The Euro Group Australia

Climate Change, Global Warming, Polar Ice Cap Meltdown and Rising Sea levels.... True or false?
I'm NOT a Scientist,  but my Dental Surgeon, (who's Wife IS a Scientist and who until a recent illness was a University lecturer in Science), has sent me some 'Scientific Facts'... So now I am confused, as to who MAY be right and who MAY be wrong?

Now that in itself presents something of a conundrem, for a 'fact' (according to my Oxford Dictionary) is 'something that is certainly true'... Yet I read Scientific 'evidence' (which purports to be ' a fact') that both 'supports' and 'rejects' that mankind is the main contributor, when it comes to Climate Change, Global Warming, Ice Cap Meltdowns and Rising Sea Levels... and furthermore that mankind alone holds the key to reversing these phenomena?

Anyway, apart from Scientific 'facts', my simple mind tells me that long before Man walked on planet Earth that climate change was already in place, and has been going on ever since the Earth developed an atmosphere.

History tells me that planet Earth has a pattern of warming and cooling over extended periods and that through these periods certain life forms, be they animal or vegetable, die out and new life forms emerge and that process is called evolution.

History also tells me that long before man discovered fire, built smoke stacks or tail pipes, that storms caused forrest fires that, without fire breaks or fire services, burnt for years and across entire continents and pumped billions and billions of tonnes of gases into the atmosphere.

History goes on to tell me that since the dawning of the universe volcanoes have been active on planet Earth and that they too pump billions and billions and billions of tonnes of gasses into Earths atmosphere and have been doing so for millions and millions of years... and will continue to do so into the future.

History tells me that the industrial revolution occurred only 300 or so years ago and that man has since been building smoke stacks that pump gasses into Earths atmosphere and that for the past 110 years man has been building motor vehicles, who's tail pipes also pump gasses into Earths atmosphere.

So there is no doubt in my mind, non whatsoever, than mankind, via smoke-stacks and tail-pipes, as well as BBQ's and home fires, does contribute to the creation of greenhouse gases on a 24/7 basis, around the globe and that mankind's daily contribution is ever increasing.

But where my simple mind becomes confused is to what % of greenhouse gasses are manmade, compared to naturally occuring, and how damaging is mankinds contribution to the future of life on Earth?

Now to answer that question I must defer to the Scientists and when I do I get mixed messages, just like I did with Y2K,  and like I do with the stock market, religion and the Lotto numbers.

So what do I do... and who should I believe?

Am I a global warming 'believer' or a global warming 'sceptic' ?

To be honest I am not sure, because I am not well enough informed to know which set of numbers or which rhetoric to believe?

So what should I do?

Should I sit on the fence and wait to see?

No, that won't work because within my remaining lifetime I won't live long enough to see any change at street level!

So what am I doing?

Well, I am certainly not taking sides, rather I am accepting that in my mind the Jury is still 'out'...and will remain 'out' until more credible evidence is presented that would enable me to make an 'informed' decision.

But even then, should I believe the evidence which is presented by the Prosecution or that evidence which may be presented by the Defence?

To me this entire debate, both for and against climate change, and the rationale's both for or against it are not dissimilar to what I experience in the jury room, when I serve as a Juror.

There I sit, with a clear and unbiased mind, focused on the 'evidence' provided by both the prosecution and the defence, waxing and waining as I try to balance up the 'evidence'.

Now, in such circumstances, both the Prosecution and the Defence try their hardest to convince me, and fellow Jurors, that their evidence is 'factual'.... but surely it can't be, for one the one hand the Prosecution is saying 'the accussed shot and killed the deceased'.... and then the Defence is saying 'the accussed is innocent as he did not shoot and kill the deceased' ... now surely BOTH cannot be right!

Now the only common thread, between the case put by the Prosecution and that put by the Defence is... that the victim is 'in fact' deceased... and no one, no one, argues against THAT 'fact'.

However both the Prosecution and the Defence leave it to the Jury to determine 'in law' who's evidence will be accepted as 'factual' and who's will not.

