Co2 and climate change?

Question

CO2 (apparently) is causing climate change. Yet when the earth warms, the largest CO2 contributor, the sea, naturally omits more CO2 the warmer it becomes, as well as other natural factors like melting of the perma frost. If CO2 really is the cause of the warming, how did the earth ever cool again after previous warmings??

Spot on Drinnan. I think its a load of tripe, I'm just challenging those who believe we are responsible.

Answer 1

The answer is reduced sun activity, when the sun is more active the Earth warms and the oceans are no longer able to hold as much CO2 so the level of CO2 in the atmosphere increases. When there is less sun activity the Earth cools and the oceans can absorb more CO2 again and the level of CO2 reduces. The connection between the level of CO2 and temperature is what originally lead to the AGW theory.

Currently only 0.038% of our atmosphere is CO2, this is less than the amount of Argon. The level of CO2 is relatively low in comparison with most other time periods.

Answer 2

What you say is not some kind of argument against global warming, you are stating the crux of everyone's fear.

Fear is, at it's base, how people respond to the unknown.

I'm not a fear-monger, and I believe there are better reasons to conserve energy and reduce pollution, but...

We do not know how the earth will cool again, because there has never, at least never in the last 400,000 years (according to NASA's data), been this much CO2 in the atmosphere.

In other words, NATURAL processes in the earth and sun have NEVER dealt with absorbing and processing this much CO2 since before the existence of the human race. That fact alone should be enough for every human being on this earth to reduce their CO2 emissions, whatever the cause, in order to preserve our species.

Answer 3

I don't think anybody will really be able to give you a proper answer on this one. I admit I used to be somebody who would talk about saving the planet, but after doing some actual Earth Science I'm beginning to realise just how complicated it is. There are so many feedbacks within the climate system.

But there are some things that might help you decide your opinion. Firstly, things like the suns tilt and orbit actually effect our climate. It's argued that it is this that causes the Earth to swing back and forth between glacials and interglacials (due to the different amount of radiation forced on the Earth).

Also, CO2 is definately important in our climate. It MAY only make up a small fraction of our atmosphere but because of the chemical properties of the gas it has a significant effect. It absorbs radiation of a certain wavelength which happens to coincide with a large proportion of radiation emitted by the Earths surface. So it has a significant effect on trapping radiation.

I cant claim to be an expert at all... but I know its more complicated than the media will show. :)

Answer 4

Greenhouse gases are only one part of the story, CO2 is only one of the minor greenhouse gasses (95% of the greenhouse effect is caused by water vapour) and man made CO2 is only a tiny fraction of all the CO2 going into the environment. So if we stopped all industrial activity, it would hardly make a measurable difference to global warming. The latest weather data shows that the earth is warming at a rate of 0.08 degrees C per decade(calculated from a 20 year running average) this means that if thing stay the same, it will take 125 years for the temperature to rise 1 degree C. Of course, things will not stay the same as the oil will run out long before then

Answer 5

CO2 from human activity is a small fraction of the CO2 released each year naturally. But that small added fraction is not balanced out by a corresponding small increase in the ability of the environment to remove CO2, so it IS building up in the air. If there are 100 billion tons released naturally every year and 100 billion tons absorbed naturally each year, all is OK. If there are 100 billion tons released naturally every year and one additional billion tons released by burning coal and oil, and 101 billion tons absorbed naturally each year, that would be fine too. But that is not what is happening. What is happening is that there are 101 billion tons released, 100 natural and 1 from people, and 100 billion tons absorbed naturally. The result is that an extra billion tons are added to the air every year. That may not be a problem now, and it may not become a problem for 100 years, but at some point it will be a problem.

But I do agree that all the hype and stories of death and destruction are false.

Answer 6

Seemingly simple question but very complicated answer, I won't go into technical details as it would take too long.

Historically CO2 levels have been many times higher than they are now, when the Earth was still young levels could have been 20 to 30 times as much as present.

Over the billions of years the planet has been around the climate has become more equable and levels of atmospheric gases have become less extreme - Earth is effectively reaching it's own equilibrium.

Atmospheric gases such as CO2 also reach a point of equilibrium due in part to the law of diminishing returns (the more there is of something the less the effect of increasing the amount). So there comes a time when increasing levels of CO2 have very little effect on climate, at this point a natural trigger can switch from increasing to decreasing levels.

This trigger can be one of several factors, it could be ecological, biological, geological, hydrological, astronomical or atmospheric.

Answer 7

all of us comprehend the greenhouse effect is genuine, if it didnt exist the planet may well be chilly and lifeless. it relatively is important to life (as is co2), it traps the suns capability that would desire to ideally be lost to area. there is not any doubt that it has an significant place in controlling temperature on earth and motives a warming effect. c02 debts for around 0.054% of the greenhouse layer, of which in basic terms around 3% of it relatively is attributed to people, and a few belieive that's even decrease (0.02%). Co2 is assumed by some to be a gentle greenhouse gasoline that doesn't reason any significent wamrning, mutually as some scientist believe it relatively is impartial and different believe it would desire to be a mildly cooling greenhouse gasoline. the challenge is not any rely if the tiny proportion given off by guy is inflicting any boost in warming, or wether the warming that has been pronounced over the previous couple of hundred years is in simple terms area of the organic cycle. traditionally it has consistently warmed first, this boost in temperature has warmed the sea, and the sea has then released co2. Co2 traditionally has in no way been in charge for warming the ambience interior the previous. additionally many physisists declare that co2 can no longer take up as lots capability as is had to reason any warming. The signature for international warming is warming of the troposphere, a layer above the earths floor the place the warmth turns into trapped. Any assertion of this confirms that international warming is utilizing the earths temperature. that's what the IPCC's sort are waiting for as going on first, even if, records of the troposphere practice it has no longer warmed in aspects, and in different aspects it has warmed at a fee slower than the earths floor. This proves that the sunlight is somewhat utilizing the warming and not the greenhouse layer. for this reason many suspect co2 isn't the subject yet somewhat the warming is linked to the suns pastime and adjustments interior the era of earths revolutions

Answer 8

I don't see that the CO2 has increased in my lifetime. When I was at school 50 years ago, we learned that CO2 amounted to 0,03 percent of the atmospheric gases. It is precisely the same level today, we are told. Any less and the trees would die of asphyxia!

More likely that the Sun has increased its output to gas mark 6 and we are going to benefit from longer, warmer summers, and less hard winters. I would like to think that eventually, even the British will be able to stop complaining about the weather!

Answer 9

This is well understood science. Details:

Natural warmings and coolings before our industrial society were mostly caused by the Sun.

In particular we got out of ice ages (this problem did puzzle scientists for many years) when the three "Milankovic cycles" peaked together and got us out.

See Milankovic's book, "Canon of Insolation and the Ice Age Problem", which is well accepted science.

So how do we know it's not the Sun now? Mostly because tens of scientists continually measure it. Starting about 40 years ago, our production of greenhouse gases became more important.

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

Also, the Milankovic cycles say we should have a relatively stable climate now.

Good site for explaining common myths about global warming:

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462

Good site for more info on global warming, and real data:

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

Answer 10

I did an undergraduate module in climatology at Uni: According to a book I read there has been a corresponding increase in blue-green algae since the start of the industrial revolution, resulting in no net gain in CO2 in the atmosphere.

Also, more worryingly, there is an ice age every 10-14,000 years. The last one was 10,000 years ago: we are about 4000 years overdue for an ice age, start to worry about global cooling rather than warming!