Are there any alternative theorys to explain climate change?

Question

I'm not denying climate change or that it could be CO2 and the greenhouse effect causing it, but i have heard that there are lots of other theory's to explain climate change. i have searched for them on the internet, however cannot find any good information on any of them. if you know of any realistic theory's could you explain them, or give me a web address to a website about them?

Answer 1

There are lots of alternative theories.  Not really any good ones, but plenty of theories!  Here are some of the better ones.

1) The Sun is causing it.

This is wrong, because solar output has remained basically unchanged (decreased slightly on average) over the past 30 years as global warming has accelerated rapidly.  This graph from the Stanford Solar Center illustrates the point nicely:

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-...

No scientific study has attributed more than one-third of the warming over the past 30 years to the Sun.  Not one single study.  And most just attribute 0-10% to the Sun.  After all, how could the Sun be responsible when it's not getting any hotter?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

2) "Natural cycles".  This is wrong because according to the Earth's natural orbital (Milankovitch) cycles, we should be in the middle of a very long-term and gradual cooling period right now.

"An often-cited 1980 study by Imbrie and Imbrie determined that 'Ignoring anthropogenic and other possible sources of variation acting at frequencies higher than one cycle per 19,000 years, this model predicts that the long-term cooling trend which began some 6,000 years ago will continue for the next 23,000 years.'"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitc...

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/ab...

3) Galactic cosmic rays (GCRs).  This is the best alternative theory because while it's extremely unlikely to be causing the current warming, it has not been 100% disproven unlike the first 2.

The theory claims that GCRs "seed" clouds, which cause cooling by reflecting sunlight. So if you have fewer GCRs (because the Sun's magnetic field has increased to block them), you have less cloudcover, and more warming.

However, there are many fundamental flaws with this theory, as discussed here:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/arc...

Plus there are many basic scientific facts which can only be explained if the current global warming is being caused by an increased greenhouse effect due to carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere from humans burning fossil fuels.

For example, the planet is warming as much or more during the night than day.  If the warming were due to the Sun, the planet should warm a lot more during the day when the Sun has influence.  Greenhouse gases trap heat all the time, so they warm the planet regardless of time of day.  Another example is that the upper atmosphere is cooling because the greenhouse gases trap the heat in the lower atmosphere.  If warming were due to the Sun, it would be warming all layers of the atmosphere.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

Sure before the asteroid strike that killed the dinosaur the earth was thirty degrees warmer,  we're just going back to our old equilibrium.

Answer 3

A few, none with any basis in science.

The idea that this is a change in the Sun has been totally disproven, because (duh) we measure the Sun.

"Recent oppositely directed trends in solar

climate forcings and the global mean surface

air temperature", Lockwood and Frolich (2007), Proc. R. Soc. A

doi:10.1098/rspa.2007.1880

http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/pro...

News article at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6290228.st...

There are other weird "skeptical" theories like cosmic rays.  The difficulty is, they have no data to prove it, no physical mechanism to explain it.  And the "skeptics" disagree with each other, too.

On the other side you have thousands of climatologists and every major scientific organization agreeing it's mostly caused by greenhouse gases, mostly CO2.

So it's pretty much a no brainer for most all world leaders (and me).

Answer 4

COMMENTS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING

By John Coleman (the founder of the Weather Channel)

It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM.

Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data back in the late 1990's to create an allusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental wacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the "research" to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus.

Environmental extremist, notable politicians among them then teamed up with movie, media and other liberal, environmentalist journalists to create this wild "scientific" scenario of the civilization threatening environmental consequences from Global Warming unless we adhere to their radical agenda.

Now their ridiculous manipulated science has been accepted as fact and become a cornerstone issue for CNN, CBS, NBC, the Democratic Political Party, the Governor of California, school teachers and, in many cases, well informed but very gullible environmental conscientious citizens. Only one reporter at ABC has been allowed to counter the Global Warming frenzy with one 15 minutes documentary segment.

I do not oppose environmentalism. I do not oppose the political positions of either party.

However, Global Warming, i.e. Climate Change, is not about environmentalism or politics. It is not a religion. It is not something you "believe in." It is science; the science of meteorology. This is my field of life-long expertise.

