Is there any REAL, HARD evidence that humans effect climate change?

Question

I personally cannot comprehend how humans can possibly change the climate of the earth. Sure, carbon emissions effect the climate but don't our oceans emit an amount of CO2 that compltelely dwarfs any amount that's produced anywhere by humans? Also, every animal on the earth emits CO2 along with many plants. And lets not forget the fact that the climate has gone through extended periods of global cooling and warming in the past WAY beforte humans even existed! Wheres the hard evidence? (No Gore-isms please, that guy doesn't have a clue).

Answer 1

The earth's magnetic field in changing from no. to so. This has happened several times in the past. the magnetic field protects the earth from cosmic rays which cause MAJOR climate change, like ICE ages. Where was man then in the carbon emission blah blah blah. You figure it out. Man is like a pimple on the face of the earth, nothing more or less.

Answer 2

Tons of it. Here's a couple of good summaries:

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

Surprisingly it matters where the CO2 comes from. The natural sources and sinks constantly recycle CO2, so that's not a problem. Burning a lot of CO2 that the natural cycle buried a long time ago is. Details here:

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11638

Just because natural cycles happened in the past doesn't mean this one is natural. The data says it's not. It's detailed in the first links above, but here's a nice picture of how we've messed it up:

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison_png

There's a lot less controversy about this is the real world than there is on Yahoo answers or radical right wing websites:

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

Compare the amount of real information in my and Dana's answers with Jellos. You get the picture.

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"

EDIT - BOATMAN 1 - Read your own link. His point is that we're responsible for the recent increase.

"Of course, 1 Celsius ain't much compared to the 15°-20° Celsius cooling throughout the Cenozoic - but it's happening fast, and and it's not over yet! With all the changes the Earth has experienced over its history, one might think one more change is no big deal. In the long run, yes. But the future of humanity depends crucially on what happens in the "short run": the next millennium or two. If we didn't mess around with the climate, our Earth's climate might remain stable for another thousand years or more. As it is, we're bringing on more sudden changes."

Answer 3

Scientists don't like to use the word "proof" because everything in science is subject to revision as new data comes in. But the case for human-caused global warming is about as strong as it gets.

1. CO2 levels in the air were stable for 10,000 years prior to the industrial revolution, at about 280 parts per million by volume (ppmv). Since 1800, CO2 levels have risen 38%, to 384 ppmv, with no end in sight. Here's the modern data...
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
... and the ice core data ...
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/law/law.html
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/domec/domec_epica_data.html
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/vostok/vostok_data.html
... and a graph showing how it fits together:
http://www.columbusnavigation.com/co2.html

Note that the rapid rise in atmospheric CO2 exactly coincides with the start of coal burning and the industrial revolution.

2. We know that the excess CO2 in the air is caused by burning of fossil fuels, for two reasons. First, because the sharp rise in atmospheric CO2 started exactly when humans began burning coal in large quantities (see the graph linked above); and second, because when we do isotopic analysis of the CO2 we find increasing amounts of "old" carbon combined with "young" oxygen. Here are the peer-reviewed papers:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1984JGR....8911731S
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mksg/teb/1999/00000051/00000002/art00005
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/256/5053/74

3. Ice ages and inter-glacial periods are triggered by small changes in Earth's orbit called Milankovitch cycles by astronomers, or "orbital forcing" by climatologists. Since Earth's orbit can be computed for thousands of years into the past and future, we know that orbital forcing peaked 6000 years ago, during the Holocene Maximum, and should be slowly cooling the planet right now. Here's the science:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/207/4434/943

4. If the Sun is causing the current warmth, then we're getting more energy, and the whole atmosphere should be getting warmer. If it's greenhouse, then we're getting the same amount of energy, but it's being distributed differently: more heat is trapped at the surface, and less heat is escaping to the stratosphere. So if it's the Sun, the stratosphere should be warming, but if it's greenhouse, the stratosphere should be cooling.

