How is GLOBAL WARMING connected to the GRENHOUSE EFFECT?

Question

please help!?

i hate science!

Answer 1

Light comes into the atmosphere as short wave radiation, but it is reflected as long wave radiation.  The greehouse effect referse to the fact that long wave radiation can't pass back through the atmosphere and gets trapped (like in a greenhouse)  This is increased by many chemicals such as CO2 and CFCs that make the atmosphere even less permeable to these long waves.  The effect is global warming.

Answer 2

They're the same thing, aren't they?

Answer 3

Some gases ("greenhouse gases") let sunlight in, which warms the Earth, and then block that heat from leaving. That's the "greenhouse effect", and it's a natural thing, mostly caused by water vapor.

Man is making excessive amounts of greenhouse gases, mostly by burning fossil fuels. That causes the delicate natural balance to go out of whack and the Earth warms. That's global warming.

It won't be a Hollywood style disaster. Gradually coastal areas will flood and agriculture will be damaged. But it will be very bad. Rich countries will cope, but it will take huge amounts of money. In poor countries many people will die of starvation, but not all of them.

Most scientists say, in 20-50 years. But we need to start right now to fix it, fixing it will take even longer than that.

More information here:

http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/f101.a...

Lots of numerical scientific data proving it real here:

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

http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

Answer 4

The greenhouse effect happens when there are excess gasses in our atmosphere, mostly carbon dioxide. Normaly, when the sun heats the earth a specific amount of heat was allowed to escape. Now because there are so many gasses in atmosphere the heat cannot escape. Global Warming is the effect the greenhouse effect has on the earth.

Don't hate science.

Answer 5

it is basically the same thing.  the greenhouse effect causes global warming.

Answer 6

global warming is when the Earth heats up. The greenhouse effect is when the atmosphere traps some of the het the sun gives into the Earth.

Answer 7

The Greenhouse Effect is the cause and Global Warming is the effect.

The Greenhouse Effect doesn't actually warm the planet, this is the process by which greenhouse gases create a 'blanket' which traps heat and prevents it escaping into space.  This process in turn leads to global warming.

It's also worth nothing that climate change is a different thing as well.  Whilst global warming is what happens (ie the world warms up), climate change is the effects we see (melting glaciers, higher temperatures etc).

This sort of simplifies it but I hope it helps you.

Answer 8

First off, I strongly recommend that people disregard "kimpeace's" argument.  Obviously she or he does not listen to science because if she did, she would know that this phenomenon is NOT NATURAL.  This is proven by ice core samples taken by SCIENTISTS that demonstrate levels of CO2 are off the charts.  Some people argue that the earth goes through natural cycles of warming and cooling. This is true, but after the industrial revolution and the explosion of technology we have seen an astounding levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.  THIS IS CAUSED BY MAN!!! Unless nature itself was capable of making cars, deforesting billions of acres of trees, and burning fossil fuels, maybe then man would not be held responsible.  But lets face the facts here.  It is better to be safe than sorry.  

Okay...so the greenhouse effect is basically caused by too much CO2 in the atmosphere.  Our atmosphere is made up of different gases, like nitrogen, oxygen, and CO2.  When there is too much CO2 in the air, it increases average temperatures by trapping in heat.  

This causes glaciers to melt, sea-levels to rise, and many many other detrimental effects.  Even when the avg. temp rises by one degree, it is enough to produce catastrophic hurricanes like Katrina.  Chopping down trees and burning fuel does not help our cause--trees convert CO2 to oxygen (which, let me remind you, we NEED to breathe). The more fuel we burn (which releases more CO2 into the air) and more trees we cut down, the more we are going to see problems with asthma, emphysema, and many other debilitating diseases.  

Anyway, global warming is an intricate problem, with many things factoring into the situation--but don't feel helpless!! We can all make a difference by recycling, carpooling, letting out representatives know that we care about the health of our planet (come on guys, this is EVERYONE'S home!!)

Basically, we need to change the mind's of those who seek to destroy the beauth of our planet for the purpose of making a few (or millions) of dollars.  All the money in the world will not make food grow, and many people seem to forget that the earth is where all of our food comes from.  If we s***w it up, we are only s******g ourselves.  I hope this was helpful!! Over and out...