And I am telling you Global Warming is a nonevent, a manufactured crisis and a total scam. I say this knowing you probably won't believe me, a mere TV weatherman, challenging a Nobel Prize, Academy Award and Emmy Award winning former Vice President of United States. So be it.

I suspect you might like to say to me, "John, look the research that supports the case for global warming was done by research scientists; people with PH D's in Meteorology. They are employed by major universities and important research institutions. Their work has been reviewed by other scientists with PH D's. They have to know a lot more about it than you do. Come on, John, get with it. The experts say our pollution has created an strong and increasing greenhouse effect and a rapid, out of control global warming is underway that will sky rocket temperatures, destroy agriculture, melt the ice caps, flood the coastlines and end life as we know it. How can you dissent from this crisis? You must be a bit nutty.

Allow me, please, to explain how I think this all came about. Our universities have become somewhat isolated from the rest of us. There is a culture and attitudes and values and pressures on campus that are very different. I know this group well. My father and my older brother were both PHD-University types. I was raised in the university

culture. Any person who spends a decade at a university obtaining a PHD in Meteorology and become a research scientist, more likely than not, becomes a part of that single minded culture. They all look askance at the rest of us, certain of their superiority. They respect government and disrespect business, particularly big business. They are environmentalists above all else.

And, there is something else. These scientists know that if they do research and results are in no way alarming, their research will gather dust on the shelf and their research careers will languish. But if they do research that sounds alarms, they will become well known and respected and receive scholarly awards and, very importantly, more research dollars will come flooding their way.

So when these researchers did climate change studies in the late 90's they were eager to produce findings that would be important and be widely noticed and trigger more research funding. It was easy for them to manipulate

the data to come up with the results they wanted to make headlines and at the same time drive their environmental

agendas. Then their like minded PHD colleagues reviewed their work and hastened to endorse it without question.

There were a few who didn't fit the mold. They did ask questions and raised objections. They did research with contradictory results. The environmental elitists berated them brushed their studies aside.

I have learned since the Ice Age is coming scare in the 1970's to always be a skeptic about research. In the case of global warming, I didn't accept media accounts. Instead I read dozens of the scientific papers. I have talked with numerous scientists. I have studied. I have thought about it. I know I am correct when I assure you there is no run away climate change. The impact of humans on climate is not catastrophic. Our planet is not in peril. It is all a scam, the result of bad science.

I am not alone in this assessment. There are hundreds of other meteorologists, many of them PH D's, who are as certain as I am that this global warming frenzy is based on bad science and is not valid.

I am incensed by the incredible media glamour, the politically correct silliness and rude dismissal of counter arguments

by the high priest of Global Warming.

In time, a decade or two, the outrageous scam will be obvious. As the temperature rises, polar ice cap melting, coastal flooding and super storm pattern all fail to occur as predicted everyone will come to realize we have been duped.

The sky is not falling. And, natural cycles and drifts in climate are as much if not more responsible for any climate

changes underway.

I strongly believe that the next twenty years are equally as likely to see a cooling trend as they are to see a warming trend.

Answer 5

Weather has fluctuated since day two of the earth.  Who knows??

Answer 6

the fact, is that climate change is inevatable, and has been happening since the earth was created. humans may well have dramatically increased it though, through those things you've listed. also, apparently cows contribute a fifth to it though gas. (!). i think the reason its hard to find what your looking for is its starting to become very controversial to deny it or suggest something different.

Answer 7

The Oregon Institute of Science has published lots of papers with alternative theorys...the only problem is that they are all wrong and paid for by the fuel companies that sponser them.... You could also start by doing some research and watching the great global warming swindle, a very interesting movie with lots of facts and information, the only problem is that they are all wrong also.....mmmmmm? Kind of makes you think that there are not any alternative theories that stand up. I mean, if there were would not the ipcc or any one of the thousands of scientists have come up with something....?

Answer 8

Look up in the sky.  It's a giant ball of burning gas.  It's the SUN!!  

The sun's intensity ebbs and flows, causing fluctuations in the earth's climate.

Answer 9

My theory is that life changes & it is all in perfect divine right order. Something always dies away & changes form & the earth is just doing that & we are all Ok.