And the debate on Climate Change, for me, is much the same... but the Jury has not yet delivered it's verdict!

Therefore, with respect for climate change, I think, that for me, I will be remaining in the Jury room for a very long time, perhaps even remaining their until my ultimate death?

So what should I do?

I could do nothing, like most people are currently doing, or I can accept responsibility for my own contribution to greenhouse gas production and do my bit to consciously reduce it within my own area of influence and thereby mitigate the very possible risk of later being accussed of 'sitting idly by and doing nothing, as our planet became less habital for mankind'  

So here is what  I have decided to do and I am doing it through a program called 'Days of Change' ,  www.daysofchange.org which is an initiative supported by my Rotary Club, the Rotary Club of Perth.

Now, back to my Dental Surgeon , (the one who's Wife is a Scientist) and here is what HE sent to me, to assist me to understand what greenhouse gasses are about.

Regards
Rod.

P.S. More about my Dentist after this.....

Water Vapor Rules
the Greenhouse System

Just how much of the "Greenhouse Effect" is caused by human activity?
It is about 0.28%, if water vapor is taken into account-- about 5.53%, if not.
This point is so crucial to the debate over global warming that how water vapor is or isn't factored into an analysis of Earth's greenhouse gases makes the difference between describing a significant human contribution to the greenhouse effect, or a negligible one.
Water vapor constitutes Earth's most significant greenhouse gas, accounting for about 95% of Earth's greenhouse effect (4). Interestingly, many "facts and figures' regarding global warming completely ignore the powerful effects of water vapor in the greenhouse system, carelessly (perhaps, deliberately) overstating human impacts as much as 20-fold.
Water vapor is 99.999% of natural origin. Other atmospheric greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and miscellaneous other gases (CFC's, etc.), are also mostly of natural origin (except for the latter, which is mostly anthropogenic).
Human activites contribute slightly to greenhouse gas concentrations through farming, manufacturing, power generation, and transportation. However, these emissions are so dwarfed in comparison to emissions from natural sources we can do nothing about, that even the most costly efforts to limit human emissions would have a very small-- perhaps undetectable-- effect on global climate.

For those interested in more details a series of data sets and charts have been assembled below in a 5-step statistical synopsis.
Note that the first two steps ignore water vapor.
1. Greenhouse gas concentrations
2. Converting concentrations to contribution
3. Factoring in water vapor
4. Distinguishing natural vs man-made greenhouse gases
5. Putting it all together

Note: Calculations are expressed to 3 significant digits to reduce rounding errors, not necessarily to indicate statistical precision of the data. All charts were plotted using Lotus 1-2-3.
Caveat: This analysis is intended to provide a simplified comparison of the various man-made and natural greenhouse gases on an equal basis with each other. It does not take into account all of the complicated interactions between atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial systems, a feat which can only be accomplished by better computer models than are currently in use.

Greenhouse Gas Concentrations:
Natural vs man-made (anthropogenic)

1. The following table was constructed from data published by the U.S. Department of Energy (1) and other sources, summarizing concentrations of the various atmospheric greenhouse gases. Because some of the concentrations are very small the numbers are stated in parts per billion. DOE chose to NOT show water vapor as a greenhouse gas!

TABLE 1.
The Important Greenhouse Gases (except water vapor)
U.S. Department of Energy, (October, 2000) (1)

The chart at left summarizes the % of greenhouse gas concentrations in Earth's atmosphere from Table 1. This is not a very meaningful view though because 1) the data has not been corrected for the actual Global Warming Potential (GWP) of each gas, and 2) water vapor is ignored.
But these are the numbers one would use if the goal is to exaggerate human greenhouse contributions:
Man-made and natural carbon dioxide (CO2) comprises 99.44% of all greenhouse gas concentrations (368,400 / 370,484 )--(ignoring water vapor).
Also, from Table 1 (but not shown on graph):
Anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 additions comprise (11,880 / 370,484) or 3.207% of all greenhouse gas concentrations, (ignoring water vapor).
Total combined anthropogenic greenhouse gases comprise (12,217 / 370,484) or 3.298% of all greenhouse gas concentrations, (ignoring water vapor).
The various greenhouse gases are not equal in their heat-retention properties though, so to remain statistically relevant % concentrations must be changed to % contribution relative to CO2. This is done in Table 2, below, through the use of GWP multipliers for each gas, derived by various researchers.