Answer 9

the greenhouse effect, imagine what a greenhouse does, it warms an area that otherwise wouldnt be warm, by trapping heat inside the area.  Thus, if you consider that we are making a giant greenhouse out of the earth with our pollutants and environmental destruction, we will cause a global warming.  A few degrees difference can make a big deal in climate change, so the term global warming, while accurate, can be misleading and misused.  It doesnt have to be 100 degrees in the middle of the winter to make a difference, just a few degrees will change the natural current climate.

Answer 10

OKAY. READ THE WHOLE THING. IF YOU WANT TO KNOW THE ANSWER

man caused global warming is really just speculation.

so the global warmers like som eof you think that the man's output of CO2 is causing the climate to grow warmer due to a "green house" effect.

"Is Global warming a scientific theory or a belief?

There are many claiming to be "climate scientists". What does it mean to be a scientist? I think it is agreed that it takes more than a lab coat and computers. Science requires experimental controls - something not found in a collection of statistics about an open system.

What is an Open System?

In real science, everything that can possibly be done to eliminate other causes are eliminated. The earth's atmosphere is an open system - no one knows with any certainty the amount of materials emitted by the earth or even additions from outer space. An open system is one where we can not control for confounding variables. In the global warming saga, the data collected is fed into a computer model along with many estimates and indirectly theorized numbers.

What good are the Collected Statistics?

Statistics often provides a scientist a good idea for a hypothesis, but statistical correlations do not prove cause and effect. Here is an example of this clouded reasoning:

There is a the high correlation between the softness of asphalt and infant mortality rates. Some people would come to the conclusion that soft asphalt causes infant death - the better explanation is that both are caused by higher temperatures. "

---so kids, remember, CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION.

"Elephants and Lightning

An engineer is out walking in the park and sees a wild-eyed man hitting a strangely painted block of wood with a stick. The engineer's curiosity gets the better of him, so he asks the wild-eyed man, "Why are you hitting that block?"

The wild-eyed man replies with a bit of a crazed smile, "The sound keeps the elephants away."

The engineer, now fully intrigued, digs deeper, "But why? There are no elephants here."

As the wild-eyed man continues to make his noise with renewed vigor, he says, "See! It's working."

Science news reports confound correlation with cause and effect. The news media acts if correlation is proof with causes much confusion for the lay public. There seems to be much muddled thinking in climate news reporting."

"So what is science? What is the Scientific Method?

For something to be considered a scientific fact, it must be testable with the scientific method.

1. Observe some aspect of the universe.

2. Invent a tentative explanation, called a hypothesis, that is consistent with what you have observed.

3. Use the hypothesis to make predictions.

4. Test those predictions by experiments or further observations and modify the hypothesis in the light of your results.

5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until there are no discrepancies between theory and experiment and/or observation.

Real science is humble. Some things are unknowable. It is a human tendency to not to accept the idea that some things are beyond our reach of knowing, but we really can't know everything.

Step 4 of the scientific method requires an experiment. An experiment requires a control. What are the controls in climate science?

Climate science is often reported as if a 'run' of a computer model is an experiment. A computer model can not discriminate theories into true and false because it is not measuring reality. (Such models may give one an idea where to experiment, but to claim they "prove" anything is pure fiction and should lead one to discount the source.) Computer models are sometimes used to simulate electronic circuits for engineers - in an electronics circuit (which is a closed system) - these computer models often predict behavior quite different from a real circuit. If such a model is adjusted until the results give the expected result it is often to the folly of the engineer. The proof of such a circuit must wait until a real circuit is built:REALITY MUS BE TESTED, not a model.

To infer a connection between man emissions of CO2 and warming

is not an easy jump for the scientifically minded

First, you have to prove that the increase in CO2 is caused by humans - the venting of CO2 by volcanoes (including those under the ocean) and geysers and other natural sources (and also the natural absorption or sinking of CO2) is a estimate that defies error analysis. To what error band are we certain of the amount of emission of CO2 by natural causes?

