Is Global Warming a man made?

Question

I truely think that man has aided in global warming but here is the one thing that holds me back. Hasn't global warming be going on for 10,000 years. 10,000 years ago the state of Michigan was under a sheet of Ice, at least that is what they teach you, and this sheet of ice receded and left behnd the great lakes.

What I wonder is... Isn't the sheet of ice basically still just receding?? Hasn't the earth been warming up on its own over the last 10,000 + years?

Answer 1

no see this is where you and alot of other people are wrong.. its not global warming if it is naturally occuring right..think about it .. if you leave an ice cube out in the sun what happens....it melts.. and its not melting because the earth is warming...and yes we are at the end of a glacial period but heres the problem, the earths temperature does not vary as much as it has in the last year.. im not even going to get into it.. just go look what global warming did to antarctica there a couple weeks ago when a huge portion of ice the size of conneticut broke off.. .. its not that the earth is warming up naturally ..it is that it is happening faster and increasing at a faster rate then ever before.. its the difference between each year that is cause for concern.. and please do some real research before you make a decision on what people say underthis

Answer 2

There is no question about the Urban Heat Island effects.

http://eetd.lbl.gov/heatisland/LEARN/

However most of that heat exits Through the atmosphere above it.

What is ignored is the heat from within the Earth - Core temperature 9000+ degrees.

Alarmists point to Venus as a model of Greenhouse Gases  and its effects - but ignore the volcanic activity of Venus:

http://www.strangehorizons.com/2002/2002...

Venus has constant lava flows pouring heat out of it's very hot core!

It's Ocean warming - Not Global warming - Water is up to 100 times more efficient at heat transfers than air. Plus there is 50 - 90 times the CO2 in oceans than atmosphere  and no one knows the amount of CO2 under the Earth's crust which is coming out in Undersea volcanoes.

http://www.iceagenow.com/Ocean_Warming.h...

A small example of what scientists are just beginning to learn:

Nasa discovers another undersea vent:

http://sse.jpl.nasa.gov/news/display.cfm...

"635 degrees Fahrenheit at the vent's opening."

They truly have NO IDEA how many active vents exist or how they add to ocean heat.

Volcanic activity seems to have increased over the last 100+ years with the increase of Solar Activity (IMFs).

Answer 3

Haha, no global warming does not exsitst, its just made up political hype by democrates to get ahead...ever since the last ice age it has be getting warmer...oh and one more thing if global warming does exsist then why am i freezing here in Illinois and its april?

Answer 4

Mostly man made.  The Earth came out of the last Ice Age about 12,000 years ago, and stopped warming up significantly about 10,000 years ago, until now.  Nice graph here.

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

Answer 5

DO you really expect to get a reasonable answer on this website?

In response to the responses

Wow i guess you guys are all pretty big scientists huh? or did you just watch an inconvenient truth and read the news and assume you know exactly whats going on. truthfully we have absolutely no idea what is happening with global warming. i sure as h**l dont. there are probably only a few thousand people who could really give you an accurate response to this question and they all have much more important things to do. so go watch the day after tomorrow buy a prius and shut up. stop pretending you know whats happening

Answer 6

Global warming is but a component, in a group of destructive forces at work such as ;deforestation,desertification,soil and water contamination ,irresponsible or wasteful utilization of bio resources , air pollution,Non sustainable Agriculture,over pumping carbon aquifers

all concepts which are definitely not part of the Natural Processes of the Natural world

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

WHICH WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR,

The most prolific growth on this planet is part of the day in the mist and most of the time under clouds ,and the least growth is always directly in the sun .

To exchange the one for the other means changing local climates

We are exchanging Nature with Tar , concrete and open spaced mono cultures.

In 300 years half of the planets forests have gone ,and in the last 50 years half of the wet lands ,and rain forests

These Areas absorb heat during the day and release heat at night ,

Cause cloud formation(shade).humidifying the air on the surface as well as releasing excess water at the roots that keep rivers flowing ,which in turn brings more water into the Environment .

As well as contributing to absorbing carbon emissions as do the leaves of the trees together with the oceans .

All in all many factors which directly affect the local Environment .

The loss of the above resulting in rivers drying up ,less rain ,desertification,loss of habitat for many species and so on.

dryer and hotter surface environments which can manifest in different weather patterns such as tornadoes or bush fires

I may be stupid or Naive but somehow i believe that lots of these local environmental changes, can add up to affect global weather, If there are enough of them (and there are)

And then on top of that comes the story of the effects of pollutants released into Nature and especially the Air ,by MAN ,http://earthissues.multiply.com/photos/a...

And then there is of course Global Warming lets say the Natural one

(Bob or Trevor can talk better about that )

A cocktail of events and a lot of the ingredients have MAN written all over them

So it is safe to assume that we should look at ourselves ,just a teeny bit ,for possible improvements ,and rectifying Eco errors that are with in our powers.

What is a safer bet

to be or not to be

Answer 7

Yes, our recent global warming is man made (anthropogenic).