In fact, the stratosphere has been on a long-term cooling trend ever since we've been keeping radiosonde balloon records in the 1950's. Here's the data:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadat/images/update_images/global_upper_air.png
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadat/hadat2/hadat2_monthly_global_mean.txt
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/temp/sterin/sterin.html

5. If it's the Sun, we're getting more energy during the day, and daytime temperatures should be rising fastest. But if it's greenhouse, we're losing less heat at night, and nighttime temperatures should be rising fastest. So if it's the sun, the difference between day and night temperatures should be increasing, but if it's greenhouse, the day-night difference should be decreasing.

In fact, the daily temperature range has been decreasing throughout the 20th century. Here's the science:
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F1520-0450(1984)023%3C1489:DDTRIT%3E2.0.CO%3B2
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F1520-0477(1993)074%3C1007%3AANPORG%3E2.0.CO%3B2
http://www.bom.gov.au/bmrc/clfor/cfstaff/jma/2004GL019998.pdf

6. Total solar irradiance has been measured by satellite since 1978, and during that time it has shown the normal 11-year cycle, but no long-term trend. Here's the data:
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/SOLAR/solarda3.html

7. Scientists have looked closely at the solar hypothesis and have strongly refuted it. Here's the peer-reviewed science:
http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/proceedings_a/rspa20071880.pdf
http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/mpa/publications/preprints/pp2006/MPA2001.pdf

So what's left to prove?

Answer 4

Yes we all will DIE but not from warming By our Government and the UN Carbon TAX,
SO the ANSWER to YOUR QUESTION IS THEY WANT a CARBON TAX to tax evil OIL Corporations DEM Senator DODD. that means trickle down to you $8.00 a gallon Gas Higher food prices TRUCKS deliver food run on FUEL,higher electric they will build NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS its a low carbon foot print . "This is the problem with all this environmental claptrap . . . it's a convenient excuse for politicians to just start taxing people. Some of these guilt-laden, middle-class liberals think it's somehow good: 'Oh, that's my contribution to the environment.' It's not. You're just being robbed--it's just highway [bleeping] robbery."

Answer 5

Mr. Jello, that is how scientists talk about everything. That is how you can tell the difference between scientists posting on YA and non-scientists, they will qualify everything (most likely).

Boatman1: Sorry, if you are going to play the follow the money game you can follow most of what underlies the controversy straight to ExxonMobil and the Western Fuels Association.

Answer 6

Scepticism is in basic terms rather such no rely if that's counseled, else that's undeniable lack of expertise. The respondents of the "that is all a con-spee-rah-cee" college of drool neglect with reference to the information simply by fact there are in basic terms too many lengthy words and not a unmarried dictionary in the domicile. Scientists resign from their jobs for all variety of motives, no longer least whilst they have hostile a starting to be physique of information and so printed their very own, academic inadequacy and scarcity of rigour. Lay adult males and females people who resign themselves to the inevitable, with the excuse that "the Earth's climate is often replacing" the two surely or intentionally go with to neglect with reference to the cost at which that's occurring. bypass to genuine climate, for the professional opinion of scientists of people who spend their lives examining climate. neglect with reference to the microcefali and make up your individual recommendations on the venture.

Answer 7

You should research the natural carbon cycle. The Earth absorbs slightly more CO2 than it emits (this includes animals breathing). When we burn fossil fuels which releases carbon that has been trapped for millions of years, this is more than the natural carbon cycle can absorb, and it accumulates in the atmosphere.

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

Here is a basic summary of the evidence that humans are the primary cause of the current global warming:

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 150 times more CO2 than volcanoes annually

http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/Gases/man.html
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 8

The "natural" carbon cycle is a disputed theory based on a mathematical modeling system. It does not account for the wild SWINGS in temperature over the last 5 million years.
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/temperature/

and the computer system's answers vary depending on several assumed values in the model. Follow the GRANT money and the CARBON credit money and you will have your answer.

Answer 9

confusing aspect. try searching over the search engines. that can help!

Answer 10

take a deeper look, humanity is a destroyer of life.