Small changes in the Earth¿s heat balance can lead to large climatic changes. For example, the ice ages during the last several million years--and the warmer periods in between--appear to have been triggered by no more than a different seasonal and latitudinal distribution of the solar energy absorbed by the Earth, not by a change in output from the sun. The geologic record shows that the differences in ice cover, sea level and precipitation as well as in plant and animal populations were quite dramatic between the ice ages and the warm interglacials. Yet the global average temperature differences corresponding to these radically different climates were only about 5 degrees C in the tropics and 8 degrees C in polar regions.
At this point, the Earth is probably on the threshold of an entirely new epoch in which the global climate and the distribution of life will be strongly influenced by a single species: humans. Some are calling this new epoch the anthropocene and it is all thanks to our increasing the relatively small amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by burning the vast stores of carbon trapped inside of the fossil fuels that power our modern lives.
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Add CommentWater vapor yes- green house effect, however no one has ever proven any thermal value to co2. In the earths history there has been 6X the co2 present level, the warming came first followed by the co2 increse. The volume of water vapor compaired to co2 is not even ratioal, however changing economic dynamics and profit from cabon credits, is a motive to lie and pervert data.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMillions of dollars over twenty years and not one heat island has ever been found over a high concentration of co2, however there are some who would give us 6percent additional unemplyment and 750 to 1300 dollars per household a year to the publics burden. All of this with no scientific proof.
The author glosses over the effects of water vapor when the fact is water vapor accounts for 95% of the greenhouse effect and water vapor is 99.999% natural in origin.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Of the 186 billion tons of CO2 that enter earth's atmosphere each year from all sources, only 6 billion tons are from human activity. Approximately 90 billion tons come from biologic activity in earth's oceans and another 90 billion tons from such sources as volcanoes and decaying land plants."
"At 368 parts per million CO2 is a minor constituent of earth's atmosphere-- less than 4/100ths of 1% of all gases present."
"CO2 that goes into the atmosphere does not stay there but is continually recycled by terrestrial plant life and earth's oceans"
Excellent points raised here. The Earth's temperature has always been fluctuating and there have been other warm periods in the past, well before industrialized nations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAfter 1940, when industry was booming, the global temperature actually decreased for nearly 4 decades. There was even talk about a coming ice age.
The UN is a political entity creating politically motivated organizations such as the IPCC. There are scientists that are named in the IPCC's report on global warming who do not agree with the premise of human created global warming.
The polar bears survived other warm periods and...behold, they are still here.
What about the rest of the solar system? Check this out:
http://www.enterprisemission.com/_articles/05-14-2004_Interplanetary_Part_1/Interplanetary_1.htm
Too many questions for me to blindly follow the beaten CO2 path.
And whatever became of Gore's obsession with the hole in the ozone? I guess it's just not politically viable enough anymore.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoes anyone here have any real data (the logic and reasoning incredible - literally). When you assume you have proven some part of the opposition's argument false, how does that prove the rest of it false? How does a personal attack on the opposition prove false anything he says? How does proving that he profits - however much - by his argument prove it is false? How does guessing about the temperature of the earth thousands of years ago contribute to the discussion of today's global warming due increased atmospheric corbon dioxide levels (do we really want to live the way life lived 3,000 years ago?). How does employment (or unemployment) prove anything about the fact or falsity of the argument concerning global warming? Does the condition of the air and atmosphere above major cities around the world suggest anything should the entire planet become so polluted? Is global warming debate a red herring covering up the rest of anthropogenic pollution (when we can walk on the plastic - or drive cars on it - in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Japan, it will have made no difference to the atmosphhere? How much carbon dioxide can a human being breathe without gasping for breath? How much carbon dioxide does, and will, 600 million motor vehicles produce? If or when everyone on the planet has a car - the 6.5 billion here now, for instance - how much carbon dioxide will be produced? How much carbon dioxide is required to acidize sea water? How much will kill the sea anemone and other forms of plankton-sized life? How much carbon dioxide is required to kill or alter bacterial or other microscopic life forms (if we don't so much as know how many life forms are extant, how do we know that the effect of carbon dioxide will be?)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoes anyone here remember Pascals' Wager? Does anyone consider that its reasoning might apply to any of this?
I must agree with fishman:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have no quaulifications in science or otherwise, but I do have common sence and lodgic..if there is a difference.
