Is Global Warming Theory or Fact?????

Question

I have been seeing a lot of people saying that there side is fact so in all reality is Global Warming a simple theory or scientific fact??????? For if it is just a theory why are people so consumed by it. And if it is Fact why are we arguing in the first place??????

Answer 1

Definitely a theory, and not even a good one. The oceans have been cooling now for about four years.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14944138

To my knowledge CO2 has not dropped.

Since 1998 global temperatures have been flat if not a slight cooling trend. Since 1998 the troposphere, the place where the theory indicates that the heat is trapped shows a cooling trend. The graph below shows ocean, land and combined plots of temperature. The land temperature is an unreliable dataset, but it clearly shows that we have already passed the peak of the warming cycle. And this data comes from NOAA not Exxon. The temperature information from NOAA also does not show the 1930's being as warm as some indicate that it was. So the NOAA data shows an apex of the current warming trend and it may in fact be contaminated by urbanization.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/2007/jun/glob-jan-jun-pg.gif

Cooling was not predicted by any climate model, so if you just want to believe it, that is your choice, but you should be skeptical if a theory does not have any data to support it.

The climate record shows that the Earth is either cooling or warming, it is never static. The climate began warming from the little iceage, and it could not have had anything to do with humanity. But some goofy scientists see a tiny foot print of humanity in our atmosphere and propose gloom and doom predictions and why we should spend trillions on a theory. But nobody seems to want to do anything about the fact that half of the worlds forests have been decimated.

Nice.

Answer 2

This is a complicated question.

First, it's a FACT that the earth has warmed since the last ice age and is constantly being warmed by the sun. There is no denying this. If there were no sun, the earth would be -273 degrees C (absolute zero), as would all other planets in the Solar System. And, the closer to the sun, the warmer .. simple scientific fact.

And, there are theories, opinions, and facts (data) to explain why the earth seems to warming faster than predicted by natural events.

Answer 3

It's both. That the planet has been warming over the past century is simple observational fact. Our explanation of why it has been doing so is a scientific theory.

It's comparable to the theory of evolution, for example. That living organisms adapt and evolve is simple observational fact. How they do so is a theory.

In fact, every scientific theory works like this, since each one is constructed to explain some observable fact about the world. All a scientific theory is is a testable model of some part of the natural world.

Some theories are better than others. And anytime a new theory comes along that better explains the phenomenon in question the older theory is either reworked or scrapped entirely.

Answer 4

That we're in a period of global warming is directly measured, and therefore a fact.

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

That humans are the primary cause of this warming is a theory the same way that gravitation and evolution are theories. You can read about the difference between the common usage of the word 'theory' and a scientific theory here:

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

People are consumed by it because it's a threat to our species, not to mention every other species on the planet. I'm really not sure what you're getting at here, except you seem to not understand what a scientific theory is.

Answer 5

I think its a fact the earth has warmed up. I'd cite the fact that Chicago is no longer buried under a 1 mile thick layer of ice as evidence that the earth has warmed up.

The argument is about what is causing the recent up tick in reported temperatures. Is it increased solar activity, could be ice caps are receding on Mars. Is it errors in estimating the average earth temperature, NASA finally admitted just within the last couple of weeks that actually the warmest year on record was in the 1930's. But we just don't know before then.
Is it because we drive SUV's, I doubt it. Ice age humans did not have SUV's to drive to end the last ice age.

The reason there is a big argument is that radical leftist have seized the issue and are using it as an excuse trample human rights. What better excuse to strip individuals of their right to the pursuit of happiness than to claim it is necessary to save the planet.

Answer 6

God I love how the liberal progressive's come in and down rate all these answers without leaving a single answer in rebuttal in support of the global warming "theory". It's a theory. That's it. It is pseudo - science wrapped up in an elitist plan to implement a carbon tax on humanity just for breathing. And the liberal progressive hippy ********* have bought it with every ounce of their dirty, patchouli oil wearing, dope smoking minds. Let's trust a generation of degeneration with our politics and lives.These are the same people in the 60's who had LSD on their cereal and coke in their coffee...and you think they know one single thing about what trend the earth's temperature on average has taken on? The earth is cooling...all you hippy idiots that have drank the koolaid, have lost your mind...same people who put that stupid Obama ****** in the white house..and we all see(which was completely predicted) how that **** went...Global warming is a sham, the scientists have jumped ship!

Answer 7

global warming is a fact, but there are theories to explain it.


the most likely theory, and the one with overwhelming evidence behind it, is that human activity is causing it.

this theory is based completely on fact

the greenhouse effect - fact

humans activity has substantially increased greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere - fact

edit
socrates explanation that cfc's are heavier than air and could not reach ozone layers is interesting, considering o2 and o3 are heavier than n2, how did those o2 molecules make it up there?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Atmosphere_composition_diagram.jpg

it's a little hard to deny that cfc's can reach high altitude when you actually go up there and find them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkyl_halides#Environmental_issues


but you must consider other forces, ever heard of wind?

....and of course plants burn the suger that they make, do you need to be told this? How else would they get energy? Of course they also use this carbon (sugar) for many other reasons, like stucture from cellulose

.....by reflective heat i guess you mean that which is not absorbed by the ground and goes back out to space ( some is absorbed by the atmosphere - the same molecules that absorbed these frequencies on the way in)

by radiative you mean that which is absorbed and given off later in IR frequency, which is absorbed by greenhouse gases.

the 99% of scientists who agree with man made global warming are PhD physicists, chemists, geoscientists, ect and they are fully aware of these points.

Answer 8

Global warming (i.e. a general increasing trend in average global temperatures) is a fact. Man made global warming, i.e. attributing all or part of the recent warming trend to the atmospheric build up of CO2 and other gases due to human activity) is a hypothesis.

Answer 9

Global warming is a theory. There is no hard evidence if global warming is going to affect the future. Or when its going to happen. They are consumed by it because they think this theory will destroy the earth, but their efforts to aware everyone about it keeps leading to failure.

Answer 10

You are a victimof the propaganda put out by the oil companies--there is no difference.

Here's what I mean:

As used by scientists, the term "theory" means a empirically tested and verified model--based entirely on observed facts. So--asking "which" global warming is is a nonsense question.

The special interests deliberately say "its just a theory" because they know that many people don't know the proper definition of a theory--so it gets people confused. An unproven statement or idea is not a theory--it is a hypothesis. Global warming started out--30 years ago--as a hypothesis. But there is now a massive amount of empirical evidence supporting it--and the fact that the current global warming is caused by human activity.

So--YES--its a theory. But--by definition--that means its proven fact.