How do we know global warming is real?

Answer 1

Global warming, or the far better term, climate change, has been well-documented. The planet is warming, however very slightly. It has done so repeatedly throughout its history, just as it has undergone cooling periods.

The argument is whether or not humans are responsible. The argument that humans (especially us Evil Americans) are to blame is ridiculous. There weren't any Evil Americans around and no cars, trucks, gasoline, etc around, back when the planet heated up enough to melt the glaciers that once covered California.

Man-made global warming is not a scientific theory, it is a political movement. It is designed to allow governments to control and tax. If you allow governments to state definitively that certain activities are causing specific problems, then they can restrict those activities, and they can target their restrictions. Why are China and India exempted from the Kyoto agreement and the US the main target?

If the United Nations and the World Court ever get the power to tax based on 'global warming', going after 'those most responsible', guess whose pockets will get picked? Yours and mine.

The socialists WANT this power and they will do anything, including lie, to get it. Much of lying is not telling actual falsehoods, but telling partial truths and twisting facts while leaving out information that can contradict their agenda.

For example: They will scream and shout that the Arctic ice field is shrinking - and it is. They submit this as proof that we are destroying the planet. What they DO NOT tell you is that at the same time, the Antarctic ice field is thickening. Some glaciers are pulling back, others are advancing. There's not any less ice on earth, it's just naturally relocating. Greenland got its name from its discoverers who found a green land with no ice.

Some scientists theorize that earth's uneven orbit is the reason for one pole to be warming while the other is cooling, and this makes sense. One pole is passing nearer to the sun than the other, and in a few thousand years, it may be the other pole's turn. But I've yet to see a logical theory to explain carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gasses being the cause of one pole to melt and the other to grow.

It's political, not scientific. And when it's political, watch out.

Answer 2

Don't believe anything you read and only 1/2 of what you see. Of course, Global warming is real. The last Ice age has gone away, has it not? So, we must have global warming. Do people contribute to global warming? Probably some small amount, after all we ARE Warm and we breath in oxygen and breath out CO2, we must be part of the problem. What is Al Gore going to do about it? Kill a whole lot of people? Invariably that is what Socialists do when they take control of a country. Is that better than destroying their economy and causing millions to starve to death?

Answer 3

I was surprised to learn in our Environmental Science class that Global Warming is still treated as a theory and not as a scientific fact by the science community. However my professor offered some observations scientists got to support the Global Warming theory, giving it a credibility worth of consideration:

1. Humans have measured the temperature of Oceans for Centuries already. For some reason, even some Medieval scientists did it out of curiosity without even knowing that it will be a vital information for us today. And based on the results they got, the temperature of oceans rose drastically after the Industrial Revolution.

2. According to some sources, the sea level have increased drastically too after the Industrial Revolution. They believe this is caused by melting ice in the polar regions.

3. Literally, many ice bodies in both Arctic and Antarctic regions have already melted. I've heard many news about them. I assume you've heard at least one.

4. Ozone depletions is another evidence. The first ozone hole was detected in 1980's.

These are just some I knew. My prof said that it is for sure that Earth is WARMING but the debate now is whether these phenomenon were caused by humans or by nature itself. Hope this helps.

Answer 4

if you will get a science book written before 1980, you will find repeated references to warming and cooling which is normal cycles on the earth.

it was well known back in the 1950's that we were on the end of a cooling cycle and the earth would reheat a bit and then start to cool

in the 1940's it was believed to be the beginning of that warming cycle and the current believe in universities was that the earth was starting to heat. in the 1980's the world was warned we were cooling off and this was the beginning of a man-made "winter" coming on.

global warming is an attempt to control the population and determine what you can buy, what you can sell and what you can do. it is socialist in nature (i.e., the enemy of the american people, largely supported by such personalities as al gore and many many hundreds of others.)

if you look at the data, the temp over all is up .0?1 degrees world wide. If you compare what the world is warming and dying have to say with the records, you will find that records are not as old as they say)

archeology in europe has shown records of drought and wet years based on tree growth, and have reconsiled data from across the world now, again establishing heating and cooling cycles.

if you buy into global warming and so many of my friends do, you will be prancing blindly into the brave new world. Don't do it.

you might not be able to control the socialist in their actions, but you can resist and refuse to believe LIES.

good luck to you, you will be virtually alone among the young. It takes someone with an education where they teach you to research everything to not buy into all these deceptions that are going on.

Answer 5

Bottom line - simple, proveable scientific fact that cannot, and never has been, refuted.

All around there's lots of things that tell us something is happening - the melting glaciers, rising sea levels, warmer temperatures etc but these are just indicators, they're the effects that we see. What they don't tell us is why they're happening and to answer this we need to turn to science.

Back in 1824 it was hypothesised that the greenhouse gases in the atmopshere played a vital role in that they trapped heat and kept the planet at a habitable temperature. In 1893 this became an established fact through the work of the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius.

Since then we've had over 100 years to examine the role played by greenhouse gases in minute detail. The key difference between these gases and other gases in the atmopshere is that they have, to put it in over simplistic terms, the same wavelength as the heat emited by Earth. Because of this they are able to absorb this heat then re-emit it, it's this re-emission of heat that we call the Greenhouse Effect (not a technically accurate term).

The Sun is extremely hot and so the heat it emits in the form of solar radiation has a very short wavelength. Some of this heat passes through our atmopshere and is absorbed by the Earth and everything on it. When the surrounding (air or ambient) temperature falls this stored heat is radiated back outwards but because the Earth is much colder than the Sun this radiation has a much longer wavelength. The wavelength is such that it interacts with certain gases in the atmopshere.

So in short, heat from the Sun passes through our atmopshere but some of it is prevented from escaping back into space because of the greenhouse gases.

The more greenhouse gases there are the more heat is retained. You can demonstrate this for yourself by filling a bottle with air and one with a greenhouse gas (carbon dioixide for example can be captured from the bubbles given off by indegestion tablets). Put a thermometer in each bottle and put them in the Sun. The one with the greenhouse gas in warms up more and retains the heat from the Sun, it's a small scale experiment but you can scale it up to any size you like and the result is the same.

Answer 6

Take a look around. Last year the temperature went up a degree. That may not seem like a lot but its something! There's a huge hole over Antarctica in the Ozone. Our Ozone is dying. And in 50 years, all the glaciers in the world will be melted off.

Answer 7

We don't. There hasn't been any warming since 1998. No one can prove global warming is happening, no one can tell you if it will be warmer or cooler one year, or five years from now.

This is one of the reasons why "global warming" is changing the name to "climate change", as the climate will always change, it can never be static.

Answer 8

No one knows for sure if the 'THEORY' is even possible.
Where is the PROOF that the heavier CO2 molecule even exists in the higher atmosphere? Where is the DATA & how did they gather it?
Read (carefully) my post:
http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071124154725AAIj7sA&r=w

Now ask your teacher or an enviro. whacko = WHERE'S the DATA?

Answer 9

Because AL Gore said so.

Answer 10

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462