Entrepreneurs Fight Air Pollution With CO2-Reducing 'CityTrees' (cnn.com) 190
CNN is reporting on "CityTree", a unique 10-foot tall mobile installation which removes pollutants from the air." An anonymous reader quotes their report:
Berlin-based Green City Solutions claims its invention has the environmental benefit of up to 275 actual trees. But the CityTree isn't, in fact, a tree at all -- it's a moss culture. "Moss cultures have a much larger leaf surface area than any other plant. That means we can capture more pollutants," said Zhengliang Wu, co-founder of Green City Solutions.
The huge surfaces of moss installed in each tree can remove dust, nitrogen dioxide and ozone gases from the air. The installation is autonomous and requires very little maintenance: solar panels provide electricity, while rainwater is collected into a reservoir and then pumped into the soil... "We also have pollution sensors inside the installation, which help monitor the local air quality and tell us how efficient the tree is." Wu said. Its creators say that each CityTree is able to absorb around 250 grams of particulate matter a day and contributes to the capture of greenhouse gases by removing 240 metric tons of CO2 a year... Wu also argued that the CityTree is just one piece of a larger puzzle. "Our ultimate goal is to incorporate technology from the CityTree into existing buildings," he said.
So far they've installed 20 CityTrees -- each of which costs about $25,000.
The huge surfaces of moss installed in each tree can remove dust, nitrogen dioxide and ozone gases from the air. The installation is autonomous and requires very little maintenance: solar panels provide electricity, while rainwater is collected into a reservoir and then pumped into the soil... "We also have pollution sensors inside the installation, which help monitor the local air quality and tell us how efficient the tree is." Wu said. Its creators say that each CityTree is able to absorb around 250 grams of particulate matter a day and contributes to the capture of greenhouse gases by removing 240 metric tons of CO2 a year... Wu also argued that the CityTree is just one piece of a larger puzzle. "Our ultimate goal is to incorporate technology from the CityTree into existing buildings," he said.
So far they've installed 20 CityTrees -- each of which costs about $25,000.
CO2 is a global problem, not a city problem (Score:4, Interesting)
CO2 is a global problem, not a city problem. There is no reason to locate CO2 consuming moss in any particular location, so it should be where it grows best, which is likely not downtown. This is obvious public "art" to make a statement, and not a serious attempt to mitigate AGW. Anyway, it does look cool.
Re: CO2 is a global problem, not a city problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Particulate emissions and NO2 levels are largely local problems, especially when you look at health effects versus distance from source. You should want to clean up air in cities because there are lots of harmful emissions there, and because a lot of people live there. Especially in developing nations, along with China and India, it's wildly expensive to adopt the kind of environmental controls that the US and Europe use. I'm not sure that this gadget provides $25,000 worth of benefit, but I agree with the overall idea.
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Re:CO2 is a global problem, not a city problem (Score:4, Insightful)
I see this as part of the solution not a fix to the problem.
Global warming is a big problem there isn't a magic bullet to fix the problem as there isn't one source that caused it.
The building of cities has caused a lot of deforestation and this is one of the factors in the problem. So if we have condense ways of cleaning the air in cities we can still keep the advantage of the concrete cities while adding the benefit of plant life to help reduce carbon.
Even if cities were plastered with these thing it isn't enough. But with combination of other changes such as moving to cleaner energy plants. More energy efficient transportation. We really slow down global climate change enough for the rest of the earth to heal from it, without having to make life changing sacrifices.
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Actually there is. How about giving a monthly allowance to those who have no biological children and are sterilized or are otherwise incapable of reproducing?
Because the people that would feel compelled to take this money is exactly the kind of people we need to keep breeding. Do you think that stupid people would take this money? They already worked the system by having the government pay them to have children. It's the smart people that would take the money to not have kids because they are the ones that can think beyond their next government check.
Wait... I have what might be a better idea. Instead of paying people to not have children I believe we shoul
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Can we start with this guy?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... [huffingtonpost.com]
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This does make sense in that respect, but with a few notable exceptions (Los Angeles) it's probably way more efficient to address the sources of the particulate pollution - usually coal power plants in/near the city.
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Two of the worst cities for pollution in Europe are Paris and London - both due to a high density of cars. London got so desperate they set up a congestion charge zone, and Paris is establishing car-free areas to serve as havens from the smog.
