what is global warming REALLY caused by?
447054
the sun..... the sun is the only thing responsible for warming the earth. Dont get me wrong ...pollution and greenhouse gases also contribute. But they are not the only reason. We are in a short period of warm temperatures on earth. A small window in time. We just got out of an ice age about 12-15ooo years ago. We have had longer periods of global Ice Ages than we have of global warm periods in the last few million years.... Did u know that a violent volcano can spew enough greenhouse gas into the atmosphere to warm our atmospheric temperatures several degrees. Pollution does the same thing but on a smaller scale. This gas traps the earths heat from escaping back into space. Its like a blanket for our atmosphere. Then the earth gets warm, and creates more water vapor from the oceans. More water vapor means more clouds. More clouds mean less sunlight hitting the surface of earth, less sunlight means less heat, less heat means more ice.. and we go back into an ice age.... then the earth fixes herself, we start to get warmer.... and we go on and on.... Its been happening like that for millions of years. If it wasent for global warming we wouldnt be alive and the earth would be covered with seals, penguins, polar bears and wolly mammoths.
854858
Short Answer: Carbon dioxide.\n\nLong answer:\nGlobal warming is the observed increase in the average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere and oceans in recent decades.\n\nThe prevailing scientific opinion on climate change is that "most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities".\n\nThe increased amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) are the primary causes of the human-induced component of warming. They are released by the burning of fossil fuels, land clearing and agriculture, etc. and lead to an increase in the greenhouse effect. The first speculation that a greenhouse effect might occur was by the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius in 1897, although it did not become a topic of popular debate until some 90 years later.
404453
through trees and the process of photosyntesis..\n\nglobal warming occurs because of the excess of certain gases, CO2 and others, in the atmosphere. photosyntesis can help recycle those gases by turning them into oxygen. By cutting down trees there's less ways to get rid of those gases and so they keep accumulating in the atmosphere causing an increase in global warming.\n\nhope that helps
43222
The principle behind global warming is the same as the process that warms the interior of a greenhouse. Light from the Sun passes relatively easily down through Earth's atmosphere to the surface. Earth's surface warms and radiates heat in the infra-red part of the electromagnetic spectrum. These frequencies don't pass back up through the atmosphere easily but instead are retained by the atmosphere, thus warming it.
680298
Global warming and cooling has occurred throughout history, so in a sense, yes, global warming has happened since the last ice age.  The differences between the average temperatures on earth correlate to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere (one of the greenhouse gases).  The global warming that has scientists concerned lately has to do with how humans have increased the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and how this might be related to recent warming trends.
1173864
No. There are plenty of other theories. The EPA can't and hasn't proven any of their theories. Even a Harvard scientist said that we may just be recovering from a mini Ice Age that caused famine for 400 years (Ireland's potato famine). Who am I supposed to believe? I am not scared, although I do believe it is a good time to start reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Who knows what the cause of "global warming" is? Oh well. Let's just reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There's nothing harmful in that.
1103551
Here is the problem with global warming.\n1.  We do not know that it is occurring.\n2.  Even if it is occurring, we do not know if the sun is to blame, like with the melting of Martian polar caps, or if it is planet caused.\n3.  Even if it is planet caused, we do not know if it is nature, like when Krakatoa and Helens blew, or man caused.\n4.  Even if it is man caused, we do not know if the overall effects of an increased growing season and farmland increase is a bad thing.\n5.  Even if it is bad, we do not know if we can reverse it.\n6.  Even if we can reverse it, we do not know if it is more economically efficient to adapt or to try to reverse it.\n\nBut think instead of wack a mole at chucky cheese you could play club a seal in alaska.  Could be fun.
