From EMPA Switzerland:
Sketchy emission reports revealed by Empa measurements at Jungfraujoch
Fluorinated hydrocarbons are potent greenhouse gases, emission of which must be reduced under the Kyoto Protocol. If you rely on the official reports of the participating countries, the output of trifluoromethane (HFC-23) in Western Europe is indeed significantly decreasing. However, pollutant measurements carried out by Empa now reveal that several countries under-report their emissions. For instance, Italy emits 10 to 20 times more HFC-23 than it officially reports.
International agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) basically have one snag: it is almost impossible to independently verify whether participating countries abide by the agreement. Thus the evaluation of whether or not the countries have achieved their reduction targets is based on the official reports by the countries that are signatories to the UNFCCC (‘United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’). If they report reduced emissions they’re sitting pretty; if not, they are pilloried.
This could change soon. Pollutant analyses by Empa, the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, – at the Jungfraujoch research station at 3580 metres above sea level, among others – using a special gas chromatograph mass spectrometer called ‘MEDUSA’ not only enables the emission levels of more than 50 halogenated GHG to be quickly and precisely evaluated; they also make it possible to identify the emission sources regionally, thanks to atmospheric and meteorological computer models. The sobering result: Western Europe emits around twice as much HFC-23 as officially reported. A corresponding study was recently published in the journal ‘Geophysical Research Letters’.
“Our results show that these types of measurements really are suitable for checking compliance with international agreements on air pollution control”, says Empa researcher Stefan Reimann from the ‘Air Pollution/Environmental Technology’ laboratory. It is true that the Kyoto Protocol did not specify any independent control mechanisms; this could, however, be of central importance in subsequent agreements with binding emission targets.
The usual suspects?
The suspicion that some countries have not been overly precise in reporting their GHG emissions has been around for some time; projections from measurements of the world-wide AGAGE network (‘Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment’) showed significantly higher readings than officially reported. Reimann: “It was assumed that, above all, China and some developing countries did not correctly report their emissions levels.“
For example emissions of HFC-23, with an atmospheric half life of approximately 270 years an extremely long-lived GHG – and with a global warming potential 15,000 times greater than CO2 a particularly potent one. HFC-23 is produced as a by-product in the manufacture of chlorodifluoromethane (HCFC-22), which is used as a cooling and foaming agent and in Teflon production. The advantage of HFC-23 is that it is almost exclusively emitted by HCFC-22 manufacturers. And there were just six of them in Western Europe in 2008. Reimann: “That means we exactly know our point sources.”
In order to estimate the HFC-23 amounts in the atmosphere over Western Europe as precisely as possible, Reimann and his doctoral student, Christoph Keller, analysed the HFC-23 emissions from July 2008 to July 2010 at both Jungfraujoch and Mace Head, an AGAGE measurement station on the west coast of Ireland. Time and again they found mysterious peaks, which far exceeded the average. Using atmospheric transport models, the Empa researchers were able to calculate where the polluted air masses originated that transported HFC-23 to Jungfraujoch – first and foremost from Italy’s sole HCFC-22 factory west of Milan.
“Clean” Italy: virtually HFC-23-free since 1996 – according to the records
So far, so good. If it were not for the official figures from Italy, which did not report any appreciable HFC-23 emissions – and that since 1996. An isolated case? Reimann and his team wanted to dig deeper. With financial support from the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), they evaluated HFC-23 figures for 2008 to 2010 throughout Western Europe and pinpointed the source regions. The emission figures approximately doubled those that had been reported – whereby countries significantly differed in their ‘reporting accuracy’. Alongside the ‘front runner’ Italy, also the Netherlands and Great Britain underestimated their HFC-23 emissions; France and Germany’s figures, in contrast, lay within the reported values. And, to Reimann’s delight, the computer model was able to identify all six HCFC-22 factories with great accuracy.
“For instance, Italy emits 10 to 20 times more HFC-23 than it officially reports.”
I’m shocked.
Shocked, I tell you. (Not).