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Yup.
Though having grown up and spend most of my life (until recently) there, I can tell you that the air quality is far better now than it was back in the '80s.
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Because of their lower CO2 output, even the dirty old ones are less bad for the global environment than petrol / gasoline cars. Older diesels are much worse for humans and other animals in proximity to them because of the particulates, but modern diesels as as clean as petrol engines.
Ivy league (Score:2, Interesting)
A simpler and cheaper way is to plant ivy. Ivy covered buildings were common 200 years ago.
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I don't know if that phrase is obviously true. CO2 and other pollutants have sources, which are localized somewhere (car exhaust, smokestacks, etc.). Some cities (Beijing, New York, Los Angeles) have localized weather conditions or inversions that cause pollutants to remain concentrate and remain localized, so if there is some way to remove the pollutants where they are concentrated and causing a huge number of people respiratory problems, I would be all for it.
The only question I have is how well does this
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CO2 is a global problem, not a city problem. There is no reason to locate CO2 consuming moss in any particular location, so it should be where it grows best, which is likely not downtown. This is obvious public "art" to make a statement, and not a serious attempt to mitigate AGW. Anyway, it does look cool.
This is just some slick Grifters trying to suck up some U$25,000.00 from the City rubes to grow some moss. That shit grows all over the place out in the forests, only some stupid assed City-boys would fall for a con job like that!
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These walls are useless for particulate catching were they're located.
The most effective position is at knee level on the roadside. If you don't believe me, check any roadside hedge.
Silly (Score:5, Insightful)
By the way, surface area is irrelevant if there isn't air flow past the surface, like there would be for an actual tree.
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In a city $25,000 is fairly cheap compared to planting and maintaining 250 trees. Including the space they will take up in NYC you are paying over $1500 per square foot of space. 25k is a value
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"up to: [Re:Silly] (Score:2)
one of these is supposedly equal to 250 trees worth of carbon sink/air pollution scrub.
No-- equal to "up to" 275 actual trees.
What does the word "up to" mean? This is a weasel word. It means "less than or equal."
I expect "less than". I expect a lot less than.
FEAR NO MAN! (Score:2)
This statement is quite meaningless as the phrase "UP TO" clearly includes the number "NOUGHT". [llapgoch.org.uk]
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Chances are those who are far more educated than you or I on this topic have done a lot more than simply assume what design is more efficient, to include the long-term financial aspect.
You would think so, but in the real world there is a vast history of government projects that demonstrate a lack of foresight and dumb thinking (or no thinking). Especially on the local/state level.
I'm not talking about hundreds of years ago either. Just last year in 2016 the state of California decided to cover up the surface of a large reservoir to reduce evaporation (they were in the middle of a big drought). They decided on floating thousands of plastic balls on the water since it was easier and cheaper
Re:Silly (Score:5, Insightful)
So the day came and they released all those plastic balls and the TV cameras were rolling and what did we see? BLACK BALLS. Black plastic balls rolling into the water.
No one involved with the project had the foresight to consider the color of the balls. Black balls absorb a lot more sunlight and get hotter and increase water temperature, leading to more water evaporation. It would've been trivial to add white pigment to the plastic balls and the cost difference would've been negligible.
This is the problem with being an arm chair engineer. Do you have any proof that white balls would have been better? Besides preventing evaporation, the other goal of the project was to block sunlight and UV rays to prevent the formation of Bromate. The reason that black balls are warmer is that they absorb more sunlight than other colors. Opaque white balls might have been more effective or coating the black balls in something reflective before releasing them (which may add to the production cost and/or durability) but neither you nor I would have any idea without a lot more data.
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Spy Handler's assumption is that because the government did it, and especially because it's a "green" project in California, it must be stupid and a waste of money. So all that remains is to figure out in what way it is stupid and wastes money, and the answer can't be "it doesn't".
So all Spy Handler will take away from this is that they were wrong about the manner of wasting money, and search for other theories.
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If black balls on a lake are better for stopping evaporation than white, surely carbon in the atmosphere would cool the climate more than white snow.
I never claimed that. I said that there were other goals besides just preventing evaporation.
What is with all the elitism and religious respect of authority figures without questioning? It's trivial to do. We made a whole field out of it.
It's called science.
