Mark Iverson quoted John Coleman (Weather channel) as saying:
<<The compound carbon dioxide makes up only 38 out of every 100,000
particles in the atmosphere, he
said. "That's about twice as what there were in the atmosphere in the time
we started burning fossil
fuels, so it's gone up, but it's still a tiny compound," Coleman said. "So
how can that tiny trace
compound have such a significant effect on temperature?>>
This proves beyond all doubt that Coleman is either being deliberately
deceptive or doesn't understand what he is talking about.
The figure is more or less correct but considering that the majority of the
atmospheric gases are not greenhouse gases, his statement is HIGHLY
misleading - whether deliberately or otherwise, one can only speculate. This
deceit has been used a lot by the denialist lobby and has been
comprehensively destroyed many times.
The main gases in the atmosphere are nitrogen and oxygen, which make up 78%
and 21% of the volume of air respectively. The remaining 1% of the
atmospheric gases is made up of trace gases. These include the noble gases
of which the most abundant is argon. Other noble gases include neon, helium,
krypton and xenon. The remaining trace gases include the greenhouse gases,
carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, water vapour and ozone, so-called
because they are involved in the Earth natural greenhouse effect which keeps
the planet warmer than it would be without an atmosphere. Although CO2 is
only around 383 ppm - 0.0383% - of the total atmosphere, it is responsible
for about 9–26% of the total greenhouse effect. Water vapour, although
seemingly a greater contributor at 36–70%, cannot increase in the atmosphere
(extra humidity always precipitates out very quickly as rain or snow - which
would seem to nail as a non-starter that "gigatonnes of seawater" solution
that cropped up here recently) and so is NOT far more important as a
greenhouse gas than CO2 is - this is another denialist deceit that they keep
on plugging, again long after it has been proved to be false.
Nick Palmer
On the side of the Planet - and the people - because they're worth it
