Part of it is the unusual solar minimum. Part of it is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Part of it is El Niño/La Niña. Part of it is the Arctic Oscillation and North Atlantic Oscillation. Part of it is increased CO2 in the atmosphere [resulting from human activity]. Part of it is increased methane in the atmosphere [resulting both directly and indirectly from human activity].
There are several factors working to cool the climate. There are several more working to warm it up. Even so, what warms global climate in general may cool a certain part of the world and vice versa. Part of what's happening is natural variation. Part of what's happening is man-made. The man-made variation is becoming increasingly dominant.
Think of a 200-car freight. It takes a very long time to get it started, but it is actually started and it's picking up speed. Get that freight going fast enough and unless you know how to apply the brakes, you're not going to stop it. Climate change is like a 2,000,000-car freight that took 300 years to get up to 10mph and about 50 more years to hit 25mph. The problem is we're sitting on the tracks in front of it and we don't have anywhere to go to get out of the way.
I really don't like that this issue is politicized. The country [and the rest of the world] needs less Hamilton vs. Jefferson and more Jean-Jacques Rousseau. We have a planet-wide problem and we need to act as a planet-wide community to fix it. At this point, we need to think about adapting to and/or mitigating the change rather than preventing it, because it's been happening around us for at least the last 50 years which we've had our heads in the sand.
we should still stop it
Whatever. I believe it.instead of considering the evidence I posted. :)
February 2010: Cool in the U.S. but 6th Warmest Globally
http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/MediaDetail.php?MediaID=390&MediaTypeID=1
GLOBAL Warming
NOT US Warming!
http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.htmlAgain, the first one assumes it is natural, this time on the basis of a Canadian Scientist who said there were solar cycles lasting 1.500 years. But the temperature graphs show such big increases over such a short amount of time that it's unbelieveable that a cycle of 1.500 years could change it so fast. It should change slowly and even over time, not just "randomly" spike while our CO2 emission is at it's highest.
http://globalwarminghoax.wordpress.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io-Tb7vTamY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKAC4kfHruQ
These do, or probably do, say it is a hoax. Now, does this persuade you?
Yeah, but the "South" geographic pole's ice caps are growing!
But Dan Dixon! It's my opinion!Is it based on the videos? Or does your opinion reasons differ?
Hoax, and NASA is doing the same thing, it's going from the South Pole to measure to Africa to measure.1: The temperature difference between The South Pole and Africa is much greater than the scale used on the Y axis of the graph.
Dan! Could you please end this conversation?!?!?!?!You can end it by accepting global warming, our accept of global warming or convincing us that global warming is false. You could also just stop responding. There's no need for Dan to stop it.
Those are using replace color modes.Or perhaps the one single video that convinced you, probably simply because you saw it before any of the other evidence, was flawed.
This link shows consequences of global warming.Yes, and none of that is happening because Global Warming isn't happening.
http://www.climatehotmap.org/
Yes, and it is happening because Global Warming is happening.
DAMN YOUR QUOTE MODIFYING, IT DOESN'T WORK ON ME!Yes, and it is happening because Global Warming is happening.
No really, believe what you think. Just the fact that it's true.
Fake too.
Every single chart and thing you throw at me, it's fake.
Well, you started it in my thread about something completely different, so here I am :PAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! TOO LONG FOR ME TO READ, SO I'LL IGNORE IT!
Deoxy... your stance is just silly. It's creationist-evolution-denial-silly.
It HAS been getting warmer. What remains debatable isn't that, but rather exactly WHY it's getting warmer. Most notably, is it mainly our fault or not. It's debatable because the current climate models are still far from taking everything into account, and as the saying goes 'Garbage in, garbage out".
There are cutting edge climate theories that are not taken into account, such as the variation in cloud cover (and thereby albedo) due to the amount of cosmic radiation hitting the atmosphere. Cosmic rays - the kind from distant supernovae and other highly energetic events out there - ionize the upper atmosphere, creating particles which eventually drift down and become droplet formation cores, leading to more clouds. Lower amounts of cosmic rays = less cloud formation = lower albedo = warming climate. The amount of cosmic rays is fairly steady in and of itself, but is influenced by solar activity. The solar wind deflects them. So, when solar activity is low, more clouds form, and vice versa. The solar wind itself is a plasma, so it doesn't do the same job; plasma follows the magnetic field of the Earth and only enters the atmosphere near the poles.
That's just one of the mechanisms not taken into account by current climate models, which only deal with solar activity variations insofar as pertains to direct energy output, which of course does cause modest warming.
Another thing, that arguably is our fault, is dark particulate matter lowering the albedo of icecaps - although it has nothing to do with CO2.
