How do you decide the cause of global warming when 1/2 the scientist blame man and the other 1/2 blame the Sun

Question

There's enough research by NASA and other scientific groups that say the sun is the cause of global warming, and enough research by government saying that man is causing the Earth to warm.

What information do you use to choose the side you agree with? What criteria did you use to choose which group to believe?

Why are you so sure the other side is wrong? Both sides use scientist that have high degree of knowledge about the subject.

Answer 1

I agree with Bob's answer. The scientists are not split 50/50 on this issue.

Changes in the sun's energy can and has changed in the past.  There is often a strong correlation between solar irradiance and temperature here on Earth. One scientific study that the "denier" often quoted says as much. The study also says that the most recent global warming since 1975 does not if this correlation. “During these last 30 years the solar total irradiance… and cosmic ray flux has not shown any significant secular trend, so that at least this most recent warming must have another source."[1]

The sun is not the only thing that can affect climate on Earth. Small changes, or wobbles, in Earth's orbit and the chemical composition of Earth's atmosphere also have an effect. On such chemical in the atmosphere are greenhouse gases.

The global atmospheric concentration of methane has increased by approximately 148% sine the time of industrialization, and the concentration of CO2 has increased by 35%.

Almost every scientist that studies the climate agrees that our recent global warming is caused by increases in greenhouse gases. Case in point is this nonsense from Senator Inhofe that "Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims".[2] Most of those scientists do not even study climate, and only a few have published research in peer-review scientific journals on the issue of climate change in recent years.

Anyhow 400 scientists is just a drop in the bucket. The American Geophysical Union has over 50,000 scientists as members,[3] and this is only one such organization. I am willing to bet money that almost every member of the AGU supports the scientific consensus on climate change, or else they would have already shown up on Senator's Inhofe's list.

They way to find reliable information is search out research that has been published in peer-reviewed journals (Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Journal of Climate, Journal of Geophysical Research, Nature, Science).

If the source is a “think tank,” then it is probably not reliable. These think tanks (Heartland Institute, Friends of Science, Science & Environmental Policy Project, Cato Institute, others) often receive money from Exxon for the sole purpose of confusing the public and policy makers for the purpose of delaying action.

Answer 2

I think it is both the sun and man that are causing global warming.  I don't pick sides on this issue.  I just try to make sure that I am living "green" and doing my part to help with the human part of the problem.

Answer 3

SAVE OUR  EARTHQUAKE/TSUNAMI FREE

HELLO

I am S.Riya Subbu. I want to save our Earth with your help.

We are living under the control of Pancha Bhoot ( Water,Air,Fire,Earth, Universe).

Now frequently Earth Quake/Tsunami/Typhoon  is coming  all over World and destroying all Human beings/Livelihood/House/Building/Bridges... Stock  within a second. Also now days Global Warming is going on Alarmingly. Excess Rain/Flood destrying our Life.

Recently Canada  also face Earth Quake Problem. In Indonesia also facing Earth Quake Problem  frequently.

Please you all join with me to save our EARTH.

Do the following simple Systems in your House/Office/Working Place/Your Street/Your Society/Flat.

1.Are you saving  the following items in your House/Office/Work Place?

1. Current

2. Water

3.Petrol/Diesel/Kerosene

4.Gas ( LPG & CNG).

5.White Papper/News Paper

6. Wood

7. Cooking Oil

Note: the above all necessary for Day to Day Life. Please Try to Reduce the usage.

2. Are your Keeping your House free of the following items?

1.Plastic Free. Don’t Store Plastic Bags/Cups/Spoon( for example. Take Cotton Bag with you to market/Shopping)

2.Unutilised items like broken Cycle/Old TV Cover/broken Table/Chairs/Tyres/ Un Utilised/Non Repairable items like Bike/Car/Mixer/Washing Machine/Cooler/Utensils.

Note: Please Dispose this items which is not is use. Sent it for Re-Cycle.

3. What type of Conveyance are you using?

1.Car    2.Two Wheeler  3.Cycle 4.Using Public Transportation/Train

Note: Utilise Public Transportation/Sharing Auto/Car. You can avoid Traffic Jam/Parking Problem.Keep one two wheeler/One Car/One House for each family.( Don’t buy more than that). It will help us reduce Petrol Expenses/Pollution/Parking/Traffic Jam.

4. How many Children are you having

1. one  2. Two 3. More than Two 4. Unmarried

Note: Make one or Two Children only. Give them Good Food/Education/Shelter.