Second, the elevation of CO2 needs to be shown to be historically real, but there were no analytical tools to measure even crudely thousands of years ago - the best work has been done with ice samples, but there is a great problem with how to calibrate such measurements. What size should the error bands be? I believe that man is likely responsible for a small increase in CO2 - this a my belief, supported by a lot of data.

Third, there has to be a hypothesis that can predict the past (only then can we start guessing about the future) including the temperatures in the upper atmosphere. Any model that can't fit past data has to be called wrong.

Fourth, as this is an open system where we can't build several earths and vary only one constant, any conclusion at best is still just a theory - a educated guess - it is not scientific fact. Science is more than looking scientific; just because things are measured to several decimal points means naught when there is no control or false logic.

Fifth, to look at the past temperatures honestly, one would have to show no past periods of higher temperature. The idea that we 'know the inferred data' - is simply wrong. We don't have accurate records of solar output from the past and we don't know the magnitude of long term historic variations that are possible. Explaining the small drift (less than what appears to be the noise in the system) is much better accomplished with a solar output theory - yet even this theory fails to be more than a theory for those who seeking the truth. See http://web.dmi.dk/solar-terrestrial/spac...

Six, one really has to subtract the effects of variations of solar output, and changes in land use (irrigation) from any temperature trends. There is no way to do this with any meaningful accuracy.

Four of the six above points have serious problems

I remember reading a news article when I was in 5th or 6th grade by "scientists" that predicted that we were going into a new ice age because of man made pollution. Here is a later one. I thought it was true and worried about it for years. I followed every global climate article I got my hands on, until I realized they didn't have any way to truly support the claims they were making. Some of these same people are in the global warming business now.

Supporters of global warming will say, "I've known of hundreds of scientists with diverse political backgrounds (from all over the world) who have come to the same conclusion", but taking polls on the opinion of people whose income is tied to the existence of a problem is not science. A poll of PC (Politically Correct) scientists from the year 1400 would have put the earth rather than the sun at the center of our solar system. While there are quit a few PC scientists today claiming to "know" that man is causing Global warming, there are also other scientists that disagree.

A politically popular opinion doesn't make it correct. No poll of scientists has anything to do with science.

Supporters will further say, "Many of these scientists are established, world-renowned, tenured professors who do research in numerous areas and whose jobs are certainly not dependent on the existence of global warming".

But let us consider the peers of Copernicus; did their being "established, world-renowned, tenured professors" make them right? Would publication of balanced papers without dire conclusions insure their research grants?

Correlation does not show cause and effect - Limitations on what is knowable

The idea that because CO2 has gone up and surface temperatures have also gone up means nothing. It is a correlation only in the sense that both variables are headed in the same direction. The odds of this being the case are 50% A similar correlation exists between CO2 and breast cancer. There is no cyclic variable in the global warming studies. If CO2 had gone up and down 4 times and ground temperature had followed - that could be interesting - but would only start to mean something after 10 to 100 cycles. If CO2 had gone up and down several times and global temperatures had followed there would be a meaningful correlation, yet that would still fail to show cause and effect.

We've been told that "The atmospheric levels of CO2 have risen 30% since the Industrial Revolution (~1780) and 18% since 1959". Yes, CO2 has increased, and probably from man, but even that can not be shown conclusively. In an open system It is entirely possible that other variations of natural CO2 sources and sinks may be more responsible. There could be natural sources of CO2 that have not been identified. In an open system, there is no control of other variables, thus what we can know is quite limited.

Water vapor ACOUNTS FOR ABOUT 70% of the greenhouse effect with carbon dioxide somewhere between 4.2% and 8.4%.

Water vapor, a potent green house gas, averages 25,000ppm of the lower atmosphere compared to CO2 which is only about 360 ppm. The Atmospheric CO2 change is only about +60 ppm. Realize that we are talking about a change in CO2 from 0.030% to 0.036% or a 0.006% change as a percentage of the atmosphere. The global warmers don't use these numbers instead 'warmers' say it increased 30% (for maximum rhetorical effect?). Over the same periods specific humidity has increased several percent and could be a change of 25,000ppm to 26,250ppm or 2.5% to 2.6% or a 0.1% change. This change in water vapor (possibly due to irrigation?) is about 16 times larger than CO2 near the ground. (remember in the stratosphere there is cooling and very little water vapor). see:

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1...