There's also the interesting fact that ice core and geological evidence of past warming periods also shows a steep increase of CO2, so it should come as no surprise that we're seeing one now as it gets warmer. Warm water simply isn't as good at dissolving it as colder water is, and so it is released from the oceans in staggering quantities.
It all has to be in the computer models to be able to forecast anything with any sort of accuracy, and it isn't, because some of the science is so new that the effects have not yet been exactly quantified. Instead, it gets left out completely.
Current global warming theory, as represented by the IPCC, has unfortunately become something of a pseudo-religious movement and a political hot potato. Gainsaying, however sober and scientific, has become a kind of heresy. People risk being shunned. Scientists risk their tenures. Many do not have the necessary courage of their convictions, and who can blame them; researchers have to eat, too.
The easiest way to grant money nowadays is through researching whatever in the light of global warming (as presented by the IPCC consensus).
For a politician, it is a serious obstacle to success if alternative views on global warming are voiced. Well, except in certain areas of mid-western USA ;)
Science should never be a matter of belief or politics. Science thrives on disagreement - not consensus.
A theory is never supposed to be absolute truth. That is the realm of religion, not science.
Alas, the IPCC brand of global warming theory is treated as absolute gospel truth.
It's not a conspiracy, but it has taken on a life of its own and has become counterproductive to any scientific research going in a different direction.
EDIT: It's worth noting that it actually hasn't been getting warmer for about a decade, and now there seems to be a cooling trend. The regular 11 year solar activity cycle is still delayed. According to it, we're due for a solar maximum in 2012, and the Sun should have been observed ramping up its activity for several years now. That didn't happen. It remains at solar minimum conditions. Most of the time there are no sunspots at all, and when a few appear, they are very small. Right now, it's 43 days since a single spot was observed. Should this continue for decades (in what is known as a Maunder minimum) - which it has done in the past - global cooling will become our next problem.
Hehehe... That's what you always do. If you can ignore it, it no longer exists, it is done, and you don't care. That's a problem. Also, that's a problem if you don't like reading.I don't like reading hard text.
I don't like reading hard text.Summary:
That's why indoctrination is so easy, because it was beneficial for children not to have to consider whether they should follow what their parents told them or not, especially a few thousand years ago. But this can also be dangerous, when you follow false things blindly.
Why make something about Global Warming if it's not real?
It certain that there has been warming. It's also certain that during the period of rapid industrial growth from the 40's to the 70's, there was considerable cooling even as greenhouse gas emissions increased steeply. This suggests there's another factor (or several factors) at work that has nothing to do with, and is much stronger than, human emissions of greenhouse gases.Why make something about Global Warming if it's not real?I don't know why you think this. Perhaps you don't want global warming to be true, because it's so sad.
If I've understood this1 data correctly, CO2 interacts with infrared radiation at 1499 nanometers and light with a wavelength of 425 nanometers (it's major absorption bands) like the H2O interacts with the microwaves from a microwave oven that we use to heat food.Certainly it can be significant, but is it enough to explain the warming we've seen?
Could this be significant to the global warming?
1:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_(data_page)#Spectral_data
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_Spectrum.png
Btw, I can't read the next long thing Laura said.And you feel the need to state that why exactly? :P
I don't want to read it, it's a little long for me.Btw, I can't read the next long thing Laura said.And you feel the need to state that why exactly? :P
I never required you to read it :)I don't want to read it, it's a little long for me.Btw, I can't read the next long thing Laura said.And you feel the need to state that why exactly? :P
I require myself to read almost every post in the active topics.I never required you to read it :)I don't want to read it, it's a little long for me.Btw, I can't read the next long thing Laura said.And you feel the need to state that why exactly? :P
while CO2 makes up 0,039%.
All charts can be modified by hackers. So I don't believe them.Then why did you believe that Universe Sandbox is real, or that Minecraft is real?