This is not that difficult to understand. Climate change has many different causes. The ice ages are caused by Milankovitch cycles (small changes in Earth's orbit). Other past climate changes have been caused by changes in solar output, meteor impacts, massive amounts of CO2 from submarine volcanoes, etc...

Global temperatures have not been increasing steadily over the past 12,000 years (when the last ice age ended). What happened was that the Earth's orbit wobbled a bit, temperatures increased, and the ice age ended. Once the ice age ended, then climate stabalized, allowing civilizations to flourish.

Greenhouse gases prevent heat from escaping into outer space. Atmospheric CO2 has increased by about 35% since the time of industrialization. All of this increase is due to man kind. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

Answer 8

Yes, the earth goes through natural cycles of warming and cooling. That's 100% true. However, humans are accelerating this cycle to a ridiculously high rate that has never before occurred in nature. As a result, what should be happening slowly is occurring at an accelerated rate, so there's no time to adapt. This is why there's such a contraversy with the issue of global warming.

Answer 9

I heard somewhere that the oceans each year release a chemical that thins the ozone layer. Yet I do believe man has played a part in global warming.

Answer 10

You are right, there are climate cycles (ice ages and warm periods in between).  Ice sheets come and go. CO2 rises and falls as temperatures rise and fall because of the increase rate of decomposition (rotting) of materials in warm periods and the slower rate during cooler periods.  

CO2 is capable of intercepting a large amount of outgoing long wave radiation going from the earth to space (heat), while letting shortwave (sun light) pass without a problem (doesn't heat the air - the long wave from the earth does this). CO2 last 100s of years in the atmosphere. Plant life needs it but the amount in the atmosphere far exceeds the  amount plants need to photosynthesize.  Yes the earth is getting warmer from natural causes - this is not disputed by anyone.

What scientist are trying to tell the general public is that the warming has been accelerated at an alarming rate because of human activity.This  is the general consensus in the main stream scientific community  (look at the NAS (US National Academy of Sciences) , EPA NASA and most university climatology departments.  Even Bush acknowledges the problem now that he won't need to deal with it (he's out in January).  These are not biased sources - they work for people of the US.  

The cause of the accelerated warming - in a nutshell - is the use of CO2 that has been sequestered out of the carbon cycle as fossil fuel (gas, oil coal. etc) for fuel.  Using huge amounts of this fuel has greatly increased the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere - the sinks can't use as much as we generate burning fossil fuel - and the atmosphere now has a long-lived gas (CO2) that has a high radiative forcing.  The carbon cycle is now out of balance with it's historical trends.   The emission of CO2 by man far exceed the available sinks.   The atmosphere warms as a result.  As the atmosphere warms, it is able to hold more of another major greenhouse gas - water vapor. This is an example of positive feedback.  Plant uptake of CO2 is an example of negative feedback.  Feedback mechanisms are very important, but it looks like the positive feedback is greater than the negative feedback.  This increases the effect of the CO2 emissions, leading to accelerated warming - could be faster than we think.

The ice sheets are receding at an accelerated rate because of human activity.  This was a major prediction 15 or 20 years ago (when I worked with this data - moved on to a new problem now) and was something that was identified as a observable first signs to watch for (sea ice melting, glaciers receding early greening of high latitudes and altitudes) to validate the model predictions.  It has happened on the faster side of what was predicted,  but within a time range that was specified by the models.  Nobody even disputes this is happening - we can see it.  You can pass through the Arctic in open water that has not existed in recorded history.  Antarctic  is a very dry desolate place that receives almost no moisture - it is too cold.  Major ice melts have occurred there and we have open water and disintegrating ice sheets like never before in history.  This is observed and undisputed.  There has been significant SNOWFALL in this frozen desert - a place where the air was so cold that it contained almost no water vapor.  Now that the air temperature has increased a little, there is adequate moisture for snow to develop.  Will this help slow global warming? Maybe, but we don't know.

People who say global warming is not occurring are biased.  They  lie to serve special interest and are counting on people taking the easy way out - not research the issue and just parrot their misinformation.  Some people don't have the educational background to even begin to understand the problem or understand the many ways that Earth's ecological cycles and climatological cycles are connected. The don't understand something and jump on a "cosmic ray", "sun spots", 'climate cycle", "plants will use it all" band wagon that some right-wing talk show host who remember a little fraction of high-school science could put together.  The simple stuff has been considered in the predictions.  It is cause by human activity.  

Save money by reducing fuel usage as much as possible and you help not only yourself, but you reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.  Be conscious of what you buy and how much you waste.  Such minor activity - you are only required to give it minimal thought.  You can do more if you want but just the minimal helps. Is that so bad?  Does it make you a moron if you do this?  Does it hurt a d**n thing?  It does help you and the environment.

Answer 11

The difference in temperature between ice ages and interglacial periods is between 5 and 10 degrees Celsius.

The past 100 years the average temperature has risen 0.7 C. Multiply that with 100 (100 x 100 = 10000) and you would have a temperature rise of 70 C!

So no, this 0.7 degrees is not a natural change!