Is global warming caused by man?

Question

Global warming is thought to be caused by humans releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, trapping heat and causing the temperature to rise worldwide.

This is blatently false, as mars is also warming. The only possible explanation is that the sun is becoming hotter as part of it's natural cycle. Mars has almost no atmosphere.

If the carbon theory of Global warming is real, then Titan should be a jungle. It is right next to a hot body and has a thick atmosphere of pure hydrocarbons. Over the estimated billions of years that Titan has been around that methane atmosphere should have held some heat.

I know i will get a lot of abuse, but doesn't the fact that mars is warming up and Titan is not indicate that the "greenhouse effect" doesn't exist, or is vastly overstated?

To X: The point is if carbon compounds caused global warming and it existed at all, titan would have to be very warm. It's had millions of years to heat up and thus the "heat trap" theory doesn't hold up. Yes, Titan is different, but that doesn't invalidate chemistry or physics.

To trevor: I've read that post and it seems to be missing some facts. They neglected to mention that the polar caps have been shrinking constantly over the past 3 seasons. That implies a global warming condition on mars that is extended over several seasons.

To byderule: The dustbowl in the 30's didn't last, it was a temporary condition just like many scientists think global warming is a temporary condition.

Answer 1

The trouble with global warming is people don't look at the evidence or misinterpret the evidence. Basically we don't know whats happening.

Al Gore showed a relationship between rising CO2 levels and rising temperature, unfortunately he got it the wrong way round. Rising temperatures increased CO2 levels due to the solubility of CO2 being less in the oceans, thus causing CO2 to be released.

Throughout the history of this planet there has been major temperature fluctuations which certain sectors of the media choose to ignore. We are currently just coming out of a mini ice age, so temperatures are bound to increase.

Recently they discovered romans were growing vines in scotland indicating temperatures were much higher back then than today.

Another interesting point is that not too long ago they were talking about global cooling, how times change.

Answer 2

Mars is a really crappy proxy for climate change here on Earth. Mars' atmosphere isn't even remotely similar to ours, and its orbit and distance from the sun are different as well.

But let's pretend for a second that we can actually use Mars as a model for the climate here on Earth, and that Mars is actually undergoing global climate change (there's not any evidence to suggest this though). The only connecting thread between Earth and Mars is the sun, so if the warming on the planets was related it would have to be due to changes in solar output. But recent studies show that there hasn't been an increase in solar output since at least the 1980's, and possibly the 1940's. So it isn't likely that the sun is responsible for the current warming at all.

"But records of solar out put are not reliable", you say. "We haven't been able to measure that sort of thing long enough to say for certain whether the sun is warmer or not." Well, alright, let's again pretend that that's the case, and that we can't accurately measure trends in solar output. That still leaves us with a grand total of 6 planets and something in the range of 100 or so moons in the solar system that are experiencing no warming whatsoever. If the sun is responsible for global warming why is it that it apparently only affects three planets, and misses all the rest? Why aren't these other planets warming as well?

And pray tell why exactly Titan should be a jungle? If I'm not mistaken, you need life to have a jungle, and as far as I know Titan has none.

Answer 3

Saying that the IMPLIED warming on Titan and Mars is related to Earthly warming is like predicting cockroach population growth based on the number of bubbles in the suds in your sink.

The Earth has several dozen satellites recording every imaginable parameter of our atmosphere. We KNOW the planet is warming. We KNOW that it is not solar irradiance. Based on thermal reflectivity analysis of the Earth, the Earth is retaining MORE heat, not necessarily receiving more heat.

Scientist can only INFER warming elsewhere in the solar system, since we do not have weather monitoring satellites scattered throughout the solar system. And because we don't have hardly any understanding of the mechincs of a cold-core atmosphere (Titan) are a thin core atmosphere Mars, any results must be taken witha grain of salt.

You should also note that the scientist who submitted these results have alo stated that using them as counter-examples to anthropogenic warming is ludicrous.

