Many nations have temperature records dating back to the mid-1800s. Captains in navies around the world recorded temperatures in their logs while out at sea. When these data records are examined, we find that the global temperature has been slowly rising. This is supported by more modern temperature records which show that the rate of warming has accelerated since the 1970s. Literally millions of temperature measurements have been made in all the oceans of the earth, at a variety of depths, over the past 20 years and these records also show a rise in temperature. Satellite measurements show that arctic ice is thinning and covers less surface area that it used to. The rate of glacial melt, particularly in the Northern hemisphere, has increased. Treelines in Canada and Siberia have advanced further north as a result of the rise in temperatures. Plants in the Northern hemisphere are flowering earlier than they used to as a result of the rise in temperatures.
So there is absolutely no doubt that our planet is warming. The question is, are we responsible?
In the 1950s, scientists began to take accurate readings of the atmospheric concentrations of various gases. What they found was that CO2 was rising quickly. By comparing the concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere to the concentrations in air bubbles trapped in ice in Antarctica, we now know that CO2 levels are higher today than at any point in the past 800,000 years.
When we look at the carbon in atmospheric CO2, and in plants (which absorb CO2 from the atmosphere) we find that the isotope ratios are not consistent with carbon being recycled within the environment. Instead, they are consistent with the absorption of carbon that has been out of circulation for millions of years. The only explanation for this observation is that there is an increasing proportion of CO2 resulting from us digging up fossil fuels, burning them, and releasing that gas into the atmosphere. This is confirmed by results showing a slight decrease in oxygen concentrations in our atmosphere (due to the chemical combination of oxygen with carbon when we burn fossil fuels).
We can estimate the amount of carbon dioxide we've released into the atmosphere, and estimate the effect it has on our planet. Since CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the models show that our planet should warm as a result of the additional energy trapped by our CO2 (and other greenhouse gas) emissions. The rate of warming we predict is consistent with the rate of warming observed over the past century.
By examining trees, plants, ecosystems, geology, etc we can estimate the climate in the distant past (more than 2000 years). When we run the climate models, we find that they give a good agreement to what we think the climate was like in the past. They start to fail when we get to the 1970s. It is only when we include the CO2 we've produced that they come back in line with observations.
The conclusion from climatologists is that our greenhouse gas emissions are perturbing the climate system, leading to a rise in global temperatures. This view is endorsed by every organisation representing the geoscience. It is also endorsed by every national academy of science representing the wider scientific community. To date, no one has been able to explain our observations without including the warming effect of the greenhouse gases we emit as a result of burning fossil fuels.
Indiscriminate examination of the data may suggest yes...yet..the AGW/ACC movement has been shown to be more about politics than science. Even the words of some of the IPCC officials suggest this.
Quote by Ottmar Edenhoffer, high level UN-IPCC official: "We redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy... Basically it's a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization...One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore."
Yes it is real.
Alarmist on YA made the ridiculous claim that reducing CO2 emissions will destroy the economy as we know it and will force those of us left alive to live in caves. Obviously they have little confidence in the free market's ability to find less polluting energy sources. Some even tell you bald faced lies. For example Ottmar Edenhoffer didn't say what deniers claim he said, you can read the whole interview here [1] It is quite understandable that some in the fossil fuel industry wants to protect their business model, which in part relies on dumping the waste products of burning fossil fuels into the environment. Just like many of the cotton farmers wanted to keep their slaves predicted an economic catastrophe if we ended slavery and made up all sorts of lies in order to protect their business model.
Even Dr. Lindzen who is a prominent AGW sceptic accepts the elementary tenets of climate science. He agrees that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, calling people (like Sagebrush) who dispute that point “nutty.” He agrees that the level of it is rising because of human activity and that this should warm the climate. [2] (He thinks that the increase in water vapour will increase cloud cover and reduce the effect significantly)
Manipulation, accentuation, and exaggeration have been a trait of environmental alarmism since they gained a foothold of the issue through British Parliament and the Royal Society in 1988 by establishing the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change. It has been nothing but a political body for environmentalism since its establishment.