For those outside the happy EU labour camp, it might be a surprise but that’s how it works. And, although I’m not a fan of “pollution” (leaving on one side whether or not there is more of a problem with HFC-23 than there is with CO2), I don’t blame the Italians.
Why screw up the economy to keep the Greenies happy? Just because the Brits (and to some extent the Germans), always keen on self flagellation, like to gold plate EU Directives and are daft enough to try to exceed their targets (like good Stakhanovites), they shouldn’t expect the rest of Europe to play by the rules.
They won’t.
At some 13,000ft, for the restaurant at least, it was very cold when my Wife and I went one summer. Cold enough for the ice carvings to remain unmelted and skiing on the glacier below. Not so very ‘Greenhouse’ I can tell you.
I suppose these gasses will be added to the rest and it will be worse than we thought. Another badly thought out bit of science.
So do the greenies believe the model or the reports? Heh.
Of course, there’s also the money shot: In order to be able to collect data such as these on a global scale, the network of measurement stations would have to expanded, above all in Eastern Europe and East Asia.
Can someone explain what the statement “with a global warming potential 15,000 times greater than CO2” actually means? I have heard it many times but it still does not make any sense. If a doubling of CO2 has the effect of warming by 0.7C does this mean that a doubling of CFCs will warm the world by 10,000C? That is very much worse than we thought!
they also make it possible to identify the emission sources regionally, thanks to atmospheric and meteorological computer models.
Here we go again.
John Marshall says:
August 21, 2011 at 1:47 am
I presume you are being sarcastic when you say “Another badly thought out bit of science.”. I think it’s a positive thing that we are able to pinpoint with fairly good accuracy where these gasses are coming from and to call into question the discrepancy between what is reported and what is actually there in our skies/
As for being able to go skiing in the middle of the summer, I think is would be neat to do that. After all, the only place I know of in the US where it is possible (with chair lift service) to ski on the 4th of July is Mt. Hood in Oregon.
One wonders what they expected to find and that model sounds too good to be true.
The US works because the founding fathers didn’t trust anyone. They assumed that people would act badly, and they designed the US government with that in mind. They divided up the responsibilities so no one had too much power, everyone had different responsibilities, and they were all watching over each other all the time.
The UN, on the other hand, always assumes that the world is full of people of good will working in harmony for the benefit of all. As a result, they don’t ask IPCC authors to declare conflicts of interest, and they depend on the IPCC participants essential humanity to keep them from taking personal advantage of their positions.
It is the same way regarding the CO2 and other GHG agreements. The assumption is that nobody will cheat. I’m sure the Chinese and the Indians find this hilarious. I have read that people in developing countries have set up factories that produce GHGs, purely for the money that they will get from the foolish gwai-loh for the “avoided production” of the GHGs that they never were going to produce anyway, it was all just a farce to get the money …
w.
All this is just worldly insanity, that is ignorant of the fact — definitively established by my comparison of the atmospheric temperatures on Venus and Earth — that “greenhouse gases”, like all atmospheric gases, are warmed by the absorption of incident solar radiation, not by the trapping of lesser radiation from the surface (against the natural heat flow upwards, toward empty space). The science is upside down, so the world engages in irrelevant and harmful politics. This nonsense won’t go away until enough scientists find their competence to renounce the “greenhouse effect”, based upon the assumption of atmospheric heating by the surface, entirely. My Venus/Earth comparison separates the competent from the incompetent in climate science; that is too harsh a judgment for the 97% who are wrong to face, but it has to be faced, because it is the truth.
Hmm two measuring points and they can build a model to ‘pin-point accuracy’.
I suppose they’re within 1200km so GISS won’t object.
Jungfraujoch?? Isn’t this the place that the alien creatures invaded in 1958 covered in the documentary film The Crawling Eye?????
Maybe it wasn’t excessive CO2 after all that attracted them, but the knowledge that we would be ruining a perfectly good food source with emissions of HFC-23 in the future! (they’re psychic AND invisible, ya know)
But since we’ve long since vanquished the crawling eyes, China must be loving the profit potential in this news. European companies will be relocating their HFC-23 emitting plants to China, where there’s no such restrictions, and cheaper labor….putting europeans out of work, and China once again in the catbird seat.
