Okay, Is global warming true or false?

Question

I would like to have facts only and not opinions. I'm told by either side of the issue adn most of it seems to be a bunch of BS. So, I thought that I'd post the question here.

Answer 1

It's pretty much nonsense.

Back in the 1970's, Global Cooling was all the rage - They even proposed a number of alterations to the environment (including melting the polar ice caps) in order to prevent the coming ice age.

Probably a good thing we didn't do that, hunh?

Check out the Heidelburg Appeal - A document signed by many climate scientists (including a large number of Nobel Prize winners) rather than the social scientists and movie stars that usually sign on with the Goracle. These scientists are saying that Global Warming is FAR from proved and that it needs MUCH more investigation before any actions are proposed.

You'll note that fluctuations in the sun's output and even volcanic eruptions (1 eruption puts out a much as FIVE YEARS worth of every other source of greenhouse gasses) have a MUCH greater effect on the Earth's climate than anything man can do.

Let's do a hell of a lot more research and try to actually understand the climate before we start tinkering with it. We don't even have a climate model that works to predict the weather next MONTH, much less next YEAR or next DECADE.

I've attached a link to a debunking of the nonsensical "An Inconvenient Truth" as well. Enjoy!

Orion

EDIT: People talking about icebergs melting and raising the sea level don't understand basic science, which is pretty typical of Global Warming true-believers. If your ice cubes melt, the water level in your glass doesn't go up. The ice displaces it's mass when it floats. When it melts that same mass is back in liquid form, leaving the water level untouched. Link attached.

2nd EDIT: You'll note a lot of folks on one side of the issue busily claiming that there is "NO DEBATE!" That they can't even get this fact straight should tell you something about the accuracy of their other arguments. The Heidelburg Appeal alone (I'd say several thousand scientists and over 70 hard-science Nobel Prize winners qualify as informed dissent) is 'debate', and there is OBVIOUSLY a lot of debate in scientific circles about this issue. Learn something about the concept before you start parroting talking points.

3rd EDIT: People, people, people. Saying "It's warmer today!" does not mean there is some global warming TREND - especially an anthropogenic (man caused) non-cyclical trend. Global Warming does not mean "It's warmer today than it was 20 years ago, on average.". Global Warming, in this context refers to a non-cyclical anthropogenic upward trend in temperature. The DEBATE centers around the meanings of these facts, not the measured temperature. Yeesh. The question is one of causes and overall trends, not the temps of the last X years.

I've attached a link to Wiki entry for The Little Ice Age - a global cooling period around 1300. Kinda like the global cooling period that had everyone paniced in the 70's. I'll buy into Global Warming when you produce a working climate model that can accurately predict the weather next month, much less 100 years down the road.

Answer 2

Ok, there are a lot of different meaninings in your question. So you are probably going to get a broad spectrum of answers.

If you mean global warming only as the planet is getting warmer. Yes. The planet is getting warmer.

However, the reasons behind why the planet is getting warmer is just as broad. A lot of scientists right now are all on a trend to blame big oil companies as the sole reason. To be completely honest, they should say that this is a normal process of the planetary movement around the sun. They should also say that this "Global Warming" trend is actually good for our species since last time it did this evolutionary boundaries were expanded.

Dont expect it to go away any time soon. And even if they did stop all people and factories on the planet today, it wouldnt matter. The earth would still get warmer until it started moving away from the sun again. Once it gets to the right orbit from the sun we will go into another ice age. Of course that all happens in about 100,000 years. But hey we are moving towards the sun right now remember, hence the global warming. Keep in mind when you look at the source, we dont have 100,000 years worth of data to prove or disprove the Milankovitch Cycles.

Please note, I am not saying we dont help make it warmer. I am just saying realistically, it doesnt matter. We are going to get warmer either way. And Mamma earth is still gonna be here just like with the dinosaurs.

Answer 3

If the question you're asking is, "Has the Earth been warming faster than 'normal' over the last 100 years", the answer is a scientifically undisputed yes. The best evidence comes from ice cores in made in Antarctica, where analysis of the air trapped in the ice allows us to determine what the temperature was when the ice formed. What they find is,"The global temperature is warmer now than at any time since at least 1400 AD, which is as far back as scientists have good estimates of temperatures from direct and indirect observations. Fragmentary records suggest the Earth is warmer than it has been in many thousands of years, maybe nearly 100,000 years." [1]

The question that is sometimes still disputed, (even by scientists) is "Are humans causing the warming." The best answer to that was very recently determined by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) [2] and in summary, they found it "very likely" that humans are contributing significantly to the warming. Check out the IPCC website, they have a really cool video summary, and if you want more info, download the "Summary for Policy Makers", which is written in relatively non-scientific language, and is pretty concise.

