How can you prove man caused global warming?

Answer 1

We can't prove that humans are causing this, but there are poeple who would like you to beleive it. I think it makes them feel superior to everyone else.

Answer 2

1. We can prove the earth is warming.
2. We can prove CO2 is rising rapidly, and is now well above pre-industrial levels.
3. We can prove CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
4. We can prove increasing the greenhouse effect makes the planet warmer.
5. We can prove that the rising CO2 is due to the burning of fossil fuels.
6. We can prove that the causes of ice ages and interglacial periods (orbital forcing) should be cooling the planet right now.
7. We can prove that solar irradiance has not risen substantially in the last 50 years, as the planet has been warming.
8. We can prove that the amount of temperature rise we would expect from the rise in CO2 matches the amount the temperature has actually risen.

So what's left to prove?

Answer 3

It's virtually impossible to "prove" that humans are the primary cause of global warming. Most scientists believe that this is the case because natural causes can't account for the current warming trend. Only when they input human greenhouse gas emissions as the primary cause do their models fit the average global temperature measurements.

Here's the closest thing I can give you to proof. This is a plot of atmospheric CO2 levels from 1960-Present:

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

Now compare that to this average global temperature graph from 1960-Present:

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

Amazing coincidence, isn't it? That's just evidence of correlation and not necessarily causation. However, in the past when there were other causes of global warming, atmospheric CO2 levels lagged behind by several centuries. You often hear the argument that CO2 lags behind temperature because of this historical relationship, but notice that temperature is actually lagging slightly behind CO2 in these graphs. That's evidence that it's CO2 that's causing the temperature increase.

Now look at this plot modelling global warming over the past century. The black line is the sum of the colored lines:

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

That's still not "proof", but you have to admit it's some damn strong evidence that humans are the primary cause of global warming. Humans have been burning more fossil fuels which has led to more greenhouse gas emissions which has led to a temperature increase which is modelled in that final graph as being primarily caused by greenhouse gas increases. I don't know about you, but that's strong enough evidence to convince me.

Answer 4

Ask Trevor or Bob or Engineer and Many others ,by now there is an enormous amount of evidence,

And Bidiya got lost he should be in Religion

I will give you what I am sure about Namely desertification.

What about ManMade Climate change that is and has effected a lot of people directly ,they dont give a damn about what scientists have to say ,and they dont need research ,they are living with the results (if they are lucky)

And i am not even talking about the ozon ,carbon emisions,Sunspots, Hairsprays or burning tires

Once upon a time
I went to the jungles of Oaxaca and discussed with the Natives the mountain before us ,Mostly deforrested ,scarred by landslides and dotted with madly steep corn patches (which only produced for 3 years ),and devoid of clouds.

They all agreed that the days were hotter ,there was less rain ,And the river was dry part of the year.

When they were boys ,the river was bigger and ran all year around,the mountain was always covered in clouds with daily rains .And the days were more bearable .

Their actions in the desperate plight to feed their enormous families of avarage 12 kids per family ,often much more ,had destroyed their home ground with indisputable climate changes.
They had changed their climate.This happens all over Mexico

In Africa I have seen lush wooded lands change into dessert within a few years by large invading comunities ,who devoured the trees for building and firewood ending up in a dessert with out water
and with a hot sun under which no new plantation was possible.The people had changed their climate,this happens all over Africa.

In Northern china two mayor dessert are merging and 900 vilages are buried under the dust ,thousands of refugee farmers who had changed their climate ,by intensive agressive agriculture are fleeing for their lives,this happens all over the world .it happened in the 20ties in the USA has everybody forgotton that ,was this not a climate change ?

Granted the climatic changes are local ,but effects neighboring areas ,there is less rainfall, rivers dry up ,

Collectively because there is so much of it all over the world ,the global precipitation is affected and so is the climate .And who did it ,the bloedy people did ,they are changing the climate

Like Ghengas Kahn changed the climate when he burned all the forests and filled the wells with sand ,Like the Phoenicians changed the climate of lebanon to build the trading fleet .Like the Spanish climate was changed by using their forest to build the Armada ,

So are we today changing the climate by massive deforestation,agressive corporate farming (using chemicals),overgrazing ,overpumping deep subteranean waters ,ignorence and impartiality

Global warming.carbon emisions ,polution ,sunspots ,solar flares,hairsprays , Al Gore, and skeptics are the rasberries on top

and read up what America is planning with the insane master plan for Ethanol production .http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...
Seems as if America is trying to compete with Global warming

I wonder who will win.?
but who ever it is ,
the rest of the world looses. Source(s) we are in the sh it,and if we can do something that will make the shi t less ,we should try to do it .

Answer 5

You can't prove it a short Yahoo answers post.

But peer reviewed summaries of the data are pretty convincing:

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png

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

As is the opinion of the vast majority of scientists:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

Not to mention the G8 leaders.

The real proof is here:

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html

Over a thousand pages of report and supplemental facts, 150 authors, 600 reviewers, over a thousand references to the peer reviewed scientific literature. It's actually a very conservative document:

"The drafting of reports by the world’s pre-eminent group of climate scientists is an odd process. For many months scientists contributing to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tussle over the evidence. Nothing gets published unless it achieves consensus. This means that the panel’s reports are extremely conservative – even timid. It also means that they are as trustworthy as a scientific document can be."

The question is why would you accept a few skeptics "logical" arguments over the data and almost the whole scientific community? If the skeptics had a case, wouldn't they be more influential?

What is clear is that the scientific community, apart from a (very) few skeptics, accepts it as proven. What other definition of proof of a scientific theory is there?

If you believe everything is a giant conspiracy, there's not much to be said.

Answer 6

The amount of Carbon emissions we put into the atmosphere, inovertly causing global warming

Answer 7

Well, yes, when you consider in common usage, "global warming" often refers to the warming that can occur as a result of increased emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities.

Answer 8

Over the past 200 years man has begun emitting in mass green house gasses into the atmosphere with our burning of fossil fuels. We all ready know what kind of damage we have done to the ozone that protects us from ultraviolet rays. i.e. increase in skin cancer. The school of thought that minimizes man kinds effects on the environment are financed by the big polluters themselves.

Answer 9

I don't believe it can be proven. My belief is that the global warming we are seeing now is the result of a natural earth process, much like that which brought and ended the last ice age.

Answer 10

Man didn't ,God put plants here that has done a great job of removing CO2 from our air. Normal oxygen is 20.9% and it is as solid as a rock . How can that be if u look at CO2 it shows that for each carbin atom there is 2 oxygen atoms . How is it that O2 is stable .