Abstract

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is a harmless highly beneficial rare trace gas essential for all life on Earth due to photosynthesis which produces simple sugars and carbohydrates in plants and a bi-product Oxygen (O₂) which is essential for all animal life. CO₂ is the basis of the entire food supply chain. CO₂ has been vilified as a ‘greenhouse gas’ and is thought to be responsible for ‘global warming’. Yet CO₂ is a weak greenhouse gas and cannot be responsible for ‘dangerous’ heating of the planet. It is claimed the greenhouse effect will be multiplied by a simultaneous increase in atmospheric water vapour content. Water vapour is the most significant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. However, the claimed increase has not been seen and we can expect much less warming. This research explains that the exaggerated claims about CO₂, methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) are misleading. These gases have a limited effect on temperature and the climate. Increases in these gases will have a decreasing effect, since absorption of radiation is logarithmic. We provide a parts per million by volume (ppmv) calculator for amounts of CO₂, and parts per billion (ppbv) calculator for amounts of CH₄, and N₂O. About half of the yearly emitted CO₂ is lost to the ocean and biosphere and does not appear in the atmosphere. There is considerable uncertainty about whether the small increases in concentration of CH₄ and N₂O are human-caused or natural.

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