Global Warming - The facts and why it matters to you - General

This is probably one of the mostly hotly debated subjects in the world as opinions are so strong on either side of the argument. I believe that global warming is caused by human influence, but here are some natural causes. [b]Causes of adjustment in climate[/b] [b]Astronomical Forcing[/b] This is a natural cause of adjustments in climate and has three main aspects: [i]Orbital Eccentricity[/i] This is a 100,000 year cycle in which orbit changes from circular to elliptical. [img]http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/geol100/images/37/eccentricity.gif[/img] [i]Axial Tilt[/i] This is a 41,000 year cycle. The earth's axis changes from 21.5 degrees to 24.5 degrees, changing which parts of the earth are affected by the sun's heat. [img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2013/2133735427_46d32221a7.jpg[/img] [i]Axial Precession[/i] The earth's axis wobbles in a circular motion. Here's a handy diagram showing this. [img]http://www.enotes.com/w/images/thumb/6/61/AxialTiltObliquity.png/380px-AxialTiltObliquity.png[/img] [b]Solar Output[/b] Energy emitted by the sun varies as a result of sunspots. These are caused by magnetic storms. These blast heat to the earth. They occur on an 11 year cycle and there is reliable data proving this over a 400 year time period. Scientists suggest that this has contributed 11% of 20th century warming. [b]Volcanic and cosmic causes[/b] Major eruptions leave materials in the stratosphere. This forms a haze around the world , which can reduce the earth's exposure to the sun In 1916, an eruption in Tomboa led to a 'year without summer.' These changes are short. They only last for 2-3 years. The CO2 output of volcanoes is negligible and unlikely to affect the climate to any significant extent. [b]Global dimming[/b] This is a kind of interesting idea. It says that some gases have the effect of reflecting heat back from the earth. It suggests that recent warming may be due to reduced emissions of soot and sulphur dioxide in an effort to prevent acid rain. Here is a graph [img]http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/Milankovitch_Cycles_400000.gif[/img] This demonstrates something fascinating. Look at how CO2 and temperature correlates up to recent human history. CO2 release is caused BY the temperature change, as the CO2 change occurs after the temperature change. This is because warming due to effects such as those above causes the release of CO2 due to FEEDBACK MECHANISMS. An example of which is the melting of ice caps. The ice previously would have reflected solar radiation in cold periods, however, when things warmed up, the ice melted, exposing the dark ocean below. As we all know, dark colours absorb heat more readily, warming the ocean, resulting in worldwide warming. However, when we get to recent human history, this time lag disappears, showing that CO2 release is not being caused by temperature, but that temperature is being changed by CO2 release. This leads on nicely to my next topic. [b]Anthropogenic causes[/b] You think I'm a hippy right? Maybe I am, but I'm 99% convinced that we are the main cause of recent climate change. Here is why: The level of CO2 in the atmosphere is far above the 'natural' level and continues to rise. 11 of the 12 warmest years on record occurred between 1995 and 2006. (The number of years on record is large.) Temperature rises have been recorded on all continents since 1970 Satellite observations since 1993 suggest an annual rise in sea level of 3.1mm, and a decline in arctic sea ice of 2.7% per decade. [b]Why it matters for YOU[/b] We all know that climate change will affect others. Africa is expected to be the hardest hit due to its vulnerability, but you don't REALLY care about Africa do you? So here is why you should care. [b]USA[/b] Hurricanes are going to get worse. As the atmosphere warms, hot air will rise from the sea and circulate to form hurricanes of greater frequency and magnitude. Migrants. Expect more. Imagine the number of people who will try to leave areas such as Africa once warming occurs? Where will they go? [b]UK[/b] Cod. :( Our fisheries are at risk. Save our fish and chips. You're going to have the same migration problem as the US of A. See above. [b]Other Countries[/b] No idea! Google it and let me know or something and I'll include it here. [b]But, what should we do about it, 1-800dialaki?[/b] Fucked if I know. I hope you learnt something today and I didn't bore you too much! If so, watch this video. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5T_3WJPYY9g[/media] This image, posted by bl4h sums things up pretty nicely too. [img_thumb]http://s3.amazonaws.com/infobeautiful2/climate_skeptics_960.gif[/img_thumb]

well without a doubt something is happening and that we know

It's all natural and we make little to no impact on it. But of course governments will say otherwise to rake cash in off it.

