Question about climate change and global warming?

our atmosphere has a way of keeping heat INSIDE the area of our planet; heat rises, but as you pass thru the layers of atmosphere, it gets colder, instead of hotter. so imagine you are sitting in bed with the covers over your head. your body heat alone might be enough to keep you warm, but what if you light a match? the heat begins to build, and even after the match goes out, the heat it has produced stays there, and causes the hotness under the covers to outweigh the heat in the rest of the house.

once the "extra" heat exists, it spreads out sideways in all directions, as the heat expands, and stretches it's reach, eventually it reaches the North Pole. the North Pole is almost ENTIRELY ice, and it melts and re-freezes all the time, but if it melts MORE than usual, that water flows away from the pole, before it has the time to evaporate and snow back down in the North Pole area. this water flows out from the Arctic Ocean into the other oceans (they're ALL connected, of course), and the worldwdide water level rises just abit. the process is so gradual, that most people don't even notice it, except for the ones who've been watching it for years, as part of their scientific studies.

extra water across the earth affects climate, since it will rain more, or flood an area; people who live in completely dry areas will now have more moisture than they are accustomed to, and people in wetlands will eventually notice a rise in water level. this can, and has, changed the climates of various parts of the world.

there is NO WAY for us to NOT produce heat (especially in the winter months), but REDUCING the AMOUNT of heat put out, and keeping that level to a point as close to "zero" as possible, will keep our current climates from changing as much. at this point, it's all about "damage control", and minimizing the changes that are imminent.

again, the reason it is so hard to convince people, is because it is NOT just something that is happening at a rate where it is immediately visibly occuring. it takes time, which actually gives us a chance to change things, most notably, the WAY we produce, and the amount of production of excess heat. this is where CO2 comes in to play.

According to BBC Weather (http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/gases_carbon... the present amount of carbon dioxide taken out of the atmosphere every year by plants is almost perfectly balanced by amount of carbon dioxide put back into the atmosphere by respiration and decay. any other CO2 is in a state of constant change, and does not affect things in general. but when you INCREASE the amount of CO2, the balance of the system gets slanted one way, and there becomes TOO MUCH CO2. CO2 is not "bad", but too much of ANY mineral (or too much of ANYTHING in general, for that matter) is ALWAYS bad. in order to maintain the "delicate balance" of nature, we must be certain we are not "polluting", by adding too much of anything to the ecological system in place.

say you have a line of dominoes, and it curves to the left. if you change the curve of just ONE domino, it may not connect with the others the way it always has. when you change ONE part of nature, you change the way it interacts with the rest of it. if you change MULTIPLE parts...well, let's just say the dominoes will have an even lesser chance of connecting.

as for there not being any man-made carbon emitting "evils" long ago, no offense intended, but you need to re-examine the concept of "man-made". coal isn't man-made, but the heat it puts off when burned IS. and fire (and by association, smoke) are BOTH artifacts that can be "man-made". thinking outside our usual line is what brings about new ideas, and new concepts, and it is EXTREMELY hard to explain something as complex as this, when the audience WANTS to believe that it is a lie. why would SO MANY PEOPLE from professional scientific backgrounds with degrees from top colleges want to perpetuate a lie? it's NOT like this is something the President came up with or anything...it is statistical data that has been analyzed in perpetuity, and is STILL being done. more people every day are coming to the same conclusion. it's not just some minor sect of study.

the climate is ALWAYS changing, and that is why people think that when we talk about "climate change" it is such a fallacy. but NOW we are realizing that this recent change is due to, not only an increase in the human population count, but our massive heat production increase, primarily due to mass-production by industrial pollutants, which also coincidentally reduce the amount of breathable air. industry is important, but as before, too much of ANYTHING can be "bad". what is the point of producing more than what is needed, only to end up throwing the unused portion away, to be added to our ever increasing garbage dumps? an increase in production produces new jobs, but if it at the cost of our planet, it is NOT worth it, in my opinion.

Short answer: It can't.

Long answer and proof of how deluded global warming zealots are:

Global warming “science” predicts a 300% increase in cold winters. It also predicts “milder winters rather than cold ones.” So which weather outcome would AGW kooks use as evidence to back up their theory—warmer winters or colder ones?

Yes? Huh?

