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By elimination, only (B) is true. (A) is false - while water vapour has high radiative forcing, it is not "an important greenhouse gas" in the big picture, unl
by MagnumOpus 10y ago
By elimination, only (B) is true.
(A) is false - while water vapour has high radiative forcing, it is not "an important greenhouse gas" in the big picture, unlike what the coal industry reps say. This [1] should explain why. Methane and CFCs are far less important in aggregate (about 1/3 and 1/4 of the effect of CO2 respectively), although they are far more dangerous per unit of volume.
(C) is obviously false - even in the low level layman explanation in [1] you can see that they include a table with the forcings of various combinations (like H2O vapour+CO2); you can also see that the table is from 1978, so scientists have done that since way before you were born.
(D) false
[1] http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/04/water-vapour-feedback-or-forcing/ http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/04/water-...
- credit_guy 10y agoThanks for your thoughtful reply and your link. I think that article is quite informative, and also well written. I guess it was not authored by the coal industry, but still it states literally "water vapor is indeed the most important greenhouse gas".