Who still thinks global warming is is fact?

Question

http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/comments_about_global_warming/

Answer 1

99.9%+ scientist believe in global warming? That's only because the 70% who don't aren't included in the data.

Global warming is a very selective science. Only people with like minded views can qualify to provide input on the data.

Answer 2

Your question is restrictive and fails to address the proper use of the definition of fact. Especially in the context of climate change.

So let's evaluate your question.

The Earth is exposed to the sun, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The sun is putting out copious amounts of energy, and that warms up the Earth. Thus global warming happens all the time, it is a fact.

Also, the Earth is exposed to the cold darkness of space, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Since this discrete portion of Earth is not exposed to the sun, it radiates energy into space, cooling down. thus global cooling happens all the time, this too is a fact.

If you do not believe global warming exists, you are simply ignorant.

I believe the question you are asking is if people believe that the heating trend is outpacing the cooling trend, creating a trend of higher mean global temperatures.

While this is certainly the case based on the non-circular orbit of the planet from time to time, global warming will sometimes outpace global cooling, sometimes they will equal out (rarely) and other times global cooling will outpace global warming.

Currently (with data you can obtain from NASA amongst other agencies, Earth is in a warming up phase and has been for some time now. This is easily considered a fact.

No scientist of any repute believes that warming is not happening, there is too much data convincing people otherwise. The debate (and thus your question) should be these:

1.) Is the trend man-made or natural?
2.) If the trend is man-made, what can be done to prevent the adverse effects this period of warmth will cause?
3.) If the trend is natural, does mankind let it continue despite the negative side-effects (laisez faire so to speak) or does mankind attempt to alter the natural course of climate patterns to better serve our needs.

My opinion (since I am a scientist and will not claim to actually know) on these questions is this:

1.) CO2 rich atmospheres are known to act like thermal blankets and the best laboratory we have is right next door in the form of a planet called Venus. Venus and the Earth are very similar in terms of composition, mass, and so on. One big difference is the dramatic amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. The temperature on the surface of Venus is really high (700+K) and is caused by the Greenhouse effect. Compare this to Mercury's 90-700K and you can see what a CO2 rich atmosphere can do to temperatures despite the difference in distance to the sun.

2.) I don't know. I understand that we are (since the industrial revolution) putting out much more CO2 in the world than before, possibly creating an excess of CO2 in the atmosphere. There are claims that cows put out more CO2 than our cars by expelling gas and that may be true, but remember who is breeding and eating these cows. We are, and thus cows are just another industry. Is the CO2 levels directly linked with the mean global temperature? Well if you read the charts and plot them yourself the similarities are uncanny.

3.) Even if this trend is a natural cycle, the effects are catastrophic to both our way of life and our economy. We have an obligation to pioneer new technologies, industries and methodologies to improve the lot of mankind. So why not create an economic trend on conservation?

If the money is there for creating gas guzzling SUVs, why not create hybrid or even hydrogen powered SUVs to cut our dependency on foreign oil?

Why not conserve resources now, in case there is a shortage? If there is no shortage than we have even more to use and if there is a shortage we are prepared.

The debate is really moot at this point. There is a growing trend to protect the environment and why shouldn't there be. Why can't we have both our SUVs and our trees?

It concerns me to no end that today in the US we have this attitude of "it's either this or that" when in the past we were a bunch of hardy go getters who had the attitude of, "bullshit, we're getting this AND that!" and we went and got it.

We don't have to choose between SUVs and the environment. Canada is already fielding hydrogen fueled buses. If they can power a bus, can't we power a Hummer?
As far as this argument goes, both sides can keep it really. You're either pro-corporation or pro-environment when any rational person should be pro-both.

Answer 3

Yes the planet has warmed. Few would dispute that although there are some concerns about the quality of the data and the impact of the urban heat island effect. The key question is what has caused that warming and will there be future, dangerous warming caused by man-made CO2 emissions?

Currently there is NO empirical evidence to support the notion that the 0.6 degrees warming over the last century was primarily driven by man-made CO2 emissions or that we face any sort of future catastrophe from this in the foreseeable future. On the contrary, the evidence would suggest that mankind has had little or no impact in terms of warming the climate:

- Unadjusted temperatures peaked 10 years ago in 1998
- After adjusting the temperature record for volcanic activity, there has been little or no background warming for the last 25 years.
- Temperatures dropped from the mid 1940's to the mid 1970's just as CO emissions really started to increase. This cannot be explained by the impact of aerosols since the drop was greatest in the southern hemisphere where aerosols were not present.
- Warming has been faster at the surface vs. the troposphere which is the exact opposite of what should happen if CO2 was responsible for the increased temperatures.

The bulk of the 0.6 degrees warming is primarily due to increased solar activity (& lower associated cloud levels) and the impact of ocean current oscillations which vary over decadal timescales.

Given that we are scheduled to head into a cooler ocean current period and lower solar activity, it appears the temperature will continue on a downward trend for some time to come and any temperature records that will be set wil be for MINIMUM temperatures!!!

Answer 4

John Coleman, the founder of the cable TV Weather Channel? Give me a break man. You need to re-evaluate your credibility spretrum pal. Seriously. He's not a scientist! He's a meterologist that wouldn't waste his time researching it because it sounds too obsurd. He's old-school, arrogant, cynical and down-right pessimistic.