It will all be done in the spirit of preventing climate change, and the focus can remain on CO2.
Anthony, thank you for that awesome photo of Jungfraujoch (which is featured in John Christopher’s “The Tripods” series and Kim Stanley Robinson’s “Blue Mars”). Hope to visit one day!
Mike Campbell
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Everything to build the Fourth Reich.
Friends:
So, people lie about their emissions when they are paid to lie about their emissions.
Who would have thought that was possible?
Clearly not supporters of the Kyoto Protocol, ‘carbon caps’, emissions trading schemes, etc.
Obviously, they have the degree of brain power required to believe in AGW.
Richard
“…they also make it possible to identify the emission sources regionally, thanks to atmospheric and meteorological computer models.”
Can any of this be independently verified, or are we supposed to take their word for it?
(I think I know the answer.)
cal says: Can someone explain what the statement “with a global warming potential 15,000 times greater than CO2″ actually means? I have heard it many times but it still does not make any sense. If a doubling of CO2 has the effect of warming by 0.7C does this mean that a doubling of CFCs will warm the world by 10,000C? That is very much worse than we thought!
It means – something like – that the warming you’d get from 1 unit of HFC-23 is the same as you’d get from 15,000 units of CO2. This does not imply that enough of it would raise the temperature to 10,000 C. or anything like that. There are diminishing returns, just as with CO2.
R. de Haan said: “Everything to build the Fourth Reich.”
In Switzerland?
What a good way to drive European industry out of Europe.
Utopia is coming.
Harry Dale Huffman says:
August 21, 2011 at 3:11 am
“My Venus/Earth comparison separates the competent from the incompetent in climate science;”
Yes, good work. Anyone who believes what you wrote has any credibility is instantly revealed as incompetent. I really love the part where you describe a perpetual motion machine where gravitationally compressed gases remain heated forever after the compression stops. The dopes who believe that might next believe that when a diesel engine is shut off any of the pistons caught at the top of a compression stroke will never cool down! Amazing!
So are you assembling a list of the incompetent for later use or just using it for personal entertainment?
Smoking Frog says:
August 21, 2011 at 4:59 am
cal says: Can someone explain what the statement “with a global warming potential 15,000 times greater than CO2″ actually means? I have heard it many times but it still does not make any sense. If a doubling of CO2 has the effect of warming by 0.7C does this mean that a doubling of CFCs will warm the world by 10,000C? That is very much worse than we thought!
It means – something like – that the warming you’d get from 1 unit of HFC-23 is the same as you’d get from 15,000 units of CO2. This does not imply that enough of it would raise the temperature to 10,000 C. or anything like that. There are diminishing returns, just as with CO2.
Thanks Smoking frog. This was my guess too but do you know for certain? Is it just that the absorption cross section is 15000 times greater or would would twenty parts per billion in the atmosphere really raise the temperature by the 10C that CO2 is possibly responsible for? It is my understanding that the absorption is not at a wavelength that coincides with the peak in the emitted outoing long wave radiation as it is with CO2; has this been taken into account? The point is that there are 1500 gigatons of CO2 in the atmosphere so are they saying that to have an equal effect there would have to be a tenth of a gigaton of CFCs. Thats a lot but because it accumulates it would mean that within a century the effects would be similar. I am doubtful.
I understand the possible threat to the ozone layer from a very much smaller amount of CFCs which would allow more UV reach the surface. This would result in warming but it is not a greenhouse effect.
I was being a bit tongue in cheek with my original post but I am fed up with emotive quotes which imply something which is probably not true. I would like an exact definition of how this is calculated.
Martin Brumby says
———
Why screw up the economy to keep the Greenies happy?
———
I wonder if you noticed Martin that it is the Italian economy which is screwed and it is the German economy which is not. There is probably a reason for that. Maybe it’s some cultural thing to do with foresight and planning and actually being serious about solving problems before they occur.
