The Facts About Global Warming
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What we know:
- Carbon Dioxide is a greenhouse gas. It allows light to pass through but traps heat. Here's how it works: CO2 absorbs certain wavelengths of energy. This means that radiation from the sun can enter the atmosphere as light. Once this radiation hits the ground, it turns into heat. This heat then radiates back into the atmosphere and out into space. CO2 traps some of the heat.
- CO2 has gone from roughly 280 ppm (parts per million) in the atmosphere before the industrial revolution to about 380 ppm now. Each year humans pump out about 6 billion tons of CO2 with an annual growth rate of about 1.9% predicted between 2001 - 2025 (although actual emissions growth was 3.2% per year from 2000 to 2005).
- CO2 remains in the air for about 100 years, so even if we stopped emitting it right now we would still feel the effects for decades.
- CO2 and temperature have increased and decreased together over the history of the planet.
- There is more CO2 in the atmosphere now than there has been in 650,000 years. The rate of increase is unprecedented over the same period.
- 100 years ago, Svante Arrhenius estimated that a doubling of CO2 would create a 4 degree C rise in temperature. In 1979 the Charney report predicted global warming of 3 degrees C if CO2 doubled in the atmosphere (we are a quarter of the way there). In 1988 James Hansen of NASA predicted to Congress that temperature would increase over the next decades.
- Temperature has increased since those predictions were made. The top 5 hottest years according to NASA are, in order, 2005, 1998, 2002, 2003, and 2004.The World Meteorological Association claims 2005 as the second hottest year on record. The difference is because NASA includes data from the Arctic. The top ten warmest years have been since 1990.
- Since 1850, we have seen temperatures increase at a rate of 1.1 F per century (about 1.5 - 1.8 F total). The rate increased to 3.2F per century since the mid 1970s (click here for more information).
- Species around the world are reacting to climate change: Since 1950, species distribution has shifted to the north 4 miles per decade, shifted to higher altitudes by 20 feet per decade, and Spring has advanced by 2.3 days per decade. In America, butterflies have moved their ranges north. They are no longer found in the southern parts of their old range. Costa Rican birds have extended their range northward. Tropical fish have been seen for the first time off the British Coast, and animals such as the Pied Flycatcher and the Winter Moth are finding their food supply affected by earlier Springs.
- Arctic Sea Ice is declining at a record rate. Each summer some of the ice at the North Pole melts, and each winter it refreezes. Since the late 70s, the summer melt has increased, while the winters have brought less recovery. The evidence suggests that Arctic sea ice is currently at the lowest point in 800 years.
- Climate has changed rapidly in the past. The common example of rapid climate change is the Younger Dryas, when temperatures suddenly plunged, interrupting the warming trend at the end of the last ice age.
What we think we know:
- Temperatures are most likely warmer now than they have been at any time in the past 400 years. They are probably (slightly less certain) warmer than in the past 1200 years, perhaps (less certain) warmer than in the past 12,000 years, and new evidence suggests that we are approaching the warmest temperatures this planet has seen in a million years.
- Models predict that Earth's average temperature will rise somewhere between 2 to 4.5 degrees C in the 21st century.
- Various evidence links the current warming to our use of fossil fuels.
Atmospheric
CO2 has certain isotopes that point to its origin in fossil fuels.
Comparisons of species adaptation and changes in ocean currents to
climate models also support the conclusion that the current warming is
anthropogenic. Since CO2 only absorbs certain wavelengths of energy, we
can predict that certain parts of the atmosphere will warm where those
wavelengths are predominant: at the poles and in the lower
atmosphere.The present warming is consistent with those predictions.
- Changes in the sun's intensity can affect the climate, but not to the extent that we have seen in this century.
- Various feedbacks can magnify the effects of global warming. For example, as ice melts at the poles, it reflects less light back into the atmosphere. This means more heat is absorbed, which intensifies ice melt, which intensifies the heat absorption, and so on.There are many possible feedbacks, and we don't fully understand their implications for the climate.
