Global Warming:Real or Fake?

[tsugomaru]

Re: Global Warming:Real or Fake?

Aw man, I don't know what to believe any more.

By the way, during hot temperatures oceans should release CO2 because solubility of gases go down as temperatures go up.

~Tsugomaru

[Nezeru]

Re: Global Warming:Real or Fake?

OK, here's my viewpoint.

Global Warming: Propaganda versus Truth

In the media, talk of imminent climate change and global warming goes rampant. Politicians take time out of their busy days to give interviews about what they are doing to help counter the impending threat. The news talks about what can happen if the ice caps melt and sea levels rise, flooding coastal cities and small islands around the world. Talk of increased carbon dioxide emissions leading to higher temperatures instills fear in the hearts of environment-centric people around the world.

However, one important aspect is lacking in most cases of media coverage of global warming: the results of studies conducted by scientists. Not surprisingly, global warming is used as a weapon by politicians to instill a sense of fear in the public, a sense that there is something they can do to save the world, but if they don’t, New York City, San Francisco, and many other major cities will be flooded. Usually, what the people can do to help involves electing a certain politician. While this alone is cause for suspicion, talk of the reality of global warming is suppressed on the news.

A very small percentage of Americans are aware of the facts behind the rhetoric, because the facts simply aren’t discussed. When they are, the politicians or newspeople generally present very limited charts, like the well-known atmospheric carbon dioxide charts. Thus, a survey of data collected by scientists is clearly in order. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the facts behind global warming and assess whether it is really as imminent as the media would have one believe. It will go into detail about global temperatures and the urban heat island effect, glacier mass and world ice, and data on other parts of the global warming argument including sea level change, and conclude with justification for why politicized science is dangerous.
Global temperature change is the key argument for global warming.

If global temperatures have shown no significant change in recent history, then global warming theory does not adequately explain or predict how temperature will change in the future. And, in fact, using all weather stations around the world, (including those with sketchy and mostly unreliable data) one finds that global ‘mean’ temperature has risen over the past century. The rise is from about -.3 degrees Celsius in 1898 to about .6 degrees Celsius now, according to the databases maintained at giss.nasa.gov. During this time period, carbon dioxide (henceforth referred to as CO2) levels in the atmosphere have also risen, from about 295 parts per million to 380 parts per million. However, this data is somewhat misleading, as during the thirty-year period before the last warming trend started, from 1940 to 1970, CO2 levels increased from 310 parts per million to 325 parts per million, but global temperatures dropped about 0.2 degrees Celsius, also from giss.nasa.gov. Thus, simply analyzing carbon dioxide content in the air and global temperature does not tell the whole story.

Another aspect of this is the maintenance of weather stations around the world. There is no dispute that the United States has the most accurate temperature record in the world from about 1880 to the present. US temperatures have risen by about a third of a degree Celsius since 1880. However, though this rise shows some mild inclination toward global warming occurring, it is important to note that 1934 was the warmest year yet recorded in US history, being a slight fraction of a degree warmer than today. There was a cooling trend of about 0.6 degrees Celsius between 1934 and 1952, then a spike of about 0.4 degrees from 1952 to 1958, followed by another cooling trend, after which temperatures were held fairly stable until 1988, when they rose by another half of a degree to today’s levels. A half of a degree Centigrade is equivalent to 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit, so it is accurate to state that temperatures in the United States have risen by about a degree in the past thirty years.

It is this time period that politicians most often point to as proof of global warming, although the cooling trends in recent history are important to note, as carbon dioxide was also increasing during these periods. Clearly, carbon dioxide levels are not the only factor in determining global temperature, and certainly no the only impact humans have n the environment.

