Comments 1 to 3:

1. prove we are smart at 17:26 PM on 6 August, 2020

   I hope this is the correct area to ask this, but I was reading this 2020 soil health conference and very informative about soil microbes etc. However when giving the closing 15mins, Dr Christine Jones explaines the major driver of climate change is the increase of water vapour from evaporation from depleted and cleared soils/land, moreso than our increasing co2. I always thought it was mainly the ppm of co2 causing gw? Is the Dr right in blaming our land use which is increasing the amount of water vapour and is then the primary ghg? Can someone review the last 15mins and advise, thanks..

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4uVKIGBk2s

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2. MA Rodger at 23:12 PM on 6 August, 2020

   prove we are smart @1,

   Congratulations.

   You have spotted a soil scientist who is in denial with regard to the causes of AGW. I suppose soil scientists are not a million miles from geologists who often are found on record misrepresenting AGW. At 1:11:20 in the video you link-to we hear:-

   "0.04% of the atmosphere is carbon dioxide. Do you really think that's changing global climate? [Murmurs heard from the audience including 'yes'] Really? There is absolutely no science behind that at all to show. Yes, it [CO2] is a GHG and so is N2O and so is CH4 and so is water vapour. Those molecues all have the potential for what we call radiative forcing. But when it's 0.04% of the atmosphere it contributes very very little to global climate."

   The slides had previously shown this slide:-

   

   This graphic is the work of Fred Singer, a well-known aged denialist who died earlier this year. It originates from this denialist webpage and is saying that the human impact on the GH-effect is no more than 0.28% but gives zero references to support such a crazy assertion.

   The webpage tries to make the case for CO2 having increased from 288ppm pre-industrial to 368ppm (which dates the webpage to perhaps 20 years ago as today CO2 is at 410ppm) , an increase of (364-288=) 80ppm but with the bold assertion that only 12ppm of this increase is due to mankind. So from all this we should not be surprised by any denialist outrage.

   The pre-industrial GH-effect boosts average global temperature by something like 33ºC. About three-quarters of this is due to water vapour and clouds and 20% due to CO2. But without the CO2 and other long-lived GHGs, the levels of water in the atmosphere would soon crash (it would take a couple of decades) leaving a snowball (or more accurately 'iceball' earth.

   The speaker in the video does make a stab at a man-made cause of AGW. A graphic @1:11:20 in the video shows two paths to 'temperature warming' - CO2 emissions from soil degradation and H2O emissions from warmer soils. But the speaker insists it is the H2O that is the dominant warming agent:-

   1:03:13
   "And when we lose carbon, we lose moisture because that's what gives us our moisture holding capacity. All this moisture, extra moisture, is evaporating and going up into the atmosphere. And it's increasing the temperature, hugely.
   "This is, to my mind anyway, the chief cause of the climate instability that we have at the moment. Because what happens is if you heat something it evaporates, like you put a saucepan of water on the stove and heat it up, it evaporates.
   "So these soils get a lot hotter than these covered soils and we now have huge amounts of water vapour up in the atmosphere that weren't there a couple of hundred years ago. We have to look at the whole system..."

   It would be good if the "whole system" were considered as we would be saved having to listen to the likes of the dysfunctonal account of AGW in this video.

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3. prove we are smart at 21:11 PM on 7 August, 2020

   Great, thanks for link-I'd forgotten how short lived water vapour is in our atmosphere. Sceptical Science has been so helpful for explaining to me the very basics to a more intimate understanding of AGW. A clued up moderator keeps everyone honest-good news with your new partners..

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