global warming?

Question

what are some causes? and the effects

Answer 1

CO2 is 30% higher than it has been for 650,000 years. Methane is 130% greater. These are two of the main pollutants humans put into the atmosphere in excess, and they are two of the primary greenhouse gases.

Look at the 'hockeystick', which shows a dramatic warming since 1950 after a fairly stable climate for 1000 years. In fact, the 10 hottest years in recorded history have all happened since 1990, with 2005 being the hottest.
(see links below)

How's that for proof of man's fault in this? There is ample proof, any real scientist will tell you that.

There has NEVER been an article doubting man's influence on global warming published in a peer-reviewed journal. A recent study of almost 1000 proved that.

Yes, the earth naturally heats and cools, but the rate and amount we are warming now is unprecedented in the recent geologic past. We are doing this, and we must stop it. This is not some political statement or rhetoric. This is science trying to educate a crass, ignorant public of the damage they are doing. The magnitude of temperature increase ALREADY is about 10x that of the 'little ice age' of the middle ages, and rate and amount are only going up.

Just to be clear, glacial and interglacial cycles are mainly controlled by astronomical fluctuations, but we have a detailed record of the last 7 cycles, and what the climate and CO2 is doing now is way different and extreme. The rate of increase is much higher than in the past AND the value itself is much higher.

HI CO2:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4467420.stm
HOCKEY STICK:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5109188.stm
General climate stuff:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3897061.stm

Answer 2

In a recent lecture by the Climatologist Lecturer at Penn St. U., he mentioned several contributors. Water vapor, increased solar energy, methane and other gases, and CO2. Water vapor has a short life span in the atmosphere, on the order of hours. It comes from evaporation and some exhausts.

The Sun's corona is actually a bit hotter now than it was just a few decades ago. This is a natural swing in temperatures that has been observed for years. Anyway, the Earth is receiving more solar energy than it was a decade ago.

Methane is produced by livestock (you can guess how) and other sources where biomass is converted. For example, methane is often found in coal mines where coal was produced from plant life. Peat bogs also produce methane as the peat is being made.

Other gases come from a variety of sources. NO (nitrous oxide) is produced by car exhausts and other petrol fuel engines. Unlike the water vapor, some of these gases will linger in the atmosphere for months, if not years. So they build up over time.

Finally, there is carbon dioxide (CO2). I won't beat this dead horse to death. Just about everyone knows about CO2 and the greenhouse effect it can cause. Suffice it to say, CO2 accounts for about 24% of the global warming according to the PSU Lecturer.

The effects are many, depending on where on the globe you are. Around the North Pole and northern hemisphere, we see a measurable diminuation of glaciers. And that is accompanied by increasing shearing off of the ice sheets to form icebergs. All this shearing and melting ice adds fresh water to the oceans; thereby, diminishing the salinity and raising the water level.

As the salinity diminishes and the water levels rise, the heat engine that drives the cold Artic Stream down along the coast of N. America is weakened. That, in turn, increases the temperatures of the Atlantic and these add increasing levels of energy into storm cells. The cells turn into hurricanes of extrodinary force. And more of them are likely to happen each year.

In addition, the ocean levels are expected to be about 1 foot or so higher in 2050 than they are now. Ocean front property will be inundated more often; some will become permanently under water. Miami Beach, right down on the water line, will be flooded out more frequently, if not permanently. People who live in low country, like Bangladesh, will be permanently flooded out of their homelands.

Changes in the ocean streams will also cause changes in the global climate. Wet areas will become dry; and vice versa. Which areas will become what is uncertain, but there will be changes...most climatologists agree on that point.

Global warming (and cooling) are natural events. They've been happening for millenia. However, this warming cycle is a bit different than all the others that have been recorded. This one is coming on faster and heading toward higher termperatures than ever experienced on Earth since mankind first stepped foot on its surface. And it's that rate of onset and unprecedented temperature that most climatologists attribute to mankind's pollution of the atmosphere.

Answer 3

There is no threat or cause, it's political BS.

