Is Global Warming a Natural Phenomenon?

[StuartDH]

"Global Warming is a Natural Phenomenon" is something that I hear on almost every debate about global warming and climate change on the TV and radio. While we're definitely coming out of an ice age, it seems as though many feel that this is the only/main reason why the planet is getting warmer and that global warming is a natural phenomenon without significant change by man.

As a result, should we be looking to re-label 'global warming by human action' to enable people to more easily identify the distinction between natural climate change and anthropogenic climate change?

[Wild-Woman]

Although I know very little about GW, I think that we have probably accelerated a natural phenomenon, thereby giving the world less time to adapt and prepare for what is inevitable.
Sometimes when I'm out and about in Kent, I ponder upon when it once was a tropical sea, many millions of years ago. The chalk downs and cliffs are evidence of this and it has occurred to me that one day it could change again and be a tropical sea once more. So this would indicated that it's just the worlds rhythm and we've reached the cusp of change.
I don't think humans would have done things any differently if we had known about GW 150 years back, so perhaps we are part of that rhythm. I don't know, it's a very big subject and I don't think we've even scratched the surface of it.

[ChasCreek]

After seeming various arguments for both sides, I must admit that I do feel that it is a natural occurence, a cycle in solar activity etc.

However we have been damaging the enviromnet in many different ways for a long time and even if what we have been doing has only been a small part of the whole we still need to do something about our way of living / treating the planet and a lot of the 'actions' being undertaken / proposed under the 'global warming' banner will do good anyway for the planet irrespective of whether they actually are affecting global warming.

I do wonder sometimes if there are alterior motives in things. We had the 'cold war' with Russia back in the 1970's and we now know that Russia didn't have even a small percentage of the capabilities we were being led to believe they had.

I feel that governments need a focus for their population, in the 70's it was the cold war, now it is global warming. It would be far easier to get people to make changes to their lifestyles if you tell them you are going to turn the planet into a desert in less than a 100 years so better be greener, than to say well the global warming is mainly a natural thing, but well we are running out of natural resources so we need to change lifestyles. Shock tactics get responses.

So I think that we are probably only a factor in a much wider natural cycle, however the changes that are being made / will be made under the 'we are responsible for global warming' banner are for the good of the planet anyway so it's good propaganda. And of course the truth is that no one will really know the truth (rather like the cold war) for a good many years until governments can disclose the truth without having a backlash.

[FlyAgaric]

Hi all

Not all, but most people who believe that Global Warming is a natural phenomenon, especially those who are paid to do the “its not human caused science" have a connection somewhere down the line to either the Bush administration, or big oil companies and hardcore capitalist organisations. How Ironic, not!!!

Sure the planet does give of some of these gases and naturally pollutes itself, and the climate has changed in the past, but if you look at the statistics, its now changing perfectly in accordance, and in line and in unison with the industrial revolution.

And even if it is natural or human caused, if you think about it, its irrelevant. Despite what the fact are, we need to stop chopping down forest after forest, polluting lake after lake, pumping unnatural amounts of things into our environment day after day, and stop relying on energy from countries that are causing war after war. Human caused or not, none of them things are good, and anyone with half a brain can see that.

I agree with some that the government are using the fear that comes with global warming as an excuse to make money with "green taxes ect" which is hypocritical and sick being they are the ones mostly responsible for causing most of the damage to the environment, its like a win win situation for the government, they get rich by both raping the planet and exploiting it, then taxing people by telling them it will help the planet. A paradox even I struggle to fathom.

This is how I see it…. I think most of the reason for climate change is because of human activity, and a minority is because of nature itself, because I understand just what a delicate balance nature is in to give us the climate we have today, and us greedy sods could easily push it right over the edge.

Lets just say it is natures fault, and there is nothing we can do about it. At least we tried to make it better. Its better than doing nothing, which is what these big oil company funded far right scientists seem to want.

Lets just say its humans fault, at least we tried to make it better and maybe even causes it to become less severe, causing a less minor global catastrophe and suffering.