Alright it's been awhile since I've been back to Mt Rainier (a large volcano here in the Pacific Northwest) but there was a sign at the base camp showing the level of recent glaciation on a year by year basis. 2003 had significantly more ice than the years prior does this prove man made global warming is a hoax no, the geologic record of the earth does, For example during the Jurassic period through rock samples and probably carbon dating they've been able to determine that the CO2 count was at least 10-20x the amount that is in the atmosphere today, part of that addition was an upsurge of volcanic activity.(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Phanerozoic_Carbon_Dioxide.png)
Another example is the medieval warm period which Bla I've noticed your graph does touch on but you haven't spoken about at all it was warm enough then for the British to grow grapes and make their own wine, before that North Africa was the bread box for the Roman Empire, in fact since the Jurassic period the CO2 count continues to decline.(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png)
Another major contributor to "green house gasses" is Volcanic activity the volcano in Iceland that erupted last year dwarfed most emissions on a man made level. Mt Penatubo in Africa erupting in 91 or 92 produced more of these green house gasses than mankind has been able to since the start of the industrial revolution.According to this report (http://www.earthice.hi.is/Apps/WebObjects/HI.woa/swdocument/1015769/Gas+report+-+Eyjafjallaj%C3%B6kull+2010.pdf), the approximate production of carbondioxide by the volcano was about 15 kilotonnes pr. day (since the SO2 production was about 3% of the emissions, CO2 was 15% and the SO2 emission was about 3000 tonnes pr. day). However, the mass of the 390 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere is about 3160 gigatonnes. The increase in carbondioxide is about 35% since the industrial age began, which is an increase of about 1100 gigatonnes (even after the photosynthesis, I haven't been able to find any number of how much carbonxide is emitted by human industry/transport/etc., but that would be interesting to know). The emission of volcanos pr. year is about 130 to 230 megatonnes. In the worst case, this is 69 gigatonnes over 300 years. So certainly the volcanic emission of carbondioxide is not dwarfing human production, but is dwarfed by the total increase.
Another thing to point out is that for much of earths geologic history the poles were not frozen over nor is it common for them to be (this is from a geologic standpoint).This is the same argument as the Jurassic one, that because the temperature has been greater in the past, man made global warming is false. I've dealt with this above.
...though I will say you are one of the more intelligent proponents of man made global warming so kudo's to you Bla!
Most climate scientists agree the main cause of the current global warming trend is human expansion of the "greenhouse effect" -- warming that results when the atmosphere traps heat radiating from Earth toward space.Source: http://climate.nasa.gov/causes/ (http://climate.nasa.gov/causes/)
Actually there are three very active people that are younger than you. And they posted in this thread.This is quite off topic. Depends his age, but if you're trying to include me I may be older. Depends.
I read in a book that the sea levels won't rise due to Icebergs melting, here's your proof: wouldn't low-level places be affected by now and, water would most likely take place of the Ice (which, as you know, changes size and gets bigger when it is frozen) and nothing would happen due to change of mass and shape of the icebergs. Also CO2 levels were extremely high when Dinosaurs ruled the earth, and they did fine without AC and a space program! So if it is true, (Which I think it isn't because it's just an excuse to scare people, make them spend more money, make the economy better. It's just a business!) how would it affect US, the human race. And for Pete's sake people I know this much about it and I'm in the 8th grade!Though yes, most of the icebergs are underwater, think of all the glaciers and ice sheets, and Antarctica (the majority of which is actually on solid land, as opposed to the north pole) above the sea level, when they melt, liquid water has little resistance to gravity, and it just goes to the lowest spot it can find. Usually that's the ocean.
@ jgold98 I refuted a lot of the things you wrote there in another post further up (http://universesandbox.com/forum/index.php/topic,1229.msg34554.html#msg34554)... I recommend reading it.I did your job in the post above you. :P
I'm not in the mood to refute stuff right now, sorry. Maybe I'll do it another day.
Take that government conspiracy!OBJECTION!!! What about the $40,000 hybrid cars! Not to mention the ones that run off electricity only, electric bills would skyrocket! Also I see about 4-5 smart car's a day IN A SMALL CITY! Thats about $100,000 put into the car dealerships wallet. It's cars, lightbulbs, Solar Panels, government taxes, and lot's more. Al Gore has made A LOT of money on LIES. SANDWICHES OF LIES!!!! Food price is going up because of biofuel, causing riots in other countries. Energy prices are rising because our genius president won't let us drill oil off the coast because of a duck that got killed in an oil spill. OH MY GOD!!! SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING!!! CANCEL DUCK SEASON!!! And the worst part is that the poor are being most affected by lies about the earth warming up. And about Glaciers, they would melt toward the bottom a little bit, but a 2 degree rise won't change anything :P. So this whole global warming myth is just A BUSINESS!!! This is to make people money. I blame all this hype about it on Obama because all he cares about is the environment! You guys can worry about your fancy graphs and charts. By the way, it's a little known fact that 42.7% of statistics are made up on the spot. I believe NASA, but not the people that make this a business. 'Nuff said...
Yeah, 2 degrees isn't much, in a day. Over a course of 100 years, an average 2 degree rise from the normal will begin to melt things that were frozen before. What is your thermostat in your house? Is it at 76? 78? Try turning it up 3 degrees F (2 degrees C, and I rounded down!). Are you getting warm yet?
Oh, we weren't supposed to try it....No, it was just meant for you, that's why it was funny when he tried it.
Energy prices are rising because our genius president won't let us drill oil off the coast because of a duck that got killed in an oil spill.
I blame all this hype about it on Obama because all he cares about is the environment!