And no, Titan should not be a jungle. It is so far from the sun all the green-house gas in the world isn't going to raise the temperature more than a few degrees. Saturn generates it's warmth to be sure, but not anywhere near enough to warm Titan.

What never ceases to amaze me is that people think they know more than the atmospheric scientist who have been studying the dynamics of the Earth's atmosphere for decades.

Why is it that people accepted that humans were the cause of acid rain, the ozone hole, and mercury toxicity, but absolutely refuse to believe that we are impacting our atmosphere by dumping 150 times more CO2 in the atmosphere than is produced by the world's volcanos?

It's basic thermodynamics. CO2 reacts to infrared radiation (heat). This prevents heat from being reflected into space. The more CO2 in the atmosphere there is, the more heat gets trapped.

You can do this test in a high school science lab.

The first guy who measured this effect was a scientist back in the 19th century.

When you get a Ph.D in atmospheric physics and computational fluid dynamics, you can argue all you want. Write a paper, get it peer reviewed. Laugh at everyone and say "I told you so".

Until then, you just might want to listen to the world scientist who happen to be a lot smarter than you in these matters.\

~X~

Answer 4

Some appears to be caused by man. That is a very definite maybe.
No need to go offworld for figures.
As for solar effects they seemed to return to a "normal" fluctuation about 1715. That doesn't mean that there is no solar effect. It takes a lot of time for the sun to warm the planet once it has cooled, much longer than it does for the same amount of cooling. I have seen a couple of sets of figures for that warming rate, as high as 0.5_C per century since 1700. (The difference between heating and cooling is to do with convection in the oceans) The cooling has some agreement at at least 2_C from the medieval warm period, the planet has not warmed that much yet.

http://www.just-boilers.com/Earth_recovering_from_LIA.pdf

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/18oct_solarminimum.htm
The rate of natural warming is important, if it is 0.5_C/100y then there is currently 0.2_C/100y attributable to other causes such as changes in greenhouse effect.
If the natural change is only 0.1_C then the Greenhouse effect would be 1_C/100y.
NB. the later figure can not explain the temperature increases prior to significant CO2 increases before WW2.
Is the Greenhouse effect overstated? Most probably, in most negotiations you need to overstate your position to get near the changes you want. I don't want to "significantly reduce" the population of the World. I don't want to kill anyone, directly or otherwise.
As for Titan, the equilibrium temperature of a planet must always be a result of interaction between the solar flux and the greenhouse effect. Titan just doesn't get much light.
Don't sweat it there are conservative estimates for the maximum warming that are just as valid as the extreme ones.

Answer 5

There are two sides to every argument, and as usual, I'm right in the middle.

I couldn't give a damn whether it's man-made or natural. If it's man-made (which way too many scientists have proven) we need to work on it. If it's natural, then we've got enough evidence to be totally scared and trying to get off this planet for good.

Either way though, arguing will never help. We should play it safe and go through all this carbon-footprint malarkey, because it's our chance to change GW if it's man-made. By the time we've made any difference whatsoever, we'll hopefully know the score.

Answer 6

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 shows a pattern of regularly rising and falling temperatures that goes back 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 7

It's a valid point you make but it's incorrect to say that anthropogenic global warming is blatantly false because Mars is warming.

You haven't read the original reports about warming on Mars and it would be worthwhile doing so, one of them is here http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/07aug_southpole.htm

What you have read (or heard) is distorted reports which fail to give you the full picture. When you read the original NASA reports you'll see that parts of Mars are warming, parts are cooling, the sun has been ruled out as the cause, it's not related to warming on Earth and the probable reason is global dust storms that sweep across the planet for several days at a time.

Altogether there are 172 bodies in our solar system and only two of them have global warming. Earth is one and the other is Pluto, the reason for Pluto warming is understood to be a tripling of atmospheric pressure in the last 14 years - again, it's not the sun and it's not related to warming on Earth. http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/pluto_warming_021009.html

Some short term warmning has been observed on Triton one of Jupiter's moons but this same level of warming has occured on several occasions in the past. The most likely explanation being that it's a seasonal variation causing a greater absorbtion of solar radiation by the polar ice caps (the same that happens here on Earth). One big difference with Triton is that it's seasons last for decades not months.

