2014 hottest year on record
- Thread starter FiftySeven
- Start date
We had a very mild year here on the east coast of the us.
Global warming is fact. Whats not fact is that mankind is causing it. No proof of that one way or the other. Planet has gone through heating and cooling cycles long before man ever walked the earth.
Global warming is fact. Whats not fact is that mankind is causing it. No proof of that one way or the other. Planet has gone through heating and cooling cycles long before man ever walked the earth.
Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming
What The Science Says:
Less energy is escaping to space: Carbon dioxide (CO2) acts like a blanket; adding more CO2 makes the 'blanket' thicker, and humans are adding more CO2 all the time.
Climate Myth: There's no empirical evidence
"There is no actual evidence that carbon dioxide emissions are causing global warming. Note that computer models are just concatenations of calculations you could do on a hand-held calculator, so they are theoretical and cannot be part of any evidence." (David Evans)
The proof that man-made CO2 is causing global warming is like the chain of evidence in a court case.
CO2 keeps the Earth warmer than it would be without it.
Humans are adding CO2 to the atmosphere, mainly by burning fossil fuels.
And there is empirical evidence that the rising temperatures are being caused by the increased CO2.
The Earth is wrapped in an invisible blanket
It is the Earth’s atmosphere that makes most life possible.
To understand this, we can look at the moon.
On the surface, the moon’s temperature during daytime can reach 100°C (212°F).
At night, it can plunge to minus 173°C, or -279.4°F.
In comparison, the coldest temperature on Earth was recorded in Antarctica: −89.2°C (−128.6°F).
According to the WMO, the hottest was 56.7°C (134°F), measured on 10 July 1913 at Greenland Ranch (Death Valley).
Man could not survive in the temperatures on the moon, even if there was air to breathe.
Humans, plants and animals can’t tolerate the extremes of temperature on Earth unless they evolve special ways to deal with the heat or the cold.
Nearly all life on Earth lives in areas that are more hospitable, where temperatures are far less extreme.
Yet the Earth and the moon are virtually the same distance from the sun, so why do we experience much less heat and cold than the moon?
The answer is because of our atmosphere.
The moon doesn’t have one, so it is exposed to the full strength of energy coming from the sun.
At night, temperatures plunge because there is no atmosphere to keep the heat in, as there is on Earth.
The laws of physics tell us that without the atmosphere, the Earth would be approximately 33°C (59.4°F) cooler than it actually is.
This would make most of the surface uninhabitable for humans.
Agriculture as we know it would be more or less impossible if the average temperature was −18 °C. In other words, it would be freezing cold even at the height of summer.
The reason that the Earth is warm enough to sustain life is because of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
These gases act like a blanket, keeping the Earth warm by preventing some of the sun’s energy being re-radiated into space.
The effect is exactly the same as wrapping yourself in a blanket – it reduces heat loss from your body and keeps you warm.
If we add more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, the effect is like wrapping yourself in a thicker blanket: even less heat is lost.
So how can we tell what effect CO2 is having on temperatures, and if the increase in atmospheric CO2 is really making the planet warmer?
One way of measuring the effect of CO2 is by using satellites to compare how much energy is arriving from the sun, and how much is leaving the Earth.
What scientists have seen over the last few decades is a gradual decrease in the amount of energy being re-radiated back into space.
In the same period, the amount of energy arriving from the sun has not changed very much at all.
This is the first piece of evidence: more energy is remaining in the atmosphere.
Total Earth Heat Content from Church et al. (2011)
What can keep the energy in the atmosphere?
The answer is greenhouse gases.
Science has known about the effect of certain gases for over a century.
They ‘capture’ energy, and then emit it in random directions.
The primary greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), water vapour, nitrous oxide and ozone – comprise around 1% of the air.
This tiny amount has a very powerful effect, keeping the planet 33°C (59.4°F) warmer than it would be without them.
(The main components of the atmosphere – nitrogen and oxygen – are not greenhouse gases, because they are virtually unaffected by long-wave, or infrared, radiation).
This is the second piece of evidence: a provable mechanism by which energy can be trapped in the atmosphere.
For our next piece of evidence, we must look at the amount of CO2 in the air.
