Originally Posted by
Thorne
True, but these emissions are will known and factored into the calculations made by climatologists.
You mean they are "ignored" ussually becuase they don't match with what most climatoligists want to see.
Again, these natural causes are pretty well understood and accounted for.
The levels of volcanic activity, for example are constantly measured, along with the amount of ash and dust being put out by volcanoes, and it has been found that, in general, these events are relatively constant, averaging out over the years. There have been some blips, of course. The eruption of Mt. Tambora in 1815, combined with unusually low solar activity, caused tremendous problems around the world, during what has been called 'The Year Without a Summer'. But still, these events are understood and factored into calculations.
There is nothing constant about the stellar event that took place over north america a few thousand years ago that brought the mass extinction of countless species (including clovis man) from not only the initial impact but from the subsequent rapid world wide climate change (which also killed more than its fair share of mammoths found in siberia whose stomachs still contained warm weather food yet they died in cold weather conditions). It has happened countless times and didnt take thousands or even hundreds of years to occur. The Deccan-taps eruptions are another prime example from an earlier period.
As for their being factored into calculations I just looked at a whole series of calculations where it wasnt just the other day at school and listened to a 3 hour lecture on how the climatoligists are ignoreing the data that doesnt support their claims.
This is just plain wrong. CO2 levels are well above pre-industrial levels. While there can be some variations depending on where measurements are taken, the overall average of CO2 concentration has been steadily climbing. And laboratory testing has shown that increasing CO2 levels will cause increased atmospheric temperatures due to the absorption of infrared radiation. What it amounts to is that, by combining the natural sources of CO2 emission with the burning of fossil fuels by civilization and the deforestation of large tracts of land, there is more CO2 being added to the atmosphere each year than the natural processes can remove.
Actually co2 was higher by allmost a factor of 2 or more than todays levels on several different occassions according to the geologic record long before humans ran around and figured out how to make fire rubbing sticks together.
Labrotory testing has also shown that when you raise the temperature, that co2 levels will increase along with it on their own. Go riddle me that one Sir.
And the problem with this is that humanity may not be able to survive such a shift. Yes, it's possible the globe could be plunged into a deep freeze, or things beyond our control could raise the temperature to unbearable levels in a relatively short time. Those dangers will always be there, and there's damned little we can do about them. But that's not the problem we're facing now, is it?
Why yes it most certiantly is one of the dangers we need to prepare for and could face at any moment.
Additonally...just in case...though mainly for other reasons perveiously stated numerous times other than the "its our fault thinking"...I believe we should be reducing carbon emissions anyway and treating the enviroment a heck of a lot better. I also believe our #1 way to do this is via further space exploration and technological achievement in combination with a reduction of industries designed around the explotation of "limited" "perishable" rescources.
Even if we could prove that the current warming cycle was not started by mankind, there's more than enough evidence to show that our own contributions are making things worse. The best way to minimize our impact is to reduce consumption of fossil fuels significantly. This would, however, have a very strong negative impact on those industries which depend upon our consumption of those fuels, as well as those politicians who depend upon those same industries for their political existence. And this is the primary reason that there is so much resistance to the very idea of global warming.
I agree on that preception good Sir in its entirety.
PS: The sunspot cycle, which has been unusually silent for the past two years, has recently restarted. In March of this year the first major sunspot activity in more than two years were detected. If this means a startup of the solar cycle, it will mean gradually rising temperatures here on Earth. It will be interesting to see the effects this will have on denialists.