Novel idea i know.
Cal ask
———–
Can someone explain what the statement “with a global warming potential 15,000 times greater than CO2″ actually means?
———–
Don’t know exactly, but it will have a lot to do with either the absorption cross-section being greater or more likely the wavelength of the absorption peak is in a region of the earth’s black body emission that allows it to intercept more IR radiation.
This is slightly O/T but maybe someone can point me in the right direction to the answer. When we read reports that CO2 has increased by 1PPM, does that mean that other atmospheric gases have decreased by 1PPM? When we pump gigatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere and increase the PPM, are other gasses disappearing?
Dave Springer:
Your post at August 21, 2011 at 6:00 am addressed to Harry Dale Huffman is the latest in your series of illogical and personally offensive rants on WUWT.
Huffman may or may not be right about the cause(s) of high temperatures at the surface of Venus. But his argument is not disproved by your analogy of an unheated piston in a not-working diesel engine. That analogy says nothing about the distribution of thermal flows through the atmosphere of Venus which is heated by the Sun.
But, on the basis of that silly, inappropriate and irrelevant analogy, you say to Huffman;
“Anyone who believes what you wrote has any credibility is instantly revealed as incompetent.”
and
“So are you assembling a list of the incompetent for later use or just using it for personal entertainment?”
I have reached the conclusion that you are a disruptive troll who is pretending to be an AGW-skeptic as a method to induce disruption of WUWT threads by illogical assertions and flaming.
So, I suggest that everybody ignores posts from ‘Dave Springer’ because any responses to those posts merely feeds the troll.
Richard
Harry Dale Huffman says
——-
that “greenhouse gases”, like all atmospheric gases, are warmed by the absorption of incident solar radiation
——-
The long answer: the absorption spectra of all gases in the atmosphere have been measured. These absorption spectra are not in the visible part of the solar spectrum. If the light is not absorbed in the atmosphere it cannot warm the atmosphere.
Just look up. You can see the sun. It is white not coloured, so there no absorption and therefore no heating.
Short answer: crank science.
What other places did the air masses which pass over Italy also pass over? Did they stop looking beyond the six European locations?
cal:
You have repeatedly asked (first at August 21, 2011 at 2:19 am ).
“Can someone explain what the statement “with a global warming potential 15,000 times greater than CO2″ actually means?”
The derivation of global waming potential (GWP) for each greenhouse gas (GHG) was explained in the first IPCC Report which, unfortunately, is not on the web.
GWP is covered in the most recent IPCC Report (AR4) in its Section
‘TS.2.5 Net Global Radiative Forcing, Global Warming Potentials and Patterns of Forcing’
that can be read at
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/tssts-2-5.html
It says there,
“The Global Warming Potential (GWP) is a useful metric for comparing the potential climate impact of the emissions of different LLGHGs (see Table TS.2). Global Warming Potentials compare the integrated radiative forcing over a specified period (e.g., 100 years) from a unit mass pulse emission and are a way of comparing the potential climate change associated with emissions of different greenhouse gases. There are well-documented shortcomings of the GWP concept, particularly in using it to assess the impact of short-lived species.”
In other words, the statement “with a global warming potential 15,000 times greater than CO2″ means that the IPCC estimates a pulse of 1 Gt into the atmosphere would have a global warming effect over e.g. the following 100 years equivalent to a pulse of 15,000 Gt of CO2 into the atmosphere.
I commend reading the Section at the link and, especially, Table TS.2.
I hope this is what you wanted or, at least, is helpful.
Richard
From LazyTeenager on August 21, 2011 at 6:36 am:
Maybe it’s something to do with Germany having lower environmental concentrations of Mafiosi.
“The dopes who believe that might next believe that when a diesel engine is shut off any of the pistons caught at the top of a compression stroke will never cool down!”
I haven’t looked at the situation on Venus in any great detail, but if that engine was in a vacuum and had a big heater pointed at it (just as Venus is in a vacuum with incoming heat from the sun), then it’s quite possible that it would never cool down. For all I know you may be right about Venus, but that seems a very poor analogy to try to prove your point.
