Does global warming exist?

Question

I searched for questions, but they have all been resolved. I have seen several people get bashed for disagreeing with the concept. By no means am I an uneducated person, but I would like an honest, unbiased opinion/answer that would go against my own... Global warming cannot be definitively proven to be solely caused by human beings.

Before the "bashing" begins, I will state the some of the reasons for my position.

Scientific studies of the earth are quite inconclusive as there is nothing to compare them to other than patterns of our own planet in the past(where conditions were considerably different from nowadays) e.g. studying an earth-like planet that is in a time period/situation different than our own for a second opinion if you will. Earth has had very many cooling periods and warming periods long before human beings ever came into existence. At some point in time, earth was more than likely covered with more forests and animals than we can even fathom if compared to

today's standards. The same natural disasters existed, and while there may not have been human beings to set forests on fire, lightning, volcanic activity, etc could accomplish the same thing WITHOUT human beings to extinguish these fires. My point is that although we can study earth's rocks through c-14 dating, we have no definitive way to study the atmosphere individually. We study the rock's to answer questions about the atmosphere which may or may not be credible realistically. If we have no way to KNOW earth's environmental conditions, studying layers of the earth's crust is nothing more than an educated guess(but a guess is a guess any way that you slice it). We are talking about potential forest fires that could have been the size of states or countries lasting for who knows how long and not to mention happening who knows how often throughout the entire world. I find it hard to believe that humans in there short existence has been able to completely uproot mother nature's

power and way of doing things for the last 100 million years. While it may be true that additional co2 emissions, nuclear power, and other excessive pollutants can be attributed man, there is an unparalled awareness of our environment that has never existed either. By the way, that is not a hypocritical statement, as I said "awareness," and not "understanding" as I do not believe we fully understand anything about the earth, hence science's century long desire for a string theory that they will never achieve.

In short, understanding the earth from only having information on the earth, is like taking an automobile and trying to fully understand why it does what it does, without having anything to go off of but that automobile. If you cannot study anything of the like(locomotives, steam engines, horse drawn carriages), you can't really do anything other than guess why there is an inline 4 cylinder as opposed to a V-4, or why you use platinum in a catalytic converter.

Answer 1

Yes. Here's the scientific data:

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

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

summarized at:

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

Here's the opinion of the scientific community, minus a (very) few skeptics:

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

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

That's important, because the only standard of "proof" for a scientific theory is the acceptance of the evidence by the community. There's no "Supreme Court" in science, just the community.

People have done measurements using different methods and come up with the same results. 10 different studies with references:

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison_png

Bottom line:

"There's a better scientific consensus on this [climate change] than on any issue I know - except maybe Newton's second law of dynamics. Global warming is almost a no-brainer at this point,You really can't find intelligent, quantitative arguments to make it go away."

Dr. Jerry Mahlman, NOAA

Good websites for more info:

http://profend.com/global-warming/

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/

http://www.realclimate.org

"climate science from climate scientists"

Answer 2

No, it is an outright lie, lead by fools and charlatans who hope to scare the American public into destroying our ecomny. I base this on the following facts that any 5th grader can easily check out if they really want to know the truth, instead of being lead by the nose like a complete fool.
1. The alarmist claim that burning fossil fuels is the cause of recent warming, however most of the warming took place before most of the increase of CO2. There was actually a significant cooling period from the mid-1940s to the late 1970s, while CO2 was increasing rapidly, and there was another increase from 1979 to 1998. In fact there has been no warming since 1998 – an eight-year period, and even a slight statistically cooling, despite the fact that CO2 has continued to rise.
2. The correlation between co2 emissions effecting global warming is extremely small compared to the correlation between global temperature and sun cycles. The sun cycles affect temperature in two ways first by the cycling up and down of actual heat energy that is emitted by the sun. This has a small effect on global temperature. The more important one is cycling in solar winds. Solar wind blocks cosmic radiation from coming into the Earth’s atmosphere. The more cosmic rays come in the more low level clouds there are and low-level clouds reflect solar heat energy back into space. If there are more clouds the earth is cooler and if there are fewer clouds, the earth is warmer. As solar wind cycles up cosmic rays cycle up and down in reverse and clouds up and down. So the solar window is very important to earth’s temperature, but you will not change what the sun does.

