Comments on: Sunlight Series: Part 5 – Solar Irradiance and Earth’s Atmosphere

By: Researchers At Harvard Will Begin To Geoengineer The Atmosphere - Gypsy.Ninja

Thu, 13 Apr 2017 18:31:10 +0000

[…] Researchers At Harvard Will Begin To Geoengineer The Atmosphere – image via sustainablebalance.ca […]

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By: Graham Ballachey

Wed, 16 Mar 2016 05:31:33 +0000

Hi! Thanks for the comment.

You are correct! It’s called positive feedback. According to NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/vapor_warming.html, CO2 also leads to a temperature increase (despite absorbing much less radiation), and this leads to water evaporation, which leads to more of a temperature increase as well.

So – CO2 does have an effect, and it also affects this water loop. I’ve always found this funny, to be honest, as it seems like CO2 absorbs very little compared to water. If NASA says so, it’s likely accurate, however.

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By: Ainur Moussa

Tue, 15 Mar 2016 17:25:59 +0000

Hello!
I feel a bit confused. According to the diagram above, we could say that water vapor is a bigger contributor to the overall temperature increase (since it absorbes more IR and produces more heat)? Then, should it also be concluded that more (of that) heat leads to further evaporation and even higher vapor content? All of this compared to the commonly blamed CO2 gas which happens to absorb much less radiation.

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