Both CO2 and water vapor have similar emissivity so that any change in greenhouse effect due to CO2 would seem to be swamped by the effect of water vapor. This would also seem to explain the change at lower altitudes with out effecting the upper atmosphere. But I'm just speculating - I don't see how anyone can draw any responsible conclusions based on the available data.

Atmospheric CO2 may have an effect, but there is no proof that man's contribution as a source of CO2 (ESTIMATED at about 4% of all sources) is the reason it is going up. It is entirely possible that it is going up due to natural variation more than mans contribution - probably not - but the point is that even this is not a scientific fact. I think it is probable. (BTW I think we should be taxing oil imports (in place of income taxes) for other reasons.)

Low altitude warming has not been established as anything historically out of the ordinary. The data just isn't there to do this. At this time and into the foreseeable future it is unknowable. Being unknowable is the heart of the problem with "climate science".

Clouds

The great computer models used to predict the dire consequences don't really accurately model clouds, and for good reasons. Clouds are extremely complicated to simulate. Water vapor tends to condense into water droplets at nucleation sites. These sites can be a spec of dust, but are also caused by cosmic rays, nuetrenos, and even agitation of air. Nuetrenos and cosmic rays are not constant, they vary with solar storms and the position of solar storms on the sun. They are also non linear. The lack of clouds in the model reduces this to a political campaign - one that is misleading the public about what is known.

Cosmic Rays

Henrik Svensmark, a weather scientist at the Danish National Space Centre, believes that the planet is experiencing a natural period of low cloud cover due to fewer cosmic rays entering the atmosphere. But is this a truth? How can he know any better than the warmers? Looking at system with numerous confounding variables greatly limits what is knowable. Once again, I hope people will realize that true wisdom is knowing what we don't know.

Are the Climate Papers Properly Peer Reviewed?

I think some of the papers are honestly presented and don't overstate their claims, but some are not. The famous "Hockey-Stick graph" is an example of a bigger problem.

Steve McIntyre now of Climate Audit difinatively showed that the Hockey-Stick effect is an artifact of a math filter. Peer review of many of these papers is lacking in general skepticism. Source data and information about published papers is withheld - something that stops a real scientist breath short - real science needs to be open. McIntyre has had to resort to graphics programs to re create the data sets used in some of these papers.Some typical examples

http://danhughes.auditblogs.com/2006/12/...

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1240...

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1235...

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1175...

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1134...

http://danhughes.auditblogs.com/2007/02/...

http://danhughes.auditblogs.com/2007/02/...

His requests for datasets and other information to check on the validity of published papers is routinely subjected to runarounds, incomplete responses about methods of data smoothing. The public seems to know nothing of the IPCC's GISS Model E adjustments and fudge factors - something a real science paper takes pains to "bend-over-backwards" to provide in extreme detail.

At this time, it is hard to see that adequate peer review is being practiced in several of the journals involved and there is no excuse for not making data sets available in this day of computers and the Internet. The lack of disclaimers about computer-models vs experiments also degrades the credibility of these papers. The public does not understand that all computer models have fudges in them to get convergence. The public does not know that there are compromises in resolution in space and time in these models due to practical concerns. and Here I quote Dan Hughes:

"The AOLGCM codes are known to not be capable of attaining calculated results that are independent of the sizes of the discrete increments used in the numerical integration of the model equations. So far as I can determine, there is no attempt at all to demonstrate that the numerical solutions converge to the solutions of the continuous equations."

"A nice little loophole has been created, whether implicitly or explicitly I don’t know. The scientific journals associated with the climate-change community will accept papers for publication the basis of which are calculations by computer software that has not been peer-reviewed. So, AOLGCM-based papers get peer-reviewed and published and then cited in the IPCC reports. This is not correct because it bypasses the independent verification and replication processes of the scientific method."

IMHO this does not rise to the level of science.