CO2 levels are a very small percentage of our Earth's atmosphere.
You know what generates and absorbs the greatest percentage of 'greenhouse gas'? THE OCEAN!
The amount of Co2 made by other means is LESS than 1%! The greatest generator of CO2 in that 1% is Volcanos!
The amount left after that is mostly organic life generating Co2 naturally. One of the lowest percentages of CO2 emitters out of what's left of that 1% is human.
What humans make is in the THOUSANDTHS of a percent! How can Gore say that what we produce has ANY effect of the other 99.99%??
Plus, he tries to stigmatize CO2 likes it's man-made. It's completley natural and is abundant in nature and all living things.
How does he explain the fact that the current relative tempature is far below what it was in the past - even before man learned how to use fire? What about the hundreds of years during the medevil times when it was much warmer than it is now?
He never brings up the fact that his charts are aligned to hide the 800 year gap between the CO2 and mean temps on a timeline.
Which would show how CO2 follows temps changes.
Global warming is one of the biggest scams in human history.

Here's something Bush should do - he should annouce that - "Ok, I guess Global Warming is happening. Since we now know it's real, we don't need to spend any more money on grants for research on the subject. As president, I want to pass new legislation to cut-off funding for global warming."
No need to spend money on something that's a 'scientific concensus' right?
Oh wait, all of those 'scientist' would be out of a job!
The whole 'Global Warming' economy would dry up.
It's really that simple. It's an industry. Every year they hyped up the problem with more reckless and exgerated claims just to land more and more funding. No problem = no funding. Problem getting worse = more and more funding.
Now did anyone here know all this.... or Are you all just part of the hype?

Answer 4

I'll assume we're talking about what could potentially influence Earth's climate, in this case, to increase the temperature.

CO2 is a potential contributing factor.

Water vapor is a potential contributing factor.

Cloud cover, as influenced by solar activity is a potential factor.

Water salinity, the ocean conveyor and it's ability to transfer heat between the polar regions and the equator could be a factor.

Volcanic activity

Fewer sulfur compounds in the upper atmosphere

Increase exposure to brown earth, versus snow, that absorbs more heat.

Amount of particulate matter in the atmosphere

Aerosols in the atmosphere

But in reality, they all combine to slightly influence warming and cooling. I don't believe much hype that there is a single over-riding variable that can explain it all. It's a very complex system that we have yet to fully understand.

Answer 5

I'm going to guess psych0bug isn't a scientist.

Here's a crticical look at his answer:

>There is no threat or cause, it's political BS.

We'll see.

>CO2 levels are a very small percentage of our Earth's
>atmosphere.

0.038% to be precise. But if you were to breathe in that concentration of cyanide, it would kill you. Small doesn't mean insignificant.

>You know what generates and absorbs the greatest
>percentage of 'greenhouse gas'? THE OCEAN!

This is sort of true. The ocean is generating and absorbing very large quantities of CO2, but it's actually absorbing more than it's generating. The ocean is a large store of CO2.

>The amount of Co2 made by other means is LESS than 1%!
>The greatest generator of CO2 in that 1% is Volcanos!
>The amount left after that is mostly organic life generating
>Co2 naturally. One of the lowest percentages of CO2
>emitters out of what's left of that 1% is human.

Take a look at this graph:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mauna_Loa_Carbon_Dioxide.png
It shows that, whilst the overall concentration of CO2 is on an upward trend [it's this increasing trend that is making the oceans more CO2 as it's out of equilibrium] that there is an annual cycle. This annual cycle is due to vegetation growth in the northern hemisphere spring, and decay in northern hermisphere winter. At no point on this graph can significant influnces be attributed to volcanoes. Take the Pinatubo eruption in 1991 - the graph still continues its trend and fluctutations. There is no massive change in CO2 levels from the very large Pinatubo eruption.


>What humans make is in the THOUSANDTHS of a percent!

Yes, remember the cyanide...

>How can Gore say that what we produce has ANY effect of
>the other 99.99%??