[QUOTE=Moby-;27070245]It's all natural and we make little to no impact on it. But of course governments will say otherwise to rake cash in off it.[/QUOTE] Read the section from "Here is a graph"

[img]http://s3.amazonaws.com/infobeautiful2/climate_skeptics_960.gif[/img] [url=http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/climate-change-deniers-vs-the-consensus/]Information is Beautiful: Global Warming[/url]

i collect my farts in jars so i'm doing my part against the c02 levels.

[QUOTE=bl4h;27070283][img_thumb]http://s3.amazonaws.com/infobeautiful2/climate_skeptics_960.gif[/img_thumb] [url=http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/climate-change-deniers-vs-the-consensus/]Information is Beautiful: Global Warming[/url][/QUOTE] That's fantastic. I hope everywhere is reading the anthropogenic causes section, because I'm not a skeptic. Far from it. [editline]30th December 2010[/editline] [QUOTE=poopsicle;27070292]i collect my farts in jars so i'm doing my part against the c02 levels.[/QUOTE] My hero.

And then the water from the melted ice caps will fuck up the Gulf Stream and we will have a new ice age in Europe or something like that.

WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE :byodood: REPENT REPENNNT!

I will be long dead before the worst consequences of this take place, therefore I don't care.

[QUOTE=dcalde78;27070367]I will be long dead before the worst consequences of this take place, therefore I don't care.[/QUOTE] Not true.

[QUOTE=Assburgers;27070318]WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE :byodood: REPENT REPENNNT![/QUOTE] i heard countries like mine wont get into the ice age :smug: [editline]30th December 2010[/editline] hey compare a person that uses the internet for 8 hours and a person who drives a lot in a day

[QUOTE=dcalde78;27070367]I will be long dead before the worst consequences of this take place, therefore I don't care.[/QUOTE] I don't think this is completely true, and I also think it's kind of a selfish thing to do. I will definitely try to do my part in this whole situation.

[url]http://www.youtube.com/user/greenman3610[/url] All you would ever need to know about global warming and the sceptics.

I'm sorry, but as a human I look at the things that Global warming believers say about how Humans are the main cause of global warming and despair. To think that we as humans believe that we could cause the imbalance of a whole planet one of the most intricate and complex objects that exist in the whole god damn universe, are we truly that arrogant? Also we have the fact that on this planet the ice caps have melted many time (we could be speeding it up but it's in the end unavoidable) and each time they have melted the earth has been much warmer and all these events have occurred before. The ice caps indicate the presence of a Ice age and thus it could be said under that idea that we are still in a ice age and the only reason that we are getting all hot under the collar about this is that we have always had the ice caps thus we cannot even thing about life with out them. All this in mind i do not ignore the fact that we are speeding up the process, but we are not having such a huge effect that we have the right to claim it's all humanities fault.

[QUOTE=Konakona940;27070866]I'm sorry, but as a human I look at the things that Global warming believers say about how Humans are the main cause of global warming and despair. To think that we as humans believe that we could cause the imbalance of a whole planet one of the most intricate and complex objects that exist in the whole god damn universe, are we truly that arrogant? Also we have the fact that on this planet the ice caps have melted many time (we could be speeding it up but it's in the end unavoidable) and each time they have melted the earth has been much warmer and all these events have occurred before. The ice caps indicate the presence of a Ice age and thus it could be said under that idea that we are still in a ice age and the only reason that we are getting all hot under the collar about this is that we have always had the ice caps thus we cannot even thing about life with out them. All this in mind i do not ignore the fact that we are speeding up the process, but we are not having such a huge effect that we have the right to claim it's all humanities fault.[/QUOTE] We don't claim that greenhouse gases are the major cause of the ice ages and warming cyces. What drives climate change has long been believed to be variations in the earth's orbit around the sun over thousands of years. In a normal warming cycle, the sun heats the eart, the earth gets hotter. The oceans warm up, releasing huge amounts of CO2. This creates a greenhouse effect that makes warming much, much more intense. That's why humanity' release of CO2 is so perilous. We're out of step with the natural cycle. And we haven't even gotten to the stage where the oceans warm up. [url=http://s3.amazonaws.com/infobeautiful2/climate_skeptics_960.gif]Source[/url]

