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George Will Misrepresents Climate Change Study

180
lostlakehiker2/21/2009 1:33:59 pm PST

re: #116 Perplexed

Varies as a function of temperature? You get a smoke stack, a hydrogen burning car, etc and begin dumping megatons of water vapor (that didn’t naturally occur) into the air and you have a greenhouse gas that is ‘forcing’ climate change. Got to try harder basho.

This is scientifically soooo wrong. “Megatons” of water vapor is spitting in a hurricane compared to the naturally occurring water cycle. What’s more, any water vapor added to what would be there naturally precipitates out soon enough. We do not, and we cannot, bulk up the baseline level of water vapor in the atmosphere. The hang time of extra CO2, however, is measured in centuries or longer.

Have you ever looked at a globe? The Pacific is BIG. It’s one giant evaporator/humidifier, from California to China. Nothing we can do can add or subtract anything comparable to this monster’s water vapor contribution.

The Pacific is big, but it isn’t a smokestack. It DOES NOT produce CO2. (It absorbs some, but not enough to offset our emissions.) We can, and we do, change global CO2 levels.