I have two problems with this. First, if the half life in the atmosphere is 270 years, who is to say they are measuring newly produced HFC-23, and how are they able to differentiate this from what is already there?
Second, the molecular weight of HFC-23 is 70, or about two and a half times heavier than air, and one and a half times CO2. How does it stay up in the atmosphere for so long?
Cal —
The “global warming potential” is a figure which is meant to include both the effect in terms of retained heat (Watts/meter^2/kg) for a given amount of greenhouse gas, but also the atmospheric residency. The figure is given relative to the effect of adding an equal weight of CO2 into the atmosphere. So a gas which dissipates in a year will have a smaller GWP than one which persists for a long time. Typically, the GWP is figured over a period of 100 years, although other time intervals have also been used. As far as the radiative forcing is concerned, it’s not that the absorption cross-section is 15000 times greater than CO2’s, but the effect is larger because the wavelengths that HFC-23 is sensitive to, are presumably not already strongly affected by existing atmospheric components.
The large GWP value for HFC-23, especially compared to other HFCs, is due in large part to its long atmospheric lifetime (270 years).
I don’t think it’s quite right to compare atmospheric content, as in your point “there are 1500 gigatons of CO2 in the atmosphere so are they saying that to have an equal effect there would have to be a tenth of a gigaton of CFCs”, because the radiative forcing effect is not linear with respect to concentrations. It makes more sense to apply the GWP factor only to emission rates. The unreported emissions of HFC-23, which are claimed to be ~500 kton/yr CO2-equivalent, are ~30 tons/yr of actual HFC-23. In the end, though, compare 500 kton/yr CO2-e to the total global value of approximately 25 Gt/yr of CO2 emission, and you can see that we’re only talking in terms of thousandths of percentage points.
For more information, please read IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 2 (specifically 2.10). http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter2.pdf
Jim S,
“This is slightly O/T but maybe someone can point me in the right direction to the answer. When we read reports that CO2 has increased by 1PPM, does that mean that other atmospheric gases have decreased by 1PPM?2
Yes. By definition, if the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is 400 ppm, then all other gases must add up to 999,600 ppm. If CO2 increases to 401 ppm, then all other gases in total must account for 999,599 ppm. In actual fact, this balance is maintained by subsituting 1 molecule of oxygen out of the atmosphere with 1 molecule of CO2.
@LazyTeenager August 21, 2011 at 6:36 am
“I wonder if you noticed Martin that it is the Italian economy which is screwed and it is the German economy which is not. There is probably a reason for that. Maybe it’s some cultural thing to do with foresight and planning and actually being serious about solving problems before they occur”
A typically moronic comment from a weapons grade f[**]head.
Demonstrate that the Italian economy would be better if they avidly controlled HCF-23 emissions.
And you think the UK economy is fine – no cause for concern? And that £18.4 Billion per year for the next 40 years that we have committed by virtue of the 2008 Climate Change Act will assist either (a) the UK economy or (b) the climate?
What a [***].
(Please avoid such insults & Language. Robt]
There is a compelling possibility that some HFC emissions (hydrofluorocarbons; hydrochlorofluorocarbons) touted to be very strong GHGs are natural and come mainly from explosive volcanoes. Consider the following:
http://bing.search.sympatico.ca/?q=Fluorine%20abundance%20in%20the%20crust&mkt=en-ca&setLang=en-CA
(A) “The most abundant gas typically released into the atmosphere from volcanic systems is water vapor (H2O), followed by carbon dioxide (CO2) and sulfur dioxide (SO2). Volcanoes also release smaller amounts of others gases, including hydrogen sulfide (H2S), hydrogen (H2), carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen chloride (HCL), hydrogen fluoride (HF), and helium (He).”