Our planet's climate is anything but simple. All kinds of factors influence it, from massive events on the Sun to the growth of microscopic creatures in the oceans, and there are subtle interactions between many of these factors.

Yet despite all the complexities, a firm and ever-growing body of evidence points to a clear picture: the world is warming, this warming is due to human activity increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and if emissions continue unabated the warming will too, with increasingly serious consequences.

Answer 5

No of course not ,to skeptics and deniers it is mass hysteria and figments of millions of peoples imagination .
so you got nothing to worry about
God rules America and will protect you
so it wont happen there .

However the price of beer may go up ,because of potable water shortage
and food prices may rise because the third world slave countries got lots of problems due to Global Warming.
on e degree rise in temperature means 10% crop loss-

In Chiapas ,and Tabasco in Mexico .more then a million people became homeless overnight with water coming up to their roofs ,because of rains from super evaporation from the forests,this had never happened before.
Millions of animals died and the crocodile ,who are abundant in that area were delighted.

In India 3000 people died because of super storms .
Right now the average death toll annually is 150.000 due to Global warming
a few years ago a whole bunch in France as well.

these figures are already out of date and are expected to double soon.

In Northern China millions of people are running for their lives because regular dust storms so far have buried 900 villages under the sand
and the whole of northern China is turning into a dessert.

The Sahara is growing by 7 kilometers a year all around the edges ,like a slow burning fire shriveling up their neighbors

In the Kalahari huge rivers have dried up and thousand of species are gone due to their habitats disappearing

So you see all is well you may have polar bears soon in America ,when the north pole is gone ,looking for a home ,as the bollweavel sings.
so that is the good news you can add another specie to your list ,instead of deleting hundreds that are disappearing

the biggest changes are invisible at micro biotic levels species are becoming extinct ,others are multiplying ,this affects the insect populations that follow ,and changes in that affect all that follows in the food chains ,All life is interrelated of both flora and fauna,

And we as being on the top of the food chain are always the last to know

when they killed all the mosquito's around the Danube for example all of the life in the woods disappeared ,they were a vital link in the food change.like the disappearing bees will drastically affect pollination ,some of that is part of our food production

So Global warming has its toll there are incidents all over the world ,

But dont worry not in America ,and look on the bright side ,this will save the globalists of your New world order on bombs

if you look you can always find something positive in disasters

Answer 6

Almost every expert. Coleman is a weatherman. He's never studied climate science and never written a scientific paper in his life. He only ran The Weather Channel for 1 year.

Here is The Weather Channel's official position:

"More than a century's worth of detailed climate observations show a sharp increase in both carbon dioxide and temperature. These observations, together with computer model simulations and historical climate reconstructions from ice cores, ocean sediments and tree rings all provide strong evidence that the majority of the warming over the past century is a result of human activities. This is also the conclusion drawn, nearly unanimously, by climate scientists. Any meaningful debate on the topic amongst climate experts is over."

http://climate.weather.com/globalWarmingStatement.html
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AipGtvI.VE50ZTVrkFixxdDty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20071113084544AAf9J0b

So let's see, will I accept the opinions of thousands of climate scientists who have scientific data to support their positions, or the opinion of an uninformed weatherman with no expertise in the field who has a paranoid conspiracy theory that it's all a scam.

Tough call.

Answer 7

Most every world leader, scientific organization, and 99+% of all scientists.

That guy is not a scientist. He's a TV weatherman and businessman, who was kicked out of the Weather Channel that he founded. I can guess why.

His essay includes such convincing science as calling scientists "environmental whackos". It's simply a political rant.

Oh, I forgot one more group that believes global warming is a fact.

The Weather Channel. Their argument is much more convincing than the rant.

"More than a century's worth of detailed climate observations shows a sharp increase in both carbon dioxide and temperature. These observations, together with computer model simulations and historical climate reconstructions from ice cores, ocean sediments and tree rings all provide strong evidence that the majority of the warming over the past century is a result of human activities. This is also the conclusion drawn, nearly unanimously, by climate scientists."

EDIT - Where 99+% comes from:

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

and the Weather Channel statement and ""The fact that the community overwhelmingly supports the consensus is evidenced by picking up any copy of Journal of Climate or similar, any scientific program at the meetings, or simply going to talk to scientists. I challenge you, if you think there is some un-reported division, show me the hundreds of abstracts that support your view - you won't be able to. You can argue whether the consensus is correct, or what it really implies, but you can't credibly argue it doesn't exist."

NASA's Gavin Schmidt

A few weatherman just aren't important, by comparison. The American Meteorlogical Association says global warming is a fact.

Answer 8

The alarmists surrounding global warming are full of crap. The world may be warming, but even the scientists agree that it is a fraction of a degree over a decade. At the same time they disregard the fact that the earth has warmed and cooled hundreds of times over the ages. That they think that humans are behind global warming is egocentrism in the extreme.

Answer 9

Not anyone sane. I'd sure love to know where the first answerer got his 99.9% of scientists bit, because it doesn't seem to reflect anything else I've read.

Have you also heard that the number one Hurricane-meterologist in the world is also saying Global Warming is a load of crap? How can you refute both him AND the guy that FOUNDED the Weather Channel???

Answer 10

I think it is a fact. Something is going on with the planet. Where I live we are still in the mid-high 80's!!! It's the end of November & people are still wearing shorts & tanks! Something isn't right!