Is carbon dioxide really the cause of global warming?

Question

The ice record of warming and carbon dioxide are about 8 to 12 hundred years apart. It occurs to me that simply building enough fires in power generation and in car engines and in home furnaces (etc.) would gradually raise the temperature of the planet's atmosphere. Has anyone done the math on this? Does anyone know where on the internet I can find this data?

Answer 1

It is easy to say yes or no but the most logical thing to do is to study the phenomena with the basic knowledge we acquired.

There are those who made this studies already and are well equipped. So we who are not equipped may just as well depend on their study results. We do not have to reinvent the car before driving a it.

Answer 2

linylons said:

"building fires would not raise the temperature."

Uhh, yes it would. Though the effect is immeasurable (immeasurably small). It would take one h**l of a fire to raise global temperatures much.

Answer 3

No, it's due to methane from excessive farting.

Answer 4

It may be a contributing factor, but we don't really know for sure.

We know of several complete cycles of climate change in our earth's history where we went from an ice age to an extremely hot and humid planet. Then the cycle starts over again with another ice age.

Since we have recently had an ice age (relatively, considering how old the planet is) we are still coming out of it. It's not normal for our planet to have frozen poles, just because that's all that existed in our short time on this planet, that doesn't make it the norm. There is no norm, our planet is constantly changing.

Answer 5

human emmisions though.............

Answer 6

No it is only one twig in the forest of a forest fire

.. . .

The big nasty one is the things causing the problem

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people

.. . ...

If people were not here all that would be here is a green house of nature no black top no roof tops no smoke stacks of dirty industries

No traffic jams

.. . ..

Answer 7

Some scientists believe it is an EFFECT of the rise in temperature and not the cause-- see this link-- and the other links contained on the page..... and decide for yourself--

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/12...

Answer 8

No, it's not.  I don't know why some people can't accept that our government would lie to us.  It's true that record heat is happening in many parts of the world, but CO2 is not the cause.  More atmospheric CO2 is produced to compensate for rising temperatures, but of course people can manipulate the data to say that CO2 is the cause of rising temperatures.

Answer 9

there are multiple effects, and you're making the wrong connections.

building fires would not raise the temperature.

the earth receives energy from the sun every day, and radiates that energy away at night.

the balance between those 2 determines the average temperature.

one might think that when a volcano erupts, and ejects all that hot lava, the temperature would go up.

but it doesn't,  it goes down.

it goes down because there is a considerable quantity of dust that's blown very high into the atmosphere, and blocks some of the energy from the sun.

http://geography.about.com/od/globalprob...

<<the Mount Pinatubo eruption, which climaxed with nine hours of eruption on June 15, 1991. On June 15, millions of tons of sulfur dioxide were discharged into the atmosphere, resulting in a decrease in the temperature worldwide over the next few years.>>

now you've apparently read that when examining ice cores, the climate change precedes the CO2 change.  that is the normal, natural process.  however, that's not what's happening today.  we can see both the record of the CO2 change, and also the temperature change.  CO2 is causing the temperature to go up, just like an extra blanket keeps you warm in the winter.

<<Has anyone done the math on this? Does anyone know where on the internet I can find this data?>>

no.  and if there is any data, it'll be found on an energy industry website, attempting to divert attention from the problem of burning fossil fuel.

Answer 10

If you're asking for the math on carbon dioxide, here is a simple equation for the effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide on the radiative forcing, F:

∆F = 6.333 ln (C/C0) w/m2

C is the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, and C0 is the initial or reference concentration.  The value for the change in forcing, ∆F, can be used to calculate the expected temperature change for an increase in CO2 concentration.  There is little doubt about this part of the warming, the greenhouse effect, although there are some variations of the formula I gave.

The complicated part is the feedback effects of water vapor and clouds.  Calculations for these are done using computer models.

Answer 11

there is no definitive data,It can be interpreted any way the person looking at it wants to.no one will champion the opposite view because they will be ridiculed by all the rest who "know" their answer is the right one.

Answer 12

No, just no.