Are greenhouse gases natural gases

Answer 1

Water vapor is the primary greenhouse gas. H2O is knocked into the atmosphere primarily via solar radiation, evaporation from the ocean surface. If you have ever seen it rain or snow you have witnessed the self regulating nature of water vapor. Although humans emit steam in some industrial processes, and add to evaporation rates with irrigation and other uses of water, most water vapor is introduced into the atmosphere naturally via solar induced evaporation.

Carbon dioxide is another natural component of our atmosphere. In the 20 million years prior to the industrial revolution, CO2 varied in our atmosphere from roughly 250 to 300 parts per million (ppm). Today it is close to 400 ppm.

Fossil carbon (coal and oil) are also natural, but what is not natural is large scale mining operations to transport coal to electrical power generators, or oil to refineries for the production of petroleum. So although the carbon from these sources was from natural deposits, much of which was laid down during the Permian Period 300 million years ago, the CO2 liberated by burning this carbon fuel into our atmosphere is not natural.

The difference between H2O and CO2 is that CO2 does not rain out of the atmosphere very easily. A little bit does as it is absorbed by rain, which increases acidification of the oceans--another problem. Human beings release about 30 billion tons of CO2 into the air each year from ancient fossil deposits, and another ten billion tons from other sources. Virtually all of the increase in atmospheric CO2 in the past 200 years is directly attributable to human activity.

Answer:

Water vapor is the primary greenhouse gas. It makes up over 75% of the total warming we experience and is almost 100% natural in origin.

Next in line in terms of total warming is CO2. Again, this is primarily a naturally occurring gas making up about 6% of the total warming and about 0.039% of our atmosphere. Man does produce about 6 to 8% of this gas, much through processes that would occur naturally of man did not assist. The remaining amount is also natural.

If we add up all the greenhouse gases made annually, man makes about 0.28% of them, the rest are all occurring naturally.

Additional Information:

Additional greenhouse gases include methane, carbon monoxide, and nitrous oxide. Many of these gasses occur naturally, via various processes, however human exploitation of Natural Resources have increased the density of these gasses in the atmosphere.