And (B)
http://bing.search.sympatico.ca/?q=Natural%20HFC%20emissions&mkt=en-ca&setLang=en-CA
“Fluorine is the most chemically reactive element. It reacts, often very vigorously, with all of the other elements except oxygen, helium, neon and krypton”
[GP note: it reacts even with some noble gasses; it is the 17th most abundant element in the earth’s crust – 535ppm average]
I think it would be worth an experiment (possibly wearing a bomb disposal suit) to mix hot HF, HCl, H2O, CO2, and CO together – I would be surprised if we didn’t get some HCFC from this.
In searching for references that state HFCs are only manmade, I came across this, in which actual HFC/HCFC emissions have been measured from not only volcanoes (my experiment is unnecessary but it shows a bit of chemistry knowledge would lead one to the result) but also from:
“This fact, along with other natural sources of CFCs including sponges, other marine animals, bacteria (both marine & terrestrial), fungi (both marine & terrestrial), plants (both marine & terrestrial), lichen, insects, is so well documented that it is the subject of ongoing textbook publication (Gribble, 2003; Jordan, 2003). Stoiber et al. (1971) first measured and documented CFCs venting from Santiaguito in Guatamala. Since, there have been many studies corroborating the volcanic emission of CFCs (Isidorov et al, 1990; Isidorov et al., 1993; Jordon et al., 2000; Schwandner et al., 2000; Schwandner et al., 2002; Schwandner et al., 2004; Frische et al., 2006). Although some authors attempt to correlate volcanogenic CFCs to atmospheric variations, the confirmation of soil diffusion decay with distance from the vent (Schwandner et al., 2004) still stands in stark contradiction of Frische’s hypothesis.”
Oops, the latter reference missing – please add this moderator.
http://bing.search.sympatico.ca/?q=HFC%20from%20volcanoes&mkt=en-ca&setLang=en-CA
Robt
My apologies.
But, in mitigation, the reason why trolls come on here is most likely (a) that they are Greenie True Believers. Or / and (b) they are personally on the cAGW gravy train and are anxious that it will shortly hit the buffers.
In either case, they try to divert debate, mislead and to be irritating. In the latter objective at least, they sometimes succeed.
Martin Brumby saith: “…Just because the Brits…are daft enough to try to exceed their targets (like good Stakhanovites), they shouldn’t expect the rest of Europe to play by the rules.”
Dang! I haven’t heard anyone use that word in decades! (Except me, of course.)
Harry Dale Huffman says: [stuff]
Sorry, HDH, you need to get better basic information on how the so-called greenhouse effect works. Your conclusion may follow from your premises, but your premises are erroneous. Apologies for the rudeness of some commenters.
@Willis Eschenbach says: August 21, 2011 at 3:01 am
“The US works because the founding fathers didn’t trust anyone. ”
I’ve been watching the US debt pile up and the corporate political governance unable to do what’s necessary to stop the U.S. being another Greece. Extreme socialism and extreme capitalism take you to the same spot. The U.S. stopped working when it went extreme.
Gilbert K. Arnold says:
“As for being able to go skiing in the middle of the summer, I think is would be neat to do that. After all, the only place I know of in the US where it is possible (with chair lift service) to ski on the 4th of July is Mt. Hood in Oregon.”
Arapahoe Basin, CO. I’ve skied there many times in July. Here is July 4th, 2011.
Since my BROTHER eliminated 99.9% of the CFC emissions from a MAJOR semiconductor/circuit/cell phone supplier (you can figure it out, if you watch the headsets at a football game)…in 1996 to 1998 by replacing solder flux scrubbing with TURPINES rather than CFC liquids (which evaporated and went to the atmosphere)…I find this sort of CRAP the CRAP it is.
It’s not some “subtle conspiracy” to “under-report”. It’s identical to the old saw about DDT “permeating” the top soil. University of Michigan, I believe, found GLASS SEALED SOIL SAMPLES from 1910. (In the ’90’s) Some bright person said, “Let’s analyze and see what changes have occurred in 90 years..” They did. Hum, DDT – 10 PPM in the top soil. NATURAL CONSITUENT. (Anyone could have figured this by working out the TONS of DDT production since 1939, and the TONS of top soil, and found out that at 10 PPM there would have had to have been 10 times as much DDT produced to acheive that level in the top soil.)
