Does anyone else think global warming is overrated?

Question

It's a scientific fact that the surface temperature on Mars, Jupiter and Saturn has risen significantly over time. Since these planets are unihabitated and so produce no carbon gas, these increases are best explained by spikes in the surface temperature of the sun. It seems straightfoward and intuitive then that the earth's warming is at the least partly explained by an increase in the sun's temperature. One more point of note: Ice Ages occur when surface temperature's on the sun fall significantly. Does anyone seriously believe that carbon gas emissions impact global surface temperature more than the sun?

Answer 1

It's a sceintific fact that temperatures rise on *parts* of other planets during spirng but what the skeptics conveniently forget is that for each area that warms there's one that cools and that it's a seasonal variation - precisely the same as we have here on earth.

Planets don't have to be 'inhabited' to produce 'carbon gases'. The vast majority of the carbon dioxide produced on earth comes from natural sources as do other greenhouse gases such as methane - well before we came along.

Changes in output from the sun are tiny - the difference between maximum and minimum is just one thousandth (1.3 W/m²/yr compared to the norm of 1366 W/m²/yr). Over very long periods of time this does have an effect but we're talking thousands and millions of years.

The dynamics of ice ages aren't well understood. We have to go back 50 million years to the time when we were last out of an ice age (we're in one now and will be until the polar ice caps melt) and there are no accuarte records of what the sun was doing. Decreases in solar activity contribute to global cooling and this was experienced during the Maunder Minimum several hundred years ago.

Global surface temperature is determined by the sun, concentrations of greenhouse gases determine how much heat energy is retained, if there were no greenhouse gases then all the heat from the planet would escape back into spcae and we'd have a situation similar to that on the moon - 100 degrees Celsius by day, minus 150 by night.

It's because of greenhouse gases that we can inhabit this planet. Any changes in levels will adversely affect temperature - a decrease in GHG's reduces temperatures and an increase causes temperatures to rise.

As for whether GW is overrated - in many cases it is, the media are largely responsible as they like to overdramatise things. Talk of the world ending, mass extinctions etc makes good headlines and grabs audiences. At the end of the day, regardless as to what the media do or don't say GW is happening - both natural and anthropogenic. If it weren't happening naturally we'd still have a planet half covered in glaciers.

Answer 2

You seem very ignorant about what causes ice ages on Earth. Try looking up Milankovitch cycles. It has to do with Earth's orbital variations (tilt, wobble and distance from the Sun) not the surface temperature of the Sun.

I'm not sure where you get your "facts" about temperatures on other planets, but they are spurious. Even if temperatures on other planets had risen over time, the reasons would be completely different from the causes of temperature trends on Earth. Jupiter and Saturn don't even have solid surfaces, and they are so far a way from the Sun they EMIT more heat than they receive. As for Mars, yes, it’s uninhabited, but its atmosphere is almost entirely CO2 gas.

You global warming contrarians need to understand that the global warming we are experiencing here on Earth has both natural and man-made causes. It’s the man-made causes that are of concern because they are causing very rapid changes, much more rapidly than the natural climate variations.

Answer 3

The whole argument on the dangers of global warming rest on the projected temperature rises based on the computer models.

There are a lot of assumptions based on those models. CO2 drives temperature. The ice core data shows temperature drives co2. The models do not take that into account, they are therefore, flawed.

The they are also based on the theory that temperature was constant during the last millennium and shot up during the twentieth century. When plotted on a graph it looks like a hockey stick, were its gets the name hockey stick graph.
The purpose of the graph was to legitimise the claim that twentieth-century warming is unprecedented; that it is due to anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide; and that the increase in twentieth-century temperatures has been so precipitate that drastic policies of decarbonisation have to be implemented. In particular, the well-known history of the Mediaeval Warm Period, 800 AD to 1300 AD, an era which was warm enough for Vikings to establish a colony in Greenland which lasted for at least 500 years, was to be airbrushed out of the historical record. Also deleted from the record was the Little Ice Age which ran from about 1350 AD to about 1850 AD. From the mid-nineteenth century, temperatures began to rise intermittently and we can refer to 1900 AD as the start of the Modern Warm Period. When two Canadians, Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, to the extent they were able, analysed the data and methodology use by Mann and came to the conclusion that the algorithms used by him produced hockey sticks, regardless of the input data. Without this assumption conclusions of large scale temperature increases are also flawed.

This is the part were it really stinks. The issue was brought to the attention of US Congressman Joe Barton, then Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He wrote to Dr Mann and asked him to make his data and methodology available for scrutiny by other scientists, and was attacked in the most ferocious terms by the anthropogenist scientific establishment for doing so.

In other words how dare anybody question the science behind global warming. People who are afraid of questioning is due to the fact they have something to hide. This is proof. This is not a scientific question but a political one.

Answer 4

"Does anyone seriously believe that carbon gas emissions impact global surface temperature more than the sun?"

Pretty much all scientists do, not because of brilliant intuition, but because of the measured data.

The sun may be responsible for the other planets, but it's not the main cause of global warming on Earth.

Solar radiation is carefully measured. Climatologists include it in their analysis.

The results are in the report below. Increased solar radiation is 0.12 watts per meter squared. Man's warming is 1.6 watts per meter squared, more than ten times as much.

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

What scientists think. Not from the "liberal" media.

"While evidence suggests fluctuations in solar activity can affect climate on Earth, and that it has done so in the past, the majority of climate scientists and astrophysicists agree that the sun is not to blame for the current and historically sudden uptick in global temperatures on Earth, which seems to be mostly a mess created by our own species."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,258342,00.html

This graph, of solid peer reviewed data, shows the relative contributions of various factors to global warming. In a nutshell, it's why scientists believe it's us, and not the sun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png

This is science. You go with the data, not with what your intuition tells you.

Answer 5

U may be right . I worked for NASA 17 years and have looked at many pictures of Mars . There are many dry river beads ,where did the water go? If it if frozen under ground can u imagine what the temperature of Mars was when the water was flowing. If Mars was that hot ,what was the temperature of earth.

Answer 6

What else releases CO2? How about each animal in the international. were you asleep at the same time as they lined respiratory in biology type? BTW. a million. no longer all fires are guy-made. wooded area fires do happen using lightning. 2. Smoke stacks and exhaust pipes are for combustion exhaust, freeing more suitable than only CO2. 3. Cows (farm animals) are farm animals and that is what makes up maximum feedlots. at the same time as someone tells you that feedlots reason international warming, you should verify what feedlots truthfully are. 4. How do landfills launch carbon dioxide?

Answer 7

I agree it is overrated. It is a problem, but not as bad as most people seem to think. It will not flood 90% of the land or kill millions of people for example. But to listen to some of the talk on this forum you would think it is the end of the world in a few decades!

Answer 8

depends where you are and the opinion differers
people in dry hot places or low lying tropical coastal areas are hit a lot harder then Northern Americans .
so whether it is overrated is a question of perspective

northen China is having a bad time already ,so are African countries near the equator and southern Mexico, and India .

go there and ask this question???

Answer 9

Its a bunch of bull check history we warm up the get cold. Emissions cause health problems. Yes its going to get hot not much we can do. then it will get cold. In the mean time we will spend a bunch of money and lower our standard of living because of nuts like Gore