If population is more pollution is more.

5. Are Short out your Cub Board/Wardrobe?

1.Once in a Month  2. Once in 6 Months 3. Not at all doing  

Note: Short out Your Wardrobe/Cup Board/Working Table/House Kitchen free of unnecessary items. Give your Books/Old Pant/Saree/Shirt  to Poor/Needy.

6.What type of Gift are you giving to your Relatives & Friends?

1.Toys/Games 2. Greeting Card  3. Flower Bouque 4.Saplings like Rose/X- MasTree

Note: Please present Flowers/Anthorium Saplings/Rose/Seeds of Different type of Seeds as Gift to your Friends/Relatives.This will reduce the waste of Plastics Paper/Balloon/Wrapper/Cartoon Box.

AVOID

1. Avoid Smoking/Chewing Tobacco/pan and avoid Smoking/Spitting in Public Place. Smoking leads to Health disorder and it is leads to Cancer.

2. Avoid wasting Food in House/Function. If food is excess, please share the food with Poor. Take limited food in your Plate. Do not throw in dust Bin.

3. Avoid dumping Materials in House/Office. Be Plan before buying any Materials.

4. Avoid unnecessary Travels. Be plan before Travel.

5. Pray Rivers. But Do not throw Plastic Bags/Garbage on River. ( I have seen many people are throwing Garbage bag in river. Rivers are very Important for our Life.

6. Do not use Coluring Agent for Hair. It will make eye irritation/Stain in Shirt collar/Pillow Cover/Bed Sheets.

7. Do Simple Marriage. This will help us to save Money/Food/Transportation/ Reduce  arrangements etc.

Please Run Cycle (if your office/School is near to your Hose) for your Health/Wealth.

Running Cycle is keep your Body Fit. Also it helps us to reduce Petrol Bill/Pollution/Weight/Bulging Stomach/Obesity/Gas trouble in stomach and of course reduce your Petrol Bill/Medical Bill.

Please spread this Message to all your Family Members/Relation/Friends/Office Colleague/To  School /College/To your village/To your Society etc

S.RIYA  SUBBU

Please share your suggestion/Views with me thro  e.mail [e-mail]

Answer 4

I don't decide the cause of GW, scientists do. The sun warms us and the greenhouse effect traps that warmth. The more heat is trapped the warmer it gets. Kind of like adding more insulation to your house. The more you add, the more heat you trap.

You have something wrong in your first sentance. NASA supports AGW theory, not the sun as the cause. I will have a link so that you can read it from their website. Also, there is another link to the National Academy of Sciences. These are just 2 of the most trusted scientific organizations in the world. Below are more...

Scientific organizations statement (Joint science academies’ statement 2005) from the G8 nations.

"It is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activities (IPCC 2001)2. This warming has already led to changes in the Earth's climate."

Furthermore...

"The scientific understanding of climate change is now

sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action. It

is vital that all nations identify cost-effective steps that they

can take now, to contribute to substantial and long-term

reduction in net global greenhouse gas emissions."

Signatories shown below...

Academia Brasiliera de Ciências, Brazil

Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

Royal Society of Canada, Canada

Académie des Sciences, France

Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher, Leopoldina, Germany

Indian National Science Academy, India

Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei,Italy

Science Council of Japan, Japan

Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia

National Academy of Sciences, United States of America

Royal Society, United Kingdom

Other organizations...

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007

U.S. National Research Council, 2001

American Meteorological Society

American Geophysical Union

American Institute of Physics

American Astronomical Society

Federal Climate Change Science Program, 2006

American Association for the Advancement of Science

Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London

Geological Society of America

American Chemical Society

Engineers Australia (The Institution of Engineers Australia)

The Joint science academies’ statement 2007 is also linked below.

I didn't choose sides, as this is not a game. But, I decided that the organizations listed above knew what they were talking about.

Please give me a list of respected organizations that don't agree with Anthropogenic Global Warming and I'll listen to you.

Answer 5

It is all man's fault.  We are so powerful that we are even making it happen on other planets in the solar system right now.

It's a shared responsibility.  The earth has gone through temperature cycles for millennia.  We are contributing to the temperature upswing on this cycle.  It's that complicated.

