NASA Pushes Propaganda For Kids: Casts Greenhouse Gases As Superheroes That ‘Turn Into Tiny Heaters’

NASA tries to appeal to kids in claiming greenhouse gas molecules are “tiny heaters” that act “exactly how” the windows that prevent heat escape in a real greenhouse work. Observations show this is propaganda.

Image Source: NASA’s Climate Kids and Earth Observatory

In claiming superhero-like greenhouse gases such as CO2 and water vapor act “exactly how” the windows that trap heat in a real greenhouse do, NASA has shown they will stoop to propagating non-science in their attempts to appeal to the less-informed.

Contrary to NASA’s claims, CO2 molecules do not act “exactly how” the walls of a greenhouse do. Real-world experiments have shown CO2 is no more or less effective at “trapping heat” than a non-greenhouse gas like Argon is, and air with 1,000,000 ppm CO2 is no warmer than air with 400 ppm CO2.

According to observations recorded by Linker and colleagues (1999), when the temperatures rise in the morning as sunlight penetrates through the windows of a real greenhouse, CO2 reaches 2000 ppm by about 7 a.m. Then, as the morning wears on, CO2 gradually falls to around 800 ppm between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., or as the solar radiation reaches its 800 to 1000 W/m² mid-day peak.  By evening, CO2 gradually rises to 2000 ppm again before plummeting to below 500 ppm as the sunlight penetration diminishes.

There is no observable evidence provided showing CO2 alters the temperatures inside a greenhouse. Instead, the CO2 concentrations change in response to changes in solar radiation and temperature rather than acting “exactly how” warmth-amplifying  “tiny heaters” would in a greenhouse.

Image Source: Linker et al., 1999

With regard to water vapor, real-world observations also serve to undermine claims that water droplets “turn into tiny heaters” in the atmosphere.

According to a 2018 study by Sherwood and co-authors, the last 100 years of anthropogenic water vapor emissions (mostly from irrigation) have produced a total effective radiative forcing of -0.1 to 0.05 W/m². In other words, adding more greenhouse gases in water vapor form leads to a “near-zero or small cooling effect.”

Sherwood et al. even acknowledge “large increases in anthropogenic water vapor emissions would have negligible warming effects on climate” because “greenhouse-gas warming is outweighed by increases in…humidity-induced low cloud cover.” And despite its non-superhero-like negligible effect, water vapor is ironically regarded as Earth’s “most abundant and powerful” greenhouse gas.

Image Source: Sherwood et al., 2018

A new study (Krishnankutty Ambika and Mishra 2021) documents just how wrong NASA is to claim water vapor greenhouse gases act as “tiny heaters” in the atmosphere. The opposite actually occurs in the real world.

In the very same regions of India where irrigation has been most prevalent, significant growing-season cooling has been occurring. Land surface temperatures (LST) in the Indo-Gangetic Plain have cooled by -0.8°C since 1979, and this is “associated with the irrigation expansion” in the region.

Image Source: Krishnankutty Ambika and Mishra 2021

The same phenomenon has been observed in China. Scientists (Yang et al., 2020) even refer to adding anthropogenic water vapor emissions to the atmosphere as the irrigation cooling effect (ICE), which is “closely linked to the surface energy balance.”

Irrigation “cools daytime LST by 1.15 K, and cools nighttime LST by 0.13 K, on average, across the irrigated areas of China.” During the growing season, pumping Earth’s most powerful greenhouse gas into the atmosphere results in a cooling effect of more than 6 K in irrigated (ICE) regions compared to adjacent locations not subjected to greenhouse gas cooling.

Image Source: Yang et al., 2020

Recently it has been shown that NASA has been busy changing long-term cooling into long-term warming by altering the data.

A few years ago we reported that in the 10 years from 2008 to 2018, NASA artificially added 53% more warming to the 1910-2000 global temperature record by cooling the past and warming up more recent temperatures.

Now, with its cartoonish superhero appeals to children and simplistic imagery in claiming greenhouse gas molecules “turn into tiny heaters” in the sky, there is credible evidence NASA is actively engaged in peddling climate propaganda.

9 responses to “NASA Pushes Propaganda For Kids: Casts Greenhouse Gases As Superheroes That ‘Turn Into Tiny Heaters’”

  1. John F Hultquist

    How many “tiny heaters” will it take to heat my house?
    More specifically, during winter, how many bottles of Champagne per week will it take to keep the house comfortable?

