What is the biggest factor contributing to global warming?

Question

What is the biggest factor contributing to global warming?

Answer 1

carbondioxide,carbonmonoxide,chlorofloro carbons(CFCs),lead,smoke..

but carbondioxide affects the most

Answer 2

What you see is not what you got. In the year 1999 it was found that the weather can be manipulated by various cloud seeding. What was discovered that all this dust that was introduced was in effect adding a particle mass that enabled water to form via a magnetic force. All matter has a Negative & Postive charge. Magnets exist in everything, if it was not for magnetism nothing would bond. By creating changes in the magnetic field water will form on the dust particles and change the temperture of the surrounding air and we call this the effects of thermodynamics. The fact is that weather is not controlled by thermodynamics but magnetism. By creating a change in the magnetic field of the Earth weather can be mulipalated with varing ranges of a desired effect. Rings of neodyuium have changed the magnetic field. It is still in expiermental stage and has resulted in high incedence of hurricanes and tornadoes, flooding and even siezmatic activity. The Lord of the Rings is more evident than that of a fictional story book.

Answer 3

the gases are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen and carbon monoxide i think it is. these gases r produced by livestock, and burning fossil fuels for electricity and energy and petrol and all that stuff

Answer 4

People. Billions of them.

Answer 5

global warming is a natural cycle of the Earth's heating and cooling cycles.  There are many of them and scientists are not entirely sure what really causes them.

However, there is a lot of speculation as to the causes of Global Warming (notice I capitalized this one--it is the type that is refered to in the news these days).  I think that people are drawing at straws because we don't really know what is the biggest factor (as one of your other answers pointed out).  

But I would agree that biggest factor at this point is water.  To say we didn't have a play would be a lie, but to say we have any kind of control would also be problematic.  

In any case, this is why I think water is the biggest factor.  Water vapor does raise temperature.  That is why you hear about the heat index in humid areas.  Also, water melts ice faster than warm air.  By raising carbon dioxide levels, we ignite the balancing act in which plants start to flourish to produce more oxygen.  However, plants can also produce more water vapor.

You may ask, but is this true if we are cutting down so many plants a day?  That doesn't help as much as you think.  One, we know that it is hurting the environment.  Two, when we get rid of native plants, we get rid of the natural sponges.  We see this on the Mississippi.  Water isn't held up in the soil because native plants have been replaced by crops like corn.  The water runs off quickly, adding to bodies of water that naturally have flooding cycles.  Since the bodies of water are larger, the floods are larger, but we also get more water evaporation than we would if we kept our natural sponges.

This then fuels the weather system, but I'll save that for another day.

The melting of the north pole doesn't add to the mass of the oceans.  This is like melting ice in a glass of water.  However, it could change the water currents which are driven by hot and cold temperatures.  This would cause ice to melt faster at the south pole which is ice on land.  I think this would happen a little slower, but if it melted it would add to the amount of water in the oceans.  Therefore making more water vapor.

So, I hope you can see why I think the biggest factor is water.  However, we must also remember that the other key is plants.  Our Earth is a self-correcting system.  We need to look at the way this works more closely to understand how and if we can have an effect on the phenomena.  

Once we do that and act accordingly, a super volcano may blow the whole thing out of water (pun definitely intended).  No matter what we do it can't be worse than what the Earth has been through before, but can we adapt quick enough and live with the changes is the bigger question.

Answer 6

This is a good question for many reasons.

It points out that people regurgitate what is in the news.

Rich countries want to point at poorer countries burning down their forests.

Poor countries want to blame rich countries use of fossil fuel.

Everyone wants to ignore the cyclic nature of global temperature (in the 70's it was all the rage to talk about "the coming ice age")

The number one gas contributing to "the green house effect" is WATER VAPOR. (Look it up, don't trust me.)

That is going to the hardest one to control.(impossible)

One volcano eruption (Mount St Helen's) produced more green house gases (not counting water vapor) than all mankind did in ten years prior.

And one other volcanic eruption threw so much dust in the upper atmosphere that a "mini-ice age" occured in the middle ages.

I suspect that there is little man can do to stop the rise in global temperature. But I know fully well, no matter how high it rises, it is going to come back down and there will be talk of an ice age again. If all mankind died today, then the global temperature rise will be unchanged.

Man is not in control of this planet and must adjust his behavior, even his population, to suit the planet that allows him to live here.