We know from bubbles of air trapped in ice cores that before the industrial revolution, the amount of CO2 in the air was approximately 280 parts per million (ppm).
In June 2013, the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory in Hawaii announced that, for the first time in thousands of years, the amount of CO2 in the air had gone up to 400ppm.
That information gives us the next piece of evidence; CO2 has increased by nearly 43% in the last 150 years.
Atmospheric CO2 levels (Green is Law Dome ice core, Blue is Mauna Loa, Hawaii) and Cumulative CO2 emissions (CDIAC).
While atmospheric CO2 levels are usually expressed in parts per million, here they are displayed as the amount of CO2 residing in the atmosphere in gigatonnes. CO2 emissions includes fossil fuel emissions, cement production and emissions from gas flaring.
The Smoking Gun
The final piece of evidence is ‘the smoking gun’, the proof that CO2 is causing the increases in temperature.
CO2 traps energy at very specific wavelengths, while other greenhouse gases trap different wavelengths.
In physics, these wavelengths can be measured using a technique called spectroscopy.
Here’s an example:
Spectrum of the greenhouse radiation measured at the surface.
Greenhouse effect from water vapor is filtered out, showing the contributions of other greenhouse gases (Evans 2006).
The graph shows different wavelengths of energy, measured at the Earth’s surface.
Among the spikes you can see energy being radiated back to Earth by ozone (O3), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N20).
But the spike for CO2 on the left dwarfs all the other greenhouse gases, and tells us something very important: most of the energy being trapped in the atmosphere corresponds exactly to the wavelength of energy captured by CO2.
Summing Up
Like a detective story, first you need a victim, in this case the planet Earth: more energy is remaining in the atmosphere.
Then you need a method, and ask how the energy could be made to remain.
For that, you need a provable mechanism by which energy can be trapped in the atmosphere,and greenhouse gases provide that mechanism.
Next, you need a ‘motive’.
Why has this happened?
Because CO2 has increased by nearly 50% in the last 150 years and the increase is from burning fossil fuels.
And finally, the smoking gun, the evidence that proves ‘whodunit’: energy being trapped in the atmosphere corresponds exactly to the wavelengths of energy captured by CO2.
The last point is what places CO2 at the scene of the crime.
The investigation by science builds up empirical evidence that proves, step by step, that man-made carbon dioxide is causing the Earth to warm up.
What The Science Says:
Less energy is escaping to space: Carbon dioxide (CO2) acts like a blanket; adding more CO2 makes the 'blanket' thicker, and humans are adding more CO2 all the time.
Climate Myth: There's no empirical evidence
"There is no actual evidence that carbon dioxide emissions are causing global warming. Note that computer models are just concatenations of calculations you could do on a hand-held calculator, so they are theoretical and cannot be part of any evidence." (David Evans)
The proof that man-made CO2 is causing global warming is like the chain of evidence in a court case.
CO2 keeps the Earth warmer than it would be without it.
Humans are adding CO2 to the atmosphere, mainly by burning fossil fuels.
And there is empirical evidence that the rising temperatures are being caused by the increased CO2.
The Earth is wrapped in an invisible blanket
It is the Earth’s atmosphere that makes most life possible.
To understand this, we can look at the moon.
On the surface, the moon’s temperature during daytime can reach 100°C (212°F).
At night, it can plunge to minus 173°C, or -279.4°F.
In comparison, the coldest temperature on Earth was recorded in Antarctica: −89.2°C (−128.6°F).
According to the WMO, the hottest was 56.7°C (134°F), measured on 10 July 1913 at Greenland Ranch (Death Valley).
Man could not survive in the temperatures on the moon, even if there was air to breathe.
Humans, plants and animals can’t tolerate the extremes of temperature on Earth unless they evolve special ways to deal with the heat or the cold.
Nearly all life on Earth lives in areas that are more hospitable, where temperatures are far less extreme.
Yet the Earth and the moon are virtually the same distance from the sun, so why do we experience much less heat and cold than the moon?
The answer is because of our atmosphere.
The moon doesn’t have one, so it is exposed to the full strength of energy coming from the sun.
At night, temperatures plunge because there is no atmosphere to keep the heat in, as there is on Earth.
