Quote of the Week
Richard Treadgold | July 14, 2012
“Water vapour in our stratosphere can act as a very powerful greenhouse gas… water is a by-product of methane breakdown… water vapour arising from high-flying aircraft may be an important source of stratospheric water.”
At Greenhouse Gas Online we find information on greenhouse gases which disregards water vapour in an approach unencumbered with scientific principles.
Water vapour in our stratosphere can act as a very powerful greenhouse gas. The amounts of water vapour in our stratosphere are mainly controlled by the earths overall climate. However, some other significant sources exist.
As described in the methane section, water is a by-product of methane breakdown in the atmosphere. Additionally, the water vapour arising from high flying aircraft may be an important source of stratospheric water, particularly in the future with increased global air travel.
Ah, so that’s it. First, water vapour can be a powerful greenhouse gas, but only in the stratosphere. We must beware of stratospheric water vapour, which is created from the breakdown of methane and by flying aircraft.
Kids, don’t bring your homework to this site.
Yes water vapour . Another fact that gets inconveniently in the way of CO2 AGW/CC.
75% of the Earth’s surface is water!
Oh wait. We have these idiots wanting to pump water into the atmosphere to cool the Planet and slowdown GW through Geoengineering. That’s OK then? Only high flying aircraft bad?
Strange, isn’t it? Water vapour is a “feedback”. It only causes warming when it has itself been put into an atmosphere already warmed by greenhouse gases. So, first thing in the morning, before the atmosphere has been warmed by the first rays of the sun rising again from the freshly-warmed earth, the water vapour in the atmosphere causes no warming. A few minutes later, the first trickle of warmth from the GHGs reaches back to the ground, lake or ocean and vaporises some water, which becomes, magically, capable of further heating the atmosphere. It’s a stupid idea.
Cool the planet with sprayed water? They don’t know whether it would get warmer or colder. They can’t even work out what clouds do, though clouds are hardly novel.
Also, yes, only high-flying aircraft are bad — low-flying aircraft are just incredibly dangerous for your hat.
Another fact free article with big words in to sound like they know what they are talking about. According to the possibly dubious Wikipedia, the bottom of the stratosphere is about 9km at the poles and 17km at the equator. This means only aircraft flying the northern polar grand circle routes (which is quite a number) actually add water to the stratosphere. However, cumulonimbus (thunder clouds) can go up to 23km. As they have big updrafts, would not those put a lot more water up there?
The average amount of water in the stratoshere is about 0.1%. Methane is 0.00018%. Now one methane molecule can give two water molecules. So how does the maths work for methane significantly increasing water composition?
All in all – I suspect the website should be filed in the fiction category like the faked moon landings and other pseudo scientific stuff.
Yes, fictional indeed. Nice work, Chris.