Does Global Warming Exist?

[MrPresident]

Does global warming exist? If it does is it caused by human and their actions? A recent study said that the ice caps on one of the poles (I forget which, probably north) had actually thickened. This goes against the global warming theory that the ice caps will melt and rise the sea level. So does global warming exist? Could it be that 200 years of statistics are not enough to predict the future temperature of the planet. Remember there was an ice age just 10,000 years ago (it may sound a long time but not in the lifespan of Earth). There is no doubt that humans have rised the carbon dioxide levels but by how much? and has it even affected anything? Are the environmentals just crying wolf? or are they the saviours of the world?

 

[duke o' york]

I'd want to have the results of some more studies that agree with that one before I'd say that the ice caps of whichever end we're concerned with actually have thickened. When I was younger and more callow I would have accepted the results of this survey, but nowadays so many surveys are published with conflicting results and so many are funded by companies with an interest in the results that I shan't believe any results until they are backed up by a number of others.

 

[catullus]

Originally posted by MrPresident
A recent study said that the ice caps on one of the poles (I forget which, probably north) had actually thickened. This goes against the global warming theory that the ice caps will melt and rise the sea level.

I would think it be quite logical that ice caps would thicken when temperature rises:
A(nta)rctic is cold. Humidity is very low. It almost NEVER snows in the extreme A(nta)rctic, most of the humidity is condensated in the sub-arctic zones (where I happen to live, six months of snow, six months of rain).
Now, temperature is rising. Humidity rises, more humidity is transported further towards the pole. Snow starts to fall, building the ice caps. You know, it still will be cold there. The caps (and glaciers) may not grow much larger, but most probably thicker. Like me, these days.

If all the ice in the Arctic melted today, sea level would not rise an inch. Floating ice will not do anything with water level when melting. Old story.
What WILL rise sea level is raising of the sea temperature. Water will expand when heated (above 4 centigrades, that is).

I'm not sure if the global thermal change we are seeing these years is a natural fluctuation or man-made. But bringing in ice cap size into the debate is most probably a straw man. Disinformation by somebody with a political agenda.

C.

 

[Matrix]

These discussions have been made before on this forum. The result: Europeans and others see a thread; Americans think we're bull****ting.

The decision for your poll is difficult however: Global Warming is natural. Otherwise the changes in temperature between day & night would be around 200 degrees Celcius. But it exists now in excess, warming the entire Earth.

Though scientifically proven, many Americans still do not acknowledge it. I don't want to end up in a discussion with anyone who says GW doesn't exist, because I know (s)he doesn't want to know. It's a lost cause.

 

[amadeus]

You can't determine if this "global warming" exists -- how long in to the past has our records of the temperatures/etc existed? Not over a few hundred years...

The earth has been around some five-six billion years, and we've recorded a teeny-tiny little piece of that. It'd be like finding a penny on the ground and trying to buy a car with it -- nobody is going to take what you say with a grain of salt.

 

[Matrix]

You can determine the amount of carbondioxide in the air (approx. 33% more than 100 years ago) and you can calculate what effect that has on the temperature.

But the extra carbondioxide emitted contributes to about 50% of the increased greenhouse effect. The other 50% is through N2O, CFK's and CH4.

Please let me make something clear: I've had and heard numberous discussions about the global warming. Usually it ends up to nothing because all parties are throwing with facts they hear from all directions, but they only remember the facts they want to hear. These fact come from the sky. Whenever someone thinks of something it spreads like a desease. So, what can you really believe? How can you tell what is right and what isn't?

The UN has made a work group called International Panel of Climate Change, IPCC. This is a group of scientists studying the climate and try to determine whether there is a sudden climate change. These scientists are from all directions: chemists, fysicists, geographers, but also economists and Bachelors of Laws. They try to determine how certain the climate has changed and what can be done about it, if that is nescessary.

Their website is http://www.ipcc.ch/. I've haven't had the time to take a close look at it, because I should be learning for an exam (which I'm gonna do just now). But perhaps you can find some certain information about the global warming.

Edit: in my previous posts I mixed up global warming with greenhouse effect. An excess of greenhouse effect gives global warming. Global warming itself isn't natural, naturally.

 

[willemvanoranje]

Since some Dutch guy discovered this heating thing, or at least had a big influence on the whole theory, I say it really excists. I can't come up with proof like the Carbondioxine blabla since I'm only a 15 year old boy that dropped science and physics.

 

[Nitro]

A government should follow the wish of the people. It's sad to see that this has reversed in America. It's sad to see how the opinions of Americans change as they get another president. It's sad to see how America's democracy is deteriorating. However, dear Americans friends, I need to add some notes...

The theoretical greenhouse effect is scientifically proven. CO2 in the atmosphere has the effect of the glas of a greenhouse. Fact. CO2 levels have risen. Fact. More CO2 means a higher temperature. Fact. However, the world is a complex, chaotic system. The effect of a higher temperature might be compensed (or enhanced) by secundary or tertiary effects. Difficult, difficult... hard to predict the final effect on the global system. Beautiful system, our Earth.

