Isn't it that the temperature change CAUSES changes in carbon dioxide by interacting with the world's oceans?

Question

So it is changes in carbon dioxide levels which occur AFTER changes in temperature, which themselves are the ultimatley the result of the sun?

And dont volcanos, fires, and the oceans produce many times more carbon dioxide than our factories?

And havent temperatures been fluctuating even more violently than this when looked at in the true scale of the age of this planet...billions of years (not mere hundreds).

Environmentalists, please don't get angry if I do not adopt your beleif system. I am a naturally skeptical person when it comes to using science to promote a whole stream of popular culture.

If you agree or disagree, show me where you learnt it from was an unbiased and well-established source of scientific theory.

Answer 1

I don't expect you to simply accept global warming without understanding the science behind it. I do hope you try to understand the science though.

1) In the past yes, global temperature rose and then atmospheric CO2 concentrations rose about 800 years later. We see this in ice core samples. This is because several factors can cause global warming. So there was another cause, the temperature rise eventually caused atmospheric CO2 to increase, and the CO2 amplified the global warming because it's a greenhouse gas.

However, the fact that CO2 followed global warming in the past does not mean CO2 cannot initiate global warming. Because it's a greenhouse gas of course CO2 could initiate global warming.

Actually if you really want to get specific, the planet has been warming since we came out of the last ice age, it just wasn't warming very fast. Then since the industrial revolution, humans have been emitting a whole lot of carbon dioxide:

http://www.eoearth.org/image/Co2_atmosphere.jpg

and the average global temperature also began to rise rapidly:

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/

This doesn't prove that CO2 caused the temperature to rise, but notice that they're now rising at almost the same time as opposed to the 800 year delay in the past when CO2 wasn't the primary cause of global warming.

Scientists have modelled the global climate and the various components that contribute to it, and they simply can't account for the acceleration of global warming without human greenhouse gas (such as CO2) emissions being a big component, as you can see here:

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

2) Volcanoes produce less than 1% of the CO2 emissions that humans cause on a yearly basis.

http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/2007/07_02_15.html

They also spew out particles that block sunlight and cause global dimming and global cooling.

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

Oceans are actually carbon sinks. They absorb CO2 because it's water soluble. The problem there is that CO2 becomes less soluble as the water gets hotter, so global warming may reach a point where the oceans get so hot that they can't hold enough CO2 anymore, at which point they will become a contributor to global warming (a feedback and amplifier). We're not that hot yet though.

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

3) The Earth has not warmed at this rapid a rate in the past, except maybe when immediately coming out of an ice age.

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

But even then I think the warming was more gradual.

Answer 2

We (humanity) produce 150 times more Carbon Dioxide that volcanoes, which are actually responsible for global cooling due to the aerosols they release.

As for other natural sources of Carbon Dioxide, they do indeed far exceed human outputs. However, unlike human outputs, they are offset by natural sinks of Carbon Dioxide that remove it from the atmosphere.

An increase in temperature does cause an increase in Carbon Dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. But they are also responsible for an increase in temperature, so there is a positive feedback loop that runs away with itself until it reaches a new equilibrium.

The fact is that natural forcings in the past such as solar fluctuations, cosmic radiation and volcanic activity have caused changes in global temperature, and changes in the levels of Carbon Dioxide have followed. But those forcings alone were not able to instigate a change of the magnitude experienced on Earth: that is down to the CO2. Natural forcings cause global warming or colling by initiated changes in the amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

However, when there is a source bypassing the natural forcings stage and putting CO2 into the atmosphere without them, you don't need solar fluctuations or anything like that to initiate or cause it, and that is what is happening now.


There have been far greater variations in the earth's temperature in the past, but that was over much greater spans of time. Scale is a very important factor to include when evaluating such data- if observed on the same scale as we do with recent data, inclinations and declinations will appear so much shallower, and incredibly gradual. Life and ecosystems can and did adapt at the same speed (or died out). We are concerned about modern global warming because it is an immediate concern that will impact not only the natural world, but our way of life.

Answer 3

I'm not angry. Don't accept my words, look at the links.

CO2 works two ways. It causes warming, and it is released from warming oceans.

In the past natural warmings started first (maybe by the sun) and CO2 went up hundreds of years later. This time they're going up together, because CO2 is causing the warming:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=13

Volcanoes emit way less CO2 than we do:

http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/climate_effects.html

Yes, the planet has undergone more severe warmings, and there are natural reasons why. But, for the last 30 years, our ability to generate greenhouse gases has overcome all the natural factors:

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

Answer 4

What you've said could be true.

Nobody knows if CO2 comes before the rise, or after, the measurement tools we have aren't that accurate. We do know that at times of higher CO2 temperatures are also high.

Burning and Biological processes all create CO2.

What scientists fear is that we've added too much to the baseload of greenhouse gasses creating more than our planet can handle.

Looking at this global warming, which is happening, we don't know for certain that it's caused by humans or not. The models that scientists have created are tracking so true that it's hard to deny, but you can make a case for the possibility that it's not us.

My point of view is that if the majority of scientists are wrong and that we're not causing global warming, we're still doing a better thing by controlling our usage and waste. The green revolution is creating jobs and new technologies that I think are making our lives better.

If those scientists are right, and we don't change hundreds of thousands of people could die. We could face the extinction of species that support whole food chains. Flooding, drought and huge storms.

So I think there's no real choice in this matter, both ways we're better off supporting the green technologies.

Answer 5

Please follow the link.