A critical factor in the debate about global warming is the urban heat island effect. This effect is, essentially, that large cities become warmer because concrete and skyscrapers reflect heat well. As cities expand around the world, urbanization thus causes an increase in average ground temperature, thus affecting the global mean near-surface temperature, which is what is under dispute here. It is easy to tell that large cities get warmer as they expand. The temperature records from New York and Tokyo, two of the largest cities in the world that have experienced the most urbanization, paint a clear picture – New York’s temperature has increased by five degrees Fahrenheit in the last one hundred and eighty years, while temperatures in Tokyo have risen slightly more: about three degrees Celsius, which equates to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit. In fact, some comprehensive studies have been done to analyze the urban heat island effect around some cities.

In R. Bohm’s “Urban bias in temperature time series – a case study for the city of Vienna, Austria,” the study bore interesting results. Bohm took readings from different weather stations around Vienna, and found that the temperature increased anywhere from 0.2 degrees Celsius in rural areas to 1.6 degrees Celsius in urban areas. He attributes this to the buildup of living space, although there was no real population growth, and increased use of concrete. A similar case study with a different basis showed the same effect: In David Streuker’s “Satellite-measured growth of the urban heat island of Houston, Texas,” Streuker was working with a city that, unlike Vienna, did, in fact, experience significant population growth over a short period of time. A growth in population of 30 percent resulted in a temperature change of 0.82 degrees Celsius in just twelve years. This is about the same amount as the global temperature change over the last century, when the world’s population grew by approximately 280 percent. This is accounted for by the urban heat island effect, and this effect is NOT accounted for in the talk of politicians about the subject.

Rural temperatures have shown no significant global warming trend over the last century. Older cities that did not have a lot of recent buildup, like Paris, France, which had a temperature decline of about 0.2 degrees Celsius since 1757, normally do not follow the global ‘pattern,’ which we now know to be tainted by the urban heat island effect. Some examples are: the weather station in Kamenskoe, Siberia (upward trend of a third of a degree Celsius since 1949), Alice Springs, Australia (an increase of about a tenth of a degree Celsius since 1879), and others around the world, many of which actually show slight downward trends, such as the small city closest to Antarctica, at Punta Arenas, Chile, which has declined by about a degree and a half Celsius since 1888.

As temperatures taken from cities coincides with the amount of concrete, and temperatures from rural areas show no real trends, it seems logical to ask where all of this ‘evidence’ of global warming is coming from. Many start from the assumption that temperatures are rising, because it is well known that carbon dioxide levels have risen significantly (65 parts per million since the late 1950s, a 17% increase). Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, but not a very effective one. Water vapor and methane are far more adept at trapping heat in the atmosphere. If the greenhouse affect as it is advertised by politicians works as scientists say it does, it stands to reason that the upper atmosphere would be warming more than the Earth, for that’s how heat trapping would reach the Earth. However, studies show that this is not the case. Climate models have utterly failed at predicting the temperature change in the atmosphere over the last thirty years, the period of ‘prolonged warming’ after the cooling between 1930 and 1970. The IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, reported in 1995 that the atmosphere was warming, and predicted that the troposphere, the lowest portion of the Earth’s atmosphere, had already warmed by 0.6 degrees Celsius since 1970 (Houghton). However, weather balloons and satellite data show that, in fact, the troposphere cooled by about a tenth of a degree. Such a failure to even review the data by the defining body on climate change shows a shocking lack of research and fuels the thought that politics, not science, is behind global warming theory. Perhaps the most convincing argument in this regard is that while politicians claim that the world is the hottest now that it has ever been, the truth is that it was significantly warmer during the medieval period and the last several interglacials (times when the world was not covered in ice, such as now). Also, there have been periods of time where carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was significantly higher than it is now, even before humans walked the earth. Even political reports on world ice are completely flawed.

Many politicians, including Al Gore in his documentary An Inconvenient Truth, use Mount Kilimanjaro as an example of melting glaciers that will cause an increase in sea level, flooding coastal cities. However, study after study has proven that the real culprit behind the melting glaciers of Mt. Kilimanjaro is not global warming, but deforestation at the base of the mountain. As a result of the deforestation, the air flowing up the mountain is warm and dry, instead of cool and moist as it had been in the past. The study on Kilimanjaro by Kaser in 2004 leaves no room for doubt: The melting at Kilimanjaro was completely inconsistent with global warming. In fact, temperatures at the altitude of the mountain have shown no change in the past two hundred years. Also, politicians claim that a majority of the glaciers of the world are melting, especially in Greenland, and that the ice in the north and south polar caps is also melting.

