What is causing global climate change?

Answer 1

Global warming is being caused by the build up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, particularly carbon dioxide, from the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) and deforestation.

Global warming is a rise in average global temperature. The earth has natural heating and cooling global cycles which take place over thousands of years and cause rises and falls of sea level and encroachment and retreat of glaciers and the ice caps. These temperature variations are dominantly driven by energy from the sun with distance from the sun and the sun's current energy output being the main contributers, and the angle of the earth to the sun being next in importance. This is the energy basis for the changes in seasons and average global variations in temperature. The timing and extent of these global cycles can be roughly predicted using Milankovich Cycles, which identify our planet's position, orientation, and movement relative to the sun. A great deal of interest and concern has been raised in recent years over the impact on global temperatures by man. While these may be minor temperature perturbations relative to those caused by the sun, they may result in changes to living conditions which could greatly effect the human population. However, today's climate change is happening far too fast to be the same as other climate swings.

Some gases that contribute to Global Warming and their man-made sources:

Carbon Dioxide from power plants, from cars, trucks, and airplanes. Also deforestation is responsible for up to 25% of all carbon emissions.

Methane from rice paddies and bogs, fossil fuel productions and bovine flatulence.

Nitrous oxide from nylon and nitric acid production, fertilizers in agriculture, vehicle catalytic converters, and the burning of organic matter.

(see the Related Questions and Related Links for more information)

A further answerGreenhouse gases are gases that help trap the sun's warmth in our atmosphere. They include carbon dioxide and methane. While methane is far less abundant than carbon dioxide, its effect on global warming can be far greater. The greenhouse effect is essential to life on earth as we know it. A reduction in greenhouse gases would result in global cooling, while an increae would result in global warming and climate change.

In the absence of human activity, the amount of carbon dioxide, the most abundant greenhouse gas, remains relatively constant over a long period of time. There is, of course, a recycling of carbon to carbon dioxide and back, as plants take in carbon dioxide, convert it to organic matter, then die and decay (or are burnt in forest fires), once again giving off carbon dioxide, but this natural cycle does not alter the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Human activity is what causes an increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. By cutting down forests for farming, we are releasing carbon into the atmosphere. But most of all, we are doing so by burning fossil fuels.

There is a great deal of misinformation about global warming, leading many to doubt that it really exists. Until recently, an eminent scientist, although not a climatologist, had his own doubts. Richard Muller, a Physics Professor and longtime critic of climate studies, sought to address what he called "the legitimate concerns" of sceptics who believe global warming is exaggerated. The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project at the University of California, Berkeley, was launched with a team of physicists and statisticians, to challenge the scientific consensus on global warming but is finding that its data-crunching effort is producing results nearly identical to those underlying the prevailing view.

Professor Muller has conceded that the work of the three principal groups that have analysed the temperature trends underlying climate science is "excellent ... We see a global warming trend that is very similar to that previously reported by the other groups."
We are us humans are the one who is making the world end we made cars and that makes pollution.

Answer 2

The major cause of global warming is the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide that man has been producing by burning fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas). This extra carbon has been safely underground for millions of years. Now we have dug it up and burnt it, releasing all the carbon dioxide.

This has upset the earth's natural carbon cycle which helps the greenhouse effect to keep the planet warm. All the extra carbon in the atmosphere is trapping more and more heat from the sun, and causing global warming.

(Deforestation is the next cause.)

Answer 3

Global Warming is causing climate change.

The earth is warming up, so the climate is changing. Extra heat in the atmosphere and oceans means extra energy,which is expended in changing storms, winds, currents and weather patterns.

Various results are predicted, in different parts of the world: more rain for some places, less rain for others, tropical rainforests may wither, croplands may become desert, tundra may melt, cold dry lands may become fertile, there may be more storms, and more violent storms and "weather events".

A:Global warming isn't causing anything. There may be more rain for some places, less rain for others, tropical rainforests maywither, croplands may become desert, tundra may melt, cold dry lands may become fertile, there may be more storms, and more violent storms and "weather events".

And then again, there may not... It's all theories, you see; not fact.