What do we have to lose by trying to make the planet more healthy? A lot less than what we do by doing sweet nothing.

[Paul mabbott]

A good point, Stuart, although the language is already there and I've mentioned it again and again.....

The temperature of the Earth's atmosphere is not, and never has been, constant. Therefore, naturally, we would have global warming or global cooling - both amount to a part of climate change.

Most scientists have stressed that concerns are with climate change rather than global warming pers se.

What we are concerned about are anthropogenic changes - i.e. climate changes due specifically to human activity - this will all be added to (or taken away from ) any natural climate changes. It must be admitted that many people have taken advantage of these two vectors to confuse the issue so that they don't have to take any action ...

Therefore if you want a simple label for what we can do something about then it has been there for a long time - anthropogenically enhanced climatic change - but it's not bery catchy is it?

This is where you see the problem - use a comprehensive definition of what the problem is and some people will say, "That's too technical, can't cope with that .... ". Use a simplified term like global warming or climate change then people (sometimes the same ones ) will say, "You're over-simplifying .... it's a natural phenomenon .... " .... anything really so that they don't have to change their life-style

The further complication is that when we talk about 'climate change' it is actually as variable as that on the local scale. The atmospheric temperature globally will rise, but this doesn't mean that Britain (for instance) will end up with nice calm Mediterranean climate [I have more than once had people saying, "I don't mind about global warming - I'll be able to go to Brighton rather than Marbella for holidays ...."]. What has always been clear about the British isles is that with changes of weather systems in the northern hemisphere, weather on these islands would become almost unpredictable (it's not easy to give a weather forecast at present!) .... don't say you weren't warned, thirty years ago ..... or earlier ...

[excoriate]

When the IPCC come out and say its man-made, then its man made.

The "debate" thats still kicking about in some quarters should have ended years ago but you still have the crack pots and exxon funded geologists and biotech zealots with junk science trying to reassure people that everythings fine.

[ChrisJB]

Climate Change/Global Warming is a natural occurence and is governed by a range of factors. As I have mentioned in another thread, we seem to be in an interglacial at the moment and this interglacial is getting warmer. But it won't always be so. Eventually, it will get cold again here in Britain and very cold at that.

Milutin Milankovitch, a Serbian astrophysicist, described subtle perturbations in the Earth's orbit, which govern how much sunlight reaches us at different latitudes. Consequently, we get periodic expansion and contraction of the Polar ice-caps. Seemingly, Milankovitch's theory seems to explain nearly every fluctuation in the Ice Age.

However, we are not helping! But, I don't think we are making a huge difference to Global Warming either, and building ineffectual swathes of wind turbines and destroying precious habitats and landscapes is folly.

And for those folks yearning for a return to tropical seas, you are going to have to wait awhile, when Continental Drift will plonk the British Isles back in the Tropics again!

Regards, Chris

[Charlenesbunnies]

Has anybody watched 'The Inconvenient Truth???!!' if not, watch it. You'll understand it a lot better!

[The Black Rabbit]

Global warming TM.
Climate change.

Very different!

Global warming TM is now, and make no mistake about this, a very real and a very large global economy.

Watch anything you want regarding Global warming TM at the movies or on television, read anything you like about it in the newspapers, or listen to reports on your radio about the subject.
Just take an awful lot of what you hear / read / see with a huge amount of salt.

Doug

[FlyAgaric]

Chris your not a spokesperson for Exxon by any chance are you?

All what you believe there, more than not comes from big oil company science, the same kind of science that tries to prove the creationist theory that the universe is only 6 thousand years old.

[ChrisJB]

Originally Posted by FlyAgaric

Chris your not a spokesperson for Exxon by any chance are you?

All what you believe there, more than not comes from big oil company science, the same kind of science that tries to prove the creationist theory that the universe is only 6 thousand years old.

Nah, I'm a teacher (alas). But palaeoclimatology was a fair chunk of my degree course, and to be honest what I learned and studied there makes a lot more sense than the sensationalist tosh I keep 'encountering' in the media today.

