Over 35 years ago, climatologist Wally Broecker coined the term global warming in a paper outlining the trends that he was noticing with temperature and C02 levels (Stefan). Ever since then, the debate has heated up on the controversy of global warming. Politicians have even used the issue to boost their campaigns. Some question whether the earth’s temperature is rising at an unusual rate. Scientists perform experiments from glacial ice to observe the correlation between carbon dioxide levels and temperature. Scientists have changed the debate over the years from debating whether global warming was actually happening to the current debate about what is causing global warming. Therefore, the term global warming in this paper refers to those who believe humankind is the main cause for the current heating trend. The debate falls between two main arguments: Global warming is being caused by man-made C02 emissions and global warming has no correlation with the amount of man-made C02 emissions released into the atmosphere. First off, the climatologists state that they have statistical evidence suggesting that the earth is getting warmer at an abnormal rate (Alley et al.). They show that in the past 100 years there is a rising trend for the global average temperature and it has gone up .5 degrees Celsius. Of course, .5 degrees Celsius does not seem like much but they project in a multi-model graph that it will continue to rise more rapidly according to most projections (see fig. 1). The climatologists based their temperature projections from land weather observation centers that had been recorded over the years (Alley et al.). The critics of global warming are skeptical about the accuracy of land weather temperature observation si... ... middle of paper ... ...mate/greenhouse_effect_gases.html&edu=high>. Schmidt, Charles W. "Document View." 1 December 2010. ProQuest. 11 February 2011 . Siegenthaler, Urs. "Stable Carbon Cycle–Climate Relationship During the Late Pleistocene." 25 November 2005. AAAS. 8 February 2011 . Spahni, Renato. "Atmospheric Methane and Nitrous Oxide of the Late Pleistocene from Antarctic Ice Cores." 25 November 2005. AAAS. 8 February 2011 . Stefan. Happy 35th birthday, global warming! 28 July 2010. 8 February 2011 . Watts, Anthony. Surfacestations.org. 16 July 2009. 13 February 2011 .
In his piece on climate change, Richard Lindzen addresses his stance on the heated debate of global warming. He claims that there is, in fact, no ongoing catastrophic temperature increase. Lindzen, a Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a recipient of the Jule Charney award from the American Meteorological Society (Richard Lindzen), believes that the earth goes through natural phases of warming and cooling. In this piece, he examines why he believes people have a false conception of Earth’s climate shifts.
Palastanga, V., Van der Schrier, G., Weber, S. L., Kleinen, T., Briffa, K. R., & Osborn, T. J. (2011). Atmosphere and ocean dynamics: contributors to the European Little Ice Age? Climate Dynamics, (36), 973-987.
Ever since the advent of weather observation and prediction technology in the past 150 years, science has created a consensus that the earth is getting warmer, and that human influence is to blame. Some even blame this change, known as global warming, for bouts of extreme weather including cyclonic storms, droughts, wildfires, and heat waves. These scientists (and much of the public) believe that our influence is the problem, as our emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses, the product of the usage of our fuels, are polluting the atmosphere and trapping energy from the sun within. However, a minority group, scientists and public skeptics alike, believe this warming trend is merely a coincidence with the earth’s naturally cyclical climate, and that the activists are overstating something they know little about. Many even agree that if the prospect of our influence were to be true, the effects are not at all that bad, unlike what it is hyped to be. Thus, global warming has become a debatable theory. Much like legislation that prevents schools from teaching evolution as anything more than a theory, now there are also laws that mandate that global warming be considered debatable, and to argue both sides of it (Jonas).
Over the last few years almost everyone has heard that the earth is warming. Also, almost everyone has heard the pleas to go green and reduce carbon emissions, led by former Vice-President Al Gore. Even though there is not a truly accurate definition of global warming it can be roughly defined as a rise in average global temperature according to Laurence Pringle’s book Global Warming Assessing the Greenhouse Threat (19). Global Warming Assessing the Greenhouse Threat also bring up that the average temperature data that scientist are using only goes back to 1860 giving scientists today only 150 years of temperature data. Also, with this current warming, even with humans contributing to the rising average global temperature, scientist today do not fully understand all the complexities of the atmosphere (Pringle 19-21). According to another book by Mr. Pringle, Global Warming the Threat of Earth’s Changing Climate, scientists predict global temperatures could rise from two to six degrees Celsius by 2050 (33). Despite these predictions historical and new information show that scientist are incorrect that global temperatures will forever continue to increase. Global warming and the rise in global temperatures is due to humans burning fossil fuels and overconsumption of products, as well as natural cycles changing slightly and other natural phenomenon; however, this warming will eventually lead to global cooling.
