Is Global Warming Real? Yes. The Real Question is what is causing it...

It would seem that many are convinced that Man is causing this warming trend. Well I would like to add some stuff to the argument. I for one am not convinced it is caused by Man. I think that man has a part in it but an insignificant one at best.

I think we need to look at the whole picture. Are all the scientists on board? It seems to me around 25 years ago, it was an ice age the environmentalists were worried about. Then there was a coming Polar Shift. And now Global Warming is the “in” thing! It’s a scare tactic that the Press and the World are jumping on board for what could be a very costly and unnecessary ride.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Below is a link to some arguments on both sides of this question, read them, as they are all very good and informative.

Global Warming or Just Hot Air? A Dozen Different Views
Richard Lindzen, professor of meteorology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in an editorial last April for The Wall Street Journal:
"To understand the misconceptions perpetuated about climate science and the climate of intimidation, one needs to grasp some of the complex underlying scientific issues. First, let's start where there is agreement. The public, press and policy makers have been repeatedly told that three claims have widespread scientific support: Global temperature has risen about a degree since the late 19th century; levels of CO2 [carbon dioxide] in the atmosphere have increased by about 30 percent over the same period; and CO2 should contribute to future warming.
"These claims are true. However, what the public fails to grasp is that the claims neither constitute support for alarm nor establish man's responsibility for the small amount of warming that has occurred. In fact, those who make the most outlandish claims of alarm are actually demonstrating skepticism of the very science they say supports them. It isn't just that the alarmists are trumpeting model results that we know must be wrong. It is that they are trumpeting catastrophes that couldn't happen even if the models were right as justifying costly policies to try to prevent global warming."

Even though this refers to the ‘models’ as showing what will happen, have you ever relied on a weatherman before? Have you ever been burnt by one? If we can not even see the weather 10 days down the road, how can we see it 100 years later?

William Gray, hurricane expert and head of the Tropical Meteorology Project at Colorado State University, in a 2005 interview with Discover magazine:
"I'm not disputing that there has been global warming. There was a lot of global warming in the 1930s and '40s, and then there was a slight global cooling from the middle '40s to the early '70s. And there has been warming since the middle '70s, especially in the last 10 years. But this is natural, due to ocean circulation changes and other factors. It is not human induced.
"Nearly all of my colleagues who have been around 40 or 50 years are skeptical as hell about this whole global-warming thing. But no one asks us. If you don't know anything about how the atmosphere functions, you will of course say, 'Look, greenhouse gases are going up, the globe is warming, they must be related.' Well, just because there are two associations, changing with the same sign, doesn't mean that one is causing the other."

This guy sure has the ‘knowledge’ to understand weather models, and he is skeptical for good reason

Global Warming or Just Hot Air? A Dozen Different Views

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------




-------------------------------------------------------------------------
So it would seem that all those SUV’s and coal Power Plants are also causing the Solar System itself to start heating up?

Sun Blamed for Warming of Earth and Other Worlds
Earth is heating up lately, but so are Mars, Pluto and other worlds in our solar system, leading some scientists to speculate that a change in the sun’s activity is the common thread linking all these baking events.
Others argue that such claims are misleading and create the false impression that rapid global warming, as Earth is experiencing, is a natural phenomenon.
While evidence suggests fluctuations in solar activity can affect climate on Earth, and that it has done so in the past, the majority of climate scientists and astrophysicists agree that the sun is not to blame for the current and historically sudden uptick in global temperatures on Earth, which seems to be mostly a mess created by our own species.
images.livescience.com..." target='_blank' class='tabOff'/>

BUT – this is not a unanimous consensus by ANY means

Habibullo Abdussamatov, the head of space research at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, recently linked the attenuation of ice caps on Mars to fluctuations in the sun's output. Abdussamatov also blamed solar fluctuations for Earth’s current global warming trend. His initial comments were published online by National Geographic News.
“Man-made greenhouse warming has [made a] small contribution [to] the warming on Earth in recent years, but [it] cannot compete with the increase in solar irradiance,” Abdussamatov told LiveScience in an email interview last week. “The considerable heating and cooling on the Earth and on Mars always will be practically parallel."
“Global warming on Neptune's moon Triton as well as Jupiter and Pluto, and now Mars has some [scientists] scratching their heads over what could possibly be in common with the warming of all these planets … Could there be something in common with all the planets in our solar system that might cause them all to warm at the same time?”

What if it’s just a natural phenomenon that occurs all the time and will not matter what we do.

