IRG's: WV vs CO2
As a final point, consider the impact of Water Vapor more carefully. Most people discussing “back-radiation”, both AGW alarmists and skeptics alike, seem to focus on CO2, but in reality, Water Vapor is vastly more dominant, being somewhere around 1000 times more active than CO2 in absorbing and emitting long-wavelength IR. There is about 100 times more Water Vapor in the atmosphere than CO2, and the active spectral width for IR absorption and emission is about 10 times greater than for CO2
Both Water Vapor and CO2 are IR-Active Gases and in that role be expected to have similar effects in the atmosphere. (Actually Water Vapor is considerably more complicated due latent heat of condensation/vaporization, latent heat of fusion, and due to cloud formation, but these aspects will not be discussed here.) In the tropical areas of the Earth, the atmosphere has high humidity.
It is a fact that the maximum and minimum temperatures are lower than in arid areas where the humidity is very low. Thus it could not be argued that IR-Active Gases are causing higher temperatures as a result of “trapping” heat. This would apply to both Water Vapor and to CO2, as well as to other IR-Active Gases. The AGW alarmist concept of heat “trapping” is refuted completely by climate data.
Refer to the section on “Climate Science” for details of how IR-Active Gases function in the atmosphere.
We should revisit occasionally what the proper role of government is. As the constitution was a good sense of direction, we need a core set of principles to add in order to deal with the future.
So many want to engineer society, remove risk, assist certain groups, rather than let individuals thrive and raise communities. Why?
Is Democracy where we all "get it good and hard" or is it the best means to a free society?
Should we roll with the special interests, or make the government achieve its proper role, what is that role, and how to do this?
When do deficits and governments become too large?
Government is becoming more elitist while trying to sell corrections to problems it created, what makes this possible?