The most important tenet of the scientific theory is that a hypothesis must be testable, i.e., if it’s not true, there must be a way to show it. That’s why God is a lousy hypothesis. The answer to all contrary evidence is “God did it,” and thus there is NO contrary evidence.

The same for global warming. Here’s a recent quote from one of the biggest names in climate panic:

Q: Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming

A: Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level.

Setting aside the spin, the key word there is “yes,”—there hasn’t been any global warming outside the accepted margin of error. And that’s Jones’ answer even though he’s using weighted, biased numbers:

•75% of the globe has not seen significant peak warming or cooling changes between the period prior to 1960 and the 2000′s which rise above a 0.5°C threshold, which is well within the CRU’s own stated measurement uncertainties o +/- 1°C or worse.

•Assuming a peak to peak change (pre 1960 vs 2000′s) should represent a change greater than 20% of the measured temperature range (i.e., if the measured temp range is 10° then a peak-to-peak change of greater than 2° would be considered ‘significant’) 87% the Earth has not experienced significant temperature changes between pre 1960 period and the 2000′s.

And remember how global warming was going to flood the East Coast because, each year the sea was going to rise at a faster rate than the year before until Manhattan was under 20 feet of water? Not so much…

“While relative sea level continues to rise at some of the highest rates found along the U.S. Atlantic Coast, there is presently no evidence of a statistically significant increase marking an acceleration in relative sea-level rise”

Yes, in some places absolute sea level is rising. In others its falling. But given the (alleged) century of catastrophic damage man has been doing to the atmosphere, shouldn’t there at least be a trend by now?

Here’s the truth: The warmest year on record (and our records are only about 130 years old) is still 1998. Unless it’s 1934. The temperatures are so close, scientists are still debating. Since 1998, temperatures have been flat—no significant warming or cooling.

Meanwhile, the AGW kooks still can’t explain how the slight warming during the 20th century is different from the huge warming across Europe some 1000 years ago, or why current “warming” shouldn’t be viewed in context of the ending of the Little Ice Age.

Sorry for the rambling "answer."

First let me state that the global warming theory is unproven nonsense. But to answer your question here is the climate alarmist's silly theory.

The theory of climate change use to be called the greenhouse gas theory which is easier to understand. The idea is that by burning fossil fuels we are releasing the carbon in these fuels into the atmosphere. During the burning of these fuels the carbon in the fuel combines with oxygen and form CO2. One part carbon 2 parts oxygen. This extra CO2 in the atmosphere supposedly blocks heat from escaping into space like the glass in a greenhouse keeps heat from escaping the greenhouse.

That is the theory but the truth is that global warming is a hoax. Did you hear about all those people trapped a Heathrow airport in the UK over Christmas because the airport couldn't handle the cold. The reason they can't handle the cold at Heathrow is because the UK did not have this cold a winter in 300 years. So they didn't have the de-icing equipment which airports in colder places like Canada have. Does that sound like global warming to you?

They didn't have bullets during the last ice age, but people were dying anyway.

So how can supposedly man-made guns kill people?

What's going on now is completely different in its causes from anything before.

Have you seen this outstanding summary?

In December 18 2009 SCIENCE, free download, detailed backup from original literature:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/326/596...

http://www.sciencemag.org/

cgi/content/full/326/5960/1646

Presidential Address:

Reflections On: Our Planet and Its Life, Origins, and Futures

James J. McCarthy

James J. McCarthy is the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography at Harvard University. He has served as president of the AAAS from February 2009 to February 2010.

My take: An outstanding, well-referenced, review of the situation. It’s all there; history of the global warming concept, role of solar fluctuations, the actual temperature record with ranking of years, the extent to which predictions since 1995 have been justified and indeed overtaken by events.

The general consensus of scientists who have investigated the anthropological effects and impacts in regards to climate change have come up with the answer that climate change is caused by humans. Of course, there is evidence that shows that this last decade, there have been record temperatures, higher than any other seen in the past hundred or thousands of years. Climate change is also generally associated with or correlated with the drastic increase in carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere. Even if the possibility that there is no causation found between climate change and carbon dioxide emissions, it won't hurt to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions. There are increasingly higher levels of pollution (i.e. smog) in urban areas, and an increase in children with respiratory problems (such as Asthma).