MY POINT for those with attention spans to short to get it, is this: This error in the measurement versus the sources, doesn’t mean the source term is corrupt (automatically) it probably means there are NATURAL PROCESSES producing or isolating, or concentrating, CFCs.
“Do NOT ascribe to deliberate malfisence or evil, that which can more simply be explained by shear ignorance and/or stupidity.” Source: Unknown
Jungfraujoch research station? That’s where Ernst Blofeld was brainwashing the girls until James Bond stopped him, isn’t it?
@ jorgekafkazar.
Stakhanovite! That word takes me back a bit, too.
In regard to the question of the relative power of the various component gases in the atmosphere to contribute to the GHE. The problem with most of these claims is the same one that, in my mind, most effectively undermines the entire AGW hypothesis. That is the implicit fallacy that every atom of every gas behaves exactly the same while freely circulating in the highly chaotic atmosphere as it does in an experimental apparatus on a lab table. At the molecular level this may or may not be true but, in terms of end results, the evidence continues to mount that it is a complete and devastating error.
I hate to keep bringing up Evans and Puckrin 2006, mostly because the authors’ analysis of their data is the worst kind of warmist dreck, but their creation and execution of an experimental methodology to use spectral analysis to empirically quantify the individual contributions of the component gases of the atmosphere to downwelling longwave radiation(DLR) and by extension the GHE was innovative and, again and perhaps solely to my mind, pointed to an obvious pathway to develop a database of empirical observations which would illuminate what all those contentious GHGs were doing in the atmosphere to drive the climate.
http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/100737.pdf
If you go to the pdf, skip the verbiage entirely or you’re liable to be discouraged before you reach the real meat which is the data tables, particularly tables 3a & 3b the measured seasonal DLR values for Winter and Summer. You will note that in the cold dry air of Winter CO2 provides almost 25% of DLR, but in the warmer, moister air of Summer it is responsible for less than 4% of DLR. E&P did this experimental work in West Central Canada where even in Summer total DLR is only 250-270W/m2. If you go to a map that shows the distribution of DLR across the planet (Fig 4 in the following pdf) you will note that over most the Earth most of the time that level of DLR is greatly exceeded
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/3/5099/2003/acpd-3-5099-2003-print.pdf
Again I will point out that these inferences are mine alone, AFAIK E&P have never expressed such reasoning, but to me the implications seem almost intuitively obvious. If the suppressive effect of H2O on CO2 and the other GHGs which E&P measured is verified it ought to put a stake through the heart of the vampire of AGW. DLR seems to me to be the heart and soul of the AGW hypothesis, the “backradiation” that drives it. The amplification by evaporation of H2O needs to occur over the Tropical oceans where the total DLR is continually above 400W/m2 where this data suggests CO2’s contribution would be 1-2%. Hardly enough to significantly influence evaporation rates.
Although this study is entirely too limited both spacially and temporally to constitute proof of anything, E&P’s methodology used a model to predict the atmosphere of the past to have something to compare their measurements against. I’m normally far from a fan of computer models, but theirs seems to be fairly competent and, most interestingly to me, it predicted this suppressive effect almost exactly as measured. This would seem to provide some implicit verification of the data as measured.
I am admittedly a complete amateur in this area and it is entirely possible that my inferences are complete hogwash, but I’ve posted similar comments here numerous times and no one has jumped in to explain why I am a complete moron. Of course, that may indicate a number of things
1) As I’ve always suspected no one is actually reading any of this crap that I post or
2) As I sometimes suspect after choking down a handful of St. John’s Wort, that the clarity and brilliance of my analysis is so compelling that no mere mortal would dare rise to challenge me. Hey, it could happen!
BTW, as usual I got sidetracked and forgot to cover the point I started out to address which is that E&P’s measurements of the contributions of the CFCs and most of the other GHGs are at the level of hundreths of a W/m2, even methane’s part seems to be wildly exagerated at barely over a W/m2.