I wouldn't despite the evidence that Planet is heating but i personally think that the human impact is smaller then is been made out. For instance its believed that Mars is also going through a period of Global Warming and last time i checked there is no major industry on the red Planet
http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/17977/Mars_Is_Warming_NASA_Scientists_Report.html (http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/17977/Mars_Is_Warming_NASA_Scientists_Report.html)
I'll point you again to this site (as did NeutronStar):
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/ (http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/)
For example: Sea level has risen by 17 cm (6.7 inches) over the last 100 years and it continues to do so.
Just because some people are immorally exploiting global climate change to try and make money doesn't mean that it's a myth. The evidence that global climate change is a reality is overwhelming.
A two degree rise in average temperature will be very significant. I can understand why you don't want to believe that we (humans) are destroying our home; it's really depressing. And given the control that corporations have over our political leaders, it's unlikely that we'll begin making the changes necessary to reverse the damage any time soon.Energy prices are rising because our genius president won't let us drill oil off the coast because of a duck that got killed in an oil spill.
The oil spill in the gulf was the largest accidental marine oil spill in history and it killed many thousands of animals (and likely hundreds of thousands more that we haven't counted). These companies clearly value profit over people, safety, and the protection of our planet. There are good reasons to not allow them to drill (but we are letting them anyway).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill)I blame all this hype about it on Obama because all he cares about is the environment!
It's too bad that's not true for our planet would be in much better shape.
QuoteTake that government conspiracy!OBJECTION!!! What about the $40,000 hybrid cars! Not to mention the ones that run off electricity only, electric bills would skyrocket! Also I see about 4-5 smart car's a day IN A SMALL CITY! Thats about $100,000 put into the car dealerships wallet. It's cars, lightbulbs, Solar Panels, government taxes, and lot's more. Al Gore has made A LOT of money on LIES. SANDWICHES OF LIES!!!! Food price is going up because of biofuel, causing riots in other countries. Energy prices are rising because our genius president won't let us drill oil off the coast because of a duck that got killed in an oil spill. OH MY GOD!!! SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING!!! CANCEL DUCK SEASON!!! And the worst part is that the poor are being most affected by lies about the earth warming up. And about Glaciers, they would melt toward the bottom a little bit, but a 2 degree rise won't change anything :P. So this whole global warming myth is just A BUSINESS!!! This is to make people money. I blame all this hype about it on Obama because all he cares about is the environment! You guys can worry about your fancy graphs and charts. By the way, it's a little known fact that 42.7% of statistics are made up on the spot. I believe NASA, but not the people that make this a business. 'Nuff said...
Barely readable:QuoteTake that government conspiracy!OBJECTION!!! What about the $40,000 hybrid cars! Not to mention the ones that run off electricity only, electric bills would skyrocket! Also I see about 4-5 smart car's a day IN A SMALL CITY! Thats about $100,000 put into the car dealerships wallet. It's cars, lightbulbs, Solar Panels, government taxes, and lot's more. Al Gore has made A LOT of money on LIES. SANDWICHES OF LIES!!!! Food price is going up because of biofuel, causing riots in other countries. Energy prices are rising because our genius president won'ept let us drill oil off the coast because of a duck that got killed in an oil spill. OH MY GOD!!! SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING!!! CANCEL DUCK SEASON!!! And the worst part is that the poor are being most affected by lies about the earth warming up. And about Glaciers, they would melt toward the bottom a little bit, but a 2 degree rise won't change anything :P. So this whole global warming miyth is just A BUSINESS!!! This is to make people money. I blame all this hype about it on Obama because all he cares about is the environment! You guys can worry about your fancy graphs and charts. By the way, it's a little known fact that 42.7% of statistics are made up on the spot. I believe NASA, but not the people that make this a business. 'Nuff said...
In my opinion...I'll take it seriously as the extinction of all life on the planet when the spokesman for climate change hysteria does the following:Al Gore, who I believe you are referring, is only one of many people who have pointed out the threat of climate change. Just because he and other well known people irresponsibly contribute more than their fair share greenhouse gasses to our atmosphere is not a good reason to discount the overwhelming evidence of human caused climate change collected by scientists.
Pick up a damn phone or teleconference, versus leaving a home that uses the carbon footprint of a small city, to hop on a jet to fly across the ocean, in order to speak to groups of people that already agree with you, while your limo idles outside the venue for hours.
I bet most of you haven't ever heard about 'Ocean Acidification'.Ocean acidification is terrible and real.
It's just as REAL as global warming.
.... add in Climategate and the political aspects as well...and I think it's reasonable to be skeptical of the evidence.
Consensus does not equate to truth.
If there was a consensus of scientists stating that an asteroid was going to hit Sacramento in a week but there was no evidence that any of them were leaving the area but were in fact buying new houses....that consensus doesn't mean a whole lot in of itself.