GLOBAL WARMING- HAPPENS EVERY 1,500 YEARS

The response to my column on global warming February 5 was a balanced mix of those who believe in the “warming theory,” and those who don’t. The column was headed: “Humans Prefer Warm Over Cold Climates.”
The “global warming” warriors, led by environmental extremist liberal Al Gore, now despise me for believing in scientific facts and not “junk science” (radical theories).
Here are the real-world facts as written by S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery in their latest book, “Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years.”
The thesis of their book, based on extensive research, is that the slight warming of Earth at this time is simply a part of the long-established cycle involving activity with our sun. According to the authors, this activity is not dangerous, and is not something we could do anything about even if there any need to, which there isn’t.
Every 1500 Years?

MORE TO FOLLOW....

PART II

And what if its not warming we should be worried about, but the other side of the coin? What if we actually hurt ourselves and make the Earth cool!


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Are We on the Brink of a 'New Little Ice Age?'
When most of us think about Ice Ages, we imagine a slow transition into a colder climate on long time scales. Indeed, studies of the past million years indicate a repeatable cycle of Earth’s climate going from warm periods (“interglacial”, as we are experiencing now) to glacial conditions.

The period of these shifts are related to changes in the tilt of Earth’s rotational axis (41,000 years), changes in the orientation of Earth’s elliptical orbit around the sun, called the “precession of the equinoxes” (23,000 years), and to changes in the shape (more round or less round) of the elliptical orbit (100,000 years). The theory that orbital shifts caused the waxing and waning of ice ages was first pointed out by James Croll in the 19th Century and developed more fully by Milutin Milankovitch in 1938.

Undefined Ice age conditions generally occur when all of the above conspire to create a minimum of summer sunlight on the arctic regions of the earth, although the Ice Age cycle is global in nature and occurs in phase in both hemispheres. It profoundly affects distribution of ice over lands and ocean, atmospheric temperatures and circulation, and ocean temperatures and circulation at the surface and at great depth.
A new Ice Age?

So , we have more C02 than ever before. Hmm. I wonder is that means that plants will grow faster and better. If North America is the largest contributor to Global Warming then how are we CO2 negative?

So are we in an Ice Age now? The answer depends on one perspective.

An ice age is a period of long-term reduction in the temperature of Earth's climate, resulting in an expansion of the continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and mountain glaciers ("glaciation"). Glaciologically, ice age is often used to mean a period of ice sheets in the northern and southern hemispheres; by this definition we are still in an ice age (because the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets still exist). More colloquially, when speaking of the last few million years, ice age is used to refer to colder periods with extensive ice sheets over the North American and Eurasian continents: in this sense, the last ice age ended about 10,000 years ago. This article will use the term ice age in the former, glaciological, sense; and use the term glacial periods for colder periods during ice ages and interglacial for the warmer periods.

en.wikipedia.org..." target="_blank" class="postlink" rel="nofollow"> One Definition of an Ice Age


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scientists Find Evidence of Large Carbon Sink over North America
Princeton, N.J. -- Researchers from Princeton University, with collaborators from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration and Columbia University, have found evidence of higher-than-expected absorption of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide by ecosystems in North America.
The findings of the research team, the Carbon Modeling Consortium, are published today in the journal Science. The carbon-absorbing zone, known to geoscientists as a carbon "sink," soaked up high amounts of carbon dioxide during the period studied, from 1988 to 1992, confirming earlier studies. Evidence has been accumulating in recent years that a large component of this sink must be on land. Today's findings suggest that the North American continent plays a much larger role than what would be proportional to its size.
The researchers used atmospheric data provided by Tans, air-sea fluxes developed by Takahashi, and one ocean and two separate atmospheric models developed by GFDL. The team created a three-dimensional grid of the earth to model the flow of carbon dioxide. Researchers anticipated that as they moved from point to point on the grid across North America, atmospheric carbon levels would rise, based on the fact that North America is a major producer of carbon dioxide by burning of fossil fuels. Instead, carbon levels actually dropped between the North Pacific and the North Atlantic.
This suggests the presence of a carbon sink, which occurs when carbon dioxide absorbed by plants as they grow exceeds carbon dioxide released by dead material when it decays. Although the method does not identify the causes, there are a number of possible mechanisms that could be responsible for the sink. Forest regrowth in areas where generations of pioneers leveled trees to create farmland almost certainly plays an important role. Millions of acres east of the Mississippi have returned to forest.
Forest regrowth, and carbon absorption, in North America may be enhanced by some side effects of industrialization. Nitrogen deposition (a dilute form of acid rain) caused by combustion processes in automobiles and power plants can act as a fertilizer, as can the higher concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide in the air. Global warming can contribute to longer growing seasons, which have been observed in studies of satellite measurements cited by the team.