Answer 6

I TAKE THE BLAME BECAUSE SCIENTIST SAYS ITS MY FAULT

Answer 7

global warming is not true its the earth cycle in the 1990's they thought global cooling was happing but it never happened

Answer 8

ok personally, i dont believe in global warming whatsoever.  my dad was listening to a well respected sciencetist the other day and theres actually not a whole bunch of proof.  people are getting all freaked out but um yeah its the weather and my dad said back in the seventies everyone thought there was gonna be an iceage

Answer 9

man made global warming doesn't exist! the world is actually cooling by a few degrees. the freaky weather is caused by something called 'El nino' which is when oceanic winds change course suddenly and temperatures fluctuate and freakishly big storms are produced. its happened every now and then throughout history its not a big deal and we're not all gonna die!

Answer 10

The reason I think AGW is so completely wrong is because of many reasons. First, most of the claims they make about having scientific data is complete c**p. I have yet to see any scientific data prove even a small part of their claim. They like to use pictures of iceburgs melting (which have been melting for 10,000 years or so), polar bears dying (the original pic was taken in the summer), and the consensus as arguements. They continaully avoid a debate in the main stream press. Al Gore was challenged to a debate on TV, and as of now, he has chickened out. Seems to me, if all the evidence is on my side, I would welcome a public debate. And speaking of debate, they always say the debate is over, but when has ANYONE seen an actual debate on the main stream media? NEVER (I did find one in Australia with the results not turning out well for the AGW fanatics). Also, notice how they use direct attacks on the "deniers" instead of intelectual debate. Science should welcome skeptics and then try to prove them wrong, but not with AGW. They attack the credibility of the scientist, not the opposing scientist statements. I have heard many skeptics state they felt the science did not show AGW. They do not attack the other side, they simply point out what their experiments show. But the AGW fanatics turn into attack dogs and call for the opposing sides resignation, or call them n**i's, etc.

In my life, when someone so vehemently avoids debate, they know the science is not on their side and they fear the public learning of the facts.

Answer 11

I don't think there are any scientists who think the Sun is responsible for any significant fraction of the recent warming.  Certainly nobody at NASA.

Here is a plot from the Stanford Solar Center, for example:

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

And here is how the solar physicists at the Stanford Solar Center feel about the Sun's role in the recent warming:

"Some uncertainty remains about the role of natural variations in causing climate change. Solar variability certainly plays a minor role, but it looks like only a quarter of the recent variations can be attributed to the Sun. At most."

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

As for NASA, the head of their Goddard Institute for Space Studies (which is the section of NASA studying global warming) is James Hansen.  Hansen has been saying for over 2 decades that humans are the primary cause of the curreng global warming, and we need to do something about it before it has catastrophic results.

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

Nobody at NASA has claimed the Sun is responsible for the recent warming, because the data clearly proves otherwise.

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

Whoever told you scientists were split 50/50 or that NASA thinks the Sun is to blame was lying to you.

As for your other questions, I believe the scientific data, which all points to humans as the primary cause of the current warming.  I'm sure the other side is wrong because the data disproves their arguments.

Answer 12

Well, if you think about it, a great amount of people abuse the world; however, the sun is also to blame because scientists say it will 'die' out.

Answer 13

it doesnt really matter who is causing it. yet i think its probably both that effects each other and created the warming. but its not that global warming that is bad because the earth is basically tryinh to get in balance [homeostasis] after what man did to it.

we, man, kind of started the whole thing by destorying the enviroment and then the earth is just trying to get in balance with it.

it may be the sun slighlty because the temperature of it changese [yet it should be decreasing since like everything the sun gets old and will, in a long time, eventually die out]

but WE SHOULDNT BLAME ANYTNING!

what we SHOULD be doing is saving the enviroment!

growing forests back, not wasting things, reducing population, reduce, reuse, recylce, rot, not buying as much, not cutting down forest and trees, saving forests and wildlife, and many more things

Answer 14

Global warming is in fact a natural thing! The reason why the ice is melting is because we are causing climate change. The cause of climate change is greenhouse gasses which obviously, warms the earth.

Answer 15

It's not REMOTELY 50/50.  More like 99 to 1.  And the 99% (big surprise) has the data on their side.

"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...

More data here, too:

http://environment.newscientist.com/chan...

Mind you, the sun has played a big role in the past.  But right now the increase in temperature is mostly due to greenhouse gases.  This shows the trend.

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Ima...

The bottom line:

"I wasn’t convinced by a person or any interest group—it was the data that got me. I was utterly convinced of this connection between the burning of fossil fuels and climate change. And I was convinced that if we didn’t do something about this, we would be in deep trouble.”

Vice Admiral Richard H. Truly, USN (Ret.)

Former NASA Administrator, Shuttle Astronaut