While it is true that Greenland may lose its ice in the next thousand years (although this is open to many variables and studies have been inconclusive), and glaciers are retreating in some parts of the world, further studies on glacier mass have revealed several unreported aspects. Firstly, a large portion of glaciers are undocumented and not studied. Secondly, even among the several thousand glaciers for which data is kept, there is no global trend in glacier melt. This was established by glacier expert Roger Braithwaite in his 2002 study on the previous fifty years of glacier monitoring.

As for Antarctica, the politicians point at the fact that the Antarctic Peninsula is warming and beginning to melt. However, this peninsular region only represents two percent of the ice of Antarctica. The rest of the continent is getting colder and thicker, offsetting any melt. In fact, total world sea ice has increased since the 19th century.
The Vostok ice core in Antarctica has been heavily studied, and in a report issued in 1999 by Petit, Jouzel, and other scientists studying the core, atmospheric concentration of gases trapped in the ice can be measured, and show that carbon dioxide levels in the past were far higher than today. Other ice bodies that are frequently studied are glaciers, and Braithwaite, the leading expert on glacier mass, has established that not enough is known about the world’s glaciers to establish a trend. A lack of knowledge is a serious precursor to impaired decision-making ability by politicians, who need to make these expensive policy decisions based on the data they have. It is very dangerous for policy to be put into effect that could end up doing nothing, especially when this policy is based on computer models that have been proven to be inaccurate. Computer models of world ice have never correctly predicted trends. This is a sign that not enough is known about climate for any action to be taken, preventative or otherwise.

Sea level data is another cause for debate. Sea level rise is measured by satellites, and models of sea level have been critical in the global warming debate. It has been predicted that should Greenland melt, the sea level of the world could rise by twenty feet. While this is true, it would happen in about a thousand years, and is nowhere close to being a certainty. Current estimates are that sea level has been rising by 1.7 to 2.4 millimeters per year, as published in numerous scientific journals. It has been rising at the same rate since the beginning of the Holocene era, about six thousand years ago. Clearly, man had little if any influence on sea level back then, so it stands reasonable to conclude that we have no influence on sea level now, as the rise has remained unchanged. Also, this rise equates to about six to nine inches every hundred years, perhaps causing slightly higher tides. The effect on erosion is measurable yet very small.

Sea level and sea ice are directly related. The more sea ice there is, the higher the sea level will be. This is because of the unique structure of water. When it freezes, it honeycombs because of the hydrogen bonds. Thus, ice is less dense than water. So when there is more ice in the world, the sea level is lower, and when there is less ice in the world, sea level is higher. However, this effect is very small, and does not support the global warming argument at all. As ice in Antarctica, which contains the vast majority of world ice, is getting thicker, offsetting any melt elsewhere in the world, one is forced to conclude that sea level rise will not be a concern anytime soon.

Perhaps if humans begin emitting a lot more water vapor, there will be cause for concern, but the effect of carbon dioxide on the atmosphere is miniscule. Additionally, with increased carbon dioxide, plants thrive, releasing more oxygen into the air. Five hundred thousand years ago, when there was much more carbon dioxide in the air than there is today, the world was warmer. However, carbon dioxide then represented several percent of the Earth’s atmosphere. Today, carbon dioxide levels are at approximately 380 parts per million worldwide. This amount is infinitesimally small. If the concentration of the elements of the atmosphere in the world were to be compared to a hundred-yard football field, nitrogen, which composes 78% of the atmosphere, would take one from the goal line all the way to the 78 yard line. Oxygen, the second most abundant element in the atmosphere, makes up an additional 21%. Just nitrogen and oxygen make up 99% of the Earth’s atmosphere. Only one yard remains in this hypothetical football field, and most of that is made up of argon, an inert noble gas. Carbon dioxide takes up only about one inch of this hundred-yard football field – an insignificant 0.038% of the composition of the atmosphere. Add to that the fact that carbon dioxide is not a very effective greenhouse gas, and the facts point to global warming being little more than a hoax by politicians to incite the public to vote for them.

