Global warming and melting polar ice caps are not just problems here on Earth. Mars is facing similar global changes, researchers say, with temperatures across the red planet rising by around 0.65 degrees over the last few decades. Register Neptune has been getting brighter since around 1980; furthermore, infrared measurements of the planet since 1980 show that the planet has been warming steadily from 1980 to 2004. As they say on Neptune, global warming has become an inconvenient truth. World Climate Report
Looking at annual global temperatures, it is apparent that the last decade shows no warming trend and recent successive annual global temperatures are well within each year's measurement errors. Statistically the world's temperature is flat. The world certainly warmed between 1975 and 1998, but in the past 10 years it has not been increasing at the rate it did. No scientist could honestly look at global temperatures over the past decade and see a rising curve. It is undisputed that the sun of the later part of the 20th century was behaving differently from that of the beginning. Its sunspot cycle is stronger and shorter and, technically speaking, its magnetic field leakage is weaker and its cosmic ray shielding effect stronger. So we see that when the sun's activity was rising, the world warmed. When it peaked in activity in the late 1980s, within a few years global warming stalled. Telegraph
Okay, take notes, there will be a quiz at the end of class.
First of all, greenhouse effect is not a bad thing. Without it, our planet would not support life as we know it, as the average temperature would be too cold to support liquid water.
Water vapor is the single most potent greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, trapping more heat than carbon dioxide and methane put together. Estimates of the impact of water vapor on global warming vary widely from a minimum of 60% of all greenhouse effect to 98% of all greenhouse effect, but even at the minimum of 60%, that leaves 40% of greenhouse effect to be shared by all other chemicals combined, including carbon dioxide and methane (which has ten times the greenhouse capacity pound for pound as carbon dioxide).
Now then, looking at Carbon Dioxide, we find that only .117% of atmospheric carbon dioxide is directly attributable to human technology such as automobiles. .117% is a rather small amount. If we were to measure out .117% of a football field, it comes out to 4.212 inches, barely long enough to get off the touchdown line.
So, if humans ceased all technological activity, we would still see 99.883% of the carbon dioxide remain in the atmosphere, assuming all other factors remain stable (which is, of course, silly.)
Over the last few years, there have been very careful studies in Antarctica which clearly show global temperatures rising together with atmospheric carbon dioxide. Global warmers have sent me several of these research papers with the usual "Ah HA!" type comment, but on reading the papers it is clear that the global warmers stopped at the abstract, because what these recent studies show is that Carbon Dioxide levels increased AFTER the rise in global temperature. Let me re-state that. Studies of Antarctic ice show that the Earth would get warmer, and THEN Carbon Dioxide levels would increase. And there is nothing at all mysterious about this. Carbon dioxide is a very unique chemical in that it is more effectively dissolved in liquids in lower temperatures. Normally, air will hold more water when warm, sugar will dissolve in water more quickly when warm, but carbon dioxide will escape from solution as the temperature rises, which is why your beer will soak your shirt if it is too warm when you open it.
So, as the sun warms the Earth (as recorded in the ice) carbon dioxide dissolved in the oceans and lakes bubbles into the sky like too-warm soda pop fizzing over the top of the glass, and as the Antarctic ice reveals, winds up in the atmosphere.
Now, this is not to say that I think we should waste our planet's resources. Quite the contrary, I think we need to be very careful of what we have, because we are not likely to get a replacement planet any time soon. But the global warming "hype" is exactly that, hype to sell products and policies. If you want to do something about the damage to the planet caused by oil, STOP THE WARS BEING FOUGHT OVER IT!
See also:
Global warming on other planets
In 1975 we were doomed because of global cooling
List of global warming activists, now skeptics
Fear of a global 'coldening'
