Why should I believe in Global Warming?

It is very hard to believe in "man made" global warming because it does not exist. The earth has always gone through warming and cooling periods. Why do you think Greenland is called Greenland? The Vikings once farmed there. Now we are suppose to believe that today's temp. is the "ideal temp" just because Al Gore says so! I'm with you brother. The whole Man Made Global warming thing is a farce.

First of all, Global Warming is not global warming. I believe in global warming...that the earth is in a warming trend. That is undeniable. (Although the severity of the warming is being oversold by activists.)

But the earth warming does not begin to prove all of Global Warming alarmists' claims. According to natural science the earth is ALWAYS either warming or cooling. According to natural science (on which Global Warming supposedly bases its authority) Europe was covered in Ice in the semi-recent past. This ice melted long before any of the supposed causes of Global Warming existed. How?

Mars is also experiencing planatary warming. How? Man isn't there polluting anything.

As far as greenhouse gases go...the mere coexistence of phenomena does not indicate causality.

And central to a belief in Global Warming is a static view of the earth's environment. The natural world is not static.

I'm open to belief in Global Warming, but the evidence isn't there. Why?

you admit that you see the evidence, then you state "but the evidence isn't there"...now I'm confused.

Scientists have proven that dinosoars had undigested food in their stomachs when they died, and that they died suddenly and unexpectedly, and that it happened after a humungeous earthquake which darkened the earth because of the soot(?) in the air from the earthquake which then stopped crops from growing and then there was an immediate ice age.

So too with climate change they don't know when or where a catastrophic event will happen, but they know it will happen someday. I think what they are saying is that people would "feel" better off if they worked toward trying to prevent something they thought they started rather than sitting there fretting, fearing over years and getting more and more depressed. It's always better if people stay active. I think it's a psychological thing. But really we don't know if anything will happen in our generation, in the next generation or when, but we do know that some people can and will be saved, and it's always better to prepare for something even if something doesn't happen. There are always things to do to make life better for everyone and this is a good time to begin.

American Indians have passed down verbiage of mother earth and how to treat her, and they realize mother earth hasn't been treated that good and they are verbalizing that to the media these days. So it's a good thing for people to help cure the earth.

We also know that Yellowstone is heating up, which could easily cause an ice age. Other than all this all we have are projections. And our projections in the past have been right on.

There is no denying that Global warming exists. I understand why you may thing it is Earth's natural phase, such as when the Ice Age occured. But the thing is, it isn't normal for such a sudden rise in temperature over such a short time-period.

And the evidence is clearly there. The trends shown in several studies show that over the past decades, the increasing population in the world has resulted in more carbon footprints are going to be left. And that results in increase in greenhouse gases. And I am very sure that this is no coincidence.

And another thing is that, there are very few, if not any scientific studies that prove that global warming is not man-made. This is all science. The facts are there and Global Warming is not necessarily a 'belief'. It's a truth.

Mars warming is irrelevant for 2 reasons:

1) If global warming were due to the Sun then EVERY planet would be warming, not just a couple.

2) Mars is warming for entirely different reasons than the Earth - namely dust storms darkening its surface:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/04/07...

The fact that you are not aware of the massive amounts of evidence for anthropogenic (man-made) global warming does not mean it doesn't exist. Here's my brief summary of the evidence:

We know from ice core samples that historically when global warming occurred, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations also increased, but not until about 800 years later.

http://www.daviesand.com/Choices/Precautionary_Pla...

Many global warming deniers think this is evidence that CO2 can’t cause global warming. In fact, that’s the very first argument in the terrible Great Global Warming Swindle. On the contrary, this is actually evidence that human greenhouse gas emissions are currently causing global warming. Compare the following global temperature and atmospheric CO2 concentration plots from 1960-Present:

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mauna_Loa_Carbo...

As you can see they’re both rising – not with an 800 year delay, but at the same time. If CO2 wasn’t causing global warming as was the case in the past, then why is there no 800 year delay?

This only proves a correlation between CO2 and global warming and not a causality. The reason we’ve concluded that greenhouse gas emissions are causing global warming (or more accurately, accelerating it) is because natural causes can’t account for the increase in global warming over the past 40-50 years. They account for most of the warming prior to that, but climate models have determined that greenhouse gases are responsible for about 80-90% of the recent global warming:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_...

The very first inputs into climate models were solar, volcanic, and sunspot contributions, but they simply couldn’t account for the recent acceleration in global warming. Thus climate scientists have concluded that humans are the primary cause.

