is global warming real?

Question

are we causing it? with what or how? can we do smething about it? can we stop it or is to late now? are we on danger? is going green for reals? an effective?

Answer 1

Yes, it's real. You can see it here:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/2005/ann/global-blended-temp-pg.gif

Yes humans are the primary cause of the current warming. Evidence below*

We can do something about it by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. It's not too late, but we need start reducing them very soon. Scientists predict that we need at least a 50% worldwide greenhouse gas reduction by 2050, and probably even more than that. To achieve this large reduction, we need to start taking action within the next few years.

It's important that we all do what we can by going green. This reduces your own global warming impact and sets a good example for everyone else to follow. It's also important to support politicians who make the environment a top priority, because we're not going to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions enough without government action.

Now for global warming evidence:

*Basically we know it's warming, and we've measured how much:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/2005/ann/global-blended-temp-pg.gif

Scientists have a good idea how the Sun and the Earth's natural cycles and volcanoes and all those natural effects change the global climate, so they've gone back and checked to see if they could be responsible for the current global warming. What they found is:

Over the past 30 years, all solar effects on the global climate have been in the direction of (slight) cooling, not warming. This is during a very rapid period of global warming.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6290228.stm
http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/proceedings_a/rspa20071880.pdf

So the Sun certainly isn't a large factor in the current warming. They've also looked at natural cycles, and found that we should be in the middle of a cooling period right now.

"An often-cited 1980 study by Imbrie and Imbrie determined that 'Ignoring anthropogenic and other possible sources of variation acting at frequencies higher than one cycle per 19,000 years, this model predicts that the long-term cooling trend which began some 6,000 years ago will continue for the next 23,000 years.'"

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

So it's definitely not the Earth's natural cycles. They looked at volcanoes, and found that

a) volcanoes cause more global cooling than warming, because the particles they emit block sunlight

b) humans emit over 100 times more CO2 than volcanoes annually

http://www.gaspig.com/volcano.htm

So it's certainly not due to volcanoes. Then they looked at human greenhouse gas emissions. We know how much atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased over the past 50 years:

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

And we know from isotope ratios that this increase is due entirely to human emissions from burning fossil fuels. We know how much of a greenhouse effect these gases like carbon dioxide have, and the increase we've seen is enough to have caused almost all of the warming we've seen over the past 30 years (about 80-90%). You can see a model of the various factors over the past century here:

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

This is enough evidence to convince almost all climate scientists that humans are the primary cause of the current global warming.

Answer 2

Unfortunately it looks as though it is. Yes I believe the science data and theories behind GW that humans are the culprits. Stopping GW is the real debate, because the earth works in a time lag thermomass element, so complete census on that is still out (among scientists). Danger? Well, the wealthier nations will fair better. But if the worst cases scenario appears, that there being a ice age or a very tropical planet; where disease is rampit and coast lines have receded over 200 feet (this will be no fun!). Going green is more an economical thing right now, however don't get me wrong, I believe about 50% of people do care . Going green is effective, when mostly power plants and tranportation are fully on board that it will become very effective.

Cambell is right but, we will never run out of oil, only economically attanable stuff.
Bob and Dana are ussually right on the money.
Aaron -***
Max-There is no debate about GW, "If" there was one it is on "are humans responsable". Ahhhhhh takes me back to the good old days of tobacco. In a real debate they through you out for lieing (the whole scientific date thing).
Woodland-Yes it is a cyclical event thoughout the entire earth history, but when we are talking about buring carbon stored as acient sunlight from 400 million years ago, it becomes a whole differnt monster (no pun intended.) Hell humans, let alone monkeys wern't even a twinkly in any things balls yet.

Answer 3

Yes.

Mostly.

Certain human activities that cause emission of greenhouse gases. Some greenhouse gases are created naturally (and are necessary), but excess gases trap heat in the atmosphere that would normally exit into outer space

Yes

The UN Panel on Climate Change says "global warming is likely to continue for centuries, and that it is already too late to stop some of the serious consequences it will bring—even if mankind could somehow hold the line on greenhouse gas emissions worldwide starting today."

Not immediate danger; but of course it depends how you define "immediate;" we are already seeing effects. 2050 is generally thought of as the end game.

Green is real, and can be effective if adopted on a global scale (in a perfect, not probable, world)

Add: Re the post above about there not being any "real science" to back it up, see here:
http://www.whrc.org/resources/online_publications/warming_earth/scientific_evidence.htm

Answer 4

Real, mostly caused by us. Contrary to what's said above, there's a lot of peer reviewed science proving it. The proof is mostly in the links below, the second link is a thousand pages long, with hundreds of references to the peer reviewed literature.

"I wasn’t convinced by a person or any interest group—it was the data that got me. I was utterly convinced of this connection between the burning of fossil fuels and climate change. And I was convinced that if we didn’t do something about this, we would be in deep trouble.”

Vice Admiral Richard H. Truly, USN (Ret.)
Former NASA Administrator, Shuttle Astronaut and the first Commander of the Naval Space Command

Here are two summaries of the mountain of peer reviewed data that convinced Admiral Truly and the vast majority of the scientific community, short and long.

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html
summarized at:
http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

It is very dangerous, causing coastal flooding and damage to agriculture. Details here:

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL052735320070407
http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM6avr07.pdf

We can't totally stop it, but here is a practical and affordable plan to reduce it enough that we can cope with the remainder:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,481085,00.html
http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM040507.pdf

Great websites for more info:

http://profend.com/global-warming/
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462

Answer 5

Yes it is real.
We are probably at least helping it, even if we are not causing all of it.
By burning giant amounts of coal, oil and natural gas. Coal is the worst though.
When all the coal, oil and natural gas in the world runs out, it will stop. It is never too late.
We are not in danger, but we may be inconvenienced.
Going green isn't bad, but it isn't enough either.
The only solution is finding other energy sources. We will have to do that anyway when coal, oil and natural gas run out, which will happen in a few hundred years.

Answer 6

yes it's real. the planet has been warming for thousands of years. it's all part of a long term season that small minds can't seem to grasp. no we aren't causing it. no we can't stop it no more than we can stop it from raining tomorow. as long as there are people there will be predictions of disaster, humans love to be negative. the sky is falling and we're all going to die is such an old story your great grand parents used to worry about it. don't worry about the weather there is no sense worrying about something you can't control. fyi the antarctic sea ice extent reached an all time maximum recently, of course you probrably didn't catch that on the news did you?

Answer 7

That is a subject of great debate. Most people believe it is real, but there is little in the way of peer reviewed scientific study (real science) to back it up. Unfortunately a great deal of hype has arose around it feeding a mass media fueled hysteria. Science has a hard time predicting the weather for next week, and weather data only goes back 100 years or so, so it is really quite difficult to make a finding that passes scientific muster.

Answer 8

pitty ! by just awarding noble prize the term does not become true. there are many useless ideas that get the said prize. go and tell every body that the concept of G/W is just another bluff like man landing on moon, UFS's etc.

Answer 9

The Earth warms up, then it cools down. It's cyclical, it's been going on for millions of years, and will continue no matter what humans do. Al Gore is a pathetic loser who's desperately trying to stay relevant - if he (and others like him) really want to do their part to reduce warming, they should keep their mouths closed.

Answer 10

no its AL gores dream and the rest of the worlds nightmare