Converting greenhouse gas concentrations
to greenhouse effect contribution
(using global warming potential )

2. Using appropriate corrections for the Global Warming Potential of the respective gases provides the following more meaningful comparison of greenhouse gases, based on the conversion:
( concentration ) X ( the appropriate GWP multiplier (2) (3) of each gas relative to CO2 ) = greenhouse contribution.:

TABLE 2.
Atmospheric Greenhouse Gases (except water vapor)
adjusted for heat retention characteristics, relative to CO2

NOTE: GWP (Global Warming Potential) is used to contrast different greenhouse gases relative to CO2.

Compared to the concentration statistics in Table 1, the GWP comparison in Table 2 illustrates, among other things:
Total carbon dioxide (CO2) contributions are reduced to 72.37% of all greenhouse gases (368,400 / 509,056)-- (ignoring water vapor).
Also, from Table 2 (but not shown on graph):
Anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 contributions drop to (11,880 / 509,056) or 2.33% of total of all greenhouse gases, (ignoring water vapor).
Total combined anthropogenic greenhouse gases becomes (28,162 / 509,056) or 5.53% of all greenhouse gas contributions, (ignoring water vapor).
Relative to carbon dioxide the other greenhouse gases together comprise about 27.63% of the greenhouse effect (ignoring water vapor) but only about 0.56% of total greenhouse gas concentrations. Put another way, as a group methane, nitrous oxide (N2O), and CFC's and other miscellaneous gases are about 50 times more potent than CO2 as greenhouse gases.
To properly represent the total relative impacts of Earth's greenhouse gases Table 3 (below) factors in the effect of water vapor on the system.

Water vapor overwhelms
all other natural and man-made
greenhouse contributions.

3. Table 3, shows what happens when the effect of water vapor is factored in, and together with all other greenhouse gases expressed as a relative % of the total greenhouse effect.

TABLE 3.
Role of Atmospheric Greenhouse Gases
(man-made and natural) as a % of Relative
Contribution to the "Greenhouse Effect"

As illustrated in this chart of the data in Table 3, the combined greenhouse contributions of CO2, methane, N2O and misc. gases are small compared to water vapor!
Total atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) -- both man-made and natural-- is only about 3.62% of the overall greenhouse effect-- a big difference from the 72.37% figure in Table 2, which ignored water!
Water vapor, the most significant greenhouse gas, comes from natural sources and is responsible for roughly 95% of the greenhouse effect (4). Among climatologists this is common knowledge but among special interests, certain governmental groups, and news reporters this fact is under-emphasized or just ignored altogether.
Conceding that it might be "a little misleading" to leave water vapor out, they nonetheless defend the practice by stating that it is "customary" to do so!

Comparing natural vs man-made concentrations
of greenhouse gases

4. Of course, even among the remaining 5% of non-water vapor greenhouse gases, humans contribute only a very small part (and human contributions to water vapor are negligible).
Constructed from data in Table 1, the charts (below) illustrate graphically how much of each greenhouse gas is natural vs how much is man-made. These allocations are used for the next and final step in this analysis-- total man-made contributions to the greenhouse effect. Units are expressed to 3 significant digits in order to reduce rounding errors for those who wish to walk through the calculations, not to imply numerical precision as there is some variation among various researchers.

Putting it all together:
total human greenhouse gas contributions
add up to about 0.28% of the greenhouse effect.

