Di-Hydrogen Oxide a Greenhouse gas?

I have a few questions about the greenhouse effect

1. What is the percentage of the atmosphere is water vapor?

2. How potent a greenhouse gas is water vapor?

3. How potent a greenhouse gas is CO2 and what percentage
of the atmosphere?
--
Robert Miller
member of www.norfed.org
Bringing America back to value $1 at a time

In article ,
Robert Miller wrote:
I have a few questions about the greenhouse effect
1. What is the percentage of the atmosphere is water vapor?
2. How potent a greenhouse gas is water vapor?
3. How potent a greenhouse gas is CO2 and what percentage
of the atmosphere?

Please do your own homework. These numbers are not hard to find.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

"Robert Miller" wrote:

1. What is the percentage of the atmosphere is water vapor?

Highly variable, and very very temperature dependant. As a very
rough estimate, there's about 2.5 cm of precipitable water in the
atmosphere globally (2.5 cm of liquid water above anu point on the
Earth's surface).

2. How potent a greenhouse gas is water vapor?

Very. Much more "potent" than CO2, for instance, for a number of
reasons. First, it effectively blocks a wide range of frequencies (CO2
blocks a narrower window), & second, as the atmosphere warms, it can
hold more water vapor, providing a positive feedback (in other words,
a small increase in water vapor rachets itself up).

3. How potent a greenhouse gas is CO2 and what percentage
of the atmosphere?

By volume, CO2 is around 350 ppm. In a very rough sense, the
current greenhouse warming (about 33 deg-C) is due mostly to the water
vapor, not CO2 or CH4 (another important one). The problem with this
simple description is that the amount of H2O is exponentially
dependant on the temperature, so increase the CO2 may increase the
greenhouse warming only slightly, but that gets amplified by the water
vapor effects.

--
Brian Davis