Clearly there is a difference between humans causing some change and causing major change or driving the temperature. We have certainly affected the climate but IMO it appears to be minor. It is a matter of how much.
Huffington Post. didn't they used to carry the water bucket for AGW, so to speak?
The current trends are interesting in a scientific sense. The problem is we do NOT know where the bottom is.
Most agree that we will at a minimum experience a repeat of the Dalton Minimum. (Victorian Age)
More are starting to believe that we could repeat the Maunder Minimum as this article suggests. (Dark Ages help bring about the plague and Europe can still not grow food that were common prior to the Little Ice age as Europe NEVER fully recovered to those higher temperatures - Medevil Warm Period)
Some, a small but growing minority, FEAR that we could be enetering the next ice age. They fear this because several solar indices have dropped below theoretical minimums. For those who don't know, these minimums were once believed to be values the sun was incapable of dropping under without shutting down entirely. Obviously as the sun is still a star, and not a brown drawf, those theories were wrong. It highlights what we do not know and stretches the theoretical limits of how weak our star can get and still remain a star.
Additionally, while no one is yet saying this is a possibility worth consideration, Ice age is no longer the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario has become SNOWBALL EARTH (google it). It has happened before it could happen again. We just don't know enough about the subject to say otherwise.
To be generous, if ice age or wworse becomes a real possibility you could say that some of the climate scientist knew this all along and only pushed AGW so they could get the climatological research in place to learn how to force AGW in the event that these scenarios become reality. Time will tell.
There is absolutely no doubt that humans CAN cause climate change. The debate lies in how big of an impact we can actually make. The argument is basically split up into two major groups. Those who believe that because of mankind's pollution of the atmosphere the earth will (and is) experience a rise in temperature that will melt the polar ice caps causing major flooding in low laying areas, and cause a catastrophic change in weather patters. And those who believe any warming is caused by the earths natural cycle of warming and cooling, and mankind has very little effect on global temperature. There are also a few other groups like those who believe the earth is actually in a cooling cycle. I won't argue one way or another with is little space, but please consider that this winter so far has been the coldest winter on record in 18 years, and the coldest temp. ever recorded happened at the South Pole in early December at a frigid -160F. Yet some people thing the poles are almost balmy.
Yes. Natural cycles, including Maunder minimums, also cause climate change. The question, as always, is what forcing will prevail.
One of the reasons for the current pause/slowdown in warming (I think whether you consider it a pause or a slowdown depends in large part on whether you include deep ocean measurements) is that sunspots are currently in a cooling phase.
If we have a Maunder minimum or the like, it may essentially counteract AGW for the next several decades, leaving us with steady instead of rising or falling temperatures. Or, if the balance isn't more or less exact, temperatures will either rise slowly or fall slowly.
This does not contradict the idea that human action has an impact on climate. It just means that humans aren't the *only* thing that can impact climate. Even if there is cooling, if there is *less cooling than there otherwise would have been*, then humans are impacting climate.
There is so much wrong with that article. Forget that it is supposed to be about climate; it makes no sense, at all – about anything/
You can affect a process without causing or controlling the process. To say that a time-variant system that you do not control has peaked makes no sense – and it makes no sense at all when the “peak” is already artificially higher than it would naturally be, and when the cause of the inflated peak has not changed.
…”temperatures on Earth have peaked, as they have peaked countless times before in following nature's cycles. And that consistent with Earth's history, and with the laws of physics, temperatures on Earth will now be falling.”
This statement is nonsensical. Anything that goes up and down (anything that is in some way cyclical), by definition, has peaks – and episodes may “peak”, but to imply that the system has somehow peaked makes no sense, again, unless you control the system. Further, what the Hell does “temperatures on Earth will now be falling” mean – that all of the sudden the system has become monotonic?
Yes, when climate scientists declare the climate is changing it is changing. Even if the climate stops changing, it will still be changing, and this will be believed and repeated by others.
Humans DO cause climate change. This happens due to many factors: - industrialization - burning of fossil fuels - deforestation - building great dams - nuclear explosions - use of CFC (Fluorocarbons) and chemicals in general - excessive harvesting of wild life - urbanization.
In addition, in major cities, you can notice a temperature higher than that of untouched areas. This happens because of the man-made objects such as pavements, bridges... that heat up quickly when exposed to sun radiations, and is called a heat dome. This heat remains trapped in the heat dome because the short infrared waves that were received from the sun are now of longer wavelength which makes it harder for them to escape these domes. As a result, they will be reflected in this dome upwards and downwards, thus heating it up.
Your sources of info are getting worse, if that is even possible. Solomon is simply a writer, he is not a climatologist, or a scientist of any sort.
He is a diehard denier who believes that the Sun along with the alignment of Saturn and Jupiter are responsible for GW, in other words, a nutbag
No, changes in global temperature are caused by fluctuations in cosmic rays.
Is this a multiple choice question ?
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/lawrence-solomon/global-cooling_b_4413833.html
about 0.0001%
NO.
