Global Warming. Fact or Fiction? Support your answer, please!?

Question

Zardoz: This is a fiction that the mainstream media promotes. The majority of scientists either say it is not true - It's true but not due to mans influence or they say I don't know. A minority say it is true and it is mans fault.

Aimellei: Wrong. More polution is place in the air by volcanic acitivity of one erupting volcanoe, than by all the air polution man has put out in the last 20 years. And, although a section of the norther icecap is melting, is is growing in most other areas and there is more ice in the icecaps right now than there has ever been in the last 100 years.

Zardoz: The Union of Concerned Scientists is a political group with some scientists as members. It is NOT a scientific research organization. It has no findings. Just opinion of a MINORITY of scientists.

Dookie O: Read the responses to Zardoz: A minority of scientists believe as you are stating. Therefore, that by definition is NOT a concensus. However, there is a concensus of certain political organizations that this is going to be true no matter what the FACTS tell us.

Mike: A fairly reasoned resonse. Wrong, but reasoned.

Gerbel: Read all the above.

Gerbel: Well you are right about one thing. Someone is an ignorant fool.

Answer 1

The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) reports show that Global Warming is a fact.

However the consequences of Global Warming have been hyped and exaggerated to a ridiculous degree.

For example the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" which purports to show what the results of Global Warming will be like, is actually little more than a science fiction horror flich designed to make money for its promoters, not give people accurate information.

Essentially there is excellent scientific material that supports Global Warming that is caused by man.

Unfortunately the popular media has hyped the concept of Global Warming almost beyond recognition.

The movie "The Day After Tomorrow" is a good example of that.

Answer 2

Fact.

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

Temperature data has been available to the scientists since the turn of the last century. Every scientist I have asked this question to refute Global warming has been mute. The question is: Why was there no appreciable up swing in the global temperature in the years 1940 to 1945? I mean the planet was involved in a world war. Most of Europe and Japan were on fire, and the industrial complex was operating at max capacity with NO controls on pollution.

Global warming may indeed be occurring, but to place the blame on the minuscule workings of mankind is egocentric.

Answer 4

Global warming is a fact - the dispute is whether people are causing it or accelerating it or having no effect what so ever.
I believe that the jury is still deliberating on this one.
There is just so much conflicting evidence given out by opposing special interest groups that the whole theory is so befuddled with alleged "facts" that's it's difficult to form a firm opinion.
It's my present opinion that the scientific evidence is slowly eroding away at the opposition's arguments that it is a natural cyclic phenomenon and people have little or no effect on it.

Answer 5

I'm not a scientist, and therefore all I can do is look at the evidence to support the theory. In my opinion it is fact, but I'm not the person you should ask.

Maybe you should ask the Polar Bears who are losing their habitat as we speak. Or the coral reefs who are becoming bleached because the temperature of the ocean is rising so dramatically . Or (if they could speak) ask the glaciers which are receding into nothingness at a faster rate than ever before in history...

But as I said, all I can do is state my opinion for I cannot be sure.

Answer 6

Fiction. Global warming is a is a result of biased opinions that doesn't support scientific data. This was a result from Al Gore's great thinking. Besides, how can anyone receive an Oscar from a Power Point presentation is beyond me. It maybe true that man made gases may contribute to global warming, but I don't think it was a direct result from it. I personally don't see any changes in the weather. The weather changes every 25 years or so.

I haven't seen the so called movie. But I have read that there were at least 17 discrepancies that were debunked by un-biased scientists.

Answer 7

Global warming is a THEORY which is supported by measurements taken around the world. The fact is that we don't know if the current trend will continue or not. We also don't know the cause or causes, If you're concerned, drive a little less, support cleaner air measures, etc, but don't fall for those who say they know. The Earth could be recovering its equilibrium from those ancient meteor strikes which wiped out dinosaurs, it could be going through a cycle, it could be the result of natural geological activity, or it could be any combination of these. And it could have something to do with what humanity is doing, or not.

Answer 8

I must plead ignorance on most of the scientific arguments, for and against. I do know that in the seventies the big scare was that we were headed for another ice age, and a decade later we were perilously close to reaching the population breaking point, and we were all going to starve very soon. all I can do is keep living my life, shake my head, and wonder when the next unavoidable disaster is going to not happen.

Answer 9

Since the overwhelming majority of scientists say Global Warming is real, I have to believe that it's fact.

The Environmental Protection Agency says it's real. Check out:
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/futurecc.html

The Union of Concerned Scientists say it's real:
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/

That's all the proof I need.

edit: I'm not going to listen to the founder of the Weather Channel when I'm looking for science fact.

"The climate is changing at an unnerving pace. Glaciers are retreating, ice shelves are fracturing, sea level is rising, permafrost is melting. What role do humans play?"
National Geographic Society
http://green.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/gw-overview.html?source=Y2300

Answer 10

Fiction. Many reasons but the most recent... The director of meteorology and creator/founder of The Weather Channel says its a fraud, hoax, and scam.


"It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create an illusion of rapid global warming."

"There is no run away climate change. The impact of humans on climate is not catastrophic. Our planet is not in peril. I am incensed by the incredible media glamour, the politically correct silliness and rude dismissal of counter arguments by the high priest of Global Warming."