Trendy pseudoscientific concepts that have little to no basis in science have been quite prolific in modern society. Starting with Lamarckian genetics in the 19th century, with a brief 20th century revival by the Russian Lysenko, proceeding through eugenics in the early 20th century and the DDT ban in the later 20th century, and culminating in today’s global warming, many times has the world public been convinced by something that is simply not true. Lamarckian genetics, the concept of ‘use it or lose it,’ was very popular in his day. This is the theory espoused by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck that a being or plant passes on its nongenetic characteristics to the next generation. For example, Lamarck espoused the theory that giraffes had long necks because they were continually stretching up to reach higher leaves to get an advantage over other herbivores. Because of this, from generation to generation, the neck slowly grew longer. However, we know this now to be preposterous. The clearest and simplest refutation of Lamarckian genetics is a bonsai tree. Cultivated by a gardener and forced to grow in a small pot, a bonsai tree is very compact. However, its seeds still produce normal-sized trees.

The Russian biologist Trofim Desinovich Lysenko claimed that he “solved the problem of fertilizing the fields without fertilizers and minerals.” His method for this was a procedure called vernalization, which moistened and chilled seeds in an attempt to enhance their eventual growth. His theory was that they would be able to pass on their traits to further generations. However, as everyone now knows, this theory was inherently flawed, though it made sense to Stalin, who put Lysenko’s theories to the test and ended up ruining Russian agriculture and biology. Many terrible happenings result from poor science.
Another classic example of pseudoscience leading to disaster was the 1972 ban of DDT. DDT was a top-of-the-line insecticide, the most effective known agent for killing mosquitoes, and was the primary cause of malaria’s decline. By 1972, malaria-related deaths were less than one hundred thousand per year. Since the ban of DDT, two million deaths every year, mostly children, have resulted. Banning DDT, as writer Michael Crichton put it, “killed more people than Hitler.” And the reason for the ban was? Ruckelhaus, the head of the EPA at the time, claimed that DDT “posed a carcinogenic risk for man.” Numerous exhaustive studies, including one by the Sweeney Foundation just two months before this ban, showed no connection between DDT and cancer. However, Ruckelhaus apparently had not read these studies. Many deaths were also caused by DDT’s replacement, a highly toxic pesticide called parathion. Farmers were not used to handling such toxic pesticides. DDT was very mildly toxic; even ingesting it directly in small quantities would not cause serious harm.

A third example of politicized science is the scare back in the 1990’s that power lines and breast implants cause cancer. Neither of these had a grain of truth, but because they were highly publicized by the media, the general populous believed what they heard. By the time scientists had disproved these claims, the damage had already been done. Dow Corning, a breast implant manufacturer, was forced to pay 3.2 billion dollars in lawsuits due to these false claims, and went out of business. Also, total GDP loss due to the false power line scare was over twenty-five billion dollars, including property devaluation and relocation of power lines, according to the White House. These episodes are very costly, and global warming is no different. Despite the fact that renewable forms of energy that can supply 100% of today’s energy needs do not exist, politicians continue to push for their use, claiming that a crisis is on the way and the only way it can be averted is by sending them money and giving them votes. However, citizens of the world remain suspicion-free. More proof that people will believe anything they hear without checking the facts is that several studies have shown that most Americans think that the crime rate has been increasing. This is attributed to the amount of coverage the media gives to violent crimes. However, the crime rate has actually significantly decreased since 1990. These are just some of the numerous examples of how politicians and the media spin topics.

