezes, the release of this latent heat can raise the temperature of the air. A gram of water vapor releases enough heat energy when it condenses to raise the temperature of 2 kg of air by 1 C.  

At a dew point of approximately 65 F water vapor in the atmosphere holds as much heat energy as the rest of the atmosphere.   This condition explains why dew points above 65 F are associated with the strongest thunderstorms.

Physicists define a "calorie" as the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of a gram of water 1 C. 27 C (82 F) is the same temperature as 300 Kelvin [the absolute temperature scale]. At 300 K water vapor has 300 calories of heat from its temperature and 620 calories of latent heat.

The dew point is the temperature at which water vapor will condense on objects or aerosals. The dew point normally is the lowest temperature the air will fall to. As the water vapor content of the air increases the dew point rises and the air doesn't get as cool at night.

The situation is more complex than I am presenting it in this post. I . The important facts to consider are that increases in humidity can raise the low, or minimum temperature, and limit the high, or maximum temperature, each day.  In areas where significant snowfall  occurs,  the increase in low  temperature can increase the melting of snow and ice by keeping the temperature  above freezing for longer periods of time.

I recently came across a 10 year old study done by David R. Easterling of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., indicating that humidity had increased and, as should have been expected, the minimum temperature had been increasing and the difference between the minimum and maximum daily temperatures, diurnal temperature range (DTR), had been declining.

The potential impact of changes in atmospheric water vapor are real science. Water vapor holds a substantial amount of heat energy. The only potential impact climatologists can find for carbon dioxide is the highly questionable claim about absorbing and re-radiating low energy IR. But then, if would be difficult for the politicians behind the global warming scare to make a case for getting rid of water.

Is Anyone Paying Professors to Lie?

As I discuss below, in the nineties the crooked Enron corporation paid purported scientists and environmental groups to claim that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would cause higher temperatures.   In the previous post I mentioned that some professors may be so incompetent they actually believe the greenhouse gas myth.  Those who have previously accepted money for supporting the myth may be reluctant to admit that they  lied.   Younger professors may fear punishment by corrupt department heads if they don't support the myth.

Corrupt federal bureaucrats seem to have taken over Enron's role in supporting the global warming scam.   Federal bureaucrats bribe professors by paying for projects that claim global  warming is  a threat.

[Most of this was previously posted.  Some of the links may no longer work.].

In the nineties, Enron executives came up with a get rich scheme.   Enron owed part of its early success to  sulphur dioxide emissions trading.       Basically emissions trading was established as a way for some companies to profit from pollution while allowing other companies to continue to produce the chemicals that can cause acid rain.


The Enron Corporation "the Crooked E" , the corrupt firm whose failure should have disproved the myth "too big to fail", but didn't?  At the time it was the seventh largest corporation.  It's bankruptcy was the largest in history  until Lehman Brothers failed.  Incidentally, Lehman Brothers was also involved  in carbon trading.
 
Lawrence Solomon, executive director of  Energy Probe and Urban Renaissance Institute, has reported that Enron played a major role in pushing  the global warming scam, including establishing the Kyoto Protocals.

Enron had already profited from trading sulfur dioxide credits and saw the  potential for even greater profits from trading what would become known as "carbon credits".

The article is the first in a series of articles about those who seek to profit from what Weather  Channel founder John Coleman calls "the greatest scam in history." 

Solomon states,  " The climate-change industry — the scientists, lawyers, consultants, lobbyists and, most importantly, the multinationals that work behind the scenes to cash in on the riches at stake — has emerged as the world’s largest industry. Virtually every resident in the developed world feels the bite of this industry..."  which increases the costs of various goods and services.

Enron was an early player  beginning early in the  administration of Bill Clinton to push for a carbon dioxide trading system.   Enron also sought support from environmental groups.
"Between 1994 and 1996, the Enron Foundation donated $1-million to the Nature Conservancy and its Climate Change Project, a leading force for global warming reform, while [Chairman Kenneth] Lay and other individuals associated with Enron donated $1.5-million to environmental groups seeking international controls on carbon dioxide."

According to Solomon, "Political contributions and Enron-funded analyses flowed freely, all geared to demonstrating a looming global catastrophe if carbon dioxide emissions weren’t curbed. An Enron-funded study that dismissed the notion that calamity could come of global warming, meanwhile, was quietly buried."

 Enron advised  the Clinton administration what to do at the Kyoto Japan Conference in 1997. 

To improve its chances for success Enron hired former Environmental Protection Agency regulator John Palmisano to become the company's lead lobbyist as senior director for Environmental Policy and Compliance.  Palismano wrote a memo describing the historic corporate achievement that was Kyoto.

“If implemented this agreement will do more to promote Enron’s business than will almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring of the energy and natural-gas industries in Europe and the United States,” Polisano began. “The potential to add incremental gas sales, and additional demand for renewable technology is enormous.”

