HB: I'm less worried about atmospheric percentages than I am about absolute amounts. Venus's atmosphere is so thick that it drowns a lot of percentages.
For example, the last time I did the calculation, Venus has approximately the *same* *absolute* amount of nitrogen in its atmosphere as does the Earth.
--actually about Venus = 4 * Earth.
I'm not worried about helium & neon, as I doubt that they are important for life -- either for or against -- unless you consider the neon lights of sleazy bars & hotels to be important for nightlife.
So that leaves us with hydrogen.
--Venus's hydrogen is gone. Hence no water, no ammonia, no chemistry involving H, no life. The He and Ne are not important for life, they only are important as evidence for the atmosphere stripping theory. And if you counted Earth's oceans as part of its "atmosphere," then the comparison with Venus would be far more shocking about H. The fact Venus has more He than Earth could be considered as the only evidence AGAINST the stripping theory. So it needs to be explained somehow by proponents of that theory: 1. venus has more alpha emitting rocks? 2. venus gets recharged with He from solar wind? 3. earth's helium is trapped in rocks but baked out of venus rocks? Wikipedia: "Lighter gases, including water vapour, are continuously blown away [from Venus] by the solar wind through the induced magnetotail.[4] It is speculated that the atmosphere of Venus up to around 4 billion years ago was more like that of the Earth with liquid water on the surface. A runaway greenhouse effect may have been caused by the evaporation of the surface water and subsequent rise of the levels of other greenhouse gases.[8][9]" Their ref 4 hopefully provided evidence. If so, then HB's disputation of atmosphere-strip theory, is busted by observational evidence.
interesting to know the absolute amounts of hydrogen on Venus -- including whatever hydrogen is bound up in other compounds -- not necessarily water.
--diddlysquat. Venus is extremely dry and has about 10^(-8) the absolute amount of H on Earth. -- Warren D. Smith http://RangeVoting.org <-- add your endorsement (by clicking "endorse" as 1st step)