The main question is whether the theoretical temperature rise also occurs on the real-life global scale. Models have been made. In principe, just enhanced weather forecast models. Does anyone deny the possibility of weather forecasting? I don't. It's a matter of a model of a different (time) scale and (geographic) precision. Still, the architecture is the same. So... all the climate models predict a temperature rise. Fact. So, it's growing harder and harder to SCIENTIFICALLY deny the coming temperature rise.

A good model has to be tested, before the model outcome can be accepted. How can we validate greenhouse models? Well... we have temperature statistics for the last 400 years (Europe) and 100 years (whole earth). We have seen very odd temperature behaviour. And we have seen an incredible rise in temperature in the last decade. What do the models say? Well... the models reproduce this behaviour, but only after unexpected influence of the sun has been incorporated.

It's not the weather statistics that form the basis of the greenhouse theory, the weather statistics have completed the evidence. It is not a matter of 'believing' in the enhanced greenhouse effect. It exists. Bill Clinton, very wise man, and Al Gore, smart guy, knew that. Bush, "interesting choice", tried to reject it. He asked a couple of 'his' scientists to re-evaluate the work of thousands of other scientists. Painfully for Bush, 'his' scientists agreed with the IPCC that the greenhouse effect exists. Still... he doesn't want to believe it, and therefore, many Americans don't believe it.

The Clinton administration acknowledged the climate problems, but they were fighting with Europe over the details and the wisdom of the Kyoto-protocol. Very good! Discussions are good, because the results of the discussions will be better.

The Bush administration has disqualified itself in the greenhouse discussions. America is no longer a 'respected' discussion partner. That's their choice, but America mustn't make the mistake that such an attitude is without consequence. Such behaviour is not tolerated by the European people. We will remain friends, but sympathy is growing thin. The European people are getting more and more irritated by the arrogance of the United States.

...the arrogance of the United States... where did I hear that before?

Nitro

By the way:
God does not care about countries. God cares only about people.

 

[FearlessLeader2]

Heh. Forgive that, it seemed so obvious, and yet, no one had said it yet.

The fears about global warming, oddly enough, came from an ancient harbinger of doom, the planet Venus.

Noted Gradualist Carl Sagan, in an attempt to explain the very high surface temperatures on Venus without resorting to any answer that involved a catastrophy, postulated that it was possible that Venus' atmosphere was trapping the heat in. It is odd to note that he apparently discards Venus high (90%+) albedo as insignificant in his calculations.

In spite of the fact that Venus reflects most of its received sunlight away, its mean surface temperature is just shy of what is needed to melt lead, approx 600F. It is Sagan's position that the small amount of light that Venus' surface does receive is trapped in the atmosphere and builds up.

Recent radar imagery of Venus' surface tells a very different tale however. There are obvious signs of a recent, epic surge in vulcanism and tectonic activiy on the surface, indicating that a vast amount of geothermal activity is responsible for Venus' temperature. Theories abound for the cause of this vulcanism, but they do not impact this discussion. The vulcanism is there, why doesn't matter as much as what its presence means to the greenhouse theory.

As yet, this data has not been made widely public, nor have any scientists yet stepped forward to counter Sagan's claims. He himself has made no comments on these new findings.

And now for the part that may be considered rude:

In spite of these unasked, unanswered (and doubtless un-looked-for) questions, no one has reconsidered global warming or the greenhouse effect. Apparently, they are now part of the canon of Science, and as such, are inviolate, whatever the facts.

 

[Matrix]

Originally posted by FearlessLeader2
And now for the part that may be considered rude:

In spite of these unasked, unanswered (and doubtless un-looked-for) questions, no one has reconsidered global warming or the greenhouse effect. Apparently, they are now part of the canon of Science, and as such, are inviolate, whatever the facts.

Nitro just explained that Bush' scientists reconsidered the global warming and they as well came to the conclusion the Earth is warming faster than should. And ofcourse there are many other institutions which have looked at it. IPCC came to life (by the UN) to eliminate all the uncertainties. With the motto: "what is happening, once and for all?"

 

[woke25]

Ok, I actually study environmental science so I will tell you what they have taught me, so you know the environmentalists point of view...

The green house effect is a natural earth phenomenon. The increase and decrease of CO2 in the athmosphere has an almost 100% correlation to the cycles of the Ice periods in history. They also have almost 100% correlation with the distance of the sun to the earth.

Because this green house effect is natural, and related to the distance of the sun to the earth as well, it is natural to assume that humans can hardly have effect on such a wide schale phenomenon that has existed for millions of years.