1170026
Global warming started long before the "Industrial Revolution" and the invention of the internal combustion engine. Global warming began 18,000 years ago as the earth started warming its way out of the Pleistocene Ice Age-- a time when much of North America, Europe, and Asia lay buried beneath great sheets of glacial ice.\n\nEarth's climate and the biosphere have been in constant flux, dominated by ice ages and glaciers for the past several million years. We are currently enjoying a temporary reprieve from the deep freeze.\n\nApproximately every 100,000 years Earth's climate warms up temporarily. These warm periods, called interglacial periods, appear to last approximately 15,000 to 20,000 years before regressing back to a cold ice age climate. At year 18,000 and counting our current interglacial vacation from the Ice Age is much nearer it's end than it's beginning.\n\nGlobal warming during Earth's current interglacial warm period has greatly altered our environment and the distribution and diversity of all life. For example:\n\n\n Approximately 15,000 years ago the earth had warmed sufficiently to halt the advance of glaciers, and sea levels worldwide began to rise.\n\n By 8,000 years ago the land bridge across the Bearing Strait was drowned, cutting off the migration of men and animals to North America.\n\n Since the end of the Ice Age, Earth's temperature has risen approximately 16 degrees F and sea levels have risen a total of 300 feet ! Forests have returned where once there was only ice.\n\nDuring ice ages our planet is cold, dry, and inhospitable-- supporting few forests but plenty of glaciers and deserts. Like a spread of collosal bulldozers, glaciers have scraped and pulverized vast stretches of Earth's surface and completely destroyed entire regional ecosystems not once, but several times. During Ice Ages winters were longer and more severe and ice sheets grew to tremendous size, accumulating to thicknesses of up to 8,000 feet!. They moved slowly from higher elevations to lower-- driven by gravity and their tremendous weight. They left in their wake altered river courses, flattened landscapes, and along the margins of their farthest advance, great piles of glacial debris.\n\nDuring the last 3 million years glaciers have at one time or another covered about 29% of Earth's land surface or about 17.14 million square miles (44.38 million sq. km.) . What did not lay beneath ice was a largely cold and desolate desert landscape, due in large part to the colder, less-humid atmospheric conditions that prevailed.\n\nDuring the Ice Age summers were short and winters were brutal. Animal life and especially plant life had a very tough time of it. Thanks to global warming, that has all now changed, at least temporarily.\n\nThje maximum CO2 level was 2% over 2.5 million yrs back, at least scientists say that!!
1119135
I think Al Gore jumps on the warming evidence and assumes the cause.  They just discovered that Antarctica was once tropic.  This planet has gone through ice ages and warming trends over and over.  So far I have seen no proof whatsoever that the current warming trend is anything more sinister than what has happened so many times.  I have looked to find it, expecting to find it, and couldn't find a link.  If someone has one (not a person saying 'it is caused by industrialization' but actual proof of that) I would love to see it.\n\nHaving said that, I think Gore legitimately believes global warming is something that can and should be stopped.  To that extent I believe he is genuine.\n\nWould he make a good President?  - No.
105681
Wow, I am totally at a loss to understand what you are asking. \n\nGlobal warming is not due to carbon dioxide? \n\nYou can easily calculate how much warmer the earth is because of the presence of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in its atmosphere, compared to a black body at 1 AU from the sun (about 33 degrees C). Without global warming, mainly due to carbon dioxide and water vapor in the air, the earth would be MUCH colder. \n\nAnd you are correct that carbon dioxide is not the only greenhouse gas. There are many more. Such as water vapor and CFCs and HFCs and nitrous oxide and methane and so on. But CO2 does contribute, a lot. \n\nWe can't see light in a vacuum? Well I guess if I passed light through a vacuum I would not see it until it bounced off something. But if I was in the vacuum and the light went into my eye, then I would see it. I just don't understand your statement. \n\nAnd I have no idea what those two statements have to do with the first question about scientists and quizzes.
59118
Global warming is an increase in the average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere and oceans. The term is also used for the scientific theory of anthropogenic global warming, which attributes much of the recently observed and projected global warming to a human-induced intensification of the greenhouse effect. On this theory, the increased volumes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released mainly by the burning of fossil fuels, and, to a lesser extent, land clearing and agriculture, are the primary sources of warming. The natural greenhouse effect keeps the Earth 30 °C warmer than it otherwise would be; adding carbon dioxide to an atmosphere, with no other changes, will make a planet's surface warmer. Current research is attempting to find out more details about the processes and factors that would affect a temperature increase especially about positive and negative feedback mechanisms, to allow a more precise quantification of the effects of global warming.\n\nTemperature change is just one aspect of the broader subject of (human-induced) climate change. The scientific opinion on climate change, as expressed by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and explicitly endorsed by the national science academies of the G8 nations, is that the average global temperature has risen 0.6 ± 0.2 °C since the late 19th century, and that it is likely that "most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities" [1]. A small minority of qualified scientists contest the view that humanity's actions have played a significant role in increasing recent temperatures. Uncertainties do exist regarding how much climate change should be expected in the future, and a hotly contested political and public debate exists over what actions, if any, should be taken in light of global warming.\n\nBased on basic science, observational sensitivity studies, and the climate models referenced by the IPCC, temperatures may increase by 1.4 to 5.8 °C between 1990 and 2100 [2]. This is expected to result in other climate changes including rises in sea level and changes in the amount and pattern of precipitation. Such changes may increase the frequency of extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, heat waves, and hurricanes, change agricultural yields, or contribute to biological extinctions. Although warming is expected to affect the number and magnitude of these events, it is very difficult to connect any particular event to global warming.