Answer 4

There is no dispute among scientists that the world has, as a whole, experienced a significant rise in temperature over the past century, so in the loosest sense of your question, global warming is indeed "true".

The causes of that warming remain under dispute in the scientific community. Popular consensus and many in the scientific community hold that the rapidly increasing emission of greenhouse gas pollutants by humans has caused the rise in temperature; other climatologists contest that although the increased temperature may be partially due to this release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, natural and uncontrollable flux in the Sun's output of cosmic rays could be responsible for the bulk of the warming. No conclusive evidence exists in support of either hypothesis (or any of the other lesser-known theories that have been proposed, i.e. geothermal heating), and no model yet exists that can fully explain the pattern of climate change that the Earth has experienced. The truth is out there, but it is as yet unknown.

Answer 5

A lot of what you hear from both sides is BS and it can sometimes be hard sorting out fact from fiction.

The bottom line is that the world is warming up - if it wasn't we'd still be in an ice age. It's been warming up of it's own accord for about 18,000 years, there's been a few cold spells but the general trend has been warming.

The above response mentions the Heidelberg Appeal

Scientists have long known that the world was warming up and until the politicians got involved there was no disputing it.

Given that the scientists know what they're on about and politicians barely know politics let alone science then I think it's safe to side with the scientific facts and not the political propoganda.

EDIT:

Re the edit in the above response - When floating ice melts the water level remains constant. Antarctica is NOT floating.

The above response also mentions the Heidelberg Appeal (correct link - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidelberg_Appeal ). If people who oppose global warming actually read it they'd know it wasn't about global warming at all. In fact, global warming isn't even mentioned.

There's also references to volcanos - another piece of 'evidence' used by those who dispute global warming. Volcanoes don't warm the earth they cool it by blocking out sunlight. Have a look at these reports from NASA and the USGS - http://www.giss.nasa.gov/edu/gwdebate/ http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Glossary/VolcWeather/description_volcanoes_and_weather.html not only that but the figures mentioned above are incorrect and are out by a factor of about 2000%.

There's also - "can't even predict the weather next week/month". Climate change and global warming have nothing to do with predicting the weather. Weather is short term, local and influenced by many variables. Climate change is long term and global.

My apologies to Orion - it's just that your answer is the one above and I've used it to demonstrate how flawed the evidence is that 'disproves' global warming.

Answer 6

Technicaly speaking, global warming is true because the planet is warmer now than it was before (as far back as our records go) so the real question is, is global warming a natural cycle the earth is going through or is it anthropogenic (man caused). There are previouse recordes found in geology and other sources showing evidence of previouse similar cycles, but nothing exactly like this. As far as hard facts, we are putting off a lot of greenhouse gasses, fact, the levels of these gasses are greatly incresing in the atmosphere, fact, these gasses do trap and store heat, fact, baised on these facts it is entirly possable that we have caused this. There is however no definate proof that we have caused it, just good evidence to support it.

Answer 7

It would not influence me in any respect - so far. besides the incontrovertible fact that, I persist with technical advancements in this container with great activity by way of fact a million). There seems sturdy info that some degree of worldwide warming has exceeded off. 2). there is a minimum of a theoretical foundation for the declare that worldwide warming is anthropogenic 3). the extreme situations are fairly frightening 4). The eco-freaks are utilising the extreme situations to generate panic 5). Carbon taxes will substitute into costly to all human beings

Answer 8

I empathize with you; separating fact from fiction in this arguement IS very difficult. There are entire multi million dollar organizations which were formed just to add "fool to the fire". So I will try to give you only the information I know is factual that has been accepted as truth prior to the beginning of the Global Warming arguement. The "Global Warming arguement" started about 30 years ago with people like Dr. Corel (no relation to the software ... he, and other's like him, should get the Nobel Prize, not Gore).

So let's talk about pre 70s science.

First, you must understand that we live on the skin of an apple, that is our "biosphere". Everything from the Earth's magnetic field and our distance from the Sun, to the composition of our atmosphere and soil, to the biochemistry that drives life is an incredibly delicate balancing act. One part of that balancing act is the energy balance; amount of solar energy which is retained by the biosphere versus how much is released back into space.

