Greenhouse Gases DO Have A Profound Effect On The Climate

Greenhouse Gases DO Have A Profound Effect On The Climate

by Carl Brehmer, via Greenie Watch

“Greenhouse gases” have a profound effect on the climate as can be seen in every climate system that has a high concentration of water vapor (H2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2)—the two “most potent ‘greenhouse gases’”. Here are some photos:
The climate change that water vapor brings, far from being catastrophic, is quite the opposite. Water vapor brings an otherwise dead biosphere to life and makes it lush and green and, as we will see, even cools it down somewhat. What about carbon dioxide? Take a look:
It is such a scientific certainty that higher concentrations of carbon dioxide promote robust plant growth that commercial gardeners pump carbon dioxide into their greenhouses up to levels > 3 times higher than is currently present in the open atmosphere.

“In general, carbon dioxide supplementation of 1,000 ppm during the day when vents are closed is recommended [to bring the total concentration up to 1,300.]”Carbon Dioxide In Greenhouses, Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

If we were to look at pictures that compare the Arabian Desert to Bangladesh or the Nairobi Desert to the Congo the result would be the same. It is incontrovertible that water vapor and carbon dioxide bring life into a climate system as can be seen in the lush eco-systems of New Zealand, Bangladesh and the Congo compared to the deserts in Nevada, Saudi Arabia and Nairobi and it is no mystery as to why.

Water vapor in high enough concentrations condenses into clouds, which produce rain that drenches the soil. Plants, using the sun’s energy, pull carbon dioxide out of the air and water out of the soil to create carbohydrates and oxygen—the food that animals eat and the air that they breathe.

Photosynthesis:

6CO2 + 6H2O +(Sun)light energy -----> C6H12O6 + 6O2

Where: CO2 = carbon dioxide

H2O = water

C6H12O6 = carbohydrate

O2 = oxygen

The “carbo” in carbohydrate comes from the word “carbon”—the base element of the food chain. That is why the flora and fauna of the eco-system of which we are a part are called “carbon-based” life forms. In Mass. vs. EPA (2007) the US Supreme Court bizarrely decided to call carbon dioxide—the foundation of all organic life—a pollutant!

The fact is, what makes a desert devoid of abundant life is not its temperature; rather it is a lack of a sufficient quantity of water vapor—referred to by the IPCC in its AR5 report as “the primary greenhouse gas in the Earth’s atmosphere.” Without sufficient water vapor in the air clouds cannot form and without clouds there is no rain.

Here is a picture of the Raven Golf Course in Phoenix, Arizona. To compensate for the Arizona desert’s lack of the “greenhouse gas” called water vapor and the consequent inadequate rainfall, the golf course installed an elaborate sprinkler system. As you can see, with adequate water available the temperature becomes irrelevant and the desert comes alive.


Of course you already know all of this because you learned about photosynthesis in elementary school and you have experience the life-giving affect of humidity within your own climate system.

You already know that without sufficient water vapor and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere the entire land-based Eco-system of the Earth would die—without water vapor and carbon dioxide all plant life would die and without plant produced carbohydrates to eat and plant produced oxygen to breathe all animal life would die as well.

In the face of the incontrovertible truth that these two potent “greenhouse gases” bring profoundly beneficial changes to climate systems worldwide, one is puzzled by the conclusion drawn by the IPCC in its recent AR5 report.

On the IPCC web site there is a video called Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis and in this video Thomas Stocker, a climate modeler and Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group I, makes this odd statement, “ . . . continued ‘greenhouse gas’ emissions cause further climate change . . . Therefore we conclude limiting climate change requires substantial and sustained reductions in “greenhouse gas” emissions.” Based on the actual “climate change” that water vapor and carbon dioxide cause in the real world what he is actually saying is, “ . . . continued ‘greenhouse gas’ emissions cause further [proliferation of plant and animal life] . . . Therefore we conclude limiting [this proliferation] requires substantial and sustained reductions in [the] emission [of the airborne plant fertilizer carbon dioxide in the hopes that this will reduce the amount of water vapor that is available for photosynthesis].”

Why on Earth would anyone want to limit the proliferation of plant and animal life? How can the IPCC on the one hand claim to be concerned about the Earth’s biosphere yet on the other hand intend to limit the concentration of the two gases that give it life, i.e., carbon dioxide and water vapor?

If you dig into the AR5 report you find that the premise upon which this life-destroying policy recommendation is based is the notion that these “greenhouse gases” threaten to cause catastrophic global warming of which 66-75% is projected to come from water vapor. “Water vapour is the primary greenhouse gas in the Earth’s atmosphere. The contribution of water vapour to the natural greenhouse effect relative to that of carbon dioxide (CO2) depends on the accounting method, but can be considered to be approximately two to three times greater.” (AR5 chapter 8, FAQ 8.1)

There is simply no way around the fact that all of the IPCC’s prophecies of doom about the coming climate catastrophe are dependent upon the warming that they expect to happen because of an increase in global humidity, because of what they call “positive water vapor feedback”. So, when you hear a prediction that the Earth’s temperature might be 4 °C warmer by the end of the 21st century, know that 3 °C of that projected warming is expected to be the doing of humidity, i.e., water vapor. They are quite literally asserting that higher levels of global humidity will cause irreparable damage to the Earth’s ecosystems along with “substantial species extinction!” “Global climate change risks are high to very high . . . and include . . . substantial species extinction.” IPCC, AR5

Can one conceive of any notion that is more disconnected from reality than the idea that an increase in global humidity will cause “substantial species extinction” when one can see with ones own eyes that those climate systems that are the most humid are also the climate systems that have the most abundant and diverse life?