Wasn't there a guy who declared global warming to be bullshit because cycles like this are generally patterns which are sorta normal?

I'm not going to read this thread just to get depressed about how everything's gonna be bad. Live the moment guys, enjoy the life.

[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;27071033]Wasn't there a guy who declared global warming to be bullshit because cycles like this are generally patterns which are sorta normal?[/QUOTE] Oh wow. "A guy" declared it. Must not be true then, I mean, the only competing voices are the published opinions of every major scientific organization in the entire world. [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change[/url]

No, it was someguy from BBC or some crap like that which made a whole video regarding it.

Anyone have that comic where some politicians are upset that they cleaned the earth for nothing? Because that is a perfect example of the idiots who doesn't want to change Co2 emission or make sure we have a reliable renewable green source.

I am in favour of this because this means the French can't grow their wine and we can all laugh at them.

[QUOTE=Konakona940;27070866]I'm sorry, but as a human I look at the things that Global warming believers say about how Humans are the main cause of global warming and despair. To think that we as humans believe that we could cause the imbalance of a whole planet one of the most intricate and complex objects that exist in the whole god damn universe, are we truly that arrogant? Also we have the fact that on this planet the ice caps have melted many time (we could be speeding it up but it's in the end unavoidable) and each time they have melted the earth has been much warmer and all these events have occurred before. The ice caps indicate the presence of a Ice age and thus it could be said under that idea that we are still in a ice age and the only reason that we are getting all hot under the collar about this is that we have always had the ice caps thus we cannot even thing about life with out them. All this in mind i do not ignore the fact that we are speeding up the process, but we are not having such a huge effect that we have the right to claim it's all humanities fault.[/QUOTE] When we experience weather events like hurricanes and floods, it’s very easy for us to feel insignificant and powerless in the face of such massive natural forces. How can humans influence this? Well, yes, we can. Of course we can’t influence a single weather event, but we can and do have a long term influence on the climate that causes it. Since the industrial revolution, with ever-increasing supplies of fossil fuels, the activities of a dramatically expanding world population have made significant alterations to the make-up of our atmosphere. In some cases human-caused change is direct and unambiguous. The harmful effect of the human release of CFCs on the ozone layer is well documented and not disputed. Down on the ground, draining of marshland and deforestation can produce a significant decrease in water vapour in the atmosphere downwind; while the introduction of irrigation for agriculture has the opposite effect. Over time, both of these human activities can alter patterns of rainfall, turning deserts into green areas and green areas into deserts. In other cases the human causes of climate change are more complex. Emissions from cement production, pollution and the release of particulates to form smog in the atmosphere, all affect climate. Without doubt the most significant of all the human causes of changing climate is the dramatic increase in CO2. After remaining relatively steady for the last 650,000 years or more, in just the last two hundred years the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has suddenly shot up from 280, to more than 380 parts per million. And it’s still rising. This dramatic 30% increase has all taken place at the same time as humans have been burning fossil fuels at a greater and greater rate. Of course there are also natural sources of the CO2 in the atmosphere, such as vegetation, but fortunately there are differences that scientists can measure between the CO2 derived from fossil fuels and the CO2 derived from plants. The changing concentrations of the two types demonstrate that the additional CO2 can only be the result of human activity. [img]http://climate.nasa.gov/images/evidence_CO2.jpg[/img] Of course, as CO2 is the most common of greenhouse gasses, the additional concentration is what causes most of the rise in temperature. This is resulting in a change in weather patterns and ocean currents; the melting of global ice formations; and an increase in extreme weather events. So, yes; though we might be pretty helpless when it comes to controlling the weather, humans are certainly capable of changing the world’s climate. Source: [url]http://www.skepticalscience.com/Are-humans-too-insignificant-to-affect-global-climate.htm[/url]