The warming on Triton is far greater than that on Earth and if we were experiencing the same level of warming temperatures would be rising by more than 1F every year which means that since the current global warming on Earth began we would now have temperatures exceeding the boiling point of water. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1998/triton.html

Titan, one of Saturn's moons, is the only moon in the solar system with a complete atmosphere, the vast majority of which is nitrogen (98.5% and not a hydrocarbon), much of the remainder is methane (a hydrocarbon). The interaction of solar UV radiation and methane high in Titan's atmosphere is causing demethanisation - the break down of methane which results in a particulate smog. This smog acts just like smog on Earth on that it reflects solar radiation, in effect, Titan is undergoing anti-global warming. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(moon)

In all there are seven planets and moons which are showing at least some signs of warming, in each case the reasons are unique to that planet or moon. There has been no warming observed on the other 165 solar bodies and in some cases cooling has been observed.

Answer 8

The NASA scientists who did the research on Mars say it's not the same warming as on Earth. They say it's due to giant dust storms on Mars, which have been known for a long time.

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/research/2007/marswarming.html

Titan IS unusually warm for a small body so far from the Sun.

But most of the planets and moons are NOT warming. Global warming is not due to an increase in solar radiation.

Answer 9

Your arguments to counter global warming are poor logic. What is happening on Mars or Tital has not relevance on the debate here. On Titan, termperatures are vastly different than here, methane ice for example. different atmospheric chemistry.
Earth has three different warming cycles; repeating 100,000 years, 44,000 years and about 26,000 year cycle. these have been proven by studying gasses trapped in arctic ice.
these same ice studies have shown that acording to all three natural cycles we should be entereing a cooling period. we are not.
BTW, global warming does not mean that the whole globe is getting warmer, it means there is more energy in the weather system as a whole. thise means not only that the ice caps are melting(proven fact), but that you get colder cold seasons, stronger hurricanes, longer droughts, etc.
new studies have shown that methane has as much of an impact on global warming as carbon, more in fact, when you compare ton for ton. methane(not from cow farts) comes from rotting veggetation. There has been man made methane emmisions for about ten thousand years, since mankind first began growing rice in china.
most often, those who oppose the idea of global warming simply dont want to have to change thier lifestyle. they desperatly argue against the proof, so they can continue to drive their SUV's and live a life of excess.
Global warming is a proven fact, even if you disbeleive the human driven mechanism, the Earth's climate is changing.
Either we can stick our heads in the sand and do nothing, as our present leader W is doing. Or, we can easily fight back. look around in Yahoo Answers, there are a couple of ways to conserve evergy. less electricy means less polution from coal fired plants. there are a hundred ways to reduce your 'carbon foot-print'. (ironically, many eco-minded consumers are unaware that the 'organic' produce they are buying produces more cabon to deliver to the store than the mass produced product).
there is even hopefull research into carbon filters that could possible pull enough more carbon out of the atmoshpere than we are currently produceing.
so you can still drive you bigg *** car, keep your heated pool and run you AC all day.
pay attention to who is arguing against the evidence for global warming and you will see a pattern. its almost always those with ties to big busines(who fear profit gougeing restircions). Like our oil baron president.

Answer 10

I think most people agree there is something like 'warming' going on, but it is not known to what extent, or if pouring millions of tons of toxic waste into the air each day has anything to do with it.

Do we not change our behavior until we know for certain that we are contributing to making the planet uninhabitable, or do we start making changes now to minimize the possibility?

The politicians are just spinning the issue one way or the other to suit their political purposes, or side stepping it because they don't want to take any chance of adverse political ramifications.

Business certainly doesn't want to subscribe to some theory that might adversely affect their profit margins.

Consumers sure don't want to have to scale back their habits or lifestyles unless necessary.

Same old same old.