What exactly is Global Warming caused by?

Question

Could the holes over both Poles in the Ozone layer cause unfiltered sunlight to reach earth?

Answer 1

Global warming is cause by media hysteria and politician seeking power.

Answer 2

Global warming is caused by many things some man-made, some not. The earth is currently going through a warming phase which is completely normal and has happened countless times before. These phases are caused by changes in the sun. The earth itself emits greenhouse gases that trap the heat closer to the earth. The things emitting these gases are as diverse as volcanoes and cows. Even the ocean, which has pockets of methane that bubble to the surface, contributes. The current furor over global warming is the belief that man is responsible for most of the problem. Do we contribute to global warming? I am sure we do. Are we the primary cause of global warming? I don't believe so. I do believe we should clean up our act but I don't think that even if we totally eliminated our contribution to global warming that it would end. All you have to do is remember history. It tells us we had times when the earth had massive glaciers covering large portions of what is now North America, Europe and Asia. It does not take a genius to figure out that the only way these huge glaciers could be gone is if the world warmed up a lot. By the way there is only one hole and it is over the south pole and was last reported as closing.

Answer 3

Solar irradiance on the poles is much less than in other parts of the earth. The maximum irradiance is 50% of that in the tropics in summer and zero in winter. Which, by the way, makes the poles so freaking cold. Also, since the poles are covered in snow, 90% of the solar energy that falls on the poles are reflected back to space, as compared to 30% for the rest of the earth surface. The solar energy absorbed and retained by the area covered by the ozone hole, will be negligible.
The main causes of global warming are the greenhouse gasses that trap the heat in the atmosphere, mainly methane and carbon dioxide.
Most scientist agree the dramatic increase in CO2 in the last 50 years is caused by burning fossil fuels.

Answer 4

Global warming is caused by greenhouse gases. The GHG's which occur in the largest volume all occur naturally - water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide etc. It's a good job that they do because without any greenhouse effect the planet would be too cold for life to have ever evolved - the average global temperature would be -18°C.

Since the onset of industrialisation we've added substantially to the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, we've also added small amounts of a whole bunch of purely synthetic gases as well (CFC's, HFC's, HCFC's etc).

It's this increase in concentrtations of GHG's that is leading to runaway global warming, many, many times faster now than has ever before been known (the world is currently warming 177 times faster than it averaged in the 10,000 years prior to the Industrial Revolution).

In short, the more greenhouse gases there are the more the world warms up. It does this by trapping heat, it's similar to putting clothes on - the more clothes you put on the warmer you become because of increased insulation; greenhouse gases are the planet's insulation.

Here's why it happens. Almost all the atmosphere is made up of just three gases - nitrogen, oxygen and argon. These three elemental gases constitute over 99.9% of the atmosphere. Quantities of greenhouse gases are small by comparison but they're molecular gases, much larger than the atoms of the elemental gases.

The heat we receive from the sun arrives in the form of solar radiation, this has a very short wavelength and easily passes through the atoms and molecules in our atmosphere. This heat energy is absorbed by the planet and everything on it, when the ambinet temperature falls this stored heat is radiated back outwards in the form of thermal radiation. This has a longer wavelength than solar radiation and it's progress through the atmosphere and out into space is impeded by the molecular greenhouse gases.

So... the more solar radiation gets in, the more is absorbed and the more greenhouse gases there are the warmer it becomes.

The ozone layer doesn't have much of a role to play in the overall scheme of global warming. Ozone depletion does permit larger amounts of solar radiation into the atmosphere but the difference is small. Further, the thinning of the ozone layer is most pronounced over the polar regions and here the solar radiation is largely bounced straight back into space by the reflective ice sheets.

Answer 5

Global Warming is just as a few people have said before me, it's climate change .This is normal and has happened before. Will we survive? That is the big question. Can we do anything about it ? Not likely, the sun will do what the sun will do and we are very insignificant .What several scientist fear now is the possibility of the earth stopping it's rotation and reversing as it also has several times before ( see the Deluge and Noah).In reality ,all this Global Warming hype and bull is to keep people calm and diverted from the truth. World leaders are setting up super telescopes to watch for planet X entering our solar system as we speak . This is most likely what the Sun is reacting to.

Answer 6

holes on the ozone layer are just one of the reasons, but the truth is they do not really contribute to the warming, these holes already exixts in ancient times. The primary reason of warming are caused by humans..."global warming is the consequence of the rapid development of human civilization", the discovery of cars of cars,air conditions, computers, planes, and other things that makes our everyday life comfortable contribute to the global warming...I think theres nothing we can do but to accept the truth that the global warming is the consequence of our doings.

Answer 7

Caused by the people sitting infront of the computer and yes the hole will let unfiltered sunlight to reach earth.

Answer 8

Lets call it instead - Global Madness of Environmental Abuse on ever larger scale - . Men has clear cut, burned and farted since 50,000 years on a tiny scale compared to the size of earth. It had always very local and with minor results. Now with Asia, the USA and Europe in Overdrive, to burn and clear cut the last natural material made by carbon based live forms, including oil, it's a matter of time, when the 23% Oxygen in aur atmosphere is substituded by carbon and other ugly stuff, like sulfur oxyds

Answer 9

Its the greenhouse effect. the holes in the ozone layer are hardly tied into climate change. the problem is that out blanket of CO2 is trapping excess heat in instead of letting the heat (in the form of infrared radiation) escape into space

Answer 10

Stratospheric Ozone has a RF (Radiative forcing) of -0.05 +/- 0.10 W/m2 from the period 1750 - 2005.
Tropospheric Ozone has a RF of +0.35 +/- 0.10 W/m2 for the period 1750 - 2005.
* RF is defined as the change in net irridiance at the Tropopause (boundary between Troposphere and Stratosphere).

Solar irridiance is + 0.12 W/m2 [ -o.o6, +0.18] between 1750 and 2005.
Volcanic aerosol is currently not present in the Stratosphere (where they have their RF effect).

The combined anthropogenic RF is +1.6 [ -1.0, +0.8] W/m2.
The combined natural RF ( solar irridiance, volcanic aerosols) is + 0.12 [-0.06, +0.18].

Answer 11

Chuck Norris! LOL
But seriously I think its just a pattern the world goes through every few thousands of years. Same thing happened during the time of the Dinosaurs and they didn't have any cars or whatnot.