its fucking cold

[QUOTE=Raider Munch;27071622]its fucking cold[/QUOTE] It's easy to confuse current weather events with long-term climate trends, and hard to understand the difference between weather and climate. It's a bit like being at the beach, trying to figure out if the tide is rising or falling just by watching individual waves roll in and out. The slow change of the tide is masked by the constant churning of the waves. In a similar way, the normal ups and downs of weather make it hard to see slow changes in climate. To find climate trends you need to look at how weather is changing over a longer time span. Looking at high and low temperature data from recent decades shows that new record highs occur nearly twice as often as new record lows. [img]http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/record-highs-lows.jpg[/img] New records for cold weather will continue to be set, but global warming's gradual influence will make them increasingly rare. Source: [url]http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-cold-weather.htm[/url]

This may or may not be true, I never really looked into it, but I heard that Humans account for 4% of the world's CO2 emissions every year, so anything we try and do is insignificant. The earth has also been warming for the past 11,000 years. We are in an ice age. We get hot and then chill out again, and repeatedly do that a couple times.

[QUOTE=redonkulous;27071658]This may or may not be true, I never really looked into it, but I heard that Humans account for 4% of the world's CO2 emissions every year, so anything we try and do is insignificant. The earth has also been warming for the past 11,000 years. We are in an ice age. We get hot and then chill out again, and repeatedly do that a couple times.[/QUOTE] Before the industrial revolution, the CO2 content in the air remained quite steady for thousands of years. Natural CO2 is not static, however. It is generated by natural processes, and absorbed by others. As you can see in Figure 1, natural land and ocean carbon remains roughly in balance and have done so for a long time – and we know this because we can measure historic levels of CO2 in the atmosphere both directly (in ice cores) and indirectly (through proxies). [img]http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/Carbon_Cycle.gif[/img] Figure 1: Global carbon cycle. Numbers represent flux of carbon dioxide in gigatons (Source: Figure 7.3, IPCC AR4). But consider what happens when more CO2 is released from outside of the natural carbon cycle – by burning fossil fuels. Although our output of 29 gigatons of CO2 is tiny compared to the 750 gigatons moving through the carbon cycle each year, it adds up because the land and ocean cannot absorb all of the extra CO2. About 40% of this additional CO2 is absorbed. The rest remains in the atmosphere, and as a consequence, atmospheric CO2 is at its highest level in 15 to 20 million years (Tripati 2009). (A natural change of 100ppm normally takes 5,000 to 20,000 years. The recent increase of 100ppm has taken just 120 years). Human CO2 emissions upset the natural balance of the carbon cycle. Man-made CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by a third since the pre-industrial era, creating an artificial forcing of global temperatures which is warming the planet. While fossil-fuel derived CO2 is a very small component of the global carbon cycle, the extra CO2 is cumulative because the natural carbon exchange cannot absorb all the additional CO2. The level of atmospheric CO2 is building up, the additional CO2 is being produced by burning fossil fuels, and that build up is accelerating. Source: [url]http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions.htm[/url]

Alright. Not really important, but the oceans can absorb all that CO2, not as fast as the CO2 levels are rising, but if we gave it a decade or two by itself it actually can hold a damn large amount.

[QUOTE=redonkulous;27071717]Alright. Not really important, but the oceans can absorb all that CO2, not as fast as the CO2 levels are rising, but if we gave it a decade or two by itself it actually can hold a damn large amount.[/QUOTE] I think a decade or two of zero emissions is unlikely.

I'm not a skeptic, I just find climate change difficult to believe when all there is to show for it is lots of graphs and some footage of big ice chunks falling into the sea. That being said, I think the world should clean up it's act, even if it's just for the benefit of having a sustainable infrastructure.