The global warming debate has been going on for decades now, with important points being made for both sides. The atmospheric effects of man-made global warming have not yet been detected, apart from increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. It is not clear that, counting for the urban heat island effect, the average temperatures around the world are rising. Even the highest estimates only put the Earth today at less than a degree hotter than it was in the 1930s, and as sea ice in the world has increased, this figure does not tell the whole story. There are many forces at work in maintaining the Earth’s homeostasis, and it is unlikely that burning fossil fuels will severely compromise this. Sea levels in the world are rising, but there is no evidence that they are rising any faster today than they were six thousand years ago, when they started rising. Global warming would actually lead to a net benefit for most nations, and far fewer deaths from freezing in poorer, colder parts of the world. There is no evidence linking global warming to increased severe weather activity. Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide stimulates plant growth, so rumors of potential crop failure due to global warming make no sense.
All in all, the global warming debate needs to shift away from politics and toward science. We know remarkably little about the Earth’s climate, and given that computerized models have continuously failed to correctly predict climate, and vary by up to four hundred percent from each other, making policy decisions based on them is folly. Nobody knows how much of today’s warming trend is natural, and nobody knows how much is caused by man. There were periods in the last several thousand years during which the Earth was warmer than it is today, including the Holocene climatic optimum of nine thousand to five thousand years ago, and the Medieval era of seven hundred to one thousand years ago. Thus, without significant further research, there is not enough data to infer that global warming is an impending crisis. Policy decisions must therefore wait until one of several possibilities occurs. One, the world’s scientists generally agree on what is happening with the climate and what can be done about it. Two, computer models accurately predict climate for at least a decade. Three, a serious alternative energy form is found. Until one of these three possibilities occurs, it is impossible to know whether decisions put into place would actually help, or whether they would just calm the public, like the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. The United States did the world a favor by refusing to sign, as the estimated effect on global temperature is four hundredths of a degree Celsius and the cost to the economy is massive. Thus, until more is known, politicians should stop parading global warming as a threat of imminent climate change to the world.


Summary - There is not enough data about how much of global warming and how much is man-made. Computer models consistently fail to predict climate, and expensive policy decisions based on them cannot be made at this point. While I personally do think that temperatures have been rising around the world, this trend started in 1850, and in fact, carbon dioxide levels in the distant past have been far higher than today. Carbon dioxide is a weak greenhouse gas. Methane is far more effective at trapping heat, and water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas.

Sorry if this is too long.

[devonin]

Re: Global Warming:Real or Fake?

Wherever you copied that from needs to work on its formatting...well that or -you- need to work on your formatting.

Also...if that wasn't yours could you cite it? And if it was, could you space it out in a way that doesn't hurt the brain to try and read?

[Engler]

Re: Global Warming:Real or Fake?

Geez, you didn't have to right a huge essay. Who's going to read that, anyway?

[devonin]

Re: Global Warming:Real or Fake?

Geez, you didn't have to right a huge essay. Who's going to read that, anyway?

Actually, deciding to write a "huge essay" is probably one of the -best- ways to go ahead and explain your own point in a CT thread. Those of us that take CT seriously (As opposed to just responding without reading any posts, with a one line answer to the question asked in the thread title) would -prefer- to see someone spell out their stance as completely as possible.

It saves on a dozen back-and-forth posts of someone saying "Well what about X?" and you having to respond "Well, X" a dozen times, reduces misunderstandings of the other person's position, and generally is the one advantage that discussion in text form has over discussion in person.

[Nezeru]

Re: Global Warming:Real or Fake?

Thank you, devonin. I was debating whether to post that (I've written numerous essays on global warming, and I chose this one simply based on the politicized science section, which is something I think everyone should read.) Engler, I didn't just write it for the purposes of this thread anyway.

If anyone would like to discuss this topic more privately, send me a PM.

EDIT - I edited the formatting of my original post. Should I add subheadings?

[Reach]

Re: Global Warming:Real or Fake?