560609
Global warming caused by increasing holes in the o-zone. This is caused by pollution, such as car emmissions, and chlora-flora carbons.
978974
The missing link between air pollution and gobal warming is a concept that you've probably heard of before known as the greenhouse effect.  \n\nThe greenhouse effect is caused by an increase in certain pollutants (known as greenhouse gasses) that are released into the atmosphere.  If enough water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane (and other culprits) are present in the atmosphere, it turns the atmosphere into a "greenhouse" in a way.  Short wavelength infra-red radiation that comes from the sun has enough energy to get through the layer of greenhouse gasses and enter our lower atmosphere, but when these rays contact the Earth, they lose some energy.  \n\nAfter they lose energy, they become longer wavelength infra-red rays, which tend not to have enough energy to break back through the layer of gasses.  These rays are absorbed by the greenhouse gasses, then sent back down to the Earth, further heating the planet.\n\nBasically, if you increase the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, you let the same amount of heat in, but not as much heat gets out.  The overall temperature of the Earth rises, polar ice caps melt.  Bad stuff happens.\n\nThe best example of this is Venus, which has a thick layer of carbon dioxide (among other things) in its atmosphere.  Thus, the mean temperature of Venus is around 737K, far hotter than Mercury at 440K, even though Mercury is closer to the sun.  \n\nHope this helps.
982
Global warming has two main applications. The first is that there are certain gases that trap heat in the atmosphere, warming planets. This is known to take place on Venus, Earth, and the gas giants. Earth is the hospitable place that it is because of global warming.\n\nThis takes place because of greenhouse gases, which allow radiation from the sun to pass through the atmosphere and warm the surface of the earth. The surface then re-radiates this energy back towards space in the infrared spectrum. This energy would escape and our planet would be as cold as the moon, were it not for the greenhouse gases (mainly CO2, ozone, methane, and water vapor). They absorb the infrared energy and radiate it back to earth, increasing the overall amount of radiation hitting the earth's surface, keeping it warm day and night.\n\nThat this takes place is clear and indisputable. There is simply too little energy coming from the sun to account for our planet's temperature. The controversial point is when global warming is applied to the current rise in average global temperature that has taken place over the past 50 so years. Most scientists believe that warming of the planet is due to increases in greenhouse gases, mainly CO2, mainly due to human activities on earth.
943646
We don't need to counter the greenhouse effect. Global warming is caused by the Sun, not by anything that we are doing. and we cannot prevent it. We need to make realistic plans to move our cities inland, not to waste time trying to prevent it.\n\nAttributing global warming to human causes is political hype, exploited by unscrupulous people who want to gain fame without having to do anything to earn it and influence without being responsible to anybody in their use of it.\n\n13 NOV 06, 0323 hrs, GMT.
998066
Global warming is the term used to describe how the average temperature of the planet is going up. No one denies that the temperature is, in fact, going up. Therefore, no one denies that global warming is a fact.\n\nHowever, according to studies of Antarctic ice, the average temperature of the planet has been rising for 6,000 years, which is well before the Industrial Revolution of 150 years ago. This proves that global warming is not caused by man. In that time, however, the rate of temperature rise has increased, which means that the actions of humanity probably has worsened the situation.\n\nThe critical facts about global warming are these:\n\nWhat are the effects of global warming going to be, and how can we prepare for them? Currently, no model of global atmospheric projection has shown itself to accurately predict to any degree the general weather patterns of the Earth (such as the number and ferocity of hurricanes). Until we come up with an accurate way of predicting the effects of global warming, preparing for them will be difficult and based upon conjectures, which are a difficult sell to taxpayers.\n\nWhat can be done to limit the effect of humanity on global warming in the future WITHOUT putting a major damper on economic growth and development, especially in developing nations? For example, all nations could agree to stop driving vehicles that use internal combustion engines, but to do so at once would devastate the economies of many nations. However, other options, such as diverting tax funds to subsidize the development of alternative-energy propulsion for vehicles, would accelerate the advent of such earth-friendly technology.\n\nAll in all, because of the massive stakes involved when discussing global warming (and the subsequent misinformation flying around about it), many people are confused as to the facts about it. I was hoping to be as informative and unbiased as possible.\n\nPlease let me know what you think!
1113639
Global Warming is a myth