Why can't all the "brilliant" global warming genii answer these (what should be simple) 2 questions
What PERCENT of greenhouse gas is caused by POLLUTION from humans.
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if you don't think there is a difference in the 2 questions, I will explain: Scientists lump things like methane gases emitted by livestock, and population increases in general, together as "caused by humans".
Answer:
According to the IPCC, approximately 30% of atmospheric CO2 is anthropogenic. There is no distinction between greenhouse gases produced from combustion of fossil fuels and those produced from livestock raised for human consumption. Both are considered man made sources.
CO2 is the most important thing. And has the best data for your answer.
% total from humans - roughly about 4-5%.
% from pollution - roughly about 3%. And that is what's causing global warming. EDIT - Here's exactly why this is true.
There are a great many natural sources and sinks for CO2. There is a natural "carbon cycle" that recycles natural CO2. But it's a delicate balance and we're messing it up.
Look at this graph.
http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/graphics_gall...
The little squiggles are nature doing its' thing. CO2 falls a bit during summer when plants are active, and rises during the winter. The huge increase is us, burning fossil fuels. The scientists can actually show that the increased CO2 in the air comes from burning fossil fuels by using "isotopic ratios" to identify that CO2. The natural carbon cycle buried carbon in fossil fuels over a very long time, little bit by little bit. We dig them up and burn them, real fast. That's a problem.
Man is upsetting the balance of nature. We need to fix that. EDIT - Some greenhouse effect is natural and necessary. But the CO2 from pollution is what's causing too much greenhouse effect, which is known as "global warming". Remove the CO2 from pollution, the natural balance is restored, and "global warming" goes away.
More here in the article "Climate myths: Human CO2 emissions are too tiny to matter"
http://environment.newscientist.com/chan...
For yupchagee -
Meehl, G.A., W.M. Washington, C.A. Ammann, J.M. Arblaster, T.M.L. Wigleym and C. Tebaldi (2004). "Combinations of Natural and Anthropogenic Forcings in Twentieth-Century Climate". Journal of Climate 17: 3721-3727
What is really important is whether or not we can stop or prevent Global Warming.
Most scientists estimate that we need to cut carbon dioxide emissions world wide to less than one tenth of what those emissions are today. We would have to do this world wide.
A cutback in carbon dioxide emissions that drastic would shut down our modern economy world wide.
Essentially cutbacks that large are not realistic.
We cannot cut carbon dioxide emissions enough to stop or prevent Global Warming.
Instead we must start planning now how we will rspond to the effects of Global Warming.
The sea levels will rise.
Fortunately we can protect low lying areas that are subject to flooding with dike systems similar to those in Holland.
Hurricanes will become stronger and more frequent. We need to upgrade our disaster preparedness systems and we need to help upgrade the disaster preparedness systems of poor countries.
Droughts will become more frequent. We need to help the affected countries with supplemental water supplies and desalination plants.
We cannot stop Global Warming, but we can mitigate the effects at a reasonable cost and with reasonable effoort if we start now.
The answer(s) are readily available--for anyone who is not to lazy to golook.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/gg04rpt...
You can read it yourself to find thefigures--that way,you might conceivably learn something. Anything's possible.
The vast bulk of CO2 in the air is absorbed by the oceans. 85% of the Earths surface is covered with water. Water absorbs CO2 instantly and converts it to a buffered state. This massive 'sink' has unlimited capacity for CO2
absorption.
Plants are an infinitessimal sink. Plants absorb CO2 instantly also but only when they are growing. That means summer time and in the daylight. So half the time the plants are not growing(winter), and 2/3's of the time in the summer they are not growing(no sunlight). If only 15% of the Earth can grow plants, that leaves 7% for the seasons, less it you discount deserts and mountains, and 1/3 of that for daylight time, ='s about 2% of the time the plants can take up CO2.
On the other hand, Oceans are available 24/7. The colder the water the more CO2 gas it can hold.
The one source of CO2 production that nature can not deal with very rapidly is that which is produced above 30,000'. Namely, jet fuel. The jet engine burns 2000 to 5000 lbs of kerosene/hr. There are thousands of hours of jet traffic every day above 30,000'. Each ton of fuel burned produces 3.6 tons of CO2 and 1.6 tons of water. That means 100's of thousands of tons of CO2 produced by jet engines every day.
The natural cycling of the weather systems will cycle the CO2 down to the oceans, but not as fast as it is being produced up there. The 'rise' in CO2 over the last 50+ years, according to Gore, does correlate with the increased jet traffic over the Earth.
However, if Mars polar ice is melting also, then, the sun is the basic cause of 'global warming'.
I have yet to see anything peer reviewed that shows CO₂ produced by humans is a factor in the earth's climate. Until & unless I see that, I will not be convinced by the chicken little crowd.
I don't know how much CO2 is produced by normal respiration, but I do know that burning one gallon of gasoline releases 19 lbs. of CO2 into the atmo. Multiply that by the thousands of gallons burned by one driver every year and then multiply that by the billions of drivers over the world and there you go...
Do you think that the emmission of CO2 on that scale, coupled with the scale of deforestation in the northern hemishere (70% of land mass in north of the equator) can change the atmospheric composition over a century? I do...
But after 100 years of this, we've only seen 1°C rise in global temps. I don't know what to think, to be honest.
It's not a simple question at all. It depends on whether you're counting molecules, or the effect of molecules. And it makes a big difference.
For example, water vapor is a greenhouse gas, and there is a lot of water vapor in the troposphere. But water isn't a very efficient greenhouse gas: CO2 is a thousand times more efficient at absorbing infrared on a molecule by molecule basis. And nitrous oxide is 300 times more efficient than CO2. And many fluorocarbons are 10,000 or even 20,000 times more efficient than CO2.
That means that if you count molecules only, you get an answer something like 1% of the molecules are anthropogenic. But if you count the effect of those molecules, you get a number that's something like 4%.
And even if you count molecules, the answer is different with every gas. For CO2, the pre-industrial level was 280 ppm, while it is 383 ppm today, so 27% of the CO2 is anthropogenic. For nitrous oxide, it's 14%. For all of the dozens of chlorocarbons and fluorocarbons, it's 100%.
The question about pollution depends entirely on your definition of pollution. If you don't think methane is a pollutant, try breathing it sometime.
I'm a nanoscientist and while this is not my area of expertise I do know a bit about it. For starters many of the facts produced by users here are false, eg. while water does absorb CO2 it also releases it at the exact same rate (chemical equilibrium) and as such provides no sink effect. Data surrounding the enhanced greenhouse effect is so unequivocal that I am not aware of any papers on the effect or specialists in the area that have expressed any doubt as to whether human activity has caused the enhanced greenhouse effect we are seeing now. What I do see is plenty of journalists who dispute whether it is real based on a mis-intepretation of scientific data.
While it is important to learn as much as you can for yourself and take things with a grain of salt I like to keep in mind that GHG specialists have a lot more experience in their area than I do and understand relavent issues and mechanics that I don't even though I'm a scientist myself.
P.S. I should edit the 'many of the facts' to 'some of the facts' which are false, as there are some good points here too.
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