Let’s take a look at the effect that humidity actually has on the global climate systems:


This is a picture of the correlation that exists between high humidity and abundant life within the various climate systems around the globe. Where ever the humidity is high life flourishes in abundant diversity. Wherever the humidity is low life struggles to exist. The IPCC would have you not believe your own eyes, but rather believe them when they tell you that higher global humidity levels, “the primary greenhouse gas in the Earth’s atmosphere,” threatens to kill almost everything unless we do what they say.

And what is it that they say we must do? Primarily abandon using fire as an energy source, i.e. stop “burning” hydrocarbons, because doing so produces the potent airborne plant fertilizer called carbon dioxide. They have issued this global command even though they acknowledge “there is a wide range of possible adverse side-effects . . . from climate policy that have not been well-quantified.” IPCC, AR5

Imagine that!

* Your impoverishment is just a “side-effect” of their climate policy.

* Your loss of dependable, low cost electricity is just a “side-effect” of their climate policy.

* Your loss of independent travel in a private vehicle is just a “side-effect” of their climate policy.

* Your loss of plentiful food to eat is just a “side-effect” of their climate policy (most agricultural production in the world today requires the use of hydrocarbon energy; beyond that enough food is currently being converted to biofuels to feed tens of millions of people each year.)

* Your inability to continue heating your home in the winter and air-conditioning it in the summer is just a “side-effect” of their climate policy.

* Your loss of dependable modern health care is just a “side-effect” of their climate policy (modern hospitals are dependant upon the stable electrical grid that burning hydrocarbons provide.)

* Therefore, the likelihood that you will die younger is just a “side-effect” of their climate policy.

This, of course, would be just all right with some of the leading advocates of the IPCC’s “climate policy”.

Ted Turner, ”There are too many people; that's why we have global warming.”

 David Rockefeller laments the 20th century drop in the infant mortality rate and the increase in life expectancy because these have resulted in “over population”. ”The negative impact of population growth on all of our planetary eco-systems is becoming appallingly evident.”

 David Attenborough, ”Today we are living in an era where the biggest threat to human well being, to other species and to the earth as we know it might well be ourselves . . . Human population density is [at the root] of every environmental problem that I have encountered [including] the relentless increase in atmospheric pollution [i.e., carbon dioxide].” 

In the paper Too Many People: Earth’s Population Problem the group Population Matters wrote, ”At a 1990 per capita emission rate of about four tones of carbon dioxide per person per year, the world's theoretically environmentally optimum population level would not be much higher than two billion, living at an average 1990 lifestyle, in order to stabilize carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere.”  ”to reduce climate impacts it helps to reduce the number of climate changers.”

So there you have it.

In the eyes of the advocates of the IPCC’s “climate policy” your children and grandchildren are no longer “human beings”; they are just little “climate changers” and it would have been better for the Earth if they had not been born.  What is most unsettling is that your little “climate changers” only have less than a 30% chance of surviving the population reduction that needs to occur to ”stabilize carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere!”

The truly strange thing about the superstitious belief that water vapor causes global warming is that it is contrary to observed reality. Not only do higher levels of humidity bring more abundant and more diverse life to the biosphere, the mean temperature in very humid climates is predictably lower than it is in very arid climates along the same latitude. It is an observed phenomenon that when nature takes the moisture out of the air, either in a desert or during a drought, the mean air temperature goes up—not down! As such “heat waves” are most often associated with droughts rather than with periods of high humidity.

1) The Great North American heatwave of 1936 was brought on by the “Dust Bowl” drought that “came in three waves, 1934, 1936, and 1939–40, but some regions of the High Plains experienced drought conditions for as many as eight years.” “Drought: A Paleo Perspective – 20th Century Drought”, National Climatic Data Center

2) Marble Bar heatwave, 1923-24: “In the summer of 1923-1924 the monsoon stayed further north and no cyclones occurred anywhere in Australia that year, a truly unusual year. During its record-breaking heat wave only 79 mm of rain fell on Marble Bar in the form of 2 brief storms, and only 12 mm of rain fell before the next wet season began in December of 1924. The tropical section of Western Australia experienced a severe drought in 1924, with no cloud cover to relieve the seemingly endless days of extreme heat.” Australia: The Land Where Time Began

All that one has to do to observe this reality is to go outside and take a look at actual, real-world temperature vs. humidity readings:

All of the above graphs were produced by simply looking at publicly available temperature and humidity readings and as you can see the presence of water within a climate system cools it down via well-established and thoroughly studied processes such as latent heat transfer, increased albedo from the increased cloud cover, enhanced intra-atmospheric radiative heat transfer, the cooling affect of precipitation, a lowering of the lapse rate, etc.

For example, northern Arizona where I live has a dry season and a wet season. In June when the humidity is very low the temperature is very high. In July when the “Monsoons” come the humidity goes up sharply. Not only does this result in a marked drop in daily mean temperatures, it also causes the countryside to turn green—a welcome climate change indeed!

Let’s be clear, it is not that water vapor doesn’t cause as much warming of surface-level air temperatures as the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis predicts—it causes zero warming of surface level air temperatures and is actually associated with lower temperatures and quite literally causes deserts to bloom! Why on Earth would the IPCC want to demonize this “water of life” by suggesting that if global humidity levels rise irreparable damage will be done to the biosphere?

The fact is, the only places where water vapor causes a 22-25 °C temperature increase in the global surface-level air temperatures by causing a “greenhouse effect” is within the imagination of certain people, within computer models, within certain peer-reviewed scientific papers and within IPCC Assessment Reports.

In the real world, no such water vapor mediated warming exists (very high confidence).