IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/engenv/v25y2014i8p1439-1454.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Calculation of Atmospheric Radiative Forcing (Warming Effect) of Carbon Dioxide at Any Concentration

Author

Listed:
  • H. Douglas Lightfoot
  • Orval A. Mamer

Abstract

The Beer-Lambert law does not apply strictly to the relationship between radiative forcing (RF) of CO 2 and concentration in the atmosphere, i.e., ΔRF = 5.35ln(C/C o ). It is an approximation because water vapour competes unevenly with CO 2 over the IR absorption wavelength range. We propose a quadratic model as an improved approximation. It links concentration to RF thereby allowing RF calculation at any concentration, not just ΔRF. For example, at 378 ppmv of CO 2 , the level in 2005, it calculates RF = 8.67 W m −2 , or approximately 2.7% of the total RF of all the greenhouse gases. A second and independent method based on worldwide hourly measurements of atmospheric temperature and relative humidity confirms this percentage. Each method shows that, on average, water vapour contributes approximately 96% of current greenhouse gas warming. Thus, the factors controlling the amount of water vapour in the air also control the earth's temperature.

Suggested Citation

  • H. Douglas Lightfoot & Orval A. Mamer, 2014. "Calculation of Atmospheric Radiative Forcing (Warming Effect) of Carbon Dioxide at Any Concentration," Energy & Environment, , vol. 25(8), pages 1439-1454, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:engenv:v:25:y:2014:i:8:p:1439-1454
    DOI: 10.1260/0958-305X.25.8.1439
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1260/0958-305X.25.8.1439
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1260/0958-305X.25.8.1439?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:engenv:v:25:y:2014:i:8:p:1439-1454. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.