I didn't read all of your essay, but I now know I don't have to because you used misleading and false information in your final paragraph>__>

Carbon dioxide is a weak greenhouse gas. Methane is far more effective at trapping heat, and water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas.

Ok, water vapour is not the most important greenhouse gas.

The relationship between water vapour and temperature is not linear. More water vapour in the atmosphere strengthens the greenhouse effect, and meanwhile higher temperatures shift the balance between liquid water and water vapour due to evaporation. Water vapour on its own does not cause climate change, if anything it's an amplifier like CO2 that will only warm the planet significantly if there is something else being forced into the system for it to amplify.

Also, more water vapour is likely to mean more clouds, having a cooling effect.

It also doesn't matter whether or not CO2 is weak. Ants are weak but if you have an infestation of millions of them there is a problem.

Finally, about 20% of our greenhouse gas emissions is methane.

carbon dioxide levels in the distant past have been far higher than today

I already mentioned this.

What you're failing to tell people is that the temperatures were also far higher in the distant past than today.

[seltivo]

Re: Global Warming:Real or Fake?

Global warming is very real, I didn't get any snow till febuary (usualy I get about 3 feet by december). The only reason there is debate over wheather it is real or not is because all the people in power (including the govornement)are denying it. Why would they do something like that? you might ask. The answer is very simple; they will lose money.

just a quick question.
if humans aren't causin global warming, what is?
what else on this planet has the power to change the consistancy of the earths' atmosphere?

[FyRe-AnT]

Re: Global Warming:Real or Fake?

Global Warming does exist but I believe at this point there isnt a way for society to agree it should stop because no one has the will to go without a little leisure for something to work at a world wide scale.

[Nezeru]

Re: Global Warming:Real or Fake?

Quote:
carbon dioxide levels in the distant past have been far higher than today
I already mentioned this.

What you're failing to tell people is that the temperatures were also far higher in the distant past than today.

I'm not failing to tell people this. I'm just saying that carbon dioxide levels have been far higher today. And temperatures were far higher.

I also said that this interglacial is less warm than others have been.

Also, termites produce more methane than people.

And about water vapor, higher temperatures mean more water vapor, so more clouds = more cooling? Actually, these effects are unclear.

Water vapor (according to most studies I've read) is responsible for approximately 70% of the greenhouse effect that keeps our planet in a survivable temperature range.

[seltivo]

Re: Global Warming:Real or Fake?

you should all just go watch "an inconvenient truth".



no really, you should, its an awsome documentary.

[devonin]

Re: Global Warming:Real or Fake?

And one that has already been discussed multiple times, the problems with it as a very biased view expressed, and counter documentaries also brought up and discussed.

[talisman]

Re: Global Warming:Real or Fake?

skimmed a bit of that essay... it makes a lot of unsourced statements and leaves a lot of unspoken premises unsubstantiated. For example, in the paragraph on the composition of the atmosphere, the argument is made that because carbon dioxide makes up such a small portion of the gases in the atmosphere, it could not contribute to global warming, thus the argument that it does is incorrect. The unspoken premise here is that somehow the percentage must be very high for it to have an effect, yet no evidence is cited in support of this. (in fact, if you want to see what happens when methane and CO2 do compose the majority of an atmosphere take a look at Venus where average surface temperatures have been estimated I think somewhere around 800 degrees).

[Grim Raper]

Re: Global Warming:Real or Fake?

It's as real as this girl next to me.................................

[tsugomaru]

Re: Global Warming:Real or Fake?

Global warming is very real, I didn't get any snow till febuary (usualy I get about 3 feet by december). The only reason there is debate over wheather it is real or not is because all the people in power (including the govornement)are denying it. Why would they do something like that? you might ask. The answer is very simple; they will lose money.

just a quick question.
if humans aren't causin global warming, what is?
what else on this planet has the power to change the consistancy of the earths' atmosphere?

It could be the sun! But noooOOOoo, I need to find a different source for my claim before I can say anything.

Your weather is because of a Nina/Nino.

~Tsugomaru