  2. Shoki Kaneda

    CO2 is a superhero. It makes plants grow better and helps to feed the world. Pretty awesome power. We need more.

  3. The Indomitable Snowman, Ph.D.

    “NASA” is still trying to live off the dying embers of the Apollo missions – but has really been a trainwreck pretty much ever since then.

    This emission by “NASA” is so bad and so scientifically illiterate that it would take hours just to go through it all! But suffice it to say for now that they clearly have no clue how an actual greenhouse works – the interior warms because the glass prevents both convection and advection (that is, it prevents warmed air from moving away and being replaced by cooler air).

    I’ll stop there.

    I guess that the only thing we’ve learned is where that pest “Sebastian H.” went – he’s taken his scientific illiteracy across the Atlantic and is now writing copy for “NASA”…

  4. bonbon

    Meanwhile back at Mars NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter successfully flew and sent pics back :

    https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8923/nasas-ingenuity-mars-helicopter-succeeds-in-historic-first-flight/

    I think the kids are watching that.

    Way back in the 1980’s, Biden, already then a candidate, criticized another well known candidate for claiming the American voter was smarter than Biden thought. And look – decades of full spectrum dumbing down from the Muppet’s, Simpsons, actually got Biden elected (with all kinds of other tricks tested in banana republics). So from Biden’s point of view the strategy works!

  5. Senex

    If water vapour is the most potent “greenhouse gas”, what would be the effect of replacing all fossil fuel powered vehicles with hydrogen ṕowered ones? That would mean replacing carbon dioxide emissions with water vapour emissions. A question to put to all of the advocates of a switch to hydrogen fuel…

    1. The Indomitable Snowman, Ph.D.

      Because, as noted above, whoever is writing that drivel for “nasa” is scientifically and technically illiterate.

      Water vapor is NOT a “greenhouse (sic) gas” in the way that CO2 is claimed to be – at all.

      Water is a unique substance that has an extremely-large heat capacity. When in the air as vapor (which is the default condition, as Earth is a water planet and the N2/O2 atmosphere is very good at absorbing water as vapor), water vapor acts as a moderator of the temperature changes of that air – basically, the more water vapor in the air, the larger the input of energy required to raise the air temperature by some amount (such as 1 degree C); in the same way, a larger loss of energy is required to decrease the air temperature by some amount (such as 1 degree C).

      Note that Miami has never recorded a temperature of 100F – because of all the water vapor in the local air.

      CO2 is described as a “greenhouse (sic) gas” because of an entirely radiative mechanism. CO2 is able to absorb infrared photons, and will re-emit them. The ENTIRE basis of the “climate change” scare is that the photons being absorbed are all biased in the outgoing direction, while the re-emission is isotropic so that some of them will head back toward the surface. (And even this doesn’t work out since the mechanism is so weak – hence the invocation of a completely fictitious, never-observed-in-nature “positive feedback” interaction with… water vapor. Anyone invoking a positive feedback mechanism for any long-term process is scientifically illiterate, but that’s a topic for another day.)

      CO2 has no meaningful heat capacity, and cannot behave as water does – not even close.

      If the Earth were a barren rock with the same N2/O2 atmosphere we have and no water (and thus no water vapor in the air), the day/night temperature differences would be enormous. The temperature of the air is controlled by the ubiquity of water vapor in it. Note in particular that to make air very cold, you first have to make it very dry. But that’s a topic for another day as well.

      1. Senex

        Oh, I know that. I was merely pointing out the massive contradiction in advocating for a vehicle fleet powered by hydrogen.

        And in today’s post, we can read about the GLOBAL WATER SHORTAGE. Guess we have already passed Peak Hydrogen then.

  6. Petit_Barde

    CO2, a 15 microns emitter, is indeed a very dangerous heater, but only when coupled with Impossibilium (a new NASA product based on Unobtainium).

    1. bonbon

      LOL!
      You might have heard of Tritinium, the magic recycling element?

      Meanwhile China will mine Tritium on the Moon, an ideal fusion fuel. Maybe some could be added to the ITER reactor at Cardache, south France, for extra boost (seriously)?

By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. more information

The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this. More information at our Data Privacy Policy

Close