5. To finish with the math, by calculating the product of the adjusted CO2 contribution to greenhouse gases (3.618%) and % of CO2 concentration from anthropogenic (man-made) sources (3.225%), we see that only (0.03618 X 0.03225) or 0.117% of the greenhouse effect is due to atmospheric CO2 from human activity. The other greenhouse gases are similarly calculated and are summarized below.
TABLE 4a.
Anthropogenic (man-made) Contribution to the "Greenhouse
Effect," expressed as % of Total (water vapor INCLUDED)

When greenhouse contributions are listed by source, the relative overwhelming component of the natural greenhouse effect, is readily apparent.
From Table 4a, both natural and man-made greenhouse contributions are illustrated in this chart, in gray and green, respectively. For clarity only the man-made (anthropogenic) contributions are labeled on the chart.
Water vapor, responsible for 95% of Earth's greenhouse effect, is 99.999% natural (some argue, 100%). Even if we wanted to we can do nothing to change this.
Anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 contributions cause only about 0.117% of Earth's greenhouse effect, (factoring in water vapor). This is insignificant!
Adding up all anthropogenic greenhouse sources, the total human contribution to the greenhouse effect is around 0.28% (factoring in water vapor).

The Kyoto Protocol calls for mandatory carbon dioxide reductions of 30% from developed countries like the U.S. Reducing man-made CO2 emissions this much would have an undetectable effect on climate while having a devastating effect on the U.S. economy. Can you drive your car 30% less, reduce your winter heating 30%? Pay 20-50% more for everything from automobiles to zippers? And that is just a down payment, with more sacrifices to come later.
Such drastic measures, even if imposed equally on all countries around the world, would reduce total human greenhouse contributions from CO2 by about 0.035%.
This is much less than the natural variability of Earth's climate system!
While the greenhouse reductions would exact a high human price, in terms of sacrifices to our standard of living, they would yield statistically negligible results in terms of measurable impacts to climate change. There is no expectation that any statistically significant global warming reductions would come from the Kyoto Protocol.

" There is no dispute at all about the fact that even if punctiliously observed, (the Kyoto Protocol) would have an imperceptible effect on future temperatures -- one-twentieth of a degree by 2050. "

Dr. S. Fred Singer, atmospheric physicist
Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia,
and former director of the US Weather Satellite Service;
in a Sept. 10, 2001 Letter to Editor, Wall Street Journal

Research to Watch
Scientists are increasingly recognizing the importance of water vapor in the climate system. Some, like Wallace Broecker, a geochemist at Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, suggest that it is such an important factor that much of the global warming in the last 10,000 years may be due to the increasing water vapor concentrations in Earth's atmosphere.
His research indicates that air reaching glaciers during the last Ice Age had less than half the water vapor content of today. Such increases in atmospheric moisture during our current interglacial period would have played a far greater role in global warming than carbon dioxide or other minor gases.

" I can only see one element of the climate system capable of generating these fast, global changes, that is, changes in the tropical atmosphere leading to changes in the inventory of the earth's most powerful greenhouse gas-- water vapor. "

Dr. Wallace Broecker, a leading world authority on climate
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University,
lecture presented at R. A. Daly Lecture at the American Geophysical Union's
spring meeting in Baltimore, Md., May 1996.

Known causes of global climate change, like cyclical eccentricities in Earth's rotation and orbit, as well as variations in the sun's energy output, are the primary causes of climate cycles measured over the last half million years. However, secondary greenhouse effects stemming from changes in the ability of a warming atmosphere to support greater concentrations of gases like water vapor and carbon dioxide also appear to play a significant role. As demonstrated in the data above, of all Earth's greenhouse gases, water vapor is by far the dominant player.
The ability of humans to influence greenhouse water vapor is negligible. As such, individuals and groups whose agenda it is to require that human beings are the cause of global warming must discount or ignore the effects of water vapor to preserve their arguments, citing numbers similar to those in Table 4b . If political correctness and staying out of trouble aren't high priorities for you, go ahead and ask them how water vapor was handled in their models or statistics. Chances are, it wasn't!