It's true that the earth goes through natural warming trends. But what is alarming is the huge increase in warming within a short time span (in terms of the earth's life time). The surge in rising temperatures the earth has been experiencing over the past century or even over the past few decades is not normal, and not natural. Which means really, the only thing left to blame the climate change on is us.

Most respected and objective scientific bodies agree that global warming is occurring, and that it will very likely be a big problem. They just don't agree on how fast warming will continue or when the problem will come to a head.

"the earth is in a warming trend. That is undeniable"

Very true and we know this because we can plot and predict the cycles through which the Earth progresses. Just as we can take the planets and plot their past, present and future positions so too can we do the same with the cycles that cause warming or cooling. Herein lies a major problem, namely that the planet is warming much faster than any possible combination of natural cycles would permit. Indeed, the planet is warming faster now than has ever before been know. To put it into context - 19 times as fast as when the last ice age ended, 177 times as fast as the 10,000 years prior to the onset of industrialisation.

"But the earth warming does not begin to prove all of Global Warming alarmists' claims. "

The claims of the media are based on what the journalist or editor wants to publish, the claims of individuals are based on their opinions, the claims of some businesses and governments are based on agendas or what the accountants are telling them. The claims of the scientists are based on documentary evidence. Believe the scientists, ignore the others.

"earth is ALWAYS either warming or cooling"

Yes it is, because of the cycles that both Earth and the Sun go through. There's many of them, some are long, some are short. They all interact; there are cycles within cycles etc. Sometimes the net effect is warming, sometimes cooling, never static.

"on which Global Warming supposedly bases its authority"

There is no authority on which global warming is based other than scientific study. As with all scientific study it follows the principles of Observation, Hypothesis, Testing and Debate. There is no start or end point, no target or agenda, no basis upon which it is founded.

"was covered in Ice in the semi-recent past"

Yes it was, and parts of Russia, Siberia, Asia, Canada, the US etc. The retreat of the glaciers commenced 18,000 years ago and slowed to a crawl 10,500 years ago (the time often referred to as the end of the last ice age).

"This ice melted long before any of the supposed causes of Global Warming existed. How?"

Natural cycles and complicated feedback mechanisms. Quite normal, has happened many times before and if the planet were left to it's own devices will happen many times in the future as well. Note the rate of change - just less than 1°C rise per 1000 years, compare that to the present rate of change of 1°C rise per 56 years.

"Mars is also experiencing planatary warming. How"

Popular misconception. Parts of Mars are probably warming, parts are probably cooling (not enough data to draw a definite conclusion). It is believes the south polar ice cap is receding but the north polar ice cap is advancing. Globally temperatures may have increased in line with the increases experience on Earth. Most likely cause is the giant dust storms that sweep across the entire Martian surface for days or weeks at a time. Mars is incomparable to Earth or any other planet - there is virtually no atmosphere, what little exists is not remotely like our own, there are no seas or oceans, no life, average temperatures are extremely cold (the polar ice caps on Mars are frozen carbon dioxide).

What we do know is that it's not the sun (contrary to the claims made by some people). We have incredibly accurate readings of solar output and the trend in recent decades is one of slight decline. Also, there are more planets and bodies in the solar system that are cooling than are warming. There is warming on other solar bodies besides Earth and Mars, each are caused by a unique set of circumstances.

"As far as greenhouse gases go..."

The existence of them DOES indicate causality. The Greenhouse gases have a simple chemical property that causes a physical interaction with thermal radiation - in short, they prevent heat escaping from our atmosphere. This is a good thing, if this property didn't exist the atmosphere would have no heat retaining capacity and the planet would be so cold that it would be uninhabited.

Quite simple, the more greenhouse gases there are present in the atmosphere the more heat is retained.

"central to a belief in Global Warming is a static view of the earth's environment"

I'm not aware of any climatologist, astrophysicist, meteorologist or similar that holds that Earth has a static environment, quite the contrary in fact. It's long been established and accepted that the environment is in a constant state of flux; life for the scientists would be infinitely easier if it wasn't but we're well aware that it is.

"I'm open to belief in Global Warming, but the evidence isn't there. Why?"

The evidence is everywhere although sometimes it can be hard to separate fact from fiction and to establish what is reliable evidence. In this respect I’d advise relying only on first hand sources and ignoring the media, websites, opinions etc.

Ice ages, and inter-glacial periods, are triggered by small changes in earth's orbit, which astronomers call Milankovitch cycles, and climatologists call "orbital forcing." Since earth's orbit can be computed for thousands of years into the past and future, we know that orbital forcing peaked 6000 years ago during the "Holocene Maximum" and has been slowly cooling the planet since then. Here's the reference:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/207...

