Microwave (MW) activated H-2/Ar (and H-2/Kr) plasmas operating under powers and pressures relevant to diamond chemical vapor deposition have been investigated experimentally and by 2-D modeling. The experiments return spatially and wavelength resolved optical emission spectra of electronically excited H-2 molecules and H and Ar(/Kr) atoms for a range of H-2/noble gas mixing ratios. The self-consistent 2-D(r, z) modeling of different H-2/Ar gas mixtures includes calculations of the MW electromagnetic fields, the plasma chemistry and electron kinetics, heat and species transfer and gas-surface interactions. Comparison with the trends revealed by the spatially resolved optical emission measurements and their variations with changes in process conditions help guide identification and refinement of the dominant plasma (and plasma emission) generation mechanisms and the more important Ar-H, Ar-H-2, and H-H-2 coupling reactions. Noble gas addition is shown to encourage radial expansion of the plasma, and thus to improve the uniformity of the H atom concentration and the gas temperature just above the substrate. Noble gas addition in the current experiments is also found to enhance (unwanted) sputtering of the copper base plate of the reactor; the experimentally observed increase in gas phase Cu* emission is shown to correlate with the near substrate ArH+ (and KrH+) ion concentrations returned by the modeling, rather than with the relatively more abundant H-3(+) (and H3O+) ions.