A Carbon Sink in North America?





So, again I ask, how could Olives be grown is Germany in the 1300’s? Then tell me how crops were grown in Greenland, yes GREENLAND, from 800-1300 AD?” So that was before the industrial revolution and before SUV and Coal-Fired power plants. Interesting thought isn’t it? What IF it’s just a natural cycle? Science has yet to PROVE that it’s all caused by man, in fact science seems to have evidence to support BOTH sides and they both can not be right.

But let’s get down to the real issue here and what is behind the big scare tactics. Since in the EnviroNazi agenda anything to do with capitalism is bad, and therefore they target the Unites States the most. Let’s make the US pay the highest price, while giving India and China a free ride. Ever heard of wealth redistribution before?

Why not take the time and do a real study, not one by the UN and its cronies. Heck they can not even agree with Al the Bore Gore on the subject. Let’s find out just how often the earth goes through these warming cycles. Let’s get to the bottom of the issue instead of following the alarmist attitude of those with an agenda.

Great Post!

"You have voted edsinger for the Way Above Top Secret award. You have two more votes this month."

It's refreshing to see some sensibility within the forest of disinformation and obfuscation that exists surrounding this topic.

double post

[edit on 31-3-2007 by Freedom_for_sum]

Originally posted by Freedom_for_sum
Great Post!

It's refreshing to see some sensibility within the forest of disinformation and obfuscation that exists surrounding this topic.

Thanks - I really have fun when people start conversations about glabal warming and I let them have some of the other side of the story. Heaven forbid if the press would report it. Funny thing is even Bill O'Reily has jumped on the bandwagon...go figure..

Originally posted by Freedom_for_sum
"You have voted edsinger for the Way Above Top Secret award. You have two more votes this month."

Thank You - its been a long time since I got one of those and not the "red flag' that I would usually wear with honor here at ATS. I guess things have changed abit since I was a regular..

Thanks again for the vote..

Russian Scientists Forecast Global Cooling in 6-9 Years

Global cooling could develop on Earth in 50 years and have serious consequences before it is replaced by a period of warming in the early 22nd century, a Russian Academy of Sciences’ astronomical observatory’s report says, the RIA Novosti news agency reported Friday.

Environmentalists and scientists warn not about the dangers of global warming provoked by man’s detrimental effect on the planet’s climate, but global cooling. Though never widely supported, it is a theory postulating an overwhelming cooling of the Earth which could involve glaciation.
Source

-----------------------------------------------------------

The Global Warming Mystery
Although there are still a few scientists who think the planet will be cooling soon, there's a huge and growing body of evidence that the temperature is headed in the opposite direction: up. If it is, the next questions are, in this order:

• Why is the globe warming?
• What should we do about it?

My interest in science doesn’t mean I’m an expert in climate science, so I have to rely on the evidence and arguments of others before I can draw any informed conclusions. I do believe that our technological capabilities will be a big factor in the solution, as I mentioned in this energy article—but before we can commit to a solution path, it would be a big help to know why the globe is warming, wouldn’t it?

A large number of people already have their minds made up; not only are they convinced they know “why,” but they also know “what we should do about it”: we humans are causing it, and the solution is centrally planned and enforced controls on the human activity and technologies that cause it. That message is getting such wide coverage, I wouldn’t be surprised if a majority of the general public agreed with it.

But if there is a majority, it doesn’t include me yet. Reason: I’m not so sure the “Why” question is settled. In fact, in the mainstream media, I think I’m detecting something Thomas Jefferson warned about:

The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.

The famous physicist and Nobel laureate Richard P. Feynman gave us a similar admonishment:

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.

Scientific truths are not determined by popular vote or opinion polls. They are determined by testing theories against observations. The book depicted at the top of this article has an interesting title, and an even more interesting subtitle: Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years , by S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery. I’m only partway through it, but wanted to get this posted in case you wanted to see a plausible alternative to the “greenhouse” theory for explaining why the planet is warming: the 1,500-year climate cycle, discovered recently by three European scientists (Willi Dansgaard, Hans Oeschger, and Claude Lorius). Here’s the opening paragraph:

So are we going to drive this C02 and greenhouse thing in the ground?

