Today the Financial Times website had another one of the global warming penny dreadfuls the media has been so fond of lately:

Level of climate change gases hits record high

The atmosphere’s level of greenhouse gases associated with climate change is hitting record highs, two prominent scientific organisations said yesterday.

A bulletin on greenhouse gas levels by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said there were 377 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in 2004, up from around 280ppm before the industrial revolution.

One of the highest year-on-year rises ever in the level of carbon dioxide was recorded at 1.8ppm.

But the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, using a slightly different methodology, said last year’s rise was even greater at 2.6ppm, and overall carbon dioxide levels were at 381ppm.

Carbon dioxide - produced by burning fossil fuels - is the most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, and is the gas that most concerns climate scientists, because of its warming effect on the earth.

But levels of methane and nitrous oxide, both of which have a much greater effect on the climate but are present in the air in much smaller quantities, have also risen.

Nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas, the concentration of which has been rising by about 0.8 parts per billion per year since 1988.

At least a third of the amount of the gas in the atmosphere is the resultof human activities such as fuel combustion, biomass burning, fertiliser use and some industrial processes.

[Emphasis mine.]

 

What’s wrong with this statement:

Carbon dioxide - produced by burning fossil fuels - is the most abundant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere

 

If you said it’s completely false, you win! According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas. Meteorologist Jeff Haby compares the atmospheric quantities of water vapor and CO2:

By quantity, there is much more water vapor than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Water vapor varies from a trace in extremely cold and dry air to about 4% in extremely warm and humid air. The average amount of water vapor in the atmosphere averaged for all locations is between 2 and 3%. Carbon dioxide levels are near 0.04%. That means there is more than 60 times as much water vapor in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide in average conditions.

 

Ignoring the impact of water vapor, the most important part of the greenhouse effect, is yet another way global warming zealots distort the climate change issue. How do they justify leaving water vapor out of the equation? Here’s what Michael Mann (co-creator of the “hockey stick” graph that’s driving so much of the climate change debate) had to say about it in 2003:

“It is extremely misleading, however, when scientists cite the role of water vapor as a greenhouse gas,” Mann explained. “The concentration of water vapor in the atmosphere can not be controlled by us directly. It is fixed by the surface temperature of the Earth.”

It is the trace gases - methane, C02, nitrous oxides, and chlorofluorocarbons - that “we can actually control,” Mann explained.

Do you sense an agenda in those words? What does Mankind’s inability to control the presence of water vapor in the atmosphere have to do with acknowledging that water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas?

If you ignore Mann’s denial that water vapor is a greenhouse gas, Mankind has an imperceptible (0.28%) effect on the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. If you agree with Mann and choose to ignore water vapor – even though it causes 36-70% of the greenhouse effect – well then, humanity’s impact increases to about 6%.

Six percent, while not a huge amount, is a lot more than 0.28% and will guarantee plenty of headlines in the mainstream media.

To put the psychological impact of 6% versus 0.28% in perspective, let’s say you’re running in the rain while carrying $100 dollars in your hands (100 pennies and 99 one-dollar bills). In your hurry to escape the drenching storm, you drop 6 dollars. Would you stop and pick them up? Now, what would you do if you dropped 28 cents? If it were me, I’d stop for the cash but not waste time on the small change.

Frodo Baggins and the Empire State Building

The graphic below is another way to look at Man’s impact on greenhouse gases as compared to Nature’s contribution, assuming we include water vapor as a greenhouse gas:

 

The Empire State Building, at 1,272 feet tall, represents the amount of greenhouse gases that Nature contributes as follows [Source: Geocraft.com, Water Vapor Rules the Greenhouse System.]:

• Water vapor: 94.999%
• Carbon dioxide (CO2): 3.502%
• Methane (CH4): 0.294%
• Nitrous Oxide (N2O): 0.903%
• Misc. gases ( CFC’s, etc.): 0.025%

Total: 99.72%

Frodo Baggins, just 3 feet 6 inches in height, represents our contribution as follows:

• Water vapor: 0.001%
• Carbon dioxide (CO2): 0.117%
• Methane (CH4): 0.066%
• Nitrous Oxide (N2O): 0.047%
• Misc. gases ( CFC’s, etc.): 0.047%

Total: 0.28%

Historically, how much effect has the CO2 level had on average global temperatures?

The following graphic depicts the average global temperatures and atmospheric CO2 variations over the last 600 million years, it shows how insignificant the contribution of CO2 is to the greenhouse effect on Earth. Notice how the CO2 levels were 19 times higher in the Cambrian Period than they are today and yet global temperatures have remained steadily within a 72°F (22°C) to 54°F (12°C) range while CO2 levels have plunged to current levels. [Source: Geocraft.com, Climate and the Carboniferous Period.]

 

Since such huge changes in CO2 levels haven’t had much effect on global temperatures, I think the increases in CO2 we’re seeing today probably won’t make much difference. No, in all likelihood, it’s the amount of water vapor in our atmosphere that determines whether temperatures go up or down, not CO2. So it’s unsurprising to learn that water vapor has indeed been increasing in the atmosphere. But according to Michael Mann, we don’t have any control over water vapor, so what’s causing the increase?

Already I can see the bumper stickers:

Save the planet! Stop building swimming pools and quit watering lawns to reduce global warming!

The poles are melting! We’re all going to drown!

Which brings us to another bit of global warming hysteria from Bloomberg.com:

Antarctica’s Annual Melt Equals Water in Lake Tahoe, Study Says

Antarctica is melting at an annual rate equal to dumping Lake Tahoe into the ocean, causing global seawater to rise as much as 0.6 millimeters (0.02 inches) a year, according to a study published by Science.

Researchers used two NASA satellites to measure the loss of the ice sheet on the Earth’s fifth-largest continent between April 2002 and August 2005. The findings contradict an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment in 2001, which predicted the ice sheet would gain mass in the 21st century.

“We can now see Antarctica melting,'’ said Isabella Velicogna, a member of the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research Environmental Sciences. “We have a number for the ice sheet. It’s a big step toward understanding how the sea level is going to change.'’
…
Sea level increased 3.2 millimeters a year from all sources of freshwater entering the system during the past decade compared with an increase of an average of 1.8 millimeters during the past 100 years, Velicogna said, adding the numbers show the entry of freshwater into the oceans has speeded up.

It’s actually good news that sea level is rising at 3.2 millimeters (0.1 inches) a year, because historically, sea levels have risen 100 meters (328 feet) since the last ice age ended 12,000 years ago. That’s an average of 8 millimeters (0.3 inches) a year, so if levels are really increasing at 3.2 millimeters a year, the rate of increase has slowed by more than half!

 

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