NASA: Carbon Dioxide, Not Water Vapor, Is Causing Earth to Warm

(Oct. 15) -- The Earth's atmosphere is a complicated place. Somewhere in that swirling, shifting mixture of air, water and other gasses is the key to keeping us earthlings alive -- or to cooking us.

Carbon dioxide has always received the most media attention as the leading cause of climate change, and a new study from NASA does more than concur with this assessment: It finds CO2 is overwhelmingly responsible for raising Earth's temperature.

Led by Andrew Lacis at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the study found that while water vapor and clouds account for 75 percent of the planet's greenhouse effect, carbon dioxide and other noncondensing gases -- such as methane, nitrous oxide and ozone -- are the key components that provide feedback mechanisms for amplifying and sustaining the greenhouse effect.

The researchers built a model for Earth's atmosphere and the heat it absorbed, and then ran it with differing levels of noncondensing gasses. With water vapor alone, the greenhouse effect collapsed and the model froze over.

This suggests that carbon dioxide levels account for 80 percent of the greenhouse effect, not 20, as previously thought.

Lead researcher Lacis stressed that this information should serve to strengthen the connection between human activity and climate change.

"The bottom line is that atmospheric carbon dioxide acts as a thermostat in regulating the temperature of Earth," Lacis said in a statement.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has fully documented the fact that industrial activity is responsible for the rapidly increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. It is not surprising then that global warming can be linked directly to the observed increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide and to human industrial activity in general.

Whether NASA's words will have any affect on stagnant climate change legislation in the U.S. remains to be seen, but we at Surge Desk aren't holding our breaths, yet.

Read more at NASA.gov.

Follow Surge Desk on Twitter.