The memo, entitled “Implications of the Climate Change Agreement in Kyoto & What Transpired,” summarized the achievements that Enron had accomplished. “I do not think it is possible to overestimate the importance of this year in shaping every aspect of this agreement,” he wrote.  He cited  three issues of specific importance to Enron in the climate-change debate:  the rules governing emissions trading, the rules governing transfers of emission reduction rights between countries, and the rules governing a gargantuan clean energy fund.

Polisano’s memo expressed satisfaction bordering on amazement at Enron’s successes. The rules governing transfers of emission rights “is exactly what I have been lobbying for and it seems like we won. The clean development fund will be a mechanism for funding renewable projects. Again we won .... The endorsement of emissions trading was another victory for us.”

“Enron now has excellent credentials with many ‘green’ interests including Greenpeace, WWF [World Wildlife Fund], NRDC [Natural Resources Defense Council], German Watch, the U.S. Climate Action Network, the European Climate Action Network, Ozone Action, WRI [World Resources Institute] and Worldwatch. This position should be increasingly cultivated and capitalized on (monetized),” Polisano explained.

Those who believe in Global Warming like to claim that they are opposed by corporate interests in the form of the energy companies.  They neglect to mention that the battle isn't against corporations, it is between different groups of corporations.  The energy companies are attempting to continue providing energy to consumers.  Companies on the other side are merely attempting to create a financial opportunity for themselves as financial parasites who provide nothing to anyone and get rich in return.

Democrats often criticize Republicans for being too close to business.  Democrats are just as close to business. They simply favor different businesses. 

As  William O'Keefe, chief executive officer of the Marshall Institute, puts it:  "The American people have had enough of convoluted, indecipherable financial schemes and the opportunists who exploit them. The public is understandably angry about Wall Street's exploitation of Main Street, and yet our political leaders are setting the stage for an

College Students Shouldn't Borrow Money to Pay Global Warming Liars

College is  too expensive for students  to waste money paying incompetent professors who teach the long discredited belief that carbon dioxide has a magical power to affect the temperature of the  air.   I recognize that some of  the professors who push Enron's global warming scam are crooked rather than incompetent.   The science version of prostitutes will say science is  whatever their employers want it to be.

The claim that slight changes in the amount of atmospheric CO2 could affect air temperature is based on a primitive early 19th Century belief  that infrared radiation was  "heat" and the atmosphere was heated by trapping it..   Physicists at the time had only a limited understanding of radiation,  heat or atoms. For example,  Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier claimed in what is called the "greenhouse gas theory" that the earth was heated in part by the IR received from distant stars. Physicists would not learn until late in the century that heat is the kinetic energy of atoms and atoms are not the smallest particles of matter.  

Radiation doesn't heat the gas molecules in the atmosphere, but may heat dust and soot particles in the atmosphere.    If IR heated the atmosphere then the high energy IR from the sun would heat the atmosphere much more than the low energy IR  emitted by the ground.   Physicist R. W Wood disproved Fourier's theory in 1909.  He used small greenhouses that were identical except that one reflected IR and the other was transparent to IR. There was no significant temperature difference.   In the initial run of the experiment the greenhouse that was transparent to IR heated faster than the one that reflected IR because the reflective greenhouse reflected the high energy solar IR back into space.  If CO2 reflects IR then increasing the amount of atmospheric CO2 should result in more solar IR being reflected back into space and thus reduced solar heating. 

Warmers have yet to provide any proof that the process they talk about exists.   Their pathetic attempt to prove their theory involves creating a mathematically worthless number they call "the global average temperature". 

The so-called global average temperature  "is thermodynamically as well as mathematically an impossibility, says Bjarne Andresen, a professor at The Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, who has analyzed this topic in collaboration with professors Christopher Essex from University of Western Ontario and Ross McKitrick from University of Guelph, Canada." 

"It is impossible to talk about a single temperature for something as complicated as the climate of Earth", Bjarne Andresen says,  an expert of thermodynamics. "A temperature can be defined only for a homogeneous system. Furthermore, the climate is not governed by a single temperature. Rather, differences of temperatures drive the processes and create the storms, sea currents, thunder, etc. which make up the climate".

"While it is possible to treat temperature statistically locally, it is meaningless to talk about a a global temperature for Earth. The Globe consists of a huge number of components which one cannot just add up and average."

Even if "the global average temperature" had mathematical value, an increase couldn't prove an increase in atmospheric CO2 was responsible.   Continued increases in the heat generated by human activity should be causing an increase in air temperature. The global  warming alarmists don't claim that an increase in the teracalories of heat humans collectively introduce into the air  each day can cause dangerous global warming.  .  Instead they claim that unverified process that involves a gas that comprises only 0.04% of the atmosphere is the threat.   These people shouldn't be teaching college.    They should be reading fairy tales in a day care center. 

A normal person entering a room  that is too hot and has a space heater operating at the highest setting and  a small lit birthday candle would turn off  the space heater.  The person would treat the candle as a decorative  feature that didn't add any significant amount of heat.    The alarmist would  blow out the CO2 producng candle and ignore the heater.