Not six thousand years old?? I don't believe you! You'll be telling me it's billions of years old next!

Regards, Chris

[Interpreter]

This is a little tongue in cheek.

If cows and vegeterians are to blame for most of the greenhouse gasses being emitted today, what was happening 65 million years ago? How much CO2 would an 80 ton brontosaurus produce at one end and methane at the other and how many of these creatures could the earth support before global warming became an issue?

Just a thought.

[matt_xyz]

Originally Posted by Interpreter

This is a little tongue in cheek.

If cows and vegeterians are to blame for most of the greenhouse gasses being emitted today, what was happening 65 million years ago? How much CO2 would an 80 ton brontosaurus produce at one end and methane at the other and how many of these creatures could the earth support before global warming became an issue?

Just a thought.

What a thought. I suspect there were never sufficient numbers of the large dinosaurs around for this ever to have become an issue

It's not entirely accurate to say that cows and veggetarians are responsible for most of the greenhouse gases emitted today. Methane only contributes around 15-20% to augmented warming and only a proportion of that comes from cattle (21% in the US, for instance). And the role played by vegetarians is a bit of an urban myth (actually, if there were more vegetarians there would be fewer cattle, but that's another debate ).

Matt

[excoriate]

Originally Posted by Interpreter

This is a little tongue in cheek.

If cows and vegeterians are to blame for most of the greenhouse gasses being emitted today, what was happening 65 million years ago? How much CO2 would an 80 ton brontosaurus produce at one end and methane at the other and how many of these creatures could the earth support before global warming became an issue?

Just a thought.

Intensive agriculture.

[nikki cooper]

I think it is essentially a natural occuring process myself. When we look at the rings in old, old trees we can see naturally occuring changes in climate over thousands of years. Colder and hotter climatic evidence is present as the trees grow more during hotter episodes than cold (not to state the obvious) and the rings are bigger during these times. However, i do believe that we have a duty to look after this beautiful Earth. Many species have become extinct through human intervention and turning the earth into a vast rubbish dump is not what i have planned for my descendants to see. Hence i recycle and 'do my bit'. I feel its just negligence otherwise.

[Paul mabbott]

Tree ring sizes don't reflect "warm v cold", rainfall is extremely important - warm-wet years will show greater growth than warm-dry and cold-wet - cold-wet may fit somewhere into the pattern but also there are matters like length of the growing season .... so we cannot make simplistic judgments from dendrochronology. Also worth noting that rings show changes in *weather* rather than *climate* .....

However, there are much better indicators of anthropogenic climate change (glacial CO2 changes, for instance) which suggests that humans have accelerated climate warming irrespective of natural changes which, as I get tired of repeating, no one denies!

Pleased to see that you are taking appropriate action whatever the underlying cause. If only other people would take the same precautionary principle - if you might be contributing to the problem then stop it unless you can prove that you're not! So many people are taking the attitude that 'well it's not proven' to just do nothing and carry on with their polluting ways ....

Well done

Originally Posted by nikki cooper

I think it is essentially a natural occuring process myself. When we look at the rings in old, old trees we can see naturally occuring changes in climate over thousands of years. Colder and hotter climatic evidence is present as the trees grow more during hotter episodes than cold (not to state the obvious) and the rings are bigger during these times. However, i do believe that we have a duty to look after this beautiful Earth. Many species have become extinct through human intervention and turning the earth into a vast rubbish dump is not what i have planned for my descendants to see. Hence i recycle and 'do my bit'. I feel its just negligence otherwise.

[Strontium]

Hi, thanks for your input;

I was interested to hear about this -

Originally Posted by ChrisJB

Milutin Milankovitch, a Serbian astrophysicist, described subtle perturbations in the Earth's orbit, which govern how much sunlight reaches us at different latitudes. Consequently, we get periodic expansion and contraction of the Polar ice-caps. Seemingly, Milankovitch's theory seems to explain nearly every fluctuation in the Ice Age.
Regards, Chris

Could you provide a link or something to look at pls - sounds like a good bit of info?