However, the greenhouse effect is caused by increase of CO2. The speed in which it increases has a natural speed, but can ofcourse be influenced by pumping lots of CO2 in the atmosphere. In short people call this the green house effect, but environmentalist mostly use the term the enhanced green house effect because we enhance it, we speed up the natural phenomenon.

And with speeding up the green house effect, we also speed up the climate changes all over the world (most of scientist believe this is a 100% proven effect of the green house effect) which causes floads and whirlwinds. Because we think these effects of the green house effect are unfortunate, most people believe we should not enhance such an unfortunate natural phenomenon.

So all we are discussing when talking about the green house effect is, whether it is desired to enhance a natural phenomenon that is giving us unfortunate other natural phenomenons.

therefor, the right answer to this poll would be the combination of the first 2 answers. They are both true.

 

[Sixchan]

I've been thinking about fossil feuls.

Now, trees take in CO2 and give out O2, right?

That means the trees store the carbon. As the trees get crushed into coal, and burnt, aren't we just reusing the CO2? Wasn't it in the atmospere anyway at one point?

 

[Matrix]

The point is that by burning these fossil fuels, we're bringing all the carbon (in the form of carbondioxide) up in the air at once, while it should've been in the ground for a couple of years (millions).

 

[Sixchan]

Oh. Well, at least I have one less incorrect idea in my head now.

 

[october]

I am a meteorologist and I can tell you that global warming exists. Every day the sun warms the surface of the earth. Then every night it cools back down.


Seriously, I don't profess to be an expert in long range forecasting, climatology, or environmental science. I just forecast the weather, no farther out than ten days. But I will tell you what I see and what seems to make sense.

There are a lot of holes in evolutionary and "old earth" theory that do not make sense. I think it is more of a leap of faith to believe in some of the stuff they teach as fact in science classrooms than to just believe in a Creator who created what we see. But that is not where I intend to go. I just intend to say that I do not see much evidence either way for global warming. It would take a huge amount of energy to affect the whole earth and the whole atmosphere that way. Consider this: there is enough energy in a hurricane to power the United States electrically for 300 years. There is enough energy in a thunderstorm to equal several of our most powerful nuclear bombs. To think that we can have such an effect on the entire atmosphere all around the earth is unthinkable to me. I think what we see are natural fluctuations in the balance. I don't know where ice age fits into all of this because I have not studied it, but I do know that the Global Flood rearranged the surface of the earth and explains a lot of things that puzzle geologists and evolutionary scientists, and I propose that some of the evidence for an ice age comes from this. The way I see it, there could not have been an ice age because before the flood the whole earth was tropical; there were no ice caps.

So in short, I don't think global warming exists in the sense that humans are having an adverse effect on the global energy balance. I believe there are many harmful things we are doing to the environment, but to some degree the environment has a way of dealing with it.

-october-

 

[Nitro]

Indeed, the enhanced greenhouse effect is beyond our intuitive belief. It's so hard to imagine that we can have an impact on such a large scale. But can you imagine that there are 6 billion humans? I can't... And meteorologists know how thin the atmosphere actually is...

Some things are beyond our intuition; intuition can be misguiding. That's when science steps in. Science doesn't claim to 'own the truth', but you cannot dismiss science simply because it conflicts with your 'feelings'.

 

[Whiskey Priest]

Well. I'm not much for the science of it all but I begin to beleive that global warming is real when the temperature is above freezing in Canada in January. Reached 11C in Toronto yesterday.

 

[macaskil]

Re: Carl Sagan

It would be difficult for Sagan to comment on Global Warming, as he is dead!

The C02 theory looks sound enough. Looking into temperature and C02 levels in the past few million years there certainly seems to be a link. The world is actually getting colder in the long term. The problem would be if any change (hotter or colder) were to take place so quickly that neither human beings nor nature could adjust.

In my opinion we will have run out of fossil fuels within 100 years so the problem will solve itself. Once we are not producing C02 a massive program of removing C02 from the atmosphere by planting trees, felling them then burying them might do the trick.

In the meantime the fact that 90% of oil reserves are in the Middle East should make Western Countries look for alternatives anyway. As Sheik Yamani once said, the Stone Age didn't end because people ran out of stone, but because they found a better alternative.

The above may make me look like an eco-freak but I actually favour using Nuclear Power at least until something better is found. Otherwise we'll all be wearing fur coats indoors and powering our computers with exercise bikes in 100 years.

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

Well, I am sweating and stinking more than I used to. Does that help?

 

[MrPresident]

The above may make me look like an eco-freak but I actually favour using Nuclear Power at least until something better is found. Otherwise we'll all be wearing fur coats indoors and powering our computers with exercise bikes in 100 years.

You mean you don't currently power your computer with an exercise bike, get with the times man. Anyway, I am against an increase nuclear power usage because it is just as bad as fossil fuel (toxic waste, possibly cancer if you live near one etc). I am waiting for hydrogen power. If it is good enough for the sun then it is good enough for me.