The best books I've read about global warming
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Thanks Ralph! I've been enjoying your hubs as well.
This is a really excellent and easy to understand overview of the situation. Nice work!
Thank you Kerry. I loved your hub on rewilding!
Nicely done - good facts and figures. Welcome to Hubpages! ;-)
Excellent - I'm happy to be your fan - will be reading more of your hubs
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Good hub, but you left out the fact that the earth has dropped in temperature over the last few years. And this about neglects any temperature increase you talk about. Also, the temperature dropped and raised before the 1850.
We do not know where the temperature is heading.
The only thing that is reliable is that yes, the CO2 has increased from burnign fossils fuels. Everything else you are talking about has happened before several times over the last few milliniums. To make the fact basis, instead of a hypothesis out of this is totally wrong. Besides, maybe some warming may be good for the planet. They do not know what will happen if the planet warms up a little, but can only use scare tactics.
Keep on Hubbing!
Thanks for dropping by eovery. But you should check your facts. The earth's temperature has not dropped over the past decade. If anything it has held steady just below or around 1998 levels - which were higher than any other recorded temperatures. In fact 1998 might well have been the warmest year of the millennium.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
"Calendar year 2008 was the coolest year since 2000, according to the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) analysis of worldwide temperature measurements, but it was still in the top ten warmest years since the start of record-keeping in 1880. Given the range of uncertainty in the measurements, the GISS team concluded that 2008 was somewhere between the seventh and the tenth warmest year on record. (The 10 warmest years have all occurred within the 12-year period from 1997-2008.)"
It takes a huge ego to even consider that human beings had any part in so called global warming. It's really a cult religion based on secular humanism. If was a true scientific discovery why did the scientist have to falsify the data?
Tom - there is so much data out there that falls in line with the predictions made 100 years ago by Arrhenius. The emails are talking about very specific things, sometimes using unfortunate language, like the word "tricks", to describe legitimate scientific procedures.
The data is not falsified. Check out the science for yourself. But don't rely on biased news sources. Look at the organizations that do real science.
Tom Whitworth and fellows who don't experience the extremes that we are feeling in the arctic will never understand until it hits them where they live and by then it will be to late.
Sadly I believe it's to late already.
Is the data true and more or is it been tampered with?
If there is so much data out there, why are there still so many scientist that disagree with it. Science is supposed to be exact. 1+1=2. This is all hypothesis and not actually factual yet, but alarmist have got a hold of it and blown it out of proportions, and it has become a tool to serve a political agenda. What is true anymore. We need to find out.
Keep on hubbing.
Eovery,
Hardly any scientists would disagree with the facts in this article. News reporters feel that they need to give "Both Sides of the Story". The opposition is not doing research or publishing in scholarly peer reviewed journals. They are on the payroll of the oil, gas and coal industries.
I took an environmental writing class last spring. We used to describe quoting those (energy industry) quacks as "Equal Time for Hitler."
Unfortunately, people (like you) are given them equal weight.
Love it, good factual post. Climate is changing-- FACT. I think we need to take responsibility for pollution and go to non fossil energy YESTERDAY, but more important than whose fault it is, is simply preparing. Devastating water shortages, flooding elsewhere, epidemics, impact on food production and coastline and wildlife... What are we going to do about it? Nothing, sadly. We are so adaptable, like the frog we will just adapt til we are boiled!
Tom your information for the most part is correct,considering your time line - HOWEVER - if you just step back in time further - you are going to get a very different story. I also once fell for the whole global warming scare, but then I did research and quite a bit of it. Solar activity more closely matches climate variations of the past than do CO2 data. This is factual, The earth has been around for a very long time... go back further millions of years in your research and the facts start to come into focus. Vostok Ice Core data proves a point. There are No scientific facts to date that back the fundemental theory of manmade global warming. warmer temperature levels preceded CO2 levels ,by a hundred years, so it would suggest that temperature controls co2 levels not co2 levels control temperature - so now doesn't that burst the whold manmade global warming theory right there!