A lot of the energy from the sun is used directly by living organisms, including us. Our bodies create Vitamin D through a solar powered process, trees create the sugars that fuel their cell growth through photosynthesis. The energy from the sun doesn't just power calculators, it powers life! But that is only a part of the total energy in the biosphere.

The vast majority of the sun's energy doesn't power life, it powers weather.

You can call it Global Warming, you can call it Global Climate Change, you can call it Judgement Day for all I care. I don't want to argue over what it could be based on a title, I just want to present a fact. We know for a fact that the temperature of the oceans has risen 1 deg C, that is a fact. The following formula is the science behind a Doomsday Weather Device of our own invention. I am more afraid of this Weapon of Mass Destruction than of any other.

There are:
326,000,000 cubic miles of water on Earth,
the temperature of that water has risen 1 deg C since we began measuring its temperature
it takes 1 calorie of energy to raise 1 cubic centimeter of water 1 degree C
1cubic mile = (5280ft/mile X 12in/ft X 2.54cm/in)*3 or
4168181825440579.584 cc
1X10*15 calories = 1 megaTon of TNT
according to the NNSA/NSO Nuclear Testing Archives, the AVERAGE yield of all nuclear devices exploded from the first until the most recent is approximately 1 megaTon (the average yield was greatly reduced in favour of more accurate delivery systems)

soooo ....

326,000,000 m*3 X 4168181825440579.584cc/m*3 X 1cal/cc
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =
1X10*15 cal/Mton

1,358,827,275 MegaTons of TNT

In case my point isn't clear ... a one degree rise in the temperature of the oceans is the equivalent energy to 1.3 billion ... yes BILLION ... atomic bombs.

That has already happened in the last 30 years and continues to happen. That does not include the "latent energy of fusion". Latent energy of fusion has nothing to do with atomic bombs, it is the amount of energy it takes to melt ice to water without raising the temperature. So you can calculate the volume of the polar ice caps which have melted and the latent energy of fusion it would take and add that number to the 1.3 billion megaTons it took to raise the oceans 1 deg C. That massive increase in excess energy in the biosphere is driving weather and climate changes planet-wide.

It doesn't matter what you call it or what caused it or who is to blame. We have a very big problem and burying our heads in the sand will not make it go away.

Answer 9

If you want to learn about global warming--go to the (legitimate) science websites-there are dozens.

But here's a starting point: you will not find a "debate"--becasue there isn't one. Global warming is real--and no amount of ideological drivel has any relevance to scientific fact. End of discussion.

Answer 10

Environmental expert decries 'hypocrisy' of Gore, greens
Jim Brown
OneNewsNow.com
February 20, 2007


A climate change expert says Al Gore and other proponents of catastrophic manmade global warming are not only pushing flawed science, but also demonstrating hypocrisy while pushing their cause against what they consider a dire threat.

Former Vice President Al Gore recently announced a series of worldwide concerts to focus on the perceived threat of global warming. The "Save Our Selves" campaign will feature events in seven cities on July 7 and musicians such as Snoop Dogg, Bon Jovi, Kelly Clarkson, Faith Hill and Tim McGraw.

Dennis Avery, an expert on environmental issues at the Hudson Institute, says he doubts Gore and the environmentally conscious singers will forego taking a private jet to the concerts. "I think the worst hypocrisy is the guilt trip that the green movement has offered to all of us," he says. "And people are enthusiastic about being Al Gore's side, if they're non-scientists, to prove that they're socially responsible people [or] to prove that they're 'good' people. And I think it's nonsense."

Avery says he cannot agree with the explanation that the warming prior to 1940 was caused by human-emitted carbon dioxide (CO2), because 80 percent of the CO2 was emitted after that. "So if we take away 0.5 degrees of the warming from before 1940 and give human-emitted CO2 half of the net warming since 1940, that comes to 0.15 degrees ... over a 150 years," he says -- noting that occurred during a period "when the laws of physics say each additional unit of CO2 will have less forcing power than the one before it."

Avery is co-author of the book Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 Years. Avery claims over the last 20 years, he and co-author Dr. Fred Singer have documented globally from dozens of different proxies a "natural solar-driven moderate" 1,500-year climate cycle. He says he is "greatly despaired," however, that no one is telling the public about it.