IS global warming really true?

Question

Just wondering anout your opinion..Thanks

Answer 1

There is no such thing as a static climate. At any time the Earth is either in a warming trend, or it's in a cooling trend.

Right now we're in a slight warming trend. This is natural, caused by slight variations of the Sun, and not caused by anything man is doing.

Some will blame man since the co2 content of the atmosphere has increased from 280ppm (parts per million) to 360ppm. This increase is less than 100ppm, or just 0.001%. This increase is far to small to have any impact from man.

Answer 2

Yes.

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/Milankovitch_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 3

Yes, it is true. Global warming has been scientifically proven, despite naysayers who claim it hasn't been proven.

Do you think Al Gore would have won a Nobel Peace Prize if it weren't true that we are having global warming and need to take action before it is too late?

Such awards aren't just popularity contests.

These Peace Prizes are *not* handed out without serious scientific consideration beforehand!

Answer 4

It's hard to argue, and there is plenty of evidence, so I'd say yes, it's real. Its effects increase exponentially as time goes on, so by the time the people and organizations that could have done anything to stop it sit up and really take notice, it'll be too late. Maybe after New York, L.A. and all the other big coastal cities are under a permanent 15-20 ft. of water, it'll get their attention....

Answer 5

Yes. There is conclusive scientific proof.

In fact there is proof from many angles, so this will be long. The real proof is in the links. The first one is a nice short picture, and the last four are really good.

This is science and what counts is the data.

"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's (mostly) not the sun:

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/FAQ2.html

And the first graph above shows that the sun is responsible for about 10% of it. When someone says it's the sun they're saying that thousands of climatologists are stupid and don't look at the solar data. That's ridiculous.

Science is quite good about exposing bad science or hoaxes:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/ATG/polywater.html

There's a large number of people who agree that it is real and mostly caused by us, who are not liberals, environmentalists, stupid, or conceivably part of a "conspiracy". Just three examples of many:

"Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich challenged fellow conservatives to stop resisting scientific evidence of global warming"

"Our nation has both an obligation and self-interest in facing head-on the serious environmental, economic and national security threat posed by global warming."

Senator John McCain, Republican, Arizona

“DuPont believes that action is warranted, not further debate."

Charles O. Holliday, Jr., CEO, DuPont

There's a lot less controversy about this is the real world than there is on Yahoo answers:

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/home_page/412.php?lb=hmpg1&pnt=412&nid=&id=

And vastly less controversy in the scientific community than you might guess from the few skeptics talked about here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

"There's a better scientific consensus on this [climate change] than on any issue I know... Global warming is almost a no-brainer at this point. You really can't find intelligent, quantitative arguments to make it go away."

Dr. Jerry Mahlman, NOAA

Good websites for more info:

http://profend.com/global-warming/
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/
http://www.realclimate.org
"climate science from climate scientists"

Answer 6

NO !!! Like I said, it´s the US liberals which managed to fool the whole scientific community worldwide...

OFF COURSE IT´s TRUE !!!

The greenhouse effect exist and is demonstrated by science and is not discussed

Greenhouse gases are emitted in quantities large enough that we will be able to triple the concentrations compared to pre-industrial level if we go on.

Global warming has been stated since 1896 and skeptics only appeared when they felt the need to react to the measures we need to take.

Answer 7

Yes. Most of us will live long enough to see it with our own eyes. It's happening much faster than expected.

Answer 8

Yes, It is true

Answer 9

ask John Sol he is interested in these unique questions right now

here is his question ,
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=ArL5As1Ot8lNgXmEK3l0apMFxgt.;_ylv=3?qid=20071105130020AAhiQhj

click on the avatar and contact him directly ,
i am sure he will be very happy to answer you

Answer 10

Its a widly believed theory, Does evidence point to it , YES. is it proven no. this is simialr to the unproven math problem that there is no largest prime number. is this widely acepted yes there have been number up to the million didgit that are prime, is it proven nope.