The chemical formula of water is H2O, and it is inorganic. Water’s chemical properties are that it is transparent, tasteless, odourless, and almost colourless. It is the main component in almost every living thing, and it acts in them as a solvent. Its chemical formula is H2O, which means it is made out of oxygen and two hydrogen atoms. Water can be found on Earth in a liquid, solid, or gaseous state. It forms rainfall and aerosols in the form of fog. Clouds are also made out of water and ice. The gaseous state of water is called steam or water vapor. 71% of Earth is covered with water, and 96.5% of it is seas and oceans. Life starts with and in water. Water vapor has the biggest impact on global warming, and humans aren’t directly responsible for this. Water vapor is responsible for half of the Earth’s greenhouse effect.
Water vapor is a greenhouse gas, and it also traps heat like the other greenhouse gases do. We can measure the amount of water vapor in the air by measuring the humidity. As the climate gets warmer, it also means that more water will be in the air because warmer air can hold more moisture than cool air. Water vapor is directly linked to global warming. The warmer the climate gets, the more water vapor there will be in the air, and that leads to even faster global warming. This effect is called the “positive feedback loop”. Humans feel the amount of water vapor in the air when they sweat. When we sweat, the water is evaporating from our skin, but now that the air is filled with moisture, the sweat will stay on our skin and make it sticky, and also because of that, the cooling effect doesn’t work so well any more.
All the other greenhouse gases differ from water vapor. Water vapor can change its form. It means that water is condensable. It is able to change from gas to liquid. That means the amount of water in the air depends on the temperature of the atmosphere. It makes water vapor the only greenhouse gas, and the concentration in the atmosphere changes because the climate is getting warmer. The other greenhouse gases are non-condensable, which means they can’t change from liquid to gas, and their concentration in the atmosphere isn’t affected by its temperature. Mostly, their amount in the atmosphere depends on how much we burn fossil fuels or how intense our agriculture is.
Water vapor or the water cycle happens quite quickly, which means that it doesn’t stay in the atmosphere for a long time,usually only for nine days. Unlike CO2, which stayed in the atmosphere for centuries. Water vapor plays a big role in Earth’s water cycle. Water evaporates from oceans, seas, plants, ice, and so on, and then it comes back down to Earth as rain or snow. Increases in atmospheric water also lead to increases in the global water cycle. It means that places where it rains more are going to rain even more now. Places that used to get a little rain, now don’t get almost no rain at all. Water holds energy, and since there is more water in the air, storms are going to be even more intense. Therefore, we are having more extreme weather events. The other problem is that the soils can’t hold so much water in them any more. That also happened because the evaporation from the land is greater on the land than on water, and therefore the soils are dry. When a large amount of water falls on the ground, it runs directly to the rivers and doesn’t absorb on the ground.
Earth’s average temperature has been rising since the 1800s, and it has increased by around 1.1 degrees Celsius. For every degree Celsius the temperature rises in the atmosphere, the water vapor amount in the atmosphere also increases by about 7%. The proof that the temperatures are rising and there is more water vapor in the air lies also in the record-high sea temperatures. Because the sea temperatures have been getting higher since the 1970s, they are up almost 5–15%.
In conclusion, humans aren’t directly responsible for emitting water into the atmosphere, but they are responsible for emitting other greenhouse gases. All the other greenhouse gases are increasing the rate of evaporation and, with that, the amount of water vapor in the air. As mentioned, water vapor has the biggest greenhouse effect, but it wouldn’t happen if we didn’t add non-condensable greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Overall, it can be said that any molecule with three or more atoms is a greenhouse gas because of the way the atoms are vibrating in the molecules. Greenhouse gases are gases that absorb and remit infrared light back to Earth.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water
https://www.epa.gov/climatechange-science/basics-climate-change
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/jan/28/water-vapour-greenhouse-gas
https://climate.nasa.gov/explore/ask-nasa-climate/3143/steamy-relationships-how-atmospheric-water-vapor-amplifies-earths-greenhouse-effect/
https://theconversation.com/how-rising-water-vapour-in-the-atmosphere-is-amplifying-warming-and-making-extreme-weather-worse-213347