What is the difference between science and beliefs?

The key to separating scientific knowledge from belief is that science can be demonstrated. We may never have good enough error bands on the data about global temperature data; thus it is something that is just not knowable. Opinions on things unknowable are called beliefs. Because of the inapplicability of the scientific method when dealing with open systems, opinions on global warming are beliefs akin to a sort of religious view and not scientific fact.

"Climate science" as reported in the press is not really science. In real sciences the scientists first job is to prove himself wrong - that is to list the numerous way that the results my be in error and how the conclusions are limited. No forthright "bending over backwards" efforts are made by the global warming proponents. Instead, there are efforts to state things in emotional terms and a disturbing pattern of data errors and omissions. When claims are made dealing with an open system using correlations of data without knowable error bands, it fails to be science. There is no way to separate out the increased use of irrigation and the resulting increase of low altitude water vapor (very much a green house gas). Could changes of global low altitude humidity be a plausible competing theory? The correlation of temperature and variations of solar output is ignored.

Open systems, like the stock market are the subject of randomness - and much has been written about the "black swan" effect and the inability of professional stock pickers to come out ahead of amateurs in the long term. To infer a long term trend in what appears to be mostly noise - or randomness is a game of chance at best. All that can possibly be determined are floors of probability in an open system, and even those don't mean that much if one considers "black swan" effects.

I failed to see even an estimate of the amount of error of natural emissions of CO2 in the documentation from the EPA. The science I know of means you figure the answer and then you do the hard part of calculating the minimum, maximum, and probable errors. It is not possible in this case to even have hard numbers on CO2 venting - thus we are again not looking at science, but only estimates and speculation. Attaching numbers to speculation does not elevate it to science.

We are told that, "Carbon dioxide is measured directly at Mauna Loa in Hawaii", but it is only one place and really an estimate and not a direct measurement (can you imagine a pipe being installed to provide a calibrate-able flow meter?) as are almost all of the numbers used in this "science". How much CO2 is emitted from underseas vents?

Satellite data is extremely important, as it is the best data available and has no micro-climate artifacts. The satellite data is the only data that comes close to measuring anything that could be called global temperature and not effected by micro-climate and would be most difficult to fudge. According to http://www.ghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/msu/msusci... the earth as a whole seems to be cooling or warming slightly depending on what level of the atmosphere you look at.

But do you know what I see in that data? (And I'm really good at looking at statistics) - NOTHING! Just some noise - noise that is higher than any possible trend. You could pick selected start and end points to show either cooling or warming. Take the long term temperature trends and track them with solar output and there is a fairly good correlation. Will the new solar activity of Oct/Nov 2003 change solar output and cause more warming? What are you willing to bet on it? I wouldn't as I am rather certain that I don't know.

To claim as a "fact" something from a trend who's amplitude (and direction) can be changed by changing end points due to the noise involved not science; it is politics.

Are the data and/or computer models tainted due to subconscious intentions?

Everyone has an agenda at some level. I am assuming that you, the reader, is not influenced by the popularity of the idea of Global warming and you have really looked at the raw data yourself and made sure that no one was hand picking start and endpoints of data sets and that non of these people worried (even subconsciously) that if they failed to show the right result they would fail to get new funding.

Let me illustrate: QED (Quantum Electro Dynamics) is real science. The theory was put in place and then controlled experiments were run against it - the theory wasn't changed every time someone came out with a new test. This is what real science is about.

With global warming you have a computer model of the largest physical system on earth that has several uncontrolled inputs with huge error bands that can interact in non linear ways. The model is simplified in many ways because of the limits of computer power. You have emotional humans that decide on just what compromises to make - and these choices can greatly skew the results. Just the shear number of terms makes the output dubious at best.

More about Elephants

There is a famous saying in physics:

``Give me four parameters and I can fit an elephant. Give me five and I can wag its tail''

(The source of the above quote?? Variants of the statement have been attributed to C.F. Gauss, Niels Bohr, Lord Kelvin, Enrico Fermi.)

When one considers that these models may have parameters that number in the tens to hundreds and are only growing in size, the possibility of generating meaningful computer models is a fantasy.