Answer 3

I was just doing some reading on this subject and found a very telling article stating data taken from the Vostok, Antarctica ice core. The graph plainly show a pattern of regularly rising and falling temperatures over that last 400k years. According to the graph we are currently in that time period where the temperatures have historically been rising. I found two interesting differences in this data.
First, the time from the start of the warming period to the peak was about 10k years 330k years ago, then about 5k years 240k years ago, and about 3k years 140k years ago. This current warming trend appeared to start about 15k years ago and has 2 degrees Celsius to go until the peak so how can scientists be telling us we are in the fastest warming period in the history of the planet?
Another interesting point on the graph is the obvious huge increase in CO2 doesn't seem to be causing any temperature difference in the long run.
I am assuming someone will come along to tell me this is false data or that I am reading the wrong conclusions from it, but looking at that graph, it really is hard to believe anything out of the ordinary is going on.

Answer 4

Global warming does indeed exist. The theory of global warming states that increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will lead to radiative forcing that will result in a general increase in temperature. A green house gas is one that absorbs quanta of energy that are in the atmospheric "window" though which the IR radiation
produced by the Earth can escape.

While this theory is generally accepted by the scientific community the real controversy among scientists is with regards to the degree to which radiative forcing actually increases surface temperatures on Earth. There is data that has been collected that suggests average surface temperatures have actually decreased in certain areas regardless the obvious increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This is obviously contrary to the concept of global warming but is not evidence enough to say it doesn't exist.

The truth is that we don't fully understand how all of the different atmospheric processes interact to create our climate. It is an imperfect science and there is certainly no way to directly measure the correlation between atmospheric CO2 and surface temperature with any degree of certainty.

However, it is generally accepted that the increased concentration of CO2 and other green house gases in the atmosphere cause radiative forcing that will likely result in a heating trend. The extent of this heating trend and the environmental effects of such climate change are what is debatable.

Answer 5

As a matter of fact, we know for certain that global warming has more than one cause. What the argument is about is WHICH of these causes is the most important one. Here are some facts ...

1. We know that Mars is also getting warmer. Man did NOT cause this. Scientists believe it was caused by unusually high solar activity over the past 100 years.
2. We also know that the earth has gone through warming/cooling cycles for many thousands of years ... long before man started burning fossil fuels.
3. We know that increased levels of carbon dioxide will increase the earth's temperature.

So, take your pick. All three of these (and, maybe more) are real causes. Which is the most important? No one can say for certain. But, the only one we can do anything about is burning fossil fuels.

Answer 6

No global warming is possible an error by those wanting to make a case. The environmentalist want u to think that the earth has warmed 1 deg. F. in the past 100 years . They talk about it going back centuries and I am sure that is not true. The thermometer of a 100 years ago could be in error + - 3 deg.F. Instruments that were 100 years old were not all that accurate. There are other indications that are flat lies.

Answer 7

It sounds like you have the requisite critical thinking skills to come to a sound conclusion.

You are absolutely right in how the basis for global warming findings are based on one assumption after another. It is not only arrogant, but scientifically unsound to promote a finding without a realistic sense that human errors can creep in, and especially with regards to reconstructed data and predictive modeling, that human error can quickly compound.

That is not to say that such research methods are invalid. Geology, paleontology, astrophysics...well, the list of scientific disciplines that rely on these methods is extensive to say the least. In the big picture, though, climatology is in a relative infancy. This does not prove that their hypotheses are faulty, but it should be factored in when determining the extent of significant resources devoted to their "cause".

They're asking for $1 trillion per year. Minimum.

Answer 8

It's good to see a climate change skeptic asking intelligent and considered questions and debating the issue at a far more advanced level than many skeptics do.

You requested an honest and unbiased opinion that goes against your own - I'll try to provide one by working through the key points you mentioned.

<< Global warming cannot be definitively proven to be solely caused by human beings. >>

The belief is that the majority of the current warming trend is being caused by humans, this component is referred to as Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) but there is also Natural Global Warming (NGW). Perhaps the most obvious indicator of this is the link between greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and global warming.