The south pole of Mars appears to be warming, but there is no such evidence for the north pole of Mars. This is probably a regional effect rather than a global effect. The weather on Mars is dominated by dust storms far more than solar effects in any case.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005...

There are at least two "smoking gun" lines of evidence that show that the greenhouse effect on earth is increasing:

1) If the greenhouse effect is increasing, the amount of energy earth gets from the sun stays the same, but the distribution of that energy changes: more heat is trapped near the surface, which means less heat makes it to the stratosphere. So if the greenhouse effect is increasing, the stratosphere should be cooling. And this is exactly what's been happening since radiosonde weather balloons have been taking measurements. Here's the data:

http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/temp/sterin/sterin.ht...

2) If the greenhouse effect is increasing, nighttime radiative cooling should be more strongly suppressed than any other single measure -- meaning that nighttime lows should be rising faster than daytime highs. That means the daily temperature range should be getting narrower as temperatures rise. And again, this is exactly what's been happening. Here are the references:

http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-ab...

http://www.bom.gov.au/bmrc/clfor/cfstaff/jma/2004G...

http://tyndall.webapp1.uea.ac.uk/publications/work...

If you think the evidence isn't there, then you haven't seen the evidence.

1. Believe in only because you will have the chance to be naked legally.

2. We on earth are at a time that our affect on the earth is a good thing since we have been entering into another ice age.

3. But...You can only take off so many clothes, it's always better to find someone to cuddle with.

4. I agree.

There have been natural changes in the past. But the data clearly shows the current warming is not natural.

There's a ton of evidence that that's true. It's so long there's no room for it here, I have to use links.

This is science and what counts is the data.

"I wasn’t convinced by a person or any interest group—it was the data that got me. I was utterly convinced of this connection between the burning of fossil fuels and climate change. And I was convinced that if we didn’t do something about this, we would be in deep trouble.”

Vice Admiral Richard H. Truly, USN (Ret.)

Former NASA Administrator, Shuttle Astronaut and the first Commander of the Naval Space Command

Here are two summaries of the mountain of peer reviewed data that convinced Admiral Truly and the vast majority of the scientific community, short and long.

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Climate...

http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

It's (mostly) not the sun:

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/FAQ2...

And the first graph aboves shows that the sun is responsible for about 10% of it. When someone says it's the sun they're saying that thousands of climatologists are stupid and don't look at the solar data. That's ridiculous.

Mars warming is due to giant dust storms unique to Mars:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/research/2007/mar...

Science is quite good about exposing bad science or hoaxes:

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/ATG/polywater.html

There's a large number of people who agree that it is real and mostly caused by us, who are not liberals, environmentalists, stupid, or conceivably part of a "conspiracy". Just three examples of many:

"Global warming is real, now, and it must be addressed."

Lee Scott, CEO, Wal-Mart

"Our nation has both an obligation and self-interest in facing head-on the serious environmental, economic and national security threat posed by global warming."

Senator John McCain, Republican, Arizona

“DuPont believes that action is warranted, not further debate."

Charles O. Holliday, Jr., CEO, DuPont

There's a lot less controversy about this is the real world than there is on Yahoo answers:

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/ho...

And vastly less controversy in the scientific community than you might guess from the few skeptics talked about here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on...

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/570... and:

"There's a better scientific consensus on this [climate change] than on any issue I know... Global warming is almost a no-brainer at this point. You really can't find intelligent, quantitative arguments to make it go away."

Dr. Jerry Mahlman, NOAA

Good websites for more info:

http://profend.com/global-warming/

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/...

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/

http://www.realclimate.org/

"climate science from climate scientists"

As far as I know, there isn't any requirement that you believe in global warming.

Both the ice age in Europe and the weather on Mars fall well within the known statistical models, without any human related issues being included.

There are two features of global warming that do not fall within those models.

1) Ice is melting (fast) that has not melted since the continents formed, prior to the dinosaurs and all of the ice ages.

2) Atmospheric CO2 is reaching levels not seen since prior to the evolution of life.

The fact that BOTH of these things began following human industrialization AND that the quantities of CO2 production predicted for the industrialization at each stage closely matches the observed amounts AND the temperature rise is the amount predicted for those quantities of CO2 levels all fit together consistently to suggest causality (or "global warming" if you prefer).in that they CANNOT be predicted by any model without including human activity.