Are the Global Warmers intellectually honest?

I do believe that there are people writing global warming papers who just don't understand the true nature of scientific induction and deduction and are just honestly wrong. My work with electronic circuits modeled on computers has convinced me that even the most honest scientists are quite susceptible to subconsciously tailoring computer models to provide the results one wants (I've fooled myself), (and electronics models are much simpler and easier to test in the closed system of a test bench). Yet these models are the basis for claims that would completely change the world economy? This "bending over backward" that Feynman talks about is what is missing from the global warming work. Where is the bending-over-backwards in the IPCC report listing the assumptions made and error band analysis?

I worry that there is a pattern of tweaked data and hyperbolic press releases related to this subject. If this is a real phenomena, so much political polarizing of the issue will prevent any unified action. Were the errors reported in "Energy and Environment" 11/03 the result of fudging the numbers? I hope not, but they very well could have been from a subconscious hope. A scientist's first job is to prove himself wrong. That isn't the way I see this work being approached.

http://www.climate2003.com shows possibly fudged data. Nice page at http://www.crichton-official.com/speeche...

The much hyped report from the EPA was made by people who's income depends on the continued belief of a CO2 caused warming trend. What do people who do not depend on there being a "global warming" problem say? The meteorologists I've met (that don't have a political or economic ax-to-grind), say that the only thing they have seen that is close to a proved theory is that global temperature tracks solar output. As scientists, they should be careful to wait a few more solar cycles before even taking that to heart.

The EPA's reference even lists Santer, who's 1996 Nature article used a data set with fudged endpoints.

To make these claims without real science behind it also raises a moral problem, as the unintended consequences may be harsh on the poor people of non developed countries. If CO2 could be shown to cause some global warming, will a carbon ban kill more or less than the perceived problem?

More issues are covered at climateaudit.org

I truly wish Richard Feynman was alive to day to comment on the scientific vigor in global warming. Research can often look like science, yet fail to be real science in the end.

Beware of Regressions - Polynomial and Otherwise: they can fool you

Back when punch cards ran the world they called it dynamic programing, You would vary all the coefficients of an equation via nested loops until the equation would produce the data with some amount of accuracy. It is a useful tool to help tease out hypotheses from data.

Once it works on past history and predicts the set of data it is tempting to think it means something. To really test it, you have to run it and make predictions to be tested with experiment. If the prediction is complex (ie. wave forms) and matches we can assign a confidence. Of course if all we have is a trend - there is only a 50:50 chance that it means anything. The idea that once it predicts the past it will also predict the future is just wrong. If on the other hand, they froze the computer model and collected data over several solar cycles and then ran the model, - over several such runs, we could start to attach a probability of the model's output being predictive.

Emistivity and the so called "greenhouse effect"

The above heading is not yet written - but will talk of the absorption of one frequency and emission of IR and to confusion caused by the misuse of this term. Unfortunately, this is not a easy subject to write about for the lay public.

Relevant Quotes

Religion provides the means for the ignorant to declare with absolute certainty that they know the unknowable.

True wisdom is knowing how little we know for certain.

Answer 11

Greenhouse effect - CO2 in the atmosphere keeps heat from the sun from escaping the earths surface(like in a greenhouse) causing global warming.

Answer 12

People activity and culture change.  Our cultures have changed over time leading to carbon intensive lives.  Carbon intensive lives on the short term mean that we release more carbon to the atmosphere which in turn leads to increased temps.  This is the simplistic view.

Now think about a volcano erupting?  How much GHGs does it produce?  

Now think about a period of 20,000 years, 100,000 etc?  Do humans have the capacity to change climate, leading to Global Warming?  Are we going to to destroy the earth? Surely, we can not take the credit  can we?

I am so sorry!  Global warning and climate change has happened in the past and it will happen again.  What about the link?  Well, it changes every time, everytime it happens, the "tempest" is kicked out of the equation, and I am afraid to say, the extinction of the dinosaurs was not out of their stupidity but their success, can you see the link?

Answer 13

Basically it is they are just terms for the same things, being global warming.