Does Global Warming Occur In Cycles?

Question

So does the fact that more than 70 percent of the planet’s recent warming occurred before 1940, and thus before humans emitted much CO2. Ice cores and seabed sediments show the 1500-year cycle extending back 900,000 years, and carbon 14 isotopes say it’s linked to variations in the sun’s irradiance. A reduction in fossil fuel use might be a good strategy for the future, but apparently would have little impact on Earth’s climate. "The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane."
Nikola Tesla, Modern Mechanics and Inventions. July, 1934

Answer 1

70 percent of the planet's recent warming huh? Where did you find that published?
Could you please expand on what you said - "carbon 14 isotopes say it’s linked to variations in the sun’s irradiance", please fill us in on how that works. Oh yes could you please tell us where they are finding 900,000 year old ice to get ice cores that old.
You forgot to mention how palynology and speleothems indicate past climate changes. I’m sure that was just a small oversight that you would like to clear up now. Oh yea how much CO2 did man emit before 1940 anyway?

Answer 2

I'm sorry that you're getting tired of the "chicken littles [...] spouting off about Global Warming" but I would venture to suggest that if we were doing more to tackle the problem, they might bother you less often. The first thing to do is to understand the issue. Answering a question such as: "[Is Global Warming] due to the burning of fossil fuels?" with "Unknown" apart from being factually incorrect tells me that we need to spend more time educating people about the issue. Additionally, when you say: "I believe..." blah blah blah, that's a red flag telling me your opinion is not based on fact. We need more understanding of the science and less reliance on people's beliefs. I would encourage any Global Warming skeptic to study the work that's been done on the subject. Go and watch an Inconvenient Truth. Some people don't care much for Al Gore but the movie is a very clear and very accessible analysis of the subject. I would also encourage people to read some good online resources such as the RealClimate blog (see sources below). These guys are real climate scientists discussing the real issues. While they spend a lot of time commenting on scientific papers they also have fun from time to time debunking the "deniers" and their talking points. Finally, I don't know where you read the USD 75bn per year figure or what that's based on (is it just for the US or the planet as a whole?!) but what's certain is that this is an accelerating problem so dollars spent now will certainly be more beneficial than dollars spent later. Spending USD 75 billion per year on education is an admirable cause but not if it's at the expense of the planet we're living on. There are opportunities, of course, to make cuts in other areas. The US, for example, is currently spending USD 6,300 per second in Iraq. I realise that's another can of worms we don't want to get into here but I'm just saying there are policy choices to be made. Fighting world hunger and poverty are good ones. Ignoring Global Warming and fighting unnecessary wars are not.

Answer 3

Yes, definitely. But you might want to consider that agriculture releases vast amounts of carbon into the atmosphere when soil is tilled for the 1st time.

It's not that the climate is warming or even how much it's warming that has knowlegable people worried. It's how fast the rate of warming is increasing in the last 50 or 60 years that is the issue.

It would only take a peer reviewed report stating any one of 4 very simple things to make me consider climate change is not something to be concerned with:

1. Human activity does not affect the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.

2. The amount of greenhouse gasses does not affect the climate.

3. Climate change does not cause widespread crop failure.

4. Widespread crop failure does not affect civilization

Answer 4

It is well known that CO2 levels cause the green house effect. It is well documented that the current CO2 levels today are higher than any levels we can find record of, and that includes all of the previous warming trends that were naturally occurring.

Consider this:
Your computer generates heat.
Cooking generates heat.
Your car has a radiator to dissipates heat.
You heat your house.
Air-conditioning expels the heat outside.
Practically all human activity results in the generation of heat and all metropolitan cities are measurably warmer than the natural environment around it.

Of course we are the cause of global warming. To say otherwise suggests you are either a liar or an idiot.

Answer 5

You point out some important facts about global warming, mainly that it's happened over and over again since before man was even around. The current cycle would have happened whether we were here or not, but it seems pretty clear that our presence has aggravated and maybe accelerated the current cycle. Those ARE the facts, regardless of what that blithering idiot Al Gore says and thinks.

Answer 6

Yes, the cycles are well known. Also, increased atmospheric CO2 seems to follow the beginning of a warming cycle by about 800 years. It is a consequence, not a cause.

But what is a primary cause? How about the sun getting warmer...

Answer 7

I don't know how much of global warming is exaggerated or real. I do think it's responsible to attempt to stop consuming as much. For instance, recycling, lowering dependency on oil, cutting down on energy usage. Americans are the most wasteful country so I think it's just a good idea to reduce the waste. Regardless of if global warming is real, these are things that will reduce problems. Like our dependency on oil- if we use up all the oil what will we do then?

Answer 8

Never mind. The IPCC Fourth Assessment report comes out tomorrow, and you can read just how wrong you are.

I'm not sure why you're quoting Tesla - for irony? Because Tesla himself was quite literally insane. Is that typically demonstrative of your shallow grasp of subjects you pretend to know well?

Answer 9

We haven't been around long enough to tell if it is a cycle but we know that there is an increase of CO2 from humans.

Answer 10

There was quite a talk on this last night. Ofcourseit was on, Fox news. I think the extremes the politicians want to push us into are foolish. I do think it is just to get more of our freedoms away from us. That's enough yes i agree with you.