The laws of physics tell us that without the atmosphere, the Earth would be approximately 33°C (59.4°F) cooler than it actually is.
This would make most of the surface uninhabitable for humans.
Agriculture as we know it would be more or less impossible if the average temperature was −18 °C. In other words, it would be freezing cold even at the height of summer.
The reason that the Earth is warm enough to sustain life is because of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
These gases act like a blanket, keeping the Earth warm by preventing some of the sun’s energy being re-radiated into space.
The effect is exactly the same as wrapping yourself in a blanket – it reduces heat loss from your body and keeps you warm.
If we add more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, the effect is like wrapping yourself in a thicker blanket: even less heat is lost.
So how can we tell what effect CO2 is having on temperatures, and if the increase in atmospheric CO2 is really making the planet warmer?
One way of measuring the effect of CO2 is by using satellites to compare how much energy is arriving from the sun, and how much is leaving the Earth.
What scientists have seen over the last few decades is a gradual decrease in the amount of energy being re-radiated back into space.
In the same period, the amount of energy arriving from the sun has not changed very much at all.
This is the first piece of evidence: more energy is remaining in the atmosphere.
Total Earth Heat Content from Church et al. (2011)
What can keep the energy in the atmosphere?
The answer is greenhouse gases.
Science has known about the effect of certain gases for over a century.
They ‘capture’ energy, and then emit it in random directions.
The primary greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), water vapour, nitrous oxide and ozone – comprise around 1% of the air.
This tiny amount has a very powerful effect, keeping the planet 33°C (59.4°F) warmer than it would be without them.
(The main components of the atmosphere – nitrogen and oxygen – are not greenhouse gases, because they are virtually unaffected by long-wave, or infrared, radiation).
This is the second piece of evidence: a provable mechanism by which energy can be trapped in the atmosphere.
For our next piece of evidence, we must look at the amount of CO2 in the air.
We know from bubbles of air trapped in ice cores that before the industrial revolution, the amount of CO2 in the air was approximately 280 parts per million (ppm).
In June 2013, the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory in Hawaii announced that, for the first time in thousands of years, the amount of CO2 in the air had gone up to 400ppm.
That information gives us the next piece of evidence; CO2 has increased by nearly 43% in the last 150 years.
Atmospheric CO2 levels (Green is Law Dome ice core, Blue is Mauna Loa, Hawaii) and Cumulative CO2 emissions (CDIAC).
While atmospheric CO2 levels are usually expressed in parts per million, here they are displayed as the amount of CO2 residing in the atmosphere in gigatonnes. CO2 emissions includes fossil fuel emissions, cement production and emissions from gas flaring.
The Smoking Gun
The final piece of evidence is ‘the smoking gun’, the proof that CO2 is causing the increases in temperature.
CO2 traps energy at very specific wavelengths, while other greenhouse gases trap different wavelengths.
In physics, these wavelengths can be measured using a technique called spectroscopy.
Here’s an example:
Spectrum of the greenhouse radiation measured at the surface.
Greenhouse effect from water vapor is filtered out, showing the contributions of other greenhouse gases (Evans 2006).
The graph shows different wavelengths of energy, measured at the Earth’s surface.
Among the spikes you can see energy being radiated back to Earth by ozone (O3), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N20).
But the spike for CO2 on the left dwarfs all the other greenhouse gases, and tells us something very important: most of the energy being trapped in the atmosphere corresponds exactly to the wavelength of energy captured by CO2.
Summing Up
Like a detective story, first you need a victim, in this case the planet Earth: more energy is remaining in the atmosphere.
Then you need a method, and ask how the energy could be made to remain.
For that, you need a provable mechanism by which energy can be trapped in the atmosphere,and greenhouse gases provide that mechanism.
Next, you need a ‘motive’.
Why has this happened?
Because CO2 has increased by nearly 50% in the last 150 years and the increase is from burning fossil fuels.
And finally, the smoking gun, the evidence that proves ‘whodunit’: energy being trapped in the atmosphere corresponds exactly to the wavelengths of energy captured by CO2.
The last point is what places CO2 at the scene of the crime.
The investigation by science builds up empirical evidence that proves, step by step, that man-made carbon dioxide is causing the Earth to warm up.
