Do you think Global Warming is happening?

Question

Do you think Global Warming is happening?

Answer 1

mabi

Answer 2

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;...

We know it's warming, and we've measured how much:

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science...

Scientists have a good idea how the Sun and the Earth's natural cycles and volcanoes and all those natural effects change the global climate, so they've gone back and checked to see if they could be responsible for the current global warming.  What they found is:

Over the past 30 years, all solar effects on the global climate have been in the direction of (slight) cooling, not warming.  This is during a very rapid period of global warming.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/62902...

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

So the Sun certainly isn't a large factor in the current warming.  They've also looked at natural cycles, and found that we should be in the middle of a 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...

So it's definitely not the Earth's natural cycles.  They looked at volcanoes, and found that

a) volcanoes cause more global cooling than warming, because the particles they emit block sunlight

b) humans emit over 150 times more CO2 than volcanoes annually

http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/Gases/man....

So it's certainly not due to volcanoes.  Then they looked at human greenhouse gas emissions.  We know how much atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased over the past 50 years:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mauna...

And we know from isotope ratios that this increase is due entirely to human emissions from burning fossil fuels.  We know how much of a greenhouse effect these gases like carbon dioxide have, and the increase we've seen is enough to have caused almost all of the warming we've seen over the past 30 years (about 80-90%).  You can see a model of the various factors over the past century here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Clima...

This is enough evidence to convince almost all climate scientists that humans are the primary cause of the current global warming.

Answer 3

yes. If we dont help act fast and stop doing damages to the enviorment then it will get worse.

Answer 4

The globe has warmed and cooled many times in it's history. Long before man was burning oil and gas. Global warming / cooling is a natural occurrence.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't be good stewards of the planet. Turn off lights, keep your car tuned up, pick up after yourself etc..

Man-Made global warming is a political tool to get citizens (specifically America citizens) to pay more taxes - currently called "green taxes".  By and large, man-made global warming scientist's are re-thinking their position and switching sides.

Answer 5

Are you asking this question because you want to hear all the nut-bags tell you it isn't, or are you asking to see who is out there in cyberland with information and factual knowledge on the subject?

Humans do have the power, when we are talking that the worlds 6.7billion people are burning and releasing carbon into the atmosphere.  It seems that if your not burning carbon stored from 400 million years ago (when the planet was a different world, one humans could not have evolved on), your cutting down and burning vast swathes of forest. The ocean as a carbon sink is full, we know this because of the increase in readable carbon in the atmosphere. Then there is the empirical evidence, the rising of the oceans, the melting of the polar ice, and the ever increasing weather anomalies.

P.S. Snopes is a political bias rag.

Answer 6

yes it is actually true if u watch AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH it might change your mind if u don't belive in global warming

Answer 7

no absolutely not even the founder of the weather channel thinks its a joke

Answer 8

Yes, there's a lot of evidence at this point.

Here's the conclusion the Bush administration finally came to when they could not deny science any longer:

"The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has reached a record high relative to more than the past half-million years, and has done so at an exceptionally fast rate. Current global temperatures are warmer than they have ever been during at least the past five centuries, probably even for more than a millennium. If warming continues unabated, the resulting climate change within this century would be extremely unusual in geological terms. Another unusual aspect of recent climate change is its cause: past climate changes were natural in origin, whereas most of the warming of the past 50 years is attributable to human activities."

"The main reason for the current concern about climate change is the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration (and some other greenhouse gases), which is very unusual for the Quaternary (about the last two million years). The concentration of CO2 is now known accurately for the past 650,000 years from antarctic ice cores. During this time, CO2 concentration varied between a low of 180 ppm during cold glacial times and a high of 300 ppm during warm interglacials. Over the past century, it rapidly increased well out of this range, and is now 379 ppm. For comparison, the approximately 80-ppm rise in CO2 concentration at the end of the past ice ages generally took over 5,000 years. Higher values than at present have only occurred many millions of years ago."

http://www.gcrio.org/ipcc/ar4/wg1/faq/ar...

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Ex-heads of EPA blast Bush on global warming

Republicans, Democrat say president is neglecting environment

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10913795

WASHINGTON - Six former heads of the Environmental Protection Agency — five Republicans and one Democrat — accused the Bush administration Wednesday of neglecting global warming and other environmental problems.

“We need leadership, and I don’t think we’re getting it,” he said at an EPA-sponsored symposium centered around the agency’s 35th anniversary. “To sit back and just push it away and say we’ll deal with it sometime down the road is dishonest to the people and self-destructive.”

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Frequently Asked Questions from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. ...

http://www.gcrio.org/ipcc/ar4/wg1/faq/in...

Answer 9

There's no question about it. It IS happening. What's controversial is the contributors.

Answer 10

Yes I believe global warming is happening. It isn't a false idea put into our heads from scientists or the media. The proof is there.

Answer 11

I don't think it is happening. Humans just don't have the power to unintentionally do so much damage that America's big cities will be submerged in water in a decade or two. Al Gore has said some other ridiculous things such as that by the time the teens of today reach their 40s or 50s, it will be too hot to go outside. I find it slightly ridiculous that people cite Al Gore's movie as such an accurate source. I have seen it, and most of his sources for scientific facts are his friends. In addition to this, Al Gore uses 20 times the amount of energy as the average person, so if he's so concerned maybe he should lower his energy usage before telling us that we need to.

Answer 12

I don't believe the man made part. And I certainly don't believe the gloom and doom c**p.

Answer 13

I believe in it. Havent you seen whats happening? I think sure maybe it was some natural process, but were deffinitly making it worse.

Answer 14

The world just had the coldest winter in 45 years

Answer 15

of course I think so. and it's happening faster than I could have ever imagined.

in Spain, the weather is completely mad. we are now having temperatures of 20 degrees or even more. if we are in winter!!! that's amazing. People is lying on the beach, sunbating... and there is no rain, so many places have water restrictions. Definitively, the climate is changing and this is not a good thing...