Dan, by the way, what exactly are these "claims" you speak of that deny the possibility of HGW?
The destruction of Sacramento by a natural event is not the same as the slow warming of the Earth as caused by humans. Either way... I suspect you won't find any climate scientists making long term investments in low lying ocean front property.
Or consider the comment made by Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) who maintains that we do not have to worry about climate change because the deity he believes in promised, in the Bible, not to destroy the world again after Noah’s flood.
A lovely picture of the severely snow bound UK taken i believe by NASA's Terra sattelite. Let me tell you it was cold enough last december i started the car one morning ready to drive to work. i drove about a mile and stopped at a petrol station to buy a newspaper. I got out of the car locked the door and ran into the shop. By the time id got back (2-3minutes) my door was frozen solid, it took me after 15 minutes of trying to unfreeze the door i had to climb through the passengers side. They were not fun days
1. IMHO, we have no more power to stop or even slow climate change than we have to cause it in the 1st place. I think it's pretty arrogant of humanity to claim to have that much effect on something as comparatively huge and powerful as the Earth, which itself is a grain of dust compared to the Sun.
... despite that fact that producing and using ethanol creates more greenhouse gases than using straight gasoline...
But at the bottom line, for me it all boils down to this: until weathermen can tell me with 100% accuracy whether it will rain on me tomorrow or not, I'll have great difficulty believing anything a climatologist says will happen years or centuries down the road.
Climatologists have only existed the last few decades at most, and have always had a huge political "cloud" hanging over their heads, so that makes them even less trustworthy than weathermen IMHO ;D
Including the mythologies of some Scientists.What mythologies are those?
I suspect that is a statement that you can not prove nor I can disprove. I however have shown that the spokepeople have not changed their behaviour much.Al Gore is a self appointed spokeperson. His behavior (contradictory or not) has no effect on the evidence.
So, you think global warming will destroy the world?No.
I don't think he refuted that in regards to pollution. He was just pointing out the fact that a couple of volcanic eruptions can and has caused just as much xyz to occur that equates to all that humanity has been able to muster.I'd be curious to see the source of that claim.
Don't forget Al Gore.Al Gore is not a climate scientist. And as you have shown, he admits that his support for ethanol was in error.
As if the Climatologists are not bought and paid for by somebody. They rely on who to support their research and their living?Many of them rely on federal grants.
I don't understand why you don't think we have the power to damage the Earth. We do and we are.
Have you reviewed the evidence?
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/ (http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/)
The use of ethanol was promoted and encouraged by the huge farm corporations and lobbing groups, not climate scientists.
Just because someone uses the fear of climate change to encourage a bad or immoral idea doesn't mean that human caused climate change isn't true.
And there is almost no doubt among climate scientists that the Earth will warm, on average, at least one additional degree Celsius, even if we stop emitting greenhouse gases today.
Climatologists are not inherently political and most of them are disgusted by the politicization of their field. You should be careful not to conflate their scientific claims from the claims of politicians who have been bought and paid for by corporations.
I find it funny that many people are so self-centered that they think global warming will destroy "the world"(by that I think they mean the earth). The earth will probably continue to exist as long as the Sun exists. Human beings, however, might find it hard to survive as a species when the earths climate changes. Just look at all the food sources that are being destroyed lately by extreme weather for an example. This will definitely hurt us as a species.
QuoteI find it funny that many people are so self-centered that they think global warming will destroy "the world"(by that I think they mean the earth).
"self-centered"...that isn't the word that comes to my mind. I am not aware of anyone that thinks that the actual earth will be destroyed, as in no longer existing. I think it's more on the lines of no longer becoming habitable for current life.QuoteI really want human beings to survive and live on this beautiful planet though, and it can be done, if we try.
Good to know Hal. I think there are very few human beings that don't want humanity to exist, so you are in the majority.
I read recently that the volcanic eruption in Iceland a month or 2 ago spewed more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in just 4 days than the total efforts of the entire human race have kept out of the atmosphere over the last 5 years.This is totally false.
These 100% natural forces are far more powerful than even Al Gore's worst-case humanocentric propoganda, meaning that everything we do in either direction is by definition insignificant.Also totally false.
At the time, the climatologists were all for ethanol and from what I can tell, most still are.Wrong.
Meanwhile, most real scientists are ranged against [climatologists].False.
Corporations, most of whom are suffering mightily under the tyranny of "green" legislation and are flat against it.Corporate profits are at an all time high. Corporations are not suffering.
No climatologist is given a blank check and told to find out what's really happening. Instead, they're told to find evidence of human impact on climate while ignoring everything else.Not true.
Because of all these unknowns, there is NO SUCH THING as an accurate climate model, because none of them contain all the factors involved.This is a false dilemma.
