What solid evidence is there behind global Warming? Not theories but actual HARD FACT evidence.?

Question

http://nov55.com/oceans.html

In common usage, people often use the word theory to signify a conjecture, an opinion, or a speculation. In this usage, a theory is not necessarily based on facts; in other words, it is not required to be consistent with true descriptions of reality> (THIS WAS FROM WIKIPEDIA) A REAL DEFINITION!!!!!

Answer 1

1. FACT. The earth is getting warmer. Of the twelve years since 1995, eleven of those years are ranked among the twelve warmest years on record since 1880. Here's the data.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt

2. FACT. Carbon dioxide in the air had been stable (between 270 and 290 ppm) for 10000 years prior to the industrial revolution. In the last 200 years it has risen 38% higher than that, and is currently 383 ppm and still rising with no end in sight. Here's the data.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/law/law.html
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/vostok/vostok_data.html

3. FACT. The increased CO2 in the air is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. We can tell this by looking at the isotopic signature of the CO2, which increasingly shows "old" carbon combined with "young" oxygen. You can find the data here:
Stuiver, M., Burk, R. L. and Quay, P. D. 1984. 13C/12C ratios and the transfer of biospheric carbon to the atmosphere. J. Geophys. Res. 89, 1731–1748.
Francey, R.J., Allison, C.E., Etheridge, D.M., Trudinger, C.M., Enting, I.G., Leuenberger, M., Langenfelds, R.L., Michel, E., Steele, L.P., 1999. A 1000-year high precision record of d13Cin atmospheric CO2. Tellus 51B, 170–193.
Quay, P.D., B. Tilbrook, C.S. Wong. Oceanic uptake of fossil fuel CO2: carbon-13 evidence. Science 256 (1992), 74-79

4. FACT. Carbon dioxide is transparent to visible light, but absorbs light in the infrared. That makes it a greenhouse gas. Here's the data.
http://www.te-software.co.nz/blog/augie_auer.htm

5. FACT. While the earth's surface is getting warmer, the stratosphere is getting cooler. This is exactly what we would expect from an increased greenhouse effect: the same amount of incoming solar energy is being redistributed -- with more heat trapped at the surface there's less heat in the stratosphere. The cooling stratosphere is a "smoking gun" for increased greenhouse effect. Here's the data:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/temp/sterin/sterin.html

6. FACT. As temperatures have risen overall, the temperature range has decreased, because nighttime temperatures have risen more than daytime temperatures. Again, this is exactly what we would expect from an increased greenhouse effect, because nighttime radiative cooling is being suppressed. Warmer nights are another "smoking gun" for increased greenhouse effect. Here's the data:
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F1520-0450(1984)023%3C1489:DDTRIT%3E2.0.CO%3B2
http://www.bom.gov.au/bmrc/clfor/cfstaff/jma/2004GL019998.pdf
http://tyndall.webapp1.uea.ac.uk/publications/working_papers/wp55.pdf

7. FACT. Ice ages and inter-glacial periods are triggered by small changes in earth's orbit that astronomers call Milankovitch cycles, and climatologists call "orbital forcing." Since earth's orbit can be computed for thousands of years into the past and future, we know that orbital forcing peaked 6000 years ago, during the "Holocene Maximum", and has been slowly cooling the planet since then. Here's the data:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/207/4434/943

GIven facts 2 through 7, your alternative explanation for fact #1 would be welcome, if you have one.

Answer 2

If you believe that Global Warming is occurring, do you believe it is caused by man? If so, do you really think that through history the climate never changed? It changes all the time, just very slowly. That's why we get ice ages, then it warms up again. Likely the sun causes most minor short span changes. Perhaps volcano eruptions cause the major short span changes. Do people think that we'd never get a hurricane, or hot summer, or drought, or tough winter again
if only we stopped all fossil fuel usage? It's nonsense because there have always been extremes in weather.
Likely in 5 more years, the theory will be shown to be wrong.

Answer 3

WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No there is no real evidence. The earth has always gone in cylces and the time before now was a mini ice age so we are comparing our temperatures to the temperatures of a low cycle which is how they get their evidence. Also since CO2 is the "cause" of global warming everyone who believe the theory should probably stop breathing to prevent the emission of co2 since we emit that when we breathe. Also the last couple of summers have been cooler than any others in my lifetime. Meaning that either the trend is reversing on its own (though I'm sure the environmentalists will take credit for it if it becomes significant enough to measure much like they did with the ozone layer) or we are already entering the climate shift after global warming leading us into the next ice age. I'm leaning towards the first option though.

Answer 4

The actual hard evidence behind global warming is this: The earth has warmed slightly over the last century following several centuries of cooling known as the little ice age. The little ice age was caused by a reduction in the sun's output known as the maunder minimum. An increase in the sun's output following the maunder minimum is responsible for most of the warming over the last century.

Studies by NASA and by the American Geophysical Union indicate that the increase in the sun's output would have been a significant factor in the warming over the last century. See the attached links.