|| Global Warming || Table of Contents ||
References:
1) Current Greenhouse Gas Concentrations (updated October, 2000)
Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center
(the primary global-change data and information analysis center of the U.S. Department of Energy)
Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Greenhouse Gases and Climate Change (data now available only to "members")
IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme,
Stoke Orchard, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, GL52 7RZ, United Kingdom.
2) Greenhouse Gases and Global Warming Potentials (updated April, 2002)
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
3) Warming Potentials of Halocarbons and Greenhouses Gases
Chemical formulae and global warming potentials from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 1995: The Science of Climate Change (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 119 and 121. Production and sales of CFC's and other chemicals from International Trade Commission, Synthetic Organic Chemicals: United States Production and Sales, 1994 (Washington, DC, 1995). TRI emissions from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1994 Toxics Release Inventory: Public Data Release, EPA-745-R-94-001 (Washington, DC, June 1996), p. 73. Estimated 1994 U.S. emissions from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks, 1990-1994, EPA-230-R-96-006 (Washington, DC, November 1995), pp. 37-40.
4) References to 95% contribution of water vapor:
a. S.M. Freidenreich and V. Ramaswamy, “Solar Radiation Absorption by Carbon Dioxide, Overlap with Water, and a Parameterization for General Circulation Models,” Journal of Geophysical Research 98 (1993):7255-7264
b. Global Deception: The Exaggeration of the Global Warming Threat
by Dr. Patrick J. Michaels, June 1998
Virginia State Climatologist and Professor of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia
c. Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Appendix D, Greenhouse Gas Spectral Overlaps and Their Significance
Energy Information Administration; Official Energy Statistics from the U.S. Government
d. Personal Communication-- Dr. Richard S. Lindzen
Alfred P. Slone Professor of Meteorology, MIT
e. The Geologic Record and Climate Change
by Dr. Tim Patterson, January 2005
Professor of Geology-- Carleton University
Ottawa, Canada
Alternate link:
f. EPA Seeks To Have Water Vapor Classified As A Pollutant
by the ecoEnquirer, 2006
Alternate link:
g. Air and Water Issues
by Freedom 21.org, 2005
Citation: Bjorn Lomborg, p. 259. Also: Patrick Michaels and Robert Balling, Jr. The Satanic Gases, Clearing the Air About Global Warming (Washington, DC: CATO Institute, 2000), p. 25.
h. Does CO2 Really Drive Global Warming?
by Dr. Robert Essenhigh, May 2001
Alternate link:
i. Solar Cycles, Not CO2, Determine Climate
by Zbigniew Jaworowski, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc., 21st Century Science and Technology, Winter 2003-2004, pp. 52-65
Link:
5) Global Climate Change Student Guide
Department of Environmental and Geographical Sciences
Manchester Metropolitan University
Chester Street
Manchester
M1 5GD
United Kingdom
6) Global Budgets for Atmospheric Nitrous Oxide - Anthropogenic Contributions
William C. Trogler, Eric Bruner, Glenn Westwood, Barbara Sawrey, and Patrick Neill
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, California
7) Methane record and budget
Robert Grumbine

Useful conversions:
1 Gt = 1 billion tons = 1 cu. km. H20
1 Gt Carbon(C) = ~3.67 Gt Carbon Dioxide(CO2)
2.12 Gt C = ~7.8 Gt CO2 = 1ppmv CO2

This page by: Monte Hieb
Last revised: January 10, 2003
Now... a little bit more about my Dentist....
A guy & a girl meet at a bar. They get along so well
that they decide to go 
to the girl's place.

A few drinks later, the guy takes off his shirt 
And then washes  his hands. He then takes off his
Trousers and washes his hands.

The girl has been watching him and says,'You must be 
A dentist.'

The guy,  surprised, says 'Yes.....how did you 
Figure that out?

'Easy,' she replied, 'you keep washing your 
hands.'

One thing led to another and they make love.

After they are done, the girl says, 'You must be a very
good dentist.'

The guy, now with a boosted ego says, 'Sure, I'm a very
good dentist. How did you figure 
that out?'

'Oh that bit was easy... I didn't feel a thing'