Also, I don't want to get on the bad side of the Great Architect of Universe Sandbox. So please don't take personal offense at anything I say.No worries. I hope the same it true for you.
Is this even a correct statement? large changes in climate, geologically-speaking being in the tens of years...versus thousands? Doesn't seem right.How this happens is currently being debated among climate scientists.
"Carbon dioxide emissions: Volcanoes also emit carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas, which has a warming effect. For about two-thirds of the last 400 million years, geologic evidence suggests CO2 levels and temperatures were considerably higher than present."We are at record levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) given the past 0.5 million years, but not for the past 400 million years. The Earth was much hotter than it is now when the dinosaurs lived, for example. The heating of the Earth isn't going to destroy the Earth, but it is going to cause massive changes to our environment that humanity will have to deal with. As the world warms, the ocean levels will continue to rise (particularly toward the equator, where many of the poorest people live). This will flood cities and farmland causing famine and displacing tens of millions of people.
So which is it....CO2 levels were considerably higher than present or we are at record levels since 1950?
Why not just compare based on ice cores alone? If ice cores are sufficient to show past CO2 for thousands and millions of years, it should be for hundreds and decades.When you can arrive at the same result with different methods of discovery (CO2 concentration, in this example), you provide corroboration that the methods are producing accurate results.
Ok, besides the debates about whether global warming is AGW [human caused global warming] or not...let's look at the solutions to the problem.Another good question.
It looks like everyone wants to deal with the emissions end but what about dealing with the problem via the "sinks"?
It comes down basically to overpopulation. The two scenarios are due to my skeptical feeling of the motivations behind dealing with it. This whole AGW is either legitimate and there are righteous motivations behind it or AGW is just one more way of attempting to control the population.Or human caused global climate change is legitimate but it's presented by manipulative corporations as "government takeover" because they want to be able to do whatever they want.
I think the world is shaped by an oligarchy and quite frankly, I don't trust them...I agree that corporations have too much power. They are allowed to influence our politicians and write our laws. It's not specifically government that we should be afraid of, but manipulative corporate control of government.
Academia is similar to the military in that a legitimate need for self defense has turned into the military-industrial complex.Climate scientists and academics are not getting rich from promoting the results of their findings. Where the military-industrial complex does profit from promoting war.
I think the latter. You said it yourself, the poor around the world will be affected the most. Economic losses of the poor are not greater than the economic losses of the wealthy. One only has to look at GDP around the globe to figure that out.In the United States, we'll be generally fine if the world warms. We can pay more for food and build infrastructure to protect ourselves from rising oceans. The poor countries cannot. I suppose it will be cheaper to deal with the consequences if you're only worried about the top economic tier of humanity, however I believe that every human life has equal value.
The green ideology is the most dangerous of ideologies.Communists want a classless society and thus consider everyone equal. Improving life quality for proletarians at the cost of rich people is not putting proletarians first, it is making the two groups more equal.
Communists put the proletarians first. Fascists put targeted ethnic groups first. Greens put homo sapiens sapiens last.
It costs alot of money :PWhat do you think will cost the most money, to fix the problems now or to pay for the consequences of not doing anything in the future?
"big coordination"It could be, but that wasn't the only thing I thought of. I meant a planned economy.
kol, that's like world peace
funfact, when you google big coordination and go to images, you'll see schools, companies, countries, but never the world in coordination :P
Something killed that multi-decadal oscillation that had been going on for a while, in 1910.
We do not have to worry about global warming causing damage to the Human spicies.So can a small change in the composition of our atmosphere. :)
There have been many times in Earth's past when the Earth was warmer, Co2 levels were higher, or both!
The age of the Dinosaurs was a time where Antarctica was a rainforest! (not entirle due to the warmth, some due to the air currents). Back then rainforests dominated the land because of increased co2, which were ,much higher that they are today. (as well as global temperatures). But life adapted, and the Earth returned to normal.
We have to remember that we are not orbiting a lightbulb, but a massive explosion held back only by gravity,swinging wildly from it's fluctuation, highly eratic magnetic fieilds. And that even a small change in the sun can have large effects on Earth.
The notion that man is some God entity that is powerful enough to be a direct cause of it is the myth. The climate has been changing for billions of years and will continue to do so [...]This argument keeps being repeated. :P
'The temperature of the Earth has been on a sharp increase since 1700s
graph please, because i can't find any to support this
we're heating up the globe a thousand times faster than that natural cycle ever did.
While we do produce a sizable amount of CO2, there is virtually no feasible way to be able to determine what the temperature would be like without human influence, as it always has been extremely dynamic. Only gross estimates are possible, as not even the most powerful of supercomputers can accurately portray all conditions on Earth to a tittle.The fact that we cannot determine exactly what the temperature would have been without our influence doesn't mean that we can't know that we're causing it to warm. We have caused the emission of huge amounts of greenhouse gases, which we know contribute to warming Earth simply because of their physical properties and the properties of the light and radiation which enters our atmosphere.