Because we are increasing the global amounts, The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased from 280 parts per million to 380 parts per million in the past 200 years, a huge increase. This is man made as I'll say in a mo...

>Plus, he tries to stigmatize CO2 likes it's man-made. It's
>completley natural and is abundant in nature and all living >things.

Yes it is - and look at the cycle in the graph I pointed to. Plants decay, releasing CO2 in the autumn. Plants grow in the spring, taking up that CO2 again. If the system was in equilibrium, if the same number of plants grew each year, then there would be no overall change in time in CO2 levels. However, you can see this is clearly not the case and CO2 levels are increasing. Yes, there is natural variability - CO2 levels do fluctuate anyway. However, it has been proven that CO2 levels are rising more rapidly than people believe it ever has done.

>How does he explain the fact that the current relative
>tempature is far below what it was in the past - even before
>man learned how to use fire? What about the hundreds of
>years during the medevil times when it was much warmer
>than it is now?

The medieval warm period was due to increased solar activity. And we are just coming out of an ice age that ended 10,000 years ago - so we are in a warming period anyway. Man has increated the rate of that change - but the change shows no sign of stopping when temperatures reach past levels.

>He never brings up the fact that his charts are aligned to
>hide the 800 year gap between the CO2 and mean temps
>on a timeline.

This is true - and he shouldn't have done that. Or he should have at least explained that.

>Which would show how CO2 follows temps changes.
>Global warming is one of the biggest scams in human history.

It's complicated! The climate isn't made of metal that if you heat one end, the other end will get hot eventually. There are feedbacks altering how the system behaves. Fundamentally - people seem to be missing this point: CO2 and global surface temperatures are linked. If one increases - so does the other. It doesn't matter which came first!

>Here's something Bush should do - he should annouce that - >"Ok, I guess Global Warming is happening. Since we now >know it's real, we don't need to spend any more money on >grants for research on the subject. As president, I want to >pass new legislation to cut-off funding for global warming."
>No need to spend money on something that's a 'scientific >concensus' right?

It's a scientific consensus that it's going to rain on in ten days time - so we don't need to do any more forecasting for those days. Right? Wrong!
Our computer capabilities are allowing us to model the climate better and better. CO2 is just one part of the changing climate. We know how CO2 works and responds, but we don't exactly know how clouds will respond to this. Clouds are very difficult to model, and there is a wide range of opinions as to wether inceasing the CO2 will more clouds, and if so - what type of clouds? Around half the planet is covered with cloud at any one moment, so they have a significant effect in controlling the global mean temperature.

>Oh wait, all of those 'scientist' would be out of a job!
>The whole 'Global Warming' economy would dry up.
>It's really that simple. It's an industry. Every year they hyped >up the problem with more reckless and exgerated claims >just to land more and more funding. No problem = no >funding. Problem getting worse = more and more funding.
>Now did anyone here know all this.... or Are you all just part >of the hype?

I don't think you're completely wrong. There's always money involved somehow. However, there won't be an end to climate change. Models will always be needed to forecast what the world will be like in 10 years, 100 years, 1000 years time, as our circumstances now are always changing. At some point, the emphasis will come to ways of reducing our impact on the climate and that will take centuries of research!

Answer 6

There is clear evidence that the climate has been warming and cooling in cycles for the last 60,000,000 or so years. Most likely it has been doing so for a little over 4,000,000,000 years. In that time the earth has been substantially cooler and hotter than it is now, all without man's intervention.

Since man was not involved in those cycles and there is no evidence that anything else is happening other than the natural cycles I think it is likely the cause is nature. The tiny variations we have seen in the past 100 years amounts to nothing statistically, especially since we cannot validate about 75 of those years and only assume the rough approximations were close.

Answer 7

go to this web site:
http://www.realclimate.org/
or read a book, like "The Weather Makers"
see:
http://www.theweathermakers.com/

Answer 8

You can find all that you need in a basic ecology text book. Don't listen to the political crap on the TV.

Answer 9

Chickens are funny