How is water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[jsmith613]

How is water vapor a greenhouse gas?

[chemtopper]

Any gas which can trap and store IR radiations can cause green house effect .Water vapors ,Carbon dioxide and methane can trap this heat and responsible for global warming.

- Link removed as it was considered advertising. BioTeam

[bobc2]

How do these three gases rate in the order of effect on global warming (water, CO2, methane)?

[Homeostasis]

co2 first because there is a LOT of it in the atmosphere because of cars and trains and fires etc.

then water vapor, because it's not toxic which would cause other reactions making things worse..

then methane because there is very little of it anywhere.

[bobc2]

What are the percentages of CO2, H2O and CH4 by weight? By numbers of molecules?

[bobc2]

Found these percentages on Wickipedia (by weight). Looks like CO2 is small compared to water.

Nitrogen (N2) 78.084%
Oxygen (O2) 20.946%
Water (H2O) >1%
Argon (Ar) 0.934%
Carbon dioxide (CO2) 0.0383 %
Neon (Ne) 0.001818 %
Helium (He) 0.000524 %
Methane (CH4) 0.0001745 %
Krypton (Kr) 0.000114%
Hydrogen (H2) 0.000055 %

[pushi]

water molecule is an hetero atomic molecule(H2O) so it absorbs heat radiation,infra red rays, SO WATER IS "SUPER GREEN HOUSE GAS"

[jwalin]

even i thought that h20 was a better greenhouse gas than co2

[Sophyclese]

Yes. Based on the information I have viewed here on this page, I can say that H2O is a super greenhouse gas. There is a large amount in the atmosphere for one and it can absorb the sun's rays. I might say the only gas more plentiful than water vapor is carbon dioxide, making water vapor come in second in global warming gasses.