The earth has went in an out of warming and cooling cylces since the binginning of time, quite ironically all data suggests earth is in fact entering an ice age again... for the next 100,000 years or so.
Hi Ellen, thanks for dropping by. It's William not Tom.
I wrote a hub specifically about the Vostok ice core, you can read it here:
http://hubpages.com/hub/Global-Warming-Is-it-All-C
Scientists have assessed solar changes over millions of years. The solar changes by themselves are not enough to account for the changes we've seen in climate.
I wish I had seen this hub earlier. Good job. Great info! While I am very much a nature lover, and an earthy crunchy tree huggin granola, lol, I think that conferences like Copenhagen is a waste of time, energy, and money. I think we should focus on what we're doing, and what we can do locally, than trying to force the world to conform. Anyway, good job!
Why thank you Shazz! I agree for the most part. I'd rather see treaties and meetings like the Kyoto accord and the Copehnagen meeting than not see them, but I agree that the solutions will probably have to come from the bottom up.
Thanks for stopping by!
What a great hub. Very easy to read but still great attention to detail.
many of the stats you have listed are very alarming. A hub like this should be read by everyone.
Your hub was reccommended for my blog and was what I consider a great choice.
Your hub is now on my blog. You can find the link on my profile page if you want to see the blog I am talking about.
Cheers
Dale
This is a great hub! Ditto Dale above--everyone should read this. Will spread your hub around.
Thank you WildIris and Dale!
This was really interesting. I hear about global warming on the weather channel, but did not have a clue what it was. This was really educational. I plan on showing this hub to my husband, he is very interested in anything that has to do with weather. The only time he turns the weather channel off is for a football game!lol. Thanks!
Thank you Sugar's Mom!
You might want to check out THIS interesting CO2 finding:
Well just to get an objective view on Up to date data. Please remember there are two sides to a story.
Hi Marshyman,
I looked at the hockey stick brouhaha 4 years ago.
http://naturematters.wordpress.com/2006/11/27/key-
From the executive summary of the National Academy Of Sciences report on temperature reconstruction of the past 2000 years:
"The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes both additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and pronounced changes in a variety of local proxy indicators, such as melting on icecaps and the retreat of glaciers around the world, which in many cases appear to be unprecedented during at least the last 2000 years."
The science has moved on since then. There are multiple converging lines of evidence to indicate that the earth is warming and that the warming is caused by CO2. Global warming theory is not based on one single paper by one scientist, or on a few computer models, but on 150 years of work from thousands of scientists around the world.
Thanks for stopping by.
This is a very good hub on global warming. Facts are clear, but the controversy is whether global warming is a result of human activity over the last few thousand years or is this just a natural phenomena that occurred from time to time over eons.
Hi Melpor,
I don't think there's any real controversy. Some skepticism, definitely - and that skepticism seems to fit quite well with the profit motive of oil and gas companies.
But consider these facts: CO2 is a greenhouse gas and humans have increased it's concentration in the atmosphere. We see increased warming. The warming fits the profile we would expect from CO2 induced global warming - see these two links for more on that:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence
http://hubpages.com/hub/CO2-Causes-Global-Warming-
And the final fact that must be taken into consideration: the skeptics have not produced a single alternative theory to explain the current warming. Not one.
So we have a clear mechanism for warming - CO2 - and warming that fits the pattern we would predict from greenhouse warming. We have no other explanation besides CO2.
Why do people think there is a controversy?
Thank you for dropping by and commenting.
The real testimony to climate change is asked the people who live in areas affected greatly by it. A generation knows if the climate change is occurring. They are the eye witness to weather never experience before. Read case studies of actual people's testmonies and how it is effecting their lives and their liveihood/
It's for real and we haven't seen anything yet.
Ralph Deeds Level 6 Commenter 2 years ago
Outstanding hub! Concise and understandable.