GHGs occur naturally and for all the time we have been on the planet they've fluctuated between 180 and 290 parts per million by volume. These Hadley Centre graphs show how CO2 and temperatures have risen - http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/myths/figures.html#atmos


<< Scientific studies of the earth are quite inconclusive... >>

We study the planet in many different ways. For example, the approach of a geologist is very different from that of a palaeontologist; similarly a climatologist uses a different approach to that of an oceanographer. One of the great things about having so many concurrent research programs is that it provides a huge amount of comparative data, on top of this there’s the historic data as well. Despite these very different approaches there is a remarkable consistency in the results obtained and thus we have an exceptional confidence in the accuracy of the data. If the were large variations in the results then we would have to question the validity of some of the conclusions.


<< Earth has had very many cooling periods and warming periods… >>

Yes it has, throughout the history of our planet it’s been in a constant state of flux. The key difference now is the speed at which things are changing. For example, the most recent glacial retreat (often called the last ice age) saw temperatures rise by 7°C over 7,500 years, in terms of natural change this is a remarkably rapid rise – almost 1°C per 1,000 years. We’ve seen temperatures rise by more than this amount in less than 100 years and the current rate of warming is 17 times anything that’s been known to have naturally occurred. See these graphs http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Instrumental_Temperature_Record_png and http://profend.com/global-warming/charts/2000yr.png


<< we have no definitive way to study the atmosphere individually >>

The best way to determine historical atmospheric composition is through ice core analysis. The ice in glaciers and ice caps is compressed snow that fell hundreds, thousands, millions of years ago. When snow falls it traps air and this air has remained trapped for countless years. By drilling into the ice we can recover air samples as they were all these years ago. There are many such ice core samples taken from different locations as far apart as the Arctic and Antarctic, Alaska, the Himalayas and Mt Kilimanjaro in Africa. This gives us an accurate picture of what the atmosphere was like and stretches back nearly 750,000 years. Using other techniques such as oxygen isotope analysis we can extend the record back to 542 million years.

You mentioned forest fires the size of states, events of this magnitude leave their mark in the ice cores and we can pinpoint precisely when there were events such as major volcanic eruptions, all these things are taken into consideration.

Answer 9

Logic and science always refute these bogus claims of humans creating global warming.

Ice core samples show that over the past million years or so the elevation in CO2 follows an increase in global temperatures. So seeing increases in "greenhouse" gases makes sense when the planet is going through a warming trend.

Humans contribute maybe 3% towards the CO2 production and that's less than what termites contribute. So even if CO2 were a pollutant (and it isn't), we'd have to blame more on the rest of nature than mankind.

If you follow the money you'll see why the idea of humans creating global warming is pushed so much, even though it's ludicrous.

If you need more reading material, check out "The politically incorrect guide to global warming & environmentalism." It has tons of info plus hundreds of references to check out further information.

Enjoy educating yourself, and don't fall for the hysterics put out by Al Gore and other known hypocrites. They are counting on ignorant foolish people to believe them.

Answer 10

There is global warming, the same way there is global cooling. It is a cyclic process, that has been ongoing since Earth is, well, the Earth.
Same thing goes on in Mars, and to my knowledge, they don't have lots of SUVs up there.
Placing the blame on humans is an attempt to make it "controllable", when it is not. It is also a great political tool, that allows even more control from governments, for a "common good", and it is a great source of revenue for some, as well.

Answer 11

The error in your logic is in trying to prove that Global warming is solely cause by man. It is not There is a nature warming and cooling cycle that is a well know fact. That does not preclude that fact the increased green house gasses cause an increase in the base temperature of the planet. To my understanding on the natural cycle we should be close to or in one of the cooling cycles. Instead we are having an increase in the global temperature. Since it is know that greenhouse gasses increase temperature, and we know that if we can control their out put would it not be wise to do so? We have the choice of do nothing and hope that it goes away, either when the fuel runs out or when we can no longer live on the planet, be cause of climate change or we can try to improve things. I personally thing that trying to make the world a better place is a good thing.