Too many people make absolute claims about climate change (usually do to political partisanship) without ever citing facts or doing any serious scientific probing at all. Both sides are guilty of it but conservatives in general, are more guilty of lacking intellectual curiosity when it comes to science. How do scientists know that today's warming is at least partially attributable to humans putting too much carbon in the atmosphere when we burn coal, oil or gas? I will mention 3 points which I can think of just off the top of my head:
1) There are human fingerprints on carbon overload. When humans burn coal, oil and gas (fossil fuels) to generate electricity carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, where it traps heat. A carbon molecule that comes from fossil fuels is "lighter" than the combined signal of those that come from other sources. As scientists measure the "weight" of carbon in the atmosphere over time they see a clear increase in the lighter molecules from fossil fuel sources that correspond closely with the known trend in emissions.
2) Natural changes alone can't explain the temperature changes we've seen. For a computer model to accurately project the future climate, scientists must first ensure that it accurately reproduces observed temperature changes. When the models include only recorded natural climate drivers - such as the sun's intensity - the models cannot accurately reproduce the observed warming of the past half century. However, when human-induced climate drivers are also included in the models, they accurately capture recent temperature increases in the atmosphere and in the oceans. When all the natural and human-induced climate drivers are compared to one another, the dramatic accumulation of carbon from human sources is by far the largest climate change driver over the past half century.
3) Lower-level atmosphere - which contains the carbon load - is expanding. The boundary between the lower atmosphere (troposphere) and the higher atmosphere (stratosphere) has shifted upward in recent decades. This boundary has likely changed because heat-trapping gases accumulate in the lower atmosphere and that atmospheric layer expands as it heats up (much like warming the air in a balloon). Because less heat is escaping into the atmosphere, it is likely cooling. This differential would not occur if the sun was the sole climate driver, as solar changes would warm both atmospheric layers and would not have warmed one while cooling the other.
As I stated in an earlier post, I am not an environmental zealot but I also think this issue should be about science - not politics... and yet it is somehow always political. Conservatives don't listen to science and are skeptical while liberals do listen to science but can also be stubborn whenever there is conflicting information...
If anyone here wants to dispute this (admittedly) long post, please just argue the science not politics. I don't care what Rush Limbaugh and Fox News thinks.