I have seen really great summers and some bad winters,I have witnessed floods up and down our country.All were extreme yet not unusual over a period of 60 years.Of course were going to get extreme weather occassionally with the usual weather patterns in between it's common sense.
For anyone, scientists included to say we are experiencing unatural weather patterns is nonsense, global warming may be a fact, but it's a natural cycle that has happened before, is there anyone who will dispute global warming has not happened before?
What if interfering with carbon dioxide levels has the opposite effect and drops alarmingly to allow more harmful radiation to bathe our earth...what then?
Years ago in the UK farmland fields were framed with beautiful broadleafed trees and dotted along side roads,not anymore.
The global warming effect of carbon dioxide is constant with time and essentially independent of the density of carbon dioxide. This is because CO2 is an efficient absorber of infrared in the two spectral bands for this gas. It absorbs approximately 50% of the infrared energy for a meter of absorption length at the present 380ppm concentration. Thus all the energy it can absorb it does so in less than 100 meters. Increasing CO2 only shortens the absorption length in direct proportion of the density. With all the turbulence in the atmosphere CO2 increases are benign. CO2 absorbs about 8.3% of Earth's radiated infrared energy. This is constant over a very wide range of CO2 concentration. CO2 is not a problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShame this fool does not know what he is on about, CO2 comprises less than a third of one percent of all the atomosphere. It is impossible to accurately measure the composition on the atmoshpere to this level, as a mouse farting nearby would make the instrument self destruct.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe sun has more to do with global warming than burning fossil fuels, but because it is beyond human control and is a hell of a long place to go to work to (and damned hot when you get there), it remains ignored by the scientific community.
The Greenhouse Effect has been invented to keep moronic scientists usefully employed spouting spurious rubbish to anybody who will listen, in order to keep their jobs.
One of the main climate research centres in the UK was caught manipulating data, how many more do this?
It seems strange that this ambiguous piece would appear in a scientific publication. To blame a trace gas that makes up .036% of the atmosphere, CO2, and is one and one half times heavier than air for what something as complex as the what the earth's climate does is a real stretch of the imagination. At 392 parts per million, CO2 is a minor constituent of earth's atmosphere-- less than 4/100ths of 1% of all gases present. Compared to former geologic times, earth's current atmosphere is CO2- impoverished.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are some obsessed with the supposed increase of 280 ppm to 392ppm of CO2 and I hope that this information will help you to sleep better at nights.
This, I hope, will put this into some kind of a perspective that makes one understand just how insignificant this increase is.
A part per million is like 1 drop of ink in a large
kitchen sink.
A large kitchen sink is about 13-14 gallons. There
are 100 drops in one teaspoon, and 768 teaspoons
per gallon.
Some other things that are one part per million are…
One drop in the fuel tank of a mid-sized car
One inch in 16 miles
About one minute in two years
One car in a line of bumper-to-bumper traffic from
Cleveland to San Francisco.
One penny in $10,000.
I know that you understand that these 112 additional ppm are spread out over this 16 miles in different one inch segments and wouldn't it be a task to be told to sort out the 392 pennies from the number that it would take to make up $10,000.
Now another FACT for you to consider. CO2 is one and one half times heavier than "air". This point was sadly proven on Aug, 21, 1986 when Lake Nyor in Cameroon released about 1.6 million tons of CO2 that spilled over the lip of the lake and down into a valley and killed 1,700 people within 16 miles of the lake. "Carbon dioxide, being about 1.5 times as dense as air, caused the cloud to "hug" the ground and descend down the valleys where various
villages were located. The mass was about 50 metres (164 ft) thick and it travelled downward at a rate of 20–50 kilometres (12–31 mi) per hour. For roughly 23 kilometres (14 mi) the cloud remained condensed and dangerous, suffocating many of the people sleeping in Nyos,Kam,Cha,andSubum.
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
Dear Leak,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think your math is a little off. That would be 4/10ths of one percent (not 4/100ths) which still small. However, it used to be closer to 3/10ths, so it is indeed increasing. The point of the article is that this is a significant change in CO2 and it WILL cause the planet to warm, even though it such a small part of the total mixture of gases that make up our atmosphere.
Meanwhile, back on Earth...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIP0O1NJVZA