Is global warming real? Of course. However, I do not believe that man has any more than the tiniest of influences on the global temperature.We have increased the CO2 content in our atmosphere by more than one third since the 18th century, surely we not only can, but must, have an influence on the global temperature? (And those of us who aren't men, too?)
Bla what is your opinion on motorcycles?The CO2 emission from motorcycles is comparative to cars, but they emit very high amounts of several other pollutants, such as CO, which is a very unhealthy gas. I think those using conventional fuel engines should be banned.
All countries, such as China, Russia and the EU...not just the USA, would also have to take the SAME steps and have the SAME consequences for doing whatever it would take to make an actual difference. If not, NOTHING is going to happen...nor should it. If it's a real threat to humanity, humanity will respond for self preservation, if not then we will go extinct, which is going to happen anyway.The (people in) governments are too busy making money to bother unfortunately.
Tuto, don't blame global warming for that, blame global warming if 30C is reached regularly during February when it didn't used to be.So basically you are saying "Don't blame global warming for unusually warm weather, but blame global warming for unusually warm weather!" because it shouldn't be 85 degrees at this time of year.
NO. Don't blame global warming for one, isolated incident of unusually warm weather. Blame global warming for a pattern of unusually warm weather.Either way I wasn't being serious. Gawsh
If I speak my opinion, I will be persecuted. All I can say us that global warming is just a sad, sad fault of humanity among thousands upon thousands of other faults of humanity.Xriqxa, if I can share my opinions on here, you're more than welcome to speak out. (err, type out, lol)
Nature still emits more greenhouse gases than humanity. However, the world was used to how much nature was producing. Now, we have increased the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by nearly 50%, causing a massive imbalance until plants and the ocean absorb more than is being produced.
Nature still emits more greenhouse gases than humanity. However, the world was used to how much nature was producing. Now, we have increased the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by nearly 50%, causing a massive imbalance until plants and the ocean absorb more than is being produced.I know that!
guys the amount of sea ice in the arctic this year was above 2012 levels global warming is disproved everyone go home
words
it's not as bad as this shows though (now anyway, the trend would be for around 2020):It uses the same data with one extra data point added. The trends aren't different because of the data point but because the fits are different. I don't know any arguments for which mathematical function the ice should generally follow though or see any details on the goodness of the fits on the graphs, so I'm not going to argue which fit is best or if it might be gone in 2018 or 2022, I don't know that, I think the interesting thing to note is how fast the ice is disappearing in general and how few years there are left until it might disappear entirely in the summer and the general overall trend, save the details.
Whether we're actually causing climate change or not, is it possible that the ultimate result of it will actually be beneficial to us?Global warming has a huge number of different effects so of course some will be positive, but the evidence points to the negative ones being far more dominant than the positive ones, hence the many times we've been warned about the problems by the scientific community.
The obvious issue that people are concerned about are the poles melting and sea levels rising. However, unlike other fluids, water expands when frozen due to the way it forms the crystalline structures of ice. As it melts, it takes up less area than it did when frozen. Does this mean that the flooding wouldn't be as bad as people think?Yes, but much of that volume was bound above sea level, and when it melts it becomes a part of the sea instead of some stable glacier/etc., so even if the total volume is smaller after melting, the sea gains volume and thus sea level rises.
More moisture in the air also means more severe weather, but it also means more water getting to land. Will arid areas become less arid as a result?We can't just take the extra water and average it out over the entire globe. Any extra moisture won't be distributed like that. The reason why many arid lands are arid are due to the Hadley cell. Higher temperature also means any water can evaporate faster in arid lands if the air is dry (as it tends to due to the Hadley cell).
With higher levels of CO2, our atmosphere becomes thicker, which means the average temperature will rise. However, does it also mean the temperature will become more constant across the Earth? The Earth's average temperature is about 16 degrees Celsius, so if global temperatures rise but become more constant regardless of location on Earth, will the end result be that the global climate equalizes and ends up more habitable than before?Why would it become noticeably more constant? The extra CO2 is on the scale of 0.1% of the atmosphere, and in the process of making this, oxygen from the atmosphere has been used. The thickening is tiny if anything and the main reason why CO2 heats the Earth is because it absorbs infrared radiation.
A thicker atmosphere also means more for the plants to turn into oxygen, and thus more for us to breathe. Will we be healthier as a result of the thicker atmosphere?So far the level of oxygen appears to be constant as far as I know, however the processes that create CO2 by combustion use oxygen in the process. In addition we're destroying many forest areas which you might expect to decrease the oxygen production. However the many processes that create CO2 by combustion also produce countless other harmful gases which cause e.g. smog in cities. Certainly our polluting industries and forms of travel that cause part of the global warming problems are at the same time making the atmosphere more unhealthy.