I was watching some stuff on youtube about how some data analysts at Harvard University decided that the data used in the Inconvenient truth was selective, and did not properly account for the little ice age of the middle ages. There was a definite bias though (and they had dubious intentions), they didn't even mention a discussion of what they saw as credible evidence of a cycle. The debate also tries to argue that surface temperatures aren't even important, because the earth in high altitude does not even warm (what a load of claptrap). The only substantial point was that the suns output is changing quite a lot currently, and that the last cycle was very intense. This cycle we are in at the moment will be important for astrophysics, because many are predicting high output, but importantly different methods of prediction arrive at different outcomes. Another group have said this up and coming cycle of sun activity will not be as great as before.

[richardkm]

I'm not connected to Bush or an oil company.

I heard a letter read out recently from a fellow of the RGS to the Admiralty describing the enormous reduction in the level of ice in the NW Passage and judging by the amount of water in northern European rivers, owing to the melting of the glaciers.

This letter was dated in the 1800s (I can't remember the exact date)

We're just getting back to temperatures experienced before the "Mini Ice Age" that begun in the 14th Century and many experts consider that we are only just emerging from.

[russj1975]

Global Warming is quite clearly a natural phenomenon, but it is also quite clear that we are accelerating the trend.

you only need to go to the Lakes, North Wales, or Scotland, and ask yourself where all the glaciers have gone, and they didn't melt in the last 200 years! A warming event occurred in the past and at the time our mountains contained glaciers we must have been experiencing alpine temperatures at sea level, as our mountains are much lower than typical alpine environment. Now i'm not sure how long our glaciers lingered after the main ice age event, but its fair to say that the rate of melting of some glaciers today is quite alarming. It surely cannot be a coincidence that noticable changes in climate over the last 200 years are not linked to the industrial revolution....

[Strontium]

Originally Posted by richardkm

I'm not connected to Bush or an oil company.

I heard a letter read out recently from a fellow of the RGS to the Admiralty describing the enormous reduction in the level of ice in the NW Passage and judging by the amount of water in northern European rivers, owing to the melting of the glaciers.

This letter was dated in the 1800s (I can't remember the exact date)

Science back in that day, of meteorology was not even in its infancy, its not likely to be the most credible account of what was happening at the time. Experts don't say we are "emerging" from a little ice age, in fact we are well on the way to the reverse. When the permafrost in the tundra is in such massive decline, and ice sheets are being stripped away, this is not called "emerging", it is far from the nadir in global temperatures in the mini ice age. If you consider the net energy transfer to melt all that ice you will get what I mean.

[ChrisJB]

Originally Posted by Strontium

Hi, thanks for your input;

I was interested to hear about this -



Could you provide a link or something to look at pls - sounds like a good bit of info?

I was watching some stuff on youtube about how some data analysts at Harvard University decided that the data used in the Inconvenient truth was selective, and did not properly account for the little ice age of the middle ages. There was a definite bias though (and they had dubious intentions), they didn't even mention a discussion of what they saw as credible evidence of a cycle. The debate also tries to argue that surface temperatures aren't even important, because the earth in high altitude does not even warm (what a load of claptrap). The only substantial point was that the suns output is changing quite a lot currently, and that the last cycle was very intense. This cycle we are in at the moment will be important for astrophysics, because many are predicting high output, but importantly different methods of prediction arrive at different outcomes. Another group have said this up and coming cycle of sun activity will not be as great as before.

Dear Stront'

My info' on the great Mr Milankovitch is basically what I gleaned from my time at university, though with a bit of diligent internet searching, I'm sure you could unearth quite a bit on him and his work.

I am currently reading a book called 'Homo Britannicus' (Chris Stringer), about the origins of human life in Britain and there is much on climatic cyclicity and other, more subtle climatic perturbations (as well as stuff on Mr Milankovitch). It is clearly intensely complex and a range of other factors must be considered (eg volcanic activity and even the position of the continents - they move about!). This book however is a great read and highly recommended. It makes some of this complexity reasonably understandable.

Regards, Chris