The earth is warming, but physical evidence from around the world tells us that human-emitted CO2 (carbon dioxide) has played only a minor role in it. Instead, the mild warming seems to be part of a natural 1,500-year climate cycle (plus or minus 500 years) that goes back at least one million years.

I’m going to withhold judgment on the “Why” question; I need to see the rest of the evidence and arguments in this book. Until we know why the globe is warming, we won’t know what to do about it. (Example of an unanswered question: Is increased CO2 causing the globe to warm, or is the naturally warming globe causing CO2 levels to rise?) When I see new evidence and theories like the one this book lays out, I become a bit more skeptical about the “greenhouse” theory to which so many others have already committed. As the authors say, if it’s really the 1,500-year cycle that’s causing the warming . . .

. . . then public policy must focus instead on adaptations—such as efficient air conditioning and building dikes around low-lying areas like Bangladesh.

Seems to me the 1500-year cycle theory should be getting more exposure and debate time from those truly interested in “settling the science.” Maybe this new book will help liven up the discussion.

So here is a pretty decent reason to not jump on the Global Warming bandwagon as of yet. It would seem that science is not in agreement. Again, I stated that I think the Earth is warming at present, I am just not convinced of the causes behind it. I still think that we have as much of a chance at Florida going underwater as we do the upper Mid-West being covered by ice.

Source

I read an article in the newspaper a few months ago and a scientists was saying something to the effect that a million years ago it was 70 degress at the north pole. Somehow they could tell that from core samples. Now I know it isn't close to 70 degrees at the north pole now days, so I think the whole man is causing global warming thing is a huge crock of crap. The temperature on this planet has risen and fallen by much more extreme differences then it is rising now, and man wasn't the cause. I do acknowledge that pollution isn't a good thing, and that countries need to cut back on industrial pollution and emissions, but to claim that the current warming trend is caused by man is ridiculous and not really backed by science.

Originally posted by D_Mason
claim that the current warming trend is caused by man is ridiculous and not really backed by science.

I couldn't agree more but there are many that are desperate to have you believe its all mans fault, and to trust them to fix the issue by changing YOUR lifestyle and standard of living. Sad isn't it?

Its that man exclusively is causing it, no right minded person would say that. Its that put it rather simply because i dont feel like typing at the moment, since the beggining of the earth it has been working to create a rather stable climate. Yes there are hot and cool periods which even out to a quite liveable middle range. The has ways of rebounding from climate shifts which stops things from getting out of hand. But one thing that never before in the history of planet earth ahs been factored into the equation is humans. We are in a natural warming period, but our addition of C02 to the atmosphere is changing the whole equation that has naturally existed. Just remember in the last 650,000 years the earth has not gone above a atmospheric C02 level of 300ppm, we are currently at the 380 mark, and rising.

Originally posted by edsinger
Even though this refers to the ‘models’ as showing what will happen, have you ever relied on a weatherman before? Have you ever been burnt by one? If we can not even see the weather 10 days down the road, how can we see it 100 years later?

It's amazing really that I would be less likely to be correct on whether next sunday will be warmer than today for where I am, than for whether a sunday in July will be warmer than today.

Maybe that is the difference. Climate is what you expect long-term, weather is what you get short-term. Weather is more chaotic. Climate is about statistical trends.

For example, I can state that it is almost certain that the average height of one hundred random men will be higher than the average height of one hundred random women. But my prediction is less likely to be true for single individuals.

[edit on 1-4-2007 by melatonin]

Both points are good but the proof is still not out there. As I stated and one can research it further if need be, North America is a CARBON SINK. So that 380 level might actually be 480 then? Plants love the stuff and are doing quite well, just look at the forests in North America. There are MORE trees now than in 1900.

Before we take a huge economical hit, maybe we need to step back and make damn sure before we jump.

I have a theory that links global warming directly to man so here it is:
ICEBREAKERS
So the north and south poles were solid ice back in the day and there were icebreakers but not so many as there are nowadays. A sheet of ice melts slowly all by itself if its warmed enough, but if you break up the sheet of ice down the middle there is more surface area and also increases the friction and where there is friction there is heat, causing the ice to melt.

i belive that it is earth natural cycle and it alway was and always will i think all that mankind has done is speed up the process of what the earth goes through

So if man is only 'helping' it along, what amount of economic hardships should we endure to affect it in only a minor way? IF its the sun, then I would argue we can do nothing to stop it. We do not have terraforming technology yet.