There are times when I really want to bang my head on something. And then just not stop, until I stop. For good.
I agree with [MENTION=8603]Eventhorizon[/MENTION]. There have been ice ages and everything before humans walked on Earth. I believe in more ecological life, so we don't destroy ourselves, this nature and the animals. Planet would recover even if humans would make a slow suicide with all the trash and consuming too much of the Earth's nature. Climate has always changed and I think Sun and Moon etc. have more power than humans.
Seems those Gov trained trolls have done a hatchet job on the good folks at friends of science (or am i the gov trained troll, who won the "38 world series anyway?)
My point is not that the world would not, not be a better place without fossil fuels and trash. Only that there is no proof thats shows humans as being the cause of climate change. 10 years before Gore started spouting about global warming he was saying we were headed for an ice age.
How funny would it be to ha e the scientific community to come foward not having used science and say yes man is responsible for global warming. Only to find later the earth has changed ever so slightly in its orbit and we are getting slightly closer to the sun and it is that which is causing tempature to increase. Here we thought we found the problem but ignored the REAL problem. This is what science is supposed to be about. Instead its been hijacked for ideals and political purposes.
How funny would it be to ha e the scientific community to come foward not having used science and say yes man is responsible for global warming. Only to find later the earth has changed ever so slightly in its orbit and we are getting slightly closer to the sun and it is that which is causing tempature to increase. Here we thought we found the problem but ignored the REAL problem. This is what science is supposed to be about. Instead its been hijacked for ideals and political purposes.
So it is Al Gore, the internet inventor, and his liberal pot smoking ilk that is pushing this "we can reverse global warming" drivel.
I 100% agree.
Uh so where I live in Maryland , we normally have 7+ days every summer over 100 degrees. This summer we never broke that mark once. I believe the closest we came was 95 on one day. Very mild summer on the East Coast, like [MENTION=8603]Eventhorizon[/MENTION] said.
I believe in global climate change, not in global warming.
I don’t wish to throw reports back and forth trying to prove or disprove one side or another.
Of course the oil lobby and assclowns like the Koch brothers don’t want global warming to be a “man-made” problem.
I understand how studies can be manipulated and used in ways that they were not intended to be.
Let me just throw this little graph up there...
If you believe that man created global warming or not…dumping huge amounts of pollution in our air is not a wise course of action.
Why not err on the side of caution? There is no downside.
Who stands to lose money if we burn fewer fossil fuels?
Exactly.
Of course the oil lobby and assclowns like the Koch brothers don’t want global warming to be a “man-made” problem.
I understand how studies can be manipulated and used in ways that they were not intended to be.
Let me just throw this little graph up there...
If you believe that man created global warming or not…dumping huge amounts of pollution in our air is not a wise course of action.
Why not err on the side of caution? There is no downside.
Who stands to lose money if we burn fewer fossil fuels?
Exactly.
http://www.independent.co.uk/enviro...-to-improve-conditions-for-birds-9765659.html
[h=1]Grouse shooting 'is warming planet' as peatlands burned to improve conditions for birds[/h]
[h=1]Grouse shooting 'is warming planet' as peatlands burned to improve conditions for birds[/h]
In order to find the solution to problems people must be willing to look at all of the information. Not just the information they want to be true.
The UN keeps citing information from a report that has since been proven to have been manipulated in order to bolster the idea that man is causing global warming. They insist they removed the falsified data (even though the whole report was built off it).
As I said and correctly so. Sure you can run with it but one day when your head is turned in the wrong direction. .. well you can think back to the individual choice you made to ignore fact and truth in place of other things.
The UN keeps citing information from a report that has since been proven to have been manipulated in order to bolster the idea that man is causing global warming. They insist they removed the falsified data (even though the whole report was built off it).
As I said and correctly so. Sure you can run with it but one day when your head is turned in the wrong direction. .. well you can think back to the individual choice you made to ignore fact and truth in place of other things.
Weather modification programmes carried out by private corporations and the US government ''all impact agriculture'' with ''no public oversight'' are ''modifying our weather all the time''
[video=youtube;L5is16A8pfw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5is16A8pfw[/video]
[video=youtube;L5is16A8pfw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5is16A8pfw[/video]