Enraged Parrot, where do you get your information that there is a net ice loss in Antartctica? That is completely wrong. Even the IPCC report conceeds that Antarctica is COOLING, not warming, and the average temperature of Antarctica is -50*C. How could the coldest place on earth, if it is getting even colder, be melting? It can't.

Answer 5

What exactly is meant by your definition of Global Warming? In a general sense, yes, the earth is getting warmer when compared to "recent" years (last few hundred/1000 or so). There is also Global Cooling as well. Should not the true question be, "Are humans a significant factor in Global Warming?"

Answer 6

We know from ice core samples that historically when global warming occurred, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations also increased, but not until about 800 years later.

http://www.daviesand.com/Choices/Precautionary_Planning/New_Data/

Many global warming deniers think this is evidence that CO2 can’t cause global warming. In fact, that’s the very first argument in the terrible Great Global Warming Swindle. On the contrary, this is actually evidence that human greenhouse gas emissions are currently causing global warming. Compare the following global temperature and atmospheric CO2 concentration plots from 1960-Present:

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mauna_Loa_Carbon_Dioxide.png

As you can see they’re both rising – not with an 800 year delay, but at the same time. If CO2 wasn’t causing global warming as was the case in the past, then why is there no 800 year delay?

This only proves a correlation between CO2 and global warming and not a causality. The reason we’ve concluded that greenhouse gas emissions are causing global warming (or more accurately, accelerating it) is because natural causes can’t account for the increase in global warming over the past 40-50 years. They account for most of the warming prior to that, but climate models have determined that greenhouse gases are responsible for about 80-90% of the recent global warming:

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

The very first inputs into climate models were solar, volcanic, and sunspot contributions, but they simply couldn’t account for the recent acceleration in global warming. Thus climate scientists have concluded that humans are the primary cause.

Answer 7

The paragraph below the one you mentioned explains the word theory as used in science. It is a much more appropriate definition to this subject, but you probably don't use it since it goes against what you want said.

"In science, a theory is a mathematical or logical explanation, or a testable model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise falsified through empirical observation. It follows from this that for scientists "theory" and "fact" do not necessarily stand in opposition. For example, it is a fact that an apple dropped on earth has been observed to fall towards the center of the planet, and the theories commonly used to describe and explain this behaviour are Newton's theory of universal gravitation (see also gravitation), and general relativity."

Answer 8

The evidence for warming is indisputable. The evidence for human caused warming is extremely disputable and essentially we cannot say for certain what degree if any humans have affected the climate. We are in an interglacial period and it has been generally warming from 10,000 years with some minor cool periods, the most recent of which ended in the 1970s. This recent relatively cold period makes it seem like it is warming more. The alarmists will use this recent warming and make claims such as satellite evidence indicates Artic Ice melting more than at anytime since we have been accumulating satellite evidence, conveniently back to the 1970s or just before.

Answer 9

Note here your usage of the words, "In common usage..." This definition you give is, in fact, what most people mean when they say "theory".

It is =not=, however, what a scientist means when they say theory. A scientific theory (which is what global warming theory is) is defined as, "A comprehensive explanation of a given set of data that has been repeatedly confirmed by observation and experimentation and has gained general acceptance within the scientific community but has not yet been decisively proven."

Scientific theories must, by their very definition, be based upon facts. They are not in and of themselves factual. They simply attempt to explain some part of the natural world. It can't be known whether one theory is absolutely true or not. We can simply know that one theory explains the world better than any other theories constructed to do the same thing.

There is absolutely no doubt that global warming theory does this.

Anyway, there is loads and loads of evidence supporting the theory. Direct experimentation, observation, and indirect modeling all support it. The IPCC AR4 report is the most comprehensive analysis of the evidence available. I suggest reading it or at least the FAQ section.

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

As for the article you gave, the thing is mostly nonsense. The author apparently felt no pressing urge to actually understand the theory before commenting on it.

Much of the rise in sea level is coming from the thermal expansion of warmer oceans. In fact, only a small portion of the rise is attributed to run off from melting continental ice sheets and glaciers.

Another error is claiming that the Antarctic ice sheet is growing. First, it is difficult to establish any sort of long term trend in ice growth or shrinkage due to a large degree of natural variability masking it. But from what scientists can tell there is probably a melting trend there, despite some slight build up in snowfall in the interior due to increases in precipitation (which is in itself a result of warmer air temperatures). That is, the rate of melting around the edges exceeds the rate of growth in the interior.

Answer 10

First of all, Wikipedia is not at all a good reference as it can be changed by just about anyone. As far as theories are concerned, that's all either side of the debate has right now.

Answer 11

Here's a study that says that CO2 is not as effective as greenhouse gas as purported.It is approximately a one third effective as previously reported by the IPCC. The IPCC and Algore have a lot explaining to do and alot of cash to refund. Consensus, what consensus?World wide temperature has decreased since 1998 yet CO2 output has gone up by 25%. By the way anyone who sites wikipedia as a reference is full of it as any crank can edit it.