0.117% of the greenhouse effect is due to atmospheric CO2 from human activity.
Only about 3.62% of the total greenhouse effect is caused by all CO2. Not 72.37% as reported because the number one cause is ignored.
The most active green house gas is Water Vapor.
The total human contribution to the greenhouse effect is around 0.28% (factoring in water vapor)
It is stated that .001% of water vapor is man made. But this does not include water droplets. So this excludes irrigation.
My contention is that irrigation is the major cause of global warming.
Normally water vapor is considered self regulating.
I disagree with this because of the systems dynamics.
My thoughts are: If we quit irrigating within one year the system should self regulate to nil man made effect when the seasonal rains come through and reset the biome to natural background water vapor levels;
This does not happen because of the vast amounts of water placed on our crops, lawns, and in pools, ponds, fountains, canals, etc.
World water consumption (not returned to river ways) was 2,100 cubic kilometers in 1999. I estimated that if it follows the trend it has become 2,500 cubic kilometers as of this year.
A portion of this becomes ground water and is not the issue. The water that evaporates or transpires is.
The paradigm shift in irrigation is very noticeable in Washington state in the last 50 years.
From Gram to Renton was mostly farms and called the banana belt. Now it is industry and houses. The high average relative humidity there made the man caused water vapors input to global warming very small.
Now the desert on the other side of the mountains is farms. the majority of original farms were dry-land crops that relied on seasonal rains for irrigation. The wheat crops still are.
But now the desert is green. Millions of irrigated acres that during the summer was bone dry are now getting inches of water on them every week.
Now if this was just Washington state the effect of the water vapor absorbing heat would be dispersed by the wind and just be a local effect. But it is not.
World wide the dry lands are blooming with crops.
The location is a critical factor.
If you add a cubic kilometer of water, turned to vapor, to the panhandle of Alaska where the rain fall is measured in feet the heat effect would be unmeasurable.
But that biome is not where the irrigation is going.
When the average rain is low enough and more importantly the summer humidity is naturally very low, the water stays vaporised and contributes to the greenhouse gasses effect.
I can only guesstimate the amount that gets vaporized over arid low humidity land. And while the weather moves this added water vapor around it is constantly replenished during the growing season.
If only 10% of the 2500 cubic kilometers of water was vaporized into the arid environment that is 250,000,000 metric tons of water vapor green house gas right where it would have the most effect keeping the deserts from radiating heat away in the night.
This alone would have a profound effect on world weather patterns.
This has puzzled me for some time. I just could not grasp the CO2 connection to global warming and found too many issues to find it fact.
I don't pretend to be a climate guru and welcome all relevant comments.
I put this out to the greater collective mind of CR4 for review to approve or shoot holes in as they see fit.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Brad
Water vapor numbers are from here.
World water usage here.
Global Warming in My Opinion is Man Made, But Not By CO2
Re: Global warming in my opinion is man made but not by CO2
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