Relating to climate change history: not all variables (natural variables such as solar radiation, periods of cooling and warming, etc.) can be tested for, but most have been factored by scientists to determine the outcome and direction this warming period may bring. If trends and rates continue, then the temperature may rise by little enough to have significant negative effects on the environment and ecosystem.

The problem is that our societies are dependent on conventional energy sources such as fossil fuel use. We have enormous industries that grow from these energy sources. It would hurt the monetary standing of these companies and even us, if it meant switching to other alternative resources. There are those who disagree with the belief that global warming is "man-made", however, there is enough evidence to say that there is a warming period occuring. It is better to be safe than sorry; even if climate change is not human induced, we could reduce pollution levels and switch to renewable energy sources, etc. Inhaling all these bi-products of fossil fuels was never healthy for anyone in the first place.

The burning of fossil fuels produces CO2 that is a greenhouse gas. As the concentration of C02 in the atmosphere increases, more of the sun's heat is trapped and the global climate is becoming more extreme (some places hotter, some colder, some drier, some wetter).

The earth's climate has fluctuated radically over the eons, and CO2 concentrations are believed to have been the main cause. Some periods in the earth's history have been much more volcanically active than the present, and volcanoes release C02.

Perhaps the worry is more about the critical attitude toward Nature global warming being one factor of the whole picture, although that balances by itself on collective unconscious level; meaning that there is "not much we can do about it" anyway... Man has depleted resources above the point of recuperation, dug holes in the ozone layer, extinguished nature-balanced diversity and charged it with radiation - and compared to some fifty years ago, we have for God's sake become aware of it and who knows what we are to become aware of in the future and be sorry for what we have done. Were we meant to do that in order to Progress "ahead"?

To become God, one has to first play God, but sometimes the Child overplays its "chance"... Luck is not something to be tempting all the time.

I live in an urban city. We are some two-three degrees warmer than in the interior.

Yea, the next meteor will cause chaos in the thermometer, and we definitely have to do something about it ahead of time zero, but gotta be wise before making a move.

Yes, increases in the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has caused high global temperatures in the past. And that gives confidence in relating levels of carbon dioxide to global temperature.

In fact, there have been higher levels of carbon dioxide in the global atmosphere in the past. And those were hot times for the planet. Think dinosaurs.

So why is this different? Simple. In the past, climate change due to high carbon dioxide levels has taken many, many centuries to happen.

Since the start of the industrial revolution, the levels of carbon dioxide has gone up, and in the last 100 years really gone up. Carbon dioxide levels are now 27 percent higher than at any point in the last 650,000 years, according to research into Antarctic ice cores published on Thursday in Science (2005).

For about 700 years prior to the start of the Industrial revolution, CO2 levels remained static. And in the past 200 years, CO2 levels increased by about 35%, which is a dramatic increase in such a short time. And way beyond anything one can contribute to natural factors.

And levels are going up several percentage points per year. In fact, from 1950 to 2004, CO2 levels increased from around 305 ppm to about 375 ppm. At the end of 2010, it was 388 ppm.

One can make excuses for things like sunspots, etc., but times when they would have a negative impact are times when the warming level still went up.

Global climate change is a better term to use.

All it takes is a few degrees of change, to set in motion a very large landslide. Like a rock tumbling down a mountain, setting larger rocks in motion.

Melting the polar ices, only takes a few degrees, but have devastating effects. It's the butterfly effect.

And as the temperature rises, there have been reports of certain gas deposits collapsing and letting out highly dangerous gasses into the nature. Gasses that have hundres, or even thousands times the effect on global warming than carbondioxide.

The difference might only be 2-3 degrees, but the difference is very noticeable

And even though it might have natural causes, we are sure helping out. And no matter if we affect temperature or not, you have to understand that spewing millions of tonnes of Carbondioxide and poisons into the atmosphere every year isn't good for our planet.

We are putting tons of CO2 into the atmosphere daily, probably hourly. It must have some effect eventually. There are other factors, of course, but even if you do not worry about a small temperature increase worldwide, you should still be concerned about all the pollution (not just CO2) put into the earth, air, and water daily. There are many rivers and lakes and parts of the ocean where the water is not safe to drink or swim in now. This is part of the problem that environmentalists are concerned with, although they are getting criticized by many who are more worried about jobs than drinking water or clean air. Eastern Europe and China have done a great deal of damage to their environments because they were only concerned with jobs and production. Do we want to do the same?