Whether we're actually causing climate change or not,We are causing climate change. Here is a simple explainer on it: https://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=109
is it possible that the ultimate result of it will actually be beneficial to us?Overall? No. Our society depends on a stable global climate system to continue to function, and moving biomes along with the disappearance of areas along the coastline does not bode well for the future. Some areas will "benefit" in some sick way, for example the taigas of the world, mainly in Canada and Siberia. They will benefit because the taigas will burn up as the areas they are in become too warm to support the high water demand of coniferous trees and the forest stands are replaced with grasslands in drier regions or deciduous forests in wetter regions. These types of land are more easily exploitable and their warmer climate will be more livable for humans.
The obvious issue that people are concerned about are the poles melting and sea levels rising. However, unlike other fluids, water expands when frozen due to the way it forms the crystalline structures of ice. As it melts, it takes up less area than it did when frozen. Does this mean that the flooding wouldn't be as bad as people think?Water does expand when frozen, however for ice that is sitting on top of the ocean such as ice shelves and sea ice, this is compensated for by the top bit of the ice being above the water when frozen, resulting in no net change in sea levels.
More moisture in the air also means more severe weather, but it also means more water getting to land. Will arid areas become less arid as a result?This depends on which arid area you are talking about. In general, yes, they will receive more rainfall, but the rising temperatures will in many cases compensate entirely or overcompensate for this increase in precipitation. There are also arid regions where the amount of rainfall they will receive will decrease, notably the Great Basin and California. The main area which will benefit from increased rainfall is the Outback of Australia, where there are largely two stable states for the continent: a very arid one where the only regions with significant rainfall are around the edges, as it used to be; it is transitioning to a state where the Outback receives copious amounts of summer rainfall from tropical lows and other various thunderstorm activity.
With higher levels of CO2, our atmosphere becomes thicker, which means the average temperature will rise.The atmosphere does not become thicker, as in increased air pressure, it becomes more opaque in the infrared, causing temperature to rise as more infrared photons are deflected back to Earth than continue out into space.
However, does it also mean the temperature will become more constant across the Earth? The Earth's average temperature is about 13* degrees Celsius, so if global temperatures rise but become more constant regardless of location on Earth, will the end result be that the global climate equalizes and ends up more habitable than before?Yes! The global temperature will become more constant across the Earth. We can already see this in the Arctic with Arctic amplification this year going off the charts:
A thicker atmosphere also means more for the plants to turn into oxygen, and thus more for us to breathe. Will we be healthier as a result of the thicker atmosphere?Again, the atmosphere will not be thicker, it will be more opaque. And yes, plants are and have been converting more and more carbon dioxide to oxygen, giving us a somewhat slower warming than we would otherwise be experiencing. Unfortunately, the form that it is immediately emitted in is carbon monoxide, which uses this chemical equation to turn into carbon dioxide:
Does climate change mean an increase in the thickness of the cloud layers?The response of clouds to global warming is the least settled part of climate science, and drives almost all of the variability in climate sensitivity models and is the reason for the huge range of outcomes for temperature rise over the rest of the 21st century (for example, AR5 IPCC reported a range of between a temperature increase of +1.1C to +7.2C for the highest path of fossil fuel burning). However, recent research has become available that shows that clouds, mainly stratocumulus over subtropical oceans underneath the great Hadley cell high pressures, will decrease with climate change and result in another spiralling feedback.
Does climate change mean an increase in the thickness of the cloud layers?The response of clouds to global warming is the least settled part of climate science, and drives almost all of the variability in climate sensitivity models and is the reason for the huge range of outcomes for temperature rise over the rest of the 21st century (for example, AR5 IPCC reported a range of between a temperature increase of +1.1C to +7.2C for the highest path of fossil fuel burning). However, recent research has become available that shows that clouds, mainly stratocumulus over subtropical oceans underneath the great Hadley cell high pressures, will decrease with climate change and result in another spiralling feedback.
Additionally, Arctic and Antarctic cloud cover during polar night traps heat very effectively, increasing with thickness. This is the main driver of Arctic amplification and may be the key to achieving an equable climate with only one atmospheric circulation cell in the Northern Hemisphere. However, thicker cumulonimbus thunderstorm clouds in the tropical latitudes may keep the tropics from heating up too massively, helping along any possible switch to an equable climate.
So we're looking at an overall decrease in Earth's albedo?Yes. I don't remember the magnitude of how much from the abstract (i.e. on the level of a complete loss of Arctic sea ice or the complete loss of the Antarctic ice sheet), but here it is: