Government scientists discover that water vapor is the real villain, and have a solution!
WASHINGTON D.C. (Google News service)-- On Friday the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced a plan to drastically reduce climate change. Dr. Reeyal Jeenius announced that NOAA has discovered that the main culprit in climate change--once mistakenly thought to be "global warming"--isn't the dreaded carbon dioxide after all, but instead is water vapor.
According to NOAA's researchers, pound for pound, water vapor is five times more effective than CO2 as a heat-trapping gas. Worse yet, while carbon dioxide only makes up about 420 parts per million of the atmosphere, water vapor is almost 140,000 parts per million, making it a far larger contributor to climate change--which again was once naively thought to be simply "global warming."
This vastly larger effect of water vapor in driving climate change posed a problem for world leaders: since just over three-fourths of the Earth's surface is ocean, there didn't seem to be any way to do anything to reduce the amount of water vapor emitted into our atmosphere every day.
Fortunately science has now found a solution: Dr. Jeenius and his colleagues have proposed to cover 98 percent of the ocean with aluminized plastic, which would reflect sunlight and prevent water vapor from escaping into the atmosphere. The only parts of the ocean that would stay uncovered would be sea lanes used by freighters and cruise ships.
When asked how fishermen would be able to fish, Dr. Jeenius said the oceans were being over-fished at present, so 50 or 60 years of no fishing would allow fish populations to increase to survivable levels. He added that fishermen could be re-trained at a very modest cost to be computer coders or journalists.
NOAA added that the total cost of covering 98 percent of the oceans in aluminized plastic would be far more affordable than some competing ideas for reducing climate change.
According to NOAA's researchers, pound for pound, water vapor is five times more effective than CO2 as a heat-trapping gas. Worse yet, while carbon dioxide only makes up about 420 parts per million of the atmosphere, water vapor is almost 140,000 parts per million, making it a far larger contributor to climate change--which again was once naively thought to be simply "global warming."
This vastly larger effect of water vapor in driving climate change posed a problem for world leaders: since just over three-fourths of the Earth's surface is ocean, there didn't seem to be any way to do anything to reduce the amount of water vapor emitted into our atmosphere every day.
Fortunately science has now found a solution: Dr. Jeenius and his colleagues have proposed to cover 98 percent of the ocean with aluminized plastic, which would reflect sunlight and prevent water vapor from escaping into the atmosphere. The only parts of the ocean that would stay uncovered would be sea lanes used by freighters and cruise ships.
When asked how fishermen would be able to fish, Dr. Jeenius said the oceans were being over-fished at present, so 50 or 60 years of no fishing would allow fish populations to increase to survivable levels. He added that fishermen could be re-trained at a very modest cost to be computer coders or journalists.
NOAA added that the total cost of covering 98 percent of the oceans in aluminized plastic would be far more affordable than some competing ideas for reducing climate change.
posted by SF at
6:05 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home