SCI/TECH: Study: Greenhouse Gases, Not Solar Activity, Cause of Global Warming

European researchers found that since the year 850 the number of sunspots has closely matched changes in temperature, with sunspot numbers declining for about 1000 years at the same time as temperatures gradually cooled, followed by a sudden increase and rapid warming last century. Sami Solanki, of the Max Planck Institute for Solar Research in Germany, said "the most striking feature of the reconstruction is that during the past 1150 years the sun was never as active as during the past 60 years".

Strangely, though, solar activity still is not the cause of global warming: The number of sunspots has remained constant since 1980, while the Earth has continued to warm up. "It means that the very rapid rise in temperatures over the past two to three decades has definitely not been caused by the sun, but rather by other causes, primarily man-made greenhouse gases."



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Here is a strange realization for you.

Acid rain limits global warming

Acid rain restricts global warming by reducing methane emissions from natural wetland areas, suggests a global climate study.

Acid rain is the result of industrial pollution, which causes rainwater to carry small quantities of acidic compounds such as sulphuric and nitric acid. Contaminated rainwater can upset rivers and lakes, killing fish and other organisms and also damage plants, trees and buildings.

But the new study shows that sulphur in acid rain, may have benefits, limiting global warming by counteracting the natural production of methane gases by microbes in wetland areas.

Methane is thought to account for 22 percent of the human-enhanced greenhouse effect. And microbes in wetland areas are its biggest producers. They feed off substrates such as hydrogen and acetate in peat and emit methane into the atmosphere.

Global warming itself will only fuel the production of methane as heating up the microbes causes them to produce even more methane. But the new model suggests that sulphur pollution from industry cancels this out.

More: www.newscientist.com...

Jonna, the acid rain as mentioned in that article is not enough to counteract global warming, if it did we wouldn't be seeing the results of global warming. For example the heatwave that Europe had last year killing 30,000 people. From the Arctic, to the Antarctic, and places in between like Greenland the icesheets are melting faster than ever. In Greenland it is found that the ice is melting 10 times faster.

We travelled with Danish scientist Carl Boggild of GEUS, the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland.

For the past few years he has been managing a network of 10 automatic monitoring stations and his first results are alarming - the edges of the ice-sheet are melting up to 10 times more rapidly than earlier research had indicated.

Dr Boggild is all too aware of how easily he could be accused of jumping onto a climate change bandwagon.

But he is adamant that the results he has gathered so far are reliable.

"We can say for certain that the rate of melting has increased and we can say for certain that the height of the ice-sheet is falling, even allowing for increased ice-flow.

"There is no doubt that something very major is happening here."

Excerpted from.
Greenland ice-melt 'speeding up'

There are places that are already suffering the effects of global warming and are sinking due to raising seas.

He has also served the world at large by raising awareness of the gravity of the issue of global warming and greenhouse emissions, one that poses undeniable danger to the planet as a whole. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in its Third Assessment Report, estimates a projected sea level rise of 0.88 m to 0.9 m for 1990 to 2100.

�There are clear indications that in the Maldives the sea level has been rising three to four millimeters per year, which is in accordance with the IPCC projection,� says Mohamed Ali, Director of Environmental Research at the Ministry of Home Affairs, Housing and Environment. �What happens in the next 30 years we don't know, but at least from the little we have record of we know the sea level is rising and doing so quite steadily.�

Excerpted from.
That sinking feeling: A nation in peril from the sea

Climate change does happen with or without us, but it is also known that human activities have greatly increased the damage and is speeding up this climate change we are going through. You can find all over the globe that we have records storms, hail, lightning, floods, etc, caused by this climate change, so it is pretty much absurb to say that it is not happening imo.



[edit on 3-8-2004 by Muaddib]

Global warming is a topic that spreads debate throughout the scientific community. The bottom line is there is no definitive answer to the cause of this climate change.
If, like so many want to believe, that man has brought this upon himself, than go ahead anf hold him accountable. The US not to long ago allowed itself to become a poluted cesspool. We worked on this man made condition and were able to turn things around.

And neither is acid rain good for environment, it kills also grains, trees, corrodes buildings... and do you think these acid droplets will make good to people?


And for those who claim that greenhouse gases aren't cause.
Of course increase in radiation rises temperature but that isn't excuse to boost it by releasing more and more greenhouse gases.