Originally posted by WheelsRCool
The science against global warming is often funded by industry and oil corporations....
Who funds it is not the issue. It's the Validity of the science that is the issue. If you are even semi-literate(scientifically literate that is),
you will see quite quickly that there is a consensus within the literature. No need to rely on Journal Census's, just rely on your own mind. It's a
bit of work, but if you're keen on the issue, then I encorage you to do it!
The fact is, no one knows if global warming is happening or not.
Bzzzt! Wrong answer. The Correct answer was B. Global Warming is happening and has increased in speed over the last half of the 20th Century. Global
Warming is not a Model, it's an Observation. Here are some sites that shed some additional light on this subject.
data.giss.nasa.gov...
www.cru.uea.ac.uk...
en.wikipedia.org...
cdiac.esd.ornl.gov...
www.ncdc.noaa.gov...
nsidc.org...
nsidc.org...
sealevel.colorado.edu...
www.ncdc.noaa.gov...
www.newscientist.com...
FACT: CO2 levels in the atmosphere are increasing.
GUESS: Rising CO2 levels are creating a "global" warming affect.
CO2 is a Greenhouse gas. This is a proven Fact which is Easily testable. All you need is a sealed Greenhouse with the ability to pump in additonal
CO2. You could also do this on a smaller scale as well, and the fact remains, that we are disrupting the Carbon Cycle(You learn about that in Grade 10
Science nowadays in case you were wondering). This cycle is delicately balanced and our observations of the Natural world has taught us that it
doesn't react predictable to a sudden stimulus...like us for example, or a Huge Volcano, or an Asteroid strike for that matter.
You have so many variables to consider. Look at the sciene to ocean levels. You might think measuring ocean levels is fairly easy. It isn't. That act
in itself is so complex....
It may seem to be complicated to the Laymen, but to those who've dedicated their lives to the study of such a thing, I'm sure it's nearly second
nature by now. I've posted a bunch of links to some places where they are measuring it. Take it how you like.
If climate change is measured in a city, a city is hotter than the surrounding countryside....
They do? I thought they take temperatures of various micro-climates from around the world and then plot them into a graph to see what the average is.
It's how I was taught it was done.
Furthermore, why is it that certain cities will measure as having lost heat while others claim an increase in temperature, when both cities are in the
same state oftentimes.
Weather Pattern difference. A city that's just a hundred miles away could be experiencing completely different weather patterns due to a variety of
factors. IN the long term say over ten year, a drop in one city and an increase in another city could be solely due to the fact that one city
increased it's greenspace while decreasing it's blackspace while the other did the opposite. When comparing cities you also have to take into
consideration a host of other variables. When you spend your entire life on such a problem, the task would probably seem managable. BTW I believe
Biochemistry is far more unpredictable then Weather and Climate.
Since there are lots of cities and these cities give off heat, could they be heating the atmosphere somewhat?
It depends on the average cloud cover. The more cloud cover, the more heat gets deflected down back towards to ground. Water acts in a similiar to as
Carbon Dioxide does in that it traps heat.(in other circumstances it can leech heat from the ground level as well.
Where is the evidence that global warming causes flooding and increased rain, when the amount of storms on this Earth has not increased any?
Umm...how many storms did the US have to deal with last year? Have you heard of the Spring Floods in Europe? How about the Ice Storm in Quebec? Or the
Heat Wave in Europe that killed 50k+? Or how about the Continuing droughts plauging vast streches of farmland? The evidence is there if you look for
it, the fragile earth forum is a good place to start.
Is "global warming" is happening, then why is the Antarctic continent growing colder?
There is actually very little data about the changes in the mass of the Antarctic ice sheets, and the conclusion of some growth in the East Antarctic
ice sheet is so little that with the uncertainty, it might even be shrinking. This is not a surprising phenomenon as such an increase would be the
result of increasing percipitation and this is fully consistent with a warming world as the antarctic is a desert and warmer climates tend towards
more percipitation. And even if you warmed 10 oC from -50 oC, you would still be accumulating snow, not melting in the rain.
There is some widespread glacial melting on the Antarctic peninsula and ice shelves are breaking up, but it does indeed appear that the mass balance
on ice at the south pole may be positive but negligible. This does not, however contradict the theory of Global Warming in any way whatsoever.
While on the subject of ice sheets, Greenland is also growing ice in the center for the same reasons described above, but it is melting on the
exterior regions, on the whole losing approximately 200 km^3 of ice annually, doubled now from a decade ago. This is a huge amount compared to what
the changes may be in the Antarctice, around three orders of magnitude larger. So any potenial gain in total volume of ice on the planet due to the
West Antarctic Ice Sheet is wiped out many many times over by Greenland's ice sheet.
www.jpl.nasa.gov...
cires.colorado.edu...
www.nasa.gov...
Furthermore, why is everyone afraid of the polar ice caps melting when Antarctica contains 90% of the world's ice, and is growing colder?
See above for a partial answer. The problem isn't floating ice, it's ice on land that has been shown to be melting that has people worried. The
first warning signs are here now.
HOW are many of these "predictions" made by scientists? Many of them through computer models, which are highly-inaccurate.
Global Warming is not an output of computer models, it is an observation. See my first paragraph for empiracal observations. Mere extrapolation gives
us a picture of an increasingly unpredictable outcome, depending on the amount of CO2 we put up there.
How can we claim that we're "messing up the enviroment," when the environment has no set state in the first place?
We are "messing it up for us and our roommates." Our Biochemistry, as well as the Biochemistry of every animal and plant species on this planet is
finely tuned to a somewhat preditable climate. We've seen numourouse instances where what we were doing caused massive depopulation of native
species. The Acids we spew into the atmosphere falls back to the ground as Acid Precipitation which lowers the pH of soils, rivers and lakes and
totally screws around with their reproductive processes leading to widespread ecosystem disruption that is directly attributed to OUR actions.
Okay I'm finished, I'll let someone else deal with the rest of your Strawman Post.