A most recent example is here : http://www.naturalnews.com/044856_global...
" ... The abstract of their paper notes:
It appears that news media and some pro-environmental organizations have the tendency to accentuate or even exaggerate the damage caused by climate change. This article provides a rationale for this tendency by using a modified International Environmental Agreement (IEA) model with asymmetric information. We find that the information manipulation has an instrumental value, as it ex post induces more countries to participate in an IEA, which will eventually enhance global welfare. From the ex ante perspective, however, the impact that manipulating information has on the level of participation in an IEA and on welfare is ambiguous. ... "
There's an ever-expanding list of data manipulators.
oh i dont know. the climate has change, our planet has heated up more than it has been in the last one hundred years after the discovery of fossil fuels, winter is in the god dam spring, polar ice caps are melting at an increased rate, the ozone layer is depleting, there is an abnormal amount of CO2 being pumped into the air each day, but in my personal opinion. it doesnt exist
Global Warming WAS very real, but it ended in 2012, confirmed by our Satelite reports 11/28/2012. Mike
Yes global warming is real. Human caused global warming is a fraud though. The proof is that it has done so many times in the past. The globe has been cyclically warming and cooling for billions of years. Think of that as a long term 'Macro summer and macro winter' season. That's why we had ice ages and interglacial periods so warm there were no polar ice caps and life flourished in lush dense forests on antarctica during the Eocene Epoch when CO2 was over 1000 parts per million. Those conditions didn't devastate life then and it won't devastate life now.
Earth’s average surface air temperature has increased by about 0.8 °C (1.4 °F) since 1900, with much of this increase taking place since the mid-1970s. A wide range of other observations (such as reduced Arctic sea ice extent and increased ocean heat content) and indications from the natural world (such as poleward shifts of temperature-sensitive species of fish, mammals, insects, etc.) together provide incontrovertible evidence of planetary-scale warming.
-- The National Academy of Sciences and The Royal Society
See their Q/A at
http://nas-sites.org/climate-change/qand...
The NAS is the association of America's greatest scientists. It was created specifically for our greatest scientists to advise the nation on complex science. It is by definition the word of America's scientific body. Others might disagree, either in content or in presentation, but those others our outside the opinion of the body of America's greatest scientists.
The Royal Society is the UK's national science academy. Together these are the most credible science academies in the world and every science academy in the world is in agreement.
It is a myth that science is not united on the basic tenets of global warming. Read from the NAS and Royal Society for yourself. The Q/A gives you a pretty good overview of what scientists know about climate change.
You'll find that those who say it is not true are mostly uneducated rubes and political paranoids. Climate change deniers are not people comfortable with science.
Weather control
I think it is, I'm just not convinced that we are at fault.
Fact of the matter is the Earth has gone through many climate changes in it's history. It would be na?ve to think it's not going to happen again. The planet is due for another one soon.
And what proof is there to show that it does/does not exist?
Absolutely not real. At least the man made part. The earth is warming since around 1650, or the bottoming out of the Little Ice Age (LIA).
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/30/ho...
It has warmed up 0.87 degrees in 353 years. And most of that was before the 'Industrial Revolution' that Al Gore blames for the globe to warm.
Most recently, the earth has cooled. For over a decade the Earth has cooled.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut...
All this decrease was with the CO2 level rising. This scientifically proves that CO2 does not control the Earth's temperature, as the advocates for Global Warming say.
So yes there is a slight warming trend, if you want to figure over the centuries. But it is natural. the Earth was a lot warmer during the Roman Empire.
See the first IPCC report, Page 202 of Section seven.
Yes. See HACZ's answer for some of the evidence. Add the increased amount of methane produced by our population and our food animals.
Too many people confuse the warming (which is definite) with the blame. Just hope our great-grandchildren can survive it.
Yes, NO, YES, no, YES, NO!
Yes it is.