Answer 4

Almost 100% of the observed temperature increase over the last 50 years has been due to the increase in the atmosphere of greenhouse gas concentrations like water vapour, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and ozone. Greenhouse gases are those gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect. The largest contributing source of greenhouse gas is the burning of fossil fuels leading to the emission of carbon dioxide. When sunlight reaches Earth's surface some is absorbed and warms the earth and most of the rest is radiated back to the atmosphere at a longer wavelength than the sun light. Some of these longer wavelengths are absorbed by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere before they are lost to space. The absorption of this long wave radiant energy warms the atmosphere. These greenhouse gases act like a mirror and reflect back to the Earth some of the heat energy which would otherwise be lost to space. The reflecting back of heat energy by the atmosphere is called the "greenhouse effect". The major natural greenhouse gases are water vapor, which causes about 36-70% of the greenhouse effect on Earth (not including clouds); carbon dioxide CO2, which causes 9-26%; methane, which causes 4-9%, and ozone, which causes 3-7%. It is not possible to state that a certain gas causes a certain percentage of the greenhouse effect, because the influences of the various gases are not additive. Other greenhouse gases include, but are not limited to, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and chlorofluorocarbons.

Answer 5

Global warming is causing global climate change. Extra greenhouse gases in the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and methane, largely, have caused an enhanced greenhouse effect. More greenhouse gases will hold more heat and this is causing global warming. The extra warming is going to change the climate.

Answer 6

There are only about 3 possible factors that could cause global warming:

1. Anthropogenic (man-made, e.g., burning carbon fuels, deforestation, increasing the greenhouse effect);
2. Natural cyclical climate variations; and
3. Cyclical increase in solar output.

1. Of these, scientists have found that only the first is causing global warming.
2. The second factor takes many thousands of years to change climate.
3. The third: there has been no increase in solar output over the last century, in fact, the opposite is true.

Answer 7

A:The consensus view of climate scientists is that global warming is caused by increased levels of greenhouse gases, resulting from human activities, primarily from burning fossil fuel, but also deforestation.

Answer 8

Here is a current list of variable that may be a factor:

• The IPCC, American Meteorological Society, NOAA, NASA, EFG, AGU, ACS, AIP, APS, EPS, ESF, American Association for the Advancement of Science (the AAAS is the world's largest general science society), and numerous other science organizations identify human CO2 emissions as the primary cause.
• The Milankovitch cycles; changes in earth's eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession over time. The way the earth orbits around the sun is known to create ice ages and warming periods.
• Irrigation (Why is so little in the press about irrigations effect on climate?)(There is no occurrence of the word irrigation in Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, Summary for Policymakers and only a few references in the full report - often expressing it as unknowable.)(The argument that the water vapor is only in the air for about a week is strange as some of the water re-evaporate as it hits the ground. There is also the fact that aquifers levels and river flows into the ocean really have gone down. Almost all of the Colorado River flow of 100 years ago now travels over the USA as water vapor.)
• Changes in solar output in the IR and visible spectrum space_weather(short term variations seem too small a factor on their own)
• Changes in shielding of cosmic radiation from the sun due to changes in magnetic storms (provides nucleation sites for condensation of water vapor)
• Changes in plant coverage
• Changes in particles that come from the sun.
• Reaction of microbes in the Ocean
• Genetic changes in ocean algae over time
• Changes in earths magnetic field.
• Changes in volcanic emissions (natural CO2 and other substances)
• Changes in the amount and elevation of pollution particulate (provides nucleation sites for precipitation)
• Changes in CO2 absorption and emission due to changes in plant coverage and ocean temperature.
• Changes in ozone thickness (secondary to solar cycles?)
• Changes in methane emission by plants (genetic evolutionary driven changes).
• Changes in ocean salinity due to water use - (causing changes in ocean currents).
• Changes in land reflectivity
• Snowballs from space (an open system - and there is debate if these snowballs are only a sensor artifact - such material would introduce water vapor and nucleation sites at an unknown rate with unknown changes over time )
• Changes in ice crystal reflectivity due to the temperature, water saturation, mineral continent and wind speed when they are formed. (see American Scientist Jan-Feb 2007)

Answer 9

Scientists agree that global warming, the recent (200 years) rapid warming of the earth's atmosphere, surface and oceans, is caused by the enhanced greenhouse effect.

Levels of greenhouse gases that had remained constant (around 280 ppm (parts per million) or 0.028%) for thousands of years have now (2016) risen to over 400 ppm or 0.04%.

• This extra gas (carbon dioxide) has been identified as coming from the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) in industry, transport and the generation of electricity.
  
• More carbon dioxide (5%) comes from man's production of cement.
  
• Methane, another powerful greenhouse gas comes from cattle rearing, poor agricultural practices, and the melting of tundra and frozen lakes.
  

Answer 10

Global warming is caused by the increasingly large amounts of CO2 and other air pollution.