Why is it so hard to find proof that global warming is effected by mankind?

Question

With global warming being such a political hot bed, why is it so hard to find proof that we as humans effect it?
The links i have generally been given are of someones oppinion or an artical of scientific consensus.Algores movies is no help because the producers admitted that alot of the material was made up.
Now the scientist who supposedly started the whole thing says is not real. The only proof of anything so far is that the earth came out of the last Ice Age without mans help, and now the last 10 years show we are getting cooler. It's very odd that no matter what the weather is like some point to it and say there's proof of global warming. this just doesn't make sense. Back in the 70's we were headed into a mini ice age.

Answer 1

The proof is hard to find because it probably does not exist. If scientists were able to measure the output of the sun for the past million years, then compare that to the past 100 years, they might have something to work with.
Humans pollute the environment: air, land and water. But the jury is out on man's effect on global temperature changes.

Answer 2

There is no way to prove or disprove global warming because we can't conduct an experiment on all the global factors affecting climate, and we can't agree on the outcome because the response is unpredictable. We can look at different parts of the picture and figure out how they work independently, but global climate processes are way too complex to predict, especially under conditions that may have never before existed. So even though we know the general effects of things like greenhouse gases, changes in polar ice caps, variation in solar output, etc., we don't know how they work together as a planetary system.

Unfortunately, its the popular press that keeps talking about global warming. What scientists talk about is climate change, where the greenhouse effect is only one of many climatic factors. The greenhouse effect itself is more or less proven - the effect has been applied for centuries in actual greenhouses, and the greenhouse effect of planetary atmosphere has been verified from probes that have been sent to other planets. That's where the scientific certainty ends.

There is almost no more scientific debate whether CO2 from human activities has increased the greenhouse effect of Earth's atmosphere. What is debated among scientists is what happens next because of changes in the greenhouse effect, along with natural variation and other atmospheric changes that can either offset the greenhouse effect, magnify the effect, or create entirely different types of shifts in things other than temperature.

The ocean and polar ice caps buffer the effects of climatic change, so it might take the ocean and atmosphere 50 to hundreds of years before all the effects of our activities are actually seen. This is the reason climate change is scary - its not because warming is inevitable, its because we have no idea of all the things that might happen by increasing the global retention of heat, and once we figure it out, the problem could be irreversible.

There is a good summary of the scientific questions at these links:

Answer 3

Scientists provide data and project possible outcomes. These are hypotheses not proof or facts. There are environmental factors that can be controlled like overpopulation, energy conservation, deforestatoin etc., but there will always be environmental factors that are out of man's control.
Global warming is a complex issue.

Reading the popular media can lead a person to conclude that "global warming" is:
o- either a hoax to promote business opportunities, politicians agenda and scientists grant money.....
OR
o- a problem related to overpopulation, industrialization and fossil fuels whose solution options lie in solar power, wind power, geothermal power and nuclear fusion....

However, the correct answer may be altogether different:

NASA has released never-before-seen images that show the sun's magnetic field is much more turbulent and dynamic than previously known. The international spacecraft Hinode, formerly known as Solar B, took the images. Hinode was launched Sept. 23 to study the sun's magnetic field and its explosive energy. National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientists said the spacecraft's uninterrupted high-resolution observations of the sun are expected to have an impact on solar physics comparable to the Hubble Space Telescope's impact on astronomy. "For the first time, we are now able to make out tiny granules of hot gas that rise and fall in the sun's magnetized atmosphere," said Dick Fisher, director of NASA's Heliophyics Division. "These images will open a new era of study on some of the sun's processes that effect Earth, astronauts, orbiting satellites and the solar system." Hinode is a collaborative mission led by
the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and includes the European Space Agency and Britain's Particle Physics Astronomy Research
Council. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., managed the development of the Hinode's scientific instrumentation provided by industry and federal agencies.

>>> as regards alternative energy methods, I favor development of the technology for nuclear fusion using lunar Helium 3

Answer 4

Gore is worried about u using up all the fossil fuel and there would not be enough to go around. If u are part of the working clan it is directed against u. The main thing is CO2 and granted we do burn a lot of fuels . The plants with photosynthesis has done a great job just look it up on the net. If the CO2 is not a problem because mother nature has already taken care of the biggest problem. If the CO2 is not there neither is global warming. Gore main thing is to get u to ride a bike or walk so he can fly his plain.

Answer 5

It's not hard at all. There's lots of hard numerical data in many places. Here are just a few.

This report is full of data. It's just a summary. The full report will be out shortly, and will be 1600 pages, full of data.

http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

In the 70s the majority of scientists were not saying we were headed for an ice age. That's a made up story.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=94

CO2 is dramatically increasing over and above the "natural cycle". The graph below shows this. The little teeth are plants, active in summer, and much less active in winter. The big push up is us burning fossil fuels.

http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/graphics_gallery/mauna_loa_record/mlo_record.html

These sites contain plenty of data.

http://www.pewclimate.org/

http://profend.com/global-warming/pages/establish.html

Data is available in many other places.

Answer 6

It's not. It's all a political money thing. The corporations with the highest emissions probably are the biggest lobbyists and give the most money to the politicians. It's much cheaper for them to keep pumping out the pollution than it is to take steps to reduce it. It's similar to the evil partnership between the drug companies and the FDA. Any natural substance that may treat, prevent or cure a disease is suppressed. Natural substances cannot be patented so they can't make billions of dollars off of them. Greed is sinister and evil. The people making all the money don't give a flying crap about the rest of us.

Answer 7

There are too many parameters that affect the climate to produce an accurate model to explain the global climate. These parameters are hard to measure and they interact in ways we don't completely understand.

Among these parameters are ocean currents, ocean composition, ocean temperatures, solar radiation, cosmic radiation, effect of volcanoes, irrigation, fossil fuel consumption, agriculture, cloud formation, upper atmospheric phenomena and many others.

Answer 8

The earths atmospheric systems (note the plural) are complex interactions of a plethora of variables.

Proof is in the fact that we have escalated our collective output of excess to that systems natural heating by close to 1% which doesn't sound like much, but in context of the size and magnitude of all of what works to give us weather, it is a very notable thing >>added input<< that we are doing.

Where did you get that the last ten years have been cooling? as all of the records/readings (I) have seen have indicate Warming, and for more then the last ten years.

Answer 9

Global warming: It means excessive heat produced by machinery's due to pollution.
This is controversial because each country blames that other countries machinery's are more polluting.
Process is too slow to be proved either side.

Answer 10

nobody really knows what is going on, there is speculation and calculation and no one really knows how the earth is going to react. all we do know is that as much as Al Gore loves to talk about conserving energy he uses 20 times more energy per month than the average US citizen. typical politician going for "do what I say, not what I do."