Houghton, J. T., et al. 2001. Climate change 2001: The scientific basis. Contribution of Working
The Earth's climate has changed significantly throughout history. In the last 700,000 years there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat. With the abrupt end of the last ice age approximately 7,000 years ago the beginning of the modern climate era was born. In the last century the global sea level has risen 17cm. All three major global surface temperature reconstructions show that Earth has warmed since 1880. Most of this warming has occurred since the 1970s, with the 20 warmest years, having occurred since 1981 and with all 10 of the warmest years occurring in the past 12 years. There is no denying global warming. Once considered a conspiracy theory by the world’s leading governments, industries and populations; global warming
Throughout history climates have drastically changed. There have been shifts from warm climates to the Ice Ages (Cunningham & Cunningham, 2009, p.204). Evidence suggests there have been at least a dozen abrupt climate changes throughout the history of the earth. There are a few suspected reasons for these past climate changes. One reason may be that asteroids hitting the earth and volcanic eruptions caused some of them. A further assumption is that 22-year solar magnetic cycles and 11-year sunspot cycles played a part in the changes. A further possibility is that a regular shifting in the angle of the moon orbiting earth causing changing tides and atmospheric circulation affects the global climate (Cunningham & Cunningham, 2009, p.205). Scientific studies suggest that all these played a role in past global warming and cooling periods. Today, however, there is a lot of conflict on whether humans are causing a global warming that could be disastrous to humans and all species of plants and animals on this earth. This paper will first explain the greenhouse effect, then take a look at both sides argument, and, finally, analyze the effect of global warming on world-wide sustainability
Beginning with Mark Hendrickson’s argument, he recognizes that the climate is changing. He wrote in his article “Climate Change-Hoax or Crime of the Century” that the Earth has emerged from a Little Ice Age not that long ago, and it would be worrisome if the climate around the globe was not warming up. The science and data that has been recorded supporting this argument does agree with this argument. He also stated that it is beneficial, since human thrive in warmer climate.
Nodvin, Stephen C. “Antarctic Ice: An 800,000-Year Record of Climate Change.” Paragraph Title: Temperature, carbon dioxide and methane. Encyclopedia of the Earth. 2012. Web. May 10, 2015. http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/150101
There is no longer any question that our world climate has changed (King, 2004). Over the last 100 years, "temperatures have risen by about 0.6 degrees Celsius and global sea level has risen by about 20cm" (K...
Certain gases in our atmosphere, principally water vapour, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and ozone are responsible for the GE but most of the GE can be attributed to water vapour and cloud cover. The earth has been warming gradually since 1850 and scientific measurements have correlated this warming with a gradual build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere caused by humankind’s widespread burning of fossil fuel. W...
The Environmentalists claim the science is settled, and that any actions taken to prove otherwise will be unfruitful. They do this to turn public attention away from the fact that much of their data is purposely taken out of context, manipulated, or made up in order to prove that Manmade Global Warming exists. In fact, there is more evidence showing that the rise in temperatures may be due to solar activity or part of the Earth’s natural climate fluctuations, than to support that it is caused by greenhouse gases generated by humans.
The opposing party would like you to believe that the scientists are 90% certain that extreme heat periods will increase worldwide. They say that this is causing increased danger of wildfires, human deaths, and algal blooms. This of course is utterly false on many different levels. These scientists that the opposing party was actually paying a select group of scientists to testify for them meaning the “90% of Scientists” were actually lying because they were being paid off. The real majority agreed against these paid scientists, but they were not included in the vote for agreement in this statistic. These statistics are not nearly as dire as described because they won’t happen. This is because the CO2 emissions are no where near to where they are portrayed in the Al Gore video.
“The temperatures on this planet have always fluctuated naturally on this planet. Looking back over the past 100 years, the earth warmed from 1900 to around 1940. There was global cooling after that until the late 1970’s.” (Scherer 20) The people who say this do not understand that there are weather patterns, but the pattern that is going on now...
The earth is a complex system, which continues to evolve and change. Climate change and global warming are currently popular in the political agenda. But what does “climate” really mean? The difference between weather and climate can be conveyed in a single sentence: “Climate is what you expect; weather is what you get.” Based on research of the geologic record, we know that climate change has happened throughout Earth's history and at present, ever-increasing evidence points to the roles that humans play in altering Earth systems. The Earth and its atmosphere receive heat energy from the sun; the atmospheric heat budget of the Earth depends on the balance between incoming solar radiation and outgoing radiation from the planet; which has been constant over the last few thousand years. However present evidence seems to suggest that the recent increase in temperature has been brought about by pollution of the atmosphere, in particular the release of huge amounts of carbon dioxide, mostly through Anthropogenic Forcing (human activity) and other various internal and external factors. I...