The world is getting warmer, with 13out of the 15 warmest years on record occurring in the currentcentury. But just how sure are we that humanity's burning of oil andcoal is the key factor in the temperature increase? A new project,led by researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate ImpactResearch, has answered that very question, working to estimate the likelihood of those temperature trends occurringnaturally.
That likelihood has been estimated tobe incredible tiny in the past, as low as 1 in 650 million. Theproblem is that natural climate change – warming that would occurwithout the presence of mankind – tends to gradually rise and fallover periods of at least several years at a time. That gradualprocess makes it difficult to accurately separate the natural andhuman causes of warming, in turn making it tough to arrive at a trulyreliable estimate.
To improve our understanding, thePotsdam Institute team used temperature data ranging from 1880 to2014 to map the recorded fluctuations, while using computersimulations of the planet's climate to take the natural warmingfactor into account. Once all the numbers were crunched, the teamfound the likelihood of the trend occurring naturally to be between 1in 5,000 and 1 in 170,000.
While those numbers are significantlyhigher than some other estimates, the researchers believe that theodds are low enough to suggest that the observed temperatures areextremely unlikely to occur without the impact of humanity'sgreenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the stats suggest that the recordtemperatures are roughly 600 to 130,000 times more likely to haveoccurred as a result of human emissions than without them.
Furthermore, while the data used forthe analysis only runs up until 2014, the temperature readings for2015, which arrived after the work was complete, show it to be thewarmest year on record. Had that data been included in the study,then the numbers would have been more damning, with the chance ofhumanity's actions not being the cause shrinking even further.
"Natural climate variations justcan't explain the observed recent global heat records, but man-madeglobal warming can," said study co-author Stefan Rahmstorf,summarizing the findings. "It has led to unprecedented local heatwaves across the world – sadly resulting in loss of life andaggravating droughts and wildfires. The risk of heat extremes hasbeen multiplied due to our interference with the Earth system, as ouranalysis shows."
The researchers published the findingsof their study in the journal Scientific Reports.
2. Human Carbon sources represent 5% of all sources according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Although human sources must have some impact, it is difficult to believe that the 5% human contribution has a greater impact that the 95% contribution from natural sources.
3. Carbon Dioxide comprises .04% of the Earth’s atmosphere. Based on what we read in the mainstream press, the vast majority of scientists around the world believe this is what is driving global warming. Oddly, the atmosphere on Mars is 95.32% carbon dioxide. Yet Mars has no greenhouse effect. The temperature of Mars ranges from plus 20 - 40 F during the day to minus 400 F during the night. Is carbon dioxide truly the lever?
4. The Society of Civil Engineers rates the US infrastructure as a D+ and estimates that $3.6B of work is required to bring things back to good condition. http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org Before we burden our children with billions of dollars in carbon sequestering projects at the expense of aging bridges and water supplies, shouldn’t we have a better understanding of the underlying science?
It is interesting to read this article and see that the authors admit that it is "difficult to accurately separate the natural and human causes of warming, in turn making it tough to arrive at a truly reliable estimate." However if you use any social media news sources then: "Climate Warming Data is UNDENIABLE!!!". Peer-reviewed work and commentary by scientists on research findings comment on the lack of hard-evidence on a regular basis and often warn readers not to jump to conclusions. Many of the recent environmental mandates are based on jumping to conclusions.
Additionally, these data are coming from institutions with names like the "Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research". One of the first rules of research is to eliminate bias, and ethical research demands non-politically motivated findings. However, can a scientists employed by a "Climate Impact Research" group ever be free of bias?.
My point is not to refute the findings. I am trying to point out the incongruity in the current global warming science movement. Claims that global warming proofs are "obvious" are rebutted in nearly ever peer-reviewed article. Previous predictions have been grossly wrong. There are multiple political motivations in attacking environmentally unfriendly companies as 1% protesters often turn in their anti-wall-street signage for an anti-oil-pipeline one the next weekend. Attacking evil corporations from multiple fronts doesn't just make sense, its good strategy.
I want clean air. I want clean water. I also want an economy and infrastructure that works. I want environmental policies that won't be abandoned when the predictions don't come true or when the global economy busts.
Me, me, my turn to play the game of "think of the children"! Here we go: "Before burdening our children with the consequences of global warming because we didn't act fast enough, ..."
> shouldn’t we have a better understanding of the underlying science?
One can't learn anything if one doesn't want to. By selecting the pieces of evidence to fit their agenda like you just did, no amount of time can help you understand the science, you're just reinforcing your own bias.
Things will & should get more efficient and less polluting, because we all have to breathe. For instance, I love electric cars, Hope to own one in a few years, but me owning one has NOTHING to do with the earth warming or cooling, its just because it's a best method to move from A to B.
I started studying the global warming models several years ago as a hobby because I didn't know who was right and I wanted to find out for myself. So I started at the most logical place the equations/models designed predicting global warming. I quickly came to the conclusion all of the models do not accurately account for; the total energy running through our lower atmosphere, all the variables capable of disrupting these energy factors, or the lack of data to capture temperature readings around the globe prior to the 1980's (when satellites started collecting atmospheric and ground temperatures).
Both this article and the one in Scientific Reports are a farce along with most of the, "horse pucky" science used to make the claim that the globe is warming without a doubt. It's funny to see the incredibly limited number of variables they used to make these calculations, T=A+N+I (that's it really) plan stupid. Someone also please explain to me how you can get the global mean temperatures for land and ocean temperatures for the last 150 years without having any accurate data for the oceans, (which account for approximately 71% of the earth's surface,) or Antarctica prior to satellites?
I'm not saying we shouldn't reduce pollution but to say it's responsible for global warming is like saying occasional lack of sleep will lead to all people dying. People will die but to say lack of sleep is the cause of it is absurd, just like saying the reason the Earth MIGHT BE warming is due to anthropogenic-forces is absurd.
I have read a number of good articles about weather but none of them have proven conclusively whether the Earth is warming or cooling and until the experts can develop an accurately weather model that can forecast the weather more than 4 days out for the entire world I will not believe any of their models. But this is impossible. Do you know why? Because they have no idea what the sun is going to do more than 3 days out. The sun controls 95 to 98% of all energy in our lower atmosphere, the remaining being anthropogenic and geothermic energy.One direct hit from a large coronal mass ejection and that would put an end to this argument and so do I.
"The Martian atmosphere is 100 times less dense than the atmosphere on Earth – too thin to absorb much of the outgoing heat. Mars is also further from the Sun than Earth, so it receives less solar energy." http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/ClimateChanging/ClimateScienceInfoZone/ExploringEarthsclimate/1point5/1point5point3.aspx
"Combustion of fossil fuels and deforestation have caused the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide to increase by about 43% since the beginning of the age of industrialization.[46] Most carbon dioxide from human activities is released from burning coal and other fossil fuels. Other human activities, including deforestation, biomass burning, and cement production also produce carbon dioxide." Wikipedia again.
You get the idea and why my comment about Doubting_Thomas post, most people see what they want.