I didn't say that we shouldn't question them but just that when engineering a solution to any problem there are general multiple constraints that need to be balanced. As engineers also tend to know a thing or two about science and pretty much everyone knows that black absorbs more heat than white, although it's possible that they all managed to miss this, it's likely more plausible that there were other constraint
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I found a source stating that the color was chosen that way. http://www.businessinsider.com... [businessinsider.com]
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Re:Silly (Score:4, Informative)
I see a lot of project related analysis in your post except for the only one that matters: Did it work?
Yes it did. [businessinsider.com]
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No one involved with the project had the foresight to consider the color of the balls. Black balls absorb a lot more sunlight and get hotter and increase water temperature, leading to more water evaporation. It would've been trivial to add white pigment to the plastic balls and the cost difference would've been negligible.
Black pigment is the easiest way to make plastic UV resistant.
What does that even mean? [Re:Silly] (Score:2)
The cost of planting a tree for example in an american city is about $100-$150, not including the cost of the space they sit on. If it is true that these installations replace approximately 275 trees, that works out to be about $90 per "tree".
And if it is true instead that each of these replace "up to" 275 actual trees (which is what was stated), that works out to "at least" $90 per "tree."
"Up to." Yeah.
The amount of CO2 the thing can grab out of the air is going to be proportional to the sun absorbing area. Which, from the pictures, is not larger than a middling to small sized tree.
The phrase "up to 275" translates to "one."
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If you assume that the only purpose of trees is soaking up pollution. In reality, trees have many other benefits like shade and being pretty.
Begging the question (Score:1)
This begs the question of whether CO2 is actually a pollutant or not.
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This begs the question of whether CO2 is actually a pollutant or not.
No, it raises the question. Begging the question [wikipedia.org] means something completely different.
CO2 is not a pollutant in the normal sense of causing a specific problem where it is concentrated, but in excess it does cause global problems regardless of what you call it.
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you can die from drinking too much water, does that make H2O a pollutant "above some threshold"?
No, it makes it a hazard. But any time you're trying to keep water out of something because it will cause a problem with the process, water is a pollutant.
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Said so well.
Except it is total bullcrap. During the period that the denialists claim that temperatures were "stable" they were actually rising and a million square miles of arctic pack ice became open ocean.
Re: Begging the question (Score:2)
I wish to know more about these climate scientists who've never taken a basic chemistry class. ;-)
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Tree that can show advertising ... (Score:1)
How wonderful. Now that is something corporations can get behind.
Sounds like enterprise-level sales bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)
So, each "citytree" removes 240 metric ton of CO2 a year?
Right.
That's 529,109 pounds of molecular CO2, per year.
What does it do with it all?
Turn it into biomass?
Or unicorns?
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I think that includes the mass of bullshit associated by this project. Sure it's expensive and useless, but it certainly resolves the issue of how to signal that you really, really, care about the environment, so much that you are willing to waste this much money on it. That at least gives you gravitas.
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Well, there are figures you can compare this to. A algae farm can produce (according to the literature) 36 tons of dry biomass per hectare per year, which probably represents an upper limit on biomass production per area. That's 3.6 kg/m^2/year. This thing is vertical, true, but the implication of the way you're reading it is that it produces over 20,000 kg/m^2/year.
Clearly that's not possible, even with constant harvesting, but there's an even bigger problem: any CO2 removed as biomass will simply ret
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After a few years they simply collapse into a black hole. Storage problem solved.
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Check out this handy guide from the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/g... [bbc.co.uk]
Like all green plants, CO2 and water are reacted to produce a kind of sugar and oxygen.
Where does the carbon go? (Score:5, Insightful)
Photosynthesis does: CO2 + Water => Sugar + O2...then the plant takes that sugar and turns it into biomass by converting it to starches and structural materials for the plant itself.
Carbon has a molecular weight of 12 and Oxygen is 16...so CO2 is 25% carbon by weight. So to absorb 240 tons of CO2 per year - it's got to be generating (at a minimum) 60 tons of extra plant material per year - and more likely (because dead/living moss isn't all carbon) it's at least twice that.
There is only just so much space in that concrete container - which means that a literal truckload of dead/living moss has to be removed from it every single week! Then, that biomass has to be disposed of in some way that doesn't simply re-release it into the atmosphere when it decays...you'd have to bury it or something.
This is a ridiculous claim - it can't possibly be true. Even 24 tons a year wouldn't be credible - and 2.4 tons a year would seem high...the entire installation would haves to double in size every year to keep up even that more modest amount.
What I'm sure happened here is that it's plausible that the moss has vastly more surface area than a tree - but moss is much more slow-growing than trees are - so the amount of CO2 it absorbs cannot possibly be as much per-unit-area as the leaves of a tree. So I'm betting that they did all of their math from surface area alone - and didn't stop to think beyond that.
This is B.S.
Weight (Score:2)
This is actually something we should be doing (Score:2)
Just not for $25,000
Here's the thing... We need to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, the only viable way to do this is photosynthesis, then, we need some way to sequester the bulk material. If the numbers they quote are accurate, 275 trees, then this could be interesting. Also, I honestly don't see how something like this isn't less than about $500 worth of stuff.
The moss "filters" should be replaceable. Grow them, when they are done, remove them, dry and press them in to flat surface then laminate, violla! a
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We need to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, the only viable way to do this is photosynthesis,
A much better way to remove next year's CO2 from the atmosphere is to leave the carbon in the ground. Close a coal plant, and replace it with PV panels. After we've done that, we can focus on last year's CO2.
Carbon cycle is not that hard (Score:3)
There used to be a lot of confusion about how the carbon cycle [wikipedia.org] works but I hoped that we're over that now. In short, plants use up only as much carbon as they need to grow, the rest just goes through them. This installation will never become carbon negative.
It might help with air pollution, but for $25000 apiece planting 275 trees may still be more economical.
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It's not really for carbon, that's just hype. It's for particulate pollution. It tends to be a serious problem in urban areas due to a very high density of combustion-powered vehicles.
I'd like to see someone calculate how much of this moss you'd need to improve air quality though - I suspect it will be an impractical amount.
Re: Carbon cycle is not that hard (Score:2)
You'd need exactly one, to improve air quality.
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We already have moss, so we're done.
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If trees would be better really depends on a lot of factors. Trees take up more room and can have a negative effect on things around them (shade, roots). Having 275 of them means a lot of maintenance in a lot of different places. Trimming, safety evaluations, care when they get diseases etc.
But on the other hand, in the right place trees can be great. The more options we have the better.
Most efficient use of Public Spaces (Score:2)
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This structure delivers the equivalent of a large park with hundreds of trees worth of pollution control to a street corner.
Except it's not, and it doesn't. You are ignoring that weasel phrase "up to".
People in the thread above have already shot holes in that claim that it can remove 240 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year-- a ton every day and a half? Where does that carbon go? Who hauls it away?
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How much is your stake in green city solutions?
Nothing. 0 euro, 0 dm, 0 usd, 0 yen, 0 renminbi, 0 rupees, etc. My advocacy is for an engineering solution that addresses the environmental impact of development. We must build city environments and use them to operate efficiently, but as animals our health relies on ecology. This structure allows both requirements to be addressed.
Tree Farm in Alpha Centauri (Score:2)
Is that what we're moving towards? Tree Farms and Hybrid Forests to counter our ecological damage? Or are we going to go for a Centauri Preserve?
Just need that gov't $$$$$$ (Score:2)
So what you are saying is it is a shit idea and no one is stupid enough, except for gov't, to pay for it.
Perfect green-washing example (Score:2)
This is a perfect example of green-washing. Let's start with their own claimed numbers. "250 grams of particulate matter a day". Let's give them perfect efficiency and say that is 100% carbon. 250 grams x 365 days = 91,250 grams. Divide that by 1000 to and we see that this art installation claims 91.25 kilograms of particulate per year. This is indeed more than the average mature tree that captures 21.7 kilograms of carbon per year.
Now let's compare that to their claim of "greenhouse gases by removing 240 m
Carbon cycle (Score:2)
They claim to capture 240 tons of CO2, which turns into 60 tons of organic carbon retained by moss growth. And then, where will it go? They cannot let the moss culture grow without limit in their "tree".
The figures don't sound right (Score:4)
Where is all that carbon the moss is sequestering going? 240 metric tons of carbon doesn't just poof into nothingness. 240 metric tons a year is just under a ton a day. Based on the size of these things they should weigh somewhere between 4-8 metric tons. With the figures given they would be doubling in weight every 1-2 weeks from just the carbon. That doesn't sound very autonomous or low maintenance.
Questions: (Score:2)
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Climate change is real and Trump supporters are douche bags.
You do realize that comments like yours is why Trump won, right? People don't like being called douche bags, and they will dig in their heels just to make a point. Calling Republicans a "basket of deplorables" or whatever it was just drove people to vote Republican when they might not have voted at all. This also doesn't make Democrats feel great to vote because they don't want to be associated with name callers.
You may be absolutely correct on both counts but it's not going to help your cause by being s
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You do realize that comments like yours is why Trump won, right? People don't like being called douche bags, and they will dig in their heels just to make a point.
A fair point, and I wish more people would pay attention to it.
The science is what it is regardless of what people think. But it's not helpful to insult people for not crediting the science.
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Calling Republicans a "basket of deplorables" or whatever it was just drove people to vote Republican when they might not have voted at all.
What was especially funny/sad about that particular case was that Clinton was trying to say that many Republicans aren't "deplorables"; she was drawing a distinction between the minority of racists and xenophobes and the decent people who make up the majority of the party, and describing her strategy to go after the votes of the latter. Of course, the way it was reported and taken led the majority of non-deplorable Republicans to believe that she was calling them deplorable, thereby driving them firmly into
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You do realize that comments like yours is why Trump won, right? People don't like being called douche bags, and they will dig in their heels just to make a point.
If it were only true; Trump's lewd remarks about "feeling able to grab them (women) by the pussy” because “When you’re a star they let you do it” should at the very least cost him the vote of every women that heard the widely reported tape. Yet he received %42 of the women vote and an astounding %64 of the non-college educated white women vote. People focusing on things that support their believes while rationalizing away ones that don't, works on Politics as well
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Why Trump ... totally relevant to $25k "trees" preventing pollution :)
But consider this anyhow: maybe, just maybe, people are actually less sensitive than the sensational news reporters would have us believe. Maybe, just maybe! many people don't actually give a crap about offhand comments when they endlessly see politicians outright stealing, lying, cheating, bribing, etc. and doing it all mainly NOT for the voters but instead for corporate greed. Maybe people being bullied into voting hillary (trump su
Re: This just in (Score:5, Interesting)
Hahahahaha.
"Is our country still spending money on the GLOBAL WARMING HOAX?"
-Trump tweet on 25 Jan 2014
"Global warming is an expensive hoax"
- Trump tweet on 29 Jan 2014
"I don’t believe in climate change."
- Trump on CNN's New Day, 24 Sep 2015
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Climate Change Aint Real == Humans are not the prime mover of Global Warming.
(note the deception by climate change people. 10 years ago it was global warming
The problem with climate change proponents is we're taking our eye off the the real harm - pollutants. (I guess Al Gore and company couldn't profit enough from that.)
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(note the deception by climate change people. 10 years ago it was global warming ... now it's climate change).
That's hardly deception. It's still Global Warming. It's also Climate Change.
Climate Change is a great acknowledgement of the complexity of the problem.
The Global Warming may not seem like it impacts you much. The slow increase of the average temperature of the globe seems like a problem that can be ignored for a long time. The much-faster alteration of large scale climates is a lot more important to people.
Climate Change Aint Real == Humans are not the prime mover of Global Warming.
Humans are the prime mover of Global Warming, and hence, Climate Change. This really is incontrover
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Re: This just in (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but something isn't true just because you thought of it.
Nope. [Re: This just in] (Score:3)
well a few years ago the other planets in the solar system were increasing in temp around the same rate as us.
No, they weren't.
Check your data sources. First, find the actual papers, and verify that in fact other planets in the solar system were not increasing in temperature at around the same rate as us (they weren't, and aren't.)
Then, figure out who told you that and don't ever believe anything they tell you.
Re: This just in (Score:2)
I don't think our chemistry lab was sponsored by Bausch, no. Way back in the early 1970s, we did have computers gifted by HP. I forget their names but they had plotters, hooked up to a television, and supported magnetic strip cards for algorithm storage. I think they took punch cards, as well.
But, no. Bausch hadn't anything to do with it.
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The percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere is a rounding error compared to water vapor and should have a negligible effect unless it somehow behaves differently than water vapor. I honestly would like to know is C02 that much more potent than water vapor or does it somehow behave differently?
Yes, different gasses have different levels of greenhouse effects. This EPA site shows the relative effect of some of them but doesn't mention water vapor. They call it GHP, or Global Warming Potential. CO2 is the baseline by definition at 1. I think water vapor is excluded because its effects are transient as the amount of water vapor itself fluctuates a lot. It looks like some consider the changes in water vapor a side effect of the other GHGs and that it functions more as a mechanism of warming rath
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I think water vapor is excluded because its effects are transient as the amount of water vapor itself fluctuates a lot.
I think they exclude the Primary Greenhouse Gas for planet Earth, because it is entirely natural and uncontrollable by the Globalists who are trying to use the "White Man's Burden" to shame us into giving the UN Green Fund a U$ 100 Billion a year.
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Should be debate flat earthers too? Bafoonery should be called out as such and not given legitimacy.
Yes. I would gladly give evidence for a circular earth to a legitimate flat earthers just as I routinely give evidence to anti-vaccine people why they should vaccinate and complain to pro-vaccine people that I wish there was better data on the pros and cons of vaccines. Hiding behind the mantra of "the other side is evil and stupid so I won't engage" doesn't help anyone.
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Obviously people who believe in the almighty state AND believe they can individual freedom at the same time are idiotic, brain-dead fools and I shouldn't waste my time talking with them. They're pathetic. They should be ignored and shouted down.
The same goes for x, y and z.
Whenever you disagree with people you should ignore them. Some one call for blasphemy laws. Ignore them. Someone says that diluting a substance 1000x makes it more potent. Ignore them.
Re: This just in (Score:5, Informative)
Alright, time to drive a stake through the heart of this brain-dead water vapor meme.
There's one important fact about water which you are overlooking: it is wet. That is to say it can exist as a liquid (or a solid) at normal atmospheric temperatures and pressures. This means it can't diffuse throughout the entire troposphere like CO2 can before it exits the atmosphere as rain, snow, or dew.
And this is a good thing, because water is a potent greenhouse gas and all things being equal higher temperatures means more evaporation. If evaporation could drive warming the way CO2 does, we'd be looking at a runaway positive feedback loop that would end with the oceans boiling away.
Still, water doesplay a key role in anthropogenic climate change models. That's because CO2 can increase water evaporation in a global way that water vapor itself cannot. Water vapor basically doubles the impact of anthropogenic CO2.
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Still, water doesplay a key role in anthropogenic climate change models.
More than one role. Water vapor also condenses into clouds, which increase albedo and reduce insolation.
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" If evaporation could drive warming the way CO2 does, we'd be looking at a runaway positive feedback loop that would end with the oceans boiling away."
It can and the shift in temperature from current isn't particularly difficult to achieve.
There are very real fears amongst climate scientists that a 7C global average change could trigger a venus runaway.
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" If evaporation could drive warming the way CO2 does, we'd be looking at a runaway positive feedback loop that would end with the oceans boiling away."
It can and the shift in temperature from current isn't particularly difficult to achieve.
There are very real fears amongst climate scientists that a 7C global average change could trigger a venus runaway.
The partial pressure of CO2 on Venus is 8.87 MPa, on Earth the partial pressure of CO2 is 40Pa or 1/500,000th of Venus! Any talk of Earth approaching Venus temperature wise due to CO2 is just crazy talk.
Your supposed Scientists may have real fears, but being a Scientist and having a psychological pathology aren't mutually exclusive; having a real fear isn't necessarily having a rational fear.
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There are very real fears amongst climate scientists that a 7C global average change could trigger a venus runaway.
No... that's just not possible. Our atmosphere is far too thin.
Of primarily CO2 atmospheres, on one end of the scale, we have Venus. On the other end, we have Mars.
It takes a *lot* of CO2 (by mass) to give the Earth a blanket thick enough to boil off the oceans. We don't have enough bioavailable carbon available on the planet for that. Not without first doing something very table to our carbonaceous rocks.
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Alright, time to drive a stake through the heart of this brain-dead water vapor meme.
There's one important fact about water which you are overlooking: it is wet.
No water vapor is a gas, it is invisible (Unless your able to see infrared), it is dry and since it's molecular weight is 18.01528 g/mol and molecular weight of dry air is around 29 g/mol, it is lighter than air and carries its 40.8 kJ/mol. latent heat of e vaporization
That is to say it can exist as a liquid (or a solid) at normal atmospheric temperatures and pressures. This means it can't diffuse throughout the entire troposphere like CO2 can before it exits the atmosphere as rain, snow, or dew.
And this is a good thing, because water is a potent greenhouse gas and all things being equal higher temperatures means more evaporation. If evaporation could drive warming the way CO2 does, we'd be looking at a runaway positive feedback loop that would end with the oceans boiling away.
CO2 which has a molecular weight of 44.01 g/mol, which is considerably heavier than air at 29 g/mol, tends to pool at lower altitudes allowing water vapor to carry heat above the CO2 before condensing out water into clouds and releasing th
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You are just spouting factoids and missing their significance. I never said water vapor is visible. I said it doesn't stay water vapor long.
The molecular weight of CO2 is neither here nor there. The atmosphere does not stratify by molecular weight the way you seem to believe it does. It is well-mixed within the troposphere, which is the relevant layer. In fact that's pretty much the scientific definition of the troposphere: it's the layer which is governed by turbulent mixing.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah this [youtu.be] looks well mixed!
Re: This just in (Score:4, Informative)
The ozone problem and greenhouse gas problem are separate issues. Ozone is a comparably minor greenhouse gas compared to CO2, methane, nitrous oxide and (yes) water.
Ozone depletion in the stratosphere was and is still a major problem, driven largely by part per trillion levels of halocarbons from a variety of man-made emissions. The reason it's not being talked about so much anymore? Because Montreal Protocol regulations worked. CFC concentrations are down and the ozone hole is slowly repairing itself:
https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]
CO2 is a potent greenhouse gas, and so is water. The difference is that water concentrations are limited in the atmosphere: too much and it becomes a cloud and then rain. CO2 concentrations, on the other hand, can just keep rising.
Without rises in other greenhouse gases, the water concentration is such that the short term global temperature trend would be stable. Instead, since other GHG's are causing further warming, it's allowing more water to be stable in the atmosphere. That's driving global temperatures even further up, resulting in positive feedback. There's a nice ACS article about it here:
https://www.acs.org/content/ac... [acs.org]
Re: This just in (Score:4, Insightful)
You HAD to pick ozone as part of your post? It was a huge problem a few decades ago. Because the world globally decided to ban CFCs usage, it is no longer a major problem. Thou it is still in the process of repairing itself. If we go back to using CFCs, we can mess it up again in 2-3 decades. Sooner since we have so much more industry.
It's pretty much THE perfect example of how humans can easily impact climate change on a global level AND also solve it if they approach it scientifically!
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
"This is why Trump won the election, instead of trying to actually debate, you just immediately jump to insulting the poster for being stupid instead of actually trying to convince them of your side. The left might be surprised at the number of people they could persuade if they actually debated people"
The "left" has spent more than 40 years on that failed strategy - and they keep trying. FYI, the Glo-bull Warming Chinese Hoax poster child, James Hansen, is a long time REPUBLICAN and reluctant speaker who
Re: (Score:2)
makes up 0.04% of the atmosphere which is a very small percentage. Water vapor ranges from 1-4%. Another way to say that is there is 25-100 times more water vapor that CO2.
No, this right here is why Trump won the election. You understand just enough to be dangerously ignorant.
The constituent ratio of CO2 does not matter to your argument, whatsoever. You're throwing out a known small looking number to make it seem meaningless.
You wouldn't be wrong to claim that CO2 isn't the largest driver of the Greenhouse Effect, but water vapor has negative feedbacks. Putting a bunch of the water in the atmosphere without longer-term greenhouse gasses to support it is a temporary alterat
Re: (Score:3)
God helps those who help themselves
Re: (Score:2)
"They" (who ever "they" are) renamed it "climate change" because idiots like you don't understand that this is "GLOBAL" warming - an effect that is averaged over the entire planet and over many years - and that some places will get colder - others more (or less) humid, others have more or less rainfall - others worse storms.
You can't look at the local weather for one season and claim that